Death prorogued, wanting of thy love.

ROMEO: With love’s light wings did I o’erperch these walls,
For stony limits cannot hold love out,
And what love can do, that dares love attempt.
Therefore they kinsmen are no stop to me.
JULIET: If they do see thee, they will murder thee.

Shakespeare’s language in act 2 scene 2 of Romeo and Juliet conveys a poignant, secretive euphoria between the two title characters. This scene, a mix of lover’s elated expressions and daunted fore-warnings of death, is made clear to the reader through Shakespeare’s use of blank verse, and his diction and metaphor. The mood is established and built upon, in the still of the night in a dark garden, between two longing lovers, from rival families.
Shakespeare’s use of blank verse majorly adds poetic passion to this scene. With the lovers uttering everything in iambic pentameter, the height of their passion as higher-class forbidden loves is made lucid, and we can see into their fervor for each other through this method of conveying passion. Romeo’s words flow off his tongue in gasps of five stressed syllables, and this blank verse shows the infatuation and passion of the scene. The syntax this limits Shakespeare to is not limiting to his ability to convey this passion. The fire and lust of the scene are almost accentuated even more in blank verse, because of the poetic and rhythmical nature inherent to the verse. This is a very important part of Shakespeare’s setting of the mood, and revealing the passion of the two lovers.
The Bard also uses diction to convey this secretive, fervent mood. He uses strong, universal words to portray the gravity of Romeo’s presence in the garden. He uses words like “death”, “love”, “peril”, “swords”, “hate”, and “adventure” to show the universality of the plight of the lovers. They are so infatuated with each other, and these strong words invoke feeling of life or death, love or hate, both of which are worldwide opposites. These contrasting terms, uttered between the hidden lovers, show how serious even their initial acts of love are considering who their names are. Juliet seems to be the sensible one, asking questions of Romeo, such as, “How cam’st thou hither, tell me, and wherefore?” She wants to know the practical side of things, and her words portray a young girl who is hopelessly in love, but thinking logistically. Romeo, on the other hand, seems quite nonsensical, using metaphors of the seas and sailors, and how love has wings to fly over walls which would keep others out. This juxtaposition of trepidation and thoughtless abandon to love show the two sides of Shakespeare’s mood in this scene: hidden fear and euphoric love. These elated lovers, “cloak[ed]” in “night”, are shown to be so through these narrative devices, and readers through the centuries have caught on to that mood so intimately through these methods of revealing and developing it.