O 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?
– In Memoriam A. H. H. Obiit MDCCCXXXIII by Lord Alfred Tennyson
