Lord Alfred Tennyson

The Princess: a Medley: Tears, Idle Tears

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
   Tears from the depth of some divine despair
   Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
   In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
   And thinking of the days that are no more.
       Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
   That brings our friends up from the underworld,
   Sad as the last which reddens over one
   That sinks with all we love below the verge;
  So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.
 
      Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
  The earliest pipe of half-awaken’d birds
  To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
  The casement slowly grows a summering square;
  So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.
 
      Dear as remember’d kisses after death,
  And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign’d
  On lips that are for others; deep as love,
  Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
  O Death in Life, the days that are no more!
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