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Alfred Lord Tennyson - OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII (Entire)
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O me, what profits it to put 
    And idle case? If Death were seen 
    At first as Death, Love had not been, 
Or been in narrowest working shut, 

Mere fellowship of sluggish moods, 
    Or in his coarsest Satyr-shape 
    Had bruised the herb and crush’d the grape, 
And bask’d and batten’d in the woods. 

  

XXXVI. 
 
Tho’ truths in manhood darkly join, 
    Deep-seated in our mystic frame, 
    We yield all blessing to the name 
Of Him that made them current coin; 
For Wisdom dealt with mortal powers, 
    Where truth in closest words shall fail, 
    When truth embodied in a tale 
Shall enter in at lowly doors. 

And so the Word had breath, and wrought 
    With human hands the creed of creeds 
    In loveliness of perfect deeds, 
More strong than all poetic thought; 

Which he may read that binds the sheaf, 
    Or builds the house, or digs the grave, 
    And those wild eyes that watch the wave 
In roarings round the coral reef. 

  

XXXVII. 
 
Urania speaks with darken’d brow: 
    ‘Thou pratest here where thou art least; 
    This faith has many a purer priest, 
And many an abler voice than thou. 
‘Go down beside thy native rill, 
    On thy Parnassus set thy feet, 
    And hear thy laurel whisper sweet 
About the ledges of the hill.’ 

And my Melpomene replies, 
    A touch of shame upon her cheek: 
    ‘I am not worthy ev’n to speak 
Of thy prevailing mysteries; 

‘For I am but an earthly Muse, 
    And owning but a little art 
    To lull with song an aching heart, 
And render human love his dues; 

‘But brooding on the dear one dead, 
    And all he said of things divine, 
    (And dear to me as sacred wine 
To dying lips is all he said), 

‘I murmur’d, as I came along, 
    Of comfort clasp’d in truth reveal’d; 
    And loiter’d in the master’s field, 
And darken’d sanctities with song.’ 

  

XXXVIII. 
 
With weary steps I loiter on, 
    Tho’ always under alter’d skies 
    The purple from the distance dies, 
My prospect and horizon gone. 
No joy the blowing season gives, 
    The herald melodies of spring, 
    But in the songs I love to sing 
A doubtful gleam of solace lives. 

If any care for what is here 
    Survive in spirits render’d free, 
    Then are these songs I sing of thee 
Not all ungrateful to thine ear. 

  

XXXIX. 
 
Old warder of these buried bones, 
    And answering now my random stroke 
    With fruitful cloud and living smoke, 
Dark yew, that graspest at the stones 
And dippest toward the dreamless head, 
    To thee too comes the golden hour 
    When flower is feeling after flower; 
But Sorrow–fixt upon the dead, 

And darkening the dark graves of men,– 
    What whisper’d from her lying lips? 
    Thy gloom is kindled at the tips, 
And passes into gloom again. 
  
  

XL. 
 
Could we forget the widow’d hour 
    And look on Spirits breathed away, 
    As on a maiden in the day 
When first she wears her orange-flower! 
When crown’d with blessing she doth rise 
    To take her latest leave of home, 
    And hopes and light regrets that come 
Make April of her tender eyes; 

And doubtful joys the father move, 
    And tears are on the mother’s face, 
    As parting with a long embrace 
She enters other realms of love; 

Her office there to rear, to teach, 
    Becoming as is meet and fit 
    A link among the days, to knit 
The generations each with each; 

And, doubtless, unto thee is given 
    A life that bears immortal fruit 
    In those great offices that suit 
The full-grown energies of heaven. 

Ay me, the difference I discern! 
    How often shall her old fireside 
    Be cheer’d with tidings of the bride, 
How often she herself return, 

And tell them all they would have told, 
    And bring her babe, and make her boast, 
    Till even those that miss’d her most 
Shall count new things as dear as old: 

But thou and I have shaken hands, 
    Till growing winters lay me low; 
    My paths are in the fields I know, 
And thine in undiscover’d lands. 

  

XLI. 
 
The spirit ere our fatal loss 
    Did ever rise from high to higher; 
    As mounts the heavenward altar-fire, 
As flies the lighter thro’ the gross. 
But thou art turn’d to something strange, 
    And I have lost the links that bound 
    Thy changes; here upon the ground, 
No more partaker of thy change. 

Deep folly! yet that this could be– 
    That I could wing my will with might 
    To leap the grades of life and light, 
And flash at once, my friend, to thee. 

For tho’ my nature rarely yields 
    To that vague fear implied in death; 
    Nor shudders at the gulfs beneath, 
The howlings from forgotten fields; 

Yet oft when sundown skirts the moor 
    An inner trouble I behold, 
    A spectral doubt which makes me cold, 
That I shall be thy mate no more, 

Tho’ following with an upward mind 
    The wonders that have come to thee, 
    Thro’ all the secular to-be, 
But evermore a life behind. 

  

XLII. 
 
I vex my heart with fancies dim: 
    He still outstript me in the race; 
    It was but unity of place 
That made me dream I rank’d with him. 
And so may Place retain us still, 
    And he the much-beloved again, 
    A lord of large experience, train 
To riper growth the mind and will: 

And what delights can equal those 
    That stir the spirit’s inner deeps, 
    When one that loves but knows not, reaps 
A truth from one that loves and knows? 

  

XLIII.
 
If Sleep and Death be truly one, 
    And every spirit’s folded bloom 
    Thro’ all its intervital gloom 
In some long trance should slumber on; 
Unconscious of the sliding hour, 
    Bare of the body, might it last, 
    And silent traces of the past 
Be all the colour of the flower: 

So then were nothing lost to man; 
    So that still garden of the souls 
    In many a figured leaf enrolls 
The total world since life began; 

And love will last as pure and whole 
    As when he loved me here in Time, 
    And at the spiritual prime 
Rewaken with the dawning soul. 

  

XLIV. 
 
How fares it with the happy dead? 
    For here the man is more and more; 
    But he forgets the days before 
God shut the doorways of his head. 
The days have vanish’d, tone and tint, 
    And yet perhaps the hoarding sense 
    Gives out at times (he knows not whence) 
A little flash, a mystic hint; 

And in the long harmonious years 
    (If Death so taste Lethean springs), 
    May some dim touch of earthly things 
Surprise thee ranging with thy peers. 

If such a dreamy touch should fall, 
    O turn thee round, resolve the doubt; 
    My guardian angel will speak out 
In that high place, and tell thee all. 

  

XLV. 
 
The baby new to earth and sky, 
    What time his tender palm is prest 
    Against the circle of the breast, 
Has never thought that ‘this is I:’ 
But as he grows he gathers much, 
    And learns the use of ‘I,’ and ‘me,’ 
    And finds ‘I am not what I see, 
And other than the things I touch.’ 

So rounds he to a separate mind 
    From whence clear memory may begin, 
    As thro’ the frame that binds him in 
His isolation grows defined. 

This use may lie in blood and breath, 
    Which else were fruitless of their due, 
    Had man to learn himself anew 
Beyond the second birth of Death. 

  

XLVI. 
 
We ranging down this lower track, 
    The path we came by, thorn and flower, 
    Is shadow’d by the growing hour, 
Lest life should fail in looking back. 
So be it: there no shade can last 
    In that deep dawn behind the tomb, 
    But clear from marge to marge shall bloom 
The eternal landscape of the past; 

A lifelong tract of time reveal’d; 
    The fruitful hours of still increase; 
    Days order’d in a wealthy peace, 
And those five years its richest field. 

O Love, thy province were not large, 
    A bounded field, nor stretching far; 
    Look also, Love, a brooding star, 
A rosy warmth from marge to marge. 

  

XLVII. 
 
That each, who seems a separate whole, 
    Should move his rounds, and fusing all 
    The skirts of self again, should fall 
Remerging in the general Soul, 
Is faith as vague as all unsweet: 
    Eternal form shall still divide 
    The eternal soul from all beside; 
And I shall know him when we meet: 

And we shall sit at endless feast, 
    Enjoying each the other’s good: 
    What vaster dream can hit the mood 
Of Love on earth? He seeks at least 

Upon the last and sharpest height, 
    Before the spirits fade away, 
    Some landing-place, to clasp and say, 
‘Farewell! We lose ourselves in light.’ 

  

XLVIII. 
 
If these brief lays, of Sorrow born, 
    Were taken to be such as closed 
    Grave doubts and answers here proposed, 
Then these were such as men might scorn: 
Her care is not to part and prove; 
    She takes, when harsher moods remit, 
    What slender shade of doubt may flit, 
And makes it vassal unto love: 

And hence, indeed, she sports with words, 
    But better serves a wholesome law, 
    And holds it sin and shame to draw 
The deepest measure from the chords: 

Nor dare she trust a larger lay, 
    But rather loosens from the lip 
    Short swallow-flights of song, that dip 
Their wings in tears, and skim away. 

  

XLIX. 
 
From art, from nature, from the schools, 
    Let random influences glance, 
    Like light in many a shiver’d lance 
That breaks about the dappled pools: 
The lightest wave of thought shall lisp, 
    The fancy’s tenderest eddy wreathe, 
    The slightest air of song shall breathe 
To make the sullen surface crisp. 

And look thy look, and go thy way, 
    But blame not thou the winds that make 
    The seeming-wanton ripple break, 
The tender-pencil’d shadow play. 

Beneath all fancied hopes and fears 
    Ay me, the sorrow deepens down, 
    Whose muffled motions blindly drown 
The bases of my life in tears. 

  

L. 
 
Be near me when my light is low, 
    When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick 
    And tingle; and the heart is sick, 
And all the wheels of Being slow. 
Be near me when the sensuous frame 
    Is rack’d with pangs that conquer trust; 
    And Time, a maniac scattering dust, 
And Life, a Fury slinging flame. 

Be near me when my faith is dry, 
    And men the flies of latter spring, 
    That lay their eggs, and sting and sing 
And weave their petty cells and die. 

Be near me when I fade away, 
    To point the term of human strife, 
    And on the low dark verge of life 
The twilight of eternal day. 

  

LI. 
 
Do we indeed desire the dead 
    Should still be near us at our side? 
    Is there no baseness we would hide? 
No inner vileness that we dread? 
Shall he for whose applause I strove, 
    I had such reverence for his blame, 
    See with clear eye some hidden shame 
And I be lessen’d in his love? 

I wrong the grave with fears untrue: 
    Shall love be blamed for want of faith? 
    There must be wisdom with great Death: 
The dead shall look me thro’ and thro’. 

Be near us when we climb or fall: 
    Ye watch, like God, the rolling hours 
    With larger other eyes than ours, 
To make allowance for us all. 

  

LII. 
 
I cannot love thee as I ought, 
    For love reflects the thing beloved; 
    My words are only words, and moved 
Upon the topmost froth of thought. 
‘Yet blame not thou thy plaintive song,’ 
    The Spirit of true love replied; 
    ‘Thou canst not move me from thy side, 
Nor human frailty do me wrong. 

‘What keeps a spirit wholly true 
    To that ideal which he bears? 
    What record? not the sinless years 
That breathed beneath the Syrian blue: 

‘So fret not, like an idle girl, 
    That life is dash’d with flecks of sin. 
    Abide: thy wealth is gather’d in, 
When Time hath sunder’d shell from pearl.’ 

  

LIII. 
 
How many a father have I seen, 
    A sober man, among his boys, 
    Whose youth was full of foolish noise, 
Who wears his manhood hale and green: 
And dare we to this fancy give, 
    That had the wild oat not been sown, 
    The soil, left barren, scarce had grown 
The grain by which a man may live? 

Or, if we held the doctrine sound 
    For life outliving heats of youth, 
    Yet who would preach it as a truth 
To those that eddy round and round? 

Hold thou the good: define it well: 
    For fear divine Philosophy 
    Should push beyond her mark, and be 
Procuress to the Lords of Hell. 

  

LIV. 
 
Oh yet we trust that somehow good 
    Will be the final goal of ill, 
    To pangs of nature, sins of will, 
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood; 
That nothing walks with aimless feet; 
    That not one life shall be destroy’d, 
    Or cast as rubbish to the void, 
When God hath made the pile complete; 

That not a worm is cloven in vain; 
    That not a moth with vain desire 
    Is shrivell’d in a fruitless fire, 
Or but subserves another’s gain. 

Behold, we know not anything; 
    I can but trust that good shall fall 
    At last–far off–at last, to all, 
And every winter change to spring. 

So runs my dream: but what am I? 
    An infant crying in the night: 
    An infant crying for the light: 
And with no language but a cry. 

  

LV. 
 
The wish, that of the living whole 
    No life may fail beyond the grave, 
    Derives it not from what we have 
The likest God within the soul? 
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 everywhere 
    Her secret meaning in her deeds, 
    And finding that of fifty seeds 
She often brings but one to bear, 

I falter where I firmly trod, 
    And falling with my weight of cares 
    Upon the great world’s altar-stairs 
That slope thro’ darkness up to God, 

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, 
    And gather dust and chaff, and call 
    To what I feel is Lord of all, 
And faintly trust the larger hope. 

  

LVI. 
 
‘So careful of the type?’ but no. 
    From scarped cliff and quarried stone 
    She cries, ‘A thousand types are gone: 
I care for nothing, all shall go. 
‘Thou makest thine appeal to me: 
    I bring to life, I bring to death: 
    The spirit does but mean the breath: 
I know no more.’ And he, shall he, 

Man, her last work, who seem’d so fair, 
    Such splendid purpose in his eyes, 
    Who roll’d the psalm to wintry skies, 
Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer, 

Who trusted God was love indeed 
    And love Creation’s final law– 
    Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw 
With ravine, shriek’d against his creed– 

Who loved, who suffer’d countless ills, 
    Who battled for the True, the Just, 
    Be blown about the desert dust, 
Or seal’d within the iron hills? 

No more? A monster then, a dream, 
    A discord. Dragons of the prime, 
    That tare each other in their slime, 
Were mellow music match’d with him. 

O life as futile, then, as frail! 
    O for thy voice to soothe and bless! 
    What hope of answer, or redress? 
Behind the veil, behind the veil. 

  

LVII. 
 
Peace; come away: the song of woe 
    Is after all an earthly song: 
    Peace; come away: we do him wrong 
To sing so wildly: let us go. 
Come; let us go: your cheeks are pale; 
    But half my life I leave behind: 
    Methinks my friend is richly shrined; 
But I shall pass; my work will fail. 

Yet in these ears, till hearing dies, 
    One set slow bell will seem to toll 
    The passing of the sweetest soul 
That ever look’d with human eyes. 

I hear it now, and o’er and o’er, 
    Eternal greetings to the dead; 
    And ‘Ave, Ave, Ave,’ said, 
‘Adieu, adieu’ for evermore. 

  

LVIII. 
 
In those sad words I took farewell: 
    Like echoes in sepulchral halls, 
    As drop by drop the water falls 
In vaults and catacombs, they fell; 
And, falling, idly broke the peace 
    Of hearts that beat from day to day, 
    Half-conscious of their dying clay, 
And those cold crypts where they shall cease. 

The high Muse answer’d: ‘Wherefore grieve 
    Thy brethren with a fruitless tear? 
    Abide a little longer here, 
And thou shalt take a nobler leave.’ 

  

LIX. 
 
O Sorrow, wilt thou live with me 
    No casual mistress, but a wife, 
    My bosom-friend and half of life; 
As I confess it needs must be; 
O Sorrow, wilt thou rule my blood, 
    Be sometimes lovely like a bride, 
    And put thy harsher moods aside, 
If thou wilt have me wise and good. 

My centred passion cannot move, 
    Nor will it lessen from to-day; 
    But I’ll have leave at times to play 
As with the creature of my love; 

And set thee forth, for thou art mine, 
    With so much hope for years to come, 
    That, howsoe’er I know thee, some 
Could hardly tell what name were thine. 

  

LX. 
 
He past; a soul of nobler tone: 
    My spirit loved and loves him yet, 
    Like some poor girl whose heart is set 
On one whose rank exceeds her own. 
He mixing with his proper sphere, 
    She finds the baseness of her lot, 
    Half jealous of she knows not what, 
And envying all that meet him there. 

The little village looks forlorn; 
    She sighs amid her narrow days, 
    Moving about the household ways, 
In that dark house where she was born. 

The foolish neighbours come and go, 
    And tease her till the day draws by: 
    At night she weeps, ‘How vain am I! 
How should he love a thing so low?’ 

  

LXI. 
 
If, in thy second state sublime, 
    Thy ransom’d reason change replies 
    With all the circle of the wise, 
The perfect flower of human time; 
And if thou cast thine eyes below, 
    How dimly character’d and slight, 
    How dwarf’d a growth of cold and night, 
How blanch`d with darkness must I grow! 

Yet turn thee to the doubtful shore, 
    Where thy first form was made a man: 
    I loved thee, Spirit, and love, nor can 
The soul of Shakespeare love thee more. 

  

LXII. 
 
Tho’ if an eye that’s downward cast 
    Could make thee somewhat blench or fail, 
    Then be my love an idle tale, 
And fading legend of the past; 
And thou, as one that once declined, 
    When he was little more than boy, 
    On some unworthy heart with joy, 
But lives to wed an equal mind; 

And breathes a novel world, the while 
    His other passion wholly dies, 
    Or in the light of deeper eyes 
Is matter for a flying smile. 

  

LXIII. 
 
Yet pity for a horse o’er-driven, 
    And love in which my hound has part, 
    Can hang no weight upon my heart 
In its assumptions up to heaven; 
And I am so much more than these, 
    As thou, perchance, art more than I, 
    And yet I spare them sympathy, 
And I would set their pains at ease. 

So mayst thou watch me where I weep, 
    As, unto vaster motions bound, 
    The circuits of thine orbit round 
A higher height, a deeper deep. 

  

LXIV. 
 
Dost thou look back on what hath been, 
    As some divinely gifted man, 
    Whose life in low estate began 
And on a simple village green; 
Who breaks his birth’s invidious bar, 
    And grasps the skirts of happy chance, 
    And breasts the blows of circumstance, 
And grapples with his evil star; 

Who makes by force his merit known 
    And lives to clutch the golden keys, 
    To mould a mighty state’s decrees, 
And shape the whisper of the throne; 

And moving up from high to higher, 
    Becomes on Fortune’s crowning slope 
    The pillar of a people’s hope, 
The centre of a world’s desire; 

Yet feels, as in a pensive dream, 
    When all his active powers are still, 
    A distant dearness in the hill, 
A secret sweetness in the stream, 

The limit of his narrower fate, 
    While yet beside its vocal springs 
    He play’d at counsellors and kings, 
With one that was his earliest mate; 

Who ploughs with pain his native lea 
    And reaps the labour of his hands, 
    Or in the furrow musing stands; 
‘Does my old friend remember me?’ 

  

LXV. 
 
Sweet soul, do with me as thou wilt; 
    I lull a fancy trouble-tost 
    With ‘Love’s too precious to be lost, 
A little grain shall not be spilt.’ 
And in that solace can I sing, 
    Till out of painful phases wrought 
    There flutters up a happy thought, 
Self-balanced on a lightsome wing: 

Since we deserved the name of friends, 
    And thine effect so lives in me, 
    A part of mine may live in thee 
And move thee on to noble ends. 

  

LXVI. 
 
You thought my heart too far diseased; 
    You wonder when my fancies play 
    To find me gay among the gay, 
Like one with any trifle pleased. 
The shade by which my life was crost, 
    Which makes a desert in the mind, 
    Has made me kindly with my kind, 
And like to him whose sight is lost; 

Whose feet are guided thro’ the land, 
    Whose jest among his friends is free, 
    Who takes the children on his knee, 
And winds their curls about his hand: 

He plays with threads, he beats his chair 
    For pastime, dreaming of the sky; 
    His inner day can never die, 
His night of loss is always there. 

  

LXVII. 
 
When on my bed the moonlight falls, 
    I know that in thy place of rest 
    By that broad water of the west, 
There comes a glory on the walls: 
Thy marble bright in dark appears, 
    As slowly steals a silver flame 
    Along the letters of thy name, 
And o’er the number of thy years. 

The mystic glory swims away; 
    From off my bed the moonlight dies; 
    And closing eaves of wearied eyes 
I sleep till dusk is dipt in gray: 

And then I know the mist is drawn 
    A lucid veil from coast to coast, 
    And in the dark church like a ghost 
Thy tablet glimmers to the dawn. 

  

LXVIII. 
 
When in the down I sink my head, 
    Sleep, Death’s twin-brother, times my breath; 
    Sleep, Death’s twin-brother, knows not Death, 
Nor can I dream of thee as dead: 
I walk as ere I walk’d forlorn, 
    When all our path was fresh with dew, 
    And all the bugle breezes blew 
Reveillée to the breaking morn. 

But what is this? I turn about, 
    I find a trouble in thine eye, 
    Which makes me sad I know not why, 
Nor can my dream resolve the doubt: 

But ere the lark hath left the lea 
    I wake, and I discern the truth; 
    It is the trouble of my youth 
That foolish sleep transfers to thee. 

  

LXIX. 
 
I dream’d there would be Spring no more, 
    That Nature’s ancient power was lost: 
    The streets were black with smoke and frost, 
They chatter’d trifles at the door: 
I wander’d from the noisy town, 
    I found a wood with thorny boughs: 
    I took the thorns to bind my brows, 
I wore them like a civic crown: 

I met with scoffs, I met with scorns 
    From youth and babe and hoary hairs: 
    They call’d me in the public squares 
The fool that wears a crown of thorns: 

They call’d me fool, they call’d me child: 
    I found an angel of the night; 
    The voice was low, the look was bright; 
He look’d upon my crown and smiled: 

He reach’d the glory of a hand, 
    That seem’d to touch it into leaf: 
    The voice was not the voice of grief, 
The words were hard to understand. 

  

LXX. 
 
I cannot see the features right, 
    When on the gloom I strive to paint 
    The face I know; the hues are faint 
And mix with hollow masks of night; 
Cloud-towers by ghostly masons wrought, 
    A gulf that ever shuts and gapes, 
    A hand that points, and palled shapes 
In shadowy thoroughfares of thought; 

And crowds that stream from yawning doors, 
    And shoals of pucker’d faces drive; 
    Dark bulks that tumble half alive, 
And lazy lengths on boundless shores; 

Till all at once beyond the will 
    I hear a wizard music roll, 
    And thro’ a lattice on the soul 
Looks thy fair face and makes it still. 

  

LXXI. 
 
Sleep, kinsman thou to death and trance 
    And madness, thou hast forged at last 
    A night-long Present of the Past 
In which we went thro’ summer France. 
Hadst thou such credit with the soul? 
    Then bring an opiate trebly strong, 
    Drug down the blindfold sense of wrong 
That so my pleasure may be whole; 

While now we talk as once we talk’d 
    Of men and minds, the dust of change, 
    The days that grow to something strange, 
In walking as of old we walk’d 

Beside the river’s wooded reach, 
    The fortress, and the mountain ridge, 
    The cataract flashing from the bridge, 
The breaker breaking on the beach. 

  

LXXII. 
 
Risest thou thus, dim dawn, again, 
    And howlest, issuing out of night, 
    With blasts that blow the poplar white, 
And lash with storm the streaming pane? 
Day, when my crown’d estate begun 
    To pine in that reverse of doom, 
    Which sicken’d every living bloom, 
And blurr’d the splendour of the sun; 

Who usherest in the dolorous hour 
    With thy quick tears that make the rose 
    Pull sideways, and the daisy close 
Her crimson fringes to the shower; 

Who might’st have heaved a windless flame 
    Up the deep East, or, whispering, play’d 
    A chequer-work of beam and shade 
Along the hills, yet look’d the same. 

As wan, as chill, as wild as now; 
    Day, mark’d as with some hideous crime, 
    When the dark hand struck down thro’ time, 
And cancell’d nature’s best: but thou, 

Lift as thou may’st thy burthen’d brows 
    Thro’ clouds that drench the morning star, 
    And whirl the ungarner’d sheaf afar, 
And sow the sky with flying boughs, 

And up thy vault with roaring sound 
    Climb thy thick noon, disastrous day; 
    Touch thy dull goal of joyless gray, 
And hide thy shame beneath the ground. 

  

LXXIII. 
 
So many worlds, so much to do, 
    So little done, such things to be, 
    How know I what had need of thee, 
For thou wert strong as thou wert true? 
The fame is quench’d that I foresaw, 
    The head hath miss’d an earthly wreath: 
    I curse not nature, no, nor death; 
For nothing is that errs from law. 

We pass; the path that each man trod 
    Is dim, or will be dim, with weeds: 
    What fame is left for human deeds 
In endless age? It rests with God. 

O hollow wraith of dying fame, 
    Fade wholly, while the soul exults, 
    And self-infolds the large results 
Of force that would have forged a name. 

  

LXXIV. 
 
As sometimes in a dead man’s face, 
    To those that watch it more and more, 
    A likeness, hardly seen before, 
Comes out–to some one of his race: 
So, dearest, now thy brows are cold, 
    I see thee what thou art, and know 
    Thy likeness to the wise below, 
Thy kindred with the great of old. 

But there is more than I can see, 
    And what I see I leave unsaid, 
    Nor speak it, knowing Death has made 
His darkness beautiful with thee. 

  

LXXV. 
 
I leave thy praises unexpress’d 
    In verse that brings myself relief, 
    And by the measure of my grief 
I leave thy greatness to be guess’d; 
What practice howsoe’er expert 
    In fitting aptest words to things, 
    Or voice the richest-toned that sings, 
Hath power to give thee as thou wert? 

I care not in these fading days 
    To raise a cry that lasts not long, 
    And round thee with the breeze of song 
To stir a little dust of praise. 

Thy leaf has perish’d in the green, 
    And, while we breathe beneath the sun, 
    The world which credits what is done 
Is cold to all that might have been. 

So here shall silence guard thy fame; 
    But somewhere, out of human view, 
    Whate’er thy hands are set to do 
Is wrought with tumult of acclaim. 

  

LXXVI. 
 
Take wings of fancy, and ascend, 
    And in a moment set thy face 
    Where all the starry heavens of space 
Are sharpen’d to a needle’s end; 
Take wings of foresight; lighten thro’ 
    The secular abyss to come, 
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