Symbol Analysis
Of course this perfect woman that the speaker is taking apart would have to be as graceful as an angel too. Throughout the poem he's been setting up two portraits, side by side. One is of an ideal fantasy woman that he can't begin to believe in, and the other is of the real, imperfect woman he loves. In these last lines the speaker chooses the real woman over the goddess that he has never even seen.
- Line 11: We want to take a second to dork out about the alliteration in this line. Check out the way those three "g" words: "grant…goddess…go" make the line float along as gracefully as a goddess. Fun, huh? Plus, comparing a normal woman to a goddess is a complete exaggeration (or hyperbole as we English literature folks like to say), and that's exactly what this poem is trying to get us away from.