Love
In “An Arundel Tomb,” the speaker reveals conflicting feelings about love. While he’s first touched by the effigy of the earl and countess holding hands, he reasons that they likely didn’t marry for love and the sculptor may have included the entwined hands without any input from them. Nonetheless, the symbol of love and faithfulness “they hardly meant” has become the most lasting part of their legacy. The speaker’s conflicting feelings are best illustrated in the last two lines, “Our almost-instinct almost true:/What will survive of us is love.” The gesture isn’t quite a true representation of the couple, but it survives as a potent symbol.
Time
In the time since the effigy was created, the world has changed dramatically. What was likely an impressive memorial in the couple’s day (given their noble status) is now an example of the “plainness of the pre-baroque” to the speaker. As time passed, the “old tenantry,” or feudal system, was abolished, Latin lost its ubiquity, and the industrial age began, resulting in “smoke in slow suspended skeins” drifting nearby. The only things that have survived are the church’s graveyard (“the same/Bone-riddled ground”) and the effigy of the couple.
