PREFACE. (continued 2)

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

and found the serenity of faith.

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.

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

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,

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.—

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—

This applies to all

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

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,

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

in which the bees are busy.

Uncared for, the brook will babble

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:

Future generations will nevertheless visit Somersby, with something of the reverence that still attracts the stranger to Stratford-on-Avon.

CII.

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

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

The rival affection urges

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,

This picture is very beautiful.

CIII.

A dream is described,

it imparted comfort.

The Poet seemed to be in a hall, where maidens were singing before a veiled statue—

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

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

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;

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,

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,

This refers to the scintillation of the stars rising. Let these run out their

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—

the millennium; and last of all,

God Himself again upon earth.

CVII.

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

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.

must allude to drifts of snow, which falling into water, immediately blacken before they dissolve.

This birthday shall no more be kept as a day of mourning, but shall be joyously observed,

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

or, gazing below, he sees

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.

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

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

both the young and older. He gave confidence to the timid, the true-hearted held to him, and the deceitful were exposed,

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.

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

CXII.

“High wisdom,” which judges ex cathedrâ, 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

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,

and therefore needing caution and restraint.

If separated from love and faith, she bursts

Science is “second, not the first,”

He would have the world wise and modest,

It may be remarked that, here and elsewhere, the Poet makes a distinction betwixt mind and soul: the former acquiring knowledge which

the latter by faith,

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;

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;

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

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

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:

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:

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,

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

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,

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,

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 very hills and solid lands are no more than shadows, or

But our parting is not for ever,

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:

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.

Still he was

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

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,

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.

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,

CXXVIII.

The Love, which became stronger in himself, after encountering Death at the departure of Hallam,

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

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.

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

His last declaration of devoted attachment is,

CXXXI.

“O living will”—free will in man—that will outlast all present things, surviving and enduring

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.

is addressed to Christ, God Himself upon earth.[88] George Herbert had before called our Saviour

and our Poet says, though we have not seen His face, we embrace Him by faith,

He acknowledges Him as the great Creator, and through all surrounding mysteries and disappointments, is satisfied with this conclusion as to the future,

This conviction is enough.

God incarnate, to whom we must become spiritually united,

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.

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.

“What seem’d my sin,” would be the Poet’s excessive grief for Hallam’s death: for he elsewhere says,

“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,

But this worth was only comparative,

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:

The worth of the Bridegroom is acknowledged in this address:

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 £92. The population of Bag Enderby was 115, church accommodation 100, and value £92.

[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, quæ tibi creditum Debes Virgilium, finibus Atticis Reddas incolumem, precor; Et serves animæ dimidium meæ. 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 (διακείμενον) like the sea-god, Glaucus: who, buffetted and insulted by the waves, sank, clustered with ὄστρεα τε, καὶ φύκια, καὶ πέτρας.”

[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 hæc omnia ad loca tartarea, et ad os infernalis baratri deductus sum, qui simile videbatur puteo, loca vero eadem horridis tenebris, fætoribus exhalantibus, stridoribus quoque et nimiis plena erant ejulatibus, juxta quem infernum vermis erat infinitæ magnitudinis, ligatus maxima catena.” Alberici Virio, § 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 ἄι “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, Æ. 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. Æn. 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, Cæsar cried, Help me, Cassius, or I sink.” Julius Cæsar, 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]

“Cælum 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.