In the last two verses Miss Ingelow, unconsciously forgetting her previous straining after literal effects, writes these true thoughts, which
are the most finely poetical in the entire poem:
“And yet I know past all doubting, truly—
A knowledge greater than grief can dim,
I know, as he loved, he will love me duly,
Yea better, e’en better than I loved him.
“And as I walk by the vast, calm river,
The awful river so dread to see.
I say, ‘Thy breadth and thy depth for ever
Are bridged by his thoughts that cross to me.’”