Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.
Her voice was low at first, being full of tears,
But as it cleared, it grew full loud and shrill,
Growing a windy shriek in all men's ears,
A ringing in their startled brains, until
She said that Gauwaine lied, then her voice sunk,
And her great eyes began again to fill,
Though still she stood right up, and never shrunk,
But spoke on bravely, glorious lady fair!
Whatever tears her full lips may have drunk,
She stood, and seemed to think, and wrung her hair,
Spoke out at last with no more trace of shame,
With passionate twisting of her body there:
- Now the narrator takes over again, giving the female speaker a bit of a break.
- The narrator says that although her voice had started out quiet because she had been crying, by the end of that first speech she had gotten louder and more confident until it was almost too loud – a "windy shriek."
- But then, at the end, when she said that Gauwaine lied, her voice got all quiet again and her eyes filled with tears.
- But still, she stood there and kept talking.
- The narrator seems to admire the woman's spunk – he calls her brave and "glorious lady fair."
- She pauses to think while standing there, then continues speaking, no longer seeming as ashamed as she did at the beginning.