“But ere we could arrive the point proposed,
Cæsar cried, Help me, Cassius, or I sink.”
Julius Cæsar, Act i., s. 2.
“I mean, my lords, those powers that the queen
Hath raised in Gallia have arrived our coast.”
3 Henry VI., Act v., s. 3.
“Over the vast abrupt, ere he arrive
The happy isle.”
Paradise Lost, B. II., l. 409.
[59] This Poem was written “through a course of years,” and during that long period the author was devotedly attached to the lady whom he ultimately married, but they were not allowed to meet. May not this separation have tinctured, with double sadness, this wonderful elegy in memory of his friend? Lord Tennyson’s marriage, and the first publication of “In Memoriam,” both occurred in 1850.
“all things rare
That heaven’s air in this huge rondure hems.”
Shakespeare, Sonnet XXI.
[61] The “towering sycamore” must be a notable tree on the lawn, again alluded to in P. xcv., s. 14. It is cut down, and the four poplars are gone, and the lawn is no longer a flat one.
[62] “In summer twilight she, as evening star, is seen surrounded with the glow of sunset, crimson-circled.”
Spedding’s Bacon, vol. vi., p. 615.
[63] In the “Lotus Eaters,” we read