"In Memoriam' was first published in 1850. No changes were made in the second and third editions except the correction of two misprints. In the fourth edition (1851) the present 59th section (O Sorrow, wilt thou live with me?') was added. The present 39th section ('Old warder of these buried bones,' etc.) was added in the 'Miniature Edition' of the 'Poems' (1871). Minor changes are recorded in the Notes.

Arthur Henry Hallam, to whose memory the poem is a tribute, was the son of Henry Hallam, the historian, and was born in London, February 1, 1811. In 1818 he spent some months with his parents in Italy and Switzerland, where he became familiar with the French language, which he had already learned to read with ease. Latin he also learned to read with facility in little more than a year. When only eight or nine years old, he began to write tragedies which showed remarkable precocity.

After a brief course in a preparatory school he was sent to Eton, where he remained till 1827. He did not distinguish himself as a classical scholar, being more interested in English literature, especially the earlier dramatists. He took an active part in the Debating Society, where he showed great power in argumentative discussion; and during his last year in the school he began to write for the 'Eton Miscellany.' After leaving Eton he spent eight months with his parents in Italy, where he mastered the language and the works of Dante and Petrarch.

In October, 1829, he went to Trinity College, Cambridge. There he soon became acquainted with the Tennysons, and thus began the ever-memorable friendship of which 'In Memoriam' is the monument. Like his friends, he was the pupil of the Rev. William Whewell. In 1831 he obtained the first prize for an English declamation on the conduct of the Independent party during the Civil War. In consequence of this success, he was called upon to deliver an oration in the chapel before the Christmas vacation, and chose as a subject the influence of Italian upon English literature. He also gained a prize for an English essay on the philosophical writings of Cicero.

He left Cambridge on taking his degree in January, 1832. He resided from that time with his father in London in 67 Wimpole Street, referred to in 'In Memoriam,' vii. :

Dark house, by which once more I stand

Here in the long unlovely street.

At

Arthur used to say to his friends, 'You know you will always find us at sixes and sevens.' the earnest desire of his father he applied himself vigorously to the study of law in the Inner Temple, entering, in the month of October, 1832, the office of an eminent conveyancer, with whom he continued till his departure from England in the following summer.

His father tells the remainder of the sad story very briefly. Arthur accompanied him to Germany in the beginning of August. In returning to Vienna from Pesth, a wet day probably gave rise to an intermittent fever with very slight symptoms, which were apparently subsiding, when a sudden rush of blood to the head caused his death on the 15th of September, 1833. It appeared on examination that the cerebral vessels were weak, and that there was a lack of energy in the heart. In the usual chances of humanity a few more years would probably have been fatal.

His 'loved remains' were brought to England and interred on the 3d of January, 1834, in Clevedon Church, Somersetshire, belonging to his maternal grandfather, Sir Abraham Elton. The place was selected by his father not only from its connection with the family, but also from its sequestered situation on a lone hill overlooking the Bristol Channel.

STRONG Son of God, immortal Love,
Whom we, that have not seen thy face,
By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove;

Thine are these orbs of light and shade;
Thou madest Life in man and brute;
Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot
Is on the skull which thou hast made.

Thou wilt not leave us in the dust:

Thou madest man, he knows not why, He thinks he was not made to die; And thou hast made him: thou art just. Thou seemest human and divine,

The highest, holiest manhood, thou. Our wills are ours, we know not how; Our wills are ours, to make them thine.

Our little systems have their day;

They have their day and cease to be; They are but broken lights of thee, And thou, O Lord, art more than they.

We have but faith: we cannot know,

For knowledge is of things we see; And yet we trust it comes from thee, A beam in darkness: let it grow.

Let knowledge grow from more to more,
But more of reverence in us dwell;
That mind and soul, according well,
May make one music as before,

But vaster. We are fools and slight;
We mock thee when we do not fear:
But help thy foolish ones to bear;
Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light.

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.
1849.

I

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 thro' time to catch The far-off interest of tears?

Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown'd,
Let darkness keep her raven gloss.
Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss,
To dance with Death, to beat the ground,

Than that the victor Hours should scorn
The long result of love, and boast,
Behold the man that loved and lost,
But all he was is overworn.'

II

Old yew, which graspest at the stones
That name the underlying dead,
Thy fibres net the dreamless head,
Thy roots are wrapt about the bones.

The seasons bring the flower again,
And bring the firstling to the flock;
And in the dusk of thee the clock
Beats out the little lives of men.