Answer:
This poem is about the absurdity and power of love. The structure of the poem highlights this theme. The rhythm and rhyme scheme are sing-song and playful. The rhyme scheme is abcb in every stanza and the rhythm is mainly iambic with some occasional trochees. The stanzas are all 4 lines, with the first and third lines longer than the second and fourth. The lines are all end stopped in a very traditional way. This is a lyric poem, very much like a nursery rhyme which highlights the absurdity of love.
The elements of sound also contribute to the theme. Repetition is used to show the repetitiveness of the speaker's thoughts of love. In fact "I love you more" is repeated 4 times. The repetition might also be used to drill into the audience's head how loved they are by the speaker. Rhyming, both internal and external, are used throughout to make the poem like a song. Internal rhymes include "loathes perjurous oaths" and "I love you as much as a beggar needs a crutch." In addition, the poem uses consonance in the line "As a shipwrecked sailor hates the sea." The rhyming and consonance serve the same purpose as the structure, to make the poem light and amusing.
Finally, the elements of figurative language contribute to the meaning of "To My Valentine." First, the poem uses irony by using images of hate to say that his love is not like those things. Negative images include catbird hating a cat, a criminal hating a clue, the way a hangnail annoys, the pain of a wasp's sting, and the Axis hating the United States. The last simile is also an allusion as it refers to the group of countries in WWII that fought against the Allies led by the United States. This serious historical comparison is also ironic in a Valentine's day poem. Every comparison in the poem, and there are 14, is a simile. All of these images are made funnier through the use of hyperbole and understatement.
