A breath that fleets beyond this iron world And touches him who made it. - Alfred Tennyson

Forgive my grief for one removed
Thy creature whom I found so fair
I trust he lives in Thee and there
I find him worthier to be loved.

What hope is here for modern rhyme
To him, who turns a musing eye
On songs, and deeds, and lives, that lie
Foreshorten'd in the tract of time?

These mortal lullabies of pain
May bind a book, may line a box,
May serve to curl a maiden's locks;
Or when a thousand moons shall wane

A man upon a stall may find,
And, passing, turn the page that tells
A grief, then changed to something else,
Sung by a long-forgotten mind.

But what of that? My darken'd ways
Shall ring with music all the same;
To breathe my loss is more than fame,
To utter love more sweet than praise.

Our little systems have their day;
They have their day and cease to be…
And thou, O Lord, art more than they.