Contentment with Chaos

(#17) The pattern/form of Robert Herrick's Delight in Disorder matches with its content to a tee.  The lines vary in length, and although there is clearly an 'aabbccddeeffgg' rhyme scheme in place, the rhymes are often broken or semi-perfect.  The poem in and of itself describes a man's heightened feelings for his woman when she looks unkempt, rather than movie star-esque.  Also, the extensive use of oxymorons ("sweet disorder", "fine distraction", "careless shoestring", "wild civility") further supports the disarray related to the poem.  Now, having established a well-paved and superbly academic approach to this poem, I will now interject my inclusive thought on the work.  The speaker, a man, is expressing how he finds his love more attractive after a sexual encounter than he did before said activities took place.  Based on descriptions within the poem ("disorder in the dress", "erring lace", "crimson stomacher", "cuff neglected", "ribbons to flow confusedly", "tempestuous petticoat", "careless shoestring"), the woman is, or once was, obviously dressed up formally for an occasion at one point.  However, these elegant articles are no longer perceived in so elegant a way.  They are destroyed, disheveled at best, and the speaker is attracted to her all the more for it, as spoken in the closing couplet, "Do more bewitch me than when art / Is too precise in every part."  He thinks his lover more beautiful 'after the fact' than he did at the start of the night's adventures when every detail of her appearance was untouched.  Specific textual evidences supporting an undertone of seduction are "crimson stomacher" and "tempestuous petticoat".  A stomacher is part of a corset, usually worn formally, and I find it intriguing the word choice of crimson, an intensified red and a color most would consider the epitome of lust or love.  The tempestuous petticoat behaves as it is described.  It instills conflicting emotions within our human speaker while also itself being conflicting; feelings of arousal are coupled with a messy exterior.  Our speaker loves this woman, and then loves her even more after loving her the first time.  Ah, poetry.

Extra long post here, my bad.  I got caught up in proving my obviously correct point.  I'll make up for it with this Calvin & Hobbes strip...