"Break, Break, Break" Poem by Tennyson.

 

"Break, Break, Break" is a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson written during early 1835 and published in 1842. The poem is an elegy that describes Tennyson's feelings of loss after Arthur Henry Hallam died and his feelings of isolation while at Mablethorpe, Lincolnshire.

 "Break, break, break,

         On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!

And I would that my tongue could utter

         The thoughts that arise in me."

 The speaker addresses the waves of the sea, telling them to crash against the rocky shore again and again. Watching this happen, the speaker yearns for the ability to express troubling thoughts that won't go away.

 "O, well for the fisherman's boy,

         The shouts with his sister at play!

O, well for the sailor lad, 

         That he sings in his boat on the bay!"

 Looking out onto the water, the speaker watches a fisherman's son yelling out while playing with his sister, as well as a young sailor who sings while sailing through the cove

 "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!"

 There are also impressive boats sailing through the bay, and the speaker envisions them passing into ideal, somewhat heavenly destinations. But watching these ships doesn't distract the speaker from the memory of touching the hand of an acquaintance who no longer exists, whose voice has gone silent forever.

 "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."

 Again, the speaker calls out to the waves as they smash against cliffs along the shoreline again and again, feeling that the easy happiness of previous days will never return.

Theme:-

Death:-

The poem is indirectly about death. However Tennyson also refers to it directly. The metaphor in stanza three alludes to death.

"And the stately ships go on/To their haven under the hill".

The ship is a metaphor  of life, now gone to its rest. The poet speaks about the hand that vanished and the voice that is still. The opening stanzas make no such reference to the poet's dead friend, but merely prepare the reader for it. Another direct reference to death of the day: "But the tender grace of a day that is dead/will never come back to me".

Elegy:-

The elegy is one of the most popular poetic forms during the Victorian period. It is a form of the poetry that laments the dead or the past. This poem is elegiac. It is one of many poem that Tennyson wrote in response to the death of a close friend.

Figure of Speech:-

Rhyme Scheme:-

In the stanza, the rhyme scheme is abcb.

Metaphor:-

The ship is a metaphor of life.

Personification:-

"A day that is dead".

Synecdoche:-

It is a figure of speech in which the part of something refers to whole as in "But for the touch of a Vanished hand, and the sound of a voice that is still".

Paradox:- 

IT is a statement that is apparently contradictory as in touch of a Vanished hand, and " the sound of a voice that is still".