If any vague desire should rise, That holy Death ere Arthur died Had moved me kindly from his side, And dropt the dust on tearless eyes;
Then fancy shapes, as fancy can, The grief my loss in him had wrought, A grief as deep as life or thought, But stay'd in peace with God and man.
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.
His credit thus shall set me free; And, influence-rich to soothe and save, Unused example from the grave Reach out dead hands to comfort me.
-Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam A. H. H., Canto LXXX