Thy spirit ere our fatal loss
Did ever rise from high to higher;
As mounts the heavenward altar-fire,
As flies the lighter thro’ the gross.

But thou art turn’d to something strange.
And I have lost the links that bound
Thy changes; here upon the ground,
No more partaker of thy change.

Deep folly! yet that this could be,–
That I could wing my will with might
To leap the grades of life and light,
And flash at once, my friend, to thee.

Tennyson, In Memoriam XLI