"Before the Mirror": A reflection of man to woman

In Swinburne's Before the Mirror, there are quite a few similarities between this poem and Owen's Greater Love. They both deal with estranged emotions, mainly love, and how between the genders they feel disconnected. However, the paths the two poems take differ as I feel Owen's poem speaks of the complete separation between the emotions of men and women, while in Swinburne he slightly covers this idea, but in the end suggests that both genders are similar because both of them have felt loss.

Below is a copy of my notes on Before the Mirror- I hope you enjoy, and if you want to see my thoughts on Greater Love to really compare the ideas, the link is right here: http://adrienne-hlenglish.blogspot.com/2011/11/wilfred-owens-greater-love-for-war.html

Some overall ideas I found in the poem (hopefully these will become clear upon reading the marked up poem at the bottom):

• Similar to Greater Love
• Things have changed since the war began- from naivety of love/ goodness to the actuality of love / badness
• love is mysterious/unknown: soldiers don't really know what it is, only what they are told
• Separation between women and soldiers, one of them doesn't belong
• Different from Greater Love
• Women have watched things pass/die: they have changed too, like the soldiers
• the two may not be so different after all: there are sorrows for both genders

And I guess, the relevance of the title... hmm... Before the Mirror:

Okay, so a mirror is a reflection, a copy, and "before" implies that you're standing before it- so you're looking into a mirror, and seeing yourself: in the poem, there is something that resemblances this: "I watch my face, and wonder / at my bright hair". I thought at this point it was like the author didn't know himself. He was an alien to himself, didn't recognize himself. So maybe by the title, "Before the Mirror" the author meant that he was exploring an idea central to the soldier, and that when he looked into the mirror for answers, he saw himself. And this connects to the idea that both women and men suffered losses and emotions. The two are reflections of each other.

Marked-up version: