Alfred Tennyson

Break, break, break

Break, break, break,

Apostrophe device

Tennyson addresses the sea directly—a device called apostrophe. The sea can't respond, mirroring his inability to speak his grief in line 3.

On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter

Conditional 'would'

Not 'I wish' but 'I would that'—archaic conditional phrasing that emphasizes impossibility. He knows words won't come.

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;

Anaphora pattern

Three consecutive 'O' exclamations building emotional intensity. The third breaks the pattern with 'But O'—the turn from observation to personal loss.

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.

Final negation

The only absolute statement in the poem. Everything else is observation or longing—this is certainty about loss.

Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

Written for Arthur Hallam

CONTEXT Tennyson wrote this in 1834, shortly after his closest friend Arthur Hallam died suddenly at age 22. The 'vanish'd hand' and 'voice that is still' are Hallam's. This is the same grief that drove *In Memoriam*, Tennyson's 17-year elegy project.

The poem's power comes from what Tennyson *doesn't* say. He never names death, never explains the loss, never identifies who's missing. The first two stanzas describe a busy, noisy world—fisherman's boy shouting, sailor lad singing, ships moving purposefully. Everyone else has voice and motion.

Then line 11 hits: 'But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand.' The contrast does the work. All that life and noise makes the silence worse. Notice 'vanish'd' not 'lost' or 'dead'—the person didn't just die, they disappeared, leaving no trace but memory. The 'tender grace of a day that is dead' isn't just about Hallam—it's the entire world they shared, the version of himself that existed when Hallam was alive.

Why the waves keep breaking

The sea 'breaks' six times in 16 lines—starting and ending the poem. Waves are the one constant, indifferent motion while everything else is stuck or silent. The repetition mimics waves' rhythm but also obsessive grief, the mind returning to the same point.

'Cold gray stones' and 'crags' aren't decorative—they're what the waves break *against*, hard surfaces that don't yield. The waves keep hitting, keep breaking, accomplish nothing. That's the poem's engine: relentless motion meeting immovable loss.

Tennyson uses the sea's voice (breaking waves) to frame his voicelessness ('my tongue could utter'). The sea speaks continuously in meaningless sound. He has actual thoughts, actual grief, and can't get words out. The form reinforces this—short lines, simple words, lots of repetition. It reads like someone struggling to speak through tears, getting stuck on the same sounds.