Discussing how their courtship grew, And talk of others that are wed, And how she look'd, and what he said, And back we come at fall of dew. Again the feast, the speech, the glee, The shade of passing thought, the wealth Of words and wit, the double health, The crowning cup, the three-times-three, And last the dance;--till I retire: Dumb is that tower which spake so loud, And high in heaven the streaming cloud, And on the downs a rising fire: And rise, O moon, from yonder down, Till over down and over dale All night the shining vapour sail And pass the silent-lighted town, The white-faced halls, the glancing rills, And catch at every mountain head, And o'er the friths that branch and spread Their sleeping silver thro' the hills; And touch with shade the bridal doors, With tender gloom the roof, the wall; And breaking let the splendour fall To spangle all the happy shores By which they rest, and ocean sounds, And, star and system rolling past, A soul shall draw from out the vast And strike his being into bounds, And, moved thro' life of lower phase, Result in man, be born and think, And act and love, a closer link Betwixt us and the crowning race Of those that, eye to eye, shall look On knowledge; under whose command Is Earth and Earth's, and in their hand Is Nature like an open book; No longer half-akin to brute, For all we thought and loved and did, And hoped, and suffer'd, is but seed Of what in them is flower and fruit; Whereof the man, that with me trod This planet, was a noble type Appearing ere the times were ripe, That friend of mine who lives in God, That God, which ever lives and loves, One God, one law, one element, And one far-off divine event, To which the whole creation moves. CHARLES TENNYSON-TURNER _Midnight, June 30, 1879_ I Midnight--in no midsummer tune The breakers lash the shores: The cuckoo of a joyless June Is calling out of doors: And thou hast vanish'd from thine own To that which looks like rest, True brother, only to be known By those who love thee best. II Midnight--and joyless June gone by, And from the deluged park The cuckoo of a worse July Is calling thro' the dark: But thou art silent underground, And o'er thee streams the rain, True poet, surely to be found When Truth is found again. III And, now to these unsummer'd skies The summer bird is still, Far off a phantom cuckoo cries From out a phantom hill; And thro' this midnight breaks the sun Of sixty years away, The light of days when life begun, The days that seem to-day, When all my griefs were shared with thee, As all my hopes were thine-- As all thou wert was one with me, May all thou art be mine!