Is "was" or "is" correct her

Question

"All you'd give me

Was a promise."

"All you'd give me

Is a promise."

Answer 1

I don’t agree. I think the is/was follows the tense of “give”, which is present. Actually , present subjunctive. Thus

All you'd give me

Is a promise. (Or… would be a promise)

as opposed to past subjunctive:

All you’d have given me

Was a promise. (Or even, would have been a promise)

if I changed it to future it would be

All you’ll give me

will be a promise.

Subjunctive is harder to detect in English because the verb ending doesn’t make it obvious, as it does in Spanish, for example. It depends on a helper word indicating doubt, like would, could, should… and so on. When you also introduce a shortened form, a contraction , “you’d” instead of “you would”, that hides the helper word. In fact, the ‘d is part of the verb that follows it, making the verb “would give”. Present subjunctive.

if you remove the contraction, the correct choice becomes more obvious.

I hope the explanation helps clarify this!

Answer 2

It depends on what the contraction in You'd is supposed to replace.

If it's had, then the verb phrase is past perfect tense and give should be given as in "you had given" me.

In the second verse the you'd could mean you would give me. Technically, it should stay in past tense, which would be would have given me.

Poetry is a fickle, however, and allows for some grammatical nuances. I believe the second verse reads and flows nicely the way it is.