A Key to Lord Tennyson's 'In Memoriam' Part 16

"known to me, The shape of him I loved."

A dove flies in and summons him to the sea, where, together with his female companions, he enters a boat. As the boat glides away with them, they all seem to expand into greater size and strength; and a vast ship meets them, on the deck of which, in giant proportions, stands "the man we loved."

The maidens weep, as they fear being left behind; but all enter the ship, and

"We steer'd her toward a crimson cloud That land-like slept along the deep."

The teaching is allegorical of the voyage, and of those on board, and we may take this interpretation: _I rather believe the maidens are the Muses, Arts, &c. Everything that made Life beautiful here, we may hope may pa.s.s on with us beyond the grave._

The description somewhat reminds one of the pa.s.sage 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 surrounding scenery;

"But all is new unhallow'd ground."

The Poet's mother lived for several years with her sister, Miss Fytche, in Well Walk, Hampstead; but this new home was at _High Beach, Epping Forest_.

CV.[74]

It is Christmas Eve, but the holly outside their new home shall stand ungathered. He deprecates repeating their old observances 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."[75]

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,"

the millennium; and last of all,

"Ring in the Christ that is to be;"

G.o.d 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 1st February, 1811.

One may suppose this Poem to have been written at night, because the description 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 poetry, 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, pendent from any eave or ledge.

"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 pa.s.s 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."[76]

CVIII.

A n.o.ble resolution seems to be now formed, not to become morbid and misanthropic; he will not "stiffen into stone:"[77] and this feeling appears to sustain and animate the Poet throughout the remainder 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, everywhere represented, he will try to extract wisdom from the sorrow which he cannot exclude; though this be not such wisdom as sleeps with Hallam.