This is my letter to the world,
That never wrote to me—
The opening lines of the poem serve to clearly state the speaker's intentions and show her degree of isolation. She is reaching out to a world that she feels has not directed that same kindness toward her. The speaker's attempt to reach out to the world is marked by this incongruity right away. She is writing out of necessity, because the world has made no overtures at trying to better understand or appreciate her. In this way, she allows the reader to feel her loneliness without having to say it directly. There is also a trace of bitterness in these lines. She is noting that this explanation is necessitated by the relative apathy of the world around her. No one has tried to see her clearly, so she feels the need to justify her life.
The simple News that Nature told—
With tender Majesty
Here, the speaker offers a glimpse at how she has been able to appreciate the world around her. She claims to have received "News" from "Nature," as it was displaying its "Majesty." While initially this phrasing seems opaque, what the speaker seems to be saying is that the lessons she has learned have almost always come from appreciating natural splendor. These lines fit with the speaker's earlier comments about her isolation in the social world, in that they portray her as having spent more time outdoors, in nature, than at parties and in drawing rooms. She is cluing the reader into her artistic ambitions and their connection to nature. The use of the word "news" is crucial: it connotes both the worldly information conveyed by newspapers, and the religious sense—amplified by her capitalization of this otherwise-common noun—of revelation. From nature, the speaker has received both the daily experience of sensory life, and the "tender Majesty" of a spiritual "Message."
For love of Her—Sweet—countrymen—
Judge tenderly—of Me
These final lines pack the heftiest emotional punch. The speaker is asking her "sweet countrymen" to "judge" her "tenderly," out of "love" for nature. She is making an appeal to her social circle. She hopes that, by way of an analogy with their appreciation for the natural world, they can come to better understand her. She wants to be seen more clearly than she is currently, and accepted by those around her for who she is. In connecting herself to nature, and explaining her fascination with it, the speaker wants these "countrymen" to perceive her and her passion with kindness. She has stated her purpose in the beginning, tried to explain herself in the middle, and is now making one final plea for some amount of consideration. These last two lines are particularly emotional given the fact that the reader is left to wonder how this letter will be received. The poem is partly an explanation of her writing endeavors, and partly a request for kindness and consideration from those around her.
