Point of View

"The Relic" is written from the first person point of view as the speaker imagines how he and his lover will be interpreted by a future society. The majority of the poem is addressed to the beloved herself, as the speaker uses first person plural pronouns like "we" and "us" throughout to describe their relationship. He directly addresses the lady in the second stanza when he says, "Thou shalt be a Mary Magdalen" (17). One could argue that because of the intimacy of the poem's perspective, it can be considered a love poem: the speaker imagines that he and his lady will be so revered by the future society that they will be turned into relics, and he agrees that their relationship is miraculous. The third stanza, however, suggests that the speaker thinks about their relationship in much more ironic terms, as he emphasizes that the...