To Fanny explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• Love and Loss

  The speaker's desperate plea for complete, guileless love and the threat of loss if it is not granted.

• Sorrow and Melancholy

  The speaker's anguish and despair at the prospect of being a 'wretched thrall' in idle misery.

Characters to notice

• Unknown

  The speaker who cries for mercy, pity, and love from Fanny.

• Fanny

  The beloved addressed directly, from whom the speaker demands total love and possession.

Key passages

• “To Fanny I cry your mercy⁠—pity⁠—love⁠—aye, love! Merciful love that tantalizes not, One-thoughted, never-wandering, guileless love, Unmask’d, and being seen⁠—without a blot!”

  I beg you, Fanny, for mercy, pity, and love—true love that does not tease, is single-minded, faithful, and pure, open and flawless.

  The speaker defines the kind of love he seeks: honest and unwavering.

• “O! let me have thee whole,⁠—all⁠—all⁠—be mine! That shape, that fairness, that sweet minor zest Of love, your kiss,⁠—those hands, those eyes divine, That warm, white, lucent, million-pleasured breast,⁠— Yourself⁠—your soul⁠—in pity give me all, Withhold no atom’s atom, or I die”

  Let me possess you entirely—your body, beauty, the subtle thrill of love, your kiss, hands, divine eyes, your warm and radiant breast—give me your whole self and soul, withholding nothing, or I will die.

  The speaker demands total union, physical and spiritual, as a condition for his survival.

• “Or living on perhaps, your wretched thrall, Forget, in the mist of idle misery, Life’s purposes⁠—the palate of my mind Losing its gust, and my ambition blind!”

  If I continue living as your miserable slave, I will forget life's purposes in a haze of pointless suffering, my mind losing its taste for anything, and my ambition becoming blind.

  The speaker warns that without complete love, he will become a hollow, aimless being.