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Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work. 

The Blissful Leisure of Rural Life

One of the speaker’s central points in the plea he makes to his beloved is that rural life is blissful and characterized by leisure rather than work. The speaker makes this clear at two points in the poem. The first time he emphasizes the leisure of rural life comes in lines 5–8, where he offers an idealized picture of how they might spend their days together:

     And we will sit upon the Rocks,
     Seeing the Shepherds feed their flocks,
     By shallow Rivers to whose falls
     Melodious birds sing Madrigals.

According to the speaker, he and his beloved will lay back and enjoy the view of fellow shepherds tending their flocks, all the while being entertained as “melodious birds sing Madrigals.” Even if the speaker will have to feed his own flocks, he implies that his beloved’s existence will be completely free of labor. He suggests as much in the poem’s concluding stanza, where he insists that “Swains [i.e., country youths] shall dance and sing / For thy delight each May morning” (lines 21–22). Since the idealized pastoral landscape exists in something like a perpetual spring, these lines suggest that the speaker’s beloved will wake to charming and erotic entertainments every day, forevermore.

The Pursuit of Pleasure

According to the speaker, country life is characterized primarily by the pursuit of pleasure. He indicates as much in the invitation he makes to his beloved in lines 1–4, where he welcomes them to come test country life for themself and experience first-hand the various pleasures it offers:

     Come live with me and be my love,
     And we will all the pleasures prove,
     That Valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
     Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

The fruitful productivity of the “Valleys, groves, hills, and fields” provides for every human need and desire. In the face of such effortless abundance, the only thing to do is enjoy it. This is what the speaker suggests when he describes a scene from their future life together, reclining on rocks by “shallow Rivers to whose falls / Melodious birds sing Madrigals” (lines 7–8). The speaker further develops his theme of pleasure-seeking in stanzas 3 through 5, where he promises to provide his beloved with a wide range of luxurious material goods, purely for their enjoyment. Of course, the speaker’s entire attempt to convince his beloved to stay in the country is underwritten by his unspoken desire to make love to them. Clearly, then, pleasure is the name of the game in this poem.

The Natural Wealth of the Country

Although the speaker never explicitly mentions city life, his idealized depiction of country life stands in direct contrast to the frustrations that plague city dwellers. Perhaps the most obvious point of contrast appears in the effortless fertility of the country landscape, which generates an abundance of natural wealth. The speaker showcases this natural wealth in the middle stanzas of the poem. There, he enumerates a list of luxurious material goods that his beloved can have if they stay with him in the country. These material goods include products of the land, such as fresh flowers and fine lambswool. The speaker also mentions slippers topped with “buckles of the purest gold” (line 16). Finally, he describes a belt made of hay fibers, but which is decorated with ivy and finished with “Coral clasps and Amber studs” (lines 17 and 18). All the natural products described in these stanzas seem to come effortlessly in the country, and hence are free of monetary cost. The speaker’s beloved may spend most of their time in an urban setting, where such luxury goods are prohibitively expensive. For this reason, they are likely to be tempted by the country’s natural wealth.

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