Love After Love Time Quotes

Like that introductory phrase of so many beloved fairy tales (“Once upon a time…”), the opening line of “Love After Love” sets the story of the poem in a misty, indefinite time. But in this case, it’s the future rather than the past.

This “stranger” tells us that all was not well in the land of long (or not-too-long) ago. The “you” of the poem has had to overcome some past difficulty, in which they didn’t really know themselves, in order to move ahead to the future with a sense of hope.

Another thing that went wrong in the past? You gave your heart away. What were you thinking? That belongs to you, or… er, your heart. You belong to you; your heart belongs to your heart. Keep it straight, or else you’re in for a bad time. Luckily for you, that bad time seems to be in the past.