In Memoriam A. H. H. OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII: 116
In Memoriam A. H. H. OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII: 116
Original Text
Alfred lord Tennyson, In Memoriam (London: E. Moxon, 1850). PR 5562 A1 1850 Victoria College Library (Toronto). Alfred lord Tennyson, Works (London: Macmillan, 1891). tenn T366 A1 1891a Fisher Rare Book Library (Toronto).
2 That keenlier in sweet April wakes,
3 And meets the year, and gives and takes
4The colours of the crescent prime?
5Not all: the songs, the stirring air,
6 The life re-orient out of dust,
7 Cry thro' the sense to hearten trust
8In that which made the world so fair.
9Not all regret: the face will shine
10 Upon me, while I muse alone;
11 And that dear voice, I once have known,
12Still speak to me of me and mine:
13Yet less of sorrow lives in me
14 For days of happy commune dead;
15 Less yearning for the friendship fled,
16Than some strong bond which is to be.
Notes
1] First published anonymously in the volume with this title in 1850, though the 131 sections or separate poems that compose it were written and rewritten from 1833 to the time of publication. Two of the 131 sections were added in later editions: LIX in 1851, and XXXIX in 1872. The poem is in memory of Tennyson's friend Arthur Henry Hallam, son of the eminent historian. Hallam was engaged to marry Tennyson's sister Emily, when he died suddenly of a stroke in Vienna on September 15, 1833, at the age of twenty-two. Although written without any plan at first, the parts of the poem were finally arranged in a pattern to cover the period of about three years following Hallam's death. Tennyson himself insisted that it is "a poem, not a biography .... The different moods of sorrow as in a drama are dramatically given, and my conviction that fear, doubts, and suffering will find answer and relief only through Faith in a God of Love. `I' is not always the author speaking of himself, but the voice of the human race speaking through him."
OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII: he died in 1833. Back to Line
OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII: he died in 1833. Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1850
RPO poem Editors
H. M. McLuhan
RPO Edition
3RP 3.74.
Rhyme