Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Alfred Tennyson, Lord Tennyson. 18091892707. From ‘In Memoriam’ (ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM, MDCCCXXXIII)
FAIR 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 | 5 |
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 | 10 |
As our pure love, thro’ early light | |
Shall glimmer on the dewy decks. | |
Sphere all your lights around, above; | |
Sleep, gentle heavens, before the prow; | |
Sleep, gentle winds, as he sleeps now, | 15 |
My friend, the brother of my love; | |
My Arthur, 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. | 20 |
I hear the noise about thy keel; | |
I hear the bell struck in the night; | |
I see the cabin-window bright; | |
I see the sailor at the wheel. | |
Thou bring’st the sailor to his wife, | 25 |
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 | 30 |
Our home-bred fancies: O to us, | |
The fools of habit, sweeter seems | |
To rest beneath the clover sod, | |
That takes the sunshine and the rains, | |
Or where the kneeling hamlet drains | 35 |
The chalice of the grapes of God; | |
Than if with thee the roaring wells | |
Should gulf him fathom-deep in brine; | |
And hands so often clasp’d in mine, | |
Should toss with tangle and with shells. | 40 |
Calm is the morn without a sound, | |
Calm as to suit a calmer grief, | |
And only thro’ the faded leaf | |
The chestnut pattering to the ground: | |
Calm and deep peace on this high wold, | 45 |
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, | 50 |
And crowded farms and lessening towers, | |
To mingle with the bounding main: | |
Calm and deep peace in this wide air, | |
These leaves that redden to the fall; | |
And in my heart, if calm at all, | 55 |
If any calm, a calm despair: | |
Calm on the seas, and silver sleep, | |
And waves that sway themselves in rest, | |
And dead calm in that noble breast | |
Which heaves but with the heaving deep. | 60 |
To-night 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, | 65 |
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 | 70 |
Athwart a plane of molten glass, | |
I scarce could brook the strain and stir | |
That makes the barren branches loud; | |
And but for fear it is not so, | |
The wild unrest that lives in woe | 75 |
Would dote and pore on yonder cloud | |
That rises upward always higher, | |
And onward drags a labouring breast, | |
And topples round the dreary west, | |
A looming bastion fringed with fire. | 80 |
Thou 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 | 85 |
Thro’ circles of the bounding sky, | |
Week after week: the days go by: | |
Come quick, thou bringest all I love. | |
Henceforth, wherever thou mayst roam | |
My blessing, like a line of light, | 90 |
Is on the waters day and night, | |
And like a beacon guards thee home. | |
So may whatever tempest mars | |
Mid-ocean, spare thee, sacred bark; | |
And balmy drops in summer dark | 95 |
Slide from the bosom of the stars. | |
So kind an office hath been done, | |
Such precious relics brought by thee; | |
The dust of him I shall not see | |
Till all my widow’d race be run. | 100 |
Now, sometimes in my sorrow shut, | |
Or breaking into song by fits, | |
Alone, alone, to where he sits, | |
The Shadow cloak’d from head to foot, | |
Who keeps the keys of all the creeds, | 105 |
I wander, often falling lame, | |
And looking back to whence I came, | |
Or on to where the pathway leads; | |
And crying, How changed from where it ran | |
Thro’ lands where not a leaf was dumb; | 110 |
But all the lavish hills would hum | |
The murmur of a happy Pan: | |
When each by turns was guide to each, | |
And Fancy light from Fancy caught, | |
And Thought leapt out to wed with Thought | 115 |
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; | 120 |
And many an old philosophy | |
On Argive heights divinely sang, | |
And round us all the thicket rang | |
To many a flute of Arcady. | |
How fares it with the happy dead? | 125 |
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 | 130 |
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 | 135 |
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. | 140 |
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? | |
Are God and Nature then at strife, | 145 |
That Nature lends such evil dreams? | |
So careful of the type she seems, | |
So careless of the single life; | |
That I, considering everywhere | |
Her secret meaning in her deeds, | 150 |
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 | |
Upon the great world’s altar-stairs | 155 |
That slope thro’ 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, | |
And faintly trust the larger hope. | 160 |
‘So careful of the type?’ but no. | |
From scarpèd cliff and quarried stone | |
She cries, ‘A thousand types are gone: | |
I care for nothing, all shall go. | |
Thou makest thine appeal to me: | 165 |
I bring to life, I bring to death: | |
The spirit does but mean the breath: | |
I know no more.’ And he, shall he, | |
Man, her last work, who seem’d so fair, | |
Such splendid purpose in his eyes, | 170 |
Who roll’d the psalm to wintry skies, | |
Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer, | |
Who trusted God was love indeed | |
And love Creation’s final law— | |
Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw | 175 |
With ravine, shriek’d against his creed— | |
Who loved, who suffer’d countless ills, | |
Who battled for the True, the Just, | |
Be blown about the desert dust, | |
Or seal’d within the iron hills? | 180 |
No more? A monster then, a dream, | |
A discord. Dragons of the prime, | |
That tare each other in their slime, | |
Were mellow music match’d with him. | |
O life as futile, then, as frail! | 185 |
O for thy voice to soothe and bless! | |
What hope of answer, or redress? | |
Behind the veil, behind the veil. | |
Unwatch’d, the garden bough shall sway, | |
The tender blossom flutter down; | 190 |
Unloved, that beech will gather brown, | |
This maple burn itself away; | |
Unloved, the sunflower, shining fair, | |
Ray round with flames her disk of seed, | |
And many a rose-carnation feed | 195 |
With summer spice the humming air; | |
Unloved, by many a sandy bar, | |
The brook shall babble down the plain, | |
At noon or when the lesser wain | |
Is twisting round the polar star; | 200 |
Uncared for, gird the windy grove, | |
And flood the haunts of hern and crake; | |
Or into silver arrows break | |
The sailing moon in creek and cove; | |
Till from the garden and the wild | 205 |
A fresh association blow, | |
And year by year the landscape grow | |
Familiar to the stranger’s child; | |
As year by year the labourer tills | |
His wonted glebe, or lops the glades; | 210 |
And year by year our memory fades | |
From all the circle of the hills. | |
Now fades the last long streak of snow, | |
Now burgeons every maze of quick | |
About the flowering squares, and thick | 215 |
By ashen roots the violets blow. | |
Now rings the woodland loud and long, | |
The distance takes a lovelier hue, | |
And drown’d in yonder living blue | |
The lark becomes a sightless song. | 220 |
Now dance the lights on lawn and lea, | |
The flocks are whiter down the vale, | |
And milkier every milky sail | |
On winding stream or distant sea; | |
Where now the seamew pipes, or dives | 225 |
In yonder greening gleam, and fly | |
The happy birds, that change their sky | |
To build and brood; that live their lives | |
From land to land; and in my breast | |
Spring wakens too; and my regret | 230 |
Becomes an April violet, | |
And buds and blossoms like the rest. | |
Love is and was my Lord and King, | |
And in his presence I attend | |
To hear the tidings of my friend, | 235 |
Which every hour his couriers bring. | |
Love is and was my King and Lord, | |
And will be, tho’ as yet I keep | |
Within his court on earth, and sleep | |
Encompass’d by his faithful guard, | 240 |
And hear at times a sentinel | |
Who moves about from place to place, | |
And whispers to the worlds of space, | |
In the deep night, that all is well. |