Compare the way love is presented in ‘Sonnet 43’ and ‘Ghazal’

Both poems, Sonnet 43 and Ghazal convey emotions and passionate feelings of love in different ways. Sonnets and Ghazals are poem that are meant to express strong feelings of love. Khalvati and Barrett Browning chose them to illustrate their loving feelings to their lovers. Barrett Browning does not correctly carry out all the rules of Sonnets in her poem which gives an effect that she would do anything for her lover and that there are no rules to their love, whereas Khalvati does not break any of rules in Ghazal, this might, perhaps mean that her love is unrequited and that she would follow all the rules to get the attention of the person she loves.

Barrett Browning and
Khalvati also indicates that she softens him by saying “If yours is the iron fist in the velvet glove”. Iron and velvet show an extreme contrast as iron is a very hard and heavy object, and velvet is a very soft, luxurious thing so she’s trying to say that she can perhaps make him a nicer person, and she uses a fist and a glove to represent that, since gloves are made to fit onto your hands and keep to them warm, this shows that their love would be perfect for each other. Khalvati thinks that she would complete her lover “If I am the laurel leaf in your crown, you are/the arms around my bark, arms that never knew me.” Once again, the poet uses nature to express her love. She says that she is the laurel leaf and that he is the crown, which endorse one another implying that they are meant for each other. Also, she uses a crown to represent her lover, which would mean that she sees him at a very high status. By saying “arms that never knew me” Khalvati suggests that their love is unrequited and that he is actually unaware of her and he does not essentially feel the same way as she does.

On the other hand, Barrett Browning expresses her love through religious imagery. This might be to represent the era in which they lived in, as it was very strict and most people were extremely religious. She says, “if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.” She