Love

Love in the poem symbolizes falsehood. For the speaker, love is "seldom true" (2) and is fickle in nature, often changing without warning and leaving one to suffer the consequences. Thus, she deems by the end of the poem that love does not actually exist. For the speaker, love is a fiction made up by others (likely poets, and likely men) that gives people hope only to hurt them.

Deepest Sigh

The "deepest sigh" (7) that the addressee pursues symbolizes both true love and the Petrarchan poetic tradition. When the speaker cautions the addressee not to seek the "deepest sigh," she encourages them to realize that such a phenomenon does not actually exist. This term is also an allusion to the Petrarchan poetic tradition in which sighs and tears were used to denote dramatic over-expressions of love by traditionally male speakers. As such, the speaker of "Dead Love...