Millay uses powerful imagery of the processes of the human body to show the weaknesses of love in its inability to heal physical sickness. She provides imagery of broken bones, impure blood, congested lungs, and a drowning man to show the physical dangers of which love is incapable of correcting. However, she also uses opposing imagery and personification to contrast love's great weaknesses with its greater strengths. This is seen when she mentions a man friending death because love is absent in his life.

Structurally, Millay uses the repetition of the word "nor" in the first half of the sonnet to emphasize the truth that love alone cannot provide the necessities of physical survival. For example, in the first six lines of the poem, she states that love cannot give a person essential things such as air, food, sleep, and shelter.

The second half of the poem presents a shift in focus from the idea that love is nonessential to a focus on the fact that the emotional nourishment love furnishes is just as important to the existence of humans as physical nourishment. Millay ends the poem by insinuating that even in one's darkest moments when one is given the choice of love and peace or physical sustenance, they often choose love.