The second stanza continues where stanza one leaves off by giving a deeper description of the girl.
After describing her physical features in the first stanza, the second continues to describe the girl's personality:
"Her Wars were bruited in our high window.
We looked among orchard trees and beyond
Where she took arms against her shadow,
Or harried unto the pond" (Ransom 1)
Her childishness becomes apparent in her fantasies of "bruited" "wars" "where she took arms against her "shadow" or "harried the pond." These noisy battles surface memories of either fondness or annoyance. In one aspect, a fond look into the child's psyche musters up feelings of adoration from the sentimental cuteness of pre-adolescent immaturity. This tugging of emotions conjures feelings of lovability. In an opposing aspect, the careless noisiness of her petty foolishness could be cause of unwanted distraction. Her immature inconsideration sparks annoyance. Still, we are endowed by a common pathos from the subtraction of universal life and the resultant death, no matter the polarity of these memories. The degree of pathos is conversely affected by its astonishment. We are dumbfounded because the presently inert girl is annulled by spirited memories. Her simplistic, fun-war fantasy ironically contradicts the reality of death by means of the complications of war. The last line of the second stanza foreshadows the next stanza's focus.
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