We ranging down this lower track, The path we came by, thorn and flower, Is shadow'd by the growing hour, Lest life should fail in looking back.
So be it: there no shade can last In that deep dawn behind the tomb, But clear from marge to marge shall bloom The eternal landscape of the past;
A lifelong tract of time reveal'd; The fruitful hours of still increase; Days order'd in a wealthy peace, And those five years its richest field.
O Love, thy province were not large, A bounded field, nor stretching far; Look also, Love, a brooding star, A rosy warmth from marge to marge.
-Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam A. H. H., Canto XLVI
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