A Key to Lord Tennyson's 'In Memoriam' Part 3

"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 expectation 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

"But for fancies which aver That all thy motions gently pa.s.s Athwart a plane of molten gla.s.s,[15]

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 unrest" 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 despair" (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 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."[16]

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 speedy arrival, inasmuch as it brings "all I love."

For doing this, he invokes a blessing upon all its future voyages. It is now bringing

"The dust of him I shall not see Till all my widowed race be run."[17]

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:

"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."[18]

Even yet, before the grave is closed, he would like, as Elisha did on the Shunammite 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 resolution, 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 of the latter river, where the village of Clevedon stands.[19]

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."

XX.

He knows the "lesser grief" that can be told, also the "deeper anguish which cannot be spoken:" his spirits are thus variably affected.

In his lighter mood, he laments as servants 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 gra.s.ses waved; but it was not so, he was buried inside Clevedon church.

The Poet imagines the reproofs, with which pa.s.sers-by will visit him for his unrestrained grief. He would "make weakness weak:" would parade his pain to court sympathy, and gain credit for constancy; and another says, that a display of private sorrow is quite inappropriate at times, when great political changes impend, 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,"