Dear mav: you evidently have your poetic license. I cannot find fault with your exposition of the lines, except to say again that without knowledge of Maud Gonne, the poem makes no sense. She wanted a soldier, not a poet. What's in a name that rhymes with "gun"?
"Sie war liebenswürdig, Und er liebte sie. Er aber war nicht liebenswürdig, Und sie liebte ihn nicht." But 'twas better to be a live poet than an executed Major MacBride.