True Love

“True Love” reflects two opposing forces in society: romanticism and realism. Romanticism privileges what ought to be; it seeks the ideal in the human experience and will not settle for less. Realism privileges what is; it seeks the reality of the human experience and will not brook with fanciful aspirations. The boy in the poem has clearly absorbed the romantic mindset. He falls in love at first sight and continues his infatuation—which can never be more due to the fact that he is still a child and she is of marriageable age—even after she is married. However, the young woman’s real life circumstances do not match the idealization that the boy has for her. Her father has an alcohol use disorder, and her brothers are wastrels. Her only escape is a good marriage—“good” in the sense of marrying someone of financial means because that is what realism deems important. To do that, the family must mortgage their property to afford a “fashionable” (Line 28) wedding. Predictably, the mortgage is foreclosed, she moves away, and the rest of the family “[s]ort of drift[s] off” (Line 33). Such is not the happy ending that the romantic would envision.