Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.
Lines 1873-1888
If any vision should reveal
Thy likeness, I might count it vain
As but the canker of the brain;
Yea, tho' it spake and made appeal
To chances where our lots were cast
Together in the days behind,
I might but say, I hear a wind
Of memory murmuring the past.
Yea, tho' it spake and bared to view
A fact within the coming year;
And tho' the months, revolving near,
Should prove the phantom-warning true,
They might not seem thy prophecies,
But spiritual presentiments,
And such refraction of events
As often rises ere they rise.
- If Tennyson does happen to see Arthur, he might think he's crazy, like he had a "canker of the brain" (so, something seriously wrong with his noggin—"We'd better call Dr. House stat" type of wrong).
- He seems a bit disturbed to think that he might really see his friend one day in the flesh again.
- Or maybe he's afraid of seeing a vision. It's not totally clear.