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Un des symboles suivants apparaTtra sur la dernidre image de cheque microfiche, selon le cas: le symbole — ► signifie "A SUIVRE", le symbole V signifie "FIN ". Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large to be entirely included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre film6s d des taux de reduction diffdrents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre reproduit en un seul clichd, il est film6 d partir de Tangle sup6rieur gauche, de gauche d droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images ndcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mdthode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 Kn plemoiiam. BY ALFRED TENN\ SON, Poet LaiTreatk. CANADIAN COPYRIGHT EDITION, MONTREAL: DAWSON BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS. 1880. PR \sso Cop. 1 Entered according to the Act of Parliament of Canada, in the year 1880, by Dawson Brothers, in the Office of the Minister of Agricultur*. 1)10 5 6 u Gazette Printing Company, Montreal. (f.-fi^lfl.'yM\'/ - nada, in the Office of the TRONG Son of God, immortal Love, Whom we, that have not seen ihj 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 whyj He thinks he was not made to die; And thou hast made him : thou art just. a VI Thou seemest Imman and divine. The highest, holiest manhood, thou : Our wills are ours, we know not how ; Our wills are ours, to make them thine. 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, Hut more of reverence in us dwell; That mind and soul, according well, May make one music as before. vU 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 ; dl. Forgive them where they fail in trath, And in thy wisdom make me wise. 184Q. IN MEMORIAM. A. H. H. OBin MOCCCXXXIII. • f \M IN MEMORIAM. I. HELD it truth, with him who sings To one c'eaf harp in divers tones, That men may rise on stepping- stones Of their dead selves to higher thinf::s. But vi^ho 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 ? B IN MEMORIAM. 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, IJut all he was is overworn.' I IN MEMORIAM. 8 n I p i II. |LD Yew, which graspest at the stones That name the under-lyhig dead, Thy fibres net the dreandess head. Thy roots are wrapt about the bones. The seasons bring the flower again. And bring the firstling to the flock; .. id 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. IN MEMORIAM. III. 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 j 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? IN MEMOl^dAM. m IV. O Sleep I give my powers away ; My will is bondsman to the dark ; I sit within a heln. .ss 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 tlie darken'd eyes ; "With morning wakes the will, and cries, * Thou shalt not be the fool of loss.' >, il t < '1 lit ,vl y 'V Ji^^ V- ■ IN MEMORIAM. V. SOMETIMES hold it half a sin To put in words the grief I feel ; For words, lilce 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. IN MEMO R I AM. alf a sin rief I feel ; e, half reveal lin. brain, ge lies ; -> )ain. 5 me o'er, mst the cold ; these enfold e. NE 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 w^andering grave. ,^f' C W z < i 8 IN MEMORIAM. 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 j 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 bef.t,' She takes a riband or a rose ; IN MEMORIAM. For he will see them on to-niglit ; And with the thought her colour burns j 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. < 1 so IN MEMORIAM. A VII. ARK 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. IN MEMORIAM. II VIII. 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 : a I. 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 fostor'd up with care; z < 'W I { t, ?* xa IN MEMORIAM. L 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 u pleased a vanish'd eye, 1 go to plant it on his tomb, That if it can it there may ])loom, Or dying, there at least may die. IN MEMORIaM. 18 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 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 '^^cks. C H d > z n I] i < I HI M IN MEMORIAM. Sphere all your lights around, above ; Sleep, gentle heavens, before the prow j Sleep, gentle winds, as he sleeps now, My friend, the brother of my love ; My Aithur, 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. L IN MEMORIAM. T| X. HEAR the noise about thy keel ; I hear the bell struck in the night ; 1 see the cabin-window bright ; I see the sailor at the wheel. Thou bringest tlie 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 > ') { /JV MEMORIAM, To I est beneath the clover sod, That lakes 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 j And hands so often clasp'd in mine, Should toss with tangle and with shells. ■iM. IN MBMORIAM, 50(1, e and the rains, hamlet drains "God; ig wells [i-deep in brine ; sp'd in mine, I with shells. XL ALM is the morn without a sound, Calm as to suit a calmer griet, 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 bound -ng main : »i > i z < n 4 r ■I '* /// ME MORI AM. Calm and deep peace in tiiis wide air, These leaves tliat redden to the fall ; And ni my heart, if calm at all. If any calm, a calm despair : Calm on the seas, a,,,] silver sleep. And waves that sway themselves in rest, And dead calm in that noble breast Which heaves but with the heavin^r deep. i IN MEMOKIAM 19 XII. O, as a dove when up she springs To bear tliro' Heaven a tale of woe, Some dolorous message knit below The wild pulsation of her wings ; "i Like her 1 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, ^^ MEMORIAM. And .aying;.. Co.es he thus, my friend? Is this the end of all my cara?" And circle moaning in the au ; " 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 Jearn That I have been an hour away. 'lAAf. hus, my friend? y cara ?" the air : he end ?" iplay ick return ami ]eam 'ay. IN ME MORI AM. 81 XIII. EARS of the widoAver, wlien he sees A late-lost form that sleep reveals, And moves his doubtful arms, and feels Iler place is empty, fall like these; Which weep a loss for ever new, A void where heart on heart re])oscd ; And, where warm hands have prest and closed, Silence, till I be silent too. X. > c I < 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. 23 /-^ MEMORIAM. Come Time, and leqrh m^ ' ^^^'^^ "le, many years, I do not suffer in a dream ; Fornow so strange do these things seem Mme 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 tliey bring. me, many years, dream ; do tliese things seem, or their tears ; •n wing, le approaching sails, t but merchants' bales, tJiey bring. IN ME MORI AM. »3 XIV. 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 piank, And beckoning unto those they know ; Ai c z c' 1 n 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 ; IN MEMORIAM. 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 leel it to be strange. tain, op'd of late, r my state ' brain ; lange, frame, e same, c. IN Mt MORI AM. 1,1^ 2S XV. ^i^^^^ljO-NIGIIT 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 [ !■ I" I- 5 > < <« '^ MEMORrAM. '"'•^' '"•*'^' "« ""-n b™,c„es loud • And but for fear i, is not ,o T'.e «■.•!.. unrest tl.at lives i^ „„, "-'"ote and pore on yonder cloud TLat rises upward always higher. A,KI onward drags a labouring breast, And .o,,pIes round the dreary west, '""""« ''^"™ Wnt'c'd with fire ■H» branches loud ; is not so, ^t Jives in woe ' yonder cloud s higher, ■ labouring breast, ^e dreary west, i with fire. IN MEMORIAM. a? XVI. HAT words are these have fall'n from me ? Can cahn 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 siorm ; 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 utihappy bark > n ■ ] I., r Mm CI < • IN MEMORIAM. That strikes by night a craggy shelf, And staggers blindly ere she sink ? And stunn'd me from my power to ihink And all my knowledge of myself ; And made me that delirious man Whose fancy fuses old aud new. And flashes into false and true, And mingles all without a plan? ?y shelf, ! she sink ? y power to ihink self ; /A^ MEMOK/AM. 29 XVII. IIOU 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. O •,.1 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. W' y) IN MKMORIAM So may wliatcvcr tempest mars Mid-ocean, spare Ihee, sacred hark ; And l)ahny droi)s in summer dark Slide from the bosom of the stars. So kind an office hath been done, Such precious relics brou<;ht by thee; The dust of him I shall not see Till all my vvidow'd race be mn. M IN MEAIORIAM. 3X sacred bnrk ; mmer dark ; stars. done, aught by tliee; 1 not see I iiin. XVIII. IS well; 'tis something; \vc 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 wcpp And hear the ritual of the dead. C ■v m ■ »i K: m: IP i ?'; 1/3 I 1 B^ 33 fiW ME MO Rr AM. 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. If. be, :art, lips impart 1 pain, er mind, not find, igain. IN MEMORIAM. XIX. 33 HE Danube to the Severn gave Tlie dai ken'd lieart 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, I And I can speak a little then. I) M IN MEMORIAM. XX. TIE lesser griefs that may be said, That breathe a thousand tender vows. Are but as servants in a house Where Hcs the master newly dead; Who speak their feeling as it is, And weep the fullness from the mind: " It will be hard," they say, ♦'tofrnd Another service such as this." My lighter moods are like to these, That out of words a comfort wm ; But there are other griefs within, And tears that at their fountain freeze : in; m. ze: IN MEMORIAM. 35 For by the hearth the cliildren sit CoUl in that atmosphere of Dcaih. And scarce endure to draw the brcatli. Or like to noiseless phantoms flit : said, ender vowS; ouse 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." le mind : "tofmd .n IN MEMORIAM.. 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 weak, And melt the waxen hearts of men." Anollicr answers, •' Let him be, lie 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? i ^ '=-:. 1 me wave, ^ ive, IN MEMOKIAM. A time to sicken uml to swoon, When Science readies 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. 37 tC) C 38 IN MEMORIAM, XXII. HE patli by which we twain did go, Which led by tracts that pleased well, Thro* four sweet years arose and fell, From flower to flower, from snow to snow: 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: IJui where tlie path we walk'd began To slant the fifth autumnal slope. As we descended following Hope, There sat the Shadow fear'd of man; v& •^ ^ IN MEMORIAM. Who broke our fair companionsliip, And spread his mantle dark and cokl, And wrapt thee formless in the fold, And dull'd the murmur on thy lip, 39 ain did go, hat pleased uii :I fell, ) snow ; 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. < n lent, f M r 1 % " ) r a < 40 IN MEMORIAM xxm. OW, sometimes in my sonow shut, Or breaking into song by fits, Alone, alone, to where lie 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 patliway leads ; And crying, How changed from where it ran Thro' lands where not a leaf \xas dumbj But all the lavish hills would hum The murmur of a happy Pan : t IN MEMORIAM. 41 When each by turns was ^iiide to each, And Fancy Hj^dit from Fancy caught, And Thought leaj)! 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 tlute of Arcady. V! fc r 4' ,( t- % •H M bmok iam. 1 fair ^^*^ ^^*^^' M-^'^^'""" ,.,, present sute, Thai seis vhe v 0,ltol*eP^ .^3 being to-. '^*^^"'" 1 perfect sta. ^ndovbtoW^r^l, Hereto' ,.Ve s»v< no»' \^ ? ate, at? .'^^^^^^^ IN MEMORIAM. 43 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 hght as carrier-birds in air ; I loved the weight I had to bear, Because it needed help of Love : Nor could 1 weary, heart or limb, When mighty Love would cleave in twain The lading of a single pain, And part it, giving half to him. c C ^ C) '< r' < ,tar ihete ■Vji? ■»^'' IN MEMORIAM XXVI. ,T1LL onward winds the dreary way ; 1 with it; for Hong to prove No lapse of moons can canker Love, Whatever fickle tongties may say. And if that eye which watches guilt And goodness, and hath power to see Within the green the mouldcr'd tree, And towers fall'n as soon as built- Oh, if indeed that eye foresee Or see (in Ilim is no before) In more of life true life no more And Love the indifference to be, Then might I find, ere yet the morn Breaks hither over Indian seas, That Shadow waiting with the keys, To shroud me from ^ >er scorn. IN MEMORIAM. 45 XXVII. ENVY not in any moods The captive void of noble rage, ^ The linnet born within the cage, That never knew the summer woods : I envy not the bcasf that takes His license in the field of ti' Unfotter'd by the sense oi 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 -begot ten rest. I hold it true, what e'er befall ; I feel it, when I sorrow most ; 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all. IN MEMORIAM. XXVTII. HE lime 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 Were shut between me and the sound : Lach voice four changes on the wind, That nowdilace, and now decrease, Peace and goodwill, goodwill and peace, Peace and goodv/ill, to all mankind. if Christ: : is still : illtohiU or. n/ MEMORIAM. 47 'his year I slept and woke with pain, 1 almost wish'd no more to wake, And that my hold on life would break Jefore I heard those bells again ; Jut they my troubled spirit nile. For they controU'd me when a boy ; They bring me sorrow touch'd with joy, :he merry merry bells of Yule. ■ace, AJ 4« ,S MEMORI*"- XXIX. j,TU such compelUng cause to firieve ^, chhnngsno-norea..elcon,e,n.e,t , To enrich the threshold of the „.«h. With shower'd largess of deh^hl ,„ dance and song and game and, est? vet go, and while the hoUy houghs E„t.tne the cold haptlsn^Uo..^^^^ Make one wreath more for Use a TT.,t guard the portals of the house-. Old sisters of a day gone by, Gray nurses, loving nothing new; ,Vhy should they miss their yearly due Before their time. They too will dte. hi I I'l IN MEMOKIAM. 4» vt'f ,/ M XXX. ]ITI1 trembling fingers did we weave The holly round the Christmas hearth . A rainy cloud possess'd the earth, And sadly fell our Christmas-eve. At our old pastimes in the hall We gambol'd, making vain f.-'elence 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 : I ill 50 IN MEMORIAM. We ceased : a gentler feeling crept Upon us : surely rest is meet : " They rest," we said, ** their sleep is sweet, And silence follow'd, and we wept. Our voices took a higher range ; Once more we sang : "They do not die Nor lose their mortal sympathy, Nor change to us, although they change; Rapt from the fickle and the frail With gathcr'd power, yet the same, Pierces the keen seraphic flame From orb to orb, from veil to veil." Rise, happy morn, rise, holy mom, Draw forth the cheerful day from night : O Father, touch the east, and light Tlie hght that shone when Hope was bom. IN MEMORIAM. 51 XXXI. THEN Lazarus left his charncl-cave, And home to Mary's house returned, Was this demanded— if he yearn'd To hear her weeping by his grave ? " Where vvert thou, brother, those four days ?" There Uvcs 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 fiU'd with joyful sound, A solemn gladness even crowii'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. 5« /,V M EM OR I AM. 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 ? IN MEMORIAM. 83 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, Leave thou thy sister when she prays, Her early Heaven, her happy views; Nor thou witli 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 tlie 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 Xjo^. 'Q 54 iN AtEAIORIAM, 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 ; 'Twere best at once to sink to peace, Like birds the changing serpent draws. To drop head-foremost in the jaws Of vacant darkness and to cease. IN MEMORIAM. S5 XXXV. '^ET if some voice that man could trjst Should murmur from the narrow house, " The cheeks drop in; tiie body bows; Man dies : nor is there Iiope in dust :" I Might I not say? " Yet even here, But for one hour, O Love, I strive To keep so sweet a tiling alive : " But I should turn mine ears and hear The moanings of the homeless sea, The sound of streams that swift or slow Draw down .Ionian hills, and sow The dust of continents to be; 56 IN MEMOR fAM. And Love would answer with a sigh, " The sovnid of that forgetful shore Will change my sweetness more and more, Ilalf-dead to know that I shall die." O me, what profits it to put An idle case ? If Death were seen At first as Deatli, Love had not been, Or been in narrowest working shut, Mere fellowship of sluggish moods, Or in his coarsest Satyr-shape Had bruised the herb and cnish'd the grap: And bask'd and batten'd in the woods. A IN MEMOK lAM. 5J XXXVI. ^^vs^JJiIIO' liiitlis in manhood darkly join, Deep-seated in our mystic frame, We yield all blessinj^ to the name Of II im that made them current coin ; For Wisdom dealt with mortal powers, Where truth in closest words shall fail, When tnith 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. IN MEMORIAM XXXVIl. |;^S7%^RANIA speaks with darkon'd brow: 1 "Thou pratest here where thou ait least ; Tliis 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 (){ Lhy prevailing mysteries ; IN MEMO K /AM. 99 For I am but an earthly '.Ti'se, And owning but i lUlle a:-: To lull Willi song ^n jichin- heart, And render human love ius 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 niurmur'd, as I came along. Of comfort claspM in truth revcal'd i And loilcr'd in the master's field, And darken'd sanctities with song." " r (*« 6o IN MEMORIAM. XXXVTII. TTII weary steps I loiter on, Tho' always under altcr'd skies The puq^le from the distance 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, Then are these songs I sing of thee Not all ungrateful to thine ear. ^s5?Ki>c.;;^ IN MEMORIAM. 6l XXXIX. LD warder of these buried bones, And answering now my random Stioke With fruitful cloud and living smoke. Dark yew, that graspest at the stones And dippest toward the dreamless head, To thee too comes the golden hour Wlr-A flower is feeling after flower ; But Sorrow fixt upon the dead. 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. ^^^ 62 IN MEMORIAM. XL. OULD we forget the widow'd hour And look or. Spirits breathed away. As on a maiden in the day When first she wears her orange-flower I \Vhen 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; t IN ME MORI AM. 63 And, doubtless, unto thee is given A life that bears immortal fruit In such great offices as suit The full-grown energies of heaven. 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 dtar 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. g 64 IN ME MORI AM. XLI. loss Did ever rise from high to higher ; As mounts the heavenward altar-fire, As flies the lighter thro' the gross. But thou art turn'd to something strange, And I have lost the links that bound Thy changes ; here upon the ground, No more partaker of th. -hange. 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 IN ME MORI AM. 6S For tho' my nature rarely yields To that vagi\e fear implied in death ; Nor shudders at the gulfs beneath, The hovvlings 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 wonuers that have come to thee, Thro' all the secular to-be, But evermore a life behind. F 66 It^ MEMORIA nt XUI. ^ VEX my hc.irt, wiili fancies dim: lie still outsUij)! 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 delighis can equal those That stir the spirit's inner deepb, When one that loves but knows not, reaps A truth from one that loves and knows? IN MEMORIAM. XLIII. F Sleep and Death be truly one, And every spirit's folded 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 ilovvei 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. 68 IN MEMORIAM. XLIV. 0\V 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. The days have vanish'd, tone and tint, And yet perhaps the hoarding sense Gives out at times (he knows not whence) A little flash, a mystic hint ; 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. > i IN ME MORI AM. « XLV. HE baby new to earth and sky, What time his tender |)ahn is prest Against the circle of the breast, Has never thought that ** this is I:" ■ But as he grows he gatliers 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. 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. 70 IN M E MORI AM. XLVI. E ranging down this lower track, The path we came by, thorn anil llower, Is shadow' (1 by the gruwin;^ hour, Lest life should fail in looking back. So be it : there no shade can last In tliat deep dawn behind the tomb, But clear from marge to marge shall bloom The eternal landsca[< of tin- past; A lifelong tract of time n; /eal'd ; The fruitful hours of still increase; Days order'd in a wealthy i)(ace, And those five years its richest ii 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. I IN MEMOlilAM. 71 XLVII. II AT each, who seems n scparnte whole, Should move his rounds, and fusing all Tlie skirts of -elf again, sliould fall Renicrgiiig in the general Sui.l, T- f;iiii; as vague as all unswect : I'" ual -rm shall still divide '1 1. tf' lal soul from all beside ; \nd I <'iall know him when we meet: And we shall sit at end lev feast, Enjoying each the ot 's good : What vaster dream can hit the mood Of L( e on earth? He seeks .. east Upon the last and sharj, t height, Before the spirit'^ fai away, Some landing-pl^ce, to clasp and sny, ** Fart veil! We lose ourselves i'^ light." '\ rN RJEMORIAM. t XLVIII. F these brief lays, of Sorrow born, Were tal