| Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922. | | | | Songs from ‘The Princess’, II | | By Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) |
| | | TEARS, idle tears, I know not what they mean, | |
| Tears from the depth of some divine despair | |
| Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, | |
| In looking on the happy Autumn-fields, | |
| And thinking of the days that are no more. | 5 |
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| Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, | |
| That brings our friends up from the underworld, | |
| Sad as the last which reddens over one | |
| That sinks with all we love below the verge; | |
| So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. | 10 |
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| Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns | |
| The earliest pipe of half-awaken’d birds | |
| To dying ears, when unto dying eyes | |
| The casement slowly grows a glimmering square; | |
| So sad, so strange, the days that are no more. | 15 |
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| Dear as remember’d kisses after death, | |
| And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign’d | |
| On lips that are for others; deep as love, | |
| Deep as first love, and wild with all regret; | |
| O Death in Life, the days that are no more!’ | 20 | | | |
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