What is it about a cheerful, honest and optimistic invitation to love that brings out the desire in some to sling the literary mud? This paper will examine both Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" and Sir Walter Ralegh's "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd" on a stanza by stanza basis. It'll compare and contrast Ralegh's poem as a response to Marlowe's. That comparison will focus on how Ralegh uses his poem to ultimately reject Marlowe's call to love.
             We'll start off be analyzing Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love." The first stanza starts with an invitation from the shepherd to his love to come and live with him so that they may taste "all the pleasures" that nature has to offer. The second stanza offers up an idyllic portrait of the couple sitting "upon the rocks, Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks." The two will then be serenaded by "melodious birds" near falls and "shallow rivers." All in all, it's an attractive place for two lovers to while away the day. The third stanza's focus is on all the things the shepherd will do for his lover. Such as "make thee beds of roses And a thousand fragrant posies." The third stanza has a flower theme as the shepherd also mentions "a cap of flowers" and a skirt made of "myrtle." The fourth stanza continues much in the same vein, except now the focus is on the shepherds sheep. "A gown mad of the finest wool Which from our pretty lambs we pull." The shepherd even promises "buckles of the purest gold" for the "fair lined slippers" which will protect his love from the cold. The fifth stanza winds up the shepherds mentioning of all the things that nature and their pastoral surroundings will provide for them. And then in lines 19 and 20 of the fifth stanza t...