I, being born a woman and distressed
By all the needs and notions of my kind,
With these opening lines, the poem sets about subverting the idea that women are inherently less sexual than men. It does so in a complex way. The speaker claims, somewhat sarcastically, that her femininity makes her irrational. She uses this supposed irrationality as a way to frame her sexual desires, positioning them as inherently feminine rather than unfeminine. Meanwhile, by opening with the first-person pronoun "I," Millay suggests that her speaker is self-assured and has a strong sense of identity.
and feel a certain zest
To bear your body’s weight upon my breast
Even while expressing her desire for the addressee, the speaker remains insistent that her interests are solely physical. She refers to her addressee with the phrase "your body," distinguishing the body from the rest of them to clarify that she is interested only in the former. She also refers to herself with the phrase "my breast," again suggesting that only her physical body, rather than her mind, wants to be close to the addressee. Meanwhile, the reference to bearing the addressee's weight hints that their interactions are something of a trial for the speaker, as well as reminding us of the speaker's sturdy personality.
Think not for this, however, the poor treason
Of my stout blood against my staggering brain
In these two lines, Millay for the first time disrupts her iambic pentameter meter: each has an additional eleventh syllable. It is no coincidence that these additional syllables arise when the speaker is rushing to correct her addressee's misconceptions. By altering her meter, Millay crafts an impression of haste and even mild panic. The speaker is aware that, by sharing her physical attraction to the addressee, she has unintentionally invited assumptions about her emotional state. She crams extra words into a short space in order to quickly set the record straight.
I find this frenzy insufficient reason
For conversation when we meet again.
The repeated F, S, and Z sounds of these lines are soft and sibilant, making the speaker sound relaxed and a little haughty. These sound elements fit well with the content of the closing lines. The speaker rejects the lover's companionship, not with passion, but with cool haughtiness. She appears to logically evaluate her "frenzy," assessing whether it offers a sufficient motivation for her to speak to her lover before coming to the conclusion that it does not. By presenting this exaggeratedly rational mode of decision-making, Millay lets readers know that her speaker's overt sexuality does not detract from her intelligence and logic.
