This poem is done in a quiet speaking voice, a voice dramatically muted and sad; it has the drift and ellipsis of rueful musing, and the feminine line endings facilitate the flow of that musing. The recapitulation which begins in line 12 lets us know that the speaker has projected her own neediness on the addressee, and this is powerful in effect but still quiet in tone. “keeping unasked promises, willful, waiting” is a brilliant line which the reader must pause and unfold. And the near-rhyme of “waiting” and “letting” concludes the poem without disrupting the tone.
~Richard Wilbur
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