The close of the poem relates the final victory of faith over doubt. "What is it thou knowest, sweet voice?' I cried. He finds fellowship with God through love, and, filled with peace, finds also a glory in nature, while her varied life quickens the pulse of hope, and he marvels "How the mind was brought To anchor by one gloomy thought." Locksley WE have thus far illustrated the central truth of the poet's teaching, that the soul only comes to its best life through strenuous conflict with the dream of selfish solitude, as it cherishes the egoism of æsthetic culture, and with the despair of materialism, as it wrestles with faith. These Poems of Life portray the different phases of the war waged by the soul with the forces of spiritual death. In "Locksley Hall" the same truth finds fresh illustration. In the hall down by the sea, looking over the sandy tracks, within sound of the roaring waters, there lived a sentimental youth fond of star-gazing and fairy tales of science and mystic musing on the unknown. Such a youth would be sensitive to love, and soon he finds "all the current of his being " setting towards his cousin Amy. They become engaged. There is much beauty in the incidental references to the sublime effect of pure love,-how in its hands the moments of time, like golden sands, slipped all too quickly through the hour-glass; or how self, touched by the hand of love, found no place, but yielded itself gladly and died away as if in music; or how, in the morning on the moorlands, love found its song in the "ring of the copses," or in the evening, by the sea, watching the stately ships, “Our spirits rush'd together at the touching of the lips." And so the poet sings of the sacredness of love, its power to touch life with tender grace, and transfigure nature with subtle beauty. But the scene quickly changes. Amy, utterly weak, yields to the tyranny of her father, is false to her lover, and marries a man of lower character, with the prospect of his coarser nature rudely crushing out the fineness of her own. If the jilted lover had wished for revenge, he might have found it in the degeneracy of the fickle Amy; but we have to trace the influence of disappointment upon the man. Love had created for him new light and beauty will he lose both, since Amy has been false? He had nourished a youth sublime, with great self-esteem, and he writhes beneath the wrong! Will he allow his life to be spoiled? Will he yield to the weakness of sentimental crooning over the "tender grace of the day that is dead," or will he gird himself to noble action, and in earnest doing triumph over fruitless sentiment ? The evolution of character is interesting. At first he is cynical. He pictures the husband with coarse sensibility coming home with heavy eyes, and the duty of Amy to soothe her weary lord with his overwrought brain by her finer fancies and lighter thoughts. Then he finds relief in cursing. He curses most eloquently the "social wants that sin," and "the social lies that warp," and "the sickly forms that err," and "the gold that gilds." He has been disappointed in love, and blames the whole social system. Now he becomes introspective. He begins to think that he is mad for cherishing the seed of bitterness, and resolves to pluck it from his bosom ; but to forget seems impossible, and he asks, "Where is comfort?" Can he find it in thinking only of the Amy he first knew, loving and kind? Can he think of her as dead? And since death sanctifies and sweetens the memory of the dead, may not he think only of her love? No! for she did not love him truly. Then there is no comfort in memory. "This is truth the poet sings, That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things." The memory that torments him may have its vision of pain for Amy as well; though, for her, nature will bring solace in the purer life of her little child. But what of himself? He finds that in cursing the social system, in sentimental introspection, in analysis of memory, there is no compensation. He begins to see there is only one remedy, if he would save himself. "Wherefore should I care? I myself must mix with action, lest I wither by despair." He must find some noble work, and fling himself into action, if he would redeem his manhood from sentimental misery; but he knows not where to turn, for "every gate is throng'd with suitors." Then comes the vision of his boyhood, with its "wild pulsation" and yearning for the “large excitement" of the coming years, its glimpse of the flaring lamps of London and its never-resting sea of life. The vision inspires him, and he seems to see the great end towards which the mighty masses are moving. "Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle-flags were furl'd In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world." 1 He sees "men the workers," shaping the glorious future of the world, and he will be a man among Left me with the palsied heart, and left me with the jaundiced eye." Then he shows how to the "jaundiced eye" all things seem out of joint. Science only creeps along. Feudalism, as it "nods and winks behind a slowly dying fire," dreads the power of the people. Suddenly, with the call of his comrades, another life opens to him, that would tempt him from the life of energy and effort into sensuous delights and mystic dreams, "in yonder shining orient." "There to wander far away, On from island unto island at the gateways of the day." It is the temptation which comes to many-the softness and sweetness of a life of self-indulgence, in exchange for the life of strenuous effort. But the hero of "Locksley Hall" resists the temptation by choosing the life of action, and heals the wounds of his heart by mingling with the progress of humanity. "For the mighty wind arises, roaring seaward, and I go." The Sailor THE lesson that the soul only finds its true life in noble effort, with its sacrifice of selfish ease, rings again in the bright voice of "The Sailor Boy," who, tempted to renounce the |