C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

From ‘In Memoriam’

By Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892)

STRONG Son of God, immortal Love,

Whom we, that have not seen thy face,

By faith, and faith alone, embrace,

Believing where we cannot prove:

Thine are these orbs of light and shade;

Thou madest Life in man and brute;

Thou madest Death: and lo, thy foot

Is on the skull which thou hast made.

Thou wilt not leave us in the dust:

Thou madest man, he knows not why,—

He thinks he was not made to die;

And thou hast made him: thou art just.

Thou seemest human and divine,

The highest, holiest manhood, thou:

Our wills are ours, we know not how;

Our wills are ours, to make them thine.

Our little systems have their day;

They have their day and cease to be:

They are but broken lights of thee,

And thou, O Lord, art more than they.

We have but faith; we cannot know:

For knowledge is of things we see;

And yet we trust it comes from thee,

A beam in darkness: let it grow.

Let knowledge grow from more to more,

But more of reverence in us dwell;

That mind and soul, according well,

May make one music as before,

But vaster. We are fools and slight;

We mock thee when we do not fear:

But help thy foolish ones to bear;

Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light.

Forgive what seemed my sin in me;

What seemed my worth since I began:

For merit lives from man to man,

And not from man, O Lord, to thee.

Forgive my grief for one removed,—

Thy creature, whom I found so fair:

I trust he lives in thee, and there

I find him worthier to be loved.

Forgive these wild and wandering cries,

Confusions of a wasted youth;

Forgive them where they fail in truth,

And in thy wisdom make me wise.

I ENVY not in any moods

The captive void of noble rage,

The linnet born within the cage,

That never knew the summer woods;

I envy not the beast that takes

His license in the field of time,

Unfettered by the sense of crime,

To whom a conscience never wakes;

Nor, what may count itself as blest,

The heart that never plighted troth,

But stagnates in the weeds of sloth;

Nor any want-begotten rest.

I hold it true, whate’er befall,—

I feel it when I sorrow most,—

’Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all.

THAT each, who seems a separate whole,

Should move his rounds, and fusing all

The skirts of self again, should fall

Remerging in the general Soul,

Is faith as vague as all unsweet:

Eternal form shall still divide

The eternal soul from all beside;

And I shall know him when we meet;

And we shall sit at endless feast,

Enjoying each the other’s good:

What vaster dream can hit the mood

Of Love on earth? He seeks at least

Upon the last and sharpest height,

Before the spirits fade away,

Some landing-place, to clasp and say,

“Farewell! We lose ourselves in light.”

OH yet we trust that somehow good

Will be the final goal of ill,

To pangs of nature, sins of will,

Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;

That nothing walks with aimless feet;

That not one life shall be destroyed,

Or cast as rubbish to the void,

When God hath made the pile complete;

That not a worm is cloven in vain;

That not a moth with vain desire

Is shriveled in a fruitless fire,

Or but subserves another’s gain.

Behold, we know not anything;

I can but trust that good shall fall

At last—far off—at last, to all,

And every winter change to spring.

So runs my dream: but what am I?

An infant crying in the night;

An infant crying for the light:

And with no language but a cry.

The wish, that of the living whole

No life may fail beyond the grave,

Derives it not from what we have

The likest God within the soul?

Are God and Nature then at strife,

That Nature lends such evil dreams?

So careful of the type she seems,

So careless of the single life;

That I, considering everywhere

Her secret meaning in her deeds,

And finding that of fifty seeds

She often brings but one to bear,

I falter where I firmly trod,

And falling with my weight of cares

Upon the great world’s altar-stairs

That slope through darkness up to God,

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,

And gather dust and chaff, and call

To what I feel is Lord of all,

And faintly trust the larger hope.

“So careful of the type?” but no.

From scarpèd cliff and quarried stone

She cries, “A thousand types are gone:

I care for nothing; all shall go.

“Thou makest thine appeal to me:

I bring to life, I bring to death;

The spirit does but mean the breath:

I know no more.” And he, shall he,

Man, her last work, who seemed so fair,

Such splendid purpose in his eyes,

Who rolled the psalm to wintry skies,

Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer,

Who trusted God was love indeed,

And love Creation’s final law,—

Though Nature, red in tooth and claw

With ravine, shrieked against his creed,—

Who loved, who suffered countless ills,

Who battled for the True, the Just,—

Be blown about the desert dust,

Or sealed within the iron hills?

No more? A monster then, a dream,

A discord. Dragons of the prime,

That tare each other in their slime,

Were mellow music matched with him.

O life as futile, then, as frail!

Oh for thy voice to soothe and bless!

What hope of answer, or redress?

Behind the veil, behind the veil.

RING out, wild bells, to the wild sky,

The flying cloud, the frosty light:

The year is dying in the night;

Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,

Ring, happy bells, across the snow;

The year is going, let him go:

Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,

For those that here we see no more;

Ring out the feud of rich and poor,

Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,

And ancient forms of party strife;

Ring in the nobler modes of life,

With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,

The faithless coldness of the times;

Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,

But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,

The civic slander and the spite;

Ring in the love of truth and right,

Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;

Ring out the thousand wars of old,

Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,

The larger heart, the kindlier hand;

Ring out the darkness of the land,

Ring in the Christ that is to be.

LOVE is and was my Lord and King,

And in his presence I attend

To hear the tidings of my friend,

Which every hour his couriers bring.

Love is and was my King and Lord,

And will be, though as yet I keep

Within his court on earth, and sleep

Encompassed by his faithful guard,

And hear at times a sentinel

Who moves about from place to place,

And whispers to the worlds of space,

In the deep night, that all is well.

O LIVING will that shalt endure

When all that seems shall suffer shock,

Rise in the spiritual rock,

Flow through our deeds and make them pure;

That we may lift from out of dust

A voice as unto him that hears,

A cry above the conquered years

To one that with us works, and trust,

With faith that comes of self-control,

The truths that never can be proved

Until we close with all we loved,

And all we flow from, soul in soul.

O TRUE and tried, so well and long,

Demand not thou a marriage lay;

In that it is thy marriage day

Is music more than any song.

Nor have I felt so much of bliss

Since first he told me that he loved

A daughter of our house; nor proved

Since that dark day a day like this:

Though I since then have numbered o’er

Some thrice three years; they went and came,

Remade the blood and changed the frame,

And yet is love not less, but more:

No longer caring to embalm

In dying songs a dead regret,

But like a statue solid-set,

And molded in colossal calm.

Regret is dead, but love is more

Than in the summers that are flown,

For I myself with these have grown

To something greater than before;

Which makes appear the songs I made

As echoes out of weaker times,

As half but idle brawling rhymes,

The sport of random sun and shade.

But where is she, the bridal flower,

That must be made a wife ere noon?

She enters, glowing like the moon

Of Eden on its bridal bower:

On me she bends her blissful eyes,

And then on thee; they meet thy look,

And brighten like the star that shook

Betwixt the palms of Paradise.

Oh, when her life was yet in bud,

He too foretold the perfect rose.

For thee she grew, for thee she grows

For ever, and as fair as good.

And thou art worthy: full of power,

As gentle; liberal-minded, great,

Consistent; wearing all that weight

Of learning lightly like a flower.

But now set out: the noon is near,

And I must give away the bride;

She fears not, or with thee beside

And me behind her, will not fear.

For I that danced her on my knee,

That watched her on her nurse’s arm,

That shielded all her life from harm,

At last must part with her to thee:

Now waiting to be made a wife,

Her feet, my darling, on the dead;

Their pensive tablets round her head,

And the most living words of life

Breathed in her ear. The ring is on,

The “wilt thou” answered, and again

The “wilt thou” asked, till out of twain

Her sweet “I will” has made you one.

Now sign your names, which shall be read,

Mute symbols of a joyful morn,

By village eyes as yet unborn;—

The names are signed, and overhead

Begins the clash and clang that tells

The joy to every wandering breeze;

The blind wall rocks, and on the trees

The dead leaf trembles to the bells.

O happy hour, and happier hours

Await them. Many a merry face

Salutes them—maidens of the place,

That pelt us in the porch with flowers.

O happy hour, behold the bride

With him to whom her hand I gave.

They leave the porch, they pass the grave

That has to-day its sunny side.

To-day the grave is bright for me;

For them the light of life increased.

Who stay to share the morning feast,

Who rest to-night beside the sea.

Let all my genial spirits advance

To meet and greet a whiter sun;

My drooping memory will not shun

The foaming grape of eastern France.

It circles round, and fancy plays,

And hearts are warmed and faces bloom,

As drinking health to bride and groom

We wish them store of happy days.

Nor count me all to blame if I

Conjecture of a stiller guest,

Perchance, perchance, among the rest,

And though in silence, wishing joy.

But they must go,—the time draws on,

And those white-favored horses wait:

They rise, but linger; it is late:

Farewell, we kiss, and they are gone.

A shade falls on us like the dark

From little cloudlets on the grass;

But sweeps away as out we pass

To range the woods, to roam the park,

Discussing how their courtship grew,

And talk of others that are wed,

And how she looked, and what he said,—

And back we come at fall of dew.

Again the feast, the speech, the glee,

The shade of passing thought, the wealth

Of words and wit, the double health,

The crowning cup, the three-times-three.

And last the dance;—till I retire.

Dumb is that tower which spake so loud,

And high in heaven the streaming cloud,

And on the downs a rising fire:

And rise, O moon, from yonder down,

Till over down and over dale

All night the shining vapor sail

And pass the silent-lighted town,

The white-faced halls, the glancing rills,

And catch at every mountain head,

And o’er the friths that branch and spread

Their sleeping silver through the hills;

And touch with shade the bridal doors,

With tender gloom the roof, the wall;

And breaking let the splendor fall

To spangle all the happy shores

By which they rest, and ocean sounds,

And, star and system rolling past,

A soul shall draw from out the vast

And strike his being into bounds,

And, moved through life of lower phase,

Result in man, be born and think,

And act and love, a closer link

Betwixt us and the crowning race

Of those that, eye to eye, shall look

On knowledge: under whose command

Is Earth and Earth’s, and in their hand

Is Nature like an open book:

No longer half akin to brute,

For all we thought and loved and did

And hoped and suffered, is but seed

Of what in them is flower and fruit;

Whereof the man that with me trod

This planet was a noble type,

Appearing ere the times were ripe,—

That friend of mine who lives in God;

That God which ever lives and loves,—

One God, one law, one element,

And one far-off Divine event,

To which the whole creation moves.

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