And all is well, tho’ faith and form
And all is well, tho’ faith and formBe sunder’d in the night of fear;Well roars the storm to those that hearA deeper voice across the storm,
Proclaiming social truth shall spread,And justice, ev’n tho’ thrice againThe red fool-fury of the SeineShould pile her barricades with dead.
But woe to him that wears a crown,And him, the lazar, in his rags:They tremble, the sustaining crags;The spires of ice are toppled down,
And molten up, and roar in flood;The fortress crashes from on high,The brute earth lightens to the sky,And the vast Æon sinks in blood,
And compass’d by the fires of Hell,While thou, dear spirit, happy star,O’erlook’st the tumult from afar,And smilest, knowing all is well.
Words in this poem
- 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,]
- lazar n.
- A person infected with a filthy or pestilential disease; a leper. [OF. lazare, fr. Lazarus the beggar. Luke xvi. 20.]
- afar adv.
- At, to, or from a great distance; far away; -- often used with from preceding, or off following; as, he was seen from afar; I saw him afar off. [Pref. a-.(for on or of) + far.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
And all is well, tho’ faith and form 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, And all is well, tho’ faith and form, in In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70950, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/tennyson-in-memoriam/section-125.html, id L18485.
Form and metre
And all is well, tho’ faith and form 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 94%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 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 formA · fearB · hearB · stormA
- 2 ABBA spreadA · againB · seineB · deadA
- 3 ABBA crownA · ragsB · cragsB · downA
- 4 ABBA floodA · highB · skyB · bloodA
- 5 ABBA hellA · starB · afarB · wellA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| And all is well, tho’ faith and form | 8 | ········ |
| Be sunder’d in the night of fear; | 8 | ········ |
| Well roars the storm to those that hear | 8 | ········ |
| A deeper voice across the storm, | 8 | ·/˘·˘/·· |
| Proclaiming social truth shall spread, | 8 | ˘/˘/˘··· |
| And justice, ev’n tho’ thrice again | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| The red fool-fury of the Seine | 9 | ···/˘··/˘ |
| Should pile her barricades with dead. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| But woe to him that wears a crown, | 8 | ········ |
| And him, the lazar, in his rags: | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| They tremble, the sustaining crags; | 8 | ·/˘·˘/˘· |
| The spires of ice are toppled down, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And molten up, and roar in flood; | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| The fortress crashes from on high, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| The brute earth lightens to the sky, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And the vast Æon sinks in blood, | 7 | ······· |
| And compass’d by the fires of Hell, | 8 | ·····/·· |
| While thou, dear spirit, happy star, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| O’erlook’st the tumult from afar, | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| And smilest, knowing all is well. | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
On this poem
"The red fool-fury of the Seine"
does not specially refer to the Revolution of 1848, as it was probably written long before '48.
Such convulsions will cease at last; there is calm beyond; and, even whilst they last,
"thou, dear spirit, happy star, O'erlook'st the tumult from afar, And smilest, knowing all is well."
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, line 3 Cf. CIX. 16; Hands All Round v& Memoir, l. 346; and the speaker in Locksley Hall Sixty Years After-. France had shown a light to all men, preach'd a Gospel,
all men's good; Celtic Demos rose a Demon, shriek'd and slaked the
light with blood.
The present lines probably refer to the ' Three glorious Days of July,' 1830, which led to the disappearance of Charles X. [Bradley] - Stanza 3, line 1 ' ill for him ': first ed.: * woe to him.' ' But it is not so with those whose hearts are set merely on temporal glory, or who are spiritually diseased and destitute' (C. E. B.): or perhaps the kings and diseased beggars may be taken to stand for those, at the top and bottom of the social scale, who, from being considered useless to society, are likely to suffer in the period of convulsion here imagined.
With this passage cf. cxiii. 13-20, and a letter on the darkness of the times, 1832 (Memoir, i. 99). There are some similar lines in The Princess, IV.:
But trim our sails, and let old bygones be, While down the streams that float us each and all To the issue, goes, like glittering bergs of ice, Throne after throne, and molten on the waste Becomes a cloud: for all things serve their time Toward that great year of equal mights and rights. (This 'great year' is of course not the 'great ^Eon' of 16, but the ' closing cycle' of cv. 28).
n, 12. The 'crags' are, apparently, mountain-tops 'sus- taining ' spires of ice. Cf. Prom. Unb. II. iii.:
And far on high the keen sky-cleaving mountains From icy spires of sunlike radiance fling The dawn, and the application in the lines that follow. [Bradley] - Stanza 4 brute earth. [Cf. "bruta tellus," the heavy, inert earth (Hor. Carm. i. xxxiv.) — ED.] [Hallam Tennyson]
- Stanza 4, line 3 ' brute': ponderous: from Horace's Odes, I. XXXIV. 9, 'Quobrutatellus... concutitur.' Cf. Comus, 797 (Collins).
1 6. 'great'; first ed.: 'vast.' The change to 'great' was made in the fourth edition, which still read ' vast of space ' in cxxvi. ii.
1 y£on ': cf. xxxv. 1 1, xcv. 41. [Bradley] - Stanza 5, line 1 ' fires of Hell ': the phrase re-appears in The Princess, v. [Bradley]
- Stanza 5, line 2 To recall cxxvi. [Bradley]
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