Well, and if none of these good things came, What did the failure prove? The man was my whole world, all the same, With his flowers to praise or his weeds to blame, And, either or both, to love.
-- St. 6. The failure of fruit in her husband proved the absoluteness of her love, proved that he was her all, notwithstanding.
Yet this turns now to a fault--there! there! That I do love, watch too long, And wait too well, and weary and wear; And ‘tis all an old story, and my despair Fit subject for some new song:
-- St. 7. Yet this turns now to a fault: i.e., her watching the olive and waiting the vine of his nature. there! there!: I’ve come out plainly with the fact.
“How the light, light love, he has wings to fly At suspicion of a bond: My wisdom has bidden your pleasure good-bye, Which will turn up next in a laughing eye, And why should you look beyond?”
-- St. 8. bond: refers to what is said in St. 7; why should you look beyond?: i.e., beyond a laughing eye, which does not “watch” and “wait”, and thus “weary” and “wear”.
I leaned on the turf, I looked at a rock Left dry by the surf; For the turf, to call it grass were to mock: Dead to the roots, so deep was done The work of the summer sun.
And the rock lay flat As an anvil’s face: No iron like that! Baked dry; of a weed, of a shell, no trace: Sunshine outside, but ice at the core, Death’s altar by the lone shore.
On the turf, sprang gay With his films of blue, No cricket, I’ll say, But a warhorse, barded and chanfroned too, The gift of a quixote-mage to his knight, Real fairy, with wings all right.
-- St. 3. No cricket, I’ll say: but to my lively admiration, a warhorse, barded and chanfroned too: see Webster’s Dict., s.v. “chamfrain”. { also chamfron: armor for a horse’s head}.
On the rock, they scorch Like a drop of fire From a brandished torch, Fall two red fans of a butterfly: No turf, no rock,--in their ugly stead, See, wonderful blue and red!
-- St. 4. they: i.e., the ‘two red fans’. no turf, no rock: i.e., the eye is taken up entirely with cricket and butterfly; blue and red refer respectively to cricket and butterfly.
Is it not so With the minds of men? The level and low, The burnt and bare, in themselves; but then With such a blue and red grace, not theirs, Love settling unawares!