IN MEMORIAM A.H.H.

SUMMARY
Tennyson (whether it's the real-life Tennyson or a fictionalized version is up for grabs)
kicks things off with a prologue that evokes Jesus as a sort of muse. Our speaker
seems hopeful that there is a reason for man's existence and a bigger plan for
everyone. Humans are puny in comparison to God, and that's why people grieve so
much. They just can't see the larger plan and can't get enough distance to put things
like the loss of human life within a greater context.
The speaker gets right to some heavy-duty mourning over a close friend's death (who
we later find out is named Arthur). He re-creates in his mind how his friend's body came
back to England from Italy. Tennyson moves through various stages of grief, from "calm
despair" to "wild and wandering cries." Even though he sometimes regards his feelings
as sins, he defends them as normal.
Next, Tennyson meditates upon the comfort he can gain from the Bible and upon how
various resurrections worked there. And no—he's not talking about literally raising
Arthur from the dead. Instead, it's all about considering the idea of being immortal in a
Christian sense (where the good guys get to go to Heaven). He he tries to take some
comfort in that, but it's hard out here for a mourner.
So, he moves on to thinking about how nature fits in with The Big Picture. Tennyson
starts to struggle with finding meaning in a world that seems random and governed by
uncomfortably new ideas such as the Theory of Evolution (that reference to "Nature red
in tooth and claw" is one big hint that this is very much on Tenny's radar). He also
struggles with the idea that God is good when he has seemingly created a world filled
with human suffering.
Tennyson finally takes comfort in the idea that humans, at least, are good—like his
friend Arthur, who was intelligent and really cared about people. He considers some
answers to problems he previously set up and, in what we might regard as the climax of
the entire poem, imagines reuniting with Arthur. He starts to feel better and lets go of
some of his doubt.
Toward the end, he starts to realize that it's all about gaining knowledge, and that
knowledge is one of the higher purposes of humans. He also recognizes that human
beings have souls, which allows for a sort of immortality. He ends with an epilogue that
celebrates the wedding of his sister. So, Tennyson has lost a dear friend, but ends up
gaining a brother-in-law whom he is hopeful might be a sort of stand-in for Arthur.
 PROLOGUE SUMMARY
Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.

Lines 1-16
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.

 Right away, the speaker (we don't know who it is yet) is pulling out the heavy-hitters.
This poem is addressed to the Big Guy himself: Jesus (who is also God, the creator of
the universe).
 He's also "immortal Love."
 "We" (so perhaps we're meant to identify with the speaker here) can't see Jesus (or
God), but we know he is there through faith.
 But we can't prove it. So we're off to a bit of a shaky start.
 Check out the assonance in the first line. Tennyson repeats some O sounds there:
"Strong Son of God, immortal Love." This cool sound effect links together all of these
ideas: strength, the Big Guy, immortality, and love. (Check out the "Sound
Check" section for more on this, and keep an eye out for more assonance throughout
the poem.)
 The speaker starts to praise God and talks about how the sun and moon ("orbs of light
and shade") belong to him.
 God also made humans, animals—and death. Uh...wait. That escalated quickly. And if
the death talk weren't freaky enough, the speaker drops an unsettling image on us:
Jesus as a conqueror with his foot on a skull. So we're getting a double-whammy of
death.
 Notice the anaphora in lines 6-7 with the repetition of "Thou madest" at the beginning of
each line. Yep—you'll hear more about this nifty device over in the "Sound
Check" section.
  This whole skull image is so disturbing that it literally breaks the bounds of the
poem's rhythm. Line 7 ends with some enjambment.
 But the speaker doesn't dwell on that haunting image for long. He's ready to praise God
again, and butters him up by noting that he won't just leave mankind dead.
 He's too just for that. Instead, mankind is immortal. That's just the way God made us.
 Jesus is both human and divine. In fact, this makes him the highest specimen of
manhood ever.
 The speaker notes, though, that humans still have free will, but this belongs to Jesus.
 Okay, so far this is just a bit confusing. Let's read on to sort this out…

Lines 17-32
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.

 Mere mortals have systems that are puny and don't last very long. These systems are all
described as "broken lights" of Jesus. That seems like an important metaphor.
 The metaphor appears to mean that human systems (philosophy, knowledge, etc.) pale
in comparison to the divine light of God, which is so much greater than human things.
The speaker suggests that humans need to increase their knowledge, but they also
need to be reverent.
 He's now telling us that the mind and soul need to be united so they make one music.
Knowledge and reverence need to work together. That makes sense.
 The speaker seems to have a bit of an inferiority complex. He describes humans as
fools. Well, right back atcha, buddy.
 By not fearing God, people mock Him. He asks God to help us bear...something. This
fear, maybe? He also asks the Almighty to help the "vain worlds" (meaning worlds that
are really into themselves) bear God's light.
 There's that image of light again. Darkness and light so far seem to be important, so we
better pay attention to those images.
Lines 33-44
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.

 Now the speaker is asking for forgiveness for some kind of sin that seems to relate to
pride.
 At least that's what we're guessing at this point, since he's talking about "merit" that
"lives from man to man," which probably means a man's reputation that is spread from
person to person.
 As it turns out, God doesn't care too much about this.
 He's also asking for forgiveness for grieving the death of a "fair" (meaning good-looking
or nice) man. At least, it appears this guy has died, since the speaker says he now lives
with God and is therefore now worthy of even more love.
 Finally, he asks for forgiveness for his "wild and wandering" words. (Alliteration alert! Get
the deets on that in the "Sound Check"section.) Our speaker feels his youth has been
wasted for some reason, and hopes God will give him wisdom.
 So, this section has functioned as a dedication to God (via Jesus). It also works as an
evocation of the Muses, with Jesus as the speaker's muse.
 We also get the hint that since he asks for forgiveness up front for all of these things,
we're going to be in for some heavy-duty grieving over whoever this fair man is, and also
for the speaker's confusion over something.
 There's a date of 1849 at the end, which must be the date that Tennyson finished this
section of the poem.
 Let's tentatively call the speaker "Tennyson" for now, and hold off judgment on whether
this is the real, historical Tennyson or an alter-ego. Mosey on over to
the "Speaker" section for the lowdown.

Lines 45-60
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 higher things.
But who shall so forecast the years
And find in loss a gain to match?
 Or reach a hand thro' time to catch
The far-off interest of tears?
Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown'd,
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 Hours should scorn
The long result of love, and boast,
"Behold the man that loved and lost,
But all he was is overworn."

 Tennyson once believed that men would rise "on stepping stones" (little by little) from
death to become something more.
 He believed this along with believing in God, whom he presents in the image of
someone singing to one harp with many voices. This might strike you as a significant
image: music and unity coming from many things or people (remember that reference to
music in line 28?).
 (FYI: "divers" here means "diverse," not "a group of people who like to dive.")
 But now Tennyson is finding it difficult to find a silver lining. His grief is too much.
 Plus, people can't transcend time and cut out the grief in between to see what will
happen. That would be a nifty trick, though.
 Instead, the speaker suggests that we mix love and grief (notice the capital letters—
he's personifying these concepts).
 It's better, he argues, to be all dark and goth-y and intoxicated with grief than to let time
win and gloat that the guy who loved and lost just ended up worn out by it all.
 Tennyson is definitely struggling with that old saying, "It's better to have loved and lost
than to never have loved at all."

Lines 61-76
Old Yew, which graspest at the stones
That name the under-lying dead,
Thy fibres net the dreamless head,
Thy roots are wrapt about the bones.
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 incorporate into thee.

 Tennyson now addresses an old yew tree that grows over some headstones. Its roots
are wrapping around the dead man's head and bones—creepy.
 The seasons will allow the tree to flower again, while the clock counts the hours of puny
men.
 There's a neat juxtaposition here between the longer natural cycles of the tree and the
shorter years of men.
 Are you starting to get the sense that Tennyson is really emphasizing how puny mere
mortals are in the face of not only God, but also nature? Not even the wind or the sun
can do much damage to the tree, which will live for a thousand years.
 Now Tennyson's using apostrophe to address the tree, speaking directly to it with the
super-dramatic Victorian "O."
 He continues to address the tree, personifying it by calling it "sullen."
 This is a great example of pathetic fallacy, where a writer describes the outside world in
a way that reflects his/her own inner mood.
 After all, a tree can't really be "sullen" or "stubborn," but we get the sense that Tennyson
can, since he's so sad over his friend's death.
 And he's grieving so much that he loses the sense of himself and grows bodiless
("incorporate") into the tree. This isn't happening for real, of course. It's just the speaker
imagining being one with the tree. Far out, man.