WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - The Poetry Fix: Episode 4

Episode Date: February 20, 2024

In this episode of the Poetry Fix, we explore the beginning of Tennyson's "In Memoriam A. H. H."

Welcome to the Poetry Fix. I'm your host, Erica Kaiba, bringing you your weekly fix of poetry from across time. Today we're reading up to part two of Tennyson's In Memorium A.H. This poem is an impassioned meditation on grief. It was composed after the death of Tennyson's closest friend, Arthur Hallam. In Memorium begins with a prologue that appeals to Christ to make sense of the poet's grief. It sets the tone for the tension between faith and doubt that we will continue to see throughout the poem. In part one, Tennyson decides to embrace his sorrow as a testament to the love that he had for his friend. In part two, we get an image of Tennyson standing at Hallam's grave, meditating on the U-Tree, which becomes an image of the sorrow that the living experience once they lose their loved ones.

With all that said, let's dive in. In Memorium A-H-H. 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 madeest life in man and brute thou madeest death and lo thy foot is on the skull which thou hast made thou wilt not leave us in the dust thou madeest 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. 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 seemed my sin in me, what seemed 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. I held it truth with him who sings to one clear harp in divers tones, that men may rise on stepping-stones of their dead selves to hire things. But who shall so forecast the years, and find in loss a gain to match, or reach a hand through time to catch the far-off interest of tears? Let love clasp grief, lest both be drowned, Let darkness keep her raven gloss. Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss, To dance with death, to beat the ground,

Than that the victor ours should scorn the long result of love and boast, Behold the man that loved and lost, But all he was is overworn. Old you, which graspest at the stones that name the underlying dead, Thy fibers net the dreamless head, Thy roots are wrapped about the bone, The seasons bring the flower again, and bring the firstling to the flock, And in the dusk of thee the clock beats out the little lives of men.

O not for thee the glow, the bloom, who changest not in any gale, Nor branding summer suns avail to touch thy thousand years of gloom. And gazing on thee, sullen tree, sick for thy stubborn hardihood, I seem to fail from out my blood, and grow in corporate into thee. You've been listening to The Poetry Fix with Erica Kaiba. Join me next week and we'll be continuing our journey through In Memorial.