In this life we experience “thorn and flower,” grief and joy; and the past becomes mercifully shaded as time goes on, otherwise the retrospect would be intolerable. But hereafter all shadow on what has happened will be removed, and all will be “clear from marge to marge;” and the five years of earthly friendship will be the “richest field” in the “eternal landscape.”
Yet this would be a limited range for Love, which ought to extend without any circumscription,
“A rosy warmth from marge to marge,”
its expansion interminable.
XLVII.
This great and religious Poem has been absurdly said to teach Pantheism, which these stanzas refute; or perhaps they rather deny the doctrine of Spinoza, if that be clearly understood.
At any rate, to be conscious of “a separate whole”—a distinct individuality—and yet merge at last
“in the general Soul,
Is faith as vague as all unsweet:
Eternal form shall still divide
The eternal soul from all beside;
And I shall know him when we meet.”
St. Paul is not more distinct and emphatic upon our individuality hereafter, when he says, we shall “be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven,” 2 Cor. v., 2; that is, we shall put on a spiritual body, that will give identity and form.
Delighting in the thought of