The narrator grieves the loss of his friend, Arthur Henry Hallam, a promising poet and essayist who had been engaged to Tennyson's sister, Emily. Hallam died of a stroke in 1833 when he was only 22. Nature, of course, does not stop to mourn the loss of anyone. Cold and indifferent, it carries on, the waves of the ocean breaking against rocks along the seashore without pausing even for a moment. The rest of the world carries on as well: the fisherman's boy happily playing with his sister, the sailor merrily singing, the ship busily plying the waters of commerce. Downcast, isolated by his grief, the narrator yearns to touch the hand of his friend once more, to hear the sound of his voice. But, no, Hallam is gone forever; his "tender grace" will never again return.
