The Apparition

The speaker in this poem is speaking to their love indirectly. This poem is more like the thoughts/ plans of a man who is expecting to be cheated on. I got the image of the movie "ghosts of girlfriends past"stuck in my head after reading this. After talking in our small groups (and with help from you of course) we figured out that the speaker was not actually in a relationship with the woman that he is referring to. This made more sense- especially when looking at certain lines such as lines 2-3 "And thou thinkst thee free From all solicitation from me,". I looked up the definition of solicitation, adn though it had several different entries, the one i felt best fit this poem said "To persistently endeavor to obtain an object, or bring about an event; To woo; to court;" Basically how I understood this was that this guy continues to creep on this girl and she avoids him or refuses him time and time again. The speaker then says that when he dies she is going to think that she doesn't have to worry about him bothering her anymore- but this couldn't be further from the truth because he plans to haunt her. He plans to come to her bedside as a ghost to scare her but because she will be with a man "worse" than him, she will be neglected when she turns to him for comfort. We decided that the tone of the poem was revenge... even though the speaker is planning to get revenge on someone who hasn't even done wrong to him yet.