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Alfred Lord Tennyson - OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII (Entire)
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    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. 

  

LXXXIII. 
 
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 honour’d guest, 
    Thy partner in the flowery walk 
    Of letters, genial table-talk, 
Or deep dispute, and graceful jest; 

While now thy prosperous labour 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 remained, whose hopes were dim, 
    Whose life, whose thoughts were little worth, 
    To wander on a darkened 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 decked 
    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 one 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 one more the distant shout, 
    The measured pulse of racing oars 
    Among the willows; paced the shores 
And many a bridge, and all about 

The same gray flats again, and felt 
    The same, but not the same; and last 
    Up that long walk of limes I past 
To see the rooms in which he dwelt. 

Another name was on the door: 
    I linger’d; all within was noise 
    Of songs, and clapping hands, and boys 
That crash’d the glass and beat the floor; 

Where once we held debate, a band 
    Of youthful friends, on mind and art, 
    And labour, and the changing mart, 
And all the framework of the land; 

When one would aim an arrow fair, 
    But send it slackly from the string; 
    And one would pierce an outer ring, 
And one an inner, here and there; 

And last the master-bowman, he, 
    Would cleave the mark. A willing ear 
    We lent him. Who, but hung to hear 
The rapt oration flowing free 

From point to point, with power and grace 
    And music in the bounds of law, 
    To those conclusions when we saw 
The God within him light his face, 

And seem to lift the form, and glow 
    In azure orbits heavenly wise; 
    And over those ethereal eyes 
The bar of Michael Angelo. 

  

LXXXVIII. 
 
Wild bird, whose warble, liquid sweet, 
    Rings Eden thro’ the budded quicks, 
    O tell me where the senses mix, 
O tell me where the passions meet, 
Whence radiate: fierce extremes employ 
    Thy spirits in the darkening leaf, 
    And in the midmost heart of grief 
Thy passion clasps a secret joy: 

And I–my harp would prelude woe– 
    I cannot all command the strings; 
    The glory of the sum of things 
Will flash along the chords and go. 

  

LXXXIX. 
 
Witch-elms that counterchange the floor 
    Of this flat lawn with dusk and bright; 
    And thou, with all thy breadth and height 
Of foliage, towering sycamore; 
How often, hither wandering down, 
    My Arthur found your shadows fair, 
    And shook to all the liberal air 
The dust and din and steam of town: 

He brought an eye for all he saw; 
    He mixt in all our simple sports; 
    They pleased him, fresh from brawling courts 
And dusty purlieus of the law. 

O joy to him in this retreat, 
    Immantled in ambrosial dark, 
    To drink the cooler air, and mark 
The landscape winking thro’ the heat: 

O sound to rout the brood of cares, 
    The sweep of scythe in morning dew, 
    The gust that round the garden flew, 
And tumbled half the mellowing pears! 

O bliss, when all in circle drawn 
    About him, heart and ear were fed 
    To hear him, as he lay and read 
The Tuscan poets on the lawn: 

Or in the all-golden afternoon 
    A guest, or happy sister, sung, 
    Or here she brought the harp and flung 
A ballad to the brightening moon: 

Nor less it pleased in livelier moods, 
    Beyond the bounding hill to stray, 
    And break the livelong summer day 
With banquet in the distant woods; 

Whereat we glanced from theme to theme, 
    Discuss’d the books to love or hate, 
    Or touch’d the changes of the state, 
Or threaded some Socratic dream; 

But if I praised the busy town, 
    He loved to rail against it still, 
    For ‘ground in yonder social mill 
We rub each other’s angles down, 

‘And merge’ he said ‘in form and gloss 
    The picturesque of man and man.’ 
    We talk’d: the stream beneath us ran, 
The wine-flask lying couch’d in moss, 

Or cool’d within the glooming wave; 
    And last, returning from afar, 
    Before the crimson-circled star 
Had fall’n into her father’s grave, 

And brushing ankle-deep in flowers, 
    We heard behind the woodbine veil 
    The milk that bubbled in the pail, 
And buzzings of the honied hours. 

  

XC. 
 
He tasted love with half his mind, 
    Nor ever drank the inviolate spring 
    Where nighest heaven, who first could fling 
This bitter seed among mankind; 
That could the dead, whose dying eyes 
    Were closed with wail, resume their life, 
    They would but find in child and wife 
An iron welcome when they rise: 

’Twas well, indeed, when warm with wine, 
    To pledge them with a kindly tear, 
    To talk them o’er, to wish them here, 
To count their memories half divine; 

But if they came who past away, 
    Behold their brides in other hands; 
    The hard heir strides about their lands, 
And will not yield them for a day. 

Yea, tho’ their sons were none of these, 
    Not less the yet-loved sire would make 
    Confusion worse than death, and shake 
The pillars of domestic peace. 

Ah dear, but come thou back to me: 
    Whatever change the years have wrought, 
    I find not yet one lonely thought 
That cries against my wish for thee. 

  

XCI. 
 
When rosy plumelets tuft the larch, 
    And rarely pipes the mounted thrush; 
    Or underneath the barren bush 
Flits by the sea-blue bird of March; 
Come, wear the form by which I know 
    Thy spirit in time among thy peers; 
    The hope of unaccomplish’d years 
Be large and lucid round thy brow. 

When summer’s hourly-mellowing change 
    May breathe, with many roses sweet, 
    Upon the thousand waves of wheat, 
That ripple round the lonely grange; 

Come: not in watches of the night, 
    But where the sunbeam broodeth warm, 
    Come, beauteous in thine after form, 
And like a finer light in light. 

  

XCII. 
 
If any vision should reveal 
    Thy likeness, I might count it vain 
    As but the canker of the brain; 
Yea, tho’ it spake and made appeal 
To chances where our lots were cast 
    Together in the days behind, 
    I might but say, I hear a wind 
Of memory murmuring the past. 

Yea, tho’ it spake and bared to view 
    A fact within the coming year; 
    And tho’ the months, revolving near, 
Should prove the phantom-warning true, 

They might not seem thy prophecies, 
    But spiritual presentiments, 
    And such refraction of events 
As often rises ere they rise. 

  

XCIII. 
 
I shall not see thee. Dare I say 
    No spirit ever brake the band 
    That stays him from the native land 
Where first he walk’d when claspt in clay? 
No visual shade of some one lost, 
    But he, the Spirit himself, may come 
    Where all the nerve of sense is numb; 
Spirit to Spirit, Ghost to Ghost. 

O, therefore from thy sightless range 
    With gods in unconjectured bliss, 
    O, from the distance of the abyss 
Of tenfold-complicated change, 

Descend, and touch, and enter; hear 
    The wish too strong for words to name; 
    That in this blindness of the frame 
My Ghost may feel that thine is near. 

  

XCIV. 
 
How pure at heart and sound in head, 
    With what divine affections bold 
    Should be the man whose thought would hold 
An hour’s communion with the dead. 
In vain shalt thou, or any, call 
    The spirits from their golden day, 
    Except, like them, thou too canst say, 
My spirit is at peace with all. 

They haunt the silence of the breast, 
    Imaginations calm and fair, 
    The memory like a cloudless air, 
The conscience as a sea at rest: 

But when the heart is full of din, 
    And doubt beside the portal waits, 
    They can but listen at the gates, 
And hear the household jar within. 
  
  

XCV. 
 
By night we linger’d on the lawn, 
    For underfoot the herb was dry; 
    And genial warmth; and o’er the sky 
The silvery haze of summer drawn; 
And calm that let the tapers burn 
    Unwavering: not a cricket chirr’d: 
    The brook alone far-off was heard, 
And on the board the fluttering urn: 

And bats went round in fragrant skies, 
    And wheel’d or lit the filmy shapes 
    That haunt the dusk, with ermine capes 
And woolly breasts and beaded eyes; 

While now we sang old songs that peal’d 
    From knoll to knoll, where, couch’d at ease, 
    The white kine glimmer’d, and the trees 
Laid their dark arms about the field. 

But when those others, one by one, 
    Withdrew themselves from me and night, 
    And in the house light after light 
Went out, and I was all alone, 

A hunger seized my heart; I read 
    Of that glad year which once had been, 
    In those fall’n leaves which kept their green, 
The noble letters of the dead: 

And strangely on the silence broke 
    The silent-speaking words, and strange 
    Was love’s dumb cry defying change 
To test his worth; and strangely spoke 

The faith, the vigour, bold to dwell 
    On doubts that drive the coward back, 
    And keen thro’ wordy snares to track 
Suggestion to her inmost cell. 

So word by word, and line by line, 
    The dead man touch’d me from the past, 
    And all at once it seem’d at last 
The living soul was flash’d on mine, 

And mine in this was wound, and whirl’d 
    About empyreal heights of thought, 
    And came on that which is, and caught 
The deep pulsations of the world, 

Æonian music measuring out 
    The steps of Time–the shocks of Chance– 
    The blows of Death. At length my trance 
Was cancell’d, stricken thro’ with doubt. 

Vague words! but ah, how hard to frame 
    In matter-moulded forms of speech, 
    Or ev’n for intellect to reach 
Thro’ memory that which I became: 

Till now the doubtful dusk reveal’d 
    The knolls once more where, couch’d at ease, 
    The white kine glimmer’d, and the trees 
Laid their dark arms about the field: 

And suck’d from out the distant gloom 
    A breeze began to tremble o’er 
    The large leaves of the sycamore, 
And fluctuate all the still perfume, 

And gathering freshlier overhead, 
    Rock’d the full-foliaged elms, and swung 
    The heavy-folded rose, and flung 
The lilies to and fro, and said 

‘The dawn, the dawn,’ and died away; 
    And East and West, without a breath, 
    Mixt their dim lights, like life and death, 
To broaden into boundless day. 
  
  

XCVI. 
 
You say, but with no touch of scorn, 
    Sweet-hearted, you, whose light-blue eyes 
    Are tender over drowning flies, 
You tell me, doubt is Devil-born. 
I know not: one indeed I knew 
    In many a subtle question versed, 
    Who touch’d a jarring lyre at first, 
But ever strove to make it true: 

Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds, 
    At last he beat his music out. 
    There lives more faith in honest doubt, 
Believe me, than in half the creeds. 

He fought his doubts and gather’d strength, 
    He would not make his judgment blind, 
    He faced the spectres of the mind 
And laid them: thus he came at length 

To find a stronger faith his own; 
    And Power was with him in the night, 
    Which makes the darkness and the light, 
And dwells not in the light alone, 

But in the darkness and the cloud, 
    As over Sinaï’s peaks of old, 
    While Israel made their gods of gold, 
Altho’ the trumpet blew so loud. 

  

XCVII. 
 
My love has talk’d with rocks and trees; 
    He finds on misty mountain-ground 
    His own vast shadow glory-crown’d; 
He sees himself in all he sees. 
Two partners of a married life– 
    I look’d on these and thought of thee 
    In vastness and in mystery, 
And of my spirit as of a wife. 

These two–they dwelt with eye on eye, 
    Their hearts of old have beat in tune, 
    Their meetings made December June, 
Their every parting was to die. 

Their love has never past away; 
    The days she never can forget 
    Are earnest that he loves her yet, 
Whate’er the faithless people say. 

Her life is lone, he sits apart, 
    He loves her yet, she will not weep, 
    Tho’ rapt in matters dark and deep 
He seems to slight her simple heart. 

He thrids the labyrinth of the mind, 
    He reads the secret of the star, 
    He seems so near and yet so far, 
He looks so cold: she thinks him kind. 

She keeps the gift of years before, 
    A wither’d violet is her bliss: 
    She knows not what his greatness is, 
For that, for all, she loves him more. 

For him she plays, to him she sings 
    Of early faith and plighted vows; 
    She knows but matters of the house, 
And he, he knows a thousand things. 

Her faith is fixt and cannot move, 
    She darkly feels him great and wise, 
    She dwells on him with faithful eyes, 
‘I cannot understand: I love.’ 

  

XCVIII. 
 
You leave us: you will see the Rhine, 
    And those fair hills I sail’d below, 
    When I was there with him; and go 
By summer belts of wheat and vine 
To where he breathed his latest breath, 
    That City. All her splendour seems 
    No livelier than the wisp that gleams 
On Lethe in the eyes of Death. 

Let her great Danube rolling fair 
    Enwind her isles, unmark’d of me: 
    I have not seen, I will not see 
Vienna; rather dream that there, 

A treble darkness, Evil haunts 
    The birth, the bridal; friend from friend 
    Is oftener parted, fathers bend 
Above more graves, a thousand wants 

Gnarr at the heels of men, and prey 
    By each cold hearth, and sadness flings 
    Her shadow on the blaze of kings: 
And yet myself have heard him say, 

That not in any mother town 
    With statelier progress to and fro 
    The double tides of chariots flow 
By park and suburb under brown 

Of lustier leaves; nor more content, 
    He told me, lives in any crowd, 
    When all is gay with lamps, and loud 
With sport and song, in booth and tent, 

Imperial halls, or open plain; 
    And wheels the circled dance, and breaks 
    The rocket molten into flakes 
Of crimson or in emerald rain. 

  

XCIX. 
 
Risest thou thus, dim dawn, again, 
    So loud with voices of the birds, 
    So thick with lowings of the herds, 
Day, when I lost the flower of men; 
Who tremblest thro’ thy darkling red 
    On yon swoll’n brook that bubbles fast 
    By meadows breathing of the past, 
And woodlands holy to the dead; 

Who murmurest in the foliaged eaves 
    A song that slights the coming care, 
    And Autumn laying here and there 
A fiery finger on the leaves; 

Who wakenest with thy balmy breath 
    To myriads on the genial earth, 
    Memories of bridal, or of birth, 
And unto myriads more, of death. 

O wheresoever those may be, 
    Betwixt the slumber of the poles, 
    To-day they count as kindred souls; 
They know me not, but mourn with me. 

  

C. 
 
I climb the hill: from end to end 
    Of all the landscape underneath, 
    I find no place that does not breathe 
Some gracious memory of my friend; 
No gray old grange, or lonely fold, 
    Or low morass and whispering reed, 
    Or simple stile from mead to mead, 
Or sheepwalk up the windy wold; 

Nor hoary knoll of ash and haw 
    That hears the latest linnet trill, 
    Nor quarry trench’d along the hill 
And haunted by the wrangling daw; 

Nor runlet tinkling from the rock; 
    Nor pastoral rivulet that swerves 
    To left and right thro’ meadowy curves, 
That feed the mothers of the flock; 

But each has pleased a kindred eye, 
    And each reflects a kindlier day; 
    And, leaving these, to pass away, 
I think once more he seems to die. 

  

CI. 
 
Unwatch’d, the garden bough shall sway, 
    The tender blossom flutter down, 
    Unloved, that beech will gather brown, 
This maple burn itself away; 
Unloved, the sun-flower, shining fair, 
    Ray round with flames her disk of seed, 
    And many a rose-carnation feed 
With summer spice the humming air; 

Unloved, by many a sandy bar, 
    The brook shall babble down the plain, 
    At noon or when the lesser wain 
Is twisting round the polar star; 

Uncared for, gird the windy grove, 
    And flood the haunts of hern and crake; 
    Or into silver arrows break 
The sailing moon in creek and cove; 

Till from the garden and the wild 
    A fresh association blow, 
    And year by year the landscape grow 
Familiar to the stranger’s child;

As year by year the labourer tills 
    His wonted glebe, or lops the glades; 
    And year by year our memory fades 
From all the circle of the hills. 

  

CII.
  
We leave the well-beloved place 
    Where first we gazed upon the sky; 
    The roofs, that heard our earliest cry, 
Will shelter one of stranger race. 
We go, but ere we go from home, 
    As down the garden-walks I move, 
    Two spirits of a diverse love 
Contend for loving masterdom. 

One whispers, ‘Here thy boyhood sung 
    Long since its matin song, and heard 
    The low love-language of the bird 
In native hazels tassel-hung.’ 

The other answers, ‘Yea, but here 
    Thy feet have stray’d in after hours 
    With thy lost friend among the bowers, 
And this hath made them trebly dear.’ 
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