crossing the 2 small poles?
gee you're lucky that the solenoid is probably switched by an outside negative from the lift switch and it didn't complete the circuit...
you cross those 2 poles with live completed circuits and you would of melted your jumper man... sheesh

the 2 small poles are positive and negative to the coil inside the solenoid....
those 2 large poles are just power circuit being completed by a set of movable contacts that are pulled in when power is supplied to the coil inside the solenoid by the 2 small terminals.

if you can figure out which is positive and which is negative and which one is the 'switched' part of the circuit you can bypass the handle switch and supply an isolated ground or positive for the switched side and actually see if the solenoid will pull in.
If you can make it work this way then you have isolated the solenoid out of the equasion and then can look for a bad switch or wiring or fuse or something.