Page:Poems - Tennyson (1843) - Volume 2 of 2.djvu/74

 Which few can reach to. Yet I do not say But that a time may come—yea, even now, Now, now, his footsteps smite the threshold stairs Of life—I say, that time is at the doors When you may worship me without reproach; For I will leave my relics in your land, And you may carve a shrine about my dust, And burn a fragrant lamp before my bones, When I am gather'd to the glorious saints. While I spake then, a sting of shrewdest pain Ran shrivelling thro' me, and a cloudlike change, In passing, with a grosser film made thick These heavy, horny eyes. The end! the end! Surely the end! What's here? a shape, a shade, A flash of light. Is that the angel there That holds a crown? Come, blessed brother, come. I know thy glittering face. I waited long; My brows are ready. What! deny it now? Nay, draw, draw, draw nigh. So I clutch it. Christ! 'Tis gone: 'tis here again; the crown! the crown! So now 'tis fitted on and grows to me, And from it melt the dews of Paradise,