The Poetry Corner

How Sweet It Were

By Alfred Lord Tennyson

How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream, With half-shut eyes ever to seem Falling asleep in a half-dream! To dream and dream, like yonder amber light, Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height; To hear each others whisperd speech; Eating the Lotos day by day, To watch the crisping ripples on the beach, And tender curving lines of creamy spray; To lend our hearts and spirits wholly To the influence of mild-minded melancholy; To muse and brood and live again in memory With those old faces of our infancy Heapd over with a mound of grass, Two handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn of brass!