Is shriveled in a fruitless fire,
Or but? subserves another's gain. only Behold, we know not anything;
I can but trust that good shall fall
is At last?far off?at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring.
So runs my dream; but what am I?
An infant crying in the night;
An infant crying for the light,
20 And with no language but a cry.
55
The wish, that of the living whole
No life may fail beyond the grave,
Derives it not from what we have
The likest God within the soul?1 5 Are God and Nature then at strife,
That Nature lends such evil dreams?
So careful of the type she seems,
So careless of the single life,
That I, considering everywhere
io Her secret meaning in her deeds,
And finding that of fifty seeds
She often brings but one to bear,
I falter where I firmly trod,
And falling with my weight of cares
15 Upon the great world's altar-stairs
That slope through darkness up to God,
I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,
And gather dust and chaff, and call
To what I feel is Lord of all,
20 And faintly trust the larger hope.2
1. According to Tennyson, the 'innerconscience? 2. As expressed in lines 1 and 2. the divine in man.'
.
IN MEMORIAM, 118 / 1159
115
'So careful of the type?' but no. From scarped3 cliff and quarried stone She? cries, 'A thousand types are gone; I care for nothing, all shall go. Nature s 'Thou makest thine appeal to me: I bring to life, I bring to death; The spirit does but mean the breath: I know no more.' And he, shall he, ioMan, her last work, who seemed so fair, Such splendid purpose in his eyes, Who rolled the psalm to wintry skies, Who built him fanes0 of fruitless prayer, temples 15Who trusted God was love indeed And love Creation's final law? Though Nature, red in tooth and claw With ravine, shrieked against his creed? 20Who loved, who suffered countless ills, Who battled for the True, the Just, Be blown about the desert dust, Or sealed within the iron hills?4 No more? A monster then, a dream, A discord. Dragons of the prime,0That tare0 each other in their slime, Were mellow music matched with0 him. primeval age tore (archaic) compared to 25 O life as futile, then, as frail! O for thy voice to soothe and bless! What hope of answer, or redress? Behind the veil, behind the veil.
57
Peace; come away: the song of woe Is after all an earthly song. Peace; come away: we do him wrong
To sing so wildly: let us go.
5 Come; let us go: your cheeks are pale; Methinks my friend is richly shrined; But half my life I leave behind.
But I shall pass, my work will fail.
3. Cut away so that the strata are exposed. 4. Preserved like fossils in rock.
.
1 138 / ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
Yet in these ears, till hearing dies, 10 One set slow bell will seem to toll The passing of the sweetest soul That ever looked with human eyes.
I hear it now, and o'er and o'er, Eternal greetings to the dead; 15 And 'Ave,? Ave, Ave,' said, Hail (Latin) 'Adieu, adieu,' forevermore.
