Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.
Lines 1-4
Strange fits of passion have I known:
And I will dare to tell,
But in the Lover's ear alone,
What once to me befell.
- Our speaker starts things off with a confession. He (we're just going to go with "he" at this point—check out "Speaker" for more) has experienced some…well, "strange fits of passion" in his life.
- Were these "fits"—moments of losing control—good experiences? Were they bad? What brought them on? We're not quite sure about any of this just yet. We just know that they were "strange."
- Want to know more? Too bad. He's only going to talk about these fits to "the Lover." Great—first we have an unclear speaker, then we have some strange fits, and now we have a mysterious lover. Just who is this person now? He or she is the only person who gets to hear about these fits.
- Like the fits, though, we don't get any more details in this first stanza. It looks like we're going to have to read on…
- …right after we point out that we have some pretty regular rhythm and rhyme going on in these first four lines. Check out "Form and Meter" for all the details on that.