And with my heart I muse and say:
5 O heart, how fares it with thee now, That thou should fail from thy desire, Who scarcely darest to inquire,
'What is it makes me beat so low?'
Something it is which thou hast lost, 10 Some pleasure from thine early years. Break thou deep vase of chilling tears, That grief hath shaken into frost!8
Such clouds of nameless trouble cross All night below the darkened eyes; is With morning wakes the will, and cries,
'Thou shalt not be the fool of loss.'
8. Water can be brought below freezing-point and not turn into ice?if it be kept still; but if it be moved suddenly it turns into ice and may break a vase [Tennyson's note].
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1 138 / ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
5
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.
5 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, mourning garments 10 Like coarsest clothes against the cold; But that large grief which these enfold Is given in outline and no more.
6
One writes, that 'Other friends remain,' That 'Loss is common to the race'? And common is the commonplace, And vacant chaff3 well meant for grain. husks 5 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. IOO father, wheresoe'er thou be, Who pledgest' now thy gallant son; A shot, ere half thy draft be done, Hath stilled the life that beat from thee. toasts
O mother, praying God will save Thy sailor?while thy head is bowed, is His heavy-shotted hammock-shroud Drops in his vast and wandering grave.9
Ye know no more than I who wrought At that last hour to please him well;1 Who mused on all I had to tell,
20 And something written, something thought;
Expecting still his advent home; And ever met him on his way With wishes, thinking, 'here today,'
Or 'here tomorrow will he come.'
9. Sailors buried at sea were often wrapped in 1. According to his son, Tennyson discovered that their own hammocks. 'Heavy-shotted': heavily he had been writing a letter to Hallam during the weighted. very hour in which his friend died.
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IN MEMORIAM, EPILOGUE/ 1143
25 O somewhere, meek, the unconscious dove, That sittest ranging0 golden hair; And glad to find thyself so fair, Poor child, that waitest for thy love! arranging 30For 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; 35For he will see them on tonight; And with the thought her color burns; And, having left the glass, she turns Once more to set a ringlet right; 40And, even when she turned, the curse Had fallen, and her future Lord Was drowned in passing through the ford, Or killed 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. 7 Dark house,2 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, 5 A hand that can be clasped no more? Behold me, for I cannot sleep, And like a guilty thing I creep At earliest morning to the door. ioHe is not here; but far away The noise of life begins again, And ghastly through the drizzling rain On the bald street breaks the blank day. 8 A happy lover who has come To look on her that loves him well, Who 'lights0 and rings the gateway bell, And learns her gone and far from home; alights 2. The house on Wimpole Street, in London, where Haliam had lived.
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1 138 / ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
5 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: 10So 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. isYet as that other, wandering there In those deserted walks, may find A flower beat with rain and wind, Which once she fostered up with care; 20So seems it in my deep regret, 0 my forsaken heart, with thee And this poor flower of poesy Which little cared for fades not yet. But since it pleased a vanished eye,3 1 go to plant it on his tomb, That if it can it there may bloom, Or dying, there at least may die.
9
Fair ship, that from the Italian shore4 Sailest the placid ocean-plains With my lost Arthur's loved remains,
Spread thy full wings, and waft him o'er.
5 So draw him home to those that mourn In vain; a favorable speed Ruffle thy mirrored mast, and lead
Through prosperous floods his holy urn.
