Selected Verses of In Memoriamby Alfred, Lord TennysonArthur Henry Hallam, a schoolmate and dear friend of Alfred Tennyson, died in 1833 while he was still quite young. Tennyson wrote many verses on the subject of his own grief, and these became the verses of In Memoriam. Several of the verses concern holiday memories of the dead.28: The time draws near the birth of Christ 29: With such compelling cause to grieve 30: With trembling fingers did we weave 78: Again at Christmas did we weave 105: To-night ungather'd let us leave 106: Ring out, willd bells, to the wild sky 28 The time draws near the birth of Christ, The moon is hid; the night is still; The Christmas bells from hill to hill Answer each other in the mist. Four voices of four hamlets round, From far and near, on mead and moor, Swell out and fail, as if a door Were shut between me and the sound Each voice four changes on the wind, That now dilate, and now decrease, Peace and goodwill, goodwill and peace, Peace and goodwill, to all mankind. This year I slept and woke with pain, I almost wished no more to wake, And that my hold on life would break Before I heard those bells again. But they my troubled spirit rule, For they controlled me when a boy; They bring me sorrow touched with hoy, The merry merry bells of Yule. Top 29 With such compelling cause to grieve As daily vexes household peace, And chains regret to his decease, How dare we keep our Christmas Eve; Which brings no more a welcome guest To enrich the threshold of the night With showered largess of delight In dance and song and game and jest? Yet go, and while the holly boughs Entwine the cold baptismal font, Make one wreath more for Use and Wont That guard the portals of the house; Old sisters of a day gone by, Gray nurses, loving nothing new; Why should they miss their yearly due Before their time? They too will die. Top 30 With trembling fingers did we weave The holly round the Christmas hearth; A rainy cloud possessed the earth, And sadly fell our Christmas Eve. At our old pastimes in the hall We gamboled, making vain pretense Of gladness, with an awful sense Of one mute Shadow watching all. We paused. The winds were in the beech; We heard them sweep the winter land; And in a circle hand-in-hand Sat silent, looking each at each. Then echo-like our voices rang; We sung, though every eye was dim, A merry song we sang with him Last year; impetuously we sang. We ceased; a gentler feeling crept Upon us; surely rest is meet. "They rest," we said, "their sleep is sweet," And silence followed, and we wept. Our voices took a higher range; Once more we sang: "They do not die Nor lose their mortal sympathy, Nor change to use, although they change; "Rapt from the fickle and the frail With gathered power, yet the same, Pierces the keen seraphic flame From orb to orb, from veil to veil." Rise, happy morn, rise, holy morn, Draw forth the cheerful day from night; O Father, touch the east and light The light that shone when hope was born. Top 78 Again at Christmas did we weave The holly round the Christmas hearth; The silent snow possessed the earth, And calmly fell our Christmas-eve: The yule-log sparkled keen with frost, No wing of wind the region swept, But over all things brooding slept The quiet sense of something lost. As in the winters left behind, Again our ancient games had place, The mimic picture's breathing grace, And dance and song and hoodman-blind. Who showed a token of distress? No single tear, no mark of pain: O sorrow, then can sorrow wane? O grief, can grief be changed to less? O last regret, regret can die! No--mixt with all this mystic frame, Her deep relations are the same, But with long use her tears are dry. Top 105 To-night ungather'd let us leave This laurel, let this holly stand: We live within the stranger's land, And strangely falls our Christmas-eve. Our father's dust is left alone And silent under other snows: There in due time the woodbine blows, The violet comes, but we are gone. No more shall wayward grief abuse The genial hour with mask and mime; For change of place, like growth of time, Has broke the bond of dying use. Let cares that petty shadows cast, By which our lives are chiefly proved, A little spare the night I loved, And hold it solemn to the past. But let no footstep beat the floor, Nor bowl of wassail mantel warm; For who would keep an ancient form Through which the spirit breathes no more? Be neither song, nor game, nor feast; Nor harp be touched, nor flute be blown; No dance, no motion, save alone What lightens in the lucid East Of rising worlds by yonder wood. Long sleeps the summer in the seed; Run out your measured arcs, and lead The closing cycle rich in good. Top 106 Ring out, willd bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light; The year is dying in the night; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring happy bells, across the snow; The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true. Ring out the grief that saps the mind, For those that here we see no more; Ring out the feud of rich and poor, Ring in redress to all mankind. Ring out a slowly dying cause, And ancient forms of party strife; Ring in the nobler modes of life, With sweeter manners, purer laws. Ring out the want, the care, the sin, The faithless coldness of the times; Ring out, ring out my mournful rimes, But ring the fuller minstrel in. Ring out false pride in place and blood, The civic slander and the spite; Ring in the love of truth and right, Ring in the common love of good. Ring out shapes of foul disease; Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring out the thousand years of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace. Ring in the valiant man and free, The larger heart, the kindlier hand; Ring out the darkness of the land, Ring in the Christ that is to be. Top
Christmas Poems
|