The formal Vy again, and a suit that forbids itself. “Madame, I want you in every sense — you are so sweet that I cannot propose.” The pleasures are catalogued with old-fashioned care: birdsong, the bass of a waterfall, a smile “without an admixture of unfreedom,” eyes like the gleam of a ruby, features that are “a reflection of a dream, like space for a fledgling.” She is so light, so beautiful, that he “will not allow himself” to offer his hand and heart, “though I shall have to live in suffering.” Nineteenth-century courtesy in a very modern first line. The old-fashioned address gives the desire both charm and frustration. Politeness becomes another barrier, a costume the speaker cannot quite remove. The poem is playful because it knows the distance between social form and bodily longing, and keeps both visible at once.