IN MEMORIAM

by: Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)

XV
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O-NIGHT the winds begin to rise
And roar from yonder dropping day;
The last red leaf is whirl'd away,
The rooks are blown about the skies;
The forest crack'd, the waters curl'd,
The cattle huddled on the lea;
And wildly dash'd on tower and tree
The sunbeam strikes along the world:
And but for fancies, which aver
That all thy motions gently pass
Athwart a plane of molten glass,
I scarce could brook the strain and stir
That makes the barren branches loud;
And but for fear it is not so,
The wild unrest that lives in woe
Would dote and pore on yonder cloud
That rises upward always higher,
And onward drags a laboring breast,
And topples round the dreary west,
A looming bastion fringed with fire.
XXX
With trembling fingers did we weave
The holly round the Christmas hearth;
A rainy cloud possess'd the earth,
and sadly fell on Christmas-eve.
At our old pastimes in the hall
We gamboll's, making vain pretence
Of gladness, with an awful sense

Of one mute Shadow watching all.

We paused: the winds were in the beech:
We heard them sweep the winter land;
And in a circle hand-in-hand
Sat silent, looking each at each.
Then echo-like our voices rang;
We sung, tho' every eye was dim,
A merry song we sang to him
Last year; impetuously we sang.
We ceased; a gentler feeling crept
Upon us: surely rest is meet.
'They rest,' we said, 'their sleep is sweet,'
And silence follow'd, and we wept.
Our voices took a higher range;
Once more we sang: 'They do not die
Nor lose their mortal sympathy,
Nor change to us, altho' they change;
'Rapt from the fickle and the frail
With gather'd power, yet the same,
Pierces the keen seraphic flame
From orb to orb, from veil to veil.'
Rise, happy morn, rise, holy morn,
Draw forth the cheerful day from night:
O Father, touch the east, and light
The light that shone when Hope was born.
CXXXI
O living will that shall endure
When all that seems shall suffer shock,
Rise in the spiritual rock,
Flow thro' 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 conquer'd 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 to soul.
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