In Memoriam A.H.H.

In Memoriam A.H.H.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

And was the day of my delight

As pure and perfect as I say?

The very source and fount of Day

Is dash’d with wandering isles of night.

If all was good and fair we met,

This earth had been the Paradise

It never look’d to human eyes

Since Adam left his garden yet.

And is it that the haze of grief

Hath stretch’d my former joy so great?

The lowness of the present state,

That sets the past in this relief?

Or that the past will always win

A glory from its being far;

And orb into the perfect star

We saw not, when we moved therein?

I know that this was Life,—the track

Whereon with equal feet we fared;

And then, as now, the day prepared

The daily burden for the back.

But this it was that made me move

As light as carrier-birds in air;

I loved the weight I had to bear,

Because it needed help of Love:

Nor could I weary, heart or limb,

When mighty Love would cleave in twain

The lading of a single pain,

And part it, giving half to him.

Still onward winds the dreary way;

I with it; for I long to prove

No lapse of moons can canker Love,

Whatever fickle tongues may say.

And if that eye which watches guilt

And goodness, and hath power to see

Within the green the moulder’d tree,

And towers fall’n as soon as built—

Oh, if indeed that eye foresee

Or see (in Him is no before)

In more of life true life no more,

And Love the indifference to be,

So might I find, ere yet the morn

Breaks hither over Indian seas,

That Shadow waiting with the keys,

To cloak me from my proper scorn.