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The title "A Poet's Love" supports lbridger's idea that, like Written Beneath a Picture, A Poet's Love values a presence more than a person. When the title is read before the poem, the question "What is the poet's love" forms, and guides the reading of the poem. But by the end of the poem, the question cannot be sufficiently answered because it is hard to tell whether L.E.L. is writing to a person or to an idea.

One option is that she is writing to a Love, as in a person she loved. This can easily be supported with lines like, "Long time that sweet face was my guiding star." The other option is that the person was a means through which L.E.L. could attain her true love-writing poetry. With the loss of her love she loses her "imagination's dower," so the fact the this person inspired her poetry is apparent to the reader. If the second option is the case, the poem is a mourning for a person not because of who he or she was, but because of what he/she inspried in the poet.

The real question is then, "Was L.E.L. in love with the person who inspired her poetry, or was she in love with the inspiration for poetry the person provided?"