In Memoriam

To-night the winds begin to rise

And roar from yonder dropping day

The last red leaf is whirl'd away

The rooks are blown about the skies

 Autumn's Fading Beauty

North East Lincolnshire, England

The forest crack'd the waters curl'd,

The cattle huddled on the lea,

And wildly dash'd on tower and tree

The sunbeam strikes along the world.

And but for fancies which aver

That all thy motions gently pass

Athwart a plane of molten glass,

I scarce could brook the strain and stir

That makes the barren branches loud

And but for fear it is not so,

The wild unrest that lives in woe

Would dote and pour on yonder cloud

That rises upward always higher,

And onward drags a labouring breast,

And topples round the dreary west,

A looming bastion fringed with fire.

Alfred Tennyson

First Baron Tennyson

George Frederic Watts

(1817-1904)

English Victorian painter

"In Memoriam"

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

(1809-1892)

English poet

Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland

(1850-1892)

during much of the reign of Queen Victoria,

who was a great admirer of his poetry.