Victorian Verse - Maud I.xi - Tennyson

An earlier post gives a link to a long and somewhat difficult essay on this long poem.  It was described by Tennyson as a "Monodrama" - what we call a "dramatic monologue".  The narrator is a persona created by Tennyson who tells us a (disjointed) story about the death, probably by suicide following a failed business venture, of his father; the wooing of a childhood sweetheart who has returned to the place of their childhood, and the consequences of the narrator killing her brother in a duel.  The killing takes place "offstage" - the last section gives the narrator's reaction to the death after he has fled abroad, reports the death of Maud, and reveals his decision to go to war in the Crimea, partly to hide from his crime and partly to seek redemption.  There is general agreement among critics that the narrator is unhinged by the death of his father and that much of the poem reflects psychosis and obsession.  There are also sections which hark back to the emotions of In Memoriam, particularly when reflecting on the power of Love.  The central story is intertwined with reflections on the new theories on evolution and the meaning of life in a world of scientific discovery, on the morality of war, and the role of religion.

This section follows the narrator's re-meeting with Maud and the beginning of his plan to woo her for his own.  He has seen her pass in her carriage and at first thinks her cold, haughty and disdainful. However, a chance meeting in the village and in the church reveals a softer side and she clearly remembers their childhood and seems friendly towards him.  He is encouraged to pursue her. However, a complication is her brother's dislike of him and the arrival of a friend, a man newly-rich, who the narrator believes has come in search of Maud as a bride.

Maud  is written in a variety of metres, reflecting the mood swings of the narrator.  I.xi is written in iambic trimetre - a jaunty metre of three stressed beats and has a regular rhyme scheme of ababcdc.  This may seem at odds with the subject matter, which is a reflection on the supremacy of Love in a life fulfilled.  However, given its position in the whole poem, it can be seen as summing up the action that has gone before with a note of determination to pursue his goal of winning Maud's love, whatever the obstacles in his path and a fervent hope that he will not die before he achieves his goal.  It also harks back to Canto 27 of In Memoriam:

I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

The poem is notable for the relative absence of Tennyson's usual poetic techniques, although the alliterated "f" in the first stanza, the repetition of phrases but with changed word order and the regular rhyme scheme keep it tightly structured and deceptively simple. It appears to be written in a simple vernacular, except for the repeated "quite" in the second stanza that breaks the rhythm, emphasising the poet's fervent desire to find love.

Maud - I. xi

I

O let the solid ground

Not fail beneath my feet

Before my life has found

What some have found so sweet;

Then let come what come may,

What matter if I go mad,

I shall have had my day.

In the opening quatrain the poet expresses his hope that he will not die before he finds love - the sweetness that others have found.  Even if he goes mad later (and it is disturbing that he sees this as a possibility, given the tone of the poem as a whole, with its increasing paranoia) he will at least have experienced the emotion.  The echo of the expression "even a dog has its day" is, again, a suggestion that all is not well with this man.

II

Let the sweet heavens endure,

Not close and darken above me

Before I am quite quite sure

That there is one to love me;

Then let come what come may

To a life that has been so sad,

I shall have had my day.

The next stanza recaps the idea, this time with a vision of heaven darkening above him in death, in opposition to the first stanza, where death was portrayed as the falling away of the ground.  It is as if he is poised between the two on a knife edge. His need for reassurance about the presence of someone who loves him is conveyed by the repeated "quite", as if he finds it difficult to believe it himself.