The poem begins by imagining the year as an object of the speaker's poetic attentions, but one requiring something different than the "dainty rhymes or sentimental love verses" a regular suitor might send. Then there's a shift, and the year itself is personified, anthropomorphized, and in terms tied closely to assumptions about both gender and poetry. The year is "Not . . . some pale poetling, seated at a desk, lisping cadenzas piano; / But as a strong man . . . carrying a rifle . . with a knife in the belt at your side." The lines emphasize gender conventionality, turning the poet into a lisping figure and opposing him to the manliness of the year-as-soldier.