Mine be the strength of spirit...
Mine be the strength of spirit... - meaning Summary
Strength Like a River
Tennyson likens an ideal inner force to a broad river or the Gulf Stream: a vigorous, self-contained spirit that flows outward, retaining freshness and strength while carrying influence far beyond its source. The poem expresses a wish for a power that both immediately convinces the wise and gradually permeates uncongenial minds, fertilizing distant places and people, suggesting moral vitality that preserves and spreads life and growth.
Read Complete AnalysesMine be the strength of spirit, full and free, Like some broad river rushing down alone, With the selfsame impulse wherewith he was thrown From his loud fount upon the echoing lea:— Which with increasing might doth forward flee By town, and tower, and hill, and cape, and isle, And in the middle of the green salt sea Keeps his blue waters fresh for many a mile. Mine be the Power which ever to its sway Will win the wise at once, and by degrees May into uncongenial spirits flow; Even as the great gulfstream of Florida Floats far away into the Northern Seas The lavish growths of Southern Mexico.
Reprinted without any alteration, except that Power is spelt with a small p, among the Juvenilia in 1871 and onward.
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