First love John Clare and Sex without love, two poems written at different times, with “related” but at the same time very different themes. First Love is a lyric poem written in the 18th century by John Clare and Sex Without Love is a more contemporary poem written in 1985 by Sharon Olds. The theme of First Love is about a person who fell in love for the first time, talking about their emotions and what happened to them when it happened, while the character of Sex Without Love criticizes people who can have sex without being involved. love. In these two poems, which are explained by their titles (First love and Sex without love), we see that they are almost opposite poems. In the poem First Love, the character talks about how he felt and what happened to him when he first fell in love. The theme of this poem is warmer and more innocent, the character talks about his most personal feelings when he fell in love, which makes the theme more moving. The character begins by saying "I have never been struck before this hour by a love so sudden and so sweet", meaning that he had never fallen in love, a very deep and good feeling, before this moment, then described what that was like. he felt throughout the rest of the poem. In Sex Without Love, the character criticizes people who can have sex without loving each other and wonders how can they do it. This theme speaks of something much more superficial and cold, even the author compares people who can have loveless sex with skaters, which gives us an image of coldness, but that does not mean that this poem is less deep because even though the theme is superficial and cold, the author describes it in great detail and depth through metaphors and similes. In this poem, the author leaves all feelings and emotions behind and talks about how shallow and cold people are who can "...make love without love." (l.1) In this poem, the character begins by saying "How do they do it, those who make love without love? from which we can deduce that it is not the first time that they do this act of coldness and selfishness.