Love at First Sight

“Love at First Sight” is written in free verse, meaning the poem has no consistent rhyme or meter. It contains 44 lines and eight stanzas.

As in her other poetic works, Szymborska uses simple, concise language. The everyday register of her vocabulary and her casual manner make the poem accessible to readers of all levels. While her message is not to be taken lightly, her use of poetic irony also keeps it from being too serious—or even preachy. Szymborska does not scold; she gently teases. Her topics are serious, but she does not resign her verse to a serious form and meter. Her tone is conversational—the lines ebb and flow as if the thoughts are occurring to the speaker as they go. “Love at First Sight” is suffused with a subtle, tasteful sense of fun.

In literary terms, irony is when the reality of a thing is not as it seems. It is the tension between how things appear and how they actually are. Here, the lovers’ belief that they fell in love at first sight is ironic because they may have met many times before.