The speaker imagines her soul as a busy marketplace where she trades a lock of her own hair for one from her beloved. That dark curl, pressed to her heart, feels heavier to her than whole treasure ships. She pictures its deep blackness as the kind of shade the ancient poet Pindar might have seen falling across the white brows of the Muses, and she half believes the shadow of a laurel crown still clings to it. With a soft, kissing breath she ties the lock securely in place, vowing to keep it safe against her heart, warm with her own living heat until the moment she grows cold in death.
Every gesture here turns private, physical affection into something hallowed. The mood is one of hushed, intimate devotion, where a simple exchange of hair becomes a sacred bond. The speaker’s feeling is not just love but a reverent, almost worshipful tenderness — a pledge that feels eternal, rooted in the body yet reaching beyond it.