Setting

The setting of the poem “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd” by Sir Walter Raleigh is the countryside. 

Elements of the natural environment are mentioned throughout the poem, such as the fields, rivers, and flowers. However, unlike in a typical pastoral poem, they are not presented in an idealized manner, as a paradise that is always frozen in a golden age. Instead, the poem argues that the countryside is not stuck in an eternal summer, but that nature too, changes with the passing of seasons. People may find some of these changes unpleasant. For instance, “the flowers do fade” (l. 9) and “Rocks grow cold” (l. 6).

The poem appears to bor...