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Home  »  The Book of Sorrow  »  Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892)

Andrew Macphail, comp. The Book of Sorrow. 1916.

‘As sometimes in a dead man’s face’

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892)

From ‘In Memoriam’

AS sometimes in a dead man’s face,

To those that watch it more and more,

A likeness, hardly seen before,

Comes out—to some one of his race:

So, dearest, now thy brows are cold,

I see thee what thou art, and know

Thy likeness to the wise below,

Thy kindred with the great of old.

But there is more than I can see,

And what I see I leave unsaid,

Nor speak it, knowing Death has made

His darkness beautiful with thee.