22. Nor count me all to blame if I Conjecture of a stiller guest,

Perchance, perchance, among the rest, And, tho' in silence, wishing joy.

23. But they must go, the time draws on, And those white-favor'd horses wait; They rise, but linger; it is late; Farewell, we kiss, and they are gone.

24. A shade falls on us like the dark

From little cloudlets on the grass,
But sweeps away as out we pass
To range the woods, to roam the park,

25, Discussing how their courtship grew, And talk of others that are wed,

And how she look'd, and what he said, And back we come at fall of dew.

26. Again the feast, the speech, the glee, The shade of passing thought, the wealth

Of words and wit, the double health, The crowning cup, the three-times-three,

27. And last the dance;-till I retire:

Dumb is that tower which spake so loud,

And high in heaven the streaming cloud,

And on the downs a rising fire.

28. And rise, O moon, from yonder down, Till over down and over dale

All night the shining vapor sail

And pass the silent-lighted town,

29. The white-faced halls, the glancing rills, And catch at every mountain head,

And o'er the friths that branch and

spread

Their sleeping silver thro' the hills;

30. And touch with shade the bridal doors, With tender gloom the roof, the wall; And breaking let the splendor fall

To spangle all the happy shores

31. By which they rest, and ocean sounds,
And, star and system rolling past,

A soul shall draw from out the vast
And strike his being into bounds,

32. And, moved through life of lower phase,
Result in man, be born and think,
And act and love, a closer link
Betwixt us and the crowning race

33. Of those that, eye to eye, shall look On knowledge; under whose command Is Earth and Earth's, and in their hand

Is Nature like an open book;

34. No longer half-akin to brute,

For all we thought and loved and did,
And hoped, and suffer'd, is but seed
Of what in them is flower and fruit;

35. Whereof the man, that with me trod
This planet, was a noble type
Appearing ere the times were ripe,
That friend of mine who lives in God,

36. That God, which ever lives and loves,
One God, one law, one element,

And one far-off divine event,

To which the whole creation moves.

A

NOTES

Throughout these notes, the Roman numerals refer to poems, the Arabic numerals to stanzas, and the letters to lines in the stanza.

PROLOGUE

This poem (dated 1849) was undoubtedly the last part of In Memoriam to be written (except possibly XXXIX and LIX), and, accordingly, is an expression of the poet's maturest thought. It is, in fact, a clear, ringing statement of the triumphant faith which had come to him after years of struggle through grief and doubt and travail of spirit. It is the embodiment of his deepest religious convictions, his profoundest philosophy of life. Its significance can be appreciated only after a study of the poems which follow.

1, a. Immortal Love: Tennyson states (Memoir I, 312.) that ne used "Love" here in the same sense as St. John (I. John, Chap. iv).

1, b, c. With these lines compare 6, a, b.

2, a. These orbs of light and shade: The planets, which move half in sunlight, half in shadow. There is doubtless also a spiritual meaning; light is life, shade is death. Compare the two lines that follow.

2, c, d. Thy foot Is on the skull, etc.: An old legend states that Christ's cross was planted in Adam's grave; and many early painters put a skull at the foot of the cross. (Compare Mark, xv, 22.) This thought may have suggested the figure.

3, c. He thinks he was not made to die: The poet once re marked: "I can hardly understand how any great, imaginative man, who has deeply lived, suffered, thought and wrought, can doubt of the Soul's continuous progress in the after life." (Memoir, I, 321.) Compare XXXIV, 1; also "Wages."

3, d. And thou hast made him: thou art just: We are told that Tennyson more than once used this argument. In conversation he put it thus: "If you allow a God, and God allows this strong instinct and universal yearning for another life, surely

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that is in a measure a presumption of its truth. We cannot give up the mignty hopes that make us men." (Memoir, I, 321.)

4, c, d. Our wills are ours, etc.: Tennyson was an ardent believer in the freedom of the will (compare CXXXI; also note on CXX, 2, d); but he also believed that the highest exercise of freecom is an alliance with the Divine Will. He once said in illus tration of his belief: "Man's Free-will is but a bird in a cage; ne can stop at the lower perch, or he can mount to a higher. Then that which is and knows will enlarge his cage, give him a aigher and a higher perch, and at last break off the top of his cage, and let him out to be one with the Free-will of the Universe." (Memoir, I, 318-19.)

b, a. Systems: Of theology and philosophy.

5, c. Broken lights:

Passing flashes, as from a moving

prism, or from the facets of a diamond.

6, a, b. Faith...... knowledge: Faith alone gives spiritual wisdom, knowledge being confined to sense perception. And yet knowledge, too, comes from God. Compare CXIV.

7, d. One music as before: That is, before faith was disturbed by doubt. Compare Lowell, "The Cathedral."

"Science was Faith once; Faith were Science now,

Would she but lay her bow and arrows by,

And arm her with the weapons of the time."

8, a. But vaster: This suggests the ultimate purpose of the entire poem,-to build up from a modern point of view, after frankly facing all the facts, a religious faith which shall be truer and nobler than has been possible hitherto.

9, a. Forgive what seemed my sin, etc.: 'What seemed' is an expression of ignorance: 'What rightly or wrongly I counted sin, and what rightly or wrongly I counted worth.' This latter equally needs forgiveness; for there is no 'worth' or 'merit' except as between man and man." (Bradley.) Compare among many scriptural parallels Job, xxii, 2, 3.

o, J. Since I began: Since I began life.

11, a. Wild and wandering cries: Compare Epilogue, 5, 6. The poet no longer feels in the gloomy and rebellious mood in which many of the earlier poems were written. He prays for forgiveness for ever cherishing such feelings; but allows the poems to stand, in order that the series may be complete and thereby more helpful.

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