But his own tragic Muse, Melpomene, replies with the apology, that though unworthy to speak of holy mysteries, yet with his earthly song he had striven to soothe his own aching heart, and render a due tribute to human love; and inasmuch as the comfort he had drawn was “clasp’d in truth reveal’d,” had its foundation in the Gospel: he daringly
“loiter’d in the Master’s field,And darken’d sanctities with song.”
Many readers ofIn Memoriamwill have thanked its author for these trespasses upon the Holy Land, feeling indeed there was no profane intrusion.
Some will regret that he has changed the original line, “and dear as sacramental wine,” into “and dear to me as sacred wine:” the purpose, one supposes, was that the reader should see that he spoke only for himself—“to me”—the meaning is unchanged, but the sound is rather flat.
XXXVIII.
The sadness of his heart has fully returned, and the journey of life is dull and weary. The skies above and the prospect before him are no longer what they used to be, when Hallam was by. “The blowing season,” whenplants are blossoming: the “herald melodies of spring,” when the birds proclaim that winter is past, give him no joy; but in his own songs he finds a “gleam of solace;” and if after death there be any consciousness retained of what has been left upon earth,
“Then are these songs I sing of theeNot all ungrateful to thine ear.”
XXXIX.
This Poem has been recently introduced, as already stated (see P. ii.). The Yew tree does really blossom, and form fruit and seed like other trees, though we may not notice it.
The Poet now says, that his “random stroke” on the tree brings off
“Fruitful cloud and living smoke;”
Also that at the proper season
“Thy gloom is kindled at the tips.”
The fact is, that the flower is bright yellow in colour, but very minute; and when the tree is shaken, the pollen comes off like dust, and then the tree seems to resume its old gloom.
So the spirit of the Poet may brighten for a moment, and then return to its accustomed melancholy.
XL.
He wishes “the widow’d hour” when he lost his friend, could be forgotten, or rather recalled like an occasion when the bride leaves her first home for “other realms of love.” There are tears then, but April tears—rain and sunshine mixed; and as the bride’s future office may be to rear and teach another generation—uniting grandparents with grand-children—so he has no doubt that to Hallam
“is givenA life that bears immortal fruitIn such great offices as suitThe full-grown energies of heaven.”
But then comes this difference. The bride will return in course of time with her baby, and all at her old home will be happier for her absence—whereas
“thou and I have shaken hands,Till growing winters lay me low;My paths are in the fields I know,But thine in undiscover’d lands.”
XLI.
Whilst together upon earth they could advance in company, though Hallam’s spirit and intellect were ever soaring upwards. Now, the links which united them are lost, and he can no longer partake in his friend’s transformations. So, (folly though it be,) he wishes that, by an effort of will, he could
“leap the grades of life and light,And flash at once, my friend, to thee.”See P. xcv., 9.
For, though he has no vague dread of death and “the gulfs beneath,” yet the chilling thought comes over him, that in death he may not be able to overtake his friend, but evermore remain “a life behind” him,
“Through all the secular to be”—
all future ages: and that so he shall be his mate no more, which is his great trouble.
“The howlings of forgotten fields”
is probably a classical allusion to those “fields” of mystic horror, over which the spirits of the departed were supposed to range, uttering wild shrieks and cries. Has Dante no such allusion?[26]
This Poem intimates the idea of progress and advancement after death.
XLII.
He reproaches himself for these fancies; for inasmuch as it was only unity of place which gave them the semblance of equality here—Hallam being always really ahead—why may not “Place retain us still,”[27]when I too am dead, and can be trained and taught anew by this “lord of large experience?”
“And what delights can equal thoseThat stir the spirit’s inner deeps,When one that loves but knows not, reapsA truth from one that loves and knows?”
There are no pleasures so sweet, as the imbibings of instruction from the lips of those who are both superior and dear to us.
It is evident that Hallam’s translation in death, had exalted his friend’s estimation of him whilst living, for see the Poet’s note at the end of Poem xcvii.
XLIII.
If, in the intermediate state, we find that
“Sleep and death be truly one”—
as St. Paul himself might lead us to believe—
“And every spirit’s folded bloom”
—the slumbering soul being like a flower which closes at night—reposed, unconscious of the passage of time, but with silent traces of the past marked upon it;[28]then the lives of all, from the beginning of time, would contain in their shut-up state a record of all that had ever happened;
“And love will last as pure and whole,As when he loved me here in Time,And at the spiritual primeRewaken with the dawning soul.”
At the resurrection, the old affection will revive.
XLIV.
How fare the happy dead? Here man continuously grows, but he forgets what happened
“beforeGod shut the doorways of his head;”
that is, before the skull of the infant closed. Yet sometimes
“A little flash, a mystic hint”
suggests the possibility of a previous existence.[29]“If death so taste Lethean springs,” as to leave a trace on the soul of what had happened upon earth—the Poet here makes Lethe produce remembrance, instead of forgetfulness, which is its normal effect. Dante describes the double power of the mythic stream in Purgatory (Can. xxviii., l. 134)—
“On this, devolved with power to take awayRemembrance of offence; on that, to bringRemembrance back of every good deed done.From whence its name of Lethe on this part;On the other, Eunoe.”—Cary’sTranslation.
And so, “in the long harmonious years” of death, some dim touch of earthly things may reach Hallam whilst ranging with his equals. If this should be allowed, “O turn thee round,” “resolve the doubt,” whether thou art conscious of a previous life, and listen to my guardian angel, who will tell thee all about us here.
XLV.
The child, still in its mother’s arms, has no consciousness of its own individual life and identity; and it is with its growth that it acquires a sense of separate and isolated being, independent of all around.
The acquisition of this consciousness may be the use of “blood and breath,” which otherwise would have achieved no worthy end; as we should have to learn ourselves afresh after the second birth of death, if these had not assured us of our indisputable personality.
XLVI.
In this life we experience “thorn and flower,” grief and joy; and the past becomes mercifully shaded as time goes on, otherwise the retrospect would be intolerable. But hereafter all shadow on what has happened will be removed, and all will be “clear from marge to marge;” and the five years of earthly friendship will be the “richest field” in the “eternal landscape.”
Yet this would be a limited range for Love, which ought to extend without any circumscription,
“A rosy warmth from marge to marge,”
its expansion interminable.
XLVII.
This great and religious Poem has been absurdly said to teach Pantheism, which these stanzas refute; or perhaps they rather deny the doctrine of Spinoza, if that be clearly understood.
At any rate, to be conscious of “a separate whole”—a distinct individuality—and yet merge at last
“in the general Soul,Is faith as vague as all unsweet:Eternal form shall still divideThe eternal soul from all beside;And I shall know him when we meet.”
St. Paul is not more distinct and emphatic upon our individuality hereafter, when he says, we shall “be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven,” 2 Cor. v., 2; that is, we shall put on a spiritualbody, that will give identity and form.
Delighting in the thought of
“Enjoying each the other’s good,”
he feels to have attracted the approving Shade of Hallam, and this reluctantly fades away, with the tender parting:
“Farewell, we lose ourselves in light.”
If indeed we are to be merged in the universal Soul, let us have at least one moreparting, before we lose our individualities in the Great Being.
XLVIII.
This Poem disclaims any attempt at settling religious difficulties. The verses are of “sorrow born,” the result of private grief; and if misunderstood, and open to the charge of attempting to solve such grave questions of doubt as affect some minds, they would deserve the scorn of men.
Sorrow does not undertake severe argument; but if a “slender shade of doubt” flits before it, it would make this doubt a “vassal unto love,” and yield to Love’s supreme authority.
Love ought to be our ruler and guide, and these lays of sadness are merely
“Short swallow-flights of song, that dipTheir wings in tears, and skim away.”
XLIX.
He compares the “random influences” of Art, Nature, and the Schools, to light breaking in shivered lances on the dappled water. For even so does “the sullen surface” of the mind become “crisp” and curled with the wave of thought, the eddy of fancy, the air of song.
The transient passenger may look and go on his way, but must not blame such mental perturbations: for
“Beneath all fancied hopes and fears,Ay me,[30]the sorrow deepens down,Whose muffled motions blindly drownThe bases of my life in tears.”
L.
He invokes Hallam’s spirit to be near him in his various moods of distress—when he is filled with nervous apprehensions, when faith seems gone, and Time to beonly “a maniac scattering dust,” and Life to be “a Fury slinging flame:” when men also appear to be no more than flies, that sting and weave their cells and die. But above all,
“Be near me when I fade away,To point the term of human strife,And on the low dark verge of life,The twilight of eternal day.”
The idea is sustained, that we shall go through the darkness of death, when Time will be lost, into the dawning light of Eternity; and the Poet would have his friend be near him at this translation.
LI.
Dare we indeed challenge the dead to inspect us? Have we “no inner vileness” that we would not have them discover? Would the Poet be lessened in Hallam’s esteem and affection, when “some hidden shame” was exposed? No,
“There must be wisdom with great Death:The dead shall look me thro’ and thro’.”·····“They watch, like God, the rolling hoursWith larger other eyes than ours,To make allowance for us all.”
LII.
He complains of his own inability to love Hallam as he ought, that is, worthily; because, if he did so, he would be equal to his friend,
“For love reflects the thing beloved;”
whereas his words are words only, the “froth of thought.”
The Spirit of love reproves this self-accusation:
“Thou canst not move me from thy side,Nor human frailty do me wrong.”
There is no ideal of excellence, which we may conceive, that will ensure our attaining to it:
“not the sinless yearsThat breathed beneath the Syrian blue”—
not the life of Christ, in the clear atmosphere of Palestine, keeps any spirit “wholly true” to that pattern of perfection.
So be not “like an idle girl,” fretting over little faults—“flecks of sin.” But wait, thy wealth will be gathered in—thy worth shown
“When Time hath sunder’d shell from pearl”—
when the flesh has left the Soul free from its contaminating influence.
LIII.
He has often known a father, now
“A sober man among his boys,”
whose youth was noisy and foolish. Are we then to conclude from his example, that had there been no wild oats sown, there scarcely would have come
“The grain by which a man may live?”
If we ventured to name such a doctrine among the old, who have “outlived heatsof youth,” would we preach it to the young, who still “eddy round and round?”
Hold fast what is good, and define it well; and take care that “divine Philosophy” does not exceed her legitimate bound and become
“Procuress to the lords of hell”—
by advocating sin as the path to sanctity.
LIV.
This Poem expresses a hope in Universalism—
“that somehow goodWill be the final goal of ill”—
that natural propensities, wilful sins, imperfect faith, and inherited weakness, may all find a pardonable solution.
He hopes that nothing has been made in vain—
“That not one life shall be destroy’d,Or cast as rubbish to the void,When God hath made the pile complete.”
But how reverently does he touch this mysterious subject!
“Behold, we know not anything;I can but trust that good shall fallAt 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.”
In Poem cxxiv., stanza 5, he says,
“Then was I as a child that cries,But, crying, knows his father near.”
LV.
He pursues the awful theme, and asks whether the wish for an universal restoration to life, does not spring from what is “likest God” in our own souls, His unlimited goodwill towards men, which would have all come to a knowledge of the truth?
“Are God and Nature then at strife?”
for we find Nature, whilst careful in preserving the type of each species, utterlyreckless of the separate members. We find, too, that out of “fifty (myriad)[31]seeds” sown, only one perhaps germinates. He falters and falls down
“Upon the great world’s altar-stairs,[32]That slope thro’ darkness up to God;”—
but still he stretches forth “lame hands of faith”
“To what I feel is Lord of all,And faintly trust the larger hope”—
the hope of a final restitution of all things.
LVI.
He said that Nature preserved each type; but no, some species are already extinct; and Nature says that she cares not for preserving anything, and so, in geological strata, we find the fossil remains of creatures that no longer exist.[33]Why then may not man,
“Who seemed so fair,Such splendid purpose in his eyes,”
also perish, and have his dust blown about the desert,
“Or seal’d within the iron hills?”
If he be “no more”[34]—if there be nothing beyond this life for him—then is man but a monster, a dream, a discord—“dragons of the prime,” the Ichthyosauri that lived in the slime of chaos, were his betters!
“O life as futile, then, as frail!O for thy voice to soothe and bless![35]What hope of answer or redress?Behind the veil, behind the veil.”
LVII.
“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 pass; 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 passing 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 assures him that it will come to his great relief—
“Abide a little longer here,And thou shalt take a nobler 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 passion 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 nobler 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 withhis, and sighs over her own inferior circumstances, 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 passing 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 assembled 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 shore,[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 canThe 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 oncehad 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 circumstances 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.
He clings to the memory of Hallam, yet would resign himself to his loss—
“Sweet soul, do with me as thou wilt.”
All that he can resolve is, to cherish every grain of love; and in doing so, there springs up the “happy thought,” that if his own nature has been elevated by intercourse with Hallam, why may not a like result have been reflected from himself on his friend?
“Since we deserved the name of friends,And thine effect so lives in me,A part of mine may live in thee,And move thee on to noble ends.”
LXVI.
He accounts for his cheerfulness to some one, who had wondered that being so far diseased in heart he could ever be gay.
He says that his own grief has made him feel kindly towards others; and that he is like a blind man, who though needing a hand to lead him, can still jest with his friends, take children on his knee and play with them, and dream of the sky he can no longer see:
“His inner day can never die,His night of loss is always there.”
LXVII.
He pictures in his mind, as he lies in bed, how the moonlight that fills his chamber is passing its “silver flame” across the marble tablet in Clevedon Church,[43]which is inscribed to the memory of Hallam. The tablet is not in the chancel of the church, as erroneously stated in Mr. Hallam’s private memoir of his son, and consequently so described in the earlier editions of this Poem, but it rests on the west wall of the south transept; and “the letters of thy name,” and “the number of thy years,” are thus most affectingly recorded:
“TO THE MEMORY OFARTHUR HENRY HALLAM,of Trinity College, Cambridge, b.a.,eldest son of Henry Hallam, Esquire,and of Julia Maria, his wife,daughter of Sir Abraham Elton, Bart.,of Clevedon Court,who was snatched away by sudden death,at Vienna, on September 15th, 1833,in the 23rd year of his age.and now, in this obscure and solitarychurch,repose the mortal remains ofone too early lost for public fame,but already conspicuous among hiscontemporariesfor the brightness of his genius,the depth of his understanding,the nobleness of his disposition,the fervour of his piety,and the purity of his life.Vale dulcissime,vale dilectissime, desideratissime,requiescas in pace.Pater ac mater hic posthac requiescamus tecum,usque ad tubam.”[44]
When the moonlight dies he falls asleep, “closing eaves of wearied eyes;” and awakens to know how the grey break of day is drawn from “coast to coast,” from Somersetshire to Wales, across the estuary of the Severn,[45]
“And in the dark church like a ghostThy tablet glimmers to the dawn.”
LXVIII.
A succession of dreams now occurs. When at night he presses “the down” of his pillow, sleep, “Death’s twin-brother,”[46]“times my breath”—takes possession ofhim and regulates his breathing. But, though so closely related to Death, sleep cannot make him dream of Hallam “as dead.” He again walks with him, as he did before he was left “forlorn;” and all nature is bright around them.
But, looking at his friend, he discovers “a trouble in thine eye”—an expression of sadness, which his dream will not account for. The light of day reveals the truth. He awakes, and perceives that his own grief, the trouble of his youth, had transferred itself to the image he saw in his dream.
LXIX.
He dreams again, and nature seems to have become distorted, and will not answer to the seasons. Smoke and frost fill the streets, and hawkers chatter trifles at the doors.
He wanders into a wood, and finds only“thorny boughs.” Of these he forms a crown, which he places on his head. For wearing this, he is scoffed at and derided; but an angel comes and touches it into leaf, and speaks words of comfort, “hard to understand,” being the language of a higher world.
The occurrences in this dream seem to have been suggested by the indignities offered to our Lord before His crucifixion.
LXX.
The confusion of nightmare, with hideous imagery, follows his effort to discern the features of Hallam; till all at once the horrid shapes disperse, and his nerves are composed by a pleasanter vision:
“I hear a wizard music roll,And thro’ a lattice on the soulLooks thy fair face and makes it still.”
LXXI.
Sleep, from its capturing power over thebrain, is called “kinsman to death and trance and madness;” and is here acknowledged as affording
“A night-long Present of the Past,”
by reviving in a dream of the night a tour they had made together “thro’ summer France.”
The Poet asks that, if sleep has “such credit with the soul,” as to produce this temporary illusion; it may be farther extended by giving him a stronger opiate, so as to make his pleasure complete, in prolonging this renewal of their pedestrian tour, and reviving other cherished associations.
This reference to their foreign excursion recalls the charming verses, “In the Valley of Cauteretz,” which evidently relate to their being together during this happy holiday:
“All along the valley, stream that flashest white,Deepening thy voice with the deepening of the night,All along the valley, where thy waters flow,I walk’d with one I loved two-and-thirty years ago.All along the valley, while I walk’d to-day,The two-and-thirty years were a mist that rolls away;For all along the valley, down thy rocky bed,Thy living voice to me was as the voice of the dead,And all along the valley, by rock and cave and tree,The voice of the dead was a living voice to me.”
LXXII.
The dreams are over, and he addresses the sad anniversary of Hallam’s death, which took place on the 15th of September, 1833—the day having just dawned with stormy accompaniments. The poplar tree[47]is blown white, through having its leaves reversed by the wind; and the window-pane streams with rain. It is a day on which his “crown’d estate,” hislife’s happiness, began to fail; and that the rose is weighed down by rain, and the daisy closes her “crimson fringes,”[48]are effects quite in harmony with his feelings.
But, if the day had opened with no wind, and the sun had chequered the hill sides with light and shadow; it would still have looked
“As wan, as chill, as wild as now.”
It is a disastrous “day, mark’d as with some hideous crime,” he can therefore only say, “hide thy shame beneath the ground,” in sunset, when the recalling anniversary will be past.
We are reminded of Job’s imprecation on his own birthday—“Let the day perish on which I was born.”
LXXIII.
He says there are so many worlds, and so much to be done in them—since solittle has already been accomplished—that he thinks Hallam may have been needed elsewhere. The earthly career of usefulness and distinction is over; but he finds no fault, piously submitting—
“For nothing is that errs from law;”
all is overruled. We pass away, and what survives of human deeds?
“It rests with God.”
The hollow ghost of Hallam’s reputation may wholly fade here; but his exulting soul carries away unexpended powers for higher purposes,
“And self-infolds the large resultsOf force that would have forged a name,”
had he been permitted to live.
LXXIV.
This Poem will certainly not bear a literal interpretation. We cannot supposethat the writer ever looked on the face of his friend after death; for nearly four months had elapsed before the body reached England.
What he saw, therefore, was with “the mind’s eye.” And as Death often brings out a likeness,[49]which was never before recognized; so, contemplating the character of the departed, he sees
“Thy likeness to the wise below,Thy kindred with the great of old.”
I can perceive worth in thee equal to theirs!
The last stanza is mystical; the darkness of death hides much; what he can see he cannot or will not explain: enough, that thou hast made even this darkness of death beautiful by thy presence.
LXXV.
The Poet leaves the praises of his friendunexpressed, because no words can duly convey them; and the greatness thus unrecorded must be guessed, by the measure of the survivor’s grief.
Indeed, he does not care
“in these fading daysTo raise a cry that lasts not long,And round thee with the breeze of song,To stir a little dust[50]of praise.”
The world only applauds accomplished success, and does not care for what might have been done, had opportunity been given. It is therefore sufficient that silence should guard Hallam’sfame here; because the writer is assured, that what he is elsewhere doing
“Is wrought with tumult of acclaim.”
One cannot but feel that were it not for this immortal elegy, its subject would have been long since forgotten, like other promising youths who have died in their Spring.
LXXVI.
“Take wings of fancy,” and imagine that you have the whole “starry heavens of space” revealed to one glance—“sharpen’d to a needle’s end.”[51]
“Take wings of foresight,” and see in the future how thy best poems are dumb, before a yew tree moulders; and thoughthe writings ofthe great early Poets—“the matin songs that woke the darkness of our planet”—may last, thy songs in fifty years will have become vain; and have ceased to be known by the time when the oak tree has withered into a hollow ruin.[52]
LXXVII.
“What hope is here for modern rhyme?”
Looking at what has already happened,
“These mortal lullabies of pain,”
may bind a book, or line a box, or be used by some girl for curl papers; or before a century has passed, they may be found on a stall, telling of
“A grief—then changed to something else,Sung by a long forgotten mind.”
Nevertheless, these considerations shall not deter the Poet—
“But what of that? My darken’d waysShall ring with music all the same;To breathe my loss is more than fame,To utter love more sweet than praise.”
LXXVIII.
Another Christmas Eve arrives, with snow and calm frosty weather. Though, as of old, they had games, andtableaux vivants, and dance, and song, and “hoodman blind”[53]—blindman’s bluff—yet in spite of these recreations,
“over all things brooding sleptThe quiet sense of something lost.”
There were no visible signs of distress—no tears or outward mourning. Could regret then have died out?
“No—mixt with all this mystic frame,Her deep relations are the same,But with long use her tears are dry.”
LXXIX.
“More than my brothers are to me”—
he had used this expression in the last stanza of Poem ix., and in repeating it he would apologize to his brother Charles Tennyson, we may presume.
“Let not this vex thee, noble heart!”
for thou art holding “the costliest love in fee,” even a wife’s affection—we may again suppose.
The Rev. Charles Tennyson married Miss Sellwood,[54]and changed his name to Turner, for property left to him by a relation, and was vicar of Grasby, in Lincolnshire. The brothers,[55]in their boyhood, shared one home with all its endearing associations; and now each has his specialobject of affection: “my wealth resembles thine;” except that Hallam
“was rich where I was poor,And he supplied my want the moreAs his unlikeness fitted mine.”
LXXX.
If any vague wish visits the Poet, that he had himself been the first to be removed by Death (when the dust would have dropt on “tearless eyes,” which, as it is, have now so sorely wept over Hallam’s departure); then the grief of the survivor would have been
“as deep as life or thought,But stay’d in peace with God and man;”
because Hallam would have found comfort in pious resignation.
So he minutely ponders over this holy submission, and invokes contentment from the contemplation—
“Unused example from the graveReach out dead hands to comfort me.”
LXXXI.
If, whilst Hallam was with him, it could be said that love had its full complement and satisfaction, and could not range beyond; still he torments himself with “this haunting whisper,”
“More years had made me love thee more.”
My attachment would have expanded with the enlargement of his powers.
“But Death returns an answer sweet:My sudden frost was sudden gain”—
The change in death instantly exalted its victim;
“And gave all ripeness to the grain,It might have drawn from after-heat.”
A sudden frost will ripen grain or fruit, but will not impart the flavour to fruit which the sun gives.
In Hallam’s sudden transition, whatmight have been drawn from subsequent experience was at once fully accomplished.
LXXXII.
A fine burst of Faith in the future. He does not reproach Death for any corruption by it “on form or face.” No decay of the flesh can shake his trust in the survival of the soul. “Eternal process” is ever “moving on;” the Spirit walks through a succession of states of being; and the body dropt here is but a case, the “ruin’d chrysalis of one” state left behind.[56]
Nor does he find fault with Death for taking “virtue out of earth:” he knows that it will be transplanted elsewhere to greater profit.
What he is angry with Death for is, their separation—
“He put our lives so far apartWe cannot hear each other speak.”
This Poem expresses a comforting belief in progress and advancement hereafter.
LXXXIII.
“The northern shore” must simply mean our northern region.
He reproaches the New Year for “delaying long.” Its advent would cheer him, bringing the light and sweetness of Spring—for
“Can trouble live with April days,Or sadness in the summer moons?”
He would have the New Year bring all its customary flowers—
“Deep tulips dash’d with fiery dew,Laburnums, dropping-wells of fire”—
a sight of these would set free the sorrow in his blood,
“And flood a fresher throat with song.”
LXXXIV.
This Poem is a very charming conceptionof what their lives might have domestically been, if Hallam had been spared. The picture is almost too beautiful: detailing more than life ever allows—and there came the crushing sorrow.
Engaged in marriage to the Poet’s sister,[57]death intervened—
“that remorseless iron hourMade cypress of her orange flower,Despair of Hope, and earth of thee.”
It is remarkable how the imagination of the Poet glows over the tender scenes of home affection, and the great results which he presumes were arrested by the removal of his friend, who he had hoped would have attained “to reverence and the silver hair” in company with himself—and then, in their full old age,
“He that died in Holy LandWould reach us out the shining hand,And take us as a single soul.”
The mere thought of this forbidden consummation of their friendship shocks him; it revives the old bitterness of sorrow, and stops
“The low beginnings of content.”[58]
LXXXV.
The first stanza merely repeats the sentiment expressed in Poem xxvii., that the deepest grief has only more fully convinced him, that to have loved and lost is better than never to have loved.
It isthe friend to whom the epithalamiumis addressed—E. L. Lushington—“true in word and tried in deed,” who asks how he is affected—if his faith be still firm, and he has still room in his heart for love? He answers, that all was well with him, until that fatal “message” came, that
“God’s finger touch’d him, and he slept.”
He then recounts what he thinks may have occurred to Hallam, when translated through various stages of spiritual being; and he repeats his sorrowful regrets for his loss. But “I woo your love,” he seems to say to his future brother-in-law, for he holds it wrong
“to mourn for any over much:”
still, so deep is his attachment to Hallam, that he calls himself
“the divided half of suchA friendship as had master’d Time;”
their intimacy would be eternal; and he imagines some sort of intercourse still carried on betwixt them, which he describesin language that has much of the spirit and character of Dante.
He then seems to turn again to his living friend, and says,
“If not so fresh, with love as true,I, clasping brother-hands, averI could not, if I would, transferThe whole I felt for him to you.”
But he is not wholly disconsolate—
“My heart, tho’ widow’d, may not restQuite in the love of what is gone,[59]But seeks to beat in time with oneThat warms another living breast.”
The concluding stanza offers the primrose of autumn to the surviving friend, whilst that of spring must be reserved for the friend whom he has lost.
LXXXVI.
He asks the ambrosial air of evening,which is so “sweet after showers,” and is “slowly breathing bare the round of space,”[60]clearing the sky of clouds, and “shadowing” the divided stream by raising ripples on its surface, to fan the fever from his cheek, till Doubt and Death can no longer enchain his fancy, but will let it fly to the rising star, in which
“A hundred spirits whisper, ‘Peace.’”
This Poem is remarkable as being one sustained sentence.
LXXXVII.
He revisits Cambridge, the chief scene of past intimacy with Hallam, and roams about the different colleges.
The expression “high-built organ,” probably alludes to the organ being here, as in some cathedrals, reared above the screen which separates the choir from the nave.
“The prophets blazon’d on the panes,”
refers to the stained glass windows, and more particularly to those, perhaps, in King’s College chapel. The scenery at the back of the colleges is vividly recalled.
He stops at the door of Hallam’s old room, now occupied by a noisy wine party. It was there that his friend used to achieve such controversial triumphs—ever as the master-bowman hitting the mark in argument, when
“we sawThe God within him light his face,”
like the martyr Stephen’s;
“And over those ethereal eyesThe bar of Michael Angelo”—
whose brow was straight and prominent—the sign of intellectual power.
Michael Angelo had a strong bar of bone over his eyes.