In Memoriam A. H. H. OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII: 99

By Alfred, Lord Tennyson 1809–1892 Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Risest thou thus, dim dawn, again,

So loud with voices of the birds,

So thick with lowings of the herds,

Day, when I lost the flower of men;

Who tremblest thro' thy darkling red

On yon swoll'n brook that bubbles fast

By meadows breathing of the past,

And woodlands holy to the dead;

Who murmurest in the foliaged eaves

A song that slights the coming care,

And Autumn laying here and there

A fiery finger on the leaves;

Who wakenest with thy balmy breath

To myriads on the genial earth,

Memories of bridal, or of birth,

And unto myriads more, of death.

O wheresoever those may be,

Betwixt the slumber of the poles,

To-day they count as kindred souls;

They know me not, but mourn with me.

Biography

More than any other Victorian writer, Tennyson has seemed the embodiment of his age, both to his contemporaries and to modern readers. In his own day he was said to be—with Queen Victoria and Gladstone—one of the three most famous living persons, a reputation no other poet writing in English has ever had. As official poetic spokesman for the reign of Victoria, he felt called upon to celebrate a quickly changing industrial and . . .

Continue reading this biography