We are presented with a libertine speaker talking of many lovers. He suggests that, though he has spoken about the pain of love, it is only ‘Love’s pleasures’ that he cares about. As such, he has ‘betrayed’ ‘a thousand beauties’. He claims to have been a callous and deceiving lover, telling ‘the fair’ about the ‘wounds and smart’ they long to hear of, then ‘laughing’ and leaving. The poem is written in three elegant septets. Notice the iambic tetrameter and consider how important form might be to the theme of this particular kind of love and betrayal.
This speaker may not be entirely honest. The final stanza begins with ‘Alone’. Is there any sense of regret here? The speaker claims to be ‘Without the hell’ of love, yet in the same line we find reference to the ‘heaven of joy’. He may even also sacrificed his joy with his promiscuous love.
Answer:
He was in Gettysburg to dedicate a national military cemetery to the Union soldiers who fell at the Battle of Gettysburg four months earlier. Lincoln goes back in time—not to the signing of the Constitution, but to the Declaration of Independence.
