A man offers the speaker his “perfect world” in the name of love, but she sees it as cramped and unattractive. She calls it a “little silly ball” and throws it straight back at him. Her anger is aimed at someone she calls a “cold moralist” — a person who prizes order, purity, and symmetry over anything living or emotionally generous. He finds safety in a tiny, ordered universe; she experiences it as a cage. The tone is hot and defiant. She is not charmed by his neat ideals; she feels confined by them. The repeated words “perfect,” “pure,” and “symmetrical” sound stifling rather than admirable, and her violent reaction makes the mood sharp, dismissive, and liberated. The small, tidy world he offers may be flawless in his eyes, but for her it has no warmth or loveliness, so she refuses it without regret.
Gift to a Jade — Summary
For love he offered me his perfect world. This world was so constricted, and so small, It had no sort of loveliness at all, And I flung back the little silly ball. At that cold moralist I hotly hurled, His perfect pure symmetrical small world.