“my Lady’s Presence Makes the Roses Red” by Henry Constable

Rachel Shepard

Maryann Rustemeyer

EN 222

March 1, 2015

“My lady’s presence makes the roses red” by Henry Constable

“My lady’s presence makes the roses red,” by Henry Constable is an Italian sonnet with fourteen lines that consist of an octave and a sestet meter. The first eight lines consist of happy and loving feelings and the next six lines take a switch to pain and suffering felt by the speaker. For instance in the first line, “My lady’s presence makes the roses red,” is an example of a loving feeling  towards the woman’s beauty (Mays, p 1091). In line eight, “Dyed in blood she made my heart shed,” is an example of a suffering feeling (Mays, p 1091). The setting to the reader could be a sunny and rainy, fall day at a park and the speaker may be talking to someone else about this woman he describes.

        The first eight lines are described as an octave and Constable sets the tone with a feeling of happiness and wonderful feelings about this woman.  In an octave the situation and problem at presented. Constable presents the situation in the first eight lines, and then proceeds with a resolution that also leaves the reader wondering. In line one, “My lady’s presence makes the roses red,” means this woman’s beauty make the roses red. In line two, “because to see her lips they blush for shame,” also relates the woman’s beauty to the roses. The roses blush to see her red lips and to be the color of them. In line three Constable compares the woman’s beautiful, pale color to that of lilies. The lilies are jealous because of the woman’s color. Constable again compares marigolds to the woman’s radiant beauty in line five and six by saying, “The marigold the leaves abroad doth spread, because the sun’s and her power is the same” (Mays, p 1091).

        In line seven and eight, the speaker then describes how the woman’s feelings have hurt him and how he may never encounter or see the woman again. For instance, “The violet of purple colour came, dyed in the blood she make my heart shed” (Mays, p 1091). The speaker is saying violets are purple because of his bleeding heart dyed them that color after the woman hurt him.

        Constable’s Italian sonnet consists of a Petrarchan form with a rhyme scheme of abbaabba. He also uses metaphors, personification, consonance, and assonance throughout the poem. This helps show emphasis on the speaker’s feelings towards the woman. For instance, in line nine, “All flowers from her their virtues take” (Mays, p 1091).  The reader interprets this that flowers on nature get all of their beauty from the attributes of this beautiful woman. Constable uses different metaphors to compare the woman to things of nature. For example, in line six, “The sun’s and her power is the same,” is comparing the woman’s love and the speakers want for the woman to the power of the sun (Mays, p 1091). Constable uses the flowers with personification by explaining that the lady’s features give the flowers their power. Again, he uses the personification of the rose blushing at the site of the woman’s lips.