Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.
As though she had had there a shameful blow,
And feeling it shameful to feel ought but shame
All through her heart, yet felt her cheek burned so,
She must a little touch it; like one lame
She walked away from Gauwaine, with her head
Still lifted up; and on her cheek of flame
The tears dried quick; she stopped at last and said:
"O knights and lords, it seems but little skill
To talk of well-known things past now and dead.
- The speaker's hand touches her cheek as though someone smacked her.
- She thinks it would be "shameful" not to feel shame, and feels her cheeks burn with a blush.
- Why is she ashamed? Is it because she doesn't like speaking in public, or because of something else? We just don't know yet.
- She touches her own cheek because she can feel the blush there. Is she trying to hide the blush, or is the "burn" of the blush almost painful?
- She walks away from some guy named Gauwaine with her head held proudly up, in spite of the fact that she's blushing beet red.
- There is no punctuation between lines 9 and 10 to divide Stanza 3 from Stanza 4, forcing the reader to move quickly from one line to the next – this effect sort of imitates the way that the still-unnamed woman is walking quickly away from Gauwaine.
- We also learn that she had been crying, but now the "tears" on her cheeks are dry.
- Finally, she stops walking and starts talking, addressing a group of unnamed "knights and lords" about the past.
- She doesn't seem to want to bring it up, because she says that what she's going to tell them is already "well-known."