Published 16 Nov. 1852; 2nd edn, Feb.–March 1853 (it is twenty-nine lines longer and has many changes); then 1855. It was T.’s first separate publication since becoming Poet Laureate. (While T. was still a child at Somersby, ‘the doings of Wellington and Napoleon were the themes of story and verse’, Mem. i 5.) On the background, reception, and T.’s response in revision, see E. F. Shannon, Studies in Bibliography xiii (1960) 149–77. The textual history of the poem, including a full account of the MSS and a record of all substantive variants, along with a critical discussion, is told in E. F. Shannon and C. Ricks, SB xxxii (1979) 125–57. (Supplemented by A. Day and P. G. Scott, SB xxxv, 1982, 320–23). The Duke of Wellington died 14 Sept. 1852; the funeral was on 18 Nov. Shannon in his earlier study connects ll. 8–9 with the protracted discussion of ‘when, where, and with what state … the great Duke of Wellington shall be buried’ (Illustrated London News). He quotes the Prime Minister’s letter of 20 Sept. that the Duke would be buried in St Paul’s, ‘there to rest by the side of Nelson – the greatest military by the side of the greatest naval chief who ever reflected lustre upon the annals of England’; cp. ll. 80–4. Shannon also relates the poem to T.’s many patriotic verses of 1852; see l. 171n. He notes that T. had been pressed for time for the 1st edition, and that it was to be an advantage to him to commemorate rather than anticipate the funeral. Many of the reviews were hostile; T. seems to have paid little attention to specific complaints (except perhaps for the opening lines), but he paid some attention to general suggestions. He also intensified the religious note. The early draft in T.Nbk 25 includes, deleted, the final stanza of England and America in 1782 (written 1832–4; published 1872). See Shannon and Ricks, SB 143–4, 154, on these lines in MS in VII. Immediately following the poem in T.MS is Will 10–20 (pp. 500–1), which has clear affinities with the Ode and which T. may well have considered incorporating. Martin (p. 368) notes that, strictly speaking, the poem ‘was not written as Poet Laureate, since it was not requested by the Queen and had no official publication, but T. none the less felt that it was his public duty. “I wrote it because it was expected of me to write”, he told his aunt Russell’ (Letters ii 50).
On the relations between Morte d’Arthur, In Memoriam, Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington, and Idylls of the King (each honouring an Arthur), see C. Y. Lang, Tennyson’s Arthurian Psycho-drama (1983). B. Richards argues that the first six lines of To the Duke of Argyll (III 85), of which a draft is in T.Nbk 21 (c. 1833), were originally written about the Duke of Wellington.
I
Bury the Great Duke
With an empire’s lamentation,
Let us bury the Great Duke
To the noise of the mourning of a mighty nation,
Mourning when their leaders fall,
Warriors carry the warrior’s pall,
And sorrow darkens hamlet and hall.
II
Where shall we lay the man whom we deplore?
Here, in streaming London’s central roar.
Let the sound of those he wrought for,
And the feet of those he fought for,
Echo round his bones for evermore.
III
Lead out the pageant: sad and slow,
As fits an universal woe,
Let the long long procession go,
And let the sorrowing crowd about it grow,
And let the mournful martial music blow;
The last great Englishman is low.
IV
Mourn, for to us he seems the last,
Remembering all his greatness in the Past.
No more in soldier fashion will he greet
With lifted hand the gazer in the street.
O friends, our chief state-oracle is mute:
Mourn for the man of long-enduring blood,
The statesman-warrior, moderate, resolute,
Whole in himself, a common good.
Mourn for the man of amplest influence,
Yet clearest of ambitious crime,
Our greatest yet with least pretence,
Great in council and great in war,
Foremost captain of his time,
Rich in saving common-sense,
And, as the greatest only are,
In his simplicity sublime.
O good gray head which all men knew,
O voice from which their omens all men drew,
O iron nerve to true occasion true,
O fallen at length that tower of strength
Which stood four-square to all the winds that blew!
Such was he whom we deplore.
The long self-sacrifice of life is o’er.
The great World-victor’s victor will be seen no more.
All is over and done:
Render thanks to the Giver,
England, for thy son.
Let the bell be tolled.
Render thanks to the Giver,
And render him to the mould.
Under the cross of gold
That shines over city and river,
There he shall rest for ever
Among the wise and the bold.
Let the bell be tolled:
And a reverent people behold
The towering car, the sable steeds:
Bright let it be with its blazoned deeds,
Dark in its funeral fold.
Let the bell be tolled:
And a deeper knell in the heart be knolled;
And the sound of the sorrowing anthem rolled
Through the dome of the golden cross;
And the volleying cannon thunder his loss;
He knew their voices of old.
For many a time in many a clime
His captain’s-ear has heard them boom
Bellowing victory, bellowing doom:
When he with those deep voices wrought,
Guarding realms and kings from shame;
With those deep voices our dead captain taught
The tyrant, and asserts his claim
In that dread sound to the great name,
Which he has worn so pure of blame,
In praise and in dispraise the same,
A man of well-attempered frame.
To such a name for ages long,
To such a name,
Preserve a broad approach of fame,
And ever-echoing avenues of song.
VI
Who is he that cometh, like an honoured guest,
With banner and with music, with soldier and with priest,
With a nation weeping, and breaking on my rest?
Mighty Seaman, this is he
Was great by land as thou by sea.
Thine island loves thee well, thou famous man,
The greatest sailor since our world began.
Now, to the roll of muffled drums,
To thee the greatest soldier comes;
For this is he
Was great by land as thou by sea;
His foes were thine; he kept us free;
O give him welcome, this is he
Worthy of our gorgeous rites,
And worthy to be laid by thee;
for this is England’s greatest son,
He that gained a hundred fights,
Nor ever lost an English gun;
This is he that far away
Against the myriads of Assaye
Clashed with his fiery few and won;
Warring on a later day,
Round affrighted Lisbon drew
The treble works, the vast designs
Of his laboured rampart-lines,
Where he greatly stood at bay,
Whence he issued forth anew,
And ever great and greater grew,
Beating from the wasted vines
Back to France her banded swarms,
Back to France with countless blows,
Till o’er the hills her eagles flew
Beyond the Pyrenean pines,
Followed up in valley and glen
With blare of bugle, clamour of men,
Roll of cannon and clash of arms,
And England pouring on her foes.
Such a war had such a close.
Again their ravening eagle rose
In anger, wheeled on Europe-shadowing wings,
And barking for the thrones of kings;
Till one that sought but Duty’s iron crown
On that loud sabbath shook the spoiler down;
A day of onsets of despair!
Dashed on every rocky square
Their surging charges foamed themselves away;
Last, the Prussian trumpet blew;
Through the long-tormented air
Heaven flashed a sudden jubilant ray,
And down we swept and charged and overthrew.
So great a soldier taught us there,
What long-enduring hearts could do
In that world-earthquake, Waterloo!
Mighty Seaman, tender and true,
And pure as he from taint of craven guile,
O saviour of the silver-coasted isle,
O shaker of the Baltic and the Nile,
If aught of things that here befall
Touch a spirit among things divine,
If love of country move thee there at all,
Be glad, because his bones are laid by thine!
And through the centuries let a people’s voice
In full acclaim,
A people’s voice,
The proof and echo of all human fame,
A people’s voice, when they rejoice
At civic revel and pomp and game,
Attest their great commander’s claim
With honour, honour, honour, honour to him,
Eternal honour to his name.
VII
A people’s voice! we are a people yet.
Though all men else their nobler dreams forget,
Confused by brainless mobs and lawless Powers;
Thank Him who isled us here, and roughly set
His Briton in blown seas and storming showers,
We have a voice, with which to pay the debt
Of boundless love and reverence and regret
To those great men who fought, and kept it ours.
And keep it ours, O God, from brute control;
O Statesmen, guard us, guard the eye, the soul
Of Europe, keep our noble England whole,
And save the one true seed of freedom sown
Betwixt a people and their ancient throne,
That sober freedom out of which there springs
Our loyal passion for our temperate kings;
For, saving that, ye help to save mankind
Till public wrong be crumbled into dust,
And drill the raw world for the march of mind,
Till crowds at length be sane and crowns be just.
But wink no more in slothful overtrust.
Remember him who led your hosts;
He bad you guard the sacred coasts.
Your cannons moulder on the seaward wall;
His voice is silent in your council-hall
For ever; and whatever tempests lour
For ever silent; even if they broke
In thunder, silent; yet remember all
He spoke among you, and the Man who spoke;
Who never sold the truth to serve the hour,
Nor paltered with Eternal God for power;
Who let the turbid streams of rumour flow
Through either babbling world of high and low;
Whose life was work, whose language rife
With rugged maxims hewn from life;
Who never spoke against a foe;
Whose eighty winters freeze with one rebuke
All great self-seekers trampling on the right:
Truth-teller was our England’s Alfred named;
Truth-lover was our English Duke;
Whatever record leap to light
He never shall be shamed.
Lo, the leader in these glorious wars
Now to glorious burial slowly borne,
Followed by the brave of other lands,
He, on whom from both her open hands
Lavish Honour showered all her stars,
And affluent Fortune emptied all her horn.
Yea, let all good things await
Him who cares not to be great,
But as he saves or serves the state.
Not once or twice in our rough island-story,
The path of duty was the way to glory:
He that walks it, only thirsting
For the right, and learns to deaden
Love of self, before his journey closes,
He shall find the stubborn thistle bursting
Into glossy purples, which outredden
All voluptuous garden-roses.
Not once or twice in our fair island-story,
The path of duty was the way to glory:
He, that ever following her commands,
On with toil of heart and knees and hands,
Through the long gorge to the far light has won
His path upward, and prevailed,
Shall find the toppling crags of Duty scaled
Are close upon the shining table-lands
To which our God Himself is moon and sun.
Such was he: his work is done.
But while the races of mankind endure,
Let his great example stand
Colossal, seen of every land,
And keep the soldier firm, the statesman pure:
Till in all lands and through all human story
The path of duty be the way to glory:
And let the land whose hearths he saved from shame
For many and many an age proclaim
At civic revel and pomp and game,
And when the long-illumined cities flame,
Their ever-loyal iron leader’s fame,
With honour, honour, honour, honour to him,
Eternal honour to his name.
IX
Peace, his triumph will be sung
By some yet unmoulded tongue
Far on in summers that we shall not see:
Peace, it is a day of pain
For one about whose patriarchal knee
Late the little children clung:
O peace, it is a day of pain
For one, upon whose hand and heart and brain
Once the weight and fate of Europe hung.
Ours the pain, be his the gain!
More than is of man’s degree
Must be with us, watching here
At this, our great solemnity.
Whom we see not we revere;
We revere, and we refrain
From talk of battles loud and vain,
And brawling memories all too free
For such a wise humility
As befits a solemn fane:
We revere, and while we hear
The tides of Music’s golden sea
Setting toward eternity,
Uplifted high in heart and hope are we,
Until we doubt not that for one so true
There must be other nobler work to do
Than when he fought at Waterloo,
And Victor he must ever be.
For though the Giant Ages heave the hill
And break the shore, and evermore
Make and break, and work their will;
Though world on world in myriad myriads roll
Round us, each with different powers,
And other forms of life than ours,
What know we greater than the soul?
On God and Godlike men we build our trust.
Hush, the Dead March wails in the people’s ears:
The dark crowd moves, and there are sobs and tears:
The black earth yawns: the mortal disappears;
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust;
He is gone who seemed so great. –
Gone; but nothing can bereave him
Of the force he made his own
Being here, and we believe him
Something far advanced in State,
And that he wears a truer crown
Than any wreath that man can weave him.
Speak no more of his renown,
Lay your earthly fancies down,
And in the vast cathedral leave him.
God accept him, Christ receive him.
1852
¶309. 1. Bury] 1855; Let us bury 1852–3.
5] 1853; When laurel-garlanded leaders fall, 1852.
6. Warriors] 1853; And warriors 1852.
7. Cp. the conclusion of The Sea-Fairies, 1830 text: ‘sorrow shall darken ye … no more.
8–12] Not T.MS.
8 ^ 9] He died on Walmer’s lonely shore, 1853. On this revision, see Shannon and Ricks, SB 146.
9] 1855; not 1852; But here … 1853. London: on naming and the poem’s revisions, see ll. 80–83n.
20] 1853; Our sorrow draws but on the golden Past. 1852.
21–22] 1853; not 1852.
26. Horace, Satires II vii 86: in se ipso totus.
27. amplest] 1853; largest 1852.
28. clearest of] 1853; freëst from 1852.
35. Claudian, Venerandus apex et cognita cunctis canities, was quoted in a speech by Disraeli on Wellington’s death. But in a copy of F. J. Rowe and W. T. Webb’s Selections from his poems (1888, Lincoln), T. commented: ‘never heard of Claudian’s line!’
38–9. Adapted from Young is the grief 16: ‘A life four-square to all the winds’. On the importance of this link, see C. Y. Lang, Tennyson’s Arthurian Psychodrama (1983), pp. 4–5. For the epithet, T. compares Simonides (τετράγωνος), ‘though I did not think of this parallel when I wrote it’. Cp. Dante’s Purgatorio v 14–15: sta come torre ferma, che non crolla / già mai la cima per soffiar de’ venti. (‘Stand like a firm tower that never shakes its top for blast of wind.’)
42. World-victor: Napoleon.
46. A special honour, since the Great Bell was tolled only for the Royal Family, the Bishop, the Dean, and the Lord Mayor.
49. the cross of gold: C. Y. Lang (see note to ll. 38–9) relates this to Tennyson’s early prose-sketch ‘King Arthur’ (Mem. ii 122), ‘the Holy Minster with the Cross of gold’, and to Merlin and the Gleam 67–8: ‘the golden / Cross of the churches’.
56. its] 1859; his 1852–6.
59] 1855; not 1852; A deeper … 1853. Cp. the praise of the brave dead, ‘God’s soldier’, Macbeth V viii 50–51: ‘“And so his knell is knolled.”“He’s worth more sorrow, / And that I’ll spend for him.”’ T. probably recalled Shelley’s lines On the Death of Napoleon 11, 22 (1821): ‘Is not his death-knell knolled? … / All my sons when their knell is knolled.’
75–9. Adapted, as Sir Charles Tennyson observes (1931, p. 74), from Hail Briton 169–72: ‘O civic Muse, for such a name, / Deep-minded Muse, for ages long / Preserve a broad approach of song / And ringing avenues of fame.’ T.MS has ‘ringing’.
79. ever-echoing] 1865; ever-ringing 1852–64.
80–83. Nelson speaks. On the revisions of this section in MS, see Shannon and Ricks, SB 139–40; and on T.’s finally not naming Nelson (or Wellington within the poem) and other aspects of naming (London; England), SB 141–6.
91] 1853; His martial wisdom kept us free; 1852.
92. give … welcome] 1853; warrior-seaman 1852.
95] 1852 has this line ll. 92 ^ 3, beginning This….
97. Nor ever] 1853; And never 1852. Disraeli’s speech on Wellington also mentions that he ‘captured 3,000 cannon from the enemy, and never lost a single gun’.
98] 1853; He that in his earlier day 1852.
99. Hindustan, 1803.
101–8. C. Y. Lang (see note to ll. 38–9; p. 6) shows that T.’s lines summarizing the Peninsular Campaign echo Corneille, Le Cid (IV iii), ‘the famous recital of his victory against the Moors by Don Rodrigue’.
101. The Latin alio sole.
102] 1853; Made the soldier, led him on, 1852.
103–7] 1853; not 1852.
105. Torres Vedras, 1810.
110] 1853; All their marshals’ bandit swarms, 1852.
112] 1853; Till their host of eagles flew 1852. eagles: Napoleon’s ensigns.
113. Beyond] 1864; Past 1852–62.
118 ^ 9] He withdrew to brief repose. 1852–3.
121. barking: as in Boädicea 13.
123. Waterloo, Sunday 18 June 1815.
124–5. C. Y. Lang (see note to ll. 38–9; p. 8) compares the face of the dying Arthur: ‘dashed with drops / Of onset’ (Morte d’Arthur 215–16).
129. ‘The setting sun glanced on this last charge of the English and Prussians’ (T.). T.MS had not acknowledged the Prussians. The line is adapted from The Christian Penitent 14n (I 511).
130. C. Y. Lang: T. ‘must have meant down from the little fortress of Hougoumont (particularized, years later, in To the Queen)’.
133. world-earthquake] 1872; world’s-earthquake 1852–70.
137. The defeat of the Danish fleet (1801), and of Napoleon at Aboukir (1798)
139. T. says: ‘Dwell upon the word “touch” and make it as long as “can touch.”’
142–6. Cp. the ‘death-hymn’ in The Dying Swan 31–3: ‘AS when a mighty people rejoice … / And the tumult of their acclaim is rolled.’ Cp. l. 4 above.
154–5] 1853; not 1852.
155. Briton] 1864; Saxon 1853–62. On this belated revision, see Shannon and Ricks, SB 145.
157. Of boundless love and] 1855; Of most unbounded 1852; Of boundless 1853.
159] 1853; not 1852.
166. help to] 1853; not 1852.
168] 1853; And help the march of human mind 1852.
169. at length] 1855; not 1852–3.
170 ^ 1] Perchance our greatness will increase;
Perchance a darkening future yields
Some reverse from worse to worse,
The blood of men in quiet fields,
And sprinkled on the sheaves of peace. 1852
These lines are adapted, as Shannon remarks, from Hail Briton 121–4: ‘For who may frame his thought at ease / Mid sights that civil contest yields- / The blood of men in quiet fields / And sprinkled on the sheaves of peace.’
171. Remember] 1853; And O remember 1852. Shannon prints from Pierpont Morgan MS an attack on Napoleon III which links with ll. 171, 185–6. Emily T.’s note added: ‘This might perhaps have been altered had it been intended for publication – made stronger I mean.’ (The lines are in T.MS, virtually identical.) On the deletion of this passage, see Shannon and Ricks, SB 131–4, 155.
But O remember him who led your hosts
And take his counsel ere too late.
There sits a silent man beyond the strait –
Guard guard guard your coasts.
His are all the powers of the state,
His are all the passions of the rabble –
A man of silence in a world of babble.
Sudden blows are strokes of fate,
Yet to be true is more than half of great.
By the hollow blatant cry,
Half-godded underneath a scornful sky
Their great Napoleons live and die
With rolling echoes by the nations heard.
But shall we count them Gods who break their word?
The word is God: thou shalt not lie.
Was our great Chief (his life is bare from youth
To all men’s comment till his latest hour)
A man to dodge and shuffle with the Truth
And palter with Eternal God for power?
His eighty winters &c.
Walter White observed, 5 Nov. 1852, that it ‘contains a grand invective against Louis Napoleon of France which will be omitted’ (Journals, 1898, p. 147). Cp. T.’s patriotic poems of 1852, especially Britons, Guard Your Own (II 470).
172] 1855; Respect his sacred warning; guard your coasts. 1852; Revere his warning; guard your coasts. 1853.
173] 1853; not 1852.
181–2] 1855; not 1852–3.
183–4] 1853; not 1852.
185] 1855; not 1852–3.
186. Whose] 1853; His 1852.
188. On names, see ll. 80–3n.
195–7. ‘These are full-vowelled lines to describe Fortune emptying her Cornucopia’ (T.).
202. Cp. Gray’s Elegy 36: ‘The paths of glory lead but to the grave.’ 209–15. Based on the 15th fragment of Simonides, an influence suggested by H. G. Dakyns (tutor to T.’s sons), in Tennyson and His Friends, p. 200.
217. Revelation xxi 23: ‘And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it.’ 218] 1853; He has not failed: he hath prevailed: 1852.
219–24] 1853; not 1852.
225. And] 1853; So 1852. land] 1853; men 1852.
226. For] 1853; Through 1852.
241] 1853; not 1852.
251–3] 1853; not 1852.
254] 1855; For solemn, too, this day are we, 1852; Lifted up in heart are we, 1853.
255. Until] 1853; O friends, 1852.
259–61] 1853; not 1852. The lines are adapted from a cancelled stanza of The Palace of Art (H.Lpr 182):
Yet saw she Earth laid open. Furthermore
How the strong Ages had their will,
A range of Giants breaking down the shore
And heaving up the hill.
The military context suggests Wordsworth, To Enterprise 114–16: ‘An Army now, and now a living hill / That a brief while heaves with convulsive throes- / Then all is still’. Wordsworth’s note (1822) runs: ‘“Awhile the living hill / Heaved with convulsive throes, and all was still.” Dr Darwin describing the destruction of the army of Cambyses’. (The Botanic Garden I ii 497–8.)
262. world on world] 1856; worlds on worlds 1852–5.
266–70] 1853; not 1852. ‘God and Godlike men’, from Suggested by Reading 84, as Sir Charles Tennyson says (p. 266). Cp. Love and Duty 31: ‘But then most Godlike being most a man’. Also Paradise Regained iv 348: ‘Where God is prais’d aright, and Godlike men’; and Byron, Childe Harold II lxxxv 2: ‘Gods and godlike men’.
267. wails] 1855; sounds 1853.
271. He] 1853; The man 1852.
278. Speak] 1864; But speak 1852–62.
281. Romans xiv 3: ‘God hath received him.’