In Memoriam, The Princess, and Maud

Such clouds of nameless trouble cross

All night below the darken'd eyes;
With morning wakes the will, and cries,

"Thou shalt not be the fool of loss."

I sometimes hold it half a sin

To put in words the grief I feel;
For words, like Nature, half reveal

And half conceal the Soul within.

But, for the unquiet heart and brain,
A use in measured language lies;
The sad mechanic exercise,

Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.

In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er,

Like coarsest clothes against the cold;
But that large grief which these enfold
Is given in outline and no more.

One writes, that "Other friends remain,"
That "Loss is common to the race
And common is the commonplace,
And vacant chaff well meant for grain.

14. Below the darken'd eyes, in sleep.

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.

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
My own less bitter, rather more:
Too common! Never morning wore
To evening, but some heart did break.

O father, wheresoe'er thou be,

Who pledgest now thy gallant son;
A shot, ere half thy draught be done,
Hath still'd the life that beat from thee.

O mother, praying God will save

Thy sailor,-while thy head is bow'd,
His heavy-shotted hammock-shroud
Drops in his vast and wandering grave.

Ye know no more than I who wrought

At that last hour to please him well;
Who mused on all I had to tell,

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,

Nec nox ulla diem neque noctem aurora secuta est
Quæ non audierit mixtos vagitibus ægris
Ploratus,

and Tempest, II. i.,

Our hint of woe

Is common: every day some sailor's wife,

The masters of some merchant, and the merchant,
Have just our theme of woe.

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,
Fors et vota facit, cumulatque altaria donis :

Nos juvenem exanimum, et nil jam cœlestibus ullis
Debentem, vano mosti comitamur honore.

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,"
Or "here to-morrow will he come.

O somewhere, meek unconscious dove,
That sittest ranging golden hair ;
And glad to find thyself so fair,
Poor child, that waitest for thy love!

For now her father's chimney glows
In expectation of a guest;

And thinking "this will please him best,"

And, even when she turn'd, the curse
Had fallen, and her future Lord

Was drown'd in passing thro' the ford,

Or kill'd in falling 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.

VII

Dark house, by which once more I stand
Here in the long unlovely street,

Doors, where my heart was used to beat

So quickly, waiting for a hand,

A hand that can be clasp'd no more—
Behold me, for I cannot sleep,
And like a guilty thing I creep

At earliest morning to the door.

VII

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
On the bald street breaks the blank day.

VIII

A happy lover who has come

To look on her that loves him well,
Who 'lights and rings the gateway bell,

And learns her gone and far from home;

He saddens, all the magic light

Dies off at once from bower and hall,
And all the place is dark, and all

The chambers emptied of delight:

So find I every pleasant spot

In which we two were wont to meet,
The field, the chamber and the street,

For all is dark where thou art not.

Yet as that other, wandering there

In those deserted walks, may find
A flower beat with rain and wind,
Which once she foster'd up with care;
So seems it in my deep regret,

O my forsaken heart, with thee
And this poor flower of poesy
Which little cared for fades not yet.

But since it pleased a vanish'd eye,
I go to plant it on his tomb,
That if it can it there may bloom,

Or dying, there at least may die.

VII

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.

Fair ship, that from the Italian shore
Sailest the placid ocean-plains

With my lost Arthur's loved remains,
Spread thy full wings, and waft him o'er.

So draw him home to those that mourn
In vain; a favourable speed
Ruffle thy mirror'd mast, and lead
prosperous floods his holy urn.

Thro'

All night no ruder air perplex

Thy sliding keel, till Phosphor, bright
As our pure love, thro' early light

Shall glimmer on the dewy decks.

Sphere all your lights around, above;

Sleep, gentle heavens, before the prow;
Sleep, gentle winds, as he sleeps now,

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 cabin-window bright;

I see the sailor at the wheel.

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.

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