Lyric Poem · Death & Loss
In Memoriam 121: Sad Hesper o'er the buried sun
Sad Hesper o'er the buried sun
And ready, thou, to die with him,
Thou watchest all things ever dim
And dimmer, and a glory done:
The team is loosen'd from the wain,
The boat is drawn upon the shore;
Thou listenest to the closing door,
And life is darken'd in the brain.
Bright Phosphor, fresher for the night,
By thee the world's great work is heard
Beginning, and the wakeful bird;
Behind thee comes the greater light:
The market boat is on the stream,
And voices hail it from the brink;
Thou hear'st the village hammer clink,
And see'st the moving of the team.
Sweet Hesper-Phosphor, double name
For what is one, the first, the last,
Thou, like my present and my past,
Thy place is changed; thou art the same.
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“In Memoriam 121: Sad Hesper o'er the buried sun” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson — quilloak.com/poems/in-memoriam-121-sad-hesper-oer-the-buried-sun
Quick facts
- Poem
- In Memoriam 121: Sad Hesper o'er the buried sun
- Poet
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson
- Length
- 20 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- Death & Loss, Nature
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 20 lines · 3 stanzas of 4–12 lines
- Line length
- Mostly 8-syllable lines (tetrameter length).
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Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson1809–1892
- Source record
- PoetryDBIn Memoriam 121: Sad Hesper o'er the buried sun by alfred-lord-tennyson, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- Not recorded in the imported source
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 7f29843b14acb1df…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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