In structure, "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd" mimics Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love." Like the latter poem, it consists of six four-line stanzas, or quatrains, with each stanza the fusion of two rhymed couplets. Also like Marlowe's poem, the predominant meter of "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd" is iambic tetrameter. This means each line contains four iambs, or two-syllable units of rhythm in which the first syllable is unstressed and the second is stressed. As an example of iambic tetrameter, consider the following line from the poem:

If all the world and love were young . . .

If we divide the iambs from one another and distinguish unstressed from stressed syllables, the line appears like this:

If all / the world / and love / were young . . .

Reading the line naturally, note the emphasis on the four stressed syllables. Throughout the poem, Raleigh seems to mock Marlowe's strict adherence...