Sad Hesper o’er the buried sun
Sad Hesper o’er the buried sunAnd ready, thou, to die with him,Thou watchest all things ever dimAnd dimmer, and a glory done:
The team is loosen’d from the wain,The boat is drawn upon the shore;Thou listenest to the closing door,And life is darken’d in the brain.
Bright Phosphor, fresher for the night,By thee the world’s great work is heardBeginning, and the wakeful bird;Behind thee comes the greater light:
The market boat is on the stream,And voices hail it from the brink;Thou hear’st the village hammer clink,And see’st the moving of the team.
Sweet Hesper-Phosphor, double nameFor what is one, the first, the last,Thou, like my present and my past,Thy place is changed; thou art the same.
Words in this poem
- hesper n.
- The evening; Hesperus. [See Hesperian.]
- wain n.
- A four-wheeled vehicle for the transportation of goods, produce, etc.; a wagon. [OE. wain, AS. wægn; akin to D. & G. wagen, OHG. wagan, Icel. & Sw. vagn, Dan. vogn, and E. way. Way, Weigh, and cf. Wagon.]
- wakeful a.
- Not sleeping; indisposed to sleep; watchful; vigilant.
- brink n.
- The edge, margin, or border of a steep place, as of a precipice; a bank or edge, as of a river or pit; a verge; a border; as, the brink of a chasm. Also Fig. [Dan. brink edge, verge; akin to Sw. brink declivity, hill, Icel. brekka; cf. LG. brink a grassy hill, W. bryn hill, bryncyn hillock.]
- clink v. t.
- To cause to give out a slight, sharp, tinkling, sound, as by striking metallic or other sonorous bodies together. [OE. clinken; akin to G. klingen, D. klinken, SW. klinga, Dan. klinge; prob. of imitative origin. Cf. Clank, Clench, Click, v. i.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Sad Hesper o’er the buried sun 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, Sad Hesper o’er the buried sun, in In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70950, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/tennyson-in-memoriam/section-119.html, id L18479.
Form and metre
Sad Hesper o’er the buried sun is 20 lines in 5 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. 20% 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 sunA · himB · dimB · doneA
- 2 ABBA wainA · shoreB · doorB · brainA
- 3 ABBA nightA · heardB · birdB · lightA
- 4 ABBA streamA · brinkB · clinkB · teamA
- 5 ABBA nameA · lastB · pastB · sameA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Sad Hesper o’er the buried sun | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| And ready, thou, to die with him, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Thou watchest all things ever dim | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| And dimmer, and a glory done: | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| The team is loosen’d from the wain, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The boat is drawn upon the shore; | 8 | ········ |
| Thou listenest to the closing door, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| And life is darken’d in the brain. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Bright Phosphor, fresher for the night, | 8 | ·/·/˘··· |
| By thee the world’s great work is heard | 8 | ········ |
| Beginning, and the wakeful bird; | 8 | ˘/˘··/˘· |
| Behind thee comes the greater light: | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| The market boat is on the stream, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| And voices hail it from the brink; | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Thou hear’st the village hammer clink, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| And see’st the moving of the team. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Sweet Hesper-Phosphor, double name | 8 | ·/˘/·/˘· |
| For what is one, the first, the last, | 8 | ········ |
| Thou, like my present and my past, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Thy place is changed; thou art the same. | 8 | ········ |
On this poem
Phosphor, the morning star, sees the renewal of life; the bird with its early song, the rising sun, the market boat again floating and voices calling to it from the shore, the village blacksmith with his clinking hammer, and the team again harnessed and at work.
Hesper and Phosphor are simply the one planet Venus, which according to its position with the sun, becomes the morning or evening star.
So the Poet sings,
"Sweet Hesper-Phosphor, double name For what is one, the first, the last, Thou, like my present and my past, Thy place is changed; thou art the same."
Hallam has only been removed: he is not altered into something else--"not lost, but gone before." No--the writer is rather referring to himself: and as his own "present" and "past" are so different; the latter, with a bright prospect, may be likened to the morning star, Phosphor; whilst the former, full of gloom and sorrow, is represented by Hesper, the star of evening, and precursor of black night.
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 [Written at Shiplake, where my father and mother were married. — ED.] [Hallam Tennyson]
- Stanza 1, line 1 Cf. LXXXIX. 47, 48. [Bradley]
- Stanza 2, line 1 ' wain ': in some editions ' Wain/ a mere misprint.
g. Cf. ix. 10, ii.
H. 'wakeful bird': cf. Par. Lost, III. 38. [Bradley] - Stanza 3, line 4 ' greater light ': cf. Genesis, i. 16. [Bradley]
- Stanza 5, line 1 Sweet Hesper-Phosphor^ double name. The evening star is also the morning star, death and sorrow brighten into death and hope. [Tennyson]
- Stanza 5, line 2 'what is one': Love. The next words.may be intended to recall, ' I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last,'/&?7/. i. ii. [Bradley]
- Stanza 5, line 3 'like my present': 'who art like,' etc. Gatty takes the poet's sad present to correspond to the time of Hesper, and his happy youthful past to correspond to the time of Phosphor. But, considering the tone of this part of In Memoriam, it seems quite certain that the poet is regarding the past as sad and the present as bright. [It is not, however, necessary to suppose that the poet asked himself to which part of his life Hesper answered, and to which Phosphor.] [Bradley]
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