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In Memoriam A. H. H. is a long elegy–a poem of serious reflection, typically a lament for the dead–by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, written in memory of his close friend Arthur Henry Hallam, who died suddenly in 1833. The poem, composed of 131 sections, or cantos, chronicles Tennyson’s grief, doubt, and eventual return to faith, exploring themes of loss, nature’s seeming indifference, and the search for meaning in a changing world, One of the most famous and quoted elegies, as a personal lament, it is perhaps unparalleled in its depiction and grasp of personal loss and sorrow. Below is a selection of some of the cantos. Please be sure to read them; my analysis is , by nature, somewhat choppy. And I very much hope that reading this will inspire you to read the entire poem.
The entire poem consists of 131 sections, or cantos (plus a Prologue and an Epilogue), each containing a varied number of 4-line stanzas, with rhyme scheme abab, in meter iambic tetrameter (lines with four iambic feet, each containing one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one [ta-DUM ta-DUM ta-DUM ta-DUM ]. This 8-syllable pattern is often likened to a heartbeat,)
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I
I held it truth, with him who sings
To one clear harp in divers tones,
That men may rise on stepping-stones
Of their dead selves to higher things.
But who shall so forecast the years
And find in loss a gain to match?
Or reach a hand thro’ time to catch
The far-off interest of tears?
Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown’d,
Let darkness keep her raven gloss:
Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss,
To dance with death, to beat the ground,
Than that the victor Hours should scorn
The long result of love, and boast,
“Behold the man that loved and lost,
But all he was is overworn.”
III
O Sorrow, cruel fellowship,
O Priestess in the vaults of Death,
O sweet and bitter in a breath,
What whispers from thy lying lip?
“The stars,” she whispers, “blindly run;
A web is wov’n across the sky;
From out waste places comes a cry,
And murmurs from the dying sun;
“And all the phantom, Nature, stands —
With all the music in her tone,
A hollow echo of my own, —
A hollow form with empty hands.”
And shall I take a thing so blind,
Embrace her as my natural good;
Or crush her, like a vice of blood,
Upon the threshold of the mind?
V.
I sometimes hold it half a sin
To put in words the grief I feel;
For words, like Nature, half reveal
And half conceal the Soul within.
But, for the unquiet heart and brain,
A use in measured language lies;
The sad mechanic exercise,
Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.
In words, like weeds, I’ll wrap me o’er,
Like coarsest clothes against the cold:
But that large grief which these enfold
Is given in outline and no more.
VII
Dark house, by which once more I stand
Here in the long unlovely street,
Doors, where my heart was used to beat
So quickly, waiting for a hand,
A hand that can be clasp’d no more —
Behold me, for I cannot sleep,
And like a guilty thing I creep
At earliest morning to the door.
He is not here; but far away
The noise of life begins again,
And ghastly thro’ the drizzling rain
On the bald street breaks the blank day.
XXVII
I envy not in any moods
The captive void of noble rage,
The linnet born within the cage,
That never knew the summer woods:
I envy not the beast that takes
His license in the field of time,
Unfetter’d by the sense of crime,
To whom a conscience never wakes;
Nor, what may count itself as blest,
The heart that never plighted troth
But stagnates in the weeds of sloth;
Nor any want-begotten rest.
I hold it true, whate’er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
‘Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
XXXIV
My own dim life should teach me this,
That life shall live for evermore,
Else earth is darkness at the core,
And dust and ashes all that is;
This round of green, this orb of flame,
Fantastic beauty; such as lurks
In some wild Poet, when he works
Without a conscience or an aim.
What then were God to such as I?
‘Twere hardly worth my while to choose
Of things all mortal, or to use
A tattle patience ere I die;
‘Twere best at once to sink to peace,
Like birds the charming serpent draws,
To drop head-foremost in the jaws
Of vacant darkness and to cease.
LIV
Oh, yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill,
To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;
That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroy’d,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete;
That not a worm is cloven in vain;
That not a moth with vain desire
Is shrivell’d in a fruitless fire,
Or but subserves another’s gain.
Behold, we know not anything;
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last — far off — at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring.
So runs my dream: but what am I?
An infant crying in the night:
An infant crying for the light:
And with no language but a cry.
CVI
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.
Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
CXXIX
Dear friend, far off, my lost desire,
So far, so near in woe and weal;
O loved the most, when most I feel
There is a lower and a higher;
Known and unknown; human, divine;
Sweet human hand and lips and eye;
Dear heavenly friend that canst not die,
Mine, mine, for ever, ever mine;
Strange friend, past, present, and to be;
Loved deeplier, darklier understood;
Behold, I dream a dream of good,
And mingle all the world with thee.
CXXX
Thy voice is on the rolling air;
I hear thee where the waters run;
Thou standest in the rising sun,
And in the setting thou art fair.
What art thou then? I cannot guess;
But tho’ I seem in star and flower
To feel thee some diffusive power,
I do not therefore love thee less:
My love involves the love before;
My love is vaster passion now;
Tho’ mix’d with God and Nature thou,
I seem to love thee more and more.
Far off thou art, but ever nigh;
I have thee still, and I rejoice;
I prosper, circled with thy voice;
I shall not lose thee tho’ I die.
CXXXI
O living will that shalt endure
When all that seems shall suffer shock,
Rise in the spiritual rock,
Flow thro’ our deeds and make them pure,
That we may lift from out of dust
A voice as unto him that hears,
A cry above the conquer’d years
To one that with us works, and trust,
With faith that comes of self-control,
The truths that never can be proved
Until we close with all we loved,
And all we flow from, soul in soul.
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After the theological Prologue1, Tennyson begins the first Canto with what he used to hold true about grief: what earlier philosophical poets (one who sings…in divers tones) claimed that we reached higher things (spiritual elevation) by rising on plateaus (stepping-stones) of previous, past selves and sorrows (dead selves). He questions this philosophy asking, Who can predict (forecast the years) whether a devastating loss will be compensated by a future benefit (gain) or look into the future (reach a hand thro’ time) to see any benefit (interest) in tears. He would rather have Love and Grief survive by (lest both be drowned) holding on to each other (clasp) even in the darkness of sorrow (drunk with loss), rather to dance (beat the ground) with death (loss), than to let a victorious Time (hours) scorn the benefit (long result) of love and brag (boast) that he has overcome the man that loved and lost [this line foreshadows the antithetical famous lines later], whose being (all he was) is now sapped of meaning (overworn).
In *apostrophe*2 and *personification*3, Tennyson/the speaker addresses Sorrow, a cruel companion (fellowship), a Priestess serving in the tombs (vaults) of death, an entity, in *oxymoron*4, that simultaneously is sweet (comforting) and sour (agonizing). and asks, What whispers from thy lying lip?, questioning anything Sorrow might say. She responds that the universe is pointless (the stars…blindly run), a trap-like web covers the sky, from whose empty(waste) places there comes a cry of desolation. and murmuring from the slowly dying sun; amid this Nature, an insubstantial (phantom) presence stands, with all her music nothing but a hollow echo of Sorrow’s music, a hollow form (again, ghost) empty and useless. The speaker poses a rhetorical question in response to this cynicism and negativity : Should I accept (take) a thing so clueless (blind) as my truth, Embrace her as true wisdom (natural good), or utterly reject her (crush her) like a corruption (vice) in the blood upon the entrance (threshold) of thought (the mind). In Canto III, Tennyson concluded that rather than try to get past grief, he would marry it to love to overcome sorrow. Here he rejects Sorrow’s alluring call as empty and useless.
Canto V. Tennyson questions the morality (hold it half a sin) of putting (put in) his grief into words since words, like Nature, can only half-express (half reveal/And half conceal) what the Soul within is feeling. On the other hand (But), for the disturbed (unquiet) heart and brain, poetry (measured language), in its sad mechanical process (exercise) does have the use of numbing pain, like dull narcotics. He concludes, then, that he will metaphorically cloak (wrap) himself in poetry’s mourning clothes (weeds), like heavy (coarsest) garments against the cold, though the relief to the profound (large) grief they provide (enfold) is only partial (outline).
Canto VII. Tennyson, for the rest of the poem, acts on his premise that poetic expression of grief is at least a palliative5 to the pain endured with loss. Canto VII introduces the cause of the poet’s grief–the loss of his closest friend. In a now long unlovely street, he stands before the Doors of a now Dark (unoccupied)house, where his heart used to beat /So quickly in anticipation (waiting) of a handclasp with his friend–A hand that can be clasp’d no more, an expression of the permanent loss he now feels. Behold me now, sleepless, creeping in my pain to the door. Pointlessly, of course, for his friend is no longer there (He is not here) . But adding to the pain, life goes on anyway ( The noise of life begins again) oblivious and unconnected to his solitary suffering. And, in an unforgettably brutal and punishing (ghastly) image, intensified by the monosyllabically beating rhythm and explosive repetition of b’s, ordinary (drizzling) rain falls on the empty (bald) street, witnessing the seemingly violent (breaks) and cruel beginning of a desolate (blank) day.
And ghastly thro’ the drizzling rain
On the bald street breaks the blank day
Canto XXVII. Tennyson seems to have found some momentary consolation here. Although desolate from the loss of Hallam, nevertheless he does not envy those who never knew what they didn’t have: the captive who never knew freedom ( And therefore noble rage); the bird (linnet) born in a cage that never knew the summer woods; the wild animal (beast) which behaves (license) free of guilt (unfettered by the sense of crime) and conscience, which never wakes. Nor, the heart that counts itself as blessed for never having promised commitment (plighted troth), nor any rest as a result of (begotten) having experienced no deprivations (want). In the last analysis, he still believes (holds it true), no matter what happens (whate’er befall), he feels that, even at the height of sorrow (when I sorrow most): ‘Tis better to have loved and lost/Than never to have loved at all.
However, in those most famous lines, this is no permanent solution through consolation, as we see in Canto XXXIV, perhaps the most painful expression of loss in the poem
Canto XXXIV. From the depths of despondency Tennyson questions the purpose, if any, of existence. His own limited (dim) life should teach him either life is eternal (evermore) or else earth is meaningless (darkness) at the core, just (all that is) dust and ashes. The earth (this round of green) and the sun (this orb of flame) are just some fanciful (fantastic) beauty, the products of some wild Poet’s imagination when he creates/ Without a conscience or an aim. If this is so, what’s God to him (What then were God to such as I?), why strive for salvation? Why make the effort (hardly worth my while) to try to choose what (things of all mortal) would benefit life, or to use meaningless (tattle) patience before dying. Seeing no point to strive, Tennyson gives in to his despair: it’s best Instead to yield quietly to despair (to sink to peace), like a bird hypnotized (charming) to a serpent, willingly dropping head-foremost into the jaws of empty (vacant) darkness and simply to cease to act. Self-negating hopelessness.
In Canto LIV Tennyson seems to grasp some hope of purpose: trust that somehow good/Will be the final goal of ill (pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood); that all life has purpose (That nothing walks with aimless feet); that not one life will have been in vain (That not one life shall be destroy’d,/Or cast as rubbish to the void,/When God hath made the pile complete. That not a worm dies, or a moth, but for a purpose (subserves another’s gain). The *anaphoric*6 repetition of that creates a list of examples to support his point of meaning. We may not know anything, cut can trust good will prevail (fall to all) in the last analysis (at last), just as every winter will change to spring. Perhaps, then, there is some hope of purpose?
But, in an abrupt turn, despondency re-asserts itself. All such rationalizing is just an illusion, a dream.
In sad defeat, Tennyson admits, So runs my dream–the delusion of a desperate man. But what am I? No more than a child (infant) crying out in its ignorance (night), crying for meaning (the light), but with no language (words), just a cry. The poet has reached the nadir of his sorrow.
In Cantos LV through CV, Tennyson continues to grapple with meaning and nothingness, hope and despair, faith and doubt, loosely organized around three Christmases. The spiritual climax (turning point) of the poem is Canto 95, where the speaker experiences a mystical trance while reading old letters from the deceased Arthur Hallam. Sitting alone on a summer night, in an *epiphany*7, he feels Hallam’s spirit merge with his own, leading to a profound sense of communion with the divine and understanding of the afterlife.
Canto CVI. Released from despair, Tennyson greets a New Year with celebration, accompanied by ringing bells. Using anaphora again (Ring), he lists what to Ring out and what to Ring in to celebrate the end of what was and the beginning of what can be. It is ecstatic joy in comparison to the earlier profound despair. Some of the more hopeful requests:
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.
—
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
Using apostrophe, Cantos CXXIX and CXXX are direct addresses to Hallam, almost beatifying8 him in their praise. Using oxymoron to intensify the paradoxical nature of Hallam’s transcendence: Tennyson’s Dear friend is far off and lost to death, yet near in sorrow (woe and weal); known (in life) and unknown (in death; and loved the most when transcending human and divine (lower and higher). Dear exalted (heavenly) friend, who in Tennyson’s love for him can never die, as nor can their love (Mine, mine, for ever, ever mine). Strange (out of life) friend, eternal (past, present, and to be), loved deeply, understood mysteriously, (darklier): Behold, I envision (dream) goodness, present (mingled) in the conjoining of you with the world.
Tennyson can sense Hallam in the air, wherever waters run, and in the rising and setting sun; he is with nature. Confronted with this new aspect, Tennyson asks rhetorically, What art thou then? I cannot guess. But even though Hallam is now diffused throughout nature (in star and flower) the poet does not love him less. In fact his love has grown, containing the love that was when Hallam was alive (love before), but his passion is vaster, fueled by Hallam’s union (mixd) with God and Nature; I seem to love thee more and more. Paradoxically, even though in death Hallam is far off, yet in Tennyson’s love he is near (nigh). So Hallam is not truly lost, I have thee still, which causes the poet to rejoice and prosper–a far cry from the despondency felt earlier–being enclosed (circled) with [Hallam’s ] voice, for eternity: I shall not lose thee tho’ I die. Now they can never be separated.
In the final Canto (CXXXI) of the main body of the poem, Tennyson makes a plea that the universal, spiritual, living will that endures through (suffer) all blows, including death (shocks), should rise in faith (spiritual rock), cleanse (flow through) our earthly deeds and make them pure, that we may rise above our mortality (the conquer’d years) with a voice, a cry to the Lord (unto him that hears) and works with us, and trust in, with a faith born (comes) of self-control, the eternal truths, even though they never can be proved in mortal life, until we rise cleansed (close) in union with all [whom] we loved and all who engendered us (all we flow from) soul conjoined with (in) soul in a universality of redemption.
A remarkable spiritual journey from desolation to joy, despair to hope, “black night” to redemption, and personal to universal love.
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- The Prologue to Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s In Memoriam A.H.H. (written in 1849) is a deeply personal yet theological plea for faith amidst overwhelming grief for his deceased friend, Arthur Henry Hallam. Tennyson addresses the “Strong Son of God,” balancing human doubt with a desperate need for divine guidance, forgiveness for “wild and wandering cries,” and wisdom. ↩︎
- a literary device where the speaker directly addresses an absent/dead person, an abstract concept, or an inanimate object as if it were present and capable of understanding ↩︎
- the attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman ↩︎
- a literary device combining two contradictory or opposing words to create a paradoxical, vivid, or complex effect ↩︎
- treatments, care, or measures designed to relieve pain ↩︎
- the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses ↩︎
- a sudden, profound moment of realization or insight experienced by a character, fundamentally altering their perspective or understanding of themselves, others, or a situation. Coined in a literary context by James Joyce, it often acts as a turning point or climax ↩︎
- elevating someone to a state of blessedness ↩︎
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(Note: You can view most poems on the website, Poetry Foundation.)
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