Today’s Poem: Break, Break, Break
Tennyson looks out at the sea
News
• For those in the Washington, D.C., area, Joseph Bottum will be reading and discussing poetry on Tuesday, April 23, 2024, 6:00 PM, at The Institute on Religion and Democracy, 1023 15th St. NW, Suite 200, Washington, DC. Free and open to the public.
• On public radio Thursday, April 18, Sally Thomas and Joseph Bottum were interviewed about the poetry newsletter, Poems Ancient and Modern. Skip ahead in the playback to 21:48 for the interview.
To look at Today’s Poem is to understand that meter is like music: highly technical and yet natural at the same time. How do we know how to read aloud “Break, Break, Break,” for example? Why aren’t we tempted to say BREAK br’k BREAK, or br’k br’k BREAK? How do we know, intuitively that this three-word phrase in the poet’s hands is three individual feet, three stresses in a row, with a pause between each word? BREAK . . . BREAK . . . BREAK, we say, and BREAK . . . BREAK . . . BREAK we mean.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892), helps us along with the mostly anapestic trimeter of the poem. It’s well for the fisherman’s boy, “That he SHÒUTS with his SÌSter at PLÀY!” And it’s well for the sailor lad, “That he SÌNGS in his BÒAT on the BÀY!”
But the first line comes before those clues that we’re in trimeter, and still somehow we intuitively know that the breaks are monosyllabic feet. Tennyson aids us again by choosing a monosyllable that’s hard and slow to pronounce — a long vowel surrounded by two consonant pairs, the kind of thing that makes strength linger longer in the mouth than, say, cat. And so the trimeter of the next lines arrive as no surprise.
The four beats, the tetrameter, of the third line of both the last two stanzas, however, do come unexpectedly, as Tennyson lets his meter break down: “But Ò for the TÒUCH of a VÀNished HÀND.” This breakdown elevates the poem even beyond the metrical genius of “Break, break, break,” for it turns away from the regular ceaseless rhythm of the ocean and toward the cessation of life.
The first stanza had warned us that watching the sea — with its happy children, crashing waves, and “stately ships” — fills the poet with deep thoughts. And with the later stanzas’ third lines, we learn that those thoughts are about grief, for “the tender grace of a day that is dead / Will never come back to me.” The waves crash on and on, but the death of a loved one is the true break. The true reality beyond all natural cycles.
Break, Break, Break
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Break, break, break, On thy cold gray stones, O sea! And I would that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me. O, well for the fisherman’s boy, That he shouts with his sister at play! O, well for the sailor lad, That he sings in his boat on the bay! And the stately ships go on To their haven under the hill; But O for the touch of a vanished hand, And the sound of a voice that is still! Break, break, break, At the foot of thy crags, O sea! But the tender grace of a day that is dead Will never come back to me.
I first imagined that the "hill" where the ships "go on" is the curvature of the earth as they sail on. But having seen the Sutton Hoo hoard recently, I wondered about Viking ship burials. The Victorians were very engaged in the archeology of ship burials, with some of the grandest ships unearthed by the late 1800s (the amazing Gokstad ship was found in 1880, after this poem but still parcel to the century of discovery). So it's reasonable that Tennyson intends us to imagine the ships, lately so stately, will also rest upon the shores and form new hills, while the ocean breaks.
Brilliant commentary on a brilliant poem. Didn't Tennyson once say that meter didn't come naturally to him but he had to work hard at learning it? For sure he did. One of the greatest of the Victorians (which is saying a great deal, as it was an era of great poets), I never tire of reading his elegantly crafted and profound work. Thanks for posting this one -- I'll have to pull out my Victorian poetry anthology and re-visit _In Memoriam_ soon.