Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.
Lines 1101-1116
Peace; come away: the song of woe
Is after all an earthly song:
Peace; come away: we do him wrong
To sing so wildly: let us go.
Come; let us go: your cheeks are pale;
But half my life I leave behind:
Methinks my friend is richly shrined;
But I shall pass; my work will fail.
Yet in these ears, till hearing dies,
One set slow bell will seem to toll
The passing of the sweetest soul
That ever look'd with human eyes.
I hear it now, and o'er and o'er,
Eternal greetings to the dead;
And "Ave, Ave, Ave," said,
"Adieu, adieu," for evermore.
- Oh, Tennyson. You're talking to yourself again. Or maybe he's talking to someone else that he has brought to Arthur's grave?
- At any rate, he's telling himself (or this other person) to be quiet. "Peace" means "hush up!"
- They're disturbing his grave with their wild grief.
- He leaves behind something so important to him, though, that it's almost like "half his life."
- Until he cannot hear anything anymore (so, basically until Tennyson dies), he'll hear the bell that tolls for the totally-sweetest guy who ever existed.
- The bell continually says, "Hello" ("Ave," which is a Latin greeting) and "Good-bye" forever and ever—sniff.