5-6. the form by which I know etc.: the only form that I know, i.e., Hallam as a young man among his contemporaries.

15. after form: the spiritual and maturer form (accordant with the summer season, line 9) which Hallam has attained in eternity. - Tennyson's belief in the progressive life of the dead has been indicated in a number of passages beginning with XXX, 22-28.

XCIII. After yearning in XCI for a vision of his friend, the poet in XCII concluded that such a vision might well be a doubtful "likeness" proceeding from his own mind. In the present section he understands clearly that he "shall not see" his friend (line 1), since a "visual shade" (line 5) cannot truly convey a "sightless," i.e. invisible, life (line 9). But in the depths of the spirit, he thinks, real contact with the departed may occur.

15. this blindness of the frame: See LXXVIII, 18, and the note. XCV. The peaceful scene of lines 1-20 suggests the peace of spirit which in the preceding section was described as prerequisite for communion with the dead.

22-24. As over Sinai's peaks etc.: Cf. Exodus, XIX, especially verse 16: "And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud." Tennyson has in mind a contrast between conventional religion (symbolized by the Israelite "gods of gold," line 23) and the deeper faith of one like Moses, who perceives the divine Presence in the dark cloud. This is a concrete presentation of the idea in lines

self-control (line 14) and ordered thinking (lines 15-16).

CXII. 15. world-wide fluctuation: unstable opinions that sweep through the world. The idea of this stanza seems to be that Hallam, as he could rise above the turmoil in his own urgent spirit, could see beyond the turmoil of nineteenth-century political and social experiment. His political insight and strength are treated in the next section. CXIV. Compare the proem, lines 25-32. 8. Submitting all things to desire: By removing, without replacing, the beliefs and conventions which formerly controlled men's desires, and by pointing to the unknown future in which any wish may be fulfilled (line 7), she makes "desire" the arbiter. This is the "fire" that sits "on her forehead" (line 5). In this section, Tennyson has particularly in mind the desire for power (lines 15, 26).

10. She cannot - - of death: No doubt the poet cites this as a very obvious and popular distinction (not as the deepest distinction) between knowledge and wisdom.

12-13. some wild Pallas

Of demons: a debasement of the myth that Pallas Athena (Minerva), goddess of wisdom, sprang at birth from the head of Zeus (Jupiter).

26-28. Who grewest not alone in power etc.: Cf. CXII, 9-16. — By naming "reverence" and "charity" here, where logic would require "Wisdom," the poet strongly suggests that wisdom is inseparable from them, and is a spiritual more than a mental quality (cf. lines 21-22). Previously it was suggested that with true wisdom belong "love and faith" (line 11). CXV. This and the next section concern the third and last springtime in "In Memoriam." Contrast the poet's feeling toward spring in XXXVIII-XXXIX.

2-3. Now burgeons . . . flowering squares: Every tangled hedge around the flowering fields is putting forth buds. 4. ashen roots: roots of ash

trees.

8. sightless: invisible.

17-20. and in my breast etc.: Cf. the last stanza of LXXXIII.

13-16. Yet less of sorrow etc.: This state of mind was prepared for in the allegory of the veiled statue and the "great ship" in CIII, 12 ff., 40 ff.

CXVII. 9-11. For every grain etc.: These three lines allude to the hour-glass, sun-dial, and clock; and thus they prepare for the opening verse of the next section. CXVIII. The life of the human spirit, including its sense of immortality, is not to be imaged as a surface product of the aged and cooled Earth (lines 4, 7-9, 20; cf. XXXV, 12, and LVI, 19); but as a strong metal newly dug from the mysterious centre of the universe, and then made molten hot, and roughly shaped, by the human struggle (lines 21-25). Human evolution is thus different from the evolution of the Earth and her lower creatures. Their nature, however, was mingled in ours, and must be "worked out" by human effort (lines 25-28; cf. LVI, 13-18).

4. earth and lime: inorganic constituents of the human body.

7. They say: What follows is a poetic presentation of the nebular hypothesis, which Laplace had set forth early in the century.

10. seeming-random: Why "seeming," here and in the next line? 11. cyclic storms: periodical

more

to more: if he thus more and more spiritually interpret the process of development going on in nature. Lines 1-17 are concerned with the interpretation, lines 18-28 with the conduct, of life as viewed from the standpoint of development. CXIX. Prepared for by CXVI, lines 9-16. Contrast VII, in idea and detail. 6. black fronts long-withdrawn: The fronts of the houses had long been quite obscured; but now, as the next line suggests, they are marked off by the early dawn's pale gleam on the street. CXX. 2-3. wholly brain, Magnet mockeries: mechanisms moved, through the agency of nerves and brain, by the magnetic

force that governs the external world and that mocks our spiritual aims. CXX. 3-4. not in vain with Death: St. Paul's fight with beasts in the arena was productive of intenser faith and a nearer sense of eternity. See First Corinthians, XV, 32, and context.

6-8. Let Science etc.: If Science should restrict herself to the mechanistic theory of life, she would put herself outside the sphere of proper human interests.

- The Darwinian theory of biologic evolution, elaborated in the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859), was strongly current in the middle nineteenth century. In contrast to the view of Lamarck (1744-1829), it attributed organic development entirely to the mechanical processes of environment and heredity. During the past fifty years, however, Darwin's explanation of the fact of evolution has been seriously questioned by further biological investigation. Of the three factors in the process, Organism, Function, Environment, the last was stressed by the Darwinian school; the importance of the others has been insisted upon by more recent biologists. "Natural selection" has been compelled to give up "its former supremacy as the supposed sole determinant among practically indefinite possibilities of structure and function, for the more modest position of simply accelerating, retarding, or terminating the process of otherwise determined change. . . . Instead of guiding the ramifications of the tree of life, it would, in Mivart's excellent phrase, do little more than apply the pruning-knife to them" (Geddes and Thomson, Evolution). - Tennyson's dissatisfaction with a mechanistic explanation of life has been abundantly repeated in the experience of distinguished biologists in our own time; consult, for example, J. S. Haldane, Life, Mechanism, and Personality, second edition, 1921.

9-12. Let him etc.: Cf. the last stanza of CXVIII. CXXI. 1. Hesper: Called Hesperus or the evening-star when it follows the sun; Phosphorus or the morning-star when it precedes him (lines 9, 17).

8. And life etc.: Sleep comes on.

20. a rose: the symbol of love

and joy. CXXIII. 4. the central sea: Cf. "the homeless sea" of XXXV, 9. The primeval waters that covered the earth are contrasted in the poet's imagination with our present seas, which seem to have the land for a centre, or may be associated with certain countries as homes.

10. my dream: i.e., of a very personal reunion with the dead, as contrasted with the kind of communion suggested in CXXII. CXXIV. LIV-LVI.

Compare XCVI; and contrast

3. He, They, One, All; within, without: God, however imaged by the human mind - as one person (theism), several persons (polytheism), as one but not necessarily personal (monism), as the whole (pantheism); as within our spirit, or outside it.

5-6. I found Him not etc.: Vain is the search for God in nature. The first line suggests a contrast with Wordsworth's verse "Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns" ("Tintern Abbey," line 97, page 8). The allusion intended by Tennyson, however, is to the "argument from design": the idea that the existence of God may be argued from the wonderful order appearing in the natural universe all the way from heavenly bodies to the insect's eye, implying design.

7-8. the questions men may try

etc. the subjects debated in theology and metaphysics; cf. the proem, lines 17-24. CXXIV. 11-12. an ever-breaking shore etc.: as in the third stanza of XXXV.

17-20. No-like a child in doubt and fear etc.: No, not like a man in wrath (line 15), but like a child in doubt, etc.— The idea is that the protest of heart against reason did not banish the poet's doubt. But "that blind clamor" (which, according to Tennyson's son, refers to lines 10-12) made him wise in that it threw him upon the wisdom that there is in religious humility, - beyond the region of the "freezing reason" and the hot heart; cf. the last stanza of the proem (page 322). Thus he became like a child that, through the very act of crying from doubt and fear, is aware that help is obtainable - "knows his father near." In connection with this image, Tennyson perhaps had in mind New Testament passages such as Luke, XVIII, 16-17.

tinel etc. sometimes have mystic intimations that Love orders the universe, as in the preceding stanza he rules and links individual souls.

CXXVII. The theme "All is well" in this and the preceding section is the same as Emerson's doctrine: "The soul raised over passion beholds identity and eternal causation, perceives the self-existence of Truth and Right, and calms itself with knowing that all things go well" ("Self-Reliance," 25th paragraph.)

1-2. though faith and form Be sundered: though essential faith in God and Life, as in the last stanza of CXXIV, be separated from the religious and social institutions with which it has been connected.

7. The red the Seine: Cf. CIX, 15-16. The allusion is to the series of revolutions in France.

10. the lazar: (from "Lazarus") a poor and feeble person. The idea of lines 9-10 is that the highest and lowest strata in the social order suffer most in sudden changes.

16. the great Eon: the expansive, productive modern era, following the Middle Ages. Tennyson figures the downfall of modern civilization in combined images of night, storm, and earthquake (lines 2-3, 11-17); cf. CXIII, 13-20. CXXVIII. While the poet has faith in social development (lines 3-4), and believes that some great changes are imminent (lines 5-6), he sees that his century is occupied with numerous developments which are really trivial, and which he enumerates in a satirical apostrophe to the mysterious and exciting powers of progress (lines 8-22).

generate.

7. degrade: (intransitive) de