“Love’s Philosophy” - Katelyn Jarrell

In this brief lyrical poem from the English Romantic era, Shelley personifies natural phenomena to exhibit the passion and inevitability of love.  First he points out that it is the law of nature that “nothing in the world is single,” and follows it by drawing amorous relationships between many aspects of nature to argue his point, including the sea, the flowers, the sun, and the moon to argue his point.  To end it all, the speaker asks, “What is all this sweet work worth if thou kiss not me?” 

        With that closing line, the work seems to be unveiled as a highly romantic look into the breath before a kiss, a sweet monologue to convince a lover of their purpose together.  The title, however, serves as a reminder that this poem is not a gentle plea with a lover, but rather a philosophy.  Shelley was a noted arguer of his time, well-known for his writings promoting atheism and other small societal rebellions; so it is no surprise that this poem gracefully sets up an argument to serve his cause: to convince a woman that it is right to be with him. He achieves this by intertwining this poem as not only the result of the speaker’s desire for his lover, but also as a deep thinker’s conclusion as to why love can and should occur between two people.  This dreamy argument exhibits unity with another person as a force of nature that a man cannot pretend to deny. It both tugs at the heart and draws out the deep question of whether man can help but fall in love as long as he’s following the course of nature: “All things by a law divine in one spirit meet and mingle.  Why not I with thine?” Shelley seems to say that if nature can completely commune as one, it would follow that two people, as a part of nature, will comply to that standard and become one with one another.  In that light, it only makes sense to fall in love. 
         On another level, while this poem asserts the inevitability of romantic love, it also serves as a prod in the right direction, as if conformity to this rule does not come so naturally to man, or at least to the lady the poem is directed toward.  He guides her to follow the example of the “waves,” which “clasp one another,” and the “moonbeams,” which “kiss the sea.”  By closing the poem with that question, “What is all this sweet work worth?” Shelley implies that the whole earth is setting the example, and if the lover resists her call, she has wasted nature’s purpose.