A Key to Lord Tennyson's 'In Memoriam' Part 10

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 n.o.ble 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 pa.s.sing 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 OF ARTHUR 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 s.n.a.t.c.hED AWAY BY SUDDEN DEATH, AT VIENNA, ON SEPTEMBER 15TH, 1833, IN THE 23RD YEAR OF HIS AGE.

AND NOW, IN THIS OBSCURE AND SOLITARY CHURCH, REPOSE THE MORTAL REMAINS OF ONE TOO EARLY LOST FOR PUBLIC FAME, BUT ALREADY CONSPICUOUS AMONG HIS CONTEMPORARIES FOR THE BRIGHTNESS OF HIS GENIUS, THE DEPTH OF HIS UNDERSTANDING, THE n.o.bLENESS 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 tec.u.m, 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 Somersets.h.i.+re to Wales, across the estuary of the Severn,[45]

"And in the dark church like a ghost Thy 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 of him 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 "th.o.r.n.y 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 soul Looks thy fair face and makes it still."

LXXI.

Sleep, from its capturing power over the brain, 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 a.s.sociations.

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," his life'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 so little 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 pa.s.s away, and what survives of human deeds?

"It rests with G.o.d."