Song Meaning
This lyric paints a picture of a desperate plea to "sweet love" itself, urging it to conquer the heart of a beloved who wields immense power over the narrator's emotions. The speaker is essentially asking love to become a weapon, to strike down the very person who causes both joy and sorrow. It's a fascinating inversion, where love is not the gentle force but an active agent of conquest.
The central tension lies in the narrator's dual experience of this "sweet love." The beloved makes them "glad and sorry," highlighting a volatile emotional landscape. The plea to love is to subdue this heart, suggesting a desire for control or resolution, perhaps to end the very pain the beloved inflicts, even if it means a forceful intervention.
The imagery of love as an archer is striking. The narrator implores love to "take thou the strongest arrow" from its "golden quiver," a potent metaphor for love's potential power. This arrow is destined to pierce "bone and marrow," promising a deep, transformative impact that will "deliver" both the narrator and the beloved from "grief and fear." It's a vision of love's ultimate triumph over suffering.
However, the final lines introduce a crucial, almost ironic, caveat: "But come behind, for if she look upon thee / Alas! poor love, then thou art woebegone thee." This suggests the beloved's power is so immense, so captivating, that even love itself, when confronted directly by her gaze, would be overcome. The narrator seems to acknowledge that while love might win the heart, the beloved's own potent allure might render love helpless, a poignant twist on the initial plea for conquest.
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