The nature of love can be explicated in many different ways. In William Blake's poem, "The Clod and the Pebble," love is perceived in a very contrasting way. Love can be selfish, negative, and bitter or selfless, prompting optimism, altruism, and innocence. In the poem "Song," however, Lady Mary Wroth explores how love is demanding, overindulging, and endlessly unsatisfied. In the poem "The Clod and the Pebble", the clod is described as "trodden with cattle´s feet" reflecting on how the clod is continuously being abused, promoting love as a forceful, agonizing emotion. Considering that the clod is being trampled on illustrates that love can make you feel worthless, resulting in pain and this pain won´t stop as you are endlessly being crushed by an unstoppable force. Yet, through all of this, "so sung a little Clod of Clay". This exemplifies that even though the clod is being trodden on, it will still sing a simple song and be content. The sibilance interrupted by the "C" sound emphasizes how fragile the clod is making us feel pity on the clod and despise the pebble. He sings that "love seeketh not itself to please, nor for itself hath any care". The negative words, "not/ nor", indicates that you have to deny things to experience love; this consists of backbreaking work and sacrifice. The personification of love can be linked to human nature as it is full of contradictions. The use of wordplay is identified throughout the poem: the positive language of the clod is turned into something negative by the pebble. "Heaven in Hell´s despair" reveals the conflicting emotions of love, and how contentment can turn into pungency. .
On the contrary, love to the pebble is deceiving and selfish. Instead of singing, "But a pebble of the brook warbled" exhibiting how much more experienced and more complex the pebble is as he trilled the song.
