The metrical footing is iambic tetrameter, the rhyme scheme is abcb. The poem consists mostly of end-stopped lines. To woo thy smile, to seek thine eye. He imagines details of a possible meeting and thus makes his love very vivid for a reader. Throughout the poem the ideas seem to be in a constant flux.
All stanzas seem to be connected to each other, each taking up an idea expressed in the one before.
The first two stanzas introduce the geographical setting of the poem. He seems to allude to a historic meeting at Ardres in 1520, of Francis I of France and Henry VIII of England. The use of a simile draws attention to the connection between the past and the present. The scenery appears as beautiful as it must have seemed to these medieval knights. It is a profound wish, the reader can tell, as the lyrical self can even think of details, stressed by repetitions.