First love John Clare and sex without love, two poems written at different times, with "connected" but at the same time very different themes. First Love is a lyric poem written in the 18th century by John Clare and Sex Without Love is a more contemporary poem written in 1985 by Sharon Olds. The theme in First Love is about a person who fell in love for the first time, talking about his emotions and what happened to him when it happened, while the character in Sex Without Love criticizes people who can have sex without being involved. Love. In these two poems, which are self-explanatory with the titles (First Love and Sex Without Love), we can see that they are almost opposite poems. In the poem First Love, the character talks about how he felt and what happened to him when he first fell in love. The theme in this poem is warmer and more innocent, the character talks about his most personal feelings since he fell in love, and this makes the theme more emotional. The character begins by saying "I have never been struck before that hour by such a sudden and so sweet love", meaning that he had never been in love, a very deep and beautiful feeling, before that moment and then describes how it was that felt through the rest of the poem. While in Sex Without Love the character criticizes people who can have sex without loving each other and wonders how they can do it. This theme talks about something much more superficial and cold, also the author compares people who can have loveless sex with ice skaters, which gives us an image of coldness, but this does not mean that this poem is less profound because even if the theme is superficial and cold, the author describes it in a very detailed and profound way through metaphors and similes. In this poem the author leaves all feelings and emotions behind and talks about how superficial and cold people are who can "...make love without love." (l.1). In this poem the person begins by saying "How do those who make love without love do it?" from which we can deduce that it is not the first time they have carried out this act of coldness and selfishness.