There's a three-way wordplay and meaning-play in this one: between knowing []; neglecting or ignoring []; and [making] erroneous judgments []. And as Hasrat points out, the juxtaposition of 'knowingly to practice negligence' [] makes an enjoyably paradoxical effect. In particular, has an elegant range of meanings. Perhaps the beloved doesn't recognize the lover at all; her eye passes over him as if he were a stranger. Or perhaps she sees him as vaguely familiar, but thinks he is somebody else. Or perhaps she recognizes him, but has a mistakenly low opinion about him, and thus ignores him. What the lover begs for is the reassurance of knowing that she's ignoring or neglecting him knowingly, deliberately, with malice aforethought, because if she's taken that much trouble, she's at least not indifferent. She's at least aware of his identity and value, even if she refuses to acknowledge it. Another verse along the same general lines: 148,2 . This verse is really pretty much one-dimensional and prose-paraphraseable. The doesn't have any affinity with the rest of the verse. That's the real deficiency. It feels as though the rhyming elements , and above all the need to find suitable words ending in the rhyme -syllable , may have proved to be a bit of a constraint in this case. graphics/heedless.jpg