Quatrain

"In Memoriam A.H.H."

By: Lord Alfred Tennyson

(poem from poetry foundation.org)

Strong Son of God, immortal Love,

         Whom we, that have not seen thy face,

         By faith, and faith alone, embrace,

Believing where we cannot prove;

Thine are these orbs of light and shade;

         Thou madest Life in man and brute;

         Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot

Is on the skull which thou hast made.

Thou wilt not leave us in the dust:

         Thou madest man, he knows not why,

         He thinks he was not made to die;

And thou hast made him: thou art just.

Thou seemest human and divine,

         The highest, holiest manhood, thou.

         Our wills are ours, we know not how,

Our wills are ours, to make them thine.

Our little systems have their day;

         They have their day and cease to be:

         They are but broken lights of thee,

And thou, O Lord, art more than they.

We have but faith: we cannot know;

         For knowledge is of things we see;

         And yet we trust it comes from thee,

A beam in darkness: let it grow.

Let knowledge grow from more to more,

         But more of reverence in us dwell;

         That mind and soul, according well,

May make one music as before,

But vaster. We are fools and slight;

         We mock thee when we do not fear:

         But help thy foolish ones to bear;

Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light.

Forgive what seem'd my sin in me,

         What seem'd my worth since I began;

         For merit lives from man to man,

And not from man, O Lord, to thee.

Forgive my grief for one removed,

         Thy creature, whom I found so fair.

         I trust he lives in thee, and there

I find him worthier to be loved.

Forgive these wild and wandering cries,

         Confusions of a wasted youth;

         Forgive them where they fail in truth,

And in thy wisdom make me wise.

Biographical Information

          Born on August 6, 1809, in Somersby, Lincolnshire, England, Alfred Tennyson is one of the most well-loved Victorian poets. Tennyson, the fourth of twelve children, showed an early talent for writing. At the age of twelve he wrote a 6,000-line epic poem. His father, the Reverend George Tennyson, tutored his sons in classical and modern languages. 

          Tennyson escaped home in 1827 to attend Trinity College, Cambridge. In that same year, he and his brother Charles published Poems by Two Brothers. Although the poems in the book were mostly juvenilia, they attracted the attention of the "Apostles," an undergraduate literary club led by Arthur Hallam. In 1830, Tennyson published Poems, Chiefly Lyrical and in 1832 he published a second volume entitled simply Poems. Some reviewers condemned these books as "affected" and "obscure." Tennyson, stung by the reviews, would not publish another book for nine years. In 1836, he became engaged to Emily Sellwood. When he lost his inheritance on a bad investment in 1840, Sellwood's family called off the engagement. In 1842, however, Tennyson's Poems in two volumes was a tremendous critical and popular success. In 1850, with the publication of In Memoriam, Tennyson became one of Britain's most popular poets. He was selected Poet Laureate in succession to Wordsworth. In that same year, he married Emily Sellwood. They had two sons, Hallam and Lionel.

            At the age of 41, Tennyson had established himself as the most popular poet of the Victorian era. The money from his poetry (at times exceeding 10,000 pounds per year) allowed him to purchase a house in the country and to write in relative seclusion. In 1859, Tennyson published the first poems of Idylls of the Kings, which sold more than 10,000 copies in one month. In 1884, he accepted a peerage, becoming Alfred Lord Tennyson. Tennyson died in 1892 and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

(biographical information from poets.org)

Explanation of Technique

            In quatrain poems, words of the poem are put in four-line stanzas. Usually, in quatrain poems, there is rhyming. The rhyming schemes contained in quatrain poems can include: AABB, ABAB, ABBA, AABA, ABAC, and ABCB. In the poem, "In Memoriam A.H.H.", Lord Alfred Tennyson uses an ABBA rhyme scheme and that makes it a quatrain.

Interpretation of Poem

           This poem talks about having faith in Jesus Christ, forgiveness, and other things for Christians. The first part of the poem talks about faith. Lord Alfred Tennyson describes Jesus as an Immortal Love and by faith we embrace him. I think this means that  Jesus has everlasting love and that believing that he is the Son of God, we can have a relationship with him. Also, the end of the poem talks about forgiveness. I think Lord Alfred Tennyson talks about this, because we need to acknowledge that we are human and make mistakes. Therefore, we should ask him for forgiveness and allow him to cleanse our souls. So, this way we can learn from our mistakes and become wiser.

(picture from en.wikipedia.org)

Visual Explanation

      Since the poem was about Jesus Christ, I decided to chose a stained glass depicting him. No one knows what he looks like but we, humans, think this is how he looks like. He was the focal point of Lord Alfred Tennyson's poem, which was about Christianity.