that it is only in the midst of cold that we "know" where to find warmth. We grasp the nature of things in their opposite--yet we must never confuse the two. To know where the "great fires are" is to know real flame from a pitiful flicker and, by implication, truth from lies. It is to know the difference between a season of real festivity and a frosty commercial facsimile.Perplexingly, the "star" of the Christmas story is not found in the sky, but deep within the earth.
from Christopher Nield: The Epoch Times: The Antidote--Classic Poetry for Modern Life: A Reading of 'A Child of the Snows' by G. K. Chesterton
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Tennyson's metaphor of the wind evokes the idea of the zeitgeist--the "spirit of the time" that moves people in different ways at different times. The use of the same rhyme repeated over and over again induces a sense of dizziness and derangement, as if we were spinning round and round, out of control.
Yet the more Tennyson stresses change, with his imagery of the "seas" flowing and "waves" pouring "against the shingle," the more we realize the need to hold on to what we love.
from Christopher Nield: The Epoch Times: The Antidote--Classic Poetry for Modern Life: A Reading of 'I Stood on a Tower' by Tennyson
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