His own affection for Hallam seems to personate the object of his attachment, and “sees himself in all he sees.” Just as the giant spectre, sometimes seen “on misty mountain-ground,”[70] is no more than the vast shadow of the spectator himself.
The Poem proceeds more intelligibly, by drawing a comparison which typifies his own humble relation to his exalted friend. He imagines some meek-hearted and affectionate wife loving and revering a husband, whose high intellect and pursuits exclude her from any real companionship.
But she treasures any little memorials of their early devotion, and feeling that he is
“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.
XCVIII.
“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.