Christopher Marlowe’s poem, “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love,” introduced to us a man’s unyielding love for a woman and his determined quest for her to be his love. The man offers the woman the beauty of nature, from the “melodious birds” to “sleepy mountains,” in exchange for her hand. Sir Walter Raleigh gives us the woman’s harsh, yet practical, response. “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd” is a poem that contradicts Marlowe’s depiction of a “blooming” nature by describing the inevitable death of its beauty, while simultaneously comparing this death to the inevitable death of love.

One point that is clear is the nymph’s opposition to Marlowe’s view of nature. She talks about the same rock he mentioned earlier, the same river he spoke of, and the same birds he lavished with praise. However, she dodges the warm words he used and, instead, replies how “cold” the rocks are, how “raging” the rivers are, and how “dumb,” or senseless, the birds are. She is quite unmoved of his picture of a life of idyllic beauty and impracticalities.

The stinging sense of time and how it affects love, as well as nature, is also frequently referred to. She feels time as an eventual grim reaper to all things that he deems beautiful. She sees flowers fading. She sees his gifts of gowns, “fragrant posies,” and “caps of flowers” as things that will soon “break,” “wither,” and “be forgotten.” She apparently takes no pleasure in indulging in things that will not last, and love happens to be among them.

She expresses this thought by using contrasting ideas such as honey and gall. She uses words like spring and fall, as well as ripe and rotten, to describe the birth of love and the end of it.

There is an obvious fancy to the use of the word “soon,” while there is a beleaguering question in the word “still,” when considering her thoughts on love and its downfall. She feels there is a time limit on joy and a merciless aging hovering over youth and, therefore, cannot believe in the shepherd’s declaration of love.

Raleigh’s nymph is plagued with the reminder of an unstoppable clock that will soon, in her eyes, eat away at the beauty the shepherd offers. She has an eye for the other side of nature, where rivers can freeze, and flowers can die, and she is incapable, or unwilling, to accept his proposal of love until she is guaranteed of its security and stability.