Laurel · Alfred Tennyson · In Memoriam A.H.H.

Contemplate all this work of Time

iambic tetrameter · ABBA · 28 lines · from In Memoriam A.H.H.

Contemplate all this work of Time,The giant labouring in his youth;Nor dream of human love and truth,As dying Nature’s earth and lime;

But trust that those we call the dead,Are breathers of an ampler dayFor ever nobler ends. They say,The solid earth whereon we tread

In tracts of fluent heat began,And grew to seeming-random forms,The seeming prey of cyclic storms,Till at the last arose the man;

Who throve and branch’d from clime to clime,The herald of a higher race,And of himself in higher place,If so he type this work of time

Within himself, from more to more;And, crown’d with attributes of woeLike glories, move his course, and showThat life is not as idle ore,

But iron dug from central gloom,And heated hot with burning fears;And dipp’d in baths of hissing tears,And batter’d with the shocks of doom

To shape and use. Arise and flyThe reeling Faun, the sensual feast;Move upward, working out the beast,And let the ape and tiger die.

Words in this poem

contemplate v. t.: To look at on all sides or in all its bearings; to view or consider with continued attention; to regard with deliberate care; to meditate on; to study. [L. contemplatus, p.p. of contemplari to contemplate; con- + templum a space for observation marked out by the augur. See Temple.]
labouring a.: That labors; performing labor; esp., performing coarse, heavy work, not requiring skill also, set apart for labor; as, laboring days.
whereon adv.: On which; -- used relatively; as, the earth whereon we live.
clime n.: A climate; a tract or region of the earth. See Climate. [L. clima. See Climate.]
faun n.: A god of fields and shipherds, diddering little from the satyr. [L. Faunus, fr. favere to be favorable. See Favor.]

Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.

About this text

Contemplate all this work of Time 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, Contemplate all this work of Time, in In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70950, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/tennyson-in-memoriam/section-116.html, id L18476.

Form and metre

Contemplate all this work of Time is 28 lines in 7 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABBA. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 95%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.

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 time^A · youth^B · truth^B · lime^A
2 ABBA dead^A · day^B · say^B · tread^A
3 ABBA began^A · forms^B · storms^B · man^A
4 ABBA clime^A · race^B · place^B · time^A
5 ABBA more^A · woe^B · show^B · ore^A
6 ABBA gloom^A · fears^B · tears^B · doom^A
7 ABBA fly^A · feast^B · beast^B · die^A

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
Contemplate all this work of Time,	8	/˘······
The giant labouring in his youth;	8	·/˘/˘···
Nor dream of human love and truth,	8	···/˘···
As dying Nature’s earth and lime;	8	·/˘/˘···
But trust that those we call the dead,	8	········
Are breathers of an ampler day	8	·/˘·····
For ever nobler ends. They say,	8	·/˘/˘···
The solid earth whereon we tread	8	·/˘·˘/··
In tracts of fluent heat began,	8	···/˘·˘/
And grew to seeming-random forms,	8	···/˘/˘·
The seeming prey of cyclic storms,	8	·/˘··/˘·
Till at the last arose the man;	8	····˘/··
Who throve and branch’d from clime to clime,	8	········
The herald of a higher race,	8	·/˘··/˘·
And of himself in higher place,	8	··˘/·/˘·
If so he type this work of time	8	········
Within himself, from more to more;	8	··˘/····
And, crown’d with attributes of woe	8	···/˘···
Like glories, move his course, and show	8	·/˘·····
That life is not as idle ore,	8	·····/˘·
But iron dug from central gloom,	8	·/˘··/˘·
And heated hot with burning fears;	8	·/˘··/˘·
And dipp’d in baths of hissing tears,	8	·····/˘·
And batter’d with the shocks of doom	8	·/˘·····
To shape and use. Arise and fly	8	····˘/··
The reeling Faun, the sensual feast;	8	·/˘··/˘·
Move upward, working out the beast,	8	·/˘/˘···
And let the ape and tiger die.	8	·····/˘·

On this poem

A friend observes that this Poem is a remarkable exposition of the nebular hypothesis, as sanctioned by geologists.

Look at "this work of Time," its slow growth and effect; and don't believe that "human love and truth" dissolve and pass away, as being no more than "dying Nature's earth and lime," insensible and finite.

Rather trust that

"the dead Are breathers of an ampler day For ever nobler ends."

If this solid earth came from elements dissolved by "fluent heat," and man was the last result; then he, who is now enduring fears and sorrows and the battering "shocks of doom," typifies "this work of time" on natural objects; for he must be, as they have been, in process of being moulded for a higher state. He is moving upward, "working out the beast," and letting "the ape and tiger die," while in his present probationary condition.

Notes from the edition 18

Section introductions from Alfred Gatty, A Key to Lord Tennyson's “In Memoriam”, 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 The Works of Tennyson, Annotated by the Author, ed. Hallam, Lord Tennyson, vol. 3 (Macmillan, 1908; Internet Archive worksoftennysona03tennuoft). Line notes credited “[Bradley]” are A. C. Bradley's, from A Commentary on Tennyson's In Memoriam (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 1 'Contemplate': cf. LXXXIV. i, for the accent. [Bradley]
Stanza 1, line 4 ' as perishable, like the constituents of the body ' (strictly, of course, Mike the body of which earth and lime are constituents'). Cf. Two Voices'.

Before the little ducts began To feed thy bones with lime.

6 ' ampler day ': Virgil's ' largior aether,3 Aen. vi. 640 (Beaching). Cf. Wordsworth, Laodamia, ( An ampler ether, a di viner air.'

9 See on LXXXIX. 47; and cf. the early Supposed Con- fessions of a Second-rate Sensitive Mind:

As from the storm Of running fires and fluid range Of lawless airs, at last stood out This excellence and solid form Of constant beauty. [Bradley]
Stanza 3, line 2 'seeming' implies that the appearance of chance and of blind destruction is probably delusive. [Bradley]
Stanza 3, line 4 Cf. LVI. 9. 'Cyclic storms': periodic cataclysms. [Bradley]
Stanza 4 \type, represent. Cf. The Princess, vn. p. 136:

Dear, but let us type them now In our own lives.

ED.] [Tennyson]
Stanza 4, line 1 'throve,' etc: instead of being the prey of cyclic storms. [Bradley]
Stanza 4, line 2 'a higher race': the 'great' or 'crowning race' of CHI. 35, Epilogue, 128 ff., and many passages elsewhere, e.g. The Making of Man in Tennyson's last volume. In spite of the antithetic 'himself in 15, the idea is not, I think, of a non-human higher race, as in Maud, I. iv. st. vi. [Bradley]
Stanza 4, line 3 ' higher place ': than the earth. [Bradley]
Stanza 4, line 4 'type': represent, be an instance of. Cf. xxxm. 16 for the substantive. For the verb cf. Princess, vn.:

Dear, but let us type them now In our own lives.

There the thing 'typed' is in the future: here it is in the past, so that 'type' almost = * repeat.' For this use cf. On one who affected an effeminate Manner:

I prize that soul where man and woman meet, Which types all Nature's male and female plan. The passage beginning with line 16 is very obscure. According to my interpretation two possible ways by which man can repeat the work of time within himself, and so advance on earth and elsewhere, are mentioned; one is that of steady thriving and adding ' more to more '; the other that of painful struggle (lines 18 ff.). The word 'so' in 16 would refer to line 13, or ' If so' may be taken together as =' if so be that.'

In the first edition, however, line 18 read, not ' Or, crown'd,' but ' And, crown'd ': and this (unless ' and ' was a mere miswriting or misprint) may indicate that, when Tennyson wrote the passage, he had no such sharp distinction in mind as is implied in the above interpretation, and that ' Or ' is equivalent, as several correspondents suggest, to a phrase like 'Or, to put it otherwise.' With this interpretation 'if

so ' is best taken as = ' if so be that.' But the interpretation does not seem to account for the change of 'And' into * Or.'

Becching's note on ' Or,' etc., gives a possible sense: * To some self-cultivation is possible; others who are at the mercy of circumstances, may yet transfigure their woes into glories, and forge their character out of calamity.'

C. E. Benham paraphrases: ' if he repeats in his own nature the work of evolution which produced him, or if he so lives combating pain and trouble as to prove that his life is not unwilling to be sublimed.' This is nearer to the text, but surrenders in the last three stanzas the analogy with the ' work of time ' which seems to be the main subject of the section. [Bradley]
Stanza 5 [By gradual self- development, or by sorrows and fierce strivings and calamities. — ED.] [Hallam Tennyson]
Stanza 5, line 1 'from more to more': cf. XLIV. 2. [Bradley]
Stanza 5, line 2 Cf. LXIX. [Bradley]
Stanza 6, line 1 'central gloom': cf. cxxiv. 23, 24. [Bradley]
Stanza 6, line 4 Cf. xcv. 42. [Bradley]
Stanza 7, line 1 Cf. CXX. u, Epilogue, 133, The Making of Man, The Dawn, By an Evolutionist, The Ancient Sage (towards the end). [Bradley]
Stanza 7, line 1 ' use ': e.g. the use of the ' ends ' of 7. [Bradley]
Stanza 7, line 2 'sensual feast': occurs in Shakespeare, Sonnet 141. [Bradley]
Stanza 7, line 4 ' die ': like the ' forms ' of 10. [Bradley]

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