For a new, or a strange,
Have attained unto Paradise, now.102
Line 9. Pelted, said of hail, not rain. Felt by nakedness, in a more severe manner than mere rain.
11. 'Weathers,' i.e., both weathers—hail and cold: the armor of the feathers against hail; the down of them against cold. See account of Feather-mail in 'Laws of Fésole,' chap, vi., p. 53, with the first and fifth plates, and figure 15.
15. Blind. By the beating of the rain in his face. In hail, there is real danger and bruising, if the hail be worth calling so, for the whole body; while in rain, if it be rain also worth calling rain, the great plague is the beating and drenching in the face.
16. Swung. Opposed to 'sit' in previous line. The human creature, though it sate steady on this unshakable earth, had no house over its head. The bird, that lived on the tremblingest and weakest of bending things, had her nest on it, in which even her infinitely tender brood were deep sheltered and warm, from the wind. It is impossible to find a lovelier instance of pure poetical antithesis.
20. House. Again antithetic to the perfect word 'Home' in the line before. A house is exactly, and only, half-way to a 'home.' Man had not yet got so far as even that! and had lost, the chorus satirically imply, even the power of getting the other half, ever, since his "She gave me of the tree."
24. Bricks. The first bad inversion permitted, for "to combine bricks with cement." In my Swallow lecture I had no time to go into the question of her building materials; the point is, however, touched upon in the Appendix (pp. 110, 112, and note).
30. 'Drill,' for 'quarry out,' 'tunnel,' etc., the best general term available.
36. Composer of the music; Poet of the meaning.