All in Green Went My Love Riding: Summary & Analysis
- Melchior Antoine
- Apr 3
- 8 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
The poem “All in green went my love riding” was published by E. E. Cummings in 1923 in his collection of poems titled Tulips and Chimneys. The poem is remarkable in that it showcases the poet’s unique approach to writing poetry, while relying heavily on traditional poetic devices.
Cummings was an avant garde poet, who published poems in unusual capitalization and wording. Nonetheless, this poem has a very musical effect that is comparable to the most traditional love ballads.
The poet relies heavily on rhetorical devices such as anastrophe, assonance, consonance, and rhyme to achieve the effects of his poem. In this article, we go into detail to learn how he does that.
Text of poem Cummings, "All in green went my love riding" (1923):
Below is the text for "All in green went my love riding":
All in green went my love riding
on a great horse of gold
into the silver dawn.
four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the merry deer ran before.
Fleeter be they than dappled dreams
the swift sweet deer
the red rare deer.
Four red roebuck at a white water
the cruel bugle sang before.
Horn at hip went my love riding
riding the echo down
into the silver dawn.
four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the level meadows ran before.
Softer be they than slippered sleep
the lean lithe deer
the fleet flown deer.
Four fleet does at a gold valley
the famished arrow sang before.
Bow at belt went my love riding
riding the mountain down
into the silver dawn.
four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the sheer peaks ran before.
Paler be they than daunting death
the sleek slim deer
the tall tense deer.
Four tall stags at a green mountain
the lucky hunter sang before.
All in green went my love riding
on a great horse of gold
into the silver dawn.
four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
my heart fell dead before.
The poem is written in 14 stanzas, with lines that range between two and three in number. The poem tells a story of deer of changing gender being chased in the morning through mountains and plains.
Main theme and summary of the poem
The main theme of the poem is the predatory nature of love. Ostensibly, the poem is about a hunter out to hunt deer. The way the poem is narrated gives the false impression that the hunter is about to fall victim to a tragedy while he hunts.
However, it turns out that the tragic victim at the end of the tale is the speaker or the woman/man who refers to the hunter as their love. The deer that feature so prominently in the poem with vivid descriptions can be taken as a symbol representing the vulnerability of someone in love.
In short, when in love, you subject yourself to abuse and hurt feelings by your lover. In addition to being a symbol, the deer represents a misdirection. While we think that the poem is about the deer, the last line reveals that the person being hunted is the speaker, who is in love with the hunter.
The anastrophe that is used throughout the poem emphasizes this contradiction and paradox. This is later explained in the article. The poem comes across like a movie that we have seen before. It begins with beautiful setting, imagery, and music.
But we know that this is the setting of a tragedy. It is like the beautiful language used in Romeo and Juliet that prepares the way for the awful double suicide. It can also be compared to the beautiful poetry that flows out of Othello's mouth as he expresses his love for Desdemona, that is, before strangling her to death.
So we know it's going to end badly. Perhaps the hunter will fall victim to a tragic accident. Perhaps a cornered stag will fight back and startle him off his horse where he falls to his death. Perhaps one of his inexperienced helpers or pages will miss with the arrow and catch the hunter instead of a deer.
However, the last stanza gives us a twist ending. The tragedy befalls the speaker. She or he has fallen victim to the hunter's cruelty who has presumably broken his/her heart, which is likened to death.
Rhetorical analysis
This poem is remarkable in that it manages to be simultaneously avant-garde and traditional. The tone and musicality is that of medieval and Renaissance love poetry. At first glance, it reads like a sad love story about someone who lost their loved one in a tragic hunting accident.
The poem is imbued with all the romance and atmosphere of a traditional love ballad. However, it does not rely on the regular rhyme or meter that we expect from traditional love poetry. Instead, it uses other rhetorical devices, such as alliteration, assonance, consonance, and, of course, anastrophe.
1. Anastrophe
Every stanza in "All in green went my love riding" features anastrophe. Anastrophe is also known as inversion and refers to when sentences are reversed in their construction. For example, the first stanza could be rewritten as "My love went riding all in green . . ."
Why does the writer use anastrophe here? The device imparts a certain level of mystique to the poem. We are not sure what the poet is saying; however in the meantime we get to enjoy the rhythm and imagery featured in the poem.
This is especially the case in the last stanza. At first glance, the poem seems to be describing a tragedy that befell the hunter as he hunted for deer. However, we learn that the one being hunted is the speaker who is in love with the hunter.
This is shown in the last stanza. Anastrophe means reversal of construction. In the last stanza, our expectations are also reversed as we realize that the deer in question is the speaker.
2. Rhyme
The poem leans heavily on rhyme despite having a nontraditional rhyming scheme. Below, I highlight the rhyming pattern in the poem:
Fleeter be they than dappled dreams
the swift sweet deer
the red rare deer.
Four red roebuck at a white water
the cruel bugle sang before.
Horn at hip went my love riding
riding the echo down
into the silver dawn.
four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the level meadows ran before.
Softer be they than slippered sleep
the lean lithe deer
the fleet flown deer.
Four fleet does at a gold valley
the famished arrow sang before.
In traditional poetry, we expect rhyme at the end of lines. Here, the rhyming scheme rhymes the first word of the first line in a stanza with the last word of the last line in each stanza.
This has a musical effect similar to a regular rhyming scheme. The poem seeks to invoke the effects of traditional love poetry and does so effectively using its unusual rhyming scheme. Love ballads are typically constructed like songs, with regular rhyming schemes and meter.
In addition, the rhythm created using rhyme in alliance with alliteration and repetition such as in "the swift sweet deer / the red rare deer" seeks to replicate the action of a hunter galloping on a horse. In short, these literary devices are mimicking the actions they describe.
3. Assonance, consonance, and alliteration
E. E. Cummings makes effective and even sumptuous use of assonance. In particular, the poet uses the device in combination with rhyme. It is used to create beautiful music and imagery in the poem.
Fleeter be they than dappled dreams
the swift sweet deer
the red rare deer.
Four red roebuck at a white water
the cruel bugle sang before.
Horn at hip went my love riding
riding the echo down
into the silver dawn.
For example, the vowel sounds and alliteration in "the swift sweet deer / the red rare deer" put the spotlight on the quickness of the deer and their color, respectively.
“Horn at hip” with its repetitive h sound tries to recreate the sound effect of a horn being blown. The unusual rhyming scheme also ensures that the vowel sound at the beginning of each line rhymes with the vowel sound of the word in the last line.
This, in a sense, has a double sonorous or musical effect in the poem. Again in the stanza featuring “Horn at hip” the end rhyme with dawn reflects the reference to “echo.” In short, it creates the echo being mentioned here.
There are also other excellent examples of sound echoing sense or meaning. For example, take the line: "the cruel bugle sang." The ugly "u" sound in "cruel" and "bugle" suggests the cruelty of hunting innocent deer for sport or fun.
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4. Imagery, metaphor, and symbolism
The poem is rich in imagery. Central to the imagery are the deer featured in the poem. We get a vivid and accurate description of what a Meideval hunt would be like. Below, we have a painting from 1407-1409 showing women participating in a deer hunt:
We see much of what is described by Cummings. This includes the lean hounds, the colorful clothing worn in that era, the horns being used, and the deer being hunted with bows and arrows. Cummings transports us to that era with his depiction of imagery.
There are various interpretations of what the poem means. Some describe it as a metaphor for the nature of love. Love can be predatory. The person who is in love is subject to the whims and cruelty of the person they love. With this interpretation, it can be said that the hunt is a metaphor for the predatory relationship between the lover and the beloved.
The gender of the speaker and the hunter remains ambiguous. We are not sure if the hunter is a man or a woman. This is significant for certain interpretations of the poem. Some describe the poem as a reenactment of the myth of Diana and Actaeon.
The myth of Diana and Actaeon is a story about the hunter Actaeon who accidentally sees the goddess Diana naked while she bathes. This angers the goddess, who transforms him into a stag. Poor Actaeon is then pursued and torn to pieces by his own hounds.
This suggests that the hunter is female and the speaker is male. This interpretation could work. If we recognize Actaeon as a Peeping Tom and not as an innocent bystander who accidentally stumbled across the bathing goddess. Under such an interpretation, the speaker would represent a perverted character perspective.
The speaker is speaking about a one-sided love affair that exists only in their imagination. The person they love does not see them as an object of desire but as an object to be pursued and hunted to death for the unwanted attention they give.
The former interpretation of the poem is, however, more likely. The deer symbolize the vulnerability that humans subject themselves to when they fall in love. The poem also portrays love as a deadly game that always ends with the broken heart of at least one person.
Cite this EminentEdit article |
Antoine, M. (2025, April 03). All In Green Went My Love Riding: Summary & Analysis. EminentEdit. https://www.eminentediting.com/post/all-in-green-went-my-love-riding-analysis |
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