Andrew Macphail, comp. The Book of Sorrow. 1916.
Tis well; tis something; we may standAlfred, Lord Tennyson (18091892)
’T
Where he in English earth is laid,
And from his ashes may be made
The violet of his native land.
As if the quiet bones were blest
Among familiar names to rest
And in the places of his youth.
That sleeps or wears the mask of sleep,
And come, whatever loves to weep,
And hear the ritual of the dead.
I, falling on his faithful heart,
Would breathing thro’ his lips impart
The life that almost dies in me;
And slowly forms the firmer mind,
Treasuring the look it cannot find,
The words that are not heard again.
I 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.
And sometimes harshly will he speak:
‘This fellow would make weakness weak,
And melt the waxen hearts of men.’
He loves to make parade of pain,
That with his piping he may gain
The praise that comes to constancy.’
For private sorrow’s barren song,
When more and more the people throng
The chairs and thrones of civil power?
When Science reaches forth her arms
To feel from world to world, and charms
Her secret from the latest moon?’
Ye never knew the sacred dust:
I do but sing because I must,
And pipe but as the linnets sing:
For now her little ones have ranged;
And one is sad; her note is changed,
Because her brood is stol’n away.