It is almost a pity that the bard did not complete his “riddling” while he was about it. Another couplet:
Diffusion, and ablution, and abrasion.
Ablution, expectation, botheration,
would have rendered still more impenetrable the bardic mystery.
There is no resemblance in this studied concealment of meaning, if meaning there be, to that
“Sacred madness of the bards
When God makes music through them,”
of which he sings. It is more like the melodious confusion of the Æolian harp. Even if the poet have a definite meaning in his own mind, if he so express it that I cannot even guess it, to me it is nonsense; and nonsense, however melodious, although it may enchant my sense, cannot move my heart. Here and there, however, our poet sings snatches of real poetry, as Sir Bedivere’s answer to his king in “The Coming of Arthur”:
“I heard the water lapping on the craig
And the long ripple washing in the reeds.”