How does "Break, Break, Break" depict life and nature's persistence despite human events?

In “Break, Break, Break,” Tennyson contrasts the power of nature with the relative weakness of a man struck down by grief. It is generally thought that the speaker of the poem is Tennyson himself, desperately trying to come to terms with his profound grief over the tragic, untimely death of his close friend Arthur Henry Hallam.

The speaker cannot move on with his life, though he'd dearly love to. Tormented by his loss, he can only admire certain features of the natural world such as the cold gray stones and the crashing of the waves that continue on their majestic course as if driven on by some inner necessity. They do not grieve; they simply go on as before, utterly indifferent to the world around them.

And it's not just nature that goes about its merry way as if there were no suffering or sorrow in the world. Those human beings closest to nature show a remarkable capacity to do likewise. The fisherman's boy playing with his sister and the sailor lad that “sings in his boat on the bay” display the kind of unforced joy of which the grieving speaker, set apart from the natural world as he is, can only dream.

How does the poem "Break, Break, Break" illustrate that life and nature persist despite human events?

Tennyson's "Break, Break, Break" is a brief poem which juxtaposes the speaker's lament for "the touch of a vanish'd hand" with the everyday activities of others in society who simply continue with their lives, untouched by the death which, to the speaker, has been felt as a tragedy. Tennyson utilizes boisterous images of children—"the fisherman's boy" who "shouts with his sister at play" and the "sailor lad" who sings while at his work—to emphasize the continuity of life, with the vibrant youth of these people representing rebirth and renewal, even in a world where death is a constant among us.

The speaker also uses the sea, which he addresses directly, as a representation of the constancy of our world; just as "the stately ships go on," the sea continues to "break, break, break" repeatedly and endlessly. The repetition in the line reinforces the poem's cyclical idea. Life, and the life cycles of human beings, will continue regardless of what happens to single individuals who may die. However, that is not to say that the loss of one person is meaningless—on the contrary, "the tender grace of a day that is dead" will never be recovered by the speaker; he will always be aware of his loss. Still, he appreciates that he is nevertheless still part of a world which is always moving onward, and that life, like the sea, will not come to a halt to mourn the speaker's loss.