I trust I have not wasted breath
I trust I have not wasted breath:I think we are not wholly brain,Magnetic mockeries; not in vain,Like Paul with beasts, I fought with Death;
Not only cunning casts in clay:Let Science prove we are, and thenWhat matters Science unto men,At least to me? I would not stay.
Let him, the wiser man who springsHereafter, up from childhood shapeHis action like the greater ape,But I was born to other things.
Words in this poem
- hereafter adv.
- In time to come; in some future time or state. [AS. hræfter.]
- childhood n.
- The state of being a child; the time in which persons are children; the condition or time from infancy to puberty. [AS. cildhad; cild child + -had. See Child, and hood.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
I trust I have not wasted breath 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 trust I have not wasted breath, in In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70950, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/tennyson-in-memoriam/section-118.html, id L18478.
Form and metre
I trust I have not wasted breath is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABBA. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%). 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 breathA · brainB · vainB · deathA
- 2 ABBA clayA · thenB · menB · stayA
- 3 ABBA springsA · shapeB · apeB · thingsA
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 trust I have not wasted breath: | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| I think we are not wholly brain, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Magnetic mockeries; not in vain, | 8 | ˘/˘/˘··· |
| Like Paul with beasts, I fought with Death; | 8 | ········ |
| Not only cunning casts in clay: | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Let Science prove we are, and then | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| What matters Science unto men, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| At least to me? I would not stay. | 8 | ········ |
| Let him, the wiser man who springs | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Hereafter, up from childhood shape | 8 | ˘/˘··/·· |
| His action like the greater ape, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| But I was born to other things. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
On this poem
"not in vain, Like Paul with beasts, I fought with Death."
Let Science prove the contrary, even that we only exist for this life, and I won't stay here. And Science herself would then be valueless, since she had only taught us our nothingness.
Let "the wiser man" of the future
"up from childhood shape His action like the greater ape, But I was born to other things."
This is spoken ironically, and is a strong protest against materialism, but not against evolution. Nevertheless, the gorilla is not our grandfather!
Notes from the edition 7
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 Like Paul with beasts. " If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me?" (i Cor. xv. 32). [Tennyson]
- Stanza 1, line 3 ' magnetic ': cf. cxxv. 1 5. [Bradley]
- Stanza 1, line 4 i Cor. xv. 32. The mention of 'beasts' in a section which opposes man to 'the greater ape' seems to confuse some readers. [Bradley]
- Stanza 2, line 3 Cf. Vastness, where he asks what all the sciences are worth if there is nothing beyond death. The idea is not, as some readers suppose at first, that science in proving us to be machines would prove us to be something that could not produce science. [Bradley]
- Stanza 2, line 4 Cf. xxxiv. 9 ff. and Epilogue to Tiresias:
What life, so maim'd by night, were worth
Our living out? Not mine to me.
For an emphatic assertion of Tennyson's to somewhat the same effect see Nineteenth Century, Jan. 1893, p. 169. [Bradley] - Stanza 3 Let hint) the wiser man who springs
Hereafter) up from childhood shape His action like the greater ape. Spoken ironically against mere materialism, not against evolution.
born to other things. [Cf. By an Evolutionist: The Lord let the house of a brute to the soul
of a man,
And the man said { Am I your debtor ? ' And the Lord — * Not yet: but make it as
clean as you can, And then I will let you a better.'
ED.] [Tennyson] - Stanza 3, line 4 '"born*: first ed.: 'born.' The change was made be- tween 1875 and 1878. But for it the stanza would present no difficulty; but what is the meaning of the emphasis on 'born'? (i) Is the poet still speaking ironically, and does he rr can, ' No doubt, everything is settled for us and nothing by us, and it was settled for me at birth that I should not live like the greater ape'? (2) Or is the emphatic born meant to be antithetical to 'springs' in 9? Reference to such passages as cm. 6f., Epilogue, I22ff., The Coming of Arthur, De Profundis, Crossing the Bar, will show that Tennyson thought of birth and what precedes it as, on the one side, a series of physical events, but, on the other side, as the coming of something out of a spiritual 'deep' (cf. Introduction, p. 51, and notes on XLIV. f.). 'Springs' then may be meant to denote the first of these aspects alone, as the only one recognised by materialism; and ' born ' to emphasise the second: ' the man of the future; may consider himself to arise like a mere body, and may act accordingly; but I for my part am a soul which came from God and will live for ever, and I shall act differently.' Cf. Epilogue, 126, 'be born and think, And act and love'; and By an Evolutionist, ' If my body come from brutes ' (but of course the present poem could not possibly refer, as Gatty supposes, to the Darwinian hypothesis, which had not yet appeared, and to which, when it did appear, Tennyson felt no repugnance). (3) Mr. Ferrall suggests that Tennyson means to emphasise the idea that science exists for man, not man for science. ' If future men choose to sa<:rifice their human birth-right to science, let them: I was born a man, and will not make myself an ape.' [Bradley]
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