"A Certain Lady"

The speaker in the poem seems to be talking to a man that she loves. This man is also very selfish. He talks about himself a lot, which makes him seem very egotistical, the type of man that loves the fact that she will hang on his every word that he speaks. All of these things make me dislike him. I dislike that he brags about his encounters with women. He seems to only speak of himself and his adventures and everything that is good in his life, while ignoring the feelings of the speaker. You only discover the unhappiness of the speaker when you have gotten through most of the poem, about lines 11-12 is when it begins to become obvious. Reading the first parts of the poem, in my head I heard a voice speaking that sounds like a woman in love. I would express disgust towards the man being spoken to. I envision the speaker using a tone of sadness in the last two lines. The speaker seems like a woman who is confused, and hurt, and scared to tell the truth about how she feels. The most crucial parts to the poem are in the beginning when you can tell that the speaker daydreams about the man that she is speaking to, and then in line 9 when she states that she is aware of what he thinks of her. In lines 11-12 she says that he will never know all the straining things within her heart, which makes it obvious that he doesn't pay attention to her at all, he is just interested in being adored. The last two lines of the poem are also crucial as the speaker says that he will never know what goes on while he is away, meaning that he will never change, he will never ask her about herself, he is not interested at all in knowing about her life.