Chapter LXXXV

The first stanza merely repeats the sentiment expressed in Poem xxvii., that the deepest grief has only more fully convinced him, that to have loved and lost is better than never to have loved.

It is _the friend to whom the epithalamium is addressed_--E. L. Lushington--"true in word and tried in deed," who asks how he is affected--if his faith be still firm, and he has still room in his heart for love? He answers, that all was well with him, until that fatal "message" came, that

"God's finger touch'd him, and he slept."

He then recounts what he thinks may have occurred to Hallam, when translated through various stages of spiritual being; and he repeats his sorrowful regrets for his loss. But "I woo your love," he seems to say to his future brother-in-law, for he holds it wrong

"to mourn for any over much:"

still, so deep is his attachment to Hallam, that he calls himself

"the divided half of such
A friendship as had master'd Time;"

their intimacy would be eternal; and he imagines some sort of intercourse still carried on betwixt them, which he describes in language that has much of the spirit and character of Dante.

He then seems to turn again to his living friend, and says,

"If not so fresh, with love as true,
I, clasping brother-hands, aver
I could not, if I would, transfer
The whole I felt for him to you."

But he is not wholly disconsolate--

"My heart, tho' widow'd, may not rest
Quite in the love of what is gone,[59]
But seeks to beat in time with one
That warms another living breast."

The concluding stanza offers the primrose of autumn to the surviving friend, whilst that of spring must be reserved for the friend whom he has lost.