The speaker makes two short, strange requests. In the first, they address a "Shrove Tuesday rider," a figure tied to the last day of feasting before Lent, and ask for "pretty knives / with agate shafts." The knives are beautiful, with handles of banded stone, yet they are still blades. In the second, the speaker turns to the "cold world" and asks for "a heart to pare," as if a heart were a fruit or a potato to be peeled.
The mood is tense and a little unsettling. The festive title clashes with the bare, wintry language, and the speaker seems to want something sharp to cut away at feeling. "Pare" suggests trimming down or stripping back, so the poem may be about wanting to pare away softness or pain, or about being handed a heart and nothing gentle to do with it. Judging by the imagery, the speaker feels chilled and ready for a kind of sacrifice, treating loss almost like a ritual.