Lyric Poem · Death & Loss
In Memoriam 82: I wage not any feud with Death
I wage not any feud with Death
For changes wrought on form and face;
No lower life that earth's embrace
May breed with him, can fright my faith.
Eternal process moving on,
From state to state the spirit walks;
And these are but the shatter'd stalks,
Or ruin'd chrysalis of one.
Nor blame I Death, because he bare
The use of virtue out of earth:
I know transplanted human worth
Will bloom to profit, otherwhere.
For this alone on Death I wreak
The wrath that garners in my heart;
He put our lives so far apart
We cannot hear each other speak.
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“In Memoriam 82: I wage not any feud with Death” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson — quilloak.com/poems/in-memoriam-82-i-wage-not-any-feud-with-death
Quick facts
- Poem
- In Memoriam 82: I wage not any feud with Death
- Poet
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson
- Length
- 16 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- Death & Loss, Love
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 82: I wage not any feud with Death 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 dad417f6a3c6b37a…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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