In Memoriam A. H. H. quotes

Our little systems have their day; They have their day and cease to be: They are but broken lights of thee, And thou, O Lord, art more than they.

We have but faith: we cannot know; For knowledge is of things we see; And yet we trust it comes from thee, A beam in darkness: let it grow.

I held it truth, with him who sings To one clear harp in divers tones, That men may rise on stepping-stones Of their dead selves to higher things.

But who shall so forecast the years And find in loss a gain to match? Or reach a hand thro’ time to catch The far-off interest of tears?

The seasons bring the flower again, And bring the firstling to the flock; And in the dusk of thee, the clock Beats out the little lives of men.

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?

I sometimes hold it half a sin To put in words the grief I feel; For words, like nature, half reveal And half conceal the Soul within.

But, for the unquiet heart and brain, A use in measur’d language lies; The sad mechanic exercise Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.

That loss is common would not make My own less bitter, rather more: Too common! Never morning wore To evening, but some heart did break.

A hand that can be clasp’d no more— Behold me, for I cannot sleep, And like a guilty thing I creep At earliest morning to the door.

And was the day of my delight As pure and perfect as I say? The very source and fount of Day Is dash’d with wandering isles of night.

Or that the past will always win A glory from its being far; And orb into the perfect star We saw not, when we moved therein?

I hold it true, whate’er befall; I feel it, when I sorrow most; ’Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all.

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.

Thrice blest whose lives are faithful prayers, Whose loves in higher love endure; What souls possess themselves so pure, Or is there blessedness like theirs?

And love would last as pure and whole As when he loved me here in Time, And at the spiritual prime Rewaken with the dawning soul.

Be near me when my light is low, When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick And tingle; and the heart is sick, And all the wheels of Being slow.

Be near me when my faith is dry, And men the flies of latter spring, That lay their eggs, and sting and sing, And weave their petty cells and die.

How many a father have I seen, A sober man, among his boys, Whose youth was full of foolish noise, Who wears his manhood hale and green;

So runs my dream: but what am I? An infant crying in the night: An infant crying for the light: And with no language but a cry.

The shade by which my life was crost, Which makes a desert in the mind, Has made me kindly with my kind, And like to him whose sight is lost;

So many worlds, so much to do, So little done, such things to be, How know I what had need of thee, For thou wert strong as thou wert true?

What fame is left for human deeds In endless age? It rests with God.

Thy leaf has perish’d in the green, And, while we breathe beneath the sun, The world which credits what is done Is cold to all that might have been.

But what of that? My darken’d ways Shall ring with music all the same; To breathe my loss is more than fame, To utter love more sweet than praise.

I make a picture in the brain; I hear the sentence that he speaks; He bears the burthen of the weeks, But turns his burthen into gain.

‘I cannot understand: I love.’

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 want, the care, the sin, The faithless coldness of the times; Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes, 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.

I will not shut me from my kind, And, lest I stiffen into stone, I will not eat my heart alone, Nor feed with sighs a passing wind:

I’ll rather take what fruit may be Of sorrow under human skies: ’Tis held that sorrow makes us wise, Whatever wisdom sleep with thee.

There rolls the deep where grew the tree. O earth, what changes hast thou seen! There where the long street roars, hath been The stillness of the central sea.

The hills are shadows, and they flow From form to form, and nothing stands; They melt like mist, the solid lands, Like clouds they shape themselves and go.

But in my spirit will I dwell, And dream my dream, and hold it true; For tho’ my lips may breathe adieu, I cannot think the thing farewell.

Thy voice is on the rolling air; I hear thee where the waters run; Thou standest in the rising sun, And in the setting thou art fair.

Far off thou art, but ever nigh; I have thee still, and I rejoice; I prosper, circled with thy voice; I shall not lose thee tho’ I die.