I began saying the lines, but he knew them quite well and repeated them. I can’t think how it is, the answer he returned about this is now, alas! forgot.... Such troublous years have come and gone since that happy Long-Ago. (The omitted stanza would have gone, too, had it not been written down for me by a long-lost friend, Sir Robert Morier.)
So the reading aloud went on, with talk between (and clouds of smoke!), until, I think, past eleven o’clock, when you opened the door, and that—for me—rare dream of poetry and charm abruptly broke.
I saw Tennyson, for the last time, as I followed down the wooded path at Aldworth, on his way to the garden door opening on the heath, his fine, big, Russian hound pacing closely after.
No—once more I saw him, his likeness with all the distinctness sometimes known in the slow-moving white clouds of some glorious autumn day. It was after the end had come, and not long before the grave in Westminster Abbey had received him. I was travelling home on the Great-Western from Somerset. Gazing up idly at the assembled multitude of sun-steeped silver clouds above, suddenly, clear and distinct, my eyes beheld the image of his noble profile as if lying back asleep; the eyes were closed, the head at rest upon the pillow—a sculptured cloud in a snowy cloudland, outlined upon an azure sky.... Not until after several minutes did the vision pass, slowly fading into the infinite blue.
TENNYSON AND HIS TALK ON SOME RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS
By the Right Rev. the Bishop of Ripon
Among the happy memories of my life, and they are many, the memory of the kindly welcome accorded to me at Aldworth and at Farringford must always possess a special charm. This will readily be understood by those of my own age; for Tennyson was a name to conjure with in the days of my youth. Slowly but surely his influence crept into our lives: we read in text-books at school that the
Poet in a golden age was born, with golden stars above,
Dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, the love of love.