Nor count me all to blame if I

Conjecture of a stiller guest, Perchance, perchance, among the rest, And, tho' in silence, wishing joy.

But they must go, the time draws on,

And those white-favour'd horses wait; They rise, but linger; it is late; Farewell, we kiss, and they are gone.

A shade falls on us like the dark

Το

From little cloudlets on the grass, But sweeps away as out we pass range the woods, to roam the park,

Discussing how their courtship grew,

And talk of others that are wed,

And how she look'd, and what he said, And back we come at fall of dew.

Again the feast, the speech, the glee,

The shade of passing thought, the wealth Of words and wit, the double health, The crowning cup, the three-times-three,

And last the dance;-till I retire:

Dumb is that tower which spake so loud, And high in heaven the streaming cloud, And on the downs a rising fire:

And rise, O moon, from yonder down,

Till over down and over dale

All night the shining vapour sail
And pass the silent-lighted town,

The white-faced halls, the glancing rills,
And catch at every mountain head,
And o'er the friths that branch and spread
Their sleeping silver thro' the hills;

And touch with shade the bridal doors,
With tender gloom the roof, the wall;
And breaking let the splendour fall

To spangle all the happy shores

By which they rest, and ocean sounds,
And, star and system rolling past,

A soul shall draw from out the vast
And strike his being into bounds.

And, moved thro' life of lower phase,
Result in man, be born and think,

And act and love, a closer link
Betwixt us and the crowning race

Of those that, eye to eye, shall look

On knowledge; under whose command Is Earth and Earth's, and in their hand Is Nature like an open book;

No longer half-akin to brute,

For all we thought and loved and did,

And hoped, and suffer'd, is but seed Of what in them is flower and fruit;

Whereof the man, that with me trod
This planet, was a noble type

Appearing ere the times were ripe,
That friend of mine who lives in God,

That God, which ever lives and loves,
One God, one law, one element,

And one far-off divine event,

To which the whole creation moves.

TENNYSON.

BOOK IV

A LITTLE PHILOSOPHY