Page:Adams - Essays in Modernity.djvu/51

Rh merest temporary vanity and antique vexation of spirit. But even in the later utterances of the muse there will still be found some that are admirable for a new and more concentrated force, for a truer, a more genuine note of natural piety. No ballad in our language is more redolent than 'The Revenge' of that heroic obstinacy which has made our race the stupid conqueror of half the earth. None can deny our poet his passionate cult of England.

The grotesque immorality of his conscious efforts after religious edification has already afflicted us. Only when he forgets himself and all his doctrinal 'teachings' does he reach to the sincerity of true spiritual devotion. On such occasions, too unfrequent though they be, his success is unmistakable. Take as a supreme sample the poet's 'last' word'—'Crossing the Bar'—one of the loveliest of Christian lyrics. I need not quote it. We all have it by heart. It is here that once more we find him at his truest and highest and best—here where we see him in his old age, standing with the same simplicity, the same sincerity of sorrow and trust as he stood 'in the valley of Cauteret,' or 'in the garden of Swainston,' dreaming of the three men he had loved 'with a love that ever will be'—

'And his voice is low as from other worlds, and his eyes are sweet.'