42 



greatly with great emotions ; spiritual, so far as it exalts the 

 spirit with the senses and above them to the very summit of 

 vision and delight." 



Thus it is with this poem, one indeed to be read with the 

 sunhght of the author's imagination reflected upon ours. It is 

 a sort of running dialogue between a poet who catches the tran- 

 sient gleam of beauty as it passes and who cannot believe in any 

 deep or permanent creature life beneath that transient gleam, 

 and a Sage who tries to persuade him that a deeper insight 

 shows mortal things to be mere symbols of eternal and immortal 

 reaUties. The doubtful poet expresses himself thus — 

 " How far thro' all the bloom and brake 



That nightingale is heard ? 

 What power but the birds could make 



This music in the bird? 

 How Summer bright are yonder skies. 



And earth as fair in hue 1 

 And yet what sign of ought that lies 



Behind the green and blue ? 

 But man to-day is fancy's fool 



As man hath ever been. 

 The nameless power, or powers, that rule 

 Was never heard or seen." 



The Sage's reply is in Lord Tennyson's best and weightiest 

 manner : — 



" If thou would'st hear the Nameless, and wilt dive 



Into the temple cave of thine own self, 



There brooding by the central altar, thou 



May'st haply learn the Nameless hath a voice, 



By which thou wilt abide, if thou be wise, 



As if thou knewest, tho', thou canst not know; 



For Knowledge is the swallow on the lake 



That sees and stirs the surface shadow there 



But never yet hath dipt into the Abysm, 



The Abysm of all Abysms, beneath, within 



The blue of sky and sea, the green of earth 



And in the milHon-miUionth of a grain 



Which cleft and cleft again for evermore 



And ever vanishing never vanishes, 



To me, my son, more mystic than myself. 



Or even than the Nameless is to me." 



The depth and subtle comprehensiveness of this poem may 

 be taken as a fitting answer to "In Memoriam " — tliat sunless 

 gulf of doubt — that miracle of grief — where the wail of sorrow 

 reaches its highest pitch. Years have rolled by— the intensity 

 of the sorrow is lessened, and what is Tennyson's answer now '? 

 It is that the want of human knowledge is so great when con- 

 fronted by the Absolute, that enquiries by the finite into the 

 Infinite are utterly futile ; consequently doubt must be. Doubt is 

 necessary because of the disparity of knowledge, " for nothing 

 worthy proving can be proven or disproven ;" therefore, " cleave 



