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In memoriam [by A. Tennyson].
by Alfred Tennyson (1st baron.)
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Excerpt:
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.
XII.
Lo! as a dove when up she springs,
To bear through 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.
xin.
Tears 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 forever new,
A void where heart on heart reposed;
And, where warm hands have pressed and closed,
Silence, till I be silent too.
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 though they brought but merchants' bales,
And not the burthen that they bring.
XIV.
If one should bring me this report,
That thou hadst touched 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 drooped of late,
And he should sorrow o'er my state,
And marvel what possessed my brain;
And I perceive 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.
XT.
To-night the winds began to rise
And roar from yonder dropping day;
The last red leaf is whirled away,
The rooks are blown about the skies;
The forest cracked, the waters curled,
The cattle huddled on the lea;
And wildly dashed 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
