s the
sea, as out of a well of the living waters of love, flows forth all _In
Memoriam_, as a stream flows out of its spring--all is here. "I would
that my tongue could utter the thoughts that arise in me,"--"the touch
of the vanished hand--the sound of the voice that is still,"--the body
and soul of his friend. Rising as it were out of the midst of the gloom
of the valley of the shadow of death,--

"The mountain infant to the sun comes forth
Like human life from darkness;"

and how its waters flow on! carrying life, beauty, magnificence,--shadows
and happy lights, depths of blackness, depths clear as the very body of
heaven. How it deepens as it goes, involving larger interests, wider
views, "thoughts that wander through eternity," greater affections, but
still retaining its pure living waters, its unforgotten burden of love
and sorrow. How it visits every region! "the long unlovely street,"
pleasant villages and farms, "the placid ocean-plains," waste howling
wildernesses, grim woods, _nemorumque noctem_, informed with spiritual
fears, where may be seen, if shapes they may be called--

"Fear and trembling Hope,
Silence and Foresight; Death the Skeleton,
And Time the Shadow;"

now within hearing of the Minster clock, now of the College bells, and
the vague hum of the mighty city. And overhead through all its course
the heaven with its clouds, its sun, moon, and stars; but always, and in
all places, declaring its source; and even when laying its burden of
manifold and faithful affection at the feet of the Almighty Father,
still remembering whence it came,--

"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."

It is to that chancel, and to the day, 3d January, 1834, that he refers
in poem XVIII. of _In Memoriam_.

"'Tis well, 'tis something, we may stand
Where he in English earth is laid,
And from his ashes may be made
The violet of his native land.

"'Tis little; but it looks in truth
As if the quiet bones were blest
Among familiar names to rest,
And in the places of his youth."

And again in XIX.:--

"The Danube to the Severn gave
The darken'd heart that beat no more;
They laid him by the pleasant shore,
And in the hearing of the wave.

"There twice a day the Severn fills,
The salt sea-water passes by,
And h