Lo! as a dove when up she springs
Lo! as a dove when up she springsTo hear thro’ Heaven a tale of woe,Some dolorous message knit belowThe wild pulsation of her wings;
Like her I go: I cannot stay;I leave this mortal ark behind,A weight of nerves without a mind,And leave the cliffs, and haste away
O’er ocean mirrors rounded large,And reach the glow of southern skies,And see the sails at distance rise,And linger weeping on the marge,
And saying; ‘Comes he thus, my friend?Is this the end of all my care?’And circle moaning in the air:‘Is this the end? Is this the end?’
And forward dart again, and playAbout the prow, and back returnTo where the body sits, and learn,That I have been an hour away.
Words in this poem
- dolorous a.
- Full of grief; sad; sorrowful; doleful; dismal; as, a dolorous object; dolorous discourses. [L. dolorosus, from dolor: cf. F. douloureux. See Dolor.]
- marge n.
- Border; margin; edge; verge. [F. marge. See Margin.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Lo! as a dove when up she springs 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, Lo! as a dove when up she springs, in In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70950, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/tennyson-in-memoriam/section-12.html, id L18372.
Form and metre
Lo! as a dove when up she springs 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 96%). 98% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.1 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 springsA · woeB · belowB · wingsA
- 2 ABBA stayA · behindB · mindB · awayA
- 3 ABBA largeA · skiesB · riseB · margeA
- 4 ABBA friendA · careB · airB · endA
- 5 ABBA playA · returnB · learnB · awayA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Lo! as a dove when up she springs | 8 | ········ |
| To hear thro’ Heaven a tale of woe, | 8 | ···/···· |
| Some dolorous message knit below | 9 | ·/˘˘/˘··· |
| The wild pulsation of her wings; | 8 | ··˘/˘··· |
| Like her I go: I cannot stay; | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| I leave this mortal ark behind, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| A weight of nerves without a mind, | 8 | ········ |
| And leave the cliffs, and haste away | 8 | ······˘/ |
| O’er ocean mirrors rounded large, | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| And reach the glow of southern skies, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And see the sails at distance rise, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And linger weeping on the marge, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| And saying; ‘Comes he thus, my friend? | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Is this the end of all my care?’ | 8 | ········ |
| And circle moaning in the air: | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| ‘Is this the end? Is this the end?’ | 8 | ········ |
| And forward dart again, and play | 8 | ·/˘·˘/·· |
| About the prow, and back return | 8 | ······˘/ |
| To where the body sits, and learn, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| That I have been an hour away. | 8 | ·····/˘/ |
On this poem
"O'er ocean-mirrors rounded large"
(the sea line constantly expanding and always being circular), until the ship comes in sight, when it lingers "on the marge," the edge of the sea, weeping with the piteous cry--
"Is this the end of all my care? Is this the end? Is this the end?"
Then it flies in sport about the prow of the vessel, and after this seems to
"return To where the body sits, and learn, That I have been an hour away."
Notes from the edition 6
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 2 / leave this mortal ark behind. My spirit flies from out my material self. [Tennyson]
- Stanza 2, line 2 'mortal ark.' Gatty seeks to explain this strange phrase by reference to ' our earthly house of this tabernacle ' (2 Cor. V. i), but the phrase appears again in The Two Voices in a context which shows that the poet imagined the ark as a vessel at sea (' Who sought'st to wreck my mortal ark '). Here at any rate it seems certain that the association of the dove and the ark in the story of the Flood suggested the phrase. [Bradley]
- Stanza 3 ocean-mirrors rounded large. [The circles of water which bound the horizon as seen below in the flight. Cf. Thro' many a fair sea-circle, day by day. Enoch Arden. — ED.] [Hallam Tennyson]
- Stanza 3, line 1 At each stage of the flight the sea appears below as a vast circular mirror. So in Enoch Arden the ship moves 1 Thro' many a fair sea-circle day by day.' From the first Tennyson's poems show a special fondness for circular or spherical appearances in landscape: cf. IX. 13, xxiv. 15, 16, xxxiv. 5, LXXXVI. 5. [Bradley]
- Stanza 3, line 4 'the marge': the horizon opposite to the point where the sails are seen rising. Cf. XLVI. 7, 16. It seems to be imagined as a kind of beach, and perhaps ' rounded ' in 9 may mean convex as well as circular. [Bradley]
- Stanza 5, line 3 'the body ': the ' weight of nerves without a mind.' [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.