A Key to Lord Tennyson's 'In Memoriam' Part 9

"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.

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 pa.s.s; 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 Hallam's pa.s.sing bell[36] be in his ears; and the strokes on the bell, "Ave" and "Adieu," hail and farewell, are like the notes of perpetual separation. They seem to be parted "for evermore."[37]

He is in the lowest depth of woe.[38]

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 lamentation.

Urania reproaches him for thus distributing a fruitless grief amongst those who had shared his sense of loss; and, exhorting him to wait with patience for a more resigned feeling, she a.s.sures him that it will come to his great relief--

"Abide a little longer here, And thou shalt take a n.o.bler leave"--

be able to speak with more confidence of their meeting again.

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 pa.s.sion 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.[39]

LX.

He cannot dismiss the memory of his loss, and calls Hallam "a soul of n.o.bler 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 his, and sighs over her own inferior circ.u.mstances, and repines at her humbler lot. The neighbours jeer at her disappointment, and she says

"How vain am I!

How should he love a thing so low?"

No doubt, the pa.s.sing into a higher world gave Hallam a superior dignity in the Poet's estimation.[40]

LXI.

If Hallam, in the intermediate state be exchanging replies with the great intellects there a.s.sembled 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

"the doubtful sh.o.r.e,[41]

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 affection 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 had a low attachment, did afterwards wed an equal mind.[42]

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,"

who has burst through all the adverse circ.u.mstances 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,

"When all his active powers are still,"

sometimes feel tender memories of the scenes of his early life--

"The limit of his narrower fate"--

when he "play'd at counsellors and kings" with some lad long ago left behind in his native obscurity; and who now resting on his plough, musingly asks,

"Does my old friend remember me?"

LXV.