Poets' Corner - Alfred, Lord Tennyson

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Verses:

Beginning

II.

III.

IV.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

XI.

XV.

XX.

XXI.through XLI
XLI. through LX.
LXI. through LXXX.
LXXXI. through C.
CI. through CXX.
CXXI. through CXXXI.

In Memoriam

by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

I.
I held it truth, with him who sings: To one clear harp in divers 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.
Old Yew, which graspest at the stones: That name the under-lying dead,; Thy fibres net the dreamless head,
Thy roots are wrapt about the bones.
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.: III.
O Sorrow, cruel fellowship,: O Priestess in the vaults of Death,; O sweet and bitter in a breath,
What 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.’
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.
To Sleep I give my powers away;: My will is bondsman to the dark;; I sit within a helmless bark,
And with my heart I muse and say:
O heart, how fares it with thee now,: That thou should’st 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 thine 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.’: V.
I 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.
One writes, that ‘Other friends remain,’: That ‘Loss is common to the race’–; And common is the commonplace,
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.
O father, wheresoe’er thou be,: Who 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 burns;; And, having left the glass, she turns
Once more to set a ringlet right;
And, even when she turn’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 to me remains of good?; To her, perpetual maidenhood,
And unto me no second friend.: VII.
Dark house, by which once more I stand: Here in the long unlovely 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.: VIII.
A 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,: O 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,: I go to plant it on his tomb,; That if it can it there may bloom,
Or dying, there at least may die.: IX.
Fair 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 favourable 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.: X.
I 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 travell’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.: XI.
Calm is the morn without a sound,: Calm as to suit a calmer 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.: XII.
Lo, 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.: XIII.
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 for ever new,: A void where heart on heart reposed;; And, where warm hands have prest and closed,
Silence, till I be silent too.
Which weeps 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.: XIV.
If 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.: XV.
To-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.: XVI.
What 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?: XVII.
Thou 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.: XVIII.
’Tis 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 the firmer mind,; Treasuring the look it cannot find,
The words that are not heard again.: XIX.
The 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;: That 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.
The 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;
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.’

to Verse XXI.

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