I love and yet am forced to seem to hate
-- Speaker (Line 2)

Importance: This quote presents the speaker's predicament with the clarity that is so characteristic of the poem. She feels "love," expressed with straightforward and unequivocal feeling, but she cannot show it (2). Instead, she is in the painful position of having to feign the exact opposite emotion, "hate" (2). Why, precisely, this is necessary the speaker does not clarify, but her depiction of the impossible position she is in is clear and evocative.

I do, yet dare not say I ever meant
-- Speaker (Line 3)

Importance: In a poem otherwise characterized by clarity, this line is somewhat equivocal. It relies on the poem's primary literary device –paradox – juxtaposing doing with the inability to admit even the intent to do. But what, exactly, is being done or meant here is somewhat unclear. It is possible the speaker means to reference the exchange of wedding vows with the words...