THE BROOK
Published in 1855 in the volume, Maud and other Poems. The Brook is one of the most successful of Tennyson's idylls, and is in no degree, as the earlier poem Dora was, a Wordsworthian imitation. The brook itself, which bickers in and out of the story as in its native valley, was not the Somersby brook, which does not now "to join the brimming river," but pours into the sea. The graylings and other details are imaginary. A literary source has been suggested (see Dr. Sykes' note) in Goethe's poem, Das Bächlein, which begins:
klar, and clear, sinn; and think; du hin? goest thou? Du Bachlein, silberhell und Thou little brook, silver bright Du eilst vorüber immerdar, Thou hastenest ever onward, Am Ufer steh' ich, sinn' und I stand on the brink, think Wo kommst du her? Wo gehst Whence comest thou? Where
The Brook replies:
Schoss, dark rocks,
Moss'. and moss.
Ich komm' aus dunkler Felsen I come from the bosom of the Mein Lauf
geht über Blum' und My course goes over flowers
The charm of the poem lies in its delicate characterization, in its tone of pensive memory suffused with cheerfulness, and especially in the song of the brook, about which the action revolves. Twenty years have wrought many changes in the human lives of the story, but the brook flows on forever, and Darnley bridge still spans the brimming river, and shows for only change a richer growth of ivy.
6. HOW MONEY BREEDS, i.e. by producing interest at loan.
8. THE THING THAT—IS. The poet's function is thus described by Shakespeare:
As imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
—Midsummer Night's Dream, V., 1.
17. HALF-ENGLISH NEILGHERRY AIR. The Neilgherry Hills are in Madras. The climate resembles somewhat that of England.
37. MORE IVY, i.e. than twenty years ago.
46. WILLOW WEED AND MALLOW. These are marsh plants.
93-95. NOT ILLITERATE—DEED. Katie was not without reading; but she was not of those who dabble in sentimental novels (the source of imaginary tears), and saturate themselves with unctuous charities; and whose powers to act are sapped by their excess of feeling.
105. UNCLAIM'D. As having nothing to do with her. Katie resented the implication in the question of line 100. She therefore disdained to answer it. Messrs. Rowe and Webb hold that line 100 is a hint that the speaker, Lawrence Aylmer, was responsible for James's fit of jealousy.
l25f. Note the art with which the old man's garrulousness is expressed. The cautious precision of lines 151-152 is particularly apt.
176. NETTED SUNBEAM. The sunlight reflected like a net-work on the bottom. The ripples on the surface would have this effect.
189. ARNO. A river in Italy which flows past Florence.
189-190. DOME OF BRUNELLESCHI. Brunelleschi (Broo-nei-les'-ké) was an Italian architect (1377-1444), who completed the cathedral of Santa Maria in Florence. Its dome is of great size and impressiveness.
194. BY—SEAS. Tennyson was fond of quoting this line as one of his roost successful individual lines. Its rhythm is indeed sonorous.
195-196. AND HOLD—APRIL AUTUMNS. Objection has been taken to the somewhat pedantic precision of these lines. See, however, the reference on pp. lxxii.-lxxvii. to Tennyson's employment of science in poetry.
The fact is familiar, of course, that in the Antipodes the seasons are the reverse of ours.
203. BRIONY RINGS. Formed by the tendrils of the plant.
IN MEMORIAM
The poem, In Memoriam, in memory of Arthur Henry Hallam, was published in 1850, at first anonymously, but the authorship was not long in doubt.
Arthur Henry Hallam, the son of Henry Hallam, the historian, was born in 1811. He entered Eton in 1822, and remained there until 1827, when he went to Cambridge. There he met Alfred Tennyson, and the two young men formed a friendship for one another, broken only by Hallam's early death. In 1832, he graduated from Cambridge, became engaged to Emily Tennyson, the sister of Alfred, and entered on the study of law. In 1833, he had a severe illness and after his recovery was taken by his father for a tour on the Continent, in the hope of restoring his health. Sir Francis Hastings Doyle tells the story of his death: "A severe bout of influenza weakened him, and whilst he was travelling abroad for change of air, and to recover his strength, one of his usual attacks apparently returned upon him without warning, whilst he was still unfitted to resist it; so that when his poor father came back from a walk through the streets of Vienna, he was lying dead on the sofa where he had been left to take a short rest. Mr. Hallam sat down to write his letters, and it was only by slow and imperceptible degrees that a certain anxiety, in consequence of Arthur's stillness and silence, dawned upon his mind; he drew near to ascertain why he had not moved nor spoken, and found that all was over." The body was brought back to England and buried in Clevedon Church, on the banks of the Severn.
The effect upon Tennyson of the death of Arthur Hallam was overwhelming. For a time it "blotted out all joy from his life and made him long for death, in spite of his feeling that he was in some measure a help and comfort to his sister." Under the influence of this great sorrow he wrote The Two Voices, Ulysses, "Break, Break, Break," and began that exquisite series of lyric poems, afterwards joined together in the In Memoriam. His friendship for Hallam remained throughout life with him as one of his most precious possessions.
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.
The best annotated edition of In Memoriam is that by A. C. Bradley
(Macmillan). Other useful editions are edited by Wallace (Macmillan),
and by Robinson (Cambridge Press). Elizabeth B. Chapman's Companion to
In Memoriam (Macmillan), contains the best analysis of the poem.
XXVII
"The very memory of such an affection as he had cherished for Hallam is an inspiration. Keen and acute as the sense of loss may be, it purifies rather than destroys the influence of a hallowed love—its effect is to idealize and sanctify. This general truth is enforced by several illustrations."—Henry E. Shepherd.
2. NOBLE RAGE. Fierce love of freedom.
6. HIS LICENSE. "Lives without law, because untroubled by the promptings of a higher nature."
6. FIELD OF TIME. The term of his natural life.
12. WANT-BEGOTTEN REST. Hallam, Lord Tennyson interprets: "Rest—the result of some deficiency or narrowness."
16. NEVER TO HAVE LOVED. Life is enriched by the mere act of having loved.
LXIV
"Still brooding on all the possible relations of his old friend to the life and the love that he has left, the poet now compares him to some genius of lowly birth, who should leave his obscure home to rise to the highest office of state, and should sometimes in the midst of his greatness, remember, as in a dream, the dear scenes of old, and it may be, the humble villager who was his chosen playmate."—Elizabeth R. Chapman.
1. DOST THOU, ETC. This section was composed by Tennyson when he was walking up and down the Strand and Fleet Street in London.
5. INVIDIOUS BAR. Obstacle to success. Invidious is used in the sense of "offensive."
7. CIRCUMSTANCE. Adverse circumstances.
9. BY FORCE. Strength of character and will.
10. GOLDEN KEYS. Keys of office of state.
11. MOULD. As a minister of the Crown.
14. CROWNING SLOPE. A felicitous phrase. If it were a precipice it could not be climbed.
15. PILLAR. That on which they build, and which supports them.
21. NARROWER. When he was still in his "low estate."
28. REMEMBER ME. Bradley notes that "the pathetic effect is increased by the fact that in the two preceding stanzas we are not told that his old friend does remember him."
LXXXIII
"With the dawning of the New Year, fresh hope quickens in the poet's breast. He would fain hasten its laggard footsteps, longing for the flowers of spring and for the glory of summer. Can trouble live in the spring—the season of life and love and music? Let the spring come, and he will sing 'for Arthur a sweeter, richer requiem.'"—Elizabeth R. Chapman.
1. NORTHERN SHORE. Robertson explains: "The north being the last to be included in the widening circle of lengthening daylight as it readies further and further down from the equator."
2. NEW-YEAR. The natural, not the calendar year. The re-awakening of life in nature.
5. CLOUDED NOONS. From the noons, which are still clouded.
6. PROPER. Own.
9. SPIRE. Flowering spikes.
10. SPEEDWELL. "The Germander Speedwell is a slender, wiry plant, whose stem sometimes creeps along the surface of the ground before it grows upwards. The flowers have four small petals of the brightest blue, and within the flower at the foot of the petals is a small white circle, with a little white eye looking up. Two stamens with crimson heads rise from this white circle, and in the very centre of the flower there is a tiny green seed-vessel, with a spike coming out of the top."—C. B. Smith.
12. LABURNUMS.
"And all the gold from each laburnum chain
Drops to the grass." —To Mary Boyle.
LXXXVI
"I can open my being also to the reviving influences of Nature—as on a certain evening, balmy and glorious after the rain, when the breeze seemed as if it might breathe new life, and waft me across the seas away from the land of doubt and death to some far off sphere of more than earthly peace,"—Arthur W. Robinson.
1. SWEET AFTER SHOWERS, ETC. This poem was written at Barmouth.
1. AMBROSIAL. Ambrosia was the food of the immortal gods. The wind was from the west and was "divinely reviving."
4. BREATHING BARE. Making the horizon bare of clouds.
5. RAPT. Violent motion is not implied.
6. DEWY-TASSEL'D. From the showers.
7. HORNED FLOOD. Between two promontaries.
9. SIGH. "Impart as by a breath or sigh."
10. NEW LIFE. Due to the new friendship.
11. DOUBT AND DEATH. These have up to this time haunted him.
13. FROM BELT, ETC. Tennyson explains: "The west wind rolling to the Eastern seas till it meets the evening star."
16. WHISPER "PEACE." Stopford Brooke says of this poem: "Each verse is linked like bell to bell in a chime to the verse before it, swelling as they go from thought to thought, and finally rising from the landscape of earth to the landscape of infinite space. Can anything be more impassioned and yet more solemn? It has the swiftness of youth and the nobleness of manhood's sacred joy."
CI
"In the garden, looking round on tree and shrub and flower and brook—all the friends of many years—a fresh pang comes with the sight of each. All these will be unwatched, unloved, uncared for; till, perhaps, they find a home in a stranger's heart, growing dear to him and his, while the memory fades of those who love them now."—Elizabeth R. Chapman.
10. THE BROOK. The brook at Somersby flowed past the bottom of the parsonage grounds. It is constantly mentioned in Tennyson's poems. Hallam Tennyson says that the charm and beauty of the brook haunted his father through life.
11. LESSER WAIN. Ursa Minor, or the Little Bear; a small constellation containing the pole star. Wain means "wagon," another name for the constellation.
14. HERN AND CRAKE. Heron and corn-crake.
21. LABOURER. He does not move away, but stays always there.
22. GLEBE. Soil.
CXIV
"The world now is all for the spread of knowledge: and I should be the last to demur. But knowledge has an ardent impetuosity, which in its present immature condition may be fraught with many perils. Knowledge by itself, so far from being of necessity heavenly, may even become devilish in its selfish violence. Everything depends upon its being held in due subordination to those higher elements in our nature which go to make wisdom. Would that the ideal aim of our education were to produce such as he was, in whom every increase in intellectual ability was accompanied by the growth of some finer grace of the spirit."—Arthur W. Robinson.
4. HER PILLARS. "Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars."—Proverbs 9: 1.
5. A FIRE. The fire of inspiration.
6. SETS. Hard, like a flint.
6. FORWARD. Bold, without reverence.
7. CHANCE. Of success.
8. TO DESIRE. Governed by passion, without restraint or self-control.
10. FEAR OF DEATH. Knowledge does not know what is beyond the grave and therefore fears death.
11. CUT FROM LOVE, ETC. Wallace says: "Knowledge, in its own nature, can have no love, for love is not of the intellect, and knowledge is all of the intellect: so, too, she can have no faith, for faith in its nature is a confession of ignorance, since she believes what she cannot know."
12. PALLAS. Pallas Athene, the goddess of wisdom among the Greeks, was fabled to have sprung, fully grown and fully armed, from the brain of Zeus. Wild Pallas means "false wisdom."
17. A HIGHER HAND. Wisdom.
23. THY GOAL. The goal of wisdom.
28. REVERENCE, ETC. In faith and love.
CXV
"Another spring has come, and all its lovely sights and sounds wake answering chords in the poet's breast. The life within him stirs and quickens in responsive harmony with the world without. But his regret, too, blossoms like a flower,"—Elizabeth R. Chapman.
2. BURGEONS. Buds.
2. MAZE OF QUICK. Quick-set tangle.
3. SQUARES. Fields.
8. SIGHTLESS. Invisible.
14. GREENING. Shining out on the sea.
CXVIII
"Do not believe that man's soul is like mere matter, or has been produced, like lower forms in the earlier ages of the earth, only to perish. Believe that he is destined both to advance to something higher on the earth, and also to develop in some higher place elsewhere, if he repeats the process of evolution by subduing the lower within him to the uses of the higher, whether in peaceful growth or through painful struggle."—A. C. Bradley.
2. HIS YOUTH. "Limited time, however old or long, must be always young, compared with the hoary age of eternity."
4. EARTH AND LIME. Flesh and bone.
10. SEEMING-RANDOM. But in reality shaped and guided.
11. CYCLIC STORMS. "Periodic cataclysms," or "storms lasting for whole ages."
16. TYPE. Exemplify.
18. ATTRIBUTES OF WOE. Trial and suffering are the crown of man in this world.
20. IDLE. Useless.
22. HEATED HOT. A reference to the tempering of steel.
26. REELING FAUN. Human beings with horns, a tail, and goats' feet. They were more than half-brutish in their nature.
28. THE APE AND THE TIGER. A reference to the theory of evolution, although Darwin's Origin of Species did not appear until 1859.
CXXIII
"Again the mysterious play of mighty cosmic forces arrests his thought. Everything in the material universe is changing, transient; all is in a state of flux, of motion, of perpetual disintegration or re-integration. But there is one thing fixed and abiding—that which we call spirit—and amid all uncertainty, one truth is certain—that to a loving human soul a parting which shall be eternal is unthinkable."—Elizabeth R. Chapman.
4. STILLNESS. Hallam Tennyson remarks that balloonists say that even in a storm the middle sea is noiseless. It is the ship that is the cause of the howling of the wind and the lashing of the storm.
4. CENTRAL SEA. Far from land.
8. LIKE CLOUDS, ETC. A reference to geological changes.