Love and Wit

Prophetic Soul

Because your eyes are slant and slow,
Because your hair is sweet to touch,
My heart is high again; but oh,
I doubt if this will get me much.

Title: According to dictionary.com, the word 'prophetic' has two distinct meanings;
1) of or pertaining to a prophet
2) predictive; presageful or portentous; ominous
It seems that both these definitions apply to the poem. The first definition refers to the 'soul' because the subject possibly knows of something that is not commonly known by many and the second definition applies because the subject of the poem can possibly suggest that the speaker knows of the consquences of whatever is to happen. the word 'soul' is interesting because it has many connotations distinctly referring to the inner self or inner being, possibly very deep personal opinions or feelings about something. It also suggests that the speaker is speaking from the heart or from experiance where she has learned something important.
Already, I sort of took the title in a witty way because it seemed to be an overstatement or sarcastic when referring to its subject.

Paraphrase: Because your eyes are sideways and sort of crooked and slow, because your hair is very sweet to touch, my heart is high again and I am deeply giddy from being in love with you, but oh, i doubt this is a good thing or it will get me anywhere.

Connotations: As I already stated, 'prophetic' and 'soul' are highly connotative words used in the title. The word 'eyes' suggests appearence or knowledge (possibly indicating the motif of appearence versus reality) which emphasizes the fact that the speaker knows that being in love is all a facade. "slant' and 'slow' do not have positive connotations due to the fact that 'slant' implies that something is not straight which implies a somewhat of a deformity. the word, 'slow' indicates that the eyes of the one she is in love with is slow (possibly indicating that he does not realize she is in love with him?) 'sweet' generally does not refer to texture which could imply the extreme sensation that she recieves when touching his hair. The word 'heart' implies love. The word 'high' possibly indicates the speaker's deeply giddy emotions evoked from being in love. 'much' indicates that fact that the speaker belittles the benifits of being in love.

Attitude: It is obvious that our speaker is quite distraught with being in love and does not see a point because it seems as if the man she is in love with does not realize it.

Shifts: The speaker first describes the one she is in love with and subsquently shifts in describing her emotions about being in love and then shifts once more when indicating the fact that she thinks there is no point.

Theme: The theme of this poem is that there is no point of being in love with something who does not even realize you feel the same way about him.

it is obvious Parker is not fond of being in love
:)