Take wings of fancy, and ascend
Take wings of fancy, and ascend,And in a moment set thy faceWhere all the starry heavens of spaceAre sharpen’d to a needle’s end;
Take wings of foresight: lighten thro’The secular abyss to come,And lo! thy deepest lays are dumbBefore the mouldering of a yew;
And if the matin songs, that wokeThe darkness of our planet, last,Thine own shall wither in the vast,Ere half the lifetime of an oak.
Ere these have clothed their branchy bowersWith fifty Mays, thy songs are vain;And what are they when these remainThe ruin’d shells of hollow towers?
Words in this poem
- starry a.
- Abounding with stars; adorned with stars.
- matin n.
- A French mastiff. [F. matin.]
- 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,]
- lifetime n.
- The time that life continues.
- branchy a.
- Full of branches; having wide-spreading branches; consisting of branches.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Take wings of fancy, and ascend 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, Take wings of fancy, and ascend, in In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70950, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/tennyson-in-memoriam/section-74.html, id L18434.
Form and metre
Take wings of fancy, and ascend 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 91%). 98% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.2 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 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 ascendA · faceB · spaceB · endA
- 2 ABBA throA · comeB · dumbB · yewA
- 3 ABBA wokeA · lastB · vastB · oakA
- 4 ABBA bowersA · vainB · remainB · towersA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Take wings of fancy, and ascend, | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| And in a moment set thy face | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Where all the starry heavens of space | 9 | ···/˘/˘·· |
| Are sharpen’d to a needle’s end; | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Take wings of foresight: lighten thro’ | 8 | ···/·/˘· |
| The secular abyss to come, | 8 | ·/˘˘˘/·· |
| And lo! thy deepest lays are dumb | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Before the mouldering of a yew; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And if the matin songs, that woke | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The darkness of our planet, last, | 8 | ·/˘·//˘· |
| Thine own shall wither in the vast, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Ere half the lifetime of an oak. | 8 | ···/···· |
| Ere these have clothed their branchy bowers | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
| With fifty Mays, thy songs are vain; | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| And what are they when these remain | 8 | ······˘/ |
| The ruin’d shells of hollow towers? | 9 | ·/˘··/˘/˘ |
On this poem
"Take wings of foresight," and see in the future how thy best poems are dumb, before a yew tree moulders; and though the writings of the great early Poets--"the matin songs that woke the darkness of our planet"--may last, thy songs in fifty years will have become vain; and have ceased to be known by the time when the oak tree has withered into a hollow ruin.
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, line 1 Take wings of fancy, and ascend, And in a moment set thy face Where all the starry heavens of space Are sharpened to a needle's end. So distant in void space that all our firmament would appear to be a needle-point thence. [Tennyson]
- Stanza 1, line 1 Cf. Adonais, XLVII. For the phrase Collins compares Petrarch, In Morte, Sonnet 82, * Volo con 1' ali de' pensieri al cielo.' [Bradley]
- Stanza 1, line 3 ' Where ': at a height from which. Gatty compares Cymbeline^ I. iii. 18, 'Till the diminution Of space had pointed him sharp as my needle.' [Bradley]
- Stanza 2, line 2 The secular abyss to come = the ages upon ages to be (cf. Sect. XLI. vi.). [Tennyson]
- Stanza 2, line 2 * secular ': cf. XLI. 23. [Bradley]
- Stanza 3 the matin songs. The great early poets. [Tennyson]
- Stanza 3, line 1 ' matin-songs,' etc.: the writings ot the great early Poets (authorised interpretation in Gatty). [Bradley]
- Stanza 3, line 3 Cf. 'But Song will vanish in the Vast,' Epilogue to The Charge of the Heavy Brigade. [Bradley]
- Stanza 4 these remain. [The yew and oak. — ED.] [Hallam Tennyson]
- Stanza 4, line 1 ' these ': yew and oak. [Bradley]
- Stanza 4, line 4 Cf. Merlin and Vivien, lines 3, 4:
Before an oak, so hollow, huge, and old, It look'd a tower of ruin'd masonwork. [Bradley]
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