Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.
Lines 61-66
(Ah sweet! Even now, in that bird's song,
Strove not her accents there,
Fain to be hearken'd? When those bells
Possess'd the mid-day air,
Strove not her steps to reach my side
Down all the echoing stair?)
- Parentheses time: just like in stanza 4, we lapse into first-person here.
- We don't want to go out on a limb (or over a balcony) here, but it seems like these lines are being spoken by the damozel's lover, who is left behind on Earth (you know, alive) while she is up in heaven without him.
- We say that because a) she seems to be awfully sad and lonely, b) she's fixated on what's happening on Earth, and c) this first-person speaker seems likewise to miss the damsel.
- He seems to hear her voice in a bird's song ("Strove no her accents there") (62). It's as though she's trying to speak to him through the bird, as he describes her voice ("accents") as being pleased ("Fain") to be heard ("hearken'd") (63) in the bird's song.
- It's not just the bird that reminds the speaker of this young woman. The bells (nearby church bells, we're guessing) seem to come to him as she might, walking down a staircase from on high to reach his side.
- This guy is as hung up on the damozel as she is on him, apparently. It really is too bad that she's stuck up there in heaven.