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Poems
Among Tennyson’s numerous poems, In Memoriam and The Idylls
of the King are most worthy of mentioning here. Tennyson’s closest friend A.
H. Hallam died in Vienna in 1833 at the age of 22. The deep grief on the
sudden loss of his friend was first expressed in one of his early poems,
“Break, Break, Break”. The first stanza
reads,
Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.
The last
stanza echoes to the first one:
Break, break, break,
At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.
From 1833 to 1850, Tennyson wrote a series of
elegies related to the death of his friend. In Memoriam comprising 131
lyrics with a prologue and epilogue was written in octosyllabic quatrains
all rhyming abba. The poem was clearly divided into four parts by three
Christmas sections (Sections 28, 78 and 104). Prior to the first Christmas
(Sections 1-27), the poet showed his early intense responses and feelings to
Hallam’s death. The first section reads:
I held it truth, with him who sings
To one clear harp in divers tones,
That men may rise on stepping-stones
Of their dead selves to higher things.
But who shall so forecast the years
And find in loss a gain to match?
Or reach a hand through time to catch
The far-off interest of tears?
And also the tenth is:
I hear the noise about thy keel;
I hear the bell struck in the night;
I see the cabin-window bright;
I see the sailor at the wheel.
Thou bring’st the sailor to his wife,
And traveled men from foreign lands;
And letters unto trembling hands;
And, thy dark freight, a vanished life.
The second part of poetry (Sections 28-77)
mixed the poet’s deeper grief with his meditation on life and death, God and
nature, in a general sense. In the 54th poem, the poet expressed his doubt
and despair:
That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroyed,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete;
…
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 dreams; but what am I?
An infant crying in the night;
An infant crying for the light,
And with no language but a cry.
The third part (sections 78-103) shifted to more
impersonal pondering on God, human existence and morality. Finally, the last
part (sections 104-131) turned to some social issues of his time in memory
of his friend. In the 123rd poem, Tennyson released his doubt and anxiety
brought by the scientific achievements in Victorian Age—
There where the long street
roars hath been
The stillness of the central sea.
The hills are shadows, and they flow
From form to form, and nothing stands;
They melt like mist, the solid lands,
Like clouds they shape themselves and go.
But in my spirit will I dwell,
And dream my dream, and hold it true;
For though my lips may breathe adieu,
I cannot think the thing farewell.
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