CXXIX.
A more touching and tender address to the dead was never uttered than this Poem expresses, a more pure and ennobling affection was never described. Sorrow is lost in the more exalted sentiment of their certain reunion, and in the strength derived from a consciousness of the worthiness of their past friendship.
“Strange friend, past, present, and to be,
Loved deeplier, darklier understood;
Behold, I dream a dream of good,
And mingle all the world with thee.”
CXXX.
Each had so participated in the other’s life: they had looked on Nature with such kindred eyes, having one mind and taste; that the survivor both sees and hears his former companion in all objects and sounds which present themselves.
Everything reminds him of Hallam; but
“Tho’ mix’d with God and Nature thou,
I seem to love thee more and more.”
His last declaration of devoted attachment is,
“Far off thou art, but ever nigh;
I have thee still, and I rejoice;
I prosper, circled with thy voice;
I shall not lose thee tho’ I die.”
CXXXI.