"great and wise, She dwells on him with faithful eyes, 'I cannot understand: I love.'"
It must be understood that this Poem, as elsewhere, would describe _the relation of one on earth to one in the other and higher world--not the Author's relation to him here. He certainly looked up to the Author, fully as much as the Author to him._
"You leave us." Some one is going on the very route which the friends had traversed together, and will reach "that City," Vienna, where Hallam died. All its splendour is to the Poet,
"No livelier than the wisp[71] that gleams On Lethe in the eyes of death;"
so great is his aversion to the place, on account of the loss he had sustained there; and he charges it with all manner of ill.
But Hallam had given him a very different description; saying that in no other metropolis--"mother town"--had he seen such stately carriages of the rich pass to and fro; and such a contented crowd enjoying themselves with dance and song, amidst a display of coloured fireworks.
This Poem is an address to the recurring anniversary of Hallam's death, which had before been commemorated in Poem lxxii.--
The early signs of Autumn are very sweetly described, in personifying a day that will remind many of births and bridals, but still more of deaths; and wherever the sorrowing survivors may reside, they are on this day "kindred souls" with himself--though they be utter strangers--
The poles of the earth are the ends of the axis on which the world revolves. These never move, but "slumber."
Autumn laying "a fiery finger on the leaves," is an expression similar to
"This maple burn itself away."--P. ci., 1.
"And the flying gold of the ruin'd woodlands drove thro' the air." --"Maud," stanza 3.
Rising from his night's rest shortly before quitting the old home, and looking over the familiar landscape, which his friend had known so well; there is not a feature but recalls some gracious memory of Hallam's presence.
The various objects in the surrounding country are enumerated, and present a beautiful rural picture to the mind; and he says,
"But each has pleased a kindred eye, And each reflects a kindlier day; And, leaving these, to pass away, I think once more he seems to die."
To take leave of them is to renew the more bitter separation.