The intuition burned away
All darkness from [his] spirit too; (ll. 550-551.)
and he recognized in that moment of revelation that, whatever the uncertainty of his position before “the utmost walls of time” should “tumble in” to “end the world,” in that moment was no uncertainty; his choice of life was fixed irrevocably. Hitherto he had loved the world too well to relinquish its joys wholly, whilst yet looking for a time when the renunciation, in which he believed to discern the highest course, should become possible: when he would at last “reconcile those lips”
To letting the dear remnant pass
... some drops of earthly good
Untasted! (ll. 583-585.)
In the light of that flash of intuition, it at once became clear that such an attitude of compromise had meant, in fact, a decision in favour of the world; a choice of things temporal to the virtual exclusion of things eternal. That he, too, had been doing that which he to-night reproaches the Christian of placid assurance for doing: he had been but using his faith “as a condiment” wherewith to “heighten the flavours” of life. The final issue being assured, the true relations of life and faith became manifest. The sentence of the voice beside him was unessential to the revelation
Life is done,
Time ends, Eternity’s begun,
And thou art judged for evermore. (ll. 594-596.)
And yet “the shows of things” remain. No longer fire that
Would shrink
And wither off the blasted face
Of heaven, (ll. 524-526.)
but the common yet visible around, and the sky which above
Stretched drear and emptily of life. (l. 601.)
In that vast stillness of earth and heaven, judgment is as emphatically pronounced as if read from “the opened book,” in the presence of “the small and great,” following “the rising of the quick and dead” which all prior conceptions of the Day of Judgment had led the spectator to anticipate. But he whose sentence had been passed was not of those whom