The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson Part 65

"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Vast images in glimmering dawn, Half shown, are broken and withdrawn.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.

a.s.surance 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.

"As here we find in trances, men Forget the dream that happens then, Until they fall in trance again.

"So might we, if our state were such As one before, remember much, For those two likes might meet and touch. [11]

"But, if I lapsed from n.o.bler place, Some legend of a fallen race Alone might hint of my disgrace;

"Some vague emotion of delight In gazing up an Alpine height, Some yearning toward the lamps of night.

"Or if thro' lower lives I came-- Tho' all experience past became Consolidate in mind and frame--

"I might forget my weaker lot; For is not our first year forgot?

The haunts of memory echo not.

"And men, whose reason long was blind, From cells of madness unconfined, [12]

Oft lose whole years of darker mind.

"Much more, if first I floated free, As naked essence, must I be Incompetent of memory:

"For memory dealing but with time, And he with matter, could she climb Beyond her own material prime?

"Moreover, something is or seems, That touches me with mystic gleams, Like glimpses of forgotten dreams--

"Of something felt, like something here; Of something done, I know not where; Such as no language may declare."

The still voice laugh'd. "I talk," said he, "Not with thy dreams.

Suffice it thee Thy pain is a reality."

"But thou," said I, "hast miss'd thy mark, Who sought'st to wreck my mortal ark, By making all the horizon dark.

"Why not set forth, if I should do This rashness, that which might ensue With this old soul in organs new?

"Whatever crazy sorrow saith, No life that breathes with human breath Has ever truly long'd for death.

"'Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant, Oh life, not death, for which we pant; More life, and fuller, that I want."

I ceased, and sat as one forlorn.

Then said the voice, in quiet scorn, "Behold it is the Sabbath morn".

And I arose, and I released The cas.e.m.e.nt, and the light increased With freshness in the dawning east.

Like soften'd airs that blowing steal, When meres begin to uncongeal, The sweet church bells began to peal.

On to G.o.d's house the people prest: Pa.s.sing the place where each must rest, Each enter'd like a welcome guest.

One walk'd between his wife and child, With measur'd footfall firm and mild, And now and then he gravely smiled.