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Alfred Lord Tennyson - In Memoriam A. H. H.
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  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 hew
    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."

  These two have striven half the day,
    And each prefers his separate claim,
    Poor rivals in a losing game,
  That will not yield each other way.

  I turn to go: my feet are set
    To leave the pleasant fields and farms;
    They mix in one another`s arms
  To one pure image of regret.CIII
  On that last night before we went
    From out the doors where I was bred,
    I dream`d a vision of the dead,
  Which left my after-morn content.
  Methought I dwelt within a hall,
    And maidens with me: distant hills
    From hidden summits fed with rills
  A river sliding by the wall.
  The hall with harp and carol rang.
    They sang of what is wise and good
    And graceful. In the centre stood
  A statue veil`d, to which they sang;

  And which, tho` veil`d, was known to me,
    The shape of him I loved, and love
    For ever: then flew in a dove
  And brought a summons from the sea:

  And when they learnt that I must go
    They wept and wail`d, but led the way
    To where a little shallop lay
  At anchor in the flood below;

  And on by many a level mead,
    And shadowing bluff that made the banks,
    We glided winding under ranks
  Of iris, and the golden reed;

  And still as vaster grew the shore
    And roll`d the floods in grander space,
    The maidens gather`d strength and grace
  And presence, lordlier than before;

  And I myself, who sat apart
    And watch`d them, wax`d in every limb;
    I felt the thews of Anakim,
  The pulses of a Titan`s heart;

  As one would sing the death of war,
    And one would chant the history
    Of that great race, which is to be,
  And one the shaping of a star;

  Until the forward-creeping tides
    Began to foam, and we to draw
    From deep to deep, to where we saw
  A great ship lift her shining sides.

  The man we loved was there on deck,
    But thrice as large as man he bent
    To greet us. Up the side I went,
  And fell in silence on his neck;

  Whereat those maidens with one mind
    Bewail`d their lot; I did them wrong:
    "We served thee here," they said, "so long,
  And wilt thou leave us now behind?"

  So rapt I was, they could not win
    An answer from my lips, but he
    Replying, "Enter likewise ye
  And go with us:" they enter`d in.

  And while the wind began to sweep
    A music out of sheet and shroud,
    We steer`d her toward a crimson cloud 
  That landlike slept along the deep.CIV
  The time draws near the birth of Christ;
    The moon is hid, the night is still;
    A single church below the hill
  Is pealing, folded in the mist.
  A single peal of bells below,
    That wakens at this hour of rest
    A single murmur in the breast,
  That these are not the bells I know.
  Like strangers` voices here they sound,
    In lands where not a memory strays,
    Nor landmark breathes of other days,
  But all is new unhallow`d ground.CV
  To-night ungather`d let us leave
    This laurel, let this holly stand:
    We live within the stranger`s land,
  And strangely falls our Christmas-eve.
  Our father`s dust is left alone
    And silent under other snows:
    There in due time the woodbine blows,
  The violet comes, but we are gone.
  No more shall wayward grief abuse
    The genial hour with mask and mime;
    For change of place, like growth of time,
  Has broke the bond of dying use.

  Let cares that petty shadows cast,
    By which our lives are chiefly proved,
    A little spare the night I loved,
  And hold it solemn to the past.

  But let no footstep beat the floor,
    Nor bowl of wassail mantle warm;
    For who would keep an ancient form 
  Thro` which the spirit breathes no more?

  Be neither song, nor game, nor feast;
    Nor harp be touch`d, nor flute be blown;
    No dance, no motion, save alone
  What lightens in the lucid east

  Of rising worlds by yonder wood.
    Long sleeps the summer in the seed;
    Run out your measured arcs, and lead 
  The closing cycle rich in good.CVI
  Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
    The flying cloud, the frosty light:
    The year is dying in the night;
  Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
  Ring out the old, ring in the new,
    Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
    The year is going, let him go;
  Ring out the false, ring in the true.
  Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
    For those that here we see no more;
    Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
  Ring in redress to all mankind.

  Ring out a slowly dying cause,
    And ancient forms of party strife;
    Ring in the nobler modes of life,
  With sweeter manners, purer laws.

  Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
    The faithless coldness of the times;
    Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
  But ring the fuller minstrel in.

  Ring out false pride in place and blood,
    The civic slander and the spite;
    Ring in the love of truth and right,
  Ring in the common love of good.

  Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
    Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
    Ring out the thousand wars of old,
  Ring in the thousand years of peace.

  Ring in the valiant man and free,
    The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
    Ring out the darkness of the land,
  Ring in the Christ that is to be.CVII
  It is the day when he was born,
    A bitter day that early sank
    Behind a purple-frosty bank
  Of vapour, leaving night forlorn.
  The time admits not flowers or leaves
    To deck the banquet. Fiercely flies
    The blast of North and East, and ice
  Makes daggers at the sharpen`d eaves,
  And bristles all the brakes and thorns
    To yon hard crescent, as she hangs
    Above the wood which grides and clangs
  Its leafless ribs and iron horns

  Together, in the drifts that pass
    To darken on the rolling brine
    That breaks the coast. But fetch the wine,
  Arrange the board and brim the glass;

  Bring in great logs and let them lie,
    To make a solid core of heat;
    Be cheerful-minded, talk and treat
  Of all things ev`n as he were by;

  We keep the day. With festal cheer,
    With books and music, surely we
    Will drink to him, whate`er he be,
  And sing the songs he loved to hear.CVIII
  I will not shut me from my kind,
    And, lest I stiffen into stone,
    I will not eat my heart alone,
  Nor feed with sighs a passing wind:
  What profit lies in barren faith,
    And vacant yearning, tho` with might
    To scale the heaven`s highest height,
  Or dive below the wells of Death?
  What find I in the highest place,
    But mine own phantom chanting hymns?
    And on the depths of death there swims
  The reflex of a human face.

 I`ll rather take what fruit may be
    Of sorrow under human skies:
    `Tis held that sorrow makes us wise,
  Whatever wisdom sleep with thee.CIX
  Heart-affluence in discursive talk
    From household fountains never dry;
    The critic clearness of an eye,
  That saw thro` all the Muses` walk;
  Seraphic intellect and force
    To seize and throw the doubts of man;
    Impassion`d logic, which outran
  The hearer in its fiery course;
  High nature amorous of the good,
    But touch`d with no ascetic gloom;
    And passion pure in snowy bloom
  Thro` all the years of April blood;

  A love of freedom rarely felt,
    Of freedom in her regal seat
    Of England; not the schoolboy heat,
  The blind hysterics of the Celt;

  And manhood fused with female grace 
    In such a sort, the child would twine
    A trustful hand, unask`d, in thine,
  And find his comfort in thy face;

  All these have been, and thee mine eyes 
    Have look`d on: if they look`d in vain,
    My shame is greater who remain,
  Nor let thy wisdom make me wise.CX
  Thy converse drew us with delight,
    The men of rathe and riper years:
    The feeble soul, a haunt of fears, 
  Forgot his weakness in thy sight.
  On thee the loyal-hearted hung,
    The proud was half disarm`d of pride,
    Nor cared the serpent at thy side 
  To flicker with his double tongue.
  The stern were mild when thou wert by,
    The flippant put himself to school
    And heard thee, and the brazen fool 
  Was soften`d, and he knew not why;

  While I, thy nearest, sat apart,
    And felt thy triumph was as mine;
    And loved them more, that they were thine, 
  The graceful tact, the Christian art;

  Nor mine the sweetness or the skill,
    But mine the love that will not tire,
    And, born of love, the vague desire 
  That spurs an imitative will.CXI
  The churl in spirit, up or down
    Along the scale of ranks, thro` all,
    To him who grasps a golden ball,
  By blood a king, at heart a clown; 
  The churl in spirit, howe`er he veil
    His want in forms for fashion`s sake,
    Will let his coltish nature break
  At seasons thro` the gilded pale:
  For who can always act? but he,
    To whom a thousand memories call,
    Not being less but more than all
  The gentleness he seem`d to be,

  Best seem`d the thing he was, and join`d
    Each office of the social hour
    To noble manners, as the flower
  And native growth of noble mind;

  Nor ever narrowness or spite,
    Or villain fancy fleeting by,
    Drew in the expression of an eye,
  Where God and Nature met in light;

  And thus he bore without abuse
    The grand old name of gentleman,
    Defamed by every charlatan,
  And soil`d with all ignoble use.CXII
  High wisdom holds my wisdom less,
    That I, who gaze with temperate eyes
    On glorious insufficiencies,
  Set light by narrower perfectness.
  But thou, that fillest all the room
    Of all my love, art reason why
    I seem to cast a careless eye
  On souls, the lesser lords of doom.
  For what wert thou? some novel power
    Sprang up for ever at a touch,
    And hope could never hope too much,
  In watching thee from hour to hour,

  Large elements in order brought,
    And tracts of calm from tempest made,
    And world-wide fluctuation sway`d
  In vassal tides that follow`d thought.CXIII
  `Tis held that sorrow makes us wise;
    Yet how much wisdom sleeps with thee
    Which not alone had guided me,
  But served the seasons that may rise;
  For can I doubt, who knew thee keen
    In intellect, with force and skill
    To strive, to fashion, to fulfil — 
  I doubt not what thou wouldst have been:
  A life in civic action warm,
    A soul on highest mission sent,
    A potent voice of Parliament,
  A pillar steadfast in the storm,

  Should licensed boldness gather force,
    Becoming, when the time has birth,
    A lever to uplift the earth
  And roll it in another course,

  With thousand shocks that come and go,
    With agonies, with energies,
    With overthrowings, and with cries
  And undulations to and fro.CXIV
  Who loves not Knowledge? Who shall rail
    Against her beauty? May she mix
    With men and prosper! Who shall fix
  Her pillars? Let her work prevail.
  But on her forehead sits a fire:
    She sets her forward countenance
    And leaps into the future chance,
  Submitting all things to desire.
  Half-grown as yet, a child, and vain — 
    She cannot fight the fear of death.
    What is she, cut from love and faith,
  But some wild Pallas from the brain

  Of Demons? fiery-hot to burst
    All barriers in her onward race
    For power. Let her know her place;
  She is the second, not the first.

  A higher hand must make her mild,
    If all be not in vain; and guide
    Her footsteps, moving side by side
  With wisdom, like the younger child:

  For she is earthly of the mind,
    But Wisdom heavenly of the soul.
    O, friend, who camest to thy goal
  So early, leaving me behind,

  I would the great world grew like thee,
    Who grewest not alone in power
    And knowledge, but by year and hour
  In reverence and in charity.CXV
  Now fades the last long streak of snow,
    Now burgeons every maze of quick
    About the flowering squares, and thick
  By ashen roots the violets blow.
  Now rings the woodland loud and long,
    The distance takes a lovelier hue,
    And drown`d in yonder living blue
  The lark becomes a sightless song.
  Now dance the lights on lawn and lea,
    The flocks are whiter down the vale,
    And milkier every milky sail
  On winding stream or distant sea;

  Where now the seamew pipes, or dives
    In yonder greening gleam, and fly
    The happy birds, that change their sky
  To build and brood; that live their lives

  From land to land; and in my breast
    Spring wakens too; and my regret
    Becomes an April violet,
  And buds and blossoms like the rest.CXVI
  Is it, then, regret for buried time
    That keenlier in sweet April wakes,
    And meets the year, and gives and takes
  The colours of the crescent prime?
  Not all: the songs, the stirring air,
    The life re-orient out of dust
    Cry thro` the sense to hearten trust
  In that which made the world so fair.
  Not all regret: the face will shine
    Upon me, while I muse alone;
    And that dear voice, I once have known,
  Still speak to me of me and mine:

  Yet less of sorrow lives in me
    For days of happy commune dead;
    Less yearning for the friendship fled,
  Than some strong bond which is to be.CXVII
  O days and hours, your work is this
    To hold me from my proper place,
    A little while from his embrace, 
  For fuller gain of after bliss:
  That out of distance might ensue
    Desire of nearness doubly sweet;
    And unto meeting when we meet,
  Delight a hundredfold accrue,
  For every grain of sand that runs,
    And every span of shade that steals,
    And every kiss of toothed wheels, 
  And all the courses of the suns.CXVIII
  Contemplate all this work of Time, 
    The giant labouring in his youth; 
    Nor dream of human love and truth, 
  As dying Nature`s earth and lime;
  But trust that those we call the dead
    Are breathers of an ampler day
    For ever nobler ends. They say,
  The solid earth whereon we tread
  In tracts of fluent heat began, 
    And grew to seeming-random forms, 
    The seeming prey of cyclic storms, 
  Till at the last arose the man;

  Who throve and branch`d from clime to clime,
    The herald of a higher race,
    And of himself in higher place,
  If so he type this work of time

  Within himself, from more to more;
    Or, crown`d with attributes of woe
    Like glories, move his course, and show
  That life is not as idle ore,

  But iron dug from central gloom,
    And heated hot with burning fears,
    And dipt in baths of hissing tears,
  And batter`d with the shocks of doom

  To shape and use. Arise and fly
    The reeling Faun, the sensual feast;
    Move upward, working out the beast,
  And let the ape and tiger die.CXIX
  Doors, where my heart was used to beat
    So quickly, not as one that weeps
    I come once more; the city sleeps;
  I smell the meadow in the street;
  I hear a chirp of birds; I see
    Betwixt the black fronts long-withdrawn
    A light-blue lane of early dawn,
  And think of early days and thee,
  And bless thee, for thy lips are bland,
    And bright the friendship of thine eye;
    And in my thoughts with scarce a sigh
  I take the pressure of thine hand.CXX
  I trust I have not wasted breath:
    I think we are not wholly brain,
    Magnetic mockeries; not in vain,
  Like Paul with beasts, I fought with Death;
  Not only cunning casts in clay:
    Let Science prove we are, and then
    What matters Science unto men, 
  At least to me? I would not stay.
  Let him, the wiser man who springs 
    Hereafter, up from childhood shape 
    His action like the greater ape, 
  But I was born to other things.CXXI
  Sad Hesper o`er the buried sun
    And ready, thou, to die with him,
    Thou watchest all things ever dim
  And dimmer, and a glory done:
  The team is loosen`d from the wain,
    The boat is drawn upon the shore;
    Thou listenest to the closing door,
  And life is darken`d in the brain.
  Bright Phosphor, fresher for the night,
    By thee the world`s great work is heard
    Beginning, and the wakeful bird;
  Behind thee comes the greater light:

  The market boat is on the stream,
    And voices hail it from the brink;
    Thou hear`st the village hammer clink,
  And see`st the moving of the team.

  Sweet Hesper-Phosphor, double name
    For what is one, the first, the last,
    Thou, like my present and my past,
  Thy place is changed; thou art the same.CXXII
  Oh, wast thou with me, dearest, then,
    While I rose up against my doom,
    And yearn`d to burst the folded gloom,
  To bare the eternal Heavens again,
  To feel once more, in placid awe,
    The strong imagination roll
    A sphere of stars about my soul,
  In all her motion one with law;
  If thou wert with me, and the grave
    Divide us not, be with me now,
    And enter in at breast and brow,
  Till all my blood, a fuller wave,

  Be quicken`d with a livelier breath,
    And like an inconsiderate boy,
    As in the former flash of joy,
  I slip the thoughts of life and death;

  And all the breeze of Fancy blows,
    And every dew-drop paints a bow,
    The wizard lightnings deeply glow,
  And every thought breaks out a rose.CXXIII
  There rolls the deep where grew the tree.
    O earth, what changes hast thou seen!
    There where the long street roars, hath been
  The stillness of the central sea.
  The hills are shadows, and they flow
    From form to form, and nothing stands;
    They melt like mist, the solid lands,
  Like clouds they shape themselves and go.
  But in my spirit will I dwell,
    And dream my dream, and hold it true;
    For tho` my lips may breathe adieu,
  I cannot think the thing farewell.CXXIV
  That which we dare invoke to bless;
    Our dearest faith; our ghastliest doubt;
    He, They, One, All; within, without;
  The Power in darkness whom we guess;
  I found Him not in world or sun,
    Or eagle`s wing, or insect`s eye;
    Nor thro` the questions men may try,
  The petty cobwebs we have spun:
  If e`er when faith had fall`n asleep,
    I heard a voice `believe no more`
    And heard an ever-breaking shore
  That tumbled in the Godless deep;

  A warmth within the breast would melt
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