(August 6, 1809–October 6, 1892), 1st Baron Tennyson, was accorded the royal honor of being named an English poet-laureate. He authored the poem Charge of the Light Brigade, memorializing the courage of the British Cavalry as they charged to their death against the Russian guns at the Battle of Balaklava, October 25, 1854. He wrote Idylls of the King, 1859–85, which described the legends of King Arthur’s Court, the Knights of the Round Table, Queen Guinevere, Sir Lancelot, Sir Galahad and the search for the Holy Grail.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote:
Bible reading is an education in itself.2396
The life after death is the cardinal point of Christianity. I believe that God reveals Himself in every individual soul; and my idea of heaven is the perpetual ministry of one soul to another. There are two things which I believe to be beyond the intelligence of man: the one the intellectual genius of Shakespeare, and the other the religious genius of Christ.2397
My mother was as mild as any saint, and nearly canonized by all she knew, so gracious was her tact and tenderness.2398
In 1850, Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote his work In Memoriam, a poem written after the death of his close friend, Arthur Henry Hallam. Queen Victoria once said, “Next to the Bible, ‘In Memoriam’ is my comfort.”2399 In it Tennyson wrote:
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.2400
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.2401
In 1850, Tennyson married Emily Sellwood, to whom he had been engaged for a long time. He later wrote:
The peace of God came into my life before the altar when I wedded her.2402
In Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington, 1852, st. 9, Tennyson wrote:
Speak no more of his renown.
Lay your earthly fancies down,
And in the vast cathedral leave him,
God accept him, Christ receive him.2403
In Maud, 1855, Part II, sec. iv, st. 3, Tennyson wrote:
Oh, Christ, that it were possible
For one short hour to see
The souls we loved, that they might tell us
What and where they be.2404
In Enoch Arden, 1864, line 222, Tennyson wrote:
Cast all your cares on God; that anchor holds.2405
In The Higher Pantheism, 1869, st. 6, Tennyson wrote:
Speak to Him thou for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet—
Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.2406
In other works, Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote:
In Grief
Strong Son of God! Immortal Love,
Whom we, that have not seen Thy face,
By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we can not prove!
Thine are these orbs of light and shade;
Thou madest life in man and brute;
Thou madest Death; and lo, Thy foot
Is on the skull which Thou hast made!
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.
Thou seemest human and Divine,
The highest, holiest manhood, Thou;
Our wills are ours, we know not how;
Our wills are ours to make them Thine.2407
Lazarus
When Lazarus left his charnel-cave,
And home to Mary’s house returned,
Was this demanded—if he yearned
To hear her weeping by his grave?
“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 filled with joyful sound;
A solemn gladness even crowned
The purple brows of Olivet.
Behold a man raised up by Christ;
The rest remained unrevealed;
He told it not, or something sealed
The lips of that Evangelist.2408
In Flower in the Crannied Wall, 1869, Tennyson wrote:
Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower—but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.2409
In Idylls of the King, 1859–85, Tennyson wrote The Passing of Arthur, line 9:
I found Him in the shining of the stars,
I marked Him in the flowering of His fields,
But in His ways with men I find Him not.2410
In line 407:
And slowly answered Arthur from the barge:
The old order changeth, yielding place to new;
And God fulfills himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.2411
In Crossing the Bar, 1889, st. 3, Tennyson wrote:
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.2412