Alfred, Lord Tennyson: In Memoriam, Sections 5

5.
I sometimes hold it half a sin
to put in words the grief I feel;
For words, like Nature, half reveal
and half conceal the Soul within.

But, for the unquiet heart and brain,
a use in measured language lies;
The sad mechanic exercise,
like dull narcotics, numbing pain.

In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er,
like coarsest clothes against the cold;
But that large grief which these enfold
is given in outline and no more.

6.
One writes that "Other friends remain,"
that "Loss is common to the race" --
and common is the commonplace,
and vacant chaff well meant for grain.

That loss is common would not make
my own less bitter, rather more:
Too common! Never morning wore
to evening, but some heart did break.

O father, wheresoe'er thou be,
who pledgest now thy gallant son;
A shot, ere half thy draft be done,
hath stilled the life that beat from thee.

O mother, praying God will save
thy sailor -- while thy head is bowed,
his heavy-shotted hammock-shroud
drops in his vast and wandering grave.

Ye know no more than I who wrought
at that last hour to please him well;
Who mused on all I had to tell,
and something written, something thought;

Expecting still his advent home;
And ever met him on his way
with wishes, thinking, "here today,"
or "here tomorrow will he come."

O somewhere, meek, the unconscious dove,
that sittest ranging golden hair;
And glad to find thyself so fair,
poor child, that waitest for thy love!

For now her father's chimney glows
in expectation of a guest;
And thinking "this will please him best,"
she takes a riband or a rose;

For he will see them on tonight;
And with the thought her colour burns;
And, having left the glass, she turns
once more to set a ringlet right;

And, even when she turned, the curse
had fallen, and her future Lord
was drowned in passing through the ford,
or killed in falling from his horse.

O what to her shall be the end?
And what to me remains of good?
To her, perpetual maidenhood,
and unto me no second friend.

7.
Dark house, by which once more I stand
here in the long unlovely street,
doors, where my heart was used to beat
so quickly, waiting for a hand,

a hand that can be clasped no more --
behold me, for I cannot sleep,
and like a guilty thing I creep
at earliest morning to the door.

He is not here; but far away
the noise of life begins again,
and ghastly through the drizzling raing
on the bald street breaks the blank day.
(Alfred, Lord Tennyson)

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