I shall not see thee. Dare I say
I shall not see thee. Dare I sayNo spirit ever brake the bandThat stays him from the native land,Where first he walk’d when claspt in clay?
No visual shade of some one lost,But he, the Spirit himself, may comeWhere all the nerve of sense is numb;Spirit to Spirit, Ghost to Ghost.
O, therefore from thy sightless rangeWith gods in unconjectured bliss,O, from the distance of the abyssOf tenfold-complicated change,
Descend, and touch, and enter; hearThe wish too strong for words to name;That in this blindness of the frameMy Ghost may feel that thine is near.
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,]
- ghost n.
- The spirit; the soul of man. [OE. gast, gost, soul, spirit, AS. gast breath, spirit, soul; akin to OS. g spirit, soul, D. geest, G. geist, and prob. to E. gaze, ghastly.]
- sightless a.
- Wanting sight; without sight; blind.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
I shall not see thee. Dare I say 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, I shall not see thee. Dare I say, in In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70950, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/tennyson-in-memoriam/section-91.html, id L18451.
Form and metre
I shall not see thee. Dare I say 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 92%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.1 syllables. 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 sayA · bandB · landB · clayA
- 2 ABBA lostA · comeB · numbB · ghostA
- 3 ABBA rangeA · blissB · abyssB · changeA
- 4 ABBA hearA · nameB · frameB · nearA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I shall not see thee. Dare I say | 8 | ········ |
| No spirit ever brake the band | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| That stays him from the native land, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Where first he walk’d when claspt in clay? | 8 | ········ |
| No visual shade of some one lost, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| But he, the Spirit himself, may come | 8 | ···/˘/·· |
| Where all the nerve of sense is numb; | 8 | ········ |
| Spirit to Spirit, Ghost to Ghost. | 8 | /˘·/˘··· |
| O, therefore from thy sightless range | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| With gods in unconjectured bliss, | 8 | ········ |
| O, from the distance of the abyss | 9 | ···/˘··˘/ |
| Of tenfold-complicated change, | 8 | ·/·/˘·˘· |
| Descend, and touch, and enter; hear | 8 | ˘/···/˘· |
| The wish too strong for words to name; | 8 | ········ |
| That in this blindness of the frame | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| My Ghost may feel that thine is near. | 8 | ········ |
On this poem
"My Ghost may feel that thine is near."
Notes from the edition 9
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 ' See ' is emphatic. Understand * But ' before * Dare,' or 'then' after 'Dare I.' The poet abruptly and finally dismisses the idea that the dead will appear in visible form, but hesitates to assert that no soul ever returned to earth. [Bradley]
- Stanza 2, line 3 Where all the nerve of sense is numb. [This spiritual state is described in Sect. xciv. —ED.] [Hallam Tennyson]
- Stanza 2, line 1 He affirms that it is possible that the soul of the dead — not a visual shade, but the soul itself— may come to the soul of the living without the mediation of any sense, or on condition that all the senses are in abeyance (' all ' in 7 excludes more than the ' see' of i, unless the line means, 'When the nerve of sight is wholly numb,' when cf. Par. Los^ xi. 415, 'the visual nerve'). Such words as 'No, I dare not say this. Rather ' must be understood before the beginning of line 5. Cf. the omission of ' No, I could not have said this ' in LXXXI. 5 (on one interpretation).
But the passage from doubt or musing ('Dare I say?') to positive assertion is here so abrupt that perhaps stanza 2 was really meant to be a continuation of lines 2-4 of stanza I; i.e. to be a part of that which the poet doubts whether he dare say: ' dare I say, not indeed that the visual shade may come, but that the spirit himself may come?' In that case, line 4 should end with a colon or semi-colon, and line 8 with a note of interrogation. On Tennyson's defective use of this note, see remarks on LXXXI. If this suggestion be correct, the summary given at the head of the section will run: ' But is not a direct contact of soul and soul possible? If so, come ! '
A third interpretation has been suggested to me as con- ceivable: ' I shall not see thee. No spirit (dare I say this ?) ever came back to the world of sense: none ever appeared as a shade: but a spirit may return to the inner world of another spirit.' [Bradley] - Stanza 2, line 4 Cf. AylmeSs Field:
Star to star vibrates light: may soul to soul Strike thro' a finer element of her own ? So, — from afar, — touch us at once ?
These lines, however, refer to two living people, one at the point of death. (In the lines that follow there is another instance of the omission of the note of interrogation). [Bradley] - Stanza 3, line 2 With gods in unconjectured bliss. [Cf. ComuSy 1 1:
" Among the enthroned gods on sainted seats."
ED.]
tenfold -complicated. [Refers to the ten heavens of Dante. Cf. Paradiso, xxvui. 15 foil.— ED.] [Hallam Tennyson] - Stanza 3, line 1 * thy sightless range ': the place where thou rangest invisible. For 'range' cf. XLIV. 12, LXXXV. 22: for 'sight- less' (used as in Macbeth, i. v. 50, vii. 23) cxv. 18. [Bradley]
- Stanza 3, line 2 Cf. Comus, ii. [Bradley]
- Stanza 4, line 1 Cf. cxxu. ii. [Bradley]
- Stanza 4, line 3 'frame'; body, as in XLV. ii (but not as in xxxvi. 2). Cf.7. [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.