Dear as remembered kisses after death, And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned On lips that are for others; deep as love, Deep as first love, and wild with all regret. Oh death in life, the days that are no more!
Sweet is every sound, Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet; Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro the lawn, The moan of doves in immemorial elms, And murmuring of innumerable bees.
Happy he With such a mother! faith in womankind Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high Comes easy to him; and tho he trip and fall, He shall not blind his soul with clay.
I held it truth, with him who sings1 To one clear harp in divers tones, That men may rise on stepping-stones Of their dead selves to higher things.2
In Memoriam. i. Stanza 1.
Note 1. The poet alluded to is Goethe. I know this from Lord Tennyson himself, although he could not identify the passage; and when I submitted to him a small book of mine on his marvellous poem, he wrote, It is Goethes creed, on this very passage.Rev. Dr. Getty (Vicar of Ecclesfield, Yorkshire). [back]