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
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old
days

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,
Immortal age beside immortal youth,
And all I was in ashes. Can thy love,
Thy beauty, make amends, tho' even now,
Close over us, the silver star, thy guide,
Shines in those tremulous eyes that fill with
tears

To hear me? Let me go; take back thy gift.

Why should a man desire in any way
To vary from the kindly race of men,
Or pass beyond the goal of ordinance
Where all should pause, as is most meet
for all?

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,

Will never come back to me.

SONGS

[From The Princess]

I

As thro' the land at eve we went,
And pluck'd the ripen'd ears,
We fell out, my wife and I,
O, we fell out, I know not why,
And kiss'd again with tears.
And blessings on the falling out

That all the more endears,

When we fall out with those we love
And kiss again with tears!

For when we came where lies the child
We lost in other years,
There above the little grave,
O, there above the little grave,
We kiss'd again with tears.

II

SWEET and low, sweet and low,
Wind of the western sea,
Low, low, breathe and blow,
Wind of the western sea!
Over the rolling waters go,

Come from the dying moon, and blow,
Blow him again to me;

While my little one, while my pretty one sleeps.

Sleep and rest, sleep and rest,

Father will come to thee soon;
Rest, rest, on mother's breast,

Father will come to thee soon;
Father will come to his babe in the nest,
Silver sails all out of the west

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,
Call'd him worthy to be loved,
Truest friend and noblest foe;
Yet she neither spoke nor moved.

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,
To sit a star upon the sparkling spire;
And come, for Love is of the valley, come,
For Love is of the valley, come thou down
And find him; by the happy threshold, he,
Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize,
Or red with spirted purple of the vats,
Or foxlike in the vine; nor cares to walk
With Death and Morning on the Silver
Horns,

Nor wilt thou suare him in the white ravine,
Nor find him dropt upon the firths of ice,
That huddling slant in furrow-cloven falls
To roll the torrent out of dusky doors.
But follow; let the torrent dance thee
down

To find him in the valley; let the wild
Lean-headed eagles yelp alone, and leave
The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill
There thousand wreaths of dangling water-
smoke,

That like a broken purpose waste in air.
So waste not thou, but come; for all the
vales

Await thee; azure pillars of the hearth
Arise to thee; the children call, and I
Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound,
Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet;
Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn,
The moan of doves in immemorial elms,
And murmuring of innumerable bees.'

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
Here in the long unlovely street.

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.