I vex my heart with fancies dim:
He still outstript me in the race;
It was but unity of place
That made me dream I rank’d with him.


And so may Place retain us still,
And he the much-beloved again,
A lord of large experience, train
To riper growth the mind and will:


And what delights can equal those
That stir the spirit’s inner deeps,
When one that loves but knows not, reaps
A truth from one that loves and knows?

In my own process of grief for my daughter, I also imagined learning from her, as she learned the dimensions of life with God. I can identify with Tennyson’s last verse in this canto. As he knew, however, the grieving person has to admit that all such learning is available only through his own imagination.