_First Decadent_ (_M.A. Oxon._). "AFTER ALL, SMYTHE, WHAT WOULD LIFE BE WITHOUT COFFEE?" _Second Decadent_ (_B.A. Camb._). "TRUE, JEOHNES, TRUE! AND YET, AFTER ALL, WHAT IS LIFE _WITH_ COFFEE?"] * * * * * "CROSSING THE BAR." IN MEMORIAM. ALFRED LORD TENNYSON. BORN, AUGUST 5, 1809. DIED, OCTOBER 6, 1892. "TALIESSEN is our fullest throat of song."--_The Holy Grail_. Our fullest throat of song is silent, hushed In Autumn, when the songless woods are still, And with October's boding hectic flushed Slowly the year disrobes. A passionate thrill Of strange proud sorrow pulses through the land, His land, his England, which he loved so well: And brows bend low, as slow from strand to strand The Poet's passing bell Sends forth its solemn note, and every heart Chills, and sad tears to many an eyelid start. Sad tears in sooth! And yet not wholly so. Exquisite echoes of his own swan-song Forbid mere murmuring mournfulness; the glow Of its great hope illumes us. Sleep, thou strong Full tide, as over the unmeaning bar Fares this unfaltering darer of the deep, Beaconed by a Great Light, the pilot-star Of valiant souls, who keep Through the long strife of thought-life free from scathe The luminous guidance of the larger faith. No sadness of farewell? Great Singer, crowned With lustrous laurel, facing that far light, In whose white radiance dark seems whelmed and drowned, And death a passing shade, of meaning slight; Sunset, and evening star, and that clear call, The twilight shadow, and the evening bell, Bring naught of gloom for thee. Whate'er befall Thou must indeed fare well. But we--we have but memories now, and love The plaint of fond regret will scarce reprove. Great singer, he, and great among the great, Or greatness hath no sure abiding test. The poet's splendid pomp, the shining state Of royal singing robes, were his, confest, By slowly growing certitude of fame, Since first, a youth, he found fresh-opening portals To Beauty's Pleasure-House. Ranked with acclaim Amidst the true Immortals, The amaranth fields with native ease he trod, Authentic son of the lyre-bearing god. Fresh portals, untrod pleasaunces, new ways In Art's great Palace, shrined in Nature's heart, Sought the young singer, and his limpid lays, O'er sweet, perchance, yet made the quick blood start To many a cheek mere glittering; rhymes left cold. But through the gates of Ivory or of Horn His vivid vision flocked, and who so bold As to repulse with scorn The shining troop because of shadowy birth. Of bodiless passion, or light tinkling mirth?