The tide flows down, the wave again
Is vocal in its wooded walls;
My deeper anguish also falls,
And I can speak a little then.
Clevedon church was selected as the resting-place of Arthur Henry Hallam, “not only from the connection of kindred, but on account of its still and sequestered situation on a lone hill that overhangs the Bristol Channel.”
CLEVEDON.
Much has been altered at Clevedon since 1833, when that decision was made. The village has become a small town, of some six thousand inhabitants, and although the ancient parish church is still at the very fringe of modern boarding-house and lodging-house developments, yet no one could now have the hardihood to describe its position as “lone.”
All this, if you do but consider awhile, is entirely in keeping with the change of sentiment since that time when the poem was written. Everything is more material. We no longer examine our souls at frequent intervals, to see how they are getting on—after the manner of children with garden plants. The practice is equally injurious to souls and to plants. Yes, even in this material age, among those who have not forgotten or denied their God there is a better spirit than that which characterises the “In Memoriam” period. The faith that is demanded of the Christian—the faith of little children—was not in these troubled folk. The assurance we have of Divine infinite goodness and mercy was not sufficient for them. They must needs enquire and speculate, and seek to reason out those things that are beyond research and scholarship. A great deal of mental arrogance is wrapped up in these semi-spiritual gropings and fumblings towards the light. You see the attitude of the consciously Superior Person therein, and all these troubles leave you cold and unsympathetic; and all the more so when it is borne in upon you that they were carefully pieced together and prepared for the market during a space of sixteen years.
The inevitable result of the piecemeal and laborious methods employed is that the belated poem lacks cohesion, and although there are gems of thought and expression embedded in the mass of verbiage, it must needs be confessed that “In Memoriam” is a sprawling and unwieldy tribute. The “rich shrine” erected has indeed a great deal of uninspired journeyman work, and is, in fact, not a little ruinous. It is safe to conclude that portions only of it will survive, while “Maud,” that line poem of passion, will endure so long as English verse is read.