Lo, as a dove when up she springs To bear thro' Heaven a tale of woe, Some dolorous message knit below The wild pulsation of her wings;
Like her I go; I cannot stay; I leave this mortal ark behind, A weight of nerves without a mind, And leave the cliffs, and haste away
O'er ocean-mirrors rounded large, And reach the glow of southern skies, And see the sails at distance rise, And linger weeping on the marge,
And saying; "Comes he thus, my friend? Is this the end of all my care?" And circle moaning in the air: "Is this the end? Is this the end?"
And forward dart again, and play About the prow, and back return To where the body sits, and learn That I have been an hour away.
-Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam A. H. H., Canto XII