These mellow days are past and dim, In turn, receive, to silent rest, But generations new, And now, the polished, modern squire A season, every year, And fill the seats with belle and beau, Perchance, all thoughtless as they tread Another, and another guest, The feathered hearse and sable train, In all its wonted state, Shall wind along the village lane, And stand before the gate; Brought many a distant country through, To join the final rendezvous. And when the race is swept away, ALFRED TENNYSON. COUPLETS FROM "LOCKSLEY HALL." LOVE took up the glass of Time, and turned it in his glowing hands: Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands. Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might: Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, passed in music out of sight. As the husband is, the wife is: thou art mated with a clown, He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force, Comfort? comfort scorned of devils! this is truth the poet sings, Drug thy memories, lest thou learn it, lest thy heart be put to proof, In the dead unhappy night, when the rain is on the roof. Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us range, Thro' the shadow of the globe we sweep into the younger day: [From In Memoriam.] STRONG SON OF GOD. 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, Forgive what seemed my sin in me: What seemed my worth since 1 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. Thou madest Death; and lo, thy Forgive these wild and wandering foot Is on the skull which thou hast made. Thou wilt not leave us in the dust: cries, Confusions of a wasted youth: Forgive them where they fail in truth, Thou madest man, he knows not And in thy wisdom make me wise. why; He thinks he was not made to die; And thou hast made him: thou art [From In Memoriam.] HOPE FOR ALL. Oн, yet we trust that somehow good 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 shrivelled 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. [From The Princess.] THE splendor falls on castle walls And snowy summits old in story: The long light shakes across the lakes And the wild cataract leaps in glory. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, Blow, bugle: answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. Oh, hark, oh, hear! how thin and clear, And thinner, clearer, farther going Oh, sweet and far from cliff and scar The horns of Elfland faintly blow ing! |