I past beside the reverend walls In which of old I wore the gown; I roved at random thro' the town, And saw the tumult of the halls;
And heard once more in college fanes The storm their high-built organs make, And thunder-music, rolling, shake The prophet blazon'd on the panes;
And caught once more the distant shout, The measured pulse of racing oars Among the willows; paced the shores And many a bridge, and all about
The same gray flats again, and felt The same, but not the same; and last Up that long walk of limes I past To see the rooms in which he dwelt.
Another name was on the door: I linger'd; all within was noise Of songs, and clapping hands, and boys That crash'd the glass and beat the floor;
Where once we held debate, a band Of youthful friends, on mind and art, And labour, and the changing mart, And all the framework of the land;
When one would aim an arrow fair, But send it slackly from the string; And one would pierce an outer ring, And one an inner, here and there;
And last the master-bowman, he, Would cleave the mark. A willing ear We lent him. Who, but hung to hear The rapt oration flowing free
From point to point, with power and grace And music in the bounds of law, To those conclusions when we saw The God within him light his face,
And seem to lift the form, and glow In azure orbits heavenly-wise; And over those ethereal eyes The bar of Michael Angelo?
-Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam A. H. H., Canto LXXXVII