As when, with downcast eyes...
As when, with downcast eyes... - meaning Summary
Recognition Beyond Remembered Time
Tennyson's short lyric describes an instantaneous, uncanny recognition between two people. Using the image of contemplative reverie—when a small movement makes past lives or dreams flood back—the speaker likens meeting a friend to opposed mirrors reflecting one another. The poem emphasizes a preexisting, mutual familiarity: each mind answers the other, as if they had often met before and already lived within one another's thoughts and speech.
Read Complete AnalysesAs when with downcast eyes we muse and brood, And ebb into a former life, or seem To lapse far back in some confused dream To states of mystical similitude; If one but speaks or hems or stirs his chair, Ever the wonder waxeth more and more, So that we say, “All this hath been before, All this hath been, I know not when or where”. So, friend, when first I look’d upon your face, Our thought gave answer each to each, so true— Opposed mirrors each reflecting each— Altho’ I knew not in what time or place, Methought that I had often met with you, And each had lived in the other’s mind and speech.
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