Lo! in my heart I hear, as in a shell,
The murmur of a world beyond the grave,
Distinct, distinct, though faint and far it be.
Thou fool! this echo is a cheat as well,—
The hum of earthly instincts; and we crave
A world unreal as the shell-heard sea."
How beautiful this ecstasy of disenchantment,—beautiful in its sad sincerity,—and yet Truth before all,how piteous! Here is a fine spirit, for the moment baffled, heroically demanding the truth, the truth. More trustfully leaving the future to "the Power that makes for good," Lowell also confronts the scientific analysis of our attitude toward nature:—
"What we call Nature, all outside ourselves,
Is but our own conceit of what we see,
Our own reaction upon what we feel;
The world 's a woman to our shifting mood,
Feeling with us, or making due pretence;
And therefore we the more persuade ourselves
To make all things our thoughts' confederates,
Conniving with us in whate'er we dream."
The poet, to be aware of this, must have drifted quite away from the antique point of view. though with it disenchantment.The Greek certainly made nature populous with dryads, oreads, naiads, and all the daughters of Nereus; but these had a joy and, like Jaques, a melancholy of their own, not those of common mortals. Doubtless the Greek felt the charm of the hour when twilight descended on his valley, but not the pensive suggestions of the Whence and Whither which it excites in you and me. "No young man,"
