The In Memoriam stanza  (iambic tetrameter rhyming abba) had been used occasionally by poets long before Tennyson put his stamp on it in the poem by that name. Poems by Ben Jonson and others from the sixteenth and seventeenth century employed this "envelope" form, with the outer two lines enclosing a couplet. Despite the tightness of the form, Tennyson managed to use it for many purposes and effects in In Memoriam. Oscar Wilde chose it for a number of his "decadent" picture poems that are reminiscent (and perhaps meant to replicate in some ways) some paintings of Whistler; using the Tennysonian hallmark was, for Wilde, a commentary on the "earnestness" of the Victorian period.
 

                    THE Thames nocturne of blue and gold
                      Changed to a harmony in grey;
                      A barge with ochre-coloured hay
                    Dropt from the wharf: and chill and cold

                    The yellow fog came creeping down
                      The bridges, till the houses' walls
                      Seemed changed to shadows, and St. Paul's
                    Loomed like a bubble o'er the town.
                                                            --Oscar Wilde

                    Calm is the morn without a sound,
                       Calm as to suit a calmer grief,
                        And only thro' the faded leaf
                    The chestnut pattering to the ground:

                   Calm and deep peace on this high wold,
                       And on these dews that drench the furze,
                       And all the silvery gossamers
                    That twinkle into green and gold:

                    Calm and still light on yon great plain
                        That sweeps with all its autumn bowers,
                        And crowded farms and lessening towers,
                    To mingle with the bounding main:

                   Calm and deep peace in this wide air,
                        These leaves that redden to the fall;
                        And in my heart, if calm at all,
                    If any calm, a calm despair:

                    Calm on the seas, and silver sleep,
                        And waves that sway themselves in rest,
                        And dead calm in that noble breast
                    Which heaves but with the heaving deep.
                                                                 --Tennyson
 
 

            Dark house, by which once more I stand
                  Here in the long unlovely street,
                  Doors, where my heart was used to beat
            So quickly, waiting for a hand,

            A hand that can be clasped no more--
                  Behold me, for I cannot sleep,
                  And like a guilty thing I creep
            At earliest morning to the door.

            He is not here; but far away
                  The noise of life begins again
                  And ghastly through the drizzling rain
            On the bald street breaks the blank day.
                                    --Tennyson
 

Ring Out, Wild Bells

            Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
                  The flying cloud, the frosty light;
                  The year is dying in the night;
            Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

            Ring out the old, ring in the new,
                  Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
                  The year is going, let him go;
            Ring out the false, ring in the true.

            Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
                  For those that here we see no more,
                  Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
            Ring in redress to all mankind.

            Ring out a slowly dying cause,
                  And ancient forms of party strife;
                  Ring in the nobler modes of life,
            With sweeter manners, purer laws.

            Ring out the want, the care the sin,
                  The faithless coldness of the times;
                  Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
            But ring the fuller minstrel in.

            Ring out false pride in place and blood,
                  The civic slander and the spite;
                  Ring in the love of truth and right,
            Ring in the common love of good.

            Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
                  Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
                  Ring out the thousand wars of old,
            Ring in the thousand years of peace.

            Ring in the valiant man and free,
                  The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
                  Ring out the darkenss of the land,
            Ring in the Christ that is to be.
                            --Tennyson

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