-- St. 5. Love: settling on the minds of men, the level and low, the burnt and bare, is compared to the cricket and the butterfly settling on the turf and the rock.
-- * In the original ed., 1864, the heading to this section was ‘Under the Cliff’; changed in ed. of 1868. --
“Still ailing, Wind? Wilt be appeased or no? Which needs the other’s office, thou or I? Dost want to be disburthened of a woe, And can, in truth, my voice untie Its links, and let it go?
“Art thou a dumb, wronged thing that would be righted, Entrusting thus thy cause to me? Forbear! No tongue can mend such pleadings; faith, requited With falsehood,--love, at last aware Of scorn,--hopes, early blighted,--
“We have them; but I know not any tone So fit as thine to falter forth a sorrow: Dost think men would go mad without a moan, If they knew any way to borrow A pathos like thy own?
“Which sigh wouldst mock, of all the sighs? The one So long escaping from lips starved and blue, That lasts while on her pallet-bed the nun Stretches her length; her foot comes through The straw she shivers on;
“You had not thought she was so tall: and spent, Her shrunk lids open, her lean fingers shut Close, close, their sharp and livid nails indent The clammy palm; then all is mute: That way, the spirit went.
“Or wouldst thou rather that I understand Thy will to help me?--like the dog I found Once, pacing sad this solitary strand, Who would not take my food, poor hound, But whined, and licked my hand.”
-- St. 1-6. See foot-note to the Argument of this section.
All this, and more, comes from some young man’s pride Of power to see,--in failure and mistake, Relinquishment, disgrace, on every side,-- Merely examples for his sake, Helps to his path untried:
Instances he must--simply recognize? Oh, more than so!--must, with a learner’s zeal, Make doubly prominent, twice emphasize, By added touches that reveal The god in babe’s disguise.
Oh, he knows what defeat means, and the rest! Himself the undefeated that shall be: Failure, disgrace, he flings them you to test,-- His triumph, in eternity Too plainly manifest!
-- St. 7-9. She reflects, ironically and sarcastically, upon the confidence of the young poet, resulting from his immaturity, in his future triumph over all obstacles. Inexperienced as he is, he feels himself the god in babe’s disguise, etc. He will learn after a while what the wind means in its moaning. The train of thought in St. 11-16 is presented in the Argument.