Obiit MDCCCXXXIII, XCVII–CI

Risest thou thus, dim dawn again, So loud with voices of the birds, So thick with lowings of the herds, Day, when I lost the flower of men;

Who tremblest thro’ thy darkling red On yon swol’n brook that bubbles fast By meadows breathing of the past, And woodlands holy to the dead;

Who murmurest in the foliaged eaves A song that slights the coming care, And Autumn laying here and there A fiery finger on the leaves;

Who wakenest with thy balmy breath To myriads on the genial earth, Memories of bridal, or of birth, And unto myriads more, of death.

O, wheresoever those may be, Betwixt the slumber of the poles, To-day they count as kindred souls; They know me not, but mourn with me.

I wake, I rise: from end to end, Of all the landscape underneath I find no place that does not breathe Some gracious memory of my friend:

No gray old grange, or lonely fold, Or low morass and whispering reed, Or simple stile from mead to mead, Or sheepwalk up the windy wold;

Nor hoary knoll of ash and haw That hears the latest linnet trill, Nor quarry trench’d along the hill, And haunted by the wrangling daw;

Nor runlet tinkling from the rock; Nor pastoral rivulet that swerves To left and right thro’ meadowy curves, That feed the mothers of the flock;

But each has pleased a kindred eye, And each reflects a kindlier day; And, leaving these, to pass away, I think once more he seems to die.

Unwatch’d the garden bough shall sway, The tender blossom flutter down, Unloved that beech will gather brown, This maple burn itself away;

Unloved, the sun-flower, shining fair, Ray round with flames her disk of seed, And many a rose-carnation feed With summer spice the humming air;

Unloved, by many a sandy bar, The brook shall babble down the plain, At noon or when the lesser wain Is twisting round the polar star;

Uncared for, gird the windy grove, And flood the haunts of hern and crake; Or into silver arrows break The sailing moon in creek and cove;

Till from the garden and the wild A fresh association blow, And year by year the landscape grow Familiar to the stranger’s child;

As year by year the labourer tills His wonted glebe, or lops the glades; And year by year our memory fades From all the circle of the hills.

We leave the well-beloved place Where first we gazed upon the sky; The roofs, that heard our earliest cry, Will shelter one of stranger race.

We go, but ere we go from home, As down the garden-walks I move, Two spirits of a diverse love Contend for loving masterdom.

One whispers, here thy boyhood sung Long since its matin song, and heard The low love-language of the bird In native hazels tassel-hung.

The other answers, ‘Yea, but here Thy feet have stray’d in after hours With thy lost friend among the bowers, And this hath made them trebly dear.’

These two have striven half the day, And each prefers his separate claim, Poor rivals in a losing game, That will not yield each other way.

I turn to go: my feet are set To leave the pleasant fields and farms; They mix in one another’s arms To one pure image of regret.

On that last night before we went From out the doors where I was bred, I dream’d a vision of the dead, Which left my after morn content.

Methought I dwelt within a hall, And maidens with me: distant hills From hidden summits fed with rills A river sliding by the wall.

The hall with harp and carol rang. They sang of what is wise and good And graceful. In the centre stood A statue veil’d, to which they sang;

And which, tho’ veil’d, was known to me, The shape of him I loved, and love For ever: then flew in a dove And brought a summons from the sea:

And when they learnt that I must go They wept and wail’d, but led the way To where a little shallop lay At anchor in the flood below;

And on by many a level mead, And shadowing bluff that made the banks, We glided winding under ranks Of iris, and the golden reed;

And still as vaster grew the shore, And roll’d the floods in grander space, The maidens gather’d strength and grace And presence, lordlier than before;

And I myself, who sat apart And watch’d them, waxt in every limb; I felt the thews of Anakim, The pulses of a Titan’s heart;

As one would sing the death of war, And one would chant the history Of that great race, which is to be, And one the shaping of a star;

Until the forward-creeping tides Began to foam, and we to draw From deep to deep, to where we saw A great ship lift her shining sides.

The man we loved was there on deck, But thrice as large as man he bent To greet us. Up the side I went, And fell in silence on his neck:

Whereat those maidens with one mind Bewail’d their lot; I did them wrong: ‘We served thee here,’ they said, ‘so long, And wilt thou leave us now behind?’

So rapt I was, they could not win An answer from my lips, but he Replying, ‘Enter likewise ye And go with us:’ they enter’d in.

And while the wind began to sweep A music out of sheet and shroud, We steer’d her toward a crimson cloud That landlike slept along the deep.