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Canto 92 Summary

Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.

Lines 1873-1888

If any vision should reveal
   Thy likeness, I might count it vain
   As but the canker of the brain;
Yea, tho' it spake and made appeal

To chances where our lots were cast
   Together in the days behind,
   I might but say, I hear a wind
Of memory murmuring the past.

Yea, tho' it spake and bared to view
   A fact within the coming year;
   And tho' the months, revolving near,
Should prove the phantom-warning true,

They might not seem thy prophecies,
   But spiritual presentiments,
   And such refraction of events
As often rises ere they rise.

  • If Tennyson does happen to see Arthur, he might think he's crazy, like he had a "canker of the brain" (so, something seriously wrong with his noggin—"We'd better call Dr. House stat" type of wrong).
  • He seems a bit disturbed to think that he might really see his friend one day in the flesh again.
  • Or maybe he's afraid of seeing a vision. It's not totally clear.