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About this quote

What does it mean?
The speaker recalls happy moments of sleep and kisses, wondering if a lover's kiss could revive the dead.
In plain terms
Remembering happy kisses, the speaker wonders if love is strong enough to wake the dead.
What can you take from it?
Love feels powerful enough to overcome even death.

Where it applies

  • grieving a loss
  • remembering a past love
  • seeking closure

Putting it to work

  • honor memories of loved ones
  • express love while alive
  • find comfort in recollection

Questions to consider

  • What memory do you wish could revive?
  • Does love outlast death?

Another view

Love cannot literally reverse death, making this wish painful.

More from Alfred (Lord) Tennyson

  1. And on her lover's arm she leant, And round her waist she felt it fold, And far across the hills they went In that new world which is the old: Across the hills…

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  2. And o'er the hills, and far away Beyond their utmost purple rim, Beyond the night, across the day, Thro' all the world she follow'd him.

    Permalink to quote #119
  3. The bodies and the bones of those That strove in other days to pass, Are wither'd in the thorny close, Or scatter'd blanching on the grass. He gazes on the sil…

    Permalink to quote #116

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