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From ‘In Memoriam’
’TIS well; ’tis something; we may stand | |
| Where he in English earth is laid, | |
| And from his ashes may be made | |
| The violet of his native land. | |
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| ’Tis little; but it looks in truth | 5 |
| As if the quiet bones were blest | |
| Among familiar names to rest | |
| And in the places of his youth. | |
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| Come then, pure hands, and bear the head | |
| That sleeps or wears the mask of sleep, | 10 |
| And come, whatever loves to weep, | |
| And hear the ritual of the dead. | |
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| Ah yet, ev’n yet, if this might be, | |
| I, falling on his faithful heart, | |
| Would breathing thro’ his lips impart | 15 |
| The life that almost dies in me; | |
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| That dies not, but endures with pain, | |
| And slowly forms the firmer mind, | |
| Treasuring the look it cannot find, | |
| The words that are not heard again. * * * * * | 20 |
| I sing to him that rests below, | |
| And, since the grasses round me wave, | |
| I take the grasses of the grave, | |
| And make them pipes whereon to blow. | |
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| The traveller hears me now and then, | 25 |
| And sometimes harshly will he speak: | |
| ‘This fellow would make weakness weak, | |
| And melt the waxen hearts of men.’ | |
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| Another answers, ‘Let him be, | |
| He loves to make parade of pain, | 30 |
| That with his piping he may gain | |
| The praise that comes to constancy.’ | |
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| A third is wroth: ‘Is this an hour | |
| For private sorrow’s barren song, | |
| When more and more the people throng | 35 |
| The chairs and thrones of civil power? | |
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| ‘A time to sicken and to swoon, | |
| When Science reaches forth her arms | |
| To feel from world to world, and charms | |
| Her secret from the latest moon?’ | 40 |
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| Behold, ye speak an idle thing: | |
| Ye never knew the sacred dust: | |
| I do but sing because I must, | |
| And pipe but as the linnets sing: | |
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| And one is glad; her note is gay, | 45 |
| For now her little ones have ranged; | |
| And one is sad; her note is changed, | |
| Because her brood is stol’n away. | |
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