A Key to Lord Tennyson's 'In Memoriam' Part 23

"Arrive" is thus made an active verb: but there are good authorities for this use, which has the meaning of "attain," or "reach."

"But ere we could arrive the point proposed, Caesar cried, Help me, Ca.s.sius, or I sink."

_Julius Caesar_, Act i., s. 2.

"I mean, my lords, those powers that the queen Hath raised in Gallia have arrived our coast."

_3 Henry VI._, Act v., s. 3.

"Over the vast abrupt, ere he arrive The happy isle."

_Paradise Lost_, B. II., l. 409.

[59] This Poem was written "through a course of years," and during that long period the author was devotedly attached to the lady whom he ultimately married, but they were not allowed to meet. May not this separation have tinctured, with double sadness, this wonderful elegy in memory of his friend? Lord Tennyson's marriage, and the first publication of "In Memoriam," both occurred in 1850.

[60]

"all things rare That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems."

Shakespeare, _Sonnet XXI._

[61] The "towering sycamore" must be a notable tree on the lawn, again alluded to in P. xcv., s. 14. _It is cut down, and the four poplars are gone, and the lawn is no longer a flat one._

[62] "In summer twilight she, as evening star, is seen surrounded with the glow of sunset, _crimson-circled_."

Spedding's _Bacon_, vol. vi., p. 615.

[63] In the "Lotus Eaters," we read

"all hath suffered change; For surely now our household hearths are cold: Our sons inherit us: our looks are strange: And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy."

[64] The kingfisher is here meant, which, like other birds, puts on its best plumage in early spring--see "Locksley Hall"--

"In the spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast; In the spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest; In the spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove."

Longfellow sings in "It is not always May:"

"The sun is bright--the air is clear, The darting swallows soar and sing, And from the stately elms I hear The blue-bird prophesying spring."

I can positively say that the kingfisher is the bird to which the poet refers. Another parallel pa.s.sage may be quoted:

"The fields made golden with the flower of March, The throstle singing in the feather'd larch, And down the river, like a flame of blue, Keen as an arrow flies the water-king."

"The little halcyon's azure plume Was never half so blue."--Shenstone.

[65] Campbell says, "Coming events cast their shadows before." The sun, by refraction, still appears in full size above the horizon, after it has really sunk below it; and reappears in full, when only just the upper edge has reached the horizon.

"As the sun, Ere it is risen, sometimes paints its image In the atmosphere, so often do the spirits Of great events stride on before the events, And in to-day already walks to-morrow."

_Death of Wallenstein_, Act v. Scene i.

[66] The wish realized. See Poem xcv. s. 9.

[67] Somersby may be described as being utterly secluded from the "madding crowd"--the most rural retirement that the most agricultural country can show. I find the population was recorded in 1835, when the family still resided there, as being sixty-one, whilst the church accommodation was for sixty. Small, however, as both church and parish were, and still are, the so-called Rectory is a roomy family house, with its back to the road, on which there can be but little traffic, and it fronts a very extensive stretch of country, on which you enter by a steep slope of ground. There are no striking features in this expanse of soft undulations, but you feel a consciousness that the sea is not far off, and that the scenery is well adapted for fine cloud and sunset effects. The air seems to have a bracing tone, and the several equally small churches around, tell of thin populations, and a general condition of rustic simplicity and peace.

[68]

"They told me, Herac.l.i.tus, they told me you were dead: They brought me bitter news to hear, and bitter tears to shed; I wept, as I remember'd how often you and I Had tired the sun with talking, and sent him down the sky.

"And now that thou are lying, my dear old Carian guest, A handful of grey ashes, long long ago at rest, Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake, For death he taketh all away, but them he cannot take."

I cannot resist quoting these touching lines, which are translated from the Greek of Callimachus, librarian of Alexandria, 260 B.C., on his friend Herac.l.i.tus of Halicarna.s.sus.

[69] See P. cix., s. 3.

[70]

"Jocund day Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops."

_Romeo and Juliet_, Act iii., s. 5.

[71] _Ignis fatuus_--"Will o' the Wisp."

[72] That is, the _ursa minor_, or little bear, which is a small constellation that contains the pole star, and never sets in our lat.i.tude.

[73] This is a favourite figure. In Poem xlix., stanza 1, we read,

"Like light in many a s.h.i.+ver'd lance That breaks about the dappled pools."

[74]

"This holly by the cottage-eave, To-night, ungather'd, shall it stand."

Changed in later editions to

"To-night ungather'd let us leave This laurel, let this holly stand."

[75]

"Use and Wont, Old sisters of a day gone by.

They too will die."--Poem xxix.

[76] "_Ligna super foco large reponens._" Thackeray sang,

"Care, like a dun, Lurks at the gate, Let the dog wait!

Happy we'll be.