Bring on the tough stuff - there’s not just one right answer.
- What are the speaker's religious beliefs? How can you tell what they are (or are not)?
- Is this poem specifically about homosexuality in some serious way? Or is it just a love poem that happens to be written by a gay poet?
- What's up with the lovers, the hermit, and the madmen? Why do they find their way into this intimate love poem?
- When the speaker stops speaking to his sleeping beloved, who does he begin speaking to?
- How does the poem's form (its meter, rhyme scheme, etc.) affect its meaning?
- What is the effect of all of the poem's enjambments?