THE SUNNY SIDE 
 BEREAVEMENT 
 
 pp Charles E.Cooledg"e 
 
 5541 
 £6 
 
Class PR s^ 5 Q Z 
 Book, ,C fe 
 
 GopyiightN^ 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSnV 
 
THE SUNNY SIDE OF 
 BEREAVEMENT 
 
THE SUNNY SIDE 
 OF BEREAVEMENT 
 
 As Illustrated in Tc^nyson^s ^^In MemorianC^ 
 
 BY 
 
 Rev. CHARLES E. COOLEDGE 
 
 RICHARD G. BADGER 
 
 BOSTON 
 
Copyright, IQJ3, h Charles E. Cooledge 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
 
 ©CI.a:350609 
 
TO 
 
 THE MEMORY 
 
 OF 
 
 WILLIAM LEONARD GAGE, D.D., 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PA.GB. 
 
 I. The Bereavement .... 1 
 
 II. Grief and Despair .... 3 
 
 III. WiLL-o'-THE-Wisp Lights ... 6 
 
 IV. The Lesser Lights . . . .10 
 V. The Great Lights .... 14 
 
 VI. Comfort, Resignation and Peace . 49 
 
PREFACE 
 
 T^HE full significance of In Memoriam^ in its 
 ethical and spiritual teachings, is not perceived 
 at once, but, like gold, must be sought for below 
 the surface. It is not a simple, descriptive poem, 
 like Enoch Arden or the May Queen^ but is 
 metaphysical in its tone, discussing some of the 
 profoundest questions of science, philosophy and 
 theology. The unique method of its composition 
 is another obstacle in the way of its easy interpre- 
 tation. 
 
 The poem is not a single and continuous one, 
 but a mosaic, made up of one hundred and thirty- 
 one short poems, with a prologue and epilogue, 
 and expressing the varying thoughts and feelings 
 of the Poet during the long interval of seventeen 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 years. These separate poems, it is true, are 
 linked together and unified, so that in the com- 
 pleted poem we find " a beginning, a correlation 
 of parts, a progress and culmination ; " yet this 
 is not apparent without study and meditation, and 
 there is lacking what necessarily must be, under 
 the circumstances, — a clearly stated and specific 
 subject, a definite order, and logical arrangement, 
 which renders the poem to many minds, in this 
 busy and hurrying age, a work of genius, to be 
 greatly praised, perhaps, but practically unappre- 
 ciated and unread. An attempt, then, to connect 
 these pearls of poetic thought upon the thread of 
 a general subject, that their beauty and lustre 
 may be more clearly discernible, may not be 
 deemed altogether a superfluous or presumptuous 
 undertaking. 
 
 The subject of In Memoriam^ stated in a 
 general way, is the spiritual experience of a soul in 
 bereavement ; or, more definitely, the passing of 
 a bereaved soul from the gloom of anguish and 
 despair into the brightness of resignation, con- 
 tentment and peace. In Memoriam has been 
 
PREFACE. XI 
 
 called the " most distinctively theological poem of 
 the century," and " the finest religious poem of the 
 age ; " and these characterizations are undoubtedly 
 correct ; for it teaches, in the course of the argu- 
 ment, some of the most vital of moral and spirit- 
 ual truths. It affirms the great doctrines and 
 duties of Christianity : the existence of a personal 
 Deity, the immortality of the soul, the providence 
 and love of God, the divinity of Christ, the truth 
 of the Bible, the two great commandments of a 
 supreme love for God and a disinterested affection 
 for man upon which hang all the law and the 
 prophets. It teaches, also, that the great doctrines 
 of God, immortality and freedom are not depend- 
 ent altogether upon outward proof, but are intui- 
 tions of the soul, revealed directly to man through 
 his spiritual consciousness. There is an internal 
 revelation, as well as an external one, and when 
 these voices are listened to and compared, the 
 message they utter is found to be one and the 
 same. For a mind like Tennyson's to place itself 
 so unreservedly on the side of religion is a signifi- 
 cant fact, and indicates that the idea sometimes 
 
Xll PREFACE. 
 
 advanced, that to be a believer in Christianity 
 argues either intellectual incapacity or ignorance, 
 has no foundation in fact. 
 
 But while In Memoriam is to be highly prized 
 for its theological teachings, yet the inculcation of 
 these ideas is not the motive of the poem, nor is 
 it the great burden of its song. It appeals, pri- 
 marily, not to the intellect or the conscience, but 
 to the heart. ' Its great mission is to tell the 
 world that in the valley of the shadow of bereave- 
 ment there is comfort and peace. It is the attrac- 
 tiveness of the theme, as well as the profundity 
 of the thought, the beauty of the language and 
 the rhythm of the verse, which has given to the 
 poem its wide and enduring popularity. As 
 bereavement is a universal experience, so the 
 poem revealing the sunny side of bereavement is, 
 naturally, of universal interest. Its influence is 
 intensified from the fact that the consolatory 
 thoughts presented have been experimentally 
 tested. The author proclaims, not what he has 
 discovered by a long and subtle 23iocess of reason- 
 ino^, not what he has read or heard or observed, 
 
PREFACE. Xlll 
 
 but what he has himself personally experienced. 
 
 '' Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be 
 
 comforted." There have been many illustrations 
 
 of the fulfilment of this promise, some recorded, 
 
 many more unrecorded, but of those made known 
 
 to the world there is none surpassing, in interest 
 
 and impressiveness, the experience of the Poet 
 
 Laureate of England. 
 
 C. E. C. 
 
THE SUNNY SIDE OF 
 BEREAVEMENT. 
 
 THE BEREAVEMENT. 
 
 TN MEMORIAM is an elegiac poem written 
 in commemoration of Arthur Henry Hallam, 
 an intimate friend of the Poet, his classmate at 
 College, and the betrothed husband of one of 
 his sisters. Hallam, who died when only twenty- 
 two years of age, was the son of the distin- 
 guished Historian, and a young man of fas- 
 cinating personal qualities, brilliant intellect 
 and exalted character. His talents and virtues 
 are portrayed in the poem in lofty and pane- 
 gyric strains : — 
 
 *' Seraphic intellect and force," * 
 
THE SUNNY SIDE 
 
 " High nature amorous of the good," ' 
 " Thy converse drew us with delight," ^ 
 
 And thus he bore without abuse 
 The grand old name of gentleman," ^ 
 
 A life that all the Muses deck'd 
 With gifts of grace, that might express 
 All-comprehensive tenderness, 
 All-subtilizing intellect," ^ 
 
 The flower of men," ^ 
 
 " The sweetest soul 
 
 That ever look'd with human eyes," ' 
 " The man I held as half divine." ^ 
 
 Thus richly endowed with the highest qual- 
 ities of body, mind and soul, Hallam was to 
 Tennyson an ideal friend: — 
 
 *' Dear as the mother to the son, 
 More than my brothers are to me." ^ 
 
 This reverence and affection was recipro- 
 cated, and the friendship between the two, like 
 
OF BEREAVEMENT. 
 
 that of Jonathan and David, was "wonderful, 
 passing the love of women." This sweet and 
 inspiring companionship was suddenly and 
 rudely interrupted by the hand of death. 
 Hallam, while on a foreign tour, was attacked 
 by a rush of blood to the head, which resulted 
 in almost instantaneous death : — 
 
 " In Vienna's fatal walls 
 God's finger touch'd him, and lie slept." '° 
 
 GRIEF AND DESPAIR. 
 
 The blow fell upon the Poet with crushing, 
 almost paralyzing, power. He had hoped for a 
 long and happy intercourse with his friend, 
 which, by mutual co-operation, sympathy and 
 aid, would have halved the burdens and trials 
 of life and doubled all its joys; and when 
 death came, he trusted, as companions still, they 
 might pass together into the unseen world : — 
 
 •' Arrive at last the blessed goal, 
 And He that died in Holy Land 
 
THE SUNNY SIDE 
 
 Would reach us out the shining hand, 
 And take us as a single soul." ^^ 
 
 The bright dream is now over. His friend 
 is gone. He is left to live and die alone. In 
 the first shock of his great bereavement life 
 seemed divested of all value and charm : — 
 
 *' And what to me remains of good ?" '* 
 "For all is dark where thou art not," '^ 
 " And unto me no second friend," " 
 
 *♦ And in my heart, if calm at all, 
 If any calm, a calm despair. " '^ 
 
 On the approach of Christmas, a day which 
 the friends had been accustomed to celebrate 
 together, his anguish becomes so poignant, that 
 he almost wishes that he too were dead : — 
 
 " This year I slept and woke with pain, 
 I almost wish'd no more to wake, 
 And that my hold on life would break 
 Before I heard those bells again." '^ 
 
OF BEREAVEMENT. 
 
 His grief seemed to cast a pall over nature, 
 and to veil the brightest and fairest objects 
 with funeral gloom : — 
 
 ** Which sicken'd every living bloom, 
 And blurr'd the splendor of the sun ; " '^ 
 
 *• That made the rose 
 Pull sideways, and the daisy close 
 Her crimson fringes to the shower." '^ 
 
 The grief takes entire possession of his 
 nature, reaching down to the lowest springs 
 of thought and feeling : — 
 
 " Beneath all fancied hopes and fears 
 Ay me, the sorrow deepens down. 
 Whose muffled motions blindly drown 
 The bases of my life in tears." ^^ 
 
 And this woe and despair, as it appears to 
 the Poet, will be changeless and abiding : — 
 
 •* Yet in these ears, till hearing dies, 
 One set slow bell will seem to toll 
 The passing of the sweetest soul 
 That ever look'd with human eyes. *° 
 
THE SUNNY SIDE 
 
 " I hear it now, and o'er and o'er, 
 Eternal greetings to the dead, 
 And ' Ave, Ave, Ave,' said, 
 * Adieu, Adieu,' for evermore." ^' 
 
 WILL-O'-THE-WISP LIGHTS. 
 
 In Memoriam is in part an elegy, embalm- 
 ing, in exquisite and tender verse, the memory 
 of Hallam and the love and grief of his friend. 
 This is not, however, its only purpose; it ex- 
 presses also certain consolatory thoughts, ac- 
 cepted as true after much mental struggle, 
 which, in the end, wrought a wondrous chang' 
 in the feelings of the Poet, expelling sorrow 
 and despair and leading back hope and trust 
 and peace. In Memoriam is a psalm of faith 
 and joy as well as of despondency and gloom, 
 a triumphant ode as well as an elegy, a sweet 
 and comforting anthem as well as a funeral 
 dirge. At the beginning of the poem, certain 
 consolatory thoughts are rejected by the Poet as 
 unsubstantial and unsatisfying : — 
 
OF BEREAVEMENT. 
 
 " I held it truth, with him who sings 
 To one clear harp in divers tones, 
 That men may rise on stepping-stones 
 Of their dead selves to higher things." ^^ 
 
 The educative and enriching power of sorrow 
 is a precious truth ; one which the Poet after- 
 wards actually realized in his own experience ; 
 but when he stood in the chilling presence of 
 his great and irreparable loss, the thought of 
 compensating gain afforded little if any relief. 
 The good was too far away, too indefinite and 
 uncertain. The soul, moreover, in the first 
 shock of its bereavement seems almost to 
 desire no happiness apart from the presence 
 and companionship of the departed ; at least 
 the thought of deriving advantage from the 
 absence is too repugnant even to be enter- 
 tained : — 
 
 • ' But who shall so forecast the years 
 And find in loss a gain to match? 
 Or reach a hand thro' time to catch 
 The far-off interest of tears?" ^3 
 
8 THE SUNNY SIDE 
 
 The Poet finds no consolation in contact 
 with nature. All the glory and beauty of the 
 material world, looked upon through the dark 
 lenses of sorrow, seem symbols only of blind 
 fate, of spiritual desolation and death : — 
 
 "'The stars,' she whispers, 'blindly run; 
 A web is wov'n across the sky ; 
 From out waste places comes a cry. 
 And murmurs from the dying sun : ' ^* 
 
 ♦"And all the phantom, Nature, stands — 
 With all the music in her tone, 
 A hollow echo of my own — 
 A hollow form with empty hands.' " ^^ 
 
 Letters of condolence are received : — 
 
 "One writes, that 'Other friends remain,' 
 That 'Loss is common to the race.'" ^°' 
 
 But the Poet finds no comfort in knowing 
 that others are bearing the same evils as him- 
 self. This does not diminish but rather in- 
 creases the burden of his own grief : — 
 
 " That loss is common would not make 
 My own less bitter, rather more." '^^ 
 
OF BEREAVEMENT. 9 
 
 Such consolation, though well intended, is 
 powerless to help : — 
 
 "And vacant chaff well meant for grain." ^^ 
 
 Nor does the Poet desire any mitigation of 
 his woe, through the benumbing and effacing 
 influence of time. To have the dear face grow 
 more and more dim as the days go by, the sweet 
 music of his voice become fainter and fainter, 
 his words to fade away one by one from mem- 
 ory, — in a word, to escape the pain of bereave- 
 ment by forgetting the friend, — this would be 
 the keenest pang of all : — 
 
 " Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown'd, 
 Let darkness keep her raven gloss : 
 Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss, 
 To dance with death, to beat the ground, ^^ 
 
 " Than that the victor Hours should scorn 
 The long result of love, and boast, 
 * Behold the man that loved and lost, 
 But all he was is overworn.' " ^^ 
 
 To such voices as these Tennyson cries, as 
 
10 THE SUNNY SIDE 
 
 Job did of old, " I have heard many such things : 
 miserable comforters are ye all." 
 
 THE LESSER LIGHTS. 
 
 We come now to other and genuine sources 
 
 of consolation. It afforded some relief to 
 
 know that the body of his friend was near 
 
 him ; not buried in Vienna where he died, 
 
 but brought back and laid away in English 
 
 soil : — 
 
 " 'Tis well; 'tis sometliing; we may stand 
 Where he in English earth is laid." ^^ 
 
 It was indeed something to know that though 
 the spirit of his friend was gone the casket 
 which enshrined it was near, and while never 
 more to be beheld might be approached ; that 
 around its resting place the grass and vines and 
 flowers might be taught to grow; over it the 
 white and sculptured marble erected; upon it 
 dropped wreaths and floral offerings and tears 
 of love and grief. 
 
OF BEREAVEMENT. 11 
 
 In engaging in his accustomed avocations, 
 in the exercise of his poetic talent, some respite 
 was obtained : — 
 
 •' But, for the unquiet heart and brain, 
 A use in measured language lies; 
 The sad mechanic exercise. 
 Like dull narcotics, numbing pain." ^^ 
 
 This relief was perhaps more negative than 
 positive ; no direct consolation was afforded, 
 but occupation secured a diversion of mind, so 
 that for a time and in a degree the pain was 
 dulled and quieted. Happy the person who, in 
 bereavement, either by voluntary effort or com- 
 pelled by circumstances, is able to put into daily 
 exercise the hands or the brain or the heart. 
 
 Consolation was afforded in the remembrance 
 of past friendship and affection. God has given to 
 man three great sources of blessedness, — antici- 
 pation, realization and retrospection, — of which 
 the last is by no means the least. Happiness 
 that knocks once at our door may knock many 
 
12 THE SUNNY SIDE 
 
 times again, led back by memory's hand. 
 Tennyson, in his bereavement, found comfort 
 m the use of memory : — 
 
 •' Treasuring the look it cannot find, 
 The words that are not heard again." ^^ 
 
 *' But brooding on the dear one dead, 
 And all he said of things divine, 
 (And dear to me as sacred wine 
 To dying lips is all he said)."^'* 
 
 It may be said such remembrance brings pain 
 as well as pleasure. This is not denied ; only 
 it is denied that the pain equals the pleasure : — 
 
 " I hold it true, whatever befall; 
 I feel it, when I sorrow most; 
 'Tis better to have loved and lost 
 Than never to have loved at all." ^^ 
 
 Moreover, in remembering the life and 
 character of his friend, there was exerted a 
 strengthening and benign influence upon his 
 own life. He imagines himself dead in the 
 place of Arthur and asks what his friend would 
 
OI BEREAVEMENT. 13 
 
 have done under the circumstances. The blow, 
 he knows, would have been borne calmly, bravely; 
 in some way transmuted into good : — 
 
 "His credit thus shall set me free; 
 And influence-rich to soothe and save, 
 Unused example from the grave 
 Reach out dead hands to comfort me." ^^ 
 
 The Poet is comforted by the thought that 
 his friend, by death, has escaped those ills and 
 woes which are incident to, and a part of, human 
 life. The most successful and happy lives are 
 not altogether unmarked by sorrow. In the 
 web of this mortal life many dark threads are 
 woven in with the golden. Sometimes pain 
 overmatches pleasure; sometimes the anguish 
 is so excruciating and unendurable that exis- 
 tence, humanly speaking, is a curse rather than 
 a blessing. What woidd have been the fate 
 of those, who, like flowers in the springtime, 
 have been untimely blighted b^ the frost of 
 death, lies beyond th& ken of human vision. 
 
14 THE SUNNY SIDE 
 
 It is some comfort, surely, to know that if the 
 
 departed friend has lost the joys of earth, he 
 
 also has escaped its sorrows. The friends who 
 
 have passed within the vail are missed, are 
 
 longed for; yet, if their lives must have been 
 
 as the lives of some, we would not call them 
 
 back if we could. By the hand of death they 
 
 have been led away from the tumult and pain 
 
 of the earthly life, into that Better Land 
 
 "where the wicked cease from troubling and 
 
 the weary are at rest." This thought brought 
 
 comfort to the Poet : — 
 
 " Surely rest is meet: 
 •They rest,' we said, 'their sleep is sweet.'" ^' 
 
 THE GREAT LIGHTS. 
 
 Another and higher source of consolation 
 was afforded in his belief in the continued and 
 blessed existence of his friend beyond the 
 grave : — 
 
 " Our voices took a higher range; 
 Once more we sang : ' They do not die 
 
OF BEREAVEMENT. 16 
 
 Nor lose their mortal sympathy, 
 
 Nor chauge to us, although they change.'" ^* 
 
 The body of Arthur was dead and crumbling 
 into dust; but the soul, the immortal essence, 
 the power that thinks and feels and wills, whose 
 existence is known by its effects, that had not 
 become extinct, separated from its old com- 
 panion, manifesting itself upon the earth no 
 more, but alive as truly as it ever had been. 
 
 The Poet's faith in immortality is based 
 upon reason, intuition and revelation. With- 
 out a future life the present life is an inexpli- 
 cable enigma, hopelessly darkened by ignorance, 
 misery and sin : — 
 
 " My own dim life should teach me this, 
 That life shall live for evermore, 
 Else earth is darkness at the core, 
 And dust and ashes all that is.'* ^^ 
 
 Without immortality God is nothing to the 
 
 soul : — 
 
 *' What then were God to such as I ? 
 'Twere hardly worth my while to choose 
 
t6 THE SUNNY SIDE 
 
 Of things all mortal, or to use 
 A little patience ere I die." ^^ 
 
 Love also would lose its sweetness and power, 
 and become but an idle tale : — 
 
 "And Love would answer with a sigh, 
 * The sound of that forgetful shore 
 Will change my sweetness more and more, 
 Half -dead to know that I shall die.' " "' 
 
 If man is mortal then in perfection and 
 happiness he is below even the brute creation : — 
 
 " No more ? A monster then, a dream, 
 A discord. Dragons of the prime, 
 That tare each other in their slime, 
 Were mellow music match'd with him.' " *^ 
 
 Environed with so many evils, physical and 
 moral, without God, without love, without the 
 hope of Heaven, the doctrine of Pessimism 
 would be true and life would not be worth the 
 living; to sink without delay into a dreamless 
 and painless sleep would be the better part of 
 wisdom : — 
 
OF BEREAVEMENT. '^'^ 
 
 'Twere best at once to sink to peace, 
 Like birds the charming serpent draws, 
 To drop head-foremost in the jaws 
 Of vacant darkness and to cease. 
 
 »» 43 
 
 But this view of human life, reason emphati- 
 cally refuses to accept. Human life cannot be 
 such a sad and stupendous failure. Man's 
 faculties and desires were not made to remam 
 forever undeveloped and unsatisfied. Far su- 
 perior in intellect to the reptile and the brute, 
 he cannot be below them in happiness and 
 worth. Even on the theory of materialistic 
 evolution, immortality is more than probable. 
 ¥or to suppose that nature, having spent cen- 
 turies, ages perhaps, in evolving man, now, 
 when at length the long and toilsome process 
 is finished, and man, endowed with reason, 
 emotion and volition, possessing a conscience 
 and a spiritual nature, has become a living 
 soul, the brightest and costliest jewel of crea- 
 tion; to suppose that this potentially glorious 
 
18 THE SUNNY SIDE 
 
 being, with his capacities still undeveloped 
 and desires unsatisfied, is to be plunged at 
 death into eternal night, his Godlike powers 
 lost, resolved back into elemental dust, — such 
 a supposition is not only improbable but irra- 
 tional, well-nigh inconceivable. 
 
 But if this is true on the materialistic, 
 much more is it true on the theistic, view of 
 the universe. Tennyson is a theist. To him 
 the power which lies behind all phenomena is 
 a personal being, all powerful, all wise, all 
 loving : — 
 
 " Strong Son of God, immortal Love, 
 Whom we, that have not seen thy face, 
 By faith, and faith alone, embrace. 
 Believing where we cannot prove." *'* 
 
 If faith ever falters he falls back for proof 
 
 upon his own experience : — 
 
 " If e'er when faith had fall'n asleep, 
 I heard a voice ' believe no more,' 
 And heard an ever-breaking shore 
 That tmnbled in the Godless deep ; *^ 
 
OF BEREAVEMENT. 
 
 19 
 
 «' A warmth within the breast would melt 
 The freezing reason's colder part, 
 And like a man in wrath, the heart 
 Stood up and answer'd 'I have felt.""** 
 
 Believing thus in God lie believes also in 
 immortality : — 
 
 " Thou wilt not leave us in the dust: 
 Thou madest man he knows not why; 
 He thinks he was not made to die : 
 And thou hast made him : thou art just." -" 
 
 The justice and love of God prove to man 
 the doctrine of immortality. 
 
 The second source of his faith in the doc- 
 trine of the immortal life is intuition. Herbert 
 Spencer affirms that from the nature of thought 
 it is impossible to conceive matter becoming 
 non-existent. " The annihilation of matter is un- 
 thinkable." And what the philosopher holds is 
 true of the material atom, the Poet believes is 
 true of the soul. 
 
 " But in my spirit will I dwell, 
 And dream my dream, and hold it true; 
 
20 THE SUNNY SIDE 
 
 For tho' my lips may breathe adieu, 
 I cannot think the thing farewell." *^ 
 
 In other words, the doctrine of immortality 
 is a self-evident truth ; a datum of conscious- 
 ness. If it is objected that all men do not have 
 this immediate knowledge, it may be said that 
 necessary truths often require a certain intellect- 
 ual capacity and development, and for this 
 reason are not always universally recognized. 
 Mathematical axioms, clear and simple to a 
 cultivated mind, to a savage or child are only 
 meaningless terms. "There is," says Spencer, 
 "a growing up to the recognition of certain 
 necessary truths merely by the unfolding of the 
 inherited intellectual forms and faculties. . . 
 Along with the acquirement of more complex 
 faculty and more vivid imagination, there comes 
 the power of perceiving to be necessary ti'uths 
 what were before not recognized as truths at 
 all." This principle is as true in the spiritual as 
 in the material world. To developed intelli- 
 
OF BEREAVEMENT. 
 
 21 
 
 gences, truths which to other minds are obscure, 
 
 perhaps altogether unperceived, stand forth self- 
 
 revealed, the direct affirmations of consciousness. 
 
 The third source of his faith in the doctrine 
 
 of a future life is the Kevelation of Jesus 
 
 Christ : — 
 
 "Tho' truths in manhood darkly join, 
 Deep-seated in our mystic frame, 
 We yield all blessing to the name 
 Of Him that made them current coin." "^ 
 
 That is, the truth of an immortal life, inti- 
 mated and darkly revealed in man's nature, is 
 brought fully to the light and divinely expressed 
 in the Gospel of the Son of God. 
 
 Christ not only taught the doctrine of im- 
 mortality, but proved its truth by calling back 
 the dead to life : — 
 
 " When Lazarus left his charnel-cave, 
 And home to Mary's house return'd, 
 Was this demanded — if he yearn'd 
 To hear her weeping by his grave ? °'-^ 
 
22 THE SUNNY SIDE 
 
 " 'Where wert thou, brother, those four days?' 
 There lives no record of reply. 
 Which telling what it is to die 
 Had surely added praise to praise. '' 
 
 " From every house the neighbors met, 
 The streets were fiU'd with joyful sound, 
 A solemn gladness even crown'd 
 The purple brows of Olivet. ^' 
 
 "Behold a man raised up by Christ! 
 The rest remaineth unreveal'd; 
 He told it not; or something seal'd 
 The lips of that Evangelist." "^ 
 
 By thus embodying the truth in his own life 
 and deeds, Christ brought " life and immortality 
 to light," not only to the educated few, but to 
 all classes and conditions of men : 
 
 •' And so the Word had breath, and wrought 
 With human hands the creed of creeds 
 In loveliness of perfect deeds. 
 More strong than all poetic thought, '* 
 
 " Which he may read that binds the sheaf, 
 Or builds the house, or digs the grave, 
 And those wild eyes that watch the wave 
 In roarings round the coral reef." ** 
 
OF BEREAVEMENT. 23 
 
 The Poet is not unacquainted with the 
 objection urged against the soul's continued 
 existence after death, or the ground of the 
 alleged opposition of physical science, and 
 states the objection more strongly, perhaps, than 
 he would at the present time ; for science in some 
 respects has changed its attitude toward the 
 doctrine of a future life, and on the theory of 
 evolution teaches not only the possibility, but, in 
 a degree, the probability that death does not 
 end all. Tennyson, however, states the supposed 
 teachings of physical science as they were held 
 fifty years ago : — 
 
 ".Are God and nature then at strife, 
 That Nature lends such evil dreams? 
 So careful of the type she seems, 
 So careless of the single life. ^^ 
 
 * So careful of the type ? ' but no. 
 From scarped cliff and quarried stone 
 She cries ' a thousand types are gone : 
 I care for nothing, all shall go.' *' 
 
24 THE SUNNY SIDE 
 
 " ' Thou makest thine appeal to me : 
 I bring to life, I bring to death : 
 The spirit does but mean the breath: 
 I know no more.' " ^® 
 
 The fact that personal immortality is not 
 proved by physical science, though it gives the 
 Poet a passing chill, does not destroy his faith in 
 the doctrine. He recognizes that physical 
 science is only one source of human knowledge, 
 and by no means the most important one ; that 
 there are other and higher grounds of evidence 
 than that of the senses. The voices of instinct 
 and intuition and reason, and especially the voice 
 of Him who spake as man never spake, are to be 
 heeded, as well as that of physical science, 
 especially when their testimony is so clear and 
 positive, while that of the other is, at the best, 
 only negative ; for science gives no evidence 
 against the doctrine of immortality, it simply 
 says : " It may be true, it may not be. I do not 
 know; I have no means at my command for 
 
OF BEREAVEMENT. 25 
 
 deciding the question." So strong to the Poet 
 is the evidence of a future life afforded by 
 reason and revelation, that, though affirming no 
 antagonism between them and science, yet, if 
 there were any, this would not disturb in the 
 least his faith. The soul of man and the revela- 
 tion of Jesus Christ are more trustworthy guides 
 than the negative teachings of science, and if 
 the two sources of authority came into collision 
 he would cling unhesitatingly to the former : — 
 
 "Not only cunning casts in clay: 
 Let Science prove we are, and then 
 What matters Science unto men, 
 At least to me? I would not stay." ^' 
 
 Sublime trust in the higher and spiritual 
 sources of knowledge ! How refreshing in these 
 days of materialism, — when the " Gospel of 
 dirt," as Carlyle calls it, is being so earnestly 
 and dogmatically proclaimed ; when the spiritual 
 and supernatural are being ignored or denied or 
 
26 THE SUNNY SIDE 
 
 made to take subordinate places, — how refresh- 
 ing to hear a voice like Tennyson's affirming 
 their eternal existence and supremacy ; willing 
 indeed to render unto Caesar the things that are 
 Caesar's, but determined also to render unto 
 God the things that are God's. 
 
 And this life beyond the grave, into which, 
 as the Poet believes, his friend has entered, is 
 a life of unmingled felicity and uninterrupted 
 growth. The mere fact of continued existence 
 has in it nothing especially consolatory, for the 
 question at once arises: What is the nature of 
 this life ? What does it involve ? What give ? 
 What take away ? The Greeks believed in the 
 future existence of the soul, but it was an 
 existence so unsubstantial and joyless that the 
 darkest and saddest life upon the earth was 
 brighter and to be preferred. The Hindoos 
 and other nations believe in the doctrine of 
 inmiortality, but it is the degrading immortality 
 
OF BEREAVEMENT. 27 
 
 of transmigration. The Pantheist believes that 
 the soul exists after death, but without individ- 
 uality, absorbed in Deity as the rain drop is 
 lost in the ocean. To the Poet eternal life 
 involves not merely existence, but a conscious, 
 personal and blessed existence : — 
 
 " The great Intelligences fair 
 That range above our mortal state, 
 In circle round the blessed gate. 
 Received and gave him welcome there ; ^ 
 
 " And led him thro' the blissful climes. 
 And show'd him in the fountain fresh 
 All knowledge that the sons of flesh 
 Shall gather in the cycled times." ^^ 
 
 In the invisible world his friend was enjoy- 
 ing not merely negative happiness, the absence 
 of evil, but positive blessedness, the satisfaction 
 of every innocent desire, the exercise and de- 
 velopment of all his faculties and powers. The 
 noble deeds which the Poet is certain Arthur 
 would have achieved if his life had been spared, 
 
28 THE SUNNY SIDE 
 
 which would have won him reverence and fame, 
 
 are now being wrought in Heaven : — 
 
 " And doubtless, unto thee is given 
 A life tliat bears immortal fruit 
 In such great offices as suit 
 The full-grown energies of heaven."*' 
 
 " So here shall silence guard thy fame; 
 But somewhere, out of human view, 
 Whate'er thy hands are set to do 
 Is wrought with tumult of acclaim." ^^ 
 
 Perhaps, also, there is greater need of him 
 
 in Heaven, however much he may be needed 
 
 here : — 
 
 " So many worlds, so much to do, 
 So little done, such things to be. 
 How know I what had need of thee, 
 For thou wert strong as thou wert true?" ** 
 
 The continued and ever blessed existence of 
 the spirit after death, freed from all the limita- 
 tions and imperfections of the body, with powers 
 and desires not destroyed but transplanted to 
 the more perfect environment of God's im- 
 
OF BEREAVEMENT. 29 
 
 mediate presence, — this surely is a belief well 
 
 fitted to minister to the sorrowing mind and 
 
 pour balm into the bereaved and aching heart. 
 
 Consolation is afforded the Poet in the belief 
 
 that the love as well as the life of his friend has 
 
 survived, and lives on in Heaven, as pure, warm 
 
 and changeless as before : — 
 
 " They do not die 
 Nor lose their mortal sympathy, 
 Nor change to us although they change. " ** 
 
 Even though the soul should slumber in the 
 tomb until the Resurrection's morn, — a dreary 
 doctrine which the Poet does not accept, — even 
 then the love would not be lost or weakened ; — 
 
 ' ' And love will last as pure and whole 
 As when he loved me here in Time 
 And at the spiritual prime 
 Eewaken with the dawning soul." ^^ 
 
 To this beautiful and consolatory thought of 
 
 the survival and continuance of love arose three 
 
 objections. 
 
30 THE SUNNY SIDE 
 
 Is it certain that a memory of the past will 
 accompany the soul into the eternal world? 
 Man, it is said, has no recollection of a pre- 
 existent state or of infant days ; in mature life 
 memory often fails ; why, then, may not the soul 
 awaken in Heaven altogether oblivious of its 
 earthly career? To this the Poet replies, even 
 if this were the case some recollection might 
 flash upon the consciousness and the lost knowl- 
 edge be regained through angelic intelligence : — 
 
 •' And in the long harmonious years 
 (If Death so taste Lethean springs) 
 May some dim touch of earthly things 
 Surprise thee ranging with thy peers. ^^ 
 
 "If such a dreamy touch should fall, 
 O turn thee round, resolve the doubt; 
 My guardian angel will speak out 
 In that high place, and tell thee all." ^^ 
 
 But there is no good reason for supposing 
 that memory becomes extinct at death. The 
 experiences of infancy are not remembered 
 
OF BEREAVEMENT. 31 
 
 because the intellectual powers are not suffi- 
 ciently developed to admit of this : — 
 
 ' ' The baby new to earth and sky, 
 "What time his tender palm is prest 
 Against the circle of the breast, 
 Has never thought that 'this is I."'«9 
 
 Memory suffers temporary eclipse in later 
 years, either from physical weakness or for the 
 development and perfection of character : — 
 
 "We ranging down this lower track, 
 The path we came by, thorn and flower, 
 Is shadow'd by the growing hour. 
 Lest life should fail in looking back." ''*' 
 
 But in eternity all reasons for the dimming 
 of memory will be removed : — 
 
 ** There no shade can last 
 In that deep dawn behind the tomb, 
 But clear from marge to marge shall bloom 
 The eternal landscape of the past. " ""^ 
 
 Another objection to the survival of Arthur's 
 love in Heaven was based upon his intellectual 
 
32 THE SUNNY SIDE 
 
 superiority, which the Poet fears may cause him, 
 in time, to outgrow his early friendship : — 
 
 " Yet oft when sundown skirts the moor 
 An inner trouble I behold, 
 A spectral doubt which makes me cold, 
 That I shall be thy mate no more." '* 
 
 This is a practical and common objection. 
 Who is there who has not at times trembled lest 
 the departed friend — with the ampler oppor- 
 tunities of Heaven — should come at length to 
 regard the former friendship with indifference. 
 To this objection the Poet replies that heart 
 affection is not dependent upon nor propor- 
 tioned to intellectual attainments. No love 
 for Arthur, even if it were of the most impe- 
 rial mind in Heaven, could be greater than his 
 own: — 
 
 " I loved thee. Spirit, and love, nor can 
 The soul of Shakspeare love thee more." ''^ 
 
 But is human love of any value to the glori- 
 
OF BEREAVEMENT. 33 
 
 fied spirit? Yes, the Poet answers, all love is 
 precious, even the humblest, — too precious ever 
 to be rejected or despised : — 
 
 " I lull a fancy trouble-tost 
 With ' Love's too precious to be lost, 
 A little grain shall not be spilt. '" ''^ 
 
 The third objection to the continuation of his 
 friend's love in Heaven rested upon his own 
 moral and spiritual unworthiness : — 
 
 " And if thou cast thine eyes below, 
 How dimly character'd and slight, 
 How dwarf'd a growth of cold and night, 
 How blanch'd with darkness must I grow? '^ 
 
 Do we indeed desire the dead 
 Should still be near us at our side? 
 Is there no baseness we would hide? 
 No inner vileness that we dread? '* 
 
 Shall he for whose applause I strove, 
 I had such reverence for his blame, 
 ^ee with clear eyes some hidden shame 
 Jksd I be lessen'd in his love?" " 
 
34 THE SUNNY SIDE 
 
 To this the Poet replies that true love in 
 Hea\ en, as upon the earth, though it may grieve 
 over human imperfection, does not on that 
 account grow cold and die ; the more the soul 
 becomes like God in character, the more it 
 resembles Him in charity to the erring : — 
 
 ♦* Ye watch, like God, the rolling hours 
 With larger, other eyes than ours, 
 To make allowance for us all. '^ 
 
 ♦' So fret not, like an idle girl, 
 That life is dash'd with flecks of sin. 
 Abide : thy wealth is gather'd in. 
 When Time hath sunder'd shell from pearl." ^^ 
 
 Love then, like the soul, is indestructible. 
 Death has no power to annihilate the remem- 
 brance of former friendship; Heaven with all 
 its glory and blessedness can not lessen the 
 value of the earthly affection ; even moral and 
 spiritual unworthiness has no power to chill or 
 darken the love which now, in the Divine 
 
OF BEREAVEMENT. 35 
 
 presence, resembles more than ever before the 
 love of God Himself. Arthur, in Heaven, could 
 not forget or cease to cherish the friend he had 
 left behind any more than the friend could forget 
 or cease to cherish him. 
 
 With the faith in the continued and blessed 
 existence of his friend is associated, as another 
 source of comfort, a belief in the spiritual 
 presence of Arthur. To enjoy this presence had 
 long been the earnest wish and prayer of the 
 Poet : — 
 
 "Be near me when my light is low, 
 When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick 
 And tingle ; and the heart is sick, 
 And all the wheels of Being slow. ^° 
 
 " Be near me when the sensuous frame 
 Is rack'd with pangs that conquer trust; 
 And Time, a maniac scattering dust, 
 And Life, a Fury slinging flame. ^' 
 
 " Be near me when I fade away, 
 To point the term of human strife. 
 
36 THE SUNNY SIDE 
 
 And on the low dark verge of life 
 The twilight of eternal day." ^^ 
 
 This prayer, as tlie Poet believes, is answered, 
 and in a real though spiritual sense his lost 
 friend is near him and with him : — 
 
 "Far off thou art, but ever nigh: 
 I have thee still, and I rejoice. ^^ 
 
 "The face will shine 
 Upon me, while I muse alone; 
 And that dear voice, I once have known, 
 Still speak to me of me and mine." ^^ 
 
 At the marriage of his sister he imagines 
 that Arthur, though unseen and silent, may be 
 among the wedding guests : — 
 
 "Nor count me all to blame if I 
 Conjecture of a stiller guest, 
 Perchance, perchance, among the rest. 
 And, tho' in silence, wishing joy." ^^ 
 
 His faith comes in part, doubtless, from his 
 Christian education ; from Bible intimations of 
 
OF BEREAVEMENT. 
 
 37 
 
 the possibility, perhaps probability, of the pre- 
 sence and ministry of departed friends. The 
 ministry of angels is one of the cardinal teach- 
 ings of the Old Testament dispensation. " The 
 Angel of the Lord encampeth round about them 
 that fear Him, and delivereth them." " He shall 
 give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee 
 in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in 
 their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a 
 stone." 
 
 Angelic visitations for counsel, guidance, 
 punishment, deliverance and encouragement, 
 were common occurrences in Old Testament 
 history. All the way down from Genesis to 
 Malachi, " the pious Jew saw the shining foot- 
 steps of these heavenly messengers." 
 
 Angelic ministration plays an important part 
 in New Testament history. Angels announced 
 to the two Marys the respective births of Jesus 
 and John. Over the plain, near Bethlehem, 
 
38 THE SUNNY SIDE 
 
 they heralded, with songs of praise, the Saviour's 
 advent. In the wilderness of temptation and in 
 the Garden of Gethsemane they ministered unto 
 their Lord. To the troubled and despairing 
 disciples they brought tidings of the Resurrec- 
 tion of Christ, and after His ascension they 
 appeared again, predicting His second coming in 
 the clouds of Heaven. Unto Cornelius an angel 
 appeared, telling liim his prayers and alms had 
 gone up for a memorial before God, and direct- 
 ing him unto Peter for further enlightenment. 
 By the hand of an angel Peter was twice 
 delivered from prison and restored unto his 
 friends. Unto Paul an angel appeared, bring- 
 ing from God words of encouragement and 
 hope. 
 
 Angelic visitation by material manifestation 
 passed away with the Apostolic age, but not 
 necessarily angelic ministration. There are 
 intimations and hints in the New Testament 
 
OF BEREAVEMENT. 39 
 
 which seem to indicate the Divine guardianship 
 through the medium of angels is by no means 
 a thing of the past. " There is joy," we read, 
 " in the presence of the angels of God over one 
 sinner that repenteth." Angels are acquainted, 
 then, with what is going on upon the earth, 
 and are interested therein. "Are they not all 
 ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for 
 them who shall be heirs of salvation ? " " For 
 I say unto you, that in Heaven their angels do 
 always behold the face of my Father which 
 is in Heaven." 
 
 If the Infinite Spirit, unseen, unheard, unap- 
 prehended in any way by the bodily sense, may 
 draw near the human soul, encompass it around 
 and abide with it, there is nothing irrational, 
 certainly, in attributing, in a degree at least, the 
 same power to the finite mind. 
 
 If this doctrine of the spiritual presence and 
 ministry of angels is true, as reason and revela- 
 
40 THE SUNNY SIDE 
 
 tion seem to indicate, nothing could be more 
 natural and fitting than that the celestial guar- 
 dianship of bereaved souls should be entrusted to 
 departed friends, who, having known and loved 
 them in the life below, now, with clearer vision 
 and intenser feeling, know and love in Heaven. 
 
 Tennyson's faith in the presence of his 
 friend was confirmed by an experience in which 
 he seemed to hold direct and personal intercourse 
 with the spirit of Arthur. This communion 
 was spiritual not physical. While desirous of 
 seeing his friend again in bodily form, he has no 
 expectation that this desire will be satisfied. 
 He is most emphatic in denying the possibility 
 of any physical communication with departed 
 friends. There is no materialization of the 
 spirit, no visual appearance, no touch of hand, 
 no material contact of any kind. In respect to 
 any sensory manifestation of his friend he dis- 
 tinctly affirms : — 
 
OF BEREAVEMENT. 
 
 41 
 
 ♦'I shall not see thee." ^^ 
 So strong and utter is his disbelief, that, 
 though a vision should reveal the very likeness 
 of Arthur, he would not credit its reality, but : — 
 
 "Count it vain 
 As but the canker of the brain." " 
 
 Though it should speak, and make appeal to 
 events common to their past experience, he 
 would only regard the apparent supernatural 
 communication as some murmuring wind of his 
 own memory : — 
 
 " 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." ^^ 
 
 Even this he would not regard as a real 
 
 prophecy, but only as a presentiment of his own 
 
 mind : — 
 
 " And such refraction of events 
 As often rises ere they rise." ^^ 
 
42 THE SUNNY SIDE 
 
 These emphatic assertions ought to settle 
 decisively the question which is sometimes raised, 
 "Whether or not Tennyson is a believer in 
 the doctrine of modern spiritism ? " 
 
 But while thus rejecting altogether the idea 
 of any physical manifestation of his friend, he 
 believes in the possibility of a spiritual inter- 
 communication : — 
 
 " No visual shade of some one lost, 
 But he, the Spirit himself, may come 
 Where all the nerve of sense is numb; 
 Spirit to Spirit, Ghost to Ghost." *»" 
 
 The enjoyment of this communion, how- 
 ever, is not unconditional ; a certain attitude of 
 mind and heart is essential. There must be 
 purity of heart, soundness of mind and love 
 toward God : — 
 
 " How pure at heart and sound in head, 
 With what divine affections bold 
 Should be the man whose thought would hold 
 An hour's communion with the dead." ^' 
 
OF BEREAVEMENT. 43 
 
 The spirit must be at peace with all : — 
 
 " In vain shalt thou, or any, call 
 The spirits from their golden day, 
 Except, like them, thou too canst say, 
 My spirit is at peace with all. " ^^ 
 
 The memory must be cloudless and the con- 
 science at rest : — 
 
 " They haunt the silence of the breast. 
 Imaginations calm and fair. 
 The memory like a cloudless air, 
 The conscience as a sea at rest." ^^ 
 
 If these conditions are wanting, if the heart 
 is full of doubt and tumult, spiritual commun- 
 ion is impossible : — 
 
 " But when the heart is full of din, 
 And doubt beside the portal waits, 
 They can but listen at the gates. 
 And hear the household jar within." ^* 
 
 Having complied with these conditions, the 
 Poet earnestly invokes the spirit of his friend 
 to descend and enter into communion with his 
 own: — 
 
44 THE SUNNY SIDE 
 
 "Descend, and touch, and enter: hear 
 The wish too strong for words to name; 
 That in this blindness of the frame 
 My Ghost may feel that thine is near." ^* 
 
 This prayer, at length, as it seems to him, is 
 answered. At the close of a calm and pleasant 
 summer evening, which had been delightfully 
 spent with friends in conversation and song, he 
 finds himself at last alone. A hunger seized his 
 heart for the companionship of Arthur. He 
 reads again and again the letters of his friend : — 
 
 "Those fall'n leaves which kept their green." ^^ 
 
 As thus he perused and pondered, suddenly, 
 
 the longing of his soul is satisfied ; the spirit of 
 
 his friend flashes upon his own, and they enter 
 
 into a real though mystical communion with each 
 
 other: — 
 
 " So word by word, and line by line, 
 The dead man touch'd me from the past, 
 And all at once it seem'd at last 
 His living soul was flash'd on mine, ^^ 
 
OF BEREAVEMENT. 45 
 
 •'And mine in his was wound, and whirl'd 
 About empyreal heights of thought, 
 And came on that which is, and caught 
 The deep pulsations of the world, ^^ 
 
 "Ionian music measuring out 
 The steps of Time — the shocks of Chance — 
 The blows of Death." »» 
 
 This experience, like that of the Apostle 
 Paul, when caught up into the third heaven, was, 
 to a great extent, unspeakable and incommuni- 
 cable : — 
 
 "Vague words! but ah, how hard to frame 
 In matter-moulded forms of speech, 
 Or ev'n for intellect to reach 
 Thro' memory that which I became." '*^** 
 
 Nor was the Poet altogether convinced of the 
 objective reality of his vision : — 
 
 "At length my trance 
 Was cancell'd, stricken thro' with doubt." *°' 
 
 Later on this uncertainty again finds expres- 
 sion : — 
 
46 THE SUNNY SIDE 
 
 " Oh, wast thou with me, dearest, then, 
 While I rose up against my doom. '°^ 
 
 *' If thou wert with me, and the grave 
 Divide us not, be with me now." ^"^ 
 
 But while this experience could not be 
 regarded as incontestably real, and hence afforded 
 no absolute proof of the presence of Arthur, it 
 was, nevertheless, confirmatory evidence, and the 
 Poet^s comforting belief in the spiritual pres- 
 ence of his friend was strengthened and con- 
 firmed. 
 
 Another and final source of consolation was 
 afforded in his belief in a future reunion with 
 Arthur in Heaven. As he was about leaving 
 his old home in Lincolnshire, where he had 
 spent so many happy hours, he had a beautiful 
 and suggestive dream, by which he was greatly 
 comforted. He seemed, in his vision, to be 
 dwelling in a hall in the front of which flowed a 
 river fed by springs from far-off hills. Com- 
 
OF BEREAVEMENT. 47 
 
 panions played and sang to a veiled statue of 
 
 liis friend which stood in the centre of the hall. 
 
 A dove flew in, bringing a summons from the 
 
 sea. They enter a little shallop and glide down 
 
 the stream, which ever widens as they advance. 
 
 Vaster becomes the shore and grander roll the 
 
 floods. The Poet and his companions grow in 
 
 stature, in strength, in grace, in intellectual and 
 
 spiritual power. At length they reach the ocean 
 
 where they see : — 
 
 ♦'A great ship lift her shining sides." ^^* 
 
 On deck stands Arthur waiting to welcome 
 
 his friend, who eagerly climbs the deck and falls 
 
 in silence on his neck. They all enter the ship 
 
 and spreading the sails steer : — 
 
 "Toward a crimson cloud 
 That landlike slept along the deep." ^"^ 
 
 This vision was regarded by Tennyson as a 
 
 symbol or prophecy of the reunion awaiting 
 
 Arthur and himself in the other world : — 
 
48 THE SUNNY SIDE 
 
 *' Abiding with me till I sail 
 To seek thee on the mystic deeps, 
 And the electric force, that keeps 
 A thousand pulses dancing, fail. ^^ 
 
 " And we shall sit at endless feast, 
 Enjoying each the other's good : 
 What vaster dreams can hit the mood 
 Of love on earth?" 'O' 
 
 Will there be recognition of friends in 
 Heaven ? Yes, the Poet answers : — 
 
 ' ' Eternal form shall still divide 
 The eternal soul from all beside; 
 And I shall know him when we meet." "'^ 
 
 The anticipation of this reunion became, at 
 
 length, so strong and joyous that it greatly 
 
 lessened the pain of his bereavement : — 
 
 " Yet less of sorrow lives in me 
 For days of happy commune dead ; 
 Less yearning for the friendship fled, 
 Than some strong bond which is to be." ^°^ 
 
 By their temporary separation the joy of 
 future communion will be greatly increased : -— 
 
OF BEREAVEMENT. 49 
 
 ♦* O days and hours, your work is this, 
 To hold me from my proper place, 
 A little while from his embrace, 
 For fuller gain of after bliss : ''° 
 
 ♦♦ That out of distance might ensue 
 Desire of nearness doubly sweet; 
 And unto meeting when we meet. 
 Delight a thousand fold accrue." *** 
 
 COMFORT, RESIGNATION, AND PEACE. 
 
 These consolatory thoughts wrought in the 
 feelings of Tennyson a profound and permanent 
 change. The sense of irreparable loss and 
 desolation, which the death of Hallam had 
 occasioned, no longer haunted and oppressed 
 his mind. Though not cognizable by the senses, 
 his friend was as truly alive, and perhaps as 
 near to him, as he had ever been : — 
 
 '«Far off thou art, but ever nigh: 
 
 I have thee still, and I rejoice; 
 
 I prosper, circled with thy voice; 
 
 I shall not lose thee tho' I die." "' 
 "Known and unknown; human, divine; 
 
 Sweet human hand and lips and eye ; 
 
60 THE SUNNY SIDE 
 
 Dear heavenly friend that canst not die, 
 Mine, mine, for ever, ever mine." "^ 
 
 The fear that his own love for his friend 
 
 might grow cold and dim has also passed 
 
 away : — 
 
 "My love involves the love before; 
 My love is vaster passion now; 
 Tho' mixed with God and Nature thou, 
 I seem to love thee more and more." ""* 
 
 He is able to visit the old home of Hallam 
 without depression and gloom, and to celebrate 
 his birthday with social and festal cheer. He 
 determines to abandon his secluded life and 
 return to the companionship and pursuits of 
 his fellow-men : — 
 
 " I will not shut me from my kind, 
 And lest I stiffen into stone, 
 I will not eat my heart alone, 
 Nor feed with sighs a passing wind." ^'* 
 
 He even formed another and intimate friend- 
 ship; not to supplant but to supplement the old 
 
OF BEREAVEMENT. 51 
 
 one, and which, though not as intense and 
 
 passionate, was nevertheless affectionate and 
 
 true. This new friend was received, as he 
 
 believed, in accordance with the wish of Arthur, 
 
 whose voice he seemed to hear bidding him : — 
 
 " Arise and get thee forth and seek 
 A friendship for the years to come." **^ 
 
 Though no rebellious feeling has ever been 
 expressed, yet now his faith in the providence 
 and love of God is more firmly fixed, and he 
 gives joyful expression to his belief that the 
 supreme Ruler of the universe is Love, and that 
 in some way all things are working together for 
 
 good : — 
 
 ' ' Love is and was my King and Lord, 
 And will be, tho' as yet I keep 
 Within his court on earth, and sleep 
 Encompass'd by his faithful guard, "^ 
 
 '* And hear at times a sentinel 
 Who moves about from place to place, 
 And whispers in the worlds of space, 
 In the deep night, that all is well. "^ 
 
52 THE SUNNY SIDE 
 
 ♦* And all is well, tho' faith and form 
 Be sunder'd in the night of fear; 
 Well roars the storm to those that hear 
 A deeper voice across the storm." "^ 
 
 In the epilogue of In Memoriam^ Tennyson 
 describes the marriage of his sister Cecilia to 
 Edmund Law Lushington, a distinguished Pro- 
 fessor of the University at Glasgow. The Poet 
 is present and engages in the festivities of the 
 occasion. The music, the dance, the feasting, 
 the gay marriage bells are symbols of the feel- 
 ings which now pervade his mind. He has not 
 forgotten or ceased to cherish his friend ; at the 
 wedding feast he conjectures : — 
 
 " Of a stiller guest, 
 Perchance, perchance, among the rest, 
 And, tho' in silence, wishing joy." ''^" 
 
 But while still in bereavement he is dwelling 
 now upon the sunny side of it. His life, once 
 so cold and dark, has been flooded with the 
 
OF BEKEAVEMENT. 63 
 
 warm, bright beams of consolation, and the 
 shadow of death has been turned into the 
 morning : — 
 
 " To-day the grave is bright for me." "' 
 
INDEX. 
 
 1 cix, 2 
 
 2 cix, 3 
 
 3 ex, 1 
 
 4 cxi, 6 
 
 5 Ixxxv, 12 I 
 
 6 xcix, 1 
 
 7 Ivii, 3 
 
 8 xiv, 3 
 
 9 ix, 5 , 
 
 10 Ixxxv, 5 
 
 11 Ixxxiv, 11 
 
 12 vi, 11 
 
 13 viii, 3 
 
 14 vi, 11 
 
 15 xi, 4 
 
 16 xxviii, 4 
 
 17 Ixxii, 2 
 
 18 Ixxii, 3 
 
 19 xlix, 4 
 
 20 Ivii, 3 
 
 21 Ivii, 4 
 
 22 i, 1 
 
 23 i, 2 
 
 24 iii. 2 
 
 25 iii> 3 
 
 26 vi, 1 
 
 27 . . ■ vi, 2 
 
 28 vi, 1 
 
 29 i, 3 
 
 30 i, 4 
 
 31 xviii, 1 
 
 32 V, 2 
 
 33 xviii, 5 
 
 34 xxxvii, 5 
 
 35 xxvii, 4 
 
 36 Ixxx, 4 
 
 37 XXX, 5 
 
 38 XXX, 6 
 
 39-, xxxiv, 1 
 
 40 xxxiv, 3 
 
 41 XXXV, 4 
 
 42 Ivi, 6 
 
 43 xxxiv, 4 
 
 44 ... . Prologue, 1 
 
 45 cxxiv, 3 
 
 46 cxxiv, 4 
 
 47 ... . Prologue, 3 
 
 48 cxxiii, 3 
 
 49 xxxvi, 1 
 
 50 xxxi, 1 
 
 51 xxxi, 2 
 
 52 xxxi, 3 
 
 53 xxxi, 4 
 
 54 xxxvi, 3 
 
56 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 55 xxxvi, 4 
 
 56- Iv, 2 
 
 57 Ivi, 1 
 
 58 Ivi, 2 
 
 59 cxx, 2 
 
 60 Ixxxv, 6 
 
 61 Ixxxv, 7 
 
 62 xl, 5 
 
 63 Ixxv, 5 
 
 64 Ixxiii, 1 
 
 65 XXX, 6 
 
 66 xliii, 4 
 
 67 xliv, 3 
 
 68 xliv, 4 
 
 69 xlv, 1 
 
 70 xlvi, 1 
 
 71 xlvi, 2 
 
 72 xli, 5 
 
 73 Ixi, 3 
 
 74 Ixv, 1 
 
 75 Ixi, 2 
 
 76 li, 1 
 
 77 li, 2 
 
 78 li, 4 
 
 79 lii, 4 
 
 80 1, 1 
 
 81 1, 2 
 
 82 1, 4 
 
 83 cxxx, 4 
 
 84 cxvi, 3 
 
 85 . . . . Epilogue, 22 
 
 86 xciii, 1 
 
 87 xcii, 1 
 
 88 xcii, 3 
 
 89 xcii, 4 
 
 90 xciii, 2 
 
 91 xciv, 1 
 
 92 xciv, 2 
 
 93 xciv, 3 
 
 94 xciv, 4 
 
 95 xciii, 4 
 
 96 xcv, 6 
 
 97 xcv, 9 
 
 98 xcv, 10 
 
 99 xcv, 11 
 
 100 xcv, 12 
 
 101 xcv, 11 
 
 102 cxxii, 1 
 
 103 cxxii, 3 
 
 104 ciii, 10 
 
 105 ciii, 14 
 
 106 cxxv, 4 
 
 107 xlvii, 3 
 
 108 xlvii, 2 
 
 109 cxvi, 4 
 
 110 cxvii, 1 
 
 111 cxvii, 2 
 
 112 cxxx, 4 
 
 113 cxxix, 2 
 
 114 cxxx, 3 
 
 115 cviii, 1 
 
 116 Ixxxv, 20 
 
 117 cxxvi, 2 
 
 118 cxxvi, 3 
 
 119 cxxvii, 1 
 
 120 . . . . Epilogue, 22 
 
 121 . . . . Epilogue, 19 
 
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