Tennyson's illumination is certain, clearly defined, distinct and characteristic, although his poems are much less cosmic than those of Whitman and of many others. There is, however, in the above, all that is descriptive of that state of consciousness which accompanies liberation from the illusion—the enchantment of the merely mortal existence.
Words are, as Tennyson fitly says, but "shadows of a shadow-world"; how then may we hope to define in terms comprehensible to sense-consciousness only, emotions and experiences which involve loss of self, and at the same time gain of the Self?
Tennyson's frequent excursions into the realm of spiritual consciousness while still a child, bears out our contention that many children not infrequently have this experience, and either through reserve or from lack of ability to explain it, keep the matter to themselves; generally losing or "outgrowing" the tendency as they enter the activities of school life, and the mortal mind becomes dominant in them. This is especially true of the rising generation, and we personally know several clearly defined instances which have been reported to us, during conversations upon the theme of cosmic consciousness.
YONE NOGUCHI
Any one who has ever had the good fortune to read a little book of verse entitled "From the Eastern Seas," by Yone Noguchi, a young Japanese, will at once pronounce them a beautiful and perhaps perfect example of verse that may be correctly labeled "cosmic."
Noguchi was under nineteen years of age when he penned these verses, but they are thoughts and expressions possible only to one who lives the greater part of his life within the illumination of the cosmic sense. They are so delicate as to have little, if any, of the mortal in them.
It is also significant that Noguchi in these later years (he is now only a little past thirty), does not reproduce this cosmic atmosphere in his writings to such an extent, due no doubt to the fact that his daily occupation (that of Professor of Languages in the Imperial College of Tokio), compels his outer attention, excluding the fullness of the inner vision.
The following lines, are perfect as an exposition of spiritual consciousness in which the lesser self has become submerged:
"Underneath the shade of the trees, myself passed into somewhere as a
cloud.
I see my soul floating upon the face of the deep, nay the faceless face
of the deepless deep—
Ah, the seas of loneliness.
The silence-waving waters, ever shoreless, bottomless, colorless, have no
shadow of my passing soul.
I, without wisdom, without foolishness, without goodness, without
badness—am like God, a negative god at least."
The almost perpetual state of spiritual consciousness in which the young poet lived at this time is apparent in the following lines: