"Sad Hesper o'er the buried sun
And ready, thou to die with him,
Thou watchest all things ever dim
And dimmer, and a glory done :
"The team is loosen'd from the wain,

The boat is drawn upon the shore;
Thou listenest to the closing door,
And life is darken'd in the brain.

"Bright Phosphor, fresher for the night,
By thee the world's great work is heard
Beginning, and the wakeful bird;
Behind thee comes the greater light:
"The market boat is on the stream,

And voices hail it from the brink;
Thou hear'st the village hammer clink,
And see'st the moving of the team.
"Sweet Hesper-Phosphor, double name

For what is one, the first, the last,
Thou, like my present and my past,

Thy place is changed; thou art the same."

It is as illustrative of this altered attitude of spirit that we find appended to In Memoriam a nuptial ode. This ode was written on the marriage of one of the poet's sisters to one of the poet's friends, probably the "true in word and tried in deed," to whom he had already offered the "imperfect gift" of a second friendship. I hardly see why I should hesitate to name him-Professor Lushington, of Glasgow University-for, as an old student of his, I have pleasure in echoing the poet's praise of him :

"And thou art worthy; full of power;
As gentle; liberal-minded, great,
Consistent; wearing all that weight
Of learning lightly like a flower."

The bride was not the sister who had been betrothed to Hallam, but she had been known to Hallam; "he too foretold the perfect rose." And now, this marriage-day-nine years after Hallam's death-is the brightest day the poet has yet experienced since his sad bereavement. He finds that he can enter with thorough heartiness into all the festivity and gladness of the wedding. It is not that he has forgotten his first friend; he thinks of him as perchance present, though unseen,

"And, tho' in silence, wishing joy."

His old Regret has gone, but not his old love—

“Regret is dead, but love is more

Than in the summers that are flown."

And so, whilst true as ever to the memory of the departed, he can enter with living healthful sympathy into all the joy of the bridal. There was a day when the churchyard was to him only a place of congenial gloom; but now, when he follows bride and bridegroom out of the church porch, he feels that even the grave "has its sunny side." Thus the marriage-ode is no mere literary excrescence: its addition to the poem is justified by the laws of art; for it gives a crowning illustration of that progressive history of feeling, of which the poem itself contains the record.

IV. The fourth and last aspect in which I shall view In Memoriam is as embodying the protest of the Heart in favour of spiritual Faith.

The soul that has just been stricken by a sore bereavement is often confronted with the great questions of human destiny. Brought face to face with

the fact of death, the soul is no longer satisfied with a mere traditional creed. Even "scepticisms," which were formerly mere objects of curiosity, may perhaps now demand to be made subjects of inquiry. The soul longs for spiritual assurance.

That friend whom I so dearly loved, does he still exist, or has he ceased to be? Is there, after all, a soul that survives the dissolution of the body? And, if there is a soul, is it at death re-absorbed into the universal spirit, or does it still exist as a separate individual? And, if so, is it meanwhile in a state of sleep, waiting until it receives the resurrection-body, or is it even now in a state of conscious activity ? Does my friend see me? Does he remember me? Does he love me still, or has he forgotten the circumstances of his earthly existence, now that he has been born into the higher life? or does he regard the old friendship as unworthy of him, now that he is holding converse with the "circle of the wise" above? If he sees me, and knows all my faults, will he not love me less? Shall we recognize each other again when we meet in another world? Now that he has got so far beyond me, can I ever be his companion there as here? And is there really a Christ, who, when He was on earth, raised the dead,- -a Divine Redeemer in whom we can trust as "The Resurrection and the Life"?

Such are the questions that naturally present themselves to the bereaved heart, and that are touched by Tennyson in the course of this poem. Touched: that is all. The poet does not profess to discuss them. He attempts no philosophical investigation. He enters into no theological argument. He simply brings the

questions, as a poet may well do, into the light of imagination and affection. He looks at the analogies of nature and of human experience. He considers the various questions in relation to his own deepest feeling. He lays weight on spiritual intuition-on that which is "likest God within the soul." When analogy and intuition seem to point in different directions, he leans to intuition. He trusts nature less than human nature on the great questions of human destiny. And, as a man who has "loved and lost," without professing to solve these questions, he meets them with an answer born of the cravings and instincts of his own heart.

He believes that his friend still lives. His heart refuses to accept the doctrine that what he loved was merely a piece of organized matter, now mouldering in the churchyard. Nor can he believe that his friend. has lost individuality and been re-absorbed into the

"general soul." That is a "faith as vague as all

unsweet." Perhaps the soul may be sleeping: if so, it is a comfort to think that, when it wakes again, all the old love will wake with it, the same as ever. But, for his own part, he clings to the belief that the soul is not sleeping-that, as "here, the man is more and more," so there the soul is, even now, making constant and conscious progress. He loves also to think that his friend has carried his memory with him, and that the eternal landscape of the past lies all "clear" before him. He hopes that his friend still loves him surely love is "too precious a thing to "be lost" and even the superior nature may surely spare some sympathy" for the inferior. He wishes the departed to "be near him"-to "look him through

and through"; for surely our friends who are with God can look upon our faults with a godlike charity. He clings to the faith, born of love, that they "shall know each other when they meet again," and "each enjoy the other's good." He clings even to the hope that all God's creatures may "at last," when God's purposes are "complete," exist in the conscious enjoyment of life. It may be but a "dream"; God knows best; and there are analogies of "Nature" that seem to contradict the expectation; but still his heart bids him "trust," however "faintly," "the larger hope." Nor does he conceal his faith in Christ. To him Christ is no mere imperfect moralist. The Gospels are the record of

"the sinless years

That breathed beneath the Syrian blue."

To him the miracles are no myths: Christ is "the Life indeed," who brought back Lazarus from "his charnel-cave." Yea, Christ is to him the Word made flesh," who

"wrought

With human hands the creed of creeds

In loveliness of perfect deeds,

More strong than all poetic thought."

Some have ventured to call Tennyson a "Pantheist." Well, as Carlyle has it, "call him Pantheist or Pottheist," he has certainly here uttered himself in favour of faith-faith in God and Christ and a personal immortality. Doubtless the poem has its echoes of the scepticisms peculiar to our own age; but this only makes it the more valuable, as embodying the protest of the heart against them :

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