“Love’s Philosophy” is a poem by the British Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley first published in 1819. The poem is a kind of seductive argument, offering proof of a “divine law” that the world is full of interconnectedness—and that therefore the speaker and the person whom the speaker is addressing should become "connected" too. Dominated by its central conceit—that love is a kind of union replicated in the natural and spiritual realms—the poem has more in common with works by 17th century Metaphysical poets such as John Donne ("The Flea") and Andrew Marvell ("To His Coy Mistress") than with works by the Romantic poets of Shelley’s day (and indeed to Shelley's other poems). Through ingeniously constructed images and metaphors, poets like Donne and Marvell sought to make the acceptance of an amorous proposal seem like the only logical response—the same approach adopted by Shelley here.
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The Full Text of “Love’s Philosophy”
1The fountains mingle with the river
2 And the rivers with the ocean,
3The winds of heaven mix for ever
4 With a sweet emotion;
5Nothing in the world is single;
6 All things by a law divine
7In one spirit meet and mingle.
8 Why not I with thine?—
9See the mountains kiss high heaven
10 And the waves clasp one another;
11No sister-flower would be forgiven
12 If it disdained its brother;
13And the sunlight clasps the earth
14 And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
15What is all this sweet work worth
16 If thou kiss not me?
The Full Text of “Love’s Philosophy”
1The fountains mingle with the river
2 And the rivers with the ocean,
3The winds of heaven mix for ever
4 With a sweet emotion;
5Nothing in the world is single;
6 All things by a law divine
7In one spirit meet and mingle.
8 Why not I with thine?—
9See the mountains kiss high heaven
10 And the waves clasp one another;
11No sister-flower would be forgiven
12 If it disdained its brother;
13And the sunlight clasps the earth
14 And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
15What is all this sweet work worth
16 If thou kiss not me?
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“Love’s Philosophy” Summary
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“Love’s Philosophy” Themes
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Nature, Connectedness, Love, and Sex
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Love’s Philosophy”
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Lines 1-2
The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the ocean, -
Lines 3-4
The winds of heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion; -
Lines 5-8
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle.
Why not I with thine? -
Lines 9-12
See the mountains kiss high heaven
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother; -
Lines 13-16
And the sunlight clasps the earth
And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
What is all this sweet work worth
If thou kiss not me?
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“Love’s Philosophy” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Alliteration
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Assonance
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Anadiplosis
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Conceit
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Consonance
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Enjambment
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Personification
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Rhetorical Question
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Sibilance
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“Love’s Philosophy” Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Mingle
- Law divine
- Thine
- Clasp
- Sister-flower
- Disdained
- Thou
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Love’s Philosophy”
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Form
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Meter
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Rhyme Scheme
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“Love’s Philosophy” Speaker
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“Love’s Philosophy” Setting
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Literary and Historical Context of “Love’s Philosophy”
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More “Love’s Philosophy” Resources
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External Resources
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Other Poems and Info — A number of Shelley's most popular poems, plus more background information.
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A Reading of the Poem — Iain Batchelor performs the poem in a way that makes its argument-based structure easy to comprehend.
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Get to Know the Romantics — A BBC documentary about the Romantic poets.
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Shelley's Death — An interesting article that looks at the myths surrounding Shelley's death.
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John Donne's "The Flea" — A wonderful poem written almost two hundred years before Shelley's which uses a similar technique of seduction through argument and conceit.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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