Another poem of this group, 'To the Dead Cardinal of Westminster' (Cardinal Manning), is interesting as the first intimation of the moods of depression Thompson sometimes experienced. It speaks the doubt and terror that overwhelmed the poet with the despairing thought of his own death. After wondering vainly whether all his visions are dreams and false, he cries to the dead cardinal to discover for him his destiny, closing with the words:
'So ask; and if they tell
The secret terrible,
Good friend,
I pray thee send
Some high gold embassage
To teach my unripe age.
Tell!
Lest my feet walk hell.'
In 'A Fallen Yew' the poet declares that however intimately known and loved a man may be, there is ever an inner self which cannot admit earthly love, but only that of the Divine Creator.
'A Corymbus for Autumn' is interesting for its diction. The poet is describing the splendor and strength of autumn and seems to crowd his words feverishly for that effect, so that the first three lines, for instance—
'Hearken my chant, 'tis
As a Bacchante's,
A grape-spurt, a vine-splash, a tossed tress flown vaunt, 'tis!'
while composed of simple words, give the impression of being as complicated as some of the lines with more polysyllabic words. The result of the whole poem is a gorgeous chaos, but the poem is so intense, the thought usually so adequate, that although there are many unusual words and singular expressions, most of them are carried by the sweep of the poem. There are passages where they come almost too close together, as in the first stanza where autumn's mists 'enclip' the moon's
'Steel-clear circuit illuminous
Until it crust
Rubiginous
With the glorious gules of a growing rust.'
