Porphyria's Lover Power Quotes

The power of the storm is personified in the opening lines of the poem. It's important to remember, though, that the poem is written from the point of view of a very unstable mind.

Despite the awesome power of the storm, Porphyria seems to be able to "shut [it] out" almost without effort.

Love, as we've seen, is figured in terms of freedom and constraint. Porphyria's "weak[ness]" here suggests that she's neither as powerful nor as free as she seemed at the beginning of the poem.

Again, the metaphor of freedom and restraint! The power of Porphyria's love for the speaker made her skip a party. She simply couldn't "restrain" the urge to visit him.

This reference to God is the only suggestion of an outside system of ethics in the poem. It almost seems to be a taunt, as though the speaker laughs at the idea of any kind of retribution.