In Memoriam

Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)

an elegiac poem by Alfred Tennyson, published in 1850 in memory of his friend, Arthur Henry Hallam, who died in 1833. The poem consists of a series of lyrics, written probably at different times, but all relating to some phase of his grief for his friend. Although In Memoriam was received with considerable criticism it has come to be regarded as Tennyson's most characteristic production, by many as his greatest production, and as the greatest elegy in the English language. QUOTATIONS FROM IN MEMORIAM. Oh, yet we trust that somehow good Will be the final goal of ill. But what am I? An infant crying in the night An infant crying for the light, And with no language but a cry, So many worlds, so much to do, So little done, such things to be. Thy leaf has perish'd in the green, And while we breathe beneath the sun, The world, which credits what is done, Is cold to all that might have been. There lives more faith in honest doubt, Believe me, than in half the creeds. The grave, majestic, hymnal measure swells like the peal of an organ, yet acts as a brake on undue spasmodic outbursts of discordant grief.--E. C. Stedman. No poet save one possessed not only of commanding genius, but of peculiar qualifications for the task, could have attempted to delineate a sorrow like this. The genius of Tennyson found in the work its precise and most congenial employment; and the result is surely the finest elegiac poem in the world.--Peter Bayne.