I

Commentary on
Tennyson's

In

Memoriam
-By

A. C. Bradley, LL.D.
Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford

Second Edition , Revised

London

Macmillan and
New
York
:

Co.,

Limited

The Macmillan Company

1907

<r

First Edition, 1901.

Second Edition,

1902.

Reprinted

1907.

GLASGOW PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRI BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. LTD.
:

fR,
'

TO

THE BELOVED MEMORY

OF

GEORGE GROVE

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

As most
Preface,
this
first
I

readers of a book are said to ignore the

will

beg anyone who

to read, for

Commentary

may intend to his own sake,

use
the

two of the following paragraphs.

stanzas beginning Strong

The

Son of God, with

in

which In Memoriam opens, are called

pages the
beginning
'

these

Prologue
true

'

the stanzas

at

the end,
'

and

tried,

the

'

Epilogue
'

the

131

intervening pieces are called

sections,' or,

where the
'

word

could

not

be

misunderstood,

poems.'

The

sections are referred to

by Roman
10'
indis-

numerals, their lines by Arabic:

thus 'XL.

means 'section

XL., line

10.'

found

it

pensable to refer usually to

lines,

not stanzas.

In

the case of the shorter sections this will give the

reader no trouble, but he will find
to
it

convenient
I

number the
in
I

lines of a

few longer ones.

to

am
to

sorry that

referring

many
as

of Tennyson's

other
the

poems

was unable to guide the reader

question,

passage in

the

lines

are

not

numbered.

viii

Preface to the First Edition

The
which
1884.

text used

is

of course the copyright text,

unaltered,
I

has

remained

believe,

since

The changes made up

at

to that

time are

noted where they occur, and are also printed in

a
list

the end

of the book. In
the
fourth

Two
live

of them

are

important.
LIX.,
for

edition,

185

1,

section

Sorrow, wilt thou

the
first

with me^
section

appeared

time.

In

1872

XXXIX., Old warder of these buried bones, was added.

Readers who use one of the

first

three editions, or

again an edition later than the third and earlier

than

872, must modify

it

my references

accordingly

but they will find

text for sixpence.

simpler to buy the present

The purpose of

this

book

is

strictly limited.

My

main object

is

to be of use to such readers as

closely,

care to study In

Memoriam

by showing the

bearing of the sections on

dealing with
tion which
I

one another, and by

many

of the difficulties of interpretain

have encountered

my own
1

reading

of the poem, in conversation, in teaching, and in

books on the subject.

The
merely

quotations of parallel

passages are sometimes meant to serve this latter

purpose,
1

sometimes
its

to

gratify

literary

The book had

origin in lectures given in 18S4 at University

College, Liverpool.

Preface to the First Edition

curiosity

ix

regarding

the

point
I

discussed

at

the

end of the Introduction.

wholly from
'

have abstained almost

aesthetic criticism/ chiefly because,

it

although of course
kind of
I

interests

me more
book
is

than the
restricted,
well.

comment

to

which

this

do not think the two kinds harmonise

I

ought perhaps to say a few words to those

all

readers who, without objecting on principle to

commentaries on English poetry,

feel

may

naturally

doubts about

this particular book.

all

To those who think Memoriam superfluous, I

do so they

commentary on In
venture to reply that
If

will

they can never have studied the poem.

will certainly find that the
is

they

meaning of
a few are
defects

many

passages

doubtful, and
;

that

extremely obscure

the cause of

these

being sometimes excess in the Tennysonian virtue

of conciseness, sometimes an excessive or unfortunate use of periphrasis or decoration.

Others

will

think that, at any rate,

many

lines
I

which

have annotated are quite perspicuous.

;

agree with them

but

I I

believe

have attempted

to explain nothing that

had not found misunder;

stood by myself or someone else

hosts of misapprehensions which
noticed.

and there are

have
left

un-

The exasperated

reader should try the

experiment of questioning himself and a few other

Preface to the First Edition

on the meaning of every
line in

intelligent persons

a dozen sections taken at hap-hazard from the poem.

I

have more
I

difficulty in

meeting the possible

charge that

often

insist
is

on finding a
;

definite

meaning where there

raises a question too
I

none

for

this
in

charge

wide to discuss
I

a Preface.
it

can only say that, while

have no doubt
I

may
from

be true as regards some passages,

presupposition

question the

on which
I

it

rests.
is

Apart
in

defects, fine poetry,

think,

indefinite,

the

sense that

its

language has a vague suggestiveness,

virtue

on which

its

largely depends

and which

disappears in a paraphrase.
ness, or untranslateable
'

But

this suggestive-

meaning/ attaches to a

definite

mental

matter,

namely

images
be

and
clear

thoughts, the outlines of which should

to us,
their

however

little

we may be

able to exhaust

significance.

We

read

for

the most part

half-asleep,

but a poet writes wide-awake.

logical

His

thoughts
his
all

may be unlike images may conflict,

;

statements, and

but they are there and

is

alive

and our business

to recreate them.
foist

We
at

are

much

mistaken
generalities
us.

when we
which
his
is

upon

him the misty

first

words may
in

convey to

There
is

no poetry

this

indefiniteness, there

simply feebleness of

imagination.

Preface to the First Edition

Lastly,
to
I

xi

may

be told that

in

any case

it is

idle

trouble oneself about those puzzles whose

solu-

tion

would bring hardly any poetical

'

profit,

and

absurd to write pages on

of his head.'

God

shut the doorways

Perhaps.

But, to

go no

further,
live
I

there are people who cannot be content to

with such puzzles in a

shall

poem

that they love.

be

satisfied if

my

book helps them

to read

In

Memoriam without
its
I

a check, or saves

them from

spending on
the labour
I

difficulties

one hundredth part of

have spent.

am

under obligations to the following among

I

books which

have consulted

Lord Tennyson's

Memoir of
Dr. Gatty's

his father, first edition, in

two volumes

Mr. Churton Collins's Illustrations of Tennyson

Key
its

to

In Memoriam, fourth edition

Mr.

J.

F. Genung's Tennyson's In

Memoriam

its

Purpose and

Structure

Miss E. R. Chapman's
;

Companion

to

In Memoriam

Mr. E. C. Tainsh's
edition,

Study of Tennyson's Works, new

Mr. James Knowles's
article

1893

in

The Nineteenth
I

Century for January, 1893.

Where
I

was conhave

scious of a particular obligation

have specially
always

acknowledged

it,

but
debts,

may
I

not

remembered
that,

my
I

and

should like to say

I

though

differ

from him constantly,

full

think

Mr. Genung's book has not met with

recognition.

xii

Preface to the First Edition

I

am

greatly obliged to Mr. C. E.

Benham,

of

Colchester,

who

lent

me

the manuscript

of his

able paraphrase of the poem.

pretations are quoted in

Some
notes.

of his inter-

my

My

friend

Mr. Beeching's edition of In Menot

moriam was

published

till

my
in

work was
His

practically complete

and

partly
I

type.

name
have

is

mentioned where

have made changes

book, but
I
'

or additions after reading his

left

may
which

references to

'

the commentators

do not apply to him.

Finally,
I

owe thanks
for

to

my

friends

Messrs.

MacLehose
printed a

the care

with which they have

troublesome manuscript, and to

many

other friends for help given to

me

in

preparing the

Commentary
late Sir

not least to

my

brother-in-law, the

George Grove, who brought to the study

of the

poem

that

enthusiasm

and

genius

in

appreciation, to which so

many thousands

of lovers
reasons
of

of music are indebted.

Among

several

why

regret a long delay in the publication

is

my
to

book the chief

that he cannot see the pages

which he would have given so eager a welcome.

London, May,

1901.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

For
made
this
in

edition

the

many changes have been Introduction, but a great many in

not

the Commentary.

Notes or parts of notes on a

I
I

few lines have been omitted as needless.

have

added explanations of other passages which

supposed to require none.

had

And

in the notes
I

on

some of the

specially

troublesome lines

have

made

alterations

or additions, either to support

my
to

opinion, or to

show why

have changed

it,

or

mention interpretations which, without having

convinced me, seem to

the
old

me

not improbable.

Where

new matter
it

takes the form of a note on the

printed

is

often

within

square

brackets.

For the convenience of owners of the

I

first

edition

give a

list

of the passages where

important

changes

have been

made

in

the

Commentary,

without noticing the minor improvements which

occur on almost every page
:

II.

11,12;

III.

6,

xiv

Preface to the Second Edition

xiii.

10;
XLIII.

1-4; 12
;

xxiv.
;

15,

16;
;

xxxix. 8-12;

n,
;

XLIV. 4
;

XLV. 9

XLVL

LVI.

28

lxxxi

lxxxv. 10 1
;

lxxxvi. 13-16; xcii. 13

;

xciii. 5-8

xcv. 36, 37
cxix. 4
;

xcvi. 22
;

ff.

xcix. 9

cxviii. 16

cxxn.

cxxv.

2.

For a good many of the alterations so

tioned
I
I

far

men-

am

indebted, wholly

or in part, to others.

have consulted Mr. Robinson's edition of the

Mr. Jacobs's

poem, and
moriam.
sent

Tennyson and In MeMr. Walter Larden

Mr. H.
valuable

W. Eve and
suggestions.

me
first

Two

reviews of

my

edition have been of use to

me

in

pre-

paring the second, that of Professor Beeching in

the Guardian of September 11, 1901, and that of

Mr. Cecil Nolan Ferrall

in the

Weekly Register of
Ferrall has also

November

29,

1901

and Mr.
giving

most kindly helped

me by
in

me
in

his opinion

on a number of doubtful passages.

tions

These obligathe
notes.

are acknowledged
I

detail

Finally,

owe thanks not

and

least to the

comments

of several relatives

friends.
I

In addition to these changes

have consider-

ably increased the

passages.

number of
I

references to parallel
for

And

here

have to thank
including

their

help several

correspondents,

some of

the persons already mentioned, and especially the

Bishop of Derry, who lent

me

his

copy of In

Preface to the Second Edition

xv
inI

Memoriam^
teresting

in

which a very large number of

are noted.

parallels

Those which
initials

have used are marked with his

(G.A.C.),

and

should have liked to quote a great

I

many
by the

more, but

have thought

it

best to abide
as
I

rule of giving only such passages

thought

(-might not improbably have influenced Tennyson.

I

must add that

my

insertion of a parallel does

not necessarily
influence
;

mean

that

think there

was such
or
as

and the question whether there was

for

or

not

has,

me, merely a
It

biographical
to

psychological

interest.

appears

me

absurd
phrase

to
is

fancy

that

Tennyson's

mastery

of

called in question

by
as

his reminiscences

of .other
Milton's

men's

phrases
is

to

suppose

that

mastery

impugned by the

delightful

collection of parallels in Warton's edition of the

Minor Poems.
In the Preface to the
first

edition

mentioned,

out of a regard for University College, Liverpool,

that this

book had
I

its

origin in

lectures

given

there in 1884.

am

anxious to guard against a

this

misapprehension to which
rise.

statement has given

contains and

My book, in much
it

that

it

much

that

omits,
far

is

very different from those lectures,

and

it is

from representing the kind of matter

judgment, a teacher
of English

which,

in

my

xvi

Preface to the Second Edition

should
his
effort

Literature

to

sudents.

To
most

abstain

almost

wholly

from

literary

discussion
its

of a poem, and to dwell at length upon

obscure passages, would be,

should say, the very

way

not to

'

teach literature.'

June, 1902.

CONTENTS
PAGE

Introduction,

Commentary,

77

Changes

in

the Text of 'In Memoriam,'

240

INTRODUCTION

THE ORIGIN OF IN MEMORIAM.

1

It must be remembered,' writes Tennyson in a

note on In

Memoriam

'

that
.
.

this

is

a poem, not

an actual biography.
of sorrow as in a

The

different

moods^

drama

are dramatically given,

and

my

conviction that fear, doubts, and suffe ring

will find

answer and
"
I

relief
" is

only through Faith

in

God

of Love.

not always the author

speaking of himself, but the voice of the

race speakin g through

human

him/ 1
that, in order to

This being

so,

it

would seem

understand the poem,

we need know nothing

it,

of

the circumstances which occasioned

any more
lives

than

we

require

knowledge of the
in order to

of

Shakespeare or of Gray

understand
is

Hamlet

or the Elegy.
1

But In Memoriam
I
.

not

Memoir,
A

p. 305.

'
.

"'

;.

J ri

fyf ernori

am
;

quite

like

Hamlet or Gray's Elegy

such
a

it

rather

resembles

poem

as

Adonais.

Just

as

Adonais contains allusions which would

In Memoriam

not be

fully intelligible to a reader ignorant of the literary

history of the
references
fectly

time,

so

contains

which can be understood

itself;

but imper-

from the poem

and

as in this case

the persons and events referred to belong chiefly

to private
life,

the reader cannot

be assumed to
all.

have any knowledge of them at

able,

It is desir-

accordingly,

to

summarize the necessary

information at once, and in the notes on particular

sections or passages the reader will be asked to

turn
will

for

explanation

to

this

summary.

To

it

be added a few remarks on Arthur Hallam's

character and writings.

The poem was

written

'

In

Memoriam A. H. H.

Obiit MDCCCXXXlll.'

A. H. H. was Arthur Henry

Hallam, son of Henry Hallam the historian.

He

was born on February

(born

st,

1 1

and was thus

formed,

about eighteen months younger than Tennyson

August
which

6th,

1809).

They
five

at

Trinity College, Cambridge, an

ship
lasted

intimate
years.

friend-

nearly

They
became

travelled

together on
visited

the Rhine and in France.

Hallam

Tennyson's
sister

home, and

engaged to the poet's

Emily.

After leaving

The
in

Origin of In
to
in

Memoriam

Cambridge he jbegan
his
father's

read for the bar, living

house

Street).

In the

London (67 Wimpole summer of 1833 ne made a tour

his father
;

on the Continent with

and

at

Vienna,

on September 15th, died very suddenly and unexpectedly of a stroke of apoplexy.

His body was

brought by sea from Trieste to England, and was

buried at

Clevedon, on the Bristol Channel, on

January

3rd,

1834;

Clevedon Court being the

Elton, Baronet, Hallam's

residence of Sir

Abraham

grandfather on the mother's side.

The poem
facts,

contains references to

many

of these

and

also to

some matters not

directly con-

nected with Arthur Hallam.

tour, in

Thus

the marriage

1836, of the poet's brother Charles was

the occasion of section XCVIII.

ton,

Edmund
lxxxv.,

Lushing-

who became
friend

Professor of Greek at Glasgow,

was the

addressed

in

and the

Epilogue celebrates his marriage with the poet's

sister

Cecilia in

1842.

Tennyson's early home,

the rectory of Somersby, half-way between Horncastle

in

and Spilsby

in

Lincolnshire,

is

referred to

xxviii.-xxx.,

lxxviil,

lxxxix.,

xcv.

The
settled

family
at

left Somersby in 1837 (C.-CIII.), and High Beech, Epping Forest (civ.-CV.).

To

describe a character in lyrical verse which

scrupulously avoids prosaic expressions must be

In

Memoriam
Perhaps Tennyson
felt this,

a most difficult task.

for the

sections
it

of In
late

to

fulfil

come

in the

Memoriam which attempt poem and seem to

humanity of the
future.

be introduced chiefly in order to portray certain

characteristics of the ideal

Nor can they be

T chief impressions
|

said to

convey a vivid idea of

Arthur Hallam to those who never saw him.

left

The

by them are of a very

and of a promise which

unusual completeness of character, of an equally

rare absence of defects,

\seemed
image

to his friends almost boundless.

But the
for those

is

vague, and there

is

some excuse

who, judging merely from the poem, have

pected
friend.

sushis

Tennyson of greatly over-estimating

The

suspicion

makes

little

or no differit

ence to their appreciation of In Memoriam, but

is

probably groundless.

The accounts
Their estimate
is

of Arthur

Hallam given by

his other contemporaries closely

resemble Tennyson's.

the same;

and to say that similar estimates

His

may be
college

found

in

any memoir of a promising youth who died

I

pre-

maturely
1

is

quite

untrue.
it

friends
all his

invariably agreed that

was of him above

contemporaries that great and lofty expectations

were to be formed.'
1

His school-fellows thought New

Remains in Verse and Prose of Arthui Henry Hallam,

Edition, 1863.

The Origin
that to
it

of In

Memoriam
father,

was rather he than Gladstone that was

man.
His

be the great

one

whose

sobriety of

judgment would not be overwhelmed

by

affection or grief, described

him
the

as an

'

extra'

ordinary

young man

'

and

sentence,

He

seemed to tread the earth as a

better world,' does not

spirit

from some

sound exaggerated among

the testimonies of Hallam's friends.

To

the end

of his days Tennyson retained the opinion he had

formed

in youth.
article
:

Mr. Gladstone, in an extremely

written late in
his
life,
1

interesting

spoke of
at

Hallam thus
Eton
life

Among
I

contemporaries
. .
.

...

he stood supreme

and the long

through which

have since wound

my

way,
so

and which has brought

me

into contact with

many men
cerned.

of rich endowments, leaves him where

far

he then stood so

as

my

estimation

is

con-

...

It is

the simple truth that Arthur

spirit

Henry Hallam was a

tion

so exceptional that
j /

everything with which he was brought into rela.

.

came

to

be,

through
ideal.

this

contact,
It
is
:

'

glorified

by a touch of the

...

true case of ostendent terris hunc tantum fata

he

resembled a passing emanation from some other

and

less

darkly chequered world.'

irresistible,

Such

testi-

monies as these are

1

and they go
for

far to
1898.

It

was published

in

The Daily Telegraph

January

5,

In

Memoriam
Memoriam.
article

explain what has been criticised as the excessive

humility of

some

parts of In

One

passage

in

Mr. Gladstone's
side

has a

special interest

when placed

by

side with the

section of In

Memoriam which
'

describes Hallam's

probable attitude towards the political movement

of the time (CXIII.).
It
is

evident,' Mr. Glad-

stone writes, 'that the great and sudden augmentation of liberty in a thousand forms places

under

an aggravated strain the balance which governs

humanity both
have never
to
.

in
.

thought and conduct.

known a

And I man who seemed to me

varied
quali-

possess

all

the numerous and

fications

required in order to meet the growing

its fullest

demand, and even

like the

breadth, in anything

measure

in

which Arthur Hallam exhigifts.'

bited these budding, nay, already flowering

But Tennyson writes of the dangers of

progress,

political

and Mr. Gladstone has

in

view those of

progress in thought.
to in

These
:

are,

indeed, alluded

In

Memoriam, CXIV.

but while

the poet

seems to have considered

that

Hallam's
life,

sphere

was

likely to

be that of public
fulfilling

the statesman

looked to his

a similar function as a

writer on philosophy or theology.

Any
lead

estimate of the volume of Remains would

too
far

us

from our purpose, but a few

The Origin
passages in
it

of In

Memoriam

are of immediate interest to readers

of Tennyson.
in his

Some

phrases recall similar phrases

poems, though we cannot say whether the

is

similarity

due to coincidence, or to unconscious

reminiscence on the part of the poet, or even to

the use

by Hallam of expressions caught from the

talk of his friend.

Thus the

lines

(p.

56),

My own
and the
Still

dear

sister,

thy career

Is all before thee, thorn

and flower

lines

(p.

84),

am

free to close

my happy

eyes,

And
recall

paint upon the gloom thy mimic form,

In Memoriam, XLVI.

2,

and LXX.
'

2.

When

we

find

Chaucer described as

our beautiful morn-

we remember the opening stanza of the Dream of Fair Women} The words, that indeed
ing-star'
*

is

in

the power of God's

election,

with

whom
'

alone rest the abysmal secrets of personality

359), remind us of the words
in

(p.

The Palace of

Art,
God, before

whom

ever

lie

bare

The abysmal deeps

of Personality.

Tennyson's references to the early history of

1

do not mean

to

imply that no one had used the phrase before.

It occurs, for instance, in

Denham.

In

Memoriam
by the following
lines to

the earth are paralleled

Ben Lomond
Oh,
if

(p.

2)

th'

thy dread original were not sunk mystery of universal birth,

What joy to know thy tale of mammoths And formings rare of the material prime, And terrible craters, cold a cycle since
1
!

huge,

Like the poet,

too,

Hallam seems

to have

had a

strong feeling of the utter insignificance of the

earth in the 'immense scheme' (p. 360).

As we know from
not by

the Memoir,

Tennyson did

any means fully share his friend's appre44) might be taken as a

: '

hensions about the political future, but some words

of Hallam's {Remains,
p.
1

commentary on In Memoriam, CXXVII.

then to the lurid

Looking

presages of the times that are

coming

believing that amidst the awful

commo-

tions of society,

which few of us do not expect

the disruption,

it

may

be, of those

common bonds
larger scale

which hold together our

sarily followed

social

existence, neces-

by an occurrence on a
.'
. .

of the same things that were witnessed in France

forty years ago.

The two

friends

must often have talked together

of that belief in love as the central meaning of

things which with
1
'

Hallam was evidently partly

Tennyson
:

Cycle

'

is

common

in

material prime

'

occurs in

The Two

Voices,

The Origin
due to

of In

Memoriam

his study of Plato, Dante,

and Petrarch,

and which took a curious shape

Novissima
;

in his Theodiccea

and such sentences as the following

(and there are not a few of the kind) have

of the spirit of parts of In

much
But
it

Memoriam

' :

was not

in scattered

sonnets 1 that the whole mag-

nificence of that idea could be manifested,

which

represents love as at once the base and the pyra-

midal point of the entire universe, and teaches us

to regard

the earthly union

of souls, not as a

thing accidental, transitory, and dependent on the

condition of

human

society, but with far

higher

import, as the best and the appointed symbol of

our relations with God, and through them of his

own

ineffable essence' (p. 130).

This 'idea'

is,

in

essentials, the

same

as

'

that solemn idea which

alone solves the enigma of our feelings, and while

it

supplies a

meaning

to conscience, explains the

destination of

man'
find

(p.
it

170.

The
177).

student of In

Memoriam
I

will

worth while to read the

p.

whole passage down to

do not intend

to

imply by these remarks

that,

of the two friends, Hallam had the more original

and
and
the

influential
it

mind.

We

have

little

evidence,

is

quite possible that

many

of the ideas in
to the two,

Remains were not merely common

1

He

is

referring to Dante.

io

In

Memoriam
Hallam.

but passed

from Tennyson to
is

What

seems nearly certain

that

Hallam was more

inclined to philosophical
tion

and theological specula-

than his friend then was, and

much more

inclined to formulate the results of such speculation than

Tennyson ever became.

II.

THE COMPOSITION OF IN MEMORIAM.

When
that
in
its

was In Memoriam written

was published

We

know
1850. 1

occasion was the death of Arthur Hallam

it

1833, and that

first in

Do we know
tion

anything of the date of

fact

its

composibeing

beyond the

that

it

came

into

during those seventeen years?

In considering this question

we must be on our

guard against inferences drawn from what

called the internal chronology of the
will

may

be
It

poem.

be shown presently that the author almost

certainly intended to produce the impression that

the

131 sections cover a period of about three

years.

But In Memoriam

is

'

a poem, not

an
its

actual biography.'
1

The

poet

who

speaks in
text.

Without sections xxxix. and Lix. of the present

See

notes on these.

i2

In
is

Memoriam
not precisely the same person

various sections
as the author

who composed and arranged them.

it

And

if

the latter thought

well to convey the

idea that the 'progress of sorrow' portrayed in his

work was complete within a certain time,

this gives

us no ground for supposing that the like progress

in his

own

life

was of the same duration, and

still

less for

imagining that the dates of the composi-

tion of the various sections correspond to the posi-

tions of those sections in the internal chronology

of three years.

Turning then to the evidence, we

lowing indications
(i)
(a)
(J?)
:

find the fol-

Statements as

to

date by Tennyson himself.

The Prologue is dated 1849. The Epilogue (9, 10) contains a

which
cannot
refer

direct

statement
chronology.

to

the

internal

After an allusion to the 'dark day'

of his friend's death the poet goes on,

Tho'
I

since then have number'd o'er

Some

thrice three years.

This gives the date as about 1842, and

the year of the marriage of

this

was

Edmund

Lushington

with Cecilia Tennyson, which, the poet himself

says,
(c)

was the occasion of

In a letter to
: '

his

Epilogue.

Aubrey de Vere, Tennyson

to the " Elegies,"
I

writes

With respect

cannot

The Composition
say that
lately.
I

of In

Memoriam
attention to
I

13

have turned

my

them

do not know whether

in that quarter since
I

have done any-

thing
I

new

you saw them, but

'

believe

am

going to print them

is

{Memoir,

I.

282).

The

date

apparently 1848.
in

His correor

spondent
(ib.

first

met the poet

is

1841

1842

207), but there

last

nothing to show when he

had

seen the

"

Elegies."
'

(d)

In CXXVII. the phrase

the red fool-fury of

the
1

Seine'

does

not

refer

to

1848, as

it

was

probably written long before

(e)

'48.'

Finally,

the

following

sentences

may be
in

quoted from Tennyson's note on In Memoriam

the

written at

of

Memoir (1. 304, 305): 'The sections were many different places, and as the phases our intercourse came to my memory and sugI

gested them.

did not write

them with any view

of weaving them into a whole, or for publication,

until I

found that

had written so many.'

to

(2) Statements as

date by the present

Lord

Tennyson.
(a)

In the

written
(I

Memoir we are told that sections of the poem were the

:

the

first-

following

have inserted the numbers)

Authoritative words in Gatty's Key, p.

138,

suppose they

apply to the whole section.

14

In

Memoriam
we weave (xxx.)

Fair ship that from the Italian shore (ix).

With trembling

fingers did
left his

When
>

Lazarus

charnel cave (xxxi.)

This truth came borne with bier and pall (lxxxv.) 1 It draweth near the birth of Christ (xxvm., now
'

The time draws near

'

that the

earliest jottings of the " Elegies "

were

begun
found
earliest

in
I

1833'; and that the sections

presume, are the
'

just

named
'

(which,

earliest jottings

are

in

a manuscript book containing also the

version of The

Two

Voices,

which

'

was

begun
sorrow.'
(b)

under the
2

cloud

of this

overwhelming

It is

also stated that

'

the sections of In

Memoriam about Evolution had been

cation
(id.

read

by

[Tennyson's] friends some years before the publiof

the
Vestiges

of

Creation

in

1844'
are not

223).

Unfortunately
remembers that

the sections

If the reader

this is the retrospective section of

thirty stanzas addressed to

to learn its date.

Edmund Lushington, he will be startled Certainly, if we had only internal evidence to

that
this

rely

on,

a suggestion

poem was

written

soon
;

after
for

Hallam's death would be

instance, lines 61
ff.

considered

almost

absurd

see,

It is difficult

not to suspect that the section,

;

as

we have

it,

has been greatly changed

early.

or even that the

first

stanza alone the second.

2

is

Observe the break between that stanza and

Memoir,

ideas
Voices

I. The likeness of some of the 109, 297; cf. 139. and expressions in sections xliii.-xlvii. and in The Two

may be

significant.

The Composition
specified
;

of In

Memoriam
cxxm.

15

but

LV.,

LVL, cxvin., and

are

presumably among them.

(3) Statements ferred.
tative

from which dates may be inEither from the Memoir or from authoriinsertions in Gatty's Key we gain the

following results.
{a)

Section xcvni. refers to an event of 1836,

the marriage-tour of Charles

bride.
(b)

Tennyson and

his

Sections

C.-CIII.

allude

to the removal of
in

the Tennysons from

(c)

Somersby
Forest.

1837.

Sections CIV.-V. allude to their

new home

at

High Beech, Epping

(d) Section
at

LXXXVI. was written at Barmouth,

and Tennyson was

the

Barmouth
I

in

1839, while

Memoir does

not,

think,

mention any pre-

vious visit to that place. 1

(e)

Edmund
1

Lushington's
contain

notes,

referring
'

to

Christmas

841,

the

statement;

the
in-

number of
creased

the
I

memorial poems had rapidly

since

had

seen

the

poet,

his
'

book

containing

many

that were

new

to

me

and he

appears to have seen the poet

of 1840 {Memoir,
1

last in

the

summer
VI.

I.

201, 202).

He

mentions

Nor have

visit to

Gloucestershire, which

found any reference in the Memoir before 1844 to a Tennyson mentions among the locali1.

ties in

which the poems were written {Me?noir,

305).

16

In
though
it

Memoriam
'just composed.'

as

were one of these new poems, and

he says that LI.

(/)

was

Even
been

after

1841
for

new

sections

seem to
in

have

added,
'

Lushington says that

1845 Tennyson

showed [him] those poems of

[him]
x
'

In Memoriam which were finished and which were

a perfectly novel
words,
'

surprise to

and the
of the

he

had then

completed

many
1845

cantos in In

Memoriam' would

naturally imply
(id.

that other cantos are later than

(g)
It

203).

would appear from Rawnsley's Memories

of

of the Tennysons, page 121, that CXXI. was com-

posed

shortly

before

the

publication

In

Memoriam.
(4) Indications in the poem.

A
with

few passages
the
internal

seem

not

quite

consistent

chronology, and these

may

point to a compara(a) Section LXVIII.

tively late date of composition,

refers

to
:

the

poet's

grief as the trouble of his

youth

It is

the trouble of

my

youth

That
(b)

foolish sleep transfers to thee.

The

section

which

describes

the

visit
'

to

Cambridge (LXXXVII.), and

that crash'd the glass
1

contrasts
floor

the
'

boys

and beat the

with the

He

writes as though
like
'

Can a word

just

'

he had seen none of the poems before 1845. have been omitted before ' finished ?
'

The Composition
friends

of In

Memoriam

17

who once

held debate in the same room,

seems to imply a considerable lapse of time since

the poet's Cambridge days,
in
(c)

The

pathetic lines

xc,
come thou back to me Whatever change the years have wrought, I find not yet one lonely thought That cries against my wish for thee,
dear, but

Ah

and

(d) the phrase in CXIX.,

thee,'
(e)

'

think of early days

and

appear to point

in the

same

direction

as does

the tone of a good

many

of the conit

cluding sections of In Memoriam.

In addition

may

a marked passage

be observed (f) that, where a section shows resemblance in idea or phrase to a

in

significant as to date,

The Princess (1847), and () that,

this
if

may
is

be

the resem-

blance in XLI. to a passage in Zanoni

not a

coincidence, that section must be as late as 1842.

On

the other hand, in the Prologue

we have

the

lines,

which

in strictness

should refer to the whole

poem,
Forgive these wild and wandering
Confusions of a wasted youth
cries,

and the Epilogue (1842) speaks of that change

Which makes appear the songs I made As echoes out of weaker times (21,

22).

Our

results,

it

must be confessed, are meagre.

B

18

In

Memoriam
death.

We
after

know

that certain sections were written soon

Arthur

Hallam's

We

have

good

grounds
to

for believing that certain

others belong

the

date
think

One or two we can about 1840, and we have reason to that a good many fall between that
years

1836-37.

year and the publication of the poem.

But the

natural inference from the words in the Prologue

and the Epilogue

is

that the bulk of In

Memoriam
this

belongs to a time separated by some distance

from 1849 and even from

1842.

Beyond

we cannot

go.

We

have no right to assume that

a section which comes early in the

written early, or that a section which

poem was
comes
of the
late

was written
thinking
it

late

though we can
that

hardly help
last

improbable

many
Nor

thirty or forty sections

were composed within a

is

few years of Hallam's death.

our ignor-

ance of the least consequence for the understanding of the

poem.

What
'

is

of consequence

is

the order in which the sections

now

stand.

For

although the poet

did

not write them with a

view of weaving them into a whole,' he found that

when they were written they were capable of and it seems being thus woven into a whole quite clear that he endeavoured, by arrangement and probably by writing new pieces, to give the
;

The Composition
collection a certain
ficant structure.

of In

Memoriam
definite

19

amount of The result is

and

signi-

that In
is

Memoriam,
is

though not one poem as Lycidas

one poem,
(the
I.

more than mere 'Fragments of an Elegy'

once thought of by the author, Memoir,

title

293),

and

justifies
it,

the

name by which he sometimes

referred to

'The

Way

of the Soul'
'

(id.
'

393).
is

To

fail

to observe the changes in this

Way

to

miss a great part of the meaning and beauty of

In Memoriam.

III.

THE STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM.

I.

The
and

most obvious sign of

in

definite structure

in

In Memoriam consists
it

the internal chronothis

logy,
clear.

will

be well to begin by making

Tennyson

himself

tells

us {Memoir,
are

I.

305)
the

that the divisions of the

poem

made by
first

Christmas-tide

sections

(XXVIII.,

LXXVIIL,

CIV.).

That the
after the

first

of these refers to the

in

Christmas
is

death of the friend

autumn

evident

from xxx., 14-16:

We sung, tho' A merry song

Last year
1

every eye was dim,

we sang with him

2
:

It will

be understood that generally, both in

this Introduction
I

and

in the Notes,

when

speak of

'

the poet

'

who
the
2

speaks in the poem.

I refer to

the author

mean the poet who composed

not weakened

poem
These

as

'Tennyson' or 'the author.'

and
their

lines are decisive,

evidence

is

by the

fact that

some poems

referring to the burial precede this

The
and
the

Structure of In
certainly

Memoriam
impression
that

21

we

receive

the

from
second

other

Christmas

poems

the

refers to the

Christmas of the next year, and the

of the next again.
section
CIV.,

third

to

that

Thus, when
are
distant

we have reached
and
a
quarter

we

from the death of the friend about

;

two years
in

and there
to

is

nothing

the

sections after CIV.

make

us

think that they

are

supposed

to

cover

any

length

of

time.

Accordingly, the time imagined to elapse in the

poem may be
years.

set

down
are

as rather less than three

These

results

confirmed

by other
progress

facts.

Between the Christmas poems there come occasional

sections

indicating

the

of time

by reference
saries of the

to the seasons

and to the anniver;

death of the friend

and between

two Christmas poems we

never find a hint that

more than one spring or one summer has passed,

or
that

more than
After
the

one anniversary has

third

come
a

round.
spring

Christmas
after
this

we have

poem

(cxv.), but

no sign of

summer

or of the return of the

anniversary of

the friend's death.

first

Christmas section, whereas the burial of Arthur Hallam did

not really take place until after Christmas, 1833.

did not

The

author

choose to

make

the

internal

chronology coincide with

the actual order of events.

22

In

Memoriam
indications
in

The unmistakable
chronology are shown
Section
XI.

of the internal
:

the following table

Early Autumn,
Later.

xv.

xxviii.-xxx.
xxxviii.-ix.

Christmastide
Spring.

LXXii.

Anniversary.
Christmastide.

LXXVin.
LXXXIll.

Delaying Spring.
Spring.

lxxxvi., lxxxviii.

lxxxix., xcv., xcviii.

xcix.
Civ., cv.

Summer,
Anniversary.
Christmastide.

CVI.
evil.

New

Year's Day.

Winter,
* Spring.

cxv., cxvi.

Against

all

these indications there seems nothing

to be set except the few passages already noted,

where a phrase or the tone of a section appears to

be not quite
logy.
in

harmony with

this internal
is

chronoa proof

That these passages are so few

of the care taken by the author to preserve the

clearness
is

and consistency of the scheme.

in

And

it

undoubtedly of use

giving the outlines of a

still

structure to the

poem, and of

greater use in

providing beautiful contrasts between the sections

which deal with the recurring seasons and anniversaries

a
;

though
is

it is

somewhat unfortunate that

Year's

That

this

not a

New

Day poem

is

shown

in

the

Notes.

The

Structure of In

Memoriam
final

23

the contents of some of the

sections imply

a greater distance of time from the opening of the series than

is

suggested by the chronological

scheme.
If we describe in the most general terms movement of thought and feeling in In Memoriam, the description will be found to apply
II.

the

also to

Lycidas or Adonais,

In each case

the

grief of the

opening has passed

at the close into

triumph

at first the singer thinks

last his

only of loss

and death, and at

vision of a

eyes are fixed upon the

life.

new and
this
is

greater
is

But

in

Lycidas

and Adonais

change

expressed
felt

in

one con-

tinuous strain, and

to

therefore

by the reader

occupy~15ut
;

a~

few hours of concentrated experi-

ence

and

in

Adonais especially the impression of

passionate rapidity in the transition from gloom

to glory
is

essential to the effect.

is

In In
fill

Memoriam

a similar change

supposed to

a period of

some

years,

and the impressToh~ora very gradual

;

ancPdifficult advance

is

no

less

essential.

It

is

conveyed, of course, not only by the indications of

time which have just been considered, but by the

mere

fact that

each of the
in

131 sections
itself

is,

in

a
1

sense, a
felt

poem complete

and accordingly
one

to be the expression of the thought of

particular time.

24

In
In

Memoriam
we soon observe
that

many

cases, however,
is

single
its

section

not really thus independent

of

predecessor and successor.

are scarcely intelligible
if

On
taken

the contrary,
in isolation
;

some

and again and again we discover groups which

have one subject, and
in

which the single sections

has come upon a certain
for a

are devoted to various aspects of this one subject.

The poet

in his progress

thought, which occupies him

time and

is

developed through a series of stages or contrasted

with a

number of other thoughts.

And

even

in

cases where
tion
in

we cannot trace such a thought we often find that

bound
together,

close connecseveral con-

secutive sections are

and separated

from the poems that surround them, by a

tone of feeling.

common

These groups or

clusters corre-

spond with single paragraphs of Lycidas^ or with

single stanzas or groups of stanzas in

Adonais\

and

their

presence forms

second

means by
is

which a certain amount of structure

the poem.

given to

There are many readers of In Memoriam who

have never read the poem through, but probably
everyone

who

has done so has recognised to some

extent the existence of groups.

for instance, that

Everyone remarks,

near the beginning there are a

number of

sections referring to the

coming of the

The
ship,

Structure of In

Memoriam

25

and that there are other consecutive poems

which deal with Christmastide.

But perhaps few

readers are aware of the large part played

by these

groups.

The

fact

is

that,

taken together, they

account for considerably more

the

than one-half of
notice has

poem

and

in

this

estimate no

been taken of mere pairs of connected sections,

such as xix., XX.
CXV.,
;

xlviil, xlix.

LVIL, lviii.

CXVI.

or of parts of the

poem where

the

sections,

though not so closely connected as to

in

form a distinct group, are yet manifestly united

a looser way.
estimate,
it

If these additions are

made

to our

will

be found to include nearly

total of 131.

100

poems out of the

Of the remaining sections (a) a may properly be called occasional

always more or
less significant.
visit

small

number

poems, though

the positions which they occupy in the whole are

Such are LXXXVIL,

which describes the

spective poem,

to

Cambridge
;

XCVIIL,

on the brother's tour to Vienna

the long retro-

LXXXV.
(b)

or the

poem on Hallam's

birthday, evil,

Others at once remind us of

preceding sections suggested by a like occasion,

and

in

this

way

bring

home
in

to

us the change

which has taken place

the interval.

the poet's

mind during
are the most

The Christmas poems

;

prominent instance

the later spring

poems

recall

26

In
;

Memoriam
'

the earlier

the second
;

Risest thou thus

'

brings
'

back the
house,'

first

the two sections beginning,

Dark

and the two poems on the Yew-tree, form

(c)

similar pairs,

Lastly,

we

find that the sections

which immediately follow connected groups are

often of one

and the same kind.

The

subject
dis-

which has occupied the poet's thoughts being

missed, there follows a kind of reaction.

He

looks

inward, and becomes more keenly conscious of the

feeling

from which
{e.g.

his attention

had been

for the
in

time diverted

xxxvin.), or of the feeling

{e.g.

which

his

thoughts have culminated

this

LVII.).

Not seldom
reflection

feeling suggests

to

him some
of no

on

his

own songs

his singing comforts

feels that
it is

him on

his dreary
it

way, or he

avail, or that
grief.

expresses nothing of his deepest

And

not

only

thus
other

at

the

close

of

groups, but at

various

points throughout
in

In Memoriam there occur sections

poet's songs

which the

form the subject, pointing backwards

to

and forwards
on

one another, and showing the

his

change which passes over

{e.g.

mind

as time goes

v.,

XXI., lviil, cxxv.).

In these various

ways, as well as by the presence of definite groups,

some kind of connection

section

is

established

between

and section almost throughout the whole

of the poem.

'

The
III.

Structure of In
are

Memoriam

27

We

now

in

a position to observe the

structure of this whole, reserving for the

Com-

mentary the
parts.

fuller

characterisation

of particular

The
grief,

'

Way

of the
first

Soul

'

we

find

to

be a

journey from the

stupor and

confusion of
dis-

through a growing acquiescence often

turbed by the recurrence of pain, to an almost

unclouded

peace

and

joy.

The anguish
The

of

wounded

love passes

into

the

triumph of love
soul, at first

over sorrow, time and death.

almost sunk in the feeling of

last

loss, finds itself at

freed

from regret and yet strengthened

It

in

affection.

pines no
;

longer for the

it

vanished

hand and
which

silent voice

is

filled
spirit.

with the con-

sciousness of union with

the
it

The

world,
its

once

seemed to

mere echo of

sorrow, has

become the abode of

that immortal

Love, at once divine and human, which includes

the living and the dead.
Is
it

possible to find in this

'

Way

'

any turning-

point where grief begins to yield to joy,

turning-point as occurs in Adonais

such a
indig-

when

nation

rouses

the

poet

from

his

sorrow,

and
affir-

the strain suddenly rises into the solemn

mation,
'

Peace, peace

he

is

not dead, he doth not sleep

28

In

Memoriam
may
be considered to
fall

If so,

In Memoriam

into
line

two

fairly distinct parts,

though the dividingin

would not necessarily come, any more than

Adonais, at the centre of the poem.

It

might seem natural to take the long section

line of division, for

lxxxv. as marking such a

has traversed, and
bitterness of grief

here the poet himself looks back over the

way he
But
been

when he renews
seems to have
this

his

journey the
him.

left

the

passing

away of

bitterness

has

already clearly observable before section LXXXV.

is

reached,

and the change of tone

not

after

that
to

section

does

seem
it

sufficiently

decided

justify us in regarding

as a central point in the

whole.

More tempting would be

sider section
LVII.

a proposal to con-

as

marking the centre of In

the

Memoriam.
and

In these verses
part

most troubled
reaches the
there
is,

passionate

of the
after

poem
them

acme of a climax, while

But
in

on

the whole, a steady advance towards acquiescence.

reality
is

the distress which

characteristic
;

culminates in

section LVII.

only of the group

it is

which closes with that section

not a distress

which has deepened from the outset of the poem;

indeed,

many

tokens of advance have been visible

is

before that group

reached, and the main direc-

The
tion

Structure of In

Memoriam
it

29

of the
1

movement towards
in

is

definitely

upward.
If

turning-point
is

the

general

feeling
it

of

In Memoriam

to

be sought at
not in section
in

all,

must

certainly be found
section

LVIL, nor in

LXXXV.,

but
It

the

second

Christmas
spite of

poem, LXXVIII.

seems true

that, in

gradual change, the tone of the

poem

so far

is,

on the whole, melancholy, while

after LXXVIII. the

predominant tone can scarcely be called even sad;

it

is

rather the feeling of spring emerging slowly

difficulty

and with

from

the

gloom of

winter.
in-

And

it

is

probable that

Tennyson himself

tended

this

change to be associated with the

first

second coming of Christmas, since the

and

the third coming also announce a definite change,

1

am

not converted, therefore, by Mr. Beeching's words, which

:

have appeared since the above was written

at first designed,

Here the poem,

as

seems

to

have ended.

The

57th elegy [58th in

the copyright text] represents the

Muse

as urging the poet to a

in

new beginning
edition, as

and the 58th [59th] was added

x).

the fourth

though to account

for the difference in tone

the earlier and later elegies' (Introduction, p.

objection urged above, the
consistent with Tennyson's
first

between Apart from the

sentence here seems to be scarcely

account of the composition of In Memoriam^ nor can I believe that he ever thought of ending his poem in tones of despair. But it is certainly true that there is a more marked break at Section lvii. than at lxxviii. or lxxxv. (The suggestion that the poem was originally intended to cease with lvii. was made in 1892 by Mr. Jacobs (p. 92), whose book was not known to Mr. Beeching.

own

3o

In
he
says

Memoriam
that

and since

the

divisions

of

In

Memoriam are made by the Christmas sections. At the same time it is questionable whether the
transition at section
strike a reader

LXXVIII.

is

so

marked

as to

who was

not looking for signs of

it

transition

and, this being so,

would seem to
as a

be a mistake to regard In

Memoriam

poem

which, like Adonais, shows a dividing line clearly

separating one part of the whole from the other.
Its

main

movement
first,

is

really

one of advance
is

almost from the

though the advance

for

a long time very slow.

Falling back, then, on the divisions pointed out

by the author, we may attempt

four parts into which the

to characterise the
will fall, to

poem

show

the groups contained in each, and to indicate the

principal changes in the course of ideas through

which the mind of the poet moves.

Part

I.

To the
SECTIONS

First Christmas.
I.

-XXVII.
is

The
is

general tone of this part, which

three

sup-

posed to cover a space of about

that

months,
the

of absorption

in

grief

but

poet

gradually rises from mere suffering to a clearer

conviction that
'Tis better to

Than never

to

have loved and have loved at all,

lost

The

Structure of In

Memoriam
to,

31

and that love may, and ought

loss of the beloved.

survive the

+
I

There

is

throughout scarcely

any

reference to

the continued existence of the

lost friend.

This part contains two distinct groups

(1) Sections ix.-xvil. (or XX.),
1

referring to the
burial).

coming of the ship

(2)

(or to this

and to the
a

Sections

XXII.-XXV.,

retrospect

of the

years of friendship.

Part

II.

To the Second Christmas.

SECTIONS XXVIII.-LXXVII.

This part of the poem has some marked characteristics,

(a)

From beginning
life

to

end the idea

is

of the continued
far

of the dead
in

prominent,
other
this

more prominent than

(b)
It
is

any of the
by

three parts,

through reflection on
it

idea and on the problems suggested

that
is

the poet wins his

the part of

way forward In Memoriam which

;

so that this

contains

most
this

semi-philosophic
part
consists

speculation.

(c)

Hence

almost

wholly of distinct

groups

with intervening sections, and there are but few

*

occasional
1

'

poems.
it is

Here, as in a few other cases,

a matter of doubt, and even

is

of indifference, at which of two sections the group

to close.

best taken

32

In

Memoriam

The
(i)

following brief analysis of the groups will

:

indicate the course of the poet's thoughts

Sections

xxviil.-xxx.

Christmastide.
life

The

thought of the continued

of the dead

emerges

in

an hour of exaltation.
This continued
life is

(2) Sections xxxi.-XXXVl.

at

once a

'

truth revealed,'

and a

fact implied

in the constitution of

human

nature.
in part

The
with

group accordingly
the difference
in immortality.

is

concerned

between two

forms of faith

(3) Sections XL.-XLVII.

Immortality being asis

sumed, the question of future reunion

raised.
is

This involves the question (which

the main subject of the group) whether

earthly
life
is

the

remembered

beyond
would

death.

Only an

affirmative answer

satisfy the

(4) Sections L.-LVI.

demand of love. The poet's desire that the dead friend should remember him and be near him now (as well as in a future life) is followed by fears and doubts raised by the thought, first, of his own unworthiness,
and then of
in
all

the pain, waste, and evil

the

world.

These doubts cannot be

;

silenced

by reason
is

and the
evil,

poet's

hope

that

good

the end of

and love the

The

Structure of In
is

Memoriam

33

law of creation,
trust.

sustained only by blind

(5)

Sections LX.-LXV.

The poet

returns to his

desire that his friend should think of

him

now.

His hopes and fears on

this subject

are free from the distress of the preceding

group,

and

issue

in

the

acceptance

of

ignorance, and in faith that love cannot be

lost.

Here, and in the remainder of Part

is

II.,

there
regret,

a gradual

advance towards quiet

others,

sympathy with

and a peaceful

recognition of the beauty of the past and

the influence of the lost friend.

(6) Sections LXVII.-LXXI.

On

Night, Sleep, and

Dreams.
(7)

Sections

LXXIII.-LXXVII.

On Fame.

The

poet writes of his friend's loss of fame on

earth and gain of fame in another world, and of the brevity of any fame which his

own songs could win

for his friend.

Part

III.

To the Third Christmas.

SECTIONS LXXVIII.-CIII.

Of

the four parts

this

contains the

greatest
'

number of

sections which

may

be called

occa-

34
sional.'

In

Memoriam
life

The

idea of the future

retires

again

into the background.

(i)

The

prevailing

tone

of

sections

LXXIX.is

LXXXIX. (not to be considered a group)

that of
tion,

quiet

and not unhappy retrospeclife

and a sense of new and joyful

begins to appear.

(2)

Sections

XC.-XCV.

form a closely connected

group on the possible contact of the living

and the dead.

The

idea

is

considered from

various sides, and appears to be realised in

the trance recorded in XCV.

(3) Sections
its

C.-CIII.

form a group which has

for

subject the poet's farewell to the

home

of childhood.

He

begins to turn his eyes

from the

past.

Part

IV.

From the Third Christmas.

SECTIONS CIV.-CXXXI.

Throughout
the future.

this

part,

even when the poet

is

is

thinking of the past, he

Jooking forward into

is

Regret

is

passing away, but love

growing and widening.

garded not only as a
the nobler humanity to

The dead

friend

is

re-

friend, but as

a type

of

come, and as mingled

The
with
that
universe.

Structure of In

Memoriam
the
soul

35

Love

which

is

of

the

(1) Sections CIV.-CVI. form a

group dealing with

in the

Christmas and

New Year

new home.

(2) Sections CVII., CVIII. express the poet's resolve

to turn

from the grief of the

past.

(3) Sections

CIX.-CXIV. describe the character of

the dead friend, and incidentally the dangers

of the progress of mankind.

(4) Sections CXVII.-CXXXI. are not so closely con-

nected as to form a group,

united

but they are

by

their

expression of faith in the

future both of the individual

and of humanity.
retrospective,

In the

form
poet

many
which

of them are

looking

back
has

to

the
his

struggles

through

he

won

way
love.
1

to

entire faith in the

1

omnipotence of

In conversation with Mr. James Knowles, Tennyson gave a

division of
(2) (6)

In Memoriam
;

into nine parts, as follows

;

(i)

i.-vm.

ix. -xx.

(3)
;

xxi. -xxvii.
(7)

(4)

xxviii.-xlix.
;

(5) l.-lviii.
;

lix.-lxxi.

lxxii.-xcviii.

(8)

xcix.-ciii.

(9)

civ.-

As nothing is said of this arrangement in his notes on In Memoriam printed in the Memoir, it is to be supposed that
cxxxi.

he was not poem.

satisfied

with

it.

It

ignores the

Second Christmas

IV.

THE 'WAY OF THE

It
is

SOUL.'

a fashion
of

at

present to ascribe the great

popularity

In

Memoriam
it,

entirely

to

the

'teaching' contained in
its

and to declare that

elegies has

peculiar

position

among English
its

nothing to do with
equivalent to

poetic qualities.
that, if the

This

is

an
the
1

assertion

so-called
in

substance of

poem had been presented

common
that
is

prose,

the

work would have gained the

same hold upon the mass of educated readers

now
The

possessed by the

poem
does

itself.

Such
indeed

an assertion no one would make or consciously

imply.

ordinary

reader

not

attempt to separate the poetic qualities of a work

from some other quality that appeals to him

much
1

less

does he read the work

is

in

terror

of

This, in strictness,

an impossible supposition.

Anything

that could be so presented would not be really the substance of the poem.

36

'

The
diction

'

Way

of the Soul
;

37

being affected by the latter

but imagination and

and even
as

versification

can influence him

people

much

they

influence

the

who

talk

about them, and he would never have taken In

Memoriam
in

to his heart

if its

consoling or uplifting

thoughts had not also touched his fancy and sung

his ears.
It
is

true,

however, that he dwells

is

upon these thoughts, and that the poem

valued by him for
its

often
|

bearing upon his

this
is

and true again that

cares for
it

own life one reason why he

far
it

more than
as poems.

for elegies certainly not

inferior to

many

devotees of poetry

And perhaps here also may resemble him more

Memoriam seems
In

than they suppose.

This peculiar position of In

to

be connected with two

it

facts.

the

first

place,

alone
is

elegies
feelings.

among the most famous English poem inspire d by deep personal

'

Arthur Hallam was a youth of extradear as the

ordinary promise, but he was also

mother to the

son.'

therefore, unlike those

The elegy on his death, on Edward King or Keats

or Clough, bears the marks of a passionate grief

and

affection

and the poet's victory over sorrow,

is

like his faith in immortality,

felt

to be

won

in

a struggle which has shaken the centre of his

being.

And

then, as has been observed already,

38

In

Memoriam
in
all

the grief and the struggle are portrayed

their stages

and phases throughout months and

is

years

and each

depicted, not as

it

may have
it

appeared when the victory was won, but as

was experienced then and

for
?

there.
is

In other elegies
to be found re-

example, scarcely anything

earlier sections,

sembling the

which describe with

such vividness and truth the varied feelings of a

>

new grief; scarcely anything, again, like the nightpoems (lxvii. ft), or the poem of the second
anniversary (xcix.), or those of the third spring-

time (cxv., CXVI.).

to readers

Stanzas like these come

cared for a
of
souls.

home
and
till

who never

poem

before,

were

never

conscious

feeling

poetically

sorrow opened their

Thus much
life

of In\

Memoriam
in
it

is

nearer to ordinary

than

most

elegies can be,

and many such readers have found*

an expression of their

own

feelings, or
it

have

looked to the experience which

embodies as a

guide to a possible conquest over their

'

own

loss.
'

This,'
I
I,

they say to themselves as they read,

is

what
than

dumbly

feel.

This man, so

much

greater

has suffered like

me and

has told

me how
on
"

he won his way to peace.

forced

Like me, he has been

the

by

his

own

disaster to meditate

riddle of the painful earth,"

and to ask whether the

world can really be governed by a law of love, and

The
is

'

Way

of the Soul

39

not rather the work of blind forces, indifferent to

all

the value of

that they produce and destroy.'

first

A
in

brief review,

of the experience recorded

In Memoriam, and then of the leading ideas

in
it,

employed
and even
although

may

be of interest to such readers,

it

to others, as

may

further the under-

standing of the
it

poem from one

for

point of view, the time that

is

has to break up

unity of substance and form which

of poetry.

the essence

The

early sections portray a soul

loss.

in

the

first

anguish of

Its

whole interest
;

is

fixed on one
is

thing in the world

and, as this thing

is

taken

away, the whole world

the description
is

darkened.

In the main,

one of a

common

experience,

and the poem shows the

in a particular case.

issue of this experience

Such sorrow

is

often healed

by
pain

forgetfulness.

The
with
ease,

soul,

flinching
its

from

the

of

loss,

or
first

apprehensive of
difficulty,

danger, turns away, at

afterwards

and

with

increasing

from
or

the

thought
incessant
to
forget.
its

of the
st ream

beloved

dead.

Time/
sions,

the
it

of ne w_Jmpres-

helps

Its
its
it

sorrow
love
;

gradually
at last

perishes,
'

and with
is is

sorrow

and

all

it

was
It

overworn,' and

stands whole and

sound.

not

cynical

to

say that this

is

4o

In
history,

Memoriam
in

frequent

and that the ideas repelled

section XC. are not seldom true.

Sometimes, again, the wound remains unhealed,

although
its

pain

is

dulled.

Here love neither

it

dies nor changes

its

form

remains a painful

longing for something gone, nor would anything

really satisfy
it

but the entire restoration of that

All the deeper
life

which

is

gone.

of the soul
its

is

absorbed

in this love,
is

which from

exclusively

personal character
interests

unable to coalesce with other

their growth.
is

and prevents

In neither of these extreme cases

there that
first

victory of which the poet thinks even in the

shock of
said

loss,

when he remembers how

it

has been

S
In the
is

Of

their

That men may rise on stepping-stones dead selves to higher things.

first

case there

is

victory of a kind, but

is

it

a victory which in the poet's eyes

defeat
it

the soul

may

be said to conquer
its

its
is

sorrow, but

does so by losing

love

it

a slave in the

triumph of Time.
refuses to die

In the second case, the 'self

for that

and conquers time, but

to the past

very
rise

reason
to

it

is

bound

and unable to

higher things.

The experience portrayed

Sorrow

in

In Memoriam corresponds with neither

it

case, but
is

resembles each in one particular.

'

; '

The
healed, but
for
it

'

Way
is

of the Soul

41

is

not healed by the loss of love

the beloved dead

the object of continual

thought, and

when

regret has passed

away

love

is

found to be not

less

but greater than before.

On
its

the other hand regret does pass away, and love

does not merely look forward to reunion with

object but unites freely with other interests.

It is

evident that the possibility of this victory depends

upon the
is
1

fact that, while love

in the soul

does not
die.
self.'

die, there

something
'

which does
'

The

self

rises

only on the basis of a

dead

In other

words, love changes though

fade
;

it

does not perish or

it

and with the change

in the

in

there
its

is

a corre-

sponding change

idea of

object.

The
that

poem At

exhibits this process of two-fold change.

the

beginning

love

desires

simply

which was, the presence and companionship of the

lost friend
its
;

and
It

this

it

desires

unchanged and

in

entirety.

longs for the sight of the face, the

pressure of the

sound of the voice, the

handt

These doubtless are desired as tokens of the soul

but as yet they are tokens essential to love, and
that for which
it

pines

is

the soul as

known and
to

loved through them.

think of the dead

If the

mourner attempts
he finds that he
'

apart

from them, his

:

heart
is

remains cold, or he recoils

thinking
of

phantom

an

awful

thought

42

In
of
'

Memoriam
man he
loved
'

instead
1

the human-hearted

spirit,

not a breathing voice.'

It
is

This he does

not and cannot love.

an object of awe, not

is

of affection
fold

the mere dead body

this,

a thousandthis
is

dearer than

naturally,
is
'

for

not

really a spirit, a thinking

and loving

soul,

but a

ghost.

As then he
and
c

unable to think of the

the hand, the
lips,

object of his love except as

the

eyes,'

the meeting of the

is

morrow,' he
lost,

feels that

what he loves
his

simply gone and

and he

finds

one

relief in

allowing fancy to

play about the thought of the tokens that remain

(see the

poems

to the ship).

The
So long
/on

process of change consists largely in the

its

conquest of the soul over

as this

bondage
its

to sense.
is

bondage remains,
really
is
it

desire
it

fixed

that

which

dead,

and

cannot

advance.

But gradually

resigns this longing,

to that
its

and turns more and more

'dead.

which

is
is

not
the

The

first

step

in

advance

perception that love

itself is

of infinite value and

may
of

survive the removal of the sensible presence

object.

its

But no sooner has

found

this conviction

been reached and embraced (XXVII.) than suddenly

the

mourner

is

to

have

transferred

his

interest
itself,

from the sensible

presence to the soul

is

while,

on the other hand, the soul

no

'

g&JFORN

The
has

Way

of the Soul

43

longer thought of as a mere awful phantom, but

become what the

indeed,

living

friend

had been,
This

something both beloved and loving (xxx.).

conquest
is,

achieved

first

in a

moment
;

of exaltation which
its

cannot be maintained

but

result

is

never

lost,

and gradually strengthens.

dead
is

The

feeling that the soul of the

something

shadowy and awful departs

for ever,

and step by

step the haunting desire for the bodily presence

retires.
lives,

Thought

is

concentrated on that which

its

the beauty of the beloved soul, seen in

life

remembered

on earth, and doubtless shown

in a
life

more

fully elsewhere

that can be dimly

is

imagined.

At
its

last

the pining for what

is

gone

dies completely away, but love

found to be but

stronger for

death,

and to be no longer a source

its

of pain.
object,

It

has grown to the dimensions of

this

and
but

object

is

not only distant and

desired,

also

present
is

and

possessed.

And
it

more
lives
its
'

the past (which

not wholly past, since

and

acts in the soul of the

its

mourner) has

lost

pang and retained

death

loveliness
'

and power
life in

the days that are no

'

more become a
'

death

instead of a

in life

and even the

light of

the face, the sound of the voice, and the pressure

of the hand,

now

that the absorbing desire

for

them

is still,

return in the quiet inward world.

44

In
Another aspect of

Memoriam
this

change

is

to be noticed.

So long
from
all

as the mourner's sorrow

and desire are

fixed on that which dies they withdraw his interest

other things.

His world seems to depend

for its

light
'

on that which has passed away, and

is

he
his

cries,

All

dark where thou art

object change
its

not.'

But as
this

love

and

its

and

grow,

exclusiveness lessens and

shadow

shrinks.
;

His

heart opens itself to other friendships

the sweet-

ness of the spring returns

for

and the 'mighty hopes'

live

man's future which the friend had shared,

again as the dead friend ceases to be a silent voice

and becomes a
activities

living soul.

Nor do the

reviving
for
it.

simply flourish side by side with love

this

soul,

and

still

less

do they compete with

it.

Rather they are one with

in the living,
It
is

The dead man

lives

and

'

moves him on

to nobler ends.'

at the bidding of the

dead that he seeks a

His vision of

friendship for the years to come.

the ideal

man
'

that

is

to be

is

memory
in

of the

man

that trod this planet with

cried,
cries,

him

his youth.
not,'

He had
now he

All

is

dark where thou art

and

Thy

voice
I

is

on the

rolling air

hear thee where the waters run

standest in the rising sun,
in the setting

Thou

And

thou art

fair.

The
7-

'

Way

of the Soul
little

45

For the sake of clearness

has been so far

/

said of the thoughts of the

life

mourner regarding the

beyond death.
subjects, the

These thoughts touch two

and
re-

main

hope of reunion, and the desire

that the dead friend should think of the living

should even
current

communicate with him.

on the
state
this

The

speculations
this

of the
desire.

dead

spring from

hope and

They
its

recur less frequently as the soul advances in

victory.

This does not mean that the hope of

reunion diminishes or ceases to be essential to the

mourner's peace and faith

but speculation on

the nature both of this reunion and of the present

life

of the dead

is

renounced, and at
CVIII.).

last

even
is

abruptly dismissed (CVIL,

The

singer

L^content to be ignorant and to wait

It is

in faith.

not quite so with the desire that the dead

friend should

now remember

the living, and should

even communicate with him.

at

True, this desire

is

one moment

put aside without unhappiness

(LXV.),

and

it

ceases to be an urgent and disturb-

ing force.

But

long

after

the

pining
it

for

the

bodily presence has

been overcome,

remains
It
'

and brings with

s

it

pain and even resentment.

seems to change from

fy

hope of

'

speech

or

converse
'

'

to a wish that the dead should in

'

some

way be near

to or

'

touch

'

the living

and thus

46
it

In
suggests
the

Memoriam
group
of
at

important

sections
first

XC.-XCV.

Here the poet even wishes

;

for

a vision

and although he

at

once

reflects

that

neither this nor

any other appeal

to sense could

1 convince him that the dead was really with him,

he does not surrender either here or

the idea of

later (cxxil.)
souls. 2
is

some more immediate contact of

is

On

the other hand, he

not sure that the idea

uncertainty
while
disturb

realised,

nor

does

his

his

peace.

What he
is

desires
'

he remains on
is,'

earth

contact with
half

that which

the reality

which

is

revealed

and
life,

half concealed

by
its

nature and man's earthly

and which, by

contact, convinces him of the reason and love that

rule

the

world
'

and, as

now he

thinks

of his

friend as

living in

God,' he neither

knows nor

seeks to

know whether

that which touches

him

is

to be called the soul of his friend or by some

higher name.
It

appears then that the victory over sorrow

in

portrayed
1

the
on the

poem
difficulty

is

dependent

upon

His

reflections

or

impossibility of any such

is

proof are expressed in xcii. with a conciseness which

teristic

characforce

of Tennyson and conceals from

his thoughts.

many

readers the

full

and bearing of
2

This idea
thought

is
'

not confined to In Memoriam.

Tennyson, we are
all

told,

that there might be a

more intimate communion than

events for

we could dream

of between the living and the dead, at

i.

a time' {Memoir,

320).

The
change

Way

of the Soul
by the

47

in the love felt

living for the-dead,

in the

and upon a corresponding change

the
dead.

idea of

And

some readers may even

change
is

be

inclined to think that the

at last the

so great that

dead friend has really ceased to be to

the living an individual person.

say, in

He
in
'

is,

they

will

some dim
Adonais

fashion

'

mixed with God and

lost

Nature,'
soul
'

and as completely
is

the general

as

in Shelley's pantheistic

poem

and so the
changed,
it

poet's love for

him has not merely

its

has perished, and

place has been

little

taken by a feeling as vaguely general and as

personal as the object to which
it is

directed.

As
I

my

purpose

is

neither to criticise nor to defend

/
,

the poet's ideas, but simply to represent them,

will confine
itself flatly
it,

myself to pointing out that the poem

denies the charge thus brought against
validity of the
It
is

and by implication denies the

antitheses on which the charge rests.

quite'
all

true that, as the poet advances, he abandons

attempts to define the

life

beyond death, and

'

to/
It

form an image of his

is

friend,

whate'er he be.

quite true also that he

at

is

conscious that his

divine,

friend,

once human and

far

known and
than
in the

unknown,
*

and
is
'

near,

has become something

'

strange,'

and

darklier understood
life.

old days of earthly

But

it

is

equally clear

48

In
the

Memoriam
friend
is is
'

that to

poet his

is

not a whit

less

himself because
Nature,'

he

mixed with God

'
'

and
as

and that he
'

only deepjierjoved

he

becomes

darldier understood.'
is

And

if

the hope
as the

of reunion

less

frequently expressed

sense of present possession gains in strength, there

is

nothing
firm

in the

poem

to

imply that

it

becomes
ought

less

as

the image of reunion becomes less

definite.

The
;

reader

may

declare that

it

to

do so

he

may

apply to the experience here

portrayed his customary notions of

divine,

human and
and
falls

personal
;

and

impersonal, individual

general

and he may argue that whatever

fall

under one of these heads cannot

other.

under the

But whether

his ideas
is

and

his

argument

are true or false, the fact

certain that for the

experience portrayed in In

Memoriam

(and,

it

may
hold.

be added,

in

Adonais

also)

they do not
in

For the poets the soul of the dead,

'

being

mingled with nature, does not lose

in living in
is still

its

personality;
itself;
'

God

it

remains

human and
'

it

the object of a love as

personal

as that

which was given to

the touch of a vanished hand,

And

the sound of a voice that

is

still.

v.

THE IDEAS USED

IN

IN MEMORIAM.1
furthered,

An

understanding of the
for

poem may be
be avoided,
if

and the necessity

particular

detailed

explanations of

passages
:

may

we now

raise the questions

How
and

does Tennyson habituits future,

?

ally think of the soul

and on what

does his faith appear to be based

Here
In the

certain cautions
first
is

must be borne

in

mind.

place

we must

distinguish between
is

that which

all-important and that which

of

secondary
that to
certain

interest.

For example,
fact of
;

it

is

evident

Tennyson the
and
essential

immortality was both

but his ideas as to the

life

precise nature of the future

1

or lives stand on

In the following pages

distinction

between
it

poetry

but

I have not attempted to maintain the Tennyson and the poet who speaks in his must be remembered that one has not in strictness a
'
'

'

'

right to regard as

an author's own opinion any statement he may

make

in a

poem.

49

50

In
level.

Memoriam
to review these ideas,
in
;

another

It is useful

because they show

us

the world

which

his

imagination was accustomed to

move

but they

were not to him matters either of certainty or of

great practical import.

And,
that

in the

second place,

we have
not

to

remember
from

Tennyson neither wa s
,

nor professed to be a philosopher and

we must
of

expect

him

either

the

exactness

language or the form of consecutive

reasoning

which are required

of

in

philosophy.

In one section
disclaims

In

Memoriam

(xlviii.)

he

the

intention of dealing fully or even seriously with

the problems on which he has touched.

the time

Up

to

when he

finished

the

poem he does not

;

appear to have made any study of philosophers

and though a few of

his

later

poems bear marks

general the
the
is

of some reading of this kind, and even employ

terms too

technical

for

poetry, Tin

language remains that of imagination, and

form

of

argumentation

or

strict

statement

never adopted.J

The

reader, therefore,
;

must not

expect system or definition

he must not press

hardly on single phrases or sentences, but must

use

them

in

order

to

feel

his

way

into

the

poet's

mind.
If

(i)

we

try to picture the soul's history, as

it,

Tennyson habitually imagines

our

first

question

The
must be
times,
:

Ideas used in the

Poem
?

51

When
find,

did this history begin

Someeither

'

we

he imagines a previous existence.

one, in which the soul
else
'

^A

or

more than
or

was

embodied

floated

free

'

and

certain
its

strange longings and dim visions which haunt

earthly
life

are regarded as faint recollections of a

(so,
e.g.,

previous state

in

The Two

Voices,

The

Ancient Sage, Far, far away).

often,

But much more

always, 1 the
life
/

and
life

in
is

Ln_Memoriam probably
thought of as the
then
figured
as
first

fearthly
soul,
1

of the)
the/

which
'

is

coming from

deep

of a larger spiritual being, or as detaching

'

itself,

or being detached, from the

is

general soul.'J

This process

coincident with, or the spiritual

certain changes in matter

complement
issue in the

of,

which

body of the

soul

2
;

and

later,

through

experience gained by means of this body, the soul

developes
(XLV.).
is

into

self-consciousness
is

or

personality /
in
it

That which

deepest and most real

will

sometimes
'

spoken of as

or

free-will , to

Tennyson the
self-limitation

main-miracle, apparently an act of

Infinite,
3

by the

and yet a revelation

by Himself of Himself.'

The

life

on earth need not be considered

soul

here.,

At death the union of

V
l

and body
2

is

dissolved.)

See on xliv.

See on cxx.

Memoir;

I.

316.

Cf.

De

Profundis, and cxxxi.

52

In

Memoriam
on the whole foreign
repudiated (in

The
to

idea that thereupon the soul passes at once to

is is

a final state of bliss or woe,

the

poet's

mind, and

The

Ring).
life

So

is

the idea that at the end of the earthly

the soul at once remerges into the general

its

I soul so as to lose

individuality (xlvil).
falls

And
into

again the idea that at death the soul

a long sleep from which
it

will

awake unchanged,
in

v though
ally

entertained as a

possibility

XLIII., is

evidently not habitual with the poet.

/

He

habitu-

imagines the soul as entering on a second

life

individual
life is

immediately after death. [The new

if

almost always,
a

not always, thought of as

;

new embodiment and sometimes, perhaps generally, this embodiment is supposed to take place on some other world or star.' The
implying
'

soul's

second

life,

if

it

lived well

on

earth,

is

re-

garded as

free

from
J

defects of the
as

first.

many of the limitations and Though occasionally described

it is

though

it

were an existence of merely congenerally imagined as a

templative happiness,
life

of activity in which the soul

takes part in

some common work and

so advances on the path

of progress, v Usually, though not always, the poet

thinks of the soul as remembering
earthly companions
;

its

past and

its
it

occasionally he imagines
'

as being, at least for a time, peculiarly

near' to

The
the
1

Ideas used in the

Poem

53

beloved on earth and perhaps even able to

'

touch

them without the intervention of sense

in

as

a rule, and

In

Memoriam

habitually,

he

thinks of a reunion and recognition, in the next

life,

of souls dear to one another in

life is

this.

The second
,

supposed to be succeeded by
life;

death on which follows a third embodied

this process
is

and

repeated again and again for ages,

the

soul

in

each embodiment reaching a higher

stage of being, and approaching

more and more

nearly to God.
this

The union

with

God

in

which

progress

would

presumably terminate, the

;

poet naturally does not attempt to imagine

it

but

is

noticeable that,

if

we may judge from

in

XLVii.

J
/

and
idea

the

phrases quoted
'

Memoir,

I.

319, the
'

of an ultimate

absorption into the divine

was

not, like the idea of an

;

immediate absorption,
this

repugnant to him
connect
the
fact

and perhaps with

that
in

we may
loss

the

trance-experience
'

which

he

several
(if

times described,
it

the
to

of
'

personality

so

were)

'

seemed
life'

him
I.

no

extinction but the only true

{Memoir,

326)7

Of

the future of souls which grew worse with time

in their earthly state

he does not

write, but, as his

later

poems show, he could not

any
soul

entertain the belief

that

would
1

in the
,

end be excluded from

See, e.g.

De

Prcfundis.

54

In

Memoriam
'

God

of love.

The
one

larger

hope

'

of LV^-and

perhaps the
far-off divine event

To which

the whole creation

moves (Epilogue),
reconciliation

are phrases which refer to the final

pr

union of all souls with their divine source.

(2)

How many

of the ideas just summarised

/ were

to the poet matters of belief

;

and of

essential
in

importance we do not know

and

therefore,

turning to the question of the basis of his belief in

immortality

we must
must

dismiss the greater part of

them,

and

understand

by

.J

immortality

simply the conscious and indefinitely prolonged

life

of the soul beyond death,

For

this

was to and of

him undoubtedly a matter of

an importance so great that
in
it

fixed belief,

life

without the belief

neither sense nor

seemed
Y We
his

to

him

to have

value.

must remember also that immortality

was to

mind a

fact of the

same order
is

as the said of

existence of a

God

of love, so that what

the grounds of his faith in the one

may

often be
in

taken to apply also to the grounds of his faith

the
other
;

and

where the two

ideas
belief

are
in

not

regarded
mortality
in

as
is

thus coordinate, the

im-

considered as a consequence of belief

latter is indirectly

God, so that the basis of the

also the foundation of the former.

The
|jn the
first

Ideas used in the

place, then,
it

Poem

55

is

clear that

God and

immortality are to the poet matters not of knowledge or proof, but of

faith.
|

Concerning them
;

We

have but faith we cannot know For knowledge is of things we see.

:

We

embrace them
Believing where

by

faith,

and

faith alone,'
( Cf.

we cannot

prove.

CXXXI .) ^

This position
poetry,

is

maintained throughout Tennyson's

and

is

set forth

most

fully

and maturely

in

the following lines from The Ancient Sage:

Thou canst not prove the Nameless, O my son, Nor canst thou prove the world thou movest in, Thou canst not prove that thou art body alone, Nor canst thou prove that thou art spirit alone, Nor canst thou prove that thou art both in one Thou canst not prove thou art immortal, no Nor yet that thou art mortal nay my son, Thou canst not prove that I, who speak with thee,
:

Am

not thyself in converse with thyself,

For nothing worthy proving can be proven, Nor yet disproven wherefore thou be wise,
:

Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt, And cling to F aith beyond the forms of Faith!

The

ideas of

God and

immortality, in the next

place, are not for the poet the result of reasoning

upon the phenomena of external

Nature.

He
to the

appears to have held consistently throughout his

life,

that

if

we

did not bring

them with us

56

In

Memoriam

examination of Nature, but simply used our reason

upon

it

without taking into account the evidence

derived

from

our

believe either in

own God or

nature,
in

we should not immortality. As an

undergraduate he voted
in

No
the

on the question raised

the Apostles' Society, Is an intelligible First

Cause

deducible
? *

from
I.

phenomena of the

universe

{Memoir,
the

44.)

He would
to

say,

on

looking

through

microscope,

'Strange that

these wonders should draw

repel
others.

some men
in

God and
in

No more
{lb.

reason

one than

the other'

102).
:

And

so the poet in

In

Memoriam

declares
found

?
Nay,
in

[
in tooth

Him

not in world or sun,

Or

eagle's wing, or insect's eye.

it

(cxxiv.)

his

dark hour,

even seems to him that

a terrible one
;

/the

message of Nature

is

that,

'

red

and claw with

'

ravine,'
is

she 'shrieks against

a process of cease-

his creed
less

that the world

change, in which individual existences arise to

;

pass without return

that they value
life

that

its

forces

show no token

than

evil,

more than death, good more or the soul more than a grain of sand.
these are but
Cause'
'

And though
*And 'an
or
*

'

evil

dreams
than a

'

born of
of love,'

intelligible First

is less

'God

something that watches over us

(Tennyson's words to Mr.

Knowles).

The
his distress, 1

Ideas used in the

Poem

57

and Nature appears to him

it,

far other-

wise

when he views
constant
to

as he habitually does, in

the light of ideas derived from another source, he

is
still

the

position

that

Nature,

reg arded

by

itself,

would

not

convince him of

immortality or

God

So

far all is clear.

And
?

the positive question,

is

Whence

then, according to the poet,

the faith

in these ideas derived in general terms.

'

admits of an easy answer/

ideas,'
is

Such

he says,

'

we
to

get

from ourselves, from what

{Memoir,
I.

highest within us
ask,'
diffi-

314).
'

But when we proceed

'

What
culties,

is

this
it

highest within us
is

we

find

and
is

certainly not safe to found an

answer, as
in

often done,

upon three or four

lines

a single section of In Memoriam.

Our

best

plan will rather be to collect and place in order

some

crucial
elicit

passages from various poems, and

a result from them.

then to

The

lines referred to,

It is

and

similar lines, are often completely

misunderstood.

absurd to quote them as expressing Tennyson's

or as
his

habitual view of Nature,

description

of

the

universe

regarded by

'

cold reason.'
is

a reason which

They describe the world as regarded by turning away from all the evidence afforded by
is,

human
alarm.

nature, and which

It is

moreover, being used hurriedly and in

reason draws con:

no

less

a misunderstanding to suppose Tennyson to say

it,

or hint that, even with all the evidence before

clusions hostile to the ideas of
is

God and

immortality

what he says

that reason cannot prove the truth of these ideas.

s8

In
(a)

Memoriam
Voices

In

The Two
tell

one voice pleads that

the senses

us

'

the dead are dead.'

The

poet

answers

Who

forged that other influence,

That heat of inward evidence, By which [man] doubts against the sense?

He owns the fatal gift of eyes, That read his spirit blindly wise, Not simple as a thing that dies.
Here
sits he shaping wings to His heart forebodes a mystery
fly
:

He names

the

name

Eternity.

That type of Perfect in his mind In Nature can he nowhere find. He sows himself on every wind.

This

does not mean that he imposes his

own

fancies

on

the

universe

rather,

these

inward

evidences are regarded as the witness of the power

which reaches

'

through Nature moulding men,'

itself
'

and

'

revealing
II.

'

in

every

human

soul

(Memoir,
(b)

420).
are often said to
feeling.

They
is

come through

feel-

ing, or are called

God, to the Ancient

Sage,

J
And
is

That which knows

not known, but
is

felt thro'

what we

feel

Within ourselves

highest.

And,

in particular, as love is the highest

we

feel,
II.

we must

believe that

God

is

Love {Memoir,

The
377).

Ideas used in the

in

Poem
the

59

So
'

In Memoriam

(CXXIV.)

'evil
feel-

dreams

which Nature lends are opposed by

ing or the heart

J A

warmth within The freezing

the breast would melt

reason's colder part,
in

And
and, in
1

like

man

Stood up and answered

his
distress,
all.'

wrath the heart I have felt

'
'

the poet

cries

to

what he
it

feels is

Lord of

In In Memoriam, again,

is

chiefly (though not solely) the presence of love

within himself that

makes the poet declare

life

that,

without immortality,

would

be valueless,

and

man

a monster, because combining the contra:

dictory attributes of love and mortality

and

in

Vastness

the
in

similar

passionate

assertions
if

that

nothing

the world could matter

man were

doomed

to perish, are suddenly broken off with

:

the words

Peace,

let
:

it

be

for

loved him, and love him for

ever
(c)

the dead are not dead but alive.

Finally, in

The Two
:

Voices the poet appeals

to mysterious intimations

Heaven opens inward, chasms yawn, Vast images in glimmering dawn, Half shown, are broken and withdrawn.
Moreover, something is or seems, That touches me with mystic gleams,
Like glimpses of forgotten dreams.

60

In
in

Memoriam

So

the Holy Grail and the Ancient Sage referis

ence

made to the inward evidence of exceptional moments when everything material becomes unor visionary,

real

yet

there

is

in

the

soul

'

no

shade of doubt, But utter

feels

clearness,'
die,

and man

he cannot
a vision. 1

And knows
Nor

himself no vision to himself,

the high

God

And

so, in

In Memoriam, not only

is

this trancelike
'

experience one in which the soul comes

on that

which

is,'

and

for a

the riddle of the

to

moment seems to understand world fxcvA but the cry of distress

Lord of all
is

what

is felt

as

immediately followed
:

by the

vision of the reality behind appearances

And what What

If

am

beheld again
(cxxiv.)

is,

and no man understands,

now we

consider these various passages, what

answer do they give to our question concerning

the basis of the poet's faith
that
(
-

They show

at once

it

does not suffice to take the stanza ending

felt,'

have

and
'

to reply

Tennyson thinks

that

the emotions or

heart

'

cannot be satisfied without

is

a belief in
sole
1

God and

immortality, and that

the

ground of
rose again,

his belief.
I

For

this

account of the
One

Holy Grail, sub fin.

'

omit the following words, 'nor that

is

Who
this

because the speaker

King Arthur, and because

idea does not appear to

be used as a source of evidence

elsewhere.

The
matter, even

Ideas used in the

if it

Poem
The

61

were satisfactory

for

one passage,
'

evidently does not apply to others. within us

'

highest

seems to be generally accompanied by

emotion, but not always, or even generally, to be

an emotion.

Often

it

is

love,

but

it

is

obviously
Voices,

not so in the lines quoted from

The Two

nor apparently

in

those from the Holy Grail and

the Ancient Sage; and love, to which the appeal

is

made
and

in

In Memoriam, xxxiv., XXXV.,

activities

is

coupled
in

with
LVI.,

other high
is

and achievements
all in

not referred to at
last

the lines from

XCV. or the
within us
'

lines

of CXXIV.
things,
if

The
its

'

highest

means many

and

meaning

could be further extended

list

we went beyond our

of passages.
is

Nor
distinct

the use

made

of this consciousness of a
It

higher always the same.

kinds.

seems to be of two
poet, looking at

Sometimes the

that which he feels to be highest in himself, finds

it

to

point beyond

earthly experience
it

and on
in effect,

this characteristic of

he founds what

is,

an argument

in favour of

immortality or the divine

it

origin of the soul.

So

is

with the shaping of

N
/

wings that yet can never

fly

on earth

or the

presence of the ideas of eternity and perfection

which cannot be derived from mere nature nor

realised

here

or the

mysterious intimations of

62

In
Voices.

Memoriam
So
it

The Two

is

also with love,

in
its

which

appears to the poet to imply

the immortality both of
itself

very nature
its

and of

object.

To him
tality in

the existence of these tokens of immor-

man,

if

it

were coupled with the an

fact

of mortality,
1

would make man

life

inexplicable

monster,' and deprive both his

all

and the history

This then
is

of the earth of

their meaning.
his

one way

in

which

consciousness of the best

;

within him yields a basis for the poet's faith

and
have

when he
felt,'

replies

to the

freezing
is

reason

'

the feeling he appeals to

not the desire to

is

be immortal, nor yet a feeling that he

1

immortal,

but the feeling of love, which he points to as a

fact inconsistent with the theory of the

world put

forward

in his
is

dark

mood by

his reason.

says that there are

;

When King Arthur moments when he feels he cannot die when God is said to be felt through what we feel within ourselves is highest when
But there
another way.
;

the poet speaks of that which he feels

all,

is

Lord

of

there

is

more

direct

appeal to something
to

called feeling. 1

Here the poet does not point

'

1 With these passages, cf. the famous speech beginning Misshor mich nicht' in the scene Martkens Garten in Faust, Part I., and the reasoning power in The also the contrast of feeling and Excursion, Book IV., towards the end ('I have seen A curious
' '

child,' etc.).

The
something

Ideas used in the

within

Poem
to

63

him

which

seems

imply

immortality or
these

God, and from which

;

therefore

may
are,

be inferred

the feelings of which he

speaks

or give, an

immediate assurance of
It

God

or of immortality.

would probably be
'

vain to attempt to

define these

feelings

'

more

exactly, or to ask whether the poet's

meaning was

simply that at certain moments, recognised by him

as his highest, he

was unable

to

doubt the exist-

ence of

God and

immortality, or whether he meant

to himself to

that at these

moments he appeared
and of God

have a direct and positive apprehension of the

soul as immortal,
clear
is

as Love. 1

What

is

that,

on the one hand, these feelings are

not merely what a certainty of

we generally call emotions, since God and immortality is conveyed in

on the other hand, the assurance
direct or immediate, not
'

them

and

that,
is

they convey

dependent
in

on reasoning or

proof.'

Such phrases,
'

the

descriptions of the trance-like state, as

that which
vision,'
is,'
'

came on

beheld what

is,'

'

knows himself no

are evidently
certainty.

meant

to indicate this

same

immediate
It
1

is

on the

second

of these

two kinds of

This certainly does seem to be implied or asserted in some of the

experience.

phrases quoted, and especially in some which describe the trancelike

But these phrases do not

;

refer,

at

any

rate

explicitly,

to immortality

nor

is

it

safe to lay weight

on them.

64
1

In
'

Memoriam
most
that
of

inward evidence

that the poet seems to lay

is

stress.

And

the reason of this doubtless

the

first

kind

obviously involves
to

process
is

reasoning, and that

him

this

process

not
It

accompanied by the conviction of

falls

certainty.

short of

'

proof.'

Thus

in

The Two

Voices

the presence in the soul of certain ideas, activities,

and

feelings,

was taken to point to the divine

soul,

origin

and the immortality of that

'

but

it

did

not give the

assurance
later

'

for

which the poet longed,

and which came

when, at the sound of a

mysterious inner voice which whispered hope,

From

out [his] sullen heart a power

Broke, like the rainbow from the shower,

To

feel, altho' no tongue can prove, That every cloud, that spreads above

And

veileth love, itself

is

love.

In the same

way

it

seems clear to him that a

is

being who can love as he loves, and who yet doomed to perish, is a monster,' a dream,'
' '

discord

'

but this does not give him assurance

is
'

that the soul

not such a monstrosity.

feelings
'

On

the

other hand the

of which he speaks in

the passages quoted, like the experience of the

trance-like state, involve for
inference,

him no process of
prove,'

do not pretend
'

to
'

'

and do carry

with them the

assurance

he requires.

The
experiences

Ideas used in the

Poem
is

65

Indeed, the language used of these feelings and

is

of such a kind that one

all,

tempted

to ask why, after

the poet should declare that

:

We
since

have but faith For knowledge

is

we cannot know of things we see

;

the

immediate certainty claimed

for

these

feelings

would appear to

be, or to justify,

some-

thing more than faith or a believing of what

we

cannot prove.

Perhaps he distrusted what he

could not suppose to be the

of mankind.

common
which

possession

Or perhaps

his

answer would be
tell

found
it

in

Wordsworth's
the most

lines

us that

is
difficult

of tasks to keep
is

Heights which the soul

competent
say,
in

to gain.

She gains them, he might

;

exceptional

moments and the experience of these moments, when she is conscious of being at her best, becomes the
stricken
light of her
life.

But they come

or,
it

rarely,

and they pass quickly away,

'

may

be, are

thro'

with

doubt

'

(XCV.).

The
visits

soul

sinks back
in

and

loses its contact with reality,

and

the long

intervals

between these

must

rely

on memory and hope,

living in the assurance,

it

not of vision or feeling, but of faith in what

once saw and

felt.

This faith

is

not an adherence
it

to something which reason declares false, but

is

66

In

Memoriam
which can be

an adherence to something which reason cannot

prove to be true
or proved
is
;

for that

'

known
strive

always a limited and subordinate

'

truth, while the

systems and creeds

'

which

to render intelligible to the soul the experience

of her highest moments, lack on the one hand

the
i

assurance

'

of those

moments themselves, and

and are not
'

on the other hand the certainty of the lower

truths which can be proven
proving.'

worthy

VI.

A FEW
One
It
is

words

may
is

be

added

on

two purely

literary matters.

of these

the metre of In
I

Memoriam.
aware, no

uncommon,
it

and, so far as

am

example of

has been found in English poetry

prior to the Elizabethan Age.

From

that time

down
rarely

to Tennyson's

it

was occasionally used, how

may

be judged from the brevity of the

of instances, either of the metre

following
itself or

list

of a four-line four-accent stanza with the

:

same disposition of rhymes Sidney, Astrophel and Stella, Second Song (trochaic, with double rhymes in lines I and 4), and Psalm xxxvii.
(double rhymes in lines 2 and 3)
;

Shakespeare,
Jonson, Un-

The Phoenix and Turtle

derwoods, xxxix.
in

(trochaic)

{An

Elegy),

and

Catiline,

Chorus

Act

II.;

Carew, Separation of Lovers (trochaic);

Sandys, Paraphrase of the Psalms, Psalms 14, 30, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, An Ode 44, 74, 140
;

upon a Question moved whether Love should con67

68

In
;

Memoriam
(lines

tinue for ever

I

George Herbert, The Temper

;

1640

and 4 have five accents) (I have not seen this);

Chloe (trochaic)
;

Harvey's Synagogue,
Marvell, Daphnis
the
in

and

Prior,

To

Hon. Charles
Thackeray's

Montague, Esquire (version quoted

Humourists)
1
]

Somervile, Fable

viii.;

Langhorne,
;

An

Ode

to

the Genius of

Westmoreland
(Poems,

Robert
Carlisle,

Anderson,

The
have

Poor
not

Prude

1820;
1

seen

this);

Landor,

Imain

ginary Conversations, vol. 3, 1828,

two stanzas

Landor, English Visiter, and Florentine

Visiter.' 2

Stanzas in two or three of these poems faintly

recall

Tennyson's cadences to the

been theories as to the

ear,

and there

have

source whence he

derived the metre.

believed
after

He
the

himself stated that he

originator
out,

himself

of

it,

until

In

Memoriam came
it

when some one

Sir Philip

told

him that Ben Jonson and

{Memoir,
I.

Sidney
decisive

had used

305).

This

is

as to Tennyson's

belief,

though not as to the

metre of

possibility of his having reproduced the

some poem which he had

1 1

forgotten.

have

failed to find this version in editions of Prior.

usually printed have alternate rhymes.

If

The two Thackeray made the

Memoriam.
Rossetti's

version himself,
2

it is

doubtless later than In

this list I

For the greater part of

am

indebted to various sources,

notably Schipper's Englische Metrik.

Sleep

D. G. was published before In Memoriam, but and Love thou thy land.

My

Sister's

after

You ask me why

The Metre
More
interesting than the question
is

69

where the

metre came from

the fact that in the early

poems we can
towards
it.

see

Tennyson

feeling

his

way

It

appears, though not in an inde-

in the volumes of 1830 and 1833. Thus we find it in the second half of each stanza of Mariana and Mariana in the South e.g.,

pendent form,

The broken sheds looked sad and

strange
;

Unlifted was the clinking latch

Weeded and worn the ancient Upon the lonely moated grange.

thatch

And
is

the peculiar effect of the In

Memoriam

stanza

quite perceptible in the following lines from the

poem

beginning, Clear-headed friend

Low-cowering shall the Sophist sit Falsehood shall bare her plaited brow Fair-fronted Truth shall droop not now
;

With shrilling shafts of subtle wit. Nor martyr-flames, nor trenchant swords Can do away that ancient lie

A
Shot

gentler death shall Falsehood die,

thro'

and

thro' with

cunning words.

Even
to the
this

earlier,

in Alfred

Tennyson's contributions
in

Poems by Two Brothers (1827), passages metre occur for example

; :

The

vices of

my

life arise,
!

Pourtray'd in shapes, alas

too true

And
To
cheer

not one

beam

of hope breaks through,

(p.

my

old

and aching eyes

20

cf. p. 23).

7o

In
:

Memoriam

Again

Or had he seen that fatal night When the young King of Macedon In madness led his veterans on,

And Thais
Around

held the funeral light,

that noble pile which rose

Irradiant with the

pomp

of gold,

In high Persepolis of old,

Encompass'd with

its

frenzied foes (p. 64

cf. p.

66).

Once more
The

great, the lowly,

and the brave

course

Bow down

before the rushing force

;

Of thine unconquerable Thy wheels are noiseless as

the grave

(p.

114).

The
poets.

other subject on which a few words seem

is

to be required
I

Tennyson's indebtedness to other

refer to
still

do not

such general influences

more, Petrarch on the

as that of ideas

Dante and,

and sentiment of parts of In Memoriam^ an

influence which Mr. Collins has pointed out

and

which seems to be indisputable.

criticise

No

one would

the poet on this score.

in

But there are a

large

number of phrases

In Memoriam which

recall the phrases of other poets, a larger

number
in the

than we should probably be able to find

same

amount

of verse

by any other famous

It
is

English author except Milton and Gray.

on the ground of these apparent borrowings that

Parallel

Passages
;

71

Tennyson has been

It is essential to

criticised

and he seems to

have been sensitive to such

criticism.

distinguish the possible causes

of the

similarities

of phrase

here

in

question.
earlier

Sometimes a poet adopts the phrase of an

writer

knowingly, and

with
it

the
;

intention
if

that

the reader should recognise

fails

and

the reader

to recognise

it

he does not

fully appreciate
this,

the passage.

Milton and Gray often did

it

and
re-

Tennyson does

to beautiful effect

when he
;

produces phrases of Virgil or Theocritus

in

and so
their

In Memoriam
'

when he
'

writes

'

change

sky

or

'

brute earth

he means the

Horatian

phrases to be recognised.
similarity of phrase
is

Sometimes, again, the

:

due to mere coincidence

the second poet never read the words of the

first,

but he invents for himself what the

first

had

in-

vented for himself.

reproduction
:

third cause
is

is

unconscious
in

a phrase
is

retained

memory
original.

perhaps for years, and

consciousness
.KjLastly,
cessor,

reproduced without any

not
perfectly

that

it

is

a poet

may

use the words of a predeis

knowing what he
and

doing but not intendThis

ing the origin of the phrase to be observed.

is

plagiarism,

it

is

the only one of the four

cases in which

any

discredit attaches to the poet.

first

We may

dismiss the

and the

last of these

72
cases.

In

Memoriam
is

The
'

interesting question
'

whether most

of the

borrowings

in

Tennyson's poetry are to

be regarded as coincidences or as reminiscences.

The
that

poet himself seems to have considered them

to be the former,

and scarcely to have

realised

such

thing as unconscious reproduction

in

exists.

Probably
;

some minds
letters

its

limits
is

are

well defined
so,

but with other writers this

not

and many a man of

appropriate
his

has often to endure

the vexation of finding that a phrase which seemed

particularly
easily

and

came
at

particularly
all.

was not

own property
to

Such
are

writers are equally apt

their

reproduce phrases of

own without any

;

suspicion that they

in general
it

repeating themselves

and

is

certain

that unusual retentiveness of verbal

memory may

be combined with unusual unconsciousness that

memory

is

being employed.
of

Now some
to

Tennyson's

'

borrowings
it

'

are

doubtless cases of mere coincidence, but

seems

me beyond
subject

doubt that a greater number are

reminiscences, and that he was

more than commemory. 1

monly
1

to

this

trick

of

The
at the

Sometimes he may have been aware of the reminiscence

it

time of writing and have forgotten

that in the

afterwards.
is

It is

observable

Poems by Two Brothers he

scrupulous in acknowledg-

ing obligations (or boyishly anxious to

show knowledge)

e.g.

he

notes his debt to 'that famous chorus in Caractacus' (p. 116), or to

Parallel Passages
extent of his
'

73

borrowings

'

is

in

favour of this

view

why

otherwise should his language happen

to coincide with that of other poets so

much more
little

often than does the language, say, of Shelley or

Keats

Again, when there can be

doubt

that he

had read the passage of an

it

earlier poet in

which the phrase occurs,

he reproduced
it.

is

more probable that

this
if

phrase than that he invented

the words

For example,
To

seek the empty, vast, and wandering air

in

occurred

Middleton or

Tourneur,

we might

naturally take Tennyson's

Drops
for

in his vast

and wandering grave

;

a mere coincidence
first

but when

we

consider

that the

of these lines comes from one of

the most famous speeches in Shakespeare,

we can

have

little

doubt that the writer of the second had

read this speech and was unknowingly borrowing

from

it.

If

reader

of the

Prologue
(p. 165).

to

In
(zb.)

'the songs of Jayadeva, the Horace of India' he adds to the line,

When
lay,

And
is

in th' ambrosia of thy smiles the

god of rapture

the note, 'Vide Horace's

ode
it

" Pulchris
recalls

excubat

in genis,'"

he

not acknowledging an obligation but asking the reader to enjoy

his line the

more because
first,

Horace's word (our

first

case

above).

The

reader of these poems of boyhood will soon convince

himself that, from the

Tennyson had a
of them.

poet's feeling for phrases,

and a very

retentive

memory

74

In

Memoriam
of only one passage in

Memoriam were reminded

Herbert's

Temple, he might be content with the

;

hypothesis of coincidence

but when he

is

re-

minded of

five

distinct

passages,
is

and when

in

other parts of In

Memoriam he

again reminded
is

of Herbert, he can hardly doubt that he

dealing

with reminiscences.
Crossing the Bar,
the word
'

Or, to take an example from

is
'

it

surely far

more

likely that

moaning

in the line,

And may
is

there be no

moaning of the

bar,

unconsciously due to Kingsley's

And

the harbour bar be moaning,

than that Tennyson had never read a song so

famous as The Three Fishers and independently

hit

on

the

same word.
by the

This view,
fact that

lastly,

is

greatly strengthened

Tennyson
following
this fact,

reproduces his

own

expressions.

The

commentary may convince the reader of

and
I

have no doubt that a Tennyson lexicon

it

would make
credible

still

more

patent.

It

is

scarcely

that

most of these reproductions were

It
is

conscious. 1
careful
1

even probable that a poet so

and so

sensitive to criticism

would have

so.

Those from poems unpublished or withdrawn may of course be For example, Tennyson seems to have used phrases from his early poem, The Lovers Tale, somewhat freely.

Parallel
altered

Passages

75

any passage

in

which he discovered that

he had repeated himself.

To

take the view taken here

is

not to bring

a charge against Tennyson or to cast doubts on

his originality.
in

Indeed, to doubt his originality

of poetic

the

creation

phrases would be to
incapacity.
It
is

show the extreme of

critical

quite possible to hold that in respect, of thought

and inventive imagination he was not among the most

original of our poets
;

but
so,

if

ever poet were

fact that

a master of phrasing he was

and the

he was so
that he

is

quite unaffected

by the

further fact

was sometimes unconsciously indebted to

his predecessors.

COMMENTARY.

PROLOGUE.
FOR
purposes of study, this famous

read after the sections of In

traversed
will
;

poem is best Memoriam have been

in

and the

later

sections,

particular,
it.

be found the best commentary on connection with the whole work, however,
indicated here.

Its

may

be

In the

first

shock of grief the poet

felt

that

the love within

it

him was

his truest self,

it

and that
all his

must not

die.
its

He

clung to

through
test

sorrow, and

demands formed a

by which

he tried the doubts and fears that beset him. At the end he found that it had conquered time, outlived regret, and grown with his spiritual growth. A like undying love he embraced,' even in his and Creation's darkest hours, as God indeed He embraced it, however, through final law.' he did not reach it by feeling and by faith studying Nature, nor could he prove its existence. But at the end, when the__love__within him had
' ' ' '
1

'

'

'

Love as the King and Lord of the universe had only become more fixed. And his friend, while deeplier loved/\
reached
its

full

stature, his faith in

'

79

8o

In

Memoriam

PROLOGUE

had become mingled with this immortal Love, known and unknown, human, divine.'
'

In the Prologue this result of the poet's experi-

ence

is

summed

up,

and the connection of thought

in the first eight stanzas

may

explicitness

of prose, as
is

follows.

be shown, with the In stanza I,

immortal Love
tion,

of

God

invisible,

addressed as the Son, or revelaunproveable, embraced by

The next stanzas tell us what, to immortal Love is. It is more than human, being the origin and the lord of all of the world, of life, of death, death, which it made and will annul (st. 2, 3). It is not merely divine, but human, and the perfection of humanity not only, therefore, the origin and master of man's life, but the supreme end of his desire and will (st. 4). We cannot know it for its white light is refracted in our minds but it is, we trust, the source of the knowledge that we have (st. 5, 6). And, therefore, our knowledge (which is not ours) should be mingled with reverence and humility
faith
this
faith,
:

alone. y

'

'

(st. 7, 8).

It seems probable that Tennyson had been reading George Herbert shortly before writing these stanzas, for some of the coincidences of thought and phrase, pointed out by Collins, can hardly be accidental. Herbert's Love, for example, opens thus
:

Immortal Love, Author of this great frame, Sprung from that beauty which can never fade, How hath Man parcell'd out Thy glorious name, And thrown it on the dust which Thou hast made.

PROLOGUE
Cf.

Commentary
:

81

again with stanzas 2 and 3 the lines

Whether

fly

with angels,

fall

with dust,

Thy hands made both {The

Temper),

and

My God
I.

hath promised

He

is

just

(The Discharge).

'To

enquiries as to the

mortal Love" in the

explained that
St.

meaning of the words "ImMemoriam, he he had used "Love" in the same sense as
Introduction to In
iv.)':

John
Cf.

(1

John, chap,

Mejnoir,

I.

312.

Cf.

Epilogue,

141.
4.

LIV.

13,

14,

LV.

17-20,
e.g.

CXXXI.

9,

10,

and many
p. 55.

passages in other poems;

5.
'

the lines quoted above,

' :

orbs of light and shade

shade.
Cf.
'

orbs, such as earth, half

light, half

shade,' Will Waterproof,

to Faust.

The
Life
'

'

light

'

This whole wide earth of light and and Gabriel's song in the Prologue and shade are, however, not merely
'
'

physical

is light,

Death

(as often in

Tennyson) shadow.

Both are
7f.
1

thine.'
lo,'

art lord of Death (cf. Macbeth's Line 9 continues the thought. There is probably a reminiscence of Rev. x. 2, a chapter which Tennyson 'would quote with boundless admiration' {Memoir,

'and

etc.:

and

way

to dusty

death

').

I.

279.)
II.

Cf.

L VI. 8-20, and see Locksley Hall Sixty Years After

the

for

the idea that

hope of immortality
it

is

well-nigh

universal.

have been just to make be his wages (see Wages) ? Or perhaps, as has been suggested to me, the idea is rather To make him such that he thinks himself immortal when he is really not so, would be unjust. The idea of a duty of submission to mere omnipotence is quite foreign to Tennyson, in whom Jowett remarked 'a strong desire to vindicate the ways of God to man, and, perhaps to,
12.

'thou art

just.'

And would

him merely

that he might die?

Is 'dust' to

82

In

Memoriam
'

PROLOGUE

demonstrate a pertinacity on the part of man in demanding in LVI. f. redress of God his rights (Memoir, II. 464). 27, cvi. 12, 'sense of wrong in Lxxi. 7, 'wrath' in lxxxii.
' ' 5

14, 'bitterness' in

LXXXIV. 47
5 ff.),

also

By an

Evolutionist.
is

13-16.

The thought seems

to

be: As 'immortal Love'

not only divine (lines

but the perfection of that humanity

which is imperfect in us, it is to us the ideal or supreme will We know not with which we have to identify our wills. how': for Tennyson's feeling about the 'main miracle' of Cf. Browne, Rel. Med. 1. 36, Thus free will see on cxxxi. we are men, and we know not how,' and the context. 19. The metaphor is that of refraction, as in the famous
'

'

simile in

Adonais
Life, like

dome

of many-coloured glass,

Stains the white radiance of eternity,

Until Death tramples

it

to fragments.

in Will Waterproof, 'Ten thousand broken lights and shapes, Yet glimpses of the true'; cf. The Higher Paiitheism, where he has also the image of the straight staff bent in a pool.' When he calls Christ 'that purest light of God' {Memoir, I. 169), the metaphor in purest is the same. 'As before': 'before the 25-28. Cf. CXIV. and notes.

Tennyson

often employs

it

e.g.

'

'

'

growth of knowledge disturbed

simply
31.
'

their

union,' rather than

as hitherto.'
:

'to bear'

to bear 'thy light,'

i.e.

the light of know-

ledge (23, 24), instead of supposing it to be their own and so The notion of pride has suggested feeling a foolish pride. the epithet in line 32 (cf. CXIV. 9).
32.
'

worlds
'

believed in a
33-36.
sin

Tennyson generally speaks number of inhabited worlds.

' : '

as though he

nor
as
'

'

worth' to his love

I

surely does not refer specially to his grief (37), The meaning is more general, (40).

of ignorance

my

began' proves. 'What seemed' is an expression what rightly or wrongly I distinguished as defects and my merits.' The latter equally need forgivesince
'
:

PROLOGUE
ness
;

Commentary
'
'

83

there
37.

is

39.

though there is merit as between man and man, none as toward God. Cf. lxxxv. 61, 62. Cf. Epilogue, 140, and cxxix., cxxx. also xxxn
for
;

5-3, 14.

41. Cf. 'Wild words wander here and there,' A Dirge. Wild and wandering occurs in Troilus and Cressida, I.
'

i.

LVU. 4 (Robinson). These dark confusions that within me rest,' 42. Cf. Vaughan's Dressing (Collins). There is a curious coincidence
105 (Beeching).
'

Cf.

with
vol.

'

meos

libros,

seu verius confusiones,' Luther, Preface to

of his Works, 1545 (G. A. C). surely, not ' squandered.'

1.

'Wasted'

'desolated,'

44.

'Thy'

is

emphatic.

There

is

a reminiscence (doubt-

less

unconscious) of CIX. 24.

SECTIONS
There
is

I.-IV.

distinct,

though not

very

close,

connection in these sections.

suppress his grief
lest

The poet

will

not

he should suppress love too (1.). This grief, however, in the phases described in il, ill., IV. proves to be sullen, morbid, or weakening. He questions its worth (ill.), and It is not then rouses himself against it (iv.). sorrow like this that must be cherished for the sake of love.

Loss may in the end be gain, but not if the be snatched at prematurely. To stifle sorrow at first would be to stifle love, and the final result would be the mere death of the old self, not its death into life.' A main idea of the
1

gain

84

In
is

Memoriam
in

sections

poem, that love

time,
i

the supreme good and can defy

the opening section.

is

expressed at once
in his later

years believed that he had alluded might easily have been familiar in youth with the famous lines in Faust, Entbehren sollst du,' etc., and during the thirties Carlyle was writing, in connection with Goethe, on the idea of self-annihilation,' more than once quoting the sentence, It is only with Renunciation that Life, properly speaking, can be said to begin (see e.g. Sartor, II. ix.). With line 2 cf. Tennyson's remark to Prof. Sidgwick, Goethe is consummate in so many different styles {Memoir,
-4.

Tennyson

here to Goethe.

He

'

'

'

'

'

II.

392).
3, 4.

For the metaphor Gatty compares

nostris scalam nobis facimus,
si

St.

Augustine,

'

De

vitiis

vitia ipsa calcamus,'

which suggested Longfellow's Ladder of St. Augustine, pubThe image with Tennyson is that of a stair lished in 1858. cf. Par. Lost, v. 509-12 (Tainsh), VIII. 591, and lines from The Princess quoted on LV. 16. The use of 'stepping-stone' the only other instance I for step seems to be very rare know is in Guy Mannering, ch. LIU., where Meg Merrilies With 'dead selves' cf. The Princess, III., is the speaker. We touch on our dead self, nor shun to do it, Being other.' 7. Cf. Tiresias, Their examples reach a hand Far through
:

'

'

'

'

all years.'
8.

Cf.

Richard ILL

IV. iv.

321 (G. A. C.)

The

liquid drops of tears that

you have shed

Shall

come

again, transformed to orient pearl,

their loan with interest

Advantaging

Of ten times double gain of happiness.

Cf. also Lucrece, 1797,
10.

and Sonnets
in

31

and

74.

Cf. 'the

raven down of darkness,' Comics, 251.

dancing.
Cf.

12.

'beat the ground':

'

cv.

17,

and

Horace's

There

is

already translated in Comus, 143. an allusion, of course, to the Dance of Death.

pulsanda
idea

tellus,'

13-16.

The

is

that Time, years hence, having

worn

i.,

ii.

Commentary
and laugh
'

85

away both
a love.

the grief and the love of the poet, would boast of

at the miserable
'

his conquest,

outcome of so long
'

With

long result

cf.

Locksley Hall,

the long

For the conquest of time by love cf. lxxxv. 65-8, CXXXI. 7, and in the Memoir (i. 307) a poem, originally cxxvii. of In Memoriam, on the far-famed Victor Hours That ride to death the griefs of men
result of time.'
'
'
:

Behold, ye cannot bring but good,

And

see,

ye dare not touch the truth,

Nor Sorrow beauteous in her youth, Nor Love that holds a constant mood.
II.

The poet

sees

in

the

yew-tree

among

the

graves an image, which fascinates him, of stubborn

absorption in the thought of death.

Through a

thousand years, it seems to him, while flowers and animals and men arose and perished, it has maintained its unchanging gloom, never blossoming or even altering its hue. He is abandoning himself to sorrow, though this sorrow is at the opposite extreme to the intoxication described in the preceding section. The ideas expressed are those of his sorrow, as in the next section, and they come from a 'lying lip/ See accordingly the second poem on the yew (xxxix.).
'His roots are wrapped about the heap, 4. Cf. Job, viii. 17 and he seeth the place of stones (G. A. C).
:

'

7.

'the clock' of the church-tower behind the yew.

Cf.

Love and Death, and The

I

Two

Voices

found him [death] when

my

years were few,

shadow on the graves

darkness

knew,
yew.

And

in the village

86

In

Memoriam

SECTIONS

This 10. 'gale' seems to mean here a breeze in spring. does not make the yew brighten in colour by flowering (5) or putting forth new shoots. Gale without an adjective
'
'

means in our older poetry simply a wind, not a strong wind and such phrases as gentle gales are common. Tennyson
'
'

generally follows this use.

Nor does the summer sun brand it so that its colour, end of summer, becomes burning or fiery (cf. XCIX. 12, CI. 4). This interpretation, which has been suggested to me, seems much better than my former one, that the summer sun does not darken the foliage. thee, sullen first ed. the sullen.' Evidently a mere 13.
11, 12.

at the

'

'

'

misprint.
14.
I

take

'for,'

with Gatty, to
'

mean

'with desire

for,'

as

such a phrase as sick for home.' The word might, of course, mean because of,' the stubborn hardihood of the
in
' '
'

yew being regarded with horror and so, presumably, it is taken by Beeching, who understands this poem and the next
;

to present the alternatives, suggested in the

opening section,

of stoicism and of yielding to sorrow.

[Mr. Beeching

now

agrees with

my

interpretation.]

III.

His sick sorrow, as

he

in

II.,

distorts the truth,

it

and

now
Here

hesitates to yield to

further.

later,

first appears the doubt, so often mentioned whether the world is not the meaningless and transitory product of blind necessity.
1.
'

'fellowship':

so in Demeter, 'a far-off friendship,' for

friend.'
'

Planets and Suns run lawless thro' the sky,' Essay 5. Cf. on Man, I. 252. the stars, instead of 6. This line may be taken with 5 moving in ordered courses, run blindly across the sky, weaving a tangled web or it may be taken (more probably)
'
:

'

II.-IV.

Commentary
the

87
us,
Cf.

by

itself to signify that

'the eternal Heavens' being hidden by

meaning of things is dark to woven clouds.

cxxii.
7.

4,

lxxii.

8.

'waste places' of the universe, not merely of the earth.

idea seems to be that of the pain in the world.
'

The
8.

dying
'

'

probably an inference from the nebular hypo-

thesis, so often referred to

10.

by Tennyson.
:

Cf.

cxvin.

4.

the music

5
:

first

ed.

'her music'

'my': everyone naturally takes this to refer to the whereas the quotation-marks compel us to refer it to Sorrow. But doubtless their insertion was an error in punctuation, as is suggested by Mr. Beeching and Mr. Ferrall.
11.

poet,

11, 12.
e.g.
'

Cf.

'hollow': Tennyson is very fond of this word; Hollow smile and frozen sneer,' The Poet's Mi?id. LXX. 4, LXXIII. 13, and Virgil's 'cava sub imagine
'

formae,' Ae?i. vi. 293.

14, 15.

natural good'

so she seemed at
also Othello,

first

(section I.);

but this sorrow seems rather born of diseased blood.

'vice of blood'
cf.

With

LIV. 4

I.

hi.

123, 'I

do con-

fess the vices of

my

blood' (G. A. C).

IV.

Asleep he
of loss
;

is

enslaved by the dull stunned sense

to master
it.

waking he resolves
{e.g.

Later
:

LXVIII. LXX. LXXI.) he

dreams of the

dead here he is aware only that his heart has been so paralysed by the loss of something familiar and dear that he wishes to die.
4f. Cf.

Aug. Conf.

IV. 4,

of the time after his friend's

became a great puzzle to myself, and asked my soul why she was so sad and why she so exceedingly disquieted me, but she knew not what to answer to me' (G. A. C.) 6. fail from thy desire rather lose the power of desiring' than 'lose the object desired.' With 'fail from' = die away from ') cf. II. t 5, LXXXIV. 36. (
death
:

'

'

'

'

'

88
io.

In
As
'

Memonam

sections
*

the friendship did not begin in childhood,

early

years

may be

intended to emphasise the confusion of the

dreaming mind. But it is barely possible that the phrase is an oversight, marking a late date of composition. ii, 12. 'Water can be lowered in temperature below the freezing point, without solidifying but it expands at once into ice if disturbed and the suddenness of the expansion breaks [may break ?] the containing vessel (Gatty). With the metaphor of tears freezing cf. XX. u, 12, and Byron (' There's not a joy '), That heavy chill has frozen o'er the
;
;

'

'

fountain of our tears.'

15.
'

the will'

cf. 2,

and lxxxv.

37-40.

V.

The
p. 26).

first

of those sections which deal with the

poet's verses

and their relation to his grief (see Here his poetry is regarded merely as an
contrast XXXVIII.
:

anodyne
9.

'weeds'
Cf.

garments, as often in the older poets.

I. ii.

II, 12.

Hamlet,

85

But I have that within which passeth show These but the trappings and the suits of woe.

VI.

That
his

loss

is

common
less

to the race does not

make

here, however, his mood softens as he describes the sorrows of others. A passage in Taylor's Holy Dying, quoted by Gatty, may have suggested the section. On its date cf. p. 15.
2.

own loss XCIX. Even

bitter.

Contrast the tone of

Cf.

Hamlet,

I. ii.

72

Thou know'st

'tis

common

all

that lives

must

die.

iv.-vn.

Commentary
Collins

89

7, 8.

compares Lucr.

II.

578-80
est,

Nee nox ulla diem neque noctem aurora secuta Quae non audierit mixtos vagitibus aegris
Ploratus.
15, 16.

These magnificent
but

lines
1.

are hardly
iv.

injured

by

the reminiscence oi Richard III.,

still

37

the envious flood

Kept

in

my

soul,

and would not

let

it

forth
air.

To
23, 24.
26.

seek the empty, vast and wandering

The

inverted

commas were added

late.

'ranging': a favourite word with Tennyson, appearcells,'

ing often in his early poems, though not often in this sense.
Cf.
'

the bee would range her

Two

Voices.

41-4. Cf. the last four stanzas of

lxxxv.

VII.

He visits his friend's house (see p. 3). Contrast with the utter desolation of this poem the less
striking but scarcely
less

beautiful

later

section,

CXIX.
4.

Cf.

Break, break, break

1

But

for the
cf.

touch of a vanish'd hand.'

II. iv. st. x.
:

7.

For the idea

Maud,

And on my heavy
(This section of
later

eyelids
like

My anguish Maud was,

it

hangs

shame.

in its original form, written not

I. i.

than 1834.)
'

For the phrase see Hamlet,

148

And

then

started like a guilty thing.'

article

But see also Wordsworth's Immortality Ode, ix., and an on Associated Reminiscences by A. B. Cook in the Classical Review, October, 1901.
9.
'

far away,' in busier streets.

9o

In

Memoriam
VIII.

SECTIONS

This section, by
it

its

softer tone, helps to effect

a transition to the group which follows.

refers to his
for his friend's sake.

Like V. poems, but these are now cherished

as Mr. Collins notices, suggested by the Lover s Journey

The

first

two stanzas,

may have been

of Crabbe.
5.

Cf.

'And
'And With

flung

a magic

light

on

all

her

hills

and

groves,' Coleridge, France.

8.

Cf.

Lycius'

La?nia.
cf.

the absence of_

XIV. 1,4, 'report,'

9. Cf.

arms were empty of delight, Keats, rhyme in 'Jight,' delight,' 'port'; XXXV. 5, 8, 'here,' 'hear';
5 '

XLI. 17, 20, 'moor,' 'more'

:

LI. 14, 15, 'hours,' 'ours.'

My native country was a torture Aug. Conf. IV. 4 and to me, and my father's house a wondrous unhappiness whatever I had enjoyed with him, wanting him, turned into
'

a frightful torture.

Mine eyes sought him everywhere, but

he was not granted them, and I hated all places because he was not in them (G. A. C). see on XXII. 19. 12. 'where thou art not' 21. Cf. C. 17 and the line quoted on VII. 4.
'

SECTIONS
These
reference
sections
to

IX.-XVII.

form
ship

a
that

group, connected
brings
the

the

by body of
It

the dead from 'the Italian shore' to England.

is

probably not an accident that the number of

is

stanzas in the sections

In

uniform.
ship,

thinking

of the
in

and of the
loss.

burial

which will follow its from his absorption

arrival, the

poet finds relief

the sense of

The

vin., ix.

Commentary
and
play of fancy,

91

peace
the

beauty of some of the descriptions,

of love

and the much fuller which is extended to the ship that carries the dead friend and to the earth that will receive him give to this group a tone of sweetness and tenderness which contrasts with that of most of the preceding sections. The group must be supposed to cover several weeks (xvil. 7).
freer

expression

love

IX.

For the date of

this section see p.

4.

The
'

final lines are

the

first

expression of tender-

ness in the poem.

With Section
iii.,

IX.

should be compared Horace,

Idyll
vii.

Ode

lib.

i.,

and Theocritus,
' '

53

sqq.,
'
'

which plainly inspired it (Collins). Perhaps so ruder/ and the use, not (5), the comparative always happy, of ocean-plains/ remains,' favourable speed,' lead prosperous,' and his urn,' perplex,' may be due to the associations of Latin poetry, though the last two words are common in
'

'

'

'

'

'

Milton.
9.
'

ruder than the air which by day gave such a speed as

'

ruffled the mirror' d

in LX.
10.
13.
1.

mast

or possibly

'

too rude,' like nobler

'

(so Beeching).
5
:

'Phosphor

the morning star.

'
'

Cf.

cxxi.
' ' :

Sphere cf. goes back to the night of line 9. Enoch Arden, Then the great stars that globed themselves
'

He

in

Heaven.'
17
f.

Cf. Virgil's

'

magnum

glomerantur in orbem.'

cannot doubt that the words of Constance {King Johns in. iv. 88) were echoing in Tennyson's mind. There
I

92

In

Memoriam
Memoriam

SECTIONS

are indications in In

of other reminiscences of

the
1

same
8.

scene.

20.

This

Repeated xvn. 20, where this group of poems ends. line becomes the occasion of LXXIX.
X.

5.

'bring'st':

first

ed.

'

bringest,' which,

though

at

once

changed, reappeared in some editions.

9.

'So'
'

gently and safely, as in IX.

5.
it.

10.
is

'This look of quiet' in the ship as he imagines

'

It

an idle dream that this quiet can matter to the dead, a' 'home-bred fancy' that makes us wish that the dead should* rest in earth and not be tossed in the roaring sea but he yields to the dream and the fancy. Cf. xvm. 5-8. a favourite word with Tennyson. Cf. XVI. 5. 14. 'takes' 15, 16. The chancel where the villagers receive the sacra'
' ' '

ment.
17. 'wells.'

This word

is

used by Tennyson in peculiar

'

ways.

If the

present passage stood alone, 'wells' might

be due to a recollection of Scott's Pirate, ch. xxxviii., The wells of Tuftiloe can wheel the stoutest vessel round and

round
if

'

where wells means whirlpools

'
'

in the sea,

and pro-

bably represents an Orcadian word (see Jamieson,

s.v.).
'

Or
an

Tennyson knew the English

dialectic

'

weel

'

or

weal,'

eddy, whirlpool, or pool, in a river, he might (wrongly) have

supposed it to be the dialect form of the standard But from the use of wells in The Princess, v.
' ' :

'well.'

Or by denial flush her babbling With her own people's life

;

wells

in

The Two

Voices

To-day I saw the dragon-fly Come from the wells where he did
in

lie

Oenone

Idalian Aphrodite, beautiful,

Fresh as the foam, new-bathed

in

Paphian wells

ix.-xi.

Commentary
*

93
it

and in cvm. 8, most likely that,

dive below the wells of Death,'

seems

in all the

passages under review, Tennyson

'

uses the standard 'wells' for waters that have issued from

a well-spring, whether of fresh water or of sea water (cf. the fountains of the great deep,' Gen. VII. n). I have to thank
Dr. J. A. H. Murray for information about standard well and the other word or words. 'hands so lately claspt with 19. Cf. The Princess, VI.:
'

yours.'
20.

'Tangle': sea- weed. Tennyson speaks of

'

sea-tangle

in a letter

{Memoir,

1.

173).

XI.

The spirit of calm and beauty which is breathed by the two preceding sections culminates in this exquisite poem. The time is the early morning of an autumn day, the scene a Lincolnshire wold, from which a great plain sweeps to the eastern sea. The sight of the sea carries the poet's mind to. the Mediterranean, the ship, and its freight, by a transition of wonderful dignity and pathos.
2. calmer than mine 'grown more calm.'
'
'

(see 15, 16); or perhaps generally

8.

'

that twinkle into green

sun.

and

gold,' as the

dew-drops on

them catch the

11.

The

church-towers, a striking feature of Lincolnshire

7.

landscapes, are mentioned again in XV.

12.

'bounding'

limiting, as in

xvn.
his
(xvi.),

6.

15, 16.

With

this uncertainty

cf.

bewilderment at the

apparent change in his feelings

strangeness described
17.
'

and the dream-like

inxm.

13-20.

silver sleep

'

cf.

Epilogue, 116.
'
:

Byron, Bride of Abydos, II. xxvi. heaves with the heaving billow (G. A. C).
20. Cf.
'

His head

94

In

Memoriam
XII.

SECTIONS

The calm
leave his

of the preceding
in

poems

gives place to

a wild unrest,

which the poet's soul seems to body and fly to meet the coming ship.

The
6.
'

restless

movement
Gatty
'

of the verse
XI.

is

in strong

contrast with the

mortal ark.'

rhythm of

phrase by reference to
(2 Cor. V. 1),

seeks to explain this strange our earthly house of this tabernacle

but the phrase appears again in The Two Voices a context which shows that the poet imagined the ark as a vessel at sea (' Who sought'st to wreck my mortal ark ').
in

Here at any rate it seems certain that the association of the dove and the ark in the story of the Flood suggested the
phrase.
9.

Enoch Arden the ship moves Thro' many a fair sea-circle day by day.' From the first Tennyson's poems show a special fondness for circular or
vast circular mirror.
'

At each stage of the So

flight the sea

appears below as a

in

spherical appearances in landscape

cf. IX.

13,

XXIV.

15, 16,

xxxiv.
12.

lxxxvi. 'the marge'

5,

5.
:

the horizon opposite to the point where

the sails are seen rising.

Cf. xlvi. 7, 16. It seems to be imagined as a kind of beach, and perhaps 'rounded' in 9 may mean convex as well as circular. the body the weight of nerves without a mind.' 19.
'
' '
:

XIII.

This section and the next describe the dreamy stupor of a mind exhausted by grief and unable In such to realise the loss which has stunned it. a mood fancy can flit around the ship, almost forgetful of the burden it carries.
1-4.

The

stanza

is

frequently misunderstood.

It is

taken

to describe the widower's

sudden and overwhelming

realisa-

xii., xiii.

Commentary
moment when, waking from
knows
sleep,
is

95

tion of his loss in the

'feels

he

her place

empty,' and

that he has only

dreamed of her. But the fourth stanza shows that this is not so, and that everything described in the first stanza, the dream, the doubt, the movement, and the weeping, takes place in sleep, or, at any rate, before a full awakening. So
the poet's consciousness of his loss has the strangeness

and uncertainty of a dream, or of a state between sleeping and waking. The source of the difficulty lies in the second and third stanzas, which seem to express such a clear consciousness of the nature of his loss as would come to the widower when fully awake. [I am not sure that this interpretation
is right. It is perhaps as probable that the usual understanding of the first lines is correct, and that there is some want of connection between the first three stanzas and

the last two.]

3, 4.

Cf.
to

Aeschylus, Ag. 420

f.

Ovid, Her. X. 9

ff.

Pope,

Eloisa

235 ff. 9-12. This stanza also

A be lard,

is

sometimes, and strangely, mis-

understood.

He weeps

the comrade of his choice,

life
;

now

become an awful thought, a

Introduction, pp. 41, 42.
13.

human-hearted man he loved,

First ed.
'

removed he weeps the now become a Spirit. See

teach

'Come Time, and

years
'

me many

years':

whence
years.'
16.

many

was construed as

'

during

many

For the
full

idea, that at this stage of grief tears fall only

when the
9
ff.,

meaning of

loss is not

felt, cf. I v. 11, 12,

xix.

xx.

Contrast XLIX., a later stage.

The

idea in 'leisure'

and 'time' (17) seems to be that, if he realised the truth, he would not yield to grief but would exert his will cf. LXXXV.
;

37-4o.
19, 20.

With
on

the peculiar effect of these lines, due to the

b

alliteration
cf. VII.

and the

repetition of sharp final consonants,

12.

96

In

Memonam
xiv.

sections

Addressed, like

IX., X., XV., XVII.,

to the ship.

The

last line,

by

recalling xill. 15, strengthens

the sense of connection.

The poem

is

technically

remarkable as forming a single sentence, like LXIV.,

LXXXVI., CXXIX., CXXXI.

XV.

This fine poem must be read in connection with its predecessors. The storm from the west
at

sunset contrasts with the windless calm of the

in XI.

sunny morning
spirit

The

half-delusive calm of

expressed in

fore, in spite of the storm at

imagined as something of the wild unrest of xil. is also present, and it would sympathise with the storm but for fears that after all the ship too may be in
'
'

and therehome, the ship is still moving over a glassy sea. But
IX., X., XI.

continues

tempest.
1.

'begin':

first

ed.

'began.'

The mixture

of tenses

remains in the next stanza, unless 'crack'd,' 'curl'd,' and huddled are to be taken as participles. Virgil's Oceani finem juxta solemque dropping day 2. cadentem,' Aen. IV. 480 ? Or Shakespeare's drooping west,'
' ' '

'

'

'

Hen. IV., Ind.

3.
'

Cf. XI. 3, 7, 14.

The time
:

is later.

the last red leaf

cf.

'

the one red

leaf,

the last of

its

clan,' Christabel.
7.
'

tower
'

'

cf.

XI.

1 1.

molten glass': Gollancz compares 'a molten lookingglass,'/^ xxxvii. 18 (of the sky). Cf. 'the sea of glass,' Rev.
11.

xv. 2 (G. A.

C).

XIV.-XVI.

Commentary

97

12, 13. For he would hear in fancy the straining masts and cordage of the ship in storm. 18. 'labouring': 'anticipated by Marlowe {Dr. Faustus

ad

fineni):

Into

the

entrails

of yon
is

labouring

cloud'

(Collins).

In that line the metaphor

it is

from the 'labour'

of child-birth, and so

also,

suppose, in

P Allegro,

Mountains on whose barren breast The lab'ring clouds do often rest

but in the present passage
'
'

labouring,'

think,

means merely

toiling,'

as in Hyperion
if

As

the vanward clouds of evil days

Had Was

spent their malice, and the sullen rear

with

its

stored thunder labouring up.

if

This seems almost certain

we compare

the line,

The vapour
I.

labours up the sky,

in the verses written

107).
19.

soon after Hallam's death {Memoir

fall

'topples':

threatens to

from

its

height;

as

in

Wellington Ode, VIII. The word generally means to throw or fall from a height, as in
Alastor, 'toppling stones.'
Cf. the

CXXVII.

12.

20. Cf. Shelley,

moving

turrets

make The

Witch of Atlas, xlviil, 'the clouds whose bastions of the storm (G. A. C).
'

XVI.

The
poet.

alternation of calm despair

in

and wild unrest

expressed

the preceding

poems bewilders the

Can his sorrow shift so quickly into varying Or is it an abiding reality, untouched by these surface changes ? Or is he so shaken by the shock of loss that his mind has become a mere
forms
?

stream of discordant and delirious images

2.
;

'calm despair,' repeated from XI. 16 'wild repeated from XV. 15. The wild unrest is also seen

unrest,'
in xil.

98
5.

In
'seem'
is

Memoriam
The
'

SECTIONS
reflect
its
'

emphatic.

lake

may
it,

surface variations in the world above

is
'

but

on its deep self

Form is often used by Tennyson for always the same. appearance as contrasted with essential being. Or is it Another interpretation is given by C. E. Benham
superficial
:

'

simply that in sorrow

man

does not

know

his

own

state,

but

merely imagines that his surroundings represent his mood, while the real self is no more seen by the man than the lark's
reflection is seen
12.

by the lake

in

which

it is

mirrored?'

It is

the fear for the ship (xv. 14) that suggests this

sections.

image, which again reminds the reader of the surrounding Cf. Herbert's Misery, where man is compared

with

A
17.

sick toss'd vessel, dashing

on each thing

Nay, his own

shell.

As

in XIV.

XVII.

This

final

section of the

group

refers

back to

the opening section, IX.

2. 6.

'and
Cf.

my

prayer,' etc., explains

12,

'

such a breeze,'

etc.

XI.

XII.

9.

Here the

'circle' is the circular

horizon.
8. Apparently he goes back to the time of waiting, when he counted the weeks and days, and longed for the arrival Mr. Benham, however, supposes that the ship of the ship. has not yet quite arrived, and that the poet is expressing his This is perhaps the more present desire for its arrival. natural interpretation, if we suppose the ship to be signalled

some days before

10.

it

comes

into port.
to

Cf.

Moore,

How

dear

me

'And

as

watch the

line

of light that plays,' etc. (G. A. C).

13.

Cf.

'

Sic fratres Helenae,' etc., in Horace's

Ode

referred

to in IX.

XVI.-XVIII

Commentary

99

15, 16.

Cf.

shed.'

Cf. also

Queen Mab, 'Stars, your balmiest influence The Talking Oak,

All starry culmination drop

Balm-dews
and the Lotos-Eaters
19, 20.
:

to bathe thy feet

i.

Choric Song,

See

IX. 17, 18.

XVIII.

The among

Burial.

The

final

stanzas are not

only

the most pathetic in the poem, but

mark
loss

clearly the

advance from the blind sense of

less

to a sorrow not

keen, but softened by the

expression of love and mingled with resolution.

Line 1 8 recalls the idea, which at almost vain,

Of

first

seemed

That men may rise on stepping-stones their dead selves to higher things.
'

As

yet,

however, the thought of

'

a meeting some-

where friend with friend

is

not entertained.

The
that In

section

illustrates

Tennyson's

statement

Memoriam does
note.

not profess to be strictly

biographical.
pp. 3,

For the date of Hallam's burial, see Further, he was buried in Clevedon Church, not in the churchyard, and Tennyson says that he did not see Clevedon till years after-

20

wards.
1.
I.
ii.

G. A. C. compares with this and x.

53-6
:

ff.

Ovid, Tnst.

Est aliquid, fatove suo ferrove cadentem In solida moriens ponere corpus humo

Et mandare suis aliquid, sperare sepulcra, Et non aequoreis piscibus esse cibum.

ioo

In
It

Memoriam
from the use of
is
'

SECTIONS
ashes,'

3, 4.

seems
i.

likely,
6,

and perhaps
quoted by

of 'blest' in line

that there

a reminiscence, not of
1.

Hainlet
Collins,

V.

262,

but of Persius, Sat.

39,

Nunc non
5-8. Cf. x. 11
11.
fif.

e tumulo fortunataque Nascentur violae ?

favilla

and Introduction,

p. 3.
is

'whatever loves':

the construction

an echo of

xvii. 13.
14, 15.

Cf.

2 Kings,

iv.

34 (G. A. C).

XIX.

This lovely
told
first

poem

(an old friend of Tennyson's

in Tintern Abbey. The merely connect the Wye, to which the poet is listening, with the thought of his friend. The tidal water, in flowing up the Bristol Channel,

me) was written

lines

five

which, as

it

begins to narrow,
idea
is

is

called the Severn,

passes Clevedon and, further up, enters the

Wye.
three

The main
stanzas,

is

expressed

in

the
it

last

and
its

quite clear,

though

has

been

strangely misunderstood.

As

the tide passes

up

the

deepens and hushes the ebbs again, the river, growing but as it river babbles.' And so, shallower, becomes vocal and floods the poet's heart, he sorrow when the tide of but his when it ebbs weep cannot sing or even grief can find a voice.
silent flood
; ' ;

Wye,

Cf.

Rape of Lucre'ce, 1328

'Tis but a part of

sorrow that we hear Deep sounds make lesser noise than shallow fords, And sorrow ebbs, being blown with wind of words.

xvm.-xxi.
2.

Commentary
Cf.
'

101

The

association of darkness with death seems to have

If
I

been very strong with Tennyson.

countenance,'

Two

Voices

'

the

dark

dissolving

make dark my human

its

heart,' Princess, III.

7.
'

9.

'

half i.e. the Wye nor moved along

:

is tidal
:

for

about half

course.
is

'

its

natural course to the sea

arrested.
14. 'vocal'
:

a favourite word with Milton.

XX.

This section, through a simile more homely than that of its predecessor, describes the same difference between the deeper anguish which is dumb, and the lesser griefs that may be said.'
*

'

'

12.

Byron's use of this metaphor has been quoted on

IV.

A poem

by Sara Coleridge has the But tears

Till
will

lines,

take the accustomed course

time their fountains freeze.

17-20.

This stanza seems to

be an anti-climax which

injures the

poem.

The

children are, indeed,

made

to think
;

of the past, while the servants can speak of the future

the thought,

but

'How good

how kind

and he

is

gone,' hardly

answers to the description in the fine stanza which precedes, nor does it express a sorrow which the servants might not
feel.

XXI.

The
grief.

last

two poems have implied that the

little of his deeper he defends them against imagined attacks. This is the third of the sections which deal with his poetry (cf. v. and VIII.).

mourner's songs express but

Still

The conventions

of the classical pastoral elegy,

io2

In Memoriam
which the singer
is

SECTIONS

in

are employed.

here and

supposed to be a shepherd, in In Memoriam only there, and perhaps generally with a

They occur

jarring effect.
15, 16.

Cf. for the collocation 01 these lines with the

next

stanza, the lines in Locksley

all

Hall beginning,

'

Eye
is

to

which

order
19, 20.

festers.'
'

and charms
secret
: '

'

'

Science every month

I

evolving

some new

(Gatty).
is

take the words with the pre-

ceding clause

'

Science

moon

disclose

its

nature';
'

making the most lately discovered 'moon' being either the same as
as distinguished irom 'world.'
is

'world,' or else

satellite,'

Perhaps Gatty's interpretation

supported by the

lines,

Each month is various to present The world with some development

{Two Voices), and by the use of 'moons' in xxvi. 3, lxxvii. The other is confirmed by xcvii. 22, and would be made 8.
certain

described as saying

where Tennyson is was destined to make much greater revelations even than it had already made, in charming " Her secret from the latest moon," if we were sure that the poet himself used the quotation. Mr.

by a passage

in

Memoir,

II.

336,

'

that the spectroscope

'

Jacobs thinks there is a reference to the discovery of Neptune, 'substantiated September, 1846' (and so takes 15, 16 to
apply to the Chartist movement). This would give a very late date to the section, and of course it is not necessary to

suppose that Tennyson refers to any one discovery

phrase, 'to feel from world to world/
to the process at
is

but the

beautifully appropriate

by which the existence of Neptune was guessed from the irregularities in the motion of Uranus, and Mr. Eve remarks that two of the satellites of Uranus were rediscovered in 1847.
24. Cf.

Ich singe wie der Vogel singt, Der in den Zweigen wohnet,
in

The Harper's Song

Wilhehn Meisters Lehriahre,

II. xi.

xxi., xxii.

Commentary
:

103

25, 27. First ed. 27. Cf.

'

'And unto one her note.' Sorrow hath changed its note,' Herbert, Joseph's

Coat.

SECTIONS XXII.-XXV,
These sections form a
distinct group, in which,
for the first time, the poet looks

back to the past

and compares the present with

XXII.

it.

Collins
section
in

finds

'

an exact

counterpart

'

to

this

47th Sonnet In Morte di Madonna Laura, of which there certainly seem to be reminiscences.
Petrarch's
3. The path seems to be figured as ascending in spring and summer, and descending in autumn and winter. See 10 and 11. 6. 'crown'd': cf. lxxii. 5. It is a favourite word in

Shakespeare's Sonnets.

was the date of Hallam's death. Death as a shadow occurs frequently in for instance, in the Tennyson, as in writers before him early poem, Love and Death, Death is described as the shadow cast by life in the light of eternity. Cf. A. H. 19. 'waste': the path has entered a desert.
10.

September

15

12.

The image

of

Hallam, Remains,

p.

65 (G. A. C.)

Sick and lone,

Roaming the weary Where thou art not.

desert of

my doom,

The

last three lines,

with the next section, seem to be the

to the longing for

only allusion in In
the poet
Voices.
felt for

Memoriam
I.

death which

a time, and partly expressed in the

109.)

Two

(See Memoir,

io4

In

Memoriam
XXIII.

SECTIONS

I.

Of course 'sometimes' does

not qualify 'wander,' as in

'

Gatty's paraphrase, but answers to

Or.'

'

Sometimes

in

dumb
3.

sorrow, sometimes breaking into a song of mourning.'

effect of the repetition, cf.
I

For the pathetic

xvm.
sit

13,

and
5

Rape of Lucrece,
!

795, 'where

alone alone must

'

and

pine.

David's cry for Absalom, Othello's

But yet the pity of

it,

Iago O Iago, the pity of it, Iago!' Lear's 'Thou'lt come no more, Never, never, never, never, never,' Hamlet's thricerepeated 'Except my life,' are among famous examples of
this effect.
4, 5.

Death, himself a mystery, can alone disclose the

In the metaphor there
v. iv. 7, 'death,

mysteries concealed in the creeds.

may be
is

a reminiscence of Cymbelifte,

who

the key

To unbar
' :

these locks, or of the golden key of

5

Comus, 13, Lycidas, no. he no longer walks in haste to find the wander 6. cf. LV. 17. Shadow, but wanders without a purpose 'lame
'

'

'

12.

'

Pan

'

the

god of universal
to

nature.
lips

15, 16.
it

Cf.

'Ev'n thought meets thought ere from the

part,'

Pope, Eloisa

17, 18.

Abelard, 95. 'met,' in the present ; 'bring,' in the future.

of Pan for Nature in 12 might lead one Tennyson is using the conventions of classical
'
5

21-4.

The use

'

'

to think that

which case the present stanza would refer to philosophy and poetry in general; but 'old implies that he means Greek philosophy and poetry in particular. With
elegy, in
5

'

divinely

cf.

LIU. 14.

XXIV.
1

But was the past

really perfect

Does

it

not

only seem so
3, 4.

now ?
is

'

Nothing

perfect.
its
5

The sun
14,

itself

has spots, dark

to

moving

islands in

sea of glory.
:

Tennyson seems
LXXXiil.
11.

have

been fond of 'dash'd

cf. Lll.

XXIII.-XXV.

Commentary
17.
'
:

105

5.

See XXIII.
First
ed.

This could not really be.

8.

Since

Adam

left

his

garden

yet.'

The

change was not made

9-16.

Two

about 1878. causes of the appearance of perfection in the

till
:

past

are

suggested, not three

3),

either

contrast

with the

miserable present (stanza

present
10.

or else the enchantment of

distance which always attaches to the past, whatever the

may be
:
:

(stanza

4).

First ed.

'Hath

stretch'd

my

former joy so great?'

Cf.

Guinevere

The moony vapour

Who
11. 12.

rolling round the King, seem'd the phantom of a Giant in it.

in

The

trast with
15, 16.

present is regarded as a low ground, which the past stands out in high relief.

con-

From a

distance the irregularities of the earth's

lost to view, and it would appear a disc of 'glory.' (I owe the interpretation to Mr. Larden.) Cf. Locks ley Hall Sixty Years After

surface

and illumination would be

Hesper

Venus were

we

native to that splendour or in

Mars,

We

should see the Globe we groan

ing stars.

in, fairest

of their even-

only bright
(G. A. C).

So Landor, Marvell and Parker, 'The stars themselves are by distance go close and all is earthly
:

XXV.
1

The

past was not perfect, but love removed

its

all
1.

sense of
'Life'
:

imperfection.'
perfect.

and therefore not

perhaps a reference to Virgil's 'sequiturque patrem non passibus aequis,' Aen. II. 724. 6. Possibly an intentional contrast with XII.' (Eve). 12. Cf. Bacon, Essay 27 'This communicating of a man's
2,
'
:

'with equal feet':

self to his friend

cutteth grief in halfes.'

io6

In

Memopiam

sections

8ECTIONS XXVI.-XXVII.
The
retrospect ends, but
it

has led the poet to

it it

recognise that

Love outweighs whatever pain

may
when

bring
its

and, certain that

is

may

endure even
live,

object

out of sight, he desires to

and would not purchase happiness

Love.

at the cost of

XXVI.
His object in following the no longer to meet the Shadow, though he would desire to meet it at once if further life meant the decay of
2.

Contrast xxn. and xxiii.

is

path

Love.
10.

Cf. Princess,

III.

and there was light For was, and is, and will be, are but is And all creation is one act at once,
Let there be
light,
:

'tis
;

so

The birth of light but we that are not all, As parts, can see but parts, now this, now that,

And One
The

from thought to thought, and make phantom of succession thus Our weakness somehow shapes the shadow, Time.
live,

perforce,

act a

idea

is

repeated in The Ancient Sage.

It

is

to

be

found in many authors, e.g. Augustine's Conf. xiii. 44, IX. 24, and Browne's Rel. Med. 1. 1 1 (G. A. C.)- There is a curious coincidence of phrase in Marston's Sophonisba, II. ii., Gods
'

naught foresee, but

or past.'
12.

see, for to their eyes

Naught

is

to

come

'See, in the

Love that

is,

the indifference that will

be.' 13.
16.

First ed.

So might
ed.,

I.

.'

'shroud':

first

'cloak';

'proper scorn':

self-

scorn.

xxvi., xxvii.

Commentary
XXVII.

107

2, 3.

Cf.
:

Chill

Penury represt

their noble rage,' Gray's

Elegy

also (G. A. C.) Scott's

Lady of

the Lake, VI.

xxii.,

The captive thrush may brook the The prisoned eagle dies for rage.
5, 6.
'

cage,

takes his license,' lives without law, because un' ;

troubled by promptings of a higher nature

earthly life;
cf.

field

of time

'

XLIII./14, XCI.
letter,

6.

With

this stanza cf.

1.

remarkable extract from a

Memoir,

170.
is

n.
12.

Cf. Ha?nlet,

1.

iv. 32,

but Tennyson's metaphor

of a

stream clogged with weeds.

'want': deficiency.

13-16.

With
'

this conviction the

poem comes
'

to a break,
;

as though a definite stage of advance were reached the phrases

I

and
15.

hold

it

true

'

and

loved and lost

'

may be
I.

intended to indicate this by reminding the reader of

1,

As a

parallel to the last

two

lines (repeated
oj the

LXXXV.
II.
ii.
:

3, 4),

Collins quotes Congreve,

Way

World,

"Tis

better to have been

than never to have been loved.' In the form of the expression there may be a reminiscence,
left

certainly unconscious, of Campbell's Jilted

Nymph
all.

Better be courted and jilted

Than never be courted

at

SECTIONS XXVIII.-XXX.

What
P-

has been called in the Introduction the

(see

Second Part of In Memoriam begins here

3i).

So
trated

far the

poet's thoughts

on

his grief

and

love,
life

The

idea of the continued

have been concenand on the past. of the beloved dead

io8

In

Memoriam
in various

SECTIONS

now emerges, and

duced
at

principal subject of this

forms becomes the It is introSecond Part. the close of this group of three sections
to

referring

the

first

Christmas-tide

after

the

death of the poet's

friend.

XXVIII.

For the date of composition, see

7.
'

p.

14.

Swell out and

in

mere changes
8-12.
I

wind (9) rises and falls, for loudness would hardly produce the effect
fail,'

as the

so well described in the next words.

bells (5, 9,

understand that each of the four churches has four and Civ.), and that these four bells seem to be
'

ringing

'

peace and goodwill,' and then

'

goodwill and peace,'

'

and then

peace and goodwill,' and then

is,

to all mankind.'

Each
a

sound of For a suggestion as to the possible churches see Rawnsley, Memories of the Temiysons, p. 12.
syllable, that

in lines 11, 12 represents the

bell.

13.

'This
is

year.'

The

expression suggests at

first

that the

occasion
friend.
18.

the second Christmas after the death of his

15, 16.

But see XXX.

He

is

at his father's house,

where

his childhood

was

spent.

XXIX.
2.
'

death

our household peace household peace not for is ever invading some home.' The phrase occurs in
'

'

'

'

Par. Lost, X. 908.

9.
'

Yet go

'

he addresses members of the household who

aptly quotes

are going to decorate the church.

11.

'Use and Wont': Gatty

Cf. cv.

the motto to

the Pirate, ch. xiv.

16.

xxvin.-xxx.

Commentary
xxx.

109

The Christmas-eve which had been

anticipated

and had begun in sadness, ends in cheerfulness Suddenly, and in tones of triumphant and hope.
confidence, there are introduced the ideas of the

continued and higher existence of the dead, and For the of their continued love for the living.
date of this section, see
8.
'

p.

4.

Contrast the Epilogue, 85-88.

:

dead friend, not Death. See Introduction, pp. 41-43. explained by the next lines. 13. 'echo-like' 14, 15. The poet audaciously, for the sake of the sound, uses the two forms 'sung' and 'sang' in successive lines.
'
:

one mute Shadow

surely the

16.

See
'

p. 20.

soul, freed from instability and weakness, unchanged in essence, but with strengthened powers, passes from embodiment to embodiment upon world after world.'

25-28.

The

'seraphic flame':
875),

cf.

Milton's 'flaming seraph' (P.L.,V.

5

and 'bright seraphim in burning row {At a Solem?i Music). For the collocation of rapt with seraphic flame cf. Pope's 'rapt seraph that adores and burns,' Essay on
' ' '

Man,

1.

278.
Cf.

Cf. XLI. 1-4.

Sir John Oldcastle, 'He veil'd Himself in flesh.' The idea that the soul passes through life after life appears
'veil.'

elsewhere in Tennyson
Profundis).
life
it

is

(e.g. in the Two Voices and in De Here we have the additional ideas that in each embodied, and that the successive embodiments

are on different worlds.

Cf.

lxxxii.

5, 6,

lxxiii.

1,

So many worlds, so much

to do,

and

in

The Ring the

lines

as giving his

own

belief that " the after-life

which Tennyson 'would quote is one of prohell, for

gress "

'

(Memoir,
thro' the

II.

365)

No
But

sudden heaven, nor sudden

Will of

man,
rules

One who knows and

no
And
utter

In

Memoriam
is

SECTIONS

knowledge

but utter love

yEonian Evolution, swift or slow, Thro' all the Spheres an ever opening height,

An
In In

ever lessening earth.

the poet
is

Memoriam,

content at last to leave these

matters undefined.
32.

'Hope': the hope of immortality, born with Christ? 'He

:

said to Bishop Lightfoot

is

"

The

cardinal point of Christianity

I.).'

the Life after

Death"

(2 Tim., ch.

Memoir,

I.

321.

SECTIONS XXXI.-XXXVI.
The connection
by the
purpose.
following

of these sections
analysis,
'

may
'

be shown
the story

which
revealed

has no other
in

The

poet finds

beyond death, but only the fact (XXXI.). He thinks that in the mind of Lazarus' sister curiosity as to the state beyond death was absorbed in love and adoration and in
of Lazarus the fact of a
life
;

this

attitude he finds a blessedness less securely

attained

rests solely

by minds whose faith in immortality on inward evidence (xxxil., XXXIII.).

such a faith
is

It is true that

not only possible but

on us by the inward evidence (XXXIV., XXXV.) but he is thankful for the sanction given to it by the revelation of Christ's life and teaching (xxxvi.).
seems
forced
;

XXXI.
1

What
?

has

been
story

revealed

of the state after

tells

death

The

of Lazarus
tells

us that he

was raised again, but

us nothing more.'
section

The

transition

to

this

from the

last

xxx.-xxxn.
three

Commentary
of

in
obvious

stanzas
It

XXX.

is

surely

and

natural.

has been considered strange that the

poet, turning to the Gospel story, should think of

the

resurrection of Lazarus, not that of Christ

who is wondering what happens to a merely human soul after death. Cf. with this section and the next, Browne, Religio Medici^ I. 21, I can read that Lazarus was raised from the dead, yet not demand where, in
but he writes as a believer
*
. . .

the interim, his soul awaited.'

For the date of the section see

3, 4.

p.

4.

Did he

lose his 'mortal sympathy,' (xxx. 23)?

'To

hear
6.

'

at hearing.
line
:

The Palace of Art has a similar There comes no murmur

'

of reply.
;

8.

added praise
Pope's
lines,

to praise
is

'

doubled our gratitude

9, 10,

we
is.

are told that death

14.

not extinction, but not what death

Eloisa to Abelard,
!

Dear fatal name rest ever Nor pass these lips in holy
evidently remained in Tennyson's

unreveal'd,
silence seal'd,

memory.
St.

15, 16. 'He': Lazarus: 'that Evangelist': whose Gospel alone the story is told.

John, in

XXXII.
'

Where
in

Perhaps Mary did not wert thou, brother,

life

ask
those

that

question,

Curiosity as to the
joy,

after

four days ? death was absorbed

is

prayer,

and

love.

And

not this the

'

purest and most blessed state of

mind
'

In this state of

mind
'

is

to be noticed not only

the supersession of

subtle thought

and

'

curious

ii2

In
'

Memoriam

SECTIONS

fears by higher feelings, but also the absorption and endurance of love for a brother in a higher This idea of love for the dead love (1. 14). passing into and enduring in a higher love appears here first in In Memoriam, and anticipates the latest sections of the poem (see CXXIX., CXXX., and

Prologue).
1.

'prayer':
to
'

the word here, and in

'

13

and xxxin.
'

5,

seems
3, 4.
5.
'

mean

adoration.'
etc.

supersede

Except the thought " He was dead," the poet's thought is more
'
:

fully

expressed
the resur-

by

14.

8.

Cf.

John,

xi.

25,
'

'

Jesus said unto her,

am

rection
15.

and the
'

life
:

(G. A. C).

'so pure

so pure as these.

XXXIII.

This section
in so far as

is

connected with

its
'

predecessor
sister
'

the state of the

mind of the
a

bears
in
is

some resemblance
XXXII.
In
described.

to that attributed to
different

Mary

brother
the
toil

attitude

and storm of thought and doubt he has reached what seems to him a His faith is not attached to any event purer air.
or person serving as a centre or type
;

From

it

can find

a centre in anything, and needs no image of a lawgiver to enforce the authority of the law within.

warned not to disturb his sister's simpler faith, which is not less pure, and issues in a life happier and more actively good than his own. The poet's meaning has been perverted by
is
'

He

commentators.

The

brother addressed in XXXIII.

xxxii., xxxiii.

Commentary
in
'

113

is

apparently not a believer

it

truth revealed

'

but

is
'

quite a mistake to describe

(Gatty), or as holding a
' '

him
'

as

sceptic

vague form of
'

scepticism

(Palgrave).

and

in particular
'

he

is

(3, 9) ; evidently supposed to be'

He

holds a

faith

lieve in the

divine truth
1 1
,

of immortality, otherwise

the appeal of

12 would have no force for him.

It is also incorrect to
is

say that the brother's faith

condemned
is

as less true than the sister's.

is

The

question of truth
dwells on

not raised.

What

the poet

the purity, blessedness, and active

goodness connected with the sister's belief, and less securely connected with an intellectual faith
like the brother's.

On
sister,

the other hand

we must
is

reject the plausible

idea that

Tennyson

is

thinking of himself and his

so that the

poem

addressed to himself
'

for

in sections XXXI., xxxii.,

xxxvi., xxxvil. the poet

truth revealed.'

certainly speaks as a believer in

may, of course, be describing a mind of the same type as his own. With this section cf.
XCVI.
form cf. CXXVH. i, 3, 4. For the antithesis of faith and and AkbaSs Dream, where the thought of xxxvi. is also
'

He

'

'

'

repeated.
6.

'Her

early

Heaven'
'

'

the

taught in childhood

(cf.

xcvii. 30), not,

Heaven of which she was I think, the Heaven

'

n which she already

views

dwells,' as

may be

suggested by Pope,

Eloisa to Abelard, 300,

'
'
:

'And

Faith, our early immortality.'

prospects, that on which she gazes.

9.

pure

'

see

2.
'

16.

'

such a type as

'

the flesh and blood

'

of Christ

(1 1).

ii4

In

Memoriam
XXXIV.

SECTION

In this section and in XXXV. the poet turns from

1

truth

revealed

'

to

seek

for

intimations

of im-

mortality in his

own

nature (such intimations as

might be sought by_the brother of XXXIIL)J The world would have no meaning forTIm, life no value for him, God no claim on him, if man were
It is vain to reply that not immortal (XXXIV.). even then Love might give a value to life for Love would wither under the knowledge of its own mortality, just as it never would have come into being had man possessed such knowledge
;

(xxxv.).

Such
tions
r
;

is

the obvious purport of the two secthere

but
in

appears
poet's
life'
;

to

have been
]

more
this
is

than this
allf his

the

mind.

For,

if.

'own dim
life
is

evidently does not

show

thajClife_.i.y

unless

which

shows at most that immortal. it were believed to be immortal, that of most value in it would not have
exist.

come

Into existence or continue to

I

Yet

XXXVI., stanza

'

(which corresponds with XXXIV. I, 2), seems to say that the fact of immortality for the truth made implied in human life is by Christ must surely be the current coin truth that man is immortal, not the truth that a belief in his own immortality is required for
;
'

his highest

life.

And,
'

in

the

same way, accordlife

'

ing

to

the

first

stanza of XXXIV., as naturally

construed, the poet's

own dim

is

to teach

him

'

that

life

shall live for evermore,' not

merely

XXXIV.
that,

Commentary

115

apart from a belief in immortality, the world would be meaningless and life worthless

to him.

Perhaps what was

in the poet's

mind was the

idea that certain things in man's nature imply his

immortality (not merely his belief in it), because they would be inexplicable if he were merely mortal. His love, in the best sense, is one such thing in the Two Voices^ where this line of
:

argument

is

suggested, others are indicated.

In

that case the truth of immortality might naturally

be said to be
or

'

deep-seated
his
'

in

man's mystic frame,'

implied

in

dim

life.'

(Compare

Intro-

duction, pp. 57 ff.) With these two

nificent

sections

rhetoric

of

Vastness

compare the magin the Demeter

volume.
i. 'dim' probably answers to 'darkly' in xxxvi. i; or 'dim life' may possibly mean, 'the very feebleness of my darkened life' or 'dim' may possibly mean, 'dim, but still
;

not utterly dark.'

5. The earth as it appears to inhabitants, and as it would appear from a distance or (more probably) the earth and the sun, the flame that measures time,' Hymn in Akbar^s
:

'

Dream cf. LXXII. 13. 9. The God of such a world would

;

not be reason or good-

ness or love, and could have no claim on a being with

spiritual

wants
'

(cf.

CXX.).
'

Or,

if

'dim'

in

be taken to
'

mean

'

feeble,'
I.'

able as
the

such as I Or 'such as

may be taken to mean so misermay mean, 'a being placed in a I

'

dying world, and himself doomed to extinction.'

first

prefer

interpretation.

n6

In

Memoriam
XXXV.

SECTIONS

8-12.

Nature would appear to be merely an interminable

process of meaningless change and unrest, in which the soul

too
9.

was involved.
Cf.
5

Alastor,

With 10-12 cf. cxxm. 'The thunder and the

flf.

hiss of

homeless

streams.
11.

Cf. CXXIII. 5

'Ionian':
or ages.
this

hills that

have lasted whole

suggests that

aeons (cxxvil.

16)

The

context

Tennyson
geology.
14.

derived

favourite

word from works

on

'forgetful

shore':
Cf.

the
8.

shore of

forgetfulness.

xcvm.
II.

Collins quotes Par. Lost,

forgetful lake.'
19.

73,

Lethe that brings For the use of 'forgetful the sleepy drench Of that
5

'

'as

Death

5
:

as

thought of these lines

mere death or extinction. For the cf. Wordsworth on Epitaphs, and

:

Locksley Hall Sixty Years After

Gone
Those

for ever

Ever, ever,
that

no for since our dying race began, and for ever was the leading light of man. in barbarian burials kilFd the slave, and slew the
!

Ever

wife,

Felt within themselves the sacred passion of the second

24. 'batten
5

life.

5
:

fed grossly, as in Hamlet, HI.

is

iv.

67.

In

Lycidas, 29, the verb

transitive.

XXXVI.

He

returns to

the train of thought in XXXII.

spiritual

and XXXIII.

Though

truths,

such

as

that of immortality, are implied in

human
to

nature,

we owe thanks none

opened them to
life.

the

less

Him
in

who
His

all

and embodied them

xxxv., xxxvi.
1.

Commentary

117

obscurely, so that they are only dimly visible.

'manhood': human nature; 'join': meet; 'darkly': Cf. XXXIV. I,

Voices
:

and

Two

Ah

him and without, Could his dark wisdom find it out, There must be answer to his doubt.
sure within
:

2.

'mystic frame'
ff.

cf.

LXXVin.

18.

Wisdom,

or the

minds

minds which can

Word, adapted itself to merely human receive, embodied in a tale, truths

is

which, expressed in closely knit reasonings, would find no

entrance.

(The reference

not merely to the one truth of

in general, not
'

immortality.)

The 'tale' here is the Gospel narrative merely stories such as the Parables. For
creeds (see next stanza) seems to be the
'

the

creed of

lived,

in

it.

and so the record of that life For the emphasis on 'deeds'

13,

which Christ with the truths embodied

life
(cf.

'hands' in 10)

cf.

xxxii.

XXXIII.

10.
cf.

'

With Forms

the thought
'

Akbar*s Dream., where religious

are described as

A silken
When

cord

let

down from

Paradise,

would fail, to draw The crowd from wallowing in the mire of earth, And all the more, when these behold their Lord, Who shaped the forms, obey them, and himself Here on this bank in some way live the life
fine Philosophies

Beyond the
Here the
9.

bridge.

last lines repeat the idea

of stanza

3.

'the

Word':
St.

the

explained that 'the

as used

Memoir (1. 312) says that Tennyson Word' in this section 'was " the Word"

by

John, the Revelation of the Eternal Thought

of the Universe.'
15, 16.

Savages of the Pacific Islands.

nS

In

Memoriam
XXXVII.

SECTIONS

He
1.

closes the
'

group by excusing himself

of

for

touching on

truth revealed.'
Urania, generally
the

The conception

Muse

of

Astronomy, as the goddess of heavenly poetry, is Miltonic. Cf. the famous address in Par. Lost, VII. 1-20. 6. Parnassus a hill (8) sacred to Apollo and the Muses. The laurel grows freely on its slopes. Poets were
'
' :

crowned with laurel. 9. Melpomene, the muse of Tragedy, here of Elegy. in Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar, November. 'but,' which word occurs in 13. first ed. 11. 'e^n
5
: :

So

12.

'prevailing

almost = superior.'
'

15, 16. 19.

Cf. v. viii.
:

xxi.
as sacramental wine.'

First ed.

'And dear

21. 23.

He
'

returns to the image of the path,

'
:

xxn.

ff.
5

master
18,

surely not Christ, but

for

'

the dear one dead.

29.

For see

and

'master

cf.

lxxxvii.

XXXVIII.

This section and the next, both spring poems, intervene between the group just ended and that The present section deals which begins at XL.
again with his songs.
2.
3.
5.
'

Cf.

from what they were before he walked alone. d No purple in the distance. The Princess, vi. Contrast the tone of LXXXin., the poem of the next
alter
5

'

'

spring.

The 'blowing season

is,

of course, the season

when

flowers blow.

foil.

This idea appears here

for the first

time in the
5

xxx. that the dead do not lose their mortal sympathy or change to us has passed with the exaltation of the moment, and so the
sections about his poems.
'

The

certainty of
5

'

gleam of solace
11. 'free
5
:

is

'

doubtful

(8).

cf.

LXXXV.

86.

xxxvii.-xxxix.

Commentary
xxxix.

119

This section {Memoir, II. 53), is addressed to refers to II., from

stones
'

was written and appeared

in

April,

1868
It

first in

1872. 1

the church-yard

yew-tree,
'

and

which the words

'

graspest at the
'

and
to

'

the dreamless head

are repeated,

from which lying lips 'comes. In II. the yew was said to preserve an unchanging gloom. Here the poet acknowledges that this

and also

ILL,

for was a falsehood of Sorrow's kindled gloom of the yew is

;
'

in

spring the the

tips.'

at

Yes,' answers Sorrow,

'

but

it

passes

back into

gloom/
2
ff.

At a particular stage of
if

its

flowering, a
if
'

bears male flowers,

struck, or even

yew which shaken strongly by

fruitful,
5

the wind, will send up the pollen (hence

'

living

')

in

'

cloud' of yellow 'smoke.

The

sight
it

is

sometimes almost
in

startling,

and Tennyson

refers

to

again

the

Holy

Grail

Beneath a world-old yew-tree, darkening half cloisters, on a gustful April morn That pufFd the swaying branches into smoke.

The

5.

The change

of feeling since section n.

this line

is

beautifully
fibres net

shown by the contrast between the dreamless head (il. 3).

5

and

'

Thy

6.
7.

'

golden hour
tree.

of spring

cf.

lxxxv.

106.

The yew sometimes has male and female The

flowers on the

same

8-12.
1

poet interrupts his apostrophe with the words

[Mr. Eve remarks that the section contains internal evidence of

date, the action described in line 2 being scarcely credible in

its late

the poet

who

is

supposed to have addressed the yew only a few

months before

in the language of section 11.]

i2o
(to

In

Memoriam
:

SECTIONS
I

that

paraphrase very prosaically) I hear Sorrow whispering

'So
in

" Yes, the

lines
1-7

gloom

is

lightened, but

it

but what is She whispers, That is, soon returns."

say

reply?

'

refute Sorrow's

falsehood (section

11.)

about the

yew; and lines II, 12 give her answer to this refutation. The answer is in harmony with the mood of xxxvm., but
the poet can recognise that
false
;

it,

like

her former whisper,

is

i.e.

that the interpretation she puts

due
II.,

to the

same sickness

that

upon the fact is distorted nature in II. and III.

'
:

It is

of course possible to take 8-10 as referring to section

11, 12 as

But Sorrow said then your gloom is lightened, though only for a little while.' But I cannot believe that this interpretation is right. Mr. Robinson objects to the other because it requires whispers and not 'whisper'd,' and because there are no inverted commas But Tennyson's use of these round the last two lines. commas, as of other punctuation-marks, was very erratic e.g. in vi. 23, 24, and Cll. 9, 12, they were absent till about And, as to 1878, and they are so still in IV. 5, 12, xciv. 8. A man who, while he is whisper'd,' see Lll. 6, lxxxiv. 45. speaking, hears some one whispering an objection, may check himself and say, What was that you whispered ? just as well as What is that you are whispering ? 11, 12. The kindling at the tips is taken by Miss Chapman to refer to the tender green shoots,' by Gatty (if I understand him) to the flowers. In favour of the first view it may be said (1) that 'tips' is not very appropriate to the position

and

the poet's answer to 8-10

in spring.

you did not change

That was

false,

'

'

'

'

'

'

of the flower of the

there
is

yew

(2) that in

II.

11, 12 (if
;

not in 10)

a reference to the colour of the foliage and (3) that there appears here to be a reminiscence of Shelley, Triumph

of Life
In the April prime,

When
The language
is

all

the forest tips began to burn

With kindling green.

certainly curiously similar, but even
if

there

xxxix., xl.
is

Commentary
'tips'

121

reminiscence, the associated

and 'kindling'

might
in

easily recur without the further idea of leaves.

is,
I

And
by
that

favour of Gatty's view (which

it

believe, that taken

the great majority of readers)

may be

observed

(i)

the point which Sorrow has to meet concerns the flower,

(2) that

and

Miss Chapman's interpretation implies that the new shoots are already conspicuous while the yew is in bloom. This is not the fact, and Tennyson would hardly make a mistake in the matter when he had just been watching the 'smoking' of the yew. The slight inappropriateness of
'

tips,'

as applied to the flowers,

is

not of

much moment.

SECTIONS XL.-XLVII.
In this group the poet returns to the subject

suggested in XXXI.
after death.

foil.,

of the state of the soul

In

all

his fancies or speculations the

is

underlying question

that of the possibility of his

ultimate reunion with his friend. XL.

If only the departure of the soul wholly like the separation of a bride home But she can return or send new and wider life, and the soul
*
!

at death

were from her old

cannot'
Cf.

tidings of her

LXXXII., and for the simile the lines

To H.R.H.

Princess Beatrice,

The Mother weeps At that white funeral of the single life, Her maiden daughter's marriage.
1.

'widow'd'
Cleopatra,

cf.

IX. 18,
:

and elsewhere.
April's in her eyes,'

8.

Collins compares
III.
ii.

'

The

Antony

and

43.

i22

In

Memoriam
' :

SECTIONS
until
'

19.

'In those great offices that suit

'

about 1883 the

hate
that,'

line

read

In such great offices as

suit.'

said
*

the author, alluding to the juxtaposition of sibilants in

suit' {Nineteenth Cent., Jan. 1893).

as

21.

The
!

effect of the line is like that of

'Ay me

fondly

dream
32.
III.
i.
'

'

in Lycidas, 56.
'

undiscover'd

cf.

'the undiscovered country,'

Hamlet,

79-

XLI.

And in the new life my friend may advance, through changes unshared and unwitnessed by me, so far that, although after death I go through the same changes, I shall never overtake him.' The idea is suggested by XL., stanza 5. That the fear is not deeply-seated, but a fancy dim
1

an
will

(XLII.

1), is

indicated by the fine stanza,

is

'

Yet

oft'

instance of what
effect

Tennyson,
description.
Cf.

comparatively rare in produced by abstention from

Bulwer, Zanoni (1842): 'For her and thee

?

there be even a joint hereafter

Through

what grades and heavens of spiritualised being will her soul have passed, when thou, the solitary loiterer, comest from the vapours of the earth to See p. 17. the gates of light ? (G. A. C).
'

f.

The

friend,

no doubt,

is still

rising

from high to higher,

stage leads to

but the poet can no longer see

another.
*

how one
'

strange,'
9.
'

something strange and cxxix., 9.

'

cf.

Tempest,

something rich and

going
to utter.

Deep

folly

'

i.e.

the wish he

is

just

xl., xli.

Commentary

123

11.

'the grades' which his friend has traversed since

death.
12.

'flash'
14.
'
:

cf.

XCV.
fear

36.

13.

'Men
'And
is

Death as children
11.

fear to

go

in

the

dark

Bacon, Essay

15, 16.

as that natural fear in children

is

increased

with tales, so

the other'

(id,).

These two

lines

must

refer

below imagined in Classical and Christian Mythology, and described by Dante and (with The word 'fields' is probably due to reserve) by Virgil. recollections of Virgil {e.g. 'lugentes campi,' Aen. vi. 441),
to the horrors of the world

and 'gulfs' possibly to the lines about Tartarus (id. 577 f.). Howlings is probably a reminiscence of Claudio's speech (Measure for Measure, III. 126),
'
'

i.

or to be worse than worst

Of those
or of Hamlet, V.

that lawless
:

and incertain thoughts

Imagine howling
i.

264,

A
*

ministering angel shall

my

sister

be

When
'

thou

liest

howling.
It
'

Forgotten no commentator attempts to explain.

a reminiscence, but
'

sounds

like

by Heaven is the lines from the Dedication of the Palace of Art (where
note 'howling'),

Forgotten do not know of what. the only meaning that seems probable. Cf.
I

And he

that shuts

Love

out, in turn shall

be
lie

Shut out from Love, and on her threshold

Howling
[It

in outer darkness.

has been suggested that 'forgotten' implies that stories

of infernal horror have almost faded from his mind.]

the whole stanza
23.
'

With
6,

cf.

Browne, Rel. Med.

'
:

1.

51, 52 (G.

A. C).

secular to-be

age-long future.
lives,'

Cf.

LXXVI.
1.

and

a secular bird, ages of

Samson

Agonistes, 171

124

In

Memoriam
xlii.

sections

My

fear

we were
unequal,
2.
5.
'

united

was vain. On earth, though unequal, by place and love and so, though
;

we may be
' :

elsewhere.'

still

always.

'retain': keep together.

XLIII.
*

But perhaps

my

friend

is

not advancing

now
;

perhaps after death souls sleep till some general This would not separate us awakening. for when he awoke unchanged, his love would awake
too.'

So far the poet has assumed that his friend immediately after death entered on a new conand he has asked whether this new scious life life has carried him so far away that the poet, at Now his own death, will be unable to rejoin him. he considers the possibility of an intermediate
;

state of sleep,

on

and the bearing of this possibility If, of future communion. he says, this sleep is complete, so that no new experience comes to the soul, its memory and love will revive unchanged at the general awakening,
the

question

when the
It is

friends will be together.

observable that in Tennyson's abstract of

{Memoir, II. 421) the notion of a Indeed the re-awakening disappears. whole thought of the section was foreign to his habitual mode of imagining the state after death. See pp. 52, 53.
this

section

general

xlii.-xliv.

Commentary
is

125
closes during

2.

The
'

soul

compared with a flower which

the night.

Bare of the body,' and so suffering no change, and new quality, through it. 7, 8. Its character is due solely to its earthly experience. But.' The phrase still garden 10. first ed. So occurs also in The Gardener's Daughter.
5.

acquiring no

'

'

'

'

11, 12.

'figured':

marked with
is

character-traces; 'enrolls':

includes.

The

idea

that

all

the souls that ever lived on

till

earth sleep, with

all their
I

experience enclosed in them,

take
' '

general re-awakening.
idea of
its

figured leaf
'

'

to repeat the
'

7, 8,

'

leaf meaning

petal,'

coloured markings or pattern.

Rose-leaves,

and figured referring to For leaf cf. Shelley's

'

lines,

when

the rose

is

dead,

Are heaped

for the beloved's

v.,

bed

and The Princess,

But pure as

Of the

first

lines of green that streak the white snowdrop's inner leaves.

figured' may be due to Lycidas, 105. Cf. LXI. 6. doubt the reference 7nay be to the calyx-leaves which in some plants close round the flower (as Mr. Larden

The word

'

No

suggests), or even to a leaf like the spatha of an arum.

I

If so,

understand 'figured' of surface-markings, not of the shape of the outline. But I feel no doubt that the
still

should

new
'

idea which enters with these lines is to be found garden and total world,' not in figured leaf.'
'

in

'

'

13. 14.

'will'

first ed.
:

'would.'
life.

'in

Time'

in the earthly

Cf. XXVII.

XCI.

6.

15.

'prime': daybreak (see

2).

XLIV.

This

section

supposition of XLIII.

does not

fall

an alternative to the Perhaps at death the soul asleep, but begins at once a new
suggests
'

126

In
life.

Memoriam
perhaps
in

section
that
life

conscious
earthly

And

its

Yet, even so, experience is forgotten. dim hints of that experience may come to it. If such a dreamy intimation should reach my friend,
let it

be to him the germ from which a complete

recollection

may

arise.'

The
clear,

general meaning

of the section
is

is

quite

extremely obscure, and the interpretation of the second and third I believe it is imdepends on that of the first. possible to arrive at certainty about the meaning but I will attempt to set out of these stanzas the possible ways of taking them, dividing the interpretations into two main classes, according to he in line 3. the sense attached to the word
but the
first

stanza

'

'

This (B) a

may mean either man on earth.

in
line
3
I.

(A)

'

the

happy

dead,' or

A. 'He'
line

is

'the

happy dead' of
line
2,

Ignoring
'

for

the

moment

we

meaning according to this view as The dead man, in his new life, forgets follows the days before God shut him off from further
state the
:

may

experience through the senses,

his

i.e.

the years before

this,

death (stanza

1 ).

Yet, in spite of

perhaps
life

there

may come
And,
if

to

him

in

his

new
it

an

occasional intimation of those earthly days (stanza

2).

this

happens, perhaps
possibility,

may happen
third stanzas
is

to thee (stanza
refer to the

3).'

The second and

which

same
st.

regarded

generally in

2,

and
st.

in
3.

particular

reference to

the poet's friend in

XLIV.

Commentary

127

How now is line 2 to be construed? In (a) As referring to a man one of two ways. Here on earth a man grows conon earth. tinuously, remembering at each step the steps already taken but the dead man forgets the time before his death.' This interpretation seems
'
;

to

me

almost impossible.

Surely
of line

it

is

practi-

cally certain that 'the

man'

2,

and 'he'

of line

3,

are one

were

not,
'

and the same man. If they Tennyson would at any rate have
construe thus
'

italicised
(b)

he.'
:

It is just possible to

Here

on the earth we imagine the happy dead to be growing continuously (and remembering his earthly life) but in fact he has forgotten it.' The man and he are here the same person, and the contrast is between our imagination and the fact about him. But this interpretation also seems to me in the highest degree improbable.
' '

'

'

View A,
line
3
is

then,

according

to

which
first

'he'

in

the dead man, appears to admit of no

plausible interpretation

of the
Its

therefore

must be
us

rejected. 1

stanza, and one attraction is

that

it
l

allows

to construe the

extraordinary
'

phrase

God

shut the doorways of his head

in

the easiest way.

doorways will be the organs of sense, through which impressions from without may be imagined entering and reporting themselves to the soul death shuts them, and so

These

'

'

Surely, also, lines 3

and 4 read

like the statement of

known

fact,

not like the expression of a mere guess.

i28

In

Memoriam

SECTION

excludes the soul from any further experience of

earthly objects.
B.
*

The man
viz.,

'

of line

2,

and

'

he

'

of line

3,

are

the same,
is

the

man on earth. The same man and stanza 2

a
;

'he' of line 7 refers to ex-

perience in the earthly

to experience in a life

life,

beyond death.
:

while stanza 3 refers The general

'

In order to be as follows guess at the experience of the happy dead let us He observe what happens to a man on earth. forgets what happened to him in " the days before
interpretation
will

God

shut the doorways of his head," and yet at times has strange feelings which, although he does not know it, are due to the experience of those
In like manner,
life,

days.

if

death brings forgetful-

ness of the earthly

earthly experience.'

the

happy dead may yet

really

have strange feelings which are

due to the

What now
days
Is
life
'

are 'the days before,'

?

etc.,

and 'the

of stanza 2

Several views are possible.

or
to both

Tennyson
(a)
I

referring (a) to infancy, or (&) to a

life,

before the earthly

will
it.

(c)

first

give
3

my own
and 4

view and some

reasons for

Lines

refer to the

months

of infancy
1

before the closing of the sutures of the

months of
But
I see

[There would be no objection in principle to including the life in the womb, and in the Epilogue (123 ff.) Tennysoul-life to

son imagines the

begin at the

moment

of conception.

no sign that in xliv. and XLV. he thought of any time except that between birth (cf. XL v. 1, 16) and the emergence of self-consciousness and clear memory,' roughly dated at the closing
'

of the sutures.]

XLIV.

Commentary
a change
in
I

129

skull,

which generally takes place at

some time
(here
I

the second year after birth (this

interpretation

owe
:

to

Gatty).

The argument
with

am

in

disagreement

Gatty)
forgets

will

As a be as follows experience of his infancy, yet

then

man
in

the

mature life has strange feelings really due to it, so the dead man in his second life may forget his first, and yet be obscurely reminded of it. There is, on this view, no allusion in the whole section to pre-existence,' i.e. an individual life prior to the earthly life. In favour of this view these reasons may be
'

given
(1)

with

it,

There and
In
to

is

nothing in the section inconsistent nothing which it fails to explain

naturally.

(2)

The

Two

Voices

reference

is

again

made
(the

the fact of our forgetting our infancy

fact

being there used

in

an argument for

pre-existence)
if thro' lower lives I came, might forget my weaker lot For is not our first year forgot ? The haunts of memory echo not.
I

Or

(3)

In The

Ring two

lovers are described as

far,

dead so long, gone up so

That now

their ever-rising life has dwarf'd

Or lost the moment of their past on earth, As we forget our wail at being born.
(4)

In the

Memoir

(11.

382) Lord Tennyson

tells

us

'

my

father enjoyed the tree for the cottagers'

130

In

Memoriam

SECTION

children,
"

saying to my wife about her baby Perhaps your babe will remember all these lights and this splendour in future days as if it were a This is exactly the memory of another life."
'

idea of the present section turned round.

(5)

As

to the
fact,

anatomical
periphrasis,

'doorways/ the reference to an and the use of an elaborate

both
highly
characteristic

are

of

Tennyson, and could easily be

(J?)

paralleled.

It is

possible,

though
be

have not met with

the view, to take lines 2-8 to refer to pre-existence.

The argument

will

grows, but forgets the

life

that preceded this

Here on earth a man and

;

yet at times he has experiences which are really

reminiscences
follows his
it

of

it

and

so,

in

the

life

that

earthly one, he

may have
which
i.e.

forgotten
are
really

and

yet

have
it.

experiences
'

reminiscences of

The days
first
life,

before,' etc., will

be the days before his

as

death,
in

the death

that closed his pre-earthly

on

earth,

body

as well as soul,
in
it.

which he was, and had a head

with sense-organs

In favour of this view

idea of pre-existence
son,
is

it

may

be said that the

Voices^

not infrequent in Tenny-

and

is

prominent

in

The Two

poem

written not long after Hallam's death.

in that
'

Further,
there
are

poem
be
'

(see the thirteen stanzas beginning

It

may

that

no

life

is

found

')

striking allusions to the

here, of

mystic hints

'

phenomenon, mentioned and touches,' considered

'

there

as

due

to

the

forgotten

experience of a

XLIV.

Commentary
life.

131

These again would be equivalent Ode, which Perhaps also might have suggested this poem. doorways 1 is no the interpretation of the stranger than Gatty's, while the fact that Tennyson allowed Gatty's interpretation to pass, though
previous
to the

intimations of Wordsworth's

'

he corrected several of his other interpretations, little, since he passed many more which are unquestionably wrong. 2 On the other hand, if Tennyson were alluding to pre-existence here, we should certainly expect him to allude to it elsewhere in In Memoriam, and especially in the neighbouring sections. But
goes for

we do

not find these allusions, and

section

we do

find

that in the very next he assumes that individual life, and the the earthly life is the first earthly death the second birth, not the third or any larger number. and also Cf. too LXI. 1 and 1 o Epilogue, 123 f., where there is no hint of preexistence. These facts form a very strong objection to view {U). Further (though I would not press this point if it stood alone), the hoarding sense (6) presents a difficulty, as, on this view, it would imply that the soul has senses in the interval between two embodiments. Finally, the poet seems in this section to be appealing to
: ' '

[Those who so interpret

VI.
:

doorways

'

might appeal

to a line in

The Princess,

Or own one
2

port of sense not

flint to

prayer.]

[Still, if

he had not meant the sutures, surely Gatty's interpretastartled him,

tion

would have

even supposing he had forgotten what

he had meant.]

132

In

Memoriam
fact
;

SECTION

the

analogy of some indubitable

and he
aright),

never speaks of pre-existence as such a

(c)

fact.
it

The

third view (if

understand

like (), takes stanza 2 to refer to pre-existence,

but, like

(<z),

understands by 'the days before/

life.

etc.,

the infancy of the earthly

interpretation
I

find in
: '

Gatty

paraphrases

This is the only the commentators. Thus Here man continuously

.
. .

grows, but he forgets what happened

the skull of the infant closed.
little

before

Yet sometimes a
:

flash,

a mystic hint, suggests the possibility

existence.'

of a

previous

And Genung

'

Our

forgetfulness of infancy
1

and pre-existence

....

suggests a similar relation of the heavenly state to

the earthly.'

seems to me almost imopen to the objections already urged against view (b\ and in addition it makes the days of line 3 and the days of line 5 two distinct and separate periods, the first being the early months of earthly life, the second being a pre-earthly existence. This is surely a desperate expedient. I should say that two things at any rate are well-nigh certain about this passage one, that 'the man' (2) and 'he' (3) are the same
This
interpretation
It
is

possible.

'

'

'

'

1
'

So apparently Beeching
so, as

(in

independence of his predecessors)

here as

May

not the dead forget the

Even

recollection of earth

we seem to may penetrate

babyhood ? have hints of a pre-natal life, some dim

life

we

forget our

into the

life

beyond.
'

'

suppose

Genung and Beeching understand

but they do not say.
correct. ]

the

'

doorways
thinks

as Gatty does,
interpretation

[Mr. Beeching

now

my

xliv.

Commentary
other, that
'

133

man; the
It
is

the days

'

(3)

and

'the days'

(5) are the

same

days.

possible, however, to take a

view resemits

bling this in
defect.

some

respects but free from

fatal
'

We may

boldly say that

'

the days
of,

of

line 3 are not distinct from,

in

but a part

and so
5.

a sense identical with, the 'days' of line

is,

Infancy, that

is

a part of pre-existence, not of

earthly existence.

Until the soul

life

is

self-conscious

on earth
the baby

its

earthly

in the

proper sense has

not begun.
is

For

in

the next section

first

we

learn that

not at

'

separate mind,' and

therefore has no 'clear

individuality
tion
;

memory': he only acquires and self-consciousness through isolaand his isolation grows defined by the
'

frame that binds him in.' The closing of the then will be merely the most striking example of this binding in.' And the life of the baby up to this point will belong to a pre-existent life, and hence will be no more remembered than
sutures
'

that other part of the pre-existent

life
is

in

which

the soul was not connected (as

it

in

a baby)

with an earthly body.

The

relations,

pre-existence

are

however, of these two parts of troublesome. (1) Are we to

suppose that the soul, before it was a human baby, lived a conscious life, in connection with a body, which body then suffered death ? This is the obvious idea. But if so, there is such a marked separation between the two parts of the pre-existence that the days of lines 3 and 5
'

'

134

In

Memoriam
;

section

could hardly be spoken of as one period

the fatal defect of view the soul, before
in
1

and so

(c)

reappears.

(2)

Or was

became a baby, what is called naked essence,' which a floated free from any body ? If so, and if it had any experience to remember (as ex hyp. it must have, though scarcely an experience of sense '), it was already a separate mind,' and could not need a 'frame' to make it one. (3) Or was the soul in its previous state merged in, or undifferentiated
it

The

Two
'

Voices

'

'

'

from,
or

'

the general

soul,'

which particularises
?

itself

into an individual soul

by connection with a frame

It

body

(cf.

XLVII. with XLV.)

is

appears to

me

quite likely that this

how Tennyson imagined

the matter

but then this is not what is generally meant by pre-existence, nor what Tennyson means by it in The Two Voices, nor, I presume, what the commentators mean nor would there then be any
; ;

analogy, such as ought to be implied, between the

earthly man's forgetfulness of his previous existence,

and the dead

reader will

man's

forgetfulness

of his

earthly existence.

The

remember

that, besides all this,

the objections already brought against view {b) are

equally valid against this modified form of view

(V).

I have suggested this modified view mainly in order to bring out the connection between the thought

of section XLV. and the meaning, as I understand it, of XLIV. 3-6, for I do not believe that there is

any reference I will end

in the section to pre-existence.

this

discussion

with a paraphrase

XLIV.

Commentary
meaning of the
section.

135

intended, unlike the opening paraphrase, to give

Perhaps at death the soul does not fall asleep, but begins at And perhaps in that once a new conscious life. But life it has no remembrance of its earthly life. as on earth the grown man, who has forgotten the experience of his infancy, may yet at times receive obscure intimations of it, so the soul in its next
the
full
'

life,

even

if it

receive

dim

hints of them.

has forgotten earthly things, may If such a hint should

reach my friend, let it be to him the germ from which a complete recollection may arise.'
1.

'happy' does not suggest that the dead are 'perchance

too

happy

to think

upon the things of Time.'

It

excludes the

idea of sleep (XLIII.), and consideration of the

2.

unhappy dead.

'the world
4.
'

'more and more': cf. cxviii. 17, and Locksley Hall, is more and more' (Robinson).
doorways.'

Whether
it

this refers to the

organs of sense,

remains a very strange expression. The image of the body as a house is familiar, and Tennyson often uses it (e.g., in The Deserted House, The Lover's Tale,
or to the sutures,

Ay Inter's Field)
may be thought

nor
of as

is

there anything very

sits.

odd

in the idea

of the head as a house in which the soul

Then

the eyes

windows

eyelids as eaves (lxvii. ii).

reading a book on the skull, words like arches,' walls,' imagine the closing of the sutures as the shutting of foldingdoors. 1 But a doorway is a passage by which entrances, or
'
'

and the Tennyson had been in which he constantly met with roof,' he might easily go on to
(as often in poetry),
if

And

'

add

this sentence

L. C. Miall that
familiar to

because of a suggestion made to me by Prof. Tennyson was influenced by the word arches,' anatomists in the forties in consequence of Owen's use
'

of

it.

Prof. Miall

hence understood

'

the days,' etc., to

mean 'the

days before the arches of his skull were closed.

136
exits, or both,

In
are made.

Memoriam
Perhaps then,
if

SECTIONS
the doorways are
the general soul
later,
*

the sutures,

we

are to imagine that at

first

goes freely in and out by these doorways, while

they are shut, some part of
mind.'
it,

when

left inside,

is

the

separate
xlvii.,

Section XLV., stanza

1

3,

when compared with

(where notice 'emerging'), would seem to point to some such image. Or again, the baby-soul may be pictured I cannot help suspecting as at first going freely in and out.
stanza
that

Tennyson was influenced by ideas about the

world-soul,

derived perhaps from Stoic or Neoplatonic writers (Hallam

certainly read the latter).

This discussion has run to such

will

monstrous lengths that

I

not pursue the suggestion, but

cherish the hope that the riddle of this phrase and of the

whole section will some day be solved by the discovery of a Greek equivalent of doorways of his head.' The phrase has all the air of a reminiscence, but I have searched for its
'

origin in vain.
[Prof.
J.

A. Stewart has called

my attention

to a significant

story told in Plutarch's

De

Genio Socratis,

22,

about a

man

who entered the cave of Trophonius. His soul left his body, saw many wonderful things, and returned to it again. It left
and returned through the sutures, the opening and closing of which caused severe pain. It is just possible that the metaphor of door was suggested by Aristotle's use of Bupadev in a famous sentence, de gen. an., 736 b 28.]
' '

10.

If at death a similar forgetfulness occurs.

:

Cf.

Two

Voices

As

old mythologies relate,

Some draught of Lethe might await The slipping through from state to state.
12.

'ranging'

cf.

XCIII.

9.

14. The image is that of a man startled by some slight sound behind him or by a touch on the shoulder. If the With friend turns, he will see the poet's guardian angel.

'resolve the doubt,'

cf.

lxviii. 12.

xliv., xlv.

Commentary
XLV.

137

An
1

objection
all

to

the

supposition

of

XLIV.

After

we can hardly suppose

life

that the soul

life.

in

the next
it

has forgotten this

the

For

in

that case

would not recognise

process

itself,

but would
indiit

have

to

repeat

of acquiring

viduality and self-consciousness through which

went

here.

And
its

in that case the purpose, or

one

embodiment here would be frusbody was to form a self-conscious individual capable of clear memory. Hence the soul after death remembers itself, and
purpose, of
;

trated

for the use of the

therefore

its past on earth. And so my friend can remember me.' Probably it was the mention of infancy in XLIV. that set the poet thinking on the gradual formation of self-consciousness and memory. The difficulty of the section is due to his describing

this process

without indicating the bearing of the

description until the last stanza,

In this poem, as in others

his
life,

down

to the

end of

Tennyson seems

to imagine the soul as

issuing from 'the general Soul' or 'the Infinite'

or 'God,' as 'drawing from out the deep' {Crossing

the Bar,

from out the vast its being into bounds (ib.). The bounds are due to the connection with matter,' the body,' blood and breath,' the frame"'" and through it the soul
Profundis), or
'

De
:

(In

Mem.

Epilogue, 123), and 'striking

' ' ' '
'

'

'

gradually becomes 'a separate mind,' self-conscious,

capable of memory, for

memory

deals

'

but with

138

In

Memoriam
matter'

SECTIONS
Voices).

time,

And he
12.
other
5 '
:

with

[Two

Cf.

on CXX.
8. 9.
'

And

'rounds.
is

It

and am other. seems impossible

to

make
5

sure what

metaphor
whole
5

intended.

The

reverse process seems to be

5

2, as 'moving his rounds, for 'separate must correspond to 'separate mind. (1) 'Rounds becomes round, becomes an orb, he, then, may mean perhaps with the additional idea of detachment from the remaining nebular mass in which case 'move his rounds would mean 'allow his circular form to disappear, as he in XXIV. 15, and lapses back into the nebula. Cf. 'orb round in Eleanore

described in xlvii.
5

'

'

As tho a
5

star, in

inmost heaven
it,

set,

Ev n
5

while

we gaze on

Should slowly round

his orb,

and slowly grow

To

a
5

full face,

there like a sun remain

Fix d

then as slowly fade again,

itself to

And draw
and The Princess,

what

it

was before

II.,

On
The
(2)

the lecture slate

circle

rounded under female hands.

'

rounds moving round merely to movement in an orbit he gradually becomes a separate whole, and 'should, as he

Or, both in the present passage and in xlvii.,

refer
:

may

'

moves round,
is

fuse

all

the skirts, etc.

Cf. lxiii. 11.

also used of movement, not change of shape, in

:

'Round Mariana
5

in the South

And
Cf.
'

slowly rounded to the east

the wall.

The one black shadow from

'

orbit of the
.

we

Court.

memory, in The Gardener's Daughter, and rounded by the stillness of the beach, in Audley And Milton often uses the substantive and the verb
5 5 .

thus

e.g.

Par. Lost,

IV.

685, 862;

vm.

125.

But

(3) the

xlv., xlvi.

Commentary
'

139

word need not have the same meaning in the two passages. 'Rounds he' may = becomes round,' and 'move his rounds'

may = move
'

round.'

And

suspect this

is

the right inter-

pretation, though,

if so, it is

strange that Tennyson, in writing

the second passage, should not have noticed the difficulty he

was causing.
11.
13.

Cf. Cf.

XLIV.

4.

'frame'
IV.
ii.

used as in Epilogue,

II.

King John,
and
breath.'

246, 'This

kingdom,

this confine

of blood
14.

There seems

to
in

be a mixture of two constructions

'

blood and breath, which otherwise (but for this use) would not bear their due fruit,' and This
'This use
lie

may
in

use

may
due

lie

their

fruit

blood and breath, which would not bear (would be useless) if man had to learn him-

self anew.'

XLVI.
*

Here on earth our memory

is

imperfect, be-

cause the interest of the present and future overAnd this must be so, because shadows the past.
otherwise our life would be absorbed in the past, and we should not advance. But in the next life
this

reason for the imperfectness of

memory

will

not exist.

The

past from birth to death will be

seen clearly, and the five years of friendship will

Nay, let the whole of be seen as its richest field. life, not only those five years, appear as the realm
of Love/
I

have paraphrased the section, but

am

un-

certain

of the meaning of the last two stanzas.

The

sections of this group are otherwise so closely connected that we expect to find here something bearing on the question of memory in the next

Ho
life,

In

Memoriam
And

SECTION

considered as a necessary condition

to find this.

of the

poet's reunion with his friend.

in the first

two stanzas we seem

XLV.
has

The

poet in

persuaded himself that the dead remember. Now the thought seems to occur to him that here on earth, though we remember the past, our memory is very imperfect, and that accordingly the memory of the dead also may be imperfect from which it would follow that his friend after all may not remember him. To this he answers that there is a good reason why memory on earth should be dim and broken, and that this reason does not hold of the next
;

But the shall in line 7, and still more the next two stanzas, show that he is not thinking of his friend's present state, but of some future time when in another life someone will look back on the earthly life and the five years of friendship. And it is not clear who this someone is himself, or his friend, or both of them and still less clear is the meaning of the last stanza, which appears to correct something said in stanza 3
life.
'
'

(see the paraphrase above).

commentators, Genung lifetime which Arthur remembers

Of

the

says

'
:

The

may
its

perhaps
richest
this

show those

five

years of friendship as
all

period, lending radiance to

the

rest.'

But

interpretation seems impossible, not only for the

to

reason given above, but also (1) because, according it, Arthur is asked, in stanza 4, to regard in the
light of Love, not only the five years of friendship

xlvi.

Commentary

141

which terminated his short life, but the preceding years in which he did not know the poet at all and (2) because on this view stanza 3 is the description of a life ended in youth, and it certainly does not read like this. Miss Chapman thinks that the poet is speaking of himself
;

throughout.

Her paraphrase runs thus

life

'

He

prays that his love for his lost friend

with him to the very end of
or his
life's

work could not be done but still ever in his heart. So that, looking back upon this life from out the clearness and the calm of the other,
it

not

may

dwell

sorrowfully,

not
all

may

appear

all

tinged with roseate hues of love

the five rich years of friendship only.'

Here the first stanza is certainly misinterpreted, and so the connection with the group is lost but
;

otherwise the paraphrase appears to give the least

improbable sense.

suppose Tennyson inserted

the section here because the opening argument

about memory deals with the question whether the dead can remember their earthly life, and in spite of the fact that the argument is then applied to his own case, not Hallam's, and ends in an exhortation to himself regarding his present
life.

less

probable idea
is

is

that in the last three

stanzas the poet

thinking of the time when he

'

will rejoin his friend, and they will together look back on the past. This would explain the future shall,' and would provide a connection with XLVII. (see especially lines 8-10), the thought of re-

i42

In
in

Memoriam
'

SECTIONS

union

XLVI. suggesting the idea,

But perhaps

after all the soul

loses its individuality at death.'

Stanza 4 might then be taken somewhat as Miss

Chapman
show Love
1

takes

it

'
:

let

me
by

see that,

when we
life

look back on our

itself
'

lives,

the whole of

my
or

shall

irradiated

Love

'

possibly

might be the loving memory of the two friends, looking back not only to the five years, (Either inbut to the whole of the poet's life. terpretation would suggest that the dead friend cf. last is now aware of his friend's life on earth
:

stanza of XLIV.).

[Robinson takes the person contemplating to be life contemplated to The last stanza would then mean be the poet's. when he comes to look back on my completed life, may the whole of it appear irradiated by my and this wish might suggest the love for him thought, But, when that time comes, we shall look back together,' and so lead to XLVII. I had considered this interpretation, but had rejected it
the departed friend, but the
:
'

'

'

as too improbable.
It

has been suggested to

is

me

that the

main

contrast in the last stanza

not really between

life,

the five years and

the whole
recollection

but between
life

memory and
will

present love.

In the next

there

be not only the

of the love that

enriched a part of the past, but also a present

feeling of love which will colour the view of the

whole

past.
;
'

The
the

first

three stanzas say,

'

we

shall

remember

last

adds,

'

we

shall

love one

xlvl, xlvii.

Commentary
If this

143

another

too.'

interpretation

is

correct,

should suppose the poet was thinking both of It connects the section himself and of his friend.
well with
its

successor,

and

it

also leads

back to

the idea of XLIL, last stanza, and XLIIL, last stanza

an
his
2.
3.

idea from which the poet

'

question,
life ?
']

was diverted by But do the dead remember the

earthly

See Introduction, p. 7. Cf. one of Tennyson's earliest poems, Memory,

Brothers
:

in

Poems

by

Two

Days

of youth,

now shaded

By
'

twilight of long years.

:

growing hour

'

occurs also in Love thou thy land.

life

foil.

Here, and in the next section, the second

seems to be thought of as simply a time of rest and fruition. This is not usual with Tennyson, but is necessary to the argument of this unfortunate section. from birth to death. Cf. 16. 7. 'from marge to marge' It 13, 14. The 'bounded field' must be the 'field' of 12. has been suggested that O Love is an address to the dead friend but this does not seem to be in keeping with the tone of In Memoriam, even in its most emotional passages, such as cxxix.
:

'

'

XLVII.

'

vast

This section, which closes the group, rejects the but vague idea that after death the soul
' ' '

will

remerged in the general Soul.' The soul always retain its individuality, and the friends will know one another and be together for ever.
is
'

Or
it

if

not

this,

yet the least that Love, as

on

earth,

demands

is

that,

before

we know we lose
'

i44

In
light,'

Memoriam
we should meet again
is

SECTIONS
to say

ourselves in
farewell.

Here the appeal

(cf.

to

the

demand

of Love

XLVI. 13-16).
is

tion
I.

taken in
:

ground of objecthe words recorded in the Memoir,

different
let

319

'If the absorption into the divine in the

after-life

be the creed of some,

them

at

all

events allow us

many

existences of individuality

before this absorption, since this short-lived individuality seems to be but too short a preparation
for so

'vaster

mighty a union.' With the dream (11). See p. 53.

'

last

words

cf.

The
Alice,

lines in the Dedicatory

Poem

to the

Princess

if

what we
not

call

The

spirit flash

all at

once from out

This shadow into Substance,

seem

at first to refer to this

'

absorption into the

rather that, for a
retain traces of its

divine,'

but

think the idea

is

time after death, the soul

earthly
existence,

may
it

where

was surrounded by
it-

shadows or appearances, but that later

these traces

loses

and becomes wholly

real

or

sub-

stantial, without, however, losing its individuality. This notion of a gradual separation from earthly
life

appears elsewhere

in

Tennyson,

e.g.

in

The

Ring.
* Again and remerging imply the 2-4. See on XLV. 9. emergence from the general Soul described in XLV. last and sharpest height corresponds to the last 1 3. The
'

'

'

'

'

of the

'

many

existences of individuality.'
'

Cf.

'

From

state

to state the spirit walks

(lxxxii.

6),

and xxx.

27, 28.

The

xlvil, xlviii.

Commentary
is
'

145

metaphor here
suit
it.

that of the topmost peak of a mountain

surrounded with sunlight.

Landing-place

'

seems not

to

SECTIONS XLVIII.-XLIX.

He breaks off and warns the reader neither to take his songs for a serious discussion of problems,
deeper
nor to blame them for their fancifulness. thought and deepest sorrow are
is

His
silent.

There

a special
in it

reference
'

to
'

the

concluded, and the

doubts,'

hopes,'

group just and fears

' '

expressed
the
'

For the contrast of the deeper

lighter moods,'
cf.

silent grief

and
XXL,

XIX., XX.

for earlier secv.,

tions

dealing with his

poems,

cf.

VIII.,

XXXVIL, XXXVIII.
XLVIII.
2.
'

closed

'

'

concluded, disposed

of,'

or perhaps

'

en-

closed, contained,' as in

The Princess, Conclusion,

such, as closed

few words and pithy,

Welcome,

farewell,

and welcome

for the year

To

follow.

In either case the poet implies that the doubts of the foregoing sections

and answers
Cf.
7,

make no

claim to be proposed and

discussed with the seriousness of philosophy.

and

xlix.
5.
'

13.

part
Cf.

'

analyse.

7-9.
8.

cxxv.
XLIII.,
'

As

in XLII.,

XLVI., XLVII. (Eve).

love, to

Cf.

Shake-

speare, Sonnet 26,

Lord of ray

whom

in vassalage

(Beeching).

146
10.

In

Memonam
to be, not: 'does better
:

SECTIONS
still
'

The meaning seems

when,

wholesome law, she holds it,' etc., but is more true to a wholesome law when she refrains from drawing the deepest measure from the chords than she would be if she Mr. Ferrall suggests another interpretation did draw it.' True, Sorrow merely sports with words, but in doing so she at the same time serves a better purpose and observes a wholesome law and if she trifles, it is because she holds it,' etc., the use of better being somewhat like Milton's in last
following a
:

'

'

'

'

in the train of night, If better

thou belong not to the dawn,'

Par. Lost,
16.
'

v. 167.
'
:

tears

this suggests the

metaphor of the next

section,

with which

cf.

XVI.

ff.

XLIX.
1.
'

the schools
lightest
' :

'

of theology and philosophy.

5.

'

the poet did not notice that he

had used
IV. 237,

'light' in 3.
8.
'
'

crisp

' :

'

curl,'

'

ripple,'

a verb.

Cf.

Par. Lost,

the crisped brooks.'

e.g.

The word

occurs often in Tennyson's

crisping ripples

early poems,

'To watch the

on the

beach' {Lotos-Eaters).
9.

He

addresses the traveller, as in xxi.

:

16.

'bases'

the metaphor seems to be changed.

SECTIONS
certain characteristics. (1)

L.-LVI.
by-

These seven poems are united into a group

They

start from,

and

return to (lvi. 26), the poet's desire for present

communion with
scarcely appeared
subject, however,

his

friend,

a desire which has

(2)

up
is

to this point.

not this present

The main communion

xlviii.-l.

Commentary

147

but the pain, defect, and evil in the world, and the doubts which they cast upon the faith that Love is Creation's final law and that man is not
'
'

made

to die.

The problem

is

first

suggested by
defect,
is

the poet's consciousness of his

own

then

rapidly generalised (LIV.), and finally concentrates

itself LVI.).

again on the question of immortality (LV.,

(3) Naturally,
'

some of these poems

wild
'

are

(lvil, 4) than those of the preceding group, so that the apology of

XLVIII., XLIX.,

more passionate and

would be inappropriate

in reference

to them.

Some
the

of the opening sections of

Maud express
concentration,
Cf.
:

dramatically,

but with

much

less

mood
'Tis

described in this famous section.

1

also with stanza

life,

the lines in The

Two

Voices

whereof our nerves are scant, we pant More life, and fuller, that I want.

Oh
10.

life,

not death, for which

The summer-fly
'

of Shakespeare

and Milton {Samson,

676).
11. sting and sing.' The contemptuous rhyme is perhaps an unconscious reminiscence of Pope's couplet {Epistle to Dr. Arbutknot, 309)
:

Yet let me flap this bug with gilded wings, This painted child of dirt, that stinks and stings.
14.

'point the term'

Cf.

point to the limit.

15, 16.

xcv. 63, 64.

148

In

Memoriam
LI.

SECTIONS

Though he shares that baseness of men which sometimes almost destroys his faith (L., st. 3), he The still wishes his friend to be near him always.
1

dead,

who
'

see

all,

can

make allowance
p.

for

all.'

On

the date of composition, see

10.

16.

Shall

who

love

him be
'

guilty of a
'

want of
'

faith that

would incur his blame ? not, I think, He will not blame a nor, Shall I ascribe want of faith which arises from love to one who loves me a blameable want of faith ? nor, Shall I, owing to my want of faith, find something blameworthy in one who loves me?' The obscurity is due partly to the fact that 'love' recalls 'love' in 8, while 'blamed' recalls
'

'

'

'

blame

'

in 6.

LII.
*

His own imperfection, even the imperfection

faith.

of his love, must not weaken his

No

ideal

can keep its worshipper wholly true to it, yet his These will worship remains in spite of defects. drop away one day good is the final goal of ill.'
:

1-5.

The
'

first

lines

seem

at first to refer

merely to his

It cannot be that I truly love thee, for if I did, my poems. words would give a true image of thee instead of being mere words,' those records of superficial moods which he has so often declared them to be (the metaphor in 2 may be due to

the image in xlix.).

But probably the meaning of lines 1 If I truly loved thee I should be and 2 is more general more like thee, not so full of imperfection (see Li.) and this suggests his poems, the most obvious instance of his
:

'

'

failing to
4.

'

reflect the

thing beloved.'
1.

Collins quotes Persius, Sat.

104,

'

Summa delumbe
3, 4.

saliva

Hoc

natat in labris'

cf.

note on

xvm.

li.-liii.

Commentary
:

149

n.
16.

'not,' etc.

not even the record of the highest ideal.

and 'pearl': not 'flesh' and 'soul' (Gatty), but the worthless and the precious in him.
'shell'

LIII.
'

Perhaps

evil

is

even sometimes the way to

good, though this doctrine

rather than good.'
'

may

easily lead to evil

For the sake of the connection I have emphasised the doctrine,' but what the poem emphasises is the danger of it. Perhaps the section was suggested by the metaphor of the No shell, no last line of LIL, and the reflection, pearl.' Cf. Love and Duty
'

Shall Error in the round of

Still

Time
itself

father Truth

shall the braggart shout

For some blind glimpse of freedom work

Thro' madness, hated by the wise, to law

System and empire

The cloudy porch

oft

Sin itself be found opening on the Sun?

y

and Measure for Measure Robinson)

:

V.

i.

444

f.

(quoted by

say, best men are moulded out of faults, And, for the most, become much more the better For being a little bad.

They

5.

'fancy':
'give'
:

first

ed.

'doctrine.'
is
'

yield.
'
:

Tennyson
first

fond of this use of

'give.'

7.

'

scarce had

ed.

had

not.'

The

alteration

shows the poet's shrinking from the 'doctrine.' For the metaphor cf. 2 Henry IV., IV. iv. 54 (of Prince Henry),

Most subject
9-12.

is

the fattest soil to weeds.

The

subjects

harm by the public mention of and ideas which (he considered) could only be
fear of doing

150
safely discussed
teristic of
'

In

Memonam

SECTIONS

by the few, was evidently a marked characTennyson. Or, if first ed. Oh, if (a late change). 9. Even if evil is sometimes the condition of good, that 13. does not lessen the difference between them. Hold to the good, and make its nature clear to yourself This warning has not saved the author from being represented as trusting that error and folly and sin and suffering are " good, only
:

'

'

'

misunderstood."
14.

Cf.

Comus, 476, 'divine philosophy,' and xxiii.

22.

LIV.
trust that good will be the final goal of and that in the end no life will prove to be wasted or destroyed. But we know nothing, we have but blind trust, or even less blind
'

We

all evil,

longing.'

He
1.

has been led on from his

all its

own

defects to

consider evil in

forms.
hesitate to accept the 'doctrine'

'Oh
'

yet': though

we

of LIU. (Ferrall).
3, 4.

pangs of
16
'

nature,'

cf. L. 5,

'

sins of will,'

cf. LI. 3,
:

4, LIII. 6,

defects of doubt,'
15 with L. 7-12.
Lll.
16.

cf. L.

and
is

LI. 9,

10

'taints

of blood,'
7.

cf. ill.

Like the 'shell' of

He

returning to the

problem of life beyond the grave (see LV.). 9-12. This stanza, in its connection with those that precede and follow it, implies a trust that in the end good shall fall but I know no sign elsewhere in to animals as well as men Tennyson's poems of an idea that animals may live again, or gain to them. in some other way find their pain and death
'
;

'

'

Cf.

note on LV. 20.

'but'
:

12. 13.

merely.

Cf. Prologue, 21.

liii.-lv.

Commentary
5

151

15.

'at last': at the 'far-off divine event

of the last lines

of In

Memoriam.

Cf Two
.

Voices

He seems And thro'

to

hear a Heavenly Friend,

thick veils to apprehend

A
18.

labour working to an end.

19.

Cf.

cxxiv.

20.

Not able even

to say

what

it is

he

cries for.

For the

LV.

This desire that no life should fail beyond the grave seems to be a divine instinct in us, for Nature appears so careless of individual life that
1

she lends
in

it

no support

nay, her testimony seems

so hostile that he can barely sustain a

dumb
to be

trust

the divine
all.'

Love which he

feels

Lord

of

On
7, 8.
'

the ideas of this section and the next see

ff.,

Introduction, pp. 55
s'occupe que de l'espece
14, 15.
16.

and Memoir,

I.

312

ff.

La nature s'embarrasse peu des

' :

individus, elle ne

Buffon.

Cf.

Sophocles, Antig. 853.

' :

'darkness

cf.

cxxiv.

23.

Cf.

and contrast Princess,

vii.

For she that out of Lethe scales with man

The
18.

shining steps of Nature.

dust and chaff':
in

'And gather
Voices
:

trying to reason,

Cf.

Two
'

'

a dust of systems and of creeds.'

19.

Cf. Prologue, stanza 2.

20.

the larger hope

'

'

he means by " the larger hope "

that the whole

suffering,

human

race would through, perhaps, ages of

be

at length purified

and

saved,'

Memoir,

1.

321.

Is this also the 'divine

event'?

152

In

Memoriam
lvi.

sections

Nature seems to care for the kind no more than the individual, to produce life and death with equal indifference, to set no value on the spiritual achievement and possibilities of man, and thereIf so, his fore to promise him only extinction. a hideous and futile self-contradiction. is life But there is no solution of this riddle for us on
'

earth.'

With the passionate distress of this section should be contrasted the tone of XXXIV., where the same subject was approached, but the confidence in immortality
i.

was undisturbed.
of the fossils of extinct species. as to expose the

2.

See lv. 7. Cliff and quarry are

1

full

scarped
spirit,'

'

cut

away

vertically so

strata.
7.
'

ff.

and all that it does and promises For the poet's own belief see cxvin.
12.

(10-18).

11.

'wintry' answers to 'fruitless' in

Cf. Liv. 16.

The

idea, as the next stanza shows, is that the apparent fruitless-

ness of his praises and prayers did not shake his 20. Like any other fossil.

faith.

21. 'No more?' refers back to line 8, the idea of which must be taken to include the consequences drawn from it in

stanzas 3-5.
'

monster,' etc.
extinction, his

If all that

we count

highest in

man

ends

in

nature

is

that of the monsters of

a dream.

such an incongruous combination as occurs in The 'dragon' of the first ages of the earth may seem horrible to us, but at least it was in harmony with The point is not that man, if doomed to extinction, itself. would be in discord with the rest of Nature, but that he
fiction, or

would be

in discord with himself.

The

conclusion here,

lvi., lvii.

Commentary
such a self-contradictory being
life,

153
is

also, is not that

impossible,

but that man's

if

we know it to be frail. eft of Maud, I. iv.

'

he were such, would be as futile as With the dragon cf. the monstrous
'

with

'

prime,'

The Princess,
of the

II.,

of

primitive man,
27.

'Raw from
cf.
'
:

the prime.'
Vision of Sin

'answer':
'

the conclusion

(Eve).
Cf.

Redress Prologue 12.

for the injustice of this futile existence.

28.
it

The general meaning

of this line

is

not doubtful, but

is

impossible to say what metaphor was in the poet's

mind.
veil,

He may

have thought of
cf.

'

the holy place within the

is

before the mercy-seat which

2,

xvi.

with which

Heb.

vi.

19, 20.

upon the ark,' Levit. But it seems more

'
:

ing the words,

section of

probable that he refers to the inscription at Sais containNo one has lifted my veil for cf. in the
'

Maud just
drift

quoted,

For the

of the

Maker

is

dark, an

sis

hid by the veil

12.

and

for the

image of a veiled statue

our mortal

cf.

ciii.

In

De

Profundis the words,

veil

And
seem

shatter'd

phantom

of that Infinite One,

to describe the world of space

and

time.

See also

note on liv. 15 for a quotation from The Two Voices. In any case the idea is that the veil can never be removed in
' '

this

life.

LVII.

close of a group, the poet pauses to consider what he has just said. The wildness of his songs, he feels, is a wrong

As

so

often

at

the

to

They will not perpetuate the of his friend, since they will soon be forgotten and they only sadden those who
the
grave.

memory

hear them.

He

calls

these

fellow-mourners to

54

In

Memoriam

SECTIONS

come away from

been singing. end of life he
his farewell.

the grave over which they have

He
will

will come too, but to the always be silently repeating

On
see

the position of this section in the elegy

printed

Introduction, pp. 28, 29. In the Memoir, I. 306, there

'

is

section called

The Grave (originally No.

LVII.),'

which begins
I

keep no more a lone distress, The crowd have come to see thy grave, Small thanks or credit shall I have, But these shall see it none the less.

of

This stanza helps to explain the second stanza the present poem, which was, I presume,

The Grave. between the style of the first two stanzas and that of the last two is very effective. The former has no exact parallel in In Memoriam, but there is an approach to it
substituted for

The

contrast

in

lxix., parts of xcvil, xxx., stanzas which contrast with 6, 7.

2.
4.

3,

4,

5,

Cf.

xxx vii.
5
:

13 (Robinson).

'wildly
'

cf.

Prologue, 41.
'
:

7, 8.

richly shrined

in these

poems.
but

'

Methinks
it

have

built

a rich shrine for

'fail'

my

friend,

will

not last'

(authoritative correction in Gatty, p. 62).

Cf.

LXXV., lxxvi.,
7,

lxxvii.

die away, as in

11.

15,

xxvm.
i.

xlvi.

4,

lxxxiv.
gf.

36.
1.

G. A. C. compares 2 Henry IV.,

102

Sounds ever

after as a sullen bell

Remember'd

tolling a departing friend.

lvii., lviii.

Commentary
:

155

14.

'

greetings 1
5

'Ave'

in

the next line

means 'greeting'
'Atque in perof which line

or 'hail.
15, 16.

Catullus, at his brother's

frater,

grave,
(c.

petuum,

ave
'

atque vale

'

10)

Tennyson

writes

nor can any modern elegy, so long as

men

retain the least

hope
II.

in the after-life of those

whom

they loved, equal in pathos the desolation of that everlasting farewell' (Memoir,
239).

With the

thrice-repeated

Aen. VI. 506, 'et magna manes ter voce vocavi.' 'For evermore' in 16 does not go with 'Adieu,' as Gatty

Ave

cf.

supposes, but with 'said.'

The

inverted

commas, and the

Contrast with

context from 9 onward, make this certain. these lines CXXIII. 11, 12.

LVIII.
'

No, he

will

not

leave

the

grave with this

brings
grief

hopeless
others.
leave.'

farewell,

Some
distress

which only day he will

to

take

nobler

The

of the sections

preceding LVII.

was continued in the deep sadness of that section. On the change in the tone of the poem from this
point, see pp. 28, 29.
I.

'those sad words'

Cf.

the 'greetings' of the end of LVII.

:

3.

The Lover's Tale

While her words,

Fell.
6, 7.

syllable

by

syllable,

Like water, drop by drop, upon

my

ear

The fellow-mourners
' :

or by-standers of lvii.

'

Half-

conscious
9.

only half-conscious.
as

Possibly,

Robinson suggests, he thinks here of

1),

Urania (xxxvu.
II.

as of

Melpomene

in lvii. 2.

'here': by the grave.

156

In

Memoriam
LIX.
in

SECTIONS

This section was added

the fourth edition,

III.
'

185

1.

Cf. with

it

LXVI. and contrast

' '

attempts again to embrace (Robinson). his natural good

'

He

Sorrow

as

Cf.
III.

Richard II,

V.
;

i.

93,

and

King John,

iv.

34
:

(G. A. C.)

also Shelley's Misery, be-

ginning

Come, be happy, sit near me, Shadow-vested Misery,

Coy, unwilling, silent bride
;

and the Song

1, 5.

to

Sorrow
if

in

Endymion,

IV.

'Wilt thou':

thou

wilt.

6,7. 'be,' 'put,' are imperatives.

set thee forth

'Harsher moods':
6.

re-

peated, probably unconsciously, from XLViil.

13.
is
'
'
:

deck thee out (unless the metaphor

dropped).

SECTIONS LX.-LXV.
in

This group of quiet and beautiful poems recalls but some ways the earlier group XL.-XLVII. there the motive idea was that of future reunion, while here the poems deal with the present
;

relation of the friends

his friend should think of

and the poet's desire that him now. This desire and encouraged in the is alternately repressed it comes to rest for a time first five sections The mere connection of the poems in LXV. How may be shown in the following summary. can he think of one so far below him (lx.) ? Yet let him think of me for, inferior as I am,
; ' ;

L1X.-LXI.

Commentary

157

not the greatest of the dead can love him more (LXI.). Still, if thinking of me holds him back,

But why should it Perhaps he may remember me at long intervals and dimly perhaps not at all (LXIV.). Whether he remembers me or not, our love on earth may still help him as it The growth of resignation in helps me (LXV.).' the series is seen also in the difference between the kinds of affection spoken of in the similes of
let

him

forget

me

(LXII.).
?

hold him back

(LXIII.)

the earlier and the later sections.

The poems of this group are criticised by some readers on the ground that they are written
in

a tone of excessive and

criticism
is

The

unnatural humility. perhaps not totally unjustified,

but such readers seem to forget that the poet's friend is almost throughout imagined as he is second state sublime which the poet in that
'
'

conceives to be far superior to the earthly state

which he himself remains. Tennyson himself had to point this out in connection with XCVII.
in

LX.
1.

'nobler':

not 'nobler than mine,' but 'very noble'

This use of the comparative is a Latinism which was introduced by Spenser and other Elizabethans but has never become English.
(Beeching).

LXI.
1.

'state
II.,

Musz'c,

Robinson quotes Gray's Ode for a passage which evidently influenced Tennysublime':
cf.

son here.
2.

'ransom'd':

xxxvm.

10,

'spirits render'd free.'

158

In
The metaphor
in

Memoriam
is

SECTIONS
continued.

6.

of the flower (4)

xliii.
;

'

Charnot
ii.

acter^':

marked: see on
Shakespeare
barks

11.

The word

is

uncommon

e.g.,

these trees

As You Like It, III. shall be my books,

I'll

And
9.
'

in their
:

my
14.

thoughts

character.

doubtful'

see xliv.

Here there
first

is

the additional
stanza.

idea of darkness,
10.

coming from the preceding

Cf. pp. 51, 131.

See

1.

'Where thou wast

embodied, and that

intellects

in

human
12.

form.'

'Shakespeare': the greatest of devoted lover of a friend.

LXII.
1.

and the

See LXI.

5.

'Tho"

in effect

'

yet,'

which was used

that of losing

four lines above.

2.

'blench': flinch; 'fail': the idea

4.

is

the power to advance, as in xlvi.

.
3. 4.
'

Then

'

first ed.

'
:

So.'

Cf.

Faust, Zueignung:

Gleich einer alten, halbverklungnen Sage,

Kommt
5.

erste Lieb'
:

und Freundschaft mit

I.

herauf.

'declined'

cf.

Hamlet,

v.

50

To decline Upon a wretch whose natural gifts were poor To those of mine,
and Locksley Hall,
having known me, to decline a narrower heart than mine.

On a range of lower feelings and

LXIII.
10
ff.

The metaphor

is

that of a planet with a larger

may, but does not necessarily, imply that the soul of the dead is re-embodied on such For round,' see on XLV. 9 a planet or orb (xxx. 28).
orbit than the earth's.
It
'
'

'

lxi.-lxv.

Commentary
LXIV.

159

Said by an old friend of Tennyson's to have been composed while the author was walking down the Strand. In Memoriam contains greater more exquisitely poems, but none perhaps written. For the structure, see imagined and note on XIV.
10.
'

'golden keys' of State

office.

Cf. Shelley, Hellas,

Or bears the sword, or grasps the key of gold.' Perhaps Tennyson had just read Macaulay's vivid description of the Duke of Devonshire (Lord Chamberlain) tearing off
his gold

King.
1844.)

key on receiving an insulting message from the {The Earl of Chatham, Edinburgh Review, Oct.,

25 f. The pathetic effect is increased by the fact that in the two preceding stanzas we are not told that his old
friend does

remember him.

LXV.

Perhaps the first section of In Memoriam that can be described as cheerful or happy. The beauty of this happiness is the more felt because the reader expects the poet's doubts of being remembered to end in sadness. The point of
'
'

the section
said

is

frequently missed.
that
'

or implied

nowhere the two friends, though

It
is

separated, partake of the

brance.'
his

same hallowed remem-

On

the

contrary the poet, dismissing

troubled doubts about remembrance, finds comfort in the thoughts, Love cannot be lost/ and Since the effect of our friendship works so strongly in me, it may work also in him.'
'
'

i6o

In
'Sweet soul':
or forget me.
cf.

Memoriam
lvii. n.

sections

i.

'Do

with me':

remember
grain,'

me
4.

Not even a
'

little

grain shall be
cf.

spilt.

For

'

used

of his love for his friend,

5-7.

LXXXI.

painful phases
'

'

the painful doubt of being

butterfly

remem-

bered.
11.
*

Metaphor from
:

and

chrysalis

'

(Beeching).

influence on

a part of mine' the idea seems to be, 'Since your me remains so strong, perhaps some influence

of mine on you

may

remain.'

LXVI.

Addressed to a friend who wonders at the change in him. He is like a blind man, who kindly and pleased with trifles, though he is dwells in a world of his own where the night of vision and the day of thought never change.

The
LIX.
it

section

is

happily placed.
close of the

By

recalling

marks the
;

group which began

with LX.
prepares
is

while the picture of the blind

the
inner world

man
which

for

of dreams

about to open.

SECTIONS LXVII.-LXXI.
These
or phase
five sections

do not deal with one subject

to
night, sleep,

of feeling,

but they are doubtless placed

or
all

together because

they refer

dreams.
reflective,

They

are

descriptive
in

rather

than

LXVII. and

LXX. being,

their very

different ways,

among

the finest of the descriptive

All or nearly all sections of In Memoriam. show the softening of sorrow, and the growing

LXV.-LXVIII.

Commentary
beauty of the
past.

161

sense of the

Contrast

IV.

and

xiil.

LXVII.

See Introduction,
In
verses,

p. 3,

and sections xvin., xix.

there

Poems by Two Brothers

doubtfully
ascribed
to

are

some
the
;

A.

T.,

On

Moonlight shining upon a Friend's Grave and The Walk at Midnight and On passages in Sublimity are also worth comparing with this
section.
5.
'

bright in dark

'

cf.

Shakespeare, Son. 43,

5

'

And

darkly

bright are bright in dark directed

is

(Collins).

The moonlight

imagined coming through a narrow window. 11. 'eaves': the metaphor recurs in Clear-headed friend
('

and Tiresias
15.

the roofs of sight

'),

the

word

in

'

Her

eyelids

dropp'd their silken eaves,' The Talking Oak.

'dark church':
till

first

ed.

'chancel.'

'I myself did

not see Clevedon

Jan. 3rd, 1834,
I

years after the burial of A. H. H.,

and then in later editions of " In Memoriam" word " chancel," which was the word used by Mr. Hallam in his Memoir, to " dark church." (Tennyson in
altered the
'

Meinoir^
295).

I.

305).

The

tablet
is

is

'in the

The
'

inscription

given in the

manor aisle' (id. Memoir {ib. 296) and

poem, as dark
'

also in Gatty.

The

alteration improves the

5.

church

recalls the picture of line

LXVIII.
2.
5.

Homer
Cf.
'

calls sleep the

brother of death,

77.

xiv. 231.

'

In sleep she seem'd to walk forlorn,' Mariana.

'
:

6. 9.

path

cf.

xxn.
cf.

ff.

'turn about':

xliv.

14,

doubt' (12 of this section) occurs.

fusion
cf.

where also 'resolve the For the sense of con-

IV.

162

In

Memoriam
cf.

SECTIONS
vn.
p.

13.

For the early waking of grief

16.

15,

'my youth':

see

Introduction,

16.

For the

idea of the dreamer's feeling 'ideally transferred' to the

person dreamed of, cf. The Lover's Tale, graph beginning 'Alway.'

II.,

end of para-

LXIX.

to interpret the

expected but the main idea evidently is that the poet's acceptance of sorrow, which seems folly to the world, is approved by higher knowledge. If nowhere else,
It
is

not likely that the reader

details

is

of the dream

yet

in the crown of thorns itself, the winter which he thought eternal changes to spring (LIV. 16), and though he can hardly understand the words he hears (for they are in the language

of another world), the voice

of
1

is

'

not

the

voice

grief.'

For the crown,

crown'd
'

cf.

the metaphor in CXVIII. 18,

It
is
it

of woe Like glories.' does not seem likely that the crown of thorns the heritage of prophet and martyr,' or that

with

attributes

is

transformed into

'

a victor's crown
to
his

'

(Chap-

man).
his

There
:

is

a XXI.

reference

poems on

sorrow

cf.

For the short sentences

8.
'

cf.

note on LVII.

civic

crown
'

'

a sign of honour.

14.

Not simply
nor

'I

found an angel as

wandered
'

in the

night,'
'

such an angel as comes to us

in dreams,'

but

one of the angels of the night of sorrow,' the divine Thing in the gloom' (Tennyson's words to Mr. Knowles).
19,20. Cf. for the

message of comfort, 'hard

to under-

lxviii.-lxxi.

Commentary
its
'

163

stand,' the

second voice, with

Voices,

notice faintly understood,'

of The

Two

and the mysterious close of the Vision

of Sin.

LXX.
1
f.

Cf.

Browne, Rel. Med.

II.

'

Whom
'

we

truly love

like

our

own

selves,

we
p.

forget

their looks, nor

can our

memory
2.

retain the idea of their faces

7.

(G. A. C).

See Introduction,
'hollow':

4.
*

empty, void of substance:

cf.

III.

11,

12.

Masks': false appearances, as in xvm. 10. college and her maidens, empty masks,' Princess,
8.

Cf.

'Her

in.

Cf. TroXXds

5' 68oi>$

iXOovra (ppovrldos

ttXclixhs,

Soph. O.T. 67

(see Mrs. Shelley's note to

13.
:

Prometheus Unbound).
'

'beyond the will' As the striving ceases and see 2. sleep comes on, there appear first the masks then, when sleep is complete, the image he couid not picture. Cf. IV. 2.
'

LXXI.
2.
'

madness
'

suggested by the

'

masks

'

of LXX.

See the lines In the Valley of Cauteretz. The year was 1830. In the summer my father joined Arthur Hallam, and both started off for the Pyrenees, with money for the
4.

was who had and the tyranny of Ferdinand, King of Spain' {Memoir, 1. 51).
insurgent allies
of
Torrijos.
. . .

He

it

raised the standard of revolt

against the

Inquisition

Cf.
5.

1.

11.

'such credit'

such acceptance as to produce an illusion

so strong.

So bring an opiate treble-strong.' dream had been troubled like that of LXVIII. For sense of wrong cf. the last three stanzas of the next section, and LXXXII. 14.
6.
7.

First ed.

'

Even

this

'

'

164
First ed.
I

In
:

Memoriam
my

SECTIONS

8.

That thus

pleasure might be whole.'

15.

suppose, as they look up the torrent towards the

fall

bridge, the

under the bridge appears to

flash

from the

darker arch

itself.

Some

construe

'
:

the cataract flashing as

we watch

it
:

the noyades)

from the bridge.' But cf. Ay liner's Field (of naked marriages Flash from the bridge.'
'

LXXII.

The
(Sept.

first

anniversary^ of

his

friend's

death

15).
if

Contrast xcjix. )

The

effect of this

splendid,
in

somewhat

rhetorical, outburst of wrath,

which the day is pursued with invective through its monstrous life of criminal violence to its dull and shameful close, is enhanced by contrast with the calm of the fourteen preceding sections. The third stanza seems hardly in keeping with the tone of the poem.
white by turning up the under-side of the leaves. So of the willow and the olive in The Lady of Shalott (st. 2) and The Palace of Art (st. 20). Cf. Hamlet, iv. vii. 168. the word is repeated throughout the poem 5. 'Day':
3.
'
:

almost as
c

if it
'
:

were a term of reproach.

cf.

crown'd

xxn.
5
:

6.

16.
1

'Along the
yet look'd
'

hills
:

first ed.

<

From

hill to hill.'

and yet would'st have looked.

19, 20.

a blind or malicious Fate.

20,

For the moment he figures the world as ruled by Contrast lxxxv. Cf. perhaps 6. cxxiv. 23, 24.
'

27.

Alludes to the hour of noon

'

highest point

(C. E.

Benham).

when the sun reaches its With Gatty, I should take

'

the line with 28 as referring to sunset.

28.

Cf.

Shakespeare, Sonnet

33,

Stealing unseen to west

with this disgrace.'

lxxi.-lxxiii.

Commentary
SECTIONS LXXIII.-LXXVII.

165

The
passion

subject

of this

group

is

Fame.
perhaps

The
it

of LXXII. dies away, but

lost

is

the lingering sense of

wrong that turns the

poet's

thoughts to the fame

early death.

From

this

to his friend by an he passes to the shortness

of any fame which he could give to his friend

by

his verses.
Cf. Lycidas,

70

ff.

LXXIII.

He
lost

what

does not complain because the earth has his friend would have given it some
:

other world has gained by the

loss.

Nor does he
:

accuse nature because his friend has missed the fame the earth would have given him nature

obeys her law. Nor will he regret this loss of earthly fame it is a thing that dies, while the soul of the dead retains the force that would have earned it.
:

1-4.
7.

Cf.

xxx.

25-28, xl. 17-20, lxxxii. 9-12.

to lxxii.

Perhaps a reference
Cf. Lycidas, 81
ff.

12.

13, 14.

'hollow':

see LXX.

4.

In Tennyson's

ideas of immortality and of the highest worth

inseparable.
If love is the best of things
is

mind the seem to be

conversely, that which dies or

lost

it cannot die, and, through death cannot

be of the highest value. Just as human life seems to him not worth having if the soul that lives it is not immortal, so the vanity of earthly fame seems to him to follow at once from its brevity.

166

In
Cf.

Memoriam

SECTIONS

15, 16.

Ode on
;

the

Death of the D?ike of Wellington

Gone but nothing can bereave him Of the force he made his own
Being here.
[Mr.

Eve

thinks

there

is

potential energy.
to the section.]

If this

were

an allusion to the so, it would give a

idea of
late date

LXXIV.

more and more the strength and He (lxxiii. force 4, 1 6) which would have won for his friend a fame on earth like that of its great men of old. But he will not speak of that which was never fully shown here, and now brightens
realises
'

'

'

'

another world.
stanza,

This seems to be the idea expressed in the last and serving to connect the section with and LXXIII. LXXV. (see LXXV. 13-20).
1-4.
'

recently dead

Gatty quotes Browne, Letter to a Friend, of some one [it is really of some one near death] he lost his own face and looked like his uncle.'
:

7, 8.
*

Cf. lxi.

'

Below surely means among the dead,' not

'
'

now on
9.

earth.'
6.

Refers to

Even

yet he cannot realise all the likeness

and greatness.
11, 12.

Cf. the

74 m

Collins

famous soliloquy in Romeo and Juliet\ compares Petrarch, Sonnet 80,

far

V.

iii.

Non puo

Morte

il

dolce viso amaro,

Ma

'1

dolce viso dolce puo far Morte.

LXXV.
2.
*

in a

poem which

is

written only to relieve

my

sorrow,'

rather than 'though to

relief.'

sing thy praise would bring

4.

me

Cf.

lxxvii. stanza

lxxiii.-lxxvi.
'

Commentary
'
:

167

9.

these fading days

this transitory

element of time
'
'

does not refer to his

own time

in particular.

he Fading may
:

be suggested by the 'dying' and 'fading' of LXXIII. 13, 14. 11. 'breeze of song': cf. odpos ii/jLvwv, Pindar, Pyth. 4, 5 (Collins) and Aen. VII. 646, Ad nos vix tenuis famae
;

perlabitur aura.
1 2.

Gatty quotes from the Vision of Sin

All the

windy ways of men

that rises up,
lightly laid again.
:

Are but dust

And

is

With which cf. Young, Night-thoughts, II. Since by life's passing breath, blown up from Earth, Light as the summer's dust, we take in air A moment's giddy flight, and fall again.
1 5.
'

credits
'

'

perhaps simply

'

believes

'

but probably

rather

places to the credit of (the doer),'

Cf.

further idea of holding in honour.

20.

whence comes the LXXX. 13.

their acclaim.'

Cf.

The Dying Swan, the tumult of

'

LXXVI.

This section develops

LXXV., stanza
3.

the

idea

expressed

in

He

realises the brevity of

any

fame which his verses could give to his friend. 'Consider the utter insignificance of the earth and man's life in the universe of worlds consider the immeasurable ages of the future and then reflect
; ;

that thy deepest lays will be forgotten in

less

much

than the life-time of a tree on that earth.' In the Epilogue to The Charge of the Heavy Brigade the thought of this section is repeated

and more

clearly expressed

The fires that arch this dusky Yon myriad-worlded way

dot

i6fc

In
The

Memoriam

sections

vast sun-cluster'd gather'd blaze,

World-isles in lonely skies,

Whole heavens within themselves, amaze Our brief humanities

;

And

so does Earth

for

Homer's fame,

Tho' carved in harder stone The falling drop will make his name As mortal as my own.

The

other side

is

given in Parnassus
fire

If the lips
altar,

were touch'd with

from off a pure Pierian

Tho' their music here be mortal need the singer greatly

care?

Other songs
not falter

for other

worlds

the

fire

within

him would
there.

Let the golden Iliad vanish,

Homer

here

is

Homer

XI.

compares with the section Dante, Purg. 9 1- 1 17, which, he thinks, plainly suggested it (as well as LXXIIL, stanza 3). Cf. also LXXV. 1 1- 1 3 with lines 92 and 100, 101, of the passage in Dante.
Collins
I.

Cf.

Adonais, xlvii.

Petrarch, In Morte^ Sonnet 82,

al cielo.'
3, 4.
'

For the phrase Collins compares Volo con 1' ali de' pensieri
'

Where ':
I.

at
18,

Cymbeline,

iii.

a height from which. Gatty compares 'Till the diminution Of space had

pointed him sharp as

6.
'

my
:

needle.'

secular

'

cf.

XLI. 23.

9.

matin-songs,' etc.

the writings of the great early

Poets (authorised interpretation in Gatty).

II. Cf. 'But Song will vanish in the The Charge of the Heavy Brigade. yew and oak. these 1 3.
'
' :

Vast,'

Epilogue to

lxxvi.-lxxviii.
16.

Commentary
lines
3,

169

Cf.

Merlin and Vivien,

Before an oak, so hollow, huge, and old,

It

look'd a tower of ruin'd

mason work.

LXXVII.

Though
none the

his songs will

less.

He

soon die, he will sing does not sing for fame.

1-4. The idea (suggested by lxxvi. 1-6) seems to be that, when we look back across the tract of time at objects lying

in

it,

their

dimension
;

in the line of vision

it

contracted

and so
III.

will

appears immensely be with modern rhyme. Cf.

Queen Mary,

How many names

'

in the

long sweep of time

That so foreshortens greatness.

For the word foreshorten'd
139,
1
'

cf.

Marvell, First Anniversary,

useless

Foreshortened Time
'

its

course would

stay.'

Tract of time occurs in Par. Lost,

ii.

V. 498.
else,' e.g.

'then changed to something

'

the joy of re-

union, in the
13.

long-forgotten mind.'
(Eve).
:

Cf.

xxxvm.
Collins

15, 16.

compares Petrarch, In Morte, Sonnet 25

certo ogni

mio studio
il

in quel

temp era
5

Pur

di sfogare

doloroso core
d'

In qualche modo, non

acquistar fama.

Pianger cercai, non gia del pianto onore.

LXXVIII.

U
the

cJ^
Thir;d

With

this

section

begins

Part of

In Memoriam. See Introduction, p. 29. The second Christmas-eve after his friend's death. See XXX. throughout. There is a great

i7o

In
:

Memoriam
and
clearness

sections

change

the

silence

of windless
:

a calm and quiet sense of loss, with no outward sign of grief and no pretence of gladness, no awful sense of one mute Shadow and no ecstasy of prophecy. It might almost seem that regret is dead, but in truth it is diffused through the whole
frost instead of the rain,
' '

wind, and cloud

substance of
5.

life.

'Yule-clog':

'

clog

'

'

log'

is

a dialect-word used in

Scotland,

some of the northern counties of England, and

north Lincolnshire {Dialect Dictionary).

11. 12.
iv.

Tableaux vivants.
'

hoodman-blind
5

'

blindman's

buff.

Cf.

Hamlet,

III.

7714.

18,
'

'mark first ed. 'type.' cf. cxv. 18, and contrast Epilogue, 17; 19. 'No':
: :

mystic frame,'

'

deep

'

repeated from xxxvi. 2

'

relations

'

with everything else in the mystic frame.

SECTIONS LXXIX-LXXXIX.

Many

of these eleven sections are

little

occasional
'

connection with one another beyond a certain unity of tone. The calmness which is the note of LXXVIII. is maintained.

poems, having

'

There

is

much

of quiet retrospection, and, in some

:

poems, of thoughts of what might have been

three sections (LXXXIII.,

in

LXXXVL, LXXXVIII.) there is the sense of new life and joy, and the last poem The idea of immortality and the is quite happy. hope of reunion appear but rarely, the centre of

lxxviii.-lxxx.

Commentary
to the present
life

171

interest being shifted

of the

poet enriched by

love for the dead.

LXXIX.
This section, addressed to one of the poet's
brothers, refers back to the last line of IX.
4.
'

fee

'

full

possession

cf.

Milton, Sonnet VII.

5

7,

and

Wordsworth's Sonnet
public,
7
9.
f.
'

On

the Extinction of the Venetian Re-

Once did she hold

the gorgeous East in

fee.

Cf. Cf.

C, CI. Crabbe, Delay has Danger {Tales,

xiii.)

And the cold stream curl'd onward as From the pine-hill blew harshly down
18.

the gale

the dale.

Cf. ex. 17.

LXXX.
Here, as
in

LXXXI. and LXXXIV., the poet

if

is

had not died. If he had lived and I had died, he Let his would have turned his grief into gain. fancied example, then, bring help and comfort to
fancying what might have been
'

his friend

me/
2,
3.

'holy,'

'kindly.'

Contrast his feeling towards the

:

death that took his friend

8.
'

LXXII.,

st.

5.

stay'd

'

the idea

is

that the grief

is

not allowed to

'peace with God and man,' but is propped and so held fast in this peace. For the word cf. Princess, VII., stays all the fair young planet in her
separate itself from
'

'

'

hands.'

'His credit': that with which I credit him (in the suggested by Cf. lxxi. 5, lxxv. 1 5. Free 'help me to turn my burthen into gain.' 'burthen'
13.
1

fancy' of 5-12).
:

'

'

172

In

Memoriam
lxxxi.

section

If he had lived, my love for him would have Yes but the same growth continued to grow. was brought suddenly by his death.' The poem appears at first unintelligible, 'Could I have said' being naturally read as
1

meaning If I could have said,' and Love, then, had hope as meaning Love, then, would have had hope.' The result is nonsense. Could I have said is a question. Accordingly a note of interrogation must be supplied at the end of the first stanza, which should be printed
'
' ( ' 1

'

thus

Could
"

have said while he was here, love shall now no further range There cannot come a mellower change, For now is love mature in ear"?
I

My

[No, I could not have said Line 5 means and] Love, therefore, had hope of richer store/ But this,' he goes on to say, is a painful thought, for it suggests that I have lost the increase of love which would have come if he had
:

'

this

'

'

Stanza 3 alludes to the fact that under certain conditions a sudden frost will ripen
lived longer.'
grain.

The
4.

'

grain,'

of course,

is

his

love.

Cf.

LXV.

The
against

fact that this interpretation of the section

involves a change of punctuation need not weigh

it
;

for

there are
in

frequent

instances

in

In Memoriam, and

Tennyson's other works,

of defective punctuation, and, in particular, of a

lxxxi.

Commentary

173

defective use of the note of interrogation.

For

example, LXXXIV. last line, lxxxvii. last line, XCIX. 16, and probably XCIII. 8, should have
this note instead of a full stop
:

in

XXXV.

and

The 7 the colon and note should change places. whole of LXIV. is one interrogative sentence it
;

therefore requires a note of interrogation at the

end (in addition to a note within the inverted comma). CXIII. 4 should end with a note of exclamation or interrogation.
should

The note
in
1

in CXIV.

come

after

'

power'

5.

CXXII. 8 perhaps

should have the same note.

The

note of interrofirst

gation has been supplied since the

edition in

XXIX.

8,

and other

places.
5
is
cf.

For the implied 'no' in line and also XCIII. 5, if the sentence
gative.
[I

XXIV.

3,

not interro-

doubt if the interpretation given above is It assumes that richer store means a store richer than it already was,' or (in other words) a store richer than the existing store and, with this meaning, it is impossible to take could I have said and love had hope as protasis and apodosis of a conditional sentence. But
right.
'

'

'

'

'

'

'

'

this
1

is
'

not impossible,
is

if

the ellipsis
up,

implied in
if
'

richer

otherwise

filled

and

store

'

is

taken to be the grain laid up in garners after Hallam's death. The meaning of lines 1-5, expressed prosaically, will then be 'If, while he was alive, I had ever been able to say, " My love for
:

him

is

now

fully ripened,"

should in that case

174

In

Memoriam

sections

have been able to anticipate a more valuable store of love, on his death, than the store I could have hoped for on his dying while my love was still unripe.'

The

full

stop after

'

ear

'

in line

4 should

then be changed into a comma.

owe this idea to some remarks by Mr. Ferrall. avoids the violence to language involved in my may mention that I interpretation of line 5.
I

It

Tennyson, late in life, endorsed that interpretation, and this of course is a strong argument in its favour but I do not consider it decisive.]
;

LXXXII.

The
injured

following

summary

is

intended merely to
'

Death has not which is my best life (LXXXI.) nor do I believe he has injured my friend's life. What he has done is to put our lives apart.'

show the connection with LXXXI.

my

love,

in

From state to state recurs 6. Cf. XXX. 25 f., LXI. I. The Two Voices and in Demeter and Persepho7ie, line 7. the changed form and face of line 2. these 7.
5,
' '

'

'

'

'

10.

Did Tennyson know

Cf.

that he

was translating

Aristotle's

Xp77<ns rr\% dperijs ?

11, 12.
14.

LXXIII.
:

1-4,

LXXV.

T8-20.
Cf. Othello, iv.
ii.

'garners'

stores

itself.

57

But there where I h&V garner'd up my heart. Tennyson's use of the verb as intransitive seems peculiar
to him.
15, 16.

Cf.

longer towards the close of In

survival

of

Even this complaint is heard no Memoriam. For the long 'wrath' (which seems somewhat peculiar) cf.
lxxxv.
83, 84.

lxxii. and

xcvm.

lxxxi.-lxxxiii.

Commentary
LXXXIII.

175

The poet calls on the new year to hasten its coming, to bring the joy and beauty of spring and summer, and to melt his frozen sorrow into
song. The section is, in effect, a spring poem, and should be contrasted with xxxvin. and com-

pared with CXV., CXVI.

If

he were thinking of
reached by
Cf.

New

Year's

Day

there would be no meaning in

'

the reference to the

northern shore
in

'

spring later than southern shores.

CXVI.

3,

where

'

the year

'

begins

April,
:

and the

first

version of The Millers Daughter

I

heard

The low

voice of the glad

New
hill.

Year

Call to the freshly flowered

5.

'from the clouded noons': not

April,' but,
still

'from bringing the

clouded noons of
therefore
6.

'from the noons, which are

clouded.'
:

'proper'

own.

Cf.

xxvi.

16,

cxvn.

2.

10.

The germander
'fiery,' 'fire.'

speedwell.

11, 12.

The

repetition
in

is,

of course, intensuffers

tional.

Perhaps the famous phrase

is

12

from

it.

The

colour

more

truly described in the

poem To Mary

Boyle

And
('

all

the gold from each laburnum chain

Drop
Golden-chain
' '

to ths grass.

a dialect-name for the laburnum-blossom in the Midlands and South of England.) Mrs. Hemans writes of the laburnum's dropping gold (G.A.C.).
is
'

15.

Cf.

CXV. 17-20.

176

In

Memoriam
LXXXIV.

SECTIONS

This section, which deals again with what might have been, is perhaps separated from LXXX. and LXXXI. because it brings no thought of consolation.

In spite of

some

fine

phrases
it

it

is

scarcely

in Tennyson's happiest style, and

is

unfortunate

that the finest lines (19, 20) recall Lamb's exquisite Dream Children.' For the biographical references
see Introduction, p.
1.
5.

2.
cf.

'contemplate'
'

for the accentuation

cxvni.

1.

crown'd

'

cf.

lxxii.

5.
:

quotes Taylor, Holy Dyings I. i. 'and 15. G.A.C. changes his laurel into cypress, his triumphal chariot to

an hearse,' and Romeo and

41. 'Arrive' is

Juliet,
5

IV.

v.

89

'

Our

bridal

flowers serve for a buried corse.

used as sometimes by Shakespeare and

like

Milton.
46.
.
,

'backward': retrospective,

Shakespeare's 'record

with a backward look' (Sonnet

59).

LXXXV.

The poem

is

addressed to

Edmund
(cf.

Lushington,
is

whose marriage with the

celebrated in the Epilogue

poet's sister, Cecilia,

its

first line

with

For the date of composition, see See also p. 28. 14. Opening with a repetition, which gives the keynote, of the words which closed XXVII., the poem proceeds to answer the two questions of stanza 3, and so looks both backward and forward, glancing at the moods and subjects of many preceding sections, and showing the stage at which the poet

LXXXV.

5).

Introduction,

p.

lxxxiv., lxxxv.

Commentary
'

177

has arrived in his

seeks a

progress of sorrow,' and

how he
like

new

friendship,

though

it

cannot be

the old.
Collins

compares
;

this

section
foil,

with Petrarch's
with Sonnet
1 1
;

42nd sonnet
and the

stanzas 18 and

latter part

of the section with Canzone

6.

Of

the last there seem certainly to be reminis-

cences,
tone.
21.

and much of the section

is

Petrarchian in

Con.
Cf.

II.

The pure Spirits, 'whom the vulgar call Angels' (Dante, 5), who preside over or guide the nine Heavens.
131,
'

Parad. n.
180.

xxvni.

77,

and Longfellow's

notes.

Cf.

Par. Lost,
Vlli.

V. 407,

those pure intelligential substances,' and

this section the idea that at

Throughout
still

death
is

the soul passes into a state which, though higher than the
earthly,
in
is

imperfect and gives

way
'
:

to further states,

abeyance.
22. Cf.

The Princess, Conclusion

in

That range above the

region of the wind.'

28.
'

in the cycled times

'

period after period of earthly

progress.
33.

'equal-poised':
VII.,
'

Cf.

The Princess,
if

metaphor from a yoke (Beeching). yoked in all exercise of noble end.'

which would probably have been
full

35. 'other': 'second,'

written

the lines had not already been

of sibilants, to

which Tennyson had an aversion. Cf. Aen. quibus altera fato Corpora debentur.'
:

VI.

713

'

animae

' Yet I knew that 37 f. The sense goes on from line 32 the will within us (cf. cxxxi.) demands from us action, not

absorption in feeling nor works of weakness.'

'

Cf. IV. 15, 16.

through obedience to which we dare to face There is no reference to the thought of either life or death. For which we bear to suicide. Cf. Essay on Mail, iv. 4

By which,' etc.

'

live or

dare to

die.'

178
43. Cf.
49.
54.

In
LXV.
IO.

Memoriam
line 44.

SECTIONS

The sense goes on from

'spiritual strife'
:

e.g.

as to immortality or the
is

meaning
in three

of evil in the world.

different
14, (3)

Metrically this word

:

used

ways in In Memoriam as in cxxxi. 3.

(1) as here, (2) as in

xcn.

Tennyson seems {Memoir, I. 321) to have quoted the in a way that would identify these mighty hopes with But he may not have had the the larger hope of LV. 20. whole passage in mind and, considering the context, it seems more natural to include, at any rate, in the mighty hopes
60.

words
'

'

'

'

'

hopes

for the future of the race

:

on earth

(cf.

LXXI. 9- 11).

'I felt that my soul and his soul 63. Cf. Aug. Con. iv. 6 were one soul in two bodies, and therefore was my life a horror to me, because I would not live halved' (G.A.C.).
64.
'

had

'

would have.
'
:

67.

'

all-assuming

that take to themselves, devour, every'

thing
69.

Shakespeare's

Cormorant devouring Time.'

V. 185
:

'steaming'

cf.

Par. Lost,

'Ye mists and exhalations

that

now

rise

From
4

hill

or steaming lake.'
7,

Floods,' rivers

cf.

LXXXVI.
in

CHI. 20.
foil.,

81, 82. Cf. the

doubts of xxxvin., xliii.

lxi.

foil.

But his resignation

10.

ignorance appears again in 93-6.

cf.

85,86. 'nature': earthly nature; 'free':

I

xxxvin.

9,

take the stanza to mean,

?

'

Do
Or

the dead, then, feel pain

is

(for

sympathy must be pain)

their

sympathy pain-

less ?'

But it has been pointed out to me that the idea of the last two lines need not be an alternative to that of the first, Can the life of the dead the meaning of the stanza being be clouded by sympathy, doubtless painless, with the living ?' In either case the stanza touches on a difficulty as to memory in the dead which has not previously been alluded to.
'
:

90. Cf.

lxix.

20.
:

91. 'conclusive'

the bliss of the

'

final goal' (LIV.

2) or

lxxxv., lxxxvi.
'divine event'

Commentary
friend
is

179
see,

The dead
:

supposed to

where

the poet can only trust.

Cf.

CXXVii. 20.

thoughts which signify figuratively a truth 95. 'symbols' which they do not accurately express.
101. 'If, with love as true, if not so fresh,
I,'

etc.

'If

is

forced ungrammatically to do double duty.

[But this would

be a strange mistake, and Mr. Ferrall

stanza
'

is

probably right

in

taking the sentence to be independent of the preceding

:

with love as true,

friend),
'
:

if

not so fresh (as

my

first

love for

my

dead
'

aver,' etc.]

105.
106.
107.

apart

in a place
:

which no other 'powers' can occupy.

'golden hours'
Cf. vi. 43, 44,

cf.

xxxix.

6.
first

and 'deep as

love' in Tears, idle

Tears.
112. 113.
Cf. vii. 3, 4.

'widow'd':

cf.

IX. 18.

119.

The Evening

Primrose, according to

many

readers

but surely Tennyson meant the feeble or imperfect flowers

sometimes put forth by the

early winter.

common

primrose in autumn and

LXXXVI.
This wonderful poem, written in spring (6, 10) Barmouth,' famed for the sunsets over its estuary, gives pre-eminently his sense of the joyous peace in Nature, and he would quote it in this context along with his Spring and Bird songs (Memoir, I. 313). It is the answer to the prayer of LXXXIIL, and comes most appropriately at this point, breathing the full new life which is beginning to revive in the poet's heart, and to dispel the last shadow of the evil dreams which Nature seemed to lend (lv.) when he was under the sway
'

at

'

'

'

i8o

In

Memoriam

SECTIONS

the ill brethren Doubt and Death. The rhythm of the one long sentence, the pauses of which are not allowed to coincide with the breaks between the stanzas, seems the very echo of the of

See further, on and cf. with at the beginning of The Lover s Tale,
spirit

of the poem.

this section,
it

the remarks on CXXII.

a passage
:

III.

morning

air,

sweet after rain, ran over

smells of

and blew bud And foliage from the dark and dripping woods Upon my fever'd brows that shook and throbb'd
rippling levels of the lake,
all

The

Coolness and moisture and

From temple unto

temple.
p.
I

For the date of composition see

I.

5.

'ambrosial'

a favourite word with Milton and Tenny'

{Memoir,

ambrosial gloom in a very early fragment and again in The Princess, IV. 6. 3, 4. Cf. cxxn. 4. the word does not imply quick or violent motion 5. 'rapt with Tennyson. Cf. T/ze Day-dream And, rapt thro' many a rosy change,
son,

who

uses

'

I.

24),

'

The
6.
:

twilight died into the dark.

'dewy': from the showers. Ct. Cil. 12, and The Princess, 'In the green gleam of dewy-tassell'd trees.' I. shadowing' cf. evil. 14, and Little breezes dusk and 7. shiver,' Lady of Shalott. Horned flood see on LXXXV. 'Horned' probably means not 'branching' but 'wind69. Cf. The Dying Swan, 'And the ing,' and so 'indented.' wave-worn horns of the echoing bank.' Cf. horned flood Corniger Hesperidum in Par. Lost, XI. 831, and Virgil's fluvius regnator aquarum,' Aen. VIII. yy. I3ff. 'The west wind rolling to the Eastern seas till it meets the evening star' Tennyson's words to Mr. Knowles. taken the lines to mean that fancy accomI had always
'
'
:

'

'

'

'

lxxxvl, lxxxvii.

Commentary
it

181

panies the west wind as

to cloud-belt
in

streams eastward from cloud-belt

of

the crimson sky, or from belt to belt

crimson cloud.

and

cf.

Such uses of 'sea' are, of course, common, lxxxix. 47, cm. 55, The Ancient Sage,
last

The
I

long stripe of waning crimson gloom.

cannot help suspecting some misunderstanding on Mr. Knowles's part, or even a forgetfulness of his meaning on Tennyson's, not so much because it is hard to imagine what Eastern seas,' except the Red, would look from above like
1

belts,' as because any Eastern sea would be dark when sunset was visible from the west of England, a fact which Tennyson would be the last poet to forget.
'

With
14.
'

the whole stanza

cf.

the last stanza of the Alcaics

to Milton.

'odour': caught from 'brake and bloom and

Cf.

meadow'

and dewy-tassell'd wood.'

xcv.

9.

LXXXVII.

A retrospect of Cambridge
the sense of loss.
6.

days, not

marked by
organ

See

p.

6.

'high-built,'

in reference to the position of the

above the screen (Gatty). 7. Cf. a fine description first ed. 8. prophet
'
' :

at the
'

prophets.'

end of The Princess, II. The change was not

Cf.

made
15.

till

1884.

'long walk of limes,' in Trinity College.

Sonnet

To

the Rev.

How
39, 40.
'

W. H. Brookfield oft with him we paced

:

Him, the

lost light of those

that walk of limes, dawn-golden times.

These

lines

wrote from what Arthur Hallam

said after reading of the prominent ridge of bone over the " Alfred, look over my eyes eyes of Michael Angelo
:

have the bar of Michael Angelo!"' quoted in Memoir, 1. 38.

surely
I

Tennyson,

i82

In

Memoriam
LXXXVIII.
so

SECTIONS

As
I.

in

the

bird's

song,

in

his

own, joy

seems to break from the midst of

The
'wild bird'
the nightingale,

grief.

is generally and naturally taken to be whose song seems to some most melanCf. a choly,' and to others joyous, and to the poet both. passage near the end of the Gardener's Daughter, and, earlier, Recollections of the Arabian Nights
' :

The

middle night Died round the bulbul as he sung Not he but something which possess'd
living airs of
;
:

The darkness
Ceasing

of the world, delight,

Life, anguish, death,

immortal

love,

not, mingled, unrepress'd.

'

Tennyson elsewhere uses both

nightingale's song.
2.
'

warble

'

and
:

'

liquid ' of the

quicks
is

'

the quick-set hedge-row

cf.

cxv.

2.

The

word
3
f.

used by country folk

is

in various parts of

England.

What
that,
?

that

centre where the diverse passions so

radiate from
it,

mingle

when they

each has a tone of

v.
vii.

the others
5.

'fierce

extremes': occurs in King John,

*

13;

Par. Lost,
6.
'

VII. 272.

darkening,' as night

comes on
'

first

ed.

'

dusking,'

The change was used by Tennyson of twilight. perhaps made because of dusk in lxxxix. 2. 11. 'the sum of things': occurs in Par. Lost, VI. 673
often
'

(G.A.C.).

LXXXIX.

An
visits

entirely

happy
3.

retrospect

of his

friend's

to the poet's

home.

For the biographical

be found that (if LXXXV.) sections of

references see pp. 2,

It will

we omit

the long section

Lxxxviii.,Lxxxix.

Commentary
to

183

hope and of retrospect are made

in
this

alternate

LXXXIIL, LXXXVI., LXXXVIIL, with LXXXIV., LXXXVIL, LXXXIX.

part

of the

poem

1.

'

counterchange

'

chequer.
:

Cf.

LXXii.

15,

and Re-

collections

of the Arabian Nights

sudden splendour from behind Flushed all the leaves with rich gold-green, And, flowing rapidly between Their interspaces, counterchanged The level lake with diamond-plots Of dark and bright.
4.
7.
'

sycamore'

cf.

xcv.

55.
1.

'liberal air':

cf.

Byron, Manfred,
in.
xxix.

1,

'pipes in the

liberal air.'
8.

Cf.

Horace,

Odes,
ed.

12,

'

Fumum

et

opes

strepitumque
12.
16.

Romae'
first

(Collins).
:

'dusty':

'dusky.'

'winking' of course refers to the tremulous appearance of the heated air.

27.

G.A.C. compares Hallam's Remains,

p. 71

Sometimes

dream thee leaning

well.

o'er

The harp
36. 45.
'
'
:

used to love so

Arthur Hallam was an enthusiastic reader of Plato. glooming Tennyson is fond of gloom and
'
'

its

congeners.

He

uses 'glooming' as a substantive in the

;

Gardener's Daughter ('the balmy glooming crescent-lit'

cf.

gorgeous gloom of evening,' lxxxvi. 2), and transitive verb in The Letters and elsewhere.
'

'

gloom

'

as a

Cf.

Epilogue,

whole line Horace, Odes, II. xi. 18 (G.A.C). 47, 48. These lines, which surely mar a beautiful passage, mean Before Venus, surrounded by the crimson of sunset, had set after the sun.' Cf. cxxi. 1, 2. According to the nebular theory, Venus, like the other planets, was formed by the condensation of a zone thrown off from a mass of nebula, the remains of which, condensing towards the centre,
118.
Cf. with the
:

'

[4

In

Memoriam

SECTIONS

formed the sun. The sun, as representing the whole original nebula, is figured as the father of Venus. Cf. Lady Psyche in The Princess II.
,

This world was once a fluid haze of light, Till toward the centre set the starry tides, And eddied into suns, that wheeling cast

The
*

planets.
'
:

crimson-circled

for
13.

'crimson

cf.

cm.

55 (of cloud),

and perhaps lxxxvi.

52.

Cf. CI. 8.

SECTIONS XC.-XCV.
>

/J A

group of closely connected sections on the communion or contact of the living and dead. It opens with the expression of desire the such communion, for and closes with the description of an experience in which this desire seems to be fulfilled. So far the thought of such present communion has occupied the poet but little. He trusts to meet his friend beyond the grave he has hoped that his friend watches him from afar he has even cried to him Be near me.' But he has accepted the fact of their present separation, and the one deed for which he has been unable to
present
; ;
'

forgive

Death He

is

that

We

put our lives so far apart cannot hear each other speak (lxxxii.).

Now, with the

desire for
all
it

the thought that after

may

communion, comes in some form

be possible even in
the
sections
is

this

life.

The

connection of

shown

in

the

summaries which

follow.
(

LXXXIX-XCI.

Commentary
xc.

185

Come back
:

to

me

'

The
in

idea

is

quite

general
is

he does not ask

first

what way

his friend

to return to him.
1.

He who

2-5 never loved with all his soul,

suggested the ideas expressed in stanzas and never knew love at its
stanzas
cf.

highest.

With these
'

The Lotos-Eaters,
'

VI.,

where

the phrase

confusion worse than death

recurs.
!

if the 15, 16. G.A.C. quotes from Sadi's Gidistan: 'Oh dead man might come again among the members of his race and his kindred, the return of his inheritance would be

harder to the heir than the death of his

17.
'

relation.'
2, 3, 4.

these'

the sons mentioned in stanzas

p. 17.

22.

See Introduction,

XCI.
1

Come

back to
is

me
'

in
'

visible

form

'

The

visible
calls

form

the

point

of the section.
;

He

on his friend to appear in spring-time, wearing the semblance worn in the spring-tide promise of his life on earth (1-8) in summer, in the after form which betokens his maturer life
; ' '

elsewhere

(9-16).

(Genung

alone

among

the

analysts has perceived the structure of the poem,

and the beauty of the descriptive phrases probably conceals it from many readers.)
2.

'rarely.'

The

'rarely' of Shakespeare
sits

and of

Scott's

Sweet Robin
c

on the bush,
the kingfisher.
Cf.

Singing so rarely.
4.

sea-blue bird of
:

March

'

The

Progress of Spring

And

in

her open palm a halcyon

sits

Patient

the secret splendour of the brooks.

186

In
is fully

Memoriam

SECTIONS
'
:

The phrase
one day
leafless
in

explained in the following passage

As

to " sea-blue birds "

&c. defendant states that he was walking

March by a deep-banked brook, and under the

bushes he saw the kingfisher flitting or fleeting underneath him, and there came into his head a fragment ot an old Greek lyric poet [Alkman], " a\nrbp<pvpos dapos fym," "The sea-purple or sea-shining bird of Spring," spoken of as

Defendant cannot say whether the Greek the halcyon. halcyon be the same as the British kingfisher, but, as he rrever saw the kingfisher on this particular brook before

down

go hard weather, and come up again with the Spring, for what says old Belon
March, he concludes that
in that country, at least, they

to the sea during the

"

Le Martinet-pescheur fait sa demeure En temps d'hiver au bord de l'ocean, Et en este' sur la riviere en estan, Et de poisson se repaist a toute heure."
I

You

see he puts " este," which

suppose stands for

all

the

warmer weather.' Letter of Tennyson to Duke of Argyll, The letter is perfectly decisive, yet by 1864, Memoir, 11. 4. 1890 these details had faded from Tennyson's mind, and, though he 'supposed' the bird was the kingfisher, he was willing to believe it was the blue tit (see Rawnsley's Memories
of the Tennysons, p. 109). Cf. xxvu. 6. 6. in time in the earthly life. 16. 'light in light.' Cf. 'another night in night,' Recollec'
' :

tions of the

Arabian Nights.

XCII.

No it is no visible appearance that I desire, I should nor any communication through sense. Reflection destroys the wish not be convinced.' For, if the vision came, it expressed in xci. Even if might be counted a mere hallucination.
'
:

xci., xcii.

Commentary
earth, this

187

it

spoke, and spoke of events in the lives of the

might be counted the proNay, if it foretold something which actually happened a year later, the prophecy might seem to be merely his own
friends

on

duct

of his

own memory.

presentiment.
3.

Contrast this section with XIV.

11. iv.

Cf.

Maud,

Get thee hence, nor come again,

Mix not memory with

doubt.

upon the brain That will show itself without.

'Tis the blot
13.
'

'They' seems
is,
'

to

have nothing

to

refer

to

except

months.'

But, probably, as several correspondents suggest,

It

the sense
writing
'

prophecies,' put

might not seem thy prophecy,' but Tennyson, they by a kind of attraction from
'
'

that plural.

The

line is thus equivalent to,

'

Thy

prophecies

might not seem thy prophecies.'

14.
'

spiritual

'

'

in

my own

spirit,' or,

'

such as often come

into the
15. 16

mind

'

(Ferrall).

do not give another hypothesis, but repeat 14 (he

'

says

'

And,' not

Or ').

'

Refraction,' as in mirage.

Gatty

quotes from Coleridge's translation of the Death of Wallenstein, V.

i.

As
Ere
it is

the sun,

sometimes paints its image In the atmosphere, so often do the spirits Of great events stride on before the events, And in to-day already walks to-morrow.
risen,

The

context

makes

it

probable that there

Cf. Coleridge's

is

here a reminis-

cence of this passage.

Statesman's Manual,

Appendix B, and Table Talk,

May

1,

1823 (G.A.C.).

iss

In

Memoriam
XCIII.

SECTIONS

But a
See

direct

contact
!

of

soul

and

soul

is

possible.
1-4.
'
'

Therefore come
is

emphatic.
I.'

Understand

'

But before
'

'

Dare,'

or 'then' after 'Dare

The poet
dead

abruptly and finally

dismisses the idea that the

earth.
5-8.

will

appear

in

visible

form, but hesitates to assert that no soul ever returned to

He

affirms that

it

is

possible that the soul of the

dead

not a

visual shade, but the soul itself

may come to
('

the soul of the living without the mediation of any sense, or

on condition that

all

the senses are in abeyance

'

all

'

in 7

excludes more than the

see' of
is

1,

unless the line means,

cf.

'When

the nerve of sight

wholly numb,' when

Par.
I

Lost, xi. 415, 'the visual nerve').

Such words as 'No,

'

dare not say

this.

Rather' must be understood before the

beginning of line 5. Cf. the omission of No, I could not have said this in lxxxi. 5 (on one interpretation). But the passage from doubt or musing ('Dare I say?') to positive assertion is here so abrupt that perhaps stanza 2 was really meant to be a continuation of lines 2-4 of stanza 1 i.e. to be a part of that which the poet doubts whether he dare say dare I say, not indeed that the visual shade may come, but that the spirit himself may come?' In that case, line 4 should end with a colon or semi-colon, and line 8 with a note of interrogation. On Tennyson's defective use of this note, If this suggestion be correct, the see remarks on lxxxi. summary given at the head of the section will run But
'

'

'

is

not a direct contact of soul and soul possible?

!

If so,

come

A
ever

third interpretation has been suggested to

'
:

me
I

as con?)

ceivable

shall not see thee.

No
:

spirit

(dare

say this

came back
:

to the
spirit

world of sense

none ever appeared as

world of another

a shade
spirit.'

but a

may return

to the inner

XCIII.-XCV.

Commentary
:

189

8.

Cf.

AylmeSs Field

Star to star vibrates light

may

soul to soul

Strike thro' a finer element of her

So,

own ?
?

from afar, touch us at once

These

lines,

however, refer to two living people, one at the

(In the lines that follow there
is

point of death.

another

instance of the omission of the note of interrogation).

9.
'

thy sightless range

'

the place where thou rangest

12,

invisible.

For 'range'
Comus,
11.

cf.

XLIV.

LXXXV. 22

for 'sight-

less' (used as in
10.

Macbeth,

I.

v. 50, vii.

23) cxv. 18.

Cf.

13.
1

Cf. cxxii. 11.

'

5.

frame

'

body, as in XLV.

1 1

(but not as in

XXXVI.

2).

Cf. 7 .

XCIV.

He
own

reflects,

and

realizes

what

is

required in his
Cf.

soul

for

such communion.

the

way

in

which LL, LII. follow on L. Cf. Taylor's Twentyfive Sermons preached at Golden Grove, Sermon iv.
(Collins).
6.

shows a curious coincidence with a

iv.
:

line

in

Young's

Night-thoughts,

To
10.
:

drink the

spirit of the

golden day.

(They haunt) imaginations.

see xcv. 44. If this connection was intended 14. 'doubt' (which seems very questionable) the doubt in xcv. was regarded as blameable.
15.
16.

'gates':

cf.

'enter,' XCIII. 13.

For the metaphors of

this

stanza

cf.

Herbert, The

Family.

XCV.
After a peaceful evening in the garden formerly by his friend, the poet, left alone in the

visited

190

In
night,

Memoriam
letters

SECTION

summer
fulfilled.
\

dead, and

reads again the suddenly his wish is,

of the
sense,

in

some

For the
;

'trance,'

and Tennyson's own experi-

ences and opinions, see Introduction, pp. 46, 53, 60 the passages quoted in the note on line

39;
have
viii.

Memoir,

article, p.

320, 321, and Mr. Knowles's Tennyson's experience seems to resembled that of Plotinus (see Enn. IV.
I.

169.

1).

On
1.

this section see further the notes

on CXXII.

The

scene of lxxxix., and therefore the happy memories

of the past, are recalled by the opening reference to the

lawn, and the later mention of the brook, the sycamore,

and the elms.

9.

'fragrant':
'lit':

cf.

lxxxvi.

14.

10.

alighted; 'the filmy shapes,' etc.: night-moths

interpretation in Gatty, who adds that the ermine moth answers to the description). 22. 'that glad year,' as the metaphor of the next line shows, is the whole time of the friendship. 25 f. The strangeness of the dead man's seeming to be then and there speaking, expressed in 'silent-speaking' and dumb cry,' prepares for what follows. the word was used in XCIII. 13. 34. 'touch'd' till about 36, 37. 'The living soul,' 'And mine in this'

(authorised

1878,
living

'His
soul'

living

soul,'

'And mine
to
.

in

his.'

On
:

'the
'per-

Tennyson remarked
.
.

Mr. Knowles

chance of the Deity.

"his."'
1

My

conscience was troubled by

What was
really
I

it

that troubled his conscience

doubt whether

it

had

Rather,
flashed

seemed to him that Hallam's soul was flashed on his ? suppose, a doubt whether the soul that seemed to be
his,

on

and seemed

to be Hallam's,

was Hallam's.

If so,

xcv.
1

Commentary
'

191

living,' in antithesis to

dead

'

(34).

'

Flash'd,' to describe

instantaneous motion or action.

39. 'that

Cf. XLI. 12,

LXXVI.

5.

which

is'

the ultimate reality, as distinguished

from that half-deceptive appearance which we commonly The Higher Pantheism Cf. cxxiv. 22 call the real world. vision the grand conclusion of the Holy Grail, where and especially (appearance) is distinguished from reality
; ;
'

the Ancient Sage.

41.

He

is

able to perceive the law and

;

harmony
8.
*

other times appears unintelligible

cf.

cf.

cxxil.

in what at Aeonian'
:

XXXV.

II.

42, 43. Cf. Milton,

On

Time,

'

Triumphing over Death and

I
;

Chance and
45-8.
'

thee,

Time.'

My

description of that which

its

became during the

but

trance and in

otherwise?'

how can it be might seem at first more natural to take 'that which I became' to refer to the time after the cancelling of the trance. In that case the meaning of the stanza will be My description of the trance and its
cancelling
is

vague

It

cancelling

is

vague, but to describe the state that followed

difficult.
it.

would be even more

attempt to describe
after

Accordingly he does not

is
it

But

likely that

his

state,

the trance was cancelled by doubt, would be even

further

removed from ordinary experience than

?
'
:

his state

during the trance

'

matter-moulded by and meant to

for

the forms of speech, being

moulded

express our

sensible

experience, are

inadequate to describe a higher experience.

Such words,
13),

example, as 'Descend, and touch, and enter' (xcill.

seems needless,
in
for

his scruple
(see 35)
;

he had said that

it

and,

if

he referred to

it was Hallam's was cancelled by doubt (44) cxxil., he had again spoken doubtfully of

he had never said that

his trance

Hallam's presence.
certainty

Probably at the moment of the experience he

did think his friend's soul was present, but thereafter never

felt any on the subject ; and, considering the language of such a poem as cxxx. his uncertainty seems almost inevitable.
,

i92

In

Memoriam

SECTIONS

properly apply to something material, and not to the soul.

And

equally inadequate will be the language which describes

the trance.
Collins
49.
'

compares with the stanza Paradiso, XXXIII.

' :

55-7.

doubtful

cf.

LXI.

9.

The

last

four stanzas form

one of the most wonderful descriptive but in their context they have an indescribable effect, the breeze seeming to recall the coming and passing of the wind of the Spirit in the trance, and the mingling of the dim lights of East and West being seen as that meeting of life and death which has just been experienced as the precursor of an endless union to come. Cf. The Ring, 63. Cf. Herbert, The Search.
surely, if taken alone,
all

passages in

poetry

And
'

past and future mix'd in Heaven,

twilight of a perfect day.
'

and made

The rosy

Dim

lights of life

occurs in Pope's Elegy to the

Memory,

etc., 19.

XCVI.

This section has no connection with the pregroup, unless through the mention of Line 11 'doubt' in xciv. 14, and XCV. 30, 44. however at once recalls XCV. 29, 30 and hence it seems not unlikely that in XCVI. also the poet is
ceding
;

describing

his

friend.

It

is

true,

as

Genung

observes, that neither the lines in XCV. nor CIX. 6

imply that Hallam had to fight his doubts.' But a sonnet by Hallam, printed in the Remains, p. 75, made an unkind refers to a period when doubt and cf. the Preface to December of [his] spring the Remains, p. xxxi. Mr. Ferrall thinks the poet is referring to himself, and to that conquest over doubt on which the
'

'

'

experience described

in

XCV. has set the

seal.

XCV.-XCVII.

Commentary
of this
question
is

193

The

interest

merely bioeither

graphical, and

the reference need not be

to Tennyson or to Hallam.
cf.

With the

section

XXXIII.
foil.
f.
:

18

cf.

cxxiv.

2, 4, 23.

The same passages from Exodus, xix. and xxxii. are referred to in a poem of doubtful authorship in Poems by Two Brothers. The last two lines seem chiefly intended to
22

complete the picture of the scene suggested by 21, 22, without much regard to their bearing on the main subject of the section for if anything now corresponds to the trumpet then, there would seem to be no more excuse for doubt now
:

than for turning to strange gods then. This addition of almost irrelevant details in a simile is classical. Cf. for it
the last two lines of Clear-headed friend.
'
5

It
'

may
'

be,

ever, as has

been suggested

to

me, that the

cloud

howanswers

to intellectual uncertainty, the 'trumpet' to the feelings so

often referred to as giving what intellect cannot give,

and

the

'

making of gods
9).

of gold
fall,

'

to that

misconduct into which

in faith

the doubter did not

(see line

though he was perplext

XCVII.

This section recalls LX. See note on the group which opens with that section. The short, simple, unconnected sentences recall the style
Of LXIX.
1 ff.

The

first

stanza the

is

prefatory.

The

poet's love finds

(1), in
(4),

an
in

echo of

itself in

common

things of nature

her more

mystical appearances

(2, 3), in fact

everywhere

and so

'two partners of a married life' (5). Cf. lxxxv. 69-76. For he' cf. cxxvm. 2. The preface, however, seems too fine for what follows, the style of the rest of the poem being some'

what plain
substance.

for

Tennyson, though

in

harmony with the

i94

In
The
allusion
is

Memoriam
and

SECTIONS

2, 3.

to the spectre of the Brocken.

[A

correspondence
observer's

in the Spectator for Sept. 21

28, 1901,

shows the necessity of explaining that the 'spectre' is the shadow thrown on a bank of mist. If the bank is near him his shadow may appear enormously extended and, He sees a halo round its head, but not round the so, vast.' head of any fellow-observer's shadow.]
'

71 5.

Cf. 3.
'

earnest

'

pledge.

16.

Cf. lx. 13, 14.

21. Cf.

Pope, Rape of the Lock,

'

II.

139,

'Some
IV.,

thrid the
'

mazy

ringlets of her hair

and The Princess,

to thrid

the musky-circled mazes.'

XCVIII.

To
died.

friends about to visit Vienna,

where Hallam
is

The

feeling of reconciliation with death

disturbed.

For the occasion

p.

and date of the

July, 1832.

section see Introduction,

;

15.

3.

When
*

I
:
:

was there with him-U-in

Will
o'

7, 8.

wisp

the wisp

'

in the

eyes

of watched
:

by.

II.

The author kept

'gnarr':
'

his word.
Cf.

17.

snarl.

Spenser, F.Q.,

I.
'

v.

34,
'
:

'felly
'

gnarre
25.
'

(of

Cerberus), and

Shakespeare's
bite,'

gnarl
%

For

gnarling sorrow hath less power to

R.

IL

I.

iii.

292.

mother town

'

metropolis.

XCIX.

The second anniversary of his friend's death The poem opens with the same words Sept. 15. as LXXII., to which it forms a beautiful contrast.
5.
'

Darkling red
sky.

'

probably describes the fading of rosy

is

clouds towards blackness, not the deepening redness of a

clear

Such fading

a sign of coming

rain.

Cf.

XCVII.-XCIX.

Commentary

195

Most readers seem to imagine a (i), 'swollen' (6). morning sunny as well as calm and soft, but there is nothing
'dimly'
to indicate the former.
9.
'

foliaged

'

the word

'

of trees, so that 'foliaged'

leafy trees
'
'
:

murmurest suggests the foliage may mean 'overshadowed by

'

but

it is

more

likely that
:

it is

used as

in Alastor,

foliaged lattice.'

Cf.

B Allegro

at my window bid good morrow, Through the sweet-briar or the vine Or the twisted eglantine.

And

Mr.

Ferrall, to

whom
'

owe

the observation about 'mur'

murest,' suggests that

foliaged eaves

may even mean

'

eaves

of foliage,' the foliage being that of trees overshadowing the

lawn.

And

I
:

have seen
cf. CI. 4.

'

eaves

'

so used in poetry. of feeling here

12. 'fiery'

13-20. Contrast VI.,

st.

2.

The expansion
Othello, v.
ii.

prepares us for the poems about to follow.

13.

'balmy breath':
'those' of
Cf. 'All
16.

cf.

16:

'Ah, balmy

breath, that dost almost persuade Justice to break her sword.'

17.

18.

things that

move between

the quiet poles,'

Marlowe, Dr. Faustus, opening soliloquy.

SECTIONS
The
friend.

C.-CIII.

poet leaves the

home which has

so many-

associations both with his childhood and with his

Loving retrospect is mingled with the impulse forwards to a larger life. This group forms a transition to the last Part of In Memoriam. The reader has been prepared for it by the descriptions in LXXIX, LXXXIX, XCV., and XCIX., so that he seems to be familiar with the home that has to be left.

196

In

Memoriam
A

sections

For the occasion and date see Introduction,

P-

15.
C.

In leaving the old

friend again
;

home he seems

to lose his
loss is

but the original

feeling of

reproduced faintly and peacefully, and the memories recalled are not poignant but 'gracious' and tender.
I.

'I climb the hill': first ed.

'I

wake,

rise':

which

failed

to

indicate
30.

the point

of view.

For 'the

hill' cf.

LXXXIX.
9, 10.

The time

is

autumn, between the times of xcix. and

rills,'

CIV.
13.

Cf. 'the tinkling

Pope, Eloisa

to

Abelard, 158,

and Marvell, Clorinda and Damon,

Near
17. Cf. viii. 21.

this,

a fountain's liquid bell

shell.

Tinkles within the concave

CI.

He

turns,

in

this

exquisite

poem, from
friend
to

the
its

associations of the

associations with his

3.
'

home with his own childhood.

beech
11.

'

cf.

xxx.
52.

9.

4.
8.

Cf.

11,

xcix.

12.

Cf.
f.

lxxxix.
Cf.

The brook seems

lxxix.

affection.
5,

6,

14-16.

have been an object of special lxxxix. 43-5, xcv. 7, xcix. The present lines seem to be the germ of
to
9,

10,

The Brook.
II, 12.

'or when,' etc.

The

pole-star,

the

'

lesser wain,' or ursa minor,

one of the stars in forms the apparent axis of

watching

that constellation.
rate,

The

periphrasis seems needlessly elabo-

but

it

presumably

recalls the boy's pleasure in

ecu.

Commentary
to time.

197

this constellation, with the

sound of the unseen brook coming

Collins quotes Sophocles, Track.
Cf.

to

him from time

xvii.

130, dpKTov o-rpocpades KeXevdoc.

I.

Lay of

the

Last Minstrel,
roll,

Arthur's slow wain his course doth

In utter darkness, round the pole.
15.

Cf.

xlix.

3, 4.

18.

'blow,' like a flower.

21. 'the labourer,'

who does

not

move away, but belongs

to the landscape.

CII.

Love
for

for the

home

of childhood

(CI.),

and love

with the dead (c), are beautifully figured as rivals in a game in which
the
associated

home

both must

lose.

As he

goes, they unite.

Cf. Petrarch, In Vita, Sonnet XLIV. (Collins).

1-4.

lines

The reader will recall a famous passage in Cowper's On the Receipt of my Mother's Picture, but Tennyson
to
it.
'

owes nothing
7, 8.

referring to the double loss of his father

:

and of

his

(Memoir, I. 72) but of course this does not imply that the one 'spirit' is his father and the other his friend and indeed no one could have guessed from the poem that there was any reference to the former. See cv. 5. 12. 'tassel-hung' cf. lxxxvi. 6. 19. G. A. C. compares Queen Mab, iii.
friend
'

for kings

And

A
22.

mutual foes, for ever play losing game into each other's hands.
subjects,

Cf. Virgil,

Eel.

1.

3:

'

Nos
it is

patriae fines

et

dulcia

linquimus arva.'
24.

Perhaps the idea

is

that

the pain of regret that

unites them.

198

In

Memoriam
cm.

SECTION

8
is

His sadness at leaving the old home is changed content by a dream. In interpreting this dream we must remember that, even if its record
to affected

by waking imagination,

it is

not likely to

form an entirely consistent allegory, and also that dream, though primarily about the poet's life, is Lthe also about human life in general. The river fed from hidden summits is life on earth, The sea is
f,

eternity, or the life

with Tennyson

beyond cf. CXXV.

'

(this
1

image
'

is

habitual

The- Passing of

A rthur,
Ocean
Grail
etc.'
\
;

where the
the

great water

opens on
in

the

passing

of

Galahad
'

Crossing the Bar).

as

The Holy The maidens, Tennythe Muses, Arts,

son believed (Gatty), stand for

;

dream concerns the individual life of the poet, they must rather stand for the corresponding aspirations and activities within him especially for his poetry, and, perhaps, eminently the poems about his friend otherwise their growing and departing with him would be meaningless. They sing to
but, in so far

the

the statue, for the poet's friend

sections)

is

both the centre

of
the
future,

of his love and a type to him (see the coming

of the ideal

humanity
life.

Their ignorance (12, 13), their wailing (18), and their reproaches (45-48), appear to indicate that, though aspiring to the ideal, they recognise it only in its earthly forms, and so take the poet's departure to be a desertion of these forms and of them. Their
already realised in the other

cm.
passing with him
1

Commentary
to the

199

other

life

means
here,

that

everything

that

made
pass

Life

beautiful

we

may hope may

grave
'

on

with

us

beyond the
in

(authorised

interpretation

Gatty).

Stanzas 7-9 typify the broadening and deepening of life, and the spiritual expansion which will fit also the great the poet to meet his friend again
'

progress of the age

'

(Tennyson
for

to Mr. Knowles).

The growth
for

of love

the friend

into love

mankind or, rather, for the divine humanity to which mankind is advancing is seen in this section, and becomes prominent later.

in

5, 6. Cf.

the

'

mystic mountain-range
:

'

The Vision of Sin,

and The Ancient Sage

This wealth of waters might but seem to draw

From yon dark cave, but, son, the source is higher, Yon summit half-a-league in air and higher, The cloud that hides it higher still, the heavens Whereby the cloud was moulded, and whereout The cloud descended. Force is from the heights.

Cf. also
8.

Cf.

The Poet's Mind. Geor. II. 1 57, Fluminaque antiquos subterlabentia

'

muros.'
14, 15.

'I loved,

and loved For

:

ever.

The words

are

almost repeated in the

20.
24.
'

last line of Fastness.

flood

'

river
'

cf.

lxxxvi.

7.

'

golden reed

this

does not appear to be the popular

name of any plant. The Branched Bur-reed, Sparganium Ramosum, seems most likely to be the plant intended. It has been suggested that iris means the purple iris, and
'
'

'

golden reed the yellow one, but the purple one does not
'

grow

in the situation required.

30. Cf. Epilogue, 19, 20.

2oo
33-36.

In
For
1

Memoriam
of the

SECTIONS
cf.

this
ff.,

'Vision

World'

cxviii.

14,

Epilogue,
After.

28

Locksley Hall, Locksley Hall Sixty Years

SECTIONS
With
In Memoriam. See
p.

CIV.-CVI.

these sections begins the Fourth Part of

34.
in

Christmastide and

New Year

the

new home.
its

The
grief,

poet turns

away from the

past and

private

and looks to the future and his hopes for mankind. This is the third Christmas since his friend's death. For the See xxvm.-xxx., LXXVIII. localities and date see Introduction, p. 15. The church of CIV. 3 is Waltham Abbey.
/
I, 2.

CIV.

Repeated from
'breathes'

xxvm.

1,

2.

The remainder

of the

section forms a detailed contrast with xxviii.

II.
:

Milton.
12.

Cf. (in this part of the

:

a favourite word with Tennyson as with poem) xcix. 7, c. 3.

contrast xcix.
8.

'unhallow'd'

CV.

Christmas Eve.
1, 2.

See XXIX., xxx., and LXXVIII.

First ed.

This holly by the cottage eave, To night, ungatherM, shall it stand.

The change was probably made because

do not rhyme,
4.
'

'eave' and 'eye'

.9

Yet see on vni.

'

5, 8.

strangely
4.

contrast

'

sadly,'

XXX.

4,

and

'

calmly,'

LXXVIII.

ciii.-cvi.

Commentary
is

201

6.

There
3.

reminiscence,

perhaps

unconscious,

of

lxxviii.
7, 8. 9.
'

Cf.

Moschus, Idyll
'
:

III.

ioo.
'

abuse
'use'

in the old
II

sense of

wrong.'

Cf.

xxx.

6.

10. 12.
14. 17.

Cf. LXXVIII.
:

foil.

cf.
:

xxix. u.
tried.
:

'proved'
'beat'
:

24.
etc.
e.g.

dancing cf. I. 12. such motion of rising stars as lightens,' The idea of the stars dancing is common in Milton Par. Lost, III. 580, V. 178. 'East': cf. XXX. 29-32
in
'

what,' etc.

'

(Robinson).
27.
'

Complete the
12.

allotted

number

of your revolutions.'

Cf.

cxvn.
28.

'the closing cycle'

ff.

or

period:

cf.

cm.

35, cvi.

28,

Epilogue, 128
poets,
IV.
4,

Tennyson uses the language of the Roman e.g. Horace in the Carmen Saeculare, or Virgil, Eel. Ultima Cymaei venit jam carminis aetas. Time is
been divided
in the

said to have

Sybil into cycles or saecula,

and

Virgil

books of the Cumaean makes the golden

age return with the closing cycle.

CVI.

New
is

Year's Eve.

The mood of
heightened
;

the last
bells

poem
sound

continued

and

the
'

wild and jubilant, as though the

closing cycle

and the poet turns from to hopes for the the grief that saps the mind future of man.
were already beginning
;

'

In this section it should be observed that the powers that work for good are especially those and so the feeling that his which unite men grief isolates him and is useless to others stirs the poet to overcome it (cvni.).
;

202
19, 20.
ff.

In
10,

Memoriam
ff.,

SECTIONS
61, 62,

9,

Cf.

Prologue, 37

lxxxv.

and

Epilogue, 21
12.

Cf. Prologue, 12.

27. Cf.
32.
'

cm.

33.

My

father

expressed his conviction

that the

forms of Christian religion would alter, but that the spirit of Christ would still grow from more to more "in the roll of
the ages,"
Till

each
all

And
" This
is

man find men work

his
in

own

in all

men's good,

noble brotherhood.

one of

my

meanings," he said, " of

Ring

in the Christ that is to

be

when

Christianity without

bigotry will triumph,

when

the

controversies of creeds shall have vanished,

and

no more, by that larger light, And overstep them, moving easily Thro' after-ages in the Love of Truth, (Memoir, I. 325, 6). The Truth of Love." For the antithesis with the darkness of the land cf. xxx.
Shall bear false witness, each of each,
find their limits

But

'

'

'

29-32.

CVII.

The

friend's

birthday

(Feb.

1) shall

be kept

though he himself were there. The change in the poet's attitude, seen in his dismissal both of grief and of speculation about the dead, is strongly marked.
cheerily, as

In writing this section, Tennyson doubtless remembered not only Horace, Odes, I. ix., but the fragment of Alcaeus on which that Ode is based.
8.

Cf.

The Progress of Spring from all the dripping eaves The spear of ice has wept itself away. sharpen'd by the ice on them.
: '

cvi.,

cvn.

Commentary
icy

203
like bristles

g.

The

bushes and thorns point

towards

the moon.

Cf.

Walking to

the

Mail
:

There by the hump-back'd willow

half stands up

And
11.

bristles.
. .
.

'grides

together':

makes grate

together. 'Gride'

originally

meant

'pierce,'

without any reference to sound, and

prob-

there does not appear to be any such reference in Spenser's

or Milton's use of the

able that
in.
i.

word {e.g. P.L., Tennyson was influenced by

vi. 329).

It is

Shelley,

Prom. Unb.,

Hear ye
for

the thunder of the fiery wheels

Griding the winds?

he uses the word of thunder

in

'

The heavy

thunder's

griding might,' Chorus in

'

Poems
'
:

(1830).

clangs

together

cf.

Boadicea

Till

her people

all

around the royal chariot agitated,

Madly dash'd
ments,

the darts together, writhing barbarous linea-

Made

the noise of frosty woodlands,

when they

shiver in

January.
12 'iron'

may
'

refer to

sound as well as
'

to the stiffness of

the ascending branches.

13, 14. 'drifts
:

Gatty says,

drifts of

snow, which falling

into water immediately blacken before they dissolve,'

and
it

readers seem usually to take the passage thus.

difficult to reconcile this interpretation

But

is

with

the 'purple-

the hard crescent,' and the sounds of seems more likely that the drifts are violent squalls of wind (cf. 6, 7) which are seen to strike and darken the moon-lit rollers (cf. lxxxvi. 7). The only objection to this is that Tennyson apparently does not elsewhere use drift of mere wind or anything else invisible. He uses the word of snow {Progress of Spring, III.), rain {Ulysses), smoke {Coming of Arthur), sleet of diamonds ( Vision of Sin), flickering spectres {Demeter and Persephone), and drive of
frosty bank,'
'

bristles,'
it

'

the

wood

and

'

'

'

'

204
sunlight {Rosalind,
Drifts

In

Memoriam
:

sections

= winds,

The Two
15.

cf. LXX. 10. III.) and hail {Sir Galahad) however, not very far from 'drift-winds' in Noble Kinsmen, V. iii. 99, waters that drift-winds
is,
'

force to raging.'

'breaks':

cf.

Ode on
' :

the

Death of the Duke of

Wellington^ as quoted on
23.
'

cxxm.
cf.

Whate'er he be

trast with the frequent speculations

cxxix. and cxxx. 5, and conon the subject earlier in

In Memoriam.
*

Permitte Divis cetera

Perhaps here Tennyson remembered the of Horace's Ode.

'

CVIII.

He will no longer live alone with sorrow, brooding on the past and the mysteries of death He will gather from his and the future life.
(

sorrow some fruit of wisdom here on earth.'

5,

for

himself and others

'faith'

fidelity (C.

E. Benham), but the

more obvious

sense (faith opp. works) suits the next lines better.

8.

'wells'

9-12.

The

see on x. 17. usual interpretation, that the meditations just

referred to

must be untrue, because he simply reads his own thoughts or fancies into the universe, seems to me to disturb the drift of the section. The main point is that these meditations are 'barren] 'vacant,' supply
fruit (13),

no food (4), yield no because they shut him from his kind within the

circle of his private grief,

and give no wisdom applicable

Cf.

under human
12.
'

skies.

face'

his

own, of course.

Alastor

His eyes beheld Their own wan light through the reflected lines Of his thin hair, distinct in the dark depth

Of

that

still

fountain

as the

human

heart,

Gazing in dreams over the gloomy grave, Sees its own treacherous likeness there.

cvn.-cix.
14.

Commentary
'
:

205

'

also to

in contrast with human skies 1. The poet probably did not

12.
:

7, 8,

and

in reference
'

notice that

human

'

occurs in
15.

'wise'

wisdom

is

one of the
1.

'fruits' of 13.

He

is

now

returning to the idea of section

16. Sorrow may bring me wisdom, though not the wisdom you would have brought me if you had lived (that this is the meaning is clear from CXIII.). The line recalls evil. 23. There, and throughout this section, there is a touch of roughness in the references to the subjects from which he is turning away. The mood is exaggerated, and soon

softens.

Contrast, for instance, not only CIX. 24, but CXXili.

foil.

SECTIONS

CIX.-CXIV.
' '

In his search for wisdom, the fruit of sorrow, he turns to contemplate the character of his friend. The poems of the group attempt to describe this character, a task from which he formerly shrank (see e.g. LXXV.). He finds in it the qualities most required to meet the dangers of political and scientific progress, as in the Epilogue he sees in it a type of the humanity of the distant future. For the connection of this group with the preceding poem through the idea of wisdom,
cf.

CVIII.

15 with CIX. 24, CXII.

foil.

1,

CXIII.

foil.,

CXIV. 22

CIX.

He

dwells on the completeness of his friend's

:

character

original,
in logic
;

yet critical

logical,

yet im;

passioned

loving good, yet not ascetic

206

In

Memoriam
;

sections
uniting

loving freedom, but an ordered freedom

the

strength

of

man

with

the

grace

of

woman.
2.
'

from household fountains

intellectual

home
'

'

(Gatty), nor,

about domestic subjects (C.

imported from an denning the talk as E. Benham), but 'springing

'
:

not

'

think,

from
6.

within,'
Cf.
'

original.'

Cf. the similar

13.

use of

otKodev.

xcv.

29, 30,
:

and xcvi.
2, I
:

13.
16.

rarely'

as in xci.

presume.

Cf.

pression,

cxxvu. 7 and, for an exaggerated dramatic exthe Tory member's elder son in the Conclusion of
'
'

the Princess.
24.

Almost repeated

in the last line of the Prologue.

CX.

This section refers more specially to the influence exerted on others through social intercourse by the character drawn in CIX.
2.
7.
'

younger and elder

alike.'

'

Rathe

'

is

'

early.'

'

the serpent,' accuser and

liar.

8.

Virgil's 'linguis
'

micat ore
'
:

trisulcis,'

Geor.

III.

439.

double

'

first ed.
:

treble.'

13.
-

'nearest'

first

ed.
:

'dearest.'

17.

'Nor':

first ed.

'Not.'

CXI.
1
ff.

Cf.

The Princess,

iv.

the clown,

Tho' smock'd, or
3.
'

furr'd
'
:

and purpled,
ed.
:

still

the clown
grasp.'

To him who
act
'
'
: '

grasps

first

'

To who may

9.

'

play a part.

10.

memories of mine.

CIX.-CXII.

Commentary
first

207
ed.
'

13.

his

'Best seem'd the thing he was': outward best'

Guinevere'.

So wore

15, 16. Cf.

For manners are not idle, but the fruit Of loyal nature, and of noble mind.
18.
1

'villain':
'

used

in reference to
'

'

churl,' the

opposite of

gentle

and gentleman
'

in the technical sense.

20. Cf.

LXXXVII.

36-8.

CXII.

The

drift

of this obscurely written

poem appears
by a wise

to be as follows.

The

poet

is

criticised

he is not dazzled by men of glorious but unevenly developed powers, he thinks little of men of the opposite kind, who have moulded narrower powers into a comparatively
friend because, although

perfect whole.

But, the poet answers, the reason

little

why
him

a nature of the latter kind appeals

is

to

dead friend, in whose soul new powers constantly sprang into being, and the material fashioned by thought and will was at once so completely fashioned and so vast that it was impossible to hope too much for his future development.
his love for his

The
because

section

is

almost invariably misunderstood,

'

the

phrase

glorious

insufficiencies

'

is

(naturally) taken to apply to the poet's friend,

and

is supposed to be explaining his admiration for such glorious insufficiency. Yet it is plain (1) that 'gaze with temperate eyes on does not mean admire and (2) that the

then the poet

'

'

'

2o8

In

Memoriam
however
'

SECTIONS
is

character described in the last two stanzas

not

one of
is
1

insufficiency,
'

glorious, but
'

neither
'

insufficient
'

nor

one that narrow,' but both

poet,
:

glorious

and
high
I

perfect.'
'

The

in
I

short,

answers

'

admit that
sufficiency
for
I

wisdom by saying must choose between

;

do

not
in-

glorious

and narrow perfectness knew a man who had the

neither.
'
:

reject both,

virtues of each

and the defects of

2.
('
'

with temperate eyes

'

the interpretation given above

to
'

undazzled

or

'

without
:

much enthusiasm ') seems

is
'

me
who

the most natural

but

it

possible to construe,
(C. E.

tolerate the faults of the great

Benham). 1

In neither

case can the phrase refer to Hallam.

4.
8.
'

set light

by

'

make

light of, slight.

' :

men who, having strong wills, can make the most of the material of their nature, and so
'

lesser lords of

doom

control their

lot,

but

who

are lesser (than the poet's friend or

')

even the
thin.

'

glorious insufficiency
cf.
'

With the phrase

fates,'

Men
I.

at

because the material is some time are masters

of their
13.

Julius Ccesar,
is

ii.

139.
it is

The

material

abundant, and

ordered.

Metaphor from tides and moon. Cf. Cowley, On the death of Mr. William Hervey (a poem which In Memoriam often brings to mind)
15, 16.
:

So strong a wit did Nature to him frame, all things but his judgment overcame His judgment like the heavenly moon did show, Tempering that mighty sea below.

As

So

also Beeching,

'

who make allowance

for the

weaknesses

of

men

of genius.'

cxii.-cxiv.

Commentary
CXIII.

209

He

imagines

his

friend

entering

public

life

and becoming a great statesman, steadfast

revolutionary convulsions
Cf. LXIV.

in the

that

may
6,
8,

and Introduction, pp.

cviii. 15, 16.

be coming. which also

refer to cxiv.
1, 2.

See

7, 8.

He

interrupts his question

and changes

it

into an

assertion.
14.
cf.

'has birth'
11,

comes

to birth.

LXXI.

cxxvii., and the

land.
first ed.
:

poem

(in

With the following lines In Me?noriam metre)

Love thou thy

17.

'thousand':

'many.'

CXIV.

He

turns from

the dangers

of the
in
is

political

movement
he finds
in

to those of the

movement

pursuit

of knowledge.
his

Here too what

friend.

most needed
in

The

gist

of the
5,

section
6,
7,

is

repeated

the
it

Prologue, stanzas

where, however,
'

is

said of knowledge, here described as

earthly/

And

yet

we

trust

it

comes from thee [Immortal Love].

Collins

For the distinction of knowledge and wisdom compares Love and Duty,
The drooping Of wisdom
flower of knowledge

changM

to fruit

Locksley
lingers');

Hall (' knowledge comes, but wisdom and Cowper's Task, VI. 88-99 (where,
o

2io

In
the

Memoriam
is

SECTIONS
identical

however,

distinction
Cf.

not
VII.

with

Tennyson's).

Par. Lost,

I26ff.

For the division or union of knowledge and

VII.,

reverence (28) cf. Prologue, 25, 26, the Princess, and Love thou thy land-.

Make knowledge
But
let

circle with the

winds
fly

her herald, Reverence,

Before her to whatever sky Bear seed of men and growth of minds.

for

For the condemnation of knowledge sought power' (15, 26) cf. the Princess, VII., where
'

Than power
4.
'

Ida confesses that she sought far in knowledge.'

less for truth

The

pillars of

Hercules represented the farthest boun'

dary of the ancient mariners (Beeching). Maud, I. iv. vain.' Cf. Prologue, 32 9.
' ;

st. vii.
:

10.
is
'

Because she cannot prove a

life

beyond death

she

of things

we

see.'

12.

Allusion to the
Zeus.
Cf.

myth of
with
the
faith,'

Pallas

springing from the

of
intellect

brain of

condemnation

severed from 'love and

'

the idea of poetic

'

fancy

without a conscience or an aim

and so yielding mere

(20).

'fantastic beauty' (xxxiv. 5-8).

17.

'A higher hand':

that of

wisdom

The

latter

nfarord

has to Tennyson religious associations ultimately derived from Alexandrian philosophy. Cf. XXXVI. 4, 9. 'from hour to hour.' first ed. 27. 'by year and hour'
: :

CXV.
*

Spring comes once more, and with the beauty

xxxviii. and

of the world his regret also awakes and blossoms.'

Cf.

Lxxxm.

cxiv.-cxvi.

Commentary
'
:

211

2.

'

maze of quick
2.
'
:

tangled

hedge.

For

'

quick

'

cf.

LXXXVIII.
3.
'

squares

fields.

Cf.

The Gardener's Daughter

. .

All the land in flowery squares

Smelt of the coming summer.

7.

Cf.

Goethe's A?i die Entfernte

Wenn
Hoch
'living'
:

in

dem

blauen

Raum

verloren

iiber ihn die

Lerche

singt.

cf.

Milton's 'living sapphires.'

a great favourite with Gray and with Shelley,

it

The word was who often uses

of light and colour.

8.
'

sightless

song

'

cf.

Shelley's lines
15, 16
;

To a Skylark, and
cf.

Gray's ode on Vicissitude,

14.

for 'sightless,'

XCIII. 9.

'greening gleam'

out on the sea.

15.
I.

'change their sky': Horace's 'coelum mutant,' Ep.

Cf.

xi. 27.

18, 20.

lxxxiii. 13-16, and also the budding of the

(lxix.).

crown of thorns

CXVI.
*

No, not only

'the

regret,

but

life

and
in

faith

and
Cf.

longing for the friendship to come.'

3.

year,'

regarded
with the

as

beginning

spring.

lxxxiii.
5.

'stirring'
Cf.

life

of insects.

9.

LXX.

11.

First ed.

The

dear, dear voice that

have known

Will speak.

The

original lines
'
'

seem

better than the later version, in

'

which once accentuates the awkwardness of have known used for knew.'
'

2i2

In

Memoriam
CXVII.

SECTIONS

separate

can think cheerfully of the years that him from that friendship, for they will only enhance its delight.' Cf. Shakespeare, Sonnet
*

He

5 6.
2.

Cf.
'

lxxxiii.
'

6.

10.

steals

cf.

Shakespeare, Sonnet 77, thy

*

dial's

shady

stealth.'
11. 12.
'

wheels,' of the clock.

Cf.

Shakespeare,

Sonnet

59,

'five

of the sun.'

Tennyson uses the

plural because

hundred courses he refers to

the stars as well as our sun.

Cf. CV. 25-28.

CXVIII.

This section
far as
it

is

connected with
life,
'

CXVII.

in

so

alludes to man's future

as both, in a sense, deal with the

(see line
life.
1

and in so far work of Time

Intro-

of each section) preparatory to that

For the date of composition see

1

duction, p.
'

5. is

Do

not believe that man's soul

like

mere

matter, or has been

in

produced, like lower forms

the earlier ages of the earth, only to perish.

is destined both to advance to something higher on the earth, and also to develope in some higher place elsewhere, if he repeats the process of evolution by subduing the lower within him to the uses of the higher, whether in peaceful growth or through painful struggle.' Such seems to be the general meaning, but

Believe that he

cxvn., cxvin.

Commentary
is

213

the section

obscure in parts and

arrive

it

is

probably
to
their

impossible
bearing.
to

to

at

certainty

as

Several thoughts about evolution seem

the
poet's

be

in

mind

(1)

that

there

is

between human love and truth and any earlier product, and that, while the latter arose and perished (as it seems to us) by chance, man is born to develope, both as a race on the earth, and individually in another life (2) that nevertheless in this progress the law of the earlier stages still holds good, that the higher must be
radical difference
;

reached by the subordination of the lower, only now this must take place within man and that
;

hence (3) his progress depends on himself (whence the 'if of

1

in

some degree
16 and the

line

imperatives of the last stanza).

1.

'Contemplate':
' '

cf.

lxxxiv.

i,

for the accent.

'

4.

as perishable, like the constituents of the

like

of course,

the

body (strictly, body of which earth and lime are

Voices:
little

constituents').

Cf.

Two

Before the

ducts began

To
6.

feed thy bones with lime.

(Beeching).

'ampler day': Virgil's 'largior aether,' Aen. VI. 640 Cf. Wordsworth, Laodamia, 'An ampler ether,
air.'
;

a diviner
9.

See on lxxxix. 47 and cf. the early Supposed Confessions of a Second-rate Sensitive Mind: I

Of running Of lawless
Of constant

fires

As from and

the storm
fluid

range

airs, at last

stood out

This excellence and solid form

beauty.

214
io, ii.

In

Memoriam

sections

and of blind destruction

12.
13.

'seeming' implies that the appearance of chance is probably delusive.

'Cyclic storms'
etc:
:

Cf. lvi. 9.

periodic cataclysms.

'throve,'

instead of being the prey of cyclic

storms.
14.

cm.

35,

'a higher race': the 'great' or 'crowning race' of Epilogue, 128 ff., and many passages elsewhere, e.g.

The Making of Man in Tennyson's last volume. In spite of himself in 1 5, the idea is not, I think, of a non-human higher race, as in Maud, 1. iv. st. vi.
the antithetic
'

15.
16.

'

higher place

'

than the earth.

of.

'type': represent, be an instance

Cf.

xxxm.
:

16

for the substantive.

For the verb

let

cf.

Princess, VII.

Dear, but

us type them

now
it is

In our own

lives.
'

There the thing

one

'

typed

is

in the future
'

here

in the
cf.

past, so that 'type'

almost = repeat'
:

For

this use

On

who
I

affected

an effeminate Manner
all

prize that soul

where man and woman meet,

Nature's male and female plan.

Which

types

The passage beginning with line 16 is very obscure. According to my interpretation two possible ways by which man can repeat the work of time within himself, and so one is advance on earth and elsewhere, are mentioned the that of steady thriving and adding more to more other that of painful struggle (lines 18 ff.). The word 'so' in 16 would refer to line 13, or If so' may be taken together
;

'

'

'

as = '

if

so be
first

that.'

In the
but
'

edition,
'
:

however, line 18 read, not Or, crown'd,'

'

And, crown'd

and

this

(unless

'

and

'

was a mere

miswriting or misprint)

wrote the
as
is

when Tennyson passage, he had no such sharp distinction in mind

indicate that,
is

may

implied in the above interpretation, and that 'Or'

otherwise.'

equivalent, as several correspondents suggest, to a phrase

like 'Or, to put
it

With

this interpretation 'if

cxvm., cxix.

Commentary
'
'
'

215

so' is best taken as = 'if so be that' But the interpretation does not seem to account for the change of And into Or.' Beeching's note on Or,' etc., gives a possible sense To
'
: '

some self-cultivation is possible others who are at the mercy of circumstances, may yet transfigure their woes into glories, and forge their character out of calamity.'
;

C. E.

Benham paraphrases

'

if

he repeats

in his

own
if

nature the work of evolution which produced him, or

not unwilling to be sublimed.'

he

so lives combating pain and trouble as to prove that his

life is

This
to

is

nearer to the

text,

but surrenders in the last three stanzas the analogy

'

with the

work of time which seems

'

be the main subject

of the section.
17.

'from more to more'

Cf.

cf.

XLiv.

2.

18.

LXIX.

21. 'central
24.

gloom'

cf.

cxxiv.

23, 24.

Cf.

xcv. 42.

25-8. Cf.

cxx.

11,

Epilogue, 133, The

Making of Man,

The Dawn,
the end).
25.
'

By an
:

Evolutionist, The Ancient Sage (towards

use

'

e.g.

the use of the

:

'

ends of
'

7.

26. 'sensual feast'

occurs in Shakespeare, Sonnet 141.

28.

'

die

'

like the

'

forms

'

of 10.

CXIX.
Visiting again the street in
lived,

which his friend he remembers him happily and with scarce

'

a sigh.'

The
which
little
;

section forms a beautiful contrast to VII.,

is

recalled not only

1
'

like those of lines

and

2,

by obvious repetitions but by a number of

'

echoes, such as
'

once more/

sleeps,'

street,

long,'

early.'

4i6

In

Memoriam

SECTIONS

Line 8 points to a
4.

late date of composition.

hay, clover,

Gatty understands a reference to country carts bringing etc., into London. Perhaps the meaning is

rather that the silence, the chirping, and the light-blue lane

so remind

meadow

in the street.'

him of the country that he seems to smell the And, again, it is possible, as I am
'

told by a correspondent, that the poet may actually have caught at day-break in London the smell of newly-mown grass wafted from miles away. But I fancy that, if Tennyson

had ever had this experience, he would have alluded to it more fully or more than once. early the repetition of the word is, no doubt, 7, 8.
'
'

intentional.

cxx.

The poem now becomes mainly

retrospective.

He

returns to the thoughts of CXVIIL, but also,

owing to the intervention of CXix., recurs to his own spiritual strife,' and to the ideas expressed
'

in various parts of the

poem regarding
LVI.).

the destiny

of

man
*

(see

e.g.
'
:

XXXIV. and

cxxv. 1 5. The mention of 'beasts' in a section which opposes man to 'the greater ape' seems to confuse
3.

magnetic

cf.

4,

Cor. xv. 32.

some
7.

readers.
Cf. Vastness,
if

where he asks what

at
first,

all

the sciences are

idea
is

worth

there

is

nothing beyond death.

The

not, as

some readers suppose

that science in proving us to

be machines would prove us to be something that could not produce science. 8. Cf. XXXIV. 9 ff. and Epilogue to Tiresias
:

What
Our
same
effect see

life,

so maim'd by night, were worth

living out?

Not mine

to me.
to

For an emphatic assertion of Tennyson's

somewhat the
P- io 9-

Nineteenth Century, Jan. 1893,

cxix.-cxxi.
12.

Commentary
:

217
be-

''born'

first

ed.

'born.'
for
it

The change was made

tween 1875 an d 1878. difficulty but what

;

But
is

the stanza would present no

'born'?

(1)
'

Is the poet still

he mean, No nothing by us, should not live like the greater ape'? (2) Or is the emphatic bor?i meant to be antithetical to springs in 9 ? Reference to such passages as cm. 6f., Epilogue, 122 ff., The Coming of Arthur, De Profundis, Crossing the Bar, will show that Tennyson thought of birth and what precedes it as, on the one side, a series of physical events, but, on the other side, as the coming of something out of a spiritual 'deep' (cf. Introduction, p. 51, and notes on xliv. f.). ' Springs then may be meant to denote the first of these
'
'

meaning of the emphasis on speaking ironically, and does doubt, everything is settled for us and and it was settled for me at birth that I
the

'

aspects alone, as the only one recognised by materialism

and

born

to

emphasise the second:

but
I

'the

man

of the

future

may

consider himself to arise like a mere body,

;

and may act accordingly which came from God and

differently.'

for

my

part

am
I

a soul
act

will live for ever,

and

shall act

Cf.

Epilogue, 126, 'be born and think,

'

And

and love
brutes
'

and By an Evolutionist,

If

my body come

from

poem could not possibly Gatty supposes, to the Darwinian hypothesis, which had not yet appeared, and to which, when it did appear, Tennyson felt no repugnance). (3) Mr. Ferrall suggests
(but of course the present
refer, as

Tennyson means to emphasise the idea that science man, not man for science. If future men choose to sacrifice their human birth-right to science, let them I was born a man, and will not make myself an ape.'
that
exists for
'
:

CXXI.

Hesper, the evening star, which follows the sun and watches the fading light and ending life of day, is also Phosphor, the morningsetting

218

In

Memoriam
'

SECTIONS

star,

which precedes the sun and sees the dawn of

'

and life. They are the same planet of Love (Maud), which does but change its place. And so the poet's past and present are in substance one thing (Love), which has merely changed its place in becoming present instead of past. Cf.
light

CXXVI.

I.

The poem might

well have been

prompted by
idea, as
is

the contrast of CXix. with vil.

The

observed in the Temple Classics edition, may have been suggested by the epigram attributed to
Plato and translated by Shelley, 'Ao-rrjp
eXa/UL-Treg,

irpiv /xev

etc.

Cf. Paradiso, VIII.

12,

and Cary's

note.

For the date see Introduction,

i.

p.

6.

Cf.
'

lxxxix.
'
:

47, 48.

5.

wain

in

some

editions

'

Wain,' a mere misprint.

9.

Cf. ix. 10, 11.

11. 12.

'wakeful bird'
'

cf. cf.

Par. Lost,
Genesis,
i.

III.

38.

greater light
is

'

16.

18.

'what
Rev.

one':
'

Love.

The

next words
the

may be
first

intended to
the
last,'

recall,
i.

am Alpha and Omega,

'who
to
art like,' etc.

and

11.

19.

'like

my

present':

Gatty takes

the poet's sad present to correspond to the time of Hesper,

and

his

happy youthful past

it

correspond to the time of

part of In seems quite certain that the poet is regarding the past as sad and the present as bright. [It is not, however, necessary to suppose that the poet asked himself to which part of his life Hesper answered, and to which But, considering the tone of this

Phosphor.

Memoriam,

Phosphor.]

cxxl, cxxn.

Commentary
CXXII.

219

The poet
visit

calls

upon the

soul of his friend to

him

again.

This section raises perplexing and probably unanswerable questions. (1) The poet refers to some former occasion when his friend appeared to What is this occasion ? (2) In be with him. referring to it, he speaks of a time or occasion What is this once more '). still earlier (' again,' earlier time ? It is easy and convenient to answer that these two occasions have not been mentioned in the poem and of course this may be true. But it is surely unlikely that the first of them, at any rate, would be spoken of as it is in this section, unless the reader had heard of it before.
' :

It

is

conceivable, again, that the reference

is

not to any particular occasions, but (1) to the unhappy time after Hallam's death, and (2) to
the poet's youth before that calamity.

But the

language in lines 1, 2, 9, 10, 15, seems to convey almost irresistibly the impression that, at any rate, one specific occasion is in the poet's mind and it seems strange that, immediately after CXXL, the poet should write as if he were less conscious of his friend's presence now than he was in the years of pain. I assume, therefore, that these lines refer to one particular time, and pass to the
;

questions raised.
(1)
is

The obvious answer

to the

first

of them

that the poet refers to the group of sections

220

In

Memoriam

section

XC-xcv., and particularly to the trance of XCV. (so Genung and C. E. Benham). For there he called on his friend to come, and his friend did seem to be with him, so that the grave did not divide them he did descend and touch and enter' (cf. 11 with XCIII. 13); and thereupon the poet did seem to perceive the agreement of the motions of the worlds with law (cf. 7, 8 with XCV. 39-43, and 'imagination' in 6 with 'imagination'
' ;

and 'thought' in XCV. 38). Cf. also 16 with XCV. 36, 63. But there is a difficulty for though the first eleven lines of the present section at once recall the trance of XCV., the phrase 'placid awe' (5) seems scarcely approin XCiv. 10,

15,

'

'

priate to

it,

and the
in

last

nine lines (in spite of the

so
inappropriate,

resemblances

15,

16) seem

and descriptive of an experience so much less solemn, that one hesitates to identify the trance
of XCV. with the occasion alluded
Is there
to.

then any other section which can be taken to deal with that occasion ? It seems to me
that the last nine lines recall LXXXVI. almost as

strongly as the

first eleven recall XCV. And when we examine LXXXVI. we find, beside this general resemblance, some curious similarities of word

'fan

and phrase. Cf. e.g. line 1 1 with LXXXVI. 8, my brows'; 'fuller' (12) with 'the full fancy '(17) with let the fancy fly new life and bare the eternal the collocation of gloom Heavens' with lines 2-5 of LXXXVI.; the dismissal of thoughts of life and death (16) with the
' '

'

'

'

'

'

cxxn.
like dismissal

Commentary
of Doubt and Death
is

221

in

lxxxvi.
similari-

But again there

ties

a difficulty

for the first eleven

lines of this section,

though some of the

little

occur in them, seem just as

appropriate
nine do to
part of the
;

to the occasion of

LXXXVI. as the
the

last

that of XCV.

Our

result, so far, is that

first

and the second part LXXXVI. and further that these two parts appear to be somewhat incongruous, an impression which many readers must have received who have never troubled themselves with the point under discussion. Is it possible, then, that the key to this problem lies in the vagueness of the account of
section recalls XCV.,

the trance in XCV.

felt in it

The

the difficulty of describing

poet himself refers to it perhaps what he

;

was much more like what he felt on the evening described in LXXXVI. than we at first suppose and in the same way the experience in LXXXVI. was perhaps more mystic than we at first imagine on reading that poem

and

after

it

'

(which the reader should

of
this

now
If

re-read in the light

so,

suggestion). 1

the

apparent

inappropriateness of the last nine lines of our section to the experience of XCV. is explained
;

the reminiscences of LXXXVI. are also to

some

and we need not hesitate to hold that CXXII. refers throughout to XCV.
extent explained
;

':=.

So

Tears, idle tears

'

was an expression of the mystic longings

to

alluded to in Far. far

Mr. Knowles)

away and The Ancient Sage (statement but do most readers understand the poem so ?

222

In

Memoriam
is

SECTION

(2)

What

then

is

the time or occasion, prior to

referred to in
'

the trance of XCV., that

again

and 'once more'

obvious to reply
:

(4,
it

is

it is 5)? the occasion described in

At

first

sight

poet's feelings on that occasion being ex hypothesi not unlike those of the trance and here we have the full explanation of the resemblance of parts of cxxil. to LXXXVL 1 The
;

LXXXVL, the

alternative

is

to suppose that in

'

again

'

and

'

once

more

'

he

is

thinking of his youth

before his

friend's death.

And on

the whole this seems to

It suits

me

the likelier interpretation.

'

the strange
and,
if

phrase,

like

an inconsiderate boy,'
5-8

the
a

expressions in lines
the poet's youth,

seem too strong

that he

for

description of a state supposed to be habitual in

we may remember

was a
ill,

poet and what he says in The Poet

He saw thro' life and death, thro' good and He saw thro' his own soul,
The marvel of the An open scroll,
Before him
I lay.

everlasting will,

do not profess to

feel

these speculations, but the reader

much confidence in who thinks them

still

needless will

remember

that he has

to explain

the apparent incongruity of the two parts of the

section.
1

One might even go

is

further

and suggest that

in the second half

of cxxil. the poet

flash of joy' (15)
1

actually referring to

LXXXVL,

the 'former

meaning the one that preceded the time when he

'

rose up against his doom (2) so that the first half of the section would allude to xcv., and the second half to lxxxvi. But I
;

cannot believe

this.

cxxn.

Commentary
is

223

[The above
the
it

reprinted with a few changes from

I feel even less confidence in I had never doubted, from the than before. time when I first read the section, that it referred and partly, no doubt, to the occasion of XC.-XCV. for this reason I could not believe that it refers to

first

edition, but

no specific occasion. But now that I have become accustomed to the idea mentioned above, and held by Mr. Beeching and Mr. Ferrall, that the poet is speaking of the time of distress and struggle after Hallam's death, and that in again and once more he refers to his youth before Hallam's death, it no longer seems to me, on the whole,
'

'

'

'

unnatural.

And

it

is

strongly supported,

think,

by the juxtaposition of this section and its predecessor. That says, Love was with me in the years of gloom, and i3 with me now in the revival of joy this says, If you were with me in the years
' (

'

of gloom, be with

me now

in the revival

of

joy.'

On

the other hand,

:

I still feel

the old objections

to this view

(a)

it

does not explain the incongruity

between the language of 5-8 and the language of 13-20, which are supposed to describe the experience of one and the same period and (b) I cannot the bring myself to believe, as it requires, that former flash of joy' means a period of years, even when I remember that this period is perhaps looked back to over ten or fifteen years of sadness. But a suggestion has been made to me, which at any (a) In rate goes far to remove these difficulties, the earlier and later parts of the section the poet
;
'

224

In
referring to

Memoriam
distinct

section

moods which he knew one mood, a more intellectual, in which he saw the unclouded Heavens of law and order another, in which he felt the joy of life and sense, and of the play of And he says to his friend, As you were fancy.
is

two

in

the time before Hallam's death

'

with

me

in

my

effort to regain the first, so

be with
it

me
(b)

in the return of the second,

'

and hallow
I

too.'

The former
in

flash of joy' is not a description of

;

the poet's youth

it

means,
'

'

the joy that

used to

know

former years,'

flash of

joy

'

being used

generically.

These suggestions give an interpreseems to me more acceptable than that to which I had found myself
tation of the section which
driven.

But in reconsidering this matter I have become more fully satisfied of the truth of the idea that the experiences described in LXXXVI. and XCV. are
nearer akin than appears at
first

sight.

And

in

support of this idea

may

call attention to

some

further similarities, without discussing their bear-

ing on the interpretation of CXXII.

the
first

(a)

Though

part of CXXII. reminds one chiefly of XCV.,

chiefly of LXXXVI., yet

and the second

two of the

striking resemblances already noticed are between lines in XCV. and in the second half of CXXII., and

LXXXVI. and in the first half of the meeting of East and CXXII. (J?) both of final stanzas to the common West, agreement of the the of XCV. (c) and LXXXVI. last line of LXXXVI. with the insistence on peace in
between
lines in

Note

also

cxxii.

Commentary
(cf.

225

the last two stanzas of XCIV.

[d) the opposition in
;

'placid' in cxxii.)

both passages between this peace and doubt (e) the idea of escape from, or victory over, the thought of death inLXXXVi. 1 1 ff., xcv. end, and cxxii. 1 6 (J) the appearance in the last line of xcv. of the feeling of triumphant joy more obviously expressed in LXXXVI. and the None of these resemblances taken end of CXXII. alone would seem significant, but, when they are taken together and added to those already pointed And now out, they become highly significant. compare with these three sections some lines from the passage in The Ancient Sage, where Tennyson speaks of those appearances in Nature which
;

especially

woke

in

him the mystic

feeling (also

expressed in Far,
Tears),

Far Away, and

'

Tears, Idle

and brought him

' :

gleams of more than

mortal things

The first gray streak of earliest summer dawn, The last long stripe of waning crimson gloom, As if the late and early were but one

and compare with the of XCV. and also of L. 13, and with that the

first
;

of these lines the end

with the second LXXXVI.

stanza of CHI.
first
;

last

with the
'

and and the last beam in Tears, Idle Tears. Note finally that this passage in The Ancient Sage is immediately followed by a description of the
third the similarities noted under (b) above,

the beautiful stanza about the

'

'

beam

'

trance

'

condition, just as in XCV. the

'

trance

'

is

immediately followed by the description of the

P

226

In
in

Memoriam

SECTIONS

dawn
that in

mingle.

which the lights of East and West The result must surely be a conviction many passages where Tennyson speaks of
sunset, with their lights, colours, odours,
(cf.

dawn and
breezes,

winds, setting stars, rising stars

fail

CV.

end),

we

to imagine as he imagined,

if

we do
of his

not catch the mystic tone in his voice

that tone

which cannot

fail

to

be heard in

many

references to rivers, the deep sea, mountain ranges,

where indeed symbolic]

1.

his

images often become consciously

'wast thou' = 'if thou wert'
is

If the
If

punctuation
is

is

right,

in

9.

a question

intended, there should be a note of

8.

interrogation at the end of

There

nothing unlikely

in

the omission of this note (see on LXXXI.), but perhaps the

first
2. 3.

interpretation
'

is

the

more probable.
Cf. lxxti. 6.
'
:

my doom
yearn'd
'
:

'

of grief.
ed.

'

first

strove.'

4.

Cf. in. 6.

13-20. Cf. cxvi. 1-8.

15.

'flash':

cf.

XCV.

36.
to,'

16.

'slip': not 'give free rein

but 'dismiss, escape

from.'
17.

Cf. the

opening

lines of Recollections

of the Arabian

Nights.
18.
19.

He

sees prismatic colours in

all

the dew-drops.

The

reference

Borealis, not to

be to the Aurora an exceptional appearance, heightened by

possibly

may

fancy, of lightning in the ordinary sense.

CXXIII.
1

The

transitoriness of Nature's forms shall not

in

shake his faith

immortality and re-union.'

cxxil, cxxin.

Commentary

227

As in CXVIII. and CXX., he recurs to the thoughts which occupied him when he fought with death.' Cf. LVL, and with 4-8 cf. XXXV. 10-12. This is one of many passages in Tennyson which testify to the great effect upon him of the study of geology. Cf. the fine lines in the Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington
' :

For

tho' the

Giant Ages heave the

hill

And break the shore, and evermore Make and break, and work their will
Tho' world on world in myriad myriads Round us, each with different powers, And other forms of life than ours,
roll

What know we

greater than the soul

p.
1 5

For the date see

1-8.
fail
.

G.A.C. compares Job, xiv. n, 18,19: "The waters from the sea, and the flood decayeth and dryeth up. The mountain falling cometh to nought, and the
.

rock

stones

removed out of his place the waters wear the thou washest away the things which grow out of the dust of the earth " and 2 He?iry IV. ill. i. 45
is
:

O God

that one

might read the book of

fate,

And see the revolution of the times Make mountains level, and the continent, Weary of solid firmness, melt itself
Into the sea
;

and, other times, to see

The beachy girdle of the Ocean Too wide for Neptune's hips
!

With which
5, 6.
'

cf.
'

Sonnet

64.
'
:

flow,'

nothing stands
' :

cf. tt&vto. pel,

ovbh

fiipei.

9.

'

my

spirit

which

testifies to

permanence.

11, 12.

Contrast lvii., last stanza.

P2

228

In

Memoriam
CXXIV.

SECTIONS

In

this

great

poem he
of the

still

thinks

of

the

spiritual
'

conflict

past.

That Nameless to which we call, divined everywhere but not to be understood, where did I find him ? Not in evidences drawn from Nature, nor in questions which the intellect raises and but when the heart felt and seeks to answer cried upon him like a child I beheld him, and saw that through Nature he moulds man.' On the ideas used here see Introduction, pp. 54
;

foil.
2.
'

The

context

seems
'

to

show

that

the
5

meaning

is,

Present alike in our dearest faith and our ghastliest doubt,'

rather than merely,

Obiect alike of both.

Cf. xcvi.

3. That Nameless of which we think as one person and as more than one, as the unity in all things and as all things

together.

Cf.

Akbar's Drea?n

that Infinite

Within

us, as without, that All-in-all,

all,

And And
With
'

over

the never-changing

One

ever-changing Many.

They
;

'

cf.

De Profundis
'

man "
5-8.

'

but there
1.

they

'

is

They said " Let us make presumably a reference to the

:

'

plural in Gen.

26.
is

As

the stanza

often misunderstood,

it

should be
not to be

observed that the poet does not say that

He

is

found in Nature or in thought, but that it was not there that the poet found Him. After He is found elsewhere He is seen also in Nature (see last stanza); and so too 'our little systems are seen to be 'broken lights of Him (Prologue)
'

just
,

as

Nature
(v. 3, 4).

'

half conceals

and half reveals the Soul

within'

cxxiv., cxxv.
14.
'

Commentary
'
:

229

is

the reason has been arguing that the world reasons merely a process of meaningless change (10-12). 16. See p. 62. I understand the meaning to be No, 17 f. See Liv., LV. my heart was like a child crying blindly in doubt and fear. But my blind crying made me wise {i.e. I saw that the cry
'
:

was

really,
;

though
I

my

heart did not

like

father)

so that

became

know this, a cry to a a " child that cries," etc' As

in

Gatty points out, there

is

perhaps

the phraseology a

reminiscence of Herbert's Collar:

But as

raved and grew more fierce and wild At every word, Methought I heard one calling, 'Child':
I

And
18.
'

replied,

'

My

Lord.'
'

wise'
' :

gave

me
:

'

wisdom,' though not

knowledge.'
'

21. in 22,

'am
'

first ed.

'

seem,' which was in antithesis to

'

is

'

and implied that I is phenomenal. and, for beheld what is,' XCV. 39.
'

Cf.

cxxxi.

1, 2,

CXXV.

Looking back at all his songs, he sees that Love was present in them all, even in the saddest and it will abide with him till he goes to meet his friend.' The poet returns to the idea of cxxi., and in the next section (CXXVI.) he developes it till it almost coincides with one of the main ideas of the
1
:

Prologue,
sections

while
It

others

among
ideas

the

following
in

lead towards other

expressed
is

that poem.

should be noticed also that the

in CXXI.
indirectly-

Love spoken of here and

referred to in CXVIII., CXX., CXXIIL, CXXIV., which

touch on the conquered doubt whether

God

is

love indeed,

And

love Creation's final law.

230
i.
'

In
said'
:

Memoriam

SECTIONS

in conversation with friends (C. E. B.).

2.

One

naturally takes this to be the principal clause of

;

a sentence

when

line

5 if

will

another sentence.
tho'

But,

this

be the principal clause of were so, it seems almost

'

impossible that the second sentence could begin with

'
:

Yea,

and

cannot help thinking that the

first five lines

form only one sentence, of which line 5 is the principal clause. In that case line 2 may be a parenthesis explaining line 1, or it may possibly be an ungrammatical way of saying, Whatever bitter notes my harp might give,' which being understood after notes.'
'
' '

7.

Cf. xlviii. 7-9.

'play'd,' etc.:

'played gracefully with

lies.'

Perhaps

the idea that his friend had forgotten

him might be an

example.
13, 14.

Cf.

cm.
:

15. 'electric'

cf.

cxx.

3.

CXXVI.
'

Love

is

his King.

He

waits in Love's court

;

on earth, and his friend is elsewhere but from end to end of Love's kingdom, which is the universe, pass messages and assurances that all
is

well.'
1.

Cf.

cxxv.

12.

3, 4.

Cf.

Herbert, Holy

Communion
friend.

While those
10-12. First ed.

to spirits refined, at

door attend

Despatches from their

That moves about from place

to place,

And whispers to Among the worlds, that

the vast of space

all
is

well.

cxxv.-cxxvu.

Commentary
CXXVIT.

231

All

is

well even on earth, though the forms of

faith

and the social order may perish in the convulsion in which one age ends and another and

better begins.'

The
link
it

first

words, and the last

predecessor.
'

lines,
is

of the section
well
'

to

its

'

All

is

thus

equivalent to
vulsions of
to that
'

Love
'

human

great race

even in the conprogress, which lead onwards of which the poet's friend was
is

Lord,'

a type.

On this section see p. 8, and land (written by 1834, Memoir,

For
all

cf.
I.

Love thou thy

141):

the past of

Time

reveals

A
Ev'n

bridal

dawn

of thunder-peals,
Fact.

Wherever Thought hath wedded

now we hear

with inward
in the

strife

motion toiling
to

gloom

The
Yearning
#
If

Spirit of the years to

come
Life.

mix himself with

* *

New and
And
this

Old, disastrous feud,

like
till

Must ever shock,

be
true,

armed foes, Time shall close,

That Principles are

rain'd in blood.

For the date of the section see

1.

p.

13.

'faith
is

and form'

however,
in

3, 4 (where the reference, to religious faith and forms alone). The forms
:

cf.

XXXIII.

which faith had embodied herself are deserted by her and become mere simulacra (to use a favourite word of Carlyle, whose writings are recalled by this section). Cf.
'
'

232
'

In

Memoriam
to Faith

SECTIONS

The Ancient Sage, And cling

Faith,' etc.
7, 8.

beyond the forms of

I.

Cf. CIX.

Hands All Round in Memoir,

Hall Sixty Years After
:

346

and

the speaker in Locksley

France had shown a all men's good

;

light to all

men, preach'd a Gospel,

slaked
the

Celtic

Demos

rose

a Demon, shriek'd and

light with blood.

The present Days of July,'

Charles X.
'

lines

probably refer

to the

'

Three glorious

1830,

which led
'

to

the disappearance of

first ed. woe to him.' But it is not so 9 ff. ill for him with those whose hearts are set merely on temporal glory, or
' :

'

who are spiritually diseased and destitute (C. E. B.) or perhaps the kings and diseased beggars may be taken to stand for those, at the top and bottom of the social scale,
' :

who, from being considered useless to society, are likely to suffer in the period of convulsion here imagined.

With
some

this

passage

cf.

cxin. 13-20, and a

1.

letter

darkness of the times, 1832 (Memoir,

similar lines in

99).

on the There are

The Princess,

iv.

But trim our sails, and let old bygones be, While down the streams that float us each and

all

To

the issue, goes, like glittering bergs of

ice,

Throne after throne, and molten on the waste Becomes a cloud for all things serve their time Toward that great year of equal mights and rights.
:

(This 'great year'

is

of course not the 'great vEon' of

16,

but the

'

closing cycle' of cv. 28).

11, 12.

The

'crags' are, apparently, mountain-tops 'susCf.

taining

'

spires of ice.

Prom. Unb.

11. iii.

And far on high the keen From icy spires of sunlike The dawn,
and the application

sky-cleaving mountains

radiance fling

in the lines that follow.

cxxvil, cxxviii.
15.
'

Commentary
:

233

'brute'

ponderous
.
. .

Quo bruta tellus

16.

concutitur.'
:

from Horace's Odes, I. xxxiv. 9, Cf. Comus, 797 ('Collins).

'great'

first ed.

'vast.'

The change
still

to 'great'

was

made
in

in the fourth edition,

11.
:

which
xcv.

read 'vast of space'

cxxvi.

'yEon'
17.

cf.

xxxv.
'
:

11,

41.

'fires

of Hell
recall

the phrase re-appears in The Princess, V.

18-20.

To

cxxvi.

CXXVIII.
*

His

faith

in

progress on earth

is

comrade of

the love that was undismayed by death (Cf. CXVIH.

14, 15).

The two meet

final

in

trust that
ills

good

shall

be the

goal of

ill,

even of

that threaten to shake

this trust.'
2.
3.
'

he

'

as in

xcvu. 2

f.

'

lesser,'

because man's

life

on earth

ofters to faith

no

obstacle so formidable as death.

5, 6.

Cf.

Locksley Hall Sixty Years After:

still

Forward then, but

will

remember how

the course of

Time

swerve,
itself in

Crook and turn upon

curve.

many a backward streaming

G. A. C. compares Coleridge's Friend {Introduction, after Second Landing-place) The progress of the species neither is nor can be like that of a Roman road in a right line. It may be more justly compared to that of a river, which, both in its smaller reaches and larger turnings, is frequently forced back towards its fountains by objects which cannot otherwise be eluded or overcome.' There are other indications that this Introduction influenced Tennyson.
'
:

7.

'

throned races

'

races

now

highest.

234
8
f.

In
Yet there
is

Memoriam
mere
such

SECTIONS
repetition
repetition

progress, not a

of old
as
is

results that

only look like

ff.

new

described in 13
14.

'glorious lies': Collins quotes the phrase from Cra-

shaw,

To Mistress M. R.
'

Perhaps Horace's
idea.

'

splendide

mendax was
16.

in the poet's

mind.

17. 18.

While pretending While pretending

to

produce a new
it.

to abolish

He

narrows himself, but discovers nothing new.

Additions which bring no
' ' '

19. 20.
1

life

into

what

is

dead.

Bareness was misprinted

23.
'

baseness in
5

first ed.

all

'

even the eddies of

:

and the degenerations of

7.

24.

Cf.

Two Voices He seems to hear a Heavenly Friend, And thro' thick veils to apprehend

labour working to an end.

SECTIONS CXXIX. AND CXXX.

His friend has become to him so that he loves and worships in that he no longer knows how to yet only loves him the more and certain that he can never lose him. These beautiful poems are almost
all

mingled with
the universe

imagine him,
is

the more

one

but the

position

of the former, just

after
'

CXXVII.

and
'

CXXVIH., seems to show that the dream of good in which he mingles all the world with his friend, is a dream of the future of man, while CXXX.
refers

more

specially to the

mingling

'

of the friend

with Nature.

Since to the poet Nature and the humanity of

cxxvni.-cxxx.

Commentary
lines in the

235

the future reveal Immortal Love,

we may compare
Prologue
:

the two

poems with the

I

trust

he

lives in thee,

and there

find

him worthier

to

be loved.

But much of the beauty of these sections lies in the expression of an intense affection which has only become deeper as its object has become
darklier understood.
Cf. Introduction, pp. 47, 48.

CXXIX.

For the structure see note on XIV.

1.

'far

off.

forgive

(cf.
II.

e.g.
5,
'

This was once the one thing he could not Cf. LXXXll.) 'desire': object of desire.
;

Catullus,
3, 4.
'

Quum

desiderio
etc.

meo
:

nitenti,'

of Lesbia.

loved the most,'

felt to
5.
'

'Known'
'

be nearest to the highest. corresponds to

Divine
' :

and so loved most when Cf. 10 and cxxx. 10-12. 'human,' 'unknown' to
'

divine.'

because

'

mix'd with God,' or

living in
its

God' (Epilogue,
part
7.

140), the

'Immortal Love' (which on

like

is
'

human

as well as divine, Prologue, 13).

' :

that canst not die

9.

'

Strange

'

cf.

XLI.

5,

hand and lips and eye.' CXXX. 5. This was prepared for
'

in

evil. 23.

CXXX.

Compare the famous

stanzas XLII. and XLIII. of

A donais.
1.

'rolling'

cf.

LXXXVI.

2.

Tennyson
xix.

is

very fond of the

in

word.
3.

A
Cf.

reminiscence of Rev.
f. ?

17, as

developed

Par.

Lost) in. 621

9.

xxxii.

14.
2.

13.

Cf.

cxxix.

236

In

Memoriam
CXXXI.

SECTION

The living will invoked in this section is probably interpreted by nearly all readers as the divine will, or the divine love regarded as will.
'

But
141),

Gatty's

words,

'

the
'

Deity,'

received

the

authoritative correction,

free will in

man
'

'

{Key,
In the

and

in
"

Memoir,

I.

319,

we

read:

same way,

" he explained as that which we know as Free-will, Cf. De the higher and enduring part of man.'

living will that shalt

endure

Profundis,

'

this

main
thine

miracle, that thou art thou,

With power on

own

act

and on the

world,'

with Prologue, 15, 'Our wills are ours, we Hence this will has to unite not how.'

know
itself

with the divine will

ours, to
will is

Prologue,
'

6,

'

Our

wills are

and make them thine spoken of in line 8 of the working with the human will. of this enduring will with 'all The Ancient Sage
;
:

hence the divine

present
that

poem

as

For the contrast

seems,'
cf.

But thou be wise

in this

dream-world of ours,
will.

Nor

take thy dial for thy deity,

But make the passing shadow serve thy

At the same time, it must be remembered on the ordinary interpretation of living

'

that,
will,'

the

divine
in

will

is
;

regarded
'

in

the
'

poem

as
'

and that the poet's Free-will in man is regarded by him as Heaven-descended Will), and as not only apparently an act of ( self-limitation by the Infinite,' but also a revelation by Himself of Himself' {Memoir, 1. 316).
working
' ' '

man

cxxxi.

Commentary
line 3.

237

See also note on

Indeed,

it

is

abundantlyfinal

evident that in the region of these

poems
'

and of the Prologue

Locksley Hall Sixty

'

human

'

and
*

'

divine

are
Cf.
till

not regarded as mutually exclusive terms.

Years After,

Forward,
divine.'

you see the highest Human Nature is For the structure see note on XIV.
1,2.

The

living will 'is,

21.

and therefore endures:

'

cf.

on

xcv

39>

an d CXXiv.
:

'Will' must not be taken in a

narrow sense the poet did not think, e.g., that human love and truth would not endure (cxvin. 3). spiritual rock quotation from 1 Cor. x. 4. Hence 3. the line can hardly mean merely, rise in our natures,' but must imply that the will which rises in them springs from a divine source. Cf. 12. Perhaps, as Robinson suggests, there is a reference to John, iv. 14, and the phrase 'living water'
'

'

'

'

(cf.
5.

'

living
'

'

in line
:

1 ).

dust
9.

'

the dust of our perishable nature.

Cf.

Pro-

logue,
7.

'conquer'd years'

cf.

LXXXV. 65

f.

Contrast

I.

13.

10. 11,

Cf. Prologue, 4, 21.

EPILOGUE.
For the occasion and date of
see Introduction, pp. 3, 12. Its purpose is indicated
this

epithalamium
in

by Tennyson

his

remark about In Memoriam to Mr. Knowles It begins with a funeral and ends with a marriage begins with death and ends in promise of

a new

life

sort of Divine

Comedy,

cheerful at

238

In
close.'

Memoriam

EPILOGUE

the

But most readers probably feel that purpose was already achieved in the final sections of In Memoriam, while parts of the Epilogue are unfortunately written in Tennyson's most mannered style. Miss Chapman gives an excellent summary of
this

the

poem

'

Fitly the Poet closes with a marriagehis grief

is

song.

For

turned to hope, his weep-

ing into tranquil joy.

to

Regret

is

dead, but love

remains, and holy memories, and healthy power

work

for

men.

In

the union of a

beloved

sister

with a dear friend, the Poet finds a bright,

harmonious note on which to end his singing. For such a marriage is the very type of hope and of all things fair and bright and good, seeming to bring us nearer to the consummation for which we pray that crowning race, that Christ that is This perfected manhood towards which to be. we strive was foreshadowed in him to whom the Poet sings that friend who lives and loves in

God
1.

for ever.'

Cf.

lxxxv.

5.

See lxxviii. 18. and cxvi. 9 ff.,for the gradual change. 23, 24. The image seems to be that of a brook played on by sun and shade. Cf. xlix. With 'dying songs' (14) cf.
17.

lxxvi., lxxvii.

with the depreciation expressed here the

more
52.

serious lines, Prologue, last stanza.

39, 40. Cf.

Dedication in the Enoch Arden volume.

Some

particular

words must surely be referred

to,

but they cannot be any words in the service preceding the

questions and answers of the next stanza.

Possibly Tenny-

son remembered the Blessing, which follows these questions

and answers and contains the words, 'that ye may so

live

epilogue
together in this
life

Commentary
life

239

that in the world to

it

everlasting.'

But perhaps

is

come ye may have more probable that he

'

refers to the question of the Priest,

Wilt thou have

this

man,'
59.

etc.

Cf.

Shakespeare, Sonnet 81, 'Which eyes not yet

created shall o'er-read.'

72.

Cf. the beautiful

the graves as seen from the north

77~79'

passage in the Excursion, Book and from the south.

'

5,

on

genial

spirits,'

drooping

'

cf.

much
'

feel

my

genial spirits droop.'

I.

Samson, 594, So 'Drooping spirits'

'

occurs also in Browne, Rel. Med.

32.
'
:

whiter sun
'
:

'

brighter days
3,
'

white

'

is

used

like
tibi

albus

cf.

Catullus, VIII.

Fulsere

quondam

candidi

soles.'

85-8. Contrast

xxx.

6-8.
'
:

in.
I.

'

the shining vapour

see 107.

118. 'tender
lvii.

gloom':

cf.

Thomson,
12.

Castle of Indolence,

(Collins).
f.

123

See on XLV. and CXX.

embryo which appear to represent lower forms of animal life. Cf. perhaps De Profundis, 'And every phase of ever-heightening life.' 128. Cf. CII1. 35, CXVIII. 14. 'The crowning race' recurs
125. Allusion to the stages in the life of the

in

The Princess,
129.

VII.

The

poet here probably does not

mean

that the

crowning race will understand the mystery of the universe, or be able to prove the truths that can never be proved. The knowledge must be taken in reference to the next
'
'

lines.

133
142.

f.

Cf. cxviii.

140. Cf. Prologue, 39.

'

element,' in which

all

things move.

143. Cf. LIV. 14, 15, LV. 20,

and The Making of Man (but

in the present
tion,

passage the poet speaks of the whole crea-

not only of the earth).

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