I held it truth, with him who sings
I held it truth, with him who singsTo one clear harp in divers tones,That men may rise on stepping-stonesOf their dead selves to higher things.
But who shall so forecast the yearsAnd find in loss a gain to match?Or reach a hand thro’ time to catchThe 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 scornThe long result of love, and boast:‘Behold the man that loved and lost,But all he was is overworn.’
Words in this poem
- divers a.
- Different in kind or species; diverse. [F. divers, L. diversus turned in different directions, different, p. p. of divertere. See Divert, and cf. Diverse.]
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- forecast v. t.
- To plan beforehand; to scheme; to project.
- overworn p. p.
- Worn out or subdued by toil; worn out so as to be trite.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
I held it truth, with him who sings is in the public domain. This text is taken from In memoriam, Project Gutenberg ebook #70950; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Alfred Tennyson, I held it truth, with him who sings, in In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70950, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/tennyson-in-memoriam/section-1.html, id L18361.
Form and metre
I held it truth, with him who sings is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABBA. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.9 syllables. 31% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end. Rhymes that have moved apart since the poem was written: brute / foot, bear / fear, boast / lost, low / now, desire / inquire and 83 more.
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABBA singsA · tonesB · stonesB · thingsA
- 2 ABBA yearsA · matchB · catchB · tearsA
- 3 ABBA drown'dA · glossB · lossB · groundA
- 4 ABBA scornA · boastB · lostB · overwornA
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I held it truth, with him who sings | 8 | ········ |
| To one clear harp in divers tones, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| That men may rise on stepping-stones | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Of their dead selves to higher things. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| But who shall so forecast the years | 8 | ····/··· |
| And find in loss a gain to match? | 8 | ········ |
| Or reach a hand thro’ time to catch | 8 | ········ |
| The far-off interest of tears? | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown’d, | 8 | ········ |
| Let darkness keep her raven gloss; | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Ah! sweeter to be drunk with loss, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| To dance with death, to beat the ground; | 8 | ········ |
| Than that the victor Hours should scorn | 8 | ···/˘/·· |
| The long result of love, and boast: | 8 | ··˘/···· |
| ‘Behold the man that loved and lost, | 8 | ˘/······ |
| But all he was is overworn.’ | 8 | ········ |
On this poem
St. Augustine wrote, that we can rise higher on the ladder of life, by trampling down our vices. His words, in a Sermon on the Ascension, are, De vitiis nostris scalam nobis facimus, si vitia ipsa calcamus.
Longfellow published a Poem, not earlier than 1842, which he called "The Ladder of St. Augustine;" and more recently, Lowell, another American Poet, and Minister Plenipotentiary in London, adopted a similar idea when he said,
"'Tis sorrow builds the shining ladder up, Whose golden rounds are our calamities, Whereon our feet firm planting, nearer God The spirit climbs, and hath its eyes unseal'd."
The "dead selves" of Tennyson are neither our vices nor our calamities; but, rather, our general experiences, which all perish as they happen; and of these, in his own case, the special loss he had sustained in the death of Hallam (his "more than brother"--his dimidium sui, "bosom-friend and half of life") ought to rouse him to soar into "higher things;" rather than leave him to be pointed at, as "the man that loved and lost" (see Poems xxvii., 4, and lxxxv., 1); and all that he had before been, as now "over-worn," and prostrated by this one bereavement.
But it was difficult to anticipate in the future a gain to match the loss he had sustained; and to appropriate interest, i.e., reap the fruit of tears that he was now shedding. Love, however, shall uphold his grief with sustaining power; for it is better to be grief-mad, and "dance with death"--(singing and dancing being a custom at ancient funerals)--than become a spectacle of scorn for "the victor Hours" to deride, after they have effaced his love-born sorrow.
Notes from the edition 12
Section introductions from Alfred Gatty, <i>A Key to Lord Tennyson's “In Memoriam”</i>, 4th ed. (George Bell & Sons, 1900; Project Gutenberg #36637). Line notes credited “[Tennyson]” are Tennyson's own notes; “[Hallam Tennyson]” marks a note that is wholly his son and editor's own explanatory bracket, not the poet's own words; “[Emily Tennyson]” marks the few notes signed by his wife. All three are from <i>The Works of Tennyson, Annotated by the Author</i>, ed. Hallam, Lord Tennyson, vol. 3 (Macmillan, 1908; Internet Archive worksoftennysona03tennuoft). Line notes credited “[Bradley]” are A. C. Bradley's, from <i>A Commentary on Tennyson's In Memoriam</i> (Macmillan, 1910; Internet Archive commentaryontenn00braduoft). All these number sections by the final, 131-section text, not the site's own 1850 numbering: from final XL to LVIII subtract one section number, from LX on subtract two, to reach the site's; the site prints the 129-section first edition of 1850 (see the work's own blurb), so two of the final text's numbered sections have no home here and are skipped.
- Stanza 1, line 3 I alluded to Goethe's creed. Among his last words were these: " Von Aenderungen zu hoheren Aen- derungen," " from changes to higher changes." [Tennyson]
- Stanza 1 divers tones. [My father would often say, " Goethe is consummate in so many different styles." — ED.] [Hallam Tennyson]
- Stanza 1, line 1 Tennyson in his later years believed that he had alluded here to Goethe. He might easily have been familiar in youth with the famous lines in Faust, l Entbehren sollst du,' etc., and during the thirties Carlyle was writing, in connection with Goethe, on the idea of ' self-annihilation,' more than once quoting the sentence, * It is only with Renunciation that Life, properly speaking, can be said to begin ' (see e.g. Sartor, n. ix.). With line 2 cf. Tennyson's remark to Prof. Sidgwick, * Goethe is consummate in so many different styles ' {Memoir, II. 392). [Bradley]
- Stanza 1, line 3 For the metaphor Gatty compares St. Augustine, ' De vitiis nostris scalam nobis facimus, si vitia ipsa calcamus,' which suggested Longfellow's Ladder of St. Augustine, pub- lished in 1858. The image with Tennyson is that of a stair: cf. Par. Lost, v. 509-12 (Tainsh), VIII. 591, and lines from The Princess quoted on LV. 16. The use of 'stepping-stone' for ' step ' seems to be very rare: the only other instance I know is in Guy Mannering, ch. Lin., where Meg Merrilies is the speaker. With 'dead selves' cf. The Princess, ill., ' We touch on our dead self, nor shun to do it, Being other.' [Bradley]
- Stanza 2, line 4 The far-off interest of tears. The good that grows for us out of grief. [Tennyson]
- Stanza 2, line 3 Cf. Tiresias, ' Their examples reach a hand Far through all years.' [Bradley]
- Stanza 2, line 4 Cf. Richard III. iv. iv. 321 (G. A. C.):
The liquid drops of tears that you have shed Shall come again, transformed to orient pearl, Advantaging their loan with interest Of ten times double gain of happiness. Cf. also Lucrece, 1797, and Sonnets 31 and 74. [Bradley] - Stanza 3 [Yet it is better to bear the wild misery of extreme grief than that Time should obliterate the sense of loss and deaden the power of love. — ED.] [Hallam Tennyson]
- Stanza 3, line 2 Cf. 'the raven down of darkness,' Comus, 251. [Bradley]
- Stanza 3, line 4 'beat the ground': in dancing. Cf. cv. 17, and Horace's ' pulsanda tellus,' already translated in Comus, 143. There is an allusion, of course, to the Dance of Death. [Bradley]
- Stanza 4 [Yet it is better to bear the wild misery of extreme grief than that Time should obliterate the sense of loss and deaden the power of love. — ED.] [Hallam Tennyson]
- Stanza 4, line 1 The idea is that Time, years hence, having worn
away both the grief and the love of the poet, would boast of his conquest, and laugh at the miserable outcome of so long a love. With 'long result' cf. Locksley Hall, 'the long result of time.' For the conquest of time by love cf. LXXXV. 65-8, CXXXI. 7, and in the Memoir (i. 307) a poem, originally cxxvu. of In Memoriam, on the 'far-famed Victor Hours That ride to death the griefs of men ':
Behold, ye cannot bring but good, And see, ye dare not touch the truth, Nor Sorrow beauteous in her youth,
Nor Love that holds a constant mood. [Bradley]
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.