"Published in 1599 (six years after the poet's death). In addition to being one of the best-known love poems in the English language, it is considered one of the earliest examples of the pastoral style of British poetry in the late Renaissance period. It is composed in iambic tetrameter (four feet of unstressed/stressed syllables), with seven (sometimes six, depending on the version) stanzas each composed of two rhyming couplets. It is often used for scholastic purposes for its regular meter and rhythm.
"The poem was the subject of a well-known 'reply' by Walter Raleigh, called "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd".' Warning: template has been deprecated.
