Point of View

Like many poems, and particularly poems from the early modern era, this text is written from a first-person point of view.

However, there are two interesting features of the poem’s point-of-view that distinguish it from its contemporaries. This poem does not use any of the pronouns associated with the first person singular. Instead, it uses only the intimate second-person (“thou”) and the first person plural (“we”). It is not unusual to see some usage of these forms in a standard first-person poem, but it is quite strange that the first person singular does not appear at all.

By avoiding this construction, the poem’s speaker disappears almost completely within the poem. He does not have an independent existence, an “I” that signifies what he is or does on his own. Instead, he exists as a part of his friend, as a representation of the...