"Fly happy with the mission of the cross."
The Golden Year.
He looks for the resurrection of the body, and bids the dry dust of his friend (Spedding) "lie still, secure of change." (Lines to J. S.) When the spirit quits its earthly frame, he follows it straight into the unseen world and the presence of its Creator and God. He points to "the grand old gardener and his wife" in "yon blue heavens," smiling at the claims of long descent, (Lady Clara Vere de Vere;) and he speeds the soul of the expiring May Queen toward the blessed home of just souls and true, there to wait a little while for her mother and Effie:
"To lie within the light of God, as I lie upon your breast—
Where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest."
The May Queen.
Intensely as he loves nature, Tennyson is no Pantheist. Though like the wild Indian, he "sees God in clouds and hears him in the wind," he does not therefore confound matter with its Maker, nor lose sight of the personality of the Being whom he adores. He is no disciple of fate or chance, but recognizes in all human affairs the working of a divine and retributive providence, whose final judgment of good and evil is foreshadowed and begun during our mortal life. To His presence and promptitude in reply to prayer, he refers more than once in pathetic and pointed language. He tells us how Enoch Arden, when cast away on a desert island, heard in his dream "the pealing of his parish bells," and
"Though he knew not wherefore, started up
Shuddering, and when the beauteous, hateful isle
Returned upon him, had not his poor heart
Spoken with that, which, being everywhere.
Lets none who speak with Him seem all alone,
Surely the man had died of solitude."
Enoch Arden.
It would not be difficult for those who are acquainted with Tennyson's earlier history, to discover the church of which he is a member, and the section of it whose views he adopts. In Memoriam takes us into the interior of his father's parsonage, to the Christmas hearth decorated with laurel, and the old pastimes in the hall; to the witch-elms and towering sycamore, whose shadows his Arthur had often found so fair; to the lawn where they read the Tuscan poets together; and the banquet in the neighboring summer woods. We almost hear the songs that then pealed from knoll to knoll, while the happy tenants of the presbytery lingered on the dry grass till bats went round in fragrant skies, and the white kine glimmered, couching at ease, and the trees laid their dark arms about the field. "The merry, merry bells of Yule," with their silver chime, are referred to more than once in Tennyson's poems. They seem to be ever ringing in his ears. They controlled him, he says, in his boyhood, and they bring him sorrow touched with joy.
It is in singing of Arthur Hallam that the poet's faith in the immortality of the soul is brought out with beautiful clearness. The bitterness of his grief draws him to the "comfort clasped in truth revealed," and he looks forward with hope to the day when he shall arrive at last at the blessed goal, and He who died in Holy Land shall reach out the shining hand to him and his lost friend, and take them "as a single soul." (In Memoriam, lxxxiii.)
From the verses addressed to the Rev. F. D. Maurice, (January, 1854.) we learn that one of Tennyson's children claims that gentleman as his godfather, and we gather from it and other poems, what all the Laureate's friends know, that his sympathies are with the Broad Church, of which Mr. Maurice, Kingsley, Temple, the Bishop of London, and Dr. Stanley are distinguished leaders. It is one of the peculiarities of this school to moderate the torments of the lost and to deny that they are eternal, to hope that good will in some way be the final goal of ill, and that every winter will at last change to spring. It cannot be disputed that this teaching is at variance with Catholic doctrine; but it is one which Tennyson puts forward with singular modesty, describing himself as
"An infant crying in the night;
An infant crying for the light;
And with no language but a cry."
In Memoriam, liii.
The Broad Church, as its name implies, professes large and liberal views. Not wishing to be tried by too strict a standard itself, it repudiates all harsh judgments on others. Accordingly, we find in Tennyson few allusions to errors, real or supposed, in the creed of others. He regards as sacred whatever links the soul to a divine truth. He has many friends who are Catholics, and we have heard that he has expressed sincere anxiety to publish nothing relative to the Catholic religion calculated to give offence to its followers. There are few lines in his volumes which grate on the most pious ear, and no devout breathings in which we do not cordially join. It is in one of his earlier poems, and only in sport, that he makes the Talking Oak tell of—