'Gnarr at the Heels of Men'

“a thousand wants / Gnarr at the heels of men.”

My best guess at the meaning of gnarr was chase or nag, and I was wrong. This is Tennyson in Section XCVIII of In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850). He chose his verb wisely. Gnarr or gnar, from the Middle Low German and other Northern languages, means “to snarl, growl” (OED). Men are pursued by the maddened dogs of want. Carlyle had already used it twice in the same paragraph in Past and Present (1843): “With preternatural gnarring, growling and screeching” and “Gnarring and creaking with rust and work.” I prefer Tennyson’s usage, which reminds me of Robert Johnson’s “Hellhound on My Trail” and of Coleridge in Table Talk:

“Dr. Johnson’s fame now rests principally upon Boswell. It is impossible not to be amused with such a book. But his bow-wow manner must have had a good deal to do with the effect produced . . .”