It is not, therefore, in a vague and dreamy way, but with the full force of the understanding, that Tennyson invokes the spirits in their place of rest. It is not merely as a poet, but as a Christian, that he exclaims:
"Oh! therefore, from thy sightless range,
With gods in unconjectured bliss.
Oh from the distance of the abyss
Of tenfold, complicated change,
"Descend, and touch, and enter: hear
The wish too strong for words to name;
That in the blindness of the frame
My ghost may feel that thine is near."
In Memoriam, xcii.
We say "as a Christian;" for we warmly repudiate the harsh interpretation which is often put on his words addressed to the Son of God:
"Thou seemest human and divine,
The highest, holiest manhood thou."
"See," it is said, "this is the most you can get from your favorite about Christ—that he seems divine. It is an appearance, a semblance only." Now, this reasoning is most unfair. The remainder of the verse implies his godhead—
"Our wills are ours, we know not how;
Our wills are ours, to make them thine."
The verses which follow are a prayer to Christ, imploring from him light and aid, wisdom and forgiveness. (Prefatory lines to In Memoriam) In fact, it is evident from other parts of Tennyson's elegy, that he does not use the word seem in the sense of appearing to be what a thing is not, but in the sense of its appearing to be what it is. Thus, in the fifth stanza, below the lines just quoted, we have—
"Forgive what seemed my sin in me;
What seemed my worth since I began;
For merit lives from man to man,
And not from man, O Lord! to thee."
So again, In Memoriam, xxxiii.,
"O thou that after toil and storm,
May'st seem to have reached a purer air;"