Oh, Love Me! Love Me Still!

Caroline Elizabeth Sheridan's Oh, Love Me! Love Me Still!

Caroline Elizabeth Sheridan’s Oh, Love Me! Love Me Still! is a poignant lyric poem that explores the enduring nature of love in the face of inevitable separation. Written in the 19th century, the poem encapsulates the Romantic era’s preoccupation with intense emotion, the transience of human connections, and the persistence of affection even in despair. Sheridan, a writer whose personal life was marked by both literary success and personal tragedy, infuses the poem with a sense of urgency and melancholy that resonates deeply with readers. Through its use of repetition, natural imagery, and emotional directness, the poem transcends its historical moment to speak to universal human experiences of love and loss.

Historical and Biographical Context

Caroline Elizabeth Sheridan (1808–1877) was a British writer and poet, part of a literary family that included her famous grandson, the playwright Oscar Wilde. Though less known today than some of her contemporaries, Sheridan’s work reflects the emotional intensity and lyrical beauty characteristic of Romantic and early Victorian poetry. Her personal life was marked by both romantic idealism and hardship—her first marriage ended in scandal, and she later struggled with financial difficulties. These biographical details lend an added layer of authenticity to Oh, Love Me! Love Me Still!, as the poem’s plea for enduring love suggests an awareness of love’s fragility in a world governed by social constraints and personal betrayals.

The 19th century was a period in which women’s voices in poetry often grappled with themes of love, abandonment, and emotional resilience. Poets like Letitia Elizabeth Landon and Felicia Hemans similarly explored the tension between societal expectations and personal passion. Sheridan’s poem fits within this tradition, articulating a woman’s emotional vulnerability while also asserting the strength of her devotion. The poem’s direct address—its repeated imperative, “love me still”—reflects both desperation and defiance, a refusal to let love fade even as circumstances force separation.

Themes: Love, Loss, and the Persistence of Memory

At its core, Oh, Love Me! Love Me Still! is a meditation on the endurance of love beyond physical presence. The speaker implores the beloved to continue loving her despite impending separation, suggesting that love itself is a force that transcends time and circumstance. The poem’s central tension lies in the contrast between the inevitability of parting (“Though thou art doom’d to leave me”) and the speaker’s insistence on emotional permanence (“love me still”).

The theme of love as an unyielding force is reinforced through the poem’s natural imagery. The comparison of the speaker’s heart to a “crush’d flower” that still emits fragrance is particularly striking. Just as a trampled flower continues to release its perfume, the speaker’s love persists even in the face of rejection or abandonment. This metaphor aligns with Romanticism’s tendency to equate human emotions with natural phenomena, suggesting that love, like nature, operates beyond human control.

Another key theme is the power of memory. The speaker predicts that even after separation, her love will haunt the beloved’s dreams:

“Thy dreams of her shall be
Whom thou art vainly flying!”

Here, Sheridan suggests that love leaves an indelible mark on the psyche. The beloved may attempt to flee, but the speaker’s presence will linger in their subconscious. This idea resonates with the Romantic belief in the lasting impact of emotional experience—love is not merely a fleeting sensation but an imprint on the soul.

Literary Devices and Emotional Impact

Sheridan employs several literary devices to heighten the poem’s emotional intensity. The most prominent is repetition, particularly the refrain-like recurrence of “love me still.” This phrase acts as both a plea and a command, emphasizing the speaker’s desperation while also asserting her right to be remembered. The repetition creates a rhythmic urgency, mirroring the beating of a heart or the insistent voice of a lover unwilling to let go.

The natural imagery in the third stanza is particularly evocative:

“And as the crush’d flower sends
Its soul of perfumed breathing,
To him whose footstep bends
The blossoms ’neath its wreathing,
And, dying, haunts him still;”

The crushed flower becomes a symbol of wounded but enduring love. The image is paradoxical—destruction coexists with beauty, just as the speaker’s heart, though broken, continues to emit love. This metaphor aligns with the Romantic fascination with the sublime, where pain and beauty intertwine.

The poem also employs apostrophe, as the speaker directly addresses an absent or departing lover. This rhetorical device creates an intimate, almost confessional tone, drawing the reader into the speaker’s emotional world. The lack of response from the beloved intensifies the pathos, as the speaker’s words hang in the air, unanswered yet fervent.

Comparative Readings and Philosophical Underpinnings

Sheridan’s poem can be fruitfully compared to other works of the period that explore unrequited or enduring love. John Keats’ La Belle Dame sans Merci similarly depicts love as an inescapable force, though Keats’ poem leans more toward the Gothic, with the lover left desolate by an elusive figure. In contrast, Sheridan’s speaker is not abandoned by a cruel beloved but rather pleads for continued affection despite external circumstances.

A more direct parallel can be drawn with Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 43 (“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways”). Both poems assert the constancy of love, though Browning’s sonnet is more celebratory, while Sheridan’s is tinged with melancholy. The philosophical underpinning of both, however, is the idea that true love transcends physical separation—a notion rooted in Platonic ideals of eternal, spiritual love.

Conclusion: The Timelessness of Sheridan’s Plea

Oh, Love Me! Love Me Still! is a masterful expression of love’s persistence in the face of inevitable loss. Through its lyrical repetition, vivid natural imagery, and emotional directness, the poem captures the universal human fear of abandonment and the hope that love can outlast even the cruelest fate. Sheridan’s work remains resonant because it speaks to a fundamental truth: love does not simply vanish when lovers part. Instead, it lingers—like the scent of a crushed flower, like a voice echoing in dreams.

In an age where relationships were often dictated by social constraints, Sheridan’s poem is both a personal cry and a broader meditation on the power of emotion to defy circumstance. Its beauty lies in its simplicity and its depth—a single, repeated plea that contains within it the vastness of human longing. Whether read as a product of its time or as a timeless lyric, Oh, Love Me! Love Me Still! continues to move readers with its raw, undying devotion.