Point of View

The poem is written in a first-person present-tense point of view. That means that it is written as though someone were describing events that they are experiencing at the time that they are writing. The key signal that a poem is written in first person is the use of the pronoun set “I/me/myself.” In this poem, however, the speaker’s perspective is almost entirely minimized. The first person pronouns do not appear until the third stanza, and then only thrice in total. No information about the speaker is given, so what his perspective might be, or what it might add to the poem, is limited.

The minimization of the speaker’s perspective is itself a significant narrative choice. By removing the speaker’s presence from the first two stanzas completely, Herbert prevents the reader from interpreting the poem’s questions about the relationship...