Spiritual Sunday
When I heard the horrific news of the Paris massacres, a stanza from Tennyson’s In Memoriam shot through my head:
Proclaiming social truth shall spread,
And justice, ev’n tho’ thrice again
The red fool-fury of the Seine
Should pile her barricades with dead.
The reference is to the 1848 Paris revolutionaries, not to bloody-minded terrorists, but I wanted to see the source of Tennyson’s optimism that social truth shall prevail, even as the dead are piled high and probably will be again.
The stanza comes fairly late in the poem. Tennyson’s faith has been thrown into doubt by the death of Arthur Hallam but he is finding his way back to belief.
To believe in divine love at moments like this may seem crazy. Then again, it’s at moments like this when we most need reminding. “All is well” is whispered to the poet as though by a sentinel, and it is a deeper voice than the roar of the storm. The times may seem apocalyptic—there’s even a line that anticipates the melting of the ice caps—but Tennyson is reassuring.
To be sure, such reassurance can seem facile if seen in isolation. Tennyson has gotten there honestly, however, wrestling profoundly with his grief over a 17 year period. He now believes, more deeply than ever that Love is “my Lord and King.”
CXXVI
Love is and was my Lord and King,
And in his presence I attend
To hear the tidings of my friend,
Which every hour his couriers bring.
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 to the worlds of space,
In the deep night, that all is well.
CXXVII
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,
Proclaiming social truth shall spread,
And justice, ev’n tho’ thrice again
The red fool-fury of the Seine
Should pile her barricades with dead.
But ill for him that wears a crown,
And him, the lazar, in his rags:
They tremble, the sustaining crags;
The spires of ice are toppled down,
And molten up, and roar in flood;
The fortress crashes from on high,
The brute earth lightens to the sky,
And the great Æon sinks in blood,
And compass’d by the fires of Hell;
While thou, dear spirit, happy star,
O’erlook’st the tumult from afar,
And smilest, knowing all is well.
As I say, it took 17 years for Tennyson to arrive at this assurance. At the moment France cannot overlook this tumult from afar. It is a time for immediate, heartrending grief. But that “dear spirit, happy star” is there to turn to.
