Comparison Essay

            These two poems have many similarities and differences throughout them. The speaker in "When We Two Parted" is a man who was tossed aside by a woman who is known for playing with men's hearts. The speaker in "What Lips My Lips Have Kissed" is a woman who has had lover after lover, but not a single one of them has had meaning enough to even be remembered. By comparing these two poems we get both sides of the equation. We feel the pain of the man who was easily thrown aside just as the men before him had been treated. We also feel the loneliness of a woman who cannot find love, who moves blindly from affair to affair with no emotion. The woman in "When We Two Parted" chose for their relationship to be a secret for those "who knew thee too well" (Gordon 22) did not know "I knew thee" (Gordon 21). This man is in great pain for when "they name thee before me, / a knell to mine ear" (Gordon 17-18). He cannot stand to hear her name without feeling the great pain of loss. This greatly contrasts to the speaker in "What Lips My Lips Have Kissed" who does not recall "what arms have lain / under my head till morning" (Millay 2-3). She does not know "what loves have come and gone" (Millay 12). She only knows that it was fun for a while, but the enjoyment "in me sings no more" (Millay 14). .
             These poems are similar in the pain each speaker expresses through vivid imagery. One speaker felt the lover turning away as "pale grew thy cheek and cold, / colder thy kiss" (Gordon 5-6). One can easily picture a cold, emotionless kiss by a lover who has lost interest in the other. We can easily see the man being left "in silence and tears" (Gordon 2). The other speaker describes herself as "in winter stands the lonely tree" (Millay 9). The reader can picture a single tree standing in the dark cold winter and feel the loneliness that consumes the speaker. Both speakers suffer in silence. One speaker says "in secret we met- / in silence I grieve" (Gordon 24-25).