המתת השור

This stanza is to be found in Canto 27. The last two lines are usually taken as offering a meditation on the dissolution of a romantic relationship. However the lines originally referred to the death of the 

[edit]Nature, Red in Tooth and Claw

In writing the poem, Tennyson was influenced by the ideas of evolution presented in Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation which had been published in 1844, and had caused a storm of controversy about the theological implications of impersonal nature functioning without direct divine intervention. The fundamentalist idea of unquestioning belief in revealed truth taken from a literal interpretation of the Bible was already in conflict with the findings of science, and Tennyson expressed the difficulties evolution raised for faith in "the truths that never can be proved".^[2]

Are God and Nature then at strife,That Nature lends such evil dreams?So careful of the type she seems,So careless of the single life;That I, considering everywhereHer secret meaning in her deeds,And finding that of fifty seedsShe often brings but one to bear,I falter where I firmly trod,And falling with my weight of caresUpon the great world's altar-stairsThat slope thro' darkness up to God,I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,And gather dust and chaff, and callTo what I feel is Lord of all,And faintly trust the larger hope.

This poem was published before Charles Darwin made his theory public in 1859. However, the phrase "Nature, red in tooth and claw" in canto 56 quickly was adopted by others as a phrase that evokes the process of natural selection. It was and is used by both those opposed to and in favour of the theory of evolution.^[3][4][5][6]

However, at the end of the poem, Tennyson emerges with his Christian faith reaffirmed, progressing from doubt and despair to faith and hope, a dominant theme also seen in his poem "Ulysses".^[7]

If e'er when faith had fallen asleep,I hear a voice 'believe no more'And heard an ever-breaking shoreThat tumbled in the Godless deep;A warmth within the breast would meltThe freezing reason's colder part,And like a man in wrath the heartStood up and answer'd 'I have felt.'No, like a child in doubt and fear:But that blind clamour made me wise;Then was I as a child that cries,But, crying knows his father near;