And so with Tennyson. It was the visitation of evil in its most mournful shape--the cold hand of death that fell upon the brow of his beloved friend--which opened his eyes. His faith in goodness, in beneficent purpose, was restored. The cloud was lifted for evermore. He married. Wedded love, mystic symbol, sacramental image of a union higher still, came at length as an added blessing, after years of expectancy and disappointment. "When I wedded her the peace of God entered into my heart," he wrote. His cup was full; "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh," and therefore he sang that stately invocation, that sublime _Magnificat_ which, we may well believe with his own most intimate friends, will endure while the lips of men frame the sounds of our English speech.
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.
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.
Thus were "the wild and wandering cries, confusions of a wasted youth" forgotten in the song of adoration, which is in reality the epilogue of the elegiac drama. We can almost imagine its coming after the closing glory of the bridal hymn which sings to its last note of God:--
That God which ever lives and loves, One God, one law, one element, And one far-off Divine event, To which the whole creation moves.
A wedding on earth--that of his sister--is thus for him the symbol of that love eternal which moves all things: _Amor che tutto muove_, of Dante's peerless song. That light of love once seen anew he never lost. As life declined it grew in intensity: brighter and more reassuring than ever did it glow as the darkness of earth began to close round him. It was borne in upon him with a depth of conviction too deep for utterance that death was but a fact, like any other in our many-sided life, that it was but a momentary occurrence, in no wise impeding that progress of the individual spirit in that path which has been with philosophic accuracy described by the Hebrew psalmist as "the way everlasting". The most perfect prayer is that: "Lead me in the ever-lasting way," for it is the destiny of man to one day reach that journey's end; to be one day perfect; to be absolutely conformed in mind and will to that most sacred of realities--the moral law.