Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.
Poems of FriendshipThe Dead Friend
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (18091892)Which led by tracts that pleased us well,
Through four sweet years arose and fell,
From flower to flower, from snow to snow.
But where the path we walked began
To slant the fifth autumnal slope,
As we descended, following Hope,
There sat the Shadow feared of man;
Who broke our fair companionship,
And spread his mantle dark and cold,
And wrapped thee formless in the fold,
And dulled the murmur on thy lip.
*****
And Fancy light from Fancy caught,
And Thought leapt out to wed with Thought
Ere Thought could wed itself with Speech;
And all was good that Time could bring,
And all the secret of the Spring
Moved in the chambers of the blood;
Whereon with equal feet we fared;
And then, as now, the day prepared
The daily burden for the back.
As light as carrier-birds in air;
I loved the weight I had to bear
Because it needed help of Love:
When mighty Love would cleave in twain
The lading of a single pain,
And part it, giving half to him.
*****
Whose life, whose thoughts were little worth,
To wander on a darkened earth,
Where are all things round me breathed of him.
O heart, with kindliest motion warm,
O sacred essence, other form,
O solemn ghost, O crownèd soul!
How much of act at human hands
The sense of human will demands,
By which we dare to live or die.
I felt and feel, though left alone,
His being working in mine own,
The footsteps of his life in mine.
My pulses therefore beat again
For other friends that once I met;
Nor can it suit me to forget
The mighty hopes that make us men.
To mourn for any overmuch;
I, the divided half of such
A friendship as had mastered Time;
Eternal, separate from fears:
The all-assuming months and years
Can take no part away from this.
To hold me from my proper place,
A little while from his embrace,
For fuller gain of after bliss:
Desire of nearness doubly sweet;
And unto meeting when we meet,
Delight a hundred-fold accrue.
*****
From form to form, and nothing stands;
They melt like mist, the solid lands,
Like clouds they shape themselves and go.
And dream my dream, and hold it true;
For tho’ my lips may breathe adieu,
I cannot think the thing farewell.