In her poem, "Patterns," Amy Lowell reveals the thoughts of a woman who has recently lost her fiancé in a war as she wanders through an Elizabethan garden. One of the underlying themes found in this poem is the idea that life without love becomes nothing more than a series of meaningless repetitions. This idea can be examined by looking at the stanzas in which the author deals with repetition, the stanzas in which she deals with love, and the images which she uses to convey the opposition that exists between love and repetition.

The stanzas in which the author describes the repetitiveness of the persona's life after the death of her love are themselves repetitive. In the first stanza, Lowell alludes thrice to the narrator's pacing through the garden: "I walk down the garden paths"(line 1), "I walk down the patterned garden paths"(line 4),"As I wander down the garden paths"(lines 8-9). The various parts of the poem in which the narrator deals with her current misery are filled with references to her pacing and her rigid observal of society's customs -- expressed as her wearing of the unwieldy dress and her treatment of the messenger. The stanzas that deal with the "patterns" the poem is named after are themselves a pattern. They cover very little new material; her actions are the same as they were in the previous stanza.

Opposing the dull repetition of the persona's current life, the stanzas that deal with love are filled with dynamic energy. The narrator's actions in these sections are filled with careless abandon, as in stanza four. She runs gaily through the paths and leads her fiancé in a chase through the maze-like garden. The narrator also comes out and states that love would break the pattern of the lovers' lives: "We would have broke the pattern, He for me, and I for him." In these stanzas, the narrators voice stanzas move more quickly and with much more excitement. Her actions during the imaginary return of her lover suggest that she would discard the patterns that now rule her life for the ultimate in dynamic forces, love.

The author uses many images to suggest the contrast between repetition and love. Repetition represents all that is expected by society or is the "expected" action. Repetition is characterized as the elaborate, stiff necked gown the narrator wears. Love is that same dress being torn off in passionate reunion. Repetition is her steady pacing through the garden, love is leading her fiancé in a chase through a leafy maze. The dress itself is a metaphor for the patterns that control the persona's life: "And the softness of my body will be guarded from embrace, by each button, hook, and lace."(lines 102-103)

A broader social implication can be found in the narrator's final question: "What are patterns for?" Patterns are nothing more than a dulled and tarnished reflection and love, and true living. Society has presented these patterns as what is "correct" and "proper." In fact they are perverted imitations of true life, love, which conforms to no one's rules. People pour their lives into meaningless causes and paradigms. From the poem, war stands out as the most counterproductive human endeavor yet known, yet it has been repeated incessantly throughout history and killing has been accepted as a basis for many societies. Love must become the focus of society, rather than the meaningless patterns we have created for our lives.