This image is rather confused, and I think rather stilted: moreover,
'incarnation' (or embodiment in _flesh_) is hardly the right word for
the vegetative nature of flowers. As forms of life, the flowers mock or
deride the grave-worm which battens or makes merry on corruption. The
appropriateness of the term 'merry worm' seems very disputable.
1. 6. _Nought we know dies._ This affirmation springs directly out
of the consideration just presented to us--that even the leprous
corpse does not, through various stages of decay, pass into absolute
nothingness: on the contrary, its constituents take new forms,
and subserve a re-growth of life, as in the flowers which bedeck
the grave. From this single and impressive instance the poet
passes to the general and unfailing law--No material object of
which we have cognizance really dies: all such objects are in a
perpetual cycle of change. This conception has been finely
developed in a brace of early poems of Lord Tennyson, _All Things
will Die_, and _Nothing will Die_:--
'The stream will cease to flow,
The wind will cease to blow,
The clouds will cease to fleet,
The heart will cease to beat--
For all things must die.
Pages:
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183