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Break, Break, Break

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 vanish'd 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.

Tennyson, Alfred Lord. 1842. Poems.

Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) was an English poet who is often regarded as the poetic model of the Victorian Age. Tennyson's interest in writing began at an early age, collaborating with his brothers on the book Poems by Two Brothers in 1826. Tennyson attended Trinity College in 1827, where he befriended Arthur Hallam, the son of the historian Henry Hallam.

Tennyson's reputation increased slowly, finally gaining moderate acclaim with the publication of the book Poems, Chiefly Lyrical in 1830. His father died in 1831, and Tennyson was forced to leave school prior to graduation. In 1832, he published a second book of poems.

However, it was the death of his closest friend, Arthur Hallam, in 1833 that would transform Tennyson and his poetry, culminating in what would later be regarded as his masterpiece -- a volume of works called Memoriam. He was appointed poet laureate by Queen Victoria in 1850, a position he confirmed with publication of his famous poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade" in 1855 in the book Maud and Other Poems.

Tennyson turned to drama for a decade, returning to poetry with the publication of a book in 1886, which contained the poem "Locksley Hall Sixty Years Later." This book rejected his earlier works' optimistic belief in human progress.

The poem "Break, Break, Break" has the rhyme scheme abcb and the repetitive line of the title, which both serve to echo the incessant pounding of the waves against the stones. Interestingly, the poem is about a forsaken speaker for whom the sea no longer breaks, for whom his tongue longer utters thoughts, and for whom the grace of day is gone. Coming as it does a decade after the death of his closest friend, the poem appears to be a reflection of death and loss, and the speaker's inability to recapture "the tender grace of a day that is dead."