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IN MEMORIAM A.H.H.
[Arthur Hugh Hallam]
OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII.
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
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- CXXI.
- Sad Hesper o'er the buried sun
- And ready, thou, to die with him,
- Thou watchest all things ever dim
- And dimmer, and a glory done:
- The team is loosen'd from the wain,
- The boat is drawn upon the shore;
- Thou listenest to the closing door,
- And life is darken'd in the brain.
- Bright Phosphor, fresher for the night,
- By thee the world's great work is heard
- Beginning, and the wakeful bird;
- Behind thee comes the greater light:
- The market boat is on the stream,
- And voices hail it from the brink;
- Thou hear'st the village hammer clink,
- And see'st the moving of the team.
- Sweet Hesper-Phosphor, double name
- For what is one, the first, the last,
- Thou, like my present and my past,
- Thy place is changed; thou art the same.
- CXXII.
- Oh, wast thou with me, dearest, then,
- While I rose up against my doom,
- And yearn'd to burst the folded gloom,
- To bare the eternal Heavens again,
- To feel once more, in placid awe,
- The strong imagination roll
- A sphere of stars about my soul,
- In all her motion one with law;
- If thou wert with me, and the grave
- Divide us not, be with me now,
- And enter in at breast and brow,
- Till all my blood, a fuller wave,
- Be quicken'd with a livelier breath,
- And like an inconsiderate boy,
- As in the former flash of joy,
- I slip the thoughts of life and death;
- And all the breeze of Fancy blows,
- And every dew-drop paints a bow,
- The wizard lightnings deeply glow,
- And every thought breaks out a rose.
- CXXIII.
- There rolls the deep where grew the tree.
- O earth, what changes hast thou seen!
- There where the long street roars, hath been
- The stillness of the central sea.
- The hills are shadows, and they flow
- From form to form, and nothing stands;
- They melt like mist, the solid lands,
- Like clouds they shape themselves and go.
- But in my spirit will I dwell,
- And dream my dream, and hold it true;
- For tho' my lips may breathe adieu,
- I cannot think the thing farewell.
- CXXIV.
- That which we dare invoke to bless;
- Our dearest faith; our ghastliest doubt;
- He, They, One, All; within, without;
- The Power in darkness whom we guess;
- I found Him not in world or sun,
- Or eagle's wing, or insect's eye;
- Nor thro' the questions men may try,
- The petty cobwebs we have spun:
- If e'er when faith had fall'n asleep,
- I heard a voice 'believe no more'
- And heard an ever-breaking shore
- That tumbled in the Godless deep;
- A warmth within the breast would melt
- The freezing reason's colder part,
- And like a man in wrath the heart
- Stood up and answer'd 'I 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.
- Whatever 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:
- 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.
- CXXVI.
- Love is and was my 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.
- CXXVII.
- And all is well, tho' faith and form
- Be sunder'd in the night of fear;
- Well 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 Æon sinks in blood,
- And compass'd by the fires of Hell;
- While thou, dear spirit, happy star,
- O'erlook'st the tumult from afar,
- And smilest, knowing all is well.
- CXXVIII.
- The 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 coöperant to an end.
- CXXIX.
- Dear friend, far off, my lost desire,
- So far, so near in woe and weal;
- O 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.
- Thy voice is on the rolling air;
- I 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:
- My love involves the love 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.
- O 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.
- 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
- Some thrice three years: they went and came,
- Remade the blood and changed the frame,
- And yet is love not less, but more;
- 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 he 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.
- 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 morn,
- By village eyes as yet unborn;
- The names are sign'd, and overhead
- 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 grave
- That has to-day its sunny side.
- 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.
- 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,
- The crowning cup, the three-times-three,
- And 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;
- 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 suffer'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.
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