University of Santa Clara - Redwood Yearbook (Santa Clara, CA)

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THE REDWOOD This however is not the point in hand. What we want is the element of repose in this beautiful poem. It is a picture of a heart only, of a heart touched by immortal love, but this is enough for us. There is something similar, perhaps the arch-type of the poet ' s idea, in one of the Psalms, where the Israelites are represented in distant Ba bylon sighing for their return to Jerusalem. Upon the rivers of Babylon there we sat and wept; when we remembered Sion. Thus Sister Agnes longs to be united to her God, longs that her spirit be made pure and clear and that in raiment white and clean she may stand a glittering star, a peerless bride before the throne of the Lamb. Hers is a beautiful soul, if there is any beauty on earth, and Tennyson ' s poem is an admirable expression of this beauty. She is represented as looking out from the convent windows on the snows that are sparkling to the moon, and as she thus looks out, she has no other thought than to be made pure as the snow-drops, clear as the frosty skies, and fearing the possi- bility of stain she prays that, as her breath ascends to Heaven, her soul may follow soon. Break up the Heavens, O Lord, and far Thro ' all yon starlight keen, Draw me, thy bride, a glittering star In raiment white and clean. And again: The gates Roll back and far within For me the Heavenly Bridegroom waits To make me pure of sin. The Sabbath of Eternity, One Sabbath deep and wide — A light upon the shining sea — The Bridegroom with his bride! There may be strains in literature more beautiful than this, but because this approaches the height of the beautiful they are of neces- sity few. In St. Agnes ' Eve, Tennyson rose to the summit of his inspiration; nothing in him is more expressive, nothing more calcu- lated to lift the soul. And yet this is a picture in repose, physical repose, it is true and as such the highest form, but it is repose

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THE REDWOOD in seeking mental repose is physical activity; our motive in seeking absolute repose is a desire to avoid all kinds of activity. Now if the order of thought be superior to the physical order and the physical order be above the state of absolute quietude, we may make our classification thus, numbering in the order of merit the dif- ferent phases of activity: First mental activity; secondly, physical activity; thirdly, the absence of activity, or quietude. Again by changing these terms to the corresponding form of repose we have: First, phj sical repose; secondly, mental repose; thirdly, absolute repose. There may of course be various degrees of morality in all three cases, but it will be sufficient to keep the general principles in mind and to apply them according as cases arise. I proposed to apply them to two very interesting cases, ' ' St. Agnes ' Eve and The Lotus-Eaters and for this reason I thought it proper to be profuse in my explanation of the general terms, before I attempted an application. II. It may occur to some that at best it is prosaic to try these principles on Tennyson ' s poems and at worst it is comparable to an attempt to test a problem in mathematics by its fluidity of movement and liquidness of diction; but poems and poets must be approached according to our capacity. If we cannot drink in all the hidden pleasure at a gulp, we must sip the honeyed flowers; if we cannot gather the full meaning in one reading, we must read the poem over and over again, and if it helps us to analyze and to break the piece up into prose, we may analyze and break it up into prose. This is my intent. To begin with St. Agnes ' Eve. This poem may be called a soliloquy in which — I was going to say — St. Agnes unburdens her heart; but it is not St. Agnes. The poet had in mind no particular saint and no particular person; he gives us a picture of an ordi- nary nun praying in the silence of night that she may be released from the bonds of the flesh. Originally the piece was entitled St. Agnes, but as that might have been misleading and as it certainly was inappropriate, the poet changed it to the present form. He would, I think, have been more happy in selecting as his title, Sister Agnes for this reason that the poem is nothing whatever but the prayer of some indefinite nun.

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THE REDWOOD none the less. What then becomes of the plea for constant activ- ity? If this piece is beautiful in poetry, it is so merely because it reflects what is in reality beautiful, and unless one is prepared to look upon Sister Agnes as a type of the weak, the common ver- dict must be that repose is sometimes as praiseworthy if not more so than strenuosity. But here I am a little obscure. Is the picture before us one of repose? It may be and if so it is that wise passiveness of which Wordsworth speaks. Taking it thus we must regard the prayer of the nun as a mere longing of the heart, as a response to the appeal of the outside world. But we may consider that pure soul at work and then we have mental activity, and it is a question of mental against physical activity. If the restlessness of Ulysses and the enthusiasm of Galahad are more soul-elevating than the calmness of Sister Agnes there will of course be no controversy, but because the calmness of that wintry evening and the fervor of that loving prayer appeals more to the human heart than the strenuosity of the Greek hero and of the Christian knight, we must conclude that repose is sometimes more beautiful than action or, what is the same thing, that mental is superior to physical activity. We have thus made some progress and this, it would seems towards a common footing. The author of ' Sir Galahad ' and ' Ulysses ' has written a plea for activity. I have gradually come to the same conclusion. The difference between him and me is that we are each advocating the same thing but apparently along different lines. I say apparently because in truth he, in speaking of physical activity, did not necessarily disregard mental effort and I, in voicing the praises of mental activity, do not for a moment under- value physical activity. What we need is to temper both. This may more fully develop if we turn to the other Tennysonian model of repose, The Eotus-Eaters. The personalities in this Greek reproduction, — for like Ulysses this is taken from the Greek, — are to be studied from the poem in its entirety. The Lotus-Eaters are melancholy individuals, whose voices are thin as voices from the grave, who seem, though really awake, to be deep asleep, who sit them down upon the shore and listen to the music of nature and think within them-