Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks; The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends. "T is not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths 60 Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are, — One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. TITHONUS 70 To dwell in presence of immortal youth, To hear me? Let me go; take back thy gift. Why should a man desire in any way 30 The dim curls kindle into sunny rings; Changed with thy mystic change, and felt my blood Glow with the glow that slowly crimson'd all Thy presence and thy portals, while I lay, Mouth, forehead, eyelids, growing dewy warm With kisses balmier than half-opening buds Of April, and could hear the lips that kiss'd Whispering I knew not what of wild and But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand, And the sound of a voice that is still! Break, break, break, At the foot of thy crags, O Sea! O, hark, O, hear! how thin and clear, And thinner, clearer, farther going! O, sweet and far from cliff and scar The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying, But the tender grace of a day that is dead Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, Will never come back to me. SONGS [From The Princess] I As thro' the land at eve we went, That all the more endears, When we fall out with those we love For when we came where lies the child II SWEET and low, sweet and low, Come from the dying moon, and blow, While my little one, while my pretty one sleeps. Sleep and rest, sleep and rest, Father will come to thee soon; Father will come to thee soon; Under the silver moon; Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep. III 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, Biow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. dying. Then they praised him, soft and low, Stole a maiden from her place, Lightly to the warrior stept, Took the face-cloth from the face; Yet she neither moved nor wept. Rose a nurse of ninety years, Set his child upon her kneeLike summer tempest came her tears 'Sweet my child, I live for thee.' VI 'COME down, O maid, from yonder mountain height. What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang), In height and cold, the splendor of the hills? But cease to move so near the heavens, and cease To glide a sunbeam by the blasted pine, Nor wilt thou suare him in the white ravine, To find him in the valley; let the wild That like a broken purpose waste in air. Await thee; azure pillars of the hearth IN MEMORIAM A. H. H. OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII 'In Memoriam' was first published in 1850. No changes were made in the second and third editions. In the fourth edition (1851) the present 59th section (O Sorrow, wilt thou live with me?') was added. The present 39th section (Old warder of these buried bones,' etc.) was added in the Miniature Edition' of the 'Poems' (1871). Arthur Henry Hallam, to whose memory the poem is a tribute, was the son of Henry Hallam, the historian, and was born in London, February 1, 1811. In 1818 he spent some months with his parents in Italy and Switzerland, where he became familiar with the French language, which he had already learned to read with ease. Latin he also learned to read with facility in little more than a year. When only eight or nine years old, he began to write tragedies which showed remarkable precocity, After a brief course in a preparatory school he was sent to Eton, where he remained till 1827. He did not distinguish himself as a clas sical scholar, being more interested in English literature, especially the earlier dramatists. He took an active part in the Debating Society, where he showed great power in argumentative discussion; and during his last year in the school he began to write for the Eton Miscel lany.' After leaving Eton he spent eight months with his parents in Italy, where he mastered the language and the works of Dante and Petrarch. In October, 1829, he went to Trinity College, Cambridge. There he soon became acquainted with the Tennysons, and thus began the evermemorable friendship of which ' In Memoriam is the monument. Like his friends, he was the pupil of the Rev. William Whewell. In 1831 he obtained the first prize for an English dee lamation on the conduct of the Independent party during the Civil War. In consequence of this success, he was called upon to deliver an oration in the chapel before the Christmas vacation, and chose as a subject the influence of Italian upon English literature. He also gained a prize for an English essay on the philosophical writings of Cicero. He left Cambridge on taking his decree in January, 1832. He resided from that time with his father in London in 67 Wimpole Street, referred to in' In Memoriam,' vii. : Dark house, by which once more I stand Arthur used to say to his friends, 'You know you will always find us at sixes and sevens.' At the earnest desire of his father he applied himself vigorously to the study of law in the Inner Temple, entering, in the month of October, 1832, the office of an eminent conveyancer, with whom he continued till his departure from England in the following summer. His father tells the remainder of the sad story very briefly. Arthur accompanied him to Germany in the beginning of August. In returning to Vienna from Pesth, a wet day probably gave rise to an intermittent fever with very slight symptoms, which were apparently subsiding, when a sudden rush of blood to the head caused his death on the 15th of September, 1833. It appeared on examination that the cerebral vessels were weak, and that there was a lack of energy in the heart. In the usual chances of humanity a few more years would probably have been fatal. His 'loved remains' were brought to England and interred on the 3d of January, 1834, in Clevedon Church, Somersetshire, belonging to his maternal grandfather, Sir Abraham Elton. The place was selected by his father not only from its connection with the family, but also from its sequestered situation on a lone hill overlooking the Bristol Channel. STRONG Son of God, immortal Love, Thine are these orbs of light and shade; 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 vaster. We are fools and slight; Forgive what seem'd my sin in me, What seem'd my worth since I began; Forgive my grief for one removed, Forgive these wild and wandering cries, I I held it truth, with him who sings But who shall so forecast the years And find in loss a gain to match? Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown'd, Than that the victor Hours should scorn II Old yew, which graspest at the stones The seasons bring the flower again, |