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Alfred Lord Tennyson - In Memoriam A. H. H.
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    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 neighbors 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 Shakspeare 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
  Reveill´e 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.

  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.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,
    And lo, thy deepest lays are dumb 
  Before the mouldering of a yew;
  And if the matin songs, that woke
    The darkness of our planet, last,
    Thine own shall wither in the vast, 
  Ere half the lifetime of an oak.

  Ere these have clothed their branchy bowers 
    With fifty Mays, thy songs are vain; 
    And what are they when these remain 
  The ruin`d shells of hollow towers?LXXVII
  What hope is here for modern rhyme
    To him, who turns a musing eye
    On songs, and deeds, and lives, that lie
  Foreshorten`d in the tract of time?
  These mortal lullabies of pain
    May bind a book, may line a box,
    May serve to curl a maiden`s locks;
  Or when a thousand moons shall wane
  A man upon a stall may find,
    And, passing, turn the page that tells
    A grief, then changed to something else,
  Sung by a long-forgotten mind.

  But what of that? My darken`d ways
    Shall ring with music all the same;
    To breathe my loss is more than fame,
  To utter love more sweet than praise.LXXVIII
  Again at Christmas did we weave 
    The holly round the Christmas hearth; 
    The silent snow possess`d the earth, 
  And calmly fell our Christmas-eve:
  The yule-clog sparkled keen with frost, 
    No wing of wind the region swept, 
    But over all things brooding slept 
  The quiet sense of something lost.
  As in the winters left behind,
    Again our ancient games had place,
    The mimic picture`s breathing grace,
  And dance and song and hoodman-blind.

  Who show`d a token of distress?
    No single tear, no mark of pain: 
    O sorrow, then can sorrow wane?
  O grief, can grief be changed to less?

  O last regret, regret can die!
    No — mixt with all this mystic frame,
    Her deep relations are the same,
  But with long use her tears are dry.LXXIX
  "More than my brothers are to me," — 
    Let this not vex thee, noble heart!
    I know thee of what force thou art
  To hold the costliest love in fee.
  But thou and I are one in kind,
    As moulded like in Nature`s mint;
    And hill and wood and field did print
  The same sweet forms in either mind.
  For us the same cold streamlet curl`d
    Thro` all his eddying coves, the same
    All winds that roam the twilight came
  In whispers of the beauteous world.

  At one dear knee we proffer`d vows,
    One lesson from one book we learn`d,
    Ere childhood`s flaxen ringlet turn`d
  To black and brown on kindred brows.

  And so my wealth resembles thine,
    But he was rich where I was poor,
    And he supplied my want the more
  As his unlikeness fitted mine.LXXX
  If any vague desire should rise,
    That holy Death ere Arthur died
    Had moved me kindly from his side,
  And dropt the dust on tearless eyes;
  Then fancy shapes, as fancy can,
    The grief my loss in him had wrought,
    A grief as deep as life or thought,
  But stay`d in peace with God and man.
  I make a picture in the brain;
    I hear the sentence that he speaks;
    He bears the burthen of the weeks
  But turns his burthen into gain.

  His credit thus shall set me free;
    And, influence-rich to soothe and save,
    Unused example from the grave
  Reach out dead hands to comfort me.LXXXI
  Could I have said while he was here,
    "My love shall now no further range;
    There cannot come a mellower change,
  For now is love mature in ear"?
  Love, then, had hope of richer store:
    What end is here to my complaint?
    This haunting whisper makes me faint,
  "More years had made me love thee more.`
  But Death returns an answer sweet:
    "My sudden frost was sudden gain,
    And gave all ripeness to the grain,
  It might have drawn from after-heat."LXXXII
  I wage not any feud with Death
    For changes wrought on form and face;
    No lower life that earth`s embrace
  May breed with him, can fright my faith.
  Eternal process moving on,
    From state to state the spirit walks;
    And these are but the shatter`d stalks,
  Or ruin`d chrysalis of one.
  Nor blame I Death, because he bare
    The use of virtue out of earth:
    I know transplanted human worth
  Will bloom to profit, otherwhere.

  For this alone on Death I wreak
    The wrath that garners in my heart;
    He put our lives so far apart
  We cannot hear each other speak.LXXIII
  Dip down upon the northern shore,
    O sweet new-year delaying long;
    Thou doest expectant nature wrong; 
  Delaying long, delay no more.
  What stays thee from the clouded noons,
    Thy sweetness from its proper place?
    Can trouble live with April days, 
  Or sadness in the summer moons?
  Bring orchis, bring the foxglove spire,
    The little speedwell`s darling blue,
    Deep tulips dash`d with fiery dew, 
  Laburnums, dropping-wells of fire.

  O thou, new-year, delaying long,
    Delayest the sorrow in my blood,
    That longs to burst a frozen bud
  And flood a fresher throat with song.LXXXIV
  When I contemplate all alone
    The life that had been thine below,
    And fix my thoughts on all the glow
  To which thy crescent would have grown;
  I see thee sitting crown`d with good,
    A central warmth diffusing bliss
    In glance and smile, and clasp and kiss,
  On all the branches of thy blood;
  Thy blood, my friend, and partly mine;
    For now the day was drawing on,
    When thou should`st link thy life with one
  Of mine own house, and boys of thine

  Had babbled "Uncle" on my knee;
    But that remorseless iron hour
    Made cypress of her orange flower,
  Despair of Hope, and earth of thee.

  I seem to meet their least desire,
    To clap their cheeks, to call them mine.
    I see their unborn faces shine
  Beside the never-lighted fire.

  I see myself an honor`d guest,
    Thy partner in the flowery walk
    Of letters, genial table-talk,
  Or deep dispute, and graceful jest;

  While now thy prosperous labor fills
    The lips of men with honest praise,
    And sun by sun the happy days
  Descend below the golden hills

  With promise of a morn as fair,
    And all the train of bounteous hours
    Conduct by paths of growing powers,
  To reverence and the silver hair;

  Till slowly worn her earthly robe,
    Her lavish mission richly wrought,
    Leaving great legacies of thought,
  Thy spirit should fail from off the globe;

  What time mine own might also flee,
    As link`d with thine in love and fate,
    And, hovering o`er the dolorous strait
  To the other shore, involved in thee,

  Arrive at last the blessed goal,
    And He that died in Holy Land
    Would reach us out the shining hand,
  And take us as a single soul.

 What reed was that on which I leant?
    Ah, backward fancy, wherefore wake
    The old bitterness again, and break
  The low beginnings of content.LXXXV
  This truth came borne with bier and pall
    I felt it, when I sorrow`d most,
    `Tis better to have loved and lost,
  Than never to have loved at all — 
  O true in word, and tried in deed,
    Demanding, so to bring relief
    To this which is our common grief, 
  What kind of life is that I lead;
  And whether trust in things above
    Be dimm`d of sorrow, or sustain`d;
    And whether love for him have drain`d 
  My capabilities of love;

  Your words have virtue such as draws
    A faithful answer from the breast,
    Thro` light reproaches, half exprest,
  And loyal unto kindly laws.

  My blood an even tenor kept,
    Till on mine ear this message falls,
    That in Vienna`s fatal walls
  God`s finger touch`d him, and he slept.

  The great Intelligences fair
    That range above our mortal state,
    In circle round the blessed gate,
  Received and gave him welcome there;

  And led him thro` the blissful climes,
    And show`d him in the fountain fresh
    All knowledge that the sons of flesh
  Shall gather in the cycled times.

  But I remain`d, whose hopes were dim,
    Whose life, whose thoughts were little worth,
    To wander on a darken`d earth,
  Where all things round me breathed of him. `

  O friendship, equal-poised control,
    O heart, with kindliest motion warm,
    O sacred essence, other form,
  O solemn ghost, O crowned soul!

  Yet none could better know than I,
    How much of act at human hands
    The sense of human will demands
  By which we dare to live or die.

  Whatever way my days decline,
    I felt and feel, tho` left alone,
    His being working in mine own,
  The footsteps of his life in mine;

  A life that all the Muses deck`d
    With gifts of grace, that might express
    All-comprehensive tenderness,
  All-subtilising intellect:

  And so my passion hath not swerved
    To works of weakness, but I find
    An image comforting the mind,
  And in my grief a strength reserved.

  Likewise the imaginative woe,
    That loved to handle spiritual strife
    Diffused the shock thro` all my life,
  But in the present broke the blow.

  My pulses therefore beat again
    For other friends that once I met;
    Nor can it suit me to forget
  The mighty hopes that make us men.

  I woo your love: I count it crime
    To mourn for any overmuch;
    I, the divided half of such
  A friendship as had master`d Time;

  Which masters Time indeed, and is
    Eternal, separate from fears:
    The all-assuming months and years
  Can take no part away from this:

  But Summer on the steaming floods,
    And Spring that swells the narrow brooks,
    And Autumn, with a noise of rooks,
  That gather in the waning woods,

  And every pulse of wind and wave
    Recalls, in change of light or gloom,
    My old affection of the tomb,
  And my prime passion in the grave:

  My old affection of the tomb,
    A part of stillness, yearns to speak:
    "Arise, and get thee forth and seek
  A friendship for the years to come.

  "I watch thee from the quiet shore; 
    Thy spirit up to mine can reach;
    But in dear words of human speech
  We two communicate no more."

  And I, "Can clouds of nature stain
    The starry clearness of the free?
    How is it? Canst thou feel for me
  Some painless sympathy with pain?"

  And lightly does the whisper fall:
    ``Tis hard for thee to fathom this;
    I triumph in conclusive bliss,
  And that serene result of all.`

  So hold I commerce with the dead;
    Or so methinks the dead would say;
    Or so shall grief with symbols play
  And pining life be fancy-fed.

  Now looking to some settled end,
    That these things pass, and I shall prove
    A meeting somewhere, love with love,
  I crave your pardon, O my friend;


  If not so fresh, with love as true,
    I, clasping brother-hands, aver
    I could not, if I would, transfer
  The whole I felt for him to you.


  For which be they that hold apart
    The promise of the golden hours?
    First love, first friendship, equal powers,
  That marry with the virgin heart.


  Still mine, that cannot but deplore,
    That beats within a lonely place,
    That yet remembers his embrace,
  But at his footstep leaps no more,


  My heart, tho` widow`d, may not rest
    Quite in the love of what is gone,
    But seeks to beat in time with one
  That warms another living breast.


  Ah, take the imperfect gift I bring, 
    Knowing the primrose yet is dear, 
    The primrose of the later year,
  As not unlike to that of Spring.LXXXVI
  Sweet after showers, ambrosial air,
    That rollest from the gorgeous gloom
    Of evening over brake and bloom
  And meadow, slowly breathing bare
  The round of space, and rapt below
    Thro` all the dewy-tassell`d wood,
    And shadowing down the horned flood
  In ripples, fan my brows and blow
  The fever from my cheek, and sigh
    The full new life that feeds thy breath
    Throughout my frame, till Doubt and Death,
  Ill brethren, let the fancy fly

  From belt to belt of crimson seas
    On leagues of odour streaming far,
    To where in yonder orient star
  A hundred spirits whisper "Peace."LXXXVII
  I past beside the reverend walls
    In which of old I wore the gown;
    I roved at random thro` the town, 
  And saw the tumult of the halls;
  And heard once more in college fanes
    The storm their high-built organs make,
    And thunder-music, rolling, shake 
  The prophet blazon`d on the panes;
  And caught once more the distant shout,
    The measured pulse of racing oars
    Among the willows; paced the shores
  And many a bridge, and all about

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