The poem explicitly expressed the issue of environment degradation, when the protagonist exclaimed, (upon learning that he was to give up the land he tilled for many years), "These fields were burthened when they came to me...It looks as if it never could endure Another Master."
Apart from the theme of environmental degradation, moral degeneration was especially explicit in the works of Tennyson and Carlyle, who discussed the importance of morality in the midst of humanity's success in attaining higher levels of intellectual development and knowledge about the nature of things (living or non-living), in this world. "In Memoriam," Tennyson's religious explication, presented humanity as incapable of achieving further development in life without spiritual guidance. This humble realization showed humanity's intellectual development as a gift from God, not solely...
Reflecting on the lack of morality among the rich (aristocracy) or the non-working class, Carlyle argued, "...in these godless two centuries, where is our answer? Neither the Church nor the Anti-church...all this is already seen, or beginning to be seen, for what it is; a thing that Nature does not own." Moral degeneration was illustrated through the apparent lack of spirituality of any kind among people in the modern society, a shift towards agnosticism, a trend that would predominate society for the coming years since inception in 19th century.
