Chapter L

He invokes Hallam's spirit to be near him in his various moods of distress--when he is filled with nervous apprehensions, when faith seems gone, and Time to be only "a maniac scattering dust," and Life to be "a Fury slinging flame:" when men also appear to be no more than flies, that sting and weave their cells and die. But above all,

"Be near me when I fade away,
To point the term of human strife,
And on the low dark verge of life,
The twilight of eternal day."

The idea is sustained, that we shall go through the darkness of death, when Time will be lost, into the dawning light of Eternity; and the Poet would have his friend be near him at this translation.