LoveSpell: Against Endings
All the endings in my life
rise up against me
like that sea of troubles
Shakespeare mixed
with metaphors;
like Vikings in their boats
singing Wagner,
like witches
burning at
the stake--
I submit
to my fate.
I know beginnings,
their sweetnesses,
and endings,
their bitternesses--
but I do not know
continuance--
I do not know
the sweet demi-boredom
of life as it lingers,
of man and wife
regarding each other
across a table of shared witnesses,
of the hand-in-hand dreams
of those who have slept
a half-century together
in a bed so used and familiar
it is rutted
with love.
I would know that
before this life closes,
a soulmate to share my roses--
I would make a spell
with long grey beard hairs
and powdered rosemary and rue,
with the jacket of a tux
for a tall man
with broad shoulders,
who loves to dance;
with one blue contact lens
for his bluest eyes;
with honey in a jar
for his love of me;
with salt in a dish
for his love of sex and skin;
with crushed rose petals
for our bed;
with tubes of cerulean blue
and vermilion and rose madder
for his artist's eye;
with a dented Land-Rover fender
for his love of travel;
with a poem by Blake
for his love of innocence
revealed by experience;
with soft rain
and a bare head;
with hand-in-hand dreams on Mondays
and the land of fuck
on Sundays;
with mangoes, papayas
and limes,
and a house towering
above the sea.
Muse, I surrender
to thee.
Thy will be done,
not mine.
If this love spell
pleases you,
send me this lover,
this husband,
this dancing partner
for my empty bed
and let him fill me
from now
until I die.
I offer my bones,
my poems,
my luck with roses,
and the secret garden
I have found
walled in my center,
and the sunflower
who raises her head
despite her heavy seeds.
I am ready now, Muse,
to serve you faithfully
even with
a graceful dancing partner--
for I have learned
to stand alone.
Give me your blessing.
Let the next
epithalamion I write
be my own.
And let it last
more than the years
of my life--
and without the least
strain--
two lovers bareheaded
in a summer rain.
Literary Analysis
This literary analysis was generated with AI and may contain interpretive differences. Provide your analysis in the comments section.
Summary
Erica Jong's poem begins in defiance and weariness, with the repeated pressure of endings felt as a force that gathers against the self. The opening images are comic, literary, and ominous at once, as if the poet is trying to outmatch despair with wit. From there, the poem turns toward a richer distinction: not just beginnings and endings, but the long, elusive middle of a life shared. That middle is imagined as the real prize-ordinary, durable, and tender, a state of continuity that is less dramatic than romance yet more sustaining than the rush of starting or the pain of finishing.
The poem's movement is from resistance to invocation. The voice assembles an almost magical inventory of what a desired partner should contain, blending sensual appetite, artistic taste, physical presence, and domestic companionship. Yet the poem is not only a wish for romance; it is also a negotiation with creative power. By addressing the Muse, the poet asks for blessing, surrendering control while insisting on self-knowledge: she has learned to stand alone, and now wants a love that can coexist with that independence. The closing wish is striking because it joins marriage, poetry, and lastingness, suggesting that the deepest hope is not merely for passion, but for a shared life strong enough to outlive the poem itself.
Theme
- Longing for lasting love - The poem rejects brief, dramatic romance in favor of a bond that can endure through years, habit, and aging.
- The value of continuity - Jong treats the middle stretch of life as the most mysterious and desirable part, where love becomes steady rather than merely intense.
- Independence and desire - The poem insists that wanting a partner does not erase the speaker's self-possession; she has learned to stand alone before asking for companionship.
- Art and inspiration - The appeal to the Muse shows that love and poetic creation are intertwined, as if the right relationship might also unlock the next poem.
- Ritual and magic - The spell-like list of objects and qualities gives the poem a ceremonial energy, suggesting that desire must be enacted, not just felt.
- Acceptance of vulnerability - Beneath the wit and bravado lies a plain readiness to risk need, aging, and disappointment in order to be loved fully.
Literary Devices
- Allusion - The poem gestures toward Shakespeare and Blake, placing personal desire in conversation with a larger literary tradition.
- Cataloging - The long list of ingredients for the love spell creates momentum and reveals the many-layered nature of the desired relationship.
- Metaphor - Endings, continuance, and love are repeatedly figured through vivid comparisons that make abstract emotional states tangible.
- Enjambment - The broken lines propel the poem forward, mirroring the speaker's restless movement from fear to hope.
- Irony - The poem's playful, even irreverent details sit beside a sincere longing, giving the piece emotional complexity.
- Apostrophe - Direct address to the Muse turns the poem into a petition, making the speaker's wish feel intimate and ceremonial.
- Imagery - Sensory details such as rain, roses, honey, salt, and colors build a lush world for the imagined union.
- Repetition - Repeated concerns with beginnings, endings, and love emphasize the speaker's struggle to understand what makes a life complete.
Symbolism
- Endings - These stand for loss, separation, and the fear that love and life may be broken into painful stops rather than sustained continuance.
- The sea of troubles - This image suggests emotional overwhelm and links private suffering to a broader human condition.
- The spell ingredients - The gathered objects symbolize the speaker's attempt to summon a partner who matches her full self, not just her romantic fantasy.
- Rose petals - They suggest tenderness, beauty, and erotic intimacy, especially in the imagined shared bed.
- Salt - Salt can suggest desire, preservation, and the bodily aspect of love, linking sex to something both necessary and enduring.
- Sunflower - The sunflower symbolizes resilience, growth, and the ability to keep turning toward life despite burden and age.
Tone
Jong's tone is witty, self-aware, and yearning, with flashes of comic bravado that keep the poem from becoming purely plaintive. The emotional atmosphere, however, is more tender and searching than the tone first suggests: beneath the playful spell-casting lies loneliness, impatience with transience, and a deep hunger for companionship that can last. The poem feels both teasing and earnest, as if desire must be approached through irony before it can be spoken plainly.
Historical Context
Erica Jong is associated with late twentieth-century feminist writing, especially work that speaks openly about female desire, selfhood, and the contradictions of independence and intimacy. In that broader literary context, the poem's frank erotic language and its insistence on a woman's right to name her own desires are part of a significant cultural shift in how love and sexuality could be represented.
The poem also draws on long traditions of lyric prayer, love spells, and literary allusion, blending high culture with everyday domestic longing. Its mix of erotic candor, wit, and self-determination reflects a modern poetic landscape in which personal experience, gender politics, and artistic identity often meet in the same voice.
Similar Poems
- The Good-Morrow - John Donne
- Sonnet 116 - William Shakespeare
- How Do I Love Thee? - Elizabeth Barrett Browning
- Mad Girl's Love Song - Sylvia Plath
- Wild Nights - Wild Nights! - Emily Dickinson
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