I measure every Grief I meet Exploration Quotes

The mention of a meeting between the speaker and grief brings us into the social world, suggesting that she is getting to know someone else who's sad. But in the second line, the speaker reveals her method: she "explores" other people's grief not necessarily by talking to them or getting to know them, but just by looking at them, by using her probing eyes. Her exploration occurs in her mind, pretty exclusively, as she drums up and chucks out possibilities throughout the poem without ever confirming that they're true.

Vision is key to the speaker's method of exploring, since what she "notes" here is purely visual. She's basically saying that she has seen some depressed people smile, and this sets off a chain of thoughts about whether or not their happiness is real in the first place. Notice again though that she provides no evidence in the traditional sense, it's all coming from her own thought processes.

The speaker uses gossip as proof of her next point—that there are many people who suffer in the world. The language is vague, as we don't know who told her this. But we doubt she cares, because she's all about the comfort this knowledge brings her, at the end of the poem.

Ah, there's been a language shift in the poem. The poem's early language of measuring and probing has been replaced with guesswork. The act of exploring the sadness of others is kind of a game, but it doesn't matter if you have the right answers. In fact, not having the answers gives the speaker the ability to invent her own, which is pretty handy.

This stanza's a toughie, mostly because of the first line, "fashions—of the Cross"—what does that mean? Well, it could mean several things. It could be a clever, poetic echo of the Passion of Christ, in which case it is another reference to a kind of divine suffering. But could also refer to the practice of wearing religious apparel when one is mourning. In that case the "fashions" could stand in for all the ways that people announce their suffering in what they wear and how they present themselves. In any case, once again the poem puts forth the central mode of exploration—watching, and taking note, but passively. In the end, after all of her exploration and speculation, what the speaker discovers is comfort.