The path by which we twain did go,
; ; ; ;Which led by tracts that pleased us well,
; ; ; ;Thro’ four sweet years arose and fell,
From flower to flower, from snow to snow:
And we with singing cheer’d the way,
; ; ; ;And, crown’d with all the season lent,
; ; ; ;From April on to April went,
And glad at heart from May to May:
But where the path we walk’d began
; ; ; To slant the fifth autumnal slope,
; ; ; As we descended following Hope,
There sat the Shadow fear’d of man;

Who broke our fair companionship,
; ; ; And spread his mantle dark and cold,
; ; ; And wrapt thee formless in the fold,
And dull’d the murmur on thy lip,

And bore thee where I could not see
; ; ; Nor follow, tho’ I walk in haste,
; ; ; And think, that somewhere in the waste
The Shadow sits and waits for me.

– In Memoriam A. H. H.: 22 by Lord Alfred Tennyson

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