Lyric Poem · Death & Loss
In Memoriam 3: O Sorrow, cruel fellowship
O Sorrow, cruel fellowship,
O Priestess in the vaults of Death,
O sweet and bitter in a breath,
What whispers from thy lying lip?
"The stars," she whispers, "blindly run;
A web is wov'n across the sky;
From out waste places comes a cry,
And murmurs from the dying sun:
"And all the phantom, Nature, stands —
With all the music in her tone,
A hollow echo of my own, —
A hollow form with empty hands."
And shall I take a thing so blind,
Embrace her as my natural good;
Or crush her, like a vice of blood,
Upon the threshold of the mind?
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“In Memoriam 3: O Sorrow, cruel fellowship” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson — quilloak.com/poems/in-memoriam-3-o-sorrow-cruel-fellowship
Quick facts
- Poem
- In Memoriam 3: O Sorrow, cruel fellowship
- Poet
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson
- Length
- 16 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- Death & Loss, Nature, Sad
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
- 16 lines · 2 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 3: O Sorrow, cruel fellowship 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 e56e83d5ea916607…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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