My own dim life should teach me this
My own dim life should teach me this,That life shall live for evermore,Else earth is darkness at the core,And dust and ashes all that is;
This round of green, this orb of flame,Fantastic beauty; such as lurksIn some wild Poet, when he worksWithout a conscience or an aim.
What then were God to such as I?’Twere hardly worth my while to chooseOf things all mortal, or to useA little patience ere I die;
’Twere best at once to sink to peace,Like birds the charming serpent draws,To drop head-foremost in the jawsOf vacant darkness and to cease.
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,]
- evermore adv.
- During eternity; always; forever; for an indefinite period; at all times; -- often used substantively with for.
- conscience n.
- Knowledge of one's own thoughts or actions; consciousness. [F. conscience, fr. L. conscientia, fr. consciens, p.pr. of conscire to know, to be conscious; con- + scire to know. See Science.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
My own dim life should teach me this 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, My own dim life should teach me this, in In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70950, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/tennyson-in-memoriam/section-34.html, id L18394.
Form and metre
My own dim life should teach me this is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABBA. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 31% 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 thisA · evermoreB · coreB · isA
- 2 ABBA flameA · lurksB · worksB · aimA
- 3 ABBA iA · chooseB · useB · dieA
- 4 ABBA peaceA · drawsB · jawsB · ceaseA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| My own dim life should teach me this, | 8 | ········ |
| That life shall live for evermore, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Else earth is darkness at the core, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And dust and ashes all that is; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| This round of green, this orb of flame, | 8 | ········ |
| Fantastic beauty; such as lurks | 8 | ˘/˘/˘··· |
| In some wild Poet, when he works | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Without a conscience or an aim. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| What then were God to such as I? | 8 | ········ |
| ’Twere hardly worth my while to choose | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Of things all mortal, or to use | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| A little patience ere I die; | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| ’Twere best at once to sink to peace, | 8 | ········ |
| Like birds the charming serpent draws, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| To drop head-foremost in the jaws | 8 | ···/···· |
| Of vacant darkness and to cease. | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
On this poem
Even God can be nothing to the writer, if all around him is doomed to perish; and he will not himself wait in patience, but rather "sink to peace;" and, like the birds that are charmed by the serpent into its mouth, he will "drop head-foremost in the jaws of vacant darkness," and so cease to exist.
Notes from the edition 4
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 [See Introduction, supra, pp. 218, 219. — ED.] [Hallam Tennyson]
- Stanza 1, line 1 'dim' probably answers to * darkly' in xxxvi. i; or 'dim life' may possibly mean, 'the very feebleness of my darkened life'; or 'dim' may possibly mean, 'dim, but still not utterly dark.' [Bradley]
- Stanza 2, line 1 The earth as it appears to inhabitants, and as it would appear from a distance: or (more probably) the earth and the sun, ' the flame that measures time,' Hymn in Akbar's Dream; cf. LXXII. 13. [Bradley]
- Stanza 3, line 1 The God of such a world would not be reason or good- ness or love, and could have no claim on a being with spirittal wants (cf. cxx.). Or, if 'dim' in i be taken to mean '• feeble,' ' such as I ' may be taken to mean ' so miser- able as I.' Or ' such as I ' may mean, 'a being placed in a dying world, and himself doomed to extinction.' I prefer the fiist interpretation. [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.