Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson, Baron, 1809-1892 -- Friends and associates
After Tennyson's and Hallam's memorable journey to the Pyrenees in aid of
the revolutionary movement against King Ferdinand of Spain, vividly
described by Carlyle in his _Life of John Sterling_.
Alfred Tennyson (in profile), John Harden and Mrs. Harden (on the left),
and the Miss Hardens.]
ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM
By DR. JOHN BROWN
[The following article, containing the Memoir of Arthur Hallam by his
father, Henry Hallam, is reprinted from _Horae Subsecivae_.--ED.]
PRAESENS imperfectum,--perfectum, plusquam perfectum
FUTURUM.--GROTIUS.
The idea of thy life shall sweetly creep
Into my study of imagination;
And every lovely organ of thy life
Shall come apparelled in more precious habit--
More moving delicate, and full of life,
Into the eye and prospect of my soul,
Than when thou livedst indeed.
_Much Ado about Nothing._
In the chancel of Clevedon Church, Somersetshire, rest the mortal remains
of Arthur Henry Hallam, eldest son of our great philosophic historian and
critic,--and the friend to whom "In Memoriam" is sacred. This place was
selected by his father, not only from the connection of kindred, being the
burial-place of his maternal grandfather, Sir Abraham Elton, but likewise
"on account of its still and sequestered situation, on a lone hill that
overhangs the Bristol Channel." That lone hill, with its humble old
church, its outlook over the waste of waters, where "the stately ships go
on," was, we doubt not, in Tennyson's mind when the poem, "Break, break,
break," which contains the burden of that volume in which are enshrined so
much of the deepest affection, poetry, philosophy, and godliness, rose
into his "study of imagination"--"into the eye and prospect of his
soul."[110]
Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.
O well for the fisherman's boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play!
O well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay!
And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!
Break, break, break,
At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.
Out of these few simple words, deep and melancholy, and sounding as the
sea, as out of a well of the living waters of love, flows forth all "In
Memoriam," as a stream flows out of its spring-all is here. "I would that
my tongue could utter the thoughts that arise in me,"--"the touch of the
vanished hand--the sound of the voice that is still,"--the body and soul
of his friend. Rising as it were out of the midst of the gloom of the
valley of the shadow of death:
The mountain infant to the sun comes forth
Like human life from darkness;
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account