Background
You sort of have to understand something about the literature Victorian Period. Maybe more to the point, you need to understand how women were seen by men. You also have to understand that this series of poems was written, not to a general beloved, but to a husband -- or this case a man who is about to become her husband. Men in general treated women a little like a lap dog or an ornamental vase. It was the last major era that women permitted it or that men could actually maintain such a stupid stance. I've often remarked that the largest enslaved class throughout history is women. I would have hated to be a colored woman during the reconstruction period in the United States, which coincides somewhat with the Victorian era. (Just to clarify, I am a guy).
Overview
What you have to understand is that this poem reflects the feelings of a woman who is 1/2 Petrarchean and 1/2 "modern." The Petrarchean part of her is not yet willing to declare what she feels, and you can bet your sandles her feelings are deep and true. There is no falsity in her love. None at all. But there is a quiet inability to make her feelings known. As we shall discover, it is not because she doesn't have the skills. It is because she is just not ready to say what she feels. One more thing I should try and make clear: she suffered from some physical disability, and although no one is suggesting it, she cannot believe that her robust, energetic Husband could possibly love someone like her. That really is not a trivial consideration. Any woman in any era would feel that way. They would see themselves as unattractive: let me assure you that Robert returned her feelings. It was one of the great love matches recorded in History.
Poem and Answer to Your questions.
1. He is asking (in a very brief statement) for her to declare her love openly. That's about as simple of way of putting it as possible. Read the first 4 lines. It cannot be any clearer what he is requesting. She is putting it in the form of a question. Narrow it down to the first sentence and 1/2. Effectively the sentence is saying "would you have me fashion into words what is inside me?"
She develops a comparison of the task to a torch which she drops at his feet. Ignore the fact that the torch was lit and cast light on both their faces.
The next set of lines begins by saying "I cannot teach my hand to keep my spirit so far away from me. This means that she cannot teach her hand to hold the torch (her spirit) so far from her. It's another way of saying that she is mute, but not because there is nothing there. There is much there. You want words? At this time I can't give you any.
She responds to his request with silence, but she is not without deep love. She wants her writing to be her deepest most heart felt voice. It is the written declaration she sends him. It is her emissary.
She is pleading with him to let her womanly silence be her voice. She wants him to understand that there is something to be said. She just can't say it now. She is begging him not to misinterpret what her silence means.
As we find out in other poems she wrote, she did not misplace her trust.
