People often underestimate the importance of the things they own until they no longer own them. The speaker of The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter is a young married girl who remembers her lonely youth and her regrets about not spending enough time with him, now that her husband is gone. The poem is melancholy, beautiful and pleading. Throughout the poem, the woman's desire to be reunited with her husband is sad and miserable. While the original poet of the poem, Li Po, writes it with proper poetic form, Pound uses a different tactic to align with the context of the poem. poem. Written in free verse, the poem seems more authentic, as if it were a real letter written by the wife to her husband. Consistent patterns of meter, rhyme, and other musical patterns are not applied by Pound in the poem. The flow of the poem follows the rhythm of natural speech. The lack of prescribed measure allows Pound to bring out the rawness of the wife's emotions, drawing the reader directly into her solitude without having to overcome the barrier of an overly structured presentation. Amid longer sentences, the two short ones with one-syllable words significantly draw attention to the emotional impact that nature has on the speaker. Writing about the changing seasons, falling leaves, and pairs of butterflies, the speaker remarks, “They hurt me. I'm getting old” (Pound). These short sentences capture the reader's attention as the poem reaches its climax in which the wife recognizes her deep sorrow over her husband's long absence. By not following the rigid form of poetry, Pound allows the reader to feel his wife's painful emotions. Images of the natural environment and wildlife emphasize...... middle of paper ......te she must be just to see her beloved husband. Thus, the poetic devices are extremely appropriate and effective in illustrating the wife's desire. Pound successfully uses various techniques in The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter to exude desire and loneliness from the speaker. The reader can understand and identify with the speaker's poignant emotions through the poem's informal structure, the natural world, and several poetic devices. The wife learns the importance of her husband's existence and regrets the past times when she spent hating him instead of loving him. It may be too late to express your love for him because we don't know when he will return. The poem urges the reader to reflect on his life and not underestimate the important things in his life, even if it is just a small thing, because he may lament its absence later..