1. Describe the form and structure of the poem. What is the occasion of the poem? What two reasons does the speaker give for refusing to promise a committed love? What compromise does she suggest at the end?
The poem has three eight-line stanzas of iambic tetrameter with alternating rhyme. The speaker is refusing to exchange vows with her lover because they can’t know each other’s past and she doesn’t know how she will feel in the future. At the end she says that she hopes they can both be friends.
2. Analyze the effect on meaning of such devices as syntax, repetition, parallelism, and paradox.
The words promise and promises are repeated three times in the first two lines, emphasising the meaning of the poem. In lines 4 and 6 the speaker says “Never false and never true” and “Free to come as free to go” uses repitition and parallelism to show that their relationship is failing, and she wants to have the freedom to come and go as she pleases. In line 22 she poses a paradox, saying “Nothing more and nothing less,” which shows that she wants to remain friends like they were before.
3. Analyze the effect on meaning of the imagery and figurative language.
In line 5 the speaker says, “Let us hold the die uncast”, meaning that their marriage is fated to fail, so it is better not to start it. Lines 9-12 give the image of sunlight and warmth to symbolize her partner’s fickle nature, and the love that she had once had from other lovers. Line 15 alludes to the “fade of an image from a glass,” meaning that the past is slipping away, as is her freedom.
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