Even though readers often overlook Tears, Idle Tears as blank verse poem, it has many relations in life. It published as one of the songs in Tennyson’s The Princess (1847) and regarded for the quality of its lyrics. The poem “Tears, Idle Tears” by Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) is a lyric poem written in the Victorian-era. An anthology of Tennyson describes that poem as “one of the most Virgilian of Tennyson’s poem and perhaps his most famous lyric”. To write “Tears, Idle Tears” Tennyson was inspired when he visited to Tintern Abbey in Monmouthshire (an abbey that was abandoned in 1536). Tennyson said that poem was about “the passion of the past, the abiding in the transient” also he said the convent was “full for me of its bygone memories”. Tintern Abbey also inspiring William Wordsworth for his poem in 1798. That location develops the similar theme. Nevertheless it is a poem which has deep meaning.
The poem “Tears, Idle Tears” has many relations between human to the Creator, human to human (environment and friendship), human to nature, and human to love. From the beginning (stanza 1-3) “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,” this mean, the speaker has low-feeling of despair. Tears of the depth of divine and it came from the speaker’s heart then gather to eyes. This feel has relation between human to the Creator that regret of every mistake in life (in the past). “In looking on the happy auntumn-fields, and thinking of the days that are no more” in stanza 4-5, this mean when the speaker looks on a beautiful place and thinks if the days has no more. This also mean as human we should always grateful as we can live in this universe which has many nice-places, and we should enjoy our day before the death comes to us. In the stanza 6-8, it has relation between human to human (friendship) “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” which means the speaker remember of the friendship from beginning until the sadness comes for the last time. However the sadness would fade out because in the friendship will raise love and will care each other. In order to remember memories of friendship, stanza 9-10 “That sinks with all we love below the verge; So sad, so fresh, the days are no more” has deep meaning. Deeper, in stanza 11-12 has more emotional. “Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns, The earliest pipe of half-awaken’d birds” the word “Ah,” it is emphasize how the speaker to express the feeling.
Moreover, this poem seems unhappy from the final stanza. From Ralph Wilson Rader, Tennyson’s Maud: The Biographical Genesis (1963), “The ‘kisses . . .by hopeless fancy feign’d/on lips that are for others’, ‘Deep as first love, and wild with all regret’ seem to have little to do with Tintern Abbey, and much to do with a personal disappointment in love”. Particularly, it is strongly suggests from Tennyson’s unhappy to the lovely Rosa Baring. Rosa Baring whose wealthly family and lived in Harrington Hall. Her family disapproved of the relationship between her and a son of Somersby’s alcoholic clergyman (Tennyson). In the last she severed connection between her and Tennyson.
Even though “Tears, Idle Tears” became famous work of Tennyson, that poem has some ctrics. Graham Hough in his essay (1953) asks why that poem is unrhymed and suggests it must be “very skillfully put in (rhyme’s) place”. Also he assumes if many readers do not notice about ryhme it because “Tears, Idle Tears” not about specific situation or an emotion with clear boundaries. Clinth Brooks also writes “When the poet is able, as in ‘Tears, Idle Tears’, to analyze his experience, and in the full light of the disparity and even apparent contradiction of the various elements, bring them into a new unity, he secures not only richness and depth but dramatic power as well”. Its lyrics also paradox and ambiguity as Tennyson did not bring doubts into grammar and symbolism of his work.
To sum up everything, “Tears, Idle Tears” is a poem of Alfred Lord Tennyson that written in Victorian-era. It is unryhmed and one of the songs The Princess. Many readers do not notice about unrhymed because that poem has deep meaning and unspecific situation. However from stanza 1-20, “Tears, Idle Tears” has many relation in life. From human to the creator, human to human, human to nature, and human to love in the past.
