Explication of 'Blow, blow, thou winter wind'

Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
  Thou art not so unkind
    As man’s ingratitude;
  Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
   Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
  Then, heigh-ho, the holly!
    This life is most jolly.

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
That dost not bite so nigh
    As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
  Thy sting is not so sharp
  As friend remembered not.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly...

                                     William Shakespeare


Source: Saylor.org

This poem dramatizes a situation in which the poet has been forgotten by a beloved friend. The forgetting is made crueller by the season, Christmas, a time when we normally wish everyone well, but especially friends and family. The actions of the friend are highlighted in the first stanza where he has "blow[n]" (1)  off the poet, behaving with "ingratitude"(3) and "rude[ness]" (6) by "not [being] seen"(5).  The poet's reaction to his friend's behaviour is highlighted in the second stanza where he will "freeze"(11) him out when he does come "nigh"(12) and will not forget the friend's forgetting of him, and this "freeze" will "sting"(15)  the friend more than his "ingratitude"(3) stung the poet.

The poems form and rhyme scheme mimic the broken relationship with the double words, 'Blow, blow' (1) and 'Freeze, freeze' (11) at the beginning of each stanza emphasizing pairs or couplets. The form is a play on the Italian sonnet which is usually 14 lines broken into two stanzas of eight and six lines. The rhythmic pattern of the first stanza is aabccbeeee -- a couplet followed by a second broken couplet bracketing a third couplet and then the introduction of a new repeated rhyme. The first couplet (the friend) is separated from the enclosed couplet (the poet) by a broken couplet (the friend's behaviour).  The couplet pattern emphasizes the end words: wind/unkind (for the friend, unseen as the wind, but whose absence, an 'unkind[ness]' (2) is felt just as the wind can be felt), keen/seen (for the poet, who is 'keen' to be 'seen' and remembered) separated by ingratitude/rude[ness] (the behaviour of the friend).  The new rhyme introduced at the end of the stanza is in the form of a refrain; a form usually found in a ballad and indicative of a story being told. The rhyme pattern of the refrain is eeee; which implies the poet is obsessing over what has occurred. 

The new rhyme words introduced in the refrain are "holly/folly". 'Holly' is associated with Christmas and the idea of everlasting as it is forever green; as one would hope a loving friendship would be, but, it has now become 'folly'. The importance of the second line of the refrain "Most friendship is feigning, most love folly" is highlighted by it's positioning: it is the 8th line in the first stanza which would, in a standard sonnet, be the last line of the first stanza. The friendship was false, temporary, and the poet has been a fool ('folly') to think it based on love.  The introduction of the refrain breaks the form of the sonnet, just as the friendship has been broken. The choice of words for the refrain are telling in that "Heigh-ho!"(7) can be seen as an exclamation of happy surprise or as one of sadness and weariness while "feigning"(8) can mean "to put on an appearance" and here we are told the friend has not appeared: "Because thou art not seen,"(5). The overall effect being double: the poet would be happy to see his friend but is instead sad for not seeing him. 

The first six lines of the second stanza follow the same rhythmic schema of couplet, broken couplet, enclosed couplet: ffghhg, with a new set of end words: sky/nigh (11/12), warp/sharp (14/15), separated now by forgot/not (13/16).  Now the friend, when he comes near ('nigh'), will be treated harshly ('sharp') as his slight ('warp') is not 'forgot'. The last line of the stanza is a repeat of the first line of the refrain at the end of the first stanza; that it trails off emphasizes the idea of being forgotten, just as the poet will now forget the friend who chose to forget him. The opening words of the stanza: "Freeze, freeze", emphasize the coldness the poet now feels toward the friend and the desire to "sting"(15) him just as he has been stung. That the poet has succeeded is intimated by  "thou bitter sky"(11) implying the friend is now "bitter" at being forgotten by the poet.

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This explication was a response to Exercise 2.5.1 in Saylor's ENGL101. After completing the above I did a quick search on the web to see how my reading compared with that of others and discovered (1) that the poem is really a speech from Act 2, Scene VII of As You Like It, and (2) it is generally described as a 'song'.  

I haven't read As You Like It since the '70's and remember very little of it but in reading a footnote quoting a commentary by Warburton on page 188 of As You Like It, 9th Edition, edited by Horace Howard Furness, found that Amiens was a loyal follower of Duke Senior who has been sent into exile partly due to the "ingratitude of his faithless courtiers" so I think my reading plays into the idea of Amiens feeling for the harm done to the Duke and a desire for revenge on those faithless courtiers; in fact, the song may be a microcosm of what happens in the text as the Duke is eventually restored to his position and Amiens and the Duke will be in a position to give those same faithless courtiers a cold shoulder ('freeze' them out). Although I really need to re-read the whole play to be sure on this point.