Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.
Lines 8-10
I have nothing else to give you,
so it is a pot full of yellow corn
to warm your belly in winter,
- The speaker again repeats that he has nothing else to give his lover. These lines remind us that we are dealing with one broke speaker here.
- Not to worry, though. He says his poem is "a pot full of yellow corn/ to warm your belly in winter." The speaker is using a metaphor, because he isn't saying his poem is like a pot full of corn, he is saying it is a pot full of corn.
- We don't know about you, but for us a warm pot full of corn sure hits the spot on a cold winter's night. The cold imagery in these lines points to a motif that is repeating in the poem.
- In this stanza, as in the first, we're presented with a cold, harsh environment. Brr. The point here is that the speaker wants to protect his beloved from this environment.
Lines 11-13
it is a scarf for your head, to wear
over your hair, to tie up around your face,I love you,
- In the next lines, the speaker continues using metaphor. Here he says his poem is a scarf for "your head." Again, the poem is represented as something warm and cozy and protective. It's almost intimate in the way it touches the beloved's hair and face, like the hand of a lover.
- Hey, that intimacy seems appropriate when our speaker also tells his addressee that he loves her (again, we're still assuming a he-she dynamic here). The words "I love you," are a repeated refrain in the poem. Even though the poem isn't rhymed and the lengths of the stanzas vary, the repetition of these words helps give some structure and order to the poem. (Check out "Form and Meter" for more on that.)
- The repetition of the words "I love you" not only structures the poem, it also gives us a sense of just how much this speaker loves his sweetheart. He loves her so much that… well, he can't stop saying it.