Ashleigh

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Tears, Idle Tears

• By Alfred, Lord Tennyson
• Ashleigh Alyssa

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Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

• Born Somersby, Lincolnshire, England
• Unhappy childhood, violent father
• Enrolled at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1827
• I suffered what seemed to me to shatter all my
  life so that I desired to die rather than to
  live.(Poetry for Students)
• Engaged to Emily Sellwood, married 1850
• Died 1892

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Tears, Idle Tears

• Tears, Idle tears, I know not what they mean,
• Tears from the depth of some divine despair
• Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
• In looking on the happy autumn-fields,
• And thinking of the days that are no more.
• Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
• That brings our friends up from the underworld
• Sad as the last which reddens over one
• That sinks with all we love below the verge
• So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.
• Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
• The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds
• To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
• The casement slowly grows a glimmering square
• So sad, so strange, the days that are no more
• Dear as remembered kisses after death,

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Imagery

• Idle Tears
• Autumn-fields
• Pipe of half-awakened birds
• Casement slowly grows a glimmering square
• Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail
• Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes

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Symbols

• Idle Tears
• On lips that are for others
• Remembered kisses after death
• O death in Life

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Figures of Speech

• Simile
• fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail
• dear as remembered kisses after death
• sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned
• deep as first love
• Personification
• the casement slowly grows a glimmering square

• Oxymoron
• In looking on the happy autumn-fields
• And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned On
  lips that are for others

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Sound Patterns

• Repetition
• the days that are no more
• adds emphasis to the poem
• Alliteration
• so sad, so strange
• dark summer dawns
• wild with

• Assonance
• Divine and rise
• friends and reddens
• Dying eyes
• Along with alliteration, gives completeness to
  the poem
• Rhyme
• there is no distinct rhyme pattern

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Speaker

• Speaker explores the idea of death
• Speaker is actually facing death
• Speaker attempts to explain what people have not
  yet experienced
• Speakers sorrow has no cause
• Speaker is frozen in time
• Male or female

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Poem Summary

• Lines 1-5
• - Speaker does not know what his/her
  tears mean or where they come from
• The overall feeling of sadness is brought out
• Lines 6-10
• That brings our friends up from the underworld,
  brings about memories of old friends
• the underworld is Greek mythology that refers
  to the dead
• That sinks with all we love below the verge, is
  saying the speaker is being taken away from all
  they love

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Poem Summary

• Lines 11-15
• Speaker is getting closer to death
• Happy autumn turns into dark summer dawns
• Trying to remember what life was like
• Lines 16-20
• Kisses symbolize the love remembered from life
• Days that are no more
• Compares how a loss of the past can bring about
  regret

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Structure

• Written in blank verse
• No definite rhyme scheme
• Consists of four cinquains (stanzas of five lines
  each)

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Tone/Mood

• Sadness, brought about by the thought of life
  being gone
• Regret brought about by a deep first love

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Themes

• Love
• Remembering love after its gone
• Grows throughout the poem
• Specifies first love

• Death
• Explore idea of death
• Implication of someone dying
• Emotional Impact
• Grows throughout the poem
• Comparison of life and death

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Personal Response

• Brought about general thoughts of death and all
  that death brings
• Felt sympathy towards the speaker and all that
  they have experienced
• Showed that what you have not experienced cannot
  be understood

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Works Cited

• Tears, Idle Tears. Poetry for Students. Eds..
  Mart K. Ruby. Vol.. 4. Farmington Hills, MI
  Gale, 1999. 219-227