Loyalty, love and relationships are explored through the six following poems, ˜My Last Duchess' and ˜Porphyria's lover' by Robert Browning, ˜La Belle Dame Sans Merci' by John Keats, ˜Sonnet 116' by Shakespeare, ˜Cousin Kate' by Christina Rossetti and ˜The Apparition' by John Donne. Everyone has different definitions of love, and Browning's ˜My Last Duchess' and Porphyria's Lover' are both written in the form of dramatic monologues and both explore love in the form of jealousy, possessiveness and aggressiveness. ˜La Belle Dame Sans Merci' is Keats' version of a medieval romance, where a knight falls in love with a fairy lady; the love aspect can be synonymous with ˜obsession,' similarly with Browning's interpretation of love. The love shown in John Donne's ˜The Apparition' is torn between jealous affection and bitterness. Love is shown in different ways, when contrasting John Donne's ˜The Apparition' and Robert Browning's Porphyria's Lover; ˜The Apparition' is shown clearly as jealous and vengeful love, whereas Porphyria's Lover is based on jealousy and lust. ˜Cousin Kate' carries out the themes of love and loss through the innocent and hard working ˜cottage maiden,' miserable forever when she could have been of something better and special like a ˜dove,' if she had not fallen in love with an uncaring and betrayer ˜Lord,' who had used her. The main themes within this poem are love and relationships and how people can get hurt and let down easily by the other person. Contrasting with Browning and Keats' poems, Shakespeare offers an optimistic take on love. Love here is seen as a powerful and unstoppable force of nature. Sonnet 116 acknowledges that love is a mysterious force "Whose worth's unknown", implying love is priceless and beyond the ability of man to evaluate even though "his height be taken". The significance of loyalty of love is exemplified in Browning's ˜My Last Duchess' through its main themes of jealousy, power and obsession. The Duke's love for the Duchess was possessive as he showed disapproval when she smiled at other men or when her "looks went everywhere.  Her beauty and attention was meant for himself only, and when she became too much of an annoyance he "gave commands  to stop her permanently. The Duke's love was also very selfish and arrogant. He wanted to please her mostly as a matter of pride, shown by his displeasure that her reaction to his marriage proposal was no better than her attitude to the sunset or a simple gift of a bough of cherries. He clearly takes pride in his "nine-hundred-years-old name , which he did not offer lightly to her, and even when he disapproved of her behavior, he refused to "stoop to blame  her. This shows that although he must have been attracted enough to marry her, he has no respect for her. He might have considered her as a trophy or status symbol that he shows off to his guests the way he flaunts his portrait of her now. Browning refers to his deceased wife as "my last Duchess , suggesting that there were many before her, and he is now ready to take a new wife. This shows that faith is not important to him. The paradox of love and hate seems to be resolved through the vengeful demise of ˜The Last Duchess,' Browning uses symbolism "Nay, we'll go Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though, Taming a sea horse  and put to rest any doubts. Though again there is a stretch of ambiguity in connotation, as Neptune has been known to represent control as pertaining to Ferrera's control of uncontrollable entity. The consequences of loyalty of love in this poem are understood through the cold and calculating commands of the Duke "I gave commands; then all smiles stopped together.  This suggests a murder took place, as the Duke warned her with his ambiguous ˜commands' of her to stop. He refers to his deceased wife as "My Last Duchess,  suggesting that there were many before her, and he is now ready to take a new wife. This shows that faith is not important to him, and neither is his bride's actual person. He never refers to the Duchess by name, and might not know the name of the one he will marry next, yet he calls the painter and sculptor by name, "Fra Pandolf . This indicates that his marriage is altogether a very insignificant part of his life due to her status and the fact that she is ˜his.' Moreover, the idea of his deceased ˜last Duchess' portrays the devastating consequences of a lack of loyalty in love. The significance of loyalty of love is shown in a different manner in John Donne's ˜The Apparition,' where rejection is a main theme. The bitterness of poem ˜The Apparition' shows the depth of the emotional pit into which jilted lovers can descend, consumed with spiteful venom and a desire to see their former paramour hurt as much as they have. It includes the aspect of consequence -- the measures an angry, wounded lover may take; a claim that her new lover will be unable to satisfy