Despair A Dramatic Monologue (1880) by Alfred Tennyson (Poem, Summary, Paraphrase & Analysis)

 

Despair A Dramatic Monologue (1880)

by Alfred Tennyson

(Poem, Summary, Paraphrase & Analysis) 

A man and his wife having lost faith in a God, and hope of a life to come, and being utterly miserable in this, resolve to end themselves by drowning. The woman is drowned, but the man rescued by a minister of the sect he had abandoned. He speaks.

Despair

What! Is that you, my friend?

No, 'tis the wind in the chimney; or the clock

That ticks so loud in the silence of the night.

I am numb with cold. My heart is ice.

We two were one of old;

We loved each other once; we loved the world;

We loved the light; we loved the life; we loved

The God that made it. But the world grew dark;

The light went out; the life was pain; the God

Turned tyrant, and we cursed Him, and we cursed

The world He made, and all the lying creeds

That propped it up. We said, "There is no God;

No life beyond the grave; no hope; no heaven;

No hell, but this." And so we came to this—

This pool, this mere, this black and bitter pool,

Where the moon lies dead upon the water's face,

And the reeds stand stiff as spears of the arrayed dead.

We said, "The world is a lie, and love a lie,

And life a lie, and God a lie, and all

The faiths that men have made to mock themselves

With dreams of immortality." We said,

"The wisest man is he who ends it all

Before the end." And so we waded in,

Hand locked in hand, to the blackness underneath.

But the water was kindlier than we thought;

It bore us up; it would not let us sink;

And the fishermen, with their grappling-hooks,

Drew me ashore; but she—she sank, she sank,

And the black weeds clutched her, and the black ooze

Sucked her down; and I am here alone,

A living death, a worse than death, to curse

The God that would not let me die with her.

O cursed be the day when first I saw the light!

O cursed be the hands that held me to the breast!

O cursed be the lips that fed me with their milk!

O cursed be the eyes that looked on me with love!

O cursed be the heart that beat against my heart!

O cursed be the world that made me what I am!

O cursed be the God that made the world!

He talks of God—a merciful God—

Who numbers every hair upon our head,

And marks the sparrow's fall. Ay, marks it fall

With glee, perhaps, as marks the sportsman mark

The bird he wings. Where was this God of his

When my sweet boy lay gasping out his life

Upon my knee? Where was He when the fever

Burnt up the pretty face, and glazed the eyes,

And stopped the little heart that beat so fast

Against my own? Where was He when the bank

Foreclosed upon us, and the home we built

With toil and tears was sold to pay the debt,

And we were turned adrift, two shipwrecked souls,

To buffet with the waves of want and scorn?

Where was He then? He sat in heaven and laughed,

And played with stars, and whirled the suns about,

And made new worlds to mock the old, and cried,

"Behold my works! how wondrous they are made!"

And all the while my boy was dying there,

And I was breaking on the wheel of pain,

And she, my wife, was weeping at my side.

Ay, let Him keep His heaven; it is not mine;

I would not have it if He gave it me.

Hell is not hell if I can find her there;

But heaven without her—O the horror of it!

A shining horror, a white-robed mockery,

With harps and crowns and everlasting song,

And everlasting weariness of joy.

The Church is a lie, the Bible is a lie,

The priest a liar, and his God a lie.

He babbles of a heaven beyond the grave;

But what is heaven to the childless heart?

Or hope to her who hath no hope in life?

We have no faith in God, nor hope in man;

We have no trust in aught but the black sleep

That wraps the dead. Let us have done with life;

Let us have done with lies; let us have peace.

I would go back to the mere to-night,

And finish what the water left undone;

But I am weak, and she is dead, and I

Am fettered here by this old fool of a priest,

Who talks of God and immortality,

And bids me hope, and pray, and bear my cross,

As if a cross were bearable to him

Who hath no God to help him bear it. Hope!

What is there here to hope for? Food and fire,

A roof to shelter from the rain and wind,

A bed to lie on when the day is done,

And then to wake and work and eat and sleep,

And work and eat and sleep again, till death

Comes like a friend to end the long dull pain.

That is the hope he offers me—ay, that,

And heaven beyond. But I have had enough

Of heaven and earth; I want no more of either.

O God, if there be God, why didst Thou make

This world of woe? Why didst Thou give us hearts

To love, and then destroy the things we love?

Why didst Thou give us eyes to see the light,

And then put out the sun? Why didst Thou give

Us hands to work, and then take from us all

For which we worked? Why didst Thou make us men,

And mock us with the name? O cruel God!

O blind God! O God that art not God!

Let me but die; let me but find her there,

In the dark land beyond the doors of death,

Where there is neither light nor life nor love,

But only rest, the rest that knows no waking,

The sleep that dreams no dream.

But hark! the wind again in the chimney;

The clock ticks loud. It is the voice of time,

That tells me I must live, and live in vain.

O life, thou art a mockery, a jest,

A cruel jest, played by a cruel God

On creatures made in His own image. Nay,

We made ourselves; we are our own; we die

And make no more of it than this—a plunge

Into the darkness, and an end of all.

The parson sleeps; the house is still; the night

Is dark without, and darker far within.

I will go forth into the night alone;

I will go back unto the mere, and call

Upon the waters to receive me too.

The moon is hidden; but the stars are out,

Cold, clear, and countless, like the thoughts of God,

That pierce the darkness of eternity.

Farewell, old house; farewell, old life; farewell,

Ye lying creeds and hopes that cheat the heart!

I go to join her in the world of death,

Where there is neither God nor devil, heaven nor hell,

But only sleep, the sleep that heals all wounds,

The sleep that ends all pain.

[He goes out into the night.]

 

Summary

A man and his wife, once deeply in love and full of faith in God and life, lost everything that gave their world meaning. Their young son died of fever, and soon after, the bank took their home, leaving them penniless and broken. Faith turned to bitterness; they came to believe that God was cruel or nonexistent, that love was a lie, and that life was nothing but pain. Together, they decided to end their suffering.

One dark night, hand in hand, they walked to a still, black pool at the edge of a mere. The moon lay pale on the water, and the reeds stood like silent sentinels. They waded in, seeking the peace of death beneath the surface.

But the water did not claim them both. The man was pulled out by fishermen and carried, half-dead, to the home of a clergyman—the very minister of the faith he had abandoned. His wife, however, sank beneath the weeds and was lost forever.

Revived against his will, the man sat in the clergyman’s quiet house, numb with cold and grief. The wind moaned in the chimney; the clock ticked loudly in the stillness. The clergyman spoke gently of a merciful God, of hope, of heaven beyond the grave. But the man rejected every word. He cursed God for letting their child die, for allowing their home to be taken, for dooming them to misery. He mocked the Bible, the Church, and the idea of salvation. To him, heaven without his wife and son was a horror, not a promise.

Weak and feverish, he sat trapped in the clergyman’s care, haunted by the ticking clock and the howling wind. His wife was gone, but he was forced to live—condemned, he believed, to endless, meaningless days.

In the dead of night, while the clergyman slept, the man rose silently. The house was dark, the world outside darker still. He slipped out into the cold, starlit night and walked back toward the mere. There, beneath the same indifferent moon, he intended to finish what the water had begun—to join his wife in the only rest he now believed in: the silent, dreamless sleep of death.

He vanished into the darkness, and no one saw him again.1.9sफ़ास्ट

 

Paraphrase

A husband and wife, once bound by love and trust in God, were shattered by grief. Their little boy died in agony from fever, and soon after, their home was seized by the bank. Stripped of faith, hope, and home, they saw only cruelty in life and lies in religion. Together, they chose death.

On a moonlit night, they walked to the edge of a dark, still pond. Hand in hand, they stepped into the water, ready to sink into silence.

But fate spared only him. Fishermen dragged him from the depths and carried him, half-alive, to the house of a pastor—the same man whose faith he had rejected. His wife was gone, swallowed by the black water and tangled weeds.

Revived in the pastor’s quiet home, the man sat frozen with cold and loss. The wind howled in the chimney; the clock struck loud in the hush. The pastor spoke of a loving God, of mercy, of a better life beyond. The man heard none of it. He raged against God for taking their child, their home, their peace. He called faith a fraud, heaven a cruel joke without his family.

Trapped in a life he despised, he waited. Then, in the deep of night, while the house slept, he rose. Silent as a shadow, he left the warm room and walked into the cold, star-filled dark.

He returned to the pond. Beneath the same pale moon, he stepped into the water once more—this time, to finish what he had started, to find his wife, and to sleep forever.

 

Analysis in Detail

The Abyss of Faith: Tennyson’s Despair as a Victorian Cry Against Cosmic Indifference

Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s Despair (1880) is one of the most unflinching expressions of spiritual and existential crisis in Victorian poetry. Written late in Tennyson’s career, after decades of grappling with doubt in works like In Memoriam A.H.H., this dramatic monologue strips away the consolations of faith, science, and society to confront a universe that appears not merely indifferent but actively hostile to human suffering. Through the voice of a man rescued from a suicide attempt—while his wife drowns—the poem stages a raw, unfiltered confrontation with loss, theology, and the will to live. It is not a poem of resolution but of refusal: a refusal to accept religious platitudes, a refusal to find meaning in pain, and ultimately, a refusal to go on living.

The monologue’s power lies in its structure as a spoken confession—not to a sympathetic listener, but to an absent or imagined interlocutor, interrupted only by the wind and the ticking clock. This device creates an atmosphere of isolation and claustrophobia. The man is physically saved but spiritually entombed. The clergyman’s house, meant to be a sanctuary, becomes a prison. The wind in the chimney and the loud ticking of the clock are not mere atmospheric details; they are auditory symbols of time’s relentless march and nature’s indifference. The clock, in particular, functions as a memento mori—each tick a reminder that life persists against his will. These sounds punctuate his speech like a heartbeat he cannot silence.

At the heart of the poem is a theology in ruins. The speaker once believed in a personal, benevolent God—“We loved the God that made it”—but that faith has been shattered by two catastrophic losses: the death of their child and the foreclosure of their home. These are not abstract tragedies but visceral, intimate wounds. The image of the boy “gasping out his life / Upon my knee” is one of Tennyson’s most harrowing. It is not just the loss of a child but the failure of parental protection, of love’s power to shield. The foreclosure, meanwhile, represents the collapse of the Victorian ideal of domestic security—the home as sacred space, earned through labor and moral virtue. When both are taken, the speaker does not merely lose faith; he inverts it. God is no longer absent but malevolent: a tyrant who “sat in heaven and laughed” while the child died and the family crumbled.

This inversion reaches its climax in the speaker’s parody of the Beatitudes and biblical language. The clergyman invokes the God who “numbers every hair” and “marks the sparrow’s fall.” The speaker retorts: “Ay, marks it fall / With glee, perhaps.” This is not atheism born of intellectual skepticism but of moral outrage. The speaker does not deny God’s existence—he accuses Him. Heaven itself becomes a horror: “A shining horror, a white-robed mockery.” Without his wife and child, eternal joy is not reward but punishment. This is a radical rejection of Christian eschatology: salvation is not universal but personal, and for the speaker, it is meaningless without his loved ones.

The poem also engages with Victorian anxieties about science and progress. Though not explicitly named, the “new worlds” God whirls about suggest the astronomical discoveries of the 19th century—vast, cold, mechanical universes that dwarf human significance. The speaker’s despair is not just personal but cosmic. He sees himself as a speck in a machine run by a capricious or indifferent deity. This aligns with the growing pessimism of the late Victorian era, influenced by Darwin, geology, and the erosion of teleological views of nature.

Yet the poem’s most devastating insight is its portrayal of love as both salvation and damnation. The couple’s suicide pact is framed as an act of fidelity: “Hand locked in hand, to the blackness underneath.” Their love survives the collapse of faith, home, and hope—but it also dooms them. The wife’s death leaves the husband in a limbo worse than death: alive, but severed from the one person who gave his life meaning. His repeated cry—“Let me but find her there”—reveals that his true religion is not God but his wife. Death is not escape but reunion. This elevates the poem beyond mere nihilism; it is a love story, tragic and absolute.

The final movement—his silent departure into the night—is not melodramatic but inevitable. The clergyman sleeps, the house is still, the stars are “cold, clear, and countless.” There is no struggle, no farewell. The monologue ends not with a scream but with a vanishing. This quiet exit is more terrifying than any grand gesture. It suggests that despair, when absolute, does not rage—it simply acts. The poem refuses catharsis. We do not witness the second drowning; we are left with the image of a man walking into darkness, certain only of his desire to cease.

Despair is Tennyson’s darkest poem not because it denies hope, but because it understands hope too well—and finds it insufficient. The clergyman’s consolations are not wrong in themselves; they are simply irrelevant to a grief that has outgrown language, faith, and time. In this, Tennyson anticipates the existentialist void of the 20th century. The poem does not ask whether God exists; it asks whether God matters—and for this man, in this moment, the answer is a resolute, devastating no.

Ultimately, Despair is not a tract against religion but a testament to the limits of all systems—religious, social, philosophical—when confronted with unhealed loss. It is a poem that refuses to blink. And in its refusal, it achieves a kind of terrible honesty: the honesty of a man who would rather die with his truth than live with a lie.