Of course this is a very fine poem, so far as the poetry is concerned. But it is pessimism absolute. Its author, a brilliant graduate of Oxford University, entered the English diplomatic service as a young man, and in the middle of a promising career was attacked by a disease of the spine which left him a hopeless invalid. We might say that he had some reason to look at the world in a dark light. But such poetry is not healthy. It is morbid. It means retrogression. It brings a sharp truth to the mind with a painful shock, and leaves an after-impression of gloom unspeakable. As I said before, we must not spoil the happiness of children by telling them that there are no ghosts or fairies. So we must not tell the humanity which believes in happiness after death that there is no heaven. All progress is through faith and hope in something. The measure of a poet is in the largeness of the thought which he can apply to any subject, however trifling. Bearing this in mind, let us now see how the same subject of the sea-shell appeals to the thought of Rossetti. You will then perceive the difference between pessimism and philosophical humanitarianism. THE SEA-LIMITS Consider the sea's listless chime: Time's self it is, made audible,-- The murmur of the earth's own shell. Secret continuance sublime Is the sea's end: our sight may pass No furlong further. Since time was, This sound hath told the lapse of time. No quiet, which is death's,--it hath The mournfulness of ancient life, Enduring always at dull strife. As the world's heart of rest and wrath, Its painful pulse is in the sands. Last utterly, the whole sky stands, Grey and not known, along its path. Listen alone beside the sea, Listen alone among the woods; Those voices of twin solitudes Shall have one sound alike to thee: Hark where the murmurs of thronged men Surge and sink back and surge again,-- Still the one voice of wave and tree. Gather a shell from the strown beach And listen at its lips: they sigh The same desire and mystery, The echo of the whole sea's speech. And all mankind is thus at heart Not anything but what thou art: And Earth, Sea, Man, are all in each.