As actors, the days are merely playing a role. They apparently are neutral and thus play no part in hypocrisy, but to the human mind that wants and expects some nudge in the right direction, such a neutral actor might be considered hypocritical; one might reason: "if I could have the 'diadems' as easily as the 'fagots' and all I had to do was will it-then why didn't someone tell me?" And this attitude, I suggest is the heart of the poem. Learning to use our will is not so easy, and that is why we settle for lesser "gifts." But when we learn the truth that the speaker learns, we indeed feel tricked. We feel that these acting "daughters of time" have been hypocritical in not urging us to demand more than a "few herbs and apples."
I suggest that the synthesis of the two meanings places primary emphasis on the human being, not on the days. After all, it is the human mind that creates the concept of a day. The human mind conceives the ideas of acting and deceiving; the days, as daughters of time, take on the human projections of action and deception, but the speaker in the poem is the one who determines their identity, and the speaker is the one who changes. The days cannot be any more than "muffled and dumb," but the speaker who is human contains both concepts of action and deception, as well as the ability to talk about his experience in human terms.
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