Why do I wabble to and fro, And try so valiantly to go, Yet like some drunkard on his feet, I cannot make my senses meet Upon the path I know?
Why do I bicker with my head, And try to argue death, instead Of life, and peace, and perfect poise? I seem connected with the noise Of all Earth’s underfed.
The speaker is lost, and she knows it. She asks "why" twice, and each time the question is really a complaint turned on herself. In the first stanza she compares her own movement to a drunkard's: she wants to walk the path she knows, but her senses won't line up, so she keeps lurching sideways instead of getting anywhere. It's a vivid picture of wanting to go forward and being unable to steady yourself.
The second stanza moves inward, from the body to the mind. She finds herself arguing with her own head, and the argument is a strange one, since she's debating death when she would rather be thinking about life, peace and balance. The last two lines widen the view. She hears herself as part of "the noise / Of all Earth's underfed," as though her restlessness joins a larger chorus of hunger and want. The mood is anxious and weary, but also searching: she wants to understand her unrest, not just endure it.