He tasted love with half his mind, Nor ever drank the inviolate spring Where nighest heaven, who first could fling This bitter seed among mankind;
That could the dead, whose dying eyes Were closed with wail, resume their life, They would but find in child and wife An iron welcome when they rise:
'Twas well, indeed, when warm with wine, To pledge them with a kindly tear, To talk them o'er, to wish them here, To count their memories half divine;
But if they came who past away, Behold their brides in other hands; The hard heir strides about their lands, And will not yield them for a day.
Yea, tho' their sons were none of these, Not less the yet-loved sire would make Confusion worse than death, and shake The pillars of domestic peace.
Ah dear, but come thou back to me: Whatever change the years have wrought, I find not yet one lonely thought That cries against my wish for thee.
-Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam A. H. H., Canto XC
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