Soeur Louise De La Miséricorde (1674)

Question 1

The speaker lamenting on her past of pleasure-seeking and indulgence

Answer 1

“I have desired, and I have been desired”

Question 2

Fire imagery used throughout the poem to convey the demise of passion/desire/love/will to live

Answer 2

“dying embers mock my fire”
“a disenkindled fire”
“drop by drop of fire”
“disenkindled fire”

Question 3

Repeated at the end of all four stanzas to indicate the futility of desire

Answer 3

“Oh vanity of vanities, desire!”

Question 4

Said on two occasions to demonstrate the superficial nature of craving adoration because it will come to nothing

Answer 4

“Longing and love, pangs of a perished pleasure, / Longing and love”

Question 5

The use of water imagery to convey life flowing away

Answer 5

“Now from my heart, love’s deathbed, trickles, trickles, / Drop by drop”

Question 6

Use of natural imagery to show the growing infertility/youth in the speaker

Answer 6

“my rose of life gone all to prickles”
“Turning my garden plot to barren mire”