And if Love “play’d with gracious lies,” suggested difficulties, this Love had only dared to do so
“Because he felt so fixed in truth.”
Love sustained him when his song was “full of care;” and Love’s signet marked it whenever it was “sweet and strong;” and he implores Love to abide with him till he joins his friend “on the mystic deeps,” when his own electric brain no longer “keeps a thousand pulses dancing.”
CXXVI.
Here is a noble testimony to the comfort and assurance which Love, when made our “Lord and King,” can impart.
In the Poet’s estimation, Love is the Charity of St. Paul; believing, hoping, enduring, and never failing. Love brings us tidings of the dead. Love guards us in life, even in sleep. Through his influence we hear, as from a sentinel,
“Who moves about from place to place,
And whispers to the worlds of space,
In the deep night, that all is well.”
CXXVII.
Yes, “all is well, tho’ faith and form be sunder’d” in temporary crises; that is, one must believe in ultimate good, even when the immediate circumstances are most adverse. The storm will rage below on earth, before truth and justice can be firmly established.
“The red fool-fury of the Seine”