Alfred Lord Tennyson (
1809-
1892)
When I contemplate
all alone
The life that had been thine below,
And fix my thoughts on all the glow
To which thy
crescent would have grown;
I see thee sitting crown’d with good,
A central warmth diffusing bliss
In glance and smile, and clasp and
kiss,
On all the branches of thy
blood;
Thy blood, my
friend, and partly mine;
For now the day was drawing on,
When thou should’st link thy
life with one
Of mine own house, and boys of thine
Had babbled ‘
Uncle’ on my knee;
But that remorseless iron hour
Made
cypress of her
orange flower,
Despair of
Hope, and
earth of thee.
I seem to meet their least desire,
To clap their cheeks, to call them mine.
I see their unborn faces shine
Beside the never-lighted
fire.
I see myself an honour’d guest,
Thy partner in the flowery walk
Of letters, genial table-talk,
Or deep dispute, and graceful jest;
While now thy prosperous labour fills
The lips of men with honest praise,
And sun by sun the happy days
Descend below the golden hills
With promise of a morn as fair;
And all the train of bounteous hours
Conduct by paths of growing powers,
To reverence and the silver hair;
Till slowly worn her earthly robe,
Her lavish mission richly wrought,
Leaving great
legacies of thought,
Thy
spirit should fail from off the
globe;
What time mine own might also flee,
As link’d with thine in love and fate,
And, hovering o’er the
dolorous strait
To the other shore, involved in thee,
Arrive at last the blessed goal,
And He that died in
Holy Land
Would reach us out the
shining hand,
And take us as a single
soul.
What
reed was that on which I leant?
Ah,
backward fancy, wherefore wake
The old
bitterness again, and break
The low beginnings of
content.