Among six boys, head under head, and look'd
No little lily-handed Baronet he,

A great broad-shoulder'd genial Englishman,
A lord of fat prize-oxen and of sheep,
A raiser of huge melons and of pine,
A patron of some thirty charities,
A pamphleteer on guano and on grain,
A quarter-sessions chairman, abler none;
Fair-hair'd and redder than a windy morn ;
Now shaking hands with him, now him, of those
That stood the nearest- - now address'd to speech -
Who spoke few words and pithy, such as closed
Welcome, farewell, and welcome for the year
To follow a shout rose again, and made

:

The long line of the approaching rookery swerve
From the elins, and shook the branches of the deer
From slope to slope thro' distant ferns, and rang
Beyond the bourn of sunset; O, a shout

More joyful than the city-roar that hails
Premier or king! Why should not these great Sirs
Give up their parks some dozen times a year
To let the people breathe? So thrice they cried,
I likewise, and in groups they stream'd away.

But we went back to the Abbey, and sat on,
So much the gathering darkness charm'd: we sat
But spoke not, rapt in nameless reverie,

Perchance upon the future man: the walls
Blacken'd about us, bats wheel'd, and owls whoop'd,

And gradually the powers of the night,

That range above the region of the wind,

Deepening the courts of twilight, broke them up

Thro' all the silent spaces of the worlds,

Beyond all thought into the Heaven of Heavens.

Last little Lilia, rising quietly,

Disrobed the glimmering statue of Sir Ralph

From those rich silks, and home, well-pleased, we went.

IN MEMORIAM

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; Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot Is on the skull which thou hast made.

Thou wilt not leave us in the dust:

Thou madest man, he knows not why; He thinks he was not made to die; And thou hast made him: thou art just.

Thou seemest human and divine,

The highest, holiest manhood, thou: Our wills are ours, we know not how; Our wills are ours, to make them thine.

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.

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.

Forgive these wild and wandering cries,
Confusions of a wasted youth;

Forgive them where they fail in truth,

And in thy wisdom make me wise.

1849.

I HELD it truth, with him who sings
To one clear harp in divers tones,
That men may rise on stepping-stones
Of their dead selves to bigher things.

But who shall so forecast the years

And find in loss a gain to match?
Or reach a hand thro' time to catch

The far-off interest of tears?

Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown'd, Let darkness keep her raven gloss:

Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss,

To dance with death, to beat the ground,

Than that the victor Hours should scorn
The long result of love, and boast,
"Behold the man that loved and lost,
But all he was is overworn."

II.

OLD yew, which graspest at the stones
That name the underlying dead,
Thy fibres net the dreamless head,

Thy roots are wrapt about the bones.

The seasons bring the flower again,
And bring the firstling to the flock;
And in the dusk of thee, the clock
Beats out the little lives of men.

O not for thee the glow, the bloom,
Who changest not in any gale,

Nor branding summer suns avail
To touch thy thousand years of gloom:

And gazing on thee, sullen tree,

Sick for thy stubborn hardihood, I seem to fail from out my blood And grow incorporate into thee.

III.

( SORROW, cruel fellowship,

O Priestess in the vaults of Death, O sweet and bitter in a breath, What whispers from thy lying lip?

"The stars," she whispers, "blindly run; A web is wov'n across the sky; From out waste places comes a cry,

And murmurs from the dying sun :

"And all the phantom, Nature, stands -
With all the music in her tone,
A hollow echo of my own,

A hollow form with empty hands.”

And shall I take a thing so blind,

Embrace her as my natural good; Or crush her, like a vice of blood, Upon the threshold of the mind?

IV.

To Sleep I give my powers away;
My will is bondsman to the dark;
I sit within a helmless bark,
And with my heart I muse and say:

O heart, how fares it with thee now,

That thou should'st fail from thy desire,