The Shadow cloaked from head to foot,
Who keeps the keys of all the creeds.
Nay, the very deity of Christ is held loosely, if at all, in the thirty-third section, where he
Whose faith has centre everywhere,
Nor cares to fix itself to form.
is bidden to leave his sister undisturbed when she prays; the poet exclaiming
Oh, sacred be the flesh and blood
To which she links a truth divine!
In the last line of the next stanza this "sacred flesh and blood" of Christ (it is to be presumed) is called "a type"—which is a wide departure from orthodox Christianity. And what shall we say of the final lines of the whole poem?
One God, one law, one element,
And one far-off divine event,
To which the whole creation moves.
Like other passages of "In Memoriam," it is a distinct anticipation of the thought of "The Higher Pantheism," "Flower in the Crannied Wall," "De Profundus," and "The Ancient Sage."
Much has been made of the "Pilot" in one of Tennyson's last poems, "Crossing the Bar."
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.