**.+f A KEY TO LORD TENNYSON'S "IN MEMORIAM." GEORGE BELL & SONS, LONDON : YORK ST., COVENT GARDEN NEW YORK: 6<5, FIFTH AVENUE, AND BOMBAY: 53, ESPLANADE ROAD CAMBRIDGE : DEIGHTOX, BELL & CO Vfafctrv??/. (^z/^zr/ts -/^^ A KEY TO LORD TENNYSON'S "IN MEMORIAM" BY ALFRED GATTY, D.D. VICAR OF ECCLESFIELD AND SUB-DEAN OF YORK LONDON GEORGE BELL AND SONS 1900 First Published, 1 88 1 . Second Edition, 1885,- Third Edition, 1891^ Fourth Edition, 1894,- Reprinted, 1897, 1900. IBeDicatton. TO THE CHERISHED MEMORY OF THE MOTHER OF MY CHILDREN, I DEDICATE THIS BRIEF LABOUR OF LOVE. A. G. 2052604 PREFACE. WHEN any one has survived the allotted age of man, there is a long past to remem- ber, and a short future to expect ; and it is the period of youth which is then found most clearly recorded on the tablets of the brain the days, probably, of school and college, and the first establishment of a self-made home. Middle life, with its work and anxieties, is by comparison only feebly retained ; as though there had been found no room for fuller records on the preoccupied mind. But, in the indistinct interval of forty or fifty years, the loss by death of those whom we have loved cannot be forgotten ; and when one dearer than any friend is also taken viii PREFACE. away, then, under such bereavement, may be found an amount of comfort and sup- port in the Poet Laureate's In Memoriam which no other secular writing can supply. To me, this Poem has been an addi- tional buttress to the faith, which my edu- cation and sacred profession had sustained. When a great mind, at once so specula- tive 'and so untrammelled, runs over the whole field of thought, and comes to the conviction that the hope of the Christian is the one sure prospect beyond the grave ; this imparts to the mourner a consolation, to which nothing earthly can compare. My own interest in this great Poem has been farther enhanced by the fact that I and mine, long years ago, enjoyed friendly intercourse with the Poet at Freshwater ; and this was afterwards renewed in the lives of his younger son and mine. The incidents of the Poem have also slightly touched me, inasmuch as I was a contemporary of Arthur H. Hallam, at PREFACE. ix Eton ; and I was in Chapman's house, at Charterhouse, with Edmund Law Lushing- ton, when he was, at a very early age, cap- tain of the school. The associates of Hallam's schooldays I well recall, for they included several who became eminent in the service of the state, and in the ranks of literature; and most of these have now passed away. In Memoriam has thus, in a measure, been the means of recalling my own early youth ; and I have felt that the subject of the Poem befitted the study of my advanced life. The scenery of In Memoriam being principally laid either at Somersby or Clevedon the birth-place of the Poet or the burial-place of his friend I had long been desirous of visiting these somewhat retired spots; and my wish has at length been gratified. After sleeping at Horncastle, we drove six miles across a flat uninteresting country, where the fields betrayed signs of agricul- x PREFACE. tural depression, until a short steep descent brought us into a more sheltered and wooded region, where was the sound of running water ; a and the little old church, with its square stumpy moss-covered tower, told us that we were in the village of Somersby " the well-beloved place Where first we gazed upon the sky." And one could well fancy that the roomy comfortable residence, in which the Rev. Dr. Tennyson reared a large family, was a cherished home, and is still held in fond remembrance. This house is not the Rectory, though for a long time it was so tenanted : it is rather the Manor House of the Burton family, who for centuries b have owned the land and been patrons of the living. The The brook alone far off was heard." P. xcv. s. 2. b In Bag Enderby Church is a stone memorial tablet to the Burton family, let into the wall, and dated 1591. Upon it are carved, in bold relief, parents and children in a kneeling pos- ture. It has a Latin motto, signifying, that all begins with the dust of the earth, and ends with it. PREFACE. xi present possessor now occupies it, and he received our visit of interested enquiry with much courtesy and kindness. The house stands a little back from the road, with a drive to the door which may be called the front entrance ; though the principal rooms are behind, and look into the garden. Here are the " Witch-elms that counterchange the floor Of this flat lawn with dusk and bright ; " and the lawn may still be called flat, (see note, page 96), though it slopes slightly downward with the natural leaning of the ground. The four poplars have been blown down. Beyond the lawn stretches the garden, and yet a little farther is a pond, on which, they say, the young inhabitants of the pseudo-Rectory learned to skate. The largest room in this Manor House was added by Dr. Tennyson : it is the dining- room, with an open groined roof; and the xii PREFACE. walls of it are now covered with apparently old paintings heirlooms, one may sup- pose, of the Burton family. In the centre of the hamlet, where three roads meet, with a guide-post directing the wayfarer to Louth, Horncastle, and Alford, there stands a fine witch-elm ; and at Bag Enderby, also in the middle of the road, is another still larger witch-elm, with a huge arm that craves support. Both these trees were carried and planted, about a century ago, by the grandfather of Mr. Burton, the present proprietor of the estate. Somersby and Bag Enderby are hamlets about one quarter of a mile apart, and are held by one Rector, who now resides at the latter place. Their ancient churches are structures of more strength than beauty; and though neither of them is larger than a good sized chamber, it quite suffices for the few inhabitants. At both churches we found the key in the door, and could therefore investigate the sacred buildings PREFACE. xiii at our lei-sure ; and coming from a popu- lous manufacturing district, with a grand mediaeval parish church, we found the con- trast very striking. Somersby churchyard adjoins the road, but the ground is higher. The first object which greets you on entering through a short shaded path, is a most remarkable crucifix, which has fortunately escaped the hand of Puritan violence. On a thin stone shaft, which is at least twelve feet high, there is the carved figure of our Lord on the Cross, still plainly traceable ; and be- hind is a full-length draped female figure. This antique gem is sheltered under a narrow-pointed roof of stone. It is a curious and rare memorial of ante-Refor- mation times ; and within the porch there is a contemporary relic a shallow stone basin for holy water which still seems to invite the finger to dip, and mark the holy sign. Over the porch entrance is a plain dial with the motto, " Time passeth." b xiv PREFACE. The interior of the church has lost something of the primitive character that still reigns at En derby : there has been a partial restoration : both nave and chancel are now floored with coloured tiles, and the old pews have been superseded by open sittings of red pine. There is a plain solid font lined with lead ; and having seen the chamber in which the great Poet was born, we could not help thinking that here was the birth-place of that name,* which not even his well-earned peerage will ever obliterate. Over the porch door inside are the royal arms, and at the west end two bell ropes depend, which are the means of sum- moning the few worshippers to the Sunday service. In the sacrarium is a small brass, showing a kneeling figure and an armorial shield, dedicated to George Littlebury, 1612. A more modern marble The name is happily preserved in his patent of nobility, which runs thus ' Al red, ist Baron Tennyson of Aid worth, in the County of Sussex." PREFACE. xv monument, to one of the Burtons, is fixed on the wall near the pulpit. The exterior of the church shows strong coarse stone masonry, which is here and there repaired and patched by local art with bricks. In the small graveyard are two altar tombs, which drew our attention. They seem to cover a vault, and are railed round ; and the inscription on one records that Dr. Tennyson held the livings of Somersby, Bag Enderby, Benniworth, and Great Grimsby, and that he died on i6th March, 1831, aged 52.* Wild violets were in flower encircling the base of this tomb. A successor was buried near, the Rev. L. B. Burton, who had held the two adjoining benefices for more than forty years. Immediately opposite the church, and closely adjacent to the Manor House, is a very remarkable building, of considerable About the time of Dr. Tennyson's death, the population of Somersby was 61, the church accommodation 60, and the annual value of the benefice ,92. The population of Bag Endeiliy was 115, church accommodation 100, and value xvi PREFACE. architectural pretension; as will be cre- dited when it is told that Sir J. Vanbrugh designed it ! It is entirely composed of brick sombre and solid in character it has a flat roof and is battlemented. If differently placed, it might have suggested Mariana's "Moated Grange." It is an edifice of more exterior grandeur than the adjoining Manor House, and the rooms are lined with oak panelling ; but it is un- suited to the habits of modern life, and now stands empty. The village of Enderby is, like its sister hamlet, absolutely rural, with an antiquated little church, much needing such material repair as times and circumstances do not seem to allow. It is dedicated to S. Mar- garet, and has a fine old font, octagonal in shape, and each side has rudely carved figures upon it. The flat modern ceiling cuts off the point of the chancel arch, and the same disfigurement occurs at the west end, where the two bells are rung from the PREFACE. xvii floor. In neither village did we see either a nonconformist chapel or a public-house. In giving some account of Clevedon, I would tell how my own interest in the subject of this little work has drawn forth the friendly notice of one who fully parti- cipates in all the enthusiasm and, admira- tion that In Memoriam can excite. Edward Malan, himself a fine scholar and son of a most scholarly father, has greatly assisted me, especially with classical illustrations of the text ; and as he visited Clevedon before I went there, and has described Hallam's burial-place so appre- ciatively, I shall freely use his words when I come to that part of my subject. How the friendship came about which has found such undying record in this Poem, is soon told. Alfred Tennyson and Arthur H. Hallam met, as undergraduates, at Trinity College, Cambridge, about the year 1828. Tennyson, born in 1809, was the older by one year and a half. Both xviii PREFACE. these young men were inheritors of remark- able ability the one being a son of the distinguished historian, and the other a son of an accomplished divine both, too, were themselves highly educated, and one at least was possessed of the highest genius. Their friendship was not founded on a com- mon participation in the ordinary interests of youth, but they sympathized in poetical temperament and philosophical taste. The mental stature of Hallam, and his pure and beautiful disposition in their college life, are recalled by the Poet in many places, but especially in Poems cix. and following. In 1829, the two friends competed for the Chancellor's gold medal for the Eng- lish Prize Poem, the subject being " Tim- buctoo," and Tennyson gained it. This College intimacy -was continued at both their homes, and Hallam became engaged in marriage to one of Tennyson's sisters. This alliance may have deepened the attachment of the friends; but was not PREFACE. xix needed to account for the survivor writing of the departed as "more than my brothers are to me." Arthur Hallam took his degree at Cam- bridge in January, 1832, and then lived with his father in London ; having been entered on the boards of the Inner Tem- ple, as a student of Law. At the be- ginning of August, 1833, they went a short tour into Germany, and, in returning to Vienna from Pesth, a wet day caused a slight attack of intermittent fever in Arthur, which was apparently subsiding, when a sudden rush of blood to the head put an instantaneous end to his life, on the 1 5th September, 1833. A subsequent "examination showed a weakness of the cerebral vessels, and a want of sufficient energy in the heart." Mr. Hallam adds this sad tribute to his son's memory : " Those whose eyes must long be dim with tears, and whose hopes on this side the tomb are broken down for xx PREFACE. ever, may cling, as well as they cai, to the poor consolation of believing that a few more years would, in the usual chances of humanity, have severed the frail union of his graceful and manly form, with the pure spirit it enshrined. The remains of Arthur were brought to England, and interred on the 3rd January, 1834, in the chancel'' of Clevedon Church, Somersetshire, belong- ing to his maternal grandfather, Sir Abra- ham Elton; a place selected not only from the connexion of kindred, but on ac- count of its still and sequestered situation, on a lone hill that overhangs the Bristol Channel." My friend, Edward Malan, gives the fol- lowing graphic account of his visit to Hal- lam's grave "The chief attraction for visitors to Clevedon is the obscure and solitary parish church of St. Andrew, where the great his- a The use of this word misled the Poet himself, who has since exchanged the term " chancel " for "dark church." PREFACE. xxi torian and his eldest son, Arthur Hallam, are interred. You seek it by the beach and. through the fields, and you find it at last, an old and lonely church beside the sea, in a hollow between two green headlands. The path up to it, bordered with ash trees and hawthorns, winds along the side of Church Hill, the first of the two headlands, which shuts it from view until, rounding a green shoulder, you come suddenly upon it, like a ghost. Even then, unless you have brought a mind in harmony, there is little to see, for the spot is so deserted and so lifeless that you seem to have stepped back through centuries, and to be moving in some old-world time. A weird sensa- tion creeps over you, gazing on the ivy and wall-rue, and the path trodden by cottagers a feeling akin to awe, which reminds you somehow of the poems of Ossian. You are in the presence of these three grey sisters, grey thought, grey silence, grey repose : only clouds, like a troop of mourners, xxii PREFACE. hurrying up over the waste, only a solemn dirge as the wind sweeps wailing by, only the low faint murmur of the sea. The sun's last beams are on the distant hills, and the tide is ebbing dim and shadowy to the shadowy ocean beyond. " Inside, the church is old and dim, and filled with a faint odour of age. As the wind rises, mysterious pulses of sound awaken in the rafters overhead. The monuments of the Hallams are not in the chancel, but they are in the manor aisle affixed to the western wall. There are four of them, Arthur Hallam's being one of the two centre tombs. " A new organ now stands on the vault. The familiar names familiar, that is, in the classical sense are those of the Elton family, Hallam's relations. A memorial brass near at hand bears the name of Hallam's maternal grandfather, the Rev. Sir Abraham Charles Elton, fifth baronet, together with the names of the four pre- PREFACE. xxiii ceding baronets ; and a marble tablet, close to the site of the old family pew, records the death by drowning of Hallam's two cousins, Abraham and Charles, in 1819, at Weston-super-Mare, when Hallam him- self was eight years old. This unhappy occurrence has been commemorated by their father in an elegy entitled The Brothers. The moon, when high in the heavens (24 Dec. 1882), strikes through the south window of the aisle, slanting- wise on the monuments of the dead." Mr. Malan goes on wisely to say : " No apology is necessary for calling attention to In Memoriam. It has become an heir- loom. We may affirm of it, as has been affirmed of another great poem, that it was the work of the Poet's life, his favourite child, for which he stored up the riches of his science and the fruits of his inspiration. He carried it in his bosom like a lover's secret, and added to it from time to time as the tide of sorrow ebbed and flowed. xxiv PREFACE. If the insight thus gained into the workings of a great intellect, brought suddenly to the verge of sorrow, were all the reward that the poem offered, it would still be worth serious study. But we feel as we read that the man has not arrived at his view of truth without much labour, that we are witnessing an endeavour to escape from the coils of doubt, and that we have a victor who has faced and fought his troubles and difficulties." I may state that we had an interesting conversation with the sexton at Clevedon, Augustus James. He had held the office for about eighteen years, and perfectly re- membered the interment of Arthur Hallam. His father, who was sexton for forty-three years, made the vault, and officiated at the burial. Being astonished by the account of a hearse and mourning coaches traversing the whole distance from Dover to Cleve- don, and employing sixteen horses for the PREFACE. xxv journey, I ventured to ask the late Sir A. H. Elton, if he could corroborate the report, and he replied : " I think there may have been some truth in the state- ment of the old sexton. I believe that on the Continent very great precautions are required by the authorities, before the remains of a deceased person are per- mitted to be removed from the place in which the death occurred. I can easily believe that the heavy amount of lead, and other precautions, rendered it neces- sary to use a large force of horses." A. James says, that "the coffin was carried in every night where they stopped." Clevedon itself is a semi-seaside place, by no means interesting, at least as we saw it ; for the water was thick and had none of the bold features of the genuine ocean. But Clevedon Court, the seat of Sir Ed- mund H. Elton, to whom we had an intro- duction, is a picturesque rambling mansion, of which the most beautiful part is many xxvi PREFACE. centuries old, and the grounds are lovely. And I cannot pass by the interest and pleasure we derived from an insight into Sir Edmund's workshop, where, self-taught, he manufactures with his own hands, aided by a crippled lad who is his pupil, the beautiful pottery now well known to con- noisseurs as the " Elton ware," and of which he kindly gave us a specimen. Since this autumn visit (1884), which led to my appealing to Lady Lennard a sur- viving sister of Arthur Hallam on the point of obtaining a portrait of her brother, I have received from this lady the gift of a copy of the volume known as the "Re- mains in Verse and Prose of Arthur Henry Hallam," edited by his father, and which was privately printed. The interest of its contents was much enhanced to me by there being a portrait of Arthur from a bust by Chantrey, which Lady Lennard con- siders most like her brother, and therefore most suitable as a frontispiece to my book. PREFACE. xxYii I must add that the plate on which the portrait is engraved is in the possession of Mr. Murray, of Albemarle Street, to whom was entrusted the production of the volume, and he has been most kind in af- fording facilities for my having a number of copies of the engraving. But to no one am I so much indebted as to the late Lord Tennyson himself, who examined a previous edition of my " Key," and made some invaluable corrections, which are all printed in italics. I would not imply that I have now dived into the metaphysical depths of this marvellous poem ; or that its author gave his impri- matur to all he did not alter ; but as my " Key " was for some time in his posses- sion, I feel sure that it contains nothing which he disapproved : and it is enough for me, if it shall open the door of comfort and sympathy to any who either mourn or doubt. "I, in these poems, is not always the author speaking of himself, but the voice of the human race speaking through him. A. T." A KEY TO LORD TENNYSON'S "IN MEMORIAM." i. IT may be stated, on the highest authority, that the special passage alluded to in the opening stanza, cannot be identified, but /'/ is Goethe's creed. St. Augustine wrote, that we can rise higher on the ladder of life, by trampling down our vices. His words, in a Sermon on the Ascension, are, De vitiis nostris scalam nobis facimus, si vitia ipsa calcamus. Longfellow published a Poem, not earlier than 1842, which he called "The Ladder of St. Augustine;" and more recently, Lowell, another American Poet, and Minister Plenipotentiary in London, adopted a similar idea when he said, i 2 A KEY TO "'Tis sorrow builds the shining ladder up, Whose golden rounds are our calamities, Whereon our feet firm planting, nearer God The spirit climbs, and hath its eyes unseal'd." The "dead selves" of Tennyson are neither our vices nor our calamities ; but, rather, our general experiences, which all perish as they happen ; and of these, in his own case, the special loss he had sus- tained in the death of Hallam (his " more than brother " his dimidium sui, " bosom- friend and half of life ") ought to rouse him to soar into " higher things ; " rather than leave him to be pointed at, as " the man that loved and lost " (see Poems xxvii., 4, and Ixxxv., i) ; and all that he had before been, as now " over-worn," and prostrated by this one bereavement. But it was difficult to anticipate in the future a gain to match the loss he had sus- tained; and to appropriate interest, i.e., reap the fruit of tears that he was now shedding. Love, however, shall uphold his "IN MEMO RI AM:' 3 grief with sustaining power ; for it is better to be grief-mad, and " dance with death " (singing and dancing being a custom at ancient funerals) than become a spectacle of scorn for " the victor Hours " to deride, after they have effaced his love-born sorrow. n. But the struggle back to past content- ment and happiness is difficult; and the "Old Yew" of the churchyard seems to typify his present state of feeling. Its roots and fibres stretch downward, and hold the skull and bones of the dead ; like as his thoughts cling to his departed friend. Its " dusk " or shadow is before the church clock, 8 which strikes the hours of mortality, and this harmonizes with his life of mourning. The tree preserves its "thousand years of gloom," unchanged by the seasons which a The scene is not laid in Somersby Churchyard, as there is no clock in the Church tower. 4 A KEY TO affect other things the "old yew" con- tinues always the same "And gazing on thee, sullen tree, Sick for thy stubborn hardihood, I seem to fail from out my blood, And grow incorporate into thee." " Sick for " means, desirous of. It might seem as if the Poet, whose scientific allusions are always so striking and correct, had overlooked, when he wrote this Poem, that the yew bore blos- som and seed, like other trees : but it was not so. Of course, the Poet always knew, that a tree which bears a berry must have a blossom ; but Sorrow only saw the winter gloom of the foliage. Observe the recent introduction of Poem xxxix. ; also the description, near the beginning of " The Holy Grail " " They sat Beneath a world-old yew tree, darkening half The cloisters, on a gustful April morn That puff'd the swaying branches into smoke. "IN MEMORIAM." 5 O, brother, I have seen this yew-tree smoke, Spring after spring, for half a hundred years." It will be seen, in the later Poem, how a comparison with the gloomy yew has been modified. in. "Sorrow, cruel fellowship," from which he cannot disengage himself, now reigns within him, and distorts with " lying lip " a all Nature and her beneficent workings; making these seem to have no purpose or end. All which is but an echo of his own dark feelings. Shall he then believe this false guide " Embrace her as my natural good ; Or crush her, like a vice of blood, Upon the threshold of the mind ? " reject, and turn away from the impostures of a sorrowing imagination ? Critics have regarded the term "lying lip " as too harsh ; but in Poem xxxix. it is again applied to sorrow "What whisper'd from her lying lips?" See also Psalm cxx. a. 6 A KEY TO IV. In sleep there is no struggle of the will ; and he communes with his own heart, which is beating so low ; a condition that must be caused by a sense of " something lost." "Break," he says, still addressing his heart, but in metaphor; " Break, thou deep vase of chilling tears, That grief hath shaken into frost." This must refer to the scientific fact, that water can be lowered in temperature below the freezing point, without solidifying ; but it expands at once into ice if disturbed ; and the suddenness of the expansion breaks the containing vessel. Clouds of undefined trouble, such as "dreams are made of," pass "below the darken'd eyes," that is, figure themselves on the brain under the eyelids ; but on awaking, the will reasserts its power, and "IN MEMO RI AM." ^ protests against the folly of such mourning. He would therefore dismiss the phantom, Sorrow. v. He sometimes hesitates, as at something half sinful, when giving expression to his sadness ; because words at best only par- tially declare what the Soul feels ; just as outward Nature cannot fully reveal the inner life. But "after all" words act like narcotics, and numb pain : so, as if putting on "weeds," the garb of mourning, he will wrap himself over in words ; though these, like coarse clothes on the body, give no more than an outline of his " large grief." VI. The "common" expressions of sym- pathy with our trouble are very " common- place " " Vacant chaff well-meant for grain." 8 A KEY TO A friend asks, " Why grieve ? " " Other friends remain ; " " Loss is common to the race ; " as Hamlet's mother says, " All that live must die." Is this comfort? rather the contrary. We know it is so "Never morning wore To evening, but some heart did break." The father drinks his son's health at the war, in the moment when that son is shot. The mother prays for her sailor-boy when "His heavy-shotted hammock-shroud Drops in his vast and wandering grave. " The girl is dressing before the glass, and strives to array herself most becomingly for her expected lover ; and he meanwhile is either drowned in the ford, or killed by a fall from his horse " O what to her shall be the end? And what to me remains of good ? To her perpetual maidenhood, And unto me no second friend." "IN MEMORIAM," 9 These were all as unconscious of disaster as was the Poet, who, "to please him well," was writing to Hallam in the very hour that he died. There is a fine passage in Jeremy Tay- lor's " Holy Dying," which contains a like rumination on the uncertainty of life. " The wild fellow in Petronius that escaped upon a broken table from the furies of a shipwreck, as he was sunning himself upon the rocky shore, espied a man rolled upon his floating bed of waves, ballasted with sand in the folds of his garments, and carried by his civil enemy the sea towards the shore to find a grave ; and it cast him into some sad thoughts ; that peradventure this man's wife in some part of the Continent, safe and warm, looks next month for the good man's return ; or it may be his son knows nothing of the tempest ; or his father thinks of that affectionate kiss which still is warm upon the good old man's cheek ever since he took a kind farewell, and he weeps with joy to think how blessed he shall be when his beloved boy returns into the circle of his father's arms. "These are the thoughts of mortals, this is the end and sum of all their designs ; a dark night and an ill guide, a boisterous sea and a broken cable, an hard rock and a rough wind dashed in pieces io A KEY TO the fortune of a whole family, and they that shall weep loudest for the accident, are not yet entered into the storm, and yet have suffered shipwreck." VII. He persists in indulging his melancholy, and so creeps, "like a guilty thing," at early morning to the door of the house in London where Hallam had lived Wim- pole Street but this only serves to remind him that " He is not here ; but far away." The revival of busy movement on a wet morning in " the long unlovely street," a is vividly described " The noise of life begins again, And ghastly thro' the drizzling rain On the bald street breaks the blank day." VIII. He next compares himself to the disap- It is said of a celebrated clerical wit, that almost his last words were, " All things come to an end " a pause "ex- cept Wimpole Street." "IN ME MORI AM." n pointed lover who " alights" from his horse, calls at the home of his mistress, "And learns her gone and far from home." So, as the disappointed lover, to whom the whole place has at once become a desert, wanders into the garden, and culls a rain- beaten flower, which she had fostered ; even thus will he cherish and plant " this poor flower of poesy " on Hallam's tomb, a because his friend when alive had been pleased with his poetic power. IX. This poem commences an address to the ship that brings Hallam's body from Vienna to England " My lost Arthur's loved remains." No words can be more touching than a This reminds one of the Jour des marts M\ Souls' Day, or The Day of the Dead, when it is a Continental cus- tom to visit the graves of relatives and friends, with pious offerings of flowers, &c. 12 A KEY TO his appeal to the vessel, a for care and ten- derness in transporting its precious freight. He bids it come quickly; "spread thy full wings," hoist every sail ; "ruffle thy mir- ror'd mast ;" for the faster the ship is driven through the water, the more will the re- flected mast be "ruffled" on its agitated surface. May no rude wind " perplex thy sliding keel," until Phosphor the morning star, Venus shines ; and during the night may the lights' 3 above and the winds around be gentle as the sleep of him " My Arthur, whom I shall not see, Till all my widow'd race be run " until my life, bereaved of its first affection, be over. In Poem xvii., 5, the same line occurs This invocation to the ship reminds one of Horace's appeal to the vessel that was to bring Virgil home : Navis, qua tibi creditum Debes Virgiliitm,finibusAtticis Reddas incolumem, precor; Et serves animce dimidium meet. Lib. I., Ode 3. * " Sphere " glomcrn. "IN MEMO Rl AM." 13 " Till all my widow'd race be run," and it agrees with St. Paul's declaration, 2 Tim., iv., 7, " I have finished my course." The words race and course are synonymous, and refer to the foot-races of the ancients. " More than my brothers are to me," is re- peated in P. Ixxix., i. x. Very beautifully is the picture continued of the ship's passage, and he appeals to it for safely conducting " Thy dark freight, a vanish'd life." The placid scene, which he had ima- gined as attending the vessel, harmonizes with the home-bred fancy, that it is sweeter " To rest beneath the clover sod, That takes the sunshine and the rains ; " that is, to be buried in the open church- yard; " Or where the kneeling hamlet drains The chalice of the grapes of God. " a * This fruit of the vine, Matt, xxvi., 29. I4 A KEY TO that is, in the chancel of the church, near the altar rails ; than if, together with the ship, " the roaring wells " of the sea " Should gulf him fathom deep in brine ; And hands so often clasp'd in mine, Should toss with tangle a and with shells." XI. This Poem would describe a calm and quiet day in October late autumn. No doubt, the scenery described does not refer to Clevedon, but to some Lincoln- shire wold, from which the whole range from marsh to the sea was visible. The stillness of the spot is just broken by the sound of the horse chestnut fall- "Tangle," or "oar-weed," Lantinaria digitata, says the Algologist, "is never met with but at extreme tide- limits, where some of its broad leather-like fronds may be seen darkly overhanging the rocks, while others, a little lower down, are rising and dipping in the water like sea-ser- pents floated by the waves." Plato, Rep., x. ; has a noble comparison from the story of Glaucus (498) : " We must re- gard the soul as drowned (Jiaxf^svov) like the sea-god, Glaucus : who, buffetted and insulted by the waves, sank, clustered with orrffa , xai (frjxia, xai nvrfaf." "IN ME MORI AM." 15 ing a through the dead leaves, and these are reddening to their own fall. No time of the year is more quiet, not even is the in- sect abroad : the waves just swell and fall noiselessly, and this reminds him of " The dead calm in that noble breast Which heaves but with the heaving deep." XII. An ecstacy follows : in which the soul of the Poet seems to mount, like a dove rising into the heavens with a message of woe tied under her wings ; and so the disem- bodied soul leaves its "mortal ark" " our earthly house of this tabernacle " (2 Cor. v., i) and flees away "O'er ocean-mirrors rounded large" (the sea line constantly expanding and In the month of October, 1884, I walked in the thickly wooded precincts of Hughenden Manor, the seat of the Earl of Beaconsfield ; and I never heard the horse chestnuts patter to the ground as then and there. Quite ripe, they were con- stantly falling ; and as they touched the gravelled walk the shell opened, and out sprang the richly coloured chest- nut. A. G. 16 A KEY TO always being circular), until the ship comes in sight, when it lingers "on the marge," the edge of the sea, weeping with the piteous cry "Is this the end of all my care? Is this the end ? Is this the end ? " Then it flies in sport about the prow of the vessel, and after this seems to " return To where the body sits, and learn, That I have been an hour away. " XIII. The tears shed by the widower, when he wakes from a dream of his deceased wife, and " moves his doubtful arms " to find her place empty; are like the tears he himself is weeping over "a loss for ever new," a terrible void where there had been social intercourse, and a "silence" that will never be broken. For he is lamenting "IN MEMO RI AM." 17 " the comrade of my choice, An awful thought, a life removed, The human-hearted man I loved, A Spirit, not a breathing voice." Hallam is now only a remembrance no longer endowed with bodily functions, and the survivor cannot quite accept what has happened. He therefore asks Time to teach him " many years " for years to come the real truth, and make him feel that these strange things, over which his tears are shed, are not merely a prolonged dream ; and he begs that his fancies, hovering over the approaching ship, may quite realise that it brings no ordinary freight, but actually the mortal remains of his friend. XIV. The difficulty in apprehending his com- plete loss is further shown by his address to the ship, saying, that if it had arrived in 2 i8 A KEY TO port, and he saw the passengers step across the plank to shore; and amongst them came Hallam himself, and they renewed all their former friendship ; and Hallam, un- changed in every respect, heard his tale of sorrow with surprise : " I should not feel it to be strange." Both this and the previous Poem express the difficulty we feel in realising the death of some one who is dear to us. So Cowper wrote, after losing his mother, and in ex- pectation that she would yet return : "What ardently I wish'd, I long believed, And disappointed still, was still deceived." XV. A stormy change in the weather occurs : the winds "roar from yonder dropping day," that is, from the west, into which the daylight is sinking. And all the sights and sounds of tempest alarm him for the safety of the ship, and "77V MEMORIAM." 19 " But for fancies which aver That all thy motions gently pass Athwart a plane of molten glass, a I scarce could brook the strain and stir That makes the barren branches loud." Yet, in fear that it may not be so the sea calm and the wind still " the wild un- rest " would lead him to " dote and pore on " the threatening cloud, and the fiery sunset. XVI. This Poem is highly metaphysical. He asks whether Sorrow, which is his abiding feeling, can be such a changeling, as to alternate in his breast betwixt " calm de- spair" (see P. xi., 4) and "wild unrest?" (see P. xv., 4) ; or does she only just take this " touch of change," as calm or storm prevails ? knowing no more of transient form, than does a lake that holds "the a In Job xxxvii., 18, we read, " Hast thou with him spread out the sky, which is strong, and as a molten looking glass ? " This term applies equally well to the sea. 20 A KEY TO shadow of a lark," when reflected on its surface. Being distinct from bodily pain, Sorrow is more like the reflection than the thing reflected. But the shock he has received has made his mind confused, and he is like a ship that strikes on a rock and founders. He becomes a ' ' delirious man, Whose fancy fuses old and new, And flashes into false and true, And mingles all without a plan."* XVII. He hails the ship " thou comest " and feels as if his own whispered prayer for its safety, had been helping to waft it steadily across the sea. In spirit, he had seen it move " thro' circles of the bounding sky " the horizon at sea being always circular (see P. xii., 3) and he would wish its See 2 Cor. xii., i. "IN MEMORIAM." zi speedy arrival, inasmuch as it brings " all I love." For doing this, he invokes a blessing upon all its future voyages. It is no\\ bringing " The dust of him I shall not see Till all my widowed race be run." a XVIII. The ship arrives, the " dear remains " are landed, and the burial is to take place. It is something, worth the mourner's having, that he can stand on English ground where his friend has been laid, and know that the violet will spring from his ashes. Laertes says of Ophelia, " Lay her in the earth And from her fair and unpolluted flesh May violets spring ! " A beautiful invitation follows to those, who are sometimes irreverent bearers : See P. ix., 5. 22 A KEY TO "Come then, pure hands, and bear the head That sleeps or wears the mask of sleep, And come, whatever loves to weep, And hear the ritual of the dead." a Even yet, before the grave is closed, he would like, as Elisha did on the Shunam- mite woman's child, to cast himself, and " thro' his lips impart The life that almost dies in me ; " but still he resolves to form the firmer reso- lution, and to submit ; though meanwhile treasuring the look and words that are past and gone for ever. XIX. From the Danube to the Severn from Vienna to Clevedon the body has been conveyed, and was interred by the estuary The tenant farmers on the Clevedon estate were the bearers. The Rev. William Newland Pedder, who was Vicar of Clevedon for forty years, and died in 1871, read the burial service. The "familiar names" are those of the Elton family, which are recorded both on brass and marble in the church. "IN ME MORI AM." 23 of the latter river, where the village of Clevedon stands.* The Wye, a tributary of the Severn, is also tidal ; and when deepened by the sea flowing inward, its babbling ceases; but the noise recurs when the sea flows back. So does the Poet's power of expressing his grief alternate : at times he is too full in heart to find utterance; he "brims with sorrow " but after awhile, as when " the wave again is vocal in its wooded " banks, " My deeper anguish also falls, And I can speak a little then." The corpse was landed at Dover, and was brought by sixteen black horses all the way to Clevedon so says Augustus James, who, when a boy, witnessed the interment. Sir A. H. Elton, the late Baronet, kindly corroborated this statement. Besides the coffin, there was a square iron box, deposited in the vault, which may have contained "The darken'd heart that beat no more." It is certain that the Poet always thought that the ship put in at Bristol. Hallam's family resided in London, which accounts for the mourners coming from so great a distance. Augustus James told me, that the funeral procession consisted of a hearse and three mourning coaches, each of which was drawn by four horses ; and he saw the sixteen animals under cover after their journey. My friend, Mr. Edward Malan, heard the same story from A. James. 24 A KEY TO XX. He knows the " lesser grief" that can be told, also the " deeper anguish which can- not be spoken : " his spirits are thus vari- ably affected. In his lighter mood, he laments as ser- vants mourn for a good master who has died : " It will be hard, they say, to find Another service such as this." But he is also visited by a sense of deeper deprivation, such as children feel when they lose a father, and "see the vacant chair, and think, How good ! how kind ! and he is gone." XXI. This Poem opens as if Hallam's grave was in the churchyard, where grasses waved ; but it was not so, he was buried inside Clevedon church. The Poet imagines the reproofs, with which passers-by will visit him for his un restrained grief. He would " make weak- ' ' IN MEMORIAM. " 25 ness weak : " would parade his pain to court sympathy, and gain credit for con- stancy ; and another says, that a display of private sorrow is quite inappropriate at times, when great political changes im- pend, and Science every month is evolving some new secret. He replies, that his song is but like that of the linnet joyous indeed when her brood first flies, but sad when the nest has been rifled of her young. XXII. For "four sweet years," from flowery spring to snowy winter, they had lived in closest friendship ; " But where the path we walk'd began To slant the fifth autumnal slope," " the Shadow fear'd of man," grim Death, " broke our fair companionship." Hallam died on the i'5th September, 1833, and the survivor, eagerly pursuing, can find him no more, but 26 A KEY TO "thinks, that somewhere in the waste The Shadow sits and waits for me." His own spirit becomes darkened by gloomy apprehensions of superimpending calamity. XXIII. Feeling his extreme loneliness, yet "breaking into songs by fits" (which proves that In Memoriam was written at intervals), 3 he wanders sometimes to where the cloaked Shadow is sitting Death, " Who keeps the keys of all the creeds " inasmuch as only when we die shall we know the whole truth ; and " falling lame " on his way, that is, stumbling in his vain enquiries as to whence he came and whither he is going, he can only grasp one feeling, which is, that all is miserably changed since they were in company It is a fact, that the Poem was written at both variant times and places through a course of years, and whete their author happened to be, in Lincolnshire, London, Essex, Gloucestershire, Wales, anywhere, as the spirit tn/rved him. "IN MEMORIAM." 27 friends enjoying life together, travelling in foreign lands, and indulging in scholarly communion on classic subjects. XXIV. But, after all, was their happiness per- fect? No, the very sun, the "fount of Day," has spots on its surface " wander- ing isles of night." If all had been wholly good and fair, this earth would have re- mained the Paradise it has never looked, " since Adam left his garden," as appears in the earlier editions ; but now the line runs, " Since our first sun arose and set." Does "the haze of grief" then fnagnify the past, as things look larger in a fog ? a Or does his present lowness of spirits set the past in relief, as projections are more The effect of vapour in magnifying objects is shown to- wards the end of the Idyll, " Guinevere," where it says " The moony vapour rolling round the King, Who seem'd the phantom of a Giant in it." Can "the haze of grief " refer to the tear, which acts as a magnifying lens? 28 A KEY TO apparent when you are beneath them ? Or is the past from being far off always in glory, as distance lends enchantment to the view; and so the world becomes orbed " into the perfect star We saw not, when we moved therein ? " We are told that, if we were placed in the moon, we should see the Earth as "the perfect star" having a shining surface, and being thirteen times larger than the moon itself. xxv. All he knows is, that whilst with Hallam, there was Life. They went side by side, and upheld the daily burden. He himself moved light as a carrier bird in air, and delighted in the weight he bore because Love shared it; and since he transferred half of every pain to his dear companion, he himself was never weary in either heart or limb. IN MEMORIAM." 29 XXVI. Dismal and dreary as life has become, he nevertheless wishes to live, if only to prove the stedfastness of his affection. And he asks that if the all-seeing Eye, which already perceives the future rotten- ness of the living tree, and the far off ruin of the now standing tower, can detect any coming indifference in him any failure of Love then may the " Shadow waiting with the keys " " shroud me from my pro- per scorn ; " a may Death hide me from my own self-contempt ! "In Him is no before." Jehovah is simply, / am, to whom foresight and foreknowledge cannot be attributed, since past and future are equally present. The morn breaks over Indian seas, be- cause they are to the east of us. "My proper scorn" proprius~\s scorn of myself, an imprecation. See Lancelot's self-condemnation at the end of "Lancelot and Elaine." 30 A KEY TO XXVII. He neither envies the cage-born bird -'that never knew the summer woods," and is content without liberty; nor the beast that lives uncontrolled by con- science ; nor the heart that never loved ; " nor any want-begotten rest," that is, re- pose arising from defective sensibility. On the contrary, " I hold it true, whate'er befall; I feel it, when I sorrow most ; 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all. " Seneca in Epistle 99 says, Magis gauderes quod habueras quam mcereres quodamiseras. See P. Ixxxv., i. The Poem seems to halt here, and begin afresh with a description of Christ- mastide. XXVIII. Christmas Eve at Somersby, and pos- sibly at the end of the year 1833. If so, throughout the year he had been at ease, "IN MEMORIAM." 31 until the blow came he had " slept and woke with pain," and then he almost wished he might never more hear the Christmas bells. But a calmer spirit seems to come over him : as he listens to the Christmas peals rung at four neighbouring a churches, and the sound soothes him with tender associa- tions : " But they my troubled spirit rule, For they controll'd me when a boy; They biing me sorrow touch'd with joy, The merry, merry bells of Yule." Yule is Christmas, a jubilee which brings glad tidings of great joy to all people. XXIX. Having such " compelling cause to grieve " over the decease of Hallam, " as daily vexes household peace " for death is ever invading some home a The churches are not to be identified. Those in the neighbourhood of Somersby have too small belfries to allow of change ringing. The sounds may have been only in the Poet's mind. 32 A KEY TO how can they venture to keep Christmas Eve as usual ? He is absent, who when amongst them was so eminently social. But it must be done. " Use and wont," "old sisters of a day gone by," still de- mand what has been customary. " They too will die," and new habits succeed. To the fourteenth chapter of Walter Scott's "Pirate," there is the following motto from "Old Play," which meant Scott's own invention : " We'll keep our customs. What is law itself But old establish'd custom ? What religion (I mean with one half of the men that use it) Save the good use and wont that carries them To worship how and where their fathers wor- shipp'd ? All things resolve to custom. We'll keep ours." XXX. The Christian festival proceeds, and there is the family gathering, with such games as are common at this season; but sadness weighs on all, for they entertain "an awful sense of one "IN MEMORIAM." 33 mute shadow " Hallam's wraith being present and watching them. They sit in silence, then break into singing " A merry song we sang with him Last year." This seems to identify the time to be Christmas, 1833, as Hallam died on i5th September, 1833, but was not buried until January, 1834. They comfort themselves with the con- viction that the dead retain "their mortal sympathy," and still feel with those they have left behind. The soul, a "keen seraphic flame," pierces " From orb to orb, from veil to veil," and so traverses the universe. Was the anniversary of our Saviour's birth ever hailed in terms more sublime and beautiful ! " Rise, happy morn, rise, holy mom, Draw forth the cheerful day from night : O Father, touch the east, and light The light that shone when Hope was born." 3 34 A KEY TO XXXI. The mind of the poet has now taken a more strictly religious view of the situation ; and he would like to learn the secrets of the grave from the experience of Lazarus. Did Lazarus in death yearn to hear his sister Mary weeping for him ? If she asked him, when restored to life, where he was during his four days of entombment; " There lives no record of reply," which, if given, might have " added praise to praise " that is, might have sealed and confirmed the promise that "blessed are the dead which die in the Lord." As it was, the neighbours met and offered congratulations, and their cry was, " Behold a man raised up by Christ 1 The rest remaineth unreveal'd ; He told it not ; or something seal'd The lips of that Evangelist. " It is only St. John who records the miracle. "IN MEMORIAM." 35 XXXII. At a subsequent visit to Simon's house in Bethany, where both Lazarus and Mary were present, Mary's eyes, looking alter- nately at her brother who had been restored to life, and at our Lord who had revived him, are " homes of silent prayer ;" and one strong affection overpowers every other sen- timent, when her " ardent gaze " turns from the face of Lazarus, " and rests upon the Life " Christ, the author and giver of life. Vita vera, vita ipsa. Her whole spirit is then so "borne down by gladness," that " She bows, she bathes the Saviour's feet With costly spikenard and with tears. " a No lives are so blessed as those which consist of " faithful prayers : " no attach- ments so enduring as those which are based on the higher love of God. But are there any souls so pure as to John, xii., 3 36 A KEY TO have reached this higher range of feeling ; or, if there be, what blessedness can equal theirs ? XXXIII. This Poem is abstruse, and requires thought and care for the interpretation of the Poet's meaning. It seems to be an address of warning and reproof to a moral pantheist, who fancies that he has attained a higher and purer air, by withholding his faith from all "form," and recognising Deity in every- thing his faith having "centre every- where." This sceptic is warned from disturbing the pious woman, who is happy in her prayers to a personal God ; for they bring an " early heaven " on her life. Her faith is fixed on "form;" and to flesh and blood she has linked a truth divine, by seeing God incarnate in the person of Christ. "IN MEMORIAM." 37 The pantheist must take care for him- self, that, whilst satisfied "In holding by the law within," the guidance of his own reason, he does not after all fail in a sinful world,, "for want of such a type," as the life of Christ on earth affords. "A life that leads melodious days," is like that of Vopiscus, in his Tiburtine villa, as described by his friend, Statius, I., iii., 20. ceit veritus turbare Vopisci Pieriosque dies et habentes carmina somnos. XXXIV. His own dim consciousness should teach him thus much, that Life will never be extinguished. Else all here is but dust and ashes. The earth, " this round of green," and sun, " this orb of flame," are but " fantastic beauty " such as a wild Poet might invent, who has neither con- science nor aim. 38 A KEY TO Even God can be nothing to the writer, if all around him is doomed to perish ; and he will not himself wait in patience, but rather " sink to peace ; " and, like the birds that are charmed by the serpent* into its mouth, he will "drop head-fore- most in the jaws of vacant darkness," and so cease to exist. xxxv. And yet, if a trustworthy voice from the grave should testify, that there is no life beyond this world; even then he would endeavour to keep alive so sweet a thing as Love, during the brief span of mortal existence. But still there would come " The meanings of the homeless sea," and the sound of streams disintegrating and washing down the rocks to form future A South African snake b-ucephalus Capensis com- monly called the " Boom-slange " attracts birds into its mouth as prey, drawing them by an irresistible fascination. Dr. Smith, in his " Zoology of South Africa," describes the process. "IN MEMORIAM." 39 land surfaces " Ionian hills," the forma- tions of whole aeons being thus dissolved and Love itself would languish under " The sound of that forgetful shore," those new lands in which all things are obliterated and forgotten knowing that its own death was impending. But the case is idly put. If such ex- tinguishing Death were from the first seen as it is when it comes, Love would either not exist ; or else would be a mere fellow- ship of coarse appetites, like those of the Satyr, who crushes the grape for drunken revelry, and basks and battens in the woods. xxxvi. Although, even in manhood, the great truths of Religion only " darkly join, Deep-seated in our mystic frame " since at best we only see as through a glass 40 A KEY TO darkly : we nevertheless bless His name, who " made them current coin," so as to be generally intelligible. This was done by the teaching of Parables. For Divine Wisdom, having to deal with mortal powers, conveyed sacred truth through "lowly doors," by embodying it in earthly similitudes; because "closest words" will not explain Divine things, owing to the imperfection of human lan- guage; "and so the Word had breath," "God was manifest in the flesh" (i Tim. iii., 1 6, and i John, 14), and by good works wrought the best of all creeds, which the labourer in the field, the mason, the grave-digger, " And those wild eyes that watch the wave In roarings round the coral reef," even the savage of the Pacific Islands, can see and understand, being conveyed to him through both the miracles and para- bles of the Gospel. "IN MEMORIAM." 41 XXXVII. He imagines Urania, the heavenly Muse, to reprove him for venturing on sacred ground, and commenting on religious themes; as she would have him confine his steps to his own Parnassus, and there earn the laurel crown. But his own tragic Muse, Melpomene, replies with the apology, that though unworthy to speak of holy mysteries, yet with his earthly song he had striven to soothe his own aching heart, and render a due tribute to human love ; and inasmuch as the comfort he had drawn was " clasp'd in truth reveaFd," had its foundation in the Gospel : he daringly "loiter'd in the Master's field, And darken'd sanctities with song." Many readers of In Memoriam will have thanked its author for these trespasses upon the Holy Land, feeling indeed there was no profane intrusion. 42 A KEY TO Some will regret that he has changed the original line, "and dear as sacramental wine," into "and dear to me as sacred wine : " the purpose, one supposes, was that the reader should see that he spoke only for himself " to me " the meaning is unchanged, but the sound is rather flat. XXXVIII. The sadness of his heart has fully re- turned, and the journey of life is dull and weary. The skies above and the prospect before him are no longer what they used to be, when Hallam was by. "The blowing season," when plants are blossoming: the "herald melodies of spring," when the birds proclaim that winter is past, give him no joy; but in his own songs he finds a "gleam of solace;" and if after death there be any consciousness retained of what has been left upon earth, "Then are these songs I sing of thee Not all ungrateful to thine ear." "IN MEMORIAM." 43 XXXIX. This Poem has been recently introduced, as already stated (see P. ii.). The Yew tree does really blossom, and form fruit and seed like other trees, though we may not notice it. The Poet now says, that his "random stroke " on the tree brings off " Fruitful cloud and living smoke ; " Also that at the proper season "Thy gloom is kindled at the tips." The fact is, that the flower is bright yellow in colour, but very minute; and when the tree is shaken, the pollen comes off like dust, and then the tree seems to resume its old gloom. So the spirit of the Poet may brighten for a moment, and then return to its accus- tomed melancholy. 44 A KEY TO XL. He wishes " the widow'd hour " when he lost his friend, could be forgotten, or rather recalled like an occasion when the bride leaves her first home for " other realms of love." There are tears then, but April tears rain and sunshine mixed; and as the bride's future office may be to rear and teach another generation uniting grand- parents with grand-children so he has no doubt that to Hallam " is given A life that bears immortal fruit In such great offices as suit The full-grown energies of heaven." But then comes this difference. The bride will return in course of time with her baby, and all at her old home will be happier for her absence whereas "thou and I have shaken hands, Till growing winters lay me low ; My paths are in the fields I know, But thine in undiscover'd lands." "IN A1EMORIAM." 45 XLI. \Vhilst together upon earth they could advance in company, though Hallam's spirit and intellect were ever soaring up- wards. Now, the links which united them are lost, and he can no longer partake in his friend's transformations. So, (folly though it be,) he wishes that, by an effort of will, he could "leap the grades of life and light, And flash at once, my friend, to thee." See P. xcv., 9. For, though he has no vague dread of death and "the gulfs beneath," yet the chilling thought comes over him, that in death he may not be able to overtake his friend, but evermore remain "a life be- hind " him, " Through all the secular to be " all future ages : and that so he shall be his mate no more, which is his great trouble. " The howlings of forgotten fields " 46 A KEY TO is probably a classical allusion to those " fields " of mystic horror, over which the spirits of the departed were supposed to range, uttering wild shrieks and cries. Has Dante no such allusion ? a This Poem intimates the idea of progress and advancement after death. XLH. He reproaches himself for these fancies ; for inasmuch as it was only unity of place which gave them the semblance of equality here Hallam being always really ahead why may not " Place retain us still," b when I too am dead, and can be trained and taught anew by this "lord of large ex- perience ? " In Gary's translation of Dante's " Hell," canto in., line 21, we find this note on what Dante and Virgil encountered in the infernal shades " Post hac omnia ad loco, tartarea, et ad os infernalis baratri deduct us sum, qui simile vide- baturputeo, loca vetoeadem horridis tenebris,fiztoribus ex- halantibus, stridoribus quoque et nimiis plena erant ejula- tibus, jiixta quern infe>num i>ermis erat infinite magnitu- dinis, ligatus maxima catena." Alberici Virio, 5 9- * If time be merged and lost in eternity, why may not place, all sense of locality, be equally lost in infinitude of space ? "IN MEMORIAM." 47 "And what delights can equal those That stir the spirit's inner deeps, When one that loves but knows not, reaps A truth from one that loves and knows ? " There are no pleasures so sweet, as the imbibings of instruction from the lips of those who are both superior and dear to us. It is evident that Hallam's translation in death, had exalted his friend's estimation of him whilst living, for see the Poet's note at the end of Poem xcvii. XLIII. If, in the intermediate state, we find that " Sleep and death be truly one " as St. Paul himself might lead us to believe " And every spirit's folded bloom " the slumbering soul being like a flower which closes at night reposed, uncon- scious of the passage of time, but with silent traces of the past marked upon it ; a I remember holding a serious conversation with an en- lightened physician, some years ago, who said, " I hardly 4 8 A KEY TO then the lives of all, from the beginning of time, would contain in their shut-up state a record of all that had ever happened ; "And love will last as pure and whole, As when he loved me here in Time, And at the spiritual prime Rewaken with the dawning soul." At the resurrection, the old affection will revive. XLIV. How fare the happy dead ? Here man continuously grows, but he forgets what happened " before God shut the doorways of his head ; " that is, before the skull of the infant closed. Yet sometimes " A little flash, a mystic hint " like to venture the theory, but it almost seems to me, as if what is now said and thought becomes written on the physi- cal brain, like a result of photography, and that a revelation of this transcript, may be our real accuser at the day of judg- ment." Had Shakespeare any such notion, in making Mac- beth say, " Raze out the written troubles of the brain ? " "IN MEMORIAM." 49 suggests the possibility of a previous exist- ence.* " If death so taste Lethean springs," as to leave a trace on the soul of what had happened upon earth the Poet here makes Lethe produce remembrance, instead of forgetfulness, which is its normal effect. Dante describes the double power of the mythic stream in Purgatory (Can. xxviii., 1. 134) " On this, devolved with power to take away Remembrance of offence ; on that, to bring Remembrance back of every good deed done. From whence its name of Lethe on this part ; On the other, Eunoe." GARY'S Translation. Wordsworth entertains the notion of our having lived before in his fine Ode, " Intimations of Immortality," where- in he says, " Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting : The soul that rises with us, our life's star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar," &c. ack See Sir W. Scott's " Journal," where a like impression is knowledged on i?th February, 1828. Tennyson also says in " The Two Voices : " " Moreover, something is or seems That touches me with mystic gleams, Like glimpses of forgotten dreams Of something felt, like something here, Of something done, I know not where, Such as no language may declare." 50 A KEY TO And so, " in the long harmonious years " of death, some dim touch of earthly things may reach Hallam whilst ranging with his equals. If this should be allowed, "O turn thee round," " resolve the doubt," whether thou art conscious of a previous life, and listen to my guardian angel, who will tell thee all about us here. XLV. The child, still in its mother's arms, has no consciousness of its own individual life and identity; and it is with its growth that it acquires a sense of separate and isolated being, independent of all around. The acquisition of this consciousness may be the use of "blood and breath," which otherwise would have achieved no worthy end; as we should have to learn ourselves afresh after the second birth of death, if these had not assured us of our indisputable personality. "IN MEMORIAM:* 51 XLVI. In this life we experience "thorn and flower," grief and joy ; and the past be- comes mercifully shaded as time goes on, otherwise the retrospect would be intoler- able. But hereafter all shadow on what has happened will be removed, and all will be " clear from marge to marge ; " and the five years of earthly friendship will be the " richest field " in the " eternal landscape." Yet this would be a limited range for Love, which ought to extend without any circumscription, "A rosy warmth from marge to marge," its expansion interminable. XLVII. This great and religious Poem has been absurdly said to teach Pantheism, which these stanzas refute; or perhaps they rather deny the doctrine of Spinoza, if that be clearly understood. 52 A KEY TO At any rate, to be conscious of " a sepa- rate whole " a distinct individuality and yet merge at last "in the general Soul, Is faith as vague as all unsweet : Eternal form shall still divide The eternal soul from all beside ; And I shall know him when we meet." St. Paul is not more distinct and emphatic upon our individuality hereafter, when he says, we shall " be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven," 2 Cor. v., 2 ; that is, we shall put on a spiritual body, that will give identity and form. Delighting in the thought of " Enjoying each the other's good," he feels to have attracted the approving Shade of Hallam, and this reluctantly fades away, with the tender parting : " Farewell, we lose ourselves in light." If indeed we are to be merged in the uni- versal Soul, let us have at least one more "IN ME MORI AM. 53 parting, before we lose our individualities in the Great Being. XLvni. This Poem disclaims any attempt at settling religious difficulties. The verses are of " sorrow born," the result of private grief; and if misunderstood, and open to the charge of attempting to solve such grave questions of doubt as affect some minds, they would deserve the scorn of men. Sorrow does not undertake severe argu- ment ; but if a " slender shade of doubt " flits before it, it would make this doubt a " vassal unto love," and yield to Love's supreme authority. Love ought to be our ruler and guide, and these lays of sadness are merely " Short swallow-flights of song, that dip Their wings in tears, and skim away." 54 A KEY TO XLIX. He compares the " random influences " of Art, Nature, and the Schools, to light breaking in shivered lances on the dappled water. For even so does " the sullen sur- face " of the mind become " crisp " and curled with the wave of thought, the eddy of fancy, the air of song. The transient passenger may look and go on his way, but must not blame such mental perturbations : for " Beneath all fancied hopes and fears, Ay me, a the sorrow deepens down, Whose muffled motions blindly drown The bases of my life in tears. " L. He invokes Hallam's spirit to be near him in his various moods of distress when he is filled with nervous apprehensions, when faith seems gone, and Time to be 1 " Ay " must have the force of the Greek au " alas " and "ay me " be as the Latin hei mihi. " woe is me ! " See also P. xl., 6. "IN MRMORIAM" 55 only " a maniac scattering dust," and Life to be " a Fury slinging flame : " when men also appear to be no more than flies, that sting and weave their cells and die. But above all, " Be near me when I fade away, To point the term of human strife, And on the low dark verge of life, The twilight of eternal day." The idea is sustained, that we shall go through the darkness of death, when Time will be lost, into the dawning light of Eternity; and the Poet would have his friend be near him at this translation. LI. Dare we indeed challenge the dead to inspect us? Have we "no inner vileness " that we would not have them discover? Would the Poet be lessened in Hallam's esteem and affection, when " some hidden shame " was exposed ? No, 56 A KEY TO " There must be wisdom with great Death The dead shall look me thro' and thro'." "They watch, like God, the rolling hours With larger other eyes than ours, To make allowance for us all." LII. He complains of his own inability to love Hallam as he ought, that is, worthily ; because, if he did so, he would be equal to his friend, " For love reflects the thing beloved;" whereas his words are words only, the " froth of thought." The Spirit of love reproves this self- accusation : "Thou canst not move me from thy side, Nor human frailty do me wrong. " There is no ideal of excellence, which we may conceive, that will ensure our attaining to it: " not the sinless years That breathed beneath the Syrian blue >: "IN ME MORI AM." 57 not the life of Christ, in the clear atmos- phere of Palestine, keeps any spirit "wholly true " to that pattern of perfection. So be not "like an idle girl," fretting over little faults " flecks of sin." But wait, thy wealth will be gathered in thy worth shown " When Time hath sunder'd shell from pearl " when the flesh has left the Soul free from its contaminating influence. LIII. He has often known a father, now " A sober man among his boys," whose youth was noisy and foolish. Are we then to conclude from his example, that had there been no wild oats sown, there scarcely would have come " The grain by which a man may live?" If we ventured to name such a doctrine among the old, who have " outlived heats 58 A KEY TO of youth," would we preach it to the young, who still " eddy round and round ? " Hold fast what is good, and define it well ; and take care that " divine Philo- sophy " does not exceed her legitimate bound and become " Procuress to the lords of hell " by advocating sin as the path to sanctity. LIV. This Poem expresses a hope in Univer- salism "that somehow good Will be the final goal of ill " that natural propensities, wilful sins, imper- fect faith, and inherited weakness, may all find a pardonable solution. He hopes that nothing has been made in vain " That not one life shall be destroy'd, ' Or cast as rubbish to the void, When God hath made the pile complete." "IN ME MORI AM." 59 But how reverently does he touch this mysterious subject ! " Behold, we know not anything ; I can but trust that good shall fall At last far off at last, to all, And every winter change to spring. So runs my dream : but what am I ? An infant crying in the night : An infant crying for the light : And with no language but a cry." In Poem cxxiv., stanza 5, he says, "Then was I as a child that cries, But, crying, knows his father near." LV. He pursues the awful theme, and asks whether the wish for an universal restora- tion to life, does not spring from what is " likest God " in our own souls, His un- limited goodwill towards men, which would have all come to a knowledge of the truth ? " Are God and Nature then at strife ? " for we find Nature, whilst careful in pre- serving the type of each species, utterly 60 A KEY TO reckless of the separate members. We find, too, that out of "fifty (myriad'} 9 - seeds" sown, only one perhaps germinates. He falters and falls down " Upon the great world's altar-stairs, b That slope thro' darkness up to God ; " but still he stretches forth " lame hands of faith " " To what I feel is Lord of all, And faintly trust the larger hope " the hope of a final restitution of all things. LVI. He said that Nature preserved each type ; but no, some species are already ex- tinct ; and Nature says that she cares not for preserving anything, and so, in geolo- gical strata, we find the fossil remains of creatures that no longer exist. 6 Why then may not man, The early purple orchi> is said to bear 200,000 seeds, and perhaps one grows to a plant. b Coleridge says : " The Jacob's ladder of Truth let down from heaven to earth, with all its numerous rounds, is now the common highway on which we are content to toil upward." Friend, viii. "The doctrine of evolution may dispute this statement, and tell us that the type, or form, of the winged lizard of "IN MEMORIAM." 61 " Who seemed so fair, Su:h splendid purpose in his eyes," also perish, and have his dust blown about the desert, ' ' Or seal'd within the iron hills ? " If he be " no more " a if there be nothing beyond this life for him then is man but a monster, a dream, a discord " dragons of the prime," the Ichthyosauri that lived in the slime of chaos, were his betters ! " O life as futile, then, as frail ! O for thy voice to soothe and bless ! b What hope of answer or redress ? Behind the veil, behind the veil." LVII. "Peace, come away," may possibly be addressed to his sister, whom he now calls away from the sad subject which his earthly song had treated. chaos, now fossilized in the rock, has been developed and continued in the reptile of the ditch ; but its living self has perished, and its type is gone. " To die, to sleep, no more." Hamlet. * " But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand, And the sound of a voice that is still. " 62 A KEY TO He says his companion's cheeks are pale, so it is time that they should turn to other things, though in doing so, he must leave half his own life behind. His "friend is richly shrined ; " but what will become of himself? "I shall pass ; my work will fail." The author speaks of these poems " me- thinks, I have built a rich shrine for my friend, but it will not 'last." At any rate, so long as he lives will the tolling of Hal- lam's passing bell a be in his ears ; and the strokes on the bell, " Ave " and " Adieu," hail and farewell, are like the notes of per- petual separation. They seem to be parted "for evermore."" He is in the lowest depth of woe. The term " toll " is correct " When we lament a departed soul We toll." b Dixitqite novissfma verba, JE. iv., 650. A poem by Catullus (Carmen ci.) who visits his brother's grave, concludes with these lines : " Accipe fratemo multum manantia fletu, Atque in perpetuum,f rater, Ave, atque Pafe." Ave is the morning greeting : Vale that of the evening. 1 his seems the like idea to that of the morning and evening star. See P. cxxi., 5. "AV MEMOR7AM." 63 LVIII. It has been thought that there might have been an interval after the composition of the previous Poem ; and that the author resumed his task in a more hopeful state of mind. He now compares the words of his late farewell to the echoes of dropping water in burial vaults, and he says that other hearts besides his own were affected by his lamen- tation. Urania reproaches him for thus distri- buting a fruitless grief amongst those who had shared his sense of loss ; and, exhort- ing him to wait with patience for a more resigned feeling, she assures him that it will come to his great relief " Abide a little longer here, And thou shalt take a nobler leave " be able to speak with more confidence of their meeting again. 64 A KEY TO LIX. He invites Sorrow to live with him as a wife, always and constant, not as a casual mistress : being his " bosom-friend and half of life," even as it were Hallam himself. Sorrow must remain his centred passion which cannot move ; nevertheless it will not always be gloomy : but rather allow occasional playfulness, so that it would not be commonly known that he had a life-long affliction. 8 LX. He cannot dismiss the memory of his lots, and calls Hallam "a soul of nobler tone," superior to himself, who is feeling " like some poor girl " that has fixed her affections on a man of higher rank than her own. She compares her state with There is often great charm in the cheerfulness of those who we know have suffered. "IN ME MORI AM." 65 his, and sighs over her own inferior circum- stances, and repines at her humbler lot. The neighbours jeer at her disappoint- ment, and she says "How vain am I ! How should he love a thing so low ? " No doubt, the passing into a higher world gave Hallam a superior dignity in the Poet's estimation. 8 LXI. If Hallam, in the intermediate state be exchanging replies with the great intel- lects there assembled from all time, "the spirits of just men made perfect" how dwarfed and insignificant must seem any intercourse with his friend still left here " How blanch'd with darkness must I grow ! " This figure of speech will be taken from the blanching of vegetables in the dark. Still, he would have him turn to See the Poet's own words on this point at the end of Poem xcvu. 66 A KEY TO " the doubtful shore,* Where thy first form was made a man ; " that is, to this world, distinguishing it from that "second state sublime," into which Hallam had been admitted ; for not even there can more affection be found, than I conceived and yet cherish : " I loved thee, Spirit, and love, nor can The soul of Shakespeare love thee more." This is all that even Shakespeare can do, if he and thou be now compeers. LXII. If looking down on the object of his af- fection makes his friend ashamed, then let their friendship be to him but as an idle tale or legend of the past. And Hallam may feel as one might, who having once b "Doubtful shore" may mean that here there may be doubt, whether there has not been a previous existence. "7JV MEMO RI AM." 67 had a low attachment, did afterwards wed an equal mind." The first love then either wholly dies out, or " Is matter for a flying smile " a subject for ridicule. LXIII. Still, if I can pity an overdriven horse^ or love my dog, without robbing heaven of its dues of reverence, when these animals are as much below me as I am thy inferior; why mayest not thou " watch me, where I weep," from thy circuits of higher heights and deeper depths than mine ? LXIV. He asks whether Hallam is looking back on this life, "As some divinely gifted man," a " Thou, as one that once declined," recalls in Hamlet, Act I., s. 5, " To decline upon a wretch, whose natural gifts were poor to those of mine." 68 A KEY TO who has burst through all the adverse cir- cumstances of his humble birth, by genius and labour ; making " by force his merit known, And lives to clutch the golden keys, To mould a mighty state's decrees, And shape the whisper of the throne ; " as Lord Beaconsfield did. Does not such a hero in his elevation, Arts, &*c. Every- thing that made Life beautiful here, we may hope may pass on with us beyond the grave. The description somewhat reminds one of the passage of king Arthur to the island of Avilion. CIV. Christmastide again ; and he hears the bells from " A single church below the hill ; " this is at the place to which the family had moved, and the church is Waltham Abbey church. It is a fresh and strange locality, and the bells sound like strangers' voices, recalling nothing of his previous life ; no memory can stray in the surround- ing scenery ; " But all is new unhallow'd ground." The Poet's mother lived for several years "IN MEMORIAM." 115 with her sister, Miss Fytche, in Well Walk, Hampstead; but this new home was at High Beach) Epping Forest. cv. a It is Christmas Eve, but the holly out- side their new home shall stand ungathered. He deprecates repeating their old obser- vances of this season in a new place. He thinks of his father's grave " under other snows " than those he looks on ; and how the violet will blow there, "but we are gone." What was done in the old home cannot be repeated in the new habitation, " For change of place, like growth of time^ Has broke the bond of dying use." b " This holly by the coUage-eave, To-night, ungather'd, shall it stand." ' Changed in later editions to "To-night ungather'd let us leave This laurel, let this holly stand." b "Use an J Wont, Old sisters of a day gone by. They too will die." Poem xxix. ii6 A KEY TO He would have this Christmas Eve kept with reverent solemnity : no joyous forms retained from which the spirit has gone; no music, dance, or motion, "save alone What lightens in the lucid East Of rising worlds by yonder wood." This refers to the scintillation of the stars rising. Let these run out their "measured arcs, and lead The closing cycle rich in good ; " bringing Christ's second advent. cvi. The old year is rung out by " wild bells to the wild sky ; " and he would have these ring out all abuses and evils, and ring in all good, and the various blessings which he enumerates " Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace, " "//V MEMORIAM" 117 the millennium ; and last of all, "Ring in the Christ that is to be ; " God Himself again upon earth. CVII. "It is the day when he was born," the anniversary of Hallam's birth, which took place in Bedford Place, London, on ist February, 1811. One may suppose this Poem to have been written at night, because the descrip- tion is of "A bitter day that early sank Behind a purple frosty bank Of vapour, leaving night forlorn. *' Indeed, the time is determined by the poe- try, for " yon hard crescent " shows that the moon was up when he was writing. Ice making "daggers at the sharpen'd eaves" is a common sight. Such icicles may be sometimes seen a yard long, pen- dent from any eave or ledge. n8 A KEY TO " Brakes " means bushes; " grides " may mean " grates ; " and " iron horns " must be the dry hard forked boughs ; but how distinguished from the "leafless ribs" of the wood, unless as descriptive 'of the forms of different trees in the wood, is difficult to understand. " The drifts that pass To darken on the rolling brine That breaks the coast " must allude to drifts of snow, which falling into water, immediately blacken before they dissolve. " Bring in great logs and let them lie." This birthday shall no more be kept as a day of mourning, but shall be joyously observed, "with festal cheer, With books and music, surely we Will drink to him whate'er he be, And sing the songs he loved to hear. " a " Ligna super foco large reponens." Thackeray sang, " Care, like a dun, Lurks at the gate, Let the dog wait ! Happy we'll be. "IN ME MORI AM." 119 CVIII. A noble resolution seems to be now formed, not to become morbid and misan- thropic ; he will not " stiffen into stone : " a and this feeling appears to sustain and animate the Poet throughout the re- mainder of his loving tribute. He admits that " barren faith and vacant yearning " are profitless ; although they may carry him in thought to the highest height of heaven, or to the deepest depth of Death. And this being so, his upward glance only reveals " Mine own phantom chanting hymns ;" or, gazing below, he sees " The reflex of a human face." His lost friend being, therefore, evcry- Drink every one. Pile up the coals, Fill the red bowls, Round the old tree." "All stone I felt within," Dante's Inferno, xxxiii. 47. Wright's translation. "My heart is turned to stone," Othello, act iv., s. i. Eloisa says. " I have not quite forgot myself to stone." 120 A KEY TO where represented, he will try to extract wisdom from the sorrow which he cannot exclude ; though this be not such wisdom as sleeps with Hallam. " 'Tis held that sorrow makes us wise " is repeated in P. cxiii., i. cix. Hallam's character and accomplish- ments are recited. Richness of conversa- tion, much imported from an intellectual home ; with critical powers over all poetry. Keen and rapid thought displayed in logi- cal argument. Delighting in what is good, but not ascetic, and pure in life. Loving freedom, but without " The blind hysterics of the Celt," a and uniting manliness with female grace, which made him such a favourite with children. a Lucan has, " ulularunt tristin Galli." "IN ME MORI AM." 121 If the survivor, who had seenandadmired all these qualities, had not allowed such wisdom to make him wise, then shame be on him 1 ex. He recalls their former Cambridge dis- cussions; and how Hallam's powers of conversation drew out " The men of rathe and riper years ; " both the young and older. He gave con- fidence to the timid, the true-hearted held to him, and the deceitful were exposed, "While I, thy dearest, a sat apart" watching these triumphs, and enjoying them as my own ; and though not possess- ing the tact, and art, and sweetness, and skill, yet I seemed to share in them, from the love and admiration which they in- spired. "Nearest "in later editions. 122 A KEY TO . "And, born of love, the vague desire That spurs an imitative will," rose in me, and made me wish to do like- wise. CXI. " The churl in spirit " may be found in all ranks of society. Even the king, hold- ing the golden ball of state, may be "at heart a clown." The "coltish nature" will break out through all the disguises of fashion : but in Hallam " God and nature met in light, And thus he bore without abuse The grand old name of gentleman,* Defamed by every charlatan, And soil'd with all ignoble use." CXII. "High wisdom," which judges ex ca- thedrd, will condemn him for preferring " glorious insufficiencies " to " narrower perfectness." * Sir Thomas Browne, in his "Christian Morals," says, " the true heroick English gentleman hath no peer." "IN MEMOKIAM." 123 He esteems high purposes after what is unattained, as exhibited in Hallam's short- ened life, more than a complete fulfilment of lesser duties by the " lords of doom," who rule in our social system, and are those that have free will, but less intellect. His friend was " some novel power," which " Sprang up for ever at a touch, And hope could never hope too much, In watching thee from hour to hour." CXIII. He persistently dwells on Hallam's capa- bilities. Sorrow may teach wisdom ; but how much more sleeps with him, who would not only have guided the survivor, but served all public ends. He thinks his friend might have become a leading statesman of the day a pilot to weather the storm, when the greatest social agonies prevailed. 124 A KEY T0 CXIV. "Who loves not Knowledge"? He would have it pursued to its utmost limits ; but in the keen searchings of the scientific there is this danger, that conclusions are apt to be accepted before they have been proved. When "cut from love and faith," Science is no more than "some wild Pallas from the brain of Demons " like Minerva, who sprang all armed and full-grown from the brain of Jupiter. Science, too often, " leaps into the future chance, Submitting all things to desire. Half-grown as yet, a child, and vain " and therefore needing caution and re- straint. If separated from love and faith, she bursts " All barriers in her onward race For power." "INMRMQRIAM" 125 Science is " second, not the first," " For she is earthly of the mind, But Wisdom heavenly of the soul. " He would have the world wise and modest, " like thee, Who grewest not alone in power And knowledge, but by year and hour In reverence and in charity." It may be remarked that, here and else- where, the Poet makes a distinction betwixt mind and soul : the former acquiring know- ledge which "is of things we see ; " the latter by faith, " Believing where we cannot prove ; " even those things which St. Paul says " are not seen and are eternal." cxv. Spring is described, with its sprouting hedges and blowing violets. The whole 126 A KEY TO landscape changes in colour, with the warmer weather ; " And drown'd in yonder living blue The lark becomes a sightless song." a Who has not heard the lark, after it has become invisible in the heavens ? The migratory " birds that change their sky " b return and build their nests ; "and my regret Becomes an April violet, And buds and blossoms like the rest." He is cheered by the opening season. cxvi. Is it regret for buried time grief for In Measure for Measure, act in., s. i, we read "To be imprison'd in the viewless winds." ' Sightless " and " viewltss " are alike used for " invisible." " O, therefore, from thy sightless range." P. xciii., 3. b " Ccehttn mutant, gui trans mare currunt." Hor. Ep. xi., 27. "IN MEMORIAM." 127 the friend whom he has lost which makes him feel so tender and susceptible of the influences of Spring ? Not wholly so : for " life re-orient out of dust," the revival of vegetation, raises his spirits, and "heartens," strengthens his trust in that Power which made the earth beautiful. Nor is it altogether " regret " that he feels ; for the face and the voice of his friend come back ; and the voice speaks of me and mine -his sister as well as himself and he is conscious of " Less yearning for the friendship fled, Than some strong bond which is to be " reunion hereafter. cxvn. " O days and hours " he declares their work to be the accumulation of joy they will bring to that future meeting, from which at present they are detaining him. 128 A KEY TO " Delight a hundredfold " will accrue from this postponement the contribution of every grain of sand through the hour- glass, of " every span of shade " across the sundial, of every click in the watch, and. each day's sun. CXVIII. A friend observes that this Poem is a re- markable exposition of the nebular hypo- thesis, as sanctioned by geologists. Look at " this work of Time," its slow growth and effect ; and don't believe that "human love and truth" dissolve and pass away, as being no more than " dying Nature's earth and lime," insensible and finite. Rather trust that "the dead Are breathers of an ampler day For ever nobler ends. " "77V MEMO RI AM." 129 If this solid earth came from elements dis- solved by " fluent heat,' 1 and man was the last result ; then he, who is now enduring fears and sorrows and the battering " shocks of doom," typifies " this work of time " on natural objects ; for he must be, as they have been, in process of being moulded for a higher state. He is moving upward, "working out the beast," and letting "the ape and tiger die," while in his present probationary condition. CXIX. The work of resignation in the mourner's heart is here acknowledged. In Poem vii. he represents himself as standing, " like a guilty thing," at the door of the London house where they used to meet, and he was then all sad and comfortless. But now he revisits the spot, at the same early hour, and his feelings have changed and have become reconciled and 9 130 A KEY TO hopeful. He smells "the meadow in the street," the waggon loads of hay and clover coming in from the country. Wimpole Street is here again described, with morning breaking over the house- tops : "I see Betwixt the black fronts long-withdrawn A light blue lane of early dawn." It was at No. 67 in this street that Mr. Hallam lived, and wrote his great historical works; and his son Arthur used to say, " We are always to be found at sixes and sevens." All is now welcome : " I think of early days and thee, And bless thee, for thy lips are bland, And bright the friendship of thine eye ; And in my thoughts with scarce a sigh I take the pressure of thine hand." cxx. He exults in the victory of a higher faith. We are not " magnetic mockeries " "IN MEMORIAM." 131 simply material " brain " " casts in clay " to perish as soon as the galvanic battery ceases to act, " not in vain, Like Paul with beasts, I fought with Death." Let Science prove the contrary, even that we only exist for this life, and I won't stay here. And Science herself would then be valueless, since she had only taught us our nothingness. Let " the wiser man " of the future " up from childhood shape His action like the greater ape, But I was born to other things." This is spoken ironically, and is a strong protest against materialism, but not against evolution? Nevertheless, the gorilla is not our grandfather ! The work begun by Nature is finished by the Super- natural as we are wont to call the higher natural. And as the veil is lifted by Christianity, it strikes men dumb with wonder. For the goal of Evolution is Jesus Christ. The Christian life is the only life that will ever be completed. Apart from Christ, the life of man is a broken pillar, the race of men an unfinished pyramid. " Drummond's Natural Law in the Spiritual World, p. 3 14. 132 A KEY TO CXXI. "Sad Hesper," the evening star, only rises to "follow the buried sun ;" but, in the " dim and dimmer " light of late afternoon, it watches the conclusion of man's daily labours. The teams are loosened from the waggons, " the boat is drawn upon the shore," the house door is closed, "and life is darken'd in the brain " of the sleeper. Phosphor, the morning star, sees the renewal of life; the bird with its early song, the rising sun, the market boat again floating and voices calling to it from the shore, the village blacksmith with his clinking hammer, and the team again har- nessed and at work. Hesper and Phosphor are simply the one planet Venus, which according to its position with the sun, becomes the morn- ing or evening star. So the Poet sings, "IN MEMORIAM." 133 "Sweet Hesper-Phosphor, double name For what is one, the first, the last, Thou, like my present and my past, Thy place is changed ; thou art the same." Hallam has only been removed : he is not altered into something else "not lost, but gone before." No the writer is rather referring to himself : and as his own " present " and " past " are so different ; the latter, with a bright prospect, may be likened to the morning star, Phosphor; whilst the former, full of gloom and sorrow, is represented by Hesper, the star of evening, and precursor of black night. CXXII. He seems to recall some former occa- sion, when in wild enquiry he had dared to question the great secrets of life and death now and hereaftei. This may not refer to any special time, but to the general uneasiness of his feel- I 3 4 A KEY TO ings before submission had been attained ;* and he now says, " If thou wert with me, and the grave Divide us not, be with me now." Let me again, "like an inconsiderate boy," "slip the thoughts of life and death," give free rein to a speculative imagination ; for now, in a higher and better frame of mind, it will be that "every thought breaks out a rose" a blossom of truth. cxxin. The great changes on the earth's sur- face are bewildering, and hint that "no- thing stands " and endures. Where the tree now grows, and the long street is full of crowd and noise, there was once "The stillness of the central sea." See Poem xcvi. "IN MEMORIAM." 135 The very hills and solid lands are no more than shadows, or " Like clouds that shape themselves and go." But our parting is not for ever, " For tho' my lips may breathe adieu, I cannot think the thing farewell."* I am sure that we shall meet again. cxxiv. In this Poem we have a profound ac- knowledgment of the revealed Godhead in its triune manifestations, though not ex- pressed in ecclesiastical formula : " Our dearest faith ; our ghastliest doubt ; He, They, One, All ; within, without ; The Power in darkness whom we guess. " This Power lives in our hearts. Eye hath not seen Him, nor is He to be found " in world or sun," or by dissection of what has lived, or by process of reasoning. What is the difference of meaning in the two words "adieu " and " farewell "? Byron says in Lara, " Farewell to life, but not adieu to thee." 136 A KEY TO If ever his own faith faltered, and a voice said, " believe no more," the reprov- ing witness was within himself. " A warmth within the breast would melt The freezing reason's colder part, And like a man in wrath the heart Stood up and answer'd, I have felt." a Still he was "as a child that cries, But, crying, knows his father near." b His own heart, which is the home of faith, testified to Divine truth, which "no man understands," but he accepts it as the one solution of what exists. cxxv. He admits that some "bitter notes" " Witli the heart man believeth unto righteousness." Romans x., 10. * " But as 1 rav'd, and grew more fierce and wihl At every word, Methought I heard one calling, Child, And I reply 'd, My Lord." The Collar, G. Herbert. "IN MEMORIAM." 137 have sounded from his harp. But though his tongue may at times have seemed to speak with contradiction, Hope was never- theless still alive to better things. And if Love " play'd with gracious lies," suggested difficulties, this Love had only dared to do so " Because he felt so fixed in truth." Love sustained him when his song was " full of care ; " and Love's signet marked it whenever it was " sweet and strong ; " and he implores Love to abide with him till he joins his friend " on the mystic deeps," when his own electric brain no longer "keeps a thousand pulses dancing." CXXVI. Here is a noble testimony to the com- fort and assurance which Love, when made our " Lord and King," can impart. In the Poet's estimation, Love is the Charity of St. Paul ; believing, hoping, 138 A KEY TO enduring, and never failing.. Love brings us tidings of the dead. Love guards us in life, even in sleep. Through his influence we hear, as from a sentinel, " Who moves about from place to place, And whispers to the worlds of space, In the deep night, that all is well." CXXVII. Yes, "all is well, tho' faith and form be sunder'd" in temporary crises; that is, one must believe in ultimate good, even when the immediate circumstances are most adverse. The storm will rage below on earth, before truth and justice can be firmly established. " The red fool-fury of the Seine " does not specially refer to the Revolution of 1848, as it was probably written long be- fore '48. Such convulsions will cease at last; there is calm beyond; and, even whilst they last, "IN MEMORIAM." 139 "thou, dear spirit, happy star, O'erlook'st the tumult from afar, And smilest, knowing all is well." CXXVIII. The Love, which became stronger in himself, after encountering Death at the departure of Hallam, " Is comrade to the lesser faith That sees the course of human things." This "lesser faith " attends to the events of time, and is not overborne by present confusions, but reaches, sustained by Love, to a last happy consummation. If all that the " wild Hours " of Time had to do was to repeat the past, bring about useless wars, " fool the crowd with glorious lies," cleave religion into sects, disguise language, change governments, cramp learning, patch afresh what is antique and worn if these results were all that could be effected, then would my scorn be well deserved. But I 4 o A KEY TO " I see in part That all, as in some piece of art, Is toil co-operant to an end ; " that all things are working together for final good. CXXIX. A more touching and tender address to the dead was never uttered than this Poem expresses, a more pure and en- nobling affection was never described. Sorrow is lost in the more exalted senti- ment of their certain reunion, and in the strength derived from a consciousness of the worthiness of their past friendship. " 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." cxxx. Each had so participated in the other's "IN MEMORIAM." 141 life : they had looked on Nature with such kindred eyes, having one mind and taste ; that the survivor both sees and hears his former companion in all objects and sounds which present themselves. Everything reminds him of Hallam ; but " Tho' mix'd with God and Nature them, I seem to love thee more and more." His last declaration of devoted attach- ment is, " Far off thou art, but ever nigh ; I have thee still, and I rejoice ; I prosper, circled with thy voice ; I shall not lose thee tho' I die." CXXXI. "O living vfil\"free will in man that will outlast all present things, surviv- ing and enduring " When all that seems shall suffer shock, Rise in the spiritual rock," I 4 2 A KEY TO which is Christ, the source of all life and strength ; and flowing through our deeds, " make them pure ; " so that out of the dust of death, we may cry to One that hears, and has conquered time, and with us works ; and we may put our whole trust in those "truths that never can be proved until we close with all we loved," and with God Himself, who will be "all in all " not by the souls of mankind becom- ing absorbed into the " general Soul " a notion which Poem xlvii. repudiates but by the Divine nature being infused into and prevailing in all. PREFATORY POEM. To this final confession of faith, worked out through Sorrow by the sustaining help of Love, the prefatory Poem is merely a pendant. " Strong Son of God, immortal Love," "IN MEMORIAM." 143 is addressed to Christ, God Himself upon earth. a George Herbert had before called our Saviour " Immortal Love, author of this great frame;" and our Poet says, though we have not seen His face, we embrace Him by faith, " Believing where we cannot prove." He acknowledges Him as the great Creator, and through all surrounding mysteries and disappointments, is satisfied with this conclusion as to the future, " Thou art just." This conviction is enough. " Thou seemest human and divine, The highest, holiest manhood, thou" Many years ago, I had a conversation with the Poet in his attic study at Farringford, that lasted till nearly day- break. He discoursed on many subjects, and when we ureaK. ne discoursed on many suojecis, ana wnen we touched on religion, he said, / am not very fond of creeds : it is enough for me that I know God Himself came down 144 A KEY TO God incarnate, to whom we must become spiritually united, " Our wills are ours, to make them thine," as expressed in Poem cxxxi., stanza i. "Our little systems" "are but broken lights of thee," even as the colours of the rainbow are the broken lights of the sun. " We have but faith : we cannot know ; For knowledge is of things we see." Faith apprehends things which are spiri- tual, and do not come within the range of our senses ; whilst knowledge accepts only what can be seen and understood. Hence, the Poet would have knowledge advance and increase to the utmost, "a beam in darkness " ever growing. But reverence must grow with it ; so that mind which accumulates knowledge, and soul which is the dwelling-place of faith, ac- cording well with each other, may make one music be in harmony "as before," "IN MEMORIAM." 145 that is, I presume, as at first ; but now "vaster" in their compass owing to the greater reach of modern thought and research. This warning against scientific assump- tions, in opposition to spiritual truths, is repeated from Poem cxiv. The concluding humble prayer, con- tained in the three last stanzas, has the true ring of devout piety. " Forgive what seem'd my sin in me ; What seem'd my worth since I began ; For merit lives from man to man, And not from man, O Lord, to thee. " Forgive my grief for one removed, Thy creature, whom I found so fair. I trust he lives in thee, and there I find him worthier to be loved. " Forgive these wild and wandering cries, Confusions of a wasted youth ; Forgive them where they fail in truth, And in thy wisdom make me wise." " What seem'd my sin," would be the 10 146 A KEY TO Poet's excessive grief for Hallam's death : for he elsewhere says, " I count it crime To mourn for any overmuch." a "What seem'd my worth," would be his devoted love for his friend, which he felt had ennobled his own life; and so he says, " To breathe my loss is more than fame, To utter love more sweet than praise." But this worth was only comparative, " from man to man, And not from man, O Lord, to thee ; since no human goodness can be counted as merit in the sight of God. SUPPLEMENTARY POEM. The Epithalamium, or marriage lay, which is added to the great Poem, refers Shakespeare says, " Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead, * Excessive grief the enemy to the living." Alfs ^ve^ tkat ends well, act i., s. i. "IN MEMO RI AM." 147 to the wedding of a younger sister, Cecilia Tennyson, who, about the year 1842, married Edmund Law Lushington, some- time Professor of Greek at the University of Glasgow. The strong domestic affections of the Poet are prominently shown throughout In Memoriam, and his pleasure at this bridal is very charming. He just recalls that Hallam had appreciated the Bride in her childhood : " O when her life was yet in hud, He too foretold the perfect rose." The worth of the Bridegroom is acknow- ledged in this address : " And thou art worthy ; full of power ; As gentle ; liberal-minded, great, Consistent ; wearing all that weight Of learning a lightly like a flower." The whole Poem is pleasant and jocund * The late Sub-Dean Garden said, that E. L. Lushington was the most learned man in England, after Bishop Thiil- wall. Professor Lushington died I3th July, 1893. 148 A KEY TO "IN MEMORIAM." and was meant to be a kind of Divina Commedia ending cheerfully but it scarcely harmonizes with the lofty solem- nity of In Memoriam, whose Author might rejoice in the thought, that he would leave behind him a rich legacy of comfort to all future generations of mourners. 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