And cries aloud, ' Tarry, dear cousin Suffolk,



92 A Commentary Upon

My soul shall keep thine company to heaven;
Tarry, sweet soul, for mine, then fly abreast,
As in this glorious and well-foughten field
We kept together in our chivalry.' "

LXXXV

Then occur again the familiar lines, so
nearly approached by Arthur Clough in his
Peschier^ and Alteram Partem, which re-
quire no explanation. At this point one ap-
pears of whom we shall hear more in the
later stages of the poem. It is evident that
he wishes to sustain the same relation to a
sister of the poet, which Arthur Hallam had
occupied, and as a consequence the same at-
titude toward Tennyson that Hallam had
maintained. This new phase of the situation
naturally suggests the question, whether the
poet's " capabilities of love " have been ex-
hausted in his devotion to Hallam. The
student will note that the participle " de-
manding " in stanza 2, line 2, of this section,
has as its object the two last lines of the
stanza in which it occurs, and all of the suc-
ceeding stanza. Then follows the answer of
the poet to the question suggested by this in-
terrogator, who is introduced for the first
time. The poet admits the propriety of the
question and the\ necessity of a faithful



Tennyson's " In Memoriam " 93

answer. He then describes the tranquil flow
of his own life,

" Till on mine ear this message falls,
That in Vienna's fatal walls,
God's finger touched him and he slept " —

a reference to Hallam's sudden death in Vi-
enna. Then follows the superb description
of Hallam's reception by

" The great intelligences fair
That range above our mortal state

who led him from glory to glory, and showed
him in their primal freshness all knowledge
and all wisdom which the sons of men shall
accumulate during the unfolding of the ages.
