Sleep, kinsman thou to death and trance
Sleep, kinsman thou to death and tranceAnd madness, thou hast forged at lastA night-long Present of the PastIn which we went through summer France.
Hadst thou such credit with the soul?So bring an opiate treble-strong,Drug down the blindfold sense of wrongThat thus my pleasure might be whole;
While now we talk as once we talk’dOf men and minds, the dust of change,The days that grow to something strange,In walking as of old we walk’d
Beside the river’s wooded reach,The fortress, and the mountain ridge,The cataract flashing from the bridge,The breaker breaking on the beach.
Words in this poem
- kinsman n.
- A man of the same race or family; one related by blood.
- hast
- , 2d pers. sing. pres. of. Fave, contr. of havest.
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
- opiate n.
- Originally, a medicine of a thicker consistence than sirup, prepared with opium. Parr. [From Opium: cf.F. opiat.]
- blindfold v. t.
- To cover the eyes of, as with a bandage; to hinder from seeing. [OE. blindfolden, blindfelden, blindfellen; AS. blind blind + prob. fellan, fyllan, to fell, strike down.]
- breaker n.
- One who, or that which, breaks.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Sleep, kinsman thou to death and trance 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, Sleep, kinsman thou to death and trance, in In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70950, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/tennyson-in-memoriam/section-69.html, id L18429.
Form and metre
Sleep, kinsman thou to death and trance 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 90%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 38% 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 tranceA · lastB · pastB · franceA
- 2 ABBA soulA · strongB · wrongB · wholeA
- 3 ABBA talk'dA · changeB · strangeB · walk'dA
- 4 ABBA reachA · ridgeB · bridgeB · beachA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Sleep, kinsman thou to death and trance | 8 | ·/······ |
| And madness, thou hast forged at last | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| A night-long Present of the Past | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| In which we went through summer France. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Hadst thou such credit with the soul? | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| So bring an opiate treble-strong, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Drug down the blindfold sense of wrong | 8 | ···/···· |
| That thus my pleasure might be whole; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| While now we talk as once we talk’d | 8 | ········ |
| Of men and minds, the dust of change, | 8 | ········ |
| The days that grow to something strange, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| In walking as of old we walk’d | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Beside the river’s wooded reach, | 8 | ˘/·/˘/˘· |
| The fortress, and the mountain ridge, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| The cataract flashing from the bridge, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| The breaker breaking on the beach. | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
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.