Selected Poems by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

‘The Bridegroom with his bride!’ – The end of the poem can be interpreted in different ways. Possibly, the moon represents the union of nun and Christ looking down from heaven on the earthly sea; perhaps the moon is Christ, controlling the sea’s tides, and the sea is therefore the nun – though this seems rather an odd image.

BREAK, BREAK, BREAK

‘Break, break, break,’ – The rule of three and simple repetition are used to give a sense both of the endless breaking of the waves on the shore, and also of the eternal break between Tennyson and his admired friend Arthur Hallam, whom he is mourning in this poem.

‘On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!’ – The first line is metrically short (by four beats) which makes for a dramatic opening; the three stressed monosyllables of ‘Break, break, break’ are echoed by ‘cold gray stones’ (all long vowels).

‘And I would that my tongue could utter/The thoughts that arise in me.’ – Tennyson introduces the theme of being inarticulate through grief.

‘O, well for the fisherman's boy,/That he shouts with his sister at play!’ – Others have not lost the power of expressing themselves.

‘O, well for the sailor lad,/That he sings in his boat on the bay!’ – The rhythmic ‘swing’ of this stanza suggests the happiness that Tennyson is without.

‘And the stately ships go on’ – The conventional theme that ‘life goes on’ only underlines the pain of loss. There is presumably here a further symbolic glance at human life inevitably progressing on to the ‘haven’ of heaven.

‘To their haven under the hill;’ – an image of protection and security.

‘But O for the touch of a vanished hand,’ – Tennyson’s grief is expressed in a physical, even sensuous, manner.