I worked no wile to meet you

Song Meaning

This song paints a picture of a fated, almost accidental meeting, where neither party was looking for the other. The narrator explicitly states, "I worked no wile to meet you," and "My sight was set elsewhere." The initial encounter seems to have been an imposition, a meeting that happened despite their best efforts to avoid it. The narrator even admits, "I sheered about to shun you," suggesting a deliberate attempt to keep their distance. It feels like a reluctant convergence, driven by external forces rather than mutual desire. The core tension lies in the unexpectedness and apparent lack of agency in the connection. The narrator wasn't prepared, "unprimed to greet you," and the meeting itself was a product of "Constraint alone." Similarly, the other person also had no intention of seeing the narrator, stating, "You did not seek to see me / Then or at all." Their paths crossing seems to have been a disruption, a series of "stumblingblocks" that prevented them from moving past each other. The lyrics' most striking feature is the archaic and formal language, which creates a sense of timelessness and inevitability. Words like "wile," "sheered," "unprimed," "enearth," and "hydromels" lend a poetic, almost mythic quality to what could otherwise be a simple narrative of a chance encounter. This elevated diction suggests that the meeting, however unplanned, was significant enough to be framed in grand, almost cosmic terms, as if guided by forces beyond human control. Ultimately, the song's power comes from this juxtaposition of reluctant individuals and a seemingly predestined outcome. The final stanza speaks of "the flux of flustering hours" that, "By no device of ours," brought them together. It suggests that some connections are less about active pursuit and more about being swept along by the currents of time and fate, leading to an unexpected, almost miraculous outcome where "daysprings well us / Heart-hydromels that cheer."