The Sun is lost, and th' earth, and no mans wit
Can well direct him where to look for it.
And freely men confesse that this world's spent,
When in the Planets, and the Firmament
They seeke so many new; they see that this
Is crumbled out againe to his Atomies.
On Tennyson the effect of a similar dislocation of thought, the revelation of a Nature which seemed to bring to death and bring to life through endless ages, careless alike of individual and type, was religious doubt tending to despair:
O life as futile, then, as frail!
. . . . .
What hope of answer, or redress?