This poem forces the reader to look through the eyes of a suitor trying to convince a woman to have sex with him. The poems oddest feature in my opinion is the fact that the breaks come at times that make sense in the narrative but not in the verse/poetry. I believe that the stanza breaks are places where the woman is interrupting or asking questions. This causes me to wonder about the woman and puts the man in the background of my mind.
The patterns of the poem are part of a thread that seems to reach outside of the person of the NARRATOR (hereafter referred to in this way). In the world of this poem the only place this thread could reach to is that of the OBJECT (the woman, hereafter referred as such). Thus the NARRATOR is not reciting but speaking. Look at this section:
But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near"
This is the end of the first stanza and the beginning of the second. Note the NARRATOR's different punctuation. The NARRATOR seems to be speeding up, as if needing to press the point. The only logical reason to believe for this happening is input from outside his thoughts. This must mean that the OBJECT has done something! That would make this neither poem or spoken word but part of a conversation between the NARRATOR and the OBJECT. Look at this section:
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;"
Again the NARRATOR has changed speeds! Could more have been said by the OBJECT? That is once again the logical conclusion. Something the OBJECT said has made the NARRATOR slow down once more. Has he finally gotten her attention or is he himself more calm and willing to ease the tensity he is feeling in these words?
We will never know. Nor will we know what the OBJECT has said or done to makie the NARRATOR speed up in the second stanza and then slow down in the third. This is a loss we have but brought upon ourselves for studying the words of the dead. May they and the words they uttered rest in peace in the grave the NARRATOR feared they would be in.
I do still wonder whether the NARRATOR was succesful, though. Such tragedy this waste of living can be.