“Rain, rain, and sun, a rainbow on the lea!
And truth is this to me, and that to thee
And truth, or clothed or naked, let it be.
“Rain, sun, and rain! and the free blossom blows,
Sun, rain, and sun! and where is he who knows?
From the great deep to the great deep he goes.”
These are, no doubt, “riddling triplets,” as he himself calls them. The riddling of Shakspere’s fools, even the wanderings from the night of distraught Ophelia’s brain, are light itself by the side of them. We may well echo his invocation of “Sun, rain, and sun! and where is he who knows?” Whatever inspiration may be evident here, it is not that of the beautiful. And yet even this has snatches of meaning which many passages we might adduce have not; as the following, from “Gareth and Lynette”:
“Know ye not, then, the riddling of the bards?
Confusion, and illusion, and relation.
Elusion, and occasion, and evasion?”