He says that his own grief has made him feel kindly towards others; and that he is like a blind man, who though needing a hand to lead him, can still jest with his friends, take children on his knee and play with them, and dream of the sky he can no longer see:
“His inner day can never die,
His night of loss is always there.”
LXVII.
He pictures in his mind, as he lies in bed, how the moonlight that fills his chamber is passing its “silver flame” across the marble tablet in Clevedon Church,[43] which is inscribed to the memory of Hallam. The tablet is not in the chancel of the church, as erroneously stated in Mr. Hallam’s private memoir of his son, and consequently so described in the earlier editions of this Poem, but it rests on the west wall of the south transept; and “the letters of thy name,” and “the number of thy years,” are thus most affectingly recorded:
“TO THE MEMORY OF
ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM,
of Trinity College, Cambridge, b.a.,
eldest son of Henry Hallam, Esquire,
and of Julia Maria, his wife,
daughter of Sir Abraham Elton, Bart.,
of Clevedon Court,
who was snatched away by sudden death,
at Vienna, on September 15th, 1833,
in the 23rd year of his age.
and now, in this obscure and solitary
church,
repose the mortal remains of
one too early lost for public fame,
but already conspicuous among his
contemporaries
for the brightness of his genius,
the depth of his understanding,
the nobleness of his disposition,
the fervour of his piety,
and the purity of his life.
Vale dulcissime,
vale dilectissime, desideratissime,
requiescas in pace.
Pater ac mater hic posthac requiescamus tecum,
usque ad tubam.”[44]
When the moonlight dies he falls asleep, “closing eaves of wearied eyes;” and awakens to know how the grey break of day is drawn from “coast to coast,” from Somersetshire to Wales, across the estuary of the Severn,[45]
“And in the dark church like a ghost
Thy tablet glimmers to the dawn.”
LXVIII.
A succession of dreams now occurs. When at night he presses “the down” of his pillow, sleep, “Death’s twin-brother,”[46] “times my breath”—takes possession of him and regulates his breathing. But, though so closely related to Death, sleep cannot make him dream of Hallam “as dead.” He again walks with him, as he did before he was left “forlorn;” and all nature is bright around them.