In Memoriam A. H. H. OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII: 121

By Alfred, Lord Tennyson 1809–1892 Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Sad Hesper o'er the buried sun

And ready, thou, to die with him,

Thou watchest all things ever dim

And dimmer, and a glory done:

The team is loosen'd from the wain,

The boat is drawn upon the shore;

Thou listenest to the closing door,

And life is darken'd in the brain.

Bright Phosphor, fresher for the night,

By thee the world's great work is heard

Beginning, and the wakeful bird;

Behind thee comes the greater light:

The market boat is on the stream,

And voices hail it from the brink;

Thou hear'st the village hammer clink,

And see'st the moving of the team.

Sweet Hesper-Phosphor, double name

For what is one, the first, the last,

Thou, like my present and my past,

Thy place is changed; thou art the same.

Biography

More than any other Victorian writer, Tennyson has seemed the embodiment of his age, both to his contemporaries and to modern readers. In his own day he was said to be—with Queen Victoria and Gladstone—one of the three most famous living persons, a reputation no other poet writing in English has ever had. As official poetic spokesman for the reign of Victoria, he felt called upon to celebrate a quickly changing industrial and . . .

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