The Burdens of Belief and Other Poems By The Duke of Argyll [i.e. G. D. Campbell] |
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THE BURIAL OF ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON, IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY
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 | The Burdens of Belief and Other Poems |  |
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THE BURIAL OF ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON, IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY
October 12th, 1892
Prophet and Bard, whose every word
Will be the home, through coming years,
Of all who speak this English tongue
In life and joy, in death and tears.
Will be the home, through coming years,
Of all who speak this English tongue
In life and joy, in death and tears.
We lay thee in our sorrow down,
Remembering all that thou hast said
Of those who hold, in seeming sleep,
The vaster knowledge of the dead.
Remembering all that thou hast said
Of those who hold, in seeming sleep,
The vaster knowledge of the dead.
In daring yet in reverent thought,
Unbound by forms which others need,
Thine eyes were fixed with longing gaze
On Him Who is the ‘Life indeed.’
Unbound by forms which others need,
Thine eyes were fixed with longing gaze
On Him Who is the ‘Life indeed.’
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‘Strong Son of God, Immortal Love,’
Are words which came from out thine heart.
We feel them breathing through thy song
In all its melodies of Art.
Are words which came from out thine heart.
We feel them breathing through thy song
In all its melodies of Art.
The mysteries of the world to thee
In all its present, all its past,
Dissolved in one undying faith
That ‘Love will conquer at the last.’
In all its present, all its past,
Dissolved in one undying faith
That ‘Love will conquer at the last.’
And Love was pure in all thy Verse,
The love of friendship early drawn
To noble manhood in its youth,
And genius in its golden dawn.
The love of friendship early drawn
To noble manhood in its youth,
And genius in its golden dawn.
And when thou speak'st the love of loves,
The bridal love of human life,
The morning bells of marriage peal
O'er perfect woman, perfect wife.
The bridal love of human life,
The morning bells of marriage peal
O'er perfect woman, perfect wife.
Nor less do baseness, hate and scorn,
The same feeling is expressed in his lines on ‘The Poet,’
where the ‘scorn of scorn’ comes among the very first of the
highest endowments, there described.
Stand withered in thy scathing eyes:
Then touched to penitence by thee,
We see the trembling souls arise.
Tennyson, on my last visit to him, not long before his death, turned in his garden walk, and said emphatically, ‘I hate scorn.’ Those who know the ‘Idylls’ well will recollect the passage in Guinevere where this sentiment is nobly expressed:
For in those days
No knight of Arthur's noblest dealt in scorn;
But, if a man were halt or hunch'd, in him
By those whom God had made full-limb'd and tall,
Scorn was allow'd as part of his defect,
And he was answer'd softly by the King
And all his Table.
No knight of Arthur's noblest dealt in scorn;
But, if a man were halt or hunch'd, in him
By those whom God had made full-limb'd and tall,
Scorn was allow'd as part of his defect,
And he was answer'd softly by the King
And all his Table.
Stand withered in thy scathing eyes:
Then touched to penitence by thee,
We see the trembling souls arise.
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Repentance and the power of prayer
Were never sung as sung by thee;
The stricken form of Guinevere
Their type till time shall cease to be.
Were never sung as sung by thee;
The stricken form of Guinevere
Their type till time shall cease to be.
No voice so strong to spread your fame,
Heroic deeds, recorded here,
No voice so tender or so true
For those who stand around the bier.
Heroic deeds, recorded here,
No voice so tender or so true
For those who stand around the bier.
And when the gate of science throws
Too wide her door to guesses wild,
No tones like thine may call them back
To wisdom as the elder child.
Too wide her door to guesses wild,
No tones like thine may call them back
To wisdom as the elder child.
And yet no spirit felt as thine
The prison bars that close us round;
And when true knowledge seemed to speak
No head so bent to catch her sound.
The prison bars that close us round;
And when true knowledge seemed to speak
No head so bent to catch her sound.
The ocean of that inner life
'Cross which there gleams some passing sail,
Seemed ever murmuring in thine ear
‘Behind the Veil, behind the Veil.’
'Cross which there gleams some passing sail,
Seemed ever murmuring in thine ear
‘Behind the Veil, behind the Veil.’
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And yet to thee how thin that Veil;
That life how present in its power;
Suffused by all thy magic words
Through earth and sea, through sun and shower.
That life how present in its power;
Suffused by all thy magic words
Through earth and sea, through sun and shower.
No bud is opened in the Spring,
No banner of a leaf unfurled,
That does not wake, in thy response,
Some hidden meanings of the world.
No banner of a leaf unfurled,
That does not wake, in thy response,
Some hidden meanings of the world.
All this round earth is home to thee,
In all its seas of storm and calm,
From where the iceberg thunders shock
To ripples underneath the palm.
In all its seas of storm and calm,
From where the iceberg thunders shock
To ripples underneath the palm.
The blinding blaze of tropic climes,
Flooding the eastern sky with light,
Dense forests silent in the heat,
The sudden falling of the night.
Flooding the eastern sky with light,
Dense forests silent in the heat,
The sudden falling of the night.
And in the lands of ancient fame,
No painter's touch so true as thine,
To trace the landscape of the past,
The laurelled shores of corn and wine.
No painter's touch so true as thine,
To trace the landscape of the past,
The laurelled shores of corn and wine.
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But chiefly in this Island home,
Where seasons change with silent feet,
Where Autumn leaves are slow to fall,
And Winter with his snow and sleet
Where seasons change with silent feet,
Where Autumn leaves are slow to fall,
And Winter with his snow and sleet
Gives place ere yet the year has turned
To one pale flower, whose coming tells
That Spring has wakened underground
And warbles in her snowdrop bells.
To one pale flower, whose coming tells
That Spring has wakened underground
And warbles in her snowdrop bells.
There is no charm unmarked by thee
In all this sea-girt land of ours,
No shadow thrown by ‘foliaged elms’
On resting kine 'mid summer flowers.
In all this sea-girt land of ours,
No shadow thrown by ‘foliaged elms’
On resting kine 'mid summer flowers.
The village church embowered in trees,
With old grey tower or pointed spire,
Calling to prayer, has woke from thee
The deepest measures of thy lyre.
With old grey tower or pointed spire,
Calling to prayer, has woke from thee
The deepest measures of thy lyre.
The ‘bushless pike,’ the naked down,
The waters trenched across the plain
From sky to sky, till windy dune
Takes all their tribute to the main.
The waters trenched across the plain
From sky to sky, till windy dune
Takes all their tribute to the main.
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And when the great Atlantic clouds
Roll eastward in their ‘wild unrest,’
No glassy pool reflects so true
The gorgeous tumult of our West;
Roll eastward in their ‘wild unrest,’
No glassy pool reflects so true
The gorgeous tumult of our West;
The moated grange, the miller's wheel,
The cottage roses of our birth,
The forest glades of hyacinth
‘Like heaven up-breaking through the earth;’
The cottage roses of our birth,
The forest glades of hyacinth
‘Like heaven up-breaking through the earth;’
And all to perfect music set,
In tones as sweet as silver bells,
Or those dear notes in which the Thrush
His love to quiet woodland tells.
In tones as sweet as silver bells,
Or those dear notes in which the Thrush
His love to quiet woodland tells.
They say the Poet's Art can live
In beauteous Form alone, forsooth;
Thou sayest in thy nobler voice
That Beauty is the child of Truth.
In beauteous Form alone, forsooth;
Thou sayest in thy nobler voice
That Beauty is the child of Truth.
Dear Friend, the Friend of forty years,
Of gentle strength and nameless grace,
I join with thee in this sad heart
One ‘tender spiritual face.’
Of gentle strength and nameless grace,
I join with thee in this sad heart
One ‘tender spiritual face.’
These verses were written under the impulse of a very strong feeling that all but a very few of the obituary poems which appeared in the press on the Laureate's death failed deplorably in even indicating the lofty religious and ethical teaching of his writings. From personal converse with him during a long course of years I know how strongly he clung to the great verities of Christian belief—to a degree all the more striking because of that aloofness which he always maintained as regarded the ordinary questions of mere theological controversy.
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