Alfred, Lord Tennyson: In Memoriam, Sections 8

8.
A happy lover who has come
to look on her that loves him well,
who 'lights and rings the gateway bell,
and learns her gone and far from home;

He saddens, all the magic light
dies off at once from bower and hall,
and all the place is dark, and all
the chambers emptied of delight;

So find I every pleasant spot
in which we two were wont to meet,
the field, the chamber, and the street,
for all is dark where thou art not.

Yet as that other, wandering there
in those deserted walks, may find
a flower beat with rain and wind
which once she fostered up with care;

So seems it in my deep regret,
O my forsaken heart, with thee
and this poor flower of poesy
which little cared for fades not yet.

But since it pleased a vanished eye,
I go to plant it on his tomb,
that if it can it there may bloom,
or dying, there at least may die.

9.
Fair ship, that from the Italian shore
sailest the placid ocean-plains
with my lost Arthur's loved remains,
spread thy full wings, and waft him o'er.

So draw him home to those that mourn
in vain; a favourable speed
ruffle thu mirrored mast, and lead
through prosperous floods his holy urn.

All night no ruder air perplex
thy sliding keel, till Phosphor, bright
as our pure love, through early light
shall glimmer on the dewey decks.

Sphere all your lights around, above;
Sleep, gentle heavens, before the prow;
Sleep, gentle winds, as he sleeps now,
my friend, the brother of my love;

My Arthur, whom I shall not see
till all my widowed race be run;
Dear as the mother to the son,
more than my brothers are to me.

10.
I hear the noise about thy keel;
I hear the bell stuck in the night;
I see the cabin window bright;
I see the sailor at the wheel.

Thou bring'st the sailor to his wife,
and travelled men from foreign lands;
And letters unto trembling hands;
And, thy dark freight, a vanished life.

So bring him; we have idle dreams;
This look of quiet flatters thus
our home-bred fancies. O, to us,
the fools of habit, sweeter seems

to rest beneath the clover sod,
that takes the sunshine and the rains,
or where the kneeling hamlet drains
the chalice of the grapes of God;

Than if with thee the roaring wells
should gulf him fathom-deep in brine,
and hands so often clasped in mine,
should toss with tangel and with shells.

11.
Calm is the morn without a sound,
calm as to suit a calmer grief,
and only through the faded leaf
the chestnut pattering to the ground;

Calm and deep peace on this high wold,
and on these dews that drench the furze,
and all the silvery gossamers
that twinkle into green and gold;

Calm and still light on yon great plain
that sweeps with all its autumn bowers,
and crowded farms and lessening towers,
to mingle with the bounding main;

Calm and deep peace in this wide air,
these leaves that redden to the fall,
and in my heart, if calm at all,
if any calm, a calm despair;

Calm on the seas, and silver sleep,
and waves that sway themselves in rest,
and dead calm in that noble breast
which heaves but with the heaving deep.
(Alfred, Lord Tennyson)

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