, xciii., xcv. In the first the poet says -
"If any vision should reveal
Thy likeness, I might count it vain
As but the canker of the brain;
Yea, tho' it spake and made appeal
To chances where our lots were cast
Together in the days behind,
I might but say, I hear a wind
Of memory murmuring the past.
Yea, tho' it spake and bared to view
A fact within the coming year;
And tho' the months, revolving near,
Should prove the phantom-warning true,
They might not seem thy prophecies,
But spiritual presentiments,
And such refraction of events
As often rises ere they rise."
The author thus shows himself difficile as to recognising the
personal identity of a phantasm; nor is it easy to see what mode of
proving his identity would be left to a spirit. The poet, therefore,
appeals to some perhaps less satisfactory experience:-
"Descend, and touch, and enter; hear
The wish too strong for words to name;
That in this blindness of the frame
My Ghost may feel that thine is near."
The third poem is the crown of In Memoriam, expressing almost such
things as are not given to man to utter:-
And all at once it seem'd at last
The living soul was flash'd on mine,
And mine in this was wound, and whirl'd
About empyreal heights of thought,
And came on that which is, and caught
The deep pulsations of the world,
AEonian music measuring out
The steps of Time--the shocks of Chance -
The blows of Death.
Pages:
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91