Bond and Free

Over the course of the poem, the rhetoric gradually changes to speak in favor of Love. While Thought must travel across the universe to find beauty and freedom, Love is able to find the same beauty and freedom on earth, simply by staying: “Love by being thrall / And simply staying possesses all / In several beauty that Thought fares far / To find fused in another star.” Thought’s constant need to travel to all points of the universe in search of freedom becomes its own type of shackle, tying Thought to this quest. Through its safety and comfort on earth, the narrator concludes, Love is able to achieve a more lasting liberation.