The Ancient Sage, with its lyric interludes, is one of Tennyson's
meditations on the mystery of the world and of existence. Like the
poet himself, the Sage finds a gleam of light and hope in his own
subjective experiences of some unspeakable condition, already
recorded in In Memoriam. The topic was one on which he seems to have
spoken to his friends with freedom:-


"And more, my son! for more than once when I
Sat all alone, revolving in myself
The word that is the symbol of myself,
The mortal limit of the Self was loosed,
And past into the Nameless, as a cloud
Melts into Heaven. I touch'd my limbs, the limbs
Were strange not mine--and yet no shade of doubt,
But utter clearness, and thro' loss of Self
The gain of such large life as match'd with ours
Were Sun to spark--unshadowable in words,
Themselves but shadows of a shadow-world."


The poet's habit of


"Revolving in myself
The word that is the symbol of myself" -