Author's Intent:  My main intent here is to offer a personal tribute to a poem (and poet) that has been my life's spiritual "map of the world".  At age 17 I discovered it while in the throes of reluctantly turning away from religious fundamentalism.  I will soon be 75 and this poem is still a constant source of incalculably valuable insight, clarification, direction and validation.  I wish to offer to anyone interested the value that it has been to me.  This is only about what this poem has meant to me. 

I have come across a few articles that I thought were very good and will share the links:

    https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1081&context=tor
    [2007  "An Ambiguous Faith: Tennyson's Response to Victorian Science", Matthew Hahn, Messiah College Grantham, Pennsylvania]

    https://www.academia.edu/40293182/Alfred_Lord_Tennysons_Mystical_Experience
    [Magnus Wallberg, 2019]

    https://repository.arizona.edu/handle/10150/553315
    ["The Rubaiyat and The Ancient Sage; a comparison"  (also Lao Tzu & "Tao Te Ching") Helen Graham Calder, 1937]
    (click on "Download" to download the .pdf)

    https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2018&context=theses
    Doubt and Faith in Tennyson's Poetry.pdf

On the whole I have found the small amount of Tennyson's poetry that I have read to be challenging reading, but this poem has been an exception and I have always found it to be very accessible and universal.

Richard Stauffacher,  September 2022
info@passingshadow.com

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