A Key to Lord Tennyson's 'In Memoriam' Part 11

The hollow ghost of Hallam's reputation may wholly fade here; but his exulting soul carries away unexpended powers for higher purposes,

"And self-infolds the large results Of force that would have forged a name,"

had he been permitted to live.

LXXIV.

This Poem will certainly not bear a literal interpretation. We cannot suppose that the writer ever looked on the face of his friend after death; for nearly four months had elapsed before the body reached England.

What he saw, therefore, was with "the mind's eye." And as Death often brings out a likeness,[49] which was never before recognized; so, contemplating the character of the departed, he sees

"Thy likeness to the wise below, Thy kindred with the great of old."

I can perceive worth in thee equal to theirs!

The last stanza is mystical; the darkness of death hides much; what he can see he cannot or will not explain: enough, that thou hast made even this darkness of death beautiful by thy presence.

LXXV.

The Poet leaves the praises of his friend unexpressed, because no words can duly convey them; and the greatness thus unrecorded must be guessed, by the measure of the survivor's grief.

Indeed, he does not care

"in these fading days To raise a cry that lasts not long, And round thee with the breeze of song, To stir a little dust[50] of praise."

The world only applauds accomplished success, and does not care for what might have been done, had opportunity been given. It is therefore sufficient that silence should guard Hallam's fame here; because the writer is a.s.sured, that what he is elsewhere doing

"Is wrought with tumult of acclaim."

One cannot but feel that were it not for this immortal elegy, its subject would have been long since forgotten, like other promising youths who have died in their Spring.

LXXVI.

"Take wings of fancy," and imagine that you have the whole "starry heavens of s.p.a.ce" revealed to one glance--"sharpen'd to a needle's end."[51]

"Take wings of foresight," and see in the future how thy best poems are dumb, before a yew tree moulders; and though the writings of _the great early Poets_--"the matin songs that woke the darkness of our planet"--may last, thy songs in fifty years will have become vain; and have ceased to be known by the time when the oak tree has withered into a hollow ruin.[52]

LXXVII.

"What hope is here for modern rhyme?"

Looking at what has already happened,

"These mortal lullabies of pain,"

may bind a book, or line a box, or be used by some girl for curl papers; or before a century has pa.s.sed, they may be found on a stall, telling of

"A grief--then changed to something else, Sung by a long forgotten mind."

Nevertheless, these considerations shall not deter the Poet--

"But what of that? My darken'd ways Shall ring with music all the same; To breathe my loss is more than fame, To utter love more sweet than praise."

LXXVIII.

Another Christmas Eve arrives, with snow and calm frosty weather. Though, as of old, they had games, and _tableaux vivants_, and dance, and song, and "hoodman blind"[53]--blindman's bluff--yet in spite of these recreations,

"over all things brooding slept The quiet sense of something lost."

There were no visible signs of distress--no tears or outward mourning.

Could regret then have died out?

"No--mixt with all this mystic frame, Her deep relations are the same, But with long use her tears are dry."

LXXIX.

"More than my brothers are to me"--

he had used this expression in the last stanza of Poem ix., and in repeating it he would apologize to his brother Charles Tennyson, we may presume.

"Let not this vex thee, n.o.ble heart!"

for thou art holding "the costliest love in fee," even a wife's affection--we may again suppose.

The Rev. Charles Tennyson married Miss Sellwood,[54] and changed his name to Turner, for property left to him by a relation, and was vicar of Grasby, in Lincolnshire. The brothers,[55] in their boyhood, shared one home with all its endearing a.s.sociations; and now each has his special object of affection: "my wealth resembles thine;" except that Hallam

"was rich where I was poor, And he supplied my want the more As his unlikeness fitted mine."

Lx.x.x.

If any vague wish visits the Poet, that he had himself been the first to be removed by Death (when the dust would have dropt on "tearless eyes,"

which, as it is, have now so sorely wept over Hallam's departure); then the grief of the survivor would have been

"as deep as life or thought, But stay'd in peace with G.o.d and man;"

because Hallam would have found comfort in pious resignation.

So he minutely ponders over this holy submission, and invokes contentment from the contemplation--

"Unused example from the grave Reach out dead hands to comfort me."