Waiting

It's not fun to be stuck waiting for things, is it? The speaker of this poem waits and waits… and waits for her husband to come back from his long trip. Waiting is a big theme in the poem. The poem suggests the pain that comes along with being separated from those we love, without knowing when they will return, or even what's happened to them. Thank goodness we live in an age of emails and texts. What would we do without them?

• Lines 13-14: After she stops being all shy and coy with her hubby, the speaker realizes that she's really in love with him. How in love? So in love that "even unto death [she] would await [him] by [her] post/ And would never lose heart in the tower of silent watching." That is, no matter where he goes or how far he goes, she'd always wait for him. Her emphasis on waiting "unto death" here gives us a sense of just how in love she is with her hubby.
• Line 17: Sure, the speaker says she'll wait forever for her hubby. But only five months into his trip, she's already finding it "more than [she] could bear." Waiting's easier written about than done, isn't it? Here we begin to see the difficulties of waiting. It's difficult being separated from a loved one, especially in the pre-internet and text-messaging age.
• Line 21: The speaker gives us a sense of how long her wait is by describing the changing seasons here. Autumn's come. This suggests that not only months, but whole seasons are passing as the speaker waits for her love.
• Lines 22-23: Eight months later, the speaker is still waiting for hubby to come back from his trip. We get a sense of the speaker's long wait, not only through her reference to the number of the months that have passed (eight), but also through her description of changing nature. "[Y]ellowing butterflies" are beginning to float around. Presumably, they weren't flying around a few months earlier.