Literature/Alfred, Lord Tennyson/In Memoriam A.H.H.

In Memoriam A.H.H.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1849

Canto CII

The time draws near the birth of Christ;The moon is hid, the night is still;A single church below the hillIs pealing, folded in the mist.

A single peal of bells below,That wakens at this hour of restA single murmur in the breast,That these are not the bells I know.

Like strangers’ voices here they sound,In lands where not a memory strays,Nor landmark breathes of other days,But all is new unhallow’d ground.