In the first two stanzas, the speaker relates to a "love"
that he is unable to woo at first. He must work hard at it, drawing “by force/a thousand
sighs a day, kindling again/in her cold mind a thousand high desires.” The second
stanza suggests that this person has done him wrong. He’s comparing his love to someone
“who feels regret...for causing someone’s suffering by mistake.” While this is a
comparison, it still suggests that she’s not treated him fairly, but that he’s willing
to look past that.
The scarlet roses in the
snow and the ivory that “turns to marble those who see in near them” can be looked at
symbolically. There’s a sense of purity, but also of blemish. Again, he’s willing to let
the “blemish” of the roses roll past him because of his love for her. Finally, in the
last stanza, he knows that this will cause great suffering, but he doesn’t “mind/[his]
discontentment in this one short life,/but [looks for] glory rather in [his] later fame.
The later fame is the afterlife.
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