Thursday Text: In Memoriam

It's Tennyson again this week. One of his best-known poems, from which the text for Ring Out, Wild Bells comes, is In Memoriam. It was written over a period of years following the passing of a good friend from Cambridge who was engaged to Tennyson's sister. I'm just going to include a portion of the text as we have just marked the 10th year since Tony's best friend passed away (car accident) and are approaching the 7th year since my late husband passed away (also car accident). We have learned much in our lives and about life since then.

Could I have said while he was here,
`My love shall now no further range;
There cannot come a mellower change,
For now is love mature in ear'?

Love, then, had hope of richer store:
What end is here to my complaint?
This haunting whisper makes me faint,
'More years had made me love thee more.'

But Death returns an answer sweet:
`My sudden frost was sudden gain,
And gave all ripeness to the grain,
It might have drawn from after-heat.'