THE FAIR COMPANIONSHIP

From “In Memoriam”


The path by which we twain did go,
Which led by trac that pleased us well,
Through four sweets years arose and fell,
From flower to flower, from snow to snow;

And we with singing cheered the way,
And, crowned with all the season lent,
From April on to April went,
And glad at heart from May to May:

But where the path we walked began
To slant the fifth autumnal slope,
As we descend, following Hope,
There sat the Shadow feared of man;

Who broke our fair companionship,
And spread his mantle dark and cold,
And wrapt thee formless in the fold,
And dulled the murmur on the lip,

And bore thee where I could not see
Nor follow, though I walk in haste,
And think that somewhere in the waste
The Shadow sits and waits for me.

Now, sometimes in my sorrow shut
Or, breaking into song by fits,
Alone, alone, to where he sits,
The Shadow cloaked from head to foot,

Who keeps the keys of all the creeds,
I wander, often falling lame,
And looking back to whence I came
Or on to where the pathway leads;

And crying, How changed from where it ran
Through lands where not a leaf was dumb,
But all the lavish hills would hum
The murmur of happy Pan:

When each by turns was guide to each,
And Fancy light from Fancy caught,
And Thought leapt out to wed with Thought
Ere Thought could wed itself with Speech;

And all we met was fair and good,
And all was food that Time could bring,
And all the secret of the Spring
Moved in the chambers of the blood;

And many an old philosophy
On Argine heights divinely sang,
And round us all the thicket rang
To many a flute of Arcady.

I know that this was Life,- the track
Whereon with equal feet we fared;
And then, as now, the day prepared
The daily burden for the back.

But this was that made me move
As light as carrier-birds in air;
I loved the weight I had to bear
Because it needed help of Love:

Nor could I weary, heart or limb,
When mighty Love could cleave in twain
The lading of a single pain,
And part it, giving half to him.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson.