Question

Read the excerpt.

Answer 1

The excerpt “But what if I fail of my purpose here?/ It is but to keep the nerves at strain,/ To dry one’s eyes and laugh at a fall, / And, baffled, get up and begin again, /— So the chase takes up one’s life, that’s all” reveals that the speaker will never give up the pursuit for his beloved: while the first verse contemplates the prospect of failure, the following disclose an inclination toward resilience that is reenforced in the other sections of the piece. The speaker’s views on love and the pursuit of love being a product of fate rather than the speaker's own will and romantic inclinations demonstrate how the acceptance of his fate and the manner with which he allows said fate to shape his life – and, to an extent, himself – is also a commentary on how love is perceived as a struggle, as an endeavour, as something that the speaker must adapt to in order to dominate. The speaker’s love for his beloved is not a passing fancy, it is something that he ultimately accepts and fights for.