Composition

Outer composition

The poem “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” has a simple outer composition. The poem has a total of 24 lines grouped into six stanzas of four lines each. A stanza composed of four lines is also called a quatrain. The verses are of medium length, with most of them containing eight syllables and some containing seven or nine. The sentences in the poem are long, running across several verses using a technique called enjambment. For example, stanzas three to five all make up a single long sentence (ll. 9-20).

The rhyme scheme is consistent throughout the entire poem and follows an AABB pattern:

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty Lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold; (ll. 13-16)

This example from stanza four ...