i carry your heart with me: Important Quotes Explained

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)

The speaker opens the poem with this quatrain, where they describe the radical sense of intimacy they share with their beloved. The opening line, which gives the poem its title, puts forward an image that initially seems very conventional for a poem about romantic love. But when read more closely, the speaker isn’t simply saying they keep the thought of their beloved in their heart. Instead, they say that they carry their beloved’s heart inside their own heart. Such an image of one heart carrying another suggests a profound sense of intimacy. The speaker expands on this intimacy in the following lines, where they explain the connection that binds them to their beloved, even when apart. This connection is so powerful that it seems to blur the distinction between the two people involved in the romantic partnership. The distinction becomes so murky that individual agency is no longer discernible. This is what the speaker indicates when they say, “whatever is done / by only me is your doing,my darling.”

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

These lines appear at the end of the second quatrain (lines 8–9). In the first part of the quatrain, the speaker renounces the ordinary world. In the second part, the speaker indicates their preferences for a cosmic realm that’s under the sway of lunar and solar energies—energies that they associate with their beloved. But the speaker doesn’t simply compare their beloved to the moon and the sun. Instead, they liken their beloved to the mysterious nature of these celestial bodies. The key word here is “whatever.” Whatever it is a moon might mean, its meaning “[is] you.” Similarly, whatever it is a sun might sing, its singing “is you.” Put less obscurely, the speaker seems to be saying that their beloved has an air of mystery about them. This air of mystery is attractive, perhaps because the forces at work in the attraction aren’t completely clear. Thus, whatever it is that’s so special about their beloved, it inescapably draws the speaker in.

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

This passage forms the last main section of the poem (lines 10–14). This section develops the theme of mystery that the speaker introduced in the previous stanza, where they spoke of the celestial influence of the sun and the moon. Here, the speaker reframes cosmic mystery in terms of “the deepest secret nobody knows.” As if to explain what they mean by this, the speaker inserts a long parenthetical digression. This digression is surprising for the way it turns from the vast scale of the cosmos to the more intimate scale of earthly entities like roots and buds. Evidently, “the deepest secret” of the universe resides in the humblest of forms. However, to unveil the mystery of this secret, we must look beyond mere appearances and learn to sense the very essences of things. This is why the speaker doesn’t simply speak of “the root,” but rather emphasizes “the root of the root.” Such an understanding of the essences of things illuminates the reality of “wonder,” which is the force that regulates the whole universe and “keep[s] the stars apart.” As the speaker contemplates these cosmic mysteries, the love they profess for their beloved arguably becomes more spiritual than romantic.