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diff --git a/36637.txt b/36637.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5a4b627 --- /dev/null +++ b/36637.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4485 @@ +Project Gutenberg's A Key to Lord Tennyson's 'In Memoriam', by Alfred Gatty + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Key to Lord Tennyson's 'In Memoriam' + +Author: Alfred Gatty + +Release Date: July 6, 2011 [EBook #36637] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KEY TO LORD TENNYSON'S 'IN MEMORIAM' *** + + + + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive.) + + + + + + + + + +A KEY TO LORD TENNYSON'S "IN MEMORIAM." + + + + + GEORGE BELL & SONS, + LONDON: YORK ST., COVENT GARDEN + NEW YORK: 66, FIFTH AVENUE, AND + BOMBAY: 53, ESPLANADE ROAD + CAMBRIDGE: DEIGHTON, BELL & CO + + + + +[Illustration: _Arthur H. Hallam. From a bust by Chantrey._] + + + + + A KEY TO LORD TENNYSON'S "IN MEMORIAM" + + + BY ALFRED GATTY, D.D. + VICAR OF ECCLESFIELD + AND SUB-DEAN OF YORK + + + LONDON + GEORGE BELL AND SONS + 1900 + + + + + _First Published, 1881. + Second Edition, 1885; Third Edition, 1891; + Fourth Edition, 1894; Reprinted, 1897, 1900._ + + + + +Dedication. + +TO THE CHERISHED MEMORY OF THE MOTHER OF MY CHILDREN, I DEDICATE THIS +BRIEF LABOUR OF LOVE.--A. G. + + + + +PREFACE. + + +When any one has survived the allotted age of man, there is a long past to +remember, and a short future to expect; and it is the period of youth +which is then found most clearly recorded on the tablets of the brain--the +days, probably, of school and college, and the first establishment of a +self-made home. + +Middle life, with its work and anxieties, is by comparison only feebly +retained; as though there had been found no room for fuller records on the +preoccupied mind. But, in the indistinct interval of forty or fifty years, +the loss by death of those whom we have loved cannot be forgotten; and +when one dearer than any friend is also taken away, then, under such +bereavement, may be found an amount of comfort and support in the Poet +Laureate's _In Memoriam_ which no other secular writing can supply. + +To me, this Poem has been an additional buttress to the faith, which my +education and sacred profession had sustained. + +When a great mind, at once so speculative and so untrammelled, runs over +the whole field of thought, and comes to the conviction that the hope of +the Christian is the one sure prospect beyond the grave; this imparts to +the mourner a consolation, to which nothing earthly can compare. + +My own interest in this great Poem has been farther enhanced by the fact +that I and mine, long years ago, enjoyed friendly intercourse with the +Poet at Freshwater; and this was afterwards renewed in the lives of his +younger son and mine. + +The incidents of the Poem have also slightly touched me, inasmuch as I was +a contemporary of Arthur H. Hallam, at Eton; and I was in Chapman's +house, at Charterhouse, with Edmund Law Lushington, when he was, at a very +early age, captain of the school. The associates of Hallam's schooldays I +well recall, for they included several who became eminent in the service +of the state, and in the ranks of literature; and most of these have now +passed away. _In Memoriam_ has thus, in a measure, been the means of +recalling my own early youth; and I have felt that the subject of the Poem +befitted the study of my advanced life. + +The scenery of _In Memoriam_ being principally laid either at Somersby or +Clevedon--the birth-place of the Poet or the burial-place of his friend--I +had long been desirous of visiting these somewhat retired spots; and my +wish has at length been gratified. + +After sleeping at Horncastle, we drove six miles across a flat +uninteresting country, where the fields betrayed signs of agricultural +depression, until a short steep descent brought us into a more sheltered +and wooded region, where was the sound of running water;[1] and the little +old church, with its square stumpy moss-covered tower, told us that we +were in the village of Somersby-- + + "the well-beloved place + Where first we gazed upon the sky." + +And one could well fancy that the roomy comfortable residence, in which +the Rev. Dr. Tennyson reared a large family, was a cherished home, and is +still held in fond remembrance. + +This house is not the Rectory, though for a long time it was so tenanted: +it is rather the Manor House of the Burton family, who for centuries[2] +have owned the land and been patrons of the living. The present possessor +now occupies it, and he received our visit of interested enquiry with much +courtesy and kindness. + +The house stands a little back from the road, with a drive to the door +which may be called the front entrance; though the principal rooms are +behind, and look into the garden. Here are the + + "Witch-elms that counterchange the floor + Of this flat lawn with dusk and bright;" + +and the lawn may still be called _flat_, (see note, page 96), though it +slopes slightly downward with the natural leaning of the ground. The four +poplars have been blown down. + +Beyond the lawn stretches the garden, and yet a little farther is a pond, +on which, they say, the young inhabitants of the pseudo-Rectory learned to +skate. The largest room in this Manor House was added by Dr. Tennyson: it +is the dining-room, with an open groined roof; and the walls of it are +now covered with apparently old paintings--heirlooms, one may suppose, of +the Burton family. + +In the centre of the hamlet, where three roads meet, with a guide-post +directing the wayfarer to Louth, Horncastle, and Alford, there stands a +fine witch-elm; and at Bag Enderby, also in the middle of the road, is +another still larger witch-elm, with a huge arm that craves support. Both +these trees were carried and planted, about a century ago, by the +grandfather of Mr. Burton, the present proprietor of the estate. + +Somersby and Bag Enderby are hamlets about one quarter of a mile apart, +and are held by one Rector, who now resides at the latter place. Their +ancient churches are structures of more strength than beauty; and though +neither of them is larger than a good sized chamber, it quite suffices for +the few inhabitants. At both churches we found the key in the door, and +could therefore investigate the sacred buildings at our leisure; and +coming from a populous manufacturing district, with a grand mediaeval +parish church, we found the contrast very striking. + +Somersby churchyard adjoins the road, but the ground is higher. The first +object which greets you on entering through a short shaded path, is a most +remarkable crucifix, which has fortunately escaped the hand of Puritan +violence. On a thin stone shaft, which is at least twelve feet high, there +is the carved figure of our Lord on the Cross, still plainly traceable; +and behind is a full-length draped female figure. This antique gem is +sheltered under a narrow-pointed roof of stone. It is a curious and rare +memorial of ante-Reformation times; and within the porch there is a +contemporary relic--a shallow stone basin for holy water--which still +seems to invite the finger to dip, and mark the holy sign. Over the porch +entrance is a plain dial with the motto, "Time passeth." + +The interior of the church has lost something of the primitive character +that still reigns at Enderby: there has been a partial restoration: both +nave and chancel are now floored with coloured tiles, and the old pews +have been superseded by open sittings of red pine. There is a plain solid +font lined with lead; and having seen the chamber in which the great Poet +was born, we could not help thinking that _here_ was the birth-place of +that name,[3] which not even his well-earned peerage will ever obliterate. + +Over the porch door inside are the royal arms, and at the west end two +bell ropes depend, which are the means of summoning the few worshippers to +the Sunday service. In the _sacrarium_ is a small brass, showing a +kneeling figure and an armorial shield, dedicated to George Littlebury, +1612. A more modern marble monument, to one of the Burtons, is fixed on +the wall near the pulpit. + +The exterior of the church shows strong coarse stone masonry, which is +here and there repaired and patched by local art with bricks. In the small +graveyard are two altar tombs, which drew our attention. They seem to +cover a vault, and are railed round; and the inscription on one records +that Dr. Tennyson held the livings of Somersby, Bag Enderby, Benniworth, +and Great Grimsby, and that he died on 16th March, 1831, aged 52.[4] Wild +violets were in flower encircling the base of this tomb. A successor was +buried near, the Rev. L. B. Burton, who had held the two adjoining +benefices for more than forty years. + +Immediately opposite the church, and closely adjacent to the Manor House, +is a very remarkable building, of considerable architectural pretension; +as will be credited when it is told that Sir J. Vanbrugh designed it! It +is entirely composed of brick--sombre and solid in character--it has a +flat roof and is battlemented. If differently placed, it might have +suggested Mariana's "Moated Grange." It is an edifice of more exterior +grandeur than the adjoining Manor House, and the rooms are lined with oak +panelling; but it is unsuited to the habits of modern life, and now stands +empty. + +The village of Enderby is, like its sister hamlet, absolutely rural, with +an antiquated little church, much needing such material repair as times +and circumstances do not seem to allow. It is dedicated to S. Margaret, +and has a fine old font, octagonal in shape, and each side has rudely +carved figures upon it. The flat modern ceiling cuts off the point of the +chancel arch, and the same disfigurement occurs at the west end, where the +two bells are rung from the floor. In neither village did we see either a +nonconformist chapel or a public-house. + +In giving some account of Clevedon, I would tell how my own interest in +the subject of this little work has drawn forth the friendly notice of one +who fully participates in all the enthusiasm and admiration that _In +Memoriam_ can excite. + +Edward Malan, himself a fine scholar and son of a most scholarly father, +has greatly assisted me, especially with classical illustrations of the +text; and as he visited Clevedon before I went there, and has described +Hallam's burial-place so appreciatively, I shall freely use his words when +I come to that part of my subject. + +How the friendship came about which has found such undying record in this +Poem, is soon told. Alfred Tennyson and Arthur H. Hallam met, as +undergraduates, at Trinity College, Cambridge, about the year 1828. +Tennyson, born in 1809, was the older by one year and a half. Both these +young men were inheritors of remarkable ability--the one being a son of +the distinguished historian, and the other a son of an accomplished +divine--both, too, were themselves highly educated, and one at least was +possessed of the highest genius. Their friendship was not founded on a +common participation in the ordinary interests of youth, but they +sympathized in poetical temperament and philosophical taste. The mental +stature of Hallam, and his pure and beautiful disposition in their college +life, are recalled by the Poet in many places, but especially in Poems +cix. and following. + +In 1829, the two friends competed for the Chancellor's gold medal for the +English Prize Poem, the subject being "Timbuctoo," and Tennyson gained it. +This College intimacy was continued at both their homes, and Hallam became +engaged in marriage to one of Tennyson's sisters. This alliance may have +deepened the attachment of the friends; but was not needed to account for +the survivor writing of the departed as "more than my brothers are to me." + +Arthur Hallam took his degree at Cambridge in January, 1832, and then +lived with his father in London; having been entered on the boards of the +Inner Temple, as a student of Law. At the beginning of August, 1833, they +went a short tour into Germany, and, in returning to Vienna from Pesth, a +wet day caused a slight attack of intermittent fever in Arthur, which was +apparently subsiding, when a sudden rush of blood to the head put an +instantaneous end to his life, on the 15th September, 1833. + +A subsequent "examination showed a weakness of the cerebral vessels, and a +want of sufficient energy in the heart." Mr. Hallam adds this sad tribute +to his son's memory: "Those whose eyes must long be dim with tears, and +whose hopes on this side the tomb are broken down for ever, may cling, as +well as they can, to the poor consolation of believing that a few more +years would, in the usual chances of humanity, have severed the frail +union of his graceful and manly form, with the pure spirit it enshrined. +The remains of Arthur were brought to England, and interred on the 3rd +January, 1834, in the _chancel_[5] of Clevedon Church, Somersetshire, +belonging to his maternal grandfather, Sir Abraham Elton; a place selected +not only from the connexion of kindred, but on account of its still and +sequestered situation, on a lone hill that overhangs the Bristol Channel." + +My friend, Edward Malan, gives the following graphic account of his visit +to Hallam's grave-- + +"The chief attraction for visitors to Clevedon is the obscure and solitary +parish church of St. Andrew, where the great historian and his eldest +son, Arthur Hallam, are interred. You seek it by the beach and through the +fields, and you find it at last, an old and lonely church beside the sea, +in a hollow between two green headlands. The path up to it, bordered with +ash trees and hawthorns, winds along the side of Church Hill, the first of +the two headlands, which shuts it from view until, rounding a green +shoulder, you come suddenly upon it, like a ghost. Even then, unless you +have brought a mind in harmony, there is little to see, for the spot is so +deserted and so lifeless that you seem to have stepped back through +centuries, and to be moving in some old-world time. A weird sensation +creeps over you, gazing on the ivy and wall-rue, and the path trodden by +cottagers--a feeling akin to awe, which reminds you somehow of the poems +of Ossian. You are in the presence of these three grey sisters, grey +thought, grey silence, grey repose: only clouds, like a troop of +mourners, hurrying up over the waste, only a solemn dirge as the wind +sweeps wailing by, only the low faint murmur of the sea. The sun's last +beams are on the distant hills, and the tide is ebbing dim and shadowy to +the shadowy ocean beyond. + +"Inside, the church is old and dim, and filled with a faint odour of age. +As the wind rises, mysterious pulses of sound awaken in the rafters +overhead. The monuments of the Hallams are not in the chancel, but they +are in the manor aisle affixed to the western wall. There are four of +them, Arthur Hallam's being one of the two centre tombs. + +"A new organ now stands on the vault. The familiar names--familiar, that +is, in the classical sense--are those of the Elton family, Hallam's +relations. A memorial brass near at hand bears the name of Hallam's +maternal grandfather, the Rev. Sir Abraham Charles Elton, fifth baronet, +together with the names of the four preceding baronets; and a marble +tablet, close to the site of the old family pew, records the death by +drowning of Hallam's two cousins, Abraham and Charles, in 1819, at +Weston-super-Mare, when Hallam himself was eight years old. This unhappy +occurrence has been commemorated by their father in an elegy entitled _The +Brothers_. The moon, when high in the heavens (24 Dec. 1882), strikes +through the south window of the aisle, slanting-wise on the monuments of +the dead." + +Mr. Malan goes on wisely to say: "No apology is necessary for calling +attention to _In Memoriam_. It has become an heirloom. We may affirm of +it, as has been affirmed of another great poem, that it was the work of +the Poet's life, his favourite child, for which he stored up the riches of +his science and the fruits of his inspiration. He carried it in his bosom +like a lover's secret, and added to it from time to time as the tide of +sorrow ebbed and flowed. If the insight thus gained into the workings of +a great intellect, brought suddenly to the verge of sorrow, were all the +reward that the poem offered, it would still be worth serious study. But +we feel as we read that the man has not arrived at his view of truth +without much labour, that we are witnessing an endeavour to escape from +the coils of doubt, and that we have a victor who has faced and fought his +troubles and difficulties." + +I may state that we had an interesting conversation with the sexton at +Clevedon, Augustus James. He had held the office for about eighteen years, +and perfectly remembered the interment of Arthur Hallam. His father, who +was sexton for forty-three years, made the vault, and officiated at the +burial. + +Being astonished by the account of a hearse and mourning coaches +traversing the whole distance from Dover to Clevedon, and employing +sixteen horses for the journey, I ventured to ask the late Sir A. H. +Elton, if he could corroborate the report, and he replied: "I think there +may have been some truth in the statement of the old sexton. I believe +that on the Continent very great precautions are required by the +authorities, before the remains of a deceased person are permitted to be +removed from the place in which the death occurred. I can easily believe +that the heavy amount of lead, and other precautions, rendered it +necessary to use a large force of horses." A. James says, that "the coffin +was carried in every night where they stopped." + +Clevedon itself is a semi-seaside place, by no means interesting, at least +as we saw it; for the water was thick and had none of the bold features of +the genuine ocean. But Clevedon Court, the seat of Sir Edmund H. Elton, to +whom we had an introduction, is a picturesque rambling mansion, of which +the most beautiful part is many centuries old, and the grounds are +lovely. And I cannot pass by the interest and pleasure we derived from an +insight into Sir Edmund's workshop, where, self-taught, he manufactures +with his own hands, aided by a crippled lad who is his pupil, the +beautiful pottery now well known to connoisseurs as the "Elton ware," and +of which he kindly gave us a specimen. + +Since this autumn visit (1884), which led to my appealing to Lady +Lennard--a surviving sister of Arthur Hallam--on the point of obtaining a +portrait of her brother, I have received from this lady the gift of a copy +of the volume known as the "Remains in Verse and Prose of Arthur Henry +Hallam," edited by his father, and which was privately printed. The +interest of its contents was much enhanced to me by there being a portrait +of Arthur from a bust by Chantrey, which Lady Lennard considers most like +her brother, and therefore most suitable as a frontispiece to my book. + +I must add that the plate on which the portrait is engraved is in the +possession of Mr. Murray, of Albemarle Street, to whom was entrusted the +production of the volume, and he has been most kind in affording +facilities for my having a number of copies of the engraving. + +But to no one am I so much indebted as to the late Lord Tennyson himself, +who examined a previous edition of my "Key," and made some invaluable +corrections, which are all printed in _italics_. I would not imply that I +have now dived into the metaphysical depths of this marvellous poem; or +that its author gave his _imprimatur_ to all he did not alter; but as my +"Key" was for some time in his possession, I feel sure that it contains +nothing which he disapproved: and it is enough for me, if it shall open +the door of comfort and sympathy to any who either mourn or doubt. + + + + +"I, _in these poems, is not always the author speaking of himself, but the +voice of the human race speaking through him. A. T._" + + + + +A KEY TO LORD TENNYSON'S "IN MEMORIAM." + + +I. + +It may be stated, on the highest authority, that the special passage +alluded to in the opening stanza, cannot be identified, but _it is +Goethe's creed_. + +St. Augustine wrote, that we can rise higher on the ladder of life, by +trampling down our vices. His words, in a Sermon on the Ascension, are, +_De vitiis nostris scalam nobis facimus, si vitia ipsa calcamus_. + +Longfellow published a Poem, not earlier than 1842, which he called "The +Ladder of St. Augustine;" and more recently, Lowell, another American +Poet, and Minister Plenipotentiary in London, adopted a similar idea when +he said, + + "'Tis sorrow builds the shining ladder up, + Whose golden rounds are our calamities, + Whereon our feet firm planting, nearer God + The spirit climbs, and hath its eyes unseal'd." + +The "dead selves" of Tennyson are neither our vices nor our calamities; +but, rather, our general experiences, which all perish as they happen; and +of these, in his own case, the special loss he had sustained in the death +of Hallam (his "more than brother"--his _dimidium sui_, "bosom-friend and +half of life") ought to rouse him to soar into "higher things;" rather +than leave him to be pointed at, as "the man that loved and lost" (see +Poems xxvii., 4, and lxxxv., 1); and all that he had before been, as now +"over-worn," and prostrated by this one bereavement. + +But it was difficult to anticipate in the future a gain to match the loss +he had sustained; and to appropriate interest, _i.e._, reap the fruit of +tears that he was now shedding. Love, however, shall uphold his grief +with sustaining power; for it is better to be grief-mad, and "dance with +death"--(singing and dancing being a custom at ancient funerals)--than +become a spectacle of scorn for "the victor Hours" to deride, after they +have effaced his love-born sorrow. + + +II. + +But the struggle back to past contentment and happiness is difficult; and +the "Old Yew" of the churchyard seems to typify his present state of +feeling. + +Its roots and fibres stretch downward, and hold the skull and bones of the +dead; like as his thoughts cling to his departed friend. Its "dusk" or +shadow is before the church clock,[6] which strikes the hours of +mortality, and this harmonizes with his life of mourning. + +The tree preserves its "thousand years of gloom," unchanged by the seasons +which affect other things--the "old yew" continues always the same-- + + "And gazing on thee, sullen tree, + Sick for thy stubborn hardihood, + I seem to fail from out my blood, + And grow incorporate into thee." + +"Sick for" means, desirous of. + +It might seem as if the Poet, whose scientific allusions are always so +striking and correct, had overlooked, when he wrote this Poem, that the +yew bore blossom and seed, like other trees: but it was not so. _Of +course, the Poet always knew, that a tree which bears a berry must have a +blossom; but Sorrow only saw the winter gloom of the foliage._ + +Observe the recent introduction of Poem xxxix.; also the description, near +the beginning of "The Holy Grail"-- + + "They sat + Beneath a world-old yew tree, darkening half + The cloisters, on a gustful April morn + That puff'd the swaying branches into smoke. + + O, brother, I have seen this yew-tree smoke, + Spring after spring, for half a hundred years." + +It will be seen, in the later Poem, how a comparison with the gloomy yew +has been modified. + + +III. + +"Sorrow, cruel fellowship," from which he cannot disengage himself, now +reigns within him, and distorts with "lying lip"[7] all Nature and her +beneficent workings; making these seem to have no purpose or end. All +which is but an echo of his own dark feelings. Shall he then believe this +false guide-- + + "Embrace her as my natural good; + Or crush her, like a vice of blood, + Upon the threshold of the mind?" + +reject, and turn away from the impostures of a sorrowing imagination? + + +IV. + +In sleep there is no struggle of the will; and he communes with his own +heart, which is beating so low; a condition that must be caused by a sense +of "something lost." + +"Break," he says, still addressing his heart, but in metaphor; + + "Break, thou deep vase of chilling tears, + That grief hath shaken into frost." + +This must refer to the scientific fact, that 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 +the containing vessel. + +Clouds of undefined trouble, such as "dreams are made of," pass "below the +darken'd eyes," that is, figure themselves on the brain under the eyelids; +but on awaking, the will reasserts its power, and protests against the +folly of such mourning. He would therefore dismiss the phantom, Sorrow. + + +V. + +He sometimes hesitates, as at something half sinful, when giving +expression to his sadness; because words at best only partially declare +what the Soul feels; just as outward Nature cannot fully reveal the inner +life. + +But "after all" words act like narcotics, and numb pain: so, as if putting +on "weeds," the garb of mourning, he will wrap himself over in words; +though these, like coarse clothes on the body, give no more than an +outline of his "large grief." + + +VI. + +The "common" expressions of sympathy with our trouble are very +"commonplace"-- + + "Vacant chaff well-meant for grain." + +A friend asks, "Why grieve?" "Other friends remain;" "Loss is common to +the race;" as Hamlet's mother says, "All that live must die." Is this +comfort? rather the contrary. We know it is so-- + + "Never morning wore + To evening, but some heart did break." + +The father drinks his son's health at the war, in the moment when that son +is shot. + +The mother prays for her sailor-boy when + + "His heavy-shotted hammock-shroud + Drops in his vast and wandering grave." + +The girl is dressing before the glass, and strives to array herself most +becomingly for her expected lover; and he meanwhile is either drowned in +the ford, or killed by a fall from his horse-- + + "O what to her shall be the end? + And what to me remains of good? + To her perpetual maidenhood, + And unto me no second friend." + +These were all as unconscious of disaster as was the Poet, who, "to please +him well," was writing to Hallam in the very hour that he died. + +There is a fine passage in Jeremy Taylor's "Holy Dying," which contains a +like rumination on the uncertainty of life. + + "The wild fellow in _Petronius_ that escaped upon a broken table from + the furies of a shipwreck, as he was sunning himself upon the rocky + shore, espied a man rolled upon his floating bed of waves, ballasted + with sand in the folds of his garments, and carried by his civil enemy + the sea towards the shore to find a grave; and it cast him into some + sad thoughts; that peradventure this man's wife in some part of the + Continent, safe and warm, looks next month for the good man's return; + or it may be his son knows nothing of the tempest; or his father + thinks of that affectionate kiss which still is warm upon the good old + man's cheek ever since he took a kind farewell, and he weeps with joy + to think how blessed he shall be when his beloved boy returns into the + circle of his father's arms. + + "These are the thoughts of mortals, this is the end and sum of all + their designs; a dark night and an ill guide, a boisterous sea and a + broken cable, an hard rock and a rough wind dashed in pieces the + fortune of a whole family, and they that shall weep loudest for the + accident, are not yet entered into the storm, and yet have suffered + shipwreck." + + +VII. + +He persists in indulging his melancholy, and so creeps, "like a guilty +thing," at early morning to the door of the house in London where Hallam +had lived--Wimpole Street--but this only serves to remind him that + + "He is not here; but far away." + +The revival of busy movement on a wet morning in "the long unlovely +street,"[8] is vividly described-- + + "The noise of life begins again, + And ghastly thro' the drizzling rain + On the bald street breaks the blank day." + + +VIII. + +He next compares himself to the disappointed lover who "alights" from his +horse, calls at the home of his mistress, + + "And learns her gone and far from home." + +So, as the disappointed lover, to whom the whole place has at once become +a desert, wanders into the garden, and culls a rain-beaten flower, which +she had fostered; even thus will he cherish and plant "this poor flower of +poesy" on Hallam's tomb,[9] because his friend when alive had been pleased +with his poetic power. + + +IX. + +This poem commences an address to the ship that brings Hallam's body from +Vienna to England-- + + "My lost Arthur's loved remains." + +No words can be more touching than his appeal to the vessel,[10] for care +and tenderness in transporting its precious freight. He bids it come +quickly; "spread thy full wings," hoist every sail; "ruffle thy mirror'd +mast;" for the faster the ship is driven through the water, the more will +the reflected mast be "ruffled" on its agitated surface. May no rude wind +"perplex thy sliding keel," until Phosphor the morning star, Venus shines; +and during the night may the lights[11] above and the winds around be +gentle as the sleep of him-- + + "My Arthur, whom I shall not see, + Till all my widow'd race be run--" + +until my life, bereaved of its first affection, be over. + +In Poem xvii., 5, the same line occurs--"Till all my widow'd race be +run," and it agrees with St. Paul's declaration, 2 Tim., iv., 7, "I have +finished my course." The words _race_ and _course_ are synonymous, and +refer to the foot-races of the ancients. "More than my brothers are to +me," is repeated in P. lxxix., 1. + + +X. + +Very beautifully is the picture continued of the ship's passage, and he +appeals to it for safely conducting + + "Thy dark freight, a vanish'd life." + +The placid scene, which he had imagined as attending the vessel, +harmonizes with the home-bred fancy, that it is sweeter + + "To rest beneath the clover sod, + That takes the sunshine and the rains;" + +that is, to be buried in the open churchyard; + + "Or where the kneeling hamlet drains + The chalice of the grapes of God."[12] + +that is, in the chancel of the church, near the altar rails; than if, +together with the ship, "the roaring wells" of the sea + + "Should gulf him fathom deep in brine; + And hands so often clasp'd in mine, + Should toss with tangle[13] and with shells." + + +XI. + +This Poem would describe a calm and quiet day in October--late autumn. + +No doubt, the scenery described _does not refer to Clevedon, but to some +Lincolnshire wold, from which the whole range from marsh to the sea was +visible_. + +The stillness of the spot is just broken by the sound of the horse +chestnut falling[14] through the dead leaves, and these are reddening to +their own fall. No time of the year is more quiet, not even is the insect +abroad: the waves just swell and fall noiselessly, and this reminds him of + + "The dead calm in that noble breast + Which heaves but with the heaving deep." + + +XII. + +An ecstacy follows: in which the soul of the Poet seems to mount, like a +dove rising into the heavens with a message of woe tied under her wings; +and so the disembodied soul leaves its "mortal ark"--"our earthly house of +this tabernacle"--(2 Cor. v., 1) and flees away + + "O'er ocean-mirrors rounded large" + +(the sea line constantly expanding and always being circular), until the +ship comes in sight, when it lingers "on the marge," the edge of the sea, +weeping with the piteous cry-- + + "Is this the end of all my care? + Is this the end? Is this the end?" + +Then it flies in sport about the prow of the vessel, and after this seems +to + + "return + To where the body sits, and learn, + That I have been an hour away." + + +XIII. + +The tears shed by the widower, when he wakes from a dream of his deceased +wife, and "moves his doubtful arms" to find her place empty; are like the +tears he himself is weeping over "a loss for ever new," a terrible void +where there had been social intercourse, and a "silence" that will never +be broken. For he is lamenting + + "the comrade of my choice, + An awful thought, a life removed, + The human-hearted man I loved, + A Spirit, not a breathing voice." + +Hallam is now only a remembrance--no longer endowed with bodily functions, +and the survivor cannot quite accept what has happened. + +He therefore asks Time to teach him "many years"--for years to come--the +real truth, and make him feel that these strange things, over which his +tears are shed, are not merely a prolonged dream; and he begs that his +fancies, hovering over the approaching ship, may quite realise that it +brings no ordinary freight, but actually the mortal remains of his friend. + + +XIV. + +The difficulty in apprehending his complete loss is further shown by his +address to the ship, saying, that if it had arrived in port, and he saw +the passengers step across the plank to shore; and amongst them came +Hallam himself, and they renewed all their former friendship; and Hallam, +unchanged in every respect, heard his tale of sorrow with surprise: + + "I should not feel it to be strange." + +Both this and the previous Poem express the difficulty we feel in +realising the death of some one who is dear to us. So Cowper wrote, after +losing his mother, and in expectation that she would yet return: + + "What ardently I wish'd, I long believed, + And disappointed still, was still deceived." + + +XV. + +A stormy change in the weather occurs: the winds "roar from yonder +dropping day," that is, from the west, into which the daylight is sinking. +And all the sights and sounds of tempest alarm him for the safety of the +ship, and + + "But for fancies which aver + That all thy motions gently pass + Athwart a plane of molten glass,[15] + I scarce could brook the strain and stir + That makes the barren branches loud." + +Yet, in fear that it may not be so--the sea calm and the wind still--"the +wild unrest" would lead him to "dote and pore on" the threatening cloud, +and the fiery sunset. + + +XVI. + +This Poem is highly metaphysical. He asks whether Sorrow, which is his +abiding feeling, can be such a changeling, as to alternate in his breast +betwixt "calm despair" (see P. xi., 4) and "wild unrest?" (see P. xv., 4); +or does she only just take this "touch of change," as calm or storm +prevails? knowing no more of transient form, than does a lake that holds +"the shadow of a lark," when reflected on its surface. + +Being distinct from bodily pain, Sorrow is more like the reflection than +the thing reflected. But the shock he has received has made his mind +confused, and he is like a ship that strikes on a rock and founders. He +becomes a + + "delirious man, + Whose fancy fuses old and new, + And flashes into false and true, + And mingles all without a plan."[16] + + +XVII. + +He hails the ship--"thou comest"--and feels as if his own whispered prayer +for its safety, had been helping to waft it steadily across the sea. In +spirit, he had seen it move + + "thro' circles of the bounding sky"-- + +the horizon at sea being always circular (see P. xii., 3)--and he would +wish its speedy arrival, inasmuch as it brings "all I love." + +For doing this, he invokes a blessing upon all its future voyages. It is +now bringing + + "The dust of him I shall not see + Till all my widowed race be run."[17] + + +XVIII. + +The ship arrives, the "dear remains" are landed, and the burial is to take +place. + +It is something, worth the mourner's having, that he can stand on English +ground where his friend has been laid, and know that the violet will +spring from his ashes. + +Laertes says of Ophelia, + + "Lay her in the earth + And from her fair and unpolluted flesh + May violets spring!" + +A beautiful invitation follows to those, who are sometimes irreverent +bearers: + + "Come then, pure hands, and bear the head + That sleeps or wears the mask of sleep, + And come, whatever loves to weep, + And hear the ritual of the dead."[18] + +Even yet, before the grave is closed, he would like, as Elisha did on the +Shunammite woman's child, to cast himself, and + + "thro' his lips impart + The life that almost dies in me;" + +but still he resolves to form the firmer resolution, and to submit; though +meanwhile treasuring the look and words that are past and gone for ever. + + +XIX. + +From the Danube to the Severn--from Vienna to Clevedon--the body has been +conveyed, and was interred by the estuary of the latter river, where the +village of Clevedon stands.[19] + +The Wye, a tributary of the Severn, is also tidal; and when deepened by +the sea flowing inward, its babbling ceases; but the noise recurs when the +sea flows back. + +So does the Poet's power of expressing his grief alternate: at times he is +too full in heart to find utterance; he "brims with sorrow"--but after +awhile, as when "the wave again is vocal in its wooded" banks, + + "My deeper anguish also falls, + And I can speak a little then." + + +XX. + +He knows the "lesser grief" that can be told, also the "deeper anguish +which cannot be spoken:" his spirits are thus variably affected. + +In his lighter mood, he laments as servants mourn for a good master who +has died: + + "It will be hard, they say, to find + Another service such as this." + +But he is also visited by a sense of deeper deprivation, such as children +feel when they lose a father, and + + "see the vacant chair, and think, + How good! how kind! and he is gone." + + +XXI. + +This Poem opens as if Hallam's grave was in the churchyard, where grasses +waved; but it was not so, he was buried inside Clevedon church. + +The Poet imagines the reproofs, with which passers-by will visit him for +his unrestrained grief. He would "make weakness weak:" would parade his +pain to court sympathy, and gain credit for constancy; and another says, +that a display of private sorrow is quite inappropriate at times, when +great political changes impend, and Science every month is evolving some +new secret. + +He replies, that his song is but like that of the linnet--joyous indeed +when her brood first flies, but sad when the nest has been rifled of her +young. + + +XXII. + +For "four sweet years," from flowery spring to snowy winter, they had +lived in closest friendship; + + "But where the path we walk'd began + To slant the fifth autumnal slope," + +"the Shadow fear'd of man," grim Death, "broke our fair companionship." + +Hallam died on the 15th September, 1833, and the survivor, eagerly +pursuing, can find him no more, but + + "thinks, that somewhere in the waste + The Shadow sits and waits for me." + +His own spirit becomes darkened by gloomy apprehensions of superimpending +calamity. + + +XXIII. + +Feeling his extreme loneliness, yet "breaking into songs by fits" (which +proves that _In Memoriam_ was written at intervals),[20] he wanders +sometimes to where the cloaked Shadow is sitting--Death, + + "Who keeps the keys of all the creeds"-- + +inasmuch as only when we die shall we know the whole truth; and "falling +lame" on his way, that is, stumbling in his vain enquiries as to whence he +came and whither he is going, he can only grasp one feeling, which is, +that all is miserably changed since they were in company--friends +enjoying life together, travelling in foreign lands, and indulging in +scholarly communion on classic subjects. + + +XXIV. + +But, after all, was their happiness perfect? No, the very sun, the "fount +of Day," has spots on its surface--"wandering isles of night." If all had +been wholly good and fair, this earth would have remained the Paradise it +has never looked, "since Adam left his garden," as appears in the earlier +editions; but now the line runs, + + "Since our first sun arose and set." + +Does "the haze of grief" then magnify the past, as things look larger in a +fog?[21] Or does his present lowness of spirits set the past in relief, as +projections are more apparent when you are beneath them? Or is the past +from being far off always in glory, as distance lends enchantment to the +view; and so the world becomes orbed + + "into the perfect star + We saw not, when we moved therein?" + +We are told that, if we were placed in the moon, we should see the Earth +as--"the perfect star"--having a shining surface, and being thirteen times +larger than the moon itself. + + +XXV. + +All he knows is, that whilst with Hallam, there was Life. They went side +by side, and upheld the daily burden. + +He himself moved light as a carrier bird in air, and delighted in the +weight he bore because Love shared it; and since he transferred half of +every pain to his dear companion, he himself was never weary in either +heart or limb. + + +XXVI. + +Dismal and dreary as life has become, he nevertheless wishes to live, if +only to prove the stedfastness of his affection. And he asks that if the +all-seeing Eye, which already perceives the future rottenness of the +living tree, and the far off ruin of the now standing tower, can detect +any coming indifference in him--any failure of Love--then may the "Shadow +waiting with the keys" "shroud me from my proper scorn;"[22] may Death +hide me from my own self-contempt! + +"In Him is no before." Jehovah is simply, _I am_, to whom foresight and +foreknowledge cannot be attributed, since past and future are equally +present. + +The morn breaks over Indian seas, because they are to the east of us. + + +XXVII. + +He neither envies the cage-born bird "that never knew the summer woods," +and is content without liberty; nor the beast that lives uncontrolled by +conscience; nor the heart that never loved; "nor any want-begotten rest," +that is, repose arising from defective sensibility. + +On the contrary, + + "I hold it true, whate'er befall; + I feel it, when I sorrow most; + 'Tis better to have loved and lost + Than never to have loved at all." + +Seneca in Epistle 99 says, _Magis gauderes quod habueras quam maereres quod +amiseras_.--See P. lxxxv., 1. + +The Poem seems to halt here, and begin afresh with a description of +Christmastide. + + +XXVIII. + +Christmas Eve at Somersby, and possibly at the end of the year 1833. If +so, throughout the year he had been at ease, until the blow came--he had +"slept and woke with pain," and then he almost wished he might never more +hear the Christmas bells. + +But a calmer spirit seems to come over him: as he listens to the Christmas +peals rung at four neighbouring[23] churches, and the sound soothes him +with tender associations: + + "But they my troubled spirit rule, + For they controll'd me when a boy; + They bring me sorrow touch'd with joy, + The merry, merry bells of Yule." + +Yule is Christmas, a jubilee which brings glad tidings of great joy to all +people. + + +XXIX. + +Having such "compelling cause to grieve" over the decease of Hallam, + + "as daily vexes household peace"-- + +for death is ever invading some home--how can they venture to keep +Christmas Eve as usual? He is absent, who when amongst them was so +eminently social. But it must be done. "Use and wont," "old sisters of a +day gone by," still demand what has been customary. "They too will die," +and new habits succeed. + +To the fourteenth chapter of Walter Scott's "Pirate," there is the +following motto from "Old Play," which meant Scott's own invention: + + "We'll keep our customs. What is law itself + But old establish'd custom? What religion + (I mean with one half of the men that use it) + Save the good use and wont that carries them + To worship how and where their fathers worshipp'd? + All things resolve to custom. We'll keep ours." + + +XXX. + +The Christian festival proceeds, and there is the family gathering, with +such games as are common at this season; but sadness weighs on all, for +they entertain "an awful sense of one mute shadow"--Hallam's +wraith--being present and watching them. + +They sit in silence, then break into singing + + "A merry song we sang with him + Last year." + +This seems to identify the time to be Christmas, 1833, as Hallam died on +15th September, 1833, but was not buried until January, 1834. + +They comfort themselves with the conviction that the dead retain "their +mortal sympathy," and still feel with those they have left behind. The +soul, a "keen seraphic flame," pierces + + "From orb to orb, from veil to veil," + +and so traverses the universe. + +Was the anniversary of our Saviour's birth ever hailed in terms more +sublime and beautiful! + + "Rise, happy morn, rise, holy morn, + Draw forth the cheerful day from night: + O Father, touch the east, and light + The light that shone when Hope was born." + + +XXXI. + +The mind of the poet has now taken a more strictly religious view of the +situation; and he would like to learn the secrets of the grave from the +experience of Lazarus. + +Did Lazarus in death yearn to hear his sister Mary weeping for him? If she +asked him, when restored to life, where he was during his four days of +entombment; + + "There lives no record of reply," + +which, if given, might have "added praise to praise"--that is, might have +sealed and confirmed the promise that "blessed are the dead which die in +the Lord." + +As it was, the neighbours met and offered congratulations, and their cry +was, + + "Behold a man raised up by Christ! + The rest remaineth unreveal'd; + He told it not; or something seal'd + The lips of that Evangelist." + +It is only St. John who records the miracle. + + +XXXII. + +At a subsequent visit to Simon's house in Bethany, where both Lazarus and +Mary were present, Mary's eyes, looking alternately at her brother who had +been restored to life, and at our Lord who had revived him, are "homes of +silent prayer;" and one strong affection overpowers every other sentiment, +when her "ardent gaze" turns from the face of Lazarus, "and rests upon the +Life"--Christ, the author and giver of life. _Vita vera, vita ipsa._ + +Her whole spirit is then so "borne down by gladness," that + + "She bows, she bathes the Saviour's feet + With costly spikenard and with tears."[24] + +No lives are so blessed as those which consist of "faithful prayers:" no +attachments so enduring as those which are based on the higher love of +God. + +But are there any souls so pure as to have reached this higher range of +feeling; or, if there be, what blessedness can equal theirs? + + +XXXIII. + +This Poem is abstruse, and requires thought and care for the +interpretation of the Poet's meaning. + +It seems to be an address of warning and reproof to a moral pantheist, who +fancies that he has attained a higher and purer air, by withholding his +faith from all "form," and recognising Deity in everything--his faith +having "centre everywhere." + +This sceptic is warned from disturbing the pious woman, who is happy in +her prayers to a personal God; for they bring an "early heaven" on her +life. Her faith is fixed on "form;" and to flesh and blood she has linked +a truth divine, by seeing God incarnate in the person of Christ. + +The pantheist must take care for himself, that, whilst satisfied + + "In holding by the law within," + +the guidance of his own reason, he does not after all fail in a sinful +world, "for want of such a type," as the life of Christ on earth affords. + +"A life that leads melodious days," is like that of Vopiscus, in his +Tiburtine villa, as described by his friend, Statius, I., iii., 20. + + --_ceu veritus turbare Vopisci + Pieriosque dies et habentes carmina somnos._ + + +XXXIV. + +His own dim consciousness should teach him thus much, that Life will never +be extinguished. Else all here is but dust and ashes. The earth, "this +round of green," and sun, "this orb of flame," are but "fantastic +beauty"--such as a wild Poet might invent, who has neither conscience nor +aim. + +Even God can be nothing to the writer, if all around him is doomed to +perish; and he will not himself wait in patience, but rather "sink to +peace;" and, like the birds that are charmed by the serpent[25] into its +mouth, he will "drop head-foremost in the jaws of vacant darkness," and so +cease to exist. + + +XXXV. + +And yet, if a trustworthy voice from the grave should testify, that there +is no life beyond this world; even then he would endeavour to keep alive +so sweet a thing as Love, during the brief span of mortal existence. + +But still there would come + + "The moanings of the homeless sea," + +and the sound of streams disintegrating and washing down the rocks to form +future land surfaces--"AEonian hills," the formations of whole aeons being +thus dissolved--and Love itself would languish under + + "The sound of that forgetful shore," + +those new lands in which all things are obliterated and forgotten--knowing +that its own death was impending. + +But the case is idly put. If such extinguishing Death were from the first +seen as it is when it comes, Love would either not exist; or else would be +a mere fellowship of coarse appetites, like those of the Satyr, who +crushes the grape for drunken revelry, and basks and battens in the woods. + + +XXXVI. + +Although, even in manhood, the great truths of Religion only + + "darkly join, + Deep-seated in our mystic frame"-- + +since at best we only see as through a glass darkly: we nevertheless +bless His name, who "made them current coin," so as to be generally +intelligible. This was done by the teaching of Parables. + +For Divine Wisdom, having to deal with mortal powers, conveyed sacred +truth through "lowly doors," by embodying it in earthly similitudes; +because "closest words" will not explain Divine things, owing to the +imperfection of human language; "and so the Word had breath," "God was +manifest in the flesh" (1 Tim. iii., 16, and 1 John, 14), and by good +works wrought the best of all creeds, which the labourer in the field, the +mason, the grave-digger, + + "And those wild eyes that watch the wave + In roarings round the coral reef," + +even the savage of the Pacific Islands, can see and understand, being +conveyed to him through both the miracles and parables of the Gospel. + + +XXXVII. + +He imagines Urania, the heavenly Muse, to reprove him for venturing on +sacred ground, and commenting on religious themes; as she would have him +confine his steps to his own Parnassus, and there earn the laurel crown. + +But his own tragic Muse, Melpomene, replies with the apology, that though +unworthy to speak of holy mysteries, yet with his earthly song he had +striven to soothe his own aching heart, and render a due tribute to human +love; and inasmuch as the comfort he had drawn was "clasp'd in truth +reveal'd," had its foundation in the Gospel: he daringly + + "loiter'd in the Master's field, + And darken'd sanctities with song." + +Many readers of _In Memoriam_ will have thanked its author for these +trespasses upon the Holy Land, feeling indeed there was no profane +intrusion. + +Some will regret that he has changed the original line, "and dear as +sacramental wine," into "and dear to me as sacred wine:" the purpose, one +supposes, was that the reader should see that he spoke only for +himself--"to me"--the meaning is unchanged, but the sound is rather flat. + + +XXXVIII. + +The sadness of his heart has fully returned, and the journey of life is +dull and weary. The skies above and the prospect before him are no longer +what they used to be, when Hallam was by. "The blowing season," when +_plants are blossoming_: the "herald melodies of spring," when the birds +proclaim that winter is past, give him no joy; but in his own songs he +finds a "gleam of solace;" and if after death there be any consciousness +retained of what has been left upon earth, + + "Then are these songs I sing of thee + Not all ungrateful to thine ear." + + +XXXIX. + +This Poem has been recently introduced, as already stated (see P. ii.). +The Yew tree does really blossom, and form fruit and seed like other +trees, though we may not notice it. + +The Poet now says, that his "random stroke" on the tree brings off + + "Fruitful cloud and living smoke;" + +Also that at the proper season + + "Thy gloom is kindled at the tips." + +The fact is, that the flower is bright yellow in colour, but very minute; +and when the tree is shaken, the pollen comes off like dust, and then the +tree seems to resume its old gloom. + +So the spirit of the Poet may brighten for a moment, and then return to +its accustomed melancholy. + + +XL. + +He wishes "the widow'd hour" when he lost his friend, could be forgotten, +or rather recalled like an occasion when the bride leaves her first home +for "other realms of love." There are tears then, but April tears--rain +and sunshine mixed; and as the bride's future office may be to rear and +teach another generation--uniting grandparents with grand-children--so he +has no doubt that to Hallam + + "is given + A life that bears immortal fruit + In such great offices as suit + The full-grown energies of heaven." + +But then comes this difference. The bride will return in course of time +with her baby, and all at her old home will be happier for her +absence--whereas + + "thou and I have shaken hands, + Till growing winters lay me low; + My paths are in the fields I know, + But thine in undiscover'd lands." + + +XLI. + +Whilst together upon earth they could advance in company, though Hallam's +spirit and intellect were ever soaring upwards. Now, the links which +united them are lost, and he can no longer partake in his friend's +transformations. So, (folly though it be,) he wishes that, by an effort of +will, he could + + "leap the grades of life and light, + And flash at once, my friend, to thee." + + See P. xcv., 9. + +For, though he has no vague dread of death and "the gulfs beneath," yet +the chilling thought comes over him, that in death he may not be able to +overtake his friend, but evermore remain "a life behind" him, + + "Through all the secular to be"-- + +all future ages: and that so he shall be his mate no more, which is his +great trouble. + + "The howlings of forgotten fields" + +is probably a classical allusion to those "fields" of mystic horror, over +which the spirits of the departed were supposed to range, uttering wild +shrieks and cries. Has Dante no such allusion?[26] + +This Poem intimates the idea of progress and advancement after death. + + +XLII. + +He reproaches himself for these fancies; for inasmuch as it was only unity +of place which gave them the semblance of equality here--Hallam being +always really ahead--why may not "Place retain us still,"[27] when I too +am dead, and can be trained and taught anew by this "lord of large +experience?" + + "And what delights can equal those + That stir the spirit's inner deeps, + When one that loves but knows not, reaps + A truth from one that loves and knows?" + +There are no pleasures so sweet, as the imbibings of instruction from the +lips of those who are both superior and dear to us. + +It is evident that Hallam's translation in death, had exalted his friend's +estimation of him whilst living, for see the Poet's note at the end of +Poem xcvii. + + +XLIII. + +If, in the intermediate state, we find that + + "Sleep and death be truly one"-- + +as St. Paul himself might lead us to believe-- + + "And every spirit's folded bloom" + +--the slumbering soul being like a flower which closes at night--reposed, +unconscious of the passage of time, but with silent traces of the past +marked upon it;[28] then the lives of all, from the beginning of time, +would contain in their shut-up state a record of all that had ever +happened; + + "And love will last as pure and whole, + As when he loved me here in Time, + And at the spiritual prime + Rewaken with the dawning soul." + +At the resurrection, the old affection will revive. + + +XLIV. + +How fare the happy dead? Here man continuously grows, but he forgets what +happened + + "before + God shut the doorways of his head;" + +that is, before the skull of the infant closed. Yet sometimes + + "A little flash, a mystic hint" + +suggests the possibility of a previous existence.[29] "If death so taste +Lethean springs," as to leave a trace on the soul of what had happened +upon earth--the Poet here makes Lethe produce remembrance, instead of +forgetfulness, which is its normal effect. Dante describes the double +power of the mythic stream in Purgatory (Can. xxviii., l. 134)-- + + "On this, devolved with power to take away + Remembrance of offence; on that, to bring + Remembrance back of every good deed done. + From whence its name of Lethe on this part; + On the other, Eunoe."--Cary's Translation. + +And so, "in the long harmonious years" of death, some dim touch of earthly +things may reach Hallam whilst ranging with his equals. If this should be +allowed, "O turn thee round," "resolve the doubt," whether thou art +conscious of a previous life, and listen to my guardian angel, who will +tell thee all about us here. + + +XLV. + +The child, still in its mother's arms, has no consciousness of its own +individual life and identity; and it is with its growth that it acquires a +sense of separate and isolated being, independent of all around. + +The acquisition of this consciousness may be the use of "blood and +breath," which otherwise would have achieved no worthy end; as we should +have to learn ourselves afresh after the second birth of death, if these +had not assured us of our indisputable personality. + + +XLVI. + +In this life we experience "thorn and flower," grief and joy; and the past +becomes mercifully shaded as time goes on, otherwise the retrospect would +be intolerable. But hereafter all shadow on what has happened will be +removed, and all will be "clear from marge to marge;" and the five years +of earthly friendship will be the "richest field" in the "eternal +landscape." + +Yet this would be a limited range for Love, which ought to extend without +any circumscription, + + "A rosy warmth from marge to marge," + +its expansion interminable. + + +XLVII. + +This great and religious Poem has been absurdly said to teach Pantheism, +which these stanzas refute; or perhaps they rather deny the doctrine of +Spinoza, if that be clearly understood. + +At any rate, to be conscious of "a separate whole"--a distinct +individuality--and yet merge at last + + "in the general Soul, + Is faith as vague as all unsweet: + Eternal form shall still divide + The eternal soul from all beside; + And I shall know him when we meet." + +St. Paul is not more distinct and emphatic upon our individuality +hereafter, when he says, we shall "be clothed upon with our house which is +from heaven," 2 Cor. v., 2; that is, we shall put on a spiritual _body_, +that will give identity and form. + +Delighting in the thought of + + "Enjoying each the other's good," + +he feels to have attracted the approving Shade of Hallam, and this +reluctantly fades away, with the tender parting: + + "Farewell, we lose ourselves in light." + +_If indeed we are to be merged in the universal Soul, let us have at least +one more parting, before we lose our individualities in the Great Being._ + + +XLVIII. + +This Poem disclaims any attempt at settling religious difficulties. The +verses are of "sorrow born," the result of private grief; and if +misunderstood, and open to the charge of attempting to solve such grave +questions of doubt as affect some minds, they would deserve the scorn of +men. + +Sorrow does not undertake severe argument; but if a "slender shade of +doubt" flits before it, it would make this doubt a "vassal unto love," and +yield to Love's supreme authority. + +Love ought to be our ruler and guide, and these lays of sadness are merely + + "Short swallow-flights of song, that dip + Their wings in tears, and skim away." + + +XLIX. + +He compares the "random influences" of Art, Nature, and the Schools, to +light breaking in shivered lances on the dappled water. For even so does +"the sullen surface" of the mind become "crisp" and curled with the wave +of thought, the eddy of fancy, the air of song. + +The transient passenger may look and go on his way, but must not blame +such mental perturbations: for + + "Beneath all fancied hopes and fears, + Ay me,[30] the sorrow deepens down, + Whose muffled motions blindly drown + The bases of my life in tears." + + +L. + +He invokes Hallam's spirit to be near him in his various moods of +distress--when he is filled with nervous apprehensions, when faith seems +gone, and Time to be only "a maniac scattering dust," and Life to be "a +Fury slinging flame:" when men also appear to be no more than flies, that +sting and weave their cells and die. But above all, + + "Be near me when I fade away, + To point the term of human strife, + And on the low dark verge of life, + The twilight of eternal day." + +The idea is sustained, that we shall go through the darkness of death, +when Time will be lost, into the dawning light of Eternity; and the Poet +would have his friend be near him at this translation. + + +LI. + +Dare we indeed challenge the dead to inspect us? Have we "no inner +vileness" that we would not have them discover? Would the Poet be lessened +in Hallam's esteem and affection, when "some hidden shame" was exposed? +No, + + "There must be wisdom with great Death: + The dead shall look me thro' and thro'." + + * * * * * + + "They watch, like God, the rolling hours + With larger other eyes than ours, + To make allowance for us all." + + +LII. + +He complains of his own inability to love Hallam as he ought, that is, +worthily; because, if he did so, he would be equal to his friend, + + "For love reflects the thing beloved;" + +whereas his words are words only, the "froth of thought." + +The Spirit of love reproves this self-accusation: + + "Thou canst not move me from thy side, + Nor human frailty do me wrong." + +There is no ideal of excellence, which we may conceive, that will ensure +our attaining to it: + + "not the sinless years + That breathed beneath the Syrian blue"-- + +not the life of Christ, in the clear atmosphere of Palestine, keeps any +spirit "wholly true" to that pattern of perfection. + +So be not "like an idle girl," fretting over little faults--"flecks of +sin." But wait, thy wealth will be gathered in--thy worth shown + + "When Time hath sunder'd shell from pearl"-- + +when the flesh has left the Soul free from its contaminating influence. + + +LIII. + +He has often known a father, now + + "A sober man among his boys," + +whose youth was noisy and foolish. Are we then to conclude from his +example, that had there been no wild oats sown, there scarcely would have +come + + "The grain by which a man may live?" + +If we ventured to name such a doctrine among the old, who have "outlived +heats of youth," would we preach it to the young, who still "eddy round +and round?" + +Hold fast what is good, and define it well; and take care that "divine +Philosophy" does not exceed her legitimate bound and become + + "Procuress to the lords of hell"-- + +by advocating sin as the path to sanctity. + + +LIV. + +This Poem expresses a hope in Universalism-- + + "that somehow good + Will be the final goal of ill"-- + +that natural propensities, wilful sins, imperfect faith, and inherited +weakness, may all find a pardonable solution. + +He hopes that nothing has been made in vain-- + + "That not one life shall be destroy'd, + Or cast as rubbish to the void, + When God hath made the pile complete." + +But how reverently does he touch this mysterious subject! + + "Behold, we know not anything; + I can but trust that good shall fall + At last--far off--at last, to all, + And every winter change to spring. + + So runs my dream: but what am I? + An infant crying in the night: + An infant crying for the light: + And with no language but a cry." + +In Poem cxxiv., stanza 5, he says, + + "Then was I as a child that cries, + But, crying, knows his father near." + + +LV. + +He pursues the awful theme, and asks whether the wish for an universal +restoration to life, does not spring from what is "likest God" in our own +souls, His unlimited goodwill towards men, which would have all come to a +knowledge of the truth? + + "Are God and Nature then at strife?" + +for we find Nature, whilst careful in preserving the type of each species, +utterly reckless of the separate members. We find, too, that out of +"fifty (_myriad_)[31] seeds" sown, only one perhaps germinates. He falters +and falls down + + "Upon the great world's altar-stairs,[32] + That slope thro' darkness up to God;"-- + +but still he stretches forth "lame hands of faith" + + "To what I feel is Lord of all, + And faintly trust the larger hope"-- + +the hope of a final restitution of all things. + + +LVI. + +He said that Nature preserved each type; but no, some species are already +extinct; and Nature says that she cares not for preserving anything, and +so, in geological strata, we find the fossil remains of creatures that no +longer exist.[33] Why then may not man, + + "Who seemed so fair, + Such splendid purpose in his eyes," + +also perish, and have his dust blown about the desert, + + "Or seal'd within the iron hills?" + +If he be "no more"[34]--if there be nothing beyond this life for him--then +is man but a monster, a dream, a discord--"dragons of the prime," the +Ichthyosauri that lived in the slime of chaos, were his betters! + + "O life as futile, then, as frail! + O for thy voice to soothe and bless![35] + What hope of answer or redress? + Behind the veil, behind the veil." + + +LVII. + +"Peace, come away," may possibly be addressed to his sister, whom he now +calls away from the sad subject which his earthly song had treated. + +He says his companion's cheeks are pale, so it is time that they should +turn to other things, though in doing so, he must leave half his own life +behind. His "friend is richly shrined;" but what will become of himself? +"I shall pass; my work will fail." + +_The author speaks of these poems--"me-thinks, I have built a rich shrine +for my friend, but it will not last."_ At any rate, so long as he lives +will the tolling of Hallam's passing bell[36] be in his ears; and the +strokes on the bell, "Ave" and "Adieu," hail and farewell, are like the +notes of perpetual separation. They seem to be parted "for evermore."[37] +He is in the lowest depth of woe.[38] + + +LVIII. + +It has been thought that there might have been an interval after the +composition of the previous Poem; and that the author resumed his task in +a more hopeful state of mind. + +He now compares the words of his late farewell to the echoes of dropping +water in burial vaults, and he says that other hearts besides his own were +affected by his lamentation. + +Urania reproaches him for thus distributing a fruitless grief amongst +those who had shared his sense of loss; and, exhorting him to wait with +patience for a more resigned feeling, she assures him that it will come to +his great relief-- + + "Abide a little longer here, + And thou shalt take a nobler leave"-- + +be able to speak with more confidence of their meeting again. + + +LIX. + +He invites Sorrow to live with him as a wife, always and constant, not as +a casual mistress: being his "bosom-friend and half of life," even as it +were Hallam himself. + +Sorrow must remain his centred passion which cannot move; nevertheless it +will not always be gloomy: but rather allow occasional playfulness, so +that it would not be commonly known that he had a life-long +affliction.[39] + + +LX. + +He cannot dismiss the memory of his loss, and calls Hallam "a soul of +nobler tone," superior to himself, who is feeling "like some poor girl" +that has fixed her affections on a man of higher rank than her own. She +compares her state with his, and sighs over her own inferior +circumstances, and repines at her humbler lot. The neighbours jeer at her +disappointment, and she says + + "How vain am I! + How should he love a thing so low?" + +No doubt, the passing into a higher world gave Hallam a superior dignity +in the Poet's estimation.[40] + + +LXI. + +If Hallam, in the intermediate state be exchanging replies with the great +intellects there assembled from all time,--"the spirits of just men made +perfect"--how dwarfed and insignificant must seem any intercourse with his +friend still left here-- + + "How blanch'd with darkness must I grow!" + +This figure of speech will be taken from the blanching of vegetables in +the dark. Still, he would have him turn to + + "the doubtful shore,[41] + Where thy first form was made a man;" + +that is, to this world, distinguishing it from that "second state +sublime," into which Hallam had been admitted; for not even there can more +affection be found, than I conceived and yet cherish: + + "I loved thee, Spirit, and love, nor can + The soul of Shakespeare love thee more." + +This is all that even Shakespeare can do, if he and thou be now compeers. + + +LXII. + +If looking down on the object of his affection makes his friend ashamed, +then let their friendship be to him but as an idle tale or legend of the +past. And Hallam may feel as one might, who having once had a low +attachment, did afterwards wed an equal mind.[42] + +The first love then either wholly dies out, or + + "Is matter for a flying smile"-- + +a subject for ridicule. + + +LXIII. + +Still, if I can pity an overdriven horse, or love my dog, without robbing +heaven of its dues of reverence, when these animals are as much below me +as I am thy inferior; why mayest not thou "watch me, where I weep," from +thy circuits of higher heights and deeper depths than mine? + + +LXIV. + +He asks whether Hallam is looking back on this life, + + "As some divinely gifted man," + +who has burst through all the adverse circumstances of his humble birth, +by genius and labour; making + + "by force his merit known, + And lives to clutch the golden keys, + To mould a mighty state's decrees, + And shape the whisper of the throne;" + +as Lord Beaconsfield did. + +Does not such a hero in his elevation, + + "When all his active powers are still," + +sometimes feel tender memories of the scenes of his early life-- + + "The limit of his narrower fate"-- + +when he "play'd at counsellors and kings" with some lad long ago left +behind in his native obscurity; and who now resting on his plough, +musingly asks, + + "Does my old friend remember me?" + + +LXV. + +He clings to the memory of Hallam, yet would resign himself to his loss-- + + "Sweet soul, do with me as thou wilt." + +All that he can resolve is, to cherish every grain of love; and in doing +so, there springs up the "happy thought," that if his own nature has been +elevated by intercourse with Hallam, why may not a like result have been +reflected from himself on his friend? + + "Since we deserved the name of friends, + And thine effect so lives in me, + A part of mine may live in thee, + And move thee on to noble ends." + + +LXVI. + +He accounts for his cheerfulness to some one, who had wondered that being +so far diseased in heart he could ever be gay. + +He says that his own grief has made him feel kindly towards others; and +that he is like a blind man, who though needing a hand to lead him, can +still jest with his friends, take children on his knee and play with them, +and dream of the sky he can no longer see: + + "His inner day can never die, + His night of loss is always there." + + +LXVII. + +He pictures in his mind, as he lies in bed, how the moonlight that fills +his chamber is passing its "silver flame" across the marble tablet in +Clevedon Church,[43] which is inscribed to the memory of Hallam. The +tablet is not in the chancel of the church, as erroneously stated in Mr. +Hallam's private memoir of his son, and consequently so described in the +earlier editions of this Poem, but it rests on the west wall of the south +transept; and "the letters of thy name," and "the number of thy years," +are thus most affectingly recorded: + + "TO THE MEMORY OF + ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM, + OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, B.A., + ELDEST SON OF HENRY HALLAM, ESQUIRE, + AND OF JULIA MARIA, HIS WIFE, + DAUGHTER OF SIR ABRAHAM ELTON, BART., + OF CLEVEDON COURT, + WHO WAS SNATCHED AWAY BY SUDDEN DEATH, + AT VIENNA, ON SEPTEMBER 15TH, 1833, + IN THE 23RD YEAR OF HIS AGE. + AND NOW, IN THIS OBSCURE AND SOLITARY + CHURCH, + REPOSE THE MORTAL REMAINS OF + ONE TOO EARLY LOST FOR PUBLIC FAME, + BUT ALREADY CONSPICUOUS AMONG HIS + CONTEMPORARIES + FOR THE BRIGHTNESS OF HIS GENIUS, + THE DEPTH OF HIS UNDERSTANDING, + THE NOBLENESS OF HIS DISPOSITION, + THE FERVOUR OF HIS PIETY, + AND THE PURITY OF HIS LIFE. + + _Vale dulcissime, + vale dilectissime, desideratissime, + requiescas in pace. + Pater ac mater hic posthac requiescamus tecum, + usque ad tubam._"[44] + +When the moonlight dies he falls asleep, "closing eaves of wearied eyes;" +and awakens to know how the grey break of day is drawn from "coast to +coast," from Somersetshire to Wales, across the estuary of the Severn,[45] + + "And in the dark church like a ghost + Thy tablet glimmers to the dawn." + + +LXVIII. + +A succession of dreams now occurs. When at night he presses "the down" of +his pillow, sleep, "Death's twin-brother,"[46] "times my breath"--takes +possession of him and regulates his breathing. But, though so closely +related to Death, sleep cannot make him dream of Hallam "as dead." He +again walks with him, as he did before he was left "forlorn;" and all +nature is bright around them. + +But, looking at his friend, he discovers "a trouble in thine eye"--an +expression of sadness, which his dream will not account for. The light of +day reveals the truth. He awakes, and perceives that his own grief, the +trouble of his youth, had transferred itself to the image he saw in his +dream. + + +LXIX. + +He dreams again, and nature seems to have become distorted, and will not +answer to the seasons. Smoke and frost fill the streets, and hawkers +chatter trifles at the doors. + +He wanders into a wood, and finds only "thorny boughs." Of these he forms +a crown, which he places on his head. For wearing this, he is scoffed at +and derided; but an angel comes and touches it into leaf, and speaks words +of comfort, "hard to understand," being the language of a higher world. + +The occurrences in this dream seem to have been suggested by the +indignities offered to our Lord before His crucifixion. + + +LXX. + +The confusion of nightmare, with hideous imagery, follows his effort to +discern the features of Hallam; till all at once the horrid shapes +disperse, and his nerves are composed by a pleasanter vision: + + "I hear a wizard music roll, + And thro' a lattice on the soul + Looks thy fair face and makes it still." + + +LXXI. + +Sleep, from its capturing power over the brain, is called "kinsman to +death and trance and madness;" and is here acknowledged as affording + + "A night-long Present of the Past," + +by reviving in a dream of the night a tour they had made together "thro' +summer France." + +The Poet asks that, if sleep has "such credit with the soul," as to +produce this temporary illusion; it may be farther extended by giving him +a stronger opiate, so as to make his pleasure complete, in prolonging this +renewal of their pedestrian tour, and reviving other cherished +associations. + +This reference to their foreign excursion recalls the charming verses, "In +the Valley of Cauteretz," which evidently relate to their being together +during this happy holiday: + + "All along the valley, stream that flashest white, + Deepening thy voice with the deepening of the night, + All along the valley, where thy waters flow, + I walk'd with one I loved two-and-thirty years ago. + All along the valley, while I walk'd to-day, + The two-and-thirty years were a mist that rolls away; + For all along the valley, down thy rocky bed, + Thy living voice to me was as the voice of the dead, + And all along the valley, by rock and cave and tree, + The voice of the dead was a living voice to me." + + +LXXII. + +The dreams are over, and he addresses the sad anniversary of Hallam's +death, which took place on the 15th of September, 1833--the day having +just dawned with stormy accompaniments. The poplar tree[47] is blown +white, through having its leaves reversed by the wind; and the window-pane +streams with rain. It is a day on which his "crown'd estate," his life's +happiness, began to fail; and that the rose is weighed down by rain, and +the daisy closes her "crimson fringes,"[48] are effects quite in harmony +with his feelings. + +But, if the day had opened with no wind, and the sun had chequered the +hill sides with light and shadow; it would still have looked + + "As wan, as chill, as wild as now." + +It is a disastrous "day, mark'd as with some hideous crime," he can +therefore only say, "hide thy shame beneath the ground," in sunset, when +the recalling anniversary will be past. + +We are reminded of Job's imprecation on his own birthday--"Let the day +perish on which I was born." + + +LXXIII. + +He says there are so many worlds, and so much to be done in them--since +so little has already been accomplished--that he thinks Hallam may have +been needed elsewhere. The earthly career of usefulness and distinction is +over; but he finds no fault, piously submitting-- + + "For nothing is that errs from law;" + +all is overruled. We pass away, and what survives of human deeds? + + "It rests with God." + +The hollow ghost of Hallam's reputation may wholly fade here; but his +exulting soul carries away unexpended powers for higher purposes, + + "And self-infolds the large results + Of force that would have forged a name," + +had he been permitted to live. + + +LXXIV. + +This Poem will certainly not bear a literal interpretation. We cannot +suppose that the writer ever looked on the face of his friend after +death; for nearly four months had elapsed before the body reached England. + +What he saw, therefore, was with "the mind's eye." And as Death often +brings out a likeness,[49] which was never before recognized; so, +contemplating the character of the departed, he sees + + "Thy likeness to the wise below, + Thy kindred with the great of old." + +I can perceive worth in thee equal to theirs! + +The last stanza is mystical; the darkness of death hides much; what he can +see he cannot or will not explain: enough, that thou hast made even this +darkness of death beautiful by thy presence. + + +LXXV. + +The Poet leaves the praises of his friend unexpressed, because no words +can duly convey them; and the greatness thus unrecorded must be guessed, +by the measure of the survivor's grief. + +Indeed, he does not care + + "in these fading days + To raise a cry that lasts not long, + And round thee with the breeze of song, + To stir a little dust[50] of praise." + +The world only applauds accomplished success, and does not care for what +might have been done, had opportunity been given. It is therefore +sufficient that silence should guard Hallam's fame here; because the +writer is assured, that what he is elsewhere doing + + "Is wrought with tumult of acclaim." + +One cannot but feel that were it not for this immortal elegy, its subject +would have been long since forgotten, like other promising youths who have +died in their Spring. + + +LXXVI. + +"Take wings of fancy," and imagine that you have the whole "starry heavens +of space" revealed to one glance--"sharpen'd to a needle's end."[51] + +"Take wings of foresight," and see in the future how thy best poems are +dumb, before a yew tree moulders; and though the writings of _the great +early Poets_--"the matin songs that woke the darkness of our planet"--may +last, thy songs in fifty years will have become vain; and have ceased to +be known by the time when the oak tree has withered into a hollow +ruin.[52] + + +LXXVII. + + "What hope is here for modern rhyme?" + +Looking at what has already happened, + + "These mortal lullabies of pain," + +may bind a book, or line a box, or be used by some girl for curl papers; +or before a century has passed, they may be found on a stall, telling of + + "A grief--then changed to something else, + Sung by a long forgotten mind." + +Nevertheless, these considerations shall not deter the Poet-- + + "But what of that? My darken'd ways + Shall ring with music all the same; + To breathe my loss is more than fame, + To utter love more sweet than praise." + + +LXXVIII. + +Another Christmas Eve arrives, with snow and calm frosty weather. Though, +as of old, they had games, and _tableaux vivants_, and dance, and song, +and "hoodman blind"[53]--blindman's bluff--yet in spite of these +recreations, + + "over all things brooding slept + The quiet sense of something lost." + +There were no visible signs of distress--no tears or outward mourning. +Could regret then have died out? + + "No--mixt with all this mystic frame, + Her deep relations are the same, + But with long use her tears are dry." + + +LXXIX. + + "More than my brothers are to me"-- + +he had used this expression in the last stanza of Poem ix., and in +repeating it he would apologize to his brother Charles Tennyson, we may +presume. + + "Let not this vex thee, noble heart!" + +for thou art holding "the costliest love in fee," even a wife's +affection--we may again suppose. + +The Rev. Charles Tennyson married Miss Sellwood,[54] and changed his name +to Turner, for property left to him by a relation, and was vicar of +Grasby, in Lincolnshire. The brothers,[55] in their boyhood, shared one +home with all its endearing associations; and now each has his special +object of affection: "my wealth resembles thine;" except that Hallam + + "was rich where I was poor, + And he supplied my want the more + As his unlikeness fitted mine." + + +LXXX. + +If any vague wish visits the Poet, that he had himself been the first to +be removed by Death (when the dust would have dropt on "tearless eyes," +which, as it is, have now so sorely wept over Hallam's departure); then +the grief of the survivor would have been + + "as deep as life or thought, + But stay'd in peace with God and man;" + +because Hallam would have found comfort in pious resignation. + +So he minutely ponders over this holy submission, and invokes contentment +from the contemplation-- + + "Unused example from the grave + Reach out dead hands to comfort me." + + +LXXXI. + +If, whilst Hallam was with him, it could be said that love had its full +complement and satisfaction, and could not range beyond; still he torments +himself with "this haunting whisper," + + "More years had made me love thee more." + +My attachment would have expanded with the enlargement of his powers. + + "But Death returns an answer sweet: + My sudden frost was sudden gain"-- + +The change in death instantly exalted its victim; + + "And gave all ripeness to the grain, + It might have drawn from after-heat." + +A sudden frost will ripen grain or fruit, but will not impart the flavour +to fruit which the sun gives. + +In Hallam's sudden transition, what might have been drawn from subsequent +experience was at once fully accomplished. + + +LXXXII. + +A fine burst of Faith in the future. He does not reproach Death for any +corruption by it "on form or face." No decay of the flesh can shake his +trust in the survival of the soul. "Eternal process" is ever "moving on;" +the Spirit walks through a succession of states of being; and the body +dropt here is but a case, the "ruin'd chrysalis of one" state left +behind.[56] + +Nor does he find fault with Death for taking "virtue out of earth:" he +knows that it will be transplanted elsewhere to greater profit. + +What he is angry with Death for is, their separation-- + + "He put our lives so far apart + We cannot hear each other speak." + +This Poem expresses a comforting belief in progress and advancement +hereafter. + + +LXXXIII. + +"The northern shore" must simply mean our northern region. + +He reproaches the New Year for "delaying long." Its advent would cheer +him, bringing the light and sweetness of Spring--for + + "Can trouble live with April days, + Or sadness in the summer moons?" + +He would have the New Year bring all its customary flowers-- + + "Deep tulips dash'd with fiery dew, + Laburnums, dropping-wells of fire"-- + +a sight of these would set free the sorrow in his blood, + + "And flood a fresher throat with song." + + +LXXXIV. + +This Poem is a very charming conception of what their lives might have +domestically been, if Hallam had been spared. The picture is almost too +beautiful: detailing more than life ever allows--and there came the +crushing sorrow. + +Engaged in marriage to the Poet's sister,[57] death intervened-- + + "that remorseless iron hour + Made cypress of her orange flower, + Despair of Hope, and earth of thee." + +It is remarkable how the imagination of the Poet glows over the tender +scenes of home affection, and the great results which he presumes were +arrested by the removal of his friend, who he had hoped would have +attained "to reverence and the silver hair" in company with himself--and +then, in their full old age, + + "He that died in Holy Land + Would reach us out the shining hand, + And take us as a single soul." + +The mere thought of this forbidden consummation of their friendship shocks +him; it revives the old bitterness of sorrow, and stops + + "The low beginnings of content."[58] + + +LXXXV. + +The first stanza merely repeats the sentiment expressed in Poem xxvii., +that the deepest grief has only more fully convinced him, that to have +loved and lost is better than never to have loved. + +It is _the friend to whom the epithalamium is addressed_--E. L. +Lushington--"true in word and tried in deed," who asks how he is +affected--if his faith be still firm, and he has still room in his heart +for love? He answers, that all was well with him, until that fatal +"message" came, that + + "God's finger touch'd him, and he slept." + +He then recounts what he thinks may have occurred to Hallam, when +translated through various stages of spiritual being; and he repeats his +sorrowful regrets for his loss. But "I woo your love," he seems to say to +his future brother-in-law, for he holds it wrong + + "to mourn for any over much:" + +still, so deep is his attachment to Hallam, that he calls himself + + "the divided half of such + A friendship as had master'd Time;" + +their intimacy would be eternal; and he imagines some sort of intercourse +still carried on betwixt them, which he describes in language that has +much of the spirit and character of Dante. + +He then seems to turn again to his living friend, and says, + + "If not so fresh, with love as true, + I, clasping brother-hands, aver + I could not, if I would, transfer + The whole I felt for him to you." + +But he is not wholly disconsolate-- + + "My heart, tho' widow'd, may not rest + Quite in the love of what is gone,[59] + But seeks to beat in time with one + That warms another living breast." + +The concluding stanza offers the primrose of autumn to the surviving +friend, whilst that of spring must be reserved for the friend whom he has +lost. + + +LXXXVI. + +He asks the ambrosial air of evening, which is so "sweet after showers," +and is "slowly breathing bare the round of space,"[60] clearing the sky of +clouds, and "shadowing" the divided stream by raising ripples on its +surface, to fan the fever from his cheek, till Doubt and Death can no +longer enchain his fancy, but will let it fly to the rising star, in which + + "A hundred spirits whisper, 'Peace.'" + +This Poem is remarkable as being one sustained sentence. + + +LXXXVII. + +He revisits Cambridge, the chief scene of past intimacy with Hallam, and +roams about the different colleges. + +The expression "high-built organ," probably alludes to the organ being +here, as in some cathedrals, reared above the screen which separates the +choir from the nave. + + "The prophets blazon'd on the panes," + +refers to the stained glass windows, and more particularly to those, +perhaps, in King's College chapel. The scenery at the back of the colleges +is vividly recalled. + +He stops at the door of Hallam's old room, now occupied by a noisy wine +party. It was there that his friend used to achieve such controversial +triumphs--ever as the master-bowman hitting the mark in argument, when + + "we saw + The God within him light his face," + +like the martyr Stephen's; + + "And over those ethereal eyes + The bar of Michael Angelo"-- + +whose brow was straight and prominent--the sign of intellectual power. + +_Michael Angelo had a strong bar of bone over his eyes._ + + Mrs. Frances A. Kemble in _Record of a Girlhood_, vol. ii. p. 3, thus + describes young Hallam's appearance. "There was a gentleness and + purity almost virginal in his voice, manner, and countenance; and the + upper part of his face, his forehead and eyes (perhaps in readiness + for his early translation), wore the angelic radiance that they still + must wear in heaven. Some time or other, at some rare moments of the + divine Spirit's supremacy in our souls, we all put on the heavenly + face that will be ours hereafter, and for a brief lightning space our + friends behold us as we shall look when this mortal has put on + immortality. On Arthur Hallam's brow and eyes this heavenly light, so + fugitive on other human faces, rested habitually, as if he was + thinking and seeing in heaven." + + +LXXXVIII. + +He asks the "wild bird," probably the nightingale, whose liquid song +brings a sense of Eden back again, to define the feelings of the heart, +its emotions and passions. In the "budded quicks" of Spring the bird is +happy; in the "darkening leaf," amid the shadowing foliage, though its +happiness be gone, its grieving heart can still cherish "a secret joy." +The notes of the nightingale are supposed to be both sorrowful and joyous. + +Even so, the Poet cannot wholly govern his own muse; for, when he would +sing of woe, + + "The glory of the sum of things," + +the grandeur of life's experience, will sometimes rule the chords. + + +LXXXIX. + +This Poem is like a picture by Watteau of a summer holiday in the garden +or the woods. + +He recalls the lawn of Somersby Rectory, with the trees[61] that shade it, +and Hallam as being present on one of his repeated visits. He has come +down from his law readings in the Temple, + + "The dust and din and steam of town;" + +and now, in a golden afternoon, sees + + "The landscape winking thro' the heat" + +as he lies and reads Dante, or Tasso, aloud to his companions; until later +on, when some lady of the group would bring her harp, and fling + + "A ballad to the brightening moon." + +Or the family party may have strayed farther away, for a picnic in the +woods; and are there discussing the respective merits of town and country. + +They are described as returning home, + + "Before the crimson-circled star[62] + Had fall'n into her father's grave," + +that is, before the planet Venus had sunk into the sea--"her father's +grave."--_This planet is evolved from the Sun--La Place's theory._ + +The evening sounds are very charming-- + + "The milk that bubbled in the pail, + And buzzings of the honied hours," + +when the bees were gathering their last stores of the day. Tender +recollections of the past! + + +XC. + +He is indignant at the idea that if the dead came back to life again, they +would not be welcome; and declares that whoever suggested this, could +never have tasted the highest love. + +Nevertheless, if the father did return to life, he would probably find his +wife remarried, and his son unwilling to give up the estate. Even if +matters were not so bad as this, still + + "the yet-loved sire would make + Confusion worse than death, and shake + The pillars of domestic peace."[63] + +Though all this may be true, + + "I find not yet one lonely thought + That cries against my wish for thee." + + +XCI. + +When the larch is in flower, and the thrush "rarely pipes"--exquisitely +sings; and "the sea-blue bird of March,"[64] the kingfisher, "flits by;" +come, my friend, in thy spirit form, with thy brow wearing the tokens of +what thou hast become. Come to me also in the summer-time, when roses +bloom and the wheat ripples in the wind. Don't come at night, but whilst +the sunbeam is warm, that I may see thee, + + "beauteous in thine after form, + And like a finer light in light." + + +XCII. + +If a vision revealed Hallam in bodily presence as of old, he would doubt +its reality, and ascribe it to "the canker of the brain." If the +apparition spoke of the past, he would still call it only "a wind of +memory" in himself. Even if it promised what afterwards came true, he +would account it to be merely a presentiment-- + + "such refraction of events + As often rises ere they rise."[65] + + +XCIII. + +"I shall not see thee;" for he doubts, though he dares not positively +speak, whether a spirit does ever return to this world--at least +visibly--so as to be recognised. But he will dare to ask that where "the +nerve of sense" is not concerned--that is, where neither sight nor touch +are needed--wholly apart from the body--"Spirit to Spirit, Ghost to +Ghost" may come, so that + + "My Ghost may feel that thine is near."[66] + + +XCIV. + +To be fit and capable of a spiritual visitation from the dead, you must be +"pure in heart, and sound in head." There will be no answer to your +invocation, unless you can say that your "spirit is at peace with all," as +they can who are already in "their golden day" in Paradise. The mind and +memory and conscience must be calm and still; for + + "when the heart is full of din, + And doubt beside the portal waits," + +the departed spirits + + "can but listen at the gates, + And hear the household jar within." + +This fitness for apprehending any communications from the next world, well +describes the condition requisite for intercourse with God Himself. + + +XCV. + +Here comes another family scene at Somersby.[67] + +It may be observed here that Dr. Tennyson, the Poet's father, had died in +1831, but his family remained in their old home for several years +afterwards, as the new Incumbent was non-resident. + +The family party are at tea on the lawn in the calm summer evening. No +wind makes the tapers flare, no cricket chirrs, only the running brook is +heard at a distance, whilst the urn flutters on the table. The bats +performed their circular flight; + + "And wheel'd or lit the filmy shapes + That haunt the dusk, with ermine capes + And woolly breasts and beaded eyes"-- + +these are _night moths_ (_Arctica menthrasti_, the ermine moth, answers +the description), whilst those assembled sing old songs, which are heard +as far as where the cows are lying under the branching trees. + +So passed the evening until all have retired to rest, and the Poet is +alone, when he takes out Hallam's last-written letters-- + + "those fall'n leaves which kept their green, + The noble letters of the dead."[68] + +He reads them afresh, to renew a sense of their bygone intimacy: + + "So word by word, and line by line, + The dead man touch'd me from the past, + And all at once it seem'd at last + The living soul was flash'd on mine." + +The Poet's mind struggles on "empyreal heights of thought" in incorporeal +ecstasy--a sort of trance inexplicable--which lasts till dawn, when + + "East and West, without a breath, + Mixt their dim lights, like life and death, + To broaden into boundless day." + + +XCVI. + +He reproves the young lady, who, whilst tender over killing a fly, does +not hesitate to call the harass of religious doubt "Devil-born." + +The Poet says, "one indeed I knew"--who, it may be presumed, was +Hallam--and + + "He faced the spectres of the mind + And laid them." + "Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds,[69] + At last he beat his music out," + +and found the serenity of faith. + + "There lives more faith in honest doubt, + Believe me, than in half the creeds." + +Unquestioning faith is not the qualification for its champion. True faith +is the result of conflict--"the victory that overcometh the world." + +God made and lives in both light and darkness; and is present in the +trouble of doubt, as well as in the comfort of belief. The Israelites were +making idols when God's presence in the cloud was manifested by the +trumpet. They doubted in the midst of sensible proof of the Divine +presence. + +The questionings of a speculative mind ought to be tenderly dealt with, +not harshly denounced. + + +XCVII. + +This Poem is highly mystical. + + "My love has talk'd with rocks and trees." + +His own affection for Hallam seems to personate the object of his +attachment, and "sees himself in all he sees." Just as the giant spectre, +sometimes seen "on misty mountain-ground,"[70] is no more than the vast +shadow of the spectator himself. + +The Poem proceeds more intelligibly, by drawing a comparison which +typifies his own humble relation to his exalted friend. He imagines some +meek-hearted and affectionate wife loving and revering a husband, whose +high intellect and pursuits exclude her from any real companionship. + +But she treasures any little memorials of their early devotion, and +feeling that he is + + "great and wise, + She dwells on him with faithful eyes, + 'I cannot understand: I love.'" + +It must be understood that this Poem, as elsewhere, would describe _the +relation of one on earth to one in the other and higher world--not the +Author's relation to him here. He certainly looked up to the Author, fully +as much as the Author to him._ + + +XCVIII. + +"You leave us." Some one is going on the very route which the friends had +traversed together, and will reach "that City," Vienna, where Hallam died. +All its splendour is to the Poet, + + "No livelier than the wisp[71] that gleams + On Lethe in the eyes of death;" + +so great is his aversion to the place, on account of the loss he had +sustained there; and he charges it with all manner of ill. + +But Hallam had given him a very different description; saying that in no +other metropolis--"mother town"--had he seen such stately carriages of the +rich pass to and fro; and such a contented crowd enjoying themselves with +dance and song, amidst a display of coloured fireworks. + + +XCIX. + +This Poem is an address to the recurring anniversary of Hallam's death, +which had before been commemorated in Poem lxxii.-- + + "Day, when I lost the flower of men." + +The early signs of Autumn are very sweetly described, in personifying a +day that will remind many of births and bridals, but still more of deaths; +and wherever the sorrowing survivors may reside, they are on this day +"kindred souls" with himself--though they be utter strangers-- + + "They know me not, but mourn with me." + +This applies to all + + "Betwixt the slumber of the poles,"-- + +from one end of the world to the other. + +The poles of the earth are the ends of the axis on which the world +revolves. These never move, but "slumber." + +Autumn laying "a fiery finger on the leaves," is an expression similar to + + "This maple burn itself away."--P. ci., 1. + + "And the flying gold of the ruin'd woodlands drove thro' the air." + --"Maud," stanza 3. + + +C. + +Rising from his night's rest shortly before quitting the old home, and +looking over the familiar landscape, which his friend had known so well; +there is not a feature but recalls some gracious memory of Hallam's +presence. + +The various objects in the surrounding country are enumerated, and present +a beautiful rural picture to the mind; and he says, + + "But each has pleased a kindred eye, + And each reflects a kindlier day; + And, leaving these, to pass away, + I think once more he seems to die." + +To take leave of them is to renew the more bitter separation. + +In recent editions this poem commences "I climb the hill," instead of "I +wake, I rise." + + +CI. + +A sad reflection comes over him at the thought of bidding farewell to +Somersby. + +Unwatched and unloved will the flowers in the garden bloom with their +fragrance, although the family be gone: and the trees will put forth, and +afterwards shed their foliage. The rose-carnation, too, will + + "feed + With summer-spice the humming air," + +in which the bees are busy. + +Uncared for, the brook will babble + + "At noon, or when the lesser wain[72] + Is twisting round the polar star;"-- + +also when the sailing moon's reflection in the water becomes broken into +silver arrows.[73] + +All this will go on, until garden and wild become familiar to the +succeeding stranger: + + "And year by year our memory fades + From all the circle of the hills." + +Future generations will nevertheless visit Somersby, with something of the +reverence that still attracts the stranger to Stratford-on-Avon. + + +CII. + + "We leave the well-beloved place + Where first we gazed upon the sky." + +The mother, and the members of her family, quit what had been the Rectory, +and seek a new home. + +But, "ere we go," the Poet walks in the garden, and seems to be in the +company of two spirits, who + + "Contend for loving masterdom." + +They do not represent persons, but the place with different associations. +_The first is the love of the native place; the second, the same love +enhanced by the memory of the friend._ + +The former pleads + + "here thy boyhood sung + Long since its matin song." + +The rival affection urges + + "Yea, but here + Thy feet have stray'd in after hours + With thy lost friend among the bowers, + And this hath made them trebly dear." + +Through half the day each one prefers a separate appeal by endearing +circumstance; but the contest affords no superiority to either; and, as +the Poet turns away from the illusion, + + "They mix in one another's arms + To one pure image of regret." + +This picture is very beautiful. + + +CIII. + +A dream is described, + + "Which left my after-morn content;" + +it imparted comfort. + +The Poet seemed to be in a hall, where maidens were singing before a +veiled statue-- + + "known to me, + The shape of him I loved." + +A dove flies in and summons him to the sea, where, together with his +female companions, he enters a boat. As the boat glides away with them, +they all seem to expand into greater size and strength; and a vast ship +meets them, on the deck of which, in giant proportions, stands "the man we +loved." + +The maidens weep, as they fear being left behind; but all enter the ship, +and + + "We steer'd her toward a crimson cloud + That land-like slept along the deep." + +The teaching is allegorical of the voyage, and of those on board, and we +may take this interpretation: _I rather believe the maidens are the Muses, +Arts, &c. Everything that made Life beautiful here, we may hope may pass +on with us beyond the grave._ + +The description somewhat reminds one of the passage of king Arthur to the +island of Avilion. + + +CIV. + +Christmastide again; and he hears the bells from + + "A single church below the hill;" + +this is at the place to which the family had moved, and the church is +_Waltham Abbey church_. It is a fresh and strange locality, and the bells +sound like strangers' voices, recalling nothing of his previous life; no +memory can stray in the surrounding scenery; + + "But all is new unhallow'd ground." + +The Poet's mother lived for several years with her sister, Miss Fytche, +in Well Walk, Hampstead; but this new home was at _High Beach, Epping +Forest_. + + +CV.[74] + +It is Christmas Eve, but the holly outside their new home shall stand +ungathered. He deprecates repeating their old observances of this season +in a new place. He thinks of his father's grave "under other snows" than +those he looks on; and how the violet will blow there, "but we are gone." + +What was done in the old home cannot be repeated in the new habitation, + + "For change of place, like growth of time, + Has broke the bond of dying use."[75] + +He would have this Christmas Eve kept with reverent solemnity: no joyous +forms retained from which the spirit has gone; no music, dance, or motion, + + "save alone + What lightens in the lucid East + Of rising worlds by yonder wood." + +This _refers to the scintillation of the stars rising_. Let these run out +their + + "measured arcs, and lead + The closing cycle rich in good;" + +bringing Christ's second advent. + + +CVI. + +The old year is rung out by "wild bells to the wild sky;" and he would +have these ring out all abuses and evils, and ring in all good, and the +various blessings which he enumerates-- + + "Ring out the thousand wars of old, + Ring in the thousand years of peace," + +the millennium; and last of all, + + "Ring in the Christ that is to be;" + +God Himself again upon earth. + + +CVII. + + "It is the day when he was born," + +the anniversary of Hallam's birth, which took place in Bedford Place, +London, on 1st February, 1811. + +One may suppose this Poem to have been written at night, because the +description is of + + "A bitter day that early sank + Behind a purple frosty bank + Of vapour, leaving night forlorn." + +Indeed, the time is determined by the poetry, for "yon hard crescent" +shows that the moon was up when he was writing. + +Ice making "daggers at the sharpen'd eaves" is a common sight. Such +icicles may be sometimes seen a yard long, pendent from any eave or +ledge. + +"Brakes" means _bushes_; "grides" may mean "grates;" and "iron horns" must +be the dry hard forked boughs; but how distinguished from the "leafless +ribs" of the wood, unless as descriptive of the forms of different trees +in the wood, is difficult to understand. + + "The drifts that pass + To darken on the rolling brine + That breaks the coast" + +must allude to drifts of snow, which falling into water, immediately +blacken before they dissolve. + + "Bring in great logs and let them lie." + +This birthday shall no more be kept as a day of mourning, but shall be +joyously observed, + + "with festal cheer, + With books and music, surely we + Will drink to him whate'er he be, + And sing the songs he loved to hear."[76] + + +CVIII. + +A noble resolution seems to be now formed, not to become morbid and +misanthropic; he will not "stiffen into stone:"[77] and this feeling +appears to sustain and animate the Poet throughout the remainder of his +loving tribute. + +He admits that "barren faith and vacant yearning" are profitless; although +they may carry him in thought to the highest height of heaven, or to the +deepest depth of Death. And this being so, his upward glance only reveals + + "Mine own phantom chanting hymns;" + +or, gazing below, he sees + + "The reflex of a human face." + +His lost friend being, therefore, everywhere represented, he will try to +extract wisdom from the sorrow which he cannot exclude; though this be not +such wisdom as sleeps with Hallam. + + "'Tis held that sorrow makes us wise" + +is repeated in P. cxiii., 1. + + +CIX. + +Hallam's character and accomplishments are recited. Richness of +conversation, much imported from an intellectual home; with critical +powers over all poetry. Keen and rapid thought displayed in logical +argument. Delighting in what is good, but not ascetic, and pure in life. +Loving freedom, but without + + "The blind hysterics of the Celt,"[78] + +and uniting manliness with female grace, which made him such a favourite +with children. + +If the survivor, who had seen and admired all these qualities, had not +allowed such wisdom to make him wise, then shame be on him! + + +CX. + +He recalls their former Cambridge discussions; and how Hallam's powers of +conversation drew out + + "The men of rathe and riper years;" + +both the young and older. He gave confidence to the timid, the +true-hearted held to him, and the deceitful were exposed, + + "While I, thy dearest,[79] sat apart" + +watching these triumphs, and enjoying them as my own; and though not +possessing the tact, and art, and sweetness, and skill, yet I seemed to +share in them, from the love and admiration which they inspired. + + "And, born of love, the vague desire + That spurs an imitative will," + +rose in me, and made me wish to do likewise. + + +CXI. + +"The churl in spirit" may be found in all ranks of society. Even the king, +holding the golden ball of state, may be "at heart a clown." + +The "coltish nature" will break out through all the disguises of fashion: +but in Hallam + + "God and nature met in light, + And thus he bore without abuse + The grand old name of gentleman,[80] + Defamed by every charlatan, + And soil'd with all ignoble use." + + +CXII. + +"High wisdom," which judges _ex cathedra_, will condemn him for preferring +"glorious insufficiencies" to "narrower perfectness." + +He esteems high purposes after what is unattained, as exhibited in +Hallam's shortened life, more than a complete fulfilment of lesser duties +by the "lords of doom," who rule in our social system, and are _those that +have free will, but less intellect_. + +His friend was "some novel power," which + + "Sprang up for ever at a touch, + And hope could never hope too much, + In watching thee from hour to hour." + + +CXIII. + +He persistently dwells on Hallam's capabilities. Sorrow may teach wisdom; +but how much more sleeps with him, who would not only have guided the +survivor, but served all public ends. + +He thinks his friend might have become a leading statesman of the day--a +pilot to weather the storm, when the greatest social agonies prevailed. + + +CXIV. + +"Who loves not Knowledge"? He would have it pursued to its utmost limits; +but in the keen searchings of the scientific there is this danger, that +conclusions are apt to be accepted before they have been proved. + +When "cut from love and faith," Science is no more than "some wild Pallas +from the brain of Demons"--like Minerva, who sprang all armed and +full-grown from the brain of Jupiter. + +Science, too often, + + "leaps into the future chance, + Submitting all things to desire. + Half-grown as yet, a child, and vain"-- + +and therefore needing caution and restraint. + +If separated from love and faith, she bursts + + "All barriers in her onward race + For power." + +Science is "second, not the first," + + "For she is earthly of the mind, + But Wisdom heavenly of the soul." + +He would have the world wise and modest, + + "like thee, + Who grewest not alone in power + And knowledge, but by year and hour + In reverence and in charity." + +It may be remarked that, here and elsewhere, the Poet makes a distinction +betwixt mind and soul: the former acquiring knowledge which + + "is of things we see;" + +the latter by faith, + + "Believing where we cannot prove;" + +even those things which St. Paul says "are not seen and are eternal." + + +CXV. + +Spring is described, with its sprouting hedges and blowing violets. The +whole landscape changes in colour, with the warmer weather; + + "And drown'd in yonder living blue + The lark becomes a sightless song."[81] + +Who has not heard the lark, after it has become invisible in the heavens? + +The migratory "birds that change their sky"[82] return and build their +nests; + + "and my regret + Becomes an April violet, + And buds and blossoms like the rest." + +He is cheered by the opening season. + + +CXVI. + +Is it regret for buried time--grief for the friend whom he has +lost--which makes him feel so tender and susceptible of the influences of +Spring? Not wholly so: for "life re-orient out of dust," the revival of +vegetation, raises his spirits, and "heartens," strengthens his trust in +that Power which made the earth beautiful. + +Nor is it altogether "regret" that he feels; for the face and the voice of +his friend come back; and the voice speaks of me and mine--his sister as +well as himself--and he is conscious of + + "Less yearning for the friendship fled, + Than some strong bond which is to be"-- + +reunion hereafter. + + +CXVII. + +"O days and hours"--he declares their work to be the accumulation of joy +they will bring to that future meeting, from which at present they are +detaining him. + +"Delight a hundredfold" will accrue from this postponement--the +contribution of every grain of sand through the hourglass, of "every span +of shade" across the sundial, of every click in the watch, and each day's +sun. + + +CXVIII. + +A friend observes that this Poem is a remarkable exposition of the nebular +hypothesis, as sanctioned by geologists. + +Look at "this work of Time," its slow growth and effect; and don't believe +that "human love and truth" dissolve and pass away, as being no more than +"dying Nature's earth and lime," insensible and finite. + +Rather trust that + + "the dead + Are breathers of an ampler day + For ever nobler ends." + +If this solid earth came from elements dissolved by "fluent heat," and man +was the last result; then he, who is now enduring fears and sorrows and +the battering "shocks of doom," typifies "this work of time" on natural +objects; for he must be, as they have been, in process of being moulded +for a higher state. He is moving upward, "working out the beast," and +letting "the ape and tiger die," while in his present probationary +condition. + + +CXIX. + +The work of resignation in the mourner's heart is here acknowledged. In +Poem vii. he represents himself as standing, "like a guilty thing," at the +door of the London house where they used to meet, and he was then all sad +and comfortless. + +But now he revisits the spot, at the same early hour, and his feelings +have changed and have become reconciled and hopeful. He smells "the +meadow in the street," the waggon loads of hay and clover coming in from +the country. + +Wimpole Street is here again described, with morning breaking over the +housetops: + + "I see + Betwixt the black fronts long-withdrawn + A light blue lane of early dawn." + +It was at No. 67 in this street that Mr. Hallam lived, and wrote his great +historical works; and his son Arthur used to say, "We are always to be +found at sixes and sevens." + +All is now welcome: + + "I think of early days and thee, + And bless thee, for thy lips are bland, + And bright the friendship of thine eye; + And in my thoughts with scarce a sigh + I take the pressure of thine hand." + + +CXX. + +He exults in the victory of a higher faith. We are not "magnetic +mockeries"--simply material "brain"--"casts in clay"--to perish as soon +as the galvanic battery ceases to act, + + "not in vain, + Like Paul with beasts, I fought with Death." + +Let Science prove the contrary, even that we only exist for this life, and +I won't stay here. And Science herself would then be valueless, since she +had only taught us our nothingness. + +Let "the wiser man" of the future + + "up from childhood shape + His action like the greater ape, + But I was born to other things." + +This is spoken ironically, and is a strong protest against materialism, +but _not against evolution_.[83] Nevertheless, the gorilla is not our +grandfather! + + +CXXI. + +"Sad Hesper," the evening star, only rises to "follow the buried sun;" +but, in the "dim and dimmer" light of late afternoon, it watches the +conclusion of man's daily labours. The teams are loosened from the +waggons, "the boat is drawn upon the shore," the house door is closed, +"and life is darken'd in the brain" of the sleeper. + +Phosphor, the morning star, sees the renewal of life; the bird with its +early song, the rising sun, the market boat again floating and voices +calling to it from the shore, the village blacksmith with his clinking +hammer, and the team again harnessed and at work. + +Hesper and Phosphor are simply the one planet Venus, which according to +its position with the sun, becomes the morning or evening star. + +So the Poet sings, + + "Sweet Hesper-Phosphor, double name + For what is one, the first, the last, + Thou, like my present and my past, + Thy place is changed; thou art the same." + +Hallam has only been removed: he is not altered into something else--"not +lost, but gone before." No--_the writer is rather referring to himself_: +and as his own "present" and "past" are so different; the latter, with a +bright prospect, may be likened to the morning star, Phosphor; whilst the +former, full of gloom and sorrow, is represented by Hesper, the star of +evening, and precursor of black night. + + +CXXII. + +He seems to recall some former occasion, when in wild enquiry he had dared +to question the great secrets of life and death--now and hereafter. + +This may not refer to any special time, but to the general uneasiness of +his feelings before submission had been attained;[84] and he now says, + + "If thou wert with me, and the grave + Divide us not, be with me now." + +Let me again, "like an inconsiderate boy," "slip the thoughts of life and +death," give free rein to a speculative imagination; for now, in a higher +and better frame of mind, it will be that "every thought breaks out a +rose"--a blossom of truth. + + +CXXIII. + +The great changes on the earth's surface are bewildering, and hint that +"nothing stands" and endures. + +Where the tree now grows, and the long street is full of crowd and noise, +there was once + + "The stillness of the central sea." + +The very hills and solid lands are no more than shadows, or + + "Like clouds that shape themselves and go." + +But our parting is not for ever, + + "For tho' my lips may breathe adieu, + I cannot think the thing farewell."[85] + +I am sure that we shall meet again. + + +CXXIV. + +In this Poem we have a profound acknowledgment of the revealed Godhead in +its triune manifestations, though not expressed in ecclesiastical formula: + + "Our dearest faith; our ghastliest doubt; + He, They, One, All; within, without; + The Power in darkness whom we guess." + +This Power lives in our hearts. Eye hath not seen Him, nor is He to be +found "in world or sun," or by dissection of what has lived, or by process +of reasoning. + +If ever his own faith faltered, and a voice said, "believe no more," the +reproving witness was within himself. + + "A warmth within the breast would melt + The freezing reason's colder part, + And like a man in wrath the heart + Stood up and answer'd, I have felt."[86] + +Still he was + + "as a child that cries, + But, crying, knows his father near."[87] + +His own heart, which is the home of faith, testified to Divine truth, +which "no man understands," but he accepts it as the one solution of what +exists. + + +CXXV. + +He admits that some "bitter notes" have sounded from his harp. But though +his tongue may at times have seemed to speak with contradiction, Hope was +nevertheless still alive to better things. + +And if Love "play'd with gracious lies," suggested difficulties, this Love +had only dared to do so + + "Because he felt so fixed in truth." + +Love sustained him when his song was "full of care;" and Love's signet +marked it whenever it was "sweet and strong;" and he implores Love to +abide with him till he joins his friend "on the mystic deeps," when his +own electric brain no longer "keeps a thousand pulses dancing." + + +CXXVI. + +Here is a noble testimony to the comfort and assurance which Love, when +made our "Lord and King," can impart. + +In the Poet's estimation, Love is the Charity of St. Paul; believing, +hoping, enduring, and never failing. Love brings us tidings of the dead. +Love guards us in life, even in sleep. Through his influence we hear, as +from a sentinel, + + "Who moves about from place to place, + And whispers to the worlds of space, + In the deep night, that all is well." + + +CXXVII. + +Yes, "all is well, tho' faith and form be sunder'd" in temporary crises; +that is, one must believe in ultimate good, even when the immediate +circumstances are most adverse. The storm will rage below on earth, before +truth and justice can be firmly established. + + "The red fool-fury of the Seine" + +does not specially refer to the Revolution of 1848, as it was _probably +written long before_ '48. + +Such convulsions will cease at last; there is calm beyond; and, even +whilst they last, + + "thou, dear spirit, happy star, + O'erlook'st the tumult from afar, + And smilest, knowing all is well." + + +CXXVIII. + +The Love, which became stronger in himself, after encountering Death at +the departure of Hallam, + + "Is comrade to the lesser faith + That sees the course of human things." + +This "lesser faith" attends to the events of time, and is not overborne by +present confusions, but reaches, sustained by Love, to a last happy +consummation. + +If all that the "wild Hours" of Time had to do was to repeat the past, +bring about useless wars, "fool the crowd with glorious lies," cleave +religion into sects, disguise language, change governments, cramp +learning, patch afresh what is antique and worn--if these results were all +that could be effected, then would my scorn be well deserved. But + + "I see in part + That all, as in some piece of art, + Is toil co-operant to an end;" + +that all things are working together for final good. + + +CXXIX. + +A more touching and tender address to the dead was never uttered than this +Poem expresses, a more pure and ennobling affection was never described. +Sorrow is lost in the more exalted sentiment of their certain reunion, and +in the strength derived from a consciousness of the worthiness of their +past friendship. + + "Strange friend, past, present, and to be, + Loved deeplier, darklier understood; + Behold, I dream a dream of good, + And mingle all the world with thee." + + +CXXX. + +Each had so participated in the other's life: they had looked on Nature +with such kindred eyes, having one mind and taste; that the survivor both +sees and hears his former companion in all objects and sounds which +present themselves. + +Everything reminds him of Hallam; but + + "Tho' mix'd with God and Nature thou, + I seem to love thee more and more." + +His last declaration of devoted attachment is, + + "Far off thou art, but ever nigh; + I have thee still, and I rejoice; + I prosper, circled with thy voice; + I shall not lose thee tho' I die." + + +CXXXI. + +"O living will"--_free will in man_--that will outlast all present things, +surviving and enduring + + "When all that seems shall suffer shock, + Rise in the spiritual rock," + +which is Christ, the source of all life and strength; and flowing through +our deeds, "make them pure;" so that out of the dust of death, we may cry +to One that hears, and has conquered time, and with us works; and we may +put our whole trust in those "truths that never can be proved until we +close with all we loved," and with God Himself, who will be "all in +all"--not by the souls of mankind becoming absorbed into the "general +Soul"--a notion which Poem xlvii. repudiates--but by the Divine nature +being infused into and prevailing in all. + + +PREFATORY POEM. + +To this final confession of faith, worked out through Sorrow by the +sustaining help of Love, the prefatory Poem is merely a pendant. + + "Strong Son of God, immortal Love," + +is addressed to Christ, God Himself upon earth.[88] George Herbert had +before called our Saviour + + "Immortal Love, author of this great frame;" + +and our Poet says, though we have not seen His face, we embrace Him by +faith, + + "Believing where we cannot prove." + +He acknowledges Him as the great Creator, and through all surrounding +mysteries and disappointments, is satisfied with this conclusion as to the +future, + + "Thou art just." + +This conviction is enough. + + "Thou seemest human and divine, + The highest, holiest manhood, thou"-- + +God incarnate, to whom we must become spiritually united, + + "Our wills are ours, to make them thine," + +as expressed in Poem cxxxi., stanza 1. + +"Our little systems" "are but broken lights of thee," even as the colours +of the rainbow are the broken lights of the sun. + + "We have but faith: we cannot know; + For knowledge is of things we see." + +Faith apprehends things which are spiritual, and do not come within the +range of our senses; whilst knowledge accepts only what can be seen and +understood. + +Hence, the Poet would have knowledge advance and increase to the utmost, +"a beam in darkness" ever growing. But reverence must grow with it; so +that mind which accumulates knowledge, and soul which is the +dwelling-place of faith, according well with each other, may make one +music--be in harmony "as before," that is, I presume, as at first; but +now "vaster" in their compass owing to the greater reach of modern thought +and research. + +This warning against scientific assumptions, in opposition to spiritual +truths, is repeated from Poem cxiv. + +The concluding humble prayer, contained in the three last stanzas, has the +true ring of devout piety. + + "Forgive what seem'd my sin in me; + What seem'd my worth since I began; + For merit lives from man to man, + And not from man, O Lord, to thee. + + "Forgive my grief for one removed, + Thy creature, whom I found so fair. + I trust he lives in thee, and there + I find him worthier to be loved. + + "Forgive these wild and wandering cries, + Confusions of a wasted youth; + Forgive them where they fail in truth, + And in thy wisdom make me wise." + +"What seem'd my sin," would be the Poet's excessive grief for Hallam's +death: for he elsewhere says, + + "I count it crime + To mourn for any overmuch."[89] + +"What seem'd my worth," would be his devoted love for his friend, which he +felt had ennobled his own life; and so he says, + + "To breathe my loss is more than fame, + To utter love more sweet than praise." + +But this worth was only comparative, + + "from man to man, + And not from man, O Lord, to thee;" + +since no human goodness can be counted as merit in the sight of God. + + +SUPPLEMENTARY POEM. + +The Epithalamium, or marriage lay, which is added to the great Poem, +refers to the wedding of a younger sister, Cecilia Tennyson, who, about +the year 1842, married Edmund Law Lushington, sometime Professor of Greek +at the University of Glasgow. + +The strong domestic affections of the Poet are prominently shown +throughout _In Memoriam_, and his pleasure at this bridal is very +charming. He just recalls that Hallam had appreciated the Bride in her +childhood: + + "O when her life was yet in bud, + He too foretold the perfect rose." + +The worth of the Bridegroom is acknowledged in this address: + + "And thou art worthy; full of power; + As gentle; liberal-minded, great, + Consistent; wearing all that weight + Of learning[90] lightly like a flower." + +The whole Poem is pleasant and jocund and _was meant to be a kind of +Divina Commedia_--_ending cheerfully_--but it scarcely harmonizes with the +lofty solemnity of _In Memoriam_, whose Author might rejoice in the +thought, that he would leave behind him a rich legacy of comfort to all +future generations of mourners. + + +CHISWICK PRESS:--C. WHITTINGHAM AND CO., TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE. + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] "The brook alone far off was heard." P. xcv. s. 2. + +[2] In Bag Enderby Church is a stone memorial tablet to the Burton family, +let into the wall, and dated 1591. Upon it are carved, in bold relief, +parents and children in a kneeling posture. It has a Latin motto, +signifying, that all begins with the dust of the earth, and ends with it. + +[3] The name is happily preserved in his patent of nobility, which runs +thus: "Alfred, 1st Baron Tennyson of Aldworth, in the County of Sussex." + +[4] About the time of Dr. Tennyson's death, the population of Somersby was +61, the church accommodation 60, and the annual value of the benefice L92. +The population of Bag Enderby was 115, church accommodation 100, and value +L92. + +[5] The use of this word misled the Poet himself, who has since exchanged +the term "chancel" for "dark church." + +[6] The scene is not laid in Somersby Churchyard, as there is no clock in +the Church tower. + +[7] Critics have regarded the term "lying lip" as too harsh; but in Poem +xxxix. it is again applied to sorrow-- + + "What whisper'd from her lying lips?" + +See also Psalm cxx. 2. + +[8] It is said of a celebrated clerical wit, that almost his last words +were, "All things come to an end"--a pause--"except Wimpole Street." + +[9] This reminds one of the _Jour des morts_--All Souls' Day, or The Day +of the Dead, when it is a Continental custom to visit the graves of +relatives and friends, with pious offerings of flowers, &c. + +[10] This invocation to the ship reminds one of Horace's appeal to the +vessel that was to bring Virgil home:-- + + _Navis, quae tibi creditum + Debes Virgilium, finibus Atticis + Reddas incolumem, precor; + Et serves animae dimidium meae._ + + Lib. I., Ode 3. + +[11] "Sphere" _glomera_. + +[12] This fruit of the vine, Matt. xxvi., 29. + +[13] "Tangle," or "oar-weed," _Laminaria digitata_, says the Algologist, +"is never met with but at extreme tide-limits, where some of its broad +leather-like fronds may be seen darkly overhanging the rocks, while +others, a little lower down, are rising and dipping in the water like +sea-serpents floated by the waves." Plato, _Rep._, x., has a noble +comparison from the story of Glaucus (498): "We must regard the soul as +drowned ([Greek: diakeimenon]) like the sea-god, Glaucus: who, buffetted +and insulted by the waves, sank, clustered with [Greek: ostrea te, kai +phokia, kai petras]." + +[14] In the month of October, 1884, I walked in the thickly wooded +precincts of Hughenden Manor, the seat of the Earl of Beaconsfield; and I +never heard the horse chestnuts patter to the ground as then and there. +Quite ripe, they were constantly falling; and as they touched the +gravelled walk the shell opened, and out sprang the richly coloured +chestnut.--A. G. + +[15] In Job xxxvii., 18, we read, "Hast thou with him spread out the sky, +which is strong, and as a molten looking glass?" This term applies equally +well to the sea. + +[16] See 2 Cor. xii., 2. + +[17] See P. ix., 5. + +[18] The tenant farmers on the Clevedon estate were the bearers. The Rev. +William Newland Pedder, who was Vicar of Clevedon for forty years, and +died in 1871, read the burial service. The "familiar names" are those of +the Elton family, which are recorded both on brass and marble in the +church. + +[19] The corpse was landed at Dover, and was brought by sixteen black +horses all the way to Clevedon--so says Augustus James, who, when a boy, +witnessed the interment. Sir A. H. Elton, the late Baronet, kindly +corroborated this statement. Besides the coffin, there was a square iron +box, deposited in the vault, which may have contained + + "The darken'd heart that beat no more." + +It is certain that the Poet always thought that the ship put in at +Bristol. + +Hallam's family resided in London, which accounts for the mourners coming +from so great a distance. Augustus James told me, that the funeral +procession consisted of a hearse and three mourning coaches, each of which +was drawn by four horses; and he saw the sixteen animals under cover after +their journey. My friend, Mr. Edward Malan, heard the same story from A. +James. + +[20] _It is a fact, that the Poem was written at both various times and +places--through a course of years, and where their author happened to be, +in Lincolnshire, London, Essex, Gloucestershire, Wales, anywhere, as the +spirit moved him._ + +[21] The effect of vapour in magnifying objects is shown towards the end +of the Idyll, "Guinevere," where it says + + "The moony vapour rolling round the King, + Who seem'd the phantom of a Giant in it." + +Can "the haze of grief" refer to the tear, which acts as a magnifying +lens? + +[22] "My proper scorn"--_proprius_--is scorn of myself, an imprecation. +See Lancelot's self-condemnation at the end of "Lancelot and Elaine." + +[23] The churches are not to be identified. Those in the neighbourhood of +Somersby have too small belfries to allow of change ringing. The sounds +may have been only in the Poet's mind. + +[24] John, xii., 3 + +[25] A South African snake--_bucephalus Capensis_--commonly called the +"Boom-slange "--attracts birds into its mouth as prey, drawing them by an +irresistible fascination. Dr. Smith, in his "Zoology of South Africa," +describes the process. + +[26] In Cary's translation of Dante's "Hell," canto iii., line 21, we find +this note on what Dante and Virgil encountered in the infernal +shades--"_Post haec omnia ad loca tartarea, et ad os infernalis baratri +deductus sum, qui simile videbatur puteo, loca vero eadem horridis +tenebris, faetoribus exhalantibus, stridoribus quoque et nimiis plena erant +ejulatibus, juxta quem infernum vermis erat infinitae magnitudinis, ligatus +maxima catena._" _Alberici Virio_, Sec. 9. + +[27] If time be merged and lost in eternity, why may not place, all sense +of locality, be equally lost in infinitude of space? + +[28] I remember holding a serious conversation with an enlightened +physician, some years ago, who said, "I hardly like to venture the theory, +but it almost seems to me, as if what is now said and thought becomes +written on the physical brain, like a result of photography, and that a +revelation of this transcript, may be our real accuser at the day of +judgment." Had Shakespeare any such notion, in making Macbeth say, + + "Raze out the written troubles of the brain?" + +[29] Wordsworth entertains the notion of our having lived before in his +fine Ode, "Intimations of Immortality," wherein he says, + + "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: + The soul that rises with us, our life's star, + Hath had elsewhere its setting, + And cometh from afar," &c. + +See Sir W. Scott's "Journal," where a like impression is acknowledged on +17th February, 1828. + +Tennyson also says in "The Two Voices:" + + "Moreover, something is or seems + That touches me with mystic gleams, + Like glimpses of forgotten dreams-- + + Of something felt, like something here, + Of something done, I know not where, + Such as no language may declare." + +[30] "Ay" must have the force of the Greek [Greek: ai] "alas"--and "ay me" +be as the Latin _hei mihi_, "woe is me!" See also P. xl., 6. + +[31] The early purple orchis is said to bear 200,000 seeds, and perhaps +one grows to a plant. + +[32] Coleridge says: "The Jacob's ladder of Truth let down from heaven to +earth, with all its numerous rounds, is now the common highway on which we +are content to toil upward."--_Friend_, viii. + +[33] The doctrine of evolution may dispute this statement, and tell us +that the type, or form, of the winged lizard of chaos, now fossilized in +the rock, has been developed and continued in the reptile of the ditch; +but its living self has perished, and its type is gone. + +[34] "To die,--to sleep,--no more."--Hamlet. + +[35] + + "But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand, + And the sound of a voice that is still." + +[36] The term "toll" is correct-- + + "When we lament a departed soul + We toll." + +[37] _Dixitque novissima verba_, AE. iv., 650. + +[38] A poem by Catullus (_Carmen_ ci.) who visits his brother's grave, +concludes with these lines: + + "_Accipe fraterno multum manantia fletu, + Atque in perpetuum, frater, Ave, atque Vale._" + +_Ave_ is the morning greeting: _Vale_ that of the evening. This seems the +like idea to that of the morning and evening star. See P. cxxi., 5. + +[39] There is often great charm in the cheerfulness of those who we know +have suffered. + +[40] See the Poet's own words on this point at the end of Poem XCVII. + +[41] "Doubtful shore" may mean that here there may be doubt, whether there +has not been a previous existence. + +[42] "Thou, as one that once declined," recalls in Hamlet, Act I., s. 5, +"To decline upon a wretch, whose natural gifts were poor to those of +mine." + +[43] Clevedon Church, which is dedicated to St. Andrew, is quaint and +picturesque in appearance, but not architecturally beautiful. It is an +irregular structure, which has evidently been added to at various times, +the chancel being the original fisherman's church, and it has a solid +square tower. Within the sanctuary is the Hallam vault, on which the organ +now stands. Two cliffs, known as Church Hill and Wains Hill, rounded and +grass-grown, that rise on either side, seem to guard and shelter it, with +its surrounding churchyard that holds the quiet dead. There are only two +bells in Clevedon Church--a small one, on which are three initial letters +L. A. C., and a larger one, weighing 25 cwt. which is inscribed-- + + "I to the church the living call, + And to the grave do summon all."--1725. + +[44] There are other tablets in this church, which contain touching +memorials of the Hallam family. The historian's own death is recorded as +having taken place on 21st January, 1859. Mrs. Hallam died 28th April, +1840. Their son Henry Fitzmaurice died at Sienna, 25th October, 1850, aged +26; and he is said, by one who knew him, to have had all the charm and +talent of Arthur. On 13th June, 1837, in her 21st year, Eleanor Hallam was +suddenly called away, and was buried in the vault where her brother, +Arthur, had been laid. + +It was after this sad bereavement, that Mr. and Mrs. Hallam made a brief +sojourn at Sevenoaks, then unspotted by villas, where they lived in strict +retirement. Mr. Hallam only associated with Sir John Bayley, the retired +judge, who was a kind friend of my own youth. I see the sorrowing couple +at church in garments of the deepest mourning: and the fine brow of Mr. +Hallam resting on his hand, as he stood during the service in pensive +devotion.--A. G. + +[45] The Severn is nine miles wide at Clevedon. + +[46] _Consanguineus leti sopor._ AEn. vi. 278. See also Iliad xiv., 231, +and xvi., 672. + +[47] In Tennyson's "Ode to Memory" the lines occur + + "The seven elms, the poplars four. + That stand beside my father's door." + +[48] The foot of "Maud" opened these fringes by treading on the daisies. +"Her feet have touched the meadows, and left the daisies rosy." + +[49] Sir Thomas Browne, in his "Letter to a Friend," says, with reference +to some one recently dead, that "he lost his own face, and looked like one +of his near relations: for he maintained not his proper countenance, but +looked like his uncle." + +[50] In "The Two Voices," Tennyson says, + + "I know that age to age succeeds, + Blowing a noise of tongues and deeds, + A _dust_ of systems and of creeds." + +And again, in "The Vision of Sin," + + "All the windy ways of men + Are but _dust_ that rises up, + And is lightly laid again." + +Also in Poem LXXI., 3. + + "the _dust_ of change." + +[51] Shakespeare says,--"Till the diminution of space had pointed him +sharp as my needle."--_Cymbeline_, Act i., s. 4. + +Chaucer says, + + "And all the world as to mine eye + No more seemed than a prike." + + _Temple of Fame._ + +[52] "The Poet Laureate has written his own song on the hearts of his +countrymen that can never die. Time is powerless against him," said Mr. +Gladstone, in returning thanks at Kirkwall for himself and Mr. Tennyson. +To both of whom the freedom of the borough was presented, on the occasion +of their visit--13 Sept., 1883. + +[53] This term is Shakespearean, + + "What devil was't + That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind." + + _Hamlet_, Act iii., s. 4. + +[54] A younger sister of Lady Tennyson. + +[55] Their scholarly father gave them their first classical training. He +was a strict tutor, and would make them repeat some odes of Horace before +breakfast. + +[56] In "The Two Voices" we find the idea that man may pass "from state to +state," and forget the one he leaves behind: + + "As old mythologies relate, + Some draught of Lethe might await + The slipping thro' from state to state." + +[57] Miss Emily Tennyson eventually married a naval officer, Captain +Jesse. + +[58] In this Poem occurs the line + + "Arrive at last the blessed goal." + +"Arrive" is thus made an active verb: but there are good authorities for +this use, which has the meaning of "attain," or "reach." + + "But ere we could arrive the point proposed, + Caesar cried, Help me, Cassius, or I sink." + + _Julius Caesar_, Act i., s. 2. + + + "I mean, my lords, those powers that the queen + Hath raised in Gallia have arrived our coast." + + _3 Henry VI._, Act v., s. 3. + + + "Over the vast abrupt, ere he arrive + The happy isle." + + _Paradise Lost_, B. II., l. 409. + +[59] This Poem was written "through a course of years," and during that +long period the author was devotedly attached to the lady whom he +ultimately married, but they were not allowed to meet. May not this +separation have tinctured, with double sadness, this wonderful elegy in +memory of his friend? Lord Tennyson's marriage, and the first publication +of "In Memoriam," both occurred in 1850. + +[60] + + "all things rare + That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems." + + Shakespeare, _Sonnet XXI._ + +[61] The "towering sycamore" must be a notable tree on the lawn, again +alluded to in P. xcv., s. 14. _It is cut down, and the four poplars are +gone, and the lawn is no longer a flat one._ + +[62] "In summer twilight she, as evening star, is seen surrounded with the +glow of sunset, _crimson-circled_." + +Spedding's _Bacon_, vol. vi., p. 615. + +[63] In the "Lotus Eaters," we read + + "all hath suffered change; + For surely now our household hearths are cold: + Our sons inherit us: our looks are strange: + And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy." + +[64] The kingfisher is here meant, which, like other birds, puts on its +best plumage in early spring--see "Locksley Hall"-- + + "In the spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast; + In the spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest; + In the spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove." + +Longfellow sings in "It is not always May:" + + "The sun is bright--the air is clear, + The darting swallows soar and sing, + And from the stately elms I hear + The blue-bird prophesying spring." + +I can positively say that the kingfisher is the bird to which the poet +refers. Another parallel passage may be quoted: + + "The fields made golden with the flower of March, + The throstle singing in the feather'd larch, + And down the river, like a flame of blue, + Keen as an arrow flies the water-king." + + "The little halcyon's azure plume + Was never half so blue."--Shenstone. + +[65] Campbell says, "Coming events cast their shadows before." The sun, by +refraction, still appears in full size above the horizon, after it has +really sunk below it; and reappears in full, when only just the upper edge +has reached the horizon. + + "As the sun, + Ere it is risen, 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." + + _Death of Wallenstein_, Act v. Scene i. + +[66] The wish realized. See Poem xcv. s. 9. + +[67] Somersby may be described as being utterly secluded from the "madding +crowd"--the most rural retirement that the most agricultural country can +show. I find the population was recorded in 1835, when the family still +resided there, as being sixty-one, whilst the church accommodation was for +sixty. Small, however, as both church and parish were, and still are, the +so-called Rectory is a roomy family house, with its back to the road, on +which there can be but little traffic, and it fronts a very extensive +stretch of country, on which you enter by a steep slope of ground. There +are no striking features in this expanse of soft undulations, but you feel +a consciousness that the sea is not far off, and that the scenery is well +adapted for fine cloud and sunset effects. The air seems to have a bracing +tone, and the several equally small churches around, tell of thin +populations, and a general condition of rustic simplicity and peace. + +[68] + + "They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead: + They brought me bitter news to hear, and bitter tears to shed; + I wept, as I remember'd how often you and I + Had tired the sun with talking, and sent him down the sky. + + "And now that thou are lying, my dear old Carian guest, + A handful of grey ashes, long long ago at rest, + Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake, + For death he taketh all away, but them he cannot take." + +I cannot resist quoting these touching lines, which are translated from +the Greek of Callimachus, librarian of Alexandria, 260 B.C., on his friend +Heraclitus of Halicarnassus. + +[69] See P. cix., s. 3. + +[70] + + "Jocund day + Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops." + + _Romeo and Juliet_, Act iii., s. 5. + +[71] _Ignis fatuus_--"Will o' the Wisp." + +[72] That is, the _ursa minor_, or little bear, which is a small +constellation that contains the pole star, and never sets in our latitude. + +[73] This is a favourite figure. In Poem xlix., stanza 1, we read, + + "Like light in many a shiver'd lance + That breaks about the dappled pools." + +[74] + + "This holly by the cottage-eave, + To-night, ungather'd, shall it stand." + +Changed in later editions to + + "To-night ungather'd let us leave + This laurel, let this holly stand." + +[75] + + "Use and Wont, + Old sisters of a day gone by. + They too will die."--Poem xxix. + +[76] "_Ligna super foco large reponens._" Thackeray sang, + + "Care, like a dun, + Lurks at the gate, + Let the dog wait! + Happy we'll be. + + Drink every one. + Pile up the coals, + Fill the red bowls, + Round the old tree." + +[77] "All stone I felt within," Dante's Inferno, xxxiii. 47. Wright's +translation. "My heart is turned to stone," Othello, act iv., s. 1. Eloisa +says, "I have not quite forgot myself to stone." + +[78] Lucan has, "_ulularunt tristia Galli_." + +[79] "Nearest" in later editions. + +[80] Sir Thomas Browne, in his "Christian Morals," says, "the true heroick +English gentleman hath no peer." + +[81] In _Measure for Measure_, act iii., s. 1, we read + + "To be imprison'd in the viewless winds." + +"Sightless" and "viewless" are alike used for "invisible." + + "O, therefore, from thy sightless range." + + P. xciii., 3. + +[82] "_Caelum mutant, qui trans mare currunt._" Hor. Ep. xi., 27. + +[83] "The work begun by Nature is finished by the Supernatural--as we are +wont to call the higher natural. And as the veil is lifted by +Christianity, it strikes men dumb with wonder. For the goal of Evolution +is Jesus Christ. The Christian life is the only life that will ever be +completed. Apart from Christ, the life of man is a broken pillar, the race +of men an unfinished pyramid."--Drummond's _Natural Law in the Spiritual +World_, p. 314. + +[84] See Poem xcvi. + +[85] What is the difference of meaning in the two words "adieu" and +"farewell"? Byron says in _Lara_, + + "Farewell to life, but not adieu to thee." + +[86] "With the heart man believeth unto righteousness." Romans x., 10. + +[87] + + "But as I rav'd, and grew more fierce and wild + At every word, + Methought I heard one calling, _Child_, + And I reply'd, _My Lord_." + + _The Collar_, G. Herbert. + +[88] Many years ago, I had a conversation with the Poet in his attic study +at Farringford, that lasted till nearly daybreak. He discoursed on many +subjects, and when we touched on religion, he said, _I am not very fond of +creeds: it is enough for me that I know God Himself came down from heaven +in the form of man_. I cannot resist testifying to the singular frankness +and impressiveness of his conversation, especially when talking to my +wife, who approached much nearer to his intellectual level than I did, and +whom he has now joined "on the mystic deeps."--A. G. + +[89] Shakespeare says, + + "Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead, + Excessive grief the enemy to the living." + + _All's well that ends well_, act i., s. 1. + +[90] The late Sub-Dean Garden said, that E. L. Lushington was the most +learned man in England, after Bishop Thirlwall. Professor Lushington died +13th July, 1893. + + + + +Transcriber's Notes: + +Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_. + +The original text includes Greek characters. For this text version these +letters have been replaced with transliterations. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Key to Lord Tennyson's 'In Memoriam', by +Alfred Gatty + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KEY TO LORD TENNYSON'S 'IN MEMORIAM' *** + +***** This file should be named 36637.txt or 36637.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/6/3/36637/ + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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