NOTES TO INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY. 571

"The nurse,

The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul

Of all my moral being."

115. For thou art, etc. - His sister Dorothy. Her sympathy with nature was scarcely less than that of the poet himself. See sketch of Wordsworth. 126. For she can so inform, etc. - The poet realized in his own character what he here describes. Calmness of soul, loftiness of thought, and

"Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold

Is full of blessings,"

these are traits that make Wordsworth's life so beautiful.

138. And in after-years, etc.—The poet expects that his sister will pass through the same experience as himself; that her wild ecstasies in the presence of nature will be sobered by reflection and intelligent sympathy with the soul of things.

NOTES TO INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY.

(The numbers refer to lines.)

In addition to what has been said in the sketch of Wordsworth, the following account given by him of the poem will form a valuable introduction. He says: "This was composed during my residence at Town-End, Grasmere. Two year at least passed between the writing of the first four stanzas and the remaining part. To the attentive and competent reader the whole sufficiently explains itself, but there may be no harm in adverting here to particular feelings or experiences of my own mind on which the structure of the poem partly rests. Nothing was more difficult for me in childhood than to admit the notion of death as a state applicable to my own being. I have elsewhere said, ·

"A simple child

That lightly draws its breath
And feels its life in every limb,

What should it know of death?"

But it was not so much from the source of animal vivacity that my difficulty came, as from a sense of the indomitableness of the spirit within me. I used to brood over the stories of Enoch and Elijah, and almost persuade myself that, whatever might become of others, I should be translated in something of the same way to heaven. With a feeling congenial to this, I was often unable to think of external things as having external existence, and

I communed with all that I saw as something not apart from, but inherent in, my own immaterial nature. Many times, while going to school, have I grasped at a wall or tree to recall myself from this abyss of idealism to the reality. At that time I was afraid of mere processes. In later periods of life I have deplored, as we have all reason to do, a subjugation of an opposite character, and have rejoiced over the remembrances, as is expressed in the lines “Obstinate Questionings," etc. To that dream-like vividness and splendor which invests objects of sight in childhood, every one, I believe, if he would look back, could bear testimony, and I need not dwell upon it here; but having in the poem regarded this as a presumptive evidence of a prior state of existence, I think it right to protest against the conclusion which has given pain to some good and pious persons that I meant to inculcate such a belief. It is far too shadowy a notion to be recommended to faith as more than an element in our instincts of immortality. But let us bear in mind that though the idea is not advanced in Revelation, there is nothing there to contradict it, and the fall of man presents an analogy in its favor. Accordingly, a pre-existent state has entered into the creed of many nations, and among all persons acquainted with classic literature is known as an ingredient in Platonic philosophy. Archimedes said that he could move the world if he had a point whereon to rest his machine. Who has not felt the same aspirations as regards his own mind? Having to wield some of its elements when I was impelled to write this poem on the immortality of the soul, I took hold of the notion of pre-existence as having sufficient foundation in humanity for authorizing me to make for my purpose the best use of it I could as a poet." 6. Of yore the childhood days of the poet. The usual sense is of old

time.

=

9. The things, etc. - Compare with this Shelley's "A Lament:

NOTES TO INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY.

573

28. Fields of sleep.· The time is morning, and the quiet of night has not yet been broken by the noises of the day.

37. Ye blessed creatures = the objects of nature, animate and inanimate, mentioned in the preceding stanza.

39. Jubilee joyfulness, exultation.

=

From the Hebrew yobel, a blast

of a trumpet, a shout of joy, through the Lat. and Fr.

41. Coronal

banquets.

=

wreath or garland as worn at Roman and Grecian

55. Pansy = a species of violet. From Fr. pensée, a thought; "thus, it is the flower of thought or remembrance."

57. Visionary

= vision-like.

59. Our birth, etc. In this stanza the poet explains the source of that glory which invests objects in childhood. He adopts for the time the Platonic doctrine of the pre-existence of the soul, and makes the glory of nature as seen in childhood a reflection of the splendor of our previous state of existence. As we grow older objects are apt to become commonplace. Compare the lines of Hood:

"I remember, I remember,

The fir-trees dark and high;

I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky.

It was a childish ignorance;

But now it's little joy

To know I'm farther off from heaven

Than when I was a boy."

An interval of more than two years came between the writing of the fourth and the fifth stanza. The transition seems a little abrupt.

73. Nature's priest = one living in close fellowship with nature, discerning its beauty and understanding its secrets.

82. Homely nurse = this world; called homely in comparison with "that imperial palace," whence her foster-child has come.

Compare the following lines from Pope's "Essay on Man:

"Behold the child, by Nature's kindly law,
Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw;
Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight,
A little louder, but as empty quite :
Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage,
And beads and prayer-books are the toys of age:
Pleased with this bauble still, as that before,
Till tired he sleeps, and life's poor play is o'er."

86. Behold the child, etc. Wordsworth had in mind a particular child, Hartley Coleridge, but the language is applicable to childhood in general.

87. Pigmy = a very diminutive person. From Gr. pugme, the distance from the elbow to the knuckles, through the Lat. and Fr. Originally applied to a fabulous race of dwarfs.

III. Best philosopher, because of his spontaneous love, joy, trust. See sketch of Wordsworth.

128. Custom = the ordinary usage and requirements of practical life. 144. Fallings from us, vanishings, etc. — Refer to the shadowy remembrances of a previous life- remembrances that startle us at times with a consciousness of our immortality, and lead our thoughts to higher things than the material world about us. See Wordsworth's note above.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

FOR half a century Alfred Tennyson stood at the head of English poetry. It is hardly too much to claim that he was the best representative of the culture of the Victorian age. His extraordinary poetic genius was supported by broad scholarship. He absorbed the deepest and best thought of his age; and instead of mere passing fancies, his poetry embodies a depth of thought and feeling that gives it inexhaustible richViewed from an artistic standpoint, his work is exquisite. He surpassed Pope in perfection of form; he equalled Wordsworth in natural expression; he excelled both Scott and Byron in romantic narrative; and he wrote the only great epic poem since the days of Milton.

ness.

Few poets have been more fortunate than Tennyson. His life was one of easy competence. In the retirement of a cultivated home, and in a narrow circle of congenial friends, he steadily pursued his vocation. Never did a poet consecrate himself more entirely to his art. He wrote no prose. He did not entangle himself in business, which has fettered many a brilliant genius. He encumbered himself with no public office, by which his poetic labors might have been broken. His career, like an English river, quietly flowed on among fertile hills and blooming meadows. Perhaps it might have been better had he lived a little less in retirement. Contact with the rude world might have given a more rugged strength to his verse, relieving in some measure the excessive refinement that is possibly its greatest fault.

The principal events in the life of Tennyson are the publication of his successive volumes. He was born at Somersby a clergyman, and the third

in Lincolnshire in 1809, the son of