Witch-elms that counterchange the floor
Witch-elms that counterchange the floorOf this flat lawn with dusk and bright:And thou, with all thy breadth and heightOf foliage, towering sycamore;
How often, hither wandering down,My Arthur found your shadows fair,And shook to all the liberal airThe dust and din and steam of town:
He brought an eye for all he saw;He mixt in all our simple sports;They pleased him, fresh from brawling courtsAnd dusky purlieus of the law.
O joy to him in this retreat,Immantled in ambrosial dark,To drink the cooler air, and markThe landscape winking through the heat:
O sound to rout the brood of cares,The sweep of scythe in morning dew,The gust that round the garden flew,And tumbled half the mellowing pears!
O bliss, when all in circle drawnAbout him, heart and ear were fedTo hear him, as he lay and readThe Tuscan poets on the lawn:
Or in the all-golden afternoonA guest, or happy sister, sung,Or here she brought the harp and flungA ballad to the brightening moon:
Nor less it pleased in livelier moods,Beyond the bounding hill to stray,And break the livelong summer dayWith banquet in the distant woods;
Whereat we glanced from theme to theme,Discuss’d the books to love or hate,Or touch’d the changes of the state,Or threaded some Socratic dream;
But if I praised the busy town,He loved to rail against it still,For ‘ground in yonder social millWe rub each other’s angles down,
And merge’ he said ‘in form and glossThe picturesque of man and man.’We talk’d: the stream beneath us ran,The wine-flask lying couch’d in moss,
Or cool’d within the glooming waveAnd last, returning from afar,Before the crimson-circled starHad fall’n into her father’s grave,
And brushing ankle-deep in flowers,We heard behind the woodbine veilThe milk that bubbled in the pail,And buzzings of the honied hours.
Words in this poem 15
- counterchange v. t.
- To give and receive; to cause to change places; to exchange.
- towering a.
- Very high; elevated; rising aloft; as, a towering height.
- shook v. t.
- To pack, as staves, in a shook.
- brawling a.
- Quarreling; quarrelsome; noisy.
- ambrosial a.
- Consisting of, or partaking of the nature of, ambrosia; delighting the taste or smell; delicious.
- cooler n.
- That which cools, or abates heat or excitement.
- afternoon n.
- The part of the day which follows noon, between noon and evening.
- livelong a.
- Whole; entire; long in passing; -- used of time, as day or night, in adverbial phrases, and usually with a sense of tediousness. [For lifelong. Cf. Lifelong.]
- whereat adv.
- At which; upon which; whereupon; -- used relatively.
- socratic a.
- Of or pertaining to Socrates, the Grecian sage and teacher. (b.
- yonder adv.
- At a distance, but within view. [OE. yonder, ýonder; cf. OD. ginder, Goth. jaindr there. Yond, adv.]
- glooming n.
- Twilight (of morning or evening); the gloaming. [Cf. Gloaming.]
- afar adv.
- At, to, or from a great distance; far away; -- often used with from preceding, or off following; as, he was seen from afar; I saw him afar off. [Pref. a-.(for on or of) + far.]
- circled a.
- Having the form of a circle; round.
- brushing a.
- Constructed or used to brush with; as a brushing machine.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Witch-elms that counterchange the floor 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, Witch-elms that counterchange the floor, in In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70950, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/tennyson-in-memoriam/section-87.html, id L18447.
Form and metre
Witch-elms that counterchange the floor is 52 lines in 13 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABBA. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%). 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. 31% 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 floorA · brightB · heightB · sycamoreA
- 2 ABBA downA · fairB · airB · townA
- 3 ABBA sawA · sportsB · courtsB · lawA
- 4 ABBA retreatA · darkB · markB · heatA
- 5 ABBA caresA · dewB · flewB · pearsA
- 6 ABBA drawnA · fedB · readB · lawnA
- 7 ABBA afternoonA · sungB · flungB · moonA
- 8 ABBA moodsA · strayB · dayB · woodsA
- 9 ABBA themeA · hateB · stateB · dreamA
- 10 ABBA townA · stillB · millB · downA
- 11 ABBA glossA · manB · ranB · mossA
- 12 ABBA waveA · afarB · starB · graveA
- 13 ABBA flowersA · veilB · pailB · hoursA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Witch-elms that counterchange the floor | 8 | ···/˘˘·· |
| Of this flat lawn with dusk and bright: | 8 | ········ |
| And thou, with all thy breadth and height | 8 | ········ |
| Of foliage, towering sycamore; | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| How often, hither wandering down, | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| My Arthur found your shadows fair, | 8 | ·/˘··/·· |
| And shook to all the liberal air | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| The dust and din and steam of town: | 8 | ········ |
| He brought an eye for all he saw; | 8 | ········ |
| He mixt in all our simple sports; | 8 | ····//˘· |
| They pleased him, fresh from brawling courts | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And dusky purlieus of the law. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| O joy to him in this retreat, | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Immantled in ambrosial dark, | 8 | ··˘·˘/˘· |
| To drink the cooler air, and mark | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The landscape winking through the heat: | 8 | ·/·/˘··· |
| O sound to rout the brood of cares, | 8 | ········ |
| The sweep of scythe in morning dew, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| The gust that round the garden flew, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And tumbled half the mellowing pears! | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| O bliss, when all in circle drawn | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| About him, heart and ear were fed | 8 | ········ |
| To hear him, as he lay and read | 8 | ········ |
| The Tuscan poets on the lawn: | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Or in the all-golden afternoon | 9 | ····/˘·˘/ |
| A guest, or happy sister, sung, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Or here she brought the harp and flung | 8 | ········ |
| A ballad to the brightening moon: | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Nor less it pleased in livelier moods, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Beyond the bounding hill to stray, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And break the livelong summer day | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| With banquet in the distant woods; | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Whereat we glanced from theme to theme, | 8 | ˘/······ |
| Discuss’d the books to love or hate, | 8 | ˘/······ |
| Or touch’d the changes of the state, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Or threaded some Socratic dream; | 8 | ·/˘·˘/˘· |
| But if I praised the busy town, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| He loved to rail against it still, | 8 | ········ |
| For ‘ground in yonder social mill | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| We rub each other’s angles down, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| And merge’ he said ‘in form and gloss | 8 | ········ |
| The picturesque of man and man.’ | 8 | ·/˘˘···· |
| We talk’d: the stream beneath us ran, | 8 | ········ |
| The wine-flask lying couch’d in moss, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Or cool’d within the glooming wave | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And last, returning from afar, | 8 | ··˘/˘·˘/ |
| Before the crimson-circled star | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Had fall’n into her father’s grave, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And brushing ankle-deep in flowers, | 9 | ·/˘/˘··/˘ |
| We heard behind the woodbine veil | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| The milk that bubbled in the pail, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And buzzings of the honied hours. | 9 | ·/˘··/˘/˘ |
On this poem
He recalls the lawn of Somersby Rectory, with the trees that shade it, and Hallam as being present on one of his repeated visits. He has come down from his law readings in the Temple,
"The dust and din and steam of town;"
and now, in a golden afternoon, sees
"The landscape winking thro' the heat"
as he lies and reads Dante, or Tasso, aloud to his companions; until later on, when some lady of the group would bring her harp, and fling
"A ballad to the brightening moon."
Or the family party may have strayed farther away, for a picnic in the woods; and are there discussing the respective merits of town and country.
They are described as returning home,
"Before the crimson-circled star Had fall'n into her father's grave,"
that is, before the planet Venus had sunk into the sea--"her father's grave."--This planet is evolved from the Sun--La Place's theory.
The evening sounds are very charming--
"The milk that bubbled in the pail, And buzzings of the honied hours,"
when the bees were gathering their last stores of the day. Tender recollections of the past!
Notes from the edition 14
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 Somersby. [Tennyson]
- Stanza 1 counterchange [chequer. —ED.].
The " towering sycamore " is cut down, and the four poplars are gone, and the lawn is no longer flat. [Tennyson] - Stanza 1, line 1 'counterchange': chequer. Cf. LXXII. 15, and Re- collections of the Arabian Nights:
A sudden splendour from behind Flushed all the leaves with rich gold-green, And, flowing rapidly between Their interspaces, counterchange d The level lake with diamond-plots Of dark and bright. [Bradley] - Stanza 1, line 4 'sycamore': cf. xcv. 55. [Bradley]
- Stanza 2, line 3 'liberal air': cf. Byron, Manfred^ i. i, 'pipes in the liberal air.' [Bradley]
- Stanza 2, line 4 Cf. Horace, Odes, in. xxix. 12, 'Fumum et opes strepitumque Romae' (Collins). [Bradley]
- Stanza 3, line 4 'dusty': first ed.: 'dusky.' [Bradley]
- Stanza 4, line 4 'winking' of course refers to the tremulous appear- ance of the heated air. [Bradley]
- Stanza 7, line 3 G.A.C. compares Hallam's Remains, p. 71: Sometimes I dream thee leaning o'er The harp I used to love so well. [Bradley]
- Stanza 9, line 4 Arthur Hallam was an enthusiastic reader of Plato. [Bradley]
- Stanza 12, line 3 Before the crimson-circled star Had falF n into her father's grave.
Before Venus, the evening star, had dipt into the sunset. The planets, according to Lap- lace, were evolved from the sun. [Tennyson] - Stanza 12, line 1 ' glooming ': Tennyson is fond of ' gloom ' and its congeners. He uses 'glooming' as a substantive in the Gardner's Daughter (' the balmy glooming crescent-lit'; cf. 'gorgeous gloom of evening,' LXXXVL 2), and 'gloom' as a transitive verb in The Letters and elsewhere. Cf. Epilogue, 118. Cf. with the whole line Horace, Odes, II. xi. 18 (G.A.C.). [Bradley]
- Stanza 12, line 3 These lines, which surely mar a beautiful passage, mean: ' Before Venus, surrounded by the crimson of sunset, had set after the sun.' Cf. cxxi. i, 2. According to the nebular theory, Venus, like the other planets, was formed by the condensation of a zone thrown off from a mass of nebula, the remains of which, condensing towards the centre,
formed the sun. The sun, as representing the whole original
nebula, is figured as the father of Venus. Cf. Lady Psyche
in The Princess, II.:
This world was once a fluid haze of light, Till toward the centre set the starry tides, And eddied into suns, that wheeling cast The planets, 'crimson-circled': for 'crimson' cf. cm. 55 (of cloud),
and perhaps LXXXVI. 13. [Bradley] - Stanza 13, line 4 Cf. ci. 8. [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.