The speaker is caught in a painful contradiction: he wants the person he loves to stay away, because being physically together makes him feel he loses them. When they are present—sitting, speaking, touching—he says he will forget them, no longer see them, no longer hear their music. Holding them body to body only makes him chase the thought of them. Instead, he finds them more vividly in absence: in wind, gray cloud, sunlight slipping through trees, and darkened branches. The mood is strange, tender, and a little sad. This is not cold rejection; it is a confession that memory and longing feel more real to him than physical closeness. The final plea—“be even a little bolder / And do not come”—is both perverse and intimate, asking the beloved to trust that distance is how he keeps them.
Perversities I — Summary
Now come, And I that moment will forget you. Sit here And in your eyes I shall not see you. Speak, speak That I no more may hear your music. Into my arms, Till I've forgotten I ever met you.
I shall not have you when I hold you Body to body, Though your firm flesh, though your strong fingers Be knit to these. On a wild hill I shall be chasing The thought of you; False will be those true things I told you: I shall forget you.
No, do not come. Where the wind hunts, there shall I find you. In cool gray cloud Where the sun slips through I shall see you, Or where the trees Are silenced, and darken in their branches. Your coming would Loosen, when my thought still would bind you.
Against my shoulder your warm shoulder When last you leaned-- Think, were you nearer then and dearer, Or I more glad? O eternal love, your body brings you No nearer. Trust me, be bold, be even a little bolder And do not come.