376 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



disposition of the two poets than their final strains, or what 

 may be considered such. A solemn calm broods over the 

 whole of that most perfect lyric, " Crossing the Bar." The 

 tranquil close of the day, the evening bell, the soft twihghc 

 slowly deepening into night, then the dark. As the spirit 

 draws near the great ocean of eternity the failing voice 

 breathes hope and seeks guidance — 



I hope to see my Pilot face to face 

 When I have crossed the bar. 



Amid the soft melody of the lines we detect the prevailing 

 impression on the poet's mind — darkness and uncertainty. 

 Browning, equally characteristic, selects as his final strain a 

 kindred theme. But how different the treatment of the sub- 

 ject. Tennyson heralds the dark, Browning the dawn. Dark- 

 ness had fallen upon him ; " it was in the silence of the sleep- 

 time " — the sleep of death ; and he imagines some one, lookmg 

 upon the grave in which he lies imprisoned by death (" as 

 fools think," he says), to have asked, " Who? " He glances 

 back, as it were, upon the work of a long life, which sets 

 forth the principles he held firmly from early manhood to the 

 last, and in the strongest and tersest language at his command 

 re-echoes the lessons he taught. From the grave he would 

 evidence himself and his convictions with the same boldness 

 and earnestness that influenced him through life, and so to 

 the question " Who? " he makes reply : — 



One who never turned his back, but marched breast forward ; 



Never doubted clouds vvould break; 



Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph; 



Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, 



Sleep to wake. 



The characters of these two poets, sincere and true men 

 in all respects, are distinct but equally noble. Each has in 

 his own way devoted his life to establish high ideals for the 

 guidance of men, and to make clear " the substance of things 

 hoped for." They were not prophets in the ordinary sense of 

 the word, but visions were vouchsafed to them of incomparable 

 beauty, and though it may be said — 



That after prophecy the rhyming trick 

 Is poor employment, 



these poets, like the poets of old, appealed to the intellectual, 

 the moral, and emotional side of human nature, and otherwise 

 followed closely in their footsteps, teaching with equal poetic 

 power the same grand belief. Surely it would be well if the 

 inquiring spirit of this age were to ponder more deeply that 

 truth which appeared so clear to the strong mind of Brown- 



mg- 



We slfep to wake. 



