Published 1865. Written Oct. 1833 (Y.MS), immediately after T. heard of the death of Arthur Hallam. Spedding described it to T. as ‘one of those pieces which nobody except yourself can write, and I think the most exquisite of an exquisite race’ (19 Sept. 1834; Letters i 117–18). It is in the T.MS of In Memoriam, T.Nbk 13. T. probably delayed publication because it was too directly personal. In revising it for 1865, he veiled and objectified the poem by adding the title; by addressing it to another, changing ‘my’ to ‘thy’; and by omitting two explicit stanzas, ll. 15 ^ 16. All variants from Heath MS and T.MS are below. T. had used the same unusual stanza for My life is full (I 383), a comparable poem on death and Nature addressed to Hallam in his lifetime.
Nature, so far as in her lies,
Imitates God, and turns her face
To every land beneath the skies,
Counts nothing that she meets with base,
But lives and loves in every place;
II
Fills out the homely quickset-screens,
And makes the purple lilac ripe,
Steps from her airy hill, and greens
The swamp, where hummed the dropping snipe,
With moss and braided marish-pipe;
III
And on thy heart a finger lays,
Saying, ‘Beat quicker, for the time
Is pleasant, and the woods and ways
Are pleasant, and the beech and lime
Put forth and feel a gladder clime.’
And murmurs of a deeper voice,
Going before to some far shrine,
Teach that sick heart the stronger choice,
Till all thy life one way incline
With one wide Will that closes thine.
V
And when the zoning eve has died
Where yon dark valleys wind forlorn,
Come Hope and Memory, spouse and bride,
From out the borders of the morn,
With that fair child betwixt them born.
VI
And when no mortal motion jars
The blackness round the tombing sod,
Through silence and the trembling stars
Comes Faith from tracts no feet have trod,
And Virtue, like a household god
VII
Promising empire; such as those
Once heard at dead of night to greet
Troy’s wandering prince, so that he rose
With sacrifice, while all the fleet
Had rest by stony hills of Crete.
¶216.6. homely] edging Heath MS, T.MS. The quickset (whitethorn) appears twice in In Memoriam, in lxxxviii 2 and in the consolation of spring in cxv: ‘Now fades the last long streak of snow,/Now burgeons every maze of quick …/… and in my breast/Spring wakens too; and my regret/Becomes an April violet,/And buds and blossoms like the rest.’
9. hummed] 1889, Heath MS; hums T.MS, 1865–88. The snipe’s humming is caused by its vibrating tail-feathers.
10] And shoots the fringèd paddock-pipe – Heath MS; With braided moss and paddock-pipe T.MS 1st reading; With moss and braided paddock-pipe T.MS. T.MS has a note by T. below ‘paddock-pipe’: ‘(for marestail)’.
11. thy] my Heath MS, T.MS. The touch of Nature (who ‘imitates God’, l. 2) gives man life as did the finger of Michelangelo’s God at the Creation. Cp. From sorrow 4: ‘Touch me, great Nature, make me live’ (on Hallam’s death). Contrast In Memoriam lxxxv 20: ‘God’s finger touched him, and he slept’.
12. quicker, for], mournful heart! Heath MS, T.MS.
14. beech] elm Heath MS, T.MS.
15^16] ‘Come, beat a little quicker now,
When all things own my quickening breath:
Thy friend is mute: his brows are low:
But I am with thee till thy death.’
Some such kind words to me she saith.
Yet is she [she is T.MS] mortal even as I,
Or as that friend I loved in vain:
She only whispering [Did she but whisper 1st reading] low or high,
Through this vast [all this T.MS] cloud of grief and pain
I had not found my peace again. Heath MS, T.MS
Cp. In Memoriam xxxiv, where ‘this round of green’ would in itself, for all its beauty, be as nothing: ‘’Twere hardly worth my while to choose/Of things all mortal’.
16. And… deeper] Deep… holier Heath MS; But… deeper [holier 1st reading] T.MS.
18] Are learning me the purer choice, Heath MS, T.MS.
19. thy] my T.MS.
19] Till all my soul concentric shine Heath MS. Cp. ‘A will concentric with all fate’, in the unpublished section of In Memoriam, Young is the grief 15. T. wrote to Spedding, early Oct. 1834: ‘In your criticisms, I think your objection to “concentric” is not valid – the why I have not “verge and room enough” to explain’ (Letters i 125).
20. one] that Heath MS; some T.MS. thine] mine Heath MS, T.MS.
21] For when the fringing eve hath died Heath MS, T.MS. zoning: striping, as in The Progress of Spring 69; it suggests the elegiac and speculative context of Keats, Fall of Hyperion i 310–12: ‘No stir of life/Was in this shrouded vale, not so much air/As in the zoning of a summer’s day…’ Moneta had just been addressed as ‘Shade of Memory’. The Fall of Hyperion was published posthumously in 1856, and so may have affected T.’s revision of ‘fringing’ into ‘zoning’. Yet later T. objected specifically to Keats’s lines (Mem. ii 286).
24. out] forth Heath MS.
25. betwixt] between Heath MS. child: presumably Love; cp. The Lover’s Tale i 802–10 (I 362).
26. mortal motion] human murmur Heath MS.
27. blackness] darkness Heath MS, T.MS.
28. silence and the] silences of Heath MS.
29. Comes] Slides Heath MS. As in l. 28, T. disliked the sibilants.
32] 1884; That once at dead of night did greet 1865–83; Which in the hush of night did greet Heath MS, T.MS. Cp. the elegiac ‘dead calm’, In Memoriam xi 19. Cp. ll. 28–32 with Keats, To my Brothers: ‘o’er our silence creep/Like whispers of the household gods that keep/A gentle empire o’er fraternal souls. /… at fall of night’.
32–5. Aeneid iii 147–78: Aeneas’s cares were dispelled by the voices which promised him empire and success, after which he offered gifts to the gods: tum sic adfari et curas his demere dictis…/idem venturos tollemus in astra nepotes/imperiumque urbi dabimus…/surge age et haec laetus longaevo dicta parenti/haud dubitanda refer. (‘Then thus they spake to me and with these words dispelled my cares…. We too shall exalt to heaven thy sons that are to be, and give empire to their city…. Come, arise, and with good cheer bear to thine aged parent these certain tidings.’) For T., this would be apt not only as divine assurance of certainty (haud dubitanda), but also because tollemus in astra nepotes hinted at immortality.
35. Had rest by] Moored under Heath MS.