Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.
V. Death and Bereavement“Oh that ’t were possible”
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892)O
After long grief and pain,
To find the arms of my true love
Round me once again!
In the silent woody places
Of the land that gave me birth,
We stood tranced in long embraces
Mixt with kisses sweeter, sweeter
Than anything on earth.
Not thou, but like to thee;
Ah Christ, that it were possible
For one short hour to see
The souls we loved, that they might tell us
What and where they be!
It lightly winds and steals
In a cold white robe before me,
When all my spirit reels
At the shouts, the leagues of lights,
And the roaring of the wheels.
Half in dreams I sorrow after
The delight of early skies;
In a wakeful doze I sorrow
For the hand, the lips, the eyes—
For the meeting of the morrow,
The delight of happy laughter,
The delight of low replies.
And a dewy splendor falls
On the little flower that clings
To the turrets and the walls;
’T is a morning pure and sweet,
And the light and shadow fleet:
She is walking in the meadow,
And the woodland echo rings.
In a moment we shall meet;
She is singing in the meadow,
And the rivulet at her feet
Ripples on in light and shadow
To the ballad that she sings.
My bird with the shining head,
My own dove with the tender eye?
But there rings on a sudden a passionate cry—
There is some one dying or dead;
And a sullen thunder is rolled;
For a tumult shakes the city,
And I wake—my dream is fled;
In the shuddering dawn, behold,
Without knowledge, without pity,
By the curtains of my bed
That abiding phantom cold!
Mix not memory with doubt,
Pass, thou deathlike type of pain,
Pass and cease to move about!
’T is the blot upon the brain
That will show itself without.
And the yellow vapors choke
The great city sounding wide;
The day comes—a dull red ball
Wrapt in drifts of lurid smoke
On the misty river-tide.
I steal, a wasted frame;
It crosses here, it crosses there,
Through all that crowd confused and loud
The shadow still the same;
And on my heavy eyelids
My anguish hangs like shame.
That heard me softly call,
Came glimmering through the laurels
At the quiet evenfall,
In the garden by the turrets
Of the old manorial hall!
From the realms of light and song,
In the chamber or the street,
As she looks among the blest,
Should I fear to greet my friend
Or to say “Forgive the wrong,”
Or to ask her, “Take me, sweet,
To the regions of thy rest?”
And the shadow flits and fleets
And will not let me be;
And I loathe the squares and streets,
And the faces that one meets,
Hearts with no love for me;
Always I long to creep
Into some still cavern deep,
There to weep, and weep, and weep
My whole soul out to thee.