Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.
Lines 9-16
Ah, what a trifle is a heart,
If once into love's hands it come!
All other griefs allow a part
To other griefs, and ask themselves but some;
They come to us, but us love draws;
He swallows us and never chaws;
By him, as by chain'd shot, whole ranks do die;
He is the tyrant pike, our hearts the fry.
- Our speaker spends some more time going on about love in this next stanza.
- Specifically, he wants us to know that the heart is nothing more than a trifle. Now, a trifle is an English dessert made with cream and jam and sponge cake—mmm, heart-licious. But to call something "a trifle" is also to say that it's a minor thing of no importance.
- Once love gets its personified hands on the heart, you can forget about it. The heart's a goner.
- You see, the speaker continues, all other griefs take up just a part of our emotions. They all leave "a part/ To other griefs" (11-12). They also "come to us," rather than draw us to them. Think about feeling angry or lonely—those feelings can just happen to you all of a sudden.
- Love, though, is a whole different ball game. It's so powerful that it draws us to it ("us love draws") and, when it does, it consumes all of our emotions (13).
- Using more personification, the speaker describes love swallowing us whole—without chewing ("never chaws") (14). In other words, we're totally consumed.
- Just like in the last stanza, the speaker wraps things up with two metaphors.
- In the first of these, love is like "chain'd shot," or a particular kind of artillery in which the musket or cannon balls were chained together to do more damage. Rather than just a flesh wound, love is totally devastating, taking down whole groups ("ranks") of people.
- It's also a ferocious river fish—the "tyrant pike"—a long, slender, sharp-toothed sucker that chomps on our hearts as if they were baby fish ("fry").
- If you haven't figured it out yet, our speaker is trying to tell you that love is one mean emotion.