"In Vienna's fatal walls
God's finger touched him and he slept!"

The shock of surprise, followed by dumb, bitter grief, made an impression
on the youthful mind of Tennyson that the sixty years which followed did
not obliterate.

At first a numbness and a deadness came over his spirit, but this
condition erelong gave way to a sweet contemplation of the beauties of
character that his friend possessed, and he tenderly reviewed the gracious
hours they had spent together.

"In Memoriam" is not one poem; it is made up of many "short
swallow-flights of song that dip their wings in tears and skim away."
There are one hundred thirty separate songs in all, held together by the
silken thread of love for the poet's lost friend.

Seventeen years were required for their evolution. Some people, misled by
the title, possibly, think of these poems as a wail of grief for the dead,
a vain cry of sorrow for the lost, or a proud parading of mourning
millinery. Such views could not be more wholly wrong.

To every soul that has loved and lost, to those who have stood by open
graves, to all who have beheld the sun go down on less worth in the world,
these songs are a victor's cry. They tell of love and life that rise
phoenix-like from the ashes of despair; of doubt turned to faith; of fear
which has become serenest peace.

All poems that endure must have this helpful, uplifting quality. Without
violence of direction they must be beacon-lights that gently guide