VASTNESS.

Inangahua Times, Volume XI, Issue 1650, 8 January 1886, Page 2

VASTNESS.

[BY ALFRED, LORD TBWNTBOX. POST . LAUREATE] Thr latM literary sensation haft been Tennyson's poem, called. »• Vastn^g." ! printed in 'Macniillan's Magazine." It lis apparently a satire on various contemporary political ami social move mentfl. The following is the text as caMed to tlie American journals :— , Many a hearth upon our dark globe sighs nfter many * vanished face ; Many a planet by many a sun may roll with the dust of a vantuhed race ; 1 Raving politics, never at rest, as this 1 poor earth's pale history runs — What is it all but a trouble of ants in the gleam of a million million of gnns ; Lies upon this side, lies upon thit side, truth less violence mourned by the wise; Thousands of voices browning his own in a popular torrent of li-s upon lies ; Stately purposes, valmir in battle, glorious " annals of army and fl*et ; Death for the right cause, death for the wrong caiise, trumpets of victory groans of defeat ; ? Innocence seethed in her mother's milk, and charity setting the martyr aflame ; Thraldom who wnlks with the banne* of freedom, and rocks not to rnin a realm in her name ♦Fnith at her isenith, or a'l but lost in the gloom of doubts that darken the schools; Craft, with a bunch of all heal in her hand followed np by her vassal lesrion of fools; Pain that has crawled from the corpse of pleasure, a worm which writhes all day and at niuht Stirs np again in the heart of the steoper, and stings him back to the of the light ; Wealth, with his wine* and his wedded harlots, flattery gilding the rift of a throne ; Opulent avarice lean m poverty, honest poverty baro to the bone ; Love for the maiden crowned with marriage, no regrets for aught that has been, Household happinesa, gracious children, dehtleas competence, golden mean ; National hatreds of whole generations, and pigmy snitea of the village spire. Vows that, will last to the last death rattle and vows that are snapt in a moment of firet He that has lived for the lnst of the minute, and died in the doing it, flesh withont mind ; Be that has nailed all fl«nh to the cross, : till self died nnt in the love of his ftlnd \ Spring and immmer and autumn and arbiter, aud all these old revolutions of >arth: New aim otriYtvoTntiniMif #npire,*chaDM r fttt»tU«~wb«ttotlt«f*worii|

What the philosophies all, tb* wi«n^.e r poe9y varying voices of prayer, All that is nuhlest, all that it battst, nil that is til thy with all that is hut ; What is it all if we all <>f ns end bat ill lming our own c<>r}«e coffiua at last, Swailnwed in vastne»>, lost in u)«nc«, druwned in the dep:bs of a mcaaioglesepast? What but the murmur of gnatts in th« gl«K)m, or a ujoniea's anger of bwa in their hire 1 Peace, let it be, for I loved him and low him forever ; the dead are uut d«.M) but alive. *Stipp<>«cd to refer to Re Sulviitioa Annv. tTlie "Pall Mall Ga»)tt« " axpoMna. [Tennyson* Itaes are printed aa th« cable brings them, bin there are probably errors iv transmission }