Phosphor, the morning star, sees the renewal of life; the bird with its early song, the rising sun, the market boat again floating and voices calling to it from the shore, the village blacksmith with his clinking hammer, and the team again harnessed and at work.
Hesper and Phosphor are simply the one planet Venus, which according to its position with the sun, becomes the morning or evening star.
So the Poet sings,
“Sweet Hesper-Phosphor, double name
For what is one, the first, the last,
Thou, like my present and my past,
Thy place is changed; thou art the same.”
Hallam has only been removed: he is not altered into something else—“not lost, but gone before.” No—the writer is rather referring to himself: and as his own “present” and “past” are so different; the latter, with a bright prospect, may be likened to the morning star, Phosphor; whilst the former, full of gloom and sorrow, is represented by Hesper, the star of evening, and precursor of black night.
CXXII.
He seems to recall some former occasion, when in wild enquiry he had dared to question the great secrets of life and death—now and hereafter.
This may not refer to any special time, but to the general uneasiness of his feelings before submission had been attained;[84] and he now says,
“If thou wert with me, and the grave
Divide us not, be with me now.”
Let me again, “like an inconsiderate boy,” “slip the thoughts of life and death,” give free rein to a speculative imagination; for now, in a higher and better frame of mind, it will be that “every thought breaks out a rose”—a blossom of truth.