In the opening line, the speaker uses personification to personify the paper that he used to write his love letter. He personifies the paper as "innocent." In the second line, the speaker says that the woman to whom he sent the love letter took out her "yre," or anger, on the "innocent" paper. The implication is that she did not like the speaker's love letter.

In the third line, the speaker continues the personification of the paper, or letter, when he says "thy cause," and in the fourth line, the speaker also uses personification to describe the fire as "greedy." The fire is described as "greedy" to suggest how quickly it destroyed the love letter once the woman threw the letter into the fire.

In line 5,the speaker uses direct address to speak directly to the paper. He says, "Well worthy thou to have found better hyre." The speaker's meaning here is that the paper might have been treated better by the woman. In the sixth line, the speaker uses a metaphor when he compares the woman's treatment of the paper to the treatment often received by heretics. He says that the fate of the paper is comparable to the "bad end for hereticks ordained," meaning that heretics were often burned just like the paper. In lines 7 and 8, the speaker again uses personification when he says that the paper did not deserve its fate because it did not commit heresy, but was rather simply "plead[ing] thy maister's cause."

Line 9 represents the volta of the poem. The volta is the line in a poem where the focus shifts, and in line 9, the focus shifts from the woman's response to the love letter to the speaker's reasons for writing the love letter. The speaker says that he wrote the letter because he was "all carelesse of his griefe." In other words, he was unable to restrain his grief. The implication is that he is in love with this woman but has been rejected by her. In line 10, the speaker refers to himself in the third person perspective as "his." He says that he wrote the letter to give release to "th' anguish of his hart." Referring to himself in the third person suggests that the speaker now feels separate form the version of himself that wrote the letter.

In line 11, there is alliteration in "would not heare, when he to her complayned." This describes the woman's refusal to listen to the speaker's complaints in the letter. The alliteration of the h sound creates a breathy voice which perhaps suggests the speaker's sighs or his breathless anxiety. The speaker also uses alliteration in line 12 with "piteous passion." The alliteration here emphasizes the extreme grief implied by the phrase.

In line 13, the speaker uses the imperative phrase "live for ever." He is here ordering his love to endure regardless of the fact that it is not reciprocated. In the final line of the poem, line 14, the speaker uses another imperative phrase with "speake her good." Here, the speaker is reminding himself to always speak well of the woman he loves, despite the fact that she responds negatively to his professions of love.