If Sleep and Death be truly one
If Sleep and Death be truly one,And every spirit’s folded bloomThro’ all its intervital gloomIn some long trance should slumber on;
Unconscious of the sliding hour,Bare of the body, might it last,And silent traces of the pastBe all the colour of the flower:
So then were nothing lost to man;But that still garden of the soulsIn many a figured leaf enrollsThe total world since life began:
And love would last as pure and wholeAs when he loved me here in Time,And at the spiritual primeRewaken with the dawning soul.
Words in this poem
- intervital a.
- Between two lives.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
If Sleep and Death be truly one 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, If Sleep and Death be truly one, in In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70950, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/tennyson-in-memoriam/section-42.html, id L18402.
Form and metre
If Sleep and Death be truly one 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%). 98% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.1 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 44% 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 oneA · bloomB · gloomB · onA
- 2 ABBA hourA · lastB · pastB · flowerA
- 3 ABBA manA · soulsB · enrollsB · beganA
- 4 ABBA wholeA · timeB · primeB · soulA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| If Sleep and Death be truly one, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And every spirit’s folded bloom | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| Thro’ all its intervital gloom | 8 | ········ |
| In some long trance should slumber on; | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Unconscious of the sliding hour, | 9 | ·/˘··/˘/˘ |
| Bare of the body, might it last, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And silent traces of the past | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Be all the colour of the flower: | 9 | ···/˘··/˘ |
| So then were nothing lost to man; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| But that still garden of the souls | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| In many a figured leaf enrolls | 8 | ·/·/˘·˘/ |
| The total world since life began: | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| And love would last as pure and whole | 8 | ········ |
| As when he loved me here in Time, | 8 | ········ |
| And at the spiritual prime | 8 | ···/˘˘˘· |
| Rewaken with the dawning soul. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
On this poem
"Sleep and death be truly one"--
as St. Paul himself might lead us to believe--
"And every spirit's folded bloom"
--the slumbering soul being like a flower which closes at night--reposed, unconscious of the passage of time, but with silent traces of the past marked upon it; then the lives of all, from the beginning of time, would contain in their shut-up state a record of all that had ever happened;
"And love will last as pure and whole, As when he loved me here in Time, And at the spiritual prime Rewaken with the dawning soul."
At the resurrection, the old affection will revive.
Notes from the edition 11
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 If the immediate life after death be only sleep, and the spirit between this life and the next should be folded like a flower in a night slumber, then the remembrance of the past might remain, as the smell and colour do in the sleeping flower; and in that case the memory of our love would last as true, and would live pure and whole within the spirit of my friend until it was unfolded at the breaking of the morn, when the sleep was over. [Tennyson]
- Stanza 1, line 3 Thro1 all its intervital gloom. In the passage between this life and the next. [Tennyson]
- Stanza 1, line 2 The soul is compared with a flower which closes during the night. [Bradley]
- Stanza 2, line 1 ' Bare of the body,' and so suffering no change, and acquiring no new quality, through it. [Bradley]
- Stanza 2, line 3 Its character is due solely to its earthly experience. [Bradley]
- Stanza 3, line 2 ; So ': first ed.: ' But.' The phrase ' still garden occurs also in The Gardener's Daughter. [Bradley]
- Stanza 3, line 3 ' figured ': marked with character-traces; 'enrolls': includes. The idea is that all the souls that ever lived on earth sleep, with all their experience enclosed in them, till a genend re-awakening. I take 'figured leaf to repeat the idea of 7, 8, ' leaf meaning ' petal,' and ' figured ' referring to its coloured markings or pattern. For 'leaf cf. Shelley's lines,
Rose-leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the beloved's bed; and 7 he Princess •, V.,
But pure as lines of green that streak the white
Of the first snowdrop's inner leaves.
The word ' figured ' may be due to Lycidas^ 105. Cf. LXI. 6. No doubt the reference may be to the calyx-leaves which in some plants close round the flower (as Mr. Larden suggests), or even to a leaf like the spatha of an arum. If so, I should still understand ' figured ' of surface-markings, not of the shape of the outline. But I feel no doubt that the new idea which enters with these lines is to be found in * garden' and 'total world,' not in 'figured leaf.' [Bradley] - Stanza 4, line 3 And at the spiritual prime. Dawn of the spiritual life hereafter. [Tennyson]
- Stanza 4, line 1 'will': first ed.: 'would.' [Bradley]
- Stanza 4, line 2 'in Time': in the earthly life. Cf. xxvu. 6; XCI. 6. [Bradley]
- Stanza 4, line 3 'prime': daybreak (see 2). [Bradley]
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