Poetry for Students

Volume 19 207

Lines 5–8

Ancient and medieval astronomers believed

that the Earth was surrounded by a series of trans-

parent orbs, or spheres, that rotated around it, ac-

counting for the change from night to day, which

the poem refers to in line 5. Saying that they are

God’s is Tennyson’s way of noting that God holds

power over all the universe. Even more impressive

is the power, noted in line 6, to make life, and the

corresponding power to make death. Line 8 uses the

image of a foot crushing a skull to show how God

maintains control over the life that He has made.

Lines 9–12

Tennyson follows the brutal image of God’s foot

on man’s skull with the declaration that God is in fact

good and concerned and will not abandon humanity

to the mechanical world. There is a slight shift in the

voice of the poem’s speaker from line 9, which refers

to humanity as “us,” to line 10, in which “man” is

referred to as “him.” This shift becomes clear in the

rest of the stanza, in which the speaker shows that a

normal person feels entitled to more than just death:

the poem’s speaker, on the other hand, is willing to

accept anything that God decides to do for or to hu-

manity. He has complete faith that, regardless what

happens or how it seems at the time, God is just.

Lines 13–16

This stanza addresses one of the most basic

tenets of Christian faith, that of free will. Line 13

refers back to the issue, raised in the first stanza,

of Jesus being not just God but God’s human son.

This makes him, according to Tennyson, the ideal

human. Having stressed God’s dominance over all

things in the universe in the previous stanzas, here

the poem says twice, in lines 15 and 16, that hu-

mans control their own will.

Lines 17–20

“Little systems” in line 17 refers to all things that

humans have created, from games to governments,

arts, and sciences. Saying that they “have their day”

emphasizes how temporary they are, how quickly

they will be gone, in what must seem no more than

a day in God’s larger perspective. Calling these sys-

tems “broken lights of thee” in line 19 affirms that all

things human are part of God, while line 20 asserts

that even if these parts were all added together, the

mystery of God would be still greater than their sum.

Lines 21–24

At the center of the poem, Tennyson explicitly

states its main point: the fact that faith in God ex-

ists independently of knowledge, because knowl-

edge only applies to things that humans can expe-

rience. In line 22, all knowledge is referred to

generally as things that can be seen. The lack of

knowledge is presented as darkness, with faith a

beam of light that cuts through it, giving the faith-

ful person less reason to fear the world.

Lines 25–28

Having identified the differences between faith

and knowledge, Tennyson asserts that the two must

coexist. A purely religious poem might dismiss

knowledge of the physical world as unimportant;

here, though, Tennyson calls for increasing under-

standing of the physical world “more to more.”

He takes a stand against a purely worldly posi-

tion, however, saying that reverence should grow

at the same time that knowledge grows. Line 28

makes the assertion that a proper balance between

“mind” and “soul” is the natural, original state of

human understanding, implying that such a bal-

ance existed “before” the two aspects started

growing.

Lines 29–32

This stanza returns to directly addressing God

and asking for His assistance. The poem claims that

humans are intellectually and physically insignifi-

cant, and then, in line 30, admits that humans of-

ten will either mock or fear God. Still, the poem

asks God to accept human weakness and to ignore

the insults humans direct at Him.

In line 32, what is usually referred to as the

“world” is mentioned in the plural, “worlds.” By

calling mankind “thy vain worlds,” Tennyson

Proem

Media

Adaptations

• The British actor Sir John Gielgud recorded
  “Proem” and other sections from In Memoriam
  on an audiocassette titled Stanzas from “In
  Memoriam”(1972). It was produced by the Ten-
  nyson Society and published by the Tennyson
  Research Centre.

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