Dark House

Tennyson wrote In Memoriam to his very dear friend Arthur Hallam who died suddenly.  Modern readers might see their deep friendship as 'gay',  but it seems clear enough that it was a 'romantic friendship'  Whatever.  It was love.  This poem below is just one from In Memoriam.


DARK house, by which once more I stand
    Here in the long unlovely street,
    Doors, where my heart was used to beat
So quickly, waiting for a hand,

A hand that can be clasp’d no more—      
    Behold me, for I cannot sleep,
    And like a guilty thing I creep
At earliest morning to the door.

He is not here; but far away
    The noise of life begins again,      
    And ghastly thro’ the drizzling rain
On the bald street breaks the blank day.

*        *        *        *        *

O days and hours, your work is this,
    To hold me from my proper place,
    A little while from his embrace,      
For fuller gain of after bliss:

That out of distance might ensue
    Desire of nearness doubly sweet;
    And unto meeting when we meet,
Delight a hundredfold accrue,      

For every grain of sand that runs,
    And every span of shade that steals,
    And every kiss of toothèd wheels,
And all the courses of the suns.