The first stanza merely repeats the sentiment expressed in Poem xxvii.,
that the deepest grief has only more fully convinced him, that to have
loved and lost is better than never to have loved.
It is _the friend to whom the epithalamium is addressed_--E. L.
Lushington--"true in word and tried in deed," who asks how he is
affected--if his faith be still firm, and he has still room in his heart
for love? He answers, that all was well with him, until that fatal
"message" came, that
"God's finger touch'd him, and he slept."
He then recounts what he thinks may have occurred to Hallam, when
translated through various stages of spiritual being; and he repeats his
sorrowful regrets for his loss. But "I woo your love," he seems to say to
his future brother-in-law, for he holds it wrong
"to mourn for any over much:"
still, so deep is his attachment to Hallam, that he calls himself
"the divided half of such
A friendship as had master'd Time;"
their intimacy would be eternal; and he imagines some sort of intercourse
still carried on betwixt them, which he describes in language that has
much of the spirit and character of Dante.
He then seems to turn again to his living friend, and says,
"If not so fresh, with love as true,
I, clasping brother-hands, aver
I could not, if I would, transfer
The whole I felt for him to you."