POEM HELP! William and Emily.. what does it mean?

Question

I've come across this poem
William and Emily by Edgar Lee Masters.
And I can't seem to figure out what the poem is saying.


THERE is something about Death
Like love itself!
If with some one with whom you have known passion,
And the glow of youthful love,
You also, after years of life
Together, feel the sinking of the fire,
And thus fade away together,
Gradually, faintly, delicately,
As it were in each other’s arms,
Passing from the familiar room—
That is a power of unison between souls
Like love itself!




Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

Life, death and love become synonymous in the way they both make us feel. Life is like the lover with whom you've known your greatest passions. As you get older, just like with someone you have loved for a long time, you and life begin to feel the end nearing and gradual acceptance comes because you have been together all this time (you and life...) and you fade from existence. Life is wrapped so tightly around you, like a lover's arms, that when you die, you know that you're taking your life with you, leaving the familiar vessel(the room,) of your body together. There is nothing to fear in death if you keep in mind that you have known yourself longer than even the most intimate lover. It's like knowing the comfort of another person's love.

Answer 2

If you have ever seen the movie called The Highlander. This poem instantly brought to mind the part of the movie after Connor was cast out of his village and he married his Heather and lived with her. Being immortal, he was not able to die but she was. As he watched her pass he realized through the mirror of death how much he loved her. Even old.

I don't know why but I relate everything to something else when I try and decypher it. That moment in that movie is what this poem means to me when I read it.

What I think the author meant in writing it is more along the lines of time restriction and perminence in the actual act of love. Here, this poet is not saying forever as in the usual trend in love poetry, but comparing love to death which is finite rather than the infinite assumption, that love often implies everywhere else. Therefore I believe it is a realistic romantic but real approach and outlook lamenting in angst, over a long life together ending in the coming of death where things come realized and things are set in stone. At death, one can say of their love, you endured, you went the whole way with me at my side. But not until then... and in that way, in the end of something you come to value the duration.

It is like a payday at the end of a workweek. You take the steps and do the work on borrowed time until payday makes it perminent and moves you on to the next day of your forever. Looking back whole enjoying the spoils of a week hard worked you then and only then can say "It was worth it." or not?

Answer 3

I think it about two people who are long time lovers.. first in youth full of vigor and passion.. then they grow old towards death together.

Answer 4

the poem is compareing love with death, long after first love, but still together. it is telling the feelings they feel as they grow old together.

sweet little poem.