Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.
Lines 537-552
Still onward winds the dreary way;
I with it; for I long to prove
No lapse of moons can canker Love,
Whatever fickle tongues may say.
And if that eye which watches guilt
And goodness, and hath power to see
Within the green the moulder'd tree,
And towers fall'n as soon as built—
Oh, if indeed that eye foresee
Or see (in Him is no before)
In more of life true life no more
And Love the indifference to be,
Then might I find, ere yet the morn
Breaks hither over Indian seas,
That Shadow waiting with the keys,
To shroud me from my proper scorn.
- But Tennyson's going to just keep on truckin'. He doesn't care if other people (who are fickle or changeable) think that the passing of moons can make love go away.
- Now he's talking about an eye that sees things. Hmm...is this the moon that he just mentioned? That's kind of eye-like.
- Ah, we've got it: he's talking about The Big Guy again. We get that with the capitalized "Him" in line 546. That makes sense, since God sees all.
- God's eye can see things, and foresee things, because he is outside the confines of time.