s to him from across a stream of water, wearing a crown that includes a "pearl / Of striking hue" (205-6). (Controversy surrounds the identity of the dreamer's conversation partner. Ward and Trent, et al. (parag. 2), declare the pearl maiden to be the dreamer's dead child, but Newhauser says that idea is "moot" (267), noting that the text is not definitive. The text itself is not helpful since it calls the pearl wearer both child and high-born maiden.)
In any case, dreamer and apparition begin an extended colloquy on the poet's loss, in which the child/maiden in various ways instructs the poet out of his self-absorbed grief and his attitude of blaming God for his loss. God's grace is "great enough" (660) a gift for anyone, the maid explains, even to one who, like the poet, claims to have an innocent soul (665). Grace, indeed, becomes the meaning of the pearl: "On every breast / A pearl is strung; no strife can spring / Among the souls who share that crest" (854-56). When the poet accepts that idea, he immediately--and significantly--asks for more. He wants to go to "Jerusalem," which was not only the site of Jesus' death but also can mean:
Through death our deep and dire blight.
There peace ensues without respite (950-954).
The poet immediately wants to go there (apparently paradise). The child/maiden gives him a brief glimpse of John the Divine's vision in the Apocalypse (Revelation), including the foregathering of the court of the divine kingdom. He attempts to "try / To swim that stream although I died" (1158-59), but is "stayed" by God--and the poet awakens, newly resolved to "please that Prince, to be contrite" (1201). He also reflects on the mortal folly of overreaching; after all, he did glimpse the beatific vision:
Had I to please that Prince been bent,
Not craved more than was granted me,
The idea that divine grace should be "enough" to satisfy the longings of human experience, including the pain of losing ...