The object of the present work is to discuss and analyse the poem “ Love Song for Lucinda” by Langston Hughes.

The poem focuses the reader's attention thanks to its regular pattern that creates an effect of balance and elegance, indeed there is a symmetrical layout which results from an anaphoric structure due to the initial line of every stanza that opens with the word 'love'. The intelligent reader, therefore, understands that 'love' is really the keyword and the theme of the whole text. In addition, it recalls the title.

The text is a song addressed to Lucinda and once more it underscores a reflection on love. The poem has a linear nature and invites reflection. To tell the truth, the intelligent reader may be curious to find out the identity of the addressee and the reason why the speaking voice is writing to Lucinda whose name suggests the idea of light and therefore something that may provide a sense of direction or a guide. It follows that the analysis of the poem is meant to discover/ find out the message the speaking voice wants to send Lucinda and what relationship he might have with her.

In order to reach the goal the present work will develop a structural analysis first and on a second moment will consider how connotative choices add to the meaning.

In considering the layout, the reader realises the text is arranged into three sestets that exhibit the same structure as well as the same anaphor meant to make the reader aware that what it has been discussed is the nature of love.

From a structural point of view, punctuation reveals to be essential to understand the reason why the poet has organized the sestets into tercets. To tell the truth in each stanza the tercets play the same role: the first one relies on a metaphor highlight at some qualities of love, while the second tercet conveys the possible or probable consequences of that particular figure of love anticipated by the previous metaphor.

Before tackling with the different metaphors for love and its effects, it's worthwhile considering also the length of the song. The investigation immediately makes clear that every stanza starts the second tercet with a very short line or at least one shorter than the others. What's more, the fourth line of the last stanza consists of two words among which the personal subject pronoun 'you' comes to the forefront. Thus giving Lucinda a central and therefore core position to the lady. In so doing, the speaker not only focuses the reader's attention on 'you' but it also gives Lucinda a privileged position and no intelligent reader can escape noticing this. What's more, the intelligent reader should speculate on the nature of that subject pronoun, because it may refer to Lucinda as well as to the reader or, at last but not least, acquires an impersonal meaning and therefore being meaningful to everybody. This will result from the next steps of analysis.

Now, moving forward with the analysis of the metaphor structure of the text the reader realises that all the metaphorical choices that cover the second line of each sestet provide a highly positive connotation of love as well as being expressed with an assertive tone that admits no reply, 'Love Is', 'Love Is ', 'Love is'. The speaker sounds totally sure of his statements that are made up according to the structure adjective + noun: 'ripe plum', ' bright star' and 'high mountain'. In addition, the expression is the result of long open vowel sounds that widen both the prospetive of love and the phonological effect on the reader who might understand something more than the simple metaphorical meaning that relies on the language of sense impression (taste, sight and so on). Indeed, love is an experience that requires a dynamic opening and welcome to someone different from the subject who experiences it. It follows that all the stylistic choices illustrated so far contribute to make meaning more lively. Also, they add a sense of fullness to the message sent: you certainly feel satisfied once you live a love experience.

Syntax, to contributes together with the semantic choices to add the idea of love as a dynamic process. You can see it if you compare the structure of line three in the first two sestets. They both relay on a progressive aspect of the verb. Indeed "growing" and "glowing" both convey the idea of the pleasure one can fell when he/she is in love. The use of the progressive aspect hinds at love as a transforming experience. In the third sestet, on the contrary, the speaker does not use the progressive aspect but adds quality to the metaphor of love. In particular the adjective "stark in a windy sky" underlines a figure of love as an experience that asks for a commitment. Therefore the last sestet seems to play a warning function which comes to the forefront in the end of the text.

If you carry on with the analysis of the second tercet in the different stanzas you will soon realise that each one shows the consequences of the effect of the specific idea of love expressed in the previous metaphor.

In the first sestet the effect underlined by the speaker is a form of "enchantment" a feeling that recalls the word "song" of the title but the speaking voice also warms both Lucinda and the reader that one you experience love you will no longer be as you are under a "spell" and the speaking voice's in aware that in a way or another you become addicted. The use of the verb taste in the imperative not only underlines the body aspect of the feeling of loss you experience when you love is gone.

If follows that the key idea developed in the first sestet in one of love as a magic formula, able to turn once life upside down and yet such love is "growing on a purple tree". The colour purple is generally associated to vry important contests since it is the colour of religious ministers. once more connotation is widen here with reference to the religious experience.

From the idea of spell and enchantment in the second sestets the image of light plays the main role thus creating a connection with the addressee of the song. "Bright star glowing burning flame" are all semantic choices that contribute to the idea and to tell the truth in the second tercet the effect of love seen as a bright star id to be a "burning flame" that may hurt once eyes if you "look to hard". As a result/ as a consequence love is newly defined as something burning which not always follows the pattern of the progressive aspect (s.f.a. glowing and growing), it also suggests the idea of a passionate love that may cross al your body, the speaker is well aware that the experience when lived to hard "always hurt". The image exploited in the sestet appears to sight and therefore the reader finds a similarity between the first sestet that appealed to taste and the second one appealing to an additional sense (sight). The reference in the third line to "in far southern skies" hinds at an exotic experience that "seduces" both lover and reader. Indeed to seduce etymologically means to project somebody somewhere else. This explains the force of a loving experience that may be perceived as one that may send you in am n alternative dimension. That is why one mast me careful when experiencing passionately love. He/she should be able to leave a balanced experience; vice versa he/she will suffer from sight problem. Once more you can recognize e regular pattern also in the use of the simple future tense in the second and first sestet. The use of the future conveys the strong conviction of the speaker and this might make you think that he may have undergone both experiences: the one that did not let him go and the one of to passionate her love.

Coming now to consider the last sestet, you realise that it is somehow different from the previous one: the third line of the first tercet does not show a progressive aspect. Ruder, it focuses the reader's attention as well as Lucinda's on a sort of warning underlined by the second type of it close "would never lose" that implies the possible effect of try to climb to high on a mountain. The adjective hight not only comes twice in the economy of the sestet, it has got a key position: its pronunciation shows a makes you hear a log vowel sound. It creates sort of a eco-effect typical of a mountainous contest. If you climb e mountain and reach its top you experience a feeling of pleasure and fare at the some time because if on one hand you are attracted by your proximity to the sky, on the other hand you fare to fall down the image of the first tercet in the last sestet is functional to attract the attention of "you" on the double nature f any love experience. Love is a complex feeling to leave it makes you fell sort of enchantment and fare at the some time and the experience is therefore sublime. Consequently one must pay attention not to expect only a paradise but also the charms of life. In the last tercet the speaker alerts the "you" that if he/she wants to experience and experiment a love process he/she must be ready and welling to cope with alternating moments of spell, illumination passion and suffering all the same. Indeed, spell lighting and pain are the complex and contradictory elements of any love experience.

The intelligent reader now understands that the speaker's addressee is not simply Lucinda who is never mentioned in the text, on the contrary the choice of the personal pronoun you open the sound to a much wider dimension: an inclusive one where the speaking voice Lucinda and the reader all together take part of the some experience, thus making of a personal message and warning a universal one.

The song becomes therefore an experience of sharing human feelings considerations and reflections that may make of the reader's and Lucinda a more aware listeners.