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 ALFRED ■ LORD -TEiNNYSOW 
 
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 IN-MEMORIAM* AS-WRITTEN 
 BY* ALFRED • LORD TENJVYSOW 
 
 FROM THE INCOME OF THE 
 
 FISKE ENDOWMENT FUND 
 
 THE BEQUEST OF 
 Librarian of the University 1868-1883 
 
 1905 
 
 ^■MU^\ 
 
 ± 
 
 MD • C C C • XL • IX 
 

 IN-MEMORIAM* AS-WRITTEN 
 BY* ALFRED • LORD -TENNYSON 
 
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 Cornell University Library 
 PR S562.A1 1900 
 
 In memorlam A.H.H. as written MDCCCXLIX 
 
 3 1924 013 559 434 
 
 M-D • C C C XL • IX 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013559434 
 
in fllpemoriam 
 
3n Mmovmm ^.^.^. 
 
 AS WRITTEN BY ALFRED 
 LORD TENNYSON 
 MDCCCXLIX. 
 
 WITH RUBRICATED INITIALS FROM 
 DESIGNS.. .. By BLANCHE McMANUS 
 
 Published by Cl^e TBailftjSiDC '^tt^^ London 
 and sold by M. F. MANSFIELD, New York 
 
Copyright 
 
 igoo 
 
 Blanche McManus Mansfield 
 
 KzZ3lak> I 
 
STRONG Son of God, immortal Love, 
 
 Whom we, that have not seen thy face. 
 By faith, and faith alone, embrace, 
 
 Believing where we cannot prove; 
 
 Thine are these orbs of light and shade; 
 
 Thou madest Life in man and brute; 
 
 Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot 
 Is on the skull which thou hast made. 
 
 Thou wilt not leave us in the dust: 
 
 Thou madest man, he knows not why. 
 He thinks he was not made to die; 
 
 And thou hast made him : thou art just. 
 
 Thou seemest human and divine. 
 
 The highest, holiest manhood, thou: 
 Our wills are ours, we know not how ; 
 
 Our wills are ours, to make them thine. 
 
in i8I^emotfam 
 
 Our little systems have their day; 
 
 They have their day and cease to be : 
 They are but broken lights of thee, 
 
 And thou, O Lord, art more than they. 
 
 We have but faith: we cannot know; 
 
 For knowledge is of things we see; 
 
 And yet we trust it comes from thee, 
 A beam in darkness: let it grow. 
 
 Let knowledge grow from more to more, 
 But more of reverence in us dwell ; 
 That mind and soul, according well, 
 
 May make one music as before. 
 
 But vaster. We are fools and slight; 
 
 We mock thee when we do not fear; 
 
 But help thy foolish ones to bear; 
 Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light. 
 
 Forgive what seem'd my sin in me; 
 
 What seem'd my worth since I began; 
 
 For merit lives from man to man. 
 And not from man, O Lord, to thee. 
 
 Forgive my grief for one removed. 
 
 Thy creature, whom I found so fair. 
 I trust he lives in thee, and there 
 
 I find him worthier to be loved. 
 
 Forgive these wild and wandering cries. 
 Confusions of a wasted youth; 
 Forgive them where they fail in truth. 
 
 And in thy wisdom make me wise. 
 
 [12] 
 
9in flr^emorfam 
 
 O/gr^g^ 
 
 ^^^m 
 
 '^^ 
 
 ■1 
 
 p%' 
 
 m 
 
 
 
 /|| 
 
 »^ 
 
 
 
 "^mP^ 
 
 
 ■ijj 
 
 
 e>Mi^ 
 
 *ir^n^ 
 
 W^^M^ 
 
 ^teiX^*^ 
 
 ^^^^^^-^1 
 
 HELD it truth, with him 
 who sings 
 
 To one clear harp in di- 
 vers tones, 
 
 That men may rise on 
 stepping-stones 
 Of their dead selves to 
 higher things. 
 
 But who shall so forecast the years 
 And find in loss a gain to match? 
 Or reach a hand thro' time to catch 
 
 The far-off interest of tears? 
 
 Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown' d. 
 Let darkness keep her raven gloss: 
 Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss, 
 
 To dance with death, to beat the ground, 
 
 Than that the victor Hours should scorn 
 The long result of love, and boast, 
 ' Behold the man that loved and lost. 
 
 But all he was is overworn.' 
 
 II 
 LD Yew, which graspest 
 at the stones 
 That name the under-ly- 
 ing dead, 
 
 Thy fibres net the dream- 
 less head, 
 
 Thy roots are wrapt 
 about the bones. 
 
 [13] 
 
gin fll^emortam 
 
 II 
 
 The seasons bring the flower again, 
 And bring the firstling to the flock; 
 And in the dusk of thee, the clock 
 
 Beats out the little lives of men. 
 
 O not for thee the glow, the bloom, 
 Who changest not in any gale. 
 Nor branding summer suns avail 
 
 To touch thy thousand years of gloom: 
 
 And gazing on thee, sullen tree. 
 Sick for thy stubborn hardihood, 
 I seem to fail from out my blood 
 
 And grow incorporate into thee. 
 
 Ill 
 SORROW, cruel fellow- 
 ship, 
 
 O Priestess in the vaults 
 of Death, 
 
 O sweet and bitter in a 
 breath, 
 
 W^hat whispers from thy 
 lying lip? 
 
 'The stars,' she whispers, 'blindly run; 
 
 A web is wov'n across the sky; 
 
 From out waste places comes a cry, 
 And murmurs from the dying sun : 
 
 'And all the phantom. Nature, stands — 
 With all the music in her tone, 
 A hollow echo of my own, — 
 
 A hollow form with empty hands.' 
 
 [14] 
 
9In fll^etnoriam 
 
 III 
 
 And shall I take a thing so blind, 
 
 Embrace her as my natural good: 
 Or crush her like a vice of blood, 
 
 Upon the threshold of the mind. 
 
 IV 
 
 Sleep I give my pow- 
 ers away; 
 
 My will is bondsman to 
 the dark; 
 
 1 sit within a helmless 
 bark; 
 
 And with my heart I 
 muse and say: 
 
 O heart, how fares it with thee now. 
 
 That thou shouldst fail from thy desire, 
 Who scarcely darest to inquire, 
 
 'What is it makes me beat so low?' 
 
 Something it is which thou hast lost. 
 Some pleasure from thy early years. 
 Break, thou deep vase of chilling tears, 
 
 That grief hath shaken into frost! 
 
 Such clouds of nameless trouble cross 
 All night below the darken' d eyes; 
 With morning wakes the will and cries, 
 
 'Thou shalt not be the fool of loss.' 
 
 ^ 
 
 ['5] 
 
91n ^zmoviam 
 
 SOMETIMES hold it 
 
 half a sin 
 
 To put in words the grief 
 
 I feel; 
 
 For words, like Nature, 
 
 half reveal 
 
 And half conceal the Soul 
 
 within. 
 
 But, for the unquiet heart and brain, 
 A use in measured language lies; 
 The sad mechanic exercise, 
 
 Like dull narcotics, numbing pain. 
 
 In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er. 
 Like coarsest clothes against the cold; 
 But that large grief which these enfold 
 
 Is given in outline and no more. 
 
 VI 
 NE writes, that 'Other 
 friends remain ' ; 
 That • Loss is common 
 to the race' — 
 And common is the com- 
 place, 
 
 And vacant chaff well 
 meant for grain. 
 
 That loss is common would not make 
 My own less bitter, rather more : 
 Too common! never morning wore 
 
 To evening, but some heart did break. 
 
 [16] 
 
31n apemoriam vi 
 
 O father, wheresoe'er thou be, 
 
 W^ho pledgest now thy gallant son; 
 A shot, ere half thy draught be done, 
 
 Hath still' d the life that beat from thee. 
 
 O mother, praying God will save 
 
 Thy sailor, — while thy head is bow'd 
 His heavy-shotted hammock-shroud 
 
 Drops in his vast and wandering grave. 
 
 Ye know no more than I who wrought 
 At that last hour to please him well; 
 Who mused on all I had to tell. 
 
 And something written, something thought ; 
 
 Expecting still his advent home; 
 And ever met him on his way 
 "With wishes, thinking, 'here to-day,' 
 
 Or 'here to-morrow will he come.' 
 
 O somewhere, meek, unconscious dove. 
 That sittest 'ranging golden hair; 
 And glad to find thyself so fair, 
 
 Poor child, that waitest for thy love! 
 
 For now her father's chimney glows 
 
 In expectation of a guest; 
 
 And thinking ' this will please him best,' 
 She takes a riband or a rose; 
 
 For he will see them on to-night; 
 
 And with the thought her colour bums ; 
 
 And, having left the glass, she turns 
 Once more to set a ringlet right. 
 
 [17] 
 
Sin ^tmoviam 
 
 VI 
 
 And, even when she tum'd, the curse 
 Had fallen, and her future Lord 
 Was drown' d in passing thro' the ford, 
 
 Or kill'd in falling from his horse. 
 
 O what to her shall be the end? 
 
 And what remains to me of good? 
 
 To her, perpetual maidenhood, 
 And unto me no second friend. 
 
 VII 
 
 ARK house, by which 
 once more I stand 
 Here in the long un- 
 lovely street, 
 Doors, where my heart 
 was used to beat 
 So quickly, waiting for a 
 hand, 
 
 A hand that can be clasp' d no more — 
 Behold me, for I cannot sleep, 
 And like a guilty thing I creep 
 
 At earliest morning to the door. 
 
 He is not here; but far away 
 
 The noise of life begins again. 
 And ghastly thro' the drizzling rain 
 
 On the bald street breaks the blank day. 
 
 ^ 
 
 [18] 
 
31n j^emorfam 
 
 VIII 
 
 m( 
 
 
 K 
 
 'O 
 
 
 i 
 
 m 
 
 i/^^A^'^P bS ie5!^*\ 
 
 K^ 
 
 im 
 
 S^^^'^^S 
 
 9^1 
 
 
 
 ^-Ni^l 
 
 HAPPY lover who has 
 
 come 
 
 To look on her that loves 
 
 him well, 
 
 Who 'lights and rings 
 
 the gateway bell, 
 
 And learns her gone and 
 
 far from home; 
 
 He saddens, all the magic light 
 
 Dies off at once from bower and hall, 
 And all the place is dark, and all 
 
 The chambers emptied of delight: 
 
 So find I every pleasant spot 
 
 In which we two were wont to meet, 
 The field, the chamber, and the street, 
 
 For all is dark where thou art not. 
 
 Yet as that other, wandering there 
 In those deserted walks, may find 
 A flower beat with rain and wind. 
 
 Which once she foster' d up with care; 
 
 So seems it in my deep regret, 
 
 my forsaken heart, with thee 
 And this poor flower of poesy 
 
 Which little cared for fades not yet. 
 
 But since it pleased a vanish' d eye, 
 
 1 go to plant it on his tomb. 
 That if it can it there may bloom, 
 
 Or dying, there at least may die. 
 
 ['9] 
 
%n flipemoriam 
 
 IX 
 
 AIR ship, that from the 
 Italian shore 
 Sailest the placid ocean- 
 plains 
 
 With my lost Arthur's 
 loved remains. 
 Spread thy full wings, 
 and waft him o'er. 
 
 So draw him home to those that mourn 
 In vain; a favorable speed 
 Ruffle thy mirror' d mast, and lead 
 
 Thro' prosperous floods his holy urn. 
 
 All night no ruder air perplex 
 
 Thy sliding keel, till Phosphor, bright 
 As our pure love, thro' early light 
 
 Shall glimmer on the dewy decks. 
 
 Sphere all your lights around, above; 
 
 Sleep, gentle heavens, before the prow ; 
 
 Sleep, gentle winds, as he sleeps now, 
 My friend, the brother of my love; 
 
 My Arthur, whom I shall not see 
 Till all my widow' d race be run; 
 Dear as the mother to the son, 
 
 More than my brothers are to me. 
 
 ^ 
 
 [20] 
 
in i^emovfam 
 
 X 
 
 HEAR the noise about 
 
 thy keel; 
 
 I hear the bell struck in 
 
 the night: 
 
 I see the cabin-window 
 
 bright; 
 
 I see the sailor at the 
 
 wheel. 
 
 Thou bring'st the sailor to his wife, 
 
 And travel!' d men from foreign lands; 
 And letters unto trembling hands; 
 
 And, thy dark freight, a vanish' d life. 
 
 So bring him : we have idle dreams : 
 This look of quiet flatters thus 
 Our home-bred fancies: O to us. 
 
 The fools of habit, sweeter seems 
 
 To rest beneath the clover sod. 
 
 That takes the sunshine and the rains. 
 Or where the kneeling hamlet drains 
 
 The chalice of the grapes of God ; 
 
 Than if with thee the roaring wells 
 
 Should gulf him fathom-deep in brine ; 
 And hands so often clasp' d in mine. 
 
 Should toss with tangle and with shells. 
 
 « 
 
 [«] 
 
9In a^emotfam 
 
 XI 
 
 ALM is the morn with- 
 out a sound, 
 Calm as to suit a calm- 
 er grief, 
 
 And only thro' the faded 
 leaf 
 
 The chestnut pattering 
 to the ground: 
 
 Calm and deep peace on this high wold, 
 And on these dews that drench the furze, 
 And all the silvery gossamers 
 
 That twinkle into green and gold: 
 
 Calm and still light on yon great plain 
 That sweeps with all its autumn bowers, 
 And crowded farms and lessening towers 
 
 To mingle with the bounding main: 
 
 Calm and deep peace in this wide air. 
 These leaves that redden to the fall; 
 And in my heart, if calm at all, 
 
 If any calm, a calm despair: 
 
 Calm on the seas, and silver sleep, 
 
 And waves that sway themselves in rest, 
 And dead calm in that noble breast 
 
 Which heaves but with the heaving deep. 
 
 ^ 
 
 [a»] 
 
in i^emoriam 
 
 XII 
 
 O, as a dove when up 
 
 she springs 
 
 To bear thro' Heaven a 
 
 tale of woe, 
 
 Some dolorous message 
 
 knit below 
 
 The wild pulsation of 
 
 her wings; 
 
 Like her I go; I cannot stay; 
 
 I leave this mortal ark behind, 
 
 A weight of nerves without a mind, 
 
 And leave the cliffs, and haste away 
 
 O'er ocean-mirrors rounded large. 
 
 And reach the glow of southern skies, 
 And see the sails at distance rise, 
 
 And linger weeping on the marge, 
 
 And saying ; ' Comes he thus, my friend ? 
 Is this the end of all my care?' ■ 
 And circle moaning in the air: ' 
 
 'Is this the end? Is this the end?' 
 
 And forward dart again, and play 
 About the prow, and back return 
 To where the body sits, and learn 
 
 That I have been an hour away. 
 
 H 
 
 [23] 
 
9In fll^eraotfam 
 
 XIII 
 
 BARS of the widower, 
 
 when he sees 
 
 A late-lost form that 
 
 sleep reveals, 
 
 And moves his doubtful 
 
 arms, and feels 
 
 Her place is empty, fall 
 
 like these; 
 
 Which weep a loss for ever new, 
 
 A void where heart on heart reposed; 
 And, where warm hands have prest and 
 
 Silence, till I be silent too. [closed. 
 
 Which weep the comrade of my choice. 
 An awful thought, a life removed. 
 The human-hearted man I loved, 
 
 A Spirit, not a breathing voice. 
 
 Come Time, and teach me, many years, 
 
 I do not suffer in a dream; 
 
 For now so strange do these things seem, 
 Mine eyes have leisure for their tears; 
 
 My fancies time to rise on wing. 
 
 And glance about the approaching sails. 
 As tho' they brought but merchants' bales 
 
 And not the burthen that they bring. 
 
 « 
 
 [**] 
 
%n ^tmoviam 
 
 XIV 
 
 MfflB 
 
 ! 
 
 1 
 
 F one should bring me 
 
 this report, 
 
 That thou hadst touch' d 
 
 the land to-day, 
 
 And I went down unto 
 
 the quay, 
 
 And found thee lying in 
 
 the port; 
 
 And standing, muffled round with woe. 
 Should see thy passengers in rank 
 Come stepping lightly down the plank, 
 
 And beckoning unto those they know; 
 
 And if along with these should come 
 The man I held as half-divine; 
 Should strike a sudden hand in mine, 
 
 And ask a thousand things of home; 
 
 And I should tell him all my pain. 
 
 And how my life had droop' d of late. 
 And he should sorrow o'er my state 
 
 And marvel what possess' d my brain; 
 
 And I perceived no touch of change. 
 No hint of death in all his frame. 
 But found him all in all the same, 
 
 I should not feel it to be strange. 
 
 n! 
 
 twl 
 
9!n flipemoriam 
 
 XV 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^^^^^ ^R^^fSsw^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 y^^Mjn\i|i 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 \vmSwJ^ 
 
 
 Si 
 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 ^::,^tfc=i5=— 
 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 ^/Wjl -^j^^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 ^M 
 
 
 
 
 O-NIGHT the winds 
 
 begin to rise 
 
 And roar from yonder 
 
 dropping day: 
 
 The last red leaf is 
 
 whirl' d away, 
 
 The rooks are blown 
 
 about the skies; 
 
 The forest crack' d, the waters curl'd, 
 The cattle huddled on the lea; 
 And wildly dash'd on tower and tree 
 
 The sunbeam strikes along the world: 
 
 And but for fancies, which aver 
 
 That all thy motions gently pass 
 Athwart a plane of molten glass, 
 
 I scarce could brook the strain and stir 
 
 That makes the barren branches loud; 
 And but for fear it is not so, 
 The wild unrest that lives in woe 
 
 Would dote and pore on yonder cloud 
 
 That rises upward always higher, 
 
 And onward drags a labouring breast, 
 And topples round the dreary west, 
 
 A looming bastion fringed with fire. 
 
 ^ 
 
 [26] 
 
31ti ^emovfam 
 
 XVI 
 
 HAT words are these 
 
 have fall'n from me? 
 
 Can calm despair and 
 
 wild unrest 
 
 Be tenants of a single 
 
 breast, 
 
 Or sorrow such a 
 
 changeling be? 
 
 Or doth she only seem to take 
 
 The touch of change in calm or storm ; 
 
 But knows no more of transient form 
 In her deep self, than some dead lake 
 
 That holds the shadow of a lark 
 
 Hung in the shadow of a heaven? 
 Or has the shock, so harshly given, 
 
 Confused me like the unhappy bark 
 
 That strikes by night a craggy shelf, 
 And staggers blindly ere she sink? 
 And stunn'd me from my power to think 
 
 And all my knowledge of myself; 
 
 And made me that delirious man 
 Whose fancy fuses old and new, 
 And flashes into false and true, 
 
 And mingles all without a plan? 
 
 H 
 
 [27] 
 
3In iSl^emortam 
 
 XVII 
 
 5^ 
 
 s 
 
 1 
 
 ^ft 
 
 HOU comest, much wept 
 
 for: such a breeze 
 
 Compell'd thy canvas, 
 
 and my prayer 
 
 Was as the whisper of 
 
 an air 
 
 To breathe thee over 
 
 lonely seas. 
 
 For I in spirit saw thee move 
 
 Thro' circles of the bounding sky, 
 Week after week: the days go by: 
 
 Come quick, thou bringest all I love. 
 
 Henceforth, wherever thou may'st roam, 
 My blessing, like a line of light. 
 Is on the waters day and night, 
 
 And like a beacon guards thee home. 
 
 So may whatever tempest mars 
 
 Mid-ocean, spare thee, sacred bark ; 
 And balmy drops in summer dark 
 
 Slide from the bosom of the stars. 
 
 So kind an office hath been done. 
 
 Such precious relics brought by thee; 
 The dust of him I shall not see 
 
 Till all my widow' d race be run. 
 
 « 
 
 taS] 
 
9!n a^etnotfam 
 
 XVIII 
 
 IS well; 'tis something; 
 
 we may stand 
 
 Where he in English 
 
 earth is laid, 
 
 And from his ashes may 
 
 be made 
 
 The violet of his native 
 
 land. 
 
 'Tis little ; but it looks in truth 
 
 As if the quiet bones were blest 
 Among familiar names to rest 
 
 And in the places of his youth. 
 
 Come then, pure hands, and bear the head 
 That sleeps or wears the mask of sleep, 
 And come, whatever loves to weep, 
 
 And hear the ritual of the dead. 
 
 Ah yet, ev'n yet, if this might be, 
 I, falling on his faithful heart, 
 Would breathing thro' his lips impart 
 
 The life that almost dies in me; 
 
 That dies not, but endures with pain, 
 And slowly forms the firmer mind. 
 Treasuring the look it cannot find, 
 
 The words that are not heard again. 
 
 ^ 
 
 [»] 
 
in !^emodam 
 
 XIX 
 
 HE Danube to the 
 
 Severn gave 
 
 The darken' d heart that 
 
 beat no more; 
 
 They laid him by the 
 
 pleasant shore, 
 
 And in the hearing of 
 
 the wave. 
 
 There twice a day the Severn fills; 
 The salt sea-water passes by, 
 And hushes half the babbling Wye, 
 
 And makes a silence in the hills. 
 
 The Wye is hush'd nor moved along, 
 And hush'd my deepest grief of all. 
 When fill'd with tears that cannot fall, 
 
 I brim with sorrow drowning song. 
 
 The tide flows down, the wave again 
 Is vocal in its wooded walls; 
 My deeper anguish also falls. 
 
 And I can speak a little then. 
 
 XX 
 
 HE lesser griefs that 
 
 may be said. 
 
 That breathe a thousand 
 
 tender vows, 
 
 Are but as servants in 
 
 a house 
 
 Where lies the master 
 
 newly dead; 
 
 [30] 
 
%n fllpemotrfam 
 
 XX 
 
 Who speak their feeling as it is, 
 
 And weep the fulness from the mind: 
 *It will be hard,' they say, *to find 
 
 Another service such as this.' 
 
 My lighter moods are like to these. 
 That out of words a comfort win; 
 But there are other griefs within, 
 
 And tears that at their fountain freeze; 
 
 For by the hearth the children sit 
 
 Cold in that atmosphere of Death, 
 And scarce endure to draw the breath. 
 
 Or like to noiseless phantoms flit: 
 
 But open converse is there none, 
 So much the vital spirits sink 
 To see the vacant chair, and think, 
 
 * How good ! how kind ! and he is gone.' 
 
 XXI 
 
 SING to him that rests 
 
 below. 
 
 And, since the grasses 
 
 round me wave, 
 
 I take the grasses of the 
 
 grave. 
 
 And make them pipes 
 
 whereon to blow. 
 
 The traveller hears me now and then, 
 And sometimes harshly will he speak: 
 'This fellow would make weakness 
 
 And melt the waxen hearts of men.' [weak, 
 
 [31] 
 
%n iS^tmoviam 
 
 XXI 
 
 Another answers, ' Let him be, 
 
 He loves to make parade of pain. 
 That with his piping he may gain 
 
 The praise that comes to constancy.' 
 
 A third is wroth : ' Is this an hour 
 For private sorrow's barren song, 
 When more and more the people throng 
 
 The chairs and thrones of civil power? 
 
 'A time to sicken and to swoon, 
 
 When Science reaches forth her arms 
 To feel from world to world, and charms 
 
 Her secret from the latest moon?* 
 
 Behold, ye speak an idle thing: 
 
 Ye never knew the sacred dust: 
 I do but sing because I must, 
 
 And pipe but as the linnets sing: 
 
 And one is glad; her note is gay. 
 
 For now her little ones have ranged; 
 And one is sad; her note is changed, 
 
 Because her brood is stol'n away. 
 
 XXII 
 
 HE path by which we 
 
 twain did go. 
 
 Which led by tracts that 
 
 pleased us well. 
 
 Thro' four sweet years 
 
 arose and fell, 
 
 From flower to flower, 
 
 from snow to snow: 
 
 [3=] 
 
9!tt fll^emotrfam 
 
 XXII 
 
 And we with singing cheer' d the way, 
 And, crown'd with all the season lent, 
 From April on to April went. 
 
 And glad at heart from May to May: 
 
 But where the path we walk'd began 
 To slant the fifth autumnal slope, 
 As we descended following Hope, 
 
 There sat the Shadow fear'd of man ; 
 
 Who broke our fair companionship. 
 
 And spread his mantle dark and cold, 
 And wrapt thee formless in the fold. 
 
 And duU'd the murmur on thy lip, 
 
 And bore thee where I could not see 
 Nor follow, tho' I walk in haste. 
 And think, that somewhere in the waste 
 
 The Shadow sits and waits for me. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 OW, sometimes in my 
 sorrow shut, 
 Or breaking into song by 
 fits, 
 
 Alone, alone, to where 
 he sits. 
 
 The Shadow cloak'd 
 from head to foot. 
 
 Who keeps the keys of all the creeds, 
 I wander, often falling lame, 
 And looking back to whence I came. 
 
 Or on to where the pathway leads; 
 
 [33] 
 
^n ^tmoviam 
 
 XXIII 
 
 And crying, How changed from where it ran 
 Thro' lands where not a leaf was dumb; 
 But all the lavish hills would hum 
 
 The murmur of a happy Pan : 
 
 When each by turns was guide to each, 
 And Fancy light from Fancy caught. 
 And Thought leapt out to wed with Thought 
 
 Ere Thought could wed itself with Speech ; 
 
 And all we met was fair and good. 
 
 And all was good that Time could bring, 
 And all the secret of the Spring 
 
 Moved in the chambers of the blood ; 
 
 And many an old philosophy 
 
 On Argive heights divinely sang, 
 And round us all the thicket rang 
 
 To many a flute of Arcady. 
 
 XXIV 
 
 ND was the day of my 
 delight 
 
 As pure and perfect as 
 I say? 
 
 The very source and 
 fount of Day 
 Is dash'd with wander- 
 ing isles of night. 
 
 If all was good and fair we met. 
 
 This earth had been the Paradise 
 It never look'd to human eyes 
 
 Since our first Sun arose and set. 
 
 [34] 
 
91n i^emorfam 
 
 XXIV 
 
 And is it that the haze of grief 
 
 Makes former gladness loom so great? 
 
 The lowness of the present state, 
 That sets the past in this relief? 
 
 Or that the past will always win 
 
 A glory from its being far; 
 
 And orb into the perfect star 
 We saw not, when we moved therein? 
 
 XXV 
 
 KNOW that this was 
 
 Life, — the track 
 
 Whereon with equal feet 
 
 we fared; 
 
 And then, as now, the 
 
 day prepared 
 
 The daily burden for the 
 
 back. 
 
 But this it was that made me move 
 As light as carrier-birds in air; 
 I loved the weight I had to bear, 
 
 Because it needed help of Love : 
 
 Nor could I weary, heart or limb, [twain 
 When mighty Love would cleave in 
 The lading of a single pain. 
 
 And part it, giving half to him. 
 
 H 
 
 [35] 
 
9In iSi^tmoviata 
 
 XXVI 
 
 TILL onward winds the 
 
 dreary way; , 
 
 I with it; for I long to 
 
 prove 
 
 No lapse of moons can 
 
 canker Love, 
 
 ^Vhatever fickle tongues 
 
 may say. 
 
 And if that eye which watches guilt 
 
 And goodness, and hath power to see, 
 Within the green the moulder'd tree, 
 
 And towers fall'n as soon as built — 
 
 Oh, if indeed that eye foresee 
 Or see (in Him is no before) 
 In more of life true life no more 
 
 And Love the indifference to be. 
 
 Then might I find, ere yet the mom 
 Breaks hither over Indian seas, 
 That Shadow waiting with the keys. 
 
 To shroud me from my proper scorn. 
 
 XXVII 
 
 ENVY not in any 
 moods 
 
 The captive void of no- 
 ble rage. 
 
 The linnet bom within 
 the cage. 
 
 That never knew the 
 summer woods: 
 [36] 
 
 I 
 
 1 
 
 s 
 
 g 
 
9in fll^emotfam 
 
 XXVII 
 
 I envy not the beast that takes 
 His license in the field of time, 
 Unfetter' d by the sense of crime, 
 
 To whom a conscience never wakes; 
 
 Nor, what may count itself as blest. 
 The heart that never plighted troth 
 But stagnates in the weeds of sloth; 
 
 Nor any want-begotten rest. 
 
 I hold it true, whate'er befall; 
 
 I feel it, when I sorrow most; 
 
 'Tis better to have loved and lost 
 Than never to have loved at all. 
 
 XXVIII 
 HE time draws near the 
 birth of Christ: 
 The moon is hid; the 
 night is still; 
 The Christmas bells 
 from hill to hill 
 Answer each other in the 
 mist. 
 
 Four voices of four hamlets round, 
 
 From far and near, on mead and moor, 
 Swell out and fail, as if a door 
 
 Was shut between me and the sound: 
 
 Each voice four changes on the wind. 
 That now dilate, and now decrease. 
 Peace and goodwill, goodwill and peace. 
 
 Peace and goodwill, to all mankind. 
 
 [37] 
 
in i^emotiam 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 This year I slept and woke with pain, 
 I almost wish'd no more to wake, 
 And that my hold on life would break 
 
 Before I heard those bells again: 
 
 But they my troubled spirit rule, 
 
 For they controll'd me when a boy; 
 They bring me sorrow touch'd with joy, 
 
 The merry bells of Yule. 
 
 XXIX 
 
 I T H such compelling 
 cause to grieve 
 As daily vexes house- 
 hold peace, 
 
 And chains regret to his 
 decease. 
 
 How dare we keep our 
 Christmas-eve ; 
 
 Which brings no more a welcome guest 
 To enrich the threshold of the night 
 With shower' d largess of delight 
 
 In dance and song and game and jest? 
 
 Yet go, and while the holly boughs 
 Entwine the cold baptismal font, 
 Make one wreath more for Use and 
 
 That guard the portals of the house ; [Wont, 
 
 Old sisters of a day gone by, 
 
 Gray nurses, loving nothing new; 
 Why should they miss their yearly due 
 
 Before their time? They too will die. 
 
 [38] 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 (W 
 
 ^^^ 
 
 ^m^ 
 
 1®: 
 
in fll^emotiam 
 
 XXX 
 
 ITH trembling fingers 
 did we weave 
 The holly round the 
 Christmas hearth; 
 A rainy cloud possess' d 
 the earth, 
 
 And sadly fell our Christ- 
 mas-eve. 
 
 At our old pastimes in the hall 
 
 We gambol' d, making vain pretence 
 Of gladness, with an awful sense 
 
 Of one mute Shadow watching all. 
 
 We paused : the winds were in the beech : 
 We heard them sweep the winter land ; 
 And in a circle hand-in-hand 
 
 Sat silent, looking each at each. 
 
 Then echo-like our voices rang; 
 
 We sung, tho' every eye was dim, 
 A merry song we sang with him 
 
 Last year: impetuously we sang: 
 
 W^e ceased: a gentler feeling crept 
 
 Upon us : surely rest is meet : [sweet,' 
 'They rest,' we said, 'their sleep is 
 
 And. silence follow' d and we wept. 
 
 Our voices took a higher range; 
 
 Once niore we sang : ' They do not die 
 Nor lose their mortal sympathy. 
 
 Nor change to us, although they change; 
 
 [39] 
 
9!n apemotrfam 
 
 XXX 
 
 •Rapt from the fickle and the frail 
 
 With gather' d power, yet the same. 
 Pierces the keen seraphic flame 
 
 From orb to orb, from veil to veil.' 
 
 Rise, happy mom, rise, holy morn. 
 
 Draw forth the cheerful day from night : 
 O Father, touch the east, and light 
 
 The light that shone when Hope was born. 
 
 XXXI 
 
 HEN Lazarus left his 
 
 charnel-cave. 
 
 And home to Mary's 
 
 house return' d. 
 
 Was this demanded — if 
 
 he yearn' d 
 
 To hear her weeping by 
 
 his grave? 
 
 * Where wert thou, brother, those four days? ' 
 There lives no record of reply. 
 Which telling what it is to die 
 
 Had surely added praise to praise. 
 
 From every house the neighbours met. 
 The streets were fill'd with joyful sound, 
 A solemn gladness even crown' d 
 
 The purple brows of Olivet. 
 
 Behold a man raised up by Christ! 
 
 The rest remaineth unreveal'd; 
 
 He told it not; or something seal'd 
 The lips of that Evangelist. 
 
 [40] 
 
31n iS^emorfam 
 
 XXXII 
 
 ER eyes are homes of 
 silent prayer, 
 Nor other thought her 
 mind admits 
 But, he was dead, and 
 there he sits, 
 And he that brought him 
 back is there. 
 
 Then one deep love doth supersede 
 All other, when her ardent gaze 
 Roves from the living brother's face. 
 
 And rests upon the Life indeed. 
 
 All subtle thought, all curious fears, 
 
 Borne down by gladness so complete, 
 She bows, she bathes the Saviour's feet 
 
 With costly spikenard and with tears. 
 
 Thrice blest whose lives are faithful prayers. 
 Whose loves in higher love endure; 
 What souls possess themselves so pure, 
 
 Or is there blessedness like theirs? 
 
 XXXIII 
 THOU that after toil 
 and storm 
 
 Mayst seem to have 
 reach' d a purer air, 
 Whose faith has centre 
 everywhere. 
 
 Nor cares to fix itself 
 to form, 
 
 [41] 
 
%n i^emorfam 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 Leave thou thy sister when she prays, 
 Her early Heaven; her happy views; 
 Nor thou with shadow' d hint confuse 
 
 A life that leads melodious days. 
 
 Her faith thro' form is pure as thine, 
 Her hands are quicker unto good; 
 Oh, sacred be the flesh and blood 
 
 To which she links a truth divine ! 
 
 See thou, that countest reason ripe 
 In holding by the law within, 
 Thou fail not in a world of sin. 
 
 And ev'n for want of such a type. 
 
 XXXIV 
 Y own dim life should 
 teach me this. 
 That life shall live for 
 evermore, 
 
 Else earth is darkness 
 at the core. 
 
 And dust and ashes all 
 that is; 
 
 This round of green, this orb of flame, 
 Fantastic beauty, such as lurks 
 In some wild Poet, when he works 
 
 Without a conscience or an aim. 
 
 What then were God to such as I ? 
 
 'Twere hardly worth my while to choose 
 Of things all mortal, or to use 
 
 A little patience ere I die; 
 
 [42] 
 
9!n fll^emoriam 
 
 XXXIV 
 
 'Twere best at once to sink to peace. 
 
 Like birds the charming serpent draws, 
 To drop head-foremost in the jaws 
 
 Of vacant darkness and to cease. 
 
 XXXV 
 
 ET if some voice that 
 
 ntian could trust 
 
 Should murmur from the 
 
 narrow house, 
 
 ' The cheeks drop in; the 
 
 body bows; 
 
 Man dies: nor is there 
 
 hope in dust : ' 
 
 'Yet even here, 
 
 Might I not say? 
 
 But for one hour, O Love, I strive 
 To keep so sweet a thing alive : ' 
 
 But I should turn mine ears and hear 
 
 The meanings of the homeless sea, 
 
 The sound of streams that swift or slow 
 Draw down Ionian hills, and sow 
 
 The dust of continents to be; 
 
 And Love would answer with a sigh, 
 ' The sound of that forgetful shore 
 Will change my sweetness more and 
 
 Half-dead to know that I shall die.' [more, 
 
 O me, what profits it to put 
 
 An idle case? If Death were seen 
 At first as Death, Love had not been, 
 
 Or been in narrowest working shut, 
 
 [43] 
 
in iS^tmoviata 
 
 XXXV 
 
 Mere fellowship of sluggish moods. 
 
 Or in his coarsest Satyr-shape [grape, 
 Had bruised the herb and crush' d the 
 
 And bask'd and batten' d in the woods. 
 
 XXXVI 
 
 HO' truths in manhood 
 darkly join. 
 
 Deep-seated in our mys- 
 tic frame, 
 
 We yield all blessing to 
 the name 
 
 Of Him that made them 
 current coin; 
 
 For Wisdom dealt with mortal powers, 
 Where truth in closest words shall fail, 
 When truth embodied in a tale 
 
 Shall enter in at lowly doors. 
 
 And so the Word had breath, and wrought 
 With human hands the creed of creeds 
 In loveliness of perfect deeds. 
 
 More strong than all poetic thought; 
 
 Which he may read that binds the sheaf, 
 Or builds the house, or digs the grave, 
 And those wild eyes that watch the wave 
 
 In roarings round the coral reef. 
 
 ^ 
 
 [44] 
 
3!n fll^etnotfam 
 
 XXXVII 
 
 R A N I A speaks with 
 
 darken'd brow: 
 
 'Thou pratest here where 
 
 thou art least; 
 
 This faith has many a 
 
 purer priest. 
 
 And many an abler voice 
 
 than thou. 
 
 'Go down beside thy native rill, 
 On thy Parnassus set thy feet, 
 And hear thy laurel whisper sweet 
 
 About the ledges of the hill.' 
 
 And my Melpomene replies, 
 
 A touch of shame upon her cheek: 
 'I am not worthy ev'n to speak 
 
 Of thy prevailing mysteries; 
 
 'For I am but an earthly Muse, 
 And owning but a little art 
 To lull with song an aching heart. 
 
 And render human love his dues; 
 
 « But brooding on the dear one dead, 
 And all he said of things divine, 
 (And dear to me as sacred wine 
 
 To dying lips is all he said), 
 
 'I murmur'd, as I came along, 
 
 Of comfort, clasp'd in truth reveal'd, 
 And loiter'd in the master's field, 
 
 And darken'd sanctities with song.' 
 
 [45] 
 
%n i^emoriam 
 
 XXXVIII 
 
 ITH weary steps I loi- 
 ter on, 
 
 Tho' always under al- 
 ter'd skies 
 
 The purple from the dis- 
 tance dies, 
 
 My prospect and horizon 
 gone. 
 
 No joy the blowing season gives, 
 The herald melodies of spring, 
 But in the songs I love to sing 
 
 A doubtful gleam of solace lives. 
 
 If any care for what is here 
 
 Survive in spirits render' d free, 
 These are the songs I sing of thee 
 
 Not all ungrateful to thine ear. 
 
 XXXIX 
 
 LD warder of these bur- 
 ied bones, 
 
 And answering now my 
 random stroke 
 With fruitful cloud and 
 living smoke, 
 Dark yew, that grasp- 
 est at the stones 
 
 And dippest toward the dreamless head, 
 To thee too comes the golden hour 
 When flower is feeling after flower; 
 
 But Sorrow — fixt upon the dead, 
 
 [46] 
 
3In lapemottam 
 
 XXXIX 
 
 And darkening the dark graves of men, — 
 What whisper' d from her lying lips? 
 Thy gloom is kindled at the tips, 
 
 And passes into gloom again. 
 
 XL 
 |OULD we forget the 
 widow' d hour 
 And look on Spirits 
 breathed away 
 As on a maiden in the 
 day 
 
 When first she wears her 
 orange-flower ! 
 
 When crown'd with blessing she doth rise 
 To take her latest leave of home, 
 And hopes and light regrets that come 
 
 Make April of her tender eyes; 
 
 And doubtful joys the father move, 
 
 And tears are on the mother's face, 
 As parting with a long embrace 
 
 She enters other realms of love; 
 
 Her office there to rear, to teach. 
 Becoming as is meet and fit 
 A link among the days, to knit 
 
 The generations each with each; 
 
 And, doubtless, unto thee is given 
 A life that bears immortal fruit 
 In those great offices that suit 
 
 The full-grown energies of heaven. 
 
 [47] 
 
in £l^emoriam 
 
 XL 
 
 Ay me, the difference I discern! 
 
 How often shall her old fireside 
 Be cheer' d with tidings of the bride, 
 
 How often she herself return, 
 
 And tell them all they would have told. 
 And bring her babe, and make her boast, 
 Till even those that miss'd her most 
 
 Shall count new things as dear as old: 
 
 But thou and I have shaken hands, 
 Till growing winters lay me low; 
 My paths are in the fields I know. 
 
 And thine in undiscover'd lands. 
 
 XLI 
 
 HY spirit ere our fatal 
 loss 
 
 Did ever rise from high 
 to higher; 
 
 As mounts the heaven- 
 ward altar-fire. 
 As flies the lighter thro' 
 the gross. 
 
 But thou art tum'd to something strange. 
 And I have lost the links that bound 
 Thy changes; here upon the ground. 
 
 No more partaker of thy change. 
 
 Deep folly! yet that this could be — 
 
 That I could wing my will with might 
 To leap the grades of life and light, 
 
 And flash at once, my friend, to thee. 
 
 [48] 
 
9!n a^etnorfam 
 
 XLI 
 
 For tho' my nature rarely yields 
 
 To that vague fear implied in death; 
 Nor shudders at the gulfs beneath, 
 
 The howlings from forgotten fields; 
 
 Yet oft when sundown skirts the moor 
 
 An inner trouble I behold, 
 
 A spectral doubt which makes me cold. 
 That I shall be thy mate no more, 
 
 Tho' following with an upward mind 
 
 The wonders that have come to thee. 
 Thro' all the secular to-be. 
 
 But evermore a life behind. 
 
 XLII 
 
 VEX my heart with fan- 
 cies dim: 
 
 He still outstript me in 
 the race; 
 
 It was but unity of 
 place 
 
 That made me dream I 
 rank'd with him. 
 
 And so may Place retain us still. 
 And he the much-beloved again, 
 A lord of large experience, train 
 
 To riper growth the mind and will: 
 
 And what delights can equal those 
 
 That stir the spirit's inner deeps, [reaps 
 When one that loves but knows not, 
 
 A truth from one that loves and knows? 
 
 [49l 
 
 <£ ■ ^ 
 
3n ^etnotfam 
 
 XLIII 
 
 
 i 
 
 1 
 
 F Sleep and Death be 
 truly one, 
 
 And every spirit's fold- 
 ed bloom 
 
 Thro' all its intervital 
 gloom 
 
 In some long trance 
 should slumber on; 
 
 Unconscious of the sliding hour, 
 Bare of the body, might it last. 
 And silent traces of the past 
 
 Be all the colour of the flower: 
 
 So then were nothing lost to man; 
 So that still garden of the souls 
 In many a figured leaf enrolls 
 
 The total world since life began; 
 
 And love will last as pure and whole 
 As when he loved me here in Time, 
 And at the spiritual prime 
 
 Rewaken with the dawning soul. 
 
 XLIV 
 
 OW 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. 
 [50] 
 
 
in iSlpemorfam 
 
 XLIV 
 
 The days have vanish' d, tone and tint, 
 And yet perhaps the hoarding sense 
 Gives out at times (he knows not 
 
 A little flash, a mystic hint; [whence) 
 
 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 
 
 HE 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. 
 
 [SI] 
 
Hn fll^emotrfam 
 
 XLV 
 
 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 
 
 £ ranging down this 
 lower track, 
 
 The path we came by, 
 thorn and flower. 
 Is shadow' d by the grow- 
 ing hour. 
 
 Lest life should fail in 
 looking back. 
 
 there no shade can last 
 
 So be it 
 
 In that deep dawn behind the tomb. 
 But clear from marge to marge shall 
 
 The eternal landscape of the past ; [bloom 
 
 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. 
 
 ^ 
 
 [Sa] 
 
3ln iSl^emotfam 
 
 XLVII 
 
 HAT each, who seems a 
 separate whole, 
 Should move his rounds, 
 and fusing all 
 The skirts of self again, 
 should fall 
 
 Remerging in the gen- 
 eral 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 
 F these brief lays, of 
 Sorrow born, 
 W^ere taken to be such 
 as closed 
 
 Grave doubts and an- 
 swers here proposed. 
 Than these were such 
 as men might scorn: 
 
 [53] 
 
in iS^tmoviam 
 
 XLVIII 
 
 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 
 
 ROM 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. 
 
 [54] 
 
9!n fll^emodam 
 
 XLIX 
 
 Beneath all fancied hopes and fears, 
 Ay me, the sorrow deepens down, 
 Whose muJBled motions blindly drown 
 
 The bases of my life in tears. 
 
 L 
 E 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. 
 
 1 
 
 5 
 
 M 
 
 ^ 
 
 [55] 
 
%n iSi^tmoviam 
 
 LI 
 
 1 
 
 f 
 
 
 K 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 O 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 
 
 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. 
 [56] 
 
 1^ 
 
 1 
 
 i 
 
91n i^eraotfam 
 
 LII 
 
 ♦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 
 
 OW 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: 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 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? 
 
 [57] 
 
31n fll^emotfam 
 
 LIII 
 
 
 
 
 B1^ M ^\2^SJ) 
 
 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 
 
 H 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. 
 
 [58] 
 
3n iSS^tmoviam 
 
 LV 
 
 HE 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. 
 
 « 
 
 [59] 
 
9!n ^tmoviam 
 
 LVI 
 
 careful of the type?' 
 but no. 
 
 From scarped cliff and 
 quarried stone 
 She cries, 'A thousand 
 types are gone: 
 
 1 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 roU'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 raving, 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. 
 
 [60] 
 
in iSl^emoriam 
 
 LVI 
 
 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 
 
 EACE ; 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. 
 
 1 hear it now, and o'er and o'er, 
 
 Eternal greetings to the dead; 
 And 'Ave, Ave, Ave,' they said, 
 'Adieu, adieu,' for evermore. 
 
 ^ 
 
 [6i] 
 
3!n ^tmoviam 
 
 LVIII 
 
 i 
 
 ^^^P 
 
 1 
 
 N those sad words I 
 took farewell: 
 Like echoes in sepul- 
 chral halls, 
 
 As drop by drop the wa- 
 ter 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 
 
 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. 
 
 [62] 
 
3iti i^emotfam 
 
 ux 
 
 My centred passion cannot move, 
 Nor will it lessen from to-day; 
 But I'll haye 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 
 
 E 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 ex- 
 ceeds 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 bom. 
 
 The foolish neighbours come and go, 
 And tease her till the day draws by: 
 At night she weeps, ' How vain am I ! 
 
 How should he love a thing so low ? ' 
 
 [63] 
 
 1^ 
 
 
 C3| 
 
 
 K^ 
 
 
 p^ 
 
 1^ 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 }g..'.' ' '.T 
 
3In fll^emoriam 
 
 LXI 
 
 1 
 
 I 
 
 1 
 
 F, 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 
 
 HO' if an eye that's 
 downward cast 
 Could make thee some- 
 what 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; 
 
 [64] 
 
in !^emot:fam 
 
 LXII 
 
 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 
 
 ET pity for a horse o'er- 
 driven, 
 
 And love in which my 
 hound has part. 
 Can hang no weight up- 
 on 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 
 
 OST thou look back on 
 
 what hath been. 
 
 As some divinely gifted 
 
 man. 
 
 Whose life in low estate 
 
 began 
 
 And on a simple village 
 
 green ; 
 
 [65] 
 
91n a^etnoriam lxiv 
 
 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 deamess in the hill, 
 
 A secret sweetness in the stream. 
 
 The limit of his narrower fate. 
 
 While yet beside its vocal springs 
 He played at counsellors and kings. 
 
 With one that was his earlier 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?' 
 
 H 
 
 [66] 
 
%n ^l^emorfam 
 
 LXV 
 
 WEET soul, do with 
 me as thou wilt; 
 I lull a fancy trouble- 
 tost 
 
 With ' Love's too prec- 
 ious 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. 
 
 heart 
 
 my 
 
 LXVI 
 
 OU thought my 
 
 too far diseased; 
 
 You wonder when 
 
 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; 
 
 [67] 
 
3ln iSl^emottam 
 
 LXVI 
 
 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 
 
 HEN 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. 
 
 [58] 
 
Sin la^emorfam 
 
 LXVIII 
 
 HEN 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 
 
 Reveillee to the breaking mom. 
 
 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 
 
 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: 
 
 [69] 
 
In !^etnot;iam 
 
 LXIX 
 
 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 
 
 CANNOT see the feat- 
 ures right, 
 
 ^Vhen 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 pallid shapes 
 
 In shadowy thoroughfares of thought; 
 
 [70] 
 
sin fll^eraoriam 
 
 LXX 
 
 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 
 
 LEEP, 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 
 
 In walking as of old we walk'd [strange. 
 
 Beside the river's wooded reach, 
 
 The fortress, and the mountain ridge, 
 The cataract flashing from the bridge. 
 
 The breaker breaking on the beach. 
 
 [71] 
 
In iS^tmotiam 
 
 LXXII 
 
 ISEST 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, 
 W^hen the dark hand struck down thro' 
 
 And cancell'd nature's best : but thou, [time, 
 
 Lift as thou may'st thy burden'd brows 
 Thro' clouds that drench the morning 
 And whirl the ungamer' d sheaf afar, [star, 
 
 And sow the sky with flying boughs, 
 
 [7>] 
 
9In fll^emodam 
 
 LXXII 
 
 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 
 O 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. 
 
 H 
 
 [73] 
 
in i^emotfam 
 
 LXXIV 
 
 
 \ 
 
 ^T, 
 ^ 
 
 S sometimes in a dead 
 
 man's face 
 
 To those that watch it 
 
 more and more, 
 
 A likeness, hardly seen 
 
 before, 
 
 Comes out — ^to some one 
 
 of his race : 
 
 So, dearest, now thy brows are cold, 
 I see thee what thou art, and know 
 Thy likeness to the wise below. 
 
 Thy kindred with the great of old. 
 
 But there is more than I can see. 
 And what I see I leave unsaid. 
 Nor speak it, knowing Death has made 
 
 His darkness beautiful with thee. 
 
 LXXV 
 
 LEAVE thy praises un- 
 express'd 
 
 In verse that brings my- 
 self 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? 
 
 [74] 
 
91n flU^emotfam 
 
 LXXV 
 
 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 
 AKE wings of fancy, and 
 ascend. 
 
 And in a moment set 
 thy face 
 
 Where all the starry 
 heavens of space 
 Are sharpen'd to a nee- 
 dle'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. 
 
 [75] 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
9In la^emotfam 
 
 LXXVI 
 
 Ere these have clothed their branchy bowers 
 W^ith fifty Mays, thy songs are vain; 
 And what are they when these remain 
 
 The ruin'd shells of hollow towers? 
 
 LXXVII 
 HAT hope is here for 
 modem 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. 
 
 ^ 
 
 [76] 
 
Sin la^etnotiam 
 
 LXXVIII 
 
 GAIN at Christmas did 
 we weave 
 
 The holly round the 
 Christmas hearth; 
 The silent snow pos- 
 sess' 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. 
 
 ^ 
 
 [77] 
 
9!tt ^tmoviam 
 
 LXXIX 
 
 ORB 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 tum'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. 
 
 ^ 
 
 [78] 
 
3lti £l^emotiam 
 
 LXXX 
 
 F 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 
 OULD 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.' 
 
 [79] 
 
9In ^tmotiam 
 
 LXXXI 
 
 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 
 
 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. 
 
 [80] 
 
%n ^tmoviam 
 
 LXXXIII 
 
 (^^ 
 
 ^^^^ 
 
 _^^ 
 
 1 
 
 ^3 
 
 I 
 
 M 
 
 HJ^^K 
 
 g^v^i^iK 
 
 W^^ 
 
 pS^ 
 
 ^^^^ 
 
 1^ 
 
 IP down upon the north- 
 ern shore, 
 
 O sweet new-year delay- 
 ing 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 
 HEN 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; 
 
 [81] 
 
%n a^emoriam lxxxiv 
 
 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 
 
 Of mine own house, and boys of thine [one 
 
 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 clasp their cheeks, to call them mine. 
 I see the 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 mom as fair; 
 
 And all the train of bounteous hours 
 Conduct by paths of growing powers, 
 
 To reverence and the silver hair; 
 
 [82] 
 
%n ^tmoviam 
 
 LXXXIV 
 
 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 
 AVould 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 
 HIS 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 ; 
 
 [83] 
 
91n ^tmoviaxa lxxxv 
 
 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, 
 W^hose life, whose thoughts were little 
 To wander on a darken' d earth, [worth. 
 
 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! 
 
 [84] 
 
%n apemorfam lxxxv 
 
 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; 
 
 [85] 
 
31n a^emoriam lxxxv 
 
 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, [brooks. 
 And Spring that swells the narrow 
 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.' 
 
 [86] 
 
gin fll^etnorfam lxxxv 
 
 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. 
 
 [87] 
 
3In 0^emorfam 
 
 LXXXVI 
 
 
 ^d^l 
 
 1 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 ^s^ 
 
 ■*!« 
 
 K^Xv 
 
 
 \ 
 
 QiAV^^^cfW 
 
 
 i 
 
 WEET after showers, 
 
 ambrosial air, 
 
 That roUest 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 homed 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 
 
 111 brethren, let the fancy fly [Death, 
 
 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 
 
 PAST beside the rever- 
 end walls 
 
 In which of old I wore 
 the gown; 
 
 I roved at random thro' 
 the town, 
 
 And saw the tumult of 
 the halls; 
 
 [88] 
 
in a^etnoriam lxxxvii 
 
 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 
 
 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 
 W^e lent him. Who, but hung to hear 
 
 The rapt oration flowing free 
 
 [89] 
 
in iSl^emorfam 
 
 LXXXVII 
 
 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 these ethereal eyes 
 
 The bar of Michael Angelo. 
 
 LXXXVIII 
 ILD 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. 
 
 H 
 
 [90] 
 
3[n i^emorfam 
 
 LXXXIX 
 
 ITCH-ELMS that coun- 
 terchange the floor 
 Of this flat lawn with 
 dusk and bright; 
 And thou, with all thy 
 breadth and height 
 Of foliage, towering syc- 
 amore : 
 
 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 
 And dusty purlieus of the law. [courts 
 
 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: 
 
 [91] 
 
%n a^emoriam lxxxix 
 
 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. 
 
 [9=] 
 
3ln la^emorfam 
 
 xc 
 
 E tasted love with half 
 his mind, 
 
 Nor ever drank the in- 
 violate spring 
 Where Highest 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. 
 
 [93] 
 
in !^emoriam 
 
 xci 
 
 HEN rosy plumelets tuft 
 the larch, 
 
 And rarely pipes the 
 mounted thrush; 
 Or underneath the bar- 
 ren 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 
 
 F any vision should re- 
 veal 
 
 Thy likeness, I might 
 count it vain 
 As but the canker of the 
 brain; 
 
 Yea, tho' it spake and 
 made appeal 
 
 [iM] 
 
%n iSl^tmoviam 
 
 XCII 
 
 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 
 
 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 
 W^ith gods in unconjectured bliss, 
 O, from the distance of the abyss 
 
 Of tenfold-complicated change, 
 
 [95] 
 
gin ^emoriam 
 
 XCIII 
 
 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 
 
 OW pure at heart and 
 sound in head, 
 With what divine affec- 
 tions 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. 
 
 
 [96] 
 
in i^emorfam 
 
 xcv 
 
 Y 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 sum- 
 mer drawn; 
 
 And calm that let the tapers bum 
 
 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 
 
 The noble letters of the dead : [green, 
 
 [97] 
 
gn iS^tmoviam xcv 
 
 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, 
 
 i^onian music measuring out [Chance — 
 The steps of Time — the shocks of 
 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 [ease, 
 The knolls once more where, couch' d at 
 The white kine glimmer' d, and the trees 
 
 Laid their dark arms about the field: 
 
 [98] 
 
in iSlpemotiam 
 
 xcv 
 
 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 fuU-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 
 
 OU say, but with no 
 touch of scorn, 
 Sweet-hearted, you, 
 whose light-blue eyes 
 Are tender over drown- 
 ing flies, 
 
 You tell me, doubt is 
 Devil-bom. 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^■^ 
 
 p 
 
 
 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. 
 
 [99] 
 
9Itt fll^emoriam 
 
 xcvi 
 
 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 Sinai's peaks of old, 
 While Israel made their gods of gold, 
 
 Altho' the trumpet blew so loud. 
 
 XCVII 
 
 Y love has talk'd with 
 rocks and trees; 
 He finds on misty moun- 
 tain-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. 
 
 [100] 
 
91n a^emorfam xcvii 
 
 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.' 
 
 ^ 
 
 [lOl] 
 
91n ^tmoviam 
 
 XCVIII 
 
 OU 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 
 
 [102] 
 
%n ^emotiam 
 
 XCVIII 
 
 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 
 
 ISEST 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 swoU'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. 
 
 [103] 
 
 'm^m 
 
 s^ 
 
 1 (ui 
 
 m 
 
 1 
 
 m 
 
 m 
 
 
9In a^emotrfsm 
 
 xcix 
 
 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 
 CLIMB the hill: from 
 end to end 
 
 Of all the landscape un- 
 derneath, 
 
 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, 
 
 1 think once more he seems to die. 
 
 [104] 
 
9In fll^etnotfam 
 
 CI 
 
 IX 
 
 
 M 
 
 ^ 
 
 f& 
 
 twK 
 
 
 
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 1^^ 
 
 ^^kS^ 
 
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 s? 
 
 ^^ 
 
 ^^^ 
 
 N WATCH' D, the gar- 
 den bough shall sway, 
 The tender blossom flut- 
 ter down, 
 
 Unloved, that beech will 
 gather brown, 
 This maple bum 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. 
 
 [105] 
 
in i^emotriam 
 
 CII 
 
 /^^ 
 
 M^2 
 
 m^:^ 
 
 
 m 
 
 ^ 
 
 2 
 
 
 '^^f/\ 
 
 
 ^M'^ 
 
 
 
 f. l/i 
 
 
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 ilr 
 
 
 
 
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 lj»:- - .,^^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 E 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. 
 
 [106] 
 
31n iS^tmoviam 
 
 cm 
 
 N 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, [banks. 
 And shadowing bluff" that made the 
 We glided winding under ranks 
 
 Of iris, and the golden reed ; 
 
 [107] 
 
31n ^tmoviam cm 
 
 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 
 
 And wilt thou leave us now behind ? ' [long. 
 
 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. 
 
 [108] 
 
9!n fll^emorfam 
 
 cm 
 
 
 $^ 
 
 '0^^^^ 
 
 1 
 
 ^^ 
 
 ^m^^Mf 
 
 "\C 
 
 f^^ 
 
 re^^^ra 
 
 ^,^w 
 
 S 
 
 1^^ 
 
 ^^ 
 
 ^^ 
 
 lir^^' 
 
 p 
 
 N^ 
 
 J^fe3 
 
 iK- 
 
 ^^^ 
 
 ^^*s?'^"ft 
 
 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 
 
 H£ 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 
 O- 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. 
 
 [log] 
 
!in iS^tmoviam cv 
 
 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 touched, 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. 
 
 ^ 
 
 [no] 
 
9!n flipemotfam 
 
 cvi 
 
 I. aasi^ 
 
 --!>^^^-^. -^^ ^^^ 
 
 :^2l^^^ 
 
 ^,[**7 1 ■ "IT" ■T"'ri 
 
 
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 Wi^mSwi 
 
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 »■---'- ^ 
 
 [W 
 
 g^^giL^li^^g^i^ 
 
 
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 ■^_ASh 
 
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 i^Hi^^JiulAralC'''^ 
 
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 ^^.<J 
 
 ^ x^^) 
 
 ING 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. 
 
 [Ill] 
 
91n fll^emorfam 
 
 cvi 
 
 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 
 
 T is the day when he 
 
 was bom, 
 
 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 [wine, 
 That breaks the coast. But fetch the 
 
 Arrange the board and brim the glass; 
 
 [112] 
 
3!n i^emotrtam 
 
 CVII 
 
 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 
 
 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. 
 
 ["3] 
 
in ^a^emotriam 
 
 cix 
 
 8s 
 
 i 
 
 
 1 
 
 EART-AFFLUENCE 
 in discursive talk 
 From household foun- 
 tains 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. 
 
 ["4] 
 
31n flipetnotfam 
 
 ex 
 
 af S^[jm/S|P 
 
 1 
 
 m 
 
 1 
 
 HY 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 stem 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 
 
 The graceful tact, the Christian art; [thine. 
 
 Nor mine the sweetness or the skill. 
 But mine the love that will not tire. 
 And, bom of love, the vague desire 
 
 That spurs an imitative will. 
 
 H 
 
 ["5] 
 
in ^tmoviam 
 
 CXI 
 
 
 HE 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 
 Bach 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. 
 
 [Ii6] 
 
sin iSS^tmoviata 
 
 CXII 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 IGH wisdom holds my 
 wisdom less, 
 That I, who gaze with 
 temperate eyes 
 On glorious insufficien- 
 cies, 
 
 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, 
 
 Liarge 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 
 
 IS held that sorrow 
 
 makes us wise; 
 
 Yet how much wisdom 
 
 sleeps with thee 
 
 W^hich not alone had 
 
 guided me, 
 
 But served the seasons 
 
 that may rise; 
 
 ["7] 
 
 C H H 
 
Hn a^emotfam 
 
 CXIII 
 
 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 
 
 HO loves not Knowl- 
 edge ? 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. 
 
 [118] 
 
%n iSS^tmoviam 
 
 CXIV 
 
 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 W^isdom 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 
 
 OW fades the last long 
 streak of snow. 
 Now burgeons every 
 maze of quick 
 About the flowering 
 squares, and thick 
 By ashen roots the vio- 
 lets blow. 
 
 ["9] 
 
%n ^tmoxiam 
 
 cxv 
 
 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 
 
 S it, then, regret for bur- 
 ied time 
 
 That keenlier in sweet 
 April wakes, 
 And meets the year, and 
 gives and takes 
 The colours of the cres- 
 cent 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. 
 
 [120] 
 
 U AiCfV^Sw ' 
 
 
 1 
 
 i 
 
 j^^feiwK 
 
 
 Qw 
 
 A rijj' 
 
 ^Ofess 
 
 Vs^^t 
 
 ^M^^^'t^ 
 
 ^C^^ 
 
9!n fll^emorfam 
 
 cxvi 
 
 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 
 
 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. 
 
 « 
 
 [xai] 
 
91n iS^tmotian 
 
 CXVIII 
 
 ONTEMPLATE 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 
 The herald of a higher race, [clime. 
 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 
 
sin ^emotfam 
 
 CXVIII 
 
 To shape and use. Arise and fly 
 
 The reeling Faun, the sensual feast; 
 Move upward, working out the heast, 
 
 And let the ape and tiger die. 
 
 CXIX 
 
 OORS, 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 
 
 TRUST I have not 
 wasted breath: 
 I think we are not whol- 
 ly brain, 
 
 Magnetic mockeries; not 
 in vain. 
 
 Like Paul with beasts, I 
 fought with Death; 
 
 [H3] 
 
3|n ^emoriam 
 
 cxx 
 
 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 bom to other things. 
 
 CXXI 
 
 AD Hesper o'er the bur- 
 ied 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. 
 
 ["4] 
 
 ^^^tt 
 
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 \^|3te5fiQ^^59 
 
 SS^^Kw"^ 
 
 i^'i^l 
 
 I^^M^ 
 
 ^^^^ 
 
 ^H 
 
 'ilVM/l ] Ll^S^SS 
 
 ^^^^ 
 
 
 ^A 
 
9!n fll^emorfam 
 
 cxxi 
 
 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 
 
 H, 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. 
 
 [X25] 
 
3In ^tmoviam 
 
 CXXIII 
 
 HERE 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 cen- 
 tral 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 
 
 HAT which we dare in- 
 voke to bless; 
 Our dearest faith; our 
 ghastliest doubt; 
 He, They, One, All; with- 
 in, without; 
 
 The Power in darkness 
 whom we g^ess; 
 
 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: 
 
 [126] 
 
9In fll^eraotfam 
 
 cxxiv 
 
 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 
 The freezing reason's colder part, 
 And like a man in wrath the heart 
 
 Stood up and answer'd •! have felt.' 
 
 No, like a child in doubt and fear: 
 
 But that blind clamour made me wise; 
 Then was I as a child that cries, 
 
 But crying, knows his father near; 
 
 And what I am beheld again 
 
 What is, and no man understands; 
 And out of darkness came the hands 
 
 That reach thro' nature, moulding men. 
 
 CXXV 
 
 HATEVER I have said 
 
 or sung, 
 
 Some bitter notes my 
 
 harp would give. 
 
 Yea, tho' there often 
 
 seem'd to live 
 
 A contradiction on the 
 
 tongue. 
 
 Yet Hope had never lost her youth; 
 
 She did but look through dimmer eyes ; 
 
 Or Love but play'd with gracious lies, 
 Because he felt so fix'd in truth: 
 
 [127] 
 
9In fll^etnorfam 
 
 cxxv 
 
 And if the song were full of care, 
 
 He breathed the spirit of the song; 
 And if the words were sweet and strong 
 
 He set his royal signet there; 
 
 Abiding with me till I sail 
 
 To seek thee on the mystic deeps, 
 And this electric force, that keeps 
 
 A thousand pulses dancing, fail. 
 
 my 
 
 CXXVI 
 
 OVE is and was 
 Lord and King, 
 And in his presence I 
 attend 
 
 To hear the tidings of 
 my friend. 
 
 Which every hour his 
 couriers bring. 
 
 Love is and was my King and Lord, 
 And will be, tho' as yet I keep 
 Within his court on earth, and sleep 
 
 Encompass' d by his faithful guard. 
 
 And hear at times a sentinel 
 
 Who moves about from place to place, 
 And whispers to the worlds of space. 
 
 In the deep night, that all is well. 
 
 H 
 
 [■Ml 
 
3iti la^emortam 
 
 CXXVII 
 
 ND all is well, tho' 
 
 faith and form 
 
 Be sunder' d in the night 
 
 of fear; 
 
 ^A^ell roars the storm to 
 
 those that hear 
 
 A deeper voice across 
 
 the storm, 
 
 Proclaiming social truth shall spread, 
 And justice, ev'n tho' thrice again 
 The red fool-fury of the Seine 
 
 Should pile her barricades with dead. 
 
 But ill for him that wears a crown. 
 And him, the lazar, in his rags: 
 They tremble, the sustaining crags; 
 
 The spires of ice are toppled down, 
 
 And molten up, and roar in flood; 
 The fortress crashes from on high, 
 The brute earth lightens to the sky, 
 
 And the great j^on sinks in blood. 
 
 And compassed by the fires of Hell; 
 While thou, dear spirit, happy star, 
 O'erlook'st the tumult from afar, 
 
 And smilest, knowing all is well. 
 
 ^ 
 
 [129] 
 
%n ^tmoviam 
 
 CXXVIII 
 
 1 
 
 ^ 
 
 1 
 
 HE love that rose on 
 
 stronger wings, 
 
 Unpalsied when he met 
 
 with Death, 
 
 Is comrade of the lesser 
 
 faith 
 
 That sees the course of 
 
 human things. 
 
 No doubt vast eddies in the flood 
 
 Of onward time shall yet be made, 
 And throned races may degrade; 
 
 Yet O ye mysteries of good, 
 
 Wild Hours that fly with Hope and Fear, 
 If all your office had to do 
 With old results that look like new; 
 
 If this were all your mission here, 
 
 To draw, to sheathe a useless sword. 
 To fool the crowd with glorious lies. 
 To cleave a creed in sects and cries, 
 
 To change the bearing of a word. 
 
 To shift an arbitrary power. 
 
 To cramp the student at his desk, 
 To make old bareness picturesque 
 
 And tuft with grass a feudal tower; 
 
 Why then my scorn might well descend 
 On you and yours. I see in part 
 That all, as in some piece of art. 
 
 Is toil cooperant to an end. 
 
 [130] 
 
in iSS^tmotiam 
 
 cxxix 
 
 1 
 
 ! 
 
 M 
 
 EAR friend, far off, my 
 lost desire. 
 
 So far, so near in woe 
 and weal; 
 
 loved the most, when 
 most I feel 
 
 There is a lower and a 
 higher ; 
 
 Known and unknown; human, divine; 
 
 Sweet human hand and lips and eye; 
 
 Dear heavenly friend that canst not die, 
 Mine, mine, for ever, ever mine; 
 
 Strange friend, past, present, and to be; 
 
 Loved deeplier, darklier understood; 
 
 Behold, I dream a dream of good. 
 And mingle all the world with thee. 
 
 cxxx 
 
 HY voice is on the roll- 
 ing air; 
 
 1 hear thee where the 
 waters run; 
 
 Thou standest in the 
 rising sun. 
 
 And in the setting thou 
 art fair. 
 
 What art thou then? I cannot guess, 
 But tho' I seem in star and flower 
 To feel thee some diffusive power, 
 
 I do not therefore love thee less: 
 
 [131] 
 
gin ^tmoviam 
 
 cxxx 
 
 My love involves the loves before; 
 
 My love is vaster passion now; 
 
 Tho' mix'd with God and Nature thou, 
 I seem to love thee more and more. 
 
 Far off thou art, but ever nigh ; 
 
 I have thee still, and I rejoice; 
 
 I prosper, circled with thy voice; 
 I shall not lose thee tho' I die. 
 
 CXXXI 
 
 LIVING will that shalt 
 
 endure 
 
 When all that seems 
 
 shall suffer shock. 
 
 Rise in the spiritual 
 
 rock. 
 
 Flow thro' our deeds 
 
 and make them pure, 
 
 That we may lift from out of dust 
 A voice as unto him that hears, 
 A cry above the conquer' d years 
 
 To one that with us works, and trust. 
 
 With faith that comes of self-control. 
 The truths that never can be proved 
 Until we close with all we loved. 
 
 And all we flow from, soul in soul. 
 
 O true and tried, so well and long, 
 Demand not thou a marriage lay; 
 In that it is thy marriage day 
 
 Is music more than any song. 
 
 [13a] 
 
31tt ^zmotiam cxxxi 
 
 Nor have I felt so much of bliss 
 
 Since first he told me that he loved 
 A daughter of our house; nor proved 
 
 Since that dark day a day like this; 
 
 Tho' I since then have number' d o'er [came, 
 Some thrice three years : they went and 
 Remade the blood and changed the 
 
 And yet is love not less, but more ; [frame, 
 
 No longer caring to embalm 
 
 In dying songs a dead regret, 
 But like a statue solid-set, 
 
 And moulded in colossal calm. 
 
 Regret is dead, but love is more 
 
 Than in the summers that are flown, 
 For I myself with these have grown 
 
 To something greater than before; 
 
 Which makes appear the songs I made 
 As echoes out of weaker times, 
 As half but idle brawling rhymes, 
 
 The sport of random sun and shade. 
 
 But where is she, the bridal flower. 
 
 That must be made a wife ere noon? 
 She enters, glowing like the moon 
 
 Of Eden on its bridal bower: 
 
 On me she bends her blissful eyes 
 
 And then on thee; they meet thy look 
 And brighten like the star that shook 
 
 Betwixt the palms of paradise. 
 
 [133] 
 
an la^emovfam cxxxi 
 
 O when her life was yet in bud, 
 He too foretold the perfect rose. 
 For thee she grew, for thee she grows 
 
 For ever, and as fair as good. 
 
 And thou art worthy ; full of power ; 
 As gentle; liberal-minded, great, 
 Consistent; wearing all that weight 
 
 Of learning lightly like a flower. 
 
 But now set out: the noon is near, 
 And I must give away the bride; 
 She fears not, or with thee beside 
 
 And me behind her, will not fear. 
 
 For I that danced her on my knee. 
 
 That watch' d her on her nurse's arm. 
 That shielded all her life from harm 
 
 At last must part with her to thee; 
 
 Now waiting to be made a wife. 
 
 Her feet, my darling, on the dead ; 
 Their pensive tablets round her head, 
 
 And the most living words of life 
 
 Breathed in her ear. The ring is on. 
 The 'wilt thou' answer' d, and again 
 The ' wilt thou ' ask'd, till out of twain 
 
 Her sweet ' I will ' has made you one. 
 
 Now sign your names, which shall be read, 
 Mute symbols of a joyful mom. 
 By village eyes as yet unborn; 
 
 The names are sign'd, and overhead 
 
 [134] 
 
9!n fll^emoriam cxxxi 
 
 Begins the clash and clang that tells 
 The joy to every wandering breeze; 
 The blind wall rocks, and on the trees 
 
 The dead leaf trembles to the bells. 
 
 O happy hour, and happier hours 
 Await them. Many a merry face 
 Salutes them — maidens of the place, 
 
 That pelt us in the porch with flowers. 
 
 O happy hour, behold the bride 
 
 "With him to whom her hand I gave. 
 
 They leave the porch, they pass the 
 That has to-day its sunny side. [grave 
 
 To-day the grave is bright for me. 
 
 For them the light of life increased, 
 "Who stay to share the morning feast, 
 
 Who rest to-night beside the sea. 
 
 Let all my genial spirits advance 
 To meet and greet a whiter sun; 
 My drooping memory will not shun 
 
 The foaming grape of eastern France. 
 
 It circles round, and fancy plays. 
 
 And hearts are warm'd and faces bloom. 
 As drinking health to bride and groom 
 
 We wish them store of happy days. 
 
 Nor count me all to blame if I 
 Conjecture of a stiller guest. 
 Perchance, perchance, among the rest, 
 
 And, tho' in silence, wishing joy. 
 
 [135] 
 
31n igl^emorfam cxxxi 
 
 But they must go, the time draws on, 
 
 And those white-favour' d horses wait; 
 They rise, but linger; it is late; 
 
 Farewell, we kiss, and they are gone. 
 
 A shade falls on us like the dark 
 
 From little cloudlets on the grass. 
 But sweeps away as out we pass 
 
 To range the woods, to roam the park, 
 
 Discussing how their courtship grew, 
 And talk of others that are wed. 
 And how she look'd, and what he said. 
 
 And back we come at fall of dew. 
 
 Again the feast, the speech, the glee. 
 
 The shade of passing thought, the wealth 
 Of words and wit, the double health. 
 
 And crowning cup, the three times three. 
 
 At last the dance; — till I retire: 
 
 Dumb is that tower which spake so loud, 
 And high in heaven the streaming cloud. 
 
 And on the downs a rising fire: 
 
 And rise, O moon, from yonder down. 
 Till over down and over dale 
 All night the shining vapour sail 
 
 And pass the silent-lighted town. 
 
 The white-faced halls, the glancing rills, 
 And catch at every mountain head. 
 And o'er the friths that branch and spread 
 
 Their sleeping silver thro' the hills; 
 
 [136] 
 
31n fljpemorfam cxxxi 
 
 And touch with shade the bridal doors, 
 With tender gloom the roof, the wall; 
 And breaking let the splendour fall 
 
 To spangle all the happy shores 
 
 By which they rest, and ocean sounds, 
 And, star and system rolling past, 
 A soul shall draw from out the vast 
 
 And strike his being into bounds. 
 
 And, moved thro' life of lower phase, 
 Result in man, be born and think, 
 And act and love, a closer link 
 
 Betwixt us and the crowning race 
 
 Of those that, eye to eye, shall look 
 
 On knowledge ; under whose command 
 Is Earth and Earth's, and in their hand 
 
 Is Nature like an open book; 
 
 No longer half-akin to brute. 
 
 For all we thought and loved and did. 
 And hoped, and sufTer'd, is but seed 
 
 Of what in them is flower and fruit; 
 
 Whereof the man, that with me trod 
 This planet, was a noble type 
 Appearing ere the times were ripe. 
 
 That friend of mine who lives in God, 
 
 That God, which ever lives and loves. 
 One God, one law, one element. 
 And one far-off divine event, 
 
 To which the whole creation moves. 
 
 [THE END] 
 
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 MD • C C C • XL • IX 
 
IN-MEMORIAM* AS-WRITTEN 
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 MD • C C C • XL • IX 
 
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