To which thy crescent would have grown,
5 I see thee sitting crowned with good, A central warmth diffusing bliss In glance and smile, and clasp and kiss,
On all the branches of thy blood;
Thy blood, my friend, and partly mine; io For now the day was drawing on, When thou shouldst link thy life with one Of mine own house, and boys of thine
Had babbled 'Uncle' on my knee; But that remorseless iron hour 15 Made cypress of her orange flower,5 Despair of hope, and earth of thee.
I seem to meet their least desire, To clap their cheeks, to call them mine. I see their unborn faces shine
20 Beside the never-lighted fire.
I see myself an honored guest, Thy partner in the flowery walk Of letters, genial table talk,
Or deep dispute, and graceful jest;
25 While now thy prosperous labor fills The lips of men with honest praise, And sun by sun the happy days
Descend below the golden hills
With promise of a morn as fair; 30
And all the train of bounteous hours Conduct, by paths of growing powers, To reverence and the silver hair;
5. Orange blossoms are associated with brides?here the poet's sister Emily Tennyson, to whom Hallam had been engaged. Cypress branches are associated with funerals.
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IN MEMORIAM, EPILOGUE/ 1167
Till slowly worn her earthly robe, Her lavish mission richly wrought, 35
Leaving great legacies of thought, Thy spirit should fail from off the globe;
What time mine own might also flee, As linked with thine in love and fate, And, hovering o'er the dolorous strait
40 To the other shore, involved in thee,
Arrive at last the blessed goal, And He that died in Holy Land Would reach us out the shining hand,
And take us as a single soul.
45 What reed was that on which I leant? Ah, backward fancy, wherefore wake The old bitterness again, and break
The low beginnings of content?
* $ $ 86
Sweet after showers, ambrosial air, That rollest from the gorgeous gloom Of evening over brake' and bloomAnd meadow, slowly breathing bare thicket 5 The round of space,6 and rapt below Through all the dewy- tasseled wood, And shadowing down the horned flood7 In ripples, fan my brows and blow ioThe fever from my cheek, and sigh The full new life that feeds thy breath Throughout my frame, till Doubt and Death, 111 brethren, let the fancy fly From belt to belt of crimson seas 15On leagues of odor streaming far, To where in yonder orient star A hundred spirits whisper 'Peace.'
87
I passed beside the reverend walls8 In which of old I wore the gown;
6. The 'ambrosial air' is slowly clearing the clouds 7. Between two promontories [Tennyson's note], from the sky. 8. Of Trinity College, Cambridge University.
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1 138 / ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
I roved at random through the town, And saw the tumult of the halls;
And heard once more in college fanes' chapels The storm their high-built organs make, And thunder-music, rolling, shake
The prophet blazoned on the panes;
And caught once more the distant shout, The measured pulse of racing oars Among the willows; paced the shores And many a bridge, and all about
The same gray flats again, and felt The same, but not the same; and last Up that long walk of limes I passed To see the rooms in which he dwelt.
Another name was on the door. I lingered; all within was noise Of songs, and clapping hands, and boys
That crashed the glass and beat the floor;
Where once we held debate, a band Of youthful friends,9 on mind and art, And labor, and the changing mart,
And all the framework of the land;
