In Memoriam A. H. H.: 22
The path by which we twain did go, / ; ; ; ;Which led by tracts that pleased us well,
The path by which we twain did go, / ; ; ; ;Which led by tracts that pleased us well,
The baby new to earth and sky, / ; ; ; ;What time his tender palm is prest
I sometimes hold it half a sin / ; ; ;To put in words the grief I feel;
Oh, yet we trust that somehow good / ; ; ;Will be the final end of ill,
When on my bed the moonlight falls, / ; ; ; ;I know that in thy place of rest
Light, so low upon earth, / ; You send a flash to the sun.
O beauty, passing beauty! Sweetest sweet! / How can thou let me waste my youth in sighs?
O, were I loved as I desire to be! / What is there in the great sphere of the earth,
Dip down upon the northern shore, / O sweet new-year, delaying long;
Birds' love and birds' song / ; ; Flying here and there,
Now fades the last long streak of snow, / Now burgeons every maze of quick
Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, / Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Life and Thought have gone away / Side by side,
He clasps the crag with crooked hands; / Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Once in a golden hour / ; ; I cast to earth a seed.
As thro' the land at eve we went, / ; ; ; ;And pluck'd the ripen'd ears,
Ask me no more: the moon may draw the sea; / ; ; ; ;The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape,
Home they brought her warrior dead: / ; ; ; ;She nor swoon'd nor utter'd cry:
O Swallow, Swallow, flying, flying South, / Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves,
'And ask ye why these sad tears stream?' / ‘Te somnia nostra reducunt.’