These mellow days are past and dim, In turn, receive, to silent rest, But generations new, Have filled the stately pew; 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, 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 I 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 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 more of reverence in us dwell: That mind and soul according well, May make one music as before, But vaster. We are fools and slight: We mock thee when we do not fear: But help thy foolish ones to bear; Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light. cries, Confusions of a wasted youth: Forgive them where they fail in truth, And in thy wisdom make me wise. [From In Memoriam.] HOPE FOR ALL. Он, 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 fail 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. The wish, that of the living whole No life may fail beyond the grave Derives it not from what we have The likest God within the soul? |