'Thro' utter dark a full-sail'd skiff,
Unpiloted i' the echoing dance
Of reboant whirlwinds;'


and to the question, 'Why not believe, then?' we have as answer a
simile of the sea, which cannot slumber like a mountain tarn, or


'Draw down into his vexed pools
All that blue heaven which hues and paves'


the tranquil inland mere." {3}

The poet longs for the faith of his infant days and of his mother -


"Thy mild deep eyes upraised, that knew
The beauty and repose of faith,
And the clear spirit shining thro'."


That faith is already shaken, and the long struggle for belief has
already begun.

Tennyson, according to Matthew Arnold, was not un esprit puissant.
Other and younger critics, who have attained to a cock-certain mood