Canto LXXXI

Could I have said while he was here,    "My love shall now no further range;    There cannot come a mellower change, For now is love mature in ear?"

Love, then, had hope of richer store:    What end is here to my complaint?    This haunting whisper makes me faint, "More years had made me love thee more.'

But Death returns an answer sweet:    "My sudden frost was sudden gain,    And gave all ripeness to the grain, It might have drawn from after-heat."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam A. H. H., Canto LXXXI