If any vision should reveal
If any vision should revealThy likeness, I might count it vainAs but the canker of the brain;Yea, though it spake and made appeal
To chances where our lots were castTogether in the days behind,I might but say, I hear a windOf memory murmuring the past.
Yea, tho’ it spake and bared to viewA fact within the coming year;And tho’ the months, revolving near,Should prove the phantom-warning true,
They might not seem thy prophecies,But spiritual presentiments,And such refraction of eventsAs often rises ere they rise.
About this text
If any vision should reveal 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, If any vision should reveal, in In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70950, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/tennyson-in-memoriam/section-90.html, id L18450.
Form and metre
If any vision should reveal 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%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 44% 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 revealA · vainB · brainB · appealA
- 2 ABBA castA · behindB · windB · pastA
- 3 ABBA viewA · yearB · nearB · trueA
- 4 ABBA propheciesA · presentimentsB · eventsB · riseA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| If any vision should reveal | 8 | ·/˘/˘·˘/ |
| Thy likeness, I might count it vain | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| As but the canker of the brain; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Yea, though it spake and made appeal | 8 | ······˘/ |
| To chances where our lots were cast | 8 | ·/˘·/··· |
| Together in the days behind, | 8 | ˘/˘····· |
| I might but say, I hear a wind | 8 | ········ |
| Of memory murmuring the past. | 8 | ·/˘/˘˘·· |
| Yea, tho’ it spake and bared to view | 8 | ········ |
| A fact within the coming year; | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And tho’ the months, revolving near, | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| Should prove the phantom-warning true, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| They might not seem thy prophecies, | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| But spiritual presentiments, | 8 | ·/˘˘···· |
| And such refraction of events | 8 | ··˘/˘·˘/ |
| As often rises ere they rise. | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
On this poem
"such refraction of events As often rises ere they rise."
Notes from the edition 5
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 3 Cf. Maud, ii. iv. 8:
Get thee hence, nor come again, Mix not memory with doubt.
}Tis the blot upon the brain That will show itself without. [Bradley] - Stanza 4, line 3 And such refraction of events As often rises ere they rise.
The heavenly bodies are seen above the horizon, by refraction, before they actually rise. [Tennyson] - Stanza 4, line 1 'They' seems to have nothing to refer to except * months.' But, probably, as several correspondents suggest, the sense is, ' It might not seem thy prophecy,' but Tennyson, writing 'prophecies,' put * they' by a kind of attraction from that plural. The line is thus equivalent to, ' Thy prophecies might not seem thy prophecies.' [Bradley]
- Stanza 4, line 2 'spiritual': 'in my own spirit,' or, 'such as often come into the mind ' (Ferrall). [Bradley]
- Stanza 4, line 3 1 6 do not give another hypothesis, but repeat 14 (he says ' And,' not * Or '). ' Refraction,' as in mirage. Gatty quotes from Coleridge's translation of the Death of Wallen- stein, v. i.:
As the sun,
Ere it is risen, sometimes paints its image In the atmosphere, so often do the spirits Of great events stride on before the events, And in to-day already walks to-morrow.
The context makes it probable that there is here a reminis- cence of this passage. Cf. Coleridge's Statesman's Manual, Appendix B, and Table Talk, May i, 1823 (G.A.C.). [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.