Christopher Marlowe's short lyric "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" has exercised an influence on English verse which hardly seems indicated by the limpid faux-naif quality of the poem itself, written in simple four-line stanzas, each composed of a pair of simple rhymed octosyllablic couplets. R.S. Forsythe traces a whole host of imitations in English and in Continental verse of Marlowe's pastoral song, and concludes that

"The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" has exercised, for over three hundred and thirty years, upon English poetry an influence, direct or indirect, which is equalled by that of few poems; second, that, probably because of the popularity of these verses, a literary device was created -- the invitation to love -- which, in one form or another, adapted in this way or that, has persisted down into our own days. (742)

But I would propose that an examination of the metaphor and simile...
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