POEM ANALYSIS

1. THEME Theme of Death The speaker of "Break, Break, Break" never comes out and says that his friend is dead, but his complaints about wishing to "touch" the "vanish'd hand" and to hear "the voice that is still" make us suspect that he has passed away. The only thing that is described as explicitly "dead" in the poem is time: the speaker says that the time that he spent with his friend is like a "day that is dead" it will never return. The speaker of "Break, Break, Break" seems unable to conceptualize the dead of his friend as an entire individual; rather, he can think of him only in parts his "vanish'd hand" and "voice that is still." The speaker sees emblems of death in everything around him: the "cold gray stones" represent grave stones, while the "stately ships" that travel to their "haven under the hill" suggest wooden coffins being born to the cemetery to be buried. Theme of Sadness In "Break, Break, Break," the speaker seems to worry about how much sadness is too much when is he allowed to get over his grief and enjoy the sights and sounds by the sea again? Is it disrespectful to the memory of his friend to enjoy things? Does he need to be melancholy all the time? At what point does his sorrow just turn into empty, meaningless repetition? The speaker's grief for the death of his friend makes him see his sense of loss in his physical surroundings.

2. MOOD Language and Communication The poet has deep emotion about sadness in this poem. The speaker of "Break, Break, Break" tells us that he can't express his thoughts or his grief, but then he goes on for three more lyrical, lovely stanzas about how much he misses his dead friend. Who says he can't express himself well? So

he's probably worried for nothing, but the question of language and communication is still an important one in this poem. The speaker seems to worry that his attempts to express his grief for his friend will be as meaningless and empty as the "shouts" of the kids at the port or repetitive noise of the breaking waves. The speaker's longing for "the sound of a voice that is still" suggests intellectual as well as emotional solitude and his desire for conversation with an equal. So, we can conclude that the mood of this poem is sad. 3. Setting Where It All Goes Down We're at the seaside. Now, before you start imagining palm trees and white beaches, we should add that we're by the sea on a coast in England somewhere. The sea is gray, and the coast is rocky. Not a lot of beaches around here. The waves keep crashing, smashing, splashing against the rocks. It's not a deserted spot, by any means: there are fishermen, and their kids are playing. Sailors are singing while they work and ships are sailing by. Not so bad, right? Wrong. It's all about the setting you bring with you, and our speaker is a very sad guy. He's mourning the death of his best friend, and until he comes to terms with that loss, all the great stuff at the seaside is totally wasted on him. 4. POINT OF VIEW The unnamed speaker of "Break, Break, Break" is sad. He also tells us that he can't express himself well. Grief has made him tongue-tied. And then he goes on for three more lyrical, lovely stanzas about how much he misses his dead friend. Who says he can't express himself well? Our speaker is too modest. He is standing (or imagining that he is standing) by the ocean, perhaps in a port, watching the waves break. He can see and hear the local fishermen's kids running around, and can hear a sailor singing. Ships are cruising by. Our speaker can see and hear all of this, but he doesn't appreciate it all he can think about is his absent friend. He might be observant, and maybe, if he weren't grieving, he'd be a nature lover. But as things are, all the beauties of the seaside are wasted on him. They just

remind him of the way the earth keeps turning even after his friend has died. 5. AUTHOR PURPOSE

Frustrated Self-Expression
Tennyson often complains (in his poems) about his inability to express himself properly. Well, he wrote enough beautiful poetry that we're not really convinced that he had a problem, but he seemed to think so. He worried that his many poems about his grief for his friend Hallam were just empty sounds, like the many repeated "O's" in the poem "Break, break, break," or like the "shouts" of the kids, or like the sound of the breaking waves. 6. STANZA (VERSE) AND LINE
STANZA 1 (LINE 1-4)

Break, break, break, On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! And I would that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me.

The speaker addresses the ocean directly, telling the waves to "break, break, break" onto the stony shore. After telling the sea to keep doing its thing, the speaker regrets that he can't express his thoughts. He doesn't come out and say, "I can't utter/ the thoughts," he says that his "tongue" can't "utter" them. This makes him seem kind of passive he's not speaking, his "tongue" is doing it. He's not really thinking, either the thoughts "arise in" him almost spontaneously, without effort.

STANZA 2 (LINE 5-8)

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!

The speaker thinks it's all well and good that the fisherman's kid is "shout[ing]" and "play[ing]" with his sister.

Repeating the same sentence structure, the speaker says it's great for the sailor who is "sing[ing]" in his boat. The repetition makes it sound like maybe the speaker doesn't really think it's all well and good for these people to be cheerful. Is he jealous, perhaps, of their happiness? Or of their ability to communicate it, since he admitted back in Stanza 1 that his "tongue" can't "utter/ the thoughts that arise"?
STANZA 3 (LINE 9-12)

And the stately ships go on To their haven under the hill; But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand, And the sound of a voice that is still!

The fancy, "stately ships" pass by the speaker and head to their "haven," or protected port. The port is "under the hill," so there must be a big hill overlooking it. The speaker isn't distracted by the ships, though. Sure, he notices them, but his mind is elsewhere. He's just wishing he could "touch" the "vanish'd hand" and hear "the voice that is still." This is the first explanation of why the speaker is so sad. He's grieving for someone he loved who is now dead. He doesn't come out and describe the dead friend, though he just lists a series of missing things: the "hand" and the "voice." The lost friend is described as a series of absent parts.
STANZA 4 (LINE 13-16)

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.

The speaker repeats the first line again, telling the waves to "break, break, break" again. But it's repetition with a difference: in the first stanza, he tells the waves to break "on thy cold gray stones," and in the last stanza, he tells the waves to break "at the foot of thy crags." It's not exactly the same time has gone by, and even the breaking of the waves has changed slightly. Maybe it's the tide coming in. The waves have changed slightly, and we see that time is passing, despite the tragedy that the speaker has suffered. Mournfully he says that the happy old days when his friend was alive will never return.

7. RHYTHM This is a poem that manages to sound a lot like what it describes. The steady, lulling rhythm of the poem the repetition, with slight differences, of the same sounds over and over sounds like the repeated crash of waves on a shore. Try reading it out loud, or listen to one of the recordings in the "Best of the Web" section. It's easy to imagine floating on your back in the ocean, letting the words and waves wash over you. The lilting repetition of some of the same sounds ("O, well," "O Sea!") and the consistent and simple rhyme scheme can practically lull you to sleep. Don't be fooled into falling asleep, though there's a lot going on in this poem beneath the smooth surface. The repetition in "Break, Break, Break" both suggests the consistency of the speaker's grief and also its slow-but-steady evolution. The second line of the final stanza sounds like the second line of the first stanza, but with a slight difference. The speaker seems to argue that time keeps progressing without change, in spite of his great loss, and yet there are lots of little changes, like in the phrasing of those lines. The rhythm of the lines often reflects the mood of the poem. The abrupt first line, "Break, break, break" sounds "broken" up both by the commas between the words, and by the absence of other unstressed syllables. Line 14, on the other hand, with its lilting rhythm, suggests the rolling of the waves at the shore before they break on the rocks. The irregularity and slight unpredictability of the rhythm could highlight the unpredictability of the sea, or the instability of the speaker's state of mind. 8. RHYME OK, before you think, "snoresville" and head for the "Steaminess Rating," let us explain. A huge part of the effect of this poem is due to the rhythm of the words and the rhyme, and "quatrains in irregular iambic tetrameter" is just the fancy way of describing that rhythm. A quatrain is a four-line stanza. This poem is broken into four stanzas, each with four lines. It's awfully symmetrical. Each quatrain can be broken down further according to its rhyme scheme: the rhyme is a regular ABCB the second and fourth lines always rhyme. Check out this example from the first stanza:

Break, break, break, (A) On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! (B) And I would that my tongue could utter (C) The thoughts that arise in me. (B) See how the end words for lines 2 and 4 rhyme? In every stanza, the second and fourth lines rhyme. But that's where the symmetrical regularity ends. The meter of the poem the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables is all over the place. Almost every line has three stressed syllables, which is why we call it "trimeter" (tri = three). If we bold the syllables that you'd naturally emphasize when reading it out loud, you'll see that there are three stresses. Check it out: And the state-ly ships go on So what's so irregular about it, you ask? Well, even though there are usually three stressed syllables per line, the total number of syllables per line varies quite a lot. The first line, for example, has only three syllables, total, and they're all stressed: Break, break, break. Compare that to line 14: At the foot of thy crags, O Sea! Why all the irregularity, then? Believe us, it's not because Tennyson didn't know any better. Quite the opposite, in fact. The regular stresses, but irregular total number of syllables, could be seen as a throwback to Anglo-Saxon poetry, like Beowulf or "The Wanderer." Could Tennyson have consciously been mimicking the Old English form in "Break, Break, Break"? Why would he do this? What would the ancient form suggest? 9. DICTION Weve got your back. With the Tough-O-Meter, youll know whether to bring extra layers or Swiss army knives as you summit the literary mountain. (10 = Toughest) The language of this poem is pretty straightforward not too many unfamiliar words to trip up unwary readers. But there are some more difficult poetic tools (check out the "Symbolism" section for more on those) that make this poem more complicated.

10.

FIGURE OF SPEECH The Sea

The sea is an appropriate image in this poem. Well, that's what the speaker is realizing in this poem, and it totally bums him out. Now that his friend is dead, he can't imagine the world continuing without him. And yet, the waves keep breaking on shore, over and over, as though nothing has happened. The sea doesn't seem to care. SO, the word sea is appropriate with the poet.

Lines 1-2: The speaker uses apostrophe when he addresses the sea directly as though it were capable of responding to him. He also uses repetition within the first line, repeating the same word three times. The assonance in the second line, or the repetition of that long "o" vowel sound ("cold," "stones," and "O") helps to slow the reader down. Lines 9-10: The speaker uses alliteration in line 10 when he repeats the "h" sound ("haven" and "hill"). The "stately ships" that go to their "haven under the hill" might be a metaphor for coffins going "under the hill" sounds a lot like going underground, or being buried. As "stately" or fancy as these "ships" might be, that doesn't make us want to be passengers. Lines 13-14: The speaker repeats lines 1-2 almost exactly, again apostrophizing the sea.

2. Utterances The speaker is awfully interested in who gets to talk in this poem. In the first stanza, he says he wishes that he could express his thoughts, but he can't. Then he describes the kids who are shouting and playing, and the sailor who is singing. These guys get to express themselves why can't our speaker? Then, in the third stanza, we start to figure out why he can't talk: it's because his friend's "voice is still." Our speaker is all choked up on grief that he doesn't know how to express. 1. Lines 3-4: The speaker uses synecdoche, or substituting a part of something for the whole thing, when he wishes that his "tongue could utter." Because, yeah, your "tongue" is the part that does the speaking, but not on its own, unless you're talking in your sleep or something. The speaker uses metaphor when he says that his "thoughts" "arise," since thoughts don't literally move around.

2. Lines 5-6: The "fisherman's boy" is "shout[ing]," but we don't know what he's saying it may be utter nonsense as he's playing with his sister. The "O" that opens the line is just as empty of meaning as the shouts of the boy. 3. Lines 7-8: The sailor's song is likewise without words we don't know what he's singing; it might as well be "Tra-la-la." Again, the speaker's "O" that opens the line is just as meaningless. It's as though the speaker is starting to wonder if utterances shouts, songs, or poems have any meaning at all. 4. Line 12: Ah, here's why the speaker is so down on utterances lately. It's because of his friend's "voice that is still." Again, he's using synecdoche by imagining that his friend's "voice" stands in for the whole guy. 3. The "vanish'd hand" OK, there aren't any zombies in this poem, but the speaker's dead friend is still an important part of "Break, break, break" after all, he's the motivation for writing. The speaker never comes out and says, "my friend died," he just keeps talking about how much he'd like to shake that "vanish'd hand" one more time, or hear "the voice that is still." The dead friend is never named, but he's an important presence in the poem, anyway. He's not even described. He's just represented by a series of absences: the absent hand, the absent voice, and finally the absent time (the "day that is dead") that the poet knows will never come back.

Line 11: The speaker uses synecdoche when he imagines that his friend's "vanish'd hand" is a stand-in for the whole person. Line 12: More synecdoche. The friend's "voice," like his "vanish'd hand," is meant to stand in for the whole person. Why don't we get any descriptions of the friend? Why these references to the missing parts of him?

EKSTRINSIK
1. BIOGRAPHY

Tennyson's best friend from college, Arthur Henry Hallam, died suddenly in 1833. They had known each other and been friends for only six years, but Tennyson mourned him for the rest of his life, spending seventeen years working on a long elegiac poem, In Memoriam A.H.H. to honor Hallam. The much shorter "Break, Break, Break," which was probably written in 1834 and then published in 1842, is also about his friend. Tennyson named his son Hallam after his dead friend, even though the boy wasn't born until nineteen years after Arthur Henry Hallam's death.

Birth Alfred Tennyson was born in Somersby, Lincolnshire, the fourth of the twelve children of George Tennyson, clergyman, and his wife, Elizabeth. His fathers father had gone against all tradition in making his younger son, Charles, his principal heir, and arranging for George to enter the ministry. Education In 1816 (7) Tennyson was sent to Louth Grammar School, which he disliked so intensely that in later life he refused even to walk past the school. From 1820 (11) he was educated at home, mainly by his father, who introduced him to such works as The Arabian Nights, The Koran and other books of folklore

and myth. He joined his brothers, Frederick and Charles, at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1827 (18), and, with his brother Charles, published Poems by Two Brothers in the same year. Tennyson's father becomes unstable At home, his father had become dangerously unstable. Elizabeth Tennyson complained of his foul language towards her and his children, and there were bad tempered rows between him and his eldest son, during which threats of serious violence were made. Georges family finally persuaded him to go abroad. The Apostles At Cambridge, Tennyson was invited to join the undergraduate club called the Apostles, whose members included Arthur Henry Hallam, James Spedding, Edward Lushington (who later married Tennysons sister Cecilia), and Richard Monckton Milnes. The Apostles were influential in encouraging his poetic calling, and were to remain his friends for the rest of his life, though the club itself was little more than a private debating society with a few odd rituals (eg each meeting was begun with the eating of anchovies on toast). First publication In 1830 (21) he published Poems Chiefly Lyrical, which was attacked by Professor John Wilson writing in Blackwoods Magazine as Christopher North, who complained of the infantile vanity and painful striving after originality of the poems, though he did add that he had good hopes of Alfred Tennyson. Goes to republican Spain Through the Apostles, Tennyson and Hallam became involved with Spanish exiles working for the establishment of a republic in Spain, and the two friends travelled to the South of France as couriers. During this period Hallam became emotionally attached and then engaged to Tennysons sister Emily. Death of his father In 1831 (22) Tennysons father, who had returned home, died.

More poems Tennyson published Poems in 1832 (23), having benefited from Hallams assistance in choosing and negotiating with the publisher, and in proof reading and editing the manuscript. The volume received generally unfavourable reviews, though Hallam continued to promote it, himself writing a review which appeared in Moxons The Englishmans Magazine together with one of Tennysons sonnets. European travel The two men went on a trip down the Rhine in the summer of 1832 (23). Death of Tennyson's friend Hallam In 1833 (24) Hallam made a trip abroad with his father, and died suddenly in Vienna, an event which had a profound emotional impact on Tennyson, and led him later to write some of his most memorable verse, including In Memoriam, Ulysses, Tithones and the Passing of Arthur. His brother Edward confined His brother Edward was confined to a mental institution in 1833 (24), and Tennyson became increasingly concerned about his own physical and mental health. His brother Charles marries and he meets his future wife In 1836 (27) his brother Charles married Louisa Sellwood, the daughter of a solicitor from Horncastle, and Tennyson found himself best man with Emily Sellwood, his future wife, bridesmaid. By early 1837 (28) it was generally accepted that they were engaged. Health and a misguided investment His health was a continual concern to him, and in 1840 (31) he visited a sanitarium in High Beech, Epping Forest run by Dr Matthew Allen. While there, Allen persuaded him to invest the inheritance he had received from his grandfather (who had died in 1835, 26) and some of his familys money (to the extent of some 8000) in his scheme to produce wood carvings by steam power. The scheme failed, and Tennyson was effectively left penniless. He revises Poems A new version of Poems appeared in 1842 (33) in two volumes, the first volume containing revised versions of the poems from the previously

published works, and the second volume new works, including The Lady of Shallot, The Lotus Eaters, Morte dArthur and Ulysses. The publication established his reputation, receiving praise from both Carlyle and Dickens, followed by an influential essay by R.H.Horne in the New Spirit of the Age. He receives government pension In 1845 (36) he was awarded a government pension of 200 a year by the Prime Minister, Peel, after a campaign by his friends. He becomes Poet Laureate

The Princess, a Medley was published in 1847 (37), and sold well, running to 5

editions by 1853. In 1850 (41) he succeeded Wordsworth as the Poet Laureate, and married Emily Sellwood. The same year he published In Memoriam, substantially a memorial to his friend Arthur Hallam, on which he had been working intermittently since 1833 (24), and which addressed the high Victorian interests in death, remorse and spiritual growth. The book was a critical and commercial success, and went to 3 further editions in the same year. Hi's first son born and the Duke of Wellington dies His son, Hallam, was born in 1852 (42), and later that year he produced an Ode on the Death of Wellington, which was printed as a pamphlet in an edition of 10,000, and sold to the crowd outside St Pauls for the funeral of the dead hero. He settles in Farringford on the Isle of Wight In 1853 (44) the Tennysons settled at Farringford, a house in Freshwater on the Isle of Wight. His second son born and he writes the Charge of the Light Brigade His second son Lionel was born in the following year (45). He wrote and published the Charge of the Light Brigade in 1854, and the poem was included in the volume Maud published in 1855 (46), which Moxon printed in an edition of 10,000, and reprinted within the year. He writes further plays and poetry He continued to write and publish to the end : Idylls of the King (1859, 50), which was printed in an edition of 40,000, and reprinted within 6 months, Enoch Arden and Other Poems (1864, 55), of which 60,000 copies were sold in the first year, Lucretius (1868, 59), The Holy Grail and Other Poems

(1869, 1871 and 1872, 60, 62 and 63), Queen Mary, a play (1875, 66), Harold (1876, 67), The Falcon (1877, 68), Ballads and Other Poems (1880, 71), The Cup, a play (1881, 72), The Promise of May (1882, 73), Beckett (1884, 75), Tiresias and Other Poems (1885, 76), Locksley Hall Sixty Years After (1886, 77), Demeter and Other Poems (1889, 80), The Death of Oenone and Other Poems (1892, 83) and The Foresters (1892, 83). Death He died in 1892 (83) and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

2. BACKGROUND 3. VALUE OF LIFE VALUE OF FRIENDSHIP

Theme of Time

ANALYSIS Break, Break, Break Symbolism, Imagery & Wordplay

Symbolism, Imagery, Wordplay Form and Meter Speaker Setting Sound Check What's Up With the Title? Calling Card Tough-o-Meter Trivia Steaminess Rating

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ADVERTISEMENT Break, Break, Break: Rhyme, Form & Meter Well show you the poems blueprints, and well listen for the music behind the words.

Quatrains in Irregular Trimeter OK, before you think, "snoresville" and head for the "Steaminess Rating," let us explain. A huge part of the effect of this poem is due to the rhythm of the words and the rhyme, and "quatrains in irregular iambic tetrameter" is just the fancy way of describing that rhythm. A quatrain is a four-line stanza. This poem is broken into four stanzas, each with four lines. It's awfully symmetrical. Each quatrain can be broken down further according to its rhyme scheme: the rhyme is a regular ABCB the second and fourth lines always rhyme. Check out this example from the first stanza: Break, break, On thy cold gray And I would that my The thoughts that arise in me. (B) break, stones, O tongue could (A) (B) (C)

Sea! utter

See how the end words for lines 2 and 4 rhyme? In every stanza, the second and fourth lines rhyme. But that's where the symmetrical regularity ends. The meter of the poem the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables is all over the place. Almost every line has three stressed syllables, which is why we call it "trimeter" (tri = three). If we bold the syllables that you'd naturally emphasize when reading it out loud, you'll see that there are three stresses. Check it out: And the state-ly ships go on So what's so irregular about it, you ask? Well, even though there are usually three stressed syllables per line, the total number of syllables per line varies quite a lot. The first line, for example, has only three syllables, total, and they're all stressed: Break, break, break. Compare that to line 14: At the foot of thy crags, O Sea! Why all the irregularity, then? Believe us, it's not because Tennyson didn't know any better. Quite the opposite, in fact. The regular stresses, but irregular total number of syllables, could be seen as a throwback to AngloSaxon poetry, like Beowulf or "The Wanderer." Could Tennyson have

consciously been mimicking the Old English form in "Break, Break, Break"? Why would he do this? What would the ancient form suggest? The rhythm of the lines often reflects the mood of the poem. The abrupt first line, "Break, break, break" sounds "broken" up both by the commas between the words, and by the absence of other unstressed syllables. Line 14, on the other hand, with its lilting rhythm, suggests the rolling of the waves at the shore before they break on the rocks. The irregularity and slight unpredictability of the rhythm could highlight the unpredictability of the sea, or the instability of the speaker's state of mind. Or maybe both. What do you think? Sound Check Read this poem aloud. What do you hear? ADVERTISEMENT Whats Up With the Title? The title of the poem is just the first line: "Break, break, break." In the context of the poem, it's the speaker telling the sea waves to "break, break, break" against the rocks. But lots of other things break, too, right? Like mirrors, or glasses, or hopesor hearts. You get the picture: it's not a happy word, generally speaking. The repetition in the title is important. The first line (and the title) emphasizes that the ocean waves are going to keep breaking, and breaking, and breaking, no matter what the speaker does. Time continues to pass, even in the wake of great tragedy. Alfred Lord Tennysons Calling Card What is the poets signature style? Frustrated Self-Expression Tennyson often complains (in his poems) about his inability to express himself properly. Well, he wrote enough beautiful poetry that we're not really convinced that he had a problem, but he seemed to think so. He worried that his many poems about his grief for his friend Hallam were just empty sounds, like the many repeated "O's" in the poem "Break, break, break," or like the "shouts" of the kids, or like the sound of the breaking waves.

Symbolism, Imagery, Wordplay Form and Meter Speaker Setting Sound Check What's Up With the Title? Calling Card Tough-o-Meter Trivia Steaminess Rating

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ADVERTISEMENT Tough-O-Meter Weve got your back. With the Tough-O-Meter, youll know whether to bring extra layers or Swiss army knives as you summit the literary mountain. (10 = Toughest) (3) Base Camp The language of this poem is pretty straightforward not too many unfamiliar words to trip up unwary readers. But there are some more difficult poetic tools (check out the "Symbolism" section for more on those) that make this poem more complicated.

Symbolism, Imagery, Wordplay Form and Meter Speaker Setting Sound Check What's Up With the Title?

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ADVERTISEMENT Break, Break, Break Trivia Brain Snacks: Tasty Tidbits of Knowledge Tennyson's best friend from college, Arthur Henry Hallam, died suddenly in 1833. They had known each other and been friends for only six years, but Tennyson mourned him for the rest of his life, spending seventeen years working on a long elegiac poem, In Memoriam A.H.H. to honor Hallam. The much shorter "Break, Break, Break," which was probably written in 1834 and then published in 1842, is also about his friend (source). Tennyson named his son Hallam after his dead friend, even though the boy wasn't born until nineteen years after Arthur Henry Hallam's death (source). THEMES Break, Break, Break Break, Break, Break Death Quotes Page 1 Page (1 of 2) Quotes: How we (Line) Quote #1 1 2 cite the quotes:

On thy cold gray stones, O sea! (2)

The image of the "cold gray stones" could suggest the cold gray tombstones of a cemetery. Quote #2 And the stately To their haven under the hill (9-10) ships go on

The "haven under the hill" sounds rather macabre it suggests burial mounds in cemeteries, where the dead find rest or "haven." If so, then the wooden "ships" might represent wooden coffins moving steadily toward burial. This kind of makes us think of the elves in The Lord of the Rings heading off to the Grey Havens (though Tolkien wrote than many years after Tennyson wrote this poem). Quote #3 O for the touch of a vanish'd hand (11) The speaker longs for the company of his dead friend, but he doesn't imagine the whole guy he only imagines this disembodied, "vanish'd hand." Kind of like "Thing" in The Addams Family Quote #4 The sound of a voice that is still. (12) Again, the speaker longs to speak with his dead friend, but he doesn't imagine chatting with him he only imagines a disembodied "voice" that is now "still." Instead of imagining his friend in his entirety, he imagines him only as a series of absences. Quote #5 A day that is dead (15) This is the only time the word "dead" comes up in the poem, so it must be important. But the speaker doesn't describe his friend as "dead" (only as "vanish'd" and "still") it's the time that he spent with the friend that is "dead" and gone. Break, Break, Break Sadness Quotes Page 1 Page (1 of 2) Quotes: How we (Line) 1 2 cite the quotes:

Quote #1 Break, break, break (1) The speaker is telling the ocean waves to "break," but we don't realize that until the second line where he finishes the sentence. As we first read the poem, we just see this word "break" repeated three times. It's not a happy word we break bones and hearts and vases. The word itself is a harsh word, with that "br" sound at the beginning and the hard "k" sound at the end. And the repetition, with the commas in between, "breaks" up the line, suggesting the speaker's "broken" heartyou get the picture. Quote #2 On thy cold gray stones, O sea! (2) The repeated long "o" sound (in "cold," "stones," and "O") sound almost like moaning. And "cold" and "gray" surroundings are almost always setting the scene for something sad. Quote #3 That he shouts with his sister at play! (6) The children of the fisherman seem unaware of the deep grief of the speaker as they play around happily. Quote #4 As he sings in his boat on the bay! (8) The "sailor lad," too, seems totally oblivious of the speaker's sorrow he's singing away like he doesn't have a care in the world, because he probably doesn't. Quote #5 But O for the touch of And the sound of a voice that is still (11-12) a vanish'd hand,

The speaker breaks down and expresses his longing for the presence of his dead friend beginning with that moaning "O." The conjunction "But," with which he separates his own sad longing from the business of the "stately ships," suggests how out of sync his sorrow is with the busy activity of the rest of the world.

Quote #6 But the tender grace of Will never come back to me. (15-16) a day that is dead

The speaker realizes that time goes on, and he'll never be able to relive the days that he spent with his dead friend. Break, Break, Break Time Quotes Page 1 Page (1 of 2) Quotes: How we (Line) Quote #1 1 2 cite the quotes:

Break, break, On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! (1-2)

break,

The repeated "break[ing]" of the waves of the sea suggests the inevitable progress of time you cannot stop time from moving forward any more than you can stop the tide. The repetition also suggests that time passes without changing much. Quote #2 The fisherman's boy (5) The presence of a child in this poem about grief and death seems important; it could suggest a kind of hope for the future, since that happy "fisherman's boy" and his "sister" are going to grow up. Quote #3 Break, break, At the foot of thy crags, O Sea! (13-14) break

These lines repeat, almost exactly, the first two lines of the poem. The repetition suggests that time passes without changing anything, but the difference in phrasing of line 14 ("at the foot of thy crags" instead of "On thy cold gray stones") might be more hopeful. The difference might suggest that as much as time seems to repeat itself with no change, year in and year out, there are subtle changes happening all around you.

Next Page: More Time Quotes (2 of 2)

Quote #4 But the tender grace of Will never come back to me (15-16) a day that is dead

Because time keeps moving forward, the speaker realizes that there's no way he can go back to the time before his friend died those days are now "dead." It's rather a grim way to describe the passage of time.