Could I have said while he was here
Could I have said while he was here‘My love shall now no further range,There cannot come a mellower change,For now is love mature in ear.’
Love, then, had hope of richer store:What end is here to my complaint?This haunting whisper makes me faint,‘More years had made me love thee more.’
But Death returns an answer sweet:‘My sudden frost was sudden gain,And gave all ripeness to the grain,It might have drawn from after-heat.’
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,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Could I have said while he was here 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, Could I have said while he was here, in In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70950, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/tennyson-in-memoriam/section-79.html, id L18439.
Form and metre
Could I have said while he was here is 12 lines in 3 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 8.1 syllables. 8% 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 hereA · rangeB · changeB · earA
- 2 ABBA storeA · complaintB · faintB · moreA
- 3 ABBA sweetA · gainB · grainB · heatA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Could I have said while he was here | 8 | ········ |
| ‘My love shall now no further range, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| There cannot come a mellower change, | 9 | ·/˘······ |
| For now is love mature in ear.’ | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| Love, then, had hope of richer store: | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| What end is here to my complaint? | 8 | ······˘/ |
| This haunting whisper makes me faint, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| ‘More years had made me love thee more.’ | 8 | ········ |
| But Death returns an answer sweet: | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| ‘My sudden frost was sudden gain, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| And gave all ripeness to the grain, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| It might have drawn from after-heat.’ | 8 | ········ |
On this poem
"More years had made me love thee more."
My attachment would have expanded with the enlargement of his powers.
"But Death returns an answer sweet: My sudden frost was sudden gain"--
The change in death instantly exalted its victim;
"And gave all ripeness to the grain, It might have drawn from after-heat."
A sudden frost will ripen grain or fruit, but will not impart the flavour to fruit which the sun gives.
In Hallam's sudden transition, what might have been drawn from subsequent experience was at once fully accomplished.
Notes from the edition 2
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 Could I have said while he was here = Would that I could have said, etc.
[I printed this explanatory note, which my father read and did not alter; and he told me, as far as I remember, that a note of ex- clamation had been omitted by accident after " ear " (thus, " ear ! "). James Spedding, in a pencil note on the MS. of In Memoriam, writes, " Could I have said" — meaning, "I wish I could." — ED.] [Tennyson] - Stanza 2 Love, then. [Love at that time. — ED.] [Hallam Tennyson]
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