f LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
 SAN DIEGO
 
 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM 
 
 ITS PURPOSE AND ITS STRUCTURE 
 
 A Study 
 
 JOHN F. GENUNG 
 
 BOSTON 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street 
 
 (3Tfoe fttoewi&e prcs, Cambridge 
 
 1896
 
 Copyright, 1883, 
 BY JOHN F. GENUNG. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 EIGHTH EDITION. 
 
 The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. 
 Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company.
 
 To 
 MY WIFE, 
 
 IN RECOGNITION OF WHAT THE GROWTH OF THIS BOOK 
 OWES TO HER.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 Page 
 IN MEMORIAM AS RELATED TO ITS AGE ... 9 
 
 IN MEMORIAM AS RELATED TO THE GROWTH OF THE POET'S 
 
 MIND ...... . 14 
 
 THE PURPOSE OF IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 IN MBMORIAM AS AN ELEGY. LYCIDAS. ADONAIS . . 31 
 
 IN MEMORIAM AS A MEMORIAL OP FRIENDSHIP. SHAKE- 
 SPEARE'S SONNETS 40 
 
 IN MEMORIAM AND THE LEADING THOUGHTS OF THE POET'S 
 CONTEMPORARY WORKS 47 
 
 HOW THE SPIRIT OP THE TIME INFLUENCED THE PURPOSE OF 
 IN MEMORIAM 59 
 
 THE POEM'S OWN INDICATIONS OP ITS PURPOSE ... 68 
 
 THE STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 
 HINT" OP ITS STRUCTURE GATHERED FROM THE POEM . . 83 
 OUTLINE OF ITS STRUCTURE 89
 
 vi CONTENTS. 
 
 PROLOGUE . 96 
 
 INTRODUCTORY STAGE 104 
 
 FIRST CYCLE 118 
 
 SECOND CYCLE 151 
 
 THIRD CYCLE 173 
 
 EPILOGUE ' . , xg6
 
 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM.
 
 " Strange friend, past, present, and to be ; 
 Loved deeplier, darklier understood ; 
 Behold, I dream a dream of good, 
 And mingle all the world with thee"
 
 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 A STUDY of Tennyson's In Memo- in 
 
 am as an- 
 
 riam, in order adequately to fulfill its Bering to 
 
 the reltgtout 
 
 object, must be as truly a study of the spirit of it* 
 
 > J time. 
 
 age as of the poem. For the poem 
 stands inseparably related to what is 
 deepest and most vital in the thought 
 of its time ; of an age whose devout 
 minds are confessedly eager and ear- 
 nest in the quest of eternal truth it 
 is preeminently the poetical exponent. 
 This is evident in the fact that ever 
 since its first publication in 1850 it 
 has been the treasure - house from 
 which all reverent thinkers have 
 drawn copiously not only for felici- 
 tous expression of truths not easily 
 i
 
 IO TENNYSON'S IN MEMO RI AM. 
 
 crystallized in words, but, what is 
 more significant, often for the very 
 spirit and mould of their deepest 
 thoughts. For this reason it seems 
 to me timely to inquire what In Me- 
 moriam actually contributes to the 
 thought of its time, how much and 
 how truly ; and with this inquiry, 
 which must largely be shaped by the 
 question of its structure, must be con- 
 joined the question how it comes that 
 a simple memorial of love and death 
 should be the most influential poem 
 of the century, which latter inquiry 
 may perhaps best be answered through 
 a study of its purpose. 
 Mart intuit 1 s As long ago as 1 8156 a careful ob- 
 
 Essays, J 
 
 vol. i. p. 331. server of the times wrote: "Few 
 thoughtful men, who have lived through 
 the greater part of the present cen- 
 tury, can fail to be more or less aware 
 of a vast change in the religious ideas 
 and spirit of the time, a change 
 surely to a higher mood of faith, and 
 even of doubt." These words are not
 
 TENNYSOATS IN MEMORIAM. 1 1 
 
 less but more true today than when 
 they were first written ; they may serve 
 indeed equally well to record what 
 further change the last quarter of a 
 century has to show, for it is but the 
 change of advancing development. It 
 is not the place here to describe at 
 length the character of this change ; 
 but a word of definition seems neces- 
 sary tO Our purpose. It is a Super- Character 
 
 ficial view, I think, which holds as * 
 its characteristic that old beliefs are 
 ruthlessly torn away, or that what has 
 long been held sacred is becoming 
 less so. Any such tendency on the 
 frontiers of the religious world is not 
 to be taken as the disposition of its 
 centre and heart. There is a too wide- 
 spread inquiry after "whatsoever things 
 are true " to consent that such be the 
 reigning spirit of the age. But there 
 is and has long been a growing dis- 
 position to think out old truths in new 
 terms, to re-interpret, as it were by 
 methods of spiritual science, the death-
 
 12 TENNYSON'S IN ME MORI AM. 
 
 less ideas of God and revelation, and 
 to discern, not only by the deliver- 
 ances of logic but by the fine tactile 
 instinct of the heart, wherein they are 
 true to God and true to human na- 
 ture. In this prevailing inquiry there 
 is often a boldness which once may 
 well have been startling ; but there is 
 also a devoutness, which makes the 
 work on the whole much more crea- 
 tive than destructive. And we are 
 surely right in calling this new mood 
 of faith higher. Vague and tentative 
 may be many of its present aspects, 
 for the end is not yet; but it is full 
 of life and promise ; its gropings, 
 being " blindly wise," will end in 
 light. 
 
 The foregoing words are meant to 
 describe the religious attitude of the 
 present age ; but they also describe, 
 Temper and and with equal exactness, the temper 
 s&moriam. and tone of Tennyson's In Memoriam. 
 If now we look back toward the begin- 
 ning of this growing era of thought, we
 
 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 13 
 
 find the poem closely identified with 
 it throughout. It was by no means 
 accidental that from its first appear- 
 ance the poem found recognition as 
 fully at one with advancing ideas, and 
 that it gave to them an articulation 
 and expression vainly sought before. 
 The cause may be understood when 
 we trace that long period of seventeen 
 years, from Arthur Hallam's death in 
 1833, to the publication of In Memo- 
 riam in 1850, during which, while the 
 age was becoming aware of its deepest 
 spiritual problems, the poem also was 
 progressing point by point toward 
 completion. In those years Tenny- 
 son was living through in person what 
 was afterward to be reproduced in the 
 spirit of the time. Bereavement and 
 sorrow had given him the impulse to 
 seize and solve the problems of life ; 
 and this he consciously did not merely 
 for his own but for his brethren's 
 sake ; and so in his long secret med- 
 itation thoughts were suggested and
 
 14 TENNYSON'S IN ME MORI AM. 
 
 ripened which were to be a power on 
 his fellows. Nor was the age far be- 
 hind him. Even as he wrought, he 
 was surrounded by the gray of a new 
 morning ; to him it was merely given 
 to catch from the heights of poetic 
 vision the first gleams of the dawn. 
 True as it is, therefore, that in a sense 
 Tennyson led his age, it is yet truer 
 to say \izfound his age, gave quick- 
 ening and impulse to what already 
 existed in many minds, germinating 
 deeply and waiting for vital expres- 
 sion. It is for this reason that when 
 the poem emerged from its long period 
 of secret growth it became at once the 
 mould which, beyond any other single 
 work of literature, has till this day 
 given shape to the religious thought 
 of the time. 
 
 II. 
 
 inMemori- A poem that has taken such deep 
 
 am as relat- 
 
 tdtothe \\o\d of its age must, as a matter of 
 
 growth of ' 
 
 tktfott* course, be yet more deeply influential 
 
 mind.
 
 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 1 5 
 
 in determining the poet's own develop- 
 ment. A glance at Tennyson's work 
 from the beginning of his poetic career 
 to 1850 will show very significantly 
 what an important part the medita- 
 tion and composition of In Memoriam 
 must have played in the growth of 
 his mind and art. 
 
 The first period of Tennyson's po- Tennyson's 
 
 3 r early poetic 
 
 etic work comprises the poems pub- work. 
 lished before 1833, tne y ear f Arthur 
 Hallam's death. Of these, a mention 
 will suffice for " Poems by Two Broth- 
 ers " (Alfred and Charles Tennyson), 
 published anonymously in 1827, and 
 the Cambridge Prize poem " Tim- 
 buctoo," published in 1829. The first 
 publication in which Tennyson seri- 
 ously challenged the attention of the 
 world was a small volume, published 
 in 1830, entitled " Poems, chiefly Lyr- 
 ical," and sent forth in place of a vol- 
 ume which, but for the dissuasion of 
 a relative, would have contained the 
 joint works of Alfred Tennyson and
 
 1 6 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 t Arthur Henry Hallam. Among the 
 
 reviewers of this volume was the latter 
 named, whose friendly eye recognizes 
 Tennyson as " a poet in the truest and 
 highest sense." Both reviewed and 
 reviewer attracted only moderate at- 
 tention at the time; but the present 
 world will discern as much true crit- 
 ical sense as friendship in these words 
 
 A.H.Hal. O f Hallam's: "In these 'preludes of 
 
 lam s Re- 
 mains, pp. a loftier strain ' we recognize the in- 
 
 303> 304- 
 
 spiring God. . . . He sees all the 
 forms of nature with the 'eruditus 
 oculus,' and his ear has a fairy fine- 
 ness. There is a strange earnestness 
 in his worship of beauty which throws 
 a charm over his impassioned song, 
 more easily felt than described, and 
 not to be escaped by those who have 
 once felt it." This was written in 
 1831. Tennyson's second volume, 
 entitled simply " Poems, by Alfred 
 Tennyson," appeared in 1832. Soon 
 after, early in 1833, "The Lover's 
 Tale " was printed, but withdrawn 
 from publication.
 
 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 17 
 
 All the above - mentioned works, 
 while they are indeed no unworthy 
 basis of a great poet's fame, must be 
 regarded as of importance chiefly as 
 foretelling other and riper things. 
 Hallam gave them the right name, 
 ' preludes of a loftier strain.' Ex- 
 quisite indeed they are, but like the 
 recreations of a musician, who before 
 he commits himself to a strenuous ef- 
 fort will assure himself of touch and 
 tone. They are for the most part 
 carefully elaborated studies in the 
 musical capabilities of word and fan- 
 cy, the perfecting of artistic models 
 while the thought to be shaped is yet 
 to come. Nor is the deeper thought 
 long in coming ; there are signs that 
 the poet was growing into it, even be- 
 fore it was precipitated so rudely by 
 bereavement. 
 
 We come now to the seventeen years Y e *<&. 
 
 tng which 
 
 which cover the growth of the In In Memor*. 
 
 am was 
 
 Memoriam. These years fall into 
 two nearly equal periods.
 
 1 8 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 To the first period, which comprises 
 the nine years succeeding the death 
 of Arthur Henry Hallam, the limit is 
 set by the poet himself ; see Epi- 
 logue to In Memoriam, stanzas 3-6. 
 18*3-1842. This period he characterizes as a time 
 at the beginning of which he had ex- 
 pressed, with such broken utterance 
 as he could command, a sudden and 
 overwhelming grief in song ; but as 
 time passed the " wild and wandering 
 cries " of sorrow gradually spent them- 
 selves, and his utterance became more 
 coherent and natural, until at the end 
 of the period the succeeding calm has 
 become so settled and restful that the 
 songs of that first time seem already 
 far away and strange. In those nine 
 years belong certainly those parts of 
 In Memoriam which give utterance to 
 the aimless moods of sorrow as they 
 rise ; which seem to be borne arbitra- 
 rily hither and thither, without definite 
 object, without logical arrangement, 
 as if they had no point on which to
 
 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 19 
 
 steady themselves. How far their 
 real character answers to this seem- 
 ing we shall have occasion to see ; 
 such character at least is all that the 
 poet himself attributes to them ; and 
 persons who take up In Memoriam 
 for a leisure hour or for a cursory 
 reading not infrequently obtain this 
 impression of it. 
 
 Of this same period, however, we 
 have other witness, such witness as 
 makes the poet's own characterization 
 doubly interesting. As is well known, 
 those nine years were a period of al- 
 most unbroken silence on the poet's 
 part, his only publications in all that 
 time being two short lyrics. In 1842 
 the silence was broken by the appear- 
 ance of a new two-volume edition of 
 Tennyson's works, that edition in 
 which the world first read such poems 
 as "Two Voices," " Locksley Hall," 
 " Love and Duty," " Morte d'Arthur," 
 " Ulysses." These poems show every- 
 where, in the greater maturity of their
 
 2O TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 art, and especially in the greater depth 
 and firmness of their thought, how 
 well the silent period had been em- 
 ployed. It was evident that some 
 solemnizing influence had wrought in 
 the poet's genius to give it steadiness 
 and greatness. The following appre- 
 ciative words, written of Tennyson in 
 August, 1842, will indicate with what 
 satisfaction the new volumes were re- 
 Memoirs of ceived : " Much has he thought, much 
 
 Margaret 
 
 Fuller ps : suffered, since the first ecstasy of so 
 
 salt, vol. u. 
 
 P- 66- fine an organization clothed all the 
 world in rosy light. He has not suf- 
 fered himself to become a mere intel- 
 lectual voluptuary, nor the songster of 
 fancy and passion, but has earnestly 
 revolved the problems of life, and his 
 conclusions are calmly noble." With 
 this testimony it is interesting to com- 
 pare the poet's own words concerning 
 himself, dating from the same year. 
 In the stanzas of the epilogue already 
 referred to, as he looks back over the 
 time that is gone, with its valuable 
 though sad experience, he says :
 
 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 21 
 
 " Regret is dead, but love is more . ,,, 
 
 In Memon- 
 Than in the summers that are flown, arn< Epi- 
 
 For I myself with these have grown logue, St. 5, 6. 
 
 To something greater than before ; 
 
 " Which makes appear the songs I made 
 As echoes out of weaker times, 
 As half but idle brawling rhymes, 
 The sport of random sun and shade." 
 
 Thus what the poet confesses and 
 what the world has discovered agree 
 in one. Something in those silent 
 years, more than the ordinary experi- 
 ences of a quiet life, has given a deep 
 undertone of solemnity to his song ; by 
 some severe test of experience he has 
 proved true what he held in his yet 
 untroubled days : 
 
 " That men may rise on stepping-stones 
 Of their dead selves to higher things." 
 
 What it was that proved such a 
 turning-point in the poet's life and 
 thought In Memoriam revealed to the 
 world eight years after ; not, however, 
 until the source as well as the fact of 
 this deepened change had been dis- 
 covered by sympathetic observers. It 
 is interesting to note that the following
 
 22 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 words of an American critic were writ- 
 ten in 1844, six years before In Me- 
 moriam appeared. They occur in a 
 review of the two-volume edition of 
 Tennyson's poems, the first volume of 
 which ends with the poem " To J. S.," 
 being an address to James Sped- 
 ding on the death of his brother, 
 who was one of Tennyson's college 
 Democratic mates. " This poem," says the re- 
 
 Revtew, . . ' . 
 
 January, viewer, " closes, with infinite propriety, 
 1844, p. 76. . 
 
 this series of beautiful writings. It is 
 
 like the prelude to the solemn harmo- 
 nies that follow, the sublimest parts of 
 which have been stricken from the 
 soul of the poet by the hand of the 
 Angel of Death, who, in bearing from 
 this earth one of the purest spirits and 
 brightest intelligences that ever vis- 
 ited it, deprived Tennyson of a friend 
 who was to have become his brother. 
 ... To the solemn and tender spirit- 
 union which still subsists between Ten- 
 nyson and this his brother we attribute 
 the inspiration whence emanates the
 
 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 2$ 
 
 sublime poetry and philosophy of 
 ' Locksley Hall ' and ' The Two 
 Voices.' " 
 
 We have thus traced the poet's 
 work half-way through the seventeen 
 years during which In Memoriam was 
 growing. His own characterization of 
 the songs thus far made, as " echoes 
 out of weaker times," is perhaps no 
 earnestly meant indication of what is 
 their real art ; for as late as 1849, 
 when the artistic structure of the 
 whole series, carefully ordered and 
 unified as we now see it to be, was 
 essentially complete, he would call 
 them only " wild and wandering cries," 
 and leave it to his readers to find what 
 more they are. And we need only to 
 trace these songs carefully, in the spirit 
 of them, to find that they are far more. 
 If indeed it may be permitted to take 
 up the poet at a word, we may say 
 that while to him they seem 
 
 " As half but idle brawling rhymes, 
 The sport of random sun and shade, "
 
 24 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 this expresses only half of their char- 
 acter, and the other half must be con- 
 sidered. The other half we are to 
 seek in the direction of the poem's 
 perfected art. If In Memoriam pre- 
 serves, as actually appears in its 
 pages, in some sense the spiritual rec- 
 ord of those years, we cannot let it 
 stop with the mere aimless moods of 
 grief ; we look for it to have advanced 
 beyond them, even in these first nine 
 years, to some such firm standing- 
 ground as the other poetry of this 
 period evinces, and as the poet recog- 
 nizes in himself. Further, there are 
 i&42-i8y>. eight years more of patient work to 
 be devoted to the poem, before it is 
 given to the world. In this second 
 period we look for some fruit of the 
 calmer, greater mind which the stern 
 discipline of the past has developed. 
 And whatever the additions of this 
 period are, we look at all events for 
 such rounding, such arranging, such 
 linking of parts together, as shall fit
 
 TENNYSON'S IN ME MORI AM. 2$ 
 
 the poem to challenge the world's at- 
 tention as a unified work of art. A 
 true work of art, according to the 
 poet's own ideal, should not fail in the 
 primary characteristic of " toil cooper- 
 ant to an end." We naturally expect, 
 therefore, to find in the completed poem 
 a beginning, a correlation of parts, 
 a progress, a culmination. Nor will 
 our expectation be disappointed. The 
 meditation of those seventeen years 
 has ripened not only into a spiritual 
 record, which has vitally united itself 
 with the deepest thought of the age, 
 but also into a harmonious, severely 
 ordered work of art, 
 
 " Flowing free 
 
 From point to point, with power and grace 
 And music in the bounds of law." 
 
 I have intimated in what way alone The kind of 
 
 t_ c , i r i i study In Me- 
 
 the poem before us is to be profitably moriam 
 studied, in the same way by which ^ 
 the devoutest minds of the age have 
 found it fruitful of thought and com- 
 fort, namely, through the spirit of it.
 
 26 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 In Memoriam does not yield its whole 
 secret at once. Nor does it reveal 
 itself willingly to an uncongenial or 
 impatient reader. Catch-words and 
 mechanical devices count for little in 
 its structure. We need to lay, as it 
 were, our hearts by the side of the 
 poet's heart, surrendering ourselves 
 obediently to his thought and spirit, 
 until there is evolved to our view the 
 devout purpose that has presided 
 throughout the whole series of these 
 songs ; and then we shall find that the 
 spirit has indeed shaped itself a body, 
 a fair, symmetrical, artistic structure, 
 worthy in every part to present, well- 
 rounded, the thought which it ei> 
 shrines.
 
 THE PURPOSE OF IN MEMO- 
 RIAM.
 
 " If love lives through all life ; and survives through 
 all sorrow ; and remains steadfast with us through all 
 changes ; and in all darkness of spirit burns brightly ; 
 and, if we die, deplores us forever, and loves still equally ; 
 and exists with the very last gasp and throb of the 
 faithful bosom whence it passes with the pure soul, 
 beyond death ; surely it shall be immortal ! Though we 
 who remain are separated from it, is it not ours in 
 Heaven ? If we love still those we lose, can we alto- 
 gether lose those we love ? " THACKERAY, The New 
 Cftnes.
 
 THE PURPOSE OF IN MEMO- 
 RIAM. 
 
 IN such a study as is here proposed startinr- 
 
 3 point oftht 
 
 it is simple fairness to take as the study. 
 starting-point what the poem itself 
 professes to be. And its professions 
 are moderate enough ; it makes no 
 parade of claims. Ostensibly and 
 really it is a series of meditations on 
 love and death and immortality ; medi- 
 tations apparently compelled and con- 
 trolled by the poet's personal bereave- 
 ment, with the long experience of pain 
 that succeeds. In work of this kind 
 the history of literature is not poor. 
 Much of the finest and truest poetry 
 of the world has been in some form 
 elegiac. In Memoriam takes its place 
 in the class with such ; and from the
 
 30 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAL 
 
 idle reader it asks no higher tribute 
 than the acknowledgment that it per- 
 petuates worthily the memory of Ar- 
 thur Henry Hallam. If its significance 
 is more than this, the fact must be 
 found by insight and study. It has 
 indeed a meaning lying on the sur- 
 face ; if the reader is satisfied with 
 this, well ; if he seeks and finds more, 
 he finds it not by the poet's assertion, 
 but in the way of spiritual sympathy. 
 The poem's deepest meaning is an ap- 
 peal to what is deepest in congenial 
 hearts. 
 
 It will give us a broader and more 
 satisfactory idea of its purpose if we 
 compare In Memoriam with certain 
 other works, confessedly typical of the 
 class to which it belongs, and see 
 wherein it is like them and wherein it 
 differs. To this comparison may prof- 
 itably succeed a consideration of its 
 place in the life and thought of its 
 time and among the author's contem- 
 porary works. And finally we will
 
 THE PURPOSE OF IN MEMORIAM. 3 1 
 
 seek in the poem itself for indications 
 of its purpose and fundamental idea. 
 
 I. 
 
 The title and occasion of In Memo- y Memori- 
 riam claim for it the character of an "&! a * 
 elegiac tribute to the dead : 
 
 IN MEMORIAM 
 A. H. H. 
 
 OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII. 
 
 A few words will suffice to fill out 
 this outline. Arthur Henry Hallam, 
 for five years the college mate and 
 intimate friend of Alfred Tennyson, 
 died at Vienna, September 15, 1833 ; 
 and with his sudden death ceased 
 a companionship whose genial influ- 
 ence had been of untold sweetness 
 and value in the early years of the 
 poet's career. Such is the simple 
 external fact ; for the spiritual signif- 
 icance of that companionship, both 
 present and as a memory, to the poet,
 
 32 TENNYSON'S IN ME MORI AM. 
 
 reference is made to the whole course 
 of the poem. 
 
 ^ctdtL and "^ s an ^SV' ^ n Memoriam provokes 
 comparison with two other celebrated 
 elegies, Milton's "Lycidas" and 'Shel- 
 ley's "Adonais." 
 
 Milton's " Lycidas " is a pastoral, in 
 which a dead shepherd is represented 
 as lamented by his surviving compan- 
 ion ; and under this conventional im- 
 agery the real facts of the death of 
 Milton's fellow-student, Edward King, 
 are portrayed, as far as the disguise 
 of its classical model permits recog- 
 nizable description. Shelley's " Ado- 
 nais," written on occasion of the death 
 of John Keats, is a wonderful poetic 
 picture of a poet's death, into which 
 picture are introduced the airy forms 
 and scenery of that supersensual world 
 in which, Shelley's genius habitually 
 dwelt. In both of these poems the 
 purely artistic element is designedly 
 predominant. Both of the poems in- 
 troduce, as is natural to their subject,
 
 THE PURPOSE OF IN ME MORI AM. 33 
 
 their authors' ideas of death, if not 
 as formulated, at least as taken for 
 granted ; and it is chiefly by compar- 
 ing the treatment of this element, as 
 we shall see, that we become aware 
 how essentially In Memoriam tran- 
 scends the character of a mere elegy. 
 
 Such elements of parallelism as Points of 
 
 . similarity to 
 
 exist between these poems and In in 
 Memoriam are furnished mainly by *' 
 the very similar occasions of all three 
 productions. In each case the subject 
 of the elegy is a young man, with a 
 life full of generous promise, whose 
 untimely death cuts him off from a 
 career which his powers would have 
 made famous. Within the suggestive- 
 ness of these parallel facts lie all or 
 nearly all the points that permit com- 
 parison. In each case the subject 
 leads us quite naturally to expect 
 conditioned, of course, by the poet's 
 individuality some poet's view of 
 blighted fame, of the gloom with 
 which bereavement invests the world, 
 3
 
 34 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 of the sweetness of past companion- 
 ship, of the influence that in loving 
 hearts shall survive death. Such 
 points as these are, as matter of fact, 
 the characteristics in which alone the 
 poems may be said to approach one 
 another ; and these are the typical 
 characteristics of the elegy. The se- 
 lection of citations to illustrate so ob- 
 vious a parallelism, which must often 
 be less in verbal expression than in the 
 general bearing of a passage, is some- 
 what unsatisfactory: yet compare, as 
 to fame, Lycidas 70-84 with In Me- 
 moriam Ixxiii., Ixxv. 4, 5 ; as to the 
 hallowed companionship, Lycidas 23- 
 36 with In Memoriam xxiii. 4-6 ; as 
 to the darkened world, Lycidas 37-44 
 and Adonais liii. with In Memoriam 
 viii. 1-3, xxxviii. 1,2; compare, fur- 
 ther, Adonais xviii., xxi. with In Me- 
 moriam cxv. i, 5, Ixxviii. 4, 5, vi. 2 ; 
 as to the surviving influence, Lycidas 
 182-185 and Adonais Iv. with In Me- 
 moriam cxxx. 4, Ixxx. 4.
 
 THE PURPOSE OF IN MEMORIAM. 35 
 
 The difference that first strikes the Points of 
 
 , T difference. 
 
 reader between these poems and In 
 Memoriam is the fact that, while Lyci- 
 das and Adonais act a part, In Memo- 
 riam speaks in its own character and 
 calls things by real instead of poetical 
 names. The artistic model chosen for 
 both of these others erects a conven- 
 tional standard, to which their thought 
 must conform itself ; to find their au- 
 thors' personality we must penetrate a 
 disguise, and the underlying idea must 
 be translated (except where other than 
 artistic issues cause the poem to speak 
 out of character, as in Lycidas 113- 
 131) from imagery into literal form. 
 In Memoriam, on the other hand, dis- 
 cusses real issues, seeks a solution to 
 universally acknowledged problems ; 
 and both seeker and object appear in 
 the light of unfigurative expression. 
 
 This fact suggests, indeed, the es- 
 sential difference. Before all three po- 
 ems, as elegies, stands, of course, the 
 predominating fact of death. But, if
 
 36 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 we may so express it, while the other 
 poems use the thought of death as 
 their groundwork, In Memoriam takes 
 it as a starting-point. It is as an in- 
 quiry after the real nature of death, 
 and especially of the mystery beyond 
 death and beyond the world of sense, 
 as a progress to results which it veri- 
 fies step by step, that In Memoriam 
 demonstrates its character as more 
 than a mere elegy. 
 
 This characteristic difference may 
 be well illustrated by a comparison of 
 those passages in each where death 
 as extinction of being is denied. Both 
 Milton and Shelley view the state af- 
 ter death with certitude of mind, but 
 in very different ways. In Lycidas, in 
 the passage beginning, 
 
 Lycidas, " Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no more, 
 
 165-177. p or Ly C j ( 3 aS) your sorrow, is not dead," 
 
 there is evident the Puritan's settled 
 assurance, in such full consciousness 
 of scriptural teaching that even the 
 poet's chosen classical imagery dis-
 
 THE PURPOSE OF IN ME MORI AM. 37 
 
 appears from the description. In Ad- 
 onais, in the passage beginning, 
 
 " Peace, peace ! he is not dead, he doth not sleep ; Adonais } 
 He hath awakened from the dream of life," 
 
 we have also the utterance of a well- 
 settled idea, if that may be called an 
 idea which consists rather in the pas- 
 sionate negation of strict and definite 
 ideas concerning the beyond, further 
 than this, that the real clearness is 
 yonder, the mystery here. Quite dis- 
 tinct from these, it is the main charac- 
 teristic of In Memoriam that nothing 
 is certain at first, and all is cleared up 
 at last. The sentiment 
 
 " They do not die, In Memori- 
 
 Nor lose their mortal sympathy, am > Jaat * 6< 
 
 Nor change to us, although they change " 
 
 is not a conventionalism, nor is it 
 lightly uttered as an accepted doc- 
 trine ; it is the result of an earnest 
 inquiry into life and experience, the 
 first in a series of results which add 
 themselves until the whole world, tem- 
 poral and eternal, is included in the 
 answer.
 
 38 TENNYSON'S IN ME MORI AM. 
 
 The same difference is made strik- 
 ingly evident, also, by a comparison of 
 what, for the sake of distinction, I may 
 call the pantheistic passages in the 
 three poems. In Lycidas any such 
 element is rather poetic than panthe- 
 istic, being merely such a fancy as 
 does not compromise the poet's per- 
 sonal views, and as deference to his 
 classic model requires and permits : 
 
 8 CU % is ' " Now, Lycidas, the shepherds weep no more ; 
 
 Henceforth thou art the Genius of the shore, 
 In thy large recompense, and shall be good 
 To all that wander in that perilous flood." 
 
 In Adonais this element appears pro- 
 nounced and well defined, as entirely 
 consistent with Shelley's unconven- 
 tional creed, which his whole poetical 
 career has asserted : 
 
 Adonais, " He is made one with Nature : there is heard 
 
 *"* *9' His voice in all her music, from the moan 
 
 Of thunder, to the song of night's sweet bird ; 
 He is a presence to be felt and known 
 In darkness and in light, from herb and stone, 
 Spreading itself where'er that Power may move 
 Which has withdrawn his being to its own ; 
 Which wields the world with never wearied love, 
 Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above. "
 
 THE PURPOSE OF IN MEMORIAM. 39 
 
 When, however, Tennyson comes to 
 say, 
 
 " Thy voice is on the rolling air ; In Memori- 
 
 I hear thee where the waters run ; am ' cxxx> 
 
 Thou standest in the rising sun, 
 And in the setting thou art fair," 
 
 we find this asserted as an acquired 
 conviction, suggested by the preced- 
 ing course of thought ; and once sug- 
 gested the idea is pursued, in the an- 
 swer to the question, " What art thou, 
 then ? " until an answer is found in 
 which the poet's rational faith may 
 rest. 
 
 We may draw, then, the following Summary. 
 result of our comparison with Lycidas 
 and Adonais. In Memoriam fulfills, 
 as they do, the characteristics of an 
 elegy, but this only as a subordinate 
 feature. If the poem were merely a 
 formal tribute to the memory of the 
 dead, and nothing more, the dead 
 friend would hardly have waited sev- 
 enteen years for his monument. But 
 even those passages which show the 
 most striking parallelism in expres-
 
 40 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 sion show also in their connection most 
 strikingly the fact that the distinguish- 
 ing feature of In Memoriam lies be- 
 yond the domain of the elegy, in its 
 character of inquiry, of progress to 
 the solution of doubts ; in its reverent 
 interrogation of the mystery beyond 
 death, and its significance for dead 
 and living. The thought of this char- 
 acter contributes an important element 
 to our idea of its purpose. 
 
 II. 
 
 inMemori- The death which In Memoriam 
 
 am as a me- ,., .. f 
 
 moriaiof commemorates, unlike the foregoing 
 examples, was one which suddenly 
 tore asunder a fair companionship, 
 and invaded a love such as is rare 
 between men. The power of that 
 love death does not impair, but re- 
 veals : it lives on and works, a hal- 
 lowed influence, in the survivor. To 
 commemorate that companionship and 
 to interpret the involvements of that
 
 THE PURPOSE OF IN ME MORI AM. 41 
 
 undiminished love is an object of In 
 Memoriam which constitutes a much 
 more essential element of its literary 
 character than its elegiac quality. 
 
 As a memorial of friendship, In sfake- 
 Memoriam has a noted parallel in s so*nets. 
 English literature, which we cannot 
 well leave uncompared, namely, Shake- 
 speare's Sonnets. 
 
 The Sonnets of Shakespeare are 
 among the most baffling phenomena 
 of the dramatist's career. This is not 
 the place to discuss the ever -open 
 question who is their hero, or how 
 far they are autobiographical. Their 
 ground of comparison with In Memo- 
 riam lies in the fact that they portray 
 a very remarkable love of their author 
 for some male friend, a love which 
 seems to have taken deep hold of 
 the poet's life, and the expression of 
 which, in ever-varied forms of thought 
 and imagery, calls forth all the re- 
 sources of his art. 
 
 That Tennyson himself, during the
 
 42 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 experience which In Memoriam re- 
 cords, felt the likeness of his love for 
 Arthur Hallam to Shakespeare's love 
 for his unknown friend, would seem 
 to be indicated by the remarkable 
 allusion to Shakespeare, In Memo- 
 riam Ixi. 3 : 
 
 " I loved thee, Spirit, and love, nor can 
 The soul of Shakespeare love thee more." 
 
 Here an explicit comparison is made, 
 in which the name of Shakespeare 
 could have no significance except as 
 we see in him just the Shakespeare of 
 the Sonnets. A detailed comparison 
 of In Memoriam with the Sonnets indi- 
 cates also, by many striking turns of 
 expression, and still more by the gen- 
 eral similarity of spirit, that Tennyson 
 has given thorough and appreciative 
 study to these works of the dramatist. 
 For a showing of these similarities, 
 illustrated by many citations, refer- 
 ence is made to " Tennysoniana " 
 (London, Pickering), pages 53 - 72. 
 See, also, Furnivall's Introduction to 
 the Leopold Shakespeare, page Ixiv.
 
 THE PURPOSE OF IN MEMORIAM. 43 
 
 Despite the fact, however, that Ten- Points of 
 nyson works in the consciousness that to in Me- 
 
 .,.,,,. , , tnoriam. 
 
 his position is like Shakespeare s, the 
 parallelism between In Memoriam 
 and the Sonnets is for the most part 
 superficial. In both the love of one 
 man for another is celebrated in song. 
 In both the singers speak in their real 
 character. In both there is a strong 
 introspective element, a disposition to 
 define the depths and bounds of love 
 by poetic analysis and imagery. With 
 such similar circumstances in mind, we 
 look in both to see much said about 
 song and its sacred office, much about 
 the value of the companionship, much 
 about the depth and lastingness of the 
 love celebrated. As a matter of fact, 
 it is in the expression of such senti- 
 ments as these that the most striking 
 similarities are to be found. Com- 
 pare, for instance, as to the song and 
 its office, Sonnets xvi., xvii., xxix., 
 xxxii., Ixxxiii., xci. with In Memoriam 
 Ixxv., Ixxvii. ; as to the love, Sonnets
 
 44 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 xxv., cii., cxvi. with In Memoriam lix., 
 Ixxxv. 16, Epilogue 4-6. The investi- 
 ture of all nature with cheerlessness, 
 which in In Memoriam is caused by 
 bereavement, appears in the Sonnets 
 as the consequence of absence. Com- 
 pare In Memoriam viii., xxxviii. with 
 Sonnet xcvii. Thus far the parallelism 
 is superficial. Attention is called, how- 
 ever, to one remarkable point in which 
 the parallelism is deeper, namely, to 
 the passages in each which portray 
 the self-abnegation of the poet's love. 
 Compare Sonnets xlix., Ixxi., Ixxxix. 
 with In Memoriam Ixi., Ixii. This 
 sentiment imparts to Shakespeare's 
 love a touch of that ideal character 
 which is the predominant feature of 
 Tennyson's. 
 Points of The points of divergence are funda- 
 
 difference, . . 
 
 mental ; that is to say, the essential 
 purpose of In Memoriam depends on 
 its maintaining a sentiment other than 
 that of Shakespeare's Sonnets. As a 
 minor point, the fact that fancy so
 
 THE PURPOSE OF IN MEMORIAM. 45 
 
 rules in the Sonnets as to obscure the 
 personality of both lover and loved is 
 a feature that demands a radically dif- 
 ferent character; as is evident when 
 we consider that In Memoriam is striv- 
 ing fundamentally after the solution of 
 a real problem which allows no dis- 
 guises. The principal divergence lies, 
 however, in the different, we may al- 
 most say contrasted, characters of the 
 love represented. Not that the one 
 love is more genuine or self-forgetful 
 than the other; that were precarious 
 to assert ; but they subsist in unlike re- 
 gions and move to ends widely apart. 
 In the Sonnets the love is earthly, and 
 touched with earth's sin and shame ; 
 in In Memoriam it is idealized, fixed 
 beyond estrangement, hallowed by 
 death. In the Sonnets the love recog- 
 nizes only this world, with its adulter- 
 ous ways ; in In Memoriam the facts 
 of the case transfer love to that un- 
 seen world, where it rises in purity and 
 blessedness until it loses itself in the
 
 46 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 love of God. Further, in the Sonnets 
 love languishes in absence, and sets 
 no higher goal to its longing than 
 union again ; in In Memoriam, where 
 absence is permanent bereavement, 
 the continuance of love here and the 
 belief that it continues in him who is 
 removed beyond death constitute the 
 foundation of its most important argu- 
 ment. Finally, the Sonnets begin and 
 end with the love of one for one ; In 
 Memoriam, which begins with the in- 
 dividual, extends by degrees the sphere 
 of its love to all the world. 1 
 Summary. We are ready now for the result of 
 our comparison. Like Shakespeare's 
 Sonnets, In Memoriam celebrates a 
 friendship that was " wonderful, pass- 
 ing the love of women." But this 
 
 1 Of course the above comparison can recognize only 
 the first group of the Sonnets (Sonnets i.-cxxvi.) as in 
 any way parallel with In Memoriam. The utter con- 
 trast of sentiment in the second group, which portrays 
 the love of Shakespeare for some unworthy mistress, 
 may be sufficiently indicated by a comparison of Sonnet 
 cl. with In Memoriam cix.-cxii.
 
 THE PURPOSE OF IN MEMORIAM. 47 
 
 friendship, as it existed in the present 
 world, is in In Memoriam only the 
 starting-point. It is beyond this, in 
 the portrayal of a love that exists un- 
 impaired by bereavement, of a love 
 that Death has so idealized that its 
 further steps must be traced in a holy 
 region accessible only to faith, that 
 the distinctive character of In Memo- 
 riam is to be found. The fact that it 
 exists for the purpose not merely of 
 memorializing love, but of interpret- 
 ing its religious depths, makes for In 
 Memoriam a class which it occupies 
 alone. 
 
 III. 
 
 To the characteristics of In Memo- / Memo- 
 riam gathered from the foregoing com- tkeUading 
 
 . thoughts of 
 
 pansons may be added another, drawn thefoet's 
 from a glance at the life and thought C rar' y mt 
 of the time, and the reflection of these 
 in the poet's contemporary works. 
 
 The growth of In Memoriam occu- 
 pies a period which for many reasons
 
 48 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 may be regarded as the most remark- 
 able of the century. Between the 
 limits of those seventeen years were 
 witnessed the most marvelous of the 
 practical applications of steam and elec- 
 tricity which have revolutionized mod- 
 ern crv ili zat i on - Science was awake 
 on every hand, gathering materials for 
 the bold speculations on man and na- 
 ture which within a few years have 
 antiquated all that science had done 
 before. Philosophical and theological 
 speculation had received a new im- 
 pulse from Germany ; and if that eager 
 impulse pushed itself into evils, it also 
 made more apparent to earnest minds 
 the need of a deeper life and more 
 reasonable thinking in religious things. 
 Against the rationalizing tendencies 
 of this new thought on the one hand, 
 and a too shallow Evangelicalism on 
 the other, some of the leaders of the 
 church were stirred up to recognize 
 the need of thorough reform ; and 
 the publication, from 1834 to 1841, of
 
 THE PURPOSE OF IN MEMORIAM. 49 
 
 " Tracts for the Times " was the out- 
 ward indication of the Oxford move- 
 ment, characterized as "one of the 
 most momentous that had stirred the 
 Church of England since the Refor- 
 mation." In politics it was the pe- 
 riod of the Reform Bill (1832), and of 
 popular agitations and improvements. 
 The following words, written to give 
 the aspect of things about 1841, will 
 indicate the character of the time a 
 little more in detail : " It must be re- Frothing. 
 
 ... ham, Life 
 
 membered that projects of radical so- of George 
 
 . , . m Ripley, p. 
 
 cial reform were in the air. To quote 109. 
 the language of John Morley : ' A 
 great wave of humanity, of benevo- 
 lence, of desire for improvement, 
 a great wave of social sentiment, in 
 short, poured itself among all who 
 had the faculty of large and disinter- 
 ested thinking.' Dr. Pusey and Dr. 
 Newman, representatives of the vital 
 movement in the direction of spirit- 
 ual supernaturalism, were thinking and 
 writing. Thomas Arnold and F. D. 
 4
 
 5O TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 Maurice were trying to broaden the 
 Church of England in the direction of 
 human progress, so that it might em- 
 brace heaven and earth, faith and phil- 
 osophy, creed and criticism. Carlyle 
 was thundering against shams in relig- 
 ion and politics. Dickens was show- 
 ing up the abuses, cruelties, and iniq- 
 uities of the established order. Kings- 
 ley was stirring the caldron of social 
 discontent. - The teaching of George 
 Combe was heralded as an inspiration. 
 Cobden was inaugurating a new era in 
 industrial undertakings. The corn-law 
 agitation was started. John Bright 
 and Daniel O'Connell were . busy at 
 their work of destroying monopolies. 
 In France as well as in England, in 
 fact all over Europe, the seeds were 
 ripening for the great revolt of 1848." 
 In such a time as this the poet's 
 soul, stirred and solemnized by be- 
 reavement, was seeking to interpret un- 
 seen things by the world of the seen. 
 In such work he must indeed interro*
 
 THE PURPOSE OF IN MEMORTAM. 5 I 
 
 gate strictly his nobler consciousness ; 
 but he could not remain wholly buried 
 in himself. Whether he entered per- 
 sonally into any conflict of thought, or 
 remained only a spectator, a young 
 poet like Tennyson, with a spirit vibrat- 
 ing like an ^Eolian harp to every breath 
 of the time, could not but be keenly 
 alive to the greatness and promise of 
 the life about him. We see many in- 
 dications of this fact in In Memoriam. 
 Between the lines everywhere is ap- 
 parent the almost oppressing con- 
 sciousness of 
 
 " So many worlds, so much to do, 
 So little done, such things to be ; " Ixxiii. i. 
 
 and so, while on his faith is laid the 
 burden of one great problem, he can- 
 not in solving it be forgetful of 
 
 " the lesser faith 
 That sees the course of human things ; " cxxviii. i. 
 
 nor will he consent to cherish such 
 frozen introspective grief as leads no 
 whither, in a time 
 
 " When Science reaches forth her arms 
 To feel from world to world, and charms 
 Her secret from the latest moon." iri. 5.
 
 52 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 Such a consciousness of his time and 
 its great demands is betrayed also by 
 a certain deprecatory tone which oc- 
 curs again and again, as if he were too 
 well aware that his song of woe is out 
 of tune with his age, as it comes also 
 to be half out of tune with his own 
 calmer self. As instances of this, see 
 xxi., cxxv., Epilogue 5, 6, and the 
 chorus-poems in general ; concerning 
 which latter more hereafter. That he 
 sees also in the eager spirit of the 
 time a danger that it may rush beyond 
 its proper bounds is apparent in his 
 references to knowledge and wisdom, 
 in which hope is conjoined with warn- 
 ing. See cxiv., cxx., Prologue 7. For 
 a like feeling of caution regarding 
 moral character, see liii. These ref- 
 erences, which might indeed be multi- 
 plied, will suffice to show that In Me- 
 moriam has not failed to feel the in' 
 fluence of its time, and to move in 
 the consciousness of it. 
 
 An examination of the poet's works
 
 THE PURPOSE OF IN MEMORIAM. 53 
 
 previous to 1850, and of their leading f^j^ ui ~ 
 ideas, will show with equal clearness w j} ileln : 
 
 Memoriam 
 
 how the times reflect themselves in his <** grow- 
 ing. 
 
 thought. By 1848 the poems pub- 
 lished in 1842 were in their fifth edi- 
 tion; and "The Princess," published 
 in 1847, was m ^s second edition. Be- 
 longing to the period when In Memo- 
 riam was also in process of growth, 
 these poems strike here and there many 
 a chord which is more fully sounded in 
 the latter. Thoughts about the deeper 
 significance of love, about the mystery 
 of the eternity after us and before us, 
 about the problems and stirrings of 
 the age, show the unity of the under- 
 lying thought that was creating In 
 Memoriam and these productions' at 
 the same time. Every page gives ev- 
 idence that the poet was passing 
 through a time of crowding thoughts. 
 The world's problems were pressing 
 upon him for solution ; in the midst of 
 apparent contradictions he was con- 
 stantly seeking for some reconciling
 
 54 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 idea, some evidence of beneficent de- 
 sign shaping truth out of turmoil and 
 error. 
 
 " Let there be thistles, there are grapes ; 
 
 If old things, there are new ; 
 Ten thousand broken lights and shapes, 
 Yet glimpses of the true." 
 
 It is especially to be noticed that in 
 all his utterances the attitude of his 
 mind is toward the future; with a 
 spirit keen to search, yet devout to 
 believe, he is seeking to conform all 
 things to " one far-off divine event." 
 The thought of the world's future, as 
 the present prophesies it, is the cen- 
 tral formative idea of this period. A 
 great part of his meditation during this 
 time may be defined in these words of 
 " Locksley Hall : " 
 
 " For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, 
 Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that 
 would be." 
 
 This formative idea is worked out with 
 greater or less definiteness in such 
 poems as " Locksley Hall," " The 
 Two Voices," and " The Golden 
 Year ; " but also in many minor poems
 
 THE PURPOSE OF IN MEMORIAM. 55 
 
 it moulds the spirit as much as the 
 expression. In the poet's most casual 
 thoughts, 
 
 " He seems to hear a Heavenly Friend, 
 And thro' thick veils to apprehend 
 A labor working to an end." 
 
 Take, for instance, " The Day-Dream," 
 which professes to be " earnest wed 
 with sport," and you will find its play- 
 ful melodies tuned to the same key : 
 
 " Well were it not a pleasant thing 
 
 To fall asleep with all one's friends', 
 To pass with all our social ties 
 
 To silence from the paths of men ; 
 And every hundred years to rise 
 
 And learn the world, and sleep again ; 
 To sleep thro' terms of mighty wars, 
 
 And wake on science grown to more, 
 On secrets of the brain, the stars, 
 
 As wild as aught of fairy-lore ; 
 And all that else the years will show, 
 
 The Poet-forms of stronger hours, 
 The vast Republics that may grow, 
 
 The Federations and the Powers ; 
 Titanic forces taking birth 
 
 In divers seasons, divers climes ; 
 For we are Ancients of the earth, 
 
 And in the morning of the times." 
 
 In all this we see the reflection of 
 the age in a mind predisposed to
 
 $6 TENNYSON'S IN ME MORI AM. 
 
 faith. No doubt there were dark 
 aspects of things, which a fair inter- 
 pretation could not leave out of the 
 account ; but the poet was seeking 
 always to evolve the broader view 
 which in spite of all could say, 
 
 " Yet I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose 
 
 runs, 
 And the thoughts of men are widen'd with the process 
 
 of the suns." 
 
 The greater, happier future of the 
 world, that idea which the awaking 
 time irresistibly suggests, and which 
 In Memoriam's clinging to a buried 
 friendship, as if all good were dead, 
 only seems querulously to repel, 
 what then has In Memoriam to do 
 with this thought ? More than we 
 may be aware ; more indeed than all 
 its contemporary works put together. 
 It is the idea toward which the whole 
 poem moves, and in which it culmi- 
 nates. To quote from F. W. Robert- 
 A ?? lys j? son : " To a coarser class of minds In 
 
 of In Me- 
 
 Preface' Memoriam appears too melancholy : 
 one long monotone of grief. It is
 
 THE PURPOSE OF IN MEMORIAM. 57 
 
 simply one of the most victorious 
 songs that ever poet chanted." The 
 student must not judge it by its begin- 
 ning alone. While it has professed 
 only to sing a song of woe, while it 
 has seemed to be frozen in a past 
 companionship and an individual sor- 
 row, it has yet all along been pro- 
 gressing, step by step, from the past 
 through the present to the future ; from 
 the individual grief, through the calm 
 of new friendship, to oneness in spirit 
 with all the race ; until at the end it 
 draws such a picture of what is to be 
 as only an unshaken faith in something 
 higher than this world can depict. To 
 the spirit of its time the poem thus 
 gives the ideal interpretation, and all 
 the nobler that the clear height to 
 which it reaches looks back down into 
 that valley of bereavement and doubt 
 where man must meet and solve his 
 deepest woes. 
 
 I may now in a word recapitulate. Recapitula- 
 tion. 
 
 Our comparisons thus far have re-
 
 58 TENNYSON 1 S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 vealed three main characteristics which 
 form the groundwork of In Memori- 
 am : first, the earnest inquiry into the 
 mystery beyond and around us, which 
 distinguishes it from such poems as 
 Lycidas and Adonais ; secondly, the 
 idealizing of the love that has been 
 and is, both here and beyond, which 
 distinguishes it from such works as 
 Shakespeare's Sonnets ; and thirdly, 
 the clear view and prophecy of the 
 world's greater future, which it gathers 
 from the life and character of its time. 
 How these thoughts are woven to- 
 gether into a consistent plan and prog- 
 ress I shall soon have occasion to 
 show ; it remains first briefly to in- 
 dicate how the employment of these 
 and other ideas is made to subserve a 
 broad and earnest purpose.
 
 THE PURPOSE OF IN ME MORI AM. 59 
 
 IV. 
 
 It would be of intensest interest if Environ- 
 ment injtu- 
 we could transport ourselves back to encmgthe 
 
 poet s mind. 
 
 the poet's college days, and be silent 
 listeners at a symposium of that select 
 conversazione society known in Cam- 
 bridge as the " Apostles," where such 
 young men as Alfred Tennyson, Arthur 
 Henry Hallam, Richard, afterwards 
 Archbishop, Trench, Frederick Deni- 
 son Maurice, and Arthur Helps used 
 to meet together and discuss the high- 
 est ideals of life. The poet very likely 
 refers to that society in his account of 
 a visit in later years to his old Cam- 
 bridge haunts, in which visit he went 
 to see Hallam 's room : 
 
 " Where once we held debate, a band 
 Of youthful friends, on mind and art, 
 And labor, and the changing mart, 
 And all the framework of the land." Ixxxvii. 6. 
 
 Each of the young men above named 
 went forth to make a conspicuous 
 mark on the progressing time, and to
 
 60 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 be enrolled among the purest and 
 brightest spirits of the century. From 
 their later careers we may know some- 
 thing of that " ideal of life " which 
 they formed together as college mates. 
 And one characteristic of their think- 
 ing in particular is very clearly dis- 
 closed. In the stir and thought of 
 that time, when Rationalism and Evan- 
 gelicalism and Ecclesiasticism were 
 pulling different ways, and to a spec- 
 tator truth might well have seemed in 
 danger of being lost in words, such 
 young men as these could not identify 
 themselves with any who sought 
 
 " To cleave a creed in sects and cries." 
 
 For the sake of their own peace they 
 must set themselves earnestly to find 
 some deeper view of truth, which no 
 system could disguise, and which no 
 theological class or sect could make 
 exclusively its own. They wrought in 
 t ^ ie conviction that " a theology which 
 ^ oes not corres P n d to the deepest 
 thoughts an d feelings of human be-
 
 THE PURPOSE OF SJV MEMORIAM. 6 1 
 
 ings cannot be a true theology ; " and 
 conversely, that whatever truth so an- 
 swers to man's deepest nature, be it 
 theological or otherwise, ought not to 
 be buried in the technicalities of a 
 school. This earnest search gener- 
 ated no disposition to break with ex- 
 isting systems : it was simply a quest 
 of the eternal reality underlying them ; 
 a falling back on the ground truths 
 of human and divine nature, which if 
 true are of tremendous importance, 
 and seeking to vitalize them anew in 
 daily life, in working consciousness. 
 
 One of the most characteristic prod- 
 ucts of this time is the poem " The The TWO 
 Two Voices." This poem is dated 
 1833. Whether Arthur Hallam ever 
 saw it in its present form is uncer- 
 tain ; but undoubtedly it embodies 
 many thoughts and views which he 
 had shared in discussing. Full of this 
 wholesome reality - seeking spirit just 
 mentioned, the poem evinces a fearless 
 unconventionalism of thinking far be- 
 yond the clamor of dialectic wars :
 
 62 TENNYSON'S IN ME MORI AM. 
 
 " I know that age to age succeeds, 
 Blowing a noise of tongues and deeds, 
 A dust of systems and of creeds ; " 
 
 while with this maturity of thought 
 there is also a certain youthful inten- 
 sity and enthusiasm, which, grappling 
 anew the ancient problems of life, 
 cherishes the desire 
 
 " To search thro' all I felt or saw, 
 The springs of life, the depths of awe, 
 And reach the law within the law." 
 
 These characteristics of " The Two 
 Voices " make the consideration of it 
 important to our subject; and the 
 more so because, being the immediate 
 predecessor of In Memoriam, it strikes 
 the same key which the later poem, 
 agitated by bereavement, carries 
 through a deeper and higher compass. 
 It is as representing this search for 
 reality that In Memoriam exhibits 
 that quality which I denominate its 
 purpose. From the first the poem 
 sets itself avowedly to accomplish an 
 end, the attainment of which shall 
 satisfy a personal need of the author's
 
 THE PURPOSE OF TN MEMORIAM. 63 
 
 mind ; and so it proceeds, not aim- 
 lessly, nor at any time so blinded by 
 grief as to forget its desire, until it 
 reaches firm ground, beyond the reach 
 of adverse doubts and fears. There 
 are poems which so act a part that 
 their author's personal views must 
 ever be uncertain. In Memoriam does 
 not act a part. There are others 
 where the poet's mind seems so acted 
 upon as to be borne away from its 
 moorings by some overmastering 
 thought, its only object being to give 
 its mood expression. Such a charac- 
 ter might be attributed hastily to In 
 Memoriam. Still others there are, 
 wherein the poet's mind, apparently 
 so resistlessly dominated by its idea, 
 may yet really be its master, steering 
 it to a foreseen and desired point, and 
 so in the goal demonstrating its con- 
 scious intention. This is really the 
 case in In Memoriam. 
 
 What then is this object, this pur- statement of 
 
 . . thepurpote. 
 
 pose ? It is, while giving grief its
 
 64 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 natural expression, to cherish with it 
 that same love which Death has in- 
 vaded, but not impaired ; and so, fol- 
 lowing, as it were, love's history by 
 faith, into the unseen world on the 
 one hand, and into the world of the 
 nobler future on the other, to gather 
 all the fruits it may yield, for the in- 
 dividual and for the race. 
 
 This is its immediate purpose, so 
 far as determined by its occasion and 
 subject matter. But beyond this lies, 
 I think, a greater object, which makes 
 In Memoriam far more truly an ex- 
 ponent of its time than its subject 
 would naturally indicate. Now that 
 another spirit has taken possession of 
 poetic literature, we can look back at 
 In Memoriam and poetry of its class 
 as representing a distinct period, 
 standing out sharply bounded as mat- 
 ter for history ; which period we may 
 name, from its prevailing tendency, the 
 theological period of nineteenth-cen- 
 tury literature. Of that period, rep-
 
 THE PURPOSE OF IN MEMORIAM. 65 
 
 resented by such names as Robert 
 Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Brown- 
 ing, Matthew Arnold, and Arthur 
 Hugh Clough, In Memoriam is per- 
 haps the most distinguishing monu- 
 ment. It is as giving form and vivid- 
 ness to the deeper theological truths, 
 which in its time every thinking man 
 was striving to connect with his every- 
 day experience, that In Memoriam be- 
 trays its greater and ultimate purpose. 
 The occasion fits itself to the task, 
 as being a universal experience, 
 bereavement. But bereavement, with 
 the love it awakens, with the imme- 
 diate look into the mystery beyond 
 death, is the directest way to the 
 ground truths concerning God and 
 immortality. These truths should be- 
 come, if possible, matters not of spec- 
 ulation, but of working consciousness ; 
 should become operative in every life, 
 as they are in the poet's life. But in purpose 
 first the poet must himself rise out of for 
 doubt and despair to the tranquillity 
 5
 
 66 TENNYSON'S IN MEMOR1AM. 
 
 of such an assurance. This is the 
 greater purpose he sets before him- 
 self, a purpose which includes and 
 glorifies the other. That the accom- 
 plishment of this object is in the 
 poet's intention is indicated, I think, 
 in the culminating poems cxxiii. and 
 cxxiv., where in turn the truths of im- 
 mortality and of the existence of God 
 are recorded as the possession of his 
 spiritual consciousness, acquired from 
 the thought which precedes. 
 
 Such a purpose gives natural oppor- 
 tunity to weave together those ideas 
 which the poem's bitter occasion, com- 
 bined with the stirring life of the time, 
 has crowded in upon the poet's mind. 
 In Memoriam is as it were the work- 
 shop, where the stern problems of life 
 and its holiest ideals are joined to- 
 gether in one noble interpretation. In 
 a remarkably artistic plan, as we shall 
 see, this design is elaborated and com- 
 pleted, while every resource of the 
 poet's art is employed to build and 
 beautify the result.
 
 THE PURPOSE OF IN MEMORIAM. 67 
 
 But finely artistic as it is, above the its purpose 
 
 . ... for others. 
 
 poem s art stands its true English en- 
 deavor to be of practical use. For 
 the poet himself, first of all, as we 
 have seen, 
 
 " A use in measured language lies," 
 
 to dull pain and diffuse the shock of 
 sorrow, as well as to be the vehicle of 
 a worthy purpose. But as he proceeds 
 he becomes aware that the answer he 
 seeks is not for himself alone. There 
 are others who hear his song, and who 
 are waiting to draw from it a comfort 
 which, perhaps, they may not find un- 
 aided. The consciousness that the 
 peace of others as well as of himself 
 depends on the answer is made indeed 
 the turning-point of the poem. When 
 in his speculation on eternal things 
 the poet has been forced to leave his 
 most agitated questioning unanswered, 
 and is about to desist in despair from 
 his venturous purpose, the thought of 
 his " brethren " turns him tremblingly 
 to his task again :
 
 68 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 " Wherefore grieve 
 Thy brethren with a fruitless tear ? 
 Abide a little longer here, 
 Iviii. 3. And thou shall take a nobler leave." 
 
 And when thereafter some hallowed 
 anniversary comes to awaken old mem- 
 ories, his thought wanders abroad to 
 find all who have similar experi- 
 ence, 
 
 " O, wheresoever those may be, 
 xcix. 5. Betwixt the slumber of the poles," 
 
 and as their brother and helper he 
 places himself in spirit by their side. 
 
 V. 
 The poem's Let us now see in what ways the 
 
 own indica- 
 tions of its poem itself avows or intimates its pur- 
 
 fvrpose. . 
 
 pose, and with what fundamental idea 
 it sets out. 
 
 In Memoriam starts with no assump- 
 tions, no principle to be taken for 
 granted, no hypothesis to be proved. 
 It simply stands, as we all must, in 
 the chilling presence of death, with 
 the blank, bewildered feeling that be-
 
 THE PURPOSE OF IN MEMORIAM. 69 
 
 reavement universally brings. It is 
 because the poem in setting out is ap- 
 parently so void of a philosophy, of a 
 controlling idea, that it has incurred 
 in some quarters the reproach of mor- 
 bidness ; but it is also by reason of this 
 very fact that it endears itself every- 
 where to those who mourn, by giving 
 free voice to the sorrow that deadens 
 thought. 
 
 But from the beginning there is 
 a longing, which, perhaps, gathers 
 strength by recoil from the thought of 
 mortality, the longing, namely, after 
 constancy. The mind leaps out to 
 find something that shall not pass. 
 Even grief is holy if, by outlasting 
 time, it may prove that the heart once 
 loyal is loyal forever. Any extremity 
 of grief is rather to be chosen 
 
 " 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.' " 14. 
 
 Thus the beginning is negative 
 rather than positive : it is the heart's
 
 70 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 remonstrance that the most hallowed 
 sentiments of life should not begin to 
 perish as soon as the dust falls on a 
 loved one's coffin. And this after all 
 strikes the key-note of the whole. 
 What follows articulates the senti- 
 
 tal idea. 
 
 ment, broadens it, clarifies it, makes it 
 an idea instead of a vague emotion ; 
 but it remains essentially the same. 
 It will perhaps be of advantage, then, 
 if we put this fundamental idea of In 
 Memoriam in the form of a propo- 
 sition, which I think may be thus 
 stated : 
 
 THAT LOVE IS INTRINSICALLY IMMOR- 
 TAL. 
 
 All the achievements of thought which 
 make In Memoriam so victorious a 
 poem are simply this idea raised to a 
 higher power, with its interpretation 
 for life and history. 
 
 It is the poet's avowed object to fol- 
 low this idea as far as it will lead ; at 
 least, the present life shall not prove it 
 false :
 
 THE PURPOSE OF IN MEMORIAM. /I 
 
 " I long to prove 
 No lapse of moons can canker Love." xxvi. i. 
 
 And when the thought leads him far- 
 ther than this world, he presses on, 
 with the awe and rapture of discovery, 
 but also conscious of the advancing 
 victory of a purpose, until in the final 
 retrospect he may even congratulate 
 himself on having attained a worked- 
 for end : 
 
 u I trust I have not wasted breath : 
 I think we are not wholly brain, 
 Magnetic mockeries ; not in vain, 
 Like Paul with beasts, I fought with Death." cxx. i. 
 
 The consistency of this purpose 
 throughout gives to the one hundred 
 and thirty-one sections of In Memo- 
 riam an absolute unity of idea, to 
 which every smallest detail is in some 
 way naturally related. 
 
 There is also in the framework of chorus- 
 the poem a device by which the " in- 
 creasing purpose " is reenforced from 
 point to point. The attentive reader 
 cannot well fail to be struck by the 
 poet's frequent mention of his art,
 
 72 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 especially in the first half of the poem. 
 In these references he dwells on the 
 practical use which he finds in meas- 
 ured language ; as if the elaborate ex- 
 pression of his mood in words were 
 the most natural means of bringing 
 the calmer mood. This is indeed his 
 avowed idea. Poem v. expresses it at 
 the beginning, when the song, having 
 as yet found no ray of hope from be- 
 reavement, can be only a mechanical 
 assuagement of pain. Poem cxxv. in- 
 dicates in retrospect how the same 
 practical purpose has always been 
 kept in view, how love has used the 
 song to express its mood, sad or hope- 
 ful, and so gather strength : 
 
 " And if the song were full of care, 
 He breathed the spirit of the song ; 
 And if the words were sweet and strong, 
 *v. 3. He set his royal signet there." 
 
 In examining and comparing with 
 one another these poems in which 
 mention is made of the poet's art, we 
 find them representative of a class of 
 poems, scattered through In Memo-
 
 THE PURPOSE OF IN MEMORIAM. 73 
 
 riam, which bear much the same re- 
 lation to the others, in explaining or 
 suggesting, as the chorus of a Greek 
 drama to the dialogue ; for which 
 reason I call them chorus-poems. The 
 chorus - poems, in general, are those 
 which recognize and portray the sing- 
 er's mood, as distinguished from those 
 which give more formal expression to 
 his thought ; and by far the greater 
 number of them point to the song as 
 answering a practical purpose. As 
 related to the others, therefore, these 
 chorus-poems show the joints or tran- 
 sitions of the thought, standing always, 
 as we shall see, at the beginning or 
 end of groups. As compared with 
 one another, they show an interest- 
 ing ascending gradation. In them, as 
 generally, the poet accomplishes more 
 than he professes to accomplish. Pro- 
 fessing only to portray his mood, he 
 cherishes in each case some hidden 
 suggestion which does not fail to 
 work toward greater strength and
 
 74 TENNYSON'S IN ME MORI AM. 
 
 hope ; and so the avowed practical 
 device of assuaging pain by song is 
 skillfully made to work out the greater 
 purpose which the poem seeks. The 
 following list of the chorus-poems will 
 show their character and gradation. 
 They may be divided into two groups, 
 whose general character is suggested 
 by the stanza above quoted. 
 
 A. WHILE THE SONG IS FULL OF CARE. 
 
 1. In poem v., where only despair 
 reigns, the song is useful in a nega- 
 tive way, to dull the pain of bereave- 
 ment. 
 
 2. In poem viii., where the be- 
 reaved is awakened to look about 
 him, but finds the world darkened by 
 the constant shadow of loss, the song 
 is cherished as an expression of loy- 
 alty to the memory of the dead. 
 
 3. In poem xxi., where, after the 
 dead is laid to rest, the survivor's 
 heart forebodes a mystery in death, 
 the continued prompting to sing is
 
 THE PURPOSE OF IN MEMORIAM. 75 
 
 cherished, in spite of blame, as if it 
 were a guide to undiscovered things. 
 
 B. WHILE THE SONG GATHERS SWEET- 
 NESS AND STRENGTH. 
 
 4. In poem xxxvii., where the hope 
 suggested by Christmas is born, the * 
 song is cherished as a means of ex- 
 pressing the comfort that lies in re- 
 vealed truth. 
 
 5. In poem xlviii., where faith has 
 conquered its way to a clear convic- 
 tion of immortality, the song is cher- 
 ished as the means by which doubts 
 are made vassal to love. 
 
 6. In poem xlix., where a less com- 
 forting course of thought is to be en- 
 tered upon, we are reminded that 
 though the song may show gleams of 
 cheer the sorrow remains. 
 
 7. In poems Ivii.-lix., where the 
 mind reaches the climax of its agita- 
 tion in its unsatisfactory attempt to 
 solve the mystery of human destiny, 
 the three chorus-poems conduct to re-
 
 76 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 newed cheer, in the transition of hope 
 from Nature to God. 
 
 8. Finally, in poems Ixxv.-lxxvii., 
 where the last difficulty regarding the 
 loss is removed, the song, even though 
 earthly and passing soon into forget- 
 fulness, is cherished as sweeter than 
 praise or fame. 
 
 From this point, as the heart and 
 brain are no more unquiet, the song is 
 so much more than the perfunctory 
 subserver of a " use " that any men- 
 tion of its practical office is superflu- 
 ous. It has come to justify itself. 
 
 Throughout these examples the 
 growing purpose is evident, working 
 always more than it professes. These 
 chorus-poems have, however, avowed 
 at best but a minor purpose, whose 
 accomplishment must be the founda- 
 tion of a greater one. As these cease 
 this greater purpose appears, and be- 
 gins to be cherished and indicated in 
 words which increase in definiteness 
 throughout the poem.
 
 THE PURPOSE OF IN MEMORIAM. 77 
 
 In Memoriam thus sets itself to Lyrical, not 
 
 . . 11-1 ill r didactic 
 
 minister help m the most helpless of methods. 
 hours, to be a strength and a comfort 
 in the face of death. It is not, how- 
 ever, to be regarded as a mere didactic 
 poem. Against such an interpretation 
 of its intention the poem is not slow 
 to remonstrate. It appeals only to 
 such as have sympathy with its sad 
 theme ; and for these it accomplishes 
 its purpose, in spite of reproach, by 
 giving full expression to moods which, 
 as the poet knows, will neither please See nd. 
 popular tastes, nor permanently rep- 
 resent his own convictions. Equally seeEpi- 
 
 ... . logve, $, 6. 
 
 remote is any intention to give logic- 
 ally conclusive or categorical answers 
 to the doubts that rise. The poem is See xiviii. 
 no theological treatise. The doubts 
 are answered (to quote from F. W. 
 Robertson), "not as -a philosopher Analysis of 
 
 . In Metnori- 
 
 would answer them, nor as a theolo- am, preface 
 gian, or a metaphysician, but as it is 
 the duty of a poet to reply, by intui- 
 tive faculty, in strains in which Im-
 
 78 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 agination predominates over Thought 
 and Memory." The poem adopts 
 throughout not didactic methods, but 
 lyrical ; and the answers it obtains 
 always presuppose the existence of 
 that emotional frame of mind which 
 expresses itself in song.
 
 THE STRUCTURE OF IN ME- 
 MORIAM.
 
 " No poet can be fairly judged of by fragments, least 
 of all, a poet like Mr. Tennyson, whose mind conceives 
 nothing isolated, nothing abrupt, but every part with ref- 
 erence to some other part, and in subservience to the 
 idea of the whole." A. H. HALLAM'S Remains-
 
 THE STRUCTURE OF IN ME- 
 MORIAM. 
 
 To the eye In Memoriam presents struct* 
 
 not obvious 
 
 merely a series of poems, of various 
 lengths, numbered from i. to cxxxi. ; 
 nor is there obvious to a cursory 
 reader any plan more systematic than 
 this simple succession of number. 
 How these one hundred and thirty- 
 one short poems group themselves, 
 and how groups and single poems are 
 related to each other so as to form to- 
 gether one united work of art, is to be 
 found only by careful study and an- 
 alysis of its idea. 
 
 The foregoing comparisons have re- General 
 
 idtas. 
 
 vealed some leading ideas characteriz- 
 ing In Memoriam which distinguish it 
 from other works superficially similar, 
 or which relate it to the poet's con- 
 6
 
 82 TENNYSON'S IN ME MORI AM. 
 
 temporary productions. As to the ar- 
 rangement of these leading ideas, we 
 may say, speaking roughly, that at the 
 beginning In Memoriam fulfills pre- 
 dominantly the character of an elegy; 
 in the middle part it appears predom- 
 inantly as a memorial of friendship ; 
 and in the latter part it portrays that 
 greater future of mankind and history 
 which was a favorite idea with the au- 
 thor in this period. These three char- 
 acteristics thus correspond roughly 
 with the three divisions into which, 
 as we shall see, the poem, after its 
 introductory stage, naturally falls. 
 The bounds of these ideas, however, 
 meet and blend ; and one is made so 
 to work toward and into the other that 
 all become parts of a greater unity. 
 
 Leaving now any further discussion 
 of the poem's general characteristics, I 
 will endeavor to show how, in a care- 
 fully ordered structure, part is related 
 to part and to the whole : and this, 
 first, by gathering and interpreting
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN ME MORI AM. 83 
 
 any hints that the poem may contain 
 of its own structure ; secondly, by de- 
 scribing in outline the main divisions 
 of the poem ; and finally, by following 
 out the plan in detail. 
 
 Some hint toward the poet's plan, Hints of 
 
 . , , structure in 
 
 at least so far as to show the or- the poem. 
 derly progression of the thought, is 
 furnished by a consideration of the 
 poems that have been added since 
 the original edition. These are sug- 
 gestive as showing where and how the 
 poet found the chain of thought lack- 
 ing ; and what must be the course of 
 thought which finds such an addition 
 necessary to complete it. Doubly sug- 
 gestive they are, too, because, to an 
 unusual degree, they depend on the 
 context for their interpretation ; they 
 are evidently introduced not so much 
 to add new thoughts as to supply new 
 links in the articulation of the thought.
 
 84 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 LX. The first of these intercalated 
 
 poems, added in the fourth edition, 
 1851, is the one now numbered lix., 
 beginning, " O Sorrow, wilt thou live 
 with me." The similarity of expres- 
 sion reminds us at once of poem iii. : 
 " O Sorrow, cruel fellowship ; " and 
 on comparison of the two in their con- 
 nection we find indeed that the rela- 
 tion is more than one of form, that 
 the later poem was evidently intended 
 to supplement the idea introduced by 
 the earlier. While poem iii. portrays 
 only the utter hopelessness derivable 
 from Nature, as a refuge in bereave- 
 ment, making sorrow indeed a "cruel 
 fellowship," poem Ik. supplements this 
 idea by the thought of the better hope 
 that rises when faith, though with trem- 
 bling, learns to look above Nature to 
 One who can be apprehended only by 
 being believed ; thus finding Sorrow 
 such a minister of sacred peace, 
 
 "That, howsoe'er I know thee, some 
 Could hardly tell what name were thine."
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 85 
 
 See how the idea is led up to this 
 conclusion in poems liv. to Ivi. The 
 second inserted poem, which first ap- 
 peared in the edition of 1872-73, is 
 the one now numbered xxxix., begin- 
 ning, "Old warder of these buried 
 bones." Taken alone, without refer- 
 ence to preceding and following, this 
 poem is such a problem that some 
 acute critics have quite failed to com- 
 prehend the poet's purpose in intro- 
 ducing it. 1 Considered in its connec- 
 
 1 One or two specimens of criticism may be given. 
 Dr. Alfred Gatty (Key to Tennyson's In Memoriant, 
 p. 43) thinks the poem was "designed to shew that the 
 Poet was desirous not to convey [in Poem ii.] a wrong 
 impression of the nature of the Vew tree. It does really 
 blossom, and form fruit and seed like other trees, though 
 few may have noticed this." (!) Dr. Peter Bayne (Les- 
 sonsfrom my Masters, Carlyle, Tennyson, and Ruikin, 
 p. 3 18) confesses that the problem baffles him. He says: 
 " The new stanzas, numbered xxxix., are among the most 
 obscure in the whole compass of In Memoriam. These 
 verses have an interest as illustrating Tennyson's minute 
 attention to natural facts, an attention almost too mi- 
 nute to be followed by ordinary observers. [Follows a 
 specification.] This may be admirable in respect of 
 truth to nature, and may afford high delight to those who 
 regard it as the perfection of poetry to give play to end- 
 less subtlety in the interpretation of imagery into ethics 
 and emotion, but 1 think the lines abstruse to a fault.''
 
 86 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 4 
 
 tion, however, and with its allusions 
 resolved, it is simple enough, and 
 supplies a very important link in the 
 thought. It alludes, as does the other 
 inserted poem, to poem iii., together 
 with ii., and adds another link in the 
 same chain of references to sorrow 
 and nature, by showing how the heart, 
 which sorrow has deadened into de- 
 spair in the face of nature, is yet 
 touched and cheered by the awaking 
 life of spring-tide. If now we compare 
 these two added poems with those of 
 like sentiment throughout In Memo- 
 riam (ii., iii., xxxix., xlix., lix., cxvi.), 
 we see how an idea is conceived as 
 an orderly progression, to be devel- 
 oped by systematic steps. The same 
 kind of progression is also evident in 
 the chorus -poems already described. 
 From the evidences of arrangement 
 thus brought to our notice we look for 
 a similar regard to artistic structure 
 throughout the poem. 
 
 The most striking external indica-
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 8/ 
 
 tion of the poet's plan is furnished by 
 the recurring Christmas-tides. Three 
 such occasions are mentioned in the 
 poem (xxviii.-xxx., Ixxviii., civ. cv.), 
 which occasions, together with some 
 other known dates, cause the action 
 of the poem (if such it can be called) 
 to run through a period of some- 
 thing more than two and a half years. 
 These Christmas-tides are character- 
 ized by the poet in such a manner as 
 to show intentional reference to each 
 other. The following couplets are suf- 
 ficient indication of this. Of the first 
 Christmas-tide the description is : 
 
 " A rainy cloud possess'd the earth, 
 And sadly fell our Christmas eve." xzx. I. 
 
 Of the second : 
 
 " The silent snow possess'd the earth, 
 And calmly fell our Christmas eve." IxxviiL i. 
 
 Of the third : 
 
 " We live within the stranger's land, 
 And strangely falls our Christmas eve." cv. I. 
 
 These couplets occur in each case in 
 the first stanza of the description, and 
 seem designed to emphasize, by im-
 
 88 TENNYSON'S IN ME MORI AM. 
 
 agery and association, the facts of sad- 
 ness, calmness, and strangeness, which 
 form the background of a progressing 
 experience. 
 
 What part do these Christmas-tides 
 play in the poem ? An expression in 
 the account of the third Christmas- 
 tide will perhaps furnish an indication. 
 Poem cv. 7 closes with the words : 
 
 " Run out your measured arcs, and lead 
 The closing cycle rich in good." 
 
 Here, from Christmas, with its holy 
 meanings, the poet looks forward to the 
 last and crowning cycle of the ages, 
 that majestic period glorified by 
 
 " one far-off divine event, 
 To which the whole creation moves," 
 
 and this outlook gives meaning to the 
 whole succeeding part of the poem. A 
 similar though less comprehensive out- 
 look is suggested by the first Christmas- 
 tide; see xxx. 8. The second Christ- 
 mas-tide opens, as do the others, a new 
 course of thought ; but there is a special 
 reason for delaying the avowal of it un-
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. g 
 
 til New Year. It would seem, then, that 
 the poem comprises different cycles of 
 thought, to each of which Christmas, 
 standing at the head, gives significance ; 
 and when we compare with one another 
 the cycles thus introduced, we find that 
 all have a similar structure, and that 
 each contributes its part in an advanc- 
 ing and broadening series. 
 
 Other seasons and occasions have 
 also their part to fulfill. Such are 
 springtide, New Year, Arthur Hallam's 
 birthday, and the anniversary of his 
 death. These are in no case intro- 
 duced arbitrarily; but always the sig- 
 nificance that the season has in itself 
 is infused into the spirit of the poem. 
 
 II. 
 
 The foregoing indications of struc- Outline of \ 
 ture, together with some other points 
 which a careful study of the bearings 
 of the thought reveals, form a regular 
 framework for the poem, which may
 
 90 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 be arranged according to the follow- 
 ing table : 
 
 PROLOGUE. 
 Sntrobuctori? &tage. I. XXVII. 
 
 PROSPECT I. VI. 
 
 DEFINING-POINT BEGINNING . . VII. 
 
 ARRIVAL AND BURIAL OF THE DEAD 
 
 XVII. XX. 
 
 tftrst Cpefe. XXVIII. LXXVII. 
 
 CHRISTMAS-TIDE . . . XXVIII. XXX. 
 
 SPRINGTIDE . . . XXXVIII., XXXIX. 
 
 FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEATH LXXII. 
 
 &ceonb Cprte. LXXVIII. CIII. 
 
 CHRISTMAS-TIDE .... LXXVIII. 
 
 NEW YEAR LXXXIII. 
 
 SECOND ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEATH XCIX. 
 
 &irb Ciorte. CIV. CXXXI. 
 
 CHRISTMAS-TIDE .... CIV., CV. 
 
 NEW YEAR CVI. 
 
 BIRTHDAY OF DECEASED (FEB. I) . . CVII. 
 
 SPRINGTIDE .... CXV., CXVI. 
 
 DEFINING-POINT END . . . CXIX. 
 
 RETROSPECT AND CONCLUSION CXX. CXXXI- 
 
 EPILOGUE.
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 91 
 
 According to the above table we are 
 to find the thought of the poem de- 
 veloped in three cycles, preceded by 
 an introductory stage. These cycles 
 present, of course, very different lines 
 of thought, which necessitate differ- 
 ences in arrangement. In all three, 
 however, the procedure is fundamen- 
 tally the same. Each cycle is intro- 
 duced by Christmas-tide. Then fol- 
 lows a series of poems (in the Third 
 Cycle a single poem), in which the 
 thought characteristic of the cycle is 
 suggested in outline. Following this, 
 each cycle introduces its characteris- 
 tic season or anniversary, the First 
 Cycle Springtide, the Second New- 
 Year, the Third the Birthday of the 
 Deceased, which season suggests 
 the general spirit of its cycle. The 
 leading thought of the cycle, having 
 been thus suggested and introduced, 
 is now followed out at length, in a 
 series of poems which make up the 
 principal bulk of the cycle. This pres-
 
 92 TENNYSON'S IN MEMO R I AM. 
 
 entation of the thought is followed, in 
 the first and second cycles, by the an- 
 niversary of the death, which in each 
 case gives occasion to meet and dis- 
 pose of a last difficulty opposed by 
 the poet's mood to the full reception 
 of the thought, and thus makes the 
 triumph of the cycle complete. In 
 room of such a reminder of death, 
 the third cycle closes its course of 
 thought and that of the poem by a 
 new springtide, whose suggestiveness 
 is obvious. 
 
 The separate cycles I need here 
 describe no further than to show their 
 mutual relation, as presenting each an 
 ordered step in one progressive idea. 
 The development of this idea takes in 
 a field of view ranging from the past 
 through the present to the future, and 
 from individual cares through the calm 
 of new friendship to a hope and happi- 
 ness for all the race. Each cycle pre- 
 sents its proper phase of this advanc- 
 ing and broadening thought.
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 93 
 
 In the Introductory Stage, which 
 begins where tidings are first received 
 of Arthur Hallam's death, we see the 
 individual soul of the poet, bereaved, 
 alone, overwhelmed with sudden grief. 
 It is the poet's part in this stage to 
 awake from the confusion of despair, 
 and to find firm ground in the con- 
 sciousness that love is holy and worthy 
 to be cherished, though its object be 
 forever removed. 
 
 The First Cycle, which interprets 
 the past love, for dead as for living, 
 may be called the Cycle of the Past. 
 It begins by adopting the thought, 
 suggested in Christmas-tide, that the 
 dead friend is living in an unseen 
 world. So in this cycle two friends 
 are before us ; but the one is out of 
 sight and recognizable only by faith, 
 while the survivor interprets the 
 friend's state by his own love, which 
 is conjectured to have as deathless 
 effect there as here ; and so both, 
 though separate, are beheld as draw-
 
 94 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 ing influence from the same past ex- 
 perience. 
 
 The Second Cycle, which seeks the 
 possibility of present communion with 
 the immortal friend, may be called the 
 Cycle of the Present. But commun- 
 ion with the dead is viewed as obtain- 
 able only in one way, namely, by 
 cherishing such community of spirit 
 with the living as the dead would 
 have cherished had he lived. So 
 this new relation to the unseen world, 
 when at last it is attained, is con- 
 joined with a new friendship here, by 
 which also the ties of this world are 
 strengthened. 
 
 The Third Cycle, which views the 
 blessedness that is to be when all 
 men find their highest manhood in 
 the same holy love, may be called the 
 Cycle of the Future. The poet's sym- 
 pathies here reach their broadest ex- 
 pression, in his hope for that nobler 
 race, of which his dead friend may be 
 regarded as a worthy type.
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 95 
 
 III. 
 In such a framework as the above introduction 
 
 to detailed 
 
 the poet has a very suggestive and account of 
 
 . . . structure. 
 
 comprehensive means of introducing 
 those inquiries concerning God and 
 man and unseen things which fulfill 
 the deeper purpose of In Memoriam. 
 Introduced thus, they fall into place 
 as the inquiries that naturally rise in 
 the progress from despair to hope, of 
 a soul that holds by its holiest convic- 
 tions ; and thus they give to In Memo- 
 riam the double interest of a spiritual- 
 psychological history and of a devout 
 guide to a rational faith. That these 
 inquiries are merely " philosophische 
 Griibeleien jugendlicher Art," phil- 
 osophic subtilties of rather juvenile 
 character, as an off-hand German 
 critic has called them, the careful 
 student will be as little disposed to 
 admit as he would the same critic's 
 assertion that In Memoriam is with-
 
 96 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAL. 
 
 out unity or arrangement. To such 
 ready criticism the poem's living influ- 
 ence on the deepest thought of its age 
 is conclusive answer. 
 
 On the basis of the foregoing out- 
 line we will now analyze the poem 
 section by section, and indicate by a 
 brief abstract of each how the whole 
 structure of the thought is grouped 
 and related. 
 
 PROLOGUE. 
 
 The Prologue is dated 1849, the 
 year before In Memoriam was given 
 to the world. It therefore views 
 the body of the poem as essentially 
 complete, and gathers into itself the 
 greatest and highest achievement of 
 its thought. Logically, however, it 
 precedes ; the highest thought, which 
 the poem reaches by long struggle, 
 being also the deepest, underlying the 
 whole. 
 
 The relation of the Prologue to the
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 97 
 
 body of the poem is well indicated by 
 its form as an invocation. It bears 
 to the poem the same relation that 
 prayer bears to work, the same rela- 
 tion that the spirit of dependence on 
 a higher Power bears to the spirit of 
 self-reliant activity in practical life. 
 The poem moves in the scenery of the 
 world we see, which is overshadowed 
 by the mystery of sorrow and death. 
 The Prologue addresses itself to the 
 world we do not see, and by faith rec- 
 ognizes in that world a divine Love 
 in whose light all mysteries are made 
 clear. But further, as the poem ad- 
 vances through the saddened world, 
 itself comes at last, after long conflict 
 and questioning, to the vision of the 
 same love ; which thus becomes the 
 key to the whole poem. The Prologue 
 thus begins where the poem culmi- 
 nates, by naming and presupposing 
 that love at the outset ; it also adds to 
 the poem's idea of the love by ascrib- 
 ing to it a divine name and nature. 
 7
 
 98 TENNYSOATS IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 The first stanza of the Prologue 
 contains in outline its whole succeed- 
 ing thought : 
 
 " 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." 
 
 The names here given to the ob- 
 ject invoked call for some special re- 
 mark, because in them lies deeply in- 
 volved the whole philosophy of the 
 poem. The second of these names 
 " immortal Love " is simply the 
 name of that pure affection which, as 
 human love of friend for friend, 
 
 " rose on stronger wings, 
 Unpalsied when he met with Death," 
 
 and so has worked as an ennobling 
 power within the poet's soul. The re- 
 markable fact concerning it here is 
 that it is recognized as invokable, that 
 it is named as a proper object of ado- 
 ration. The first of these names 
 " strong Son of God " supplies the 
 idea in which alone such adoration of 
 an affection is possible. Immortal
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 99 
 
 Love is recognized not only as an af- 
 fection within us, but as an entity 
 above us. Within us, the poem has 
 followed the course of immortal Love 
 as that hallowing power which trans- 
 forms the individual, and through the 
 individual is adapted to transform the 
 race, into something nobler, into the 
 image of the divine. Above us, the 
 Prologue views immortal Love as a 
 divine Object of faith and love, to be 
 worshiped and obeyed, to be recog- 
 nized as at the same time the source 
 and the goal of our noblest life. 
 
 This twofold character of immortal 
 Love is yet more closely indicated by 
 the remarkable expression, " strong 
 Son of God." No devout man can set 
 aside the fundamental article of faith 
 that God is love. But the Son of God, 
 who being God is also love, is both 
 God and man ; and being man is the 
 Son of man, the archetypal man, who 
 embodies perfectly our ideal manhood. 
 Therefore the love which He is, is
 
 100 TENNYSON'S IN ME MORI AM. 
 
 at the same time our Lord above us 
 and our holiest manhood within. The 
 deepest philosophy of the poem, whose 
 work it is to find what is sacredest in 
 love, is thus involved in the fact that 
 it addresses the divine -human Christ 
 and identifies Him with immortal 
 Love ; but the same philosophy re- 
 quires also that the address be to the 
 Christ-nature rather than to the Christ- 
 name. It is divine love which has 
 actually appeared incarnate in his- 
 tory ; but what is more to the pres- 
 ent purpose, it does appear daily as a 
 moulding power in men's lives, while 
 it does not cease to be Lord above 
 them. 
 
 The faith by which we apprehend 
 this divine -human Love shows the 
 same twofold aspect indicated in the 
 object itself. Because immortal Love 
 is our noblest manhood cherished 
 within, faith in it is the intelligent and 
 determined cherishing of an idea ; its 
 exercise involves "believing where we
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. IOI 
 
 cannot prove." Because immortal 
 Love is the divine Power above us, 
 to whom our service rightly belongs, 
 faith in Him is the committal of life 
 and destiny to a will not our own ; by 
 it we " embrace " One whom not see- 
 ing we love and obey. 
 
 The thought thus suggested in the 
 first stanza of the Prologue is ex- 
 panded in the rest. The remainder 
 of the Prologue may be thus ana- 
 lyzed : 
 
 A. THE OBJECT INVOKED. 
 " Strong Son of God, immortal Love." 
 
 1. Immortal Love, the strong Son 
 of God, is divine. 
 
 The Possessor of all things, the stanzas 
 creative Spirit, the Author of life and 
 death, the Resurrection and Power of 
 an endless life. 
 
 2. Immortal Love, the strong Son 
 of God, is human. 
 
 The highest, holiest manhood, the 4, s- 
 rightful Lord of our wills, the perfect
 
 IO2 TENNYSON'S IN MEMO RI AM. 
 
 light of which all our systems are but 
 broken gleams. 
 
 B. THE APPREHENSION OF THAT OB- 
 
 JECT. 
 " By faith, and faith alone." 
 
 4. i. Because He is human, and so 
 
 the head of our humanity, the faith 
 by which we apprehend Him requires 
 the loyal submission of our will to his 
 wiser will. 
 
 6j 7 . 2. Because He is divine, and so in- 
 
 finitely greater than our capacities of 
 knowledge, the faith by which we ap- 
 prehend Him adds to our knowledge, 
 reverence and humility. 
 
 C. THE UNWORTHINESS OF THE AP- 
 
 PREHENDER. 
 " We are fools and slight." 
 
 The thought of what we may and 
 should be suggests only too sharply 
 the contrasted thought of what we 
 are ; and this thought gives voice to 
 the cry of our universal need, the
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN ME MORI AM. 1 03 
 
 need of help, of forgiveness, of wis- 
 dom. 
 
 1. A prayer for help to bear the 8. 
 light of divine love. 
 
 2. A prayer for forgiveness, in a 
 threefold petition : 
 
 a. Forgive what is sinful in the love 9. 
 cherished for the dead, which seemed 
 worthy by human standard, but in the 
 pure light of divine love seems mean 
 
 and poor. 
 
 b. Forgive what is sinful in the sor- 10. 
 row for the dead, a grief which, so far 
 
 as it idolized the creature apart from 
 the Creator, was unworthily cherished. 
 
 c. Forgive what is sinful in the song, n. 
 so far as it fails to give adequate 
 expression to the truth that faith 
 receives. 
 
 3. A prayer for wisdom to see n. 
 things in God's light. 
 
 " And in thy wisdom make me wise." 
 
 Thus In Memoriam is introduced 
 by an invocation, which, from the be- 
 ginning recognizing immortal Love as
 
 104 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 Lord over all, sets before that Love in 
 prayer the needs of this life, as they 
 rise out of its saddest experience. The 
 poem, which begins with the experi- 
 ence, struggles at first through dark- 
 ness and doubt, seeing its love only 
 as human, though hallowed by death; 
 but at last, after many achievements of 
 faith, it comes also to unite its highest 
 human affection with the divine ; and 
 so the poem ends with invocation and 
 prayer (see poems cxxix.-cxxxi.), as in 
 the Prologue it began. 
 
 3Introbuctorp 
 i. - xxvn. 
 
 " They said that Love would die when Hope was gone, 
 And Love moum'd long, and sorrow'd after Hope ; 
 At last she sought out Memory, and they trod 
 The same old paths where Love had walk'd with 
 
 Hope, 
 And Memory fed the soul of Love with tears." 
 
 The Lover's Tale, 
 
 introduc- The monodramatic action, if such it 
 may be called, of In Memoriam begins
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 10$ 
 
 at the point where tidings are first re- 
 ceived of Arthur Hallam's death. The 
 blank confusion and despair attendant 
 on the first shock of grief is described 
 in poem vii., which may be regarded 
 as the starting-point of the action, the 
 six poems preceding being prefatory 
 and prospective. Beginning with poem 
 vii., a period of unquiet suspense en- 
 sues as long as the dead friend's re- 
 mains, which are being brought home- 
 ward, are on the seas. Not until the 
 body arrives and is laid to rest in Eng- 
 lish earth does the mind of the surviv- 
 ing friend begin to gather firmness ; 
 and from this point (xviii.) onward 
 are shaped by degrees those thoughts 
 and longings which form the worthy 
 achievement of this introductory stage. 
 The characteristic of this introduc- 
 tory stage is resolution and inquiry. 
 From the absorbing presence of sor- 
 row resolution is first shaped not to be 
 driven aimlessly at the mercy of loss. 
 Afterward the unquiet consciousness
 
 IO6 TENNYSON'S IN ME MORI AM. 
 
 of the present and the calmer view of 
 the past both give rise to inquiries 
 whose answer lays the firm ground on 
 which the succeeding thought of the 
 poem is built. 
 
 PROSPECT. I.-VI. 
 
 Poem\. The opening poem is prefatory of 
 
 the whole. It looks forward into the 
 way to be taken, and in a few words 
 indicates it ; not its end, but its direc- 
 tion. 
 
 The principle cherished before be- 
 reavement 
 
 " That men may rise on stepping-stones 
 Of their dead selves to higher things " 
 
 is in this bitter experience to be 
 tested ; if it is true, it must make loss 
 yield a gain. But a real advance to 
 " higher things " can be found only in 
 such a recovery from grief as cherishes 
 grief with love, repressing neither for 
 the sake of speedier calm, but recog- 
 nizing the holiness of both. Time
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. IO/ 
 
 must not be stronger than love, even 
 though love riot in pain. 
 
 The poet having thus committed 
 himself to the ascent to higher things, 
 preparation for it is made and the ex- 
 tremity of the situation confessed in 
 a series of poems presenting three 
 stages. 
 
 A. FROM UTTER DEPRESSION TO RES- 
 OLUTION. 
 
 1. Despair. The yew-tree, the church- n. 
 yard guardian of the dead, stands, in 
 
 its changeless gloom, as a fit emblem 
 of the survivor's stony sorrow. 
 
 2. Questioning. Sorrow has robed m. 
 the world in her own hopeless gloom, 
 blindly interpreting all the glory of 
 Nature as only reflecting her image. 
 Shall she, then, be cherished or 
 crushed ? 
 
 3. Resolution. From the troubled iv. 
 introspective dream, in which all de- 
 termining power is for the time utterly 
 passive, the will awakes to a sense of
 
 108 TENNYSON'S IN ME MORI AM. 
 
 its inaction, and resolves not to give 
 way to despair. 
 
 B. POESY THE INTERPRETER AND AS- 
 
 SUAGER OF GRIEF. 
 
 v. There is some negative relief in the 
 
 exercise of expressing sorrow in met- 
 trical language. Poesy shall there- 
 fore be cherished for its practical of- 
 fice. 
 
 C. THE LOSS THAT MUST REMAIN IR- 
 
 REPARABLE. 
 
 n. There is no consolation in the com- 
 
 monplace attempts to comfort. The 
 grief to be overcome is a grief that has 
 special elements of bitterness, even 
 when compared with a father's or 
 mother's grief for an absent son ; for 
 in this case hopes were built on the 
 lost one's speedy presence. The poet's 
 loss can no more be replaced than 
 could that of a betrothed maiden, who 
 has had her hopes dashed just at their 
 highest by her lover's sudden death.
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 109 
 
 DEFINING-POINT : BEGINNING. VII. 
 
 As the foregoing poems indicate a 
 resolution to rise to higher things, it 
 is natural, when the resolution is 
 formed, to recognize at the outset 
 what is that lowest point from which 
 the ascent is to be made. This point 
 
 the utter desolateness consequent 
 on the sudden shock of bereavement 
 
 is well indicated by the feelings 
 with which the former residence of 
 the deceased is visited, as also by the 
 surroundings of weather and scenery. 
 The structure of the verse corre- 
 sponds also with this blank desola- 
 tion : notice especially, in stanza 3, the 
 harsh sibilants in the third line, and 
 the intentionally hard alliteration and 
 utter want of rhythm in the last line. 
 
 The similar defining -point at the 
 end, in poem cxix., will indicate how 
 great is the ascent, and how well the 
 poet accomplishes his purpose.
 
 IIO TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 From this point to the first Christ- 
 mas-tide (xxviii.-xxx.) is predomi- 
 nantly a period of inquiry. The first 
 inquiry is prompted by the unquiet 
 mind in its troubled consciousness of 
 the present. This is followed by the 
 arrival and burial of the dead, which 
 event causes a degree of restfulness, 
 and turns the survivor's thought to the 
 past. Then, from the calmer view of 
 the past a second inquiry is suggested. 
 The answer to both these inquiries re- 
 veals clearly the supreme desire which 
 gives meaning to In Memoriam, the 
 gradual realization of which occasions 
 all its achievements in thought and 
 hopefulness. 
 
 THE UNQUIET PRESENT. VIII.-XVI. 
 
 vm . Introduced by chorus-poem, which, 
 
 confessing that sorrow has darkened 
 every well-known pleasant spot, yet 
 cherishes the song that once pleased 
 the dead.
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 1 1 1 
 
 A. THE HEART WITH THE COMING SHIP. 
 
 1. Following the ship in spirit, with ix. 
 desire for a quiet voyage. 
 
 2. Following the ship in spirit, with x. 
 desire that its voyage may soon be 
 done, and the body be at rest in his 
 native soil. 
 
 B. THE HEART IN CALM. 
 
 A calm morning infuses to some de- xi. 
 gree its quiet into the bereaved mind. 
 This calmness, however, is only a calm 
 despair. 
 
 1. First mood. The spirit follows XH. 
 the advancing ship, half doubtful 
 whether the dead friend's arrival can 
 bring rest. 
 
 2. Second mood. Dreamy state, in xm. 
 which the bereaved one's woe seems 
 
 half strange, and his fancies rise, be- 
 ing a little released from the tyranny 
 of loss. 
 
 3. Third mood. The bereavement xiv. 
 seems almost unreal, and fancy pic- 
 tures the living friend as coming.
 
 112 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 C. THE HEART IN STORM. 
 
 xv. A tempestuous night suddenly dis- 
 
 pels this hollow calm, and produces a 
 revulsion to unrest so wild that but 
 for the merciful alleviating influence 
 of fancy it would be unbearable. 
 
 INQUIRY. 
 
 xvi. This revulsion in feeling startles the 
 
 mind to inquiry. 
 
 "Can calm despair and wild unrest 
 
 Be tenants of a single breast, 
 Or sorrow such a changeling be ? " 
 
 What does all this mean ? Are these 
 merely changing moods of an un- 
 changed self? Has the shock only 
 confused his thought but left his heart 
 the same ? 
 
 This first inquiry is a real step up- 
 ward, and though unanswered is im- 
 portant as an act of inquiry, for it 
 turns the bereaved one's mind to his 
 own helpless state. Thought is be- 
 ginning to take the place of stunned 
 despair.
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 113 
 
 ARRIVAL AND BURIAL OF THE 
 DEAD. XVII. -XX. 
 
 The ship that brings the dead friend xvn. 
 is greeted with blessings, and conse- 
 crated to special good fortune in the 
 future. 
 
 With the burial in the restful sur- xvm. 
 roundings of the English landscape 
 comes also a feeling of rest to the be- 
 reaved mind, which from this point 
 sets itself to gather firmness from en- 
 durance and from hallowed memory. 
 
 The first result of this more restful 
 feeling is ability to contemplate his 
 sorrow, not with the bewildered feel- 
 ings of one stunned by a sudden 
 shock, but with the calmness of one 
 who has gained control of mind and 
 fancy. Two poems portray the result 
 of such contemplation. 
 
 i. Grief that ebbs and flows. Like xix. 
 the Wye, in whose hearing the dead 
 is laid ; as the incoming or outgoing 
 tide makes the river silent or vocal, so 
 8
 
 1 14 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 there are moods of grief that forbid 
 utterance, and others that permit it. 
 xx. 2. The love that chokes grief's ut- 
 
 terance. The servants in a desolated 
 house can speak their master's praises 
 volubly; but the children, who love 
 more, are silent. So with the lighter 
 and heavier moods of grief. 
 
 THE HALLOWED PAST. XXI.-XXV. 
 
 Introduced by chorus - poem, in 
 which the continued prompting to 
 sing, in spite of the fact that the dead 
 is laid to rest, is justified as a spon- 
 taneous utterance which it is better not 
 to check. 
 
 1. Review of the five years of friend- 
 ship with Arthur Henry Hallam : how 
 every season was crowned with the 
 sweetness of friendly communion, and 
 how in the fifth year the shadow Death 
 invaded it and bore the friend out of 
 sight. 
 
 2. How the past, as the survivor
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 1 1 5 
 
 views it before Death suddenly dark- 
 ened his world, is brightened by a 
 glory which in the present light or to 
 a dispassionate view would seem al- 
 most too great to be real. 
 
 INQUIRY. 
 
 This vivid feeling of contrast be- xxiv. 
 tween the past and the present sug- 
 gests a second inquiry : 
 
 44 And was the day of ray delight 
 As pure and perfect as I say ? " 
 
 How is it that that hallowed past is 
 invested with such a glory ? Can it 
 be too fair a vision, appearing so great 
 because of the intervening haze of 
 grief, or so perfect because the dis- 
 tant view changes it from nebula to 
 orbic form ? 
 
 The answer to this inquiry is also xxv. 
 by implication an answer to the in- 
 quiry of poem xvi. The secret of the 
 past glory, as also the secret of the 
 present confusedness, is LOVE, which
 
 1 1 6 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 hallowed all intercourse with Arthur, 
 and made every burden a joy. For be- 
 tween friend and friend burdens were 
 halved by love. "But one Thing is 
 most Admirable," says Bacon, "which 
 is, that this Communicating of a Mans 
 Selfe to his Frend, works two contrarie 
 Effects ; For it redoubleth loyes, and 
 cutteth Griefes in Halfes. For there is 
 no Man, that imparteth his loyes to his 
 Frend, but he ioyeth the more ; And 
 no Man, that imparteth his Griefes to 
 his Frend, but hee grieueth the lesse." 
 
 The love that hallowed the past still 
 lives, its purity and power in no way 
 diminished by bereavement and sepa- 
 ration. It remains a blessed influence 
 on the survivor, in all the dreary pres- 
 ent ; may it therefore continue unim- 
 paired in all the future. This is the 
 supreme desire of In Memoriam, on 
 which its coming achievements of 
 faith are built : 
 
 " I long to prove 
 
 No lapse of moons can canker Love, 
 Whatever fickle tongues may say."
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 1 17 
 
 Such love is indeed the life of life; 
 and if I must expect // to pass with 
 time, let rather death and oblivion 
 cover me at once. 
 
 To cherish and express such a de- X xvn. 
 sire is of itself a profound satisfaction 
 only less than fulfillment. The mem- 
 ory of such a love, and its continued 
 life in loss, is far better than any state 
 wherein any trait of love its passion, 
 or its purity, or its fidelity is absent, 
 even though the want of it brings rest. 
 Such rest is " want-begotten : " it be- 
 tokens something less than true man- 
 hood. 
 
 " I hold it true, whate'er befall ; 
 I feel it, when I sorrow most ; 
 'T is better to have loved and lost 
 Than never to have loved at all." 
 
 This and the preceding poem mark the 
 first fulfillment of the desire expressed 
 in the opening poem. 
 
 Here the Introductory Stage ends ; 
 and two things, involved in these last 
 two poems, may be regarded as its
 
 Il8 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 characteristic achievement, prepara- 
 tory to the First Cycle : first, the de- 
 sire and resolution to cherish the in- 
 tegrity of love in all time to come ; 
 and, secondly, the thought that such 
 love is an essential endowment of the 
 holiest manhood, to be valued and 
 cherished though its object be forever 
 removed. 
 
 XXVIII.-LXXVII. 
 
 Sweet soul, do with me as thou wilt ; 
 I lull a fancy trouble-tost 
 With ' Love 's too precious to be lost, 
 
 A little grain shall not be spilt.' " 
 
 In Memoriam, Ixv. i. 
 
 First Cycle. Thus far In Memoriam has been 
 the monody of one bereaved, who by 
 inquiry and answer has interpreted his 
 individual love and sorrow. But the 
 thought in which the Introductory 
 Stage culminated that love shall 
 be cherished though its object be re- 
 moved, because in the continued life
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN ME MORI AM. 119 
 
 of love our truest manhood lives is 
 the last step of preparation for an- 
 other thought, which is here first in- 
 troduced, namely, that he whom death 
 removed still lives, and his love in the 
 unseen world is as undying as the love 
 left desolate here. This thought of 
 the friend's immortality is not, as the 
 preceding, a simple result of observa- 
 tion or experience ; it is a revealed 
 truth, to be accepted by faith. It is 
 introduced by the suggestiveness at- 
 taching to Christmas-tide, the comme- 
 moration of His birth who " brought 
 life and immortality to light;" and 
 the fact that in its adoption the poet 
 leaves the realm of positive knowledge 
 and enters that of faith is so important 
 in the development of the poem that 
 some special discussion must be de- 
 voted to its justification. See succeed- 
 ing, poems xxxi. to xxxvi. 
 
 From this point, therefore, the two 
 friends are before us : the one in im- 
 mortality, out of sight, and revealing
 
 I2O TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 no trace of his new existence ; the 
 other believing in the removed one's 
 continued life, and interpreting it so 
 far as he may by his own love. 
 
 What the poet has recognized in 
 himself he now comes by faith to see 
 in his friend. So, because the past 
 companionship has wrought such un- 
 dying influence in his own life, he rises 
 by degrees to believe that a similar in- 
 fluence may be supplied by memory to 
 the friend in another world ; and thus 
 there exists between the two souls the 
 communication of an undying effect, 
 the memory and influence, common 
 to both, of a past love. Because the 
 love portrayed in this cycle has its 
 starting-point in a past companion- 
 ship, and is recalled and reenforced 
 by memory, we may name this First 
 Cycle the Cycle of the Past. 
 
 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. XXVIII.-XXX. 
 
 The coming of the Christmas-tide 
 which introduces this First Cycle re-
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 121 
 
 veals two conflicting emotions. The 
 intent of the occasion is gladness on 
 account of the august birth which 
 Christmas celebrates. The reality of 
 this occasion is sorrow because he 
 whose companionship was the joy of 
 this and every occasion is removed by 
 death. The three poems which de- 
 scribe this Christmas-tide show suc- 
 cessive stages in the reluctant yield- 
 ing of sorrow to joy, until at last 
 Christmas hope is admitted, and be- 
 comes henceforth an acknowledged 
 influence. 
 
 In three mental moods this Christ- 
 mas-tide is regarded : as the poet looks 
 forward to it, with sorrow and dread ; 
 as he meets it present, and is doubt- 
 ful how to observe it so as not to pro- 
 fane either it or his sorrow ; and as in 
 calmer mood he looks back upon it, 
 and recalls how his conflict ended in 
 peace. 
 
 i. Christmas anticipated. The 
 Christmas bells, proclaiming joy, fall
 
 122 TENNYSON'S IN MEMO RI AM. 
 
 discordantly upon the poet's sorrow ; 
 but they bring also, in the youthful 
 memories they awaken, a touch of joy. 
 
 xxnc. 2. Christmas present. The wonted 
 
 Christmas merriments call for obser- 
 vance now as at other times ; grief 
 finds them scarcely congenial, but 
 yields at last for form's sake. 
 
 xxx. 3. Christmas past. In a retrospect 
 is related how conflicting emotions 
 strove with each other in a variety of 
 alternating moods ; until finally calm 
 ensued in the thought that the dead 
 are immortal, and that, though sepa- 
 rated from us, their love is unchanged. 
 
 Thus is introduced the idea which 
 is to grow and occasion all the coming 
 achievements of thought and faith, 
 namely, that love does not die, either 
 in this world or in another. The con- 
 flict in which this idea was accepted 
 has been a severe one, because it was 
 not merely a conflict of emotions, but
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 that struggle in which the poet con- 
 sciously left the realm of positive 
 knowledge and entered the realm of 
 faith. Henceforth he is to walk in 
 " the light that shone when Hope was 
 born." Such an important step as the 
 acceptance of immortality, as a revealed 
 truth which can never be proved but 
 must be believed, needs a more ex- 
 tended introduction than the mere ac- 
 count of its beginning. If faith is to 
 be the reigning spirit, it is desirable 
 first of all to know its use and its 
 grounds. The succeeding six poems 
 therefore justify and explain the poet's 
 procedure, while they also introduce 
 the course of thought characteristic of 
 the cycle. 
 
 These six introductory poems are 
 two groups of three ; of which groups 
 the first, in its order and underlying 
 idea, is more especially the suggester 
 of the present cycle's thought.
 
 124 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 ETERNAL THINGS AND THE APPRE- 
 HENSION OF THEM. XXXL-XXXVI. 
 
 A. KNOWLEDGE AND FAITH. 
 
 Three poems, " of the most solemn 
 and hymn - like pieces in In Memo- 
 riam," suggested by the history of 
 Lazarus' return from the dead and our 
 Lord's intercourse with the family at 
 Bethany (John xi., xii.), depict our 
 ideal relation to eternal things. 
 
 1. Regarding the unknowable mys- 
 tery beyond death. Lazarus, who 
 could speak of the other world from 
 knowledge, reveals nothing. To us 
 here in this world the things beyond 
 the veil are not to be apprehended by 
 knowledge. 
 
 2. Regarding the proper attitude of 
 the living toward eternal things. Mary, 
 with her simple, satisfied, unquestion- 
 ing faith, illustrates this. In her con- 
 sciousness that all is well, and that 
 she is in the presence of the Life in- 
 deed, she has such fullness of present
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 12$ 
 
 satisfaction that curiosity about un- 
 seen things finds no place. "Of im- 
 mortality," says Emerson, " the soul, 
 when well employed, is incurious. It 
 is so well, that it is sure it will be well. 
 It asks no questions of the Supreme 
 Power." 
 
 3. Regarding the relation of one xxxm. 
 who knows to one who believes. Laz- 
 arus and Mary illustrate two phases 
 of Christian life : those whose ripened 
 reason and spiritual insight make 
 their view of unseen things approach 
 the character of knowledge ; and those 
 whose faith, without knowledge, sup- 
 ports itself by forms. Each life has a 
 blessedness of its own ; and " faith 
 through form," which produces prac- 
 tical good deeds, is not to be despised 
 even by the most advanced in spiritual 
 things. A world of sin makes such 
 tangible aids to faith the desirable 
 support of all. 
 
 The use of faith is thus portrayed ; 
 a second group of three poems now 
 describes its grounds.
 
 126 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 B. REASON AND REVELATION. 
 
 No cold logical process is instituted 
 to prove the truth of immortality ; ap- 
 peal is made rather to the finer intui- 
 tions which make us dare to enjoy life 
 and the world. 
 
 1. Life itself should teach immor- 
 tality ; for the unspoken consciousness 
 of unending existence is just what 
 gives life and the world whatever 
 beauty and worth they have. 
 
 2. Death seems by its appearance 
 to teach the opposite ; and yet all the 
 higher worth of love, all that makes 
 it nobler than a satyr's mood, requires 
 for its interpretation and integrity that 
 this appearance of mortality be dis- 
 regarded. " Love cannot tolerate the 
 thought of its own end. ' It announces 
 itself as an eternal thing.' The spon- 
 taneous forms it assumes in language 
 put it outside all limitations of time. 
 It takes us over into the field of abso- 
 lute existence, and says: Here is na-
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. I2/ 
 
 tive ground ; I cannot die ; if I perish 
 I am no longer love, but misery. Love 
 has but one symbol in language 
 forever; its logic is, there is no 
 death." 1 
 
 3. What our holiest intuitions re- xxxvi. 
 quire finds its fitting expression in the 
 revealed Word of God ; especially in 
 the Word made flesh, who appeals to 
 all, and expresses an inner idea which 
 is too deep-seated for men unaided to 
 utter, and yet which every one, even 
 the most unlettered, may read. 
 
 These introductory groups are closed XXXVH. 
 by a chorus-poem, in which the song is 
 justified against reproach, as being the 
 spontaneous expression of joy in re- 
 vealed truth. 
 
 SPRINGTIDE. XXXVIIL, XXXIX. 
 
 The cheer attending the thought of 
 immortality and the hopeful outlook of 
 
 1 Quoted from Monger: The Freidom of 'Faith, p.
 
 128 TENNYSON'S IN MEMO R I AM. 
 
 a new faith toward the future is well 
 typified by the season when nature 
 awakes from winter into warmth and 
 bloom. The spirit with which this 
 Springtide is met, which we may re- 
 gard as the general spirit of the cycle, 
 has already been manifested in the 
 Christmas-tide. In each case we no- 
 tice that the cheer comes from with- 
 out, and must make its way as it were 
 by struggle into a reluctant mood. So 
 throughout the cycle : the bereaved 
 heart yields but slowly to the hope and 
 promise of its chosen idea, 
 xxxvm. i. The season is joyless, just as all 
 the world is shadowed, but some sol- 
 ace lives in the song. This poem re- 
 peats mostly the sentiment of poem 
 viii. ; only here we notice an advance, 
 in the thought that the dead, whom 
 the song is to please, is near and cog- 
 nizant of it. 
 
 2. Yet this springtide, though joy- 
 less, affords a landmark of the poet's 
 progress toward vigor and peace of
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 1 29 
 
 mind, in the fact that even the change- 
 less yew-tree (compare poem ii.) feels 
 the season's cheer; and Sorrow (com- 
 pare poem iii.), though prophesying 
 gloom again, acknowledges the pres- 
 ent touch of hopefulness. This is one 
 of the poems that have been inserted 
 in In Memoriam since the original ed- 
 ition ; and as adding clearness to the 
 indication of the spirit that reigns in 
 this stage of the thought we see that 
 it has an important office. See the 
 note on this poem, page 85. 
 
 Succeeding this Springtide, and ap- 
 parently compelled by the reigning 
 mood evinced therein, a series of 
 questions and doubts are now raised, 
 whose answer is the characteristic 
 achievement of the cycle. These 
 questions fall into three groups, whose 
 order and general subject have been 
 anticipated in the introductory poems 
 9
 
 I3O TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 xxxi. to xxxiii. : namely, the heavenly 
 life beyond death ; the earthly life this 
 side of death ; and the relations of the 
 two to each other. 
 
 The answers to the questions of the 
 first group are drawn from the 'poet's 
 interpretation of love; the questions 
 of the second group are answered by 
 efforts of faith ; and in the third group 
 love and faith reach their highest ex- 
 pression. 
 
 FIRST GROUP. 
 
 QUESTIONINGS CONCERNING THE LIFE 
 BEYOND THE GRAVE. XL.-XLVIII. 
 
 Love's Answer. 
 
 Four topics are discussed, two 
 pairs of topics ; and the questions in 
 each pair suggest themselves as alter- 
 native to each other. They are the 
 questions that naturally arise as we 
 consider the life of that other world, 
 in its relation to the future and in its 
 relation to the past.
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMO RI AM. 131 
 
 FIRST TOPIC : PROGRESS IN ANOTHER 
 WORLD. 
 
 1. Illustrated in the life of a bride, XL. 
 who leaves her parental home and 
 becomes the centre of a new family 
 circle, and so an agent in the world's 
 progress. Such progress, only nobler, 
 
 is in heaven. But the difference 
 causes pain : the bride may return 
 from time to time, but Arthur is gone 
 forever. 
 
 2. The thought of Arthur's contin- XLI. 
 ued progress, with even his ethereal 
 energies greatened, in a strange and 
 august state of being, rouses the fear 
 
 that he will outstrip the earthly survi- 
 vor, and so be always beyond reach. 
 
 3. This fear allayed by the thought XLII. 
 of love. Here on earth he was al- 
 ways far ahead, yet always helpful : 
 
 so there, where progress is certainly 
 progress in love, he will all the more 
 surely devote himself to the late-com- 
 ing friend as guide and teacher.
 
 TENNYSON'S IN ME MORI AM. 
 
 SECOND TOPIC : ALTERNATIVE, WHETH- 
 ER, INSTEAD OF BEING CONSCIOUS, 
 AND PROGRESSING TO EVER HIGHER 
 ENERGIES, THE IMMORTAL SOUL MAY 
 SLEEP UNTIL THE MORNING OF THE 
 RESURRECTION. 
 
 The answer neither affirms nor de- 
 nies; it is love's answer, making the 
 most of the alternative. If death is 
 really sleep, there will be a waking; 
 so all souls repose together, like 
 folded flowers, and love loses noth- 
 ing by it. 
 
 THIRD TOPIC: MEMORY IN ANOTHER 
 WORLD. 
 
 i. Considerations that make against 
 memory in another world. Our for- 
 getfulness of infancy and preexistence 
 (if preexistence be a fact), which is 
 only emphasized by seeming flashes 
 of a preexistent consciousness, sug- 
 gests a similar relation of the heavenly 
 state to the earthly. If such be the
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 133 
 
 fact, love will make the most of it, 
 and beseeches the immortal friend to 
 use the superior wisdom of celestial 
 beings, and resolve any dreamy idea 
 of earth that may rise. 
 
 2. Considerations that make for XLV. 
 memory in another world. The grand 
 result of this earthly life, as it advances 
 from infancy to maturity, is the devel- 
 opment of self-conscious personality, 
 
 and with it the possibility of memory. 
 Unless we suppose all this life's high- 
 est achievement is lost, this self-con- 
 scious personality and memory con- 
 tinue in heaven. 
 
 3. The nature of memory in another XLVI. 
 world. The gradual dimming of mem- 
 ory here is a necessity in the formation 
 
 of character ; but there, where charac- 
 ter is perfected, memory takes in the 
 whole life perfectly and at once. The 
 lifetime which Arthur remembers may 
 perhaps show those five years of 
 friendship as its richest period, lend- 
 ing radiance to all the rest.
 
 134 TENNYSON' 'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 FOURTH TOPIC : ALTERNATIVE, WHETH- 
 ER, INSTEAD OF REMEMBERING, THE 
 IMMORTAL SOUL MAY LOSE THE 
 WHOLE PERSONAL CONSCIOUSNESS 
 AND SEPARATE MIND NECESSARY TO 
 MEMORY, AND BE AT LAST ABSORBED 
 INTO THE GENERAL SOUL. 
 
 XLVII. Love protests against the idea of 
 such vague and undefined existence 
 as fatal to her integrity. Yet though 
 it were so, Love will make the most 
 of the alternative, and put to the best 
 use the last moment before dissolu- 
 tion. 
 
 This group is concluded by a chorus- 
 poem, which avers that the office of 
 the song is not to give logically con- 
 clusive answers, but Love's answer, 
 making doubts yield her service. 
 
 From the consideration of the im- 
 mortal life that has reached its goal
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN ME MORI AM. 135 
 
 the poet now turns his thought, in a 
 second group of topics, to the human 
 life striving here on earth toward its 
 goal, or at least, whether it strive or 
 not, shaping itself an eternal destiny. 
 This group, as it has to do not with 
 the life made perfect in heaven, but 
 with the imperfect and sinful life of 
 earth, is more charged with feeling 
 than the other ; and as the character 
 of its subject causes more doubt, the 
 questions are answered by strong ef- 
 forts of faith rather than by simple 
 interpretations of love. 
 
 SECOND GROUP. 
 
 QUESTIONINGS AND DOUBTS CONCERN- 
 ING HUMAN LIFE HERE ON EARTH: 
 ITS CHARACTER AND DESTINY. XLIX.- 
 LIX. 
 
 Faith's Answer. 
 
 Introduced by a chorus-poem, which, 
 reminding us that in spite of all hope-
 
 136 TENNYSOWS IN MEMORTAM. 
 
 ful answers the sorrow remains at the 
 deep bases of life, strikes the key-note 
 of the coming discussion. 
 
 As in the foregoing group, four 
 topics are discussed. Their correla- 
 tion is as follows. The four topics are 
 two pairs. The first pair refers to the 
 devout human life, the second to the 
 undevout. The first member of each 
 pair refers more especially to the 
 course of life, the second to the goal. 
 
 FIRST TOPIC : OUR DEVOUT HUMAN 
 LIFE, AS GOD AND THE IMMORTALS 
 SEE IT. 
 
 i- i. Suggested by the wish that the 
 
 immortal friend were near, in all spir- 
 itual needs of life, so that the con- 
 sciousness of his nearness might be a 
 solace. 
 
 u - 2. But if the dead are near they can 
 
 see all our unworthiness. To which 
 thought Faith answers that they see as 
 God sees, and make gracious allow- 
 ance.
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 137 
 
 SECOND TOPIC : OUR PURSUIT OF A 
 HIGH IDEAL, AND OUR DESTINY AS 
 COMPARED WITH IT. 
 
 The poet's ideal to answer Ar- ui. 
 thur's love worthily seems unattain- 
 able. But Faith replies that the spirit 
 of true love is not offended at human 
 frailty, but takes the faithful working 
 toward the ideal as the real worth in a 
 world of sin. 
 
 THIRD TOPIC : OUTLIVED SIN AS A 
 STRENGTHENER OF CHARACTER. 
 
 Many a one seems stronger and "" 
 richer in character by reason of ear- 
 lier waywardness outlived. But while 
 this may be a fact, we are not to sin 
 for the sake of outliving it to greater 
 strength, but to hold fast the good. 
 
 FOURTH TOPIC : WHETHER EVERY IM- 
 PERFECT LIFE SHALL AT LAST REACH 
 ITS GOAL. 
 
 i. Sin proceeds in so many cases uv -
 
 138 TENNYSON'S IN MEMO RI AM. 
 
 from causes beyond the sinner's con- 
 trol ; shall, then, inevitable sins and 
 evils make any life eternally vain ? In 
 answer, Faith, unable to explain, can 
 only assert her trust that every life 
 shall at some far distant time reach 
 the goal it was made for. 
 LV. 2. The wish that no life may fail is 
 
 godlike ; but Nature seems to give the 
 lie to this wish, and to be at strife with 
 divine Love. To which Faith, more 
 agitated, cannot reply, but flees to that 
 Love who is Lord of all, and trusts to 
 a hope larger than Nature. 
 LVI. 3. But Nature suggests yet more 
 
 perplexing thoughts, for, perfectly in- 
 different to all, she seems to recognize 
 no sacredness in life. To which Faith 
 answers that if life is nothing higher 
 than Nature teaches, then man, her 
 highest work, is a splendid failure. 
 Unable to rest in such a conclusion, 
 and yet unable to explain, Faith can 
 only refer the question to the world 
 behind the veil.
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 139 
 
 It is worthy of notice that in an ear- 
 lier work this same question of man's 
 destiny has presented itself to the poet, 
 and in the same manner has been left 
 unanswered. At the close of "The 
 Vision of Sin," where discussion has 
 been made concerning sin's ravages, 
 whether avenged by sense, or also dis- 
 integrating the spirit, the lines oc- 
 cur : 
 
 " At last I heard a voice upon the slope 
 Cry to the summit, ' Is there any hope ? ' 
 To which an answer peal'd from that high land, 
 Bat in a tongue no man could understand ; 
 And on the glimmering limit far withdrawn 
 God made Himself an awful rose of dawn." 
 
 In the poem under discussion, however, 
 the thought is greatly ripened under 
 the agency of Faith. From all deepest 
 doubts suggested by Nature she rises, 
 and flees from Nature to God, in whose 
 hands she tremblingly leaves the an- 
 swer. 
 
 The agitated feeling which has ac- 
 companied the questions of this group
 
 I4O TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 here reaches its culmination, and the 
 next three poems break off the course 
 of thought abruptly, and give way to 
 the emotion with which the foregoing 
 struggle has overcharged the poet's 
 soul. Yet these three chorus-poems 
 effect an important transition, being 
 indeed the turning-point of the poem ; 
 for in them the poet escapes from the 
 evil dreams of Nature to faith in a 
 Holy One, higher than .Nature. 
 Lvn i. " Peace ; come away." Agitated 
 
 by the feeling that his work will fail, 
 the poet turns to bid farewell ; and yet 
 his adieus refuse to be final. Compare 
 cxxiii. 3. 
 
 2. " Abide a little longer here." 
 
 LVIII. 
 
 Neither the thought nor the song can 
 rest in such a cheerless, hopeless end ; 
 to cease at this stage would be fruit- 
 less labor. 
 
 LIX. 3- " O Sorrow, wilt thou live with 
 
 me." At the beginning, in poem iii., 
 Sorrow could see in Nature only the 
 reflection of herself ; and the hopeless-
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 14! 
 
 ness she suggested was acknowledged 
 to be from a " lying lip." In poem 
 xxxix., where springtide is nature's 
 illustration of new life, Sorrow must 
 acknowledge the present cheer; but 
 inasmuch as she prophesies gloom 
 again her lip is yet a " lying " one ; ' 
 she cannot be trusted. But now that 
 Sorrow has fled from Nature to God, 
 and in spite of Nature's evil dreams 
 can leave the problem of human des- 
 tiny to Him, she may be taken and 
 cherished as a trustworthy guide. She 
 is yet to be the reigning element in 
 the song, but she is to lead to hope. 
 This is one of the poems added since 
 the original edition, and together with 
 poems iii. and xxxix. forms a beauti- 
 fully wrought picture within the greater 
 thought of the poem. See note on 
 this poem, page 84. 
 
 Two groups of questions have been 
 given : the first, concerning the heav- 
 enly life, answered by successive in-
 
 142 TENNYSON'S IN ME MORI AM, 
 
 terpretations of love ; the second, con- 
 cerning the character and destiny of 
 the earthly, answered by efforts of 
 faith. The third group of topics now 
 succeeds, and in the discussion of 
 them both love and faith reach their 
 highest expression. 
 
 THIRD GROUP. 
 
 QUESTIONINGS AND FEARS CONCERN- 
 ING THE POSSIBLE RELATION OF THE 
 HEAVENLY LIFE TO THE EARTHLY. 
 LX.-LXV. 
 
 Love and FaitWs Noblest Expression. 
 
 Two souls are before us, who have 
 loved each other. The love of the 
 earthly soul is yet undiminished ; how 
 fares it with the heavenly ? 
 
 A single alternative will express the 
 possible relation of the immortal soul 
 to past companionship : he may wish 
 to forget his past love, or he may 
 remember it with pleasure. Three 
 poems give expression to each mem- 
 ber of this alternative ; and in each
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 143 
 
 group of three, the first poem ap- 
 proaches the thought from its earthly 
 side, the second from its heavenly, 
 and the third draws the conclusion. 
 
 FIRST MEMBER: SUGGESTION OF THE 
 BAD ALTERNATIVE. IN HIS HIGHER 
 STATE THE IMMORTAL MAY WISH TO 
 FORGET HIS EARTHLY LOVE. 
 
 1. The earthly survivor is as a sim- LX. 
 pie girl who loves one far above her in 
 rank, one whose larger life she can 
 follow, not in understanding, but only 
 
 in love. 
 
 2. The immortal one may look back LXI - 
 from his august companionships, and 
 
 be grieved at the dwarfed life and love 
 that here on earth is longing for his 
 regard ; and yet this love is as true as 
 that of the greatest. 
 
 3. Love's conclusion. If this sim- - LXH. 
 pie earthly affection shames its object, 
 Love consents in full self-abnegation 
 
 to sacrifice her claim to regard. How 
 truly this sacrifice is the noblest ex-
 
 144 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 pression of love we see when we re- 
 flect that this is the surrender of that 
 highest blessing which the poem has 
 all along sought. 
 
 SECOND MEMBER: SUGGESTION OF THE 
 GOOD ALTERNATIVE. IN HIS HIGHER 
 STATE THE IMMORTAL MAY REMEM- 
 BER HIS EARTHLY LOVE WITH PLEAS- 
 URE. 
 
 1. The earthly survivor can love 
 lower beings, and yet love heaven 
 none the less. It is therefore not 
 necessarily the case that greater loves 
 in heaven preclude the simpler loves 
 of earth. 
 
 2. The immortal one may be as one 
 who has risen from a humble lot to the 
 highest distinction in the state, who 
 remembers his former home and 
 friends with special fondness. 
 
 3. Faith's conclusion. Love is too 
 precious to be lost ; it works its effect 
 yonder as here, and the two friends 
 though separated partake of the same
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 145 
 
 hallowed remembrance. This thought 
 may be regarded as the culminating 
 achievement of faith in this cycle. 
 
 At the end of this third group a 
 series of poems now portrays the 
 calmer and more healthful mood 
 reached by the poet in his consider- 
 ation of eternal things. These po- 
 ems contrast strikingly with the first 
 portrayal of unquiet grief, in poems 
 
 1. In the first mood of grief, poem 
 ii., the mind was like the changeless 
 yew-tree, a perpetual guardian of the 
 dead. Now the bereaved has become 
 spontaneously cheerful with all, and 
 takes interest in affairs other than his 
 own. Yet this cheerfulness is after all 
 like that of the blind man, who has a 
 dark world of his own, where he lives 
 apart from others. 
 
 2. In the first mood of grief, poem 
 iii., the thought of the dead was always 
 a disquieting influence, depriving all 
 
 10
 
 146 TENNYSON'S IN ME MORI AM. 
 
 nature of attractiveness. Now the 
 bereaved can think with complacency 
 even of the grave and the memorials 
 of the departed life. 
 
 3. In the first mood of grief, poem 
 iv., clouds of nameless sorrow dark- 
 ened the bereaved one's dreams. 
 Now the returned calmness makes his 
 dreams natural and serene again. The 
 object of his consciousness, no longer 
 a tyrannical disturbance in all his 
 waking thoughts, begins to enter his 
 dreams restfully and spontaneously. 
 Four poems trace how these dreams 
 lose their sorrow. 
 
 LXVIH. a. The dead is dreamed of as living 
 but with a nameless trouble in his face, 
 making him not just the man he was ; 
 which trouble is no doubt transferred 
 from the sleeper's unquiet brain. 
 
 ucix. b. In a troubled dream, in which 
 the dreamer wanders forth through a 
 dreary land where nature gives no 
 more hope of spring, and crowns him- 
 self with thorns, an angel meets him
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 147 
 
 with comforting words and touches the 
 crown into leaf. 
 
 t. The dreamer tries in vain, in the LXX. 
 midst of grotesque shapes, to see Ar- 
 thur's features aright ; until at last the 
 vision comes in some way beyond his 
 will. 
 
 d. Finally, a sweet experience of LMO. 
 the past comes to live naturally in 
 the dreams of the present ; and the 
 dreamer's pleasure in the past is gen- 
 uine and complete, with the single 
 exception of a vague " blindfold sense 
 of wrong," which he would gladly have 
 cleared away. 
 
 FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF THE 
 DEATH. LXXII. 
 
 This day, with its revival of a bitter 
 memory, breaks in like a discord on 
 the poet's growing peace of mind, 
 bringing back vividly that dread hour, 
 
 "When the dark hand struck down thro' time, 
 And cancell'd nature's best," 
 
 and seeming at first thought to check
 
 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 and disturb all that faith has achieved. 
 We have noticed however, in the last 
 poem, that the poet's pleasure in the 
 memory of the past failed in one point 
 of completeness : there remains a 
 "blindfold sense of wrong." What 
 that wrong is the present anniversary 
 suggests ; and being suggested it is 
 met and disposed of satisfactorily. 
 
 There is suggested here, naturally, 
 the name and fame that would have 
 been Arthur's had the day not been 
 darkened by his death. The loss of 
 that fame to himself and to the world 
 is the "wrong" which still disturbs 
 the poet's sense of justice in his re- 
 moval. Some thoughts regarding the 
 fame thus lost, with their comforting 
 offset, are here introduced. 
 
 In accordance with the general pro- 
 cedure of the present cycle, the 
 thought of fame is first considered 
 with regard to the dead, and then with 
 regard to the living.
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 149 
 
 A. THE FAME WHICH THE DEAD LOST 
 
 HERE AND GAINS YONDER. 
 
 1. By reason of his untimely death 
 the friend and the world lost his fame ; 
 but still his immortal soul contains 
 the same powers, glorified rather than 
 impaired. 
 
 2. His evident kindred with the 
 great ones of history suggests more 
 than can well be said. 
 
 3. Though the greatness of the dead 
 missed proper recognition here, it is 
 acknowledged and reaches its true 
 glory yonder. 
 
 B. THE MORE THAN FAME THAT IS YET 
 
 THE SOLACE OF THE LIVING. 
 
 i. The poet transports himself in 
 fancy to an ideal point whence he may 
 see human fame as Heaven sees it, 
 and compares his own songs, so soon 
 to die, with that which really deserves 
 fame. By the side of what Heaven 
 accounts great how insignificant ap- 
 pear our petty standards of merit.
 
 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 2. These songs will die ; nor do 
 they count themselves lasting. But 
 their use in the present is their suffi- 
 cient justification. To sing of his sor- 
 row and his love is sweeter to the poet 
 than fame, is its own reward. 
 
 With this poem the chorus -poems 
 cease. Having come to find its re- 
 ward in itself, the song is so much 
 more than the mere subserver of a 
 " use " that no more mention of its 
 practical office is needed ; and indeed 
 with the yielding of sorrow to calm- 
 ness its office is no more mechanical, 
 as at first, but the unbidden utterance 
 of spiritual achievements. See note 
 on the chorus-poems, page 71. 
 
 Thus is met and vanquished that 
 last hindrance to the poet's com- 
 placency in his memories of the past, 
 and he is ready to enter a new era of 
 thought.
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 151 
 
 &eeont CpcU. 
 LXXVIII. cm. 
 
 M Were it conceivable that the soul in one state should 
 co-exist with the soul in another, how impetuous would 
 be that desire of reunion, which even the awful laws of 
 time cannot entirely forbid! . . . In her anxiety to break 
 down all obstacles, and to amalgamate two portions of 
 her divided substance, she will hasten to blend emotions 
 and desires with those apparent in the kindred spirit." 
 A. H. HALLAM'S Remains. 
 
 In the preceding cycle the poet has second 
 reached calmness in the thought of ' 
 that holy love which is not impaired 
 by separation, but continues, as in this 
 world, so in the unseen world, a hal- 
 lowed memory, rich in sweet influence. 
 Such a blessing has been drawn by 
 faith from the contemplation of the 
 past. 
 
 There follows now the Cycle of the 
 Present; which I so denominate be- 
 cause the thought has to do with 
 the present aspect of the poet's love 
 for the dead, and of the immortal 
 one's relation to him. This thought
 
 152 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 of the present develops itself in two 
 directions. On the one hand, the poet 
 betrays a longing for some bond be- 
 tween him and the immortal more dis- 
 tinctively present than the bond of a 
 common memory, a longing, in fact, 
 for some real present communion in 
 spirit, in which he may know that the 
 friend is near. Toward this consum- 
 mation the thought advances, not with- 
 out a certain cautious tone, as if the 
 poet were conscious that in cherishing 
 such a venturous desire he is treading 
 upon precarious ground. On the other 
 hand, true communion in spirit with the 
 immortal certainly demands nothing 
 short of compliance with his example 
 and advice were he living ; and the 
 poet knows he would have cherished 
 living sympathy and friendship with 
 the world around him. Besides, open- 
 ing of the heart toward the unseen 
 world is possible only by opening the 
 heart correspondingly toward this 
 world. So the poet advances to-
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN ME MORI AM. 153 
 
 ward his desire of communion there 
 by choosing a new friendship here. 
 
 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. LXXVIII. 
 
 The Christmas which introduces this LXXVIH. 
 Second Cycle is an occasion charac- 
 terized by calmness. The lapse of 
 time has brought a change in the spirit 
 of its observance, in this respect, that 
 the merriments and pleasures peculiar 
 to Christmas are accepted and enjoyed 
 no longer under querulous protest but 
 for their own sake. At the same time, 
 " the quiet sense of something lost " 
 is a reminder that the occasion is not 
 what it was before bereavement. 
 
 As the thought distinctive of the 
 First Cycle was prefaced by a group 
 of poems that suggested it first in out- 
 line, so in this cycle, in the four poems 
 succeeding. What the thought of this 
 cycle is has already been intimated. 
 It is in its deepest a reverent consid-
 
 154 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 eration of the question, what may be 
 held as to present spiritual intercourse 
 with the immortal dead, and what are 
 the prerequisites on the part of the 
 living. Such a question must be ap- 
 proached cautiously, beset as it has 
 been with grotesque abuses. The an- 
 swer may or may not be satisfactory ; 
 but it must hold as far as it goes. 
 Nor is the inquiry such as will appeal 
 kindly to all minds, being in no small 
 degree mystical ; it must, therefore, 
 leave a residuum of practical truth 
 such as no mind can well take excep- 
 tion to. Such a consciousness as this 
 seems to betray itself here, as between 
 the lines ; and any incursions made 
 into the mysteries of the unseen keep 
 up direct communication with the prac- 
 tical. 
 
 The idea takes its starting-point in 
 the thought of the divided nature of 
 which the poet is conscious and the 
 complement of which he feels perpet- 
 ually the need. Corresponding to the
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 155 
 
 later expanded thought, the outline 
 divides itself into the two related 
 thoughts which together form the char- 
 acteristic idea of the cycle. 
 
 THE DIVIDED NATURE AND ITS 
 COMPLEMENT. LXXIX.-LXXXII. 
 
 A. THE DIVIDED NATURE IS TO SEEK 
 PEACE IN ITS PRESENT STATE. 
 
 1. The poet's passionate assertion 
 in the midst of his sorrow (ix. 5), that 
 Arthur was more than a brother to 
 him, was no mere hasty ejaculation, 
 nor any reflection on his fraternal re- 
 lations, but a fact which he can reas- 
 sert with all calmness. Arthur was 
 more than a brother by the very fact 
 of being unlike, and so from his differ- 
 ence supplying his companion's lack. 
 
 2. But if he supplied my lack, then 
 his example, so far as I may interpret 
 it, should still live in me ; and it shall. 
 If places were changed and he the 
 mourner, I know that he would turn 
 his sorrow into gain, by being stayed
 
 156 TENNYSON'S IN ME MORI AM. 
 
 in peace with God and man. So let me 
 do, and thus honor his influence. 
 
 B. THE DIVIDED NATURE'S REAL COM- 
 PLEMENT, WHICH NO NEW RELATION 
 CAN REPLACE, REMAINS AS NEEDFUL 
 AS EVER. 
 
 The peace with God and man, 
 which the dead would have exempli- 
 fied, is only partly a compensation. 
 What is really desired is the friend's 
 actual nearness, and the consciousness 
 of it. 
 
 1. The desire hinted and its fulfill- 
 ment prepared for. If the survivor's 
 love was immature at the time of 
 Arthur's death, and so capable of 
 more, it was yet ripened by bereave- 
 ment ; and so the two may yet love 
 equally and satisfactorily. 
 
 2. The desire plainly expressed. 
 It is communion, actual and present, 
 that is after all missed and wanted. 
 No certitude of Arthur's blessedness 
 can make that want as if it were not.
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 157 
 
 NEW YEAR. LXXXIII. 
 
 As in the preceding cycle Springtide 
 added to the thought of immortality 
 the suggestiveness of a new awaking 
 season, so in this broader field of 
 thought New Year heralds a new 
 round of seasons. The spirit of the 
 thought too has changed, has be- 
 come more wholesome and free. 
 Frozen in the past sorrow as the mind 
 was in the preceding cycle, the spring- 
 tide must thrust its cheer from with- 
 out on a reluctant mood ; but here the 
 New Year illustrates the greater health 
 of spirit, in that now the mood an- 
 swers to the promise of the season, 
 and goes forth congenially to meet it. 
 The same spirit has also been illus- 
 trated at Christmas-tide, in the pleas- 
 ure taken in its observances for their 
 own sake. 
 
 The course of thought distinctive of 
 the Cycle of the Present, already sug-
 
 158 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 gested in outline, now follows. Its 
 twofold aspect, as involved in its 
 ground idea that it is only the open- 
 ing of the heart toward earthly rela- 
 tionships that makes it open also to- 
 ward heaven, suggests a double series 
 of topics, in the first part of which 
 the earthly blessing is secured, and in 
 the second the heavenly. 
 
 FIRST GROUP. 
 
 THE BEREAVED FINDS PEACE WITH ALL. 
 LXXXIV.-LXXXIX. 
 
 In the introductory poems, Ixxix., 
 Ixxx., the poet has recognized the want 
 in his nature left by bereavement, and 
 has committed himself to the course 
 that Arthur would have taken had 
 he lived. The succeeding poems now 
 carry this idea out into practice. 
 
 The poems of this group subdivide 
 themselves into two groups, in the first 
 of which the bereaved commits himself 
 to his idea, and in the second finds 
 peace therein.
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 1 59 
 
 A. THE BEREAVED COMMITS HIMSELF 
 TO A NEW FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 1. The poet contemplates what their LXXXIV. 
 friendship would have become had Ar- 
 thur lived and become his brother, as 
 
 was intended. The two are viewed as 
 walking down to old age together in 
 congenial pursuits, and at the end as 
 departing from earth together and be- 
 ing received in heaven as one soul. 
 The contemplation comes near waking 
 the old sadness again, as it makes so 
 painfully apparent the poet's perpetual 
 want, of present requited friendship. 
 
 2. At the solicitation of one who, as LXXXV. 
 would appear from a comparison of 
 stanza 2 with Epilogue, stanza i, is 
 destined to sustain the same relation 
 
 to the poet that Arthur would have 
 held, and by that fact becomes a can- 
 didate for Arthur's place in the poet's 
 affection, the poet reviews the course 
 of his love and bereavement and quest 
 of reunion, especially, as it would 
 seem, to answer the question,
 
 I6O TENNYSON'S IN ME MORI AM. 
 
 "Whether love for him have drain'd 
 My capabilities of love." 
 
 He recounts how when his sorrow fell 
 he was kept from being unmanned by 
 taking Arthur's life as an influence 
 in all daily action, and how also his 
 study of spiritual problems has been 
 of practical good in diffusing the shock 
 of grief ; until, now that the friendship 
 of which he is the " divided half " has 
 reached a permanence beyond fear of 
 the ravages of time, he finds behind 
 his grief a reserve of strength impel- 
 ling and enabling him to seek what 
 Arthur's pure spirit seems to bid, a 
 friendship in the present, which in the 
 healthful action of soul on soul may 
 preserve his spiritual integrity. His 
 heart therefore seeks the new friend- 
 ship, which he protests may be as true, 
 if not so fresh, as the other. 
 
 3- This conclusion is ratified by a 
 song, in which the balmiest influences 
 of Nature are called upon to enter his 
 being and impart peace.
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. l6l 
 
 B. THE BEREAVED FINDS PEACE, EVEN 
 IN THOSE SCENES AND ASSOCIATIONS 
 WHICH MOST VIVIDLY RECALL HIS 
 SORROW. 
 
 1. He revisits his old Cambridge 
 halls, and finds the revived memory 
 of student days and companionships 
 productive not of sorrow, but in some 
 degree of the old enthusiasm and in- 
 terest. 
 
 2. In the nightingale's song, which 
 is popularly regarded as commingling 
 joy and woe, and so also in his own, 
 he cannot but find joy predominant, 
 in spite of his prelude of woe. 
 
 3. The past is lived over again, and 
 all its congenial occupations with Ar- 
 thur, in the scenes of the former sum- 
 mer retreat. How fully peace is re- 
 stored is well indicated by compar- 
 ing the appearance of Nature in this 
 poem with such poems as viii., xxiii., 
 
 xxxviii. 
 
 ii
 
 1 62 TENNYSOWS IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 SECOND GROUP. 
 
 IN HIS PEACE WITH ALL THE BEREAVED 
 FINDS COMMUNION IN SPIRIT WITH 
 THE DEAD. XC.-XCV. 
 
 In the introductory poems, Ixxxi., 
 Ixxxii., the thought of this group is 
 betrayed, as if reluctantly, between the 
 lines, and then plainly intimated, but 
 only negatively. The hint is now car- 
 ried out to realization. 
 
 This group, like the foregoing, sub- 
 divides itself into two groups, in the 
 first of which the poet defines his idea, 
 and in the second realizes it. 
 
 A. THE BEREAVED DEFINES HIS THOUGHT 
 AND COMMITS HIMSELF TO IT. 
 
 xc. i. The greatest obstacle to such 
 
 present communion in spirit with the 
 dead is disposed of, namely, the ob- 
 stacle which a supposed change in the 
 bereaved, caused by years of separa- 
 tion, would make, to destroy congen- 
 iality when the friends meet again.
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 163 
 
 The poet's desire exists unimpaired 
 by any change of time or association. 
 Notice how closely this poem corre- 
 sponds in sentiment with its introduc- 
 tory poem, Ixxxi. 
 
 2. The spirit of the departed is in- xo. 
 voked to come crowned with the glory 
 
 of the seasons : in spring, as he was 
 in the time of earthly promise ; in sum- 
 mer, as he is in his matured after 
 form. 
 
 3. Yet this longing for communion xai. 
 with the dead is no crude desire to see 
 
 him in vision. The fulfillment of such 
 a desire could not but be both unsat- 
 isfactory and uncertain. 
 
 4. No visual shade may come, but xcm. 
 the spirit himself, apprehended by spir- 
 itual perception, outside of and above 
 
 the organism of sense. Surely such 
 communion may be wished for. 
 
 5. The preparation necessary to re- xciv. 
 ceive such a guest : purity of heart, 
 soundness of intellect, holiness of af- 
 fection, peace with all, the whole
 
 164 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 inner nature free from discord and 
 doubt. To such preparation the poet 
 has already committed himself. See 
 poem Ixxx. 
 
 B. THE DESIRE OF THE BEREAVED IS 
 ACTUALLY REALIZED. 
 
 xcv. In a perfectly calm summer evening 
 
 the scene is such as to combine in one 
 the foregoing thoughts. 
 
 1. The present new friendship is 
 represented in the intercourse of the 
 circle who have been together all the 
 evening, and have at last separated 
 for the night. 
 
 2. After the others are gone a hun- 
 ger for the old companionship seizes 
 the poet's heart. The letters of the 
 dead, which he reads, bring the past 
 vividly to mind, and he thinks over 
 the thoughts which had once been so 
 helpful to both ; until all at once he 
 seems to be caught up into living mys- 
 tic communion with Arthur, and with 
 him to experience unspeakable things.
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 1 65 
 
 At last, as the morning begins to rise, 
 the trance vanishes. 
 
 The poet's desire, so cautiously ex- 
 pressed, has been realized in an hour 
 of mysterious communion with the im- 
 mortal friend. But the communion 
 was only for a time ; it " was cancell'd, 
 stricken thro' with doubt." What re- 
 mains as its permanent sequence, and 
 wherein does the present attainment 
 fail of completeness ? The answer to 
 such a question seems to be the ob- 
 ject of the succeeding three poems. 
 
 i. The ministry of doubt. Appar- 
 ently in allusion to the fact that the 
 preceding trance was dissipated by 
 doubt, the poet takes occasion to de- 
 fine the relation of doubt to faith, in 
 words which have found a universal 
 echo in the age. He has committed 
 himself to belief in eternal things, and 
 will follow out such faith to its great- 
 est results. But faith, which must ac- 
 knowledge that eternal things " never
 
 1 66 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 can be proved," must thereby admit 
 the possibility of doubt. On the other 
 hand, the reverent conquest of doubt 
 may minister a stronger faith than 
 could well exist had there been no 
 doubt ; whereas knowledge, be it ever 
 so clear, does not work practical good 
 character, as does faith. 
 
 It is generally supposed that this 
 poem narrates the spiritual experience 
 of Arthur Hallam himself. While this 
 cannot well be taken for granted, it 
 may be interesting to give such data 
 as are obtainable, and leave the ques- 
 tion, which is not an important one, 
 to the reader's judgment. The pas- 
 sage where Tennyson recognizes in 
 Arthur 
 
 "The faith, the vigor, bold to dwell 
 On doubts that drive the coward back," 
 
 and the one where he describes Ar- 
 thur's as a character of 
 
 " Seraphic intellect and force 
 To seize and throw the doubts of man," 
 
 would seem to indicate much more
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 1 6? 
 
 calmness of assured strength than the 
 poem before us ; but at the same time 
 this calmness may have been reached 
 through severe struggle. Would not 
 this passage, from Arthur Hallam's 
 " Remains " indicate such spiritual con- 
 flict ? 
 
 " I do but mock me with these questionings. 
 Dark, dark, yea, ' irrecoverably dark,' 
 Is the soul's eye : yet how it strives and battles 
 Thorough th' impenetrable gloom to fix 
 That master light, the secret truth of things, 
 Which is the body of the infinite God! " 
 
 One of Arthur's early friends also 
 writes : " Perhaps I ought to mention 
 that when I first knew him he was 
 subject to occasional fits of mental 
 depression, which gradually grew few- 
 er and fainter, and had at length, I 
 thought, disappeared, or merged in a 
 peaceful Christian faith. I have wit- 
 nessed the same in other ardent and 
 adventurous minds, and have always 
 looked upon them as the symptom, 
 indeed, of an imperfect moral state, 
 but one to which the finest spirits,
 
 1 68 TENNYSON'S IN ME MORI AM. 
 
 during the process of their purifica- 
 tion, are most subject." 
 
 xcvii. 2. Love's communion good though 
 personal intercourse fails. Illustrated 
 by the case of a wife who has loved 
 truly once and been loved ; and though 
 her lord is now absorbed in things 
 apart, she is certain that his love, as 
 truly as her own, exists yet undimin- 
 ished. 
 
 xcvin. 3. Vienna unvisited The fatal sig- 
 nificance of that city, as the place 
 where Arthur died, is brought vividly 
 before the poet's mind, and the thought 
 of it seems to be a sadly disturbing in- 
 fluence in his new communion. 
 
 SECOND ANNIVERSARY OF THE 
 DEATH. XCIX. 
 
 xcix. This day breaks in, as before (Ixxii.), 
 with the renewal of sorrow in the mem- 
 ory of an irreparable loss. It comes 
 not, as did the other, in storm, but in 
 the peaceful weather and associations 
 of early autumn, reminding of
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN ME MORI AM. 169 
 
 " Meadows breathing of the past, 
 And woodlands holy to the dead." 
 
 It may be noted that here the associ- 
 ations are associations of place, where- 
 as in the former anniversary they were 
 associations of time; and this corre- 
 sponds with the poet's general mi- 
 nute attention to congruities of sur- 
 rounding; as we see in the poems im- 
 mediately succeeding, which describe 
 the emotions associated with a change 
 of residence, and in the coming Christ- 
 mas-tide, which notes the influences 
 due to " change of place, like growth 
 in time." Both time and place are to 
 have due influence recognized in the 
 poem. In the present anniversary we 
 see also this advance on the feelings 
 that characterized the former : the sor- 
 row there renewed was centred in self, 
 while this sorrow is touched with sym- 
 pathy for all who have similar sad 
 memories. 
 
 As the former anniversary gave oo
 
 1 70 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 casion to dispose of the last regret 
 regarding Arthur's untimely death, so 
 this gives similar occasion to dispose 
 of the last obstacle to the full peace 
 of the present. This obstacle is in- 
 dicated in the preceding poem. It 
 is the unrest caused by those things 
 which awaken most vividly his loss, 
 illustrated by the poet's aversion to 
 Vienna. His peace cannot be called 
 complete so long as a single spot on 
 the earth is capable of impairing it. 
 The succeeding four poems dispose of 
 this obstacle and prepare the mind for 
 the next cycle. 
 
 The poet is about to leave his na- 
 tive Lincolnshire, where every spot 
 suggests some memory of his friend, 
 and with double vividness now that he 
 is on the eve of leaving. These mem- 
 ories, which almost cause his sorrow 
 to begin anew, must be met and re- 
 solved before the growing peace of 
 mind is complete.
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 
 A. FAREWELL TO OLD SCENES. 
 
 1. The old place, as the poet is 
 about to leave it, awakens memories 
 of the days when Arthur enjoyed its 
 associations ; and the thought is as if 
 he had died afresh, and sorrow must 
 begin anew. 
 
 2. Thought of how these old asso- 
 ciations of the place will lose their 
 sacredness, and how new associations 
 and other memories will gradually 
 come to cluster around the same 
 scenes. 
 
 3. The pleasant thought of the po- 
 et's own childhood and the sad thought 
 of his later bereavement, which rise 
 alike from the contemplation of the 
 old home, strive together like "two 
 spirits of a diverse love," until they 
 mingle at last into one picture, in which 
 he seems to view both from afar ; and 
 thus his agitation passes into tender 
 melancholy.
 
 1/2 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 B. CONTENT TO ENTER NEW SCENES. 
 
 cm. A dream on the last night spent in 
 
 the old home cheers the poet with hope 
 of what is to be. 
 
 As in his dream he is summoned to 
 leave the hall where he has dwelt with 
 maidens who honored the dead with 
 song " of what is wise and good and 
 graceful," and passes with them down 
 a widening river toward the great sea, 
 the scenery becomes grander, and all 
 grow in majesty of thought and spirit ; 
 and when at last Arthur himself is 
 seen, greatened and glorified, all are 
 grown ready to meet him, and all sail 
 away together on the great deep. 
 
 This dream both satisfies the thought 
 of the present cycle, by dispelling the 
 last cloud of unrest, and stands as a 
 hint of the world's great future, which 
 the coming cycle is to portray.
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 173 
 
 STforb Cpcfe. 
 
 CIV.-CXXXI. 
 
 "The love 
 Toward which all being solemnly doth move." 
 
 A. H. HALLAM. 
 
 To the Cycle of the Past and the 
 Cycle of the Present is now added T 
 " the closing cycle rich in good," the 
 Cycle of the Future. Besides its ad- 
 vance in time, we notice also, as in 
 the preceding cycle, an advance in 
 breadth ; and the future of which this 
 cycle sings, no longer confined to a 
 single new friendship or a narrow cir- 
 cle, takes in the whole race of men, 
 as the poet sees it raised and ennobled 
 by the same love which has hitherto 
 wrought him such good. He sees it 
 as the " crowning race," greatened by 
 all the achievements of the ages, and 
 is content to have wrought in sorrow 
 for their upbuilding ;
 
 174 TENNYSON'S IN ME MORI AM. 
 
 " For all we thought and loved and did, 
 And hoped, and suffer'd, is but seed 
 Of what in them is flower and fruit." 
 
 The friend whom the poem commem- 
 orates is connected with this greater 
 future by being taken as its type, as 
 one appearing in advance of his time, 
 from whose pure life men may gather 
 wisdom and be helped thereby to- 
 ward the ideal of manhood. See Epi- 
 logue, stanza 35. In accordance with 
 this plan the course of poems distinc- 
 tive of the cycle (cix.-cxiv.) is taken 
 up with a portrayal of his qualities of 
 mind and heart, as these already were 
 in themselves, and as they were in 
 promise. 
 
 CHRISTMAS-TIDE. CIV., CV. 
 i. Christmas eve. The surround- 
 
 civ. 
 
 ings are strange, and in this unaccus- 
 tomed place there is nothing to keep 
 alive the memory of past joys or be- 
 reavements, 
 cv. 2. Christmas present. In the second
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 175 
 
 Christmas-tide the lapse of time had 
 made Christmas observances pleasant 
 for their own sake ; now the " change 
 of place, like growth of time," has 
 wrought to cause the interest of the 
 usual customs to die ; as was indeed 
 predicted at the first Christmas-tide. 
 But in this dying of use and wont after 
 they have been once revived there is 
 no sign of retrogression in the thought; 
 rather, the usual customs have lost 
 their life because the spirit of Christ- 
 mas hope has become so settled and 
 significant that the ancient form can 
 no more express its meaning. The 
 cheer of this season not only eclipses 
 the grief, but rejects all formal demon- 
 strations of joy as unnecessary and 
 meaningless. 
 
 Henceforth the thought advances 
 into the greater future which it is ours 
 to work for, and which the world shall 
 see when men come to cherish and ex-
 
 176 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 emplify such qualities as the deceased 
 has already shown in type. 
 
 A striking characteristic of the com- 
 ing cycle is that all significant sea- 
 sons, New Year, Springtide, which 
 have represented the spirit of preced- 
 ing cycles, are reintroduced with fresh 
 significance; as if everything were 
 in some way suggestive of the great- 
 ness that is to be. 
 
 NEW YEAR. CVI. 
 
 ^ This poem introduces the thought 
 
 of the present cycle in brief, as in 
 previous cycles has been done by 
 groups of poems. In this song the 
 poet's individual desires for the future 
 are inseparably interwoven with his 
 longings for the reign of new princi- 
 ples and new character, for the intro- 
 duction of better customs, and the 
 banishment of unrighteousness, until 
 humanity shall reproduce in a regen- 
 erated society the greatness and char- 
 acter of Christ. The " Christ that is
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 177 
 
 to be," whose name forms the culmi- 
 nation of the song, is evidently viewed 
 as the Christ-like humanity. It is the 
 same ideal that was portrayed by a 
 Christian apostle eighteen centuries 
 before, in Ephesians iv. 13 : " Till we 
 all come in the unity of the faith, and 
 of the knowledge of the Son of God, 
 unto a perfect man, unto the measure 
 of the stature of the fullness of Christ." 
 
 BIRTHDAY OF THE DECEASED 
 (FEBRUARY i). CVII. 
 
 In the first cycle Springtide brought cvii. 
 the cheer of a new season; in the 
 second New Year heralded a new 
 round of seasons ; and now this char- 
 acterizing occasion of the third cycle 
 suggests a new life, a noble life, which, 
 having been lived once, may furnish 
 the model for noble lives to come. 
 The present anniversary illustrates, 
 as has already been intimated in the 
 Christmas-tide, how in this cycle the 
 spirit of hope has overcome. In the 
 
 12
 
 1 78 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 first cycle the suggestiveness of the 
 blooming season must make its way 
 from without into a reluctant mood ; 
 in the second cycle the calmer mood 
 and the promising season answer spon- 
 taneously to each other ; but here in 
 the closing cycle the hopeful mood has 
 so overcome the influences of season 
 and weather that even the bitter win- 
 try day can have no disturbing effect 
 on the confirmed cheer within, the 
 mind's peace is sufficient to itself, and 
 not dependent. 
 
 " Be cheerful-minded, talk and treat 
 Of all things ev'n as he were by." 
 
 The thought characteristic of this 
 cycle now ensues, introduced by a 
 poem in which the bereaved expresses 
 his resolution to forsake individual 
 sorrows and individual aims, and from 
 his experience to reap in the broader 
 world the fruit that comes from sor- 
 row interpreted by love ; and that no
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN ME MORI AM. 179 
 
 longer in speculations on unseen mys- 
 teries, but " under human skies." 
 
 Looking toward that broader future, 
 the thought shapes itself on what the 
 birthday naturally suggests : the char- 
 acter of the deceased, its worth and 
 promise. He is regarded as a type 
 of the nobler race that is to be ; and 
 therefore from every line of his char- 
 acter some instructive example may 
 be drawn. 
 
 Six poems portray at length the 
 character of the deceased. These 
 divide themselves into two groups, 
 which represent respectively its aspect 
 as regards the individual, and its as- 
 pect as regards the race.
 
 180 TENNYSOWS IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 FIRST GROUP. 
 
 WISDOM GATHERED FROM A REMINIS- 
 CENCE OF WHAT THE DECEASED WAS 
 
 IN HIS PERSONAL CHARACTER. CIX.- 
 CXII. 
 
 " 'T is held that sorrow makes us wise, 
 Whatever wisdom sleep with thee." 
 
 i. His intellect and character, as 
 showing a well - rounded manhood, 
 generously endowed with strength and 
 grace, illustrating his own ideal, 
 
 " How hard it were to find 
 A human bosom of such stubborn truth, 
 Yet tempered so with yielding courtesy." 
 
 It may be interesting, in connection 
 with these poems describing Arthur 
 Hallam's character, to give some par- 
 allel testimonies from his early friends, 
 taken from the Memoir in A. H. Hal- 
 lam's "Remains." His father, the 
 editor of that volume, writes, " From 
 the earliest years of this extraordinary 
 young man, his premature abilities
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. l8l 
 
 were not more conspicuous than an 
 almost faultless disposition, sustained 
 by a more calm self-command than 
 has often been witnessed in that season 
 of life. The sweetness of temper that 
 distinguished his childhood, became, 
 with the advance of manhood, an 
 habitual benevolence, and ultimately 
 ripened into that exalted principle of 
 love towards God and man, which ani- 
 mated and almost absorbed his soul 
 during the latter period of his life. . . . 
 He seemed to tread the earth as a 
 spirit from some better world." 
 
 2. His influence on others, to ex. 
 delight and inspire those who love the 
 good, to strengthen the feeble and 
 fearful, to shame all evil and untruth. 
 
 This and the following are from his 
 early friends and college mates. " He 
 was fond of society; the society (at 
 least) which he could command at 
 Cambridge. He moved chiefly in a 
 set of men of literary habits, remark- 
 able for free and friendly intercourse,
 
 1 82 TENNYSON'S IN ME MORI AM. 
 
 whose characters, talents, and opinions, 
 of every complexion, were brought into 
 continual collision, all license of dis- 
 cussion permitted, and no offense 
 taken. And he was looked up to by 
 all as the life and grace of the party. 
 ... I look back upon those days with 
 unmixed comfort; not a word ever 
 passed between us that I need now 
 wish unsaid." 
 
 ex,. 3. The genuineness and true nobil- 
 ity of his character. Gentler even 
 than he seemed, in all noble manners, 
 he illustrated well " the grand old 
 name of gentleman." 
 
 " No man tempered wit and wisdom 
 so gracefully ; no man was so perfectly 
 made to be admired for his excellent 
 accomplishments ; to be revered for 
 his true heart and chivalrous princi- 
 ple ; to be delighted in for the sweet- 
 ness, and gayety, and graciousness of 
 his life and conversation ; to be loved 
 for all his qualities." 
 
 am. 4. The reserve of power and char-
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 183 
 
 acter in his nature, which caused his 
 friends ever to hope greater things of 
 him. 
 
 " We have invariably agreed that it 
 was of him above all his contempo- 
 raries that great and lofty expectations 
 were to be formed." "It seems due 
 to his memory that it should be known 
 how far what he had done falls short 
 of what a few years hence he would 
 have done, how far his vast and 
 various powers yet were from having 
 attained their full stature and mature 
 proportions."
 
 1 84 TENNYSON'S IN ME MORI AM. 
 
 SECOND GROUP. 
 
 WISDOM GATHERED FROM THE CON- 
 SIDERATION OF WHAT THE DECEASED 
 WAS AND WOULD HAVE BECOME, IN 
 HIS ADAPTEDNESS TO ACT ON THE 
 WORLD. CXIII., CXIV. 
 
 " T is held that sorrow makes us wise ; 
 Yet how much wisdom sleeps with thee 
 Which not alone had guided me, 
 But served the seasons that may rise." 
 
 ocm. i. His rare qualities of mind and 
 heart would have made him an impor- 
 tant influence on his age, equal to all 
 emergencies. 
 
 " When much time has elapsed, and 
 when most bereavements would be for- 
 gotten, he will still be remembered, 
 and his place, I fear, will be felt to be 
 still vacant, singularly as his mind was 
 calculated by its native tendencies to 
 work powerfully and for good in an 
 age full of import to the nature and 
 destinies of man."
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 185 
 
 2. He was a worthy exemplifier of oov. 
 that higher Wisdom which in this ea- 
 ger age Knowledge needs to keep her 
 within proper bounds. 
 
 The poet thus takes occasion to de- 
 fine his idea of wisdom as the sup- 
 plement and regulator of knowledge, 
 without which regulator the latter is 
 a danger, and no blessing. This poem 
 expands the idea expressed in the 
 Prologue, stanza 7. 
 
 SPRINGTIDE. CXV., CXVI. 
 
 The last note of time in the poem. 
 Standing immediately after those 
 poems in which is defined, in terms 
 of Arthur's character, the greatness 
 which the world needs, it adds to 
 them the suggestiveness of the bud- 
 ding year. The special object of this 
 Springtide seems to be to indicate the 
 permanent mood in which the forego- 
 ing thought has left the poet ; and 
 thus it corresponds to the groups of 
 poems, Ixvi.-lxxi., in the first cycle,
 
 1 86 TENNYSON'S IN ME MORI AM. 
 
 and xcvi.-xcviii., in the second cycle. 
 It also introduces the final application 
 and conclusion of the whole thought ; 
 and so with springtide the poem leaves 
 us passing on into a new era of hope. 
 
 cxv. i. The year awakes from the frosts 
 
 of winter into the life and bloom of 
 spring. So awakes regret, and buds 
 and blossoms with the rest. 
 
 cxvi. 2. But just as the year's awaking is 
 the awaking of "life re-orient out of 
 dust," so the feeling that awakes with 
 it is not all, nor predominantly, regret. 
 It is rather anticipation of a strong 
 bond to be, a feeling of certitude in 
 the blessed future. 
 
 Having drawn the lesson from the 
 achievements and the promise of his 
 friend's life, and used the suggestive- 
 ness of springtide to illustrate his set- 
 tled attitude of hope, the poet now 
 draws the application, for himself and 
 every one.
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 187 
 
 THE WORK OF THE DAYS TO COME. 
 CXVII., CXVIII. 
 
 1. For the bereaved himself. To cxvn. 
 make every day and every hour con- 
 tribute some good thing toward the 
 blessedness of his coming union with 
 Arthur. 
 
 2. For every one, as a representa- cxvm. 
 tive of humanity. Suggested by the 
 progress of life on the globe, from the 
 lowest organisms up to man, who, an- 
 swering to that type of progress, has 
 
 such dignity of nature that he is sure 
 to be either the herald of a still higher 
 race, or, failing this, to show the great- 
 ness of his nature even in its ruins. 
 It is incumbent on every one, there- 
 fore, to subdue the lower nature and 
 work upward ever in the higher. 
 
 DEFINING-POINT END. CXIX. 
 
 The progress in hope made since cxix. 
 the first crushing blow of bereavement 
 is indicated by the different emotions
 
 1 88 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 experienced on visiting the former 
 residence of the deceased. Compare 
 poem vii. No longer in confused de- 
 spair, but in peaceful hope, the poet 
 comes, thinking on the departed friend 
 with blessings ; and all surroundings 
 of weather and scenery answer to the 
 calm within. 
 
 As the first defining-point was pre- 
 ceded by a prospect, so this is suc- 
 ceeded by a retrospect, which looks 
 back over the whole way that the poet 
 has come, and gathers up some of its 
 most significant results. To this is 
 added the summary and conclusion of 
 the whole work. 
 
 RETROSPECT AND CONCLUSION. 
 CXX.-CXXXI. 
 
 The Retrospect shows an interest- 
 ing parallelism to the Prologue, in this 
 respect, that it has reached the sum- 
 mit of progress occupied by the latter, 
 so that both view the victory over de-
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN ME MORI AM. 189 
 
 spair and doubt as gained. The par- 
 allelism runs, however, in inverse or- 
 der. The Prologue, beginning with 
 prayer, looks directly to that immortal 
 Love in whose personal might the vic- 
 tory has been gained ; and from this 
 view of heaven it advances to recog- 
 nize the woes and needs of earth, as 
 they are exemplified in the experience 
 which In Memoriam records. At this 
 point the poem takes up the thought, 
 and passes through the world of sor- 
 rowful experience, seeking heavenly 
 things by faith. To review this long 
 journey stands now the Retrospect; 
 and this passes by a few rapid strokes 
 to recognize the love by which the 
 poet's faith has been actuated as the 
 immortal Love whom the Prologue 
 celebrates, which Love is accepted as 
 Lord of all, and worshiped, as at the 
 beginning. So prayer and achieve- 
 ment are united in one.
 
 1 90 TENNYSOWS IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 A. HOW THE PAST CONFLICT HAS 
 PROVED THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 
 
 cxx . Such a fight of faith with death 
 
 proves man infinitely more than any 
 mere materialistic theory can explain, 
 and born to a high divine destiny, 
 which it is his glory to realize. 
 
 B. SURVEY OF THE RESULTS REACHED 
 IN THE THREE GREAT CYCLES OF 
 THE BEREAVED SOUL'S PROGRESS. 
 
 cxx,. i. The Cycle of the Past. Sug- 
 gested by the thought of the planet 
 Venus, the star of love, which, being 
 both evening star and morning star, 
 illustrates in one both the rising of 
 love on the darkened and despairing 
 life, to cheer its night, and the rising 
 of love on the life progressing in hope, 
 to herald its morning. 
 
 2. The Cycle of the Present. Rem- 
 iniscence of the culminating scene in 
 the second cycle, described in poem 
 xcv., where an hour of communion was
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 19 1 
 
 enjoyed with the immortal dead. That 
 same nearness is again desired as a 
 permanent blessing. 
 
 3. The Cycle of the Future. From cxxm. 
 the general view, characteristic of the 
 third cycle, of the development of 
 earth and man (see poems cxviii., 
 cxx.), the poet draws a suggestion of 
 his own contrast to inanimate nature ; 
 in that, while the most solid things of 
 earth pass, he is conscious of an undy- 
 ing spiritual nature, in which he will 
 dwell. 
 
 C. HOW THE DIVINE POWER WAS 
 FOUND. 
 
 In the last poem is expressed the cxxiv. 
 consciousness of a spiritual nature 
 which is immortal. This recognition 
 of conscious immortality is naturally 
 followed by recognition of Him who is 
 the Author of immortality, the uncom- 
 prehended One ; who is found not by 
 reason, or speculation, but by faith 
 and love. As the most important ex-
 
 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 perience in which God was found, and 
 the type of all the rest, allusion is 
 made in stanzas 5 and 6 to that hour 
 of most bewildered doubt, described 
 in poems liv.-lvi., when the poet fled 
 from Nature to God, and found there- 
 in a power to mould and sanctify him. 
 
 D. THE MINISTRY OF POESY. 
 
 Poesy has acted as chorus, to in- 
 terpret the poet's wayward moods, 
 whether of grief or joy, and turn all 
 to good account. In his deepest self 
 the poet has never lost hope ; he has 
 merely used the song to guide thought 
 and feeling to a hopeful end. 
 
 E. SUMMARY OF RETROSPECT. 
 
 The conclusion to which the Retro- 
 spect has conducted is summarized in 
 three poems, which are directed re- 
 spectively, as the course of the poem 
 has been, to past, present, and future. 
 
 i. The sanctifier of the past glori- 
 fied in the present. " Love is and was
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 193 
 
 my Lord and King." What has all 
 along been cherished as a spirit with- 
 in, to guide and bless and interpret, is 
 now recognized as the master power 
 of the life. 
 
 2. The unseen Ruler of the present. CXXVH. 
 It is the same Love, whose voice pure 
 hearts can hear through the wild 
 storms of human passion and social 
 change ; and so we may know, as 
 happy spirits know, that in spite of 
 conflict all is well. From the allusion 
 
 in stanza 2 it would seem that this 
 poem was inspired by the French rev- 
 olutionary movements of 1848. 
 
 3. The hope for the world's future. CX xvin. 
 This too lies in Love, which shall 
 
 make its power more felt, and shall 
 outlive the reactions of onward time, 
 working out of all diversities a grander 
 unity, until its divine end is attained. 
 '3
 
 194 TENNYSON'S IN ME MORI AM. 
 
 CONCLUDING INVOCATION. 
 
 In this Invocation the idea of Love 
 reaches its highest. First beheld and 
 cherished as a moulding, sanctifying 
 power within, then recognized as 
 Lord and King above, it is now seen 
 to involve yet more : it becomes in 
 a deep sense incarnate in manhood. 
 The idea may perhaps best be ex- 
 pressed in Arthur Hallam's own 
 words. " The tendency of love," he 
 once wrote, " is towards a union so in- 
 timate as virtually to amount to iden- 
 tification ; when, then, by affection to- 
 wards Christ we have become blended 
 with His being, the beams of Eternal 
 Love falling, as ever, on the one be- 
 loved object will include us in Him, 
 and their returning flashes of love out 
 of His personality will carry along with 
 them some from our own, since ours 
 has become confused with His, and 
 so shall we be one with Christ and 
 through Christ with God." Follow-
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 195 
 
 ing such an idea, the poet recognizes 
 Arthur, who was true to divine Love 
 here, as now living in God ; and he is 
 here addressed in an invocation which 
 recognizes his nature as, while not less 
 perfect in itself, inseparable from the 
 divine. 
 
 1. The immortal friend, in whom cxxix. 
 divine Love has assumed a mysterious 
 personality, is addressed as the type 
 
 from which the world's ideal may be 
 interpreted. 
 
 2. The earthly friend sees all the cxxx. 
 world of nature filled by Arthur's hal- 
 lowing presence, and his own love 
 growing by loyalty into the same di- 
 vine image. 
 
 3. Finally. A prayer to the Love cxxxi. 
 over all, who is recognized, as in the 
 Prologue, as Lord of our wills. 
 
 " Our wills are ours, we know not how ; 
 Our wills are ours, to make them thine." 
 
 May His power flow through our 
 deeds, being appropriated by faith, 
 until we outlive all changes and
 
 196 TENNYSON'S IN ME MORI AM. 
 
 chances of time, made holy by trust 
 in unseen things. 
 
 EPILOGUE. 
 
 Epilogue. The poem that began with death, 
 over which in its long course it has 
 found love triumphant, now ends with 
 marriage, that highest earthly illustra- 
 tion of crowned and completed love. 
 The Epilogue is a marriage-song, or 
 Epithalamium, celebrating the " wed- 
 ding of a younger sister, Cecilia Ten- 
 nyson, who, about the year 1842, mar- 
 ried Edmund Law Lushington, some- 
 time Professor of Greek at the Univer- 
 sity of Glasgow." * From the similarity 
 of the address in stanza i to that in 
 poem Ixxxv. 2, it would seem that the 
 bridegroom is the friend whom the poet 
 welcomed in the place of the de- 
 ceased. 
 
 1 Quoted from Gatty : Key lo Tennyson' 1 s In Memo- 
 riant^ p. 147.
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMORIAM. 197 
 
 It is, I think, a superficial criticism 
 which says, " The whole poem is 
 pleasant and jocund, but scarcely har- 
 monizes with the lofty solemnity of In 
 Memoriam." Occurring at the end of 
 the cycle in which the poet has found 
 such peacefulness of hope from the 
 resolution, " I will not shut me from 
 my kind," it seems eminently fitting 
 that the close should be pleasant and 
 jocund, in the fully recovered joys of 
 earth. The poem also affords occa- 
 sion to bring in review before us the 
 leading features and influences of In 
 Memoriam, which, indeed, have be- 
 come so familiar and well defined that 
 we may almost recognize them as dra- 
 matis persona. 
 
 \. Love, which survives regret and 
 the grave, has recovered her peace in 
 this world, has grown greater and 
 holier, and yet by no means less loyal 
 to the dead ; and now, no more dis- 
 turbed by the past, she devotes herself 
 to the innocent joys of the present.
 
 198 TENNYSON'S IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 2. Remembrance of the dead is 
 cherished, not sacrificed ; the dead is 
 thought of as living, and perhaps pres- 
 ent on this occasion, shedding unseen 
 blessings on this coronation of love. 
 
 3. The living present is suggested 
 by the marriage-bells and festivities ; 
 a present in which love finds its pur- 
 est expression. 
 
 4. The greater future is suggested 
 in the thought of the new life that may 
 rise from this union, a new-born soul, 
 who will look on a race more advanced 
 than this, and contribute to its great- 
 ness, and so be a link between us and 
 the perfect future. 
 
 5. Finally, a view of the far future 
 perfected. Its character : the view of 
 knowledge eye to eye, the complete 
 subjugation in our nature of all that is 
 brutish, the flower and fruit of which 
 the present contains the seed. Its 
 type : the life of Arthur, who appeared 
 in advance of his time. Its culmina- 
 tion : life in God.
 
 STRUCTURE OF IN MEMO R I AM. 199 
 
 So again the thought is subjected to 
 the interpreting light of God and im- 
 mortality, which idea, reigning through- 
 out the poem, has made In Memoriam 
 the most distinctively theological poem 
 of the century. 
 
 " 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."
 
 University of California 
 
 SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 
 
 Return this material to the library 
 
 from which It was borrowed.
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 A 000 71 1 544 7