“(To one, it is ten years of years.
…Yet now, and in this place,
Surely she lean’d o’er me—her hair
Fell all about my face…”
In these lines, the damozel's lover appears for the first time. His comments are always surrounded by parentheses. In the stanza prior to this one, it was simply hinted that the damozel left loved ones behind who grieved for her when she died: "Albeit, to them she left, her day / Had counted as ten years" (17-8). This passage emphasizes that the damozel's lover misses the damozel more than anyone else, even after 10 years. The time that they have been apart from one another has felt like even more than ten years to the damozel's lover; it feels like "ten years of years" (19). This portrays just how deep the love between the damozel and the speaker is, and how the speaker's feelings for the damozel have not faded and diminished over time.
The fact that the damozel's lover can still feel her presence to the point where he imagines the sensation of her hair on his skin also portrays just how deeply involved the damozel still is in her lover's life. These lines also suggest an unseen connection between Heaven and Earth that the damozel and her lover are just barely able to traverse. The readers know, but not the lover, that in fact, the damozel is waiting for him, standing on a balcony in Heaven, watching over and observing her lover while trying her hardest to get him into Heaven.
“And the souls mounting up to God
Went by her like thin flames.”
In this quote, the speaker describes what the damozel sees from so high up in Heaven. She is standing on a balcony in Heaven, watching down and desperately waiting for her lover to join her. All around her, others are welcoming their loved ones, while she stays alone. Even though the titular damozel is said to be “blessed,” this does not seem to extend to her loved ones (1). In these few lines, we get a vivid evocation of what this moment must feel like to the damozel, as the souls "went by her" without ever stopping and claiming her. The deceased that God calls into Heaven are "mounting up," which implies a great number (41). The fact that generally accessing Heaven is portrayed as an easy enough process, one that requires little action on the soul's part, underscores the desperation the damozel feels to see her lover among the souls. If the process happens often and is so easy, why isn't the damozel's lover joining her in Heaven? Will he ever be able to ascend? Finally, the fact that the souls look like "thin flames" to the damozel shows her melancholy during her long wait. Fire, which is the element of passion but also can bring pain, is moving around the damozel as she sits, sad and alone.
“Have I not pray’d in Heaven? – on earth,
Lord, Lord, has he not pray’d?
Are not two prayers a perfect strength?”
These lines appear right after the damozel has begun her speaking piece in the poem. The damozel immediately addresses God in prayer, demanding an answer as to why her lover has not yet joined her in Heaven. These lines show the damozel's determination and frustration as she uses rhetorical questioning to express her concerns. These lines are even a little blasphemous—by asking "Are not two prayers a perfect strength?" the damozel questions the inherent power of prayer as well as God's power. This is the only instance throughout "The Blessed Damozel" in which the damozel's lover is shown to be Christian as well, at least in the damozel's eyes. Because of this revelation, these lines heighten the tension in the poem, as the reader realizes that the damozel's lover is praying just as fervently as she is, and there is another force at play that is keeping the damozel's lover from reaching her in Heaven. The last line of this quotation also implies something about the damozel's relationship with her lover. It appears unlikely that the damozel and her lover would have been married before her death, which means that the union of their prayers do not carry the same weight as a married couple. Additionally, the fact that there are only two prayers accounted for—the damozel's and her lover's—implies that their families and communities perhaps did not approve of this relationship, or that it was a secret.
