Spirit Presence

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Do we indeed desire the dead

Author: Baron Tennyson Alfred Tennyson
Published in 1 hymnal

Representative Text

1 Do we indeed desire the dead
Should still be near us at our side?
Is there no baseness we would hide?
No inner vileness that we dread?

2 Shall he for whose applause we strove,
We had such reverence for his name,
See with clear eye some hidden shame,
And we be lessened in his love?
[5*]

3 We wrong the grave with fears untrue;
Shall love be blamed for want of faith?
There must be wisdom with great death;
The dead shall look me through and through.

4 Be near us when we climb or fall:
Ye watch, like God, the rolling hours
With larger, other eyes than ours,
To make allowance for us all.

Source: The Psalms of Life: A Compilation of Psalms, Hymns, Chants, Anthems, &c. Embodying the Spiritual, Progressive and Reformatory Sentiment of the Present Age #107

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Author: Baron Tennyson Alfred Tennyson

Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, son of the Rev. G. C. Tennyson, Rector of Somersby, Lincolnshire, was born at Somersby, Aug. 6, 1809; educated at Trinity College, Cambridge; appointed Poet Laureate in 1850, and raised to the Peerage in 1884. Although Lord Tennyson has not written any hymns, extracts from his poems are sometimes used as such, as "Strong Son of God, immortal Love" (Faith in the Son of God), from the Introduction to his In Memoriam, 1850; the well-known "Too late, too late, ye cannot enter now," and others. The former is sometimes given as "Spirit of immortal Love," and again as "Eternal God, immortal Love." --John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology, Appendix, Part II (1907) Go to person page >

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