Claribel
Claribel - context Summary
Early Elegy, 1830
Tennyson's "Claribel" is a short elegiac pastoral from Poems by Two Brothers (1830). It meditates on a mourner’s absence through tranquil, nature-infused imagery—the sighing oak, insects, birds, and moon—concentrating grief into an atmosphere rather than explicit narrative. The poem is often read as connected to the poet’s loss of Arthur Henry Hallam, though that link is suggestive rather than stated in the text.
Read Complete Analyses1 Where Claribel low-lieth The breezes pause and die, Letting the rose-leaves fall: But the solemn oak-tree sigheth, Thick-leaved, ambrosial, With an ancient melody Of an inward agony, Where Claribel low-lieth. 2 At eve the beetle boometh Athwart the thicket lone: At noon the wild bee hummeth About the moss’d headstone: At midnight the moon cometh, And looketh down alone. Her song the lintwhite swelleth, The clear-voiced mavis dwelleth, The callow throstle lispeth, The slumbrous wave outwelleth, The babbling runnel crispeth, The hollow grot replieth Where Claribel low-lieth.
In 1830 and in 1842 edd. the poem is in one long stanza, with a full stop in 1830 ed. after line 8; 1842 ed. omits the full stop. The name “Claribel” may have been suggested by Spenser
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