Sweet after showers, ambrosial air
Sweet after showers, ambrosial air,That rollest from the gorgeous gloomOf evening over brake and bloomAnd meadow, slowly breathing bare
The round of space, and rapt belowThro’ all the dewy-tassell’d wood,And shadowing down the horned floodIn ripples, fan my brows and blow
The fever from my cheek, and sighThe full new life that feeds thy breathThroughout my frame, till Doubt and Death,Ill brethren, let the fancy fly
From belt to belt of crimson seasOn leagues of odour streaming far,To where in yonder orient starA hundred spirits whisper ‘Peace.’
Words in this poem
- ambrosial a.
- Consisting of, or partaking of the nature of, ambrosia; delighting the taste or smell; delicious.
- gorgeous a.
- Imposing through splendid or various colors; showy; fine; magnificent. [OF. gorgias beautiful, glorious, vain, luxurious; cf. OF. gorgias ruff, neck handkerchief, and F. gorge throat, and se pengorger to assume airs. Cf. Gorge, n.]
- rapt n.
- An ecstasy; a trance. Bp. Morton. [From F. rapt abduction, rape, L. raptus, fr. rapere to seize and carry off, to transport; or fr. E. rapt, a. See Rapt, a., and Rapid.]
- shadowing n.
- Shade, or gradation of light and color; shading. Feltham.
- odour n.
- Any smell, whether fragrant or offensive; scent; perfume. [OE. odor, odour, OF. odor, odour, F. odeur, fr. L. odor; akin to olere to smell, Gr. Olfactory, Osmium, Ozone, Redolent.]
- streaming a.
- Sending forth streams.
- yonder adv.
- At a distance, but within view. [OE. yonder, ýonder; cf. OD. ginder, Goth. jaindr there. Yond, adv.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Sweet after showers, ambrosial air 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, Sweet after showers, ambrosial air, in In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70950, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/tennyson-in-memoriam/section-84.html, id L18444.
Form and metre
Sweet after showers, ambrosial air 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 96%). 98% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.1 syllables. 69% 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 airA · gloomB · bloomB · bareA
- 2 ABBA belowA · woodB · floodB · blowA
- 3 ABBA sighA · breathB · deathB · flyA
- 4 ABBA seasA · farB · starB · peaceA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Sweet after showers, ambrosial air, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| That rollest from the gorgeous gloom | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Of evening over brake and bloom | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| And meadow, slowly breathing bare | 8 | ·/·/˘/˘· |
| The round of space, and rapt below | 8 | ········ |
| Thro’ all the dewy-tassell’d wood, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And shadowing down the horned flood | 8 | ·/˘˘···· |
| In ripples, fan my brows and blow | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| The fever from my cheek, and sigh | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| The full new life that feeds thy breath | 8 | ········ |
| Throughout my frame, till Doubt and Death, | 8 | ········ |
| Ill brethren, let the fancy fly | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| From belt to belt of crimson seas | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| On leagues of odour streaming far, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| To where in yonder orient star | 9 | ···/˘/˘·· |
| A hundred spirits whisper ‘Peace.’ | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
On this poem
"A hundred spirits whisper, 'Peace.'"
This Poem is remarkable as being one sustained sentence.
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 Written at Barmouth. [Tennyson]
- Stanza 1 ambrosial air. It was a west wind. [Tennyson]
- Stanza 1, line 1 'ambrosial': a favourite word with Milton and Tenny- son, who uses * ambrosial gloom ' in a very early fragment {Memoir, I. 24), and again in The Princess, IV. 6. [Bradley]
- Stanza 1, line 3 Cf. cxxn. 4. [Bradley]
- Stanza 2 the horned flood. Be- tween two promontories. [Tennyson]
- Stanza 2, line 1 ' rapt ': the word does not imply quick or violent motion with Tennyson. Cf. The Day-dream:
And, rapt thro' many a rosy change, The twilight died into the dark. [Bradley] - Stanza 2, line 2 'dewy': from the showers. Cf. Cll. 12, and The Princess, I.: 'In the green gleam of dewy-tassell'd trees.' [Bradley]
- Stanza 2, line 3 ' shadowing': cf. evil. 14, and ' Little breezes dusk and shiver,' Lady of Shalott. ' Horned flood ': see on LXXXV. 69. 'Horned' probably means not 'branching' but 'wind- ing,' and so 'indented.' Cf. The Dying Swan, 'And the wave-worn horns of the echoing bank.' Cf. ' horned flood ' in Par. Lost, XI. 831, and Virgil's 'Corniger Hesperidum fluvius regnator aquarum,' Aen. vm. 77. [Bradley]
- Stanza 4 orient star. Any rising star is here intended. [Tennyson]
- Stanza 4, line 1 'The west wind rolling to the Eastern seas till it meets the evening star': Tennyson's words to Mr. Knowles. I had always taken the lines to mean that fancy accom-
panies the west wind as it streams eastward from cloud-belt to c oud-belt in the crimson sky, or from belt to belt of crim son cloud. Such uses of * sea ' are, of course, common, and cf. LXXXIX. 47, cm. 55, The Ancient Sage,
The last long stripe of waning crimson gloom. I cannot help suspecting some misunderstanding on Mr. Knowles's part, or even a forgetfulness of his meaning on Tennyson's, not so much because it is hard to imagine what 'Eastern seas,' except the Red, would look from above like * belts,' as because any Eastern sea would be dark when sunset was visible from the west of England, a fact which Tennyson would be the last poet to forget.
With the whole stanza cf. the last stanza of the Alcaics to Milton. [Bradley] - Stanza 4, line 2 'odour': caught from 'brake and bloom and meadow' and ' dewy-tassell'd wood.' Cf. xcv. 9. [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.