Refer to Explorations in Literature for a complete version of this poem. Read this line from "The River Merchant's Wife: A Lette
r," which describes the speaker and her husband when they are first married. Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.
How does this line and the previous lines' descriptions of the speaker's bashfulness when she was first married develop the idea that time and maturity can allow love to develop between two people?
A. They indicate that it is impossible to predict how people will change or grow over time.
B. They show that the speaker's husband must also change if he expects their love to grow and last.
C. They show the speaker's feelings and behavior at the start of her marriage, when she was young and less mature.
D. They suggest that the speaker has fallen in love with her husband now that they are married.
Answer: C. They show the speaker's feelings and behaviour at the start of her marriage, when she was young and less mature.
The poem "The River Merchant's Wife: A Letter" by Ezra Pound describes the transformation that a young girl undergoes when she finds a partner. At the beginning of the poem, the girl describes how she was timid, and how she kept her head down. However, as time goes by, she becomes more comfortable with her partner, eventually missing him terribly when he is away. The line describes the first stage of this relationship, when her shyness prevented her from being herself.
