Such clouds of nameless trouble cross All night below the darken'd eyes; 15 "Thou shalt not be the fool of loss." V I sometimes hold it half a sin To put in words the grief I feel; And half conceal the Soul within. But, for the unquiet heart and brain, Like dull narcotics, numbing pain. In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er, Like coarsest clothes against the cold; VI One writes, that "Other friends remain," IV 14. Below the darken'd eyes, in sleep. V 5 10 3, 4. Cf. Locke, Essay on the Human Understanding, bk. iii. chap. ix.-x., and Bacon, on the idola fori, Novum Organum, i. App. lix. 5-8. Cf. Donne (Triple Fool): I thought if I could draw my pains, Through rhyme's vexation I should them allay : Grief brought to numbers cannot be so fierce. 6. First two editions. measur'd. VI 2. This is an excellent illustration of Tennyson's power of unfolding what is latent in the pregnant suggestiveness of other poets. Cf. Hamlet, I. ii. :— Queen. Thou know'st 'tis common, all that live must die, Passing through nature to eternity. Hamlet. Ay, madam, it is common. That loss is common would not make O father, wheresoe'er thou be, Who pledgest now thy gallant son; O mother, praying God will save Thy sailor,-while thy head is bow'd, Ye know no more than I who wrought At that last hour to please him well; And something written, something thought; Expecting still his advent home; And ever met him on his way With wishes, thinking, here to-day, Or here to-morrow will he come. 7, 8. Cf. Lucretius, ii. 578–80, VI Nec nox ulla diem neque noctem aurora secuta est and Tempest, II. i., Our hint of woe Is common: every day some sailor's wife, The masters of some merchant, and the merchant, 10 15 20 10. 1850-51. That pledgest. This passage finds a striking commentary in Virgil, Eneid, xi. 48-52, where speaking of the death of Pallas, Æneas says of Pallas' father Evander, Et nunc ille quidem spe multum captus inani, Nos juvenem exanimum, et nil jam cœlestibus ullis 16. Cf. Richard III., I. iv. :— To find the empty, vast, and wandering air. 23, 24. Edition 1878 onward : With wishes, thinking, "here to-day," 5 O somewhere, meek unconscious dove, 25 For now her father's chimney glows 30 And thinking "this will please him best," And, even when she turn'd, the curse Was drown'd in passing thro' the ford, Or kill'd in falling from his horse. 40 O what to her shall be the end? And what to me remains of good? And unto me no second friend. VII Dark house, by which once more I stand Doors, where my heart was used to beat So quickly, waiting for a hand, A hand that can be clasp'd no more— At earliest morning to the door. VII 5 Desolation realised. The fact that the scene is in Wimpole Street (No. 67) gives point to the description. Cf. cxix. for the same scene in another phase of emotion. He is not here; but far away The noise of life begins again, And ghastly thro' the drizzling rain VIII A happy lover who has come To look on her that loves him well, 10 And learns her gone and far from home; He saddens, all the magic light Dies off at once from bower and hall, The chambers emptied of delight: 5 So find I every pleasant spot In which we two were wont to meet, 10 For all is dark where thou art not. Yet as that other, wandering there In those deserted walks, may find O my forsaken heart, with thee But since it pleased a vanish'd eye, Or dying, there at least may die. VII 15 20 12. A very happy illustration of the onomatopoeic effects of which Tennyson is so great a master. Cf. with this To the Marquis of Dufferin : When That within the coffin fell, Fell-and flash'd into the Red Sea. VIII Cf. Crabbe's Lover's Journey for an illustrative parallel to this poem. IX Fair ship, that from the Italian shore With my lost Arthur's loved remains, So draw him home to those that mourn Thro' All night no ruder air perplex 5 Thy sliding keel, till Phosphor, bright 10 Shall glimmer on the dewy decks. Sphere all your lights around, above; Sleep, gentle heavens, before the prow; 15 My friend, the brother of my love; I hear the noise about thy keel; I hear the bell struck in the night; I see the sailor at the wheel. IX 20 Sections ix. to xix. form a series the central theme of which is the transference of the body of his dead friend from Vienna to his grave in Clevedon Church. With this section cf. Horace, Odes, I. iii., and Theocritus, Idyll, viii. 53 seq., which seems to have inspired it. |