Blown every way with every gust, and wreck If man be only A willy-nilly current of sensations- Why feel remorse, he, knowing that he must have Remorse then is a part of Destiny, Nature a liar, making us feel guilty Of her own faults. The last gleam of an after-life but leaves him A beast of prey in the dark. The two aspects of this abuse of freedom, the sin of sense on the one hand and the sin of pride on the other, have been depicted by Tennyson with wonderful power, the former in "The Vision of Sin," and the latter in "The Palace of Art." Not that he confines his treatment of the subject to these poems. As I have already pointed out, "The Idylls of the King" is one long exposition of the nature and the consequences of transgression. The song of Vivien in "Balin and Balan" gives us the insidious and lying aspect of temptation: The fire of heaven is lord of all things good, The fire of heaven is not the flame of hell! "Thou shalt not surely die," said the first seducer; "ye shall be as gods, knowing both good and evil." So Vivien extorts the charm from Merlin: Then, in one moment, she put forth the charm Of woven paces and of waving hands, SIN AS SENSUALITY And in the hollow oak he lay as dead, And lost to life and use and name and fame. 505 "The Vision of Sin" presents temptation to sensual sin in its coarser aspect: I had a vision when the night was late : A youth came riding toward a palace-gate. He rode a horse with wings, that would have flown, But that his heavy rider kept him down. And from the palace came a child of sin, And took him by the curls and led him in. Then come song and revel, ecstasies of pleasure, the giddy whirl of the dance, an orgy of intoxication. But there is a solemn sequel. Divine retribution slowly gathers: And then I looked up toward a mountain tract, God made himself an awful rose of dawn, From those still heights, and, slowly drawing near, Came floating on for many a month and year At length the vapor touches the palace-gate and encompasses its inmates. Penalty overtakes the sinner. The youth with curls, fairly flying in the exubiance of his vitality and passion, becomes at last A gray and gap-tooth'd man as lean as deal Who slowly rode across a wither'd heath And lighted at a ruin'd inn. Sense has increased the stimulant until at last no pleasure is left. The recklessness of youth is now a bitter cynicism. There is no goodness or purity. Death is approaching, but it is made matter for ribald jest. Conscience occasionally threatens, but it can be deadened with drink: I am old, but let me drink; Bring me spices, bring me wine; I remember, when I think, That my youth was half divine. Youthful hopes, by scores, to all, When the locks are crisp and curl'd; Unto me my maudlin gall And my mockeries of the world. Fill the cup, and fill the can; Mingle madness, mingle scorn! The voice grew faint: there came a further change: Then some one spake : "Behold, it was a crime The crime of malice, and is equal blame." Penalty is the reaction of natural law, and the sin of sense is punished in kind. Man reaps what he sows, yet the operation of natural law is at the same time the revelation of the righteous judgment of God. As "The Vision of Sin" shows us sensual sin "avenged by sense that wore with time," so "The Palace of Art" is a picture of the inherent misery SIN AS PRIDE AND SELFISHNESS of selfishness. 507 There the soul that has built for itself a lordly pleasure-house, looks down with contempt upon the poor: O Godlike isolation which art mine! I can but count thee perfect gain, What time I watch the darkening droves of swine That range on yonder plain. In filthy sloughs they roll a prurient skin, They graze and wallow, breed and sleep, This palace of pride is adorned with beauty, but the pleasures sought within are not pleasures of the senses. Science, literature, and art are the soul's ministers. Everything is here to give enjoyment, except humility and love. Full oft the riddle of the painful earth Flash'd through her as she sat alone, Yet not the less held she her solemn mirth, And intellectual throne. And so she throve and prosper'd so three years Like Herod, when the shout was in his ears, Despair, dread, loathing of her solitude, fell on her. Art, sundered from love, had turned the palace into a veritable prison. "Inwrapt tenfold in slothful shame," she Lay there exiled from eternal God, Lost to her place and name; And death and life she hated equally, And nothing saw, for her despair, But dreadful time, dreadful eternity, No comfort anywhere. She howl'd aloud, "I am on fire within. So, when four years were wholly finished, "Make me a cottage in the vale," she said, " Yet pull not down my palace-towers, that are Perchance I may return with others there, The remorse of a soul awakened by conscience, and "plagued by God with sore despair," has never been more vividly described. The conviction that sin must be taken away, that guilt must be purged, that the sinner must depend upon help from without, that one must come and "save it, lest it die"-all this is the voice of human nature itself, under the teachings of Scripture and of the Holy Spirit. And Tennyson recognizes the universal need of this deliverance, for in "Becket" he says: We are sinners all, The best of all not all prepared to die. In "The Promise of May" this sin is described as hereditary : O this mortal house Which we are born into, is haunted by The ghosts of the dead passions of dead men ; |