SCENE—­The Smoking-room at the Decadents.

First Decadent (M.A.  Oxon.).  “AFTER ALL, SMYTHE, WHAT WOULD LIFE BE WITHOUT COFFEE?”

Second Decadent (B.A.  Camb.).  “TRUE, JEOHNES, TRUE!  AND YET, AFTER ALL, WHAT IS LIFE WITH COFFEE?”]

* * * * *

“CROSSING THE BAR.”

IN MEMORIAM.

ALFRED LORD TENNYSON.

BORN, AUGUST 5, 1809.  DIED, OCTOBER 6, 1892.

“TALIESSEN is our fullest throat of song.”—­The Holy Grail.

  Our fullest throat of song is silent, hushed
    In Autumn, when the songless woods are still,
  And with October’s boding hectic flushed
    Slowly the year disrobes.  A passionate thrill
  Of strange proud sorrow pulses through the land,
    His land, his England, which he loved so well: 
  And brows bend low, as slow from strand to strand
        The Poet’s passing bell
  Sends forth its solemn note, and every heart
  Chills, and sad tears to many an eyelid start.

  Sad tears in sooth!  And yet not wholly so. 
    Exquisite echoes of his own swan-song
  Forbid mere murmuring mournfulness; the glow
    Of its great hope illumes us.  Sleep, thou strong
  Full tide, as over the unmeaning bar
    Fares this unfaltering darer of the deep,
  Beaconed by a Great Light, the pilot-star
        Of valiant souls, who keep
  Through the long strife of thought-life free from scathe
  The luminous guidance of the larger faith.

  No sadness of farewell?  Great Singer, crowned
    With lustrous laurel, facing that far light,
  In whose white radiance dark seems whelmed and drowned,
    And death a passing shade, of meaning slight;
  Sunset, and evening star, and that clear call,
    The twilight shadow, and the evening bell,
  Bring naught of gloom for thee.  Whate’er befall
        Thou must indeed fare well. 
  But we—­we have but memories now, and love
  The plaint of fond regret will scarce reprove.

  Great singer, he, and great among the great,
    Or greatness hath no sure abiding test. 
  The poet’s splendid pomp, the shining state
    Of royal singing robes, were his, confest,
  By slowly growing certitude of fame,
    Since first, a youth, he found fresh-opening portals
  To Beauty’s Pleasure-House.  Ranked with acclaim
        Amidst the true Immortals,
  The amaranth fields with native ease he trod,
  Authentic son of the lyre-bearing god.

  Fresh portals, untrod pleasaunces, new ways
    In Art’s great Palace, shrined in Nature’s heart,
  Sought the young singer, and his limpid lays,
    O’er sweet, perchance, yet made the quick blood start
  To many a cheek mere glittering; rhymes left cold. 
    But through the gates of Ivory or of Horn
  His vivid vision flocked, and who so bold
        As to repulse with scorn
  The shining troop because of shadowy birth. 
  Of bodiless passion, or light tinkling mirth?