XCI.
When the larch is in flower, and the thrush “rarely pipes”—exquisitely sings; and “the sea-blue bird of March,”[64] the kingfisher, “flits by;” come, my friend, in thy spirit form, with thy brow wearing the tokens of what thou hast become. Come to me also in the summer-time, when roses bloom and the wheat ripples in the wind. Don’t come at night, but whilst the sunbeam is warm, that I may see thee,
“beauteous in thine after form,
And like a finer light in light.”
XCII.
If a vision revealed Hallam in bodily presence as of old, he would doubt its reality, and ascribe it to “the canker of the brain.” If the apparition spoke of the past, he would still call it only “a wind of memory” in himself. Even if it promised what afterwards came true, he would account it to be merely a presentiment—
“such refraction of events
As often rises ere they rise.”[65]
XCIII.
“I shall not see thee;” for he doubts, though he dares not positively speak, whether a spirit does ever return to this world—at least visibly—so as to be recognised. But he will dare to ask that where “the nerve of sense” is not concerned—that is, where neither sight nor touch are needed—wholly apart from the body—“Spirit to Spirit, Ghost to Ghost” may come, so that
“My Ghost may feel that thine is near.”[66]
XCIV.