There are fifteen poems in the GCSE Love and Relationships anthology.

For your exam, you will be given one poem in full, printed on the page, and you will be asked to compare this poem to another from the anthology.

All of the GCSE English Literature course is closed-book, meaning that you will need to learn at least three lines from each poem.

It is possible to get top marks for this question by making sure that you know the following:

• What the poem is about

• What the poem means

• The methods the poet uses to convey their message

• The links between the ideas of other poems in the anthology

Synopsis

This section includes:

• A general overview of the poem

• A detailed look at the poem line-by-line

• Analysis of the poem, giving Charlotte Mew’s intention and message

A General Overview of the Poem

Charlotte Mew’s Victorian poem The Farmer’s Bride explores a troubled marriage between a withdrawn farmer and his fearful wife. The poem critiques possessive and unequal romantic relationships, highlighting how they foster aggression and isolation. In doing so, it challenges traditional gender roles and societal expectations of marriage.

Line-by-Line

Three summers since I chose a maid,

     Too young maybe—but more’s to do

     At harvest-time than bide and woo.

The speaker tells the reader that he has been married for three years.

The speaker implies the bride wasn’t ready to be married – but this wasn’t his main concern – he was too focused on ensuring a good harvest.

There is a clear detachment between the speaker and the emotions of his wife.

Farmer’s work is more important than his bride’s feelings.

This relationship is not based on love – instead, the bride serves a function.

This shows a clearly imbalance in the relationship.

              When us was wed she turned afraid

     Of love and me and all things human;

The speaker tells of his bride’s reaction to marriage – she grew frightened, turning isolated, away from her husband and other people.

The speaker is aware of her fear, and seems to be contributing to it without attempting to support her.

     Like the shut of a winter’s day

     Her smile went out, and ’twadn’t a woman—

            More like a little frightened fay.

The speaker compares the reaction his bride has to the natural world.

The farmer is reflecting on her reactions – but he feels powerless to support her.

                    One night, in the Fall, she runned away.

The speaker explains that his bride tried to escape one night.

The bride is desperate to be free from a marriage she doesn’t want to be in.

  “Out ’mong the sheep, her be,” they said,

     ’Should properly have been abed;

     But sure enough she wadn’t there

     Lying awake with her wide brown stare.

The poem brings out the voicers of local villagers.

They try to help find the bride, but she evades capture.

The villagers are supportive of the husband, and see her actions as challenging social conventions.

The line ‘wide brown stare’ shows that she is traumatised – and that the husband is aware.

So over seven-acre field and up-along across the down

     We chased her, flying like a hare

     Before our lanterns. To Church-Town

The speaker continues searching for the bride.

The bride is frightened but powerless to escape the numbers after her.

There is a continued imbalance in their relationship.

              All in a shiver and a scare

     We caught her, fetched her home at last

              And turned the key upon her, fast.

The bride is caught.

Here, the poem grows violent. The girl is frightened by they take her home against her will.

     She does the work about the house

     As well as most, but like a mouse:

              Happy enough to chat and play

              With birds and rabbits and such as they,

              So long as men-folk keep away.

     “Not near, not near!” her eyes beseech

     When one of us comes within reach.

The speaker explains that after being captured, the bride softens and starts to surrender to him.

There is an extended metaphor that compares her to an animal, almost as though she has shrunk in stature.

Her ‘eyes’ are personified to show fear and worry as they cry: ‘Not near, not near’.

              The women say that beasts in stall

              Look round like children at her call.

              I’ve hardly heard her speak at all.

     Shy as a leveret, swift as he,

     Straight and slight as a young larch tree,

     Sweet as the first wild violets, she,

     To her wild self. But what to me?

The farmer observes that the animals have a close relationship with his bride.

He sees his bride as a wild animal – and this is why they are distant.

The farmer struggles to understand why his wife rejects him.

     The short days shorten and the oaks are brown,

              The blue smoke rises to the low grey sky,

     One leaf in the still air falls slowly down,

              A magpie’s spotted feathers lie

     On the black earth spread white with rime,

     The berries redden up to Christmas-time.

              What’s Christmas-time without there be

              Some other in the house than we!

Time passes. The speaker is frustrated that he does not have children.

The changing of the seasons contrasts the lack of change in their relationship.

              She sleeps up in the attic there

              Alone, poor maid. ’Tis but a stair

     Betwixt us. Oh! my God! the down,

They are still far apart from each other, even within the house, where she sleeps in the attic.

The farmer is frustrated but incapable of empathy.

He is upset that he cannot properly communicate with his wife.

     The soft young down of her, the brown,

The brown of her—her eyes, her hair, her hair!

The poem ends with a sense of poignant emotion – the farmer wishes to be near to his bride.

There is an incredible emotional distance between the two.

Writer’s Methods

This section aims to support your revision by providing you with concrete and clear examples of methods that Charlotte Mew uses. 

Remember: methods support meaning, not the other way round. You will gain more marks focusing your essays on the big ideas of the poems and then supporting these ideas with the methods that the writer uses.

Form

Charlotte Mew’s poem The Farmer’s Bride portrays a husband, a simple farmer, who conveys his frustration with his unfulfilling marriage. Through its extended monologue form, the poem reflects the slow passage of time and the stagnant nature of their relationship.

The poem is structured as a dramatic monologue, allowing the first-person male speaker to express his perspective on his marriage. By giving him a voice, Mew enables readers to evaluate his thoughts and actions, highlighting the imbalance within the relationship.

The poem’s length mirrors the farmer’s growing frustration, culminating in an unresolved ending that reflects the emotional distance between him and his bride. The passage of time is emphasized through his narration—he recalls that it has been “three summers since he chose a bride,” yet as the “short days shorten,” their separation remains unchanged.

Through the male speaker’s inability to communicate with his bride, Mew portrays the complexity of romantic relationships, revealing how silence and emotional detachment lead to unresolved pain.

Structure

The poem conveys the farmer’s confusion and frustration through shifts in tone as he reflects on his thoughts and experiences. His deepening despondency emerges through the gradual deterioration of their marriage and his increasing sense of frustration.

The poem primarily follows iambic tetrameter, creating a lively and conversational tone that contrasts sharply with the dark reality of the farmer’s relationship. Even when describing his bride’s attempted escape, his tone remains detached and matter-of-fact: “One night, in the Fall, she runned away.”

Mew presents the farmer’s casual narration of a disturbing event—chasing and imprisoning his bride—to critique societal norms, exposing his abuse of power as something normalized. As the poem progresses, the poet employs enjambment, caesura, and irregular rhyme to reflect the speaker’s increasing frustration and emotional instability: “Alone, poor maid. ’Tis but a stair / Betwixt us. Oh! my God! the down.”

At times, the speaker’s tone becomes more emotional as he struggles to suppress his frustrated desire. Mew presents him with some sympathy, allowing readers to see both sides of the marriage. His dismay at his bride’s silence is evident when he asks the rhetorical question “But what to me?” and laments that he has “hardly heard her speak at all.”

Through the farmer’s confused and yearning voice, Mew explores the theme of frustrated desire, portraying a lack of communication as the central barrier in their relationship. Ultimately, the poem challenges Victorian ideals of marriage and gender roles by depicting an insensitive farmer, whose abuse of power leaves him trapped in his own frustration.

Language

Charlotte Mew employs natural imagery to reflect the isolation and imbalance within the farmer’s marriage. Her descriptive language creates vivid comparisons that symbolize the underlying violence and fear in their relationship.

Charlotte Mew emphasizes the bride’s abrupt transformation after marriage through alliteration, as seen in phrases like “When we was wed,” “winter’s day,” and “wadn’t a woman.” The repetition of dull, heavy sounds, combined with the farmer’s colloquial dialect, presents him as insensitive and simplistic, reinforcing the imbalance in their relationship.

The speaker repeatedly compares his bride to small, vulnerable animals—she is “like a frightened fay,” “like a hare,” “like a mouse,” and “shy as a leveret.” Through simile and natural imagery, he implies that she is wild and untamed, while also revealing his awareness of her fear and fragility.

The poem ends with the farmer’s unfulfilled desire for his young bride, highlighted through repetition: “The soft young down of her, the brown, / The brown of her.” Despite recognizing her youth, his longing is emphasized, suggesting that her innocence is part of his attraction.

Mew also conveys the bride’s extreme fear and trauma through sibilance: “All in a shiver and a scare.” She is depicted as a victim, terrified and shocked after being captured and locked away by the villagers.

Through The Farmer’s Bride, Mew challenges societal norms by exposing the normalization of forced marriage and the resulting emotional and physical isolation of both husband and wife. The poem critiques the unchecked power dynamics within relationships, revealing the devastating effects of control and repression.

Context

At MyEdSpace, we use this analogy to discuss context – ketchup, salt and chips.

If you ordered a portion of chips, and asked for salt, you wouldn’t then dump the salt into the corner of your chips and start dipping each individual chip into the salt.

When you put salt on your chips, you sprinkle it over, sparingly, so as to give a good coverage of salt across the chips as a whole. Context is just like salt on chips.

Context is not ketchup – because it would be appropriate to squeeze ketchup into the corner of your plate and dip each chip in (and in fact, that is advised).

So when you’re including contextual information in your essays, sprinkle it across the essay, just like you sprinkle salt on your chips.

Let’s link the context to the key ideas and themes of the poem.

Romantic Relationships

Charlotte Mew’s The Farmer’s Bride portrays an imbalanced and complex relationship between a hardworking farmer and his young bride, challenging societal expectations of marriage.

Their union is one of necessity rather than love, with the bride being too young to marry and having little to no agency in the decision—she is chosen, emphasizing her lack of free will.

Mew critiques gender roles by depicting a sympathetic yet oblivious farmer who struggles to understand the emotional distance between himself and his wife. His confusion is reinforced by the complicity of the villagers, who aid him in capturing his bride when she attempts to escape.

Rather than portraying the farmer as intentionally cruel, Mew presents him as a product of his environment—his failure to recognize his role in his wife’s suffering reflects a society that normalizes forced, unequal marriages without questioning their consequences.

Desire

Charlotte Mew’s The Farmer’s Bride was written during a time when women’s suffrage was a topic of debate, set against the backdrop of a patriarchal British society where fathers and husbands held authority over marriage decisions.

Mew challenges these societal norms by portraying the farmer’s oppressive control over his wife, reinforced by the complicity of the community. The poem critiques rigid gender roles by highlighting the bride’s predominantly domestic existence, which ultimately deepens the emotional distance between her and her husband.

Believing that marriage could contribute to mental illness, Mew presents a deeply fearful and traumatized bride, terrified of both her husband and the men in the village. Through this portrayal, she exposes the damaging effects of possessive and controlling relationships.

Comparison

You are required to write an essay in your exam that is a comparison of the ideas and themes explored in two poems from the Love and Relationships anthology. Therefore, it is very important to revise the poems in pairs and to enter the exam with an idea of what poem you will choose to compare once you know what the named poem is.

‘The Farmer’s Bride’ and ‘Porphyria’s Lover’

Both Charlotte Mew’s The Farmer’s Bride and Robert Browning’s Porphyria’s Lover explore possessive attitudes in romantic relationships, depicting male speakers who exert control over vulnerable women. In both poems, the speakers' frustrated desires lead to acts of dominance, ultimately resulting in violence and destruction.

Similarities:

Both poems show controlling and possessive speakers.

Charlotte Mew’s farmer uses similes to compare his young bride to small, vulnerable animals, emphasizing her fragility. He describes her as a “frightened fay,” “like a hare,” “like a mouse,” and “shy as a leveret.” These comparisons reveal his awareness of her fear—not just of him, but of all men.

Similarly, in Porphyria’s Lover, Browning’s speaker views Porphyria as delicate and powerless. He strangles “her little throat” and later props up “her rosy little head,” reinforcing his perception of her as something small and easily controlled.

Both speakers question the women’s commitment to them. The farmer expresses doubt about his bride’s devotion—she performs household duties “as well as most” but remains silent. His rhetorical question, “But what to me?” highlights his frustration. Likewise, Browning’s speaker believes Porphyria is “too weak” to break free from “pride” and “vainer ties,” suggesting she is unwilling to love him exclusively.

The farmer’s tone remains matter-of-fact, reflecting his unconscious sense of entitlement. He acknowledges his control over his wife when he recalls how he and the villagers pursued and captured her: “We caught her, fetched her home at last / And turned the key upon her, fast.” Browning’s speaker also exhibits a chilling sense of control—he calmly “debates what to do” before murdering Porphyria. His composure is reinforced by caesura: “And strangled her. No pain felt she; / I am quite sure she felt no pain.”

Both Mew and Browning challenge gender roles and societal expectations in romantic relationships, presenting male speakers who are possessive yet oblivious to their own abuse of power.

Differences:

Farmer’s Bride ends with an unresolved relationship whereas the resolution of Browning’s poem is a violent murder.

The speaker’s frustration and longing for his bride are conveyed sympathetically at the end of The Farmer’s Bride through emotional, sensory language: “The brown of her—her eyes, her hair, her hair!” His desperate repetition highlights his yearning, despite the emotional and physical distance between them.

In Porphyria’s Lover, the speaker also uses sensory language to describe his lover, but in contrast, his depiction follows an act of murder, presenting him as cruel and detached. The violence of the moment is intensified by alliteration: “Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss:” suggesting his disturbing pleasure in controlling her.

Both poems conclude with unresolved isolation and distance. Mew’s bride remains locked away in the attic, separated from her husband. The farmer’s growing frustration is reflected in the poem’s caesura and enjambment: “’Tis but a stair / Betwixt us. Oh! My God!” conveying his emotional turmoil.

In contrast, Browning’s speaker only expresses satisfaction once Porphyria is dead, relishing the moment of ultimate possession: “That moment she was mine, mine, fair.” Unlike the farmer, who remains trapped in his longing, Porphyria’s lover believes he has achieved complete control over his partner, regardless of her death.

Both poets critique oppressive and controlling relationships, yet while Mew portrays enduring pain for both the farmer and his bride, Browning presents a speaker who feels victorious, pleased with his dominance—even in death.