Break, break, break
Break, break, break
Original Text
Alfred lord Tennyson, Poems, 2 vols. (Boston: W. D. Ticknor, 1842). PR 5550 E42a Victoria College Library (Toronto). Alfred lord Tennyson, Works (London: Macmillan, 1891). tenn T366 A1 1891a Fisher Rare Book Library (Toronto).
2 On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
3And I would that my tongue could utter
4 The thoughts that arise in me.
5O, well for the fisherman's boy,
6 That he shouts with his sister at play!
7O, well for the sailor lad,
8 That he sings in his boat on the bay!
9And the stately ships go on
10 To their haven under the hill;
11But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand,
12 And the sound of a voice that is still!
13Break, break, break
14 At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
15But the tender grace of a day that is dead
16 Will never come back to me.
Notes
1] "Made in a Lincolnshire lane at five o'clock in the morning, between blossoming hedges" (Tennyson). It is in memory of the poet's friend, Arthur Hallam, who died in 1833. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1842
RPO poem Editors
H. M. McLuhan
RPO Edition
3RP 3.49.
Rhyme