192

Robert Louis Steven

son

Thomas

Bayly

James Russell Lowell

Thomas
Moore
in "The

Light of
Other

Days"

He is not dead, this friend, not dead,
But in the path we mortals tread,
Got some few trifling steps ahead,
And nearer to the end,

So that you, too, once past the bend,

Shall meet again, as face to face, this friend
You fancy dead.

Push gaily on, Strong-Heart! The while
You travel forward, mile by mile,
Till you can overtake,

He strains his eyes to search his wake,
Or, whistling as he sees you through the break,
Waits on the stile.

Friends depart, and memory takes them
To her caverns, pure and deep.

I weep to think of those old faces,
To see them in their grief or mirth;
I weep for there are empty places
Around my heart's once crowded hearth.

When I remember all

The friends so linked together

I've seen around me fall

Like leaves in wintry weather,
I feel like one

Who treads alone

Some banquet hall deserted,
"Whose lights are fled,

Whose garlands dead,

And all but he departed!

Thus in the stilly night

Ere slumber's chain has bound me,

Sad memory brings the light

Of other days around me.

193

Every one that has not been long dead has a due portion of praise allotted to him, in which while he lived his friends were too profuse and his enemies too sparing.

Tears of the widower, when he sees,

A late lost form that sleep reveals,
And moves his doubtful arms, and feels
Her place is empty, fall like these;

Which weep a loss for ever new,

A void where heart on heart reposed;

And, where warm hands have prest and closed, Silence, till I be silent too.

Which weep the comrade of my choice,

Joseph
Addison

Alfred Tennyson "In Memoriam"

XVII

THE GREAT FRIENDSHIPS