Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.
Lines 1161-1172
If, in thy second state sublime,
Thy ransom'd reason change replies
With all the circle of the wise,
The perfect flower of human time;
And if thou cast thine eyes below,
How dimly character'd and slight,
How dwarf'd a growth of cold and night,
How blanch'd with darkness must I grow!
Yet turn thee to the doubtful shore,
Where thy first form was made a man;
I loved thee, Spirit, and love, nor can
The soul of Shakespeare love thee more.
- Tennyson imagines Arthur watching him from Heaven in his perfected state ("state sublime").
- He imagines his close friend hob-nobbing with all the fancy intellectual elites who are with him up there. That's the whole "circle of the wise" that Tennyson regards as being the highest perfection of humanity.
- If Arthur looks down on him, he'll seem pretty low compared to those other guys.
- The images he uses here really drive this point home. He's "dimly character'd," "slight" (which means small and insubstantial), and like a dwarf.
- But Tennyson's got something going for him that all these other wise souls—including Shakespeare—don't: his love for Arthur. That will never be equaled.