In Memoriam

“ For, like all great works of art, this poem appeals to one of the primitive and universal emotions of human nature. The dead—the early dead, the beloved, the gifted, the young: we may discuss the appropriateness of the tribute, but we cannot refuse to be moved by its occasion. No man can look on these pages without finding here and there a verse which strikes home; for few of us are happy enough to live so much as twenty years in this weary world of ours without some In Memoriam of our own. ”

“ In Memoriam, CXVIII. 7.
"Two spirits of a diverse love
Contend for loving masterdom."
In Memoriam, CII. 2.
And yet the resemblance lies more in the whole tenour and spirit of the poems than in any particular passages, and I recommend the reader to consider those I have here brought together with the two books open before him, and see if he cannot trace out other points of similarity for himself.
IN MEMORIAM.
Readings of the First Edition (1850) . [5]
ii. 4.
"And gazing on the [6] sullen tree."
iii. 3. ”

“ And sixth and last Shakespeare is mentioned in the stanza of "In Memoriam" [3] quoted above, which leads me to the subject of the present paper.
"In Memoriam" has often been compared with Shakespeare's Sonnets and with "Lycidas;" but the lines that stand at the head of this paper always seemed to me to point to a closer relation with Shakespeare than has yet been noticed. The transcendent love for a beautiful soul, "passing the love of women," of which the soul of Shakespeare was capable, is hinted at, and the poet declares that even this love cannot surpass his for his friend. ”

“ The poems in the text are selected from the In Memoriam, and have a more or less close connection with each other. It is better, however, to regard each poem as a separate poem, without any attempt to place it in its relation to the In Memoriam as a whole. ”

“ Which hides your life and shows not half your parts.
If I could write the beauty of your eyes
And in fresh numbers number all your graces,
The age to come would say 'This poet lies;
Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces.'
So should my papers yellow'd with their age
Be scorn'd like old men of less truth than tongue,
And your true rights be term'd a poet's rage
And stretched metre of an antique song:"
Sonnet 17.
Tennyson.
"The herald melodies of spring."
In Memoriam, xxxviii. 2.
Compare this Sonnet with "In Memoriam" lxxv.-lxxvii.
Shakespeare. ”

“ The second and third editions were published in the same year, and contain like the first, in addition to the introductory and concluding poems, 130 numbered sections only. The numbered sections of "In Memoriam" (which eventually increased to 132) were apparently written between the autumn of 1833, after the death of Arthur Hallam in September of that year, and the spring or summer of 1836. The concluding poem, or Epithalamium, was written in 1842, and the Introductory lines bear the date of 1849, in which year the work was presumably printed. ”

“ Early proof-sheets of "In Memoriam" and "Maud" exist, which show that numerous alterations, omissions and additions were made in these poems after they were in type.
1843-1846.
A second, third and fourth edition of the Poems in two volumes, with some alterations and additions, and with the omission of a note to the second volume and of the date (1833) originally appended to the poem of "The Two Voices," appeared in 1843, 1845 and 1846 respectively. These are of considerably less rarity than the first issue: the edition of 1843, like the first edition, was issued in boards ”

“ TENNYSON, Alfred, Lord.—In Memoriam. London Macmillan and Co. 1885. 8vo, green levant [151] morocco, back and sides covered with a floral design, partly studded, leaf inside border and edges similarly gauffred, by Cobden-Sanderson, 1887.
One of five hundred large paper copies printed, with autograph letter of the binder inserted.
TENNYSON, Alfred, Lord.—Maud, and other poems. By Alfred Tennyson . . . London: Edward Moxon . . . 1855. Post 8vo, cloth, uncut edges.
First edition, with autograph letter of the author inserted. ”

“ Arthur Hallam speaks of this poem as "last, but, oh, not least—we swear by the memory of Shakespeare, to whom a monument of observant love has here been raised by simply expanding all the latent meanings and beauties contained in one stray thought of his genius."—Englishman's Magazine, ubi suprà. ↑ This third line, however, originally stood thus:
⁠"My curse upon the clown and knave." ↑ lxi. 3. ↑ It is remarkable that this section immediately follows the stanza quoted at the head of this chapter. ↑ "In Memoriam." London: Edward Moxon, 1850. ”

“ Each of those names in the table is the memorial—perhaps the only memorial—of a human heart that once lived and loved; a heart that kept its steady pulsations through some certain period of time, and then ceased to beat and mouldered into dust. Each of those names is the memorial of an individual human life that had its joys and sorrows, its cares and burthens, its affections and hopes, its conflicts and achievements, its opportunities wasted or improved, and its hour of death. ”

“ Sellwood, Emily, becomes the wife of Alfred Tennyson, 102.
Shakespeare, quoted, 42 note; his Sonnets examined in connexion with "In Memoriam," 53-72; his "Troilus and Cressida," quoted, 87; an expression in his "Twelfth Night," 91; his allusion to King Cophetua in "Romeo and Juliet," 92; his revision of "Hamlet," 105; his plots, 128; passage from his "King John," 147, 152.
Shiplake Church, 102.
Simeon, Sir John, Tennyson's poem in memory of, 185. ”

“ She sees the dying look, the parting tear,
That sought with anxious tenderness to save
That dear memorial from the closing grave:
He clasps the object of his love's last care,
And vows for him the load of life to bear; 130
To rear the blossom of a faded flower,
And bid remembrance sooth each ling'ring hour.
He journey'd o'er a dreary length of way,
To plains where freedom shed her hallow'd ray ”

“ There comes a glory on the walls:
Thy marble bright in dark appears,
As slowly steals a silver flame
Along the letters of thy name,
And o'er the number of thy years.
The mystic glory swims away;
From off my bed the moonlight dies ”

“ Where is the mother who would willingly forget the infant that perished like a blossom from her arms though every recollection is a pang? Where is the child that would willingly forget the most tender of parents, though to remember be but to lament? Who, even in the hour of agony, would forget the friend over whom he mourns? Who, even when the tomb is closing upon the remains of her he most loved, when he feels his heart, as it were, crushed in the closing of its portal, would accept of consolation that must be bought by forgetfulness? ”

“ Vol. II. Poems printed or written prior to the death of Arthur Hallam, 1830-1833.
Vol. III. In Memoriam (with various readings) .
Vol. IV. The Princess (with various readings) .
Vol. V. English Idylls (with various readings) .
Vol. VI. Classical Poems (with various readings) .
Vol. VII. Patriotic and Laureate Poems (with various readings) .
Vol. VIII. Maud; and The Window, or the Loves of the Wren (with various readings) .
Vols, IX., X. Miscellaneous Later Poems, comprising the later Versions, as re-written, of some of the Poems of 1832-1833 ”

“ And shall we not thank God that we were given the strength and means to make this memorial to him, and to know that as long as time shall last the grief of the women who loved him, there portrayed, shall follow him, and the glory, which the false enemy shall wrest from him, shall fold him forever to her breast, while the light of the Divine patience of his sacrifice of self shall shine ever round and about him, and more and more shall illumine our path from the dark mysteries here of pain and death to the heaven where we shall know the reason of it all! ”

“ Thou unknown hero sleeping by the sea
In thy forgotten grave—with secret shame
I feel my pulses beat, my forehead burn,
When I remember thou hast given for me
All that thou hast, thy life, thy very name. ”

“ A similar feeling of pride at the completion of a great career is expressed in the memorial lines which he composed to be placed under his bust after death,—“Let no one weep for me, or celebrate my funeral with mourning; for I still live, as I pass to and fro through the mouths of men.” ”

“ The papers in which, so lately, the heart-stirring deeds of the living hero followed each other in rapid succession, were now, with a mournful sameness, as chilling to the excited imagination as the still scene they represented, filled, from end to end, with the solemn lying in state of the unconscious corse, the funeral lighting of the chamber of death, the silent mourners, who watched with the dead night and day, the sombre splendours of the body’s last receptacle. ”

“ The dead, how beautiful is the memory of the dead, what a holy thing it is in the human heart, what a chastening influence it has upon human life, how it subdues all the harshness that grows up within us in the daily intercourse with the world, how it melts our hardness and softens our pride, kindles our deepest love, and waking our brightest aspirations in the camp and by the wayside, in solitude or among our comrades, think sadly and speak lovingly of the dead. ”

“ And beautiful exceedingly are those beloved memorials—the silken locks of childhood, the treasured tresses of riper years, or the silver gray of reverend old age—which, in the eyes of sorrowing friends, are the dearest [7] relics of the loved ones whose angel spirits beyond the tomb have passed through death into eternity.
“There seems a love in hair, though it be dead:
It is the gentlest, yet the strongest thread
Of our frail plant—a blossom from the tree
Surviving the proud trunk; as if it said,
Patience and Gentleness in Power. ”

“ Years they had marked for the joys of the brave,
Years they must waste in the sloth of the grave.
All the bright laurels that promised to bloom
Fell to the earth when they went to the tomb.
Give them the meed they have won in the past;
Give them the honors their merits forecast;
Give them the chaplets they won in the strife;
Give them the laurels they lost with their life.
Cover them over—yes, cover them over—
Parent and husband and brother and lover;
Crown in your heart these dead heroes of ours,
And cover them over with beautiful flowers! ”

“ The chief mourners, at best, are generally true mourners, for they have lost a brother with whom “they sat but yesterday at meat;” and whilst they are comparing memories, recalling how merry they had many a day been together, and the solemn tones of that sublime music float upon the air, we can imagine the freed and satisfied soul wafted on those harmonious breathings to its heavenly home; and our hearts are melted, our imaginations exalted, our faith invigorated, and we come away the better for what we have seen. ”

“ Yet how many as young and brave and beloved as they have died like them, and, like them, are remembered and mourned! They, too, let us believe, smile still above us, and bend over us with serene joy at this happy time. Let their sweet memory hallow our jubilee! Let us take care that our lives are worthy their glorious death. ”

“ Old memories throng upon the heart—memories of early, happy days, and of the loved and lost. The lost—ah, too soon did some die in their young beauty, whilst others dropped, like ripe fruit, into the tomb. ”

“ My dear brothers and sisters, in accordance with our usual custom, we visit to-day our beautiful cemetery, not to mourn for our dead, but to rejoice that our Lord has risen from the grave to give us eternal life; for with Him shall rise all those who follow in His holy footsteps here below. Therefore, as we put not on the garb of mourning, let us not grieve in our hearts when we think of our loved ones who have gone home before us, but clasp each other's hands and be glad together, that through the blessed Redeemer such happiness has been vouchsafed to them. ”

“ It is such a blessed thing that time can heal such grief—that the gentle flowers of remembrance can by and by spring up on their graves, and though never forgotten, yet the keen pain is soothed—the bitterness is washed away, and again life holds out its tempting cup for our eager lips, and we quaff and are at rest, waiting the meeting beyond the river. ”

“ THOSE we love truly never die,
Though year by year the sad memorial wreath,
A ring and flowers, types of life and death,
Are laid upon their graves.
For death the pure life saves,
And life all pure is love ”

“ Reader—if many griefs have been your portion, if it has been your sad fate to tread with naked feet the thorny paths of life, if the foul passions of envy, rage, and hatred have found a place in your heart, close your eyes, forget your miseries—open, open for a moment that golden casket called the memory, in which are preserved, embalmed and imperishable, all those happy incidents which were the delight of your youth. ”

“ It is not a new bereavement, but one which has softened, that brings us here. We meet not around a newly opened grave, but among those which Nature has already decorated with the memorials of her love. ”

“ Far through the gloomy perspective of the grave, I see the cheering, the delightful, prospect of immortal life, of a reunion with those beloved ones, an eternal reunion, and a rapturous vision of joys which eye hath not seen, and before which the momentary pangs of death dwindle into nothing. ”

“ The halo which around you shines
Shall, as the years go by.
Add luster to the deeds which in
Our memories fondly lie.
We deck your graves with flowers today,
O comrades brave and true!
In token of the love we bear,
Our offerings round we strew. ”

“ Beloved till life can charm no more, And mourn'd till pity's self be dead. Another cause that perpetuates the memory of the deceased in the country is that the grave is more immediately in sight of the survivors. ”