Vast images in
glimmering
dawn,
Half shown, are broken and withdrawn.
Half shown, are broken and withdrawn.
Tennyson
the outward signs?
"I found him when my years were few;
A shadow on the graves I knew,
And darkness in the village yew.
"From grave to grave the shadow crept:
In her still place the morning wept:
Touch'd by his feet the daisy slept.
"The simple senses crown'd his head: [8]
'Omega! thou art Lord,' they
said; 'We find no motion in the dead. '
"Why, if man rot in dreamless ease,
Should that plain fact, as taught by these,
Not make him sure that he shall cease?
"Who forged that other influence,
That heat of inward evidence,
By which he doubts against the sense?
"He owns the fatal gift of eyes, [9]
That read his spirit blindly wise,
Not simple as a thing that dies.
"Here sits he shaping wings to fly:
His heart forebodes a mystery:
He names the name Eternity.
"That type of Perfect in his mind
In Nature can he nowhere find.
He sows himself in every wind.
"He seems to hear a Heavenly Friend,
And thro' thick veils to apprehend
A labour working to an end.
"The end and the beginning vex
His reason: many things perplex,
With motions, checks, and counterchecks.
"He knows a baseness in his blood
At such strange war with something good,
He may not do the thing he would.
"Heaven opens inward, chasms yawn.
Vast images in glimmering dawn,
Half shown, are broken and withdrawn.
"Ah! sure within him and without,
Could his dark wisdom find it out,
There must be answer to his doubt.
"But thou canst answer not again.
With thine own weapon art thou slain,
Or thou wilt answer but in vain.
"The doubt would rest, I dare not solve.
In the same circle we revolve.
Assurance only breeds resolve. "
As when a billow, blown against,
Falls back, the voice with which I fenced
A little ceased, but recommenced.
"Where wert thou when thy father play'd
In his free field, and pastime made,
A merry boy in sun and shade?
"A merry boy they called him then.
He sat upon the knees of men
In days that never come again,
"Before the little ducts began
To feed thy bones with lime, and ran
Their course, till thou wert also man:
"Who took a wife, who rear'd his race,
Whose wrinkles gather'd on his face,
Whose troubles number with his days:
"A life of nothings, nothing-worth,
From that first nothing ere his birth
To that last nothing under earth! "
"These words," I said, "are like the rest,
No certain clearness, but at best
A vague suspicion of the breast:
"But if I grant, thou might'st defend
The thesis which thy words intend--
That to begin implies to end;
"Yet how should I for certain hold, [10]
Because my memory is so cold,
That I first was in human mould?
"I cannot make this matter plain,
But I would shoot, howe'er in vain,
A random arrow from the brain.
"It may be that no life is found,
Which only to one engine bound
Falls off, but cycles always round.
"As old mythologies relate,
Some draught of Lethe might await
The slipping thro' from state to state.
"I found him when my years were few;
A shadow on the graves I knew,
And darkness in the village yew.
"From grave to grave the shadow crept:
In her still place the morning wept:
Touch'd by his feet the daisy slept.
"The simple senses crown'd his head: [8]
'Omega! thou art Lord,' they
said; 'We find no motion in the dead. '
"Why, if man rot in dreamless ease,
Should that plain fact, as taught by these,
Not make him sure that he shall cease?
"Who forged that other influence,
That heat of inward evidence,
By which he doubts against the sense?
"He owns the fatal gift of eyes, [9]
That read his spirit blindly wise,
Not simple as a thing that dies.
"Here sits he shaping wings to fly:
His heart forebodes a mystery:
He names the name Eternity.
"That type of Perfect in his mind
In Nature can he nowhere find.
He sows himself in every wind.
"He seems to hear a Heavenly Friend,
And thro' thick veils to apprehend
A labour working to an end.
"The end and the beginning vex
His reason: many things perplex,
With motions, checks, and counterchecks.
"He knows a baseness in his blood
At such strange war with something good,
He may not do the thing he would.
"Heaven opens inward, chasms yawn.
Vast images in glimmering dawn,
Half shown, are broken and withdrawn.
"Ah! sure within him and without,
Could his dark wisdom find it out,
There must be answer to his doubt.
"But thou canst answer not again.
With thine own weapon art thou slain,
Or thou wilt answer but in vain.
"The doubt would rest, I dare not solve.
In the same circle we revolve.
Assurance only breeds resolve. "
As when a billow, blown against,
Falls back, the voice with which I fenced
A little ceased, but recommenced.
"Where wert thou when thy father play'd
In his free field, and pastime made,
A merry boy in sun and shade?
"A merry boy they called him then.
He sat upon the knees of men
In days that never come again,
"Before the little ducts began
To feed thy bones with lime, and ran
Their course, till thou wert also man:
"Who took a wife, who rear'd his race,
Whose wrinkles gather'd on his face,
Whose troubles number with his days:
"A life of nothings, nothing-worth,
From that first nothing ere his birth
To that last nothing under earth! "
"These words," I said, "are like the rest,
No certain clearness, but at best
A vague suspicion of the breast:
"But if I grant, thou might'st defend
The thesis which thy words intend--
That to begin implies to end;
"Yet how should I for certain hold, [10]
Because my memory is so cold,
That I first was in human mould?
"I cannot make this matter plain,
But I would shoot, howe'er in vain,
A random arrow from the brain.
"It may be that no life is found,
Which only to one engine bound
Falls off, but cycles always round.
"As old mythologies relate,
Some draught of Lethe might await
The slipping thro' from state to state.
