And ask ye why these sad tears stream?
By Alfred Lord Tennyson
In the tittle you can notice that he is asking "Why these sad tears stream?". I´m not writing the part "And ask ye" because probably the reason why he contracts the word "you" for the word "ye" is because he wants to emphasize on the question and not in that little first part of the sentence that he is obligated to use to make a sentence. He does this to highlight how sad he feels about something that happened. This sadness became even more obvious when he describes his sad tears as a stream. In our daily language would mean that he is crying a river.
The first line of the poem which, which is a quote in Latin tells us a lot about the poem, it´s like an introductory line which says " Te somnia nostra reducum", this means"your dreams our restore". Something that I understand as that the only way in which the speaker can see his beloved one is when he dreams about her. This poem is basically about a man who lost someone he loved. He starts asking: why is he crying that much?, Why im that sad?. But right after this he starts telling us about a dream, "a lovely dream of her that in the grave is sleeping" This is the line that tells us that he is dreaming about someone who is dead, so this is the only place in which the speaker can see her.The whole dream happens in a very angelical place, where he describes her as the most beautiful thing in life, even comparing her to angels. This scene which has an astonshing setting of flowers, garlands and ornamentary objects which makes the dream a wonderful place to be, full of brightness and devices that help us to understand that the speaker was or is deeply in love with the deceased girl. As I have always said good things don´t last forever, that´s why in the verse number twentythree that lovely dream vanishes and the speaker goes back to reality where he feels very nostalgic because he is very happy after being able to see her but at the same time very depressed because the dream is over.
In this poem, you cand find a lot of connotative language or implicit messages, that´s why I´m going to explain the ones that I think are more interesting or significative. For example the verse number eight says"The bloom upon her cheek is still glowing". Here the speaker wants to transmit that the desceased girl, the one he loved, looks alive and beautiful in his dreams. You can infere this because he talks about the bloom en her cheek, and bloom means when something flowers, an act full of vitality and beauty. So when he says that the bllom upon her cheek is still glowing, he is really saying that the girl looks beautifull and alive as a flower which in his bloom.
Another very good example is the whole third stanza where says:
"With angel-hand she swept a lyre,
A garland red with roses bound it;
Its strings were wreath´d with lambent fire
And amaranth was woven round it."
In this stanza the lyric speaker portrays a whole scene where he involves all of your senses, he starts appealing to your audition whe he talks about her angel-hand playing the lyre, to your smell when he writes about a garland with roses. He also talks about lambent fire something that appeal to your touch, the feeling you have when you are near fire, that warm sensation that makes you feel comfortable and protected. Finally I can say that of course it appeals to your vision when you have to imagine this scene packed with different colours and textures. I think that by describing that very detailed scene, he tries to express that even when he dreams about her he feels like in real world in the need to use all of his senses because of her, the delightful experience of being with her.
About the attitude that the lyric speaker has in this poem , you can find a lot of different tones and moods throughout it. At the beggining you can see that he starts in a very sad tone and a very depressive mood in which he can´t understand why is he crying that much and why is he in that huge pain, a pain we will understand later that is caused because he losed someone he loved. Right after that, he stats writing in a hopeful tone where you can see that he is not so depressed anymore because he had a dream of her, so that huge pain starts disappearing until the dream starts where everything is inmersed in a love. In the dream he starts a vivid description with an angelical tone and everything in a soft, fairy and celestial mood because the purity of the love he feels for her, even comparing her with elysian figures, talking about her as the most beautiful women in the world. At the end of the poem you can see that when the dream is over and all that brightness vanishes, the lyric speaker starts in a nostalgic tone where he is sad because the dream is over but at the same time happy because he was able to see her in a lovely and wonderful way. where he shows us that the dream was the best he has had since his beloved passed away.
In this very rich poem, there are three shifts. In the first onewhich is from the verse number one to number four, the speaker embodies his pain and sadness because of the death of his true love.
In the second shift, which is from verse five to twenty-two,the speaker narrates a dream, a lovely dream in which he can see the girl he lost, the one and only he really loved but he lost, something we can infere beacuse of how he feels about her.
Finally in the third shift, which starts in verse number twenty-three and ends in the number twenty-six, this is the final shift, basically the one in which the dream, that soft and lovely vision in which the speaker was able to see the woman he loved, vanishes and he tells us how he feels about the end of the dream.
With all of this said, its obvious that the tittle of this poem is very well used because it give us a hint about the themes we are probably going to find. For example, sadness, love, and death. In this very expressive poem, you can see sadness in every part of it because the protagonist lost the girl he loved. The loved girl dies, and that is what brings sadness to the poem. So we can appreciate that all of the central themes are bind together very close and gives the poem a lot of coherence and cohesion.
About the metre and Rhyme pattern, I found out in verse number four, that this poem is structured in iambic pentameters. And as I could appreciate in the first two stanzas, this poem has an ABAB pattern, which can also be called alternate rhyme or Shakesperian rhyme, because a lot of William Shakespeare poems are written with this rhyme pattern.
Finally, I can say that this poem is very rich in poetic devices, that´s why I´m going to take the two most representative examples and explain them. First, a device that is very used in this poem is the metaphor, a very good example is shown in verse number eight were says "The bloom upon her cheek is still glowing". In this metaphor the speaker appeals to the bloom of the flowers to show that she, the girl he loved, is dead but in his dreams she looks very alive for him. For the other side, imagery is used al over the text, making you imagine a very detailed image of every stanza or verse you read. For example, the fourth stanza says:
" I saw her mid the realms of light,
In everlasting radiance gleaming;
co-equal with the seraphs bright,
Mid thousand thousand angels bleaming"
In this stanza the speaker makes you imagine what he is dreaming about and makes you get into it, something that gives you a better understanding of how he feels and what he is seeing.
About the attitude that the lyric speaker has in this poem , you can find a lot of different tones and moods throughout it. At the beggining you can see that he starts in a very sad tone and a very depressive mood in which he can´t understand why is he crying that much and why is he in that huge pain, a pain we will understand later that is caused because he losed someone he loved. Right after that, he stats writing in a hopeful tone where you can see that he is not so depressed anymore because he had a dream of her, so that huge pain starts disappearing until the dream starts where everything is inmersed in a love. In the dream he starts a vivid description with an angelical tone and everything in a soft, fairy and celestial mood because the purity of the love he feels for her, even comparing her with elysian figures, talking about her as the most beautiful women in the world. At the end of the poem you can see that when the dream is over and all that brightness vanishes, the lyric speaker starts in a nostalgic tone where he is sad because the dream is over but at the same time happy because he was able to see her in a lovely and wonderful way. where he shows us that the dream was the best he has had since his beloved passed away.
In this very rich poem, there are three shifts. In the first onewhich is from the verse number one to number four, the speaker embodies his pain and sadness because of the death of his true love.
In the second shift, which is from verse five to twenty-two,the speaker narrates a dream, a lovely dream in which he can see the girl he lost, the one and only he really loved but he lost, something we can infere beacuse of how he feels about her.
Finally in the third shift, which starts in verse number twenty-three and ends in the number twenty-six, this is the final shift, basically the one in which the dream, that soft and lovely vision in which the speaker was able to see the woman he loved, vanishes and he tells us how he feels about the end of the dream.
With all of this said, its obvious that the tittle of this poem is very well used because it give us a hint about the themes we are probably going to find. For example, sadness, love, and death. In this very expressive poem, you can see sadness in every part of it because the protagonist lost the girl he loved. The loved girl dies, and that is what brings sadness to the poem. So we can appreciate that all of the central themes are bind together very close and gives the poem a lot of coherence and cohesion.
About the metre and Rhyme pattern, I found out in verse number four, that this poem is structured in iambic pentameters. And as I could appreciate in the first two stanzas, this poem has an ABAB pattern, which can also be called alternate rhyme or Shakesperian rhyme, because a lot of William Shakespeare poems are written with this rhyme pattern.
Finally, I can say that this poem is very rich in poetic devices, that´s why I´m going to take the two most representative examples and explain them. First, a device that is very used in this poem is the metaphor, a very good example is shown in verse number eight were says "The bloom upon her cheek is still glowing". In this metaphor the speaker appeals to the bloom of the flowers to show that she, the girl he loved, is dead but in his dreams she looks very alive for him. For the other side, imagery is used al over the text, making you imagine a very detailed image of every stanza or verse you read. For example, the fourth stanza says:
" I saw her mid the realms of light,
In everlasting radiance gleaming;
co-equal with the seraphs bright,
Mid thousand thousand angels bleaming"
In this stanza the speaker makes you imagine what he is dreaming about and makes you get into it, something that gives you a better understanding of how he feels and what he is seeing.
