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diff --git a/8601-h/8601-h.htm b/8601-h/8601-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ee183b4 --- /dev/null +++ b/8601-h/8601-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,22312 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Early Poems of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.letter {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +p.center {text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.right {text-align: right; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.left {text-align: left; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.footnote {font-size: 90%; + text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +sup { vertical-align: top; font-size: 0.6em; } + +div.fig { display:block; + margin:0 auto; + text-align:center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em;} + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> + +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Early Poems of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + +Title: The Early Poems of Alfred, Lord Tennyson + +Author: Alfred, Lord Tennyson + +Release Date: July 27, 2003 [EBook #8601] +[Most recently updated: February 9, 2020] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EARLY POEMS OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Clytie Siddall, Charles Franks, +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + +</pre> + +<h1>The Early Poems of Alfred, Lord Tennyson</h1> + +<p class="center"> +edited with a critical introduction, commentaries and notes, together with the +various readings, a transcript of the poems temporarily and finally suppressed +and a bibliography<br/> +<br/> +by John Churton Collins<br/> +</p> + +<hr /> + +<h2>Table of Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" > + +<tr> +<td><a href="#pref01">Preface</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#pref02">Introduction</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#pref03">Part I—the editions</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#pref04">Part II—comparison of the editions</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#pref05">Part III—grouping the poems</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#pref06">Part IV—“Art for art, art for truth.”</a><br/><br/></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap01">Early Poems</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap02">To the Queen</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap03">Claribel—a Melody</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap04">Lilian</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap05">Isabel</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap06">Mariana</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap07">To —— (“Clear-headed friend, whose joyful scorn”)</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap08">Madeline</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap09">Song—The Owl</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap10">Second Song to the Same</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap11">Recollections of the Arabian Nights</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap12">Ode to Memory</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap13">Song (“A spirit haunts the year’s last hours”)</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap14">Adeline</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap15">A Character</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap16">The Poet</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap17">The Poet’s Mind</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap18">The Sea-Fairies</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap19">The Deserted House</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap20">The Dying Swan</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap21">A Dirge</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap22">Love and Death</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap23">The Ballad of Oriana</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap24">Circumstance</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap25">The Merman</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap26">The Mermaid</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap27">Sonnet to J. M. K.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap28">The Lady of Shalott</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap29">Mariana in the South</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap30">Eleänore</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap31">The Miller’s Daughter</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap32">Fatima</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap33">Œnone</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap34">The Sisters</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap35">To—— (“I send you here a sort of allegory”)</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap36">The Palace of Art</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap37">Lady Clara Vere de Vere</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap38">The May Queen</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap39">New Year’s Eve</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap40">Conclusion</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap41">The Lotos-Eaters</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap42">Dream of Fair Women</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap43">Margaret</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap44">The Blackbird</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap45">The Death of the Old Year</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap46">To J. S.</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap47">“You ask me, why, tho’ ill at ease”</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap48">“Of old sat Freedom on the heights”</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap49">“Love thou thy land, with love far-brought”</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap50">The Goose</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap51">The Epic</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap52">Morte d’Arthur</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap53">The Gardener’s Daughter; or, The Pictures</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap54">Dora</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap55">Audley Court</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap56">Walking to the Mail</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap57">Edwin Morris; or, The Lake</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap58">St. Simeon Stylites</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap59">The Talking Oak</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap60">Love and Duty</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap61">The Golden Year</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap62">Ulysses</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap63">Locksley Hall</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap64">Godiva</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap65">The Two Voices</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap66">The Day-Dream:—Prologue</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap67">The Sleeping Palace</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap68">The Sleeping Beauty</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap69">The Arrival</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap70">The Revival</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap71">The Departure</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap72">L’Envoi</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap73">Epilogue</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap74">Amphion</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap75">St. Agnes</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap76">Sir Galahad</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap77">Edward Gray</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap78">Will Waterproof’s Lyrical Monologue</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap79">To ——, after reading a Life and Letters</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap80">To E.L., on his Travels in Greece</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap81">Lady Clare</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap82">The Lord of Burleigh</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap83">Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere: a Fragment</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap84">A Farewell</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap85">The Beggar Maid</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap86">The Vision of Sin</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap87">“Come not, when I am dead”</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap88">The Eagle</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap89">“Move eastward, happy earth, and leave”</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap90">“Break, break, break”</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap91">The Poet’s Song</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap92">Appendix—Suppressed Poems</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap93">Elegiacs</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap94">The “How” and the “Why”</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap95">Supposed Confessions</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap96">The Burial of Love</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap97">To —— (“Sainted Juliet! dearest name !”)</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap98">Song (“I’ the glooming light”)</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap99">Song (“The lintwhite and the throstlecock”)</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap100">Song (“Every day hath its night”)</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap101">Nothing will Die</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap102">All Things will Die</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap103">Hero to Leander</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap104">The Mystic</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap105">The Grasshopper</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap106">Love, Pride and Forgetfulness</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap107">Chorus (“The varied earth, the moving heaven”)</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap108">Lost Hope</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap109">The Tears of Heaven</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap110">Love and Sorrow</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap111">To a Lady Sleeping</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap112">Sonnet (“Could I outwear my present state of woe”)</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap113">Sonnet (“Though Night hath climbed her peak of highest noon”)</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap114">Sonnet (“Shall the hag Evil die with child of Good”)</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap115">Sonnet (“The pallid thunderstricken sigh for gain”)</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap116">Love</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap117">The Kraken</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap118">English War Song</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap119">National Song</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap120">Dualisms</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap121">We are Free</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap122">οἱ ῥέοντες. +</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap123">“Mine be the strength of spirit, full and free”</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap124">To — (“All good things have not kept aloof”)</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap125">Buonaparte</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap126">Sonnet (“Oh, Beauty, passing beauty! sweetest Sweet!”)</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap127">The Hesperides</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap128">Song (“The golden apple, the golden apple, the hallowed fruit”)</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap129">Rosalind</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap130">Song (“Who can say”)</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap131">Kate</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap132">Sonnet (“Blow ye the trumpet, gather from afar”)</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap133">Poland</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap134">To — (“As when with downcast eyes we muse and brood”)</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap135">O Darling Room</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap136">To Christopher North</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap137">The Skipping Rope</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap138">Timbuctoo</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td><a href="#chap139">Bibliography of the <i>Poems</i> of 1842</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="pref01"></a>Preface</h2> + +<p> +A Critical edition of Tennyson’s poems has long been an +acknowledged want. He has taken his place among the English +Classics, and as a Classic he is, and will be, studied, seriously +and minutely, by many thousands of his countrymen, both in the +present generation as well as in future ages. As in the works of +his more illustrious brethren, so in his trifles will become +subjects of curious interest, and assume an importance of which +we have no conception now. Here he will engage the attention of +the antiquary, there of the social historian. Long after his +politics, his ethics, his theology have ceased to be immediately +influential, they will be of immense historical significance. A +consummate artist and a consummate master of our language, the +process by which he achieved results so memorable can never fail +to be of interest, and of absorbing interest, to critical +students. +</p> + +<p> +I must, I fear, claim the indulgence due to one who attempts, for the first +time, a critical edition of a text so perplexingly voluminous in variants as +Tennyson’s. I can only say that I have spared neither time nor labour to be +accurate and exhaustive. I have myself collated, or have had collated for me, +every edition recorded in the British Museum Catalogue, and where that has been +deficient I have had recourse to other public libraries, and to the libraries +of private friends. I am not conscious that I have left any variant unrecorded, +but I should not like to assert that this is the case. Tennyson was so +restlessly indefatigable in his corrections that there may lurk, in editions of +the poems which I have not seen, other variants; and it is also possible that, +in spite of my vigilance, some may have escaped me even in the editions which +have been collated, and some may have been made at a date earlier than the date +recorded. But I trust this has not been the case. +</p> + +<p> +Of the Bibliography I can say no more +than that I have done my utmost to make it complete, and that it +is very much fuller than any which has hitherto appeared. That it +is exhaustive I dare not promise. +</p> + +<p> +With regard to the Notes and Commentaries, I have spared no pains to explain +everything which seemed to need explanation. There are, I think, only two +points which I have not been able to clear up, namely, the name of the friend +to whom the <i>The Palace of Art</i> was addressed, and the name of the friend +to whom the <i>Verses after reading a Life and Letters</i> were addressed. I +have consulted every one who would be likely to throw light on the subject, +including the poet’s surviving sister, many of his friends, and the present +Lord Tennyson, but without success; so the names, if they were not those of +some imaginary person, appear to be irrecoverable. The Prize Poem, +<i>Timbuctoo</i>, as well as the poems which were temporarily or finally +suppressed in the volumes published in 1830 and 1832 have been printed in the +Appendix: those which were subsequently incorporated in his Works, in large +type; those which he never reprinted, in small. +</p> + +<p> +The text here adopted is that of 1857, but Messrs. Macmillan, to whom I beg to +express my hearty thanks, have most generously allowed me to record all the +variants which are still protected by copyright. I have to thank them, too, for +assistance in the Bibliography. I have also to thank Mr. J. T. Wise for his +kindness in lending me the privately printed volume containing the <i>Morte +d’Arthur, Dora,</i> etc. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="pref02"></a>Introduction</h2> + +<h3><a name="pref03"></a>I</h3> + +<p> +The development of Tennyson’s genius, methods, aims and capacity +of achievement in poetry can be studied with singular precision +and fulness in the history of the poems included in the present +volume. In 1842 he published the two volumes which gave him, by +almost general consent, the first place among the poets of his +time, for, though Wordsworth was alive, Wordsworth’s best work +had long been done. These two volumes contained poems which had +appeared before, some in 1830 and some in 1832, and some which +were then given to the world for the first time, so that they +represent work belonging to three eras in the poet’s life, poems +written before he had completed his twenty-second year and +belonging for the most part to his boyhood, poems written in his +early manhood, and poems written between his thirty-first and +thirty-fourth year. +</p> + +<p> +The poems published in 1830 had the following title-page: “<i>Poems, +Chiefly Lyrical, by Alfred Tennyson.</i> London: Effingham Wilson, Royal +Exchange, 1830”. They are fifty-six in number and the titles are:— +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +<i>Claribel</i>.<br/> +<i>Lilian</i>.<br/> +<i>Isabel</i>.<br/> +Elegiacs.*<br/> +The “How” and the “Why”.<br/> +<i>Mariana</i>.<br/> +To —— .<br/> +Madeline.<br/> +The Merman.<br/> +The <i>Mermaid</i>.<br/> +Supposed Confessions of a second-rate sensitive mind not in unity with itself.*<br/> +The Burial of Love.<br/> +To — (Sainted Juliet dearest name.)<br/> +<i>Song. The Owl.</i><br/> +<i>Second Song. To the same.</i><br/> +<i>Recollections of the Arabian Nights.</i><br/> +<i>Ode to Memory</i>.<br/> +Song. (I’ the glooming light.)<br/> +<i>Song. (A spirit haunts.)</i><br/> +<i>Adeline</i>.<br/> +<i>A Character.</i><br/> +Song. (The lint-white and the throstle cock.)<br/> +Song. (Every day hath its night.)<br/> +<i>The Poet.</i><br/> +<i>The Poet’s Mind.</i><br/> +Nothing will die.*<br/> +All things will die.*<br/> +Hero to Leander.<br/> +The Mystic.<br/> +<i>The Dying Swan.</i><br/> +<i>A Dirge.</i><br/> +The Grasshopper.<br/> +Love, Pride and Forgetfulness.<br/> +Chorus (in an unpublished drama written very early).<br/> +Lost Hope.<br/> +The Deserted House.*†<br/> +The Tears of Heaven.<br/> +Love and Sorrow.<br/> +To a Lady Sleeping.<br/> +Sonnet. (Could I outwear my present state of woe.)<br/> +Sonnet. (Though Night hath climbed her peak of highest noon.)<br/> +Sonnet. (Shall the hag Evil die with child of Good.)<br/> +Sonnet. (The pallid thunderstricken sigh for gain.)<br/> +Love.<br/> +<i>Love and Death.</i><br/> +The Kraken.*<br/> +<i>The Ballad of Oriana.</i><br/> +<i>Circumstance.</i><br/> +English War Song.<br/> +National Song.<br/> +<i>The Sleeping Beauty.</i><br/> +Dualisms.<br/> +We are Free.<br/> +The Sea-Fairies.*†<br/> +<i>Sonnet to J.M.K.</i><br/> +οἱ ῥέοντες +</p> + +<p> +Of these the poems in <i>italics</i> appeared in the edition of 1842, and were +not much altered. Those with an asterisk were, in addition to the italicised +poems, afterwards included among the <i>Juvenilia</i> in the collected works +(1871-1872), though excluded from all preceding editions of the poems. Those +with both a dagger and an asterisk were restored in editions previous to the +first collected editions of the works. +</p> + +<p> +In December, 1832, appeared a second volume (it is dated on the title-page, +1833): “Poems by Alfred Tennyson. London: Moxon, MDCCCXXXIII.” This contains +thirty poems:— +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +Sonnet.†† (Mine be the strength of spirit fierce and free.)<br/> +To— .†† (All good things have not kept aloof.)<br/> +Buonaparte.††<br/> +Sonnet I. (O Beauty passing beauty, sweetest Sweet.)<br/> +Sonnet II.†† (But were I loved, as I desire to be.)<br/> +<i>The Lady of Shalott</i>.*<br/> +<i>Mariana in the South.</i>*<br/> +<i>Eleanore.</i><br/> +<i>The Miller’s Daughter.</i>*<br/> +φαίνεταί μοι +κῆνος ἴσος +θεοῖσιν Ἔμμεν +ἀνήρ.<br/> +<i>Œnone</i>.<br/> +<i>The Sisters.</i><br/> +To— . (With the Palace of Art.)*<br/> +<i>The Palace of Art</i>*<br/> +<i>The May Queen.</i><br/> +<i>New Year’s Eve.</i><br/> +The Hesperides.<br/> +<i>The Lotos Eaters.</i><br/> +Rosalind.††<br/> +<i>A Dream of Fair Women</i>*<br/> +Song. (Who can say.)<br/> +<i>Margaret</i>.<br/> +Kate.<br/> +Sonnet. Written on hearing of the outbreak of the Polish Insurrection.<br/> +Sonnet.†† On the result of the late Russian invasion of Poland.<br/> +Sonnet.†† (As when with downcast eyes we muse and brood.)<br/> +O Darling Room.<br/> +To Christopher North.<br/> +<i>The Death of the Old Year.</i><br/> +<i>To J. S.</i><br/> +</p> + +<p> +Of these the poems italicised were included in the edition of 1842; those +marked with an asterisk being greatly altered and in some cases almost +rewritten, those marked with a dagger being practically unaltered. To those +reprinted in the collected works a double dagger is prefixed. +</p> + +<p> +In 1842 appeared the two volumes which contained, in addition to +the selections made from the two former volumes, several new +poems:— +</p> + +<p> +“Poems by Alfred Tennyson. In two volumes. +London: Edward Moxon, MDCCCXLII.” +</p> + +<p> +The first volume is divided into two parts: Selections from the poems published +in 1830, <i>Claribel</i> to the <i>Sonnet to J. M. K.</i> inclusive. Selections +from the poems of 1832, <i>The Lady of Shalott</i> to <i>The Goose</i> +inclusive. The second volume contains poems then, with two exceptions, first +published. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +The Epic.<br/> +Morte d’Arthur.<br/> +The Gardener’s Daughter.<br/> +Dora.<br/> +Audley Court.<br/> +Walking to the Mail.<br/> +St. Simeon Stylites.<br/> +Conclusion to the May Queen.<br/> +The Talking Oak.<br/> +Lady Clara Vere de Vere.<br/> +Love and Duty.<br/> +Ulysses.<br/> +Locksley Hall.<br/> +Godiva.<br/> +The Two Voices.<br/> +The Day Dream.<br/> +Prologue.<br/> +The Sleeping Palace.<br/> +The Sleeping Beauty.<br/> +The Arrival.<br/> +The Revival.<br/> +The Departure.<br/> +Moral.<br/> +L’Envoi.<br/> +Epilogue.<br/> +Amphion.<br/> +St. Agnes.<br/> +Sir Galahad.<br/> +Edward Gray.<br/> +Will Waterproofs Lyrical Monologue, made at the Cock.<br/> +Lady Clare.<br/> +The Lord of Burleigh.<br/> +Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere.<br/> +A Farewell.<br/> +The Beggar Maid.<br/> +The Vision of Sin.<br/> +The Skipping Rope.<br/> +“Move Eastward, happy Earth.”<br/> +“Break, break, break.”<br/> +The Poet’s Song. +</p> + +<p> +Only two of these poems had been published before, namely, <i>St. +Agnes</i>, which was printed in <i>The Keepsake</i> for 1837, and +<i>The Sleeping Beauty</i> in <i>The Day Dream</i>, which was +adopted with some alterations from the 1830 poem, and only one of +these poems was afterwards suppressed, <i>The Skipping Rope</i>, +which was, however, allowed to stand till 1851. In 1843 appeared +the second edition of these poems, which is merely a reprint with +a few unimportant alterations, and which was followed in 1845 and +in 1846 by a third and fourth edition equally unimportant in +their variants, but in the fourth <i>The Golden Year</i> was +added. In the next edition, the fifth, 1848, <i>The Deserted +House</i> was included from the poems of 1830. In the sixth +edition, 1850, was included another poem, <i>To— , after +reading a Life and Letters</i>, reprinted, with some alterations, +from the <i>Examiner</i> of 24th March, 1849.<br/> +</p> + +<p> +The seventh edition, 1851, contained important additions. First the Dedication +to the Queen, then <i>Edwin Morris</i>, the fragment of <i>The Eagle</i>, and +the stanzas, “Come not when I am dead,” first printed in <i>The Keepsake</i> +for 1851, under the title of <i>Stanzas</i>. In this edition the absurd trifle +<i>The Skipping Rope</i> was excised and finally cancelled. In the eighth +edition, 1853, <i>The Sea-Fairies,</i> though greatly altered, was included +from the poems of 1830, and the poem <i>To E. L. on his Travels in Greece</i> +was added. This edition, the eighth, may be regarded as the final one. Nothing +afterwards of much importance was added or subtracted, and comparatively few +alterations were made in the text from that date to the last collected edition +in 1898. +</p> + +<p> +All the editions up to, and including, that of 1898 have been +carefully collated, so that the student of Tennyson can follow +step by step the process by which he arrived at that perfection +of expression which is perhaps his most striking characteristic +as a poet. And it was indeed a trophy of labour, of the +application “of patient touches of unwearied art”. Whoever will +turn, say to <i>The Palace of Art</i>, to <i>Œnone</i>, to the +<i>Dream of Fair Women</i>, or even to <i>The Sea-Fairies</i> and +to <i>The Lady of Shalott</i>, will see what labour was expended +on their composition. Nothing indeed can be more interesting than +to note the touches, the substitution of which measured the whole +distance between mediocrity and excellence. Take, for example, +the magical alteration in the couplet in the <i>Dream of Fair +Women</i>:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +One drew a sharp knife thro’ my tender throat<br/> + Slowly,—and nothing more, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +into +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +The bright death quiver’d at the victim’s throat;<br/> + Touch’d; and I knew no more. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Or, in the same poem:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +What nights we had in Egypt! I could hit<br/> + His humours while I cross’d him. O the life<br/> +I led him, and the dalliance and the wit, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +into +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +We drank the Libyan Sun to sleep, and lit<br/> + Lamps which outburn’d Canopus. O my life<br/> +In Egypt! O the dalliance and the wit,<br/> + The flattery and the strife. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Or, in <i>Mariana in the South</i>:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +She mov’d her lips, she pray’d alone,<br/> + She praying, disarray’d and warm<br/> +From slumber, deep her wavy form<br/> + In the dark lustrous mirror shone, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +into +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Complaining, “Mother, give me grace<br/> + To help me of my weary load”.<br/> + And on the liquid mirror glow’d<br/> +The clear perfection of her face. +</p> + +<p> +How happy is this slight alteration in the verses <i>To J. S.</i> +which corrects one of the falsest notes ever struck by a poet:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +A tear<br/> +Dropt on <i>my tablets</i> as I wrote.<br/> +<br/> +A tear<br/> +Dropt on <i>the letters</i> as I wrote. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +or where in <i>Locksley Hall</i> a splendidly graphic touch of +description is gained by the alteration of “<i>droops</i> the +trailer from the crag” into “<i>swings</i> the trailer”. +</p> + +<p> +So again in <i>Love and Duty</i>:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Should my shadow cross thy thoughts<br/> +Too sadly for their peace, <i>so put it back</i>.<br/> +For calmer hours in memory’s darkest hold, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +where by altering “so put it back” into “remand it thou,” a +somewhat ludicrous image is at all events softened. +</p> + +<p> +What great care Tennyson took with his phraseology is curiously +illustrated in <i>The May Queen</i>. In the 1842 edition “Robin” +was the name of the May Queen’s lover. In 1843 it was altered to +“Robert,” and in 1845 and subsequent editions back to +“Robin”.</p> + +<p> +Compare, again, the old stanza in <i>The Miller’s Daughter</i>:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +How dear to me in youth, my love,<br/> + Was everything about the mill;<br/> +The black and silent pool above,<br/> + The pool beneath it never still, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +with what was afterwards substituted:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +I loved the brimming wave that swam<br/> + Through quiet meadows round the mill,<br/> +The sleepy pool above the dam,<br/> + The pool beneath it never still. +</p> + +<p> +Another most felicitous emendation is to be found in <i>The +Poet</i>, where the edition of 1830 reads:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +And in the bordure of her robe was writ<br/> + Wisdom, a name to shake<br/> +Hoar anarchies, as with a thunderfit. +</p> + +<p> +This in 1842 appears as:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +And in her raiment’s hem was trac’d in flame<br/> + Wisdom, a name to shake<br/> +All evil dreams of power—a sacred name. +</p> + +<p> + +Again, in the <i>Lotos Eaters</i> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +<i>Three thunder-cloven thrones of oldest snow</i><br/> +Stood sunset-flushed +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +is changed into +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +<i>Three silent pinnacles of aged snow</i>. +</p> + +<p> +So in <i>Will Waterproof</i> the cumbrous +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Like Hezekiah’s backward runs<br/> + The shadow of my days, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +was afterwards simplified into +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Against its fountain upward runs<br/> + The current of my days. +</p> + +<p> +Not less felicitous have been the additions made from time to +time. Thus in <i>Audley Court</i> the concluding lines ran:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +The harbour buoy,<br/> +With one green sparkle ever and anon<br/> +Dipt by itself. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +But what vividness is there in the subsequent insertion of<br/> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Sole star of phosphorescence in the calm.” +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +between the first line and the second. +</p> + +<p> +So again in the <i>Morte d’Arthur</i> how greatly are imagery +and rhythm improved by the insertion of +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Across the ridge, and paced beside the mere, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +between +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Then went Sir Bedivere the second time, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +and<br/> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Counting the dewy pebbles, fix’d in thought. +</p> + +<p> +There is an alteration in Œnone which is very interesting. Till +1884 this was allowed to stand:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +The lizard, with his shadow on the stone,<br/> +Rests like a shadow, <i>and the cicala sleeps</i>. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +No one could have known better than Tennyson that the cicala is +loudest in the torrid calm of the noonday, as Theocritus, Virgil, +Byron and innumerable other poets have noticed; at last he +altered it, but at the heavy price of a cumbrous pleonasm, into +“and the winds are dead”. +</p> + +<p> +He allowed many years to elapse before he corrected another +error in natural history—but at last the alteration came. +In <i>The Poet’s Song</i> in the line— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +The swallow stopt as he hunted the <i>bee</i>, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +the “fly” which the swallow does hunt was substituted for what it +does not hunt, and that for very obvious reasons. +</p> + +<p> +But whoever would see what Tennyson’s poetry has owed to elaborate revision and +scrupulous care would do well to compare the first edition of <i>Mariana in the +South</i>, <i>The Sea-Fairies</i>, <i>Œnone</i>, <i>The Lady of Shalott</i>, +<i>The Palace of Art</i> and <i>A Dream of Fair Women</i> with the poems as +they are presented in 1853. Poets do not always improve their verses by +revision, as all students of Wordsworth’s text could abundantly illustrate; but +it may be doubted whether, in these poems at least, Tennyson ever made a single +alteration which was not for the better. Fitzgerald, indeed, contended that in +some cases, particularly in <i>The Miller’s Daughter</i>, Tennyson would have +done well to let the first reading stand, but few critics would agree with him +in the instances he gives. We may perhaps regret the sacrifice of such a stanza +as this— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Each coltsfoot down the grassy bent,<br/> + Whose round leaves hold the gathered shower,<br/> +Each quaintly folded cuckoo pint,<br/> + And silver-paly cuckoo flower. +</p> + +<h3><a name="pref04"></a>II</h3> + +<p> +Tennyson’s genius was slow in maturing. The poems contributed by him to +the volume of 1827, <i>Poems by Two Brothers</i>, are not without some slight +promise, but are very far from indicating extraordinary powers. A great advance +is discernible in <i>Timbuctoo</i>, but that Matthew Arnold should have +discovered in it the germ of Tennyson’s future powers is probably to be +attributed to the youth of the critic. Tennyson was in his twenty-second year +when the <i>Poems Chiefly Lyrical</i> appeared, and what strikes us in these +poems is certainly not what Arthur Hallam saw in them: much rather what +Coleridge and Wilson discerned in them. They are the poems of a fragile and +somewhat morbid young man in whose temper we seem to see a touch of Hamlet, a +touch of Romeo and, more healthily, a touch of Mercutio. Their most promising +characteristic is the versatility displayed. Thus we find <i>Mariana</i> side +by side with the <i>Supposed Confessions</i>, the <i>Ode to Memory</i> with +οἱ ῥέοντες, <i>The Ballad of +Oriana</i> with <i>The Dying Swan</i>, <i>Recollections of The Arabian +Nights</i> with <i>The Poet</i>. Their worst fault is affectation. Perhaps the +utmost that can be said for them is that they display a fine but somewhat thin +vein of original genius, after deducing what they owe to Coleridge, to Keats +and to other poets. This is seen in the magical touches of description, in the +exquisite felicity of expression and rhythm which frequently mark them, in the +pathos and power of such a poem as <i>Oriana</i>, in the pathos and charm of +such poems as <i>Mariana</i> and <i>A Dirge</i>, in the rich and almost +gorgeous fancy displayed in <i>The Recollections</i>. +</p> + +<p> +The poems of 1833 are much more ambitious and strike deeper notes. Here comes +in for the first time that +σπουδαιότης, that high +seriousness which is one of Tennyson’s chief characteristics—we +see it in <i>The Palace of Art</i>, in <i>Œnone</i> and in the verses <i>To J. +S.</i> But in intrinsic merit the poems were no advance on their predecessors, +for the execution was not equal to the design. The best, such as <i>Œnone</i>, +<i>A Dream of Fair Women</i>, <i>The Palace of Art</i>, <i>The Lady of +Shalott</i>—I am speaking of course of these poems in their first +form—were full of extraordinary blemishes. The volume was degraded by +pieces which were very unworthy of him, such as <i>O Darling Room</i> and the +verses <i>To Christopher North</i>, and affectations of the worst kind deformed +many, nay, perhaps the majority of the poems. But the capital defect lay in the +workmanship. The diction is often languid and slipshod, sometimes quaintly +affected, and we can never go far without encountering lines, stanzas, whole +poems which cry aloud for the file. The power and charm of Tennyson’s +poetry, even at its ripest, depend very largely, often mainly, on expression, +and the couplet which he envied Browning, +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +The little more, and how much it is,<br/> +The little less, and what worlds away, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +is strangely applicable to his own art. On a single word, on a subtle +collocation, on a slight touch depend often his finest effects: “the little +less” reduces him to mediocrity, “the little more” and he is with the masters. +To no poetry would the application of Goethe’s test be, as a rule, more +fatal—that the real poetic quality in poetry is that which remains when +it has been translated literally into prose. +</p> + +<p> +Whoever will compare the poems of 1832 with the same poems as they appeared in +1842 will see that the difference is not so much a difference in degree, but +almost a difference in kind. In the collection of 1832 there were three gems, +<i>The Sisters</i>, the lines <i>To J. S.</i> and <i>The May Queen</i>. Almost +all the others which are of any value were, in the edition of 1842, carefully +revised, and in some cases practically rewritten. If Tennyson’s career had +closed in 1833 he would hardly have won a prominent place among the minor poets +of the present century. The nine years which intervened between the publication +of his second volume and the volumes of 1842 were the making of him, and +transformed a mere dilettante into a master. Much has been said about the +brutality of Lockhart’s review in the <i>Quarterly</i>. In some respects it was +stupid, in some respects it was unjust, but of one thing there can be no +doubt—it had a most salutary effect. It held up the mirror to weaknesses +and deficiencies which, if Tennyson did not care to acknowledge to others, he +must certainly have acknowledged to himself. It roused him and put him on his +mettle. It was a wholesome antidote to the enervating flattery of coteries and +“apostles” who were certainly talking a great deal of nonsense about him, as +Arthur Hallam’s essay in the <i>Englishman</i> shows. During the next nine +years he published nothing, with the exception of two unimportant contributions +to certain minor periodicals.<a href="#linknote-1" name="linknoteref-1" +id="linknoteref-1"><sup>[1]</sup></a> But he was educating himself, saturating +himself with all that is best in the poetry of Ancient Greece and Rome, of +modern Italy, of Germany and of his own country, studying theology, +metaphysics, natural history, geology, astronomy and travels, observing nature +with the eye of a poet, a painter and a naturalist. Nor was he a recluse. He +threw himself heartily into the life of his time, following with the keenest +interest all the great political and social movements, the progress and effects +of the Reform Bill, the troubles in Ireland, the troubles with the Colonies, +the struggles between the Protectionists and the Free Traders, Municipal +Reform, the advance of the democracy, Chartism, the popular education question. +He travelled on the Continent, he travelled in Wales and Scotland, he visited +most parts of England, not as an idle tourist, but as a student with note-book +in hand. And he had been submitted also to the discipline which is of all +disciplines the most necessary to the poet, and without which, as Goethe says, +“he knows not the heavenly powers”: he had “ate his bread in sorrow”. The death +of his father in 1831 had already brought him face to face, as he has himself +expressed it, with the most solemn of all mysteries. In 1833 he had an awful +shock in the sudden death of his friend Arthur Hallam, “an overwhelming sorrow +which blotted out all joy from his life and made him long for death”. He had +other minor troubles which contributed greatly to depress him,—the +breaking up of the old home at Somersby, his own poverty and uncertain +prospects, his being compelled in consequence to break off all intercourse with +Miss Emily Selwood. It is possible that <i>Love and Duty</i> may have reference +to this sorrow; it is certain that <i>The Two Voices</i> is autobiographical. +</p> + +<p> +Such was his education between 1832 and 1842, and such the influences which +were moulding him, while he was slowly evolving <i>In Memoriam</i> and the +poems first published in the latter year. To the revision of the old poems he +brought tastes and instincts cultivated by the critical study of all that was +best in the poetry of the world, and more particularly by a familiarity +singularly intimate and affectionate with the masterpieces of the ancient +classics; he brought also the skill of a practised workman, for his diligence +in production was literally that of Sir Joshua Reynolds in the sister +art—<i>nulla dies sine line’</i>. Into the composition of the new +poems all this entered. He was no longer a trifler and a Hedonist. As Spedding +has said, his former poems betrayed “an over-indulgence in the luxuries +of the senses, a profusion of splendours, harmonies, perfumes, gorgeous +apparel, luscious meals and drinks, and creature comforts which rather pall +upon the sense, and make the glories of the outward world to obscure a little +the world within”. Like his own <i>Lady of Shalott</i>, he had communed +too much with shadows. But the serious poet now speaks. He appeals less to the +ear and the eye, and more to the heart. The sensuous is subordinated to the +spiritual and the moral. He deals immediately with the dearest concerns of man +and of society. He has ceased to trifle. The +σπουδαιότης, the high +seriousness of the true poet, occasional before, now pervades and enters +essentially into his work. It is interesting to note how many of these poems +have direct didactic purpose. How solemn is the message delivered in such poems +as <i>The Palace of Art</i> and <i>The Vision of Sin</i>, how noble the +teaching in <i>Love and Duty</i>, in <i>Œnone</i>, in <i>Godiva</i>, in +<i>Ulysses</i>; to how many must such a poem as <i>The Two Voices</i> have +brought solace and light; how full of salutary lessons are the political poems +<i>You ask me, why, though ill at ease</i> and <i>Love thou thy Land</i>, and +how noble is their expression! And, even where the poems are less directly +didactic, it is such refreshment as busy life needs to converse with them, so +pure, so wholesome, so graciously human is their tone, so tranquilly beautiful +is their world. Who could lay down <i>The Miller’s Daughter, Dora, The +Golden Year, The Gardener’s Daughter, The Talking Oak, Audley Court, The +Day Dream</i> without something of the feeling which Goethe felt when he first +laid down <i>The Vicar of Wakefield?</i> In the best lyrics in these volumes, +such as <i>Break, Break</i>, and <i>Move Eastward</i>, <i>Happy Earth</i>, the +most fastidious of critics must recognise flawless gems. In the two volumes of +1842 Tennyson carried to perfection all that was best in his earlier poems, and +displayed powers of which he may have given some indication in his cruder +efforts, but which must certainly have exceeded the expectation of the most +sanguine of his rational admirers. These volumes justly gave him the first +place among the poets of his time, and that supremacy he maintained—in +the opinion of most—till the day of his death. It would be absurd to +contend that Tennyson’s subsequent publications added nothing to the fame +which will be secured to him by these poems. But this at least is certain, +that, taken with <i>In Memorium</i>, they represent the crown and flower of his +achievement. What is best in them he never excelled and perhaps never equalled. +We should be the poorer, and much the poorer, for the loss of anything which he +produced subsequently, it is true; but would we exchange half a dozen of the +best of these poems or a score of the best sections of <i>In Memoriam</i> for +all that he produced between 1850 and his death? +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-1" id="linknote-1"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-1">[1]</a> +In <i>The Keepsake</i>, “St. Agnes’ Eve”; in <i>The Tribute</i>, “Stanzas”: +“Oh! that ’twere possible”. Between 1831 and 1832 he had contributed to <i>The +Gem</i> three, “No more,” “Anacreontics,” and “A Fragment”; in <i>The +Englishman!s Magazine</i>, a Sonnet; in <i>The Yorkshire Literary Annual</i>, +lines, “There are three things that fill my heart with sighs”; in +<i>Friendship’s Offering</i>, lines, “Me my own fate”. +</p> + +<h3><a name="pref05"></a>III</h3> + +<p> +The poems of <b>1842</b> naturally divide themselves into seven groups:— +</p> + +<p class="center"> +(i.) <i>Studies in Fancy.</i> +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +<i>Claribel</i>.<br/> +<i>Lilian</i>.<br/> +<i>Isabel</i>.<br/> +<i>Madeline</i>.<br/> +<i>A Spirit Haunts</i>.<br/> +<i>Recollections of the Arabian Nights</i>.<br/> +<i>Adeline</i>.<br/> +<i>The Dying Swan</i>.<br/> +<i>A Dream of Fair Women</i>.<br/> +<i>The Sea-Fairies</i>.<br/> +<i>The Deserted House</i>.<br/> +<i>Love and Death</i>.<br/> +<i>The Merman</i>.<br/> +<i>The Mermaid</i>.<br/> +<i>The Lady of Shalott</i>.<br/> +<i>Eleanore</i>.<br/> +<i>Margaret</i>.<br/> +<i>The Death of the Old Year</i>.<br/> +<i>St. Agnes.</i><br/> +<i>Sir Galahad</i>.<br/> +<i>The Day Dream</i>.<br/> +<i>Will Waterproof’s Monologue</i>.<br/> +<i>Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere</i>.<br/> +<i>The Talking Oak</i>.<br/> +<i>The Poet’s Song</i>. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +(ii.) <i>Studies of Passion.</i> +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +<i>Mariana</i>.<br/> +<i>Mariana in the South.</i><br/> +<i>Oriana</i>.<br/> +<i>Fatima</i>.<br/> +<i>The Sisters</i>.<br/> +<i>Locksley Hall</i>.<br/> +<i>Edward Gray</i>. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +(iii.) <i>Psychological Studies.</i> +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +<i>A Character</i>.<br/> +<i>The Poet</i>.<br/> +<i>The Poet’s Mind</i>.<br/> +<i>The Two Voices</i>.<br/> +<i>The Palace of Art</i>.<br/> +<i>The Vision of Sin</i>.<br/> +<i>St. Simeon Stylites</i>. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +(iv.) <i>Idylls.</i><br/> +(<i>a</i>.) Classical. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +<i>Œnone</i>.<br/> +<i>The Lotos Eaters</i>.<br/> +<i>Ulysses</i>. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +(<i>b</i>.) English. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +<i>The Miller’s Daughter</i>.<br/> +<i>The May Queen</i>.<br/> +<i>Morte d’Arthur</i>.<br/> +<i>The Gardener’s Daughter</i>.<br/> +<i>Dora</i>.<br/> +<i>Audley Court</i>.<br/> +<i>Walking to the Mail</i>.<br/> +<i>Edwin Morris</i>.<br/> +<i>The Golden Year</i>. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +(v.) <i>Ballads.</i> +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +<i>Oriana</i>.<br/> +<i>Lady Clara Vere de Vere</i>.<br/> +<i>Edward Gray</i>.<br/> +<i>Lady Clare</i>.<br/> +<i>The Lord of Burleigh</i>.<br/> +<i>The Beggar Maid</i>. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +(vi.) <i>Autobiographical.</i> +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +<i>Ode to Memory</i>.<br/> +<i>Sonnet to J. M. K</i>.<br/> +<i>To—— with the Palace of Art</i>.<br/> +<i>To J.S.</i><br/> +<i>Amphion</i>.<br/> +<i>To E. L. on his Travels in Greece</i>.<br/> +<i>To—— after reading a Life and Letters</i>.<br/> +<i>“Come not when I am Dead</i>.”<br/> +<i>A Farewell</i>.<br/> +“<i>Move Eastward, Happy Earth</i>.”<br/> +“<i>Break, Break, Break</i>.” +</p> + +<p class="center"> +(vii.) <i>Political Group.</i> +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +<i>“You ask me.”</i><br/> +<i>“Of old sat Freedom.”</i><br/> +<i>“Love thou thy Land.”</i><br/> +<i>The Goose.</i> +</p> + +<p> +In surveying these poems two things must strike every one— +their very wide range and their very fragmentary character. There +is scarcely any side of life on which they do not touch, scarcely +any phase of passion and emotion to which they do not give +exquisite expression. Take the love poems: compare <i>Fatima</i> +with <i>Isabel</i>, <i>The Miller’s Daughter</i> with <i>Locksley +Hall</i>, <i>The Gardener’s Daughter</i> with <i>Madeline</i>, or +<i>Mariana</i> with Cleopatra in the <i>Dream of Fair Women</i>. +When did love find purer and nobler expression than in <i>Love +and Duty?</i> When has sorrow found utterance more perfect than +in the verses <i>To J.S</i>., or the passion for the past than in +<i>Break, Break, Break</i>, or revenge and jealousy than in +<i>The Sisters?</i> In <i>The Two Voices</i>, <i>The Palace of +Art</i> and <i>The Vision of Sin</i> we are in another sphere. +They are appeals to the soul of man on subjects of momentous +concern to him. And each is a masterpiece. What is proper to +philosophy and what is proper to poetry have never perhaps been +so happily blended. They have all the sensuous charm of Keats, +but the prose of Hume could not have presented the truths which +they are designed to convey with more lucidity and precision. In +that superb fragment the <i>Morte d’Arthur</i> we have many of +the noblest attributes of Epic poetry. <i>ënone</i> is the +perfection of the classical idyll, <i>The Gardener’s Daughter</i> +and the idylls that follow it of the romantic. <i>Sir Galahad</i> +and <i>St. Agnes</i> are in the vein of Keats and Coleridge, but +Keats and Coleridge have produced nothing more exquisite and +nothing so ethereal. <i>The Lotos Eaters</i> is perhaps the most +purely delicious poem ever written, the <i>ne plus ultra</i> of +sensuous loveliness, and yet the poet who gave us that has given +us also the political poems, poems as trenchant and austerely +dignified in style as they are pregnant with practical wisdom. +There is the same versatility displayed in the trifles. +</p> + +<p> +But all is fragmentary. No thread strings these jewels. They form +a collection of gems unset and unarranged. Without any system or +any definite scope they have nothing of that unity in diversity +which is so perceptible in the lyrics and minor poems of Goethe +and Wordsworth. Capricious as the gyrations of a sea-gull seem +the poet’s moods and movements. We have now the reveries of a +love-sick maiden, now the picture of a soul wrestling with +despair and death; here a study from rural life, or a study in +character, there a sermon on politics, or a descent into the +depths of psychological truth, or a sketch from nature. But +nothing could be more concentrated than the power employed to +shape each fragment into form. What Pope says of the +<i>Æneid</i> may be applied with very literal truth to these +poems:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Finish’d the whole, and laboured every part<br/> +With patient touches of unwearied art. +</p> + +<p> +In the poems of 1842 we have the secret of Tennyson’s eminence as a poet +as well as the secret of his limitations. He appears to have been +constitutionally deficient in what the Greeks called <i>architektoniké</i>, +combination and disposition on a large scale. The measure of his power as a +constructive artist is given us in the poem in which the English idylls may be +said to culminate, namely, <i>Enoch Arden</i>. <i>In Memoriam</i> and the +<i>Idylls of the King</i> have a sort of spiritual unity, but they are a series +of fragments tacked rather than fused together. It is the same with +<i>Maud</i>, and it is the same with <i>The Princess</i>. His poems have always +a tendency to resolve themselves into a series of cameos: it is only the short +poems which have organic unity. A gift of felicitous and musical expression +which is absolutely marvellous; an instinctive sympathy with what is best and +most elevated in the sphere of ordinary life, of ordinary thought and +sentiment, of ordinary activity with consummate representative power; a most +rare faculty of seizing and fixing in very perfect form what is commonly so +inexpressible because so impalpable and evanescent in emotion and expression; a +power of catching and rendering the charm of nature with a fidelity and +vividness which resemble magic; and lastly, unrivalled skill in choosing, +repolishing and remounting the gems which are our common inheritance from the +past: these are the gifts which will secure permanence for his work as long as +the English language lasts. +</p> + +<p> +In his power of crystallising commonplaces he stands next to Pope, in subtle +felicity of expression beside Virgil. And, when he says of Virgil that we find +in his diction “all the grace of all the muses often flowering in one lonely +word,” he says what is literally true of his own work. As a master of style his +place is in the first rank among English classical poets. But his style is the +perfection of art. His diction, like the diction of Milton and Gray, resembles +mosaic work. With a touch here and a touch there, now from memory, now from +unconscious assimilation, inlaying here an epithet and there a phrase, adding, +subtracting, heightening, modifying, substituting one metaphor for another, +developing what is latent in the suggestive imagery of a predecessor, laying +under contribution the most intimate familiarity with what is best in the +literature of the ancient and modern world, the unwearied artist toils +patiently on till his precious mosaic work is without a flaw. All the resources +of rhetoric are employed to give distinction to his style and every figure in +rhetoric finds expression in his diction: Hypallage as in +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +<i>The pillard dusk</i><br/> +Of sounding sycamores.<br/> +<br/> +—<i>Audley Court</i>. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Paronomasia as in +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +The seawind sang<br/> +<i>Shrill, chill</i> with flakes of foam.<br/> +<br/> +—<i>Morte d’Arthur</i>. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Oxymoron as +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +<i>Behold</i> them <i>unbeheld, unheard<br/> +Hear</i> all.<br/> +<br/> +—<i>Œnone.</i> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Hyperbaton as in +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +The <i>dew-impearled</i> winds of dawn.<br/> +<br/> +—<i>Ode to Memory.</i> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Metonymy as in +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +The <i>bright death</i> quiver’d at the victim’s +throat.<br/> +<br/> +—<i>Dream of Fair Women</i>. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +or in +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +For some three <i>careless moans</i><br/> +The summer pilot of an empty heart.<br/> +<br/> +—<i>Gardener’s Daughter</i>. +</p> + +<p> +No poet since Milton has employed what is known as Onomatopoeia +with so much effect. Not to go farther than the poems of 1842, we +have in the <i>Morte d’Arthur</i>:—<br/> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +So all day long the noise of battle <i>rolled<br/> +Among the mountains by the winter sea;</i> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +or +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +<i>Dry clashed</i> his harness in the icy caves<br/> +And <i>barren chasms</i>, and all to left and right<br/> +The <i>bare black cliff clang’d round</i> him, as he bas’d<br/> +His feet <i>on juts of slippery crag that rang<br/> +Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels—</i> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +or the exquisite<br/> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +I heard the <i>water lapping on the crag,</i><br/> +And the <i>long ripple washing in the reeds.</i> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +So in <i>The Dying Swan,</i> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +And <i>the wavy swell of the soughing reeds.</i> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +See too the whole of <i>Oriana</i> and the description of the +dance at the beginning of <i>The Vision of Sin.</i> +</p> + +<p> +Assonance, alliteration, the revival or adoption of obsolete and provincial +words, the transplantation of phrases and idioms from the Greek and Latin +languages, the employment of common words in uncommon senses, all are pressed +into the service of adding distinction to his diction. His diction blends the +two extremes of simplicity and artificiality, but with such fine tact that this +strange combination has seldom the effect of incongruity. Longinus has remarked that “as the fainter lustre of the stars +is put out of sight by the all-encompassing rays of the sun, so when sublimity +sheds its light round the sophistries of rhetoric they become invisible”.<a +href="#linknote-2" name="linknoteref-2" id="linknoteref-2"><sup>[2]</sup></a> +What Longinus says of “sublimity” is equally true of sincerity and truthfulness +in combination with exquisitely harmonious expression. We have an illustration +in Gray’s <i>Elegy</i>. Nothing could be more artificial than the style, but +what poem in the world appeals more directly to the heart and to the eye? It is +one thing to call art to the assistance of art, it is quite another thing to +call art to the assistance of nature. And this is what both Gray and Tennyson +do, and this is why their artificiality, so far from shocking us, “passes in +music out of sight”. But this cannot be said of Tennyson without reserve. At +times his strained endeavours to give distinction to his style by putting +common things in an uncommon way led him into intolerable affectation. Thus we +have “the knightly growth that fringed his lips” for a moustache, “azure +pillars of the hearth” for ascending smoke, “ambrosial orbs” for apples, +“frayed magnificence” for a shabby dress, “the secular abyss to come” for +future ages, “the sinless years that breathed beneath the Syrian blue” for the +life of Christ, “up went the hush’d amaze of hand and eye” for a gesture of +surprise, and the like. One of the worst instances is in <i>In Memoriam</i>, +where what is appropriate to the simple sentiment finds, as it should do, +corresponding simplicity of expression in the first couplet, to collapse into +the falsetto of strained artificiality in the second:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +To rest beneath the clover sod<br/> + That takes the sunshine and the rains,<br/> + <i>Or where the kneeling hamlet drains<br/> +The chalice of the grapes of God.</i> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +An illustration of the same thing, almost as offensive, is in +<i>Enoch Arden</i>, where, in an otherwise studiously simple +diction, Enoch’s wares as a fisherman become +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Enoch’s <i>ocean spoil</i><br/> +In ocean-smelling osier. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +But these peculiarities are less common in the earlier poems +than in the later: it was a vicious habit which grew on him. +</p> + +<p> +But, if exception may sometimes be taken to his diction, no +exception can be taken to his rhythm. No English poet since +Milton, Tennyson’s only superior in this respect, had a finer ear +or a more consummate mastery over all the resources of rhythmical +expression. What colours are to a painter rhythm is, in +description, to the poet, and few have rivalled, none have +excelled Tennyson in this. Take the following:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + And ghastly thro’ the drizzling rain<br/> +<i>On the bald street strikes the blank day.</i><br/> +<br/> +—<i>In Memoriam.</i> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +See particularly <i>In Memoriam</i>, cvii., the lines beginning +“Fiercely flies,” to “darken on the rolling brine”: the +description of the island in <i>Enoch Arden</i>; but +specification is needless, it applies to all his descriptive +poetry. It is marvellous that he can produce such effects by such +simple means: a mere enumeration of particulars will often do it, +as here:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +No gray old grange or lonely fold,<br/> + Or low morass and whispering reed,<br/> + Or simple style from mead to mead,<br/> +Or sheep walk up the windy wold.<br/> +<br/> +—<i>In Memoriam,</i> c. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Or here:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +The meal sacks on the whitened floor,<br/> + The dark round of the dripping wheel,<br/> +The very air about the door<br/> + Made misty with the floating meal.<br/> +<br/> +—<i>The Miller’s Daughter.</i> +</p> + +<p> +His blank verse is best described by negatives. It has not the endless variety, +the elasticity and freedom of Shakespeare’s, it has not the massiveness and +majesty of Milton’s, it has not the austere grandeur of Wordsworth’s at its +best, it has not the wavy swell, “the linked sweetness long drawn out” of +Shelley’s, but its distinguishing feature is, if we may use the expression, its +importunate beauty. What Coleridge said of Claudian’s style may be applied to +it: “Every line, nay every word stops, looks full in your face and asks and +begs for praise”. is earlier blank verse is less elaborate and seemingly more +spontaneous and easy than his later.<a href="#linknote-3" name="linknoteref-3" +id="linknoteref-3"><sup>[3]</sup></a> But it is in his lyric verse that his +rhythm is seen in its greatest perfection. No English lyrics have more magic or +more haunting beauty, more of that which charms at once and charms for ever. +</p> + +<p> +In his description of nature he is incomparable. Take the +following from <i>The Dying Swan</i>:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Some blue peaks in the distance rose,<br/> +And white against the cold-white sky,<br/> +Shone out their crowning snows.<br/> +One willow over the river wept,<br/> +And shook the wave as the wind did sigh;<br/> +Above in the wind was the swallow,<br/> + Chasing itself at its own wild will, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +or the opening scene in <i>Œnone</i> and in <i>The Lotos +Eaters</i>, or the meadow scene in <i>The Gardener’s +Daughter</i>, or the conclusion of <i>Audley Court</i>, or the +forest scene in the <i>Dream of Fair Women</i>, or this stanza in +<i>Mariana in the South</i>:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +There all in spaces rosy-bright<br/> + Large Hesper glitter’d on her tears,<br/> + And deepening through the silent spheres,<br/> +Heaven over Heaven rose the night. +</p> + +<p> +A single line, nay, a single word, and a scene is by magic +before us, as here where the sea is looked down upon from an +immense height:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +The <i>wrinkled</i> sea beneath him +<i>crawls</i>.<br/> +<br/> +—<i>The Eagle</i>. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Or here of a ship at sea, in the distance:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +And on through zones of light and shadow<br/> +<i>Glimmer away to the lonely deep.</i><br/> +<br/> +—<i>To the Rev. F. D. Maurice.</i> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Or here of waters falling high up on mountains:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Their thousand <i>wreaths of dangling water-smoke.</i><br/> +<br/> +—<i>The Princess.</i> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Or of a water-fall seen at a distance:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +And <i>like a downward smoke</i> the slender stream<br/> +Along the cliff <i>to fall and pause and fall</i> did seem. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Or here again:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +We left the dying ebb that <i>faintly lipp’d<br/> +The flat red granite.</i> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Or here of a wave:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Like a wave in the wild North Sea<br/> +<i>Green glimmering toward the summit</i> bears with all<br/> +<i>Its stormy crests that smoke</i> against the skies<br/> +Down on a bark.<br/> +<br/> +—<i>Elaine.</i><br/> +<br/> +That beech will <i>gather brown</i>,<br/> +This <i>maple burn itself away</i>.<br/> +<br/> +—<i>In Memoriam.</i><br/> +<br/> +The <i>wide-wing’d sunset</i> of the misty marsh.<br/> +<br/> +—<i>Last Tournament.</i> +</p> + +<p> +But illustrations would be endless. Nothing seems to escape him +in Nature. Take the following:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Like <i>a purple beech among the greens<br/> +Looks out of place</i>.<br/> +<br/> +—<i>Edwin Morris</i>. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Or +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Delays <i>as the tender ash delays To clothe herself, +when all the woods are green</i>.<br/> +<br/> +—<i>The Princess</i>.<br/> +<br/> +As <i>black as ash-buds in the front of March</i>.<br/> +<br/> +—<i>The Gardener’s Daughter</i>.<br/> +<br/> +A gusty April morn<br/> +That <i>puff’d</i> the swaying <i>branches into smoke</i>.<br/> +<br/> +—<i>Holy Grail</i>. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +So with flowers, trees, birds and insects:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +The fox-glove <i>clusters dappled bells</i>.<br/> +<br/> +—<i>The Two Voices</i>. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The sunflower:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +<i>Rays round with flame its disk of seed</i>.<br/> +<br/> +—<i>In Memoriam</i>. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The dog-rose:—<br/> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +<i>Tufts of rosy-tinted snow</i>.<br/> +<br/> +—<i>Two Voices</i>.<br/> +<br/> +A <i>million emeralds</i> break from the <i>ruby-budded lime</i>.<br/> +<br/> +—<i>Maud</i>.<br/> +<br/> +In gloss and hue the chestnut, <i>when the shell<br/> +Divides threefold to show the fruit within</i>.<br/> +—<i>The Brook</i>. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Or of a chrysalis:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +And flash’d as those<br/> +<i>Dull-coated</i> things, <i>that making slide apart<br/> +Their dusk wing cases, all beneath there burns<br/> +A Jewell’d harness</i>, ere they pass and fly.<br/> +<br/> +—<i>Gareth and Lynette</i>. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +So again:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Wan-sallow, as <i>the plant that feeds itself,<br/> +Root-bitten by white lichen</i>.<br/> +<br/> +—<i>Id</i>. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +And again:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +All the <i>silvery gossamers</i><br/> +That <i>twinkle into green and gold</i>.<br/> +<br/> +—<i>In Memoriam</i>. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +His epithets are in themselves a study: “the +<i>dewy-tassell’d</i> wood,” “the <i>tender-pencill’d</i> +shadow,” “<i>crimson-circl’d</i> star,” the “<i>hoary</i> +clematis,” “<i>creamy</i> spray,” “<i>dry-tongued</i> laurels”. +But whatever he describes is described with the same felicitous +vividness. How magical is this in the verses to Edward Lear:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Naiads oar’d<br/> +A <i>glimmering shoulder</i> under <i>gloom</i><br/> +Of <i>cavern pillars</i>. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Or this:—<br/> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +She lock’d her lips: she left me where I stood:<br/> + “Glory to God,” she sang, and past afar,<br/> +Thridding the sombre boskage of the wood,<br/> + Toward the morning-star.<br/> +<br/> +—<i>A Dream of Fair Women</i>. +</p> + +<p> +But if in the world of Nature nothing escaped his sensitive and +sympathetic observation,—and indeed it might be said of him +as truly as of Shelley’s <i>Alastor</i> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Every sight<br/> +And sound from the vast earth and ambient air<br/> +Sent to his heart its choicest impulses, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +—he had studied the world of books with not less sympathy and attention. +In the sense of a profound and extensive acquaintance with all that is best in +ancient and modern poetry, and in an extraordinarily wide knowledge of general +literature, of philosophy and theology, of geography and travel, and of various +branches of natural science, he is one of the most erudite of English poets. +With the poetry of the Greek and Latin classics he was, like Milton and Gray, +thoroughly saturated. Its influence penetrates his work, now in indirect +reminiscence, now in direct imitation, now inspiring, now modifying, now +moulding. He tells us in <i>The Daisy</i> how when at Como “the rich Virgilian +rustic measure of <i>Lari Maxume</i>” haunted him all day, and in a later +fragment how, as he rowed from Desenzano to Sirmio, Catullus was with him. And +they and their brethren, from Homer to Theocritus, from Lucretius to Claudian, +always were with him. I have illustrated so fully in the notes and elsewhere<a +href="#linknote-4" name="linknoteref-4" id="linknoteref-4"><sup>[4]</sup></a> +the influence of the Greek and Roman classics on the poems of 1842 that it is +not necessary to go into detail here. But a few examples of the various ways in +which they affected Tennyson’s work generally may be given. Sometimes he +transfers a happy epithet or expression in literal translation, as in:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +On either <i>shining</i> shoulder laid a hand, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +which is Homer’s epithet for the shoulder— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +ἀνὰ φαιδίμῳ +ὤμῳ<br/> +<br/> +—<i>Od</i>., xi., 128.<br/> +<br/> +It was the red cock <i>shouting</i> to the light, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +exactly the +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +ἕος ἐβόησεν +ἀλέκτωρ<br/> +(Until the cock <i>shouted</i>).<br/> +<br/> +—<i>Batrachomyomachia</i>, 192.<br/> +<br/> +And all in passion utter’d a <i>dry</i> shriek, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +which is the <i>sicca vox</i> of the Roman poets. So in <i>The +Lotos Eaters</i>:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +His voice was <i>thin</i> as voices from the grave, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +which is Theocritus’ voice of Hylas from his watery grave:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +ἀραιὰ δ’ Ἱκετο +φωνά +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +So in <i>The Princess</i>, sect. i.:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +And <i>cook’d his spleen</i>, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +which is a phrase from the Greek, as in Homer, <i>Il</i>., iv., +513:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +ἐπι νηυσὶ +χόλον +θυμαλγέα +πέσσει<br/> +(At the ships he cooks his heart-grieving spleen). +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Again in <i>The Princess</i>, sect. iv.:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +<i>Laugh’d with alien lips,</i> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +which is Homer’s (<i>Od</i>., 69-70)— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +διδ’ ἤδη +γναθμοῖσι +γελῴων +ἀλλοτρίοισι +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +So in <i>Edwin Morris</i>— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +All perfect, finished <i>to the finger nail</i>, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +which is a phrase transferred from Latin through the Greek; +<i>cf.</i>, Horace, <i>Sat</i>., i., v., 32:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +<i>Ad unguem</i><br/> +Factus homo<br/> +<br/> +(A man fashioned to the finger nail). +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +“The <i>brute</i> earth,” <i>In Memoriam</i>, cxxvii., which is +Horace’s<br/> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +<i>Bruta</i> tellus.<br/> +<br/> +—<i>Odes</i>, i., xxxiv., 9. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +So again:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +A bevy of roses <i>apple-cheek’d</i> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +in <i>The Island</i>, which is Theocritus’ +μαλοπάρῃος. The line in the +<i>Morte d’Arthur</i>, +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +This way and that, dividing the swift mind, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +is an almost literal translation of Virgil’s <i>Æn.</i>, iv., +285:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Atque animum nunc huc celerem nunc dividit illuc<br/> +(And this way and that he divides his swift mind). +</p> + +<p> +Another way in which they affect him is where, without direct +imitation, they colour passages and poems as in <i>Œnone</i>, +<i>The Lotos Eaters</i>, <i>Tithonus</i>, <i>Tiresias</i>, <i>The +Death of Œnone</i>, <i>Demeter and Persephone</i>, the passage +beginning “From the woods” in <i>The Gardener’s Daughter</i>, +which is a parody of Theocritus, <i>Id.</i>, vii., 139 +<i>seq.</i>, while the Cyclops’ invocation to Galatea in +Theocritus, <i>Id.</i>, xi., 29-79, was plainly the model for the +idyll, “Come down, O Maid,” in the seventh section of <i>The +Princess</i>, just as the tournament in the same poem recalls +closely the epic of Homer and Virgil. Tennyson had a wonderful +way of transfusing, as it were, the essence of some beautiful +passage in a Greek or Roman poet into English. A striking +illustration of this would be the influence of reminiscences of +Virgil’s fourth <i>Æneid</i> on the idyll of <i>Elaine and +Guinevere</i>. Compare, for instance, the following: he is +describing the love-wasted Elaine, as she sits brooding in the +lonely evening, with the shadow of the wished-for death falling +on her:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +But when they left her to herself again,<br/> +Death, like a friend’s voice from a distant field,<br/> +Approaching through the darkness, call’d; the owls<br/> +Wailing had power upon her, and she mix’d<br/> +Her fancies with the sallow-rifted glooms<br/> +Of evening and the moanings of the wind. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +How exactly does this recall, in a manner to be felt rather than +exactly defined, a passage equally exquisite and equally pathetic +in Virgil’s picture of Dido, where, with the shadow of her death +also falling upon her, she seems to hear the phantom voice of her +dead husband, and “mixes her fancies” with the glooms of night +and the owl’s funereal wail:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Hinc exaudiri voces et verba vocantis<br/> +Visa viri, nox quum terras obscura teneret;<br/> +Solaque culminibus ferali carmine bubo<br/> +Sæpe queri, et longas in fletum ducere voces.<br/> +<br/> +—<i>Æn.</i>, iv., 460.)<br/> +<br/> + (From it she thought she clearly heard a voice, even the accents +of her husband calling her when night was wrapping the earth with +darkness; and on the roof the lonely owl in funereal strains kept +oft complaining, drawing out into a wail its protracted +notes.) +</p> + +<p> +Similar passages, though not so striking, would be the picture +of Pindar’s Elysium in <i>Tiresias</i>, the sentiment pervading +<i>The Lotos Eaters</i> transferred so faithfully from the Greek +poets, the scenery in <i>Œnone</i> so crowded with details from +Homer, Theocritus and Callimachus. Sometimes we find similes +suggested by the classical poets, but enriched by touches from +original observation, as here in <i>The Princess</i>:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +As one that climbs a peak to gaze<br/> +O’er land and main, and sees a great black cloud<br/> +Drag inward from the deeps, a wall of night<br/> +Blot out the slope of sea from verge to shore.<br/> +...<br/> +And quenching lake by lake and tarn by tarn<br/> +Expunge the world, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +which was plainly suggested by Homer, iv., 275:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +ὡς δ’ ὅτ’ ἀπὸ +σκοπιῆς εἴδε +νέφος αἰπολος +ἀνήρ<br/> +ἐρχόμενον κατὰ +πόντον ὑπὸ +Ζεφύροιο ἰωῆς<br/> +τῷ δε τ’ ἄνευθεν +ἐόντι, μελάντερον +ἠΰτε πίσσα,<br/> +φαίνετ’ ἰὸν +κατὰ πόντον, +ἄγει δέ τε +λαῖλαπα πολλὴν. +<br/> +(As when a goat-herd from some hill-peak sees a cloud coming +across the deep with the blast of the west wind behind it; and to +him, being as he is afar, it seems blacker, even as pitch, as it +goes along the deep, bringing with it a great +whirlwind.) +</p> + +<p> +So again the fine simile in <i>Elaine</i>, beginning +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Bare as a wild wave in the wide North Sea, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +is at least modelled on the simile in <i>Iliad</i>, xv., 381-4, +with reminiscences of the same similes in <i>Iliad</i>, xv., 624, +and <i>Iliad</i>, iv., 42-56. The simile in the first section of +the <i>Princess</i>, +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +As when a field of corn<br/> +Bows all its ears before the roaring East, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +reminds us of Homer’s +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +ὡς δ’ ὅτε κινήση +Ζέφυρος βαθυλήϊον, +ἐλθὼν<br/> +λάβρος, ἐπαιγίζων, +ἐπὶ τ’ ἠμύει +ἀσταχύεσσιν. +<br/> +(As when the west wind tosses a deep cornfield rushing down with furious blast, +and it bows with all its ears.) +</p> + +<p> +Nothing could be more happy than such an adaptation as the +following— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Ever fail’d to draw<br/> +The quiet night into her blood, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +from Virgil, <i>Æn</i>., iv., 530:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Neque unquam Solvitur in somnos <i>oculisve aut pectore noctem<br/> +Accipit.</i><br/> +(And she never relaxes into sleep, or receives the night in eyes +or bosom), +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +or than the following (in <i>Enid</i>) from Theocritus:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Arms on which the standing muscle sloped,<br/> +As slopes a wild brook o’er a little stone,<br/> +Running too vehemently to break upon it.<br/> +<br/> +ἐν δὲ μύες +στερεοῖσι +βραχίοσιν ἄκρον +ὑπ’ ὦμον<br/> +ἔστασαν, ἠύτε +πέτροι ὀλοίτροχοι +οὕς τε κυλίνδον<br/> +χειμάῤῥους +ποταμὸς μεγάλαις +περιέξεσε δίναις. +<br/> + —<i>Idyll</i>, xxii., 48 <i>seq.</i><br/> +(And the muscles on his brawny arms close under the shoulder stood out like +boulders which the wintry torrent has rolled and worn smooth with the mighty +eddies.) +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +But there was another use to which Tennyson applied his accurate +and intimate acquaintance with the classics. It lay in developing +what was suggested by them, in unfolding, so to speak, what was +furled in their imagery. Nothing is more striking in ancient +classical poetry than its pregnant condensation. It often +expresses in an epithet what might be expanded into a detailed +picture, or calls up in a single phrase a whole scene or a whole +position. Where in <i>Merlin and Vivian</i> Tennyson +described +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +The <i>blind wave feeling round his long sea hall<br/> +In silence</i>, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +he was merely unfolding to its full Homer’s κῦμα +κωφόν—“dumb wave”; just as the best +of all comments on Horace’s expression, “Vultus nimium lubricus +aspici,” <i>Odes</i>, <i>I.</i>, xix., 8, is given us in Tennyson’s +picture of the Oread in Lucretius:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +How the sun delights<br/> +To <i>glance and shift about her slippery sides</i>. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Or take again this passage in the <i>Agamemnon</i>, 404-5, +describing Menelaus pining in his desolate palace for the lost +Helen:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +πόθῳ δ’ +ὑπερποντίας<br/> +φάσμα δόξει +δόμων ἀνάσσειν +<br/> +(And in his yearning love for her who is over the sea a phantom +will seem to reign over his palace.) +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +What are the lines in <i>Guinevere</i> but an expansion of what +is latent but unfolded in the pregnant suggestiveness of the +Greek poet:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +And in thy bowers of Camelot or of Usk<br/> +Thy shadow still would glide from room to room,<br/> +And I should evermore be vex’d with thee<br/> +In hanging robe or vacant ornament,<br/> +Or ghostly foot-fall echoing on the stair— +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +with a reminiscence also perhaps of Constance’s speech in +<i>King John</i>, III., iv. +</p> + +<p> +It need hardly be said that these particular passages, and +possibly some of the others, may be mere coincidences, but they +illustrate what numberless other passages which could be cited +prove that Tennyson’s careful and meditative study of the Greek +and Roman poets enabled him to enrich his work by these +felicitous adaptations. +</p> + +<p> +He used those poets as his master Virgil used his Greek predecessors, and what +the elder Seneca said of Ovid, who had appropriated a line from Virgil, might +exactly be applied to Tennyson: “Fecisse quod in multis aliis versibus +Virgilius fecerat, non surripiendi caus, sed palam imitandi, hoc animo ut +vellet agnosci”.<a href="#linknote-5" name="linknoteref-5" +id="linknoteref-5"><sup>[5]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p> +He had plainly studied with equal attention the chief Italian poets, especially +Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto and Tasso. On a passage in Dante he founded his +<i>Ulysses</i>, and imitations of that master are frequent throughout his +poems. <i>In Memoriam</i>, both in its general scheme as well as in numberless +particular passages, closely recalls Petrarch; and Ariosto and Tasso have each +influenced his work. In the poetry of his own country nothing seems to have +escaped him, either in the masters or the minor poets.<a href="#linknote-6" +name="linknoteref-6" id="linknoteref-6"><sup>[6]</sup></a> To apply the term +plagiarism to Tennyson’s use of his predecessors would be as absurd as to +resolve some noble fabric into its stones and bricks, and confounding the one +with the other to taunt the architect with appropriating an honour which +belongs to the quarry and the potter. Tennyson’s method was exactly the method +of two of the greatest poets in the world, Virgil and Milton, of the poet who +stands second to Virgil in Roman poetry, Horace, of one of the most illustrious +of our own minor poets, Gray. +</p> + +<p> +An artist more fastidious than Tennyson never existed. As scrupulous a purist +in language as Cicero, Chesterfield and Macaulay in prose, as Virgil, Milton, +and Leopardi in verse, his care extended to the nicest minutiæ of word-forms. +Thus “ancle” is always spelt with a “c” when it stands +alone, with a “k” when used in compounds; thus he spelt +“Idylls” with one “l” in the short poems, with two +“l’s” in the epic poems; thus the employment of +“through” or “thro’,” of “bad” or +“bade,” and the retention or suppression of “e” in past +participles are always carefully studied. He took immense pains to avoid the +clash of “s” with “s,” and to secure the predominance +of open vowels when rhythm rendered them appropriate. Like the Greek painter +with his partridge, he thought nothing of sacrificing good things if, in any +way, they interfered with unity and symmetry, and thus, his son tells us, many +stanzas, in themselves of exquisite beauty, have been lost to us. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-2" id="linknote-2"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-2">[2]</a> +<i>De Sublimitate,</i> xvii. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-3" id="linknote-3"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-3">[3]</a> +Tennyson’s blank verse in the <i>Idylls of the +King</i> (excepting in the <i>Morte d’Arthur</i> and in the +grander passages), is obviously modelled in rhythm on that of +Shakespeare’s earlier style seen to perfection in <i>King +John</i>. Compare the following lines with the rhythm say of +<i>Elaine</i> or <i>Guinevere</i>;—<br/> +<br/> + But now will canker sorrow eat my bud,<br/> + And chase the native beauty from his cheek,<br/> + And he will look as hollow as a ghost;<br/> + As dim and meagre as an ague’s fit:<br/> + And so he’ll die; and, rising so again,<br/> + When I shall meet him in the court of heaven<br/> + I shall not know him: therefore never, never<br/> + Must I behold my pretty Arthur more.<br/> +<br/> + —<i>King John</i>, III., iv. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-4" id="linknote-4"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-4">[4]</a> +<i>Illustrations of Tennyson</i>. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-5" id="linknote-5"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-5">[5]</a> +Seneca, third <i>Suasoria</i>. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-6" id="linknote-6"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-6">[6]</a> +For fuller illustrations of all this, and for the influence of the ancient +classics on Tennyson, I may perhaps venture to refer the reader to my +<i>Illustrations of Tennyson</i>. And may I here take the opportunity of +pointing out that nothing could have been farther from my intention in that +book than what has so often been most unfairly attributed to it, namely, an +attempt to show that a charge of plagiarism might be justly urged against +Tennyson. No honest critic, who had even cursorily inspected the book, could so +utterly misrepresent its purpose. +</p> + +<h3><a name="pref06"></a>IV</h3> + +<p> +Tennyson’s place is not among the “lords of the visionary eye,” among +seers, among prophets, but not the least part of the debt which his countrymen +owe to him is his dedication of his art to the noblest purposes. At a time when +poetry was beginning to degenerate into what it has now almost universally +become—a mere sense-pampering siren, and when critics were telling us, +as they are still telling us, that we are to understand by it “all literary +production which attains the power of giving pleasure by its form as distinct +from its matter,” he remained true to the creed of his great predecessors. +“L’art pour art,” he would say, quoting Georges Sand, “est un vain mot: +l’art pour le vrai, l’art pour le beau et le bon, voila la religion +que je cherche.” When he succeeded to the laureateship he was proud to remember +that the wreath which had descended to him was +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +greener from the brows<br/> +Of him that utter’d nothing base, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +and he was a loyal disciple of that poet whose aim had been, in his own words, +“to console the afflicted, to add sunshine to daylight by making the happy +happier, to teach the young and the gracious of every age to see, to think, to +feel, and therefore to become more actively and securely virtuous”.<a +href="#linknote-7" name="linknoteref-7" id="linknoteref-7"><sup>[7]</sup></a> +Wordsworth had said that he wished to be regarded as a teacher or as nothing, +but unhappily he did not always distinguish between the way in which a poet and +a philosopher should teach. He forgot that the didactic element in a poem +should be, to employ a homely illustration, what garlic should be in a salad, +“scarce suspected, animate the whole,” that the poet teaches not as the +moralist and the preacher teach, but as nature and life teach us. He taught us +when he wrote <i>The Fountain</i> and <i>The Highland Reaper, The +Leach-gatherer</i> and <i>Michael</i>, he merely wearied us when he sermonised +in <i>The Excursion</i> and in <i>The Prelude</i>. Tennyson never makes this +mistake. He is seldom directly didactic. Would he inculcate subjugation to the +law of duty—he gives us the funeral ode on Wellington, <i>The Charge of +the Light Brigade</i>, and <i>Love and Duty</i>. Would he inculcate +resignationto the will of God, and the moral efficacy of conventional +Christianity—he gives us <i>Enoch Arden</i>. Would he picture the +endless struggle between the sensual and the spiritual, and the relation of +ideals to life—he gives us the <i>Idylls of the King</i>. Would he point +to what atheism may lead—he gives us <i>Lucretius</i>. Poems which are +masterpieces of sensuous art, such as mere æsthetes, like Rosetti and his +school, must contemplate with admiring despair, he makes vehicles of the most +serious moral and spiritual teaching. <i>The Vision of Sin</i> is worth a +hundred sermons on the disastrous effects of unbridled profligacy. In <i>The +Palace of Art</i> we have the quintessence of <i>The Book of Ecclesiastes</i> +and much more besides. Even in <i>The Lotos Eaters</i> we have the mirror held +up to Hedonism. On the education of the affections and on the purity of +domestic life must depend very largely, not merely the happiness of +individuals, but the well-being of society, and how wide a space is filled by +poems in Tennyson’s works bearing influentially on these subjects is obvious. +And they admit us into a pleasaunce with which it is good to be familiar, so +pure and wholesome is their atmosphere, so tranquilly beautiful the world in +which the characters move and the little dramas unfold themselves. They preach +nothing, but deep into every heart must sink their silent lessons. “Upon the +sacredness of home life,” writes his son, “he would maintain that the stability +and greatness of a nation largely depend; and one of the secrets of his power +over mankind was his true joy in the family duties and affections.” What +sermons have we in <i>The Miller’s Daughter</i>, in <i>Dora</i>, in <i>The +Gardener’s Daughter</i> and in <i>Love and Duty</i>. <i>The Princess</i> was a +direct contribution to a social question of momentous importance to our time. +<i>Maud</i> had an immediate political purpose, while in <i>In Memoriam</i> he +became the interpreter and teacher of his generation in a still higher sense. +</p> + +<p> +Since Shakespeare no English poet has been so essentially +patriotic, or appealed so directly to the political conscience of +the nation. In his noble eulogies of the English constitution and +of the virtue and wisdom of its architects, in his +spirit-stirring pictures of the heroic actions of our forefathers +and contemporaries both by land and sea, in his passionate +denunciations of all that he believed would detract from +England’s greatness and be prejudicial to her real interests, in +his hearty sympathy with every movement and with every measure +which he believed would contribute to her honour and her power, +in all this he stands alone among modern poets. But if he loved +England as Shakespeare loved her, he had other lessons than +Shakespeare’s to teach her. The responsibilities imposed on the +England of our time—and no poet knew this better—are +very different from those imposed on the England of Elizabeth. An +empire vaster and more populous than that of the Cæsars has +since then been added to our dominion. Millions, indeed, who are +of the same blood as ourselves and who speak our language have, +by the folly of common ancestors, become aliens. But how immense +are the realms peopled by the colonies which are still loyal to +us, and by the three hundred millions who in India own us as +their rulers: of this vast empire England is now the capital and +centre. That she should fulfil completely and honourably the +duties to which destiny has called her will be the prayer of +every patriot, that he should by his own efforts contribute all +in his power to further such fulfilment must be his earnest +desire. It would be no exaggeration to say that Tennyson +contributed more than any man who has ever lived to what may be +called the higher political education of the English-speaking +races. Of imperial federation he was at once the apostle and the +pioneer. In poetry which appealed as probably no other poetry has +appealed to every class, wherever our language is spoken, he +dwelt fondly on all that constitutes the greatness and glory of +England, on her grandeur in the past, on the magnificent promise +of the part she will play in the future, if her sons are true to +her. There should be no distinction, for she recognises no +distinction between her children at home and her children in her +colonies. She is the common mother of a common race: one flag, +one sceptre, the same proud ancestry, the same splendid +inheritance. “How strange England cannot see,” he once wrote, +“that her true policy lies in a close union with her +colonies.” +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Sharers of our glorious past,<br/> +Shall we not thro’ good and ill<br/> +Cleave to one another still?<br/> +Britain’s myriad voices call,<br/> +Sons be welded all and all<br/> +Into one imperial whole,<br/> +One with Britain, heart and soul!<br/> +One life, one flag, one fleet, one Throne! +</p> + +<p> +Thus did the poetry of Tennyson draw closer, and thus will it +continue to draw closer those sentimental ties—ties, in +Burke’s phrase, “light as air, but strong as links of iron,” +which bind the colonies to the mother country; and in so doing, +if he did not actually initiate, he furthered, as no other single +man has furthered, the most important movement of our time. Nor +has any man of genius in the present century—not Dickens, +not Ruskin—been moved by a purer spirit of philanthropy, or +done more to show how little the qualities and actions which +dignify humanity depend, or need depend, on the accidents of +fortune. He brought poetry into touch with the discoveries of +science, and with the speculations of theology and metaphysics, +and though, in treating such subjects, his power is not, perhaps, +equal to his charm, the debt which his countrymen owe him, even +intellectually, is incalculable. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-7" id="linknote-7"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-7">[7]</a> +See Wordsworth’s letter to Lady Beaumont, <i>Prose Works</i>, vol. ii., p. 176. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>Early Poems</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap02"></a>To the Queen</h3> + +<p> +This dedication was first prefixed to the seventh edition of these poems in +1851, Tennyson having succeeded Wordsworth as Poet Laureate, 19th Nov., 1850. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Revered, beloved<a href="#linknote-8" name="linknoteref-8" id="linknoteref-8"><sup>[1]</sup></a>—O you that hold<br/> +A nobler office upon earth<br/> +Than arms, or power of brain, or birth<br/> +Could give the warrior kings of old,<br/> +<br/> +Victoria,<a href="#linknote-9" name="linknoteref-9" id="linknoteref-9"><sup>[2]</sup></a>—since your Royal grace<br/> +To one of less desert allows<br/> +This laurel greener from the brows<br/> +Of him that utter’d nothing base;<br/> +<br/> +And should your greatness, and the care<br/> +That yokes with empire, yield you time<br/> +To make demand of modern rhyme<br/> +If aught of ancient worth be there;<br/> +<br/> +Then—while<a href="#linknote-10" name="linknoteref-10" id="linknoteref-10"><sup>[3]</sup></a> a sweeter music wakes,<br/> +And thro’ wild March the throstle calls,<br/> +Where all about your palace-walls<br/> +The sun-lit almond-blossom shakes—<br/> +<br/> +Take, Madam, this poor book of song;<br/> +For tho’ the faults were thick as dust<br/> +In vacant chambers, I could trust<br/> +Your kindness.<a href="#linknote-11" name="linknoteref-11" id="linknoteref-11"><sup>[4]</sup></a> May you rule us long.<br/> +<br/> +And leave us rulers of your blood<br/> +As noble till the latest day!<br/> +May children of our children say,<br/> +“She wrought her people lasting good;<a href="#linknote-12" name="linknoteref-12" id="linknoteref-12"><sup>[5]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +“Her court was pure; her life serene;<br/> +God gave her peace; her land reposed;<br/> +A thousand claims to reverence closed<br/> +In her as Mother, Wife and Queen;<br/> +<br/> +“And statesmen at her council met<br/> +Who knew the seasons, when to take<br/> +Occasion by the hand, and make<br/> +The bounds of freedom wider yet<a href="#linknote-13" name="linknoteref-13" id="linknoteref-13"><sup>[6]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +“By shaping some august decree,<br/> +Which kept her throne unshaken still,<br/> +Broad-based upon her people’s will,<a href="#linknote-14" name="linknoteref-14" id="linknoteref-14"><sup>[7]</sup></a><br/> +And compass’d by the inviolate sea.”<br/> +<br/> +MARCH, 1851. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-8" id="linknote-8"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-8">[1]</a> +1851. Revered Victoria, you that hold. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-9" id="linknote-9"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-9">[2]</a> +1851. I thank you that your Royal grace. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-10" id="linknote-10"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-10">[3]</a> +This stanza added in 1853. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-11" id="linknote-11"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-11">[4]</a> +1851. Your sweetness. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-12" id="linknote-12"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-12">[5]</a> +In 1851 the following stanza referring to the first Crystal Palace, opened 1st +May, 1851, was inserted here:—<br/> +<br/> +She brought a vast design to pass,<br/> +When Europe and the scatter’d ends<br/> +Of our fierce world were mixt as friends<br/> +And brethren, in her halls of glass. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-13" id="linknote-13"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-13">[6]</a> +1851. Broader yet. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-14" id="linknote-14"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-14">[7]</a> +With this cf. Shelley, <i>Ode to Liberty</i>:—<br/> +<br/> +Athens diviner yet<br/> +Gleam’d with its crest of columns <i>on the will</i><br/> +Of man. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap03"></a>Claribel</h3> + +<p class="center"> +<b>a melody</b><br/> +<br/> +First published in 1830.<br/> +</p> + +<p> +In 1830 and in 1842 edd. the poem is in one long stanza, with a +full stop in 1830 ed. after line 8; 1842 ed. omits the full stop. +The name “Claribel” may have been suggested by Spenser (<i>F. +Q.</i>, ii., iv., or Shakespeare, <i>Tempest</i>).<br/> +</p> + +<p class="left"> +1 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Where Claribel low-lieth<br/> +The breezes pause and die,<br/> +Letting the rose-leaves fall:<br/> +But the solemn oak-tree sigheth,<br/> +Thick-leaved, ambrosial,<br/> +With an ancient melody<br/> +Of an inward agony,<br/> +Where Claribel low-lieth.<br/> +</p> + +<p class="left"> +2 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +At eve the beetle boometh<br/> +Athwart the thicket lone:<br/> +At noon the wild bee<a href="#linknote-15" name="linknoteref-15" id="linknoteref-15"><sup>[1]</sup></a> hummeth<br/> +About the moss’d headstone:<br/> +At midnight the moon cometh,<br/> +And looketh down alone.<br/> +Her song the lintwhite swelleth,<br/> +The clear-voiced mavis dwelleth,<br/> +The callow throstle<a href="#linknote-16" name="linknoteref-16" id="linknoteref-16"><sup>[2]</sup></a> lispeth,<br/> +The slumbrous wave outwelleth,<br/> +The babbling runnel crispeth,<br/> +The hollow grot replieth<br/> +Where Claribel low-lieth. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-15" id="linknote-15"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-15">[1]</a> +1830. “Wild” omitted, and “low” inserted with a hyphen before “hummeth”. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-16" id="linknote-16"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-16">[2]</a> +1851 and all previous editions, “fledgling” for “callow”. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap04"></a>Lilian</h3> + +<p class="center"> +First printed in 1830.<br/> +</p> + +<p class="left"> +1 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Airy, fairy Lilian,<br/> +Flitting, fairy Lilian,<br/> +When I ask her if she love me,<br/> +Claps her tiny hands above me,<br/> +Laughing all she can;<br/> +She’ll not tell me if she love me,<br/> +Cruel little Lilian.<br/> +</p> + +<p class="left"> +2 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +When my passion seeks<br/> +Pleasance in love-sighs<br/> +She, looking thro’ and thro’<a href="#linknote-17" name="linknoteref-17" id="linknoteref-17"><sup>[1]</sup></a> me<br/> +Thoroughly to undo me,<br/> +Smiling, never speaks:<br/> +So innocent-arch, so cunning-simple,<br/> +From beneath her gather’d wimple<a href="#linknote-18" name="linknoteref-18" id="linknoteref-18"><sup>[2]</sup></a><br/> +Glancing with black-beaded eyes,<br/> +Till the lightning laughters dimple<br/> +The baby-roses in her cheeks;<br/> +Then away she flies.<br/> +</p> + +<p class="left"> +3 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Prythee weep, May Lilian!<br/> +Gaiety without eclipse<br/> +Wearieth me, May Lilian:<br/> +Thro’<a href="#linknote-19" name="linknoteref-19" id="linknoteref-19"><sup>[3]</sup></a> my very heart it thrilleth<br/> +When from crimson-threaded<a href="#linknote-20" name="linknoteref-20" id="linknoteref-20"><sup>[4]</sup></a> lips<br/> +Silver-treble laughter<a href="#linknote-21" name="linknoteref-21" id="linknoteref-21"><sup>[5]</sup></a> trilleth:<br/> +Prythee weep, May Lilian.<br/> +</p> + +<p class="left"> +4 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Praying all I can,<br/> +If prayers will not hush thee,<br/> +Airy Lilian,<br/> +Like a rose-leaf I will crush thee,<br/> +Fairy Lilian.<br/> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-17" id="linknote-17"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-17">[1]</a> +1830. Through and through me. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-18" id="linknote-18"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-18">[2]</a> +1830. Purfled. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-19" id="linknote-19"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-19">[3]</a> +1830. Through. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-20" id="linknote-20"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-20">[4]</a> +With “crimson-threaded” <i>cf.</i> Cleveland’s <i>Sing-song on Clarinda’s +Wedding</i>, “Her <i>lips those threads of scarlet dye</i>”; but the original +is <i>Solomons Song</i> iv. 3, “Thy lips are <i>like a thread of scarlet</i>”. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-21" id="linknote-21"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-21">[5]</a> +1830. Silver treble-laughter. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap05"></a>Isabel</h3> + +<p> +First printed in 1830. Lord Tennyson tells us (<i>Life of +Tennyson</i>, i., 43) that in this poem his father more or less +described his own mother, who was a “remarkable and saintly +woman”. In this as in the other poems elaborately painting women +we may perhaps suspect the influence of Wordsworth’s +<i>Triad</i>, which should be compared with them. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +1 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Eyes not down-dropt nor over-bright, but fed<br/> +With the clear-pointed flame of chastity,<br/> +Clear, without heat, undying, tended by<br/> +Pure vestal thoughts in the translucent fane<br/> +Of her still spirit<a href="#linknote-22" name="linknoteref-22" id="linknoteref-22"><sup>[1]</sup></a>; locks not wide-dispread,<br/> +Madonna-wise on either side her head;<br/> +Sweet lips whereon perpetually did reign<br/> +The summer calm of golden charity,<br/> +Were fixed shadows of thy fixed mood,<br/> +Revered Isabel, the crown and head,<br/> +The stately flower of female fortitude,<br/> +Of perfect wifehood and pure lowlihead.<a href="#linknote-23" name="linknoteref-23" id="linknoteref-23"><sup>[2]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="left"> +2 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The intuitive decision of a bright<br/> +And thorough-edged intellect to part<br/> +Error from crime; a prudence to withhold;<br/> +The laws of marriage<a href="#linknote-24" name="linknoteref-24" id="linknoteref-24"><sup>[3]</sup></a> character’d in gold<br/> +Upon the blanched<a href="#linknote-25" name="linknoteref-25" id="linknoteref-25"><sup>[4]</sup></a> tablets of her heart;<br/> +A love still burning upward, giving light<br/> +To read those laws; an accent very low<br/> +In blandishment, but a most silver flow<br/> +Of subtle-paced counsel in distress,<br/> +Right to the heart and brain, tho’ undescried,<br/> +Winning its way with extreme gentleness<br/> +Thro’<a href="#linknote-26" name="linknoteref-26" id="linknoteref-26"><sup>[5]</sup></a> all the outworks of suspicious pride;<br/> +A courage to endure and to obey;<br/> +A hate of gossip parlance, and of sway,<br/> +Crown’d Isabel, thro’<a href="#linknote-27" name="linknoteref-27" id="linknoteref-27"><sup>[6]</sup></a> all her placid life,<br/> +The queen of marriage, a most perfect wife.<br/> +</p> + +<p class="left"> +3 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The mellow’d reflex of a winter moon;<br/> +A clear stream flowing with a muddy one,<br/> +Till in its onward current it absorbs<br/> +With swifter movement and in purer light<br/> +The vexed eddies of its wayward brother:<br/> +A leaning and upbearing parasite,<br/> +Clothing the stem, which else had fallen quite,<br/> +With cluster’d flower-bells and ambrosial orbs<br/> +Of rich fruit-bunches leaning on each other—<br/> +Shadow forth thee:—the world hath not another<br/> +(Though all her fairest forms are types of thee,<br/> +And thou of God in thy great charity)<br/> +Of such a finish’d chasten’d purity, +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-22" id="linknote-22"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-22">[1]</a> +With these lines may be compared Shelley, <i>Dedication to the Revolt of +Islam</i>:—<br/> +<br/> +And through thine eyes, e’en in thy soul, I see<br/> +A lamp of vestal fire burning eternally. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-23" id="linknote-23"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-23">[2]</a> +Lowlihead a favourite word with Chaucer and Spenser. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-24" id="linknote-24"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-24">[3]</a> +1830. Wifehood. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-25" id="linknote-25"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-25">[4]</a> +1830. Blenched. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-26" id="linknote-26"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-26">[5]</a> +1830 and all before 1853. Through. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-27" id="linknote-27"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-27">[6]</a> +1830. Through. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap06"></a>Mariana</h3> + +<p class="center"> +“Mariana in the moated grange.”—<i>Measure for Measure</i>.<br/> +<br/> +First printed in 1830.<br/> +</p> + +<p> +This poem as we know from the motto prefixed to it was suggested +by Shakespeare (<i>Measure for Measure</i>, iii., 1, “at the +moated grange resides this dejected Mariana,”) but the poet may +have had in his mind the exquisite fragment of Sappho:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +δέδυκε μὲν ἁ +σελάννα<br/> +καὶ Πληϊαδες, +μέδαι δὲ<br/> +νύκτες, παρὰ δ’ +ἔρχετ’ ὥρα,<br/> +ἔγω δὲ μόνα +κατεύδω. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +“The moon has set and the Pleiades, and it is midnight: the hour too is going +by, but I sleep alone.” It was long popularly supposed that the scene of the +poem was a farm near Somersby known as Baumber’s farm, but Tennyson denied this +and said it was a purely “imaginary house in the fen,” and that he “never so +much as dreamed of Baumbers farm”. See <i>Life</i>, i., 28.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +With blackest moss the flower-plots<br/> +Were thickly crusted, one and all:<br/> +The rusted nails fell from the knots<br/> +That held the peach<a href="#linknote-28" name="linknoteref-28" id="linknoteref-28"><sup>[1]</sup></a> to the garden-wall.<a href="#linknote-29" name="linknoteref-29" id="linknoteref-29"><sup>[2]</sup></a><br/> +The broken sheds look’d sad and strange:<br/> +Unlifted was the clinking latch;<br/> +Weeded and worn the ancient thatch<br/> +Upon the lonely moated grange.<br/> +She only said, “My life is dreary,<br/> +He cometh not,” she said;<br/> +She said, “I am aweary, aweary,<br/> +I would that I were dead!”<br/> +<br/> +Her tears fell with the dews at even;<br/> +Her tears fell ere the dews were dried;<a href="#linknote-30" name="linknoteref-30" id="linknoteref-30"><sup>[3]</sup></a><br/> +She could not look on the sweet heaven,<br/> +Either at morn or eventide.<br/> +After the flitting of the bats,<br/> +When thickest dark did trance the sky,<br/> +She drew her casement-curtain by,<br/> +And glanced athwart the glooming flats.<br/> +She only said, “The night is dreary,<br/> +He cometh not,” she said;<br/> +She said, “I am aweary, aweary,<br/> +I would that I were dead!”<br/> +<br/> +Upon the middle of the night,<br/> +Waking she heard the night-fowl crow:<br/> +The cock sung out an hour ere light:<br/> +From the dark fen the oxen’s low<br/> +Came to her: without hope of change,<br/> +In sleep she seem’d to walk forlorn,<br/> +Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed<a href="#linknote-31" name="linknoteref-31" id="linknoteref-31"><sup>[4]</sup></a> morn<br/> +About the lonely moated grange.<br/> +She only said, “The day is dreary,<br/> +He cometh not,” she said;<br/> +She said, “I am aweary, aweary,<br/> +I would that I were dead!”<br/> +<br/> +About a stone-cast from the wall<br/> +A sluice with blacken’d waters slept,<br/> +And o’er it many, round and small,<br/> +The cluster’d marish-mosses crept.<br/> +Hard by a poplar shook alway,<br/> +All silver-green with gnarled bark:<br/> +For leagues no other tree did mark<a href="#linknote-32" name="linknoteref-32" id="linknoteref-32"><sup>[5]</sup></a><br/> +The level waste, the rounding gray.<a href="#linknote-33" name="linknoteref-33" id="linknoteref-33"><sup>[6]</sup></a><br/> +She only said, “My life is dreary,<br/> +He cometh not,” she said;<br/> +She said, “I am aweary, aweary,<br/> +I would that I were dead!”<br/> +<br/> +And ever when the moon was low,<br/> +And the shrill winds were up and away,<a href="#linknote-34" name="linknoteref-34" id="linknoteref-34"><sup>[7]</sup></a><br/> +In the white curtain, to and fro,<br/> +She saw the gusty shadow sway.<br/> +But when the moon was very low,<br/> +And wild winds bound within their cell,<br/> +The shadow of the poplar fell<br/> +Upon her bed, across her brow.<br/> +She only said, “The night is dreary,<br/> +He cometh not,” she said;<br/> +She said, “I am aweary, aweary,<br/> +I would that I were dead!”<br/> +<br/> +All day within the dreamy house,<br/> +The doors upon their hinges creak’d;<br/> +The blue fly sung in the pane;<a href="#linknote-35" name="linknoteref-35" id="linknoteref-35"><sup>[8]</sup></a> the mouse<br/> +Behind the mouldering wainscot shriek’d,<br/> +Or from the crevice peer’d about.<br/> +Old faces glimmer’d thro’ the doors,<br/> +Old footsteps trod the upper floors,<br/> +Old voices called her from without.<br/> +She only said, “My life is dreary,<br/> +He cometh not,” she said;<br/> +She said, “I am aweary, aweary,<br/> +I would that I were dead!”<br/> +<br/> +The sparrow’s chirrup on the roof,<br/> +The slow clock ticking, and the sound,<br/> +Which to the wooing wind aloof<br/> +The poplar made, did all confound<br/> +Her sense; but most she loathed the hour<br/> +When the thick-moted sunbeam lay<br/> +Athwart the chambers, and the day<br/> +Was sloping<a href="#linknote-36" name="linknoteref-36" id="linknoteref-36"><sup>[9]</sup></a> toward his western bower.<br/> +Then, said she, “I am very dreary,<br/> +He will not come,” she said;<br/> +She wept, “I am aweary, aweary,<br/> +O God, that I were dead!” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-28" id="linknote-28"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-28">[1]</a> +1863. Pear. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-29" id="linknote-29"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-29">[2]</a> +1872. Gable-wall. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-30" id="linknote-30"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-30">[3]</a> +With this beautiful couplet may be compared a couplet of Helvius Cinna:—<br/> +<br/> +Te matutinus flentem conspexit Eous,<br/> +Te flentem paullo vidit post Hesperus idem.<br/> +<br/> +(<i>Cinnae Reliq.</i> Ed. Mueller, p. 83.) +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-31" id="linknote-31"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-31">[4]</a> +1830. <i>Grey</i>-eyed. <i>Cf. Romeo and Juliet</i>, ii., 3,<br/> +<br/> +“The <i>grey morn</i> smiles on the frowning night”. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-32" id="linknote-32"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-32">[5]</a> +1830, 1842, 1843. Dark. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-33" id="linknote-33"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-33">[6]</a> +1830. Grey. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-34" id="linknote-34"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-34">[7]</a> +1830. An’ away. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-35" id="linknote-35"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-35">[8]</a> +All editions before 1851. I’ the pane. With this line <i>cf. Maud</i>, I., vi., +8, “and the shrieking rush of the wainscot mouse”. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-36" id="linknote-36"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-36">[9]</a> +1830. Downsloped was westering in his bower. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap07"></a>To——</h3> + +<p class="center"> +First printed in 1830. +</p> + +<p> +The friend to whom these verses were addressed was Joseph William Blakesley, +third Classic and Senior Chancellor’s Medallist in 1831, and afterwards Dean of +Lincoln. Tennyson said of him: “He ought to be Lord Chancellor, for he is a +subtle and powerful reasoner, and an honest man”.—<i>Life</i>, i., 65. +He was a contributor to the <i>Edinburgh</i> and <i>Quarterly Reviews</i>, and +died in April, 1885. See memoir of him in the <i>Dictionary of National +Biography</i>. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +1 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Clear-headed friend, whose joyful scorn,<br/> +Edged with sharp laughter, cuts atwain<br/> +The knots that tangle human creeds,<a href="#linknote-37" name="linknoteref-37" id="linknoteref-37"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/> +The wounding cords that<a href="#linknote-38" name="linknoteref-38" id="linknoteref-38"><sup>[2]</sup></a> bind and strain<br/> +The heart until it bleeds,<br/> +Ray-fringed eyelids of the morn<br/> +Roof not a glance so keen as thine:<br/> +If aught of prophecy be mine,<br/> +Thou wilt not live in vain.<br/> +</p> + +<p class="left"> +2 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Low-cowering shall the Sophist sit;<br/> +Falsehood shall bear her plaited brow:<br/> +Fair-fronted Truth shall droop not now<br/> +With shrilling shafts of subtle wit.<br/> +Nor martyr-flames, nor trenchant swords<br/> +Can do away that ancient lie;<br/> +A gentler death shall Falsehood die,<br/> +Shot thro’ and thro’<a href="#linknote-39" name="linknoteref-39" id="linknoteref-39"><sup>[3]</sup></a> with cunning words.<br/> +</p> + +<p class="left"> +3 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Weak Truth a-leaning on her crutch,<br/> +Wan, wasted Truth in her utmost need,<br/> +Thy kingly intellect shall feed,<br/> +Until she be an athlete bold,<br/> +And weary with a finger’s touch<br/> +Those writhed limbs of lightning speed;<br/> +Like that strange angel<a href="#linknote-40" name="linknoteref-40" id="linknoteref-40"><sup>[4]</sup></a> which of old,<br/> +Until the breaking of the light,<br/> +Wrestled with wandering Israel,<br/> +Past Yabbok brook the livelong night,<br/> +And heaven’s mazed signs stood still<br/> +In the dim tract of Penuel. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-37" id="linknote-37"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-37">[1]</a> +1830. The knotted lies of human creeds. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-38" id="linknote-38"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-38">[2]</a> +1830. “Which” for “that”. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-39" id="linknote-39"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-39">[3]</a> +1830. Through and through. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-40" id="linknote-40"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-40">[4]</a> +The reference is to Genesis xxxii. 24-32. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap08"></a>Madeline</h3> + +<p class="center"> +First published in 1830. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +1 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Thou art not steep’d in golden languors,<br/> +No tranced summer calm is thine,<br/> +Ever varying Madeline.<br/> +Thro’<a href="#linknote-41" name="linknoteref-41" id="linknoteref-41"><sup>[1]</sup></a> light and shadow thou dost range,<br/> +Sudden glances, sweet and strange,<br/> +Delicious spites and darling angers,<br/> +And airy<a href="#linknote-42" name="linknoteref-42" id="linknoteref-42"><sup>[2]</sup></a> forms of flitting change.<br/> +</p> + +<p class="left"> +2 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Smiling, frowning, evermore,<br/> +Thou art perfect in love-lore.<br/> +Revealings deep and clear are thine<br/> +Of wealthy smiles: but who may know<br/> +Whether smile or frown be fleeter?<br/> +Whether smile or frown be sweeter,<br/> +Who may know?<br/> +Frowns perfect-sweet along the brow<br/> +Light-glooming over eyes divine,<br/> +Like little clouds sun-fringed, are thine,<br/> +Ever varying Madeline.<br/> +Thy smile and frown are not aloof<br/> +From one another,<br/> +Each to each is dearest brother;<br/> +Hues of the silken sheeny woof<br/> +Momently shot into each other.<br/> +All the mystery is thine;<br/> +Smiling, frowning, evermore,<br/> +Thou art perfect in love-lore,<br/> +Ever varying Madeline.<br/> +</p> + +<p class="left"> +3 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +A subtle, sudden flame,<br/> +By veering passion fann’d,<br/> +About thee breaks and dances<br/> +When I would kiss thy hand,<br/> +The flush of anger’d shame<br/> +O’erflows thy calmer glances,<br/> +And o’er black brows drops down<br/> +A sudden curved frown:<br/> +But when I turn away,<br/> +Thou, willing me to stay,<br/> +Wooest not, nor vainly wranglest;<br/> +But, looking fixedly the while,<br/> +All my bounding heart entanglest<br/> +In a golden-netted smile;<br/> +Then in madness and in bliss,<br/> +If my lips should dare to kiss<br/> +Thy taper fingers amorously,<a href="#linknote-43" name="linknoteref-43" id="linknoteref-43"><sup>[3]</sup></a><br/> +Again thou blushest angerly;<br/> +And o’er black brows drops down<br/> +A sudden-curved frown. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-41" id="linknote-41"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-41">[1]</a> +1830. Through. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-42" id="linknote-42"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-42">[2]</a> +1830. Aery. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-43" id="linknote-43"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-43">[3]</a> +1830. Three-times-three; though noted as an <i>erratum</i> for amorously. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap09"></a>Song—The Owl</h3> + +<p class="center"> +First printed in 1830. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +1 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +When cats run home and light is come,<br/> +And dew is cold upon the ground,<br/> +And the far-off stream is dumb,<br/> +And the whirring sail goes round,<br/> +And the whirring sail goes round;<br/> +Alone and warming his five wits,<br/> +The white owl in the belfry sits. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +2 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +When merry milkmaids click the latch,<br/> +And rarely smells the new-mown hay,<br/> +And the cock hath sung beneath the thatch<br/> +Twice or thrice his roundelay,<br/> +Twice or thrice his roundelay;<br/> +Alone and warming his five wits,<br/> +The white owl in the belfry sits. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap10"></a>Second Song—To the Same</h3> + +<p class="center"> +First printed in 1830. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +1 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Thy tuwhits are lull’d I wot,<br/> +Thy tuwhoos of yesternight,<br/> +Which upon the dark afloat,<br/> +So took echo with delight,<br/> +So took echo with delight,<br/> +That her voice untuneful grown,<br/> +Wears all day a fainter tone. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +2 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> + +I would mock thy chaunt anew;<br/> +But I cannot mimick it;<br/> +Not a whit of thy tuwhoo,<br/> +Thee to woo to thy tuwhit,<br/> +Thee to woo to thy tuwhit,<br/> +With a lengthen’d loud halloo,<br/> +Tuwhoo, tuwhit, tuwhit, tuwhoo-o-o. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap11"></a>Recollections of the Arabian Nights</h3> + +<p class="center"> +First printed in 1830. +</p> + +<p> +With this poem should be compared the description of Harun al Rashid’s +Garden of Gladness in the story of Nur-al-din Ali and the damsel Anis al Talis +in the Thirty-Sixth Night. The style appears to have been modelled on +Coleridge’s <i>Kubla Khan</i> and <i>Lewti</i>, and the influence of +Coleridge is very perceptible throughout the poem.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +When the breeze of a joyful dawn blew free<br/> +In the silken sail of infancy,<br/> +The tide of time flow’d back with me,<br/> +The forward-flowing tide of time;<br/> +And many a sheeny summer-morn,<br/> +Adown the Tigris I was borne,<br/> +By Bagdat’s shrines of fretted gold,<br/> +High-walled gardens green and old;<br/> +True Mussulman was I and sworn,<br/> +For it was in the golden prime<a href="#linknote-44" name="linknoteref-44" id="linknoteref-44"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/> +Of good Haroun Alraschid.<br/> +<br/> +Anight my shallop, rustling thro’<a href="#linknote-45" name="linknoteref-45" id="linknoteref-45"><sup>[2]</sup></a><br/> +The low and bloomed foliage, drove<br/> +The fragrant, glistening deeps, and clove<br/> +The citron-shadows in the blue:<br/> + By garden porches on the brim,<br/> +The costly doors flung open wide,<br/> +Gold glittering thro’<a href="#linknote-46" name="linknoteref-46" id="linknoteref-46"><sup>[3]</sup></a> lamplight dim,<br/> +And broider’d sofas<a href="#linknote-47" name="linknoteref-47" id="linknoteref-47"><sup>[4]</sup></a> on each side:<br/> +In sooth it was a goodly time,<br/> +For it was in the golden prime<br/> +Of good Haroun Alraschid.<br/> +<br/> +Often, where clear-stemm’d platans guard<br/> +The outlet, did I turn away<br/> +The boat-head down a broad canal<br/> +From the main river sluiced, where all<br/> +The sloping of the moon-lit sward<br/> +Was damask-work, and deep inlay<br/> +Of braided blooms<a href="#linknote-48" name="linknoteref-48" id="linknoteref-48"><sup>[5]</sup></a> unmown, which crept<br/> +Adown to where the waters slept.<br/> +A goodly place, a goodly time,<br/> +For it was in the golden prime<br/> +Of good Haroun Alraschid.<br/> +<br/> +A motion from the river won<br/> +Ridged the smooth level, bearing on<br/> +My shallop thro’ the star-strown calm,<br/> +Until another night in night<br/> +I enter’d, from the clearer light,<br/> +Imbower’d vaults of pillar’d palm,<br/> +Imprisoning sweets, which, as they clomb<br/> +Heavenward, were stay’d beneath the dome<br/> +Of hollow boughs.—A goodly time,<br/> +For it was in the golden prime<br/> +Of good Haroun Alraschid.<br/> +<br/> +Still onward; and the clear canal<br/> +Is rounded to as clear a lake.<br/> +From the green rivage many a fall<br/> +Of diamond rillets musical,<br/> +Thro’ little crystal<a href="#linknote-49" name="linknoteref-49" id="linknoteref-49"><sup>[6]</sup></a> arches low<br/> +Down from the central fountain’s flow<br/> +Fall’n silver-chiming, seem’d to shake<br/> +The sparkling flints beneath the prow.<br/> +A goodly place, a goodly time,<br/> +For it was in the golden prime<br/> +Of good Haroun Alraschid.<br/> +<br/> +Above thro’<a href="#linknote-50" name="linknoteref-50" id="linknoteref-50"><sup>[7]</sup></a> many a bowery turn<br/> +A walk with vary-colour’d shells<br/> +Wander’d engrain’d. On either side<br/> +All round about the fragrant marge<br/> +From fluted vase, and brazen urn<br/> +In order, eastern flowers large,<br/> +Some dropping low their crimson bells<br/> +Half-closed, and others studded wide<br/> +With disks and tiars, fed the time<br/> +With odour in the golden prime<br/> +Of good Haroun Alraschid.<br/> +<br/> +Far off, and where the lemon-grove<br/> +In closest coverture upsprung,<br/> +The living airs of middle night<br/> +Died round the bulbul<a href="#linknote-51" name="linknoteref-51" id="linknoteref-51"><sup>[8]</sup></a> as he sung;<br/> +Not he: but something which possess’d<br/> +The darkness of the world, delight,<br/> +Life, anguish, death, immortal love,<br/> +Ceasing not, mingled, unrepress’d.<br/> +Apart from place, withholding<a href="#linknote-52" name="linknoteref-52" id="linknoteref-52"><sup>[9]</sup></a> time,<br/> +But flattering the golden prime<br/> +Of good Haroun Alraschid.<br/> +<br/> +Black the<a href="#linknote-53" name="linknoteref-53" id="linknoteref-53"><sup>[10]</sup></a> garden-bowers and grots<br/> +Slumber’d: the solemn palms were ranged<br/> +Above, unwoo’d of summer wind:<br/> +A sudden splendour from behind<br/> +Flush’d all the leaves with rich gold-green,<br/> +And, flowing rapidly between<br/> +Their interspaces, counterchanged<br/> +The level lake with diamond-plots<br/> +Of dark and bright.<a href="#linknote-54" name="linknoteref-54" id="linknoteref-54"><sup>[11]</sup></a> A lovely time,<br/> +For it was in the golden prime<br/> +Of good Haroun Alraschid.<br/> +<br/> +Dark-blue the deep sphere overhead,<br/> +Distinct with vivid stars inlaid,<a href="#linknote-55" name="linknoteref-55" id="linknoteref-55"><sup>[12]</sup></a><br/> +Grew darker from that under-flame:<br/> +So, leaping lightly from the boat,<br/> +With silver anchor left afloat,<br/> +In marvel whence that glory came<br/> +Upon me, as in sleep I sank<br/> +In cool soft turf upon the bank,<br/> +Entranced with that place and time,<br/> +So worthy of the golden prime<br/> +Of good Haroun Alraschid.<br/> +<br/> +Thence thro’ the garden I was drawn—<a href="#linknote-56" name="linknoteref-56" id="linknoteref-56"><sup>[13]</sup></a><br/> +A realm of pleasance, many a mound,<br/> +And many a shadow-chequer’d lawn<br/> +Full of the city’s stilly sound,<a href="#linknote-57" name="linknoteref-57" id="linknoteref-57"><sup>[14]</sup></a><br/> +And deep myrrh-thickets blowing round<br/> +The stately cedar, tamarisks,<br/> +Thick rosaries<a href="#linknote-58" name="linknoteref-58" id="linknoteref-58"><sup>[15]</sup></a> of scented thorn,<br/> +Tall orient shrubs, and obelisks<br/> +Graven with emblems of the time,<br/> +In honour of the golden prime<br/> +Of good Haroun Alraschid.<br/> +<br/> +With dazed vision unawares<br/> +From the long alley’s latticed shade<br/> +Emerged, I came upon the great<br/> +Pavilion of the Caliphat.<br/> +Right to the carven cedarn doors,<br/> +Flung inward over spangled floors,<br/> +Broad-based flights of marble stairs<br/> +Ran up with golden balustrade,<br/> +After the fashion of the time,<br/> +And humour of the golden prime<br/> +Of good Haroun Alraschid.<br/> +<br/> +The fourscore windows all alight<br/> +As with the quintessence of flame,<br/> +A million tapers flaring bright<br/> +From twisted silvers look’d<a href="#linknote-59" name="linknoteref-59" id="linknoteref-59"><sup>[16]</sup></a> to shame<br/> +The hollow-vaulted dark, and stream’d<br/> +Upon the mooned domes aloof<br/> +In inmost Bagdat, till there seem’d<br/> +Hundreds of crescents on the roof<br/> +Of night new-risen, that marvellous time,<br/> +To celebrate the golden prime<br/> +Of good Haroun Alraschid.<br/> +<br/> +Then stole I up, and trancedly<br/> +Gazed on the Persian girl alone,<br/> +Serene with argent-lidded eyes<br/> +Amorous, and lashes like to rays<br/> +Of darkness, and a brow of pearl<br/> +Tressed with redolent ebony,<br/> +In many a dark delicious curl,<br/> +Flowing beneath<a href="#linknote-60" name="linknoteref-60" id="linknoteref-60"><sup>[17]</sup></a> her rose-hued zone;<br/> +The sweetest lady of the time,<br/> +Well worthy of the golden prime<br/> +Of good Haroun Alraschid.<br/> +<br/> +Six columns, three on either side,<br/> +Pure silver, underpropt<a href="#linknote-61" name="linknoteref-61" id="linknoteref-61"><sup>[18]</sup></a> a rich<br/> +Throne of the<a href="#linknote-62" name="linknoteref-62" id="linknoteref-62"><sup>[19]</sup></a> massive ore, from which<br/> +Down-droop’d, in many a floating fold,<br/> +Engarlanded and diaper’d<br/> +With inwrought flowers, a cloth of gold.<br/> +Thereon, his deep eye laughter-stirr’d<br/> +With merriment of kingly pride,<br/> +Sole star of all that place and time,<br/> +I saw him—in his golden prime,<br/> +T<small>HE</small> G<small>OOD</small> H<small>AROUN</small> A<small>LRASCHID</small>! +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-44" id="linknote-44"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-44">[1]</a> +“Golden prime” from Shakespeare. “That cropp’d the <i>golden prime</i> of this +sweet prince.” (<i>Rich. III.</i>, i., sc. ii., 248.) +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-45" id="linknote-45"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-45">[2]</a> +1830. Through. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-46" id="linknote-46"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-46">[3]</a> +1830. Through. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-47" id="linknote-47"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-47">[4]</a> +1830 and 1842. Sophas. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-48" id="linknote-48"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-48">[5]</a> +1830. Breaded blosms. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-49" id="linknote-49"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-49">[6]</a> +1830. Through crystal. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-50" id="linknote-50"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-50">[7]</a> +1830. Through. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-51" id="linknote-51"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-51">[8]</a> +“Bulbul” is the Persian for nightingale. <i>Cf. Princes</i>, iv., 104:—<br/> +<br/> + “O Bulbul, any rose of Gulistan<br/> + Shall brush her veil”. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-52" id="linknote-52"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-52">[9]</a> +1830. Witholding. So 1842, 1843, 1845. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-53" id="linknote-53"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-53">[10]</a> +1830. Blackgreen. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-54" id="linknote-54"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-54">[11]</a> +1830. Of saffron light. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-55" id="linknote-55"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-55">[12]</a> +1830. Unrayed. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-56" id="linknote-56"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-56">[13]</a> +1830. Through ... borne. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-57" id="linknote-57"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-57">[14]</a> +Shakespeare has the same expression: “The hum of either army <i>stilly +sounds</i>”. (<i>Henry V.</i>, act iv., prol.) +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-58" id="linknote-58"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-58">[15]</a> +1842. Roseries. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-59" id="linknote-59"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-59">[16]</a> +1830. Wreathed. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-60" id="linknote-60"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-60">[17]</a> +1830. Below. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-61" id="linknote-61"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-61">[18]</a> +1830. Underpropped. 1842. Underpropp’d. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-62" id="linknote-62"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-62">[19]</a> +1830. O’ the. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap12"></a>Ode to Memory</h3> + +<p class="center"> +First printed in 1830. +</p> + +<p> +After the title in 1830 ed. is “Written very early in life”. The +influence most perceptible in this poem is plainly Coleridge, on +whose <i>Songs of the Pixies</i> it seems to have been modelled. +Tennyson considered it, and no wonder, as one of the very best of +“his early and peculiarly concentrated Nature-poems”. See +<i>Life</i>, i., 27. It is full of vivid and accurate pictures of +his Lincolnshire home and haunts. See <i>Life</i>, i., 25-48, +<i>passim</i>. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +1 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Thou who stealest fire,<br/> +From the fountains of the past,<br/> +To glorify the present; oh, haste,<br/> +Visit my low desire!<br/> +Strengthen me, enlighten me!<br/> +I faint in this obscurity,<br/> +Thou dewy dawn of memory. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +2 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Come not as thou camest<a href="#linknote-63" name="linknoteref-63" id="linknoteref-63"><sup>[1]</sup></a> of late,<br/> +Flinging the gloom of yesternight<br/> +On the white day; but robed in soften’d light<br/> +Of orient state.<br/> +Whilome thou camest with the morning mist,<br/> +Even as a maid, whose stately brow<br/> +The dew-impearled winds of dawn have kiss’d,<a href="#linknote-64" name="linknoteref-64" id="linknoteref-64"><sup>[2]</sup></a><br/> +When she, as thou,<br/> +Stays on her floating locks the lovely freight<br/> +Of overflowing blooms, and earliest shoots<br/> +Of orient green, giving safe pledge of fruits,<br/> +Which in wintertide shall star<br/> +The black earth with brilliance rare.<br/> +</p> + +<p class="left"> +3 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Whilome thou camest with the morning mist.<br/> +And with the evening cloud,<br/> +Showering thy gleaned wealth into my open breast,<br/> +(Those peerless flowers which in the rudest wind<br/> +Never grow sere,<br/> +When rooted in the garden of the mind,<br/> +Because they are the earliest of the year).<br/> +Nor was the night thy shroud.<br/> +In sweet dreams softer than unbroken rest<br/> +Thou leddest by the hand thine infant Hope.<br/> +The eddying of her garments caught from thee<br/> +The light of thy great presence; and the cope<br/> +Of the half-attain’d futurity,<br/> +Though deep not fathomless,<br/> +Was cloven with the million stars which tremble<br/> +O’er the deep mind of dauntless infancy.<br/> +Small thought was there of life’s distress;<br/> +For sure she deem’d no mist of earth could dull<br/> +Those spirit-thrilling eyes so keen and beautiful:<br/> +Sure she was nigher to heaven’s spheres,<br/> +Listening the lordly music flowing from<br/> +The illimitable years.<a href="#linknote-65" name="linknoteref-65" id="linknoteref-65"><sup>[3]</sup></a><br/> +O strengthen me, enlighten me!<br/> +I faint in this obscurity,<br/> +Thou dewy dawn of memory.<br/> +</p> + +<p class="left"> +4 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Come forth I charge thee, arise,<br/> +Thou of the many tongues, the myriad eyes!<br/> +Thou comest not with shows of flaunting vines<br/> +Unto mine inner eye,<br/> +Divinest Memory!<br/> +Thou wert not nursed by the waterfall<br/> +Which ever sounds and shines<br/> +A pillar of white light upon the wall<br/> +Of purple cliffs, aloof descried:<br/> +Come from the woods that belt the grey +hill-side,<br/> +The seven elms, the poplars<a href="#linknote-66" name="linknoteref-66" id="linknoteref-66"><sup>[4]</sup></a> four<br/> +That stand beside my father’s door,<br/> +And chiefly from the brook<a href="#linknote-67" name="linknoteref-67" id="linknoteref-67"><sup>[5]</sup></a> that loves<br/> +To purl o’er matted cress and ribbed sand,<br/> +Or dimple in the dark of rushy coves,<br/> +Drawing into his narrow earthen urn,<br/> +In every elbow and turn,<br/> +The filter’d tribute of the rough woodland.<br/> +O! hither lead thy feet!<br/> +Pour round mine ears the livelong bleat<br/> +Of the thick-fleeced sheep from wattled folds,<br/> +Upon the ridged wolds,<br/> +When the first matin-song hath waken’d<a href="#linknote-68" name="linknoteref-68" id="linknoteref-68"><sup>[6]</sup></a> loud<br/> +Over the dark dewy earth forlorn,<br/> +What time the amber morn<br/> +Forth gushes from beneath a low-hung cloud.<br/> +</p> + +<p class="left"> +5 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Large dowries doth the raptured eye<br/> +To the young spirit present<br/> +When first she is wed;<br/> +And like a bride of old<br/> +In triumph led,<br/> +With music and sweet showers<br/> +Of festal flowers,<br/> +Unto the dwelling she must sway.<br/> +Well hast thou done, great artist Memory,<br/> +In setting round thy first experiment<br/> +With royal frame-work of wrought gold;<br/> +Needs must thou dearly love thy first essay,<br/> +And foremost in thy various gallery<br/> +Place it, where sweetest sunlight falls<br/> +Upon the storied walls;<br/> +For the discovery<br/> +And newness of thine art so pleased thee,<br/> +That all which thou hast drawn of fairest<br/> +Or boldest since, but lightly weighs<br/> +With thee unto the love thou bearest<br/> +The first-born of thy genius.<br/> +Artist-like,<br/> +Ever retiring thou dost gaze<br/> +On the prime labour of thine early days:<br/> +No matter what the sketch might be;<br/> +Whether the high field on the bushless Pike,<br/> +Or even a sand-built ridge<br/> +Of heaped hills that mound the sea,<br/> +Overblown with murmurs harsh,<br/> +Or even a lowly cottage<a href="#linknote-69" name="linknoteref-69" id="linknoteref-69"><sup>[7]</sup></a> whence we see<br/> +Stretch’d wide and wild the waste enormous marsh,<br/> +Where from the frequent bridge,<br/> +Like emblems of infinity,<a href="#linknote-70" name="linknoteref-70" id="linknoteref-70"><sup>[8]</sup></a><br/> +The trenched waters run from sky to sky;<br/> +Or a garden bower’d close<br/> +With plaited<a href="#linknote-71" name="linknoteref-71" id="linknoteref-71"><sup>[9]</sup></a> alleys of the trailing rose,<br/> +Long alleys falling down to twilight grots,<br/> +Or opening upon level plots<br/> +Of crowned lilies, standing near<br/> +Purple-spiked lavender:<br/> +Whither in after life retired<br/> +From brawling storms,<br/> +From weary wind,<br/> +With youthful fancy reinspired,<br/> +We may hold converse with all forms<br/> +Of the many-sided mind,<br/> +And those<a href="#linknote-72" name="linknoteref-72" id="linknoteref-72"><sup>[10]</sup></a> whom passion hath not blinded,<br/> +Subtle-thoughted, myriad-minded.<br/> +My friend, with you<a href="#linknote-73" name="linknoteref-73" id="linknoteref-73"><sup>[11]</sup></a> to live alone,<br/> +Were how much<a href="#linknote-74" name="linknoteref-74" id="linknoteref-74"><sup>[12]</sup></a> better than to own<br/> +A crown, a sceptre, and a throne!<br/> +O strengthen, enlighten me!<br/> +I faint in this obscurity,<br/> +Thou dewy dawn of memory. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-63" id="linknote-63"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-63">[1]</a> +1830. Cam’st. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-64" id="linknote-64"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-64">[2]</a> +1830. Kist. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-65" id="linknote-65"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-65">[3]</a> +Transferred from <i>Timbuctoo</i>.<br/> +<br/> + And these with lavish’d sense<br/> + Listenist the lordly music flowing from<br/> + The illimitable years. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-66" id="linknote-66"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-66">[4]</a> +The poplars have now disappeared but the seven elms are still to be seen in the +garden behind the house. See Napier, <i>The Laureate’s County</i>, pp. 22, +40-41. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-67" id="linknote-67"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-67">[5]</a> +This is the Somersby brook which so often reappears in Tennyson’s poetry, cf. +<i>Millers Daughter, A Farewell</i>, and <i>In Memoriam</i>, 1 xxix. and c. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-68" id="linknote-68"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-68">[6]</a> +1830. Waked. For the epithet “dew-impearled” <i>cf.</i> Drayton, <i>Ideas</i>, +sonnet liii., “amongst the dainty <i>dew-impearled flowers</i>,” where the +epithet is more appropriate and intelligible. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-69" id="linknote-69"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-69">[7]</a> +1830. The few. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-70" id="linknote-70"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-70">[8]</a> +1830 and 1842. Thee. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-71" id="linknote-71"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-71">[9]</a> +1830. Methinks were, so till 1850, when it was altered to the present reading. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-72" id="linknote-72"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-72">[10]</a> +The cottage at Maplethorpe where the Tennysons used to spend the summer +holidays. (See <i>Life</i>, i., 46.) +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-73" id="linknote-73"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-73">[11]</a> +1830. Emblems or Glimpses of Eternity. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-74" id="linknote-74"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-74">[12]</a> +1830. Pleached. The whole of this passage is an exact description of the +Parsonage garden at Somersby. See <i>Life</i>, i., 27. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap13"></a>Song</h3> + +<p class="center"> +First printed in 1830. +</p> + +<p> +The poem was written in the garden at the Old Rectory, Somersby; an autumn +scene there which it faithfully describes. This poem seems to have haunted Poe, +a fervent admirer of Tennyson’s early poems. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +1 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +A Spirit haunts the year’s last hours<br/> +Dwelling amid these yellowing bowers:<br/> +To himself he talks;<br/> +For at eventide, listening earnestly,<br/> +At his work you may hear him sob and sigh<br/> +In the walks;<br/> +Earthward he boweth the heavy stalks<br/> +Of the mouldering flowers:<br/> +Heavily hangs the broad sunflower<br/> +Over its grave i’ the earth so chilly;<br/> +Heavily hangs the hollyhock,<br/> +Heavily hangs the tiger-lily. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +2 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The air is damp, and hush’d, and close,<br/> +As a sick man’s room when he taketh repose<br/> +An hour before death;<br/> +My very heart faints and my whole soul grieves<br/> +At the moist rich smell of the rotting leaves,<br/> +And the breath<br/> +Of the fading edges of box beneath,<br/> +And the year’s last rose.<br/> +Heavily hangs the broad sunflower<br/> +Over its grave i’ the earth so chilly;<br/> +Heavily hangs the hollyhock,<br/> +Heavily hangs the tiger-lily. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap14"></a>Adeline</h3> + +<p class="center"> +First printed in 1830. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +1 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Mystery of mysteries,<br/> +Faintly smiling Adeline,<br/> +Scarce of earth nor all divine,<br/> +Nor unhappy, nor at rest,<br/> +But beyond expression fair<br/> +With thy floating flaxen hair;<br/> +Thy rose-lips and full blue eyes<br/> +Take the heart from out my breast.<br/> +Wherefore those dim looks of thine,<br/> +Shadowy, dreaming Adeline?<br/> +</p> + +<p class="left"> +2 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Whence that aery bloom of thine,<br/> +Like a lily which the sun<br/> +Looks thro’ in his sad decline,<br/> +And a rose-bush leans upon,<br/> +Thou that faintly smilest still,<br/> +As a Naïad in a well,<br/> +Looking at the set of day,<br/> +Or a phantom two hours old<br/> +Of a maiden passed away,<br/> +Ere the placid lips be cold?<br/> +Wherefore those faint smiles of thine,<br/> +Spiritual Adeline? +</p> + +<p class="left"> +3 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +What hope or fear or joy is thine?<br/> +Who talketh with thee, Adeline?<br/> +For sure thou art not all alone:<br/> +Do beating hearts of salient springs<br/> +Keep measure with thine own?<br/> +Hast thou heard the butterflies<br/> +What they say betwixt their wings?<br/> +Or in stillest evenings<br/> +With what voice the violet woos<br/> +To his heart the silver dews?<br/> +Or when little airs arise,<br/> +How the merry bluebell rings<a href="#linknote-75" name="linknoteref-75" id="linknoteref-75"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/> +To the mosses underneath?<br/> +Hast thou look’d upon the breath<br/> +Of the lilies at sunrise?<br/> +Wherefore that faint smile of thine,<br/> +Shadowy, dreaming Adeline? +</p> + +<p class="left"> +4 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Some honey-converse feeds thy mind,<br/> +Some spirit of a crimson rose<br/> +In love with thee forgets to close<br/> +His curtains, wasting odorous sighs<br/> +All night long on darkness blind.<br/> +What aileth thee? whom waitest thou<br/> +With thy soften’d, shadow’d brow,<br/> +And those dew-lit eyes of thine,<a href="#linknote-76" name="linknoteref-76" id="linknoteref-76"><sup>[2]</sup></a><br/> +Thou faint smiler, Adeline?<br/> +</p> + +<p class="left"> +5 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Lovest thou the doleful wind<br/> +When thou gazest at the skies?<br/> +Doth the low-tongued Orient<a href="#linknote-77" name="linknoteref-77" id="linknoteref-77"><sup>[3]</sup></a><br/> +Wander from the side of<a href="#linknote-78" name="linknoteref-78" id="linknoteref-78"><sup>[4]</sup></a> the morn,<br/> +Dripping with Sabæan spice<br/> +On thy pillow, lowly bent<br/> +With melodious airs lovelorn,<br/> +Breathing Light against thy face,<br/> +While his locks a-dropping<a href="#linknote-79" name="linknoteref-79" id="linknoteref-79"><sup>[5]</sup></a> twined<br/> +Round thy neck in subtle ring<br/> +Make a <i>carcanet of rays</i>,<a href="#linknote-80" name="linknoteref-80" id="linknoteref-80"><sup>[6]</sup></a><br/> +And ye talk together still,<br/> +In the language wherewith Spring<br/> +Letters cowslips on the hill?<br/> +Hence that look and smile of thine,<br/> +Spiritual Adeline. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-75" id="linknote-75"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-75">[1]</a> +This conceit seems to have been borrowed from Shelley, <i>Sensitive Plant</i>, +i.:—<br/> +<br/> + And the hyacinth, purple and white and blue,<br/> + Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew<br/> + Of music. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-76" id="linknote-76"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-76">[2]</a> +<i>Cf.</i> Collins, <i>Ode to Pity</i>, “and <i>eyes of dewy light</i>”. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-77" id="linknote-77"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-77">[3]</a> +What “the low-tongued Orient” may mean I cannot explain. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-78" id="linknote-78"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-78">[4]</a> +1830 and all editions till 1853. O’. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-79" id="linknote-79"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-79">[5]</a> +1863. A-drooping. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-80" id="linknote-80"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-80">[6]</a> +A carcanet is a necklace, diminutive from old French “Carcan”. Cf. <i>Comedy of +Errors</i>, in., i, “To see the making of her Carcanet”. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap15"></a>A Character</h3> + +<p class="center"> +First printed in 1830. +</p> + +<p> +The only authoritative light thrown on the person here described +is what the present Lord Tennyson gives, who tells us that “the +then well-known Cambridge orator S—was partly described”. +He was “a very plausible, parliament-like, self-satisfied speaker +at the Union Debating Society”. The character reminds us of +Wordsworth’s Moralist. See <i>Poet’s Epitaph</i>;—<br/> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +One to whose smooth-rubbed soul can cling,<br/> + Nor form nor feeling, great nor small;<br/> +A reasoning, self-sufficient thing,<br/> + An intellectual all in all.<br/> +</p> + +<p> +Shakespeare’s fop, too (Hotspur’s speech, <i>Henry IV.</i>, i., +i., 2), seems to have suggested a touch or two.<br/> +<br/> +With a half-glance upon the sky<br/> +At night he said, “The wanderings<br/> +Of this most intricate Universe<br/> +Teach me the nothingness of things”.<br/> +Yet could not all creation pierce<br/> +Beyond the bottom of his eye.<br/> +<br/> +He spake of beauty: that the dull<br/> +Saw no divinity in grass,<br/> +Life in dead stones, or spirit in air;<br/> +Then looking as ’twere in a glass,<br/> +He smooth’d his chin and sleek’d his hair,<br/> +And said the earth was beautiful.<br/> +<br/> +He spake of virtue: not the gods<br/> +More purely, when they wish to charm<br/> +Pallas and Juno sitting by:<br/> +And with a sweeping of the arm,<br/> +And a lack-lustre dead-blue eye,<br/> +Devolved his rounded periods.<br/> +<br/> +Most delicately hour by hour<br/> +He canvass’d human mysteries,<br/> +And trod on silk, as if the winds<br/> +Blew his own praises in his eyes,<br/> +And stood aloof from other minds<br/> +In impotence of fancied power.<br/> +<br/> +With lips depress’d as he were meek,<br/> +Himself unto himself he sold:<br/> +Upon himself himself did feed:<br/> +Quiet, dispassionate, and cold,<br/> +And other than his form of creed,<br/> +With chisell’d features clear and sleek. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap16"></a>The Poet</h3> + +<p class="center"> +First printed in 1830. +</p> + +<p> +In this poem we have the first grand note struck by Tennyson, the first poem +exhibiting the +σπουδαιότης of the true +poet.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The poet in a golden clime was born,<br/> +With golden stars above;<br/> +Dower’d with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn,<a href="#linknote-81" name="linknoteref-81" id="linknoteref-81"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/> +The love of love.<br/> +<br/> +He saw thro’<a href="#linknote-82" name="linknoteref-82" id="linknoteref-82"><sup>[2]</sup></a> life and death, thro’<a href="#linknote-83" name="linknoteref-83" id="linknoteref-83"><sup>[3]</sup></a> good and ill,<br/> +He saw thro’<a href="#linknote-84" name="linknoteref-84" id="linknoteref-84"><sup>[4]</sup></a> his own soul.<br/> +The marvel of the everlasting will,<br/> +An open scroll,<br/> +<br/> +Before him lay: with echoing feet he threaded<br/> +The secretest walks of fame:<br/> +The viewless arrows of his thoughts were headed<br/> +And wing’d with flame,—<br/> +<br/> +Like Indian reeds blown from his silver tongue,<br/> +And of so fierce a flight,<br/> +From Calpe unto Caucasus they sung,<br/> +Filling with light<br/> +<br/> +And vagrant melodies the winds which bore<br/> +Them earthward till they lit;<br/> +Then, like the arrow-seeds of the field flower,<br/> +The fruitful wit<br/> +<br/> +Cleaving, took root, and springing forth anew<br/> +Where’er they fell, behold,<br/> +Like to the mother plant in semblance, grew<br/> +A flower all gold,<br/> +<br/> +And bravely furnish’d all abroad to fling<br/> +The winged shafts of truth,<br/> +To throng with stately blooms the breathing spring<br/> +Of Hope and Youth.<br/> +<br/> +So many minds did gird their orbs with beams,<br/> +Tho’<a href="#linknote-85" name="linknoteref-85" id="linknoteref-85"><sup>[5]</sup></a> one did fling the fire.<br/> +Heaven flow’d upon the soul in many dreams<br/> +Of high desire.<br/> +<br/> +Thus truth was multiplied on truth, the +world<br/> +Like one<a href="#linknote-86" name="linknoteref-86" id="linknoteref-86"><sup>[6]</sup></a> great garden show’d,<br/> +And thro’ the wreaths of floating dark upcurl’d,<br/> +Rare sunrise flow’d.<br/> +<br/> +And Freedom rear’d in that august sunrise<br/> +Her beautiful bold brow,<br/> +When rites and forms before his burning eyes<br/> +Melted like snow.<br/> +<br/> +There was no blood upon her maiden robes<br/> +Sunn’d by those orient skies;<br/> +But round about the circles of the globes<br/> +Of her keen eyes<br/> +<br/> +And in her raiment’s hem was traced in flame<br/> +W<small>ISDOM</small>, a name to shake<br/> +All evil dreams of power—a sacred name.<a href="#linknote-87" name="linknoteref-87" id="linknoteref-87"><sup>[7]</sup></a><br/> +And when she spake,<br/> +<br/> +Her words did gather thunder as they ran,<br/> +And as the lightning to the thunder<br/> +Which follows it, riving the spirit of man,<br/> +Making earth wonder,<br/> +<br/> +So was their meaning to her words.<br/> +No sword<br/> +Of wrath her right arm whirl’d,<a href="#linknote-88" name="linknoteref-88" id="linknoteref-88"><sup>[8]</sup></a><br/> +But one poor poet’s scroll, and with <i>his</i> word<br/> +She shook the world. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-81" id="linknote-81"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-81">[1]</a> +The expression, as is not uncommon with Tennyson, is extremely ambiguous; it +may mean that he hated hatred, scorned scorn, and loved love, or that he had +hatred, scorn and love as it were in quintessence, like Dante, and that is no +doubt the meaning +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-82" id="linknote-82"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-82">[2]</a> +1830. Through. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-83" id="linknote-83"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-83">[3]</a> +1830. Through. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-84" id="linknote-84"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-84">[4]</a> +1830. Through. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-85" id="linknote-85"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-85">[5]</a> +1830 till 1851. Though. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-86" id="linknote-86"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-86">[6]</a> +1830. A. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-87" id="linknote-87"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-87">[7]</a> +1830.<br/> +<br/> +And in the bordure of her robe was writ<br/> + Wisdom, a name to shake<br/> +Hoar anarchies, as with a thunderfit. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-88" id="linknote-88"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-88">[8]</a> +1830. Hurled. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap17"></a>The Poet’s Mind</h3> + +<p class="center"> +First published in 1830.<br/> +A companion poem to the preceding. +</p> + +<p> +After line 7 in 1830 appears this stanza, afterwards omitted:—<br/> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Clear as summer mountain streams,<br/> +Bright as the inwoven beams,<br/> +Which beneath their crisping sapphire<br/> +In the midday, floating o’er<br/> +The golden sands, make evermore<br/> +To a blossom-starrèd shore.<br/> +Hence away, unhallowed laughter! +</p> + +<p class="left"> +1 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Vex not thou the poet’s mind<br/> +With thy shallow wit:<br/> +Vex not thou the poet’s mind;<br/> +For thou canst not fathom it.<br/> +Clear and bright it should be ever,<br/> +Flowing like a crystal river;<br/> +Bright as light, and clear as wind.<br/> +</p> + +<p class="left"> +2 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Dark-brow’d sophist, come not anear;<br/> +All the place<a href="#linknote-89" name="linknoteref-89" id="linknoteref-89"><sup>[1]</sup></a> is holy ground;<br/> +Hollow smile and frozen sneer<br/> +Come not here.<br/> +Holy water will I pour<br/> +Into every spicy flower<br/> +Of the laurel-shrubs that hedge it around.<br/> +The flowers would faint at your cruel cheer.<br/> +In your eye there is death,<br/> +There is frost in your breath<br/> +Which would blight the plants.<br/> +Where you stand you cannot hear<br/> +From the groves within<br/> +The wild-bird’s din.<br/> +In the heart of the garden the merry bird chants,<br/> +It would fall to the ground if you came in.<br/> +In the middle leaps a fountain<br/> +Like sheet lightning,<br/> +Ever brightening<br/> +With a low melodious thunder;<br/> +All day and all night it is ever drawn<br/> +From the brain of the purple mountain<br/> +Which stands in the distance yonder:<br/> +It springs on a level of bowery lawn,<br/> +And the mountain draws it from Heaven above,<br/> +And it sings a song of undying love;<br/> +And yet, tho’<a href="#linknote-90" name="linknoteref-90" id="linknoteref-90"><sup>[2]</sup></a> its voice be so clear and full,<br/> +You never would hear it; your ears are so dull;<br/> +So keep where you are: you are foul with sin;<br/> +It would shrink to the earth if you came in. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-89" id="linknote-89"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-89">[1]</a> +1830. The poet’s mind. With this may be compared the opening stanza of +Gray’s <i>Installation Ode</i>: “Hence! avaunt! ’tis holy +ground,” and for the sentiments <i>cf</i>. Wordsworth’s +<i>Poet’s Epitaph.</i> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-90" id="linknote-90"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-90">[2]</a> +1830 to 1851. Though. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap18"></a>The Sea Fairies</h3> + +<p> +First published in 1830 but excluded from all editions till its +restoration, when it was greatly altered, in 1853. I here give +the text as it appeared in 1830; where the present text is the +same as that of 1830 asterisks indicate it. +</p> + +<p> +This poem is a sort of prelude to the <i>Lotos-Eaters</i>, the +burthen being the same, a siren song: “Why work, why toil, when +all must be over so soon, and when at best there is so little to +reward?” +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Slow sailed the weary mariners, and saw<br/> +Between the green brink and the running foam<br/> +White limbs unrobed in a chrystal air,<br/> +Sweet faces, etc.<br/> +...<br/> +middle sea.<br/> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +SONG +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Whither away, whither away, whither away?<br/> +Fly no more!<br/> +Whither away wi’ the singing sail? whither away wi’ the oar?<br/> +Whither away from the high green field and the happy blossoming +shore?<br/> +Weary mariners, hither away,<br/> +One and all, one and all,<br/> +Weary mariners, come and play;<br/> +We will sing to you all the day;<br/> +Furl the sail and the foam will fall<br/> +From the prow! one and all<br/> +Furl the sail! drop the oar!<br/> +Leap ashore!<br/> +Know danger and trouble and toil no more.<br/> +Whither away wi’ the sail and the oar?<br/> +Drop the oar,<br/> +Leap ashore,<br/> +Fly no more!<br/> +Whither away wi’ the sail? whither away wi’ the oar?<br/> +Day and night to the billow, etc.<br/> +...<br/> +over the lea;<br/> +They freshen the silvery-crimson shells,<br/> +And thick with white bells the cloverhill swells<br/> +High over the full-toned sea.<br/> +Merrily carol the revelling gales<br/> +Over the islands free:<br/> +From the green seabanks the rose downtrails<br/> +To the happy brimmèd sea.<br/> +Come hither, come hither, and be our lords,<br/> +For merry brides are we:<br/> +We will kiss sweet kisses, etc.<br/> +...<br/> +With pleasure and love and revelry;<br/> +...<br/> +ridgèd sea.<br/> +Ye will not find so happy a shore<br/> +Weary mariners! all the world o’er;<br/> +Oh! fly no more!<br/> +Harken ye, harken ye, sorrow shall darken ye,<br/> +Danger and trouble and toil no more;<br/> +Whither away?<br/> +Drop the oar;<br/> +Hither away,<br/> +Leap ashore;<br/> +Oh! fly no more—no more.<br/> +Whither away, whither away, whither away with the sail and the +oar?<br/> +<br/> +Slow sail’d the weary mariners and saw,<br/> +Betwixt the green brink and the running foam,<br/> +Sweet faces, rounded arms, and bosoms prest<br/> +To little harps of gold; and while they mused,<br/> +Whispering to each other half in fear,<br/> +Shrill music reach’d them on the middle sea.<br/> +<br/> +Whither away, whither away, whither away? fly no more.<br/> +Whither away from the high green field, and the happy blossoming +shore?<br/> +Day and night to the billow the fountain calls;<br/> +Down shower the gambolling waterfalls<br/> +From wandering over the lea:<br/> +Out of the live-green heart of the dells<br/> +They freshen the silvery-crimsoned shells,<br/> +And thick with white bells the clover-hill swells<br/> +High over the full-toned sea:<br/> +O hither, come hither and furl your sails,<br/> +Come hither to me and to me:<br/> +Hither, come hither and frolic and play;<br/> +Here it is only the mew that wails;<br/> +We will sing to you all the day:<br/> +Mariner, mariner, furl your sails,<br/> +For here are the blissful downs and dales,<br/> +And merrily merrily carol the gales,<br/> +And the spangle dances in bight<a href="#linknote-91" name="linknoteref-91" id="linknoteref-91"><sup>[1]</sup></a> and bay,<br/> +And the rainbow forms and flies on the land<br/> +Over the islands free;<br/> +And the rainbow lives in the curve of the sand;<br/> +Hither, come hither and see;<br/> +And the rainbow hangs on the poising wave,<br/> +And sweet is the colour of cove and cave,<br/> +<br/> +And sweet shall your welcome be:<br/> +O hither, come hither, and be our lords<br/> +For merry brides are we:<br/> +We will kiss sweet kisses, and speak sweet words:<br/> +O listen, listen, your eyes shall glisten<br/> +With pleasure and love and jubilee:<br/> +O listen, listen, your eyes shall glisten<br/> +When the sharp clear twang of the golden cords<br/> +Runs up the ridged sea.<br/> +Who can light on as happy a shore<br/> +All the world o’er, all the world o’er?<br/> +Whither away? listen and stay: mariner, mariner, fly no more. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-91" id="linknote-91"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-91">[1]</a> +Bight is properly the coil of a rope; it then came to mean a bend, and so a +corner or bay. The same phrase occurs in the <i>Voyage of Maledune</i>, v.: +“and flung them in bight and bay”. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap19"></a>The Deserted House</h3> + +<p> +First printed in 1830, omitted in all the editions till 1848 when it was +restored. The poem is of course allegorical, and is very much in the vein of +many poems in Anglo-Saxon poetry. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +1 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Life and Thought have gone away<br/> +Side by side,<br/> +Leaving door and windows wide:<br/> +</p> + +<p class="left"> +2 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +All within is dark as night:<br/> +In the windows is no light;<br/> +And no murmur at the door,<br/> +So frequent on its hinge before. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +3 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Close the door, the shutters close,<br/> +Or thro’<a href="#linknote-92" name="linknoteref-92" id="linknoteref-92"><sup>[1]</sup></a> the windows we shall see<br/> +The nakedness and vacancy<br/> +Of the dark deserted house. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +4 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Come away: no more of mirth<br/> +Is here or merry-making sound.<br/> +The house was builded of the earth,<br/> +And shall fall again to ground. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +5 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Come away: for Life and Thought<br/> +Here no longer dwell;<br/> +But in a city glorious—<br/> +A great and distant city—have bought<br/> +A mansion incorruptible.<br/> +Would they could have stayed with us! +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-92" id="linknote-92"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-92">[1]</a> +1848 and 1851. Through. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap20"></a>The Dying Swan</h3> + +<p class="center"> +First printed in 1830. +</p> + +<p> +The superstition here assumed is so familiar from the Classics as well as from +modern tradition that it scarcely needs illustration or commentary. But see +Plato, <i>Phaedrus</i>, xxxi., and Shakespeare, <i>King John</i>, v., 7. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +1 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The plain was grassy, wild and bare,<br/> +Wide, wild, and open to the air,<br/> +Which had built up everywhere<br/> +An under-roof of doleful gray.<a href="#linknote-93" name="linknoteref-93" id="linknoteref-93"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/> +With an inner voice the river ran,<br/> +Adown it floated a dying swan,<br/> +And<a href="#linknote-94" name="linknoteref-94" id="linknoteref-94"><sup>[2]</sup></a> loudly did lament.<br/> +It was the middle of the day.<br/> +Ever the weary wind went on,<br/> +And took the reed-tops as it went. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +2 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Some blue peaks in the distance rose,<br/> +And white against the cold-white sky,<br/> +Shone out their crowning snows.<br/> +One willow over the water<a href="#linknote-95" name="linknoteref-95" id="linknoteref-95"><sup>[3]</sup></a> wept,<br/> +And shook the wave as the wind did sigh;<br/> +Above in the wind was<a href="#linknote-96" name="linknoteref-96" id="linknoteref-96"><sup>[4]</sup></a> the swallow,<br/> +Chasing itself at its own wild will,<br/> +And far thro’<a href="#linknote-97" name="linknoteref-97" id="linknoteref-97"><sup>[5]</sup></a> the marish green and still<br/> +The tangled water-courses slept,<br/> +Shot over with purple, and green, and yellow. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +3 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The wild swan’s death-hymn took the soul<br/> +Of that waste place with joy<br/> +Hidden in sorrow: at first to the ear<br/> +The warble was low, and full and clear;<br/> +And floating about the under-sky,<br/> +Prevailing in weakness, the coronach<a href="#linknote-98" name="linknoteref-98" id="linknoteref-98"><sup>[6]</sup></a> stole<br/> +Sometimes afar, and sometimes anear;<br/> +But anon her awful jubilant voice,<br/> +With a music strange and manifold,<br/> +Flow’d forth on a carol free and bold;<br/> +As when a mighty people rejoice<br/> +With shawms, and with cymbals, and harps of gold,<br/> +And the tumult of their acclaim is roll’d<br/> +Thro’<a href="#linknote-99" name="linknoteref-99" id="linknoteref-99"><sup>[7]</sup></a> the open gates of the city afar,<br/> +To the shepherd who watcheth the evening star.<br/> +And the creeping mosses and clambering weeds,<br/> +And the willow-branches hoar and dank,<br/> +And the wavy swell of the soughing reeds,<br/> +And the wave-worn horns of the echoing bank,<br/> +And the silvery marish-flowers that throng<br/> +The desolate creeks and pools among,<br/> +Were flooded over with eddying song. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-93" id="linknote-93"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-93">[1]</a> +1830. Grey. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-94" id="linknote-94"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-94">[2]</a> +1830 till 1848. Which. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-95" id="linknote-95"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-95">[3]</a> +1863. River. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-96" id="linknote-96"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-96">[4]</a> +1830. Sung. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-97" id="linknote-97"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-97">[5]</a> +1830. Through. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-98" id="linknote-98"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-98">[6]</a> +A coronach is a funeral song or lamentation, from the Gaelic <i>Corranach</i>. +<i>Cf</i>. Scott’s <i>Waverley</i>, ch. xv., “Their wives and +daughters came clapping their hands and <i>crying the coronach</i> and +shrieking”. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-99" id="linknote-99"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-99">[7]</a> +1830 till 1851. Through. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap21"></a>A Dirge</h3> + +<p class="center"> +First printed in 1830. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +1 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Now is done thy long day’s work;<br/> +Fold thy palms across thy breast,<br/> +Fold thine arms, turn to thy rest.<br/> +Let them rave.<br/> +Shadows of the silver birk<a href="#linknote-100" name="linknoteref-100" id="linknoteref-100"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/> +Sweep the green that folds thy grave.<br/> +Let them rave. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +2 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Thee nor carketh<a href="#linknote-101" name="linknoteref-101" id="linknoteref-101"><sup>[2]</sup></a> care nor slander;<br/> +Nothing but the small cold worm<br/> +Fretteth thine enshrouded form.<br/> +Let them rave.<br/> +Light and shadow ever wander<br/> +O’er the green that folds thy grave.<br/> +Let them rave. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +3 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Thou wilt not turn upon thy bed;<br/> +Chaunteth not the brooding bee<br/> +Sweeter tones than calumny?<br/> +Let them rave.<br/> +Thou wilt never raise thine head<br/> +From the green that folds thy grave.<br/> +Let them rave. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +4 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Crocodiles wept tears for thee;<br/> +The woodbine and eglatere<br/> +Drip sweeter dews than traitor’s tear.<br/> +Let them rave.<br/> +Rain makes music in the tree<br/> +O’er the green that folds thy grave.<br/> +Let them rave. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +5 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Round thee blow, self-pleached<a href="#linknote-102" name="linknoteref-102" id="linknoteref-102"><sup>[3]</sup></a> deep,<br/> +Bramble-roses, faint and pale,<br/> +And long purples<a href="#linknote-103" name="linknoteref-103" id="linknoteref-103"><sup>[4]</sup></a> of the dale.<br/> +Let them rave.<br/> +These in every shower creep.<br/> +Thro’<a href="#linknote-104" name="linknoteref-104" id="linknoteref-104"><sup>[5]</sup></a> the green that folds thy grave.<br/> +Let them rave. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +6 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The gold-eyed kingcups fine:<br/> +The frail bluebell peereth over<br/> +Rare broidry of the purple clover.<br/> +Let them rave.<br/> +Kings have no such couch as thine,<br/> +As the green that folds thy grave.<br/> +Let them rave. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +7 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Wild words wander here and there;<br/> +God’s great gift of speech abused<br/> +Makes thy memory confused:<br/> +But let them rave.<br/> +The balm-cricket<a href="#linknote-105" name="linknoteref-105" id="linknoteref-105"><sup>[6]</sup></a> carols clear<br/> +In the green that folds thy grave.<br/> +Let them rave. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-100" id="linknote-100"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-100">[1]</a> +Still used in the north of England for “birch”. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-101" id="linknote-101"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-101">[2]</a> +Carketh. Here used transitively, “troubles,” though in Old English +it is generally intransitive, meaning to be careful or thoughtful; it is from +the Anglo-Saxon <i>Carian</i>; it became obsolete in the seventeenth century. +The substantive cark, trouble or anxiety, is generally in Old English coupled +with “care”. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-102" id="linknote-102"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-102">[3]</a> +Self-pleached, self-entangled or intertwined. <i>Cf</i>. Shakespeare, +“pleached bower,” <i>Much Ado</i>, iii., i., 7. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-103" id="linknote-103"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-103">[4]</a> +1830. “<i>Long purples</i>,” thus marking that the phrase is +borrowed from Shakespeare, <i>Hamlet</i>, iv., vii., 169:—<br/> +<br/> +and <i>long purples</i><br/> +That liberal shepherds give a grosser name.<br/> +It is the purple-flowered orchis, <i>orchis mascula</i>. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-104" id="linknote-104"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-104">[5]</a> +1830. Through. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-105" id="linknote-105"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-105">[6]</a> +Balm cricket, the tree cricket; <i>balm</i> is a corruption of <i>baum</i>. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap22"></a>Love and Death</h3> + +<p class="center"> +First printed in 1830. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +What time the mighty moon was gathering light<a href="#linknote-106" name="linknoteref-106" id="linknoteref-106"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/> +Love paced the thymy plots of Paradise,<br/> +And all about him roll’d his lustrous eyes;<br/> +When, turning round a cassia, full in view<br/> +Death, walking all alone beneath a yew,<br/> +And talking to himself, first met his sight:<br/> +“You must begone,” said Death, “these walks are mine”.<br/> +Love wept and spread his sheeny vans<a href="#linknote-107" name="linknoteref-107" id="linknoteref-107"><sup>[2]</sup></a> for flight;<br/> +Yet ere he parted said, “This hour is thine;<br/> +Thou art the shadow of life, and as the tree<br/> +Stands in the sun and shadows all beneath,<br/> +So in the light of great eternity<br/> +Life eminent creates the shade of death;<br/> +The shadow passeth when the tree shall fall,<br/> +But I shall reign for ever over all”.<a href="#linknote-108" name="linknoteref-108" id="linknoteref-108"><sup>[3]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-106" id="linknote-106"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-106">[1]</a> +The expression is Virgil’s, <i>Georg</i>., i., 427: “Luna +revertentes cum primum <i>colligit ignes</i>”. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-107" id="linknote-107"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-107">[2]</a> +Vans used also for “wings” by Milton, <i>Paradise Lost</i>, ii., +927-8:— +<br/> + His sail-broad <i>vans</i><br/> + He spreads for flight.<br/> +<br/> +So also Tasso, <i>Ger. Lib</i>., ix., 60: “Indi spiega al gran volo i +<i>vanni</i> aurati”. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-108" id="linknote-108"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-108">[3]</a> +<i>Cf. Lockley Hall Sixty Years After</i>: “Love will conquer at the +last”. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap23"></a>The Ballad of Oriana</h3> + +<p class="center"> +First published in 1830, not in 1833. +</p> + +<p> +This fine ballad was evidently suggested by the old ballad of Helen of +Kirkconnel, both poems being based on a similar incident, and both being the +passionate soliloquy of the bereaved lover, though Tennyson’s treatment +of the subject is his own. Helen of Kirkconnel was one of the poems which he +was fond of reciting, and Fitzgerald says that he used also to recite this +poem, in a way not to be forgotten, at Cambridge tables. <i>Life</i>, i., p. +77.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +My heart is wasted with my woe, Oriana.<br/> +There is no rest for me below, Oriana.<br/> +When the long dun wolds are ribb’d with snow,<br/> +And loud the Norland whirlwinds blow, Oriana,<br/> +Alone I wander to and fro, Oriana.<br/> +<br/> +Ere the light on dark was growing, Oriana,<br/> +At midnight the cock was crowing, Oriana:<br/> +Winds were blowing, waters flowing,<br/> +We heard the steeds to battle going, Oriana;<br/> +Aloud the hollow bugle blowing, Oriana.<br/> +<br/> +In the yew-wood black as night, Oriana,<br/> +Ere I rode into the fight, Oriana,<br/> +While blissful tears blinded my sight<br/> +By star-shine and by moonlight, Oriana,<br/> +I to thee my troth did plight, Oriana.<br/> +<br/> +She stood upon the castle wall, Oriana:<br/> +She watch’d my crest among them all, Oriana:<br/> +She saw me fight, she heard me call,<br/> +When forth there stept a foeman tall, Oriana,<br/> +Atween me and the castle wall, Oriana.<br/> +<br/> +The bitter arrow went aside, Oriana:<br/> +The false, false arrow went aside, Oriana:<br/> +The damned arrow glanced aside,<br/> +And pierced thy heart, my love, my bride, Oriana!<br/> +Thy heart, my life, my love, my bride, Oriana!<br/> +<br/> +Oh! narrow, narrow was the space, Oriana.<br/> +Loud, loud rung out the bugle’s brays, Oriana.<br/> +Oh! deathful stabs were dealt apace,<br/> +The battle deepen’d in its place, Oriana;<br/> +But I was down upon my face, Oriana.<br/> +<br/> +They should have stabb’d me where I lay, Oriana!<br/> +How could I rise and come away, Oriana?<br/> +How could I look upon the day?<br/> +They should have stabb’d me where I lay, Oriana<br/> +They should have trod me into clay, Oriana.<br/> +<br/> +O breaking heart that will not break, Oriana!<br/> +O pale, pale face so sweet and meek, Oriana!<br/> +Thou smilest, but thou dost not speak,<br/> +And then the tears run down my cheek, Oriana:<br/> +What wantest thou? whom dost thou seek, Oriana?<br/> +<br/> +I cry aloud: none hear my cries, Oriana.<br/> +Thou comest atween me and the skies, Oriana.<br/> +I feel the tears of blood arise<br/> +Up from my heart unto my eyes, Oriana.<br/> +Within my heart my arrow lies, Oriana.<br/> +<br/> +O cursed hand! O cursed blow! Oriana!<br/> +O happy thou that liest low, Oriana!<br/> +All night the silence seems to flow<br/> +Beside me in my utter woe, Oriana.<br/> +A weary, weary way I go, Oriana.<br/> +<br/> +When Norland winds pipe down the sea, Oriana,<br/> +I walk, I dare not think of thee, Oriana.<br/> +Thou liest beneath the greenwood tree,<br/> +I dare not die and come to thee, Oriana.<br/> +I hear the roaring of the sea, Oriana. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap24"></a>Circumstance</h3> + +<p class="center"> +First published in 1830. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Two children in two neighbour villages<br/> +Playing mad pranks along the healthy leas;<br/> +Two strangers meeting at a festival;<br/> +Two lovers whispering by an orchard wall;<br/> +Two lives bound fast in one with golden ease;<br/> +Two graves grass-green beside a gray church-tower,<br/> +Wash’d with still rains and daisy-blossomed;<br/> +Two children in one hamlet born and bred;<br/> +So runs<a href="#linknote-109" name="linknoteref-109" id="linknoteref-109"><sup>[1]</sup></a> the round of life from hour to hour. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-109" id="linknote-109"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-109">[1]</a> +1830. Fill up. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap25"></a>The Merman</h3> + +<p class="center"> +First printed in 1830. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +1 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Who would be<br/> +A merman bold,<br/> +Sitting alone,<br/> +Singing alone<br/> +Under the sea,<br/> +With a crown of gold,<br/> +On a throne? +</p> + +<p class="left"> +2 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +I would be a merman bold;<br/> +I would sit and sing the whole of the day;<br/> +I would fill the sea-halls with a voice of power;<br/> +But at night I would roam abroad and play<br/> +With the mermaids in and out of the rocks,<br/> +Dressing their hair with the white sea-flower;<br/> +And holding them back by their flowing locks<br/> +I would kiss them often under the sea,<br/> +And kiss them again till they kiss’d me<br/> +Laughingly, laughingly;<br/> +And then we would wander away, away<br/> +To the pale-green sea-groves straight and high,<br/> +Chasing each other merrily. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +3 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +There would be neither moon nor star;<br/> +But the wave would make music above us afar—<br/> +Low thunder and light in the magic night—<br/> +Neither moon nor star.<br/> +We would call aloud in the dreamy dells,<br/> +Call to each other and whoop and cry<br/> +All night, merrily, merrily;<br/> +They would pelt me with starry spangles and shells,<br/> +Laughing and clapping their hands between,<br/> +All night, merrily, merrily:<br/> +But I would throw to them back in mine<br/> +Turkis and agate and almondine:<a href="#linknote-110" name="linknoteref-110" id="linknoteref-110"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/> +Then leaping out upon them unseen<br/> +I would kiss them often under the sea,<br/> +And kiss them again till they kiss’d me<br/> +Laughingly, laughingly.<br/> +Oh! what a happy life were mine<br/> +Under the hollow-hung ocean green!<br/> +Soft are the moss-beds under the sea;<br/> +We would live merrily, merrily. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-110" id="linknote-110"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-110">[1]</a> +Almondine. This should be “almandine,” the word probably being a +corruption of alabandina, a gem so called because found at Alabanda in Caria; +it is a garnet of a violet or amethystine tint. <i>Cf.</i> Browning, <i>Fefine +at the Fair</i>, xv., “that string of mock-turquoise, these +<i>almandines</i> of glass”. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap26"></a>The Mermaid</h3> + +<p class="center"> +First printed in 1830. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +1 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Who would be<br/> +A mermaid fair,<br/> +Singing alone,<br/> +Combing her hair<br/> +Under the sea,<br/> +In a golden curl<br/> +With a comb of pearl,<br/> +On a throne? +</p> + +<p class="left"> +2 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +I would be a mermaid fair;<br/> +I would sing to myself the whole of the day;<br/> +With a comb of pearl I would comb my hair;<br/> +And still as I comb’d I would sing and say,<br/> +“Who is it loves me? who loves not me?”<br/> +I would comb my hair till my ringlets would fall,<br/> +Low adown, low adown,<br/> +From under my starry sea-bud crown<br/> +Low adown and around,<br/> +And I should look like a fountain of gold<br/> +Springing alone<br/> +With a shrill inner sound,<br/> +Over the throne<br/> +In the midst of the hall;<br/> +Till that<a href="#linknote-111" name="linknoteref-111" id="linknoteref-111"><sup>[1]</sup></a> great sea-snake under the sea<br/> +From his coiled sleeps in the central deeps<br/> +Would slowly trail himself sevenfold<br/> +Round the hall where I sate, and look in at the gate<br/> +With his large calm eyes for the love of me.<br/> +And all the mermen under the sea<br/> +Would feel their<a href="#linknote-112" name="linknoteref-112" id="linknoteref-112"><sup>[2]</sup></a> immortality<br/> +Die in their hearts for the love of me. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +3 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +But at night I would wander away, away,<br/> +I would fling on each side my low-flowing locks,<br/> +And lightly vault from the throne and play<br/> +With the mermen in and out of the rocks;<br/> +We would run to and fro, and hide and +seek,<br/> +On the broad sea-wolds in the<a href="#linknote-113" name="linknoteref-113" id="linknoteref-113"><sup>[3]</sup></a> crimson shells,<br/> +Whose silvery spikes are nighest the sea.<br/> +But if any came near I would call, and shriek,<br/> +And adown the steep like a wave I would leap<br/> +From the diamond-ledges that jut from the +dells;<br/> +For I would not be kiss’d<a href="#linknote-114" name="linknoteref-114" id="linknoteref-114"><sup>[4]</sup></a> by all who would list,<br/> +Of the bold merry mermen under the sea;<br/> +They would sue me, and woo me, and flatter me,<br/> +In the purple twilights under the sea;<br/> +But the king of them all would carry me,<br/> +Woo me, and win me, and marry me,<br/> +In the branching jaspers under the sea;<br/> +Then all the dry pied things that be<br/> +In the hueless mosses under the sea<br/> +Would curl round my silver feet silently,<br/> +All looking up for the love of me.<br/> +And if I should carol aloud, from aloft<br/> +All things that are forked, and horned, and soft<br/> +Would lean out from the hollow sphere of the sea,<br/> +All looking down for the love of me. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-111" id="linknote-111"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-111">[1]</a> +Till 1857. The. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-112" id="linknote-112"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-112">[2]</a> +Till 1857. The. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-113" id="linknote-113"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-113">[3]</a> +1830. ’I the. So till 1853. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-114" id="linknote-114"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-114">[4]</a> +1830 Kist. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap27"></a>Sonnet to J. M. K.</h3> + +<p class="center"> +First printed in 1830, not in 1833. +</p> + +<p> +This sonnet was addressed to John Mitchell Kemble, the well-known Editor of the +<i>Beowulf</i> and other Anglo-Saxon poems. He intended to go into the Church, +but was never ordained, and devoted his life to early English studies. See +memoir of him in <i>Dict, of Nat. Biography</i>.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +My hope and heart is with thee—thou wilt be<br/> +A latter Luther, and a soldier-priest<br/> +To scare church-harpies from the master’s feast;<br/> +Our dusted velvets have much need of thee:<br/> +Thou art no Sabbath-drawler of old saws,<br/> +Distill’d from some worm-canker’d homily;<br/> +But spurr’d at heart with fieriest energy<br/> +To embattail and to wall about thy cause<br/> +With iron-worded proof, hating to hark<br/> +The humming of the drowsy pulpit-drone<br/> +Half God’s good sabbath, while the worn-out clerk<br/> +Brow-beats his desk below. Thou from a throne<br/> +Mounted in heaven wilt shoot into the dark<br/> +Arrows of lightnings. I will stand and mark. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap28"></a>The Lady of Shalott</h3> + +<p class="center"> +First published in 1833. +</p> + +<p> +This poem was composed in its first form as early as May, 1832 or 1833, as we +learn from Fitzgerald’s note—of the exact year he was not certain +(<i>Life of Tennyson</i>, i., 147). The evolution of the poem is an interesting +study. How greatly it was altered in the second edition of 1842 will be evident +from the collation which follows. The text of 1842 became the permanent text, +and in this no subsequent material alterations were made. The poem is more +purely fanciful than Tennyson perhaps was willing to own; certainly his +explanation of the allegory, as he gave it to Canon Ainger, is not very +intelligible: “The new-born love for something, for some one in the wide +world from which she has been so long excluded, takes her out of the region of +shadows into that of realities”. Poe’s commentary is most to the +point: “Why do some persons fatigue themselves in endeavours to unravel +such phantasy pieces as the <i>Lady of Shallot</i>? As well unweave the ventum +textilem”.—<i>Democratic Review</i>, Dec., 1844, quoted by Mr. +Herne Shepherd. Mr. Palgrave says (selection from the <i>Lyric Poems of +Tennyson</i>, p. 257) the poem was suggested by an Italian romance upon the +Donna di Scalotta. On what authority this is said I do not know, nor can I +identify the novel. In Novella, lxxxi., a collection of novels printed at Milan +in 1804, there is one which tells but very briefly the story of Elaine’s +love and death, “Qui conta come la Damigella di scalot mori per amore di +Lancealotto di Lac,” and as in this novel Camelot is placed near the sea, +this may be the novel referred to. In any case the poem is a fanciful and +possibly an allegorical variant of the story of Elaine, Shalott being a form, +through the French, of Astolat.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="left"> +Part I +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +On either side the river lie<br/> +Long fields of barley and of rye,<br/> +That clothe the wold and meet the sky;<br/> +And thro’ the field the road runs by<br/> +To many-tower’d Camelot;<br/> +And up and down the people go,<br/> +Gazing where the lilies blow<br/> +Round an island there below,<br/> +The island of Shalott.<a href="#linknote-115" name="linknoteref-115" id="linknoteref-115"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +Willows whiten, aspens quiver,<a href="#linknote-116" name="linknoteref-116" id="linknoteref-116"><sup>[2]</sup></a><br/> +Little breezes dusk and shiver<br/> +Thro’ the wave that runs for ever<br/> +By the island in the river<br/> +Flowing down to Camelot.<br/> +Four gray walls, and four gray towers,<br/> +Overlook a space of flowers,<br/> +And the silent isle imbowers<br/> +The Lady of Shalott.<br/> +<br/> +By the margin, willow-veil’d<br/> +Slide the heavy barges trail’d<br/> +By slow horses; and unhail’d<br/> +The shallop flitteth silken-sail’d<br/> +Skimming down to Camelot:<br/> +But who hath seen her wave her hand?<br/> +Or at the casement seen her stand?<br/> +Or is she known in all the land,<br/> +The Lady of Shalott?<a href="#linknote-117" name="linknoteref-117" id="linknoteref-117"><sup>[3]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +Only reapers, reaping early<br/> +In among the bearded barley,<br/> +Hear a song that echoes cheerly<br/> +From the river winding clearly,<br/> +Down to tower’d Camelot:<br/> +And by the moon the reaper weary,<br/> +Piling sheaves in uplands airy,<br/> +Listening, whispers “’Tis the fairy<br/> +Lady of Shalott”.<a href="#linknote-118" name="linknoteref-118" id="linknoteref-118"><sup>[4]</sup></a><br/> +</p> + +<p class="left"> +Part II +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +There she weaves by night and day<br/> +A magic web with colours gay.<br/> +She has heard a whisper say,<br/> +A curse is on her if she stay<a href="#linknote-119" name="linknoteref-119" id="linknoteref-119"><sup>[5]</sup></a><br/> +To look down to Camelot.<br/> +She knows not what the <i>curse</i> may be,<br/> +And so<a href="#linknote-120" name="linknoteref-120" id="linknoteref-120"><sup>[6]</sup></a> she weaveth steadily,<br/> +And little other care hath she,<br/> +The Lady of Shalott.<br/> +<br/> +And moving thro’ a mirror clear<br/> +That hangs before her all the year,<br/> +Shadows of the world appear.<br/> +There she sees the highway near<br/> +Winding down to Camelot:<br/> +There the river eddy whirls,<br/> +And there the surly village-churls,<a href="#linknote-121" name="linknoteref-121" id="linknoteref-121"><sup>[7]</sup></a><br/> +And the red cloaks of market girls,<br/> +Pass onward from Shalott.<br/> +<br/> +Sometimes a troop of damsels glad,<br/> +An abbot on an ambling pad,<br/> +Sometimes a curly shepherd-lad,<br/> +Or long-hair’d page in crimson clad,<br/> +Goes by to tower’d Camelot;<br/> +And sometimes thro’ the mirror blue<br/> +The knights come riding two and two:<br/> +She hath no loyal knight and true,<br/> +The Lady of Shalott.<br/> +<br/> +But in her web she still delights<br/> +To weave the mirror’s magic sights,<br/> +For often thro’ the silent nights<br/> +A funeral, with plumes and lights,<br/> +And music, went to Camelot:<a href="#linknote-122" name="linknoteref-122" id="linknoteref-122"><sup>[8]</sup></a><br/> +Or when the moon was overhead,<br/> +Came two young lovers lately wed;<br/> +“I am half-sick of shadows,” said<br/> +The Lady of Shalott.<a href="#linknote-123" name="linknoteref-123" id="linknoteref-123"><sup>[9]</sup></a><br/> +</p> + +<p class="left"> +Part III +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +A bow-shot from her bower-eaves,<br/> +He rode between the barley sheaves,<br/> +The sun came dazzling thro’ the leaves,<br/> +And flamed upon the brazen greaves<br/> +Of bold Sir Lancelot.<br/> +A redcross knight for ever kneel’d<br/> +To a lady in his shield,<br/> +That sparkled on the yellow field,<br/> +Beside remote Shalott.<br/> +<br/> +The gemmy bridle glitter’d free,<br/> +Like to some branch of stars we see<br/> +Hung in the golden Galaxy.<a href="#linknote-124" name="linknoteref-124" id="linknoteref-124"><sup>[10]</sup></a><br/> +The bridle bells rang merrily<br/> +As he rode down to<a href="#linknote-125" name="linknoteref-125" id="linknoteref-125"><sup>[11]</sup></a> Camelot:<br/> +And from his blazon’d baldric slung<br/> +A mighty silver bugle hung,<br/> +And as he rode his armour rung,<br/> +Beside remote Shalott.<br/> +<br/> +All in the blue unclouded weather<br/> +Thick-jewell’d shone the saddle-leather,<br/> +The helmet and the helmet-feather<br/> +Burn’d like one burning flame together,<br/> +As he rode down to Camelot.<a href="#linknote-126" name="linknoteref-126" id="linknoteref-126"><sup>[12]</sup></a><br/> +As often thro’ the purple night,<br/> +Below the starry clusters bright,<br/> +Some bearded meteor, trailing light,<br/> +Moves over still Shalott.<a href="#linknote-127" name="linknoteref-127" id="linknoteref-127"><sup>[13]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +His broad clear brow in sunlight glow’d;<br/> +On burnish’d hooves his war-horse trode;<br/> +From underneath his helmet flow’d<br/> +His coal-black curls as on he rode,<br/> +As he rode down to Camelot.<a href="#linknote-128" name="linknoteref-128" id="linknoteref-128"><sup>[14]</sup></a><br/> +From the bank and from the river<br/> +He flashed into the crystal mirror,<br/> +“Tirra lirra,” by the river<a href="#linknote-129" name="linknoteref-129" id="linknoteref-129"><sup>[15]</sup></a><br/> +Sang Sir Lancelot.<br/> +<br/> +She left the web, she left the loom;<br/> +She made three paces thro’ the room,<br/> +She saw the water-lily<a href="#linknote-130" name="linknoteref-130" id="linknoteref-130"><sup>[16]</sup></a> bloom,<br/> +She saw the helmet and the plume,<br/> +She look’d down to Camelot.<br/> +Out flew the web and floated wide;<br/> +The mirror crack’d from side to side;<br/> +“The curse is come upon me,” cried<br/> +The Lady of Shalott. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +Part IV +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +In the stormy east-wind straining,<br/> +The pale yellow woods were waning,<br/> +The broad stream in his banks complaining,<br/> +Heavily the low sky raining<br/> +Over tower’d Camelot;<br/> +Down she came and found a boat<br/> +Beneath a willow left afloat,<br/> +And round about the prow she wrote<br/> +<i>The Lady of Shalott</i>.<a href="#linknote-131" name="linknoteref-131" id="linknoteref-131"><sup>[17]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +And down the river’s dim expanse—<br/> +Like some bold seër in a trance,<br/> +Seeing all his own mischance—<br/> +With a glassy countenance<br/> +Did she look to Camelot.<br/> +And at the closing of the day<br/> +She loosed the chain, and down she lay;<br/> +The broad stream bore her far away,<br/> +The Lady of Shalott.<br/> +<br/> +Lying, robed in snowy white<br/> +That loosely flew to left and right—<br/> +The leaves upon her falling light—<br/> +Thro’ the noises of the night<br/> +She floated down to Camelot;<br/> +And as the boat-head wound along<br/> +The willowy hills and fields among,<br/> +They heard her singing her last song,<br/> +The Lady of Shalott.<a href="#linknote-132" name="linknoteref-132" id="linknoteref-132"><sup>[18]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +Heard a carol, mournful, holy,<br/> +Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,<br/> +Till her blood was frozen slowly,<br/> +And her eyes were darken’d wholly,<a href="#linknote-133" name="linknoteref-133" id="linknoteref-133"><sup>[19]</sup></a><br/> +Turn’d to tower’d Camelot;<br/> +For ere she reach’d upon the tide<br/> +The first house by the water-side,<br/> +Singing in her song she died,<br/> +The Lady of Shalott.<br/> +<br/> +Under tower and balcony,<br/> +By garden-wall and gallery,<br/> +A gleaming shape she floated by,<br/> +Dead-pale<a href="#linknote-134" name="linknoteref-134" id="linknoteref-134"><sup>[20]</sup></a> between the houses high,<br/> +Silent into Camelot.<br/> +Out upon the wharfs they came,<br/> +Knight and burgher, lord and dame,<br/> +And round the prow they read her name,<br/> +<i>The Lady of Shalott</i><a href="#linknote-135" name="linknoteref-135" id="linknoteref-135"><sup>[21]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +Who is this? and what is here?<br/> +And in the lighted palace near<br/> +Died the sound of royal cheer;<br/> +And they cross’d themselves for fear,<br/> +All the knights at Camelot:<br/> +But Lancelot<a href="#linknote-136" name="linknoteref-136" id="linknoteref-136"><sup>[22]</sup></a> mused a little space;<br/> +He said, “She has a lovely face;<br/> +God in his mercy lend her grace,<br/> +The Lady of Shalott”.<a href="#linknote-137" name="linknoteref-137" id="linknoteref-137"><sup>[23]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-115" id="linknote-115"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-115">[1]</a> +1833.<br/> +<br/> +To many towered Camelot<br/> +The yellow leaved water lily,<br/> +The green sheathed daffodilly,<br/> +Tremble in the water chilly,<br/> +Round about Shalott. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-116" id="linknote-116"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-116">[2]</a> +1833.<br/> +<br/> +... shiver,<br/> +The sunbeam-showers break and quiver<br/> +In the stream that runneth ever<br/> +By the island, etc. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-117" id="linknote-117"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-117">[3]</a> +1833.<br/> +<br/> +Underneath the bearded barley,<br/> +The reaper, reaping late and early,<br/> +Hears her ever chanting cheerly,<br/> +Like an angel, singing clearly,<br/> +O’er the stream of Camelot.<br/> +Piling the sheaves in furrows airy,<br/> +Beneath the moon, the reaper weary<br/> +Listening whispers, “’tis the fairy<br/> +Lady of Shalott”. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-118" id="linknote-118"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-118">[4]</a> +1833.<br/> +<br/> +The little isle is all inrailed<br/> +With a rose-fence, and overtrailed<br/> +With roses: by the marge unhailed<br/> +The shallop flitteth silkensailed,<br/> +Skimming down to Camelot.<br/> +A pearl garland winds her head:<br/> +She leaneth on a velvet bed,<br/> +Full royally apparelled,<br/> +The Lady of Shalott. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-119" id="linknote-119"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-119">[5]</a> +1833.<br/> +<br/> +No time hath she to sport and play:<br/> +A charmed web she weaves alway.<br/> +A curse is on her, if she stay<br/> +Her weaving, either night or day +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-120" id="linknote-120"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-120">[6]</a> +1833.<br/> +<br/> +Therefore ...<br/> +Therefore ...<br/> +The Lady of Shalott. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-121" id="linknote-121"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-121">[7]</a> +1833.<br/> +<br/> +She lives with little joy or fear<br/> +Over the water running near,<br/> +The sheep bell tinkles in her ear,<br/> +Before her hangs a mirror clear,<br/> +Reflecting towered Camelot.<br/> +And, as the mazy web she whirls,<br/> +She sees the surly village-churls. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-122" id="linknote-122"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-122">[8]</a> +1833. Came from Camelot. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-123" id="linknote-123"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-123">[9]</a> +In these lines are to be found, says the present Lord Tennyson, the key to the +mystic symbolism of the poem. But it is not easy to see how death could be an +advantageous exchange for fancy-haunted solitude. The allegory is clearer in +lines 114-115, for love will so break up mere phantasy. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-124" id="linknote-124"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-124">[10]</a> +1833. Hung in the golden galaxy. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-125" id="linknote-125"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-125">[11]</a> +1833. From. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-126" id="linknote-126"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-126">[12]</a> +1833. From Camelot. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-127" id="linknote-127"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-127">[13]</a> +1833. Green Shalott. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-128" id="linknote-128"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-128">[14]</a> +1833. From Camelot. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-129" id="linknote-129"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-129">[15]</a> +1833. “Tirra lirra, tirra lirra.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-130" id="linknote-130"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-130">[16]</a> +1833. Water flower. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-131" id="linknote-131"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-131">[17]</a> +1833.<br/> +<br/> +Outside the isle a shallow boat<br/> +Beneath a willow lay afloat,<br/> +Below the carven stern she wrote,<br/> +THE LADY OF SHALOTT. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-132" id="linknote-132"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-132">[18]</a> +1833.<br/> +<br/> +A cloud-white crown of pearl she dight,<br/> +All raimented in snowy white<br/> +That loosely flew (her zone in sight,<br/> +Clasped with one blinding diamond bright),<br/> +Her wide eyes fixed on Camelot,<br/> +Though the squally eastwind keenly<br/> +Blew, with folded arms serenely<br/> +By the water stood the queenly<br/> +Lady of Shalott.<br/> +<br/> +With a steady, stony glance—<br/> +Like some bold seer in a trance,<br/> +Beholding all his own mischance,<br/> +Mute, with a glassy countenance—<br/> +She looked down to Camelot.<br/> +It was the closing of the day,<br/> +She loosed the chain, and down she lay,<br/> +The broad stream bore her far away,<br/> +The Lady of Shalott.<br/> +<br/> +As when to sailors while they roam,<br/> +By creeks and outfalls far from home,<br/> +Rising and dropping with the foam,<br/> +From dying swans wild warblings come,<br/> +Blown shoreward; so to Camelot<br/> +Still as the boat-head wound along<br/> +The willowy hills and fields among,<br/> +They heard her chanting her death song,<br/> +The Lady of Shalott. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-133" id="linknote-133"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-133">[19]</a> +1833.<br/> +<br/> +A long drawn carol, mournful, holy,<br/> +She chanted loudly, chanted lowly,<br/> +Till her eyes were darkened wholly,<br/> +And her smooth face sharpened slowly. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-134" id="linknote-134"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-134">[20]</a> +“A corse” (1853) is a variant for the “Dead-pale” of +1857. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-135" id="linknote-135"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-135">[21]</a> +1833.<br/> +<br/> +A pale, pale corpse she floated by,<br/> +Dead cold, between the houses high,<br/> +Dead into towered Camelot.<br/> +Knight and burgher, lord and dame,<br/> +To the plankèd wharfage came:<br/> +Below the stern they read her name,<br/> +“The Lady of Shalott”. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-136" id="linknote-136"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-136">[22]</a> +1833. Spells it “Launcelot” all through. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-137" id="linknote-137"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-137">[23]</a> +1833.<br/> +<br/> +They crossed themselves, their stars they blest,<br/> +Knight, minstrel, abbot, squire and guest,<br/> +There lay a parchment on her breast,<br/> +That puzzled more than all the rest,<br/> +The well-fed wits at Camelot.<br/> +“<i>The web was woven curiously,<br/> +The charm is broken utterly,<br/> +Draw near and fear not—this is I,<br/> +The Lady of Shalott.</i>” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap29"></a>Mariana in the South</h3> + +<p class="center"> +First printed in 1833. +</p> + +<p> +This poem had been written as early as 1831 (see Arthur Hallam’s letter, +<i>Life</i>, i., 284-5, Appendix), and Lord Tennyson tells us that it +“came to my father as he was travelling between Narbonne and +Perpignan”; how vividly the characteristic features of Southern France +are depicted must be obvious to every one who is familiar with them. It is +interesting to compare it with the companion poem; the central position is the +same in both, desolate loneliness, and the mood is the same, but the setting is +far more picturesque and is therefore more dwelt upon. The poem was very +greatly altered when re-published in 1842, that text being practically the +final one, there being no important variants afterwards. +</p> + +<p> +In the edition of 1833 the poem opened with the following stanza, which was +afterwards excised and the stanza of the present text substituted. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Behind the barren hill upsprung<br/> +With pointed rocks against the light,<br/> +The crag sharpshadowed overhung<br/> +Each glaring creek and inlet bright.<br/> +Far, far, one light blue ridge was seen,<br/> +Looming like baseless fairyland;<br/> +Eastward a slip of burning sand,<br/> +Dark-rimmed with sea, and bare of green,<br/> +Down in the dry salt-marshes stood<br/> +That house dark latticed. Not a breath<br/> +Swayed the sick vineyard underneath,<br/> +Or moved the dusty southernwood.<br/> +“Madonna,” with melodious moan<br/> +Sang Mariana, night and morn,<br/> +“Madonna! lo! I am all alone,<br/> +Love-forgotten and love-forlorn.” +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +With one black shadow at its feet,<br/> +The house thro’ all the level shines,<br/> +Close-latticed to the brooding heat,<br/> +And silent in its dusty vines:<br/> +A faint-blue ridge upon the right,<br/> +An empty river-bed before,<br/> +And shallows on a distant shore,<br/> +In glaring sand and inlets bright.<br/> +But “Ave Mary,” made she moan,<br/> +And “Ave Mary,” night and morn,<br/> +And “Ah,” she sang, “to be all alone,<br/> +To live forgotten, and love forlorn”.<br/> +<br/> +She, as her carol sadder grew,<br/> +From brow and bosom slowly down<a href="#linknote-138" name="linknoteref-138" id="linknoteref-138"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/> +Thro’ rosy taper fingers drew<br/> +Her streaming curls of deepest brown<br/> +To left and right,<a href="#linknote-139" name="linknoteref-139" id="linknoteref-139"><sup>[2]</sup></a> and made appear,<br/> +Still-lighted in a secret shrine,<br/> +Her melancholy eyes divine,<a href="#linknote-140" name="linknoteref-140" id="linknoteref-140"><sup>[3]</sup></a><br/> +The home of woe without a tear.<br/> +And “Ave Mary,” was her moan,<a href="#linknote-141" name="linknoteref-141" id="linknoteref-141"><sup>[4]</sup></a><br/> +“Madonna, sad is night and morn”;<br/> +And “Ah,” she sang, “to be all alone,<br/> +To live forgotten, and love forlorn”.<br/> +<br/> +Till all the crimson changed,<a href="#linknote-142" name="linknoteref-142" id="linknoteref-142"><sup>[5]</sup></a> and past<br/> +Into deep orange o’er the sea,<br/> +Low on her knees herself she cast,<br/> +Before Our Lady murmur’d she;<br/> +Complaining, “Mother, give me grace<br/> +To help me of my weary load”.<br/> +And on the liquid mirror glow’d<br/> +The clear perfection of her face.<br/> +“Is this the form,” she made her moan,<br/> +“That won his praises night and morn?”<br/> +And “Ah,” she said, “but I wake alone,<br/> +I sleep forgotten, I wake forlorn”.<a href="#linknote-143" name="linknoteref-143" id="linknoteref-143"><sup>[6]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +Nor bird would sing, nor lamb would bleat,<br/> +Nor any cloud would cross the vault,<br/> +But day increased from heat to heat,<br/> +On stony drought and steaming salt;<br/> +Till now at noon she slept again,<br/> +And seem’d knee-deep in mountain grass,<br/> +And heard her native breezes pass,<br/> +And runlets babbling down the glen.<br/> +She breathed in sleep a lower moan,<br/> +And murmuring, as at night and morn,<br/> +She thought, “My spirit is here alone,<br/> +Walks forgotten, and is forlorn”.<a href="#linknote-144" name="linknoteref-144" id="linknoteref-144"><sup>[7]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +Dreaming, she knew it was a dream:<br/> +She felt he was and was not there,<a href="#linknote-145" name="linknoteref-145" id="linknoteref-145"><sup>[8]</sup></a><br/> +She woke: the babble of the stream<br/> +Fell, and without the steady glare<br/> +Shrank one sick willow<a href="#linknote-146" name="linknoteref-146" id="linknoteref-146"><sup>[9]</sup></a> sere and small.<br/> +The river-bed was dusty-white;<br/> +And all the furnace of the light<br/> +Struck up against the blinding wall.<a href="#linknote-147" name="linknoteref-147" id="linknoteref-147"><sup>[10]</sup></a><br/> +She whisper’d, with a stifled moan<br/> +More inward than at night or morn,<br/> +“Sweet Mother, let me not here alone<br/> +Live forgotten, and die forlorn”.<a href="#linknote-148" name="linknoteref-148" id="linknoteref-148"><sup>[11]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +<a href="#linknote-149" name="linknoteref-149" id="linknoteref-149"><sup>[12]</sup></a>And rising, from her bosom drew<br/> +Old letters, breathing of her worth,<br/> +For “Love,” they said, “must needs be true,<br/> +To what is loveliest upon earth”.<br/> +An image seem’d to pass the door,<br/> +To look at her with slight, and say,<br/> +“But now thy beauty flows away,<br/> +So be alone for evermore”.<br/> +“O cruel heart,” she changed her tone,<br/> +“And cruel love, whose end is scorn,<br/> +Is this the end to be left alone,<br/> +To live forgotten, and die forlorn!”<br/> +<br/> +But sometimes in the falling day<br/> +An image seem’d to pass the door,<br/> +To look into her eyes and say,<br/> +“But thou shalt be alone no more”.<br/> +And flaming downward over all<br/> +From heat to heat the day decreased,<br/> +And slowly rounded to the east<br/> +The one black shadow from the wall.<br/> +“The day to night,” she made her moan,<br/> +“The day to night, the night to morn,<br/> +And day and night I am left alone<br/> +To live forgotten, and love forlorn.”<br/> +<br/> +At eve a dry cicala sung,<br/> +There came a sound as of the sea;<br/> +Backward the lattice-blind she flung,<br/> +And lean’d upon the balcony.<br/> +There all in spaces rosy-bright<br/> +Large Hesper glitter’d on her tears,<br/> +And deepening thro’ the silent spheres,<br/> +Heaven over Heaven rose the night.<br/> +And weeping then she made her moan,<br/> +“The night comes on that knows not morn,<br/> +When I shall cease to be all alone,<br/> +To live forgotten, and love forlorn”.<a href="#linknote-150" name="linknoteref-150" id="linknoteref-150"><sup>[13]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-138" id="linknote-138"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-138">[1]</a> +1833 From her warm brow and bosom down. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-139" id="linknote-139"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-139">[2]</a> +1833. On either side. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-140" id="linknote-140"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-140">[3]</a> +Compare Keats, <i>Eve of St. Agnes</i>, “her maiden eyes divine”. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-141" id="linknote-141"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-141">[4]</a> +1833. “Madonna,” with melodious moan Sang Mariana, etc. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-142" id="linknote-142"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-142">[5]</a> +1833. When the dawncrimson changed. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-143" id="linknote-143"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-143">[6]</a> +1833.<br/> +<br/> +Unto our Lady prayed she.<br/> +She moved her lips, she prayed alone,<br/> +She praying disarrayed and warm<br/> +From slumber, deep her wavy form<br/> +In the dark-lustrous mirror shone.<br/> +“Madonna,” in a low clear tone<br/> +Said Mariana, night and morn,<br/> +Low she mourned, “I am all alone,<br/> +Love-forgotten, and love-forlorn”. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-144" id="linknote-144"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-144">[7]</a> +1833.<br/> +<br/> +At noon she slumbered. All along<br/> +The silvery field, the large leaves talked<br/> +With one another, as among<br/> +The spikèd maize in dreams she walked.<br/> +The lizard leapt: the sunlight played:<br/> +She heard the callow nestling lisp,<br/> +And brimful meadow-runnels crisp.<br/> +In the full-leavèd platan-shade.<br/> +In sleep she breathed in a lower tone,<br/> +Murmuring as at night and morn,<br/> +“Madonna! lo! I am all alone.<br/> +Love-forgotten and love-forlorn”. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-145" id="linknote-145"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-145">[8]</a> +1835. Most false: he was and was not there. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-146" id="linknote-146"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-146">[9]</a> +1833. The sick olive. So the text remained till 1850, when “one” +was substituted. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-147" id="linknote-147"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-147">[10]</a> +1833.<br/> +<br/> +From the bald rock the blinding light<br/> +Beat ever on the sunwhite wall. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-148" id="linknote-148"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-148">[11]</a> +1833.<br/> +<br/> +“Madonna, leave me not all alone,<br/> +To die forgotten and live forlorn.” + +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-149" id="linknote-149"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-149">[12]</a> +This stanza and the next not in 1833. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-150" id="linknote-150"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-150">[13]</a> +1833.<br/> +<br/> +One dry cicala’s summer song<br/> +At night filled all the gallery.<br/> +Ever the low wave seemed to roll<br/> +Up to the coast: far on, alone<br/> +In the East, large Hesper overshone<br/> +The mourning gulf, and on her soul<br/> +Poured divine solace, or the rise<br/> +Of moonlight from the margin gleamed,<br/> +Volcano-like, afar, and streamed<br/> +On her white arm, and heavenward eyes.<br/> +Not all alone she made her moan,<br/> +Yet ever sang she, night and morn,<br/> +“Madonna! lo! I am all alone,<br/> +Love-forgotten and love-forlorn”. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap30"></a>Eleänore</h3> + +<p> +First printed in 1833. When reprinted in 1842 the alterations noted were then +made, and after that the text remained unchanged.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="left"> +1 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Thy dark eyes open’d not,<br/> +Nor first reveal’d themselves to English air,<br/> +For there is nothing here,<br/> +Which, from the outward to the inward brought,<br/> +Moulded thy baby thought.<br/> +Far off from human neighbourhood,<br/> +Thou wert born, on a summer morn,<br/> +A mile beneath the cedar-wood.<br/> +Thy bounteous forehead was not fann’d<br/> +With breezes from our oaken glades,<br/> +But thou wert nursed in some delicious land<br/> +Of lavish lights, and floating shades:<br/> +And flattering thy childish thought<br/> +The oriental fairy brought,<br/> +At the moment of thy birth,<br/> +From old well-heads of haunted rills,<br/> +And the hearts of purple hills,<br/> +And shadow’d coves on a sunny shore,<br/> +The choicest wealth of all the earth,<br/> +Jewel or shell, or starry ore,<br/> +To deck thy cradle, Eleänore.<a href="#linknote-151" name="linknoteref-151" id="linknoteref-151"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/> +</p> + +<p class="left"> +2 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Or the yellow-banded bees,<a href="#linknote-152" name="linknoteref-152" id="linknoteref-152"><sup>[2]</sup></a><br/> +Thro’<a href="#linknote-153" name="linknoteref-153" id="linknoteref-153"><sup>[3]</sup></a> half-open lattices<br/> +Coming in the scented breeze,<br/> +Fed thee, a child, lying alone,<br/> +With whitest honey in fairy gardens cull’d—<br/> +A glorious child, dreaming alone,<br/> +In silk-soft folds, upon yielding down,<br/> +With the hum of swarming bees<br/> +Into dreamful slumber lull’d. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +3 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Who may minister to thee?<br/> +Summer herself should minister<br/> +To thee, with fruitage golden-rinded<br/> +On golden salvers, or it may be,<br/> +Youngest Autumn, in a bower<br/> +Grape-thicken’d from the light, and blinded<br/> +With many a deep-hued bell-like flower<br/> +Of fragrant trailers, when the air<br/> +Sleepeth over all the heaven,<br/> +And the crag that fronts the Even,<br/> +All along the shadowing shore,<br/> +Crimsons over an inland<a href="#linknote-154" name="linknoteref-154" id="linknoteref-154"><sup>[4]</sup></a> mere,<a href="#linknote-155" name="linknoteref-155" id="linknoteref-155"><sup>[5]</sup></a><br/> +Eleänore! +</p> + +<p class="left"> +4 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +How may full-sail’d verse express,<br/> +How may measured words adore<br/> +The full-flowing harmony<br/> +Of thy swan-like stateliness,<br/> +Eleänore?<br/> +The luxuriant symmetry<br/> +Of thy floating gracefulness,<br/> +Eleänore?<br/> +Every turn and glance of thine,<br/> +Every lineament divine,<br/> +Eleänore,<br/> +And the steady sunset glow,<br/> +That stays upon thee? For in thee<br/> +Is nothing sudden, nothing single;<br/> +Like two streams of incense free<br/> +From one censer, in one shrine,<br/> +Thought and motion mingle,<br/> +Mingle ever. Motions flow<br/> +To one another, even as tho’<a href="#linknote-156" name="linknoteref-156" id="linknoteref-156"><sup>[6]</sup></a><br/> +They were modulated so<br/> +To an unheard melody,<br/> +Which lives about thee, and a sweep<br/> +Of richest pauses, evermore<br/> +Drawn from each other mellow-deep;<br/> +Who may express thee, Eleänore?<br/> +</p> + +<p class="left"> +5 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +I stand before thee, Eleänore;<br/> +I see thy beauty gradually unfold,<br/> +Daily and hourly, more and more.<br/> +I muse, as in a trance, the while<br/> +Slowly, as from a cloud of gold,<br/> +Comes out thy deep ambrosial smile.<a href="#linknote-157" name="linknoteref-157" id="linknoteref-157"><sup>[7]</sup></a> +I muse, as in a trance, whene’er<br/> +The languors of thy love-deep eyes<br/> +Float on to me. <i>I</i> would <i>I</i> were<br/> +So tranced, so rapt in ecstacies,<br/> +To stand apart, and to adore,<br/> +Gazing on thee for evermore,<br/> +Serene, imperial Eleänore! +</p> + +<p class="left"> +6 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Sometimes, with most intensity<br/> +Gazing, I seem to see<br/> +Thought folded over thought, smiling asleep,<br/> +Slowly awaken’d, grow so full and deep<br/> +In thy large eyes, that, overpower’d quite,<br/> +I cannot veil, or droop my sight,<br/> +But am as nothing in its light:<br/> +As tho’<a href="#linknote-158" name="linknoteref-158" id="linknoteref-158"><sup>[8]</sup></a> a star, in inmost heaven set,<br/> +Ev’n while we gaze on it,<br/> +Should slowly round his orb, and slowly grow<br/> +To a full face, there like a sun remain<br/> +Fix’d—then as slowly fade again,<br/> +And draw itself to what it was before;<br/> +So full, so deep, so slow,<br/> +Thought seems to come and go<br/> +In thy large eyes, imperial Eleänore. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +7 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +As thunder-clouds that, hung on high,<br/> +Roof’d the world with doubt and fear,<a href="#linknote-159" name="linknoteref-159" id="linknoteref-159"><sup>[9]</sup></a><br/> +Floating thro’ an evening atmosphere,<br/> +Grow golden all about the sky;<br/> +In thee all passion becomes passionless,<br/> +Touch’d by thy spirit’s mellowness,<br/> +Losing his fire and active might<br/> +In a silent meditation,<br/> +Falling into a still delight,<br/> +And luxury of contemplation:<br/> +As waves that up a quiet cove<br/> +Rolling slide, and lying still<br/> +Shadow forth the banks at will:<a href="#linknote-160" name="linknoteref-160" id="linknoteref-160"><sup>[10]</sup></a><br/> +Or sometimes they swell and move,<br/> +Pressing up against the land,<br/> +With motions of the outer sea:<br/> +And the self-same influence<br/> +Controlleth all the soul and sense<br/> +Of Passion gazing upon thee.<br/> +His bow-string slacken’d, languid Love,<br/> +Leaning his cheek upon his hand,<a href="#linknote-161" name="linknoteref-161" id="linknoteref-161"><sup>[11]</sup></a><br/> +Droops both his wings, regarding thee,<br/> +And so would languish evermore,<br/> +Serene, imperial Eleänore. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +8 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +But when I see thee roam, with tresses unconfined,<br/> +While the amorous, odorous wind<br/> +Breathes low between the sunset and the moon;<br/> +Or, in a shadowy saloon,<br/> +On silken cushions half reclined;<br/> +I watch thy grace; and in its place<br/> +My heart a charmed slumber keeps,<a href="#linknote-162" name="linknoteref-162" id="linknoteref-162"><sup>[12]</sup></a><br/> +While I muse upon thy face;<br/> +And a languid fire creeps<br/> +Thro’ my veins to all my frame,<br/> +Dissolvingly and slowly: soon<br/> +From thy rose-red lips MY name<br/> +Floweth; and then, as in a swoon,<a href="#linknote-163" name="linknoteref-163" id="linknoteref-163"><sup>[13]</sup></a><br/> +With dinning sound my ears are rife,<br/> +My tremulous tongue faltereth,<br/> +I lose my colour, I lose my breath,<br/> +I drink the cup of a costly death,<br/> +Brimm’d with delirious draughts of warmest life.<br/> +I die with my delight, before<br/> +I hear what I would hear from thee;<br/> +Yet tell my name again to me,<br/> +I <i>would</i><a href="#linknote-164" name="linknoteref-164" id="linknoteref-164"><sup>[14]</sup></a> be dying evermore,<br/> +So dying ever, Eleänore. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-151" id="linknote-151"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-151">[1]</a> +With the picture of Eleänore may be compared the description which Ibycus gives +of Euryalus. See Bergk’s <i>Anthologia Lyrica</i> (Ibycus), p. 396. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-152" id="linknote-152"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-152">[2]</a> +With yellow banded bees <i>cf</i>. Keats’s “yellow girted +bees,” <i>Endymion</i>, i. With this may be compared Pindar’s +beautiful picture of lamus, who was also fed on honey, <i>Olympian</i>, vi., +50-80. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-153" id="linknote-153"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-153">[3]</a> +1833 and 1842. Through. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-154" id="linknote-154"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-154">[4]</a> +Till 1857. Island. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-155" id="linknote-155"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-155">[5]</a> +1833. Meer. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-156" id="linknote-156"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-156">[6]</a> +1842 and 1843. Though. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-157" id="linknote-157"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-157">[7]</a> +Ambrosial, the Greek sense of +ἀμβρόσιος, divine. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-158" id="linknote-158"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-158">[8]</a> +1833 to 1851. Though. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-159" id="linknote-159"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-159">[9]</a> +1833. Did roof noonday with doubt and fear. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-160" id="linknote-160"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-160">[10]</a> +1833.<br/> +<br/> +As waves that from the outer deep<br/> +Roll into a quiet cove,<br/> +There fall away, and lying still,<br/> +Having glorious dreams in sleep,<br/> +Shadow forth the banks at will. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-161" id="linknote-161"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-161">[11]</a> +<i>Cf</i>. Horace, <i>Odes</i>, iii., xxvii., 66-8:<br/> +<br/> +Aderat querenti<br/> +Perfidum ridens Venus, et <i>remisso</i><br/> +Filius <i>arcu</i>. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-162" id="linknote-162"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-162">[12]</a> +1833.<br/> +<br/> +I gaze on thee the cloudless noon<br/> +Of mortal beauty. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-163" id="linknote-163"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-163">[13]</a> +1833. Then I faint, I swoon. The latter part of the eighth stanza is little +more than an adaptation of Sappho’s famous Ode, filtered perhaps through +the version of Catullus. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-164" id="linknote-164"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-164">[14]</a> +It is curious that a poet so scrupulous as Tennyson should have retained to the +last the italics. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap31"></a>The Miller’s Daughter</h3> + +<p> +First published in 1833. It was greatly altered when republished in 1842, and +in some respects, so Fitzgerald thought, not for the better. No alterations of +much importance were made in it after 1842. The characters as well as the +scenery were, it seems, purely imaginary. Tennyson said that if he thought of +any mill it was that of Trumpington, near Cambridge, which bears a general +resemblance to the picture here given. +</p> + +<p> +In the first edition the poem opened with the following stanza, which the +<i>Quarterly</i> ridiculed, and which was afterwards excised. Its omission is +surely not to be regretted, whatever Fitzgerald may have thought. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +I met in all the close green ways,<br/> +While walking with my line and rod,<br/> +The wealthy miller’s mealy face,<br/> +Like the moon in an ivy-tod.<br/> +He looked so jolly and so good—<br/> +While fishing in the milldam-water,<br/> +I laughed to see him as he stood,<br/> +And dreamt not of the miller’s daughter. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +I see the wealthy miller yet,<br/> +His double chin, his portly size,<br/> +And who that knew him could forget<br/> +The busy wrinkles round his eyes?<br/> +The slow wise smile that, round about<br/> +His dusty forehead drily curl’d,<br/> +Seem’d half-within and half-without,<br/> +And full of dealings with the world?<br/> +<br/> +In yonder chair I see him sit,<br/> +Three fingers round the old silver cup—<br/> +I see his gray eyes twinkle yet<br/> +At his own jest—gray eyes lit up<br/> +With summer lightnings of a soul<br/> +So full of summer warmth, so glad,<br/> +So healthy, sound, and clear and whole,<br/> +His memory scarce can make me<a href="#linknote-165" name="linknoteref-165" id="linknoteref-165"><sup>[1]</sup></a> sad.<br/> +<br/> +Yet fill my glass: give me one kiss:<br/> +My own sweet<a href="#linknote-166" name="linknoteref-166" id="linknoteref-166"><sup>[2]</sup></a> Alice, we must die.<br/> +There’s somewhat in this world amiss<br/> +Shall be unriddled by and by.<br/> +There’s somewhat flows to us in life,<br/> +But more is taken quite away.<br/> +Pray, Alice, pray, my darling wife,<a href="#linknote-167" name="linknoteref-167" id="linknoteref-167"><sup>[3]</sup></a><br/> +That we may die the self-same day.<br/> +<br/> +Have I not found a happy earth?<br/> +I least should breathe a thought of pain.<br/> +Would God renew me from my birth<br/> +I’d almost live my life again.<br/> +So sweet it seems with thee to walk,<br/> +And once again to woo thee mine—<br/> +It seems in after-dinner talk<br/> +Across the walnuts and the wine—<a href="#linknote-168" name="linknoteref-168" id="linknoteref-168"><sup>[4]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +To be the long and listless boy<br/> +Late-left an orphan of the squire,<br/> +Where this old mansion mounted high<br/> +Looks down upon the village spire:<a href="#linknote-169" name="linknoteref-169" id="linknoteref-169"><sup>[5]</sup></a><br/> +For even here,<a href="#linknote-170" name="linknoteref-170" id="linknoteref-170"><sup>[6]</sup></a> where I and you<br/> +Have lived and loved alone so long,<br/> +Each morn my sleep was broken thro’<br/> +By some wild skylark’s matin song.<br/> +<br/> +And oft I heard the tender dove<br/> +In firry woodlands making moan;<a href="#linknote-171" name="linknoteref-171" id="linknoteref-171"><sup>[7]</sup></a><br/> +But ere I saw your eyes, my love,<br/> +I had no motion of my own.<br/> +For scarce my life with fancy play’d<br/> +Before I dream’d that pleasant dream—<br/> +Still hither thither idly sway’d<br/> +Like those long mosses<a href="#linknote-172" name="linknoteref-172" id="linknoteref-172"><sup>[8]</sup></a> in the stream.<br/> +<br/> +Or from the bridge I lean’d to hear<br/> +The milldam rushing down with noise,<br/> +And see the minnows everywhere<br/> +In crystal eddies glance and poise,<br/> +The tall flag-flowers when<a href="#linknote-173" name="linknoteref-173" id="linknoteref-173"><sup>[9]</sup></a> they sprung<br/> +Below the range of stepping-stones,<br/> +Or those three chestnuts near, that hung<br/> +In masses thick with milky cones.<a href="#linknote-174" name="linknoteref-174" id="linknoteref-174"><sup>[10]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +But, Alice, what an hour was that,<br/> +When after roving in the woods<br/> +(’Twas April then), I came and sat<br/> +Below the chestnuts, when their buds<br/> +Were glistening to the breezy blue;<br/> +And on the slope, an absent fool,<br/> +I cast me down, nor thought of you,<br/> +But angled in the higher pool.<a href="#linknote-175" name="linknoteref-175" id="linknoteref-175"><sup>[11]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +A love-song I had somewhere read,<br/> +An echo from a measured strain,<br/> +Beat time to nothing in my head<br/> +From some odd corner of the brain.<br/> +It haunted me, the morning long,<br/> +With weary sameness in the rhymes,<br/> +The phantom of a silent song,<br/> +That went and came a thousand times.<br/> +<br/> +Then leapt a trout. In lazy mood<br/> +I watch’d the little circles die;<br/> +They past into the level flood,<br/> +And there a vision caught my eye;<br/> +The reflex of a beauteous form,<br/> +A glowing arm, a gleaming neck,<br/> +As when a sunbeam wavers warm<br/> +Within the dark and dimpled beck.<a href="#linknote-176" name="linknoteref-176" id="linknoteref-176"><sup>[12]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +For you remember, you had set,<br/> +That morning, on the casement’s edge<a href="#linknote-177" name="linknoteref-177" id="linknoteref-177"><sup>[13]</sup></a><br/> +A long green box of mignonette,<br/> +And you were leaning from the ledge:<br/> +And when I raised my eyes, above<br/> +They met with two so full and bright—<br/> +Such eyes! I swear to you, my love,<br/> +That these have never lost their light.<a href="#linknote-178" name="linknoteref-178" id="linknoteref-178"><sup>[14]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +I loved, and love dispell’d the fear<br/> +That I should die an early death:<br/> +For love possess’d the atmosphere,<br/> +And filled the breast with purer breath.<br/> +My mother thought, What ails the boy?<br/> +For I was alter’d, and began<br/> +To move about the house with joy,<br/> +And with the certain step of man.<br/> +<br/> +I loved the brimming wave that swam<br/> +Thro’ quiet meadows round the mill,<br/> +The sleepy pool above the dam,<br/> +The pool beneath it never still,<br/> +The meal-sacks on the whiten’d floor,<br/> +The dark round of the dripping wheel,<br/> +The very air about the door<br/> +Made misty with the floating meal.<br/> +<br/> +And oft in ramblings on the wold,<br/> +When April nights begin to blow,<br/> +And April’s crescent glimmer’d cold,<br/> +I saw the village lights below;<br/> +I knew your taper far away,<br/> +And full at heart of trembling hope,<br/> +From off the wold I came, and lay<br/> +Upon the freshly-flower’d slope.<a href="#linknote-179" name="linknoteref-179" id="linknoteref-179"><sup>[15]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +The deep brook groan’d beneath the mill;<br/> +And “by that lamp,” I thought “she sits!”<br/> +The white chalk-quarry<a href="#linknote-180" name="linknoteref-180" id="linknoteref-180"><sup>[16]</sup></a> from the hill<br/> +Gleam’d to the flying moon by fits.<br/> +“O that I were beside her now!<br/> +O will she answer if I call?<br/> +O would she give me vow for vow,<br/> +Sweet Alice, if I told her all?”<a href="#linknote-181" name="linknoteref-181" id="linknoteref-181"><sup>[17]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +Sometimes I saw you sit and spin;<br/> +And, in the pauses of the wind,<br/> +Sometimes I heard you sing within;<br/> +Sometimes your shadow cross’d the blind.<br/> +At last you rose and moved the light,<br/> +And the long shadow of the chair<br/> +Flitted across into the night,<br/> +And all the casement darken’d there.<br/> +<br/> +But when at last I dared to speak,<br/> +The lanes, you know, were white with may,<br/> +Your ripe lips moved not, but your cheek<br/> +Flush’d like the coming of the day;<a href="#linknote-182" name="linknoteref-182" id="linknoteref-182"><sup>[18]</sup></a><br/> +And so it was—half-sly, half-shy,<a href="#linknote-183" name="linknoteref-183" id="linknoteref-183"><sup>[19]</sup></a><br/> +You would, and would not, little one!<br/> +Although I pleaded tenderly,<br/> +And you and I were all alone.<br/> +<br/> +And slowly was my mother brought<br/> +To yield consent to my desire:<br/> +She wish’d me happy, but she thought<br/> +I might have look’d a little higher;<br/> +And I was young—too young to wed:<br/> +“Yet must I love her for your sake;<br/> +Go fetch your Alice here,” she said:<br/> +Her eyelid quiver’d as she spake.<br/> +<br/> +And down I went to fetch my bride:<br/> +But, Alice, you were ill at ease;<br/> +This dress and that by turns you tried,<br/> +Too fearful that you should not please.<br/> +I loved you better for your fears,<br/> +I knew you could not look but well;<br/> +And dews, that would have fall’n in +tears,<br/> +I kiss’d away before they fell.<a href="#linknote-184" name="linknoteref-184" id="linknoteref-184"><sup>[20]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +I watch’d the little flutterings,<br/> +The doubt my mother would not see;<br/> +She spoke at large of many things,<br/> +And at the last she spoke of me;<br/> +And turning look’d upon your face,<br/> +As near this door you sat apart,<br/> +And rose, and, with a silent grace<br/> +Approaching, press’d you heart to heart.<a href="#linknote-185" name="linknoteref-185" id="linknoteref-185"><sup>[21]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +Ah, well—but sing the foolish song<br/> +I gave you, Alice, on the day<a href="#linknote-186" name="linknoteref-186" id="linknoteref-186"><sup>[22]</sup></a><br/> +When, arm in arm, we went along,<br/> +A pensive pair, and you were gay,<br/> +With bridal flowers—that I may seem,<br/> +As in the nights of old, to lie<br/> +Beside the mill-wheel in the stream,<br/> +While those full chestnuts whisper by.<a href="#linknote-187" name="linknoteref-187" id="linknoteref-187"><sup>[23]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +It is the miller’s daughter,<br/> +And she is grown so dear, so dear,<br/> +That I would be the jewel<br/> +That trembles at<a href="#linknote-188" name="linknoteref-188" id="linknoteref-188"><sup>[24]</sup></a> her ear:<br/> +For hid in ringlets day and night,<br/> +I’d touch her neck so warm and white.<br/> +<br/> +And I would be the girdle<br/> +About her dainty, dainty waist,<br/> +And her heart would beat against me,<br/> +In sorrow and in rest:<br/> +And I should know if it beat right,<br/> +I’d clasp it round so close and tight.<a href="#linknote-189" name="linknoteref-189" id="linknoteref-189"><sup>[25]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +And I would be the necklace,<br/> +And all day long to fall and rise<a href="#linknote-190" name="linknoteref-190" id="linknoteref-190"><sup>[26]</sup></a><br/> +Upon her balmy bosom,<br/> +With her laughter or her sighs,<br/> +And I would lie so light, so light,<a href="#linknote-191" name="linknoteref-191" id="linknoteref-191"><sup>[27]</sup></a><br/> +I scarce should be<a href="#linknote-192" name="linknoteref-192" id="linknoteref-192"><sup>[28]</sup></a> unclasp’d at night.<br/> +<br/> +A trifle, sweet! which true love spells<br/> +True love interprets—right alone.<br/> +His light upon the letter dwells,<br/> +For all the spirit is his own.<a href="#linknote-193" name="linknoteref-193" id="linknoteref-193"><sup>[29]</sup></a><br/> +So, if I waste words now, in truth<br/> +You must blame Love. His early rage<br/> +Had force to make me rhyme in youth<br/> +And makes me talk too much in age.<a href="#linknote-194" name="linknoteref-194" id="linknoteref-194"><sup>[30]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +And now those vivid hours are gone,<br/> +Like mine own life to me thou art,<br/> +Where Past and Present, wound in one,<br/> +Do make a garland for the heart:<br/> +So sing<a href="#linknote-195" name="linknoteref-195" id="linknoteref-195"><sup>[31]</sup></a> that other song I made,<br/> +Half anger’d with my happy lot,<br/> +The day, when in the chestnut shade<br/> +I found the blue Forget-me-not.<a href="#linknote-196" name="linknoteref-196" id="linknoteref-196"><sup>[32]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +Love that hath us in the net,<a href="#linknote-197" name="linknoteref-197" id="linknoteref-197"><sup>[33]</sup></a><br/> +Can he pass, and we forget?<br/> +Many suns arise and set.<br/> +Many a chance the years beget.<br/> +Love the gift is Love the debt.<br/> +Even so.<br/> +Love is hurt with jar and fret.<br/> +Love is made a vague regret.<br/> +Eyes with idle tears are wet.<br/> +Idle habit links us yet.<br/> +What is love? for we forget:<br/> +Ah, no! no!<a href="#linknote-198" name="linknoteref-198" id="linknoteref-198"><sup>[34]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +Look thro’ mine eyes with thine. True wife,<br/> +Round my true heart thine arms entwine;<br/> +My other dearer life in life,<br/> +Look thro’ my very soul with thine!<br/> +Untouch’d with any shade of years,<br/> +May those kind eyes for ever dwell!<br/> +They have not shed a many tears,<br/> +Dear eyes, since first I knew them well.<br/> +<br/> +Yet tears they shed: they had their part<br/> +Of sorrow: for when time was ripe,<br/> +The still affection of the heart<br/> +Became an outward breathing type,<br/> +That into stillness past again,<br/> +And left a want unknown before;<br/> +Although the loss that brought us pain,<br/> +That loss but made us love the more.<br/> +<br/> +With farther lookings on. The kiss,<br/> +The woven arms, seem but to be<br/> +Weak symbols of the settled bliss,<br/> +The comfort, I have found in thee:<br/> +But that God bless thee, dear—who wrought<br/> +Two spirits to one equal mind—<br/> +With blessings beyond hope or thought,<br/> +With blessings which no words can find.<br/> +<br/> +Arise, and let us wander forth,<br/> +To yon old mill across the wolds;<br/> +For look, the sunset, south and north,<a href="#linknote-199" name="linknoteref-199" id="linknoteref-199"><sup>[35]</sup></a><br/> +Winds all the vale in rosy folds,<br/> +And fires your narrow casement glass,<br/> +Touching the sullen pool below:<br/> +On the chalk-hill the bearded grass<br/> +Is dry and dewless. Let us go. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-165" id="linknote-165"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-165">[1]</a> +1833. Scarce makes me. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-166" id="linknote-166"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-166">[2]</a> +1833. Darling. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-167" id="linknote-167"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-167">[3]</a> +1833. Own sweet wife. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-168" id="linknote-168"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-168">[4]</a> +This stanza was added in 1842. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-169" id="linknote-169"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-169">[5]</a> +1833.<br/> +<br/> +My father’s mansion, mounted high<br/> +Looked down upon the village spire.<br/> +I was a long and listless boy,<br/> +And son and heir unto the squire. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-170" id="linknote-170"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-170">[6]</a> +1833. In these dear walls. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-171" id="linknote-171"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-171">[7]</a> +1833.<br/> +<br/> +I often heard the cooing dove<br/> +In firry woodlands mourn alone. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-172" id="linknote-172"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-172">[8]</a> +1833. The long mosses. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-173" id="linknote-173"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-173">[9]</a> +1842-1851. Where. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-174" id="linknote-174"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-174">[10]</a> +This stanza was added in 1842, taking the place of the following which was +excised:—<br/> +<br/> +Sometimes I whistled in the wind,<br/> +Sometimes I angled, thought and deed<br/> +Torpid, as swallows left behind<br/> +That winter ’neath the floating weed:<br/> +At will to wander every way<br/> +From brook to brook my sole delight,<br/> +As lithe eels over meadows gray<br/> +Oft shift their glimmering pool by night.<br/> +<br/> +In 1833 this stanza ran thus:—<br/> +<br/> +I loved from off the bridge to hear<br/> +The rushing sound the water made,<br/> +And see the fish that everywhere<br/> +In the back-current glanced and played;<br/> +Low down the tall flag-flower that sprung<br/> +Beside the noisy stepping-stones,<br/> +And the massed chestnut boughs that hung<br/> +Thick-studded over with white cones, +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-175" id="linknote-175"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-175">[11]</a> +In 1833 the following took the place of the above stanza which was added in +1842:—<br/> +<br/> +How dear to me in youth, my love,<br/> +Was everything about the mill,<br/> +The black and silent pool above,<br/> +The pool beneath that ne’er stood still,<br/> +The meal sacks on the whitened floor,<br/> +The dark round of the dripping wheel,<br/> +The very air about the door—<br/> +Made misty with the floating meal!<br/> +<br/> +Thus in 1833:—<br/> +<br/> +Remember you that pleasant day<br/> +When, after roving in the woods,<br/> +(’Twas April then) I came and lay<br/> +Beneath those gummy chestnut bud<br/> +That glistened in the April blue,<br/> +Upon the slope so smooth and cool,<br/> +I lay and never thought of <i>you</i>,<br/> +But angled in the deep mill pool. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-176" id="linknote-176"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-176">[12]</a> +Thus in 1833:—<br/> +<br/> +A water-rat from off the bank<br/> +Plunged in the stream. With idle care,<br/> +Downlooking thro’ the sedges rank,<br/> +I saw your troubled image there.<br/> +Upon the dark and dimpled beck<br/> +It wandered like a floating light,<br/> +A full fair form, a warm white neck,<br/> +And two white arms—how rosy white! +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-177" id="linknote-177"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-177">[13]</a> +1872. Casement-edge. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-178" id="linknote-178"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-178">[14]</a> +Thus in 1833:—<br/> +<br/> +If you remember, you had set<br/> +Upon the narrow casement-edge<br/> +A long green box of mignonette,<br/> +And you were leaning from the ledge.<br/> +I raised my eyes at once: above<br/> +They met two eyes so blue and bright,<br/> +Such eyes! I swear to you, my love,<br/> +That they have never lost their light.<br/> +<br/> +After this stanza the following was inserted in 1833 but excised in +1842:—<br/> +<br/> +That slope beneath the chestnut tall<br/> +Is wooed with choicest breaths of air:<br/> +Methinks that I could tell you all<br/> +The cowslips and the kingcups there.<br/> +Each coltsfoot down the grassy bent,<br/> +Whose round leaves hold the gathered shower,<br/> +Each quaintly-folded cuckoo pint,<br/> +And silver-paly cuckoo flower. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-179" id="linknote-179"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-179">[15]</a> +Thus in 1833:—<br/> +<br/> +In rambling on the eastern wold,<br/> +When thro’ the showery April nights<br/> +Their hueless crescent glimmered cold,<br/> +From all the other village lights<br/> +I knew your taper far away.<br/> +My heart was full of trembling hope,<br/> +Down from the wold I came and lay<br/> +Upon the dewy-swarded slope. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-180" id="linknote-180"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-180">[16]</a> +Mr. Cuming Walters in his interesting volume <i>In Tennyson Land</i>, p. 75, +notices that the white chalk quarry at Thetford can be seen from Stockworth +Mill, which seems to show that if Tennyson did take the mill from Trumpington +he must also have had his mind on Thetford Mill. Tennyson seems to have taken +delight in baffling those who wished to localise his scenes. He went out of his +way to say that the topographical studies of Messrs. Church and Napier were the +only ones which could be relied upon. But Mr. Cuming Walters’ book is far +more satisfactory than their thin studies. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-181" id="linknote-181"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-181">[17]</a> +Thus in 1833:—<br/> +<br/> +The white chalk quarry from the hill<br/> +Upon the broken ripple gleamed,<br/> +I murmured lowly, sitting still,<br/> +While round my feet the eddy streamed:<br/> +“Oh! that I were the wreath she wreathes,<br/> +The mirror where her sight she feeds,<br/> +The song she sings, the air she breathes,<br/> +The letters of the books she reads”. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-182" id="linknote-182"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-182">[18]</a> +1833.<br/> +<br/> +I loved, but when I dared to speak<br/> +My love, the lanes were white with May<br/> +Your ripe lips moved not, but your cheek<br/> +Flushed like the coming of the day. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-183" id="linknote-183"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-183">[19]</a> +1833. Rosecheekt, roselipt, half-sly, half-shy. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-184" id="linknote-184"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-184">[20]</a> +Cf. Milton, <i>Paradise Lost</i>;—<br/> +<br/> +Two other precious drops that ready stood<br/> +He, ere they fell, kiss’d. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-185" id="linknote-185"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-185">[21]</a> +These three stanzas were added in 1842, the following being excised:—<br/> +<br/> +Remember you the clear moonlight,<br/> +That whitened all the eastern ridge,<br/> +When o’er the water, dancing white,<br/> +I stepped upon the old mill-bridge.<br/> +I heard you whisper from above<br/> +A lute-toned whisper, “I am here”;<br/> +I murmured, “Speak again, my love,<br/> +The stream is loud: I cannot hear”.<br/> +<br/> +I heard, as I have seemed to hear,<br/> +When all the under-air was still,<br/> +The low voice of the glad new year<br/> +Call to the freshly-flowered hill.<br/> +I heard, as I have often heard<br/> +The nightingale in leavy woods<br/> +Call to its mate, when nothing stirred<br/> +To left or right but falling floods. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-186" id="linknote-186"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-186">[22]</a> +1842. I gave you on the joyful day. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-187" id="linknote-187"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-187">[23]</a> +In 1833 the following stanza took the place of the one here substituted in +1842:—<br/> +<br/> +Come, Alice, sing to me the song<br/> +I made you on our marriage day,<br/> +When, arm in arm, we went along<br/> +Half-tearfully, and you were gay<br/> +With brooch and ring: for I shall seem,<br/> +The while you sing that song, to hear<br/> +The mill-wheel turning in the stream,<br/> +And the green chestnut whisper near.<br/> +<br/> +In 1833 the song began thus, the present stanza taking its place in +1842:—<br/> +<br/> +I wish I were her earring,<br/> +Ambushed in auburn ringlets sleek,<br/> +(So might my shadow tremble<br/> +Over her downy cheek),<br/> +Hid in her hair, all day and night,<br/> +Touching her neck so warm and white. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-188" id="linknote-188"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-188">[24]</a> +1872. In. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-189" id="linknote-189"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-189">[25]</a> +1833.<br/> +<br/> +I wish I were the girdle<br/> +Buckled about her dainty waist,<br/> +That her heart might beat against me,<br/> +In sorrow and in rest.<br/> +I should know well if it beat right,<br/> +I’d clasp it round so close and tight.<br/> +<br/> +This stanza bears so close a resemblance to a stanza in Joshua +Sylvester’s <i>Woodman’s Bear</i> (see Sylvester’s +<i>Works</i>, ed. 1641, p. 616) that a correspondent asked Tennyson whether +Sylvester had suggested it. Tennyson replied that he had never seen +Sylvester’s lines (<i>Life of Tennyson</i>, iii., 51). The lines +are:—<br/> +<br/> +But her slender virgin waste<br/> +Made mee beare her girdle spight<br/> +Which the same by day imbrac’t<br/> +Though it were cast off by night<br/> +That I wisht, I dare not say,<br/> +To be girdle night and day.<br/> +<br/> +For other parallels see the present Editor’s <i>Illustrations of +Tennyson</i>, p. 39. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-190" id="linknote-190"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-190">[26]</a> +1833.<br/> +<br/> +I wish I were her necklace,<br/> +So might I ever fall and rise. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-191" id="linknote-191"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-191">[27]</a> +1833. So warm and light. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-192" id="linknote-192"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-192">[28]</a> +1833. I would not be. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-193" id="linknote-193"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-193">[29]</a> +1833.<br/> +<br/> +For o’er each letter broods and dwells,<br/> +(Like light from running waters thrown<br/> +On flowery swaths) the blissful flame<br/> +Of his sweet eyes, that, day and night,<br/> +With pulses thrilling thro’ his frame<br/> +Do inly tremble, starry bright. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-194" id="linknote-194"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-194">[30]</a> +Thus in 1833:—<br/> +<br/> +How I waste language—yet in truth<br/> +You must blame love, whose early rage<br/> +Made me a rhymster in my youth,<br/> +And over-garrulous in age.<br/> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-195" id="linknote-195"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-195">[31]</a> +1833. Sing me. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-196" id="linknote-196"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-196">[32]</a> +1833.<br/> +<br/> +When in the breezy limewood-shade.<br/> +I found the blue forget-me-not. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-197" id="linknote-197"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-197">[33]</a> +In 1833 the following song took the place of the song in the text:—<br/> +<br/> +All yesternight you met me not,<br/> +My ladylove, forget me not.<br/> +When I am gone, regret me not.<br/> +But, here or there, forget me not.<br/> +With your arched eyebrow threat me not,<br/> +And tremulous eyes, like April skies,<br/> +That seem to say, “forget me not,”<br/> +I pray you, love, forget me not.<br/> +<br/> +In idle sorrow set me not;<br/> +Regret me not; forget me not;<br/> +Oh! leave me not: oh, let me not<br/> +Wear quite away;—forget me not.<br/> +With roguish laughter fret me not.<br/> +From dewy eyes, like April skies,<br/> +That ever <i>look</i>, “forget me not”.<br/> +Blue as the blue forget-me-not. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-198" id="linknote-198"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-198">[34]</a> +These two stanzas were added in 1842. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-199" id="linknote-199"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-199">[35]</a> +1833.<br/> +<br/> +I’ve half a mind to walk, my love,<br/> +To the old mill across the wolds<br/> +For look! the sunset from above, +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap32"></a>Fatima</h3> + +<p class="center"> +First printed in 1833. +</p> + +<p> +The 1833 edition has no title but this quotation from Sappho +prefixed:— +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +φαίνεταί μοι +κῆνος ἴσος +θεοῖσιν<br/> +Ἔμμεν ἀνήρ.—SAPPHO. +</p> + +<p> +The title was prefixed in 1842; it is a name taken from <i>The Arabian +Nights</i> or from the Moallâkat. The poem was evidently inspired by +Sappho’s great ode. <i>Cf.</i> also Fragment I. of Ibycus. In the +intensity of the passion it stands alone among Tennyson’s poems.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +O Love, Love, Love! O withering +might!<br/> +O sun, that from<a href="#linknote-200" name="linknoteref-200" id="linknoteref-200"><sup>[1]</sup></a> thy noonday height<br/> +Shudderest when I strain my sight,<br/> +Throbbing thro’ all thy heat and light,<br/> +Lo, falling from my constant mind,<br/> +Lo, parch’d and wither’d, deaf and blind,<br/> +I whirl like leaves in roaring wind.<br/> +<br/> +Last night I wasted hateful hours<br/> +Below the city’s eastern towers:<br/> +I thirsted for the brooks, the showers:<br/> +I roll’d among the tender flowers:<br/> +I crush’d them on my breast, my mouth:<br/> +I look’d athwart the burning drouth<br/> +Of that long desert to the south.<a href="#linknote-201" name="linknoteref-201" id="linknoteref-201"><sup>[2]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +Last night, when some one spoke his name,<a href="#linknote-202" name="linknoteref-202" id="linknoteref-202"><sup>[3]</sup></a><br/> +From my swift blood that went and came<br/> +A thousand little shafts of flame.<br/> +Were shiver’d in my narrow frame<br/> +O Love, O fire! once he drew<br/> +With one long kiss, my whole soul thro’<br/> +My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.<a href="#linknote-203" name="linknoteref-203" id="linknoteref-203"><sup>[4]</sup></a>><br/> +<br/> +Before he mounts the hill, I know<br/> +He cometh quickly: from below<br/> +Sweet gales, as from deep gardens, blow<br/> +Before him, striking on my brow.<br/> +In my dry brain my spirit soon,<br/> +Down-deepening from swoon to swoon,<br/> +Faints like a dazzled morning moon.<br/> +<br/> +The wind sounds like a silver wire,<br/> +And from beyond the noon a fire<br/> +Is pour’d upon the hills, and nigher<br/> +The skies stoop down in their desire;<br/> +And, isled in sudden seas of light,<br/> +My heart, pierced thro’ with fierce delight,<br/> +Bursts into blossom in his sight.<br/> +<br/> +My whole soul waiting silently,<br/> +All naked in a sultry sky,<br/> +Droops blinded with his shining eye:<br/> +I <i>will</i> possess him or will die.<br/> +I will grow round him in his place,<br/> +Grow, live, die looking on his face,<br/> +Die, dying clasp’d in his embrace. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-200" id="linknote-200"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-200">[1]</a> +1833. At. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-201" id="linknote-201"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-201">[2]</a> +This stanza was added in 1842. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-202" id="linknote-202"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-202">[3]</a> +<i>Cf.</i> Byron, <i>Occasional Pieces</i>:—<br/> +<br/> +They name thee before me<br/> +A knell to mine ear,<br/> +A shudder comes o’er me,<br/> +Why wert thou so dear? +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-203" id="linknote-203"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-203">[4]</a> +<i>Cf,</i> Achilles Tatius, <i>Clitophon and Leucippe</i>, bk. i., I: +ἡδε (ψυχή) +ταραχθεῖσα +τῷ φιλήματι +πάλλεται, +εἰ δὲ μὴ τοῖς +σπλάγχνοις ἦν +δεδεμένη +ἠκολούθησεν +ἄν ἑλκυθεῖσα +ἄνω τοῖς +φιλήμασιν +<br/> +(Her soul, distracted by the kiss, throbs, and had it not been close bound by +the flesh would have followed, drawn upward by the kisses.) +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap33"></a>Œnone</h3> + +<p> +First published in 1833, On being republished in 1842 this poem was practically +rewritten, the alterations and additions so transforming the poem as to make it +almost a new work. I have therefore printed a complete transcript of the +edition of 1833, which the reader can compare. The final text is, with the +exception of one alteration which will be noticed, precisely that of 1842, so +there is no trouble with variants. <i>Œnone</i> is the first of +Tennyson’s fine classical studies. The poem is modelled partly on the +Alexandrian Idyll, such an Idyll for instance as the second Idyll of Theocritus +or the <i>Megara</i> or <i>Europa</i> of Moschus, and partly perhaps on the +narratives in the <i>Metamorphoses</i> of Ovid, to which the opening bears a +typical resemblance. It is possible that the poem may have been suggested by +Beattie’s <i>Judgment of Paris</i> which tells the same story, and tells +it on the same lines on which it is told here, though it is not placed in the +mouth of Œnone. Beattie’s poem opens with an elaborate description of Ida +and of Troy in the distance. Paris, the husband of Œnone, is one afternoon +confronted with the three goddesses who are, as in Tennyson’s Idyll, +elaborately delineated as symbolising what they here symbolise. Each makes her +speech and each offers what she has to offer, worldly dominion, wisdom, sensual +pleasure. There is, of course, no comparison in point of merit between the two +poems, Beattie’s being in truth perfectly commonplace. In its symbolic +aspect the poem may be compared with the temptations to which Christ is +submitted in <i>Paradise Regained</i>. See books iii. and iv.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +There lies a vale in Ida, lovelier<a href="#linknote-204" name="linknoteref-204" id="linknoteref-204"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/> +Than all the valleys of Ionian hills.<br/> +The swimming vapour slopes athwart the glen,<br/> +Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine,<br/> +And loiters, slowly drawn. On either hand<br/> +The lawns and meadow-ledges midway down<br/> +Hang rich in flowers, and far below them roars<br/> +The long brook falling thro’ the clov’n ravine<br/> +In cataract after cataract to the sea.<br/> +Behind the valley topmost Gargarus<a href="#linknote-205" name="linknoteref-205" id="linknoteref-205"><sup>[2]</sup></a>><br/> +Stands up and takes the morning: but in front<br/> +The gorges, opening wide apart, reveal<br/> +Troas and Ilion’s column’d citadel,<br/> +The crown of Troas.<br/> +<br/> +Hither came at noon<br/> +Mournful Œnone, wandering forlorn<br/> +Of Paris, once her playmate on the hills.<br/> +Her cheek had lost the rose, and round her neck<br/> +Floated her hair or seem’d to float in rest.<br/> +She, leaning on a fragment twined with vine,<br/> +Sang to the stillness, till the mountain-shade<br/> +Sloped downward to her seat from the upper +cliff.<br/> +<br/> +“O mother Ida, many-fountain’d<a href="#linknote-206" name="linknoteref-206" id="linknoteref-206"><sup>[3]</sup></a> Ida,<br/> +Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.<br/> +For now the noonday quiet holds the hill:<a href="#linknote-207" name="linknoteref-207" id="linknoteref-207"><sup>[4]</sup></a><br/> +The grasshopper is silent in the grass;<br/> +The lizard, with his shadow on the stone,<a href="#linknote-208" name="linknoteref-208" id="linknoteref-208"><sup>[5]</sup></a><br/> +Rests like a shadow, and the cicala sleeps.<a href="#linknote-209" name="linknoteref-209" id="linknoteref-209"><sup>[6]</sup></a><br/> +The purple flowers droop: the golden bee<br/> +Is lily-cradled: I alone awake.<br/> +My eyes are full of tears, my heart of +love,<br/> +My heart is breaking, and my eyes are dim,<a href="#linknote-210" name="linknoteref-210" id="linknoteref-210"><sup>[7]</sup></a><br/> +And I am all aweary of my life.<br/> +<br/> +“O mother Ida, many-fountain’d Ida,<br/> +Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.<br/> +Hear me O Earth, hear me O Hills, O Caves<br/> +That house the cold crown’d snake! O mountain brooks,<br/> +I am the daughter of a River-God,<a href="#linknote-211" name="linknoteref-211" id="linknoteref-211"><sup>[8]</sup></a><br/> +Hear me, for I will speak, and build up all<br/> +My sorrow with my song, as yonder walls<br/> +Rose slowly to a music slowly breathed,<a href="#linknote-212" name="linknoteref-212" id="linknoteref-212"><sup>[9]</sup></a><br/> +A cloud that gather’d shape: for it may be<br/> +That, while I speak of it, a little while<br/> +My heart may wander from its deeper woe.<br/> +<br/> +“O mother Ida, many-fountain’d Ida,<br/> +Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.<br/> +I waited underneath the dawning hills,<br/> +Aloft the mountain lawn was dewy-dark,<br/> +And dewy-dark aloft the mountain pine:<br/> +Beautiful Paris, evil-hearted Paris,<br/> +Leading a jet-black goat white-horn’d, +white-hooved,<br/> +Came up from reedy Simois<a href="#linknote-213" name="linknoteref-213" id="linknoteref-213"><sup>[10]</sup></a> all alone.<br/> +<br/> +“O mother Ida, harken ere I die.<br/> +Far-off the torrent call’d me from the cleft:<br/> +Far up the solitary morning smote<br/> +The streaks of virgin snow. With down-dropt eyes<br/> +I sat alone: white-breasted like a star<br/> +Fronting the dawn he moved; a leopard skin<br/> +Droop’d from his shoulder, but his sunny hair<br/> +Cluster’d about his temples like a God’s;<br/> +And his cheek brighten’d as the foam-bow brightens<br/> +When the wind blows the foam, and all my heart<br/> +Went forth to embrace him coming ere he came.<br/> +<br/> +“Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.<br/> +He smiled, and opening out his milk-white palm<br/> +Disclosed a fruit of pure Hesperian gold,<br/> +That smelt ambrosially, and while I look’d<br/> +And listen’d, the full-flowing river of speech<br/> +Came down upon my heart.<br/> +<br/> +“‘My own Œnone,<br/> +Beautiful-brow’d Œnone, my own soul,<br/> +Behold this fruit, whose gleaming rind ingrav’n<br/> +“For the most fair,” would seem to award it thine,<br/> +As lovelier than whatever Oread haunt<br/> +The knolls of Ida, loveliest in all grace<br/> +Of movement, and the charm of married brows.’<a href="#linknote-214" name="linknoteref-214" id="linknoteref-214"><sup>[11]</sup></a><br/> + +“Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.<br/> +He prest the blossom of his lips to mine,<br/> +And added ‘This was cast upon the board,<br/> +When all the full-faced presence of the Gods<br/> +Ranged in the halls of Peleus; whereupon<br/> +Rose feud, with question unto whom ’twere due:<br/> +But light-foot Iris brought it yester-eve,<br/> +Delivering, that to me, by common voice<br/> +Elected umpire, Herè comes to-day,<br/> +Pallas and Aphrodite, claiming each<br/> +This meed of fairest. Thou, within the cave<br/> +Behind yon whispering tuft of oldest pine,<br/> +Mayst well behold them unbeheld, unheard<br/> +Hear all, and see thy Paris judge of Gods.’<br/> +<br/> +“Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.<br/> +It was the deep midnoon: one silvery cloud<br/> +Had lost his way between the piney sides<br/> +Of this long glen. Then to the bower they came,<br/> +Naked they came to that smooth-swarded +bower,<br/> +And at their feet the crocus brake like fire,<a href="#linknote-215" name="linknoteref-215" id="linknoteref-215"><sup>[12]</sup></a><br/> +Violet, amaracus, and asphodel,<br/> +Lotos and lilies: and a wind arose,<br/> +And overhead the wandering ivy and vine,<br/> +This way and that, in many a wild festoon<br/> +Ran riot, garlanding the gnarled boughs<br/> +With bunch and berry and flower thro’ and thro’.<br/> +<br/> +“O mother Ida, harken ere I die.<br/> +On the tree-tops a crested peacock lit,<br/> +And o’er him flow’d a golden cloud, and lean’d<br/> +Upon him, slowing dropping fragrant dew.<br/> +Then first I heard the voice of her, to whom<br/> +Coming thro’ Heaven, like a light that grows<br/> +Larger and clearer, with one mind the Gods<br/> +Rise up for reverence. She to Paris made<br/> +Proffer of royal power, ample rule<br/> +Unquestion’d, overflowing revenue<br/> +Wherewith to embellish state, ‘from many a vale<br/> +And river-sunder’d champaign clothed with corn,<br/> +Or labour’d mines undrainable of ore.<br/> +Honour,’ she said, ‘and homage, tax and toll,<br/> +From many an inland town and haven large,<br/> +Mast-throng’d beneath her shadowing citadel<br/> +In glassy bays among her tallest towers.’<br/> +<br/> +“O mother Ida, harken ere I die.<br/> +Still she spake on and still she spake of power,<br/> +‘Which in all action is the end of all;<br/> +Power fitted to the season; wisdom-bred<br/> +And throned of wisdom—from all neighbour crowns<br/> +Alliance and allegiance, till thy hand<br/> +Fail from the sceptre staff. Such boon from me,<br/> +From me, Heaven’s Queen, Paris to thee king-born,<br/> +A shepherd all thy life but yet king-born,<br/> +Should come most welcome, seeing men, in power<br/> +Only, are likest gods, who have attain’d<br/> +Rest in a happy place and quiet seats<br/> +Above the thunder, with undying bliss<br/> +In knowledge of their own supremacy.’<br/> +<br/> +“Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.<br/> +She ceased, and Paris held the costly fruit<br/> +Out at arm’s-length, so much the thought of power<br/> +Flatter’d his spirit; but Pallas where she stood<br/> +Somewhat apart, her clear and bared limbs<br/> +O’erthwarted with the brazen-headed spear<br/> +Upon her pearly shoulder leaning cold,<br/> +The while, above, her full and earnesteye<br/> +Over her snow-cold breast and angry cheek<a href="#linknote-216" name="linknoteref-216" id="linknoteref-216"><sup>[13]</sup></a><br/> +Kept watch, waiting decision, made reply.<br/> +<br/> +“‘Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control,<br/> +These three alone lead life to sovereign power.<br/> +Yet not for power, (power of herself<br/> +Would come uncall’d for) but to live by law,<br/> +Acting the law we live by without fear;<br/> +And, because right is right, to follow right<a href="#linknote-217" name="linknoteref-217" id="linknoteref-217"><sup>[14]</sup></a><br/> +Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence.’<br/> +<br/> +“Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.<br/> +Again she said: ‘I woo thee not with gifts.<br/> +Sequel of guerdon could not alter me<br/> +To fairer. Judge thou me by what I am,<br/> +So shalt thou find me fairest.<br/> +<br/> +Yet indeed,<br/> +If gazing on divinity disrobed<br/> +Thy mortal eyes are frail to judge of fair,<br/> +Unbiass’d by self-profit, oh! rest thee sure<br/> +That I shall love thee well and cleave to thee,<br/> +So that my vigour, wedded to thy blood,<a href="#linknote-218" name="linknoteref-218" id="linknoteref-218"><sup>[15]</sup></a><br/> +Shall strike within thy pulses, like a God’s,<br/> +To push thee forward thro’ a life of shocks,<br/> +Dangers, and deeds, until endurance grow<br/> +Sinew’d with action, and the full-grown will.<br/> +Circled thro’ all experiences, pure law,<br/> +Commeasure perfect freedom.’<br/> +<br/> +“Here she ceased,<br/> +And Paris ponder’d, and I cried, ‘O Paris,<br/> +Give it to Pallas!’ but he heard me not,<br/> +Or hearing would not hear me, woe is me!<br/> +<br/> +“O mother Ida, many-fountain’d Ida.<br/> +Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.<br/> +Idalian Aphrodite, beautiful,<br/> +Fresh as the foam, new-bathed in Paphian<a href="#linknote-219" name="linknoteref-219" id="linknoteref-219"><sup>[16]</sup></a> wells,<br/> +With rosy slender fingers backward drew<br/> +From her warm brows and bosom<a href="#linknote-220" name="linknoteref-220" id="linknoteref-220"><sup>[17]</sup></a> her deep hair<br/> +Ambrosial, golden round her lucid throat<br/> +And shoulder: from the violets her light foot<br/> +Shone rosy-white, and o’er her rounded form<br/> +Between the shadows of the vine-bunches<br/> +Floated the glowing sunlights, as she moved.<br/> +<br/> +“Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.<br/> +She with a subtle smile in her mild eyes,<br/> +The herald of her triumph, drawing nigh<br/> +Half-whisper’d in his ear, ‘I promise thee<br/> +The fairest and most loving wife in Greece’.<br/> +She spoke and laugh’d: I shut my sight for fear:<br/> +But when I look’d, Paris had raised his arm,<br/> +And I beheld great Herè’s angry eyes,<br/> +As she withdrew into the golden cloud,<br/> +And I was left alone within the bower;<br/> +And from that time to this I am alone,<br/> +And I shall be alone until I die.<br/> +<br/> +“Yet, mother Ida, harken ere I die.<br/> +Fairest—why fairest wife? am I not fair?<br/> +My love hath told me so a thousand times.<br/> +Methinks I must be fair, for yesterday,<br/> +When I past by, a wild and wanton pard,<br/> +Eyed like the evening star, with playful tail<br/> +Crouch’d fawning in the weed. Most loving is she?<br/> +Ah me, my mountain shepherd, that my arms<br/> +Were wound about thee, and my hot lips prest<br/> +Close, close to thine in that quick-falling dew<br/> +Of fruitful kisses, thick as Autumn rains<br/> +Flash in the pools of whirling Simois.<br/> +<br/> +“O mother, hear me yet before I die.<br/> +They came, they cut away my tallest pines,<br/> +My dark tall pines, that plumed the craggy ledge<br/> +High over the blue gorge, and all between<br/> +The snowy peak and snow-white cataract<br/> +Foster’d the callow eaglet—from beneath<br/> +Whose thick mysterious boughs in the dark morn<br/> +The panther’s roar came muffled, while I sat<br/> +Low in the valley. Never, never more<br/> +Shall lone Œnone see the morning mist<br/> +Sweep thro’ them; never see them overlaid<br/> +With narrow moon-lit slips of silver cloud,<br/> +Between the loud stream and the trembling stars.<br/> +<br/> +“O mother, here me yet before I die.<br/> +I wish that somewhere in the ruin’d folds,<br/> +Among the fragments tumbled from the glens,<br/> +Or the dry thickets, I could meet with her,<br/> +The Abominable,<a href="#linknote-221" name="linknoteref-221" id="linknoteref-221"><sup>[18]</sup></a> that uninvited came<br/> +Into the fair Peleïan banquet-hall,<br/> +And cast the golden fruit upon the board,<br/> +And bred this change; that I might speak my mind,<br/> +And tell her to her face how much I hate<br/> +Her presence, hated both of Gods and men.<br/> +<br/> +“O mother, here me yet before I die.<br/> +Hath he not sworn his love a thousand times,<br/> +In this green valley, under this green hill,<br/> +Ev’n on this hand, and sitting on this stone?<br/> +Seal’d it with kisses? water’d it with tears?<br/> +O happy tears, and how unlike to these!<br/> +O happy Heaven, how canst thou see my face?<br/> +O happy earth, how canst thou bear my weight?<br/> +O death, death, death, thou ever-floating cloud,<br/> +There are enough unhappy on this earth,<br/> +Pass by the happy souls, that love to live:<br/> +I pray thee, pass before my light of life,<br/> +And shadow all my soul, that I may die.<br/> +Thou weighest heavy on the heart within,<br/> +Weigh heavy on my eyelids: let me die.<br/> +<br/> +“O mother, hear me yet before I die.<br/> +I will not die alone, for fiery thoughts<br/> +Do shape themselves within me, more and more,<br/> +Whereof I catch the issue, as I hear<br/> +Dead sounds at night come from the inmost hills,<br/> +Like footsteps upon wool. I dimly see<br/> +My far-off doubtful purpose, as a mother<br/> +Conjectures of the features of her child<br/> +Ere it is born: her child!—a shudder comes<br/> +Across me: never child be born of me,<br/> +Unblest, to vex me with his father’s eyes!<br/> +<br/> +“O mother, hear me yet before I die.<br/> +Hear me, O earth. I will not die alone,<br/> +Lest their shrill happy laughter come to me<br/> +Walking the cold and starless road of Death<br/> +Uncomforted, leaving my ancient love<br/> +With the Greek woman.<a href="#linknote-222" name="linknoteref-222" id="linknoteref-222"><sup>[19]</sup></a> I will rise and go<br/> +Down into Troy, and ere the stars come forth<br/> +Talk with the wild Cassandra,<a href="#linknote-223" name="linknoteref-223" id="linknoteref-223"><sup>[20]</sup></a> for she says<br/> +A fire dances before her, and a sound<br/> +Rings ever in her ears of armed men.<br/> +What this may be I know not, but I know<br/> +That, wheresoe’er I am by night and day,<br/> +All earth and air seem only burning fire.”<br/> +</p> + +<h4>1833</h4> + +<p> +There is a dale in Ida, lovelier<br/> +Than any in old Ionia, beautiful<br/> +With emerald slopes of sunny sward, that lean<br/> +Above the loud glenriver, which hath worn<br/> +A path thro’ steepdown granite walls below<br/> +Mantled with flowering tendriltwine. In front<br/> +The cedarshadowy valleys open wide.<br/> +Far-seen, high over all the God-built wall<br/> +And many a snowycolumned range divine,<br/> +Mounted with awful sculptures—men and Gods,<br/> +The work of Gods—bright on the dark-blue sky<br/> +The windy citadel of Ilion<br/> +Shone, like the crown of Troas. Hither came<br/> +Mournful Œnone wandering forlorn<br/> +Of Paris, once her playmate. Round her neck,<br/> +Her neck all marblewhite and marblecold,<br/> +Floated her hair or seemed to float in rest.<br/> +She, leaning on a vine-entwinèd stone,<br/> +Sang to the stillness, till the mountain-shadow<br/> +Sloped downward to her seat from the upper cliff.<br/> +<br/> +“O mother Ida, manyfountained Ida,<br/> +Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.<br/> +The grasshopper is silent in the grass,<br/> +The lizard with his shadow on the stone<br/> +Sleeps like a shadow, and the scarletwinged<a href="#linknote-224" name="linknoteref-224" id="linknoteref-224"><sup>[21]</sup></a><br/> +Cicala in the noonday leapeth not<br/> +Along the water-rounded granite-rock.<br/> +The purple flower droops: the golden bee<br/> +Is lilycradled: I alone awake.<br/> +My eyes are full of tears, my heart of love,<br/> +My heart is breaking and my eyes are dim,<br/> +And I am all aweary of my life.<br/> +<br/> +“O mother Ida, manyfountained Ida,<br/> +Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.<br/> +Hear me O Earth, hear me O Hills, O Caves<br/> +That house the cold crowned snake! O mountain brooks,<br/> +I am the daughter of a River-God,<br/> +Hear me, for I will speak, and build up all<br/> +My sorrow with my song, as yonder walls<br/> +Rose slowly to a music slowly breathed,<br/> +A cloud that gathered shape: for it may be<br/> +That, while I speak of it, a little while<br/> +My heart may wander from its deeper woe.<br/> +<br/> +“O mother Ida, manyfountained Ida,<br/> +Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.<br/> +Aloft the mountain lawn was dewydark,<br/> +And dewydark aloft the mountain pine;<br/> +Beautiful Paris, evil-hearted Paris,<br/> +Leading a jetblack goat whitehorned, whitehooved,<br/> +Came up from reedy Simois all alone.<br/> +<br/> +“O mother Ida, hearken ere I die.<br/> +I sate alone: the goldensandalled morn<br/> +Rosehued the scornful hills: I sate alone<br/> +With downdropt eyes: white-breasted like a star<br/> +Fronting the dawn he came: a leopard skin<br/> +From his white shoulder drooped: his sunny hair<br/> +Clustered about his temples like a God’s:<br/> +And his cheek brightened, as the foambow brightens<br/> +When the wind blows the foam; and I called out,<br/> +‘Welcome Apollo, welcome home Apollo,<br/> +Apollo, my Apollo, loved Apollo’.<br/> +<br/> +“Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.<br/> +He, mildly smiling, in his milk-white palm<br/> +Close-held a golden apple, lightningbright<br/> +With changeful flashes, dropt with dew of Heaven<br/> +Ambrosially smelling. From his lip,<br/> +Curved crimson, the full-flowing river of speech<br/> +Came down upon my heart.<br/> +<br/> +“‘My own Œnone,<br/> +Beautifulbrowed Œnone, mine own soul,<br/> +Behold this fruit, whose gleaming rind ingrav’n<br/> +“For the most fair,” in aftertime may breed<br/> +Deep evilwilledness of heaven and sore<br/> +Heartburning toward hallowed Ilion;<br/> +And all the colour of my afterlife<br/> +Will be the shadow of to-day. To-day<br/> +Herè and Pallas and the floating grace<br/> +Of laughter-loving Aphrodite meet<br/> +In manyfolded Ida to receive<br/> +This meed of beauty, she to whom my hand<br/> +Award the palm. Within the green hillside,<br/> +Under yon whispering tuft of oldest pine,<br/> +Is an ingoing grotto, strown with spar<br/> +And ivymatted at the mouth, wherein<br/> +Thou unbeholden may’st behold, unheard<br/> +Hear all, and see thy Paris judge of Gods.’<br/> +<br/> +“Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.<br/> +It was the deep midnoon: one silvery cloud<br/> +Had lost his way between the piney hills.<br/> +They came—all three—the Olympian goddesses.<br/> +Naked they came to the smoothswarded bower,<br/> +Lustrous with lilyflower, violeteyed<br/> +Both white and blue, with lotetree-fruit thickset,<br/> +Shadowed with singing-pine; and all the while,<br/> +Above, the overwandering ivy and vine<br/> +This way and that in many a wild festoon<br/> +Ran riot, garlanding the gnarled boughs<br/> +With bunch and berry and flower thro’ and thro’.<br/> +On the treetops a golden glorious cloud<br/> +Leaned, slowly dropping down ambrosial dew.<br/> +How beautiful they were, too beautiful<br/> +To look upon! but Paris was to me<br/> +More lovelier than all the world beside.<br/> +<br/> +“O mother Ida, hearken ere I die.<br/> +First spake the imperial Olympian<br/> +With archèd eyebrow smiling sovranly,<br/> +Fulleyèd here. She to Paris made<br/> +Proffer of royal power, ample rule<br/> +Unquestioned, overflowing revenue<br/> +Wherewith to embellish state, ‘from many a vale<br/> +And river-sundered champaign clothed with corn,<br/> +Or upland glebe wealthy in oil and wine—<br/> +Honour and homage, tribute, tax and toll,<br/> +From many an inland town and haven large,<br/> +Mast-thronged below her shadowing citadel<br/> +In glassy bays among her tallest towers.’<br/> +<br/> +“O mother Ida, hearken ere I die.<br/> +Still she spake on and still she spake of power<br/> +‘Which in all action is the end of all.<br/> +Power fitted to the season, measured by<br/> +The height of the general feeling, wisdomborn<br/> +And throned of wisdom—from all neighbour crowns<br/> +Alliance and allegiance evermore. Such boon from me<br/> +Heaven’s Queen to thee kingborn,<br/> +A shepherd all thy life and yet kingborn,<br/> +Should come most welcome, seeing men, in this<br/> +Only are likest gods, who have attained<br/> +Rest in a happy place and quiet seats<br/> +Above the thunder, with undying bliss<br/> +In knowledge of their own supremacy;<br/> +The changeless calm of undisputed right,<br/> +The highest height and topmost strength of power.’<br/> +<br/> +“Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.<br/> +She ceased, and Paris held the costly fruit<br/> +Out at arm’s length, so much the thought of power<br/> +Flattered his heart: but Pallas where she stood<br/> +Somewhat apart, her clear and barèd limbs<br/> +O’erthwarted with the brazen-headed spear<br/> +Upon her pearly shoulder leaning cold;<br/> +The while, above, her full and earnest eye<br/> +Over her snowcold breast and angry cheek<br/> +Kept watch, waiting decision, made reply.<br/> +<br/> +“‘Selfreverence, selfknowledge, selfcontrol<br/> +Are the three hinges of the gates of Life,<br/> +That open into power, everyway<br/> +Without horizon, bound or shadow or cloud.<br/> +Yet not for power (power of herself<br/> +Will come uncalled-for) but to live by law<br/> +Acting the law we live by without fear,<br/> +And, because right is right, to follow right<br/> +Were wisdom, in the scorn of consequence.<br/> +<br/> +(Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.)<br/> +Not as men value gold because it tricks<br/> +And blazons outward Life with ornament,<br/> +But rather as the miser, for itself.<br/> +Good for selfgood doth half destroy selfgood.<br/> +The means and end, like two coiled snakes, infect<br/> +Each other, bound in one with hateful love.<br/> +So both into the fountain and the stream<br/> +A drop of poison falls. Come hearken to me,<br/> +And look upon me and consider me,<br/> +So shall thou find me fairest, so endurance,<br/> +Like to an athlete’s arm, shall still become<br/> +Sinewed with motion, till thine active will<br/> +(As the dark body of the Sun robed round<br/> +With his own ever-emanating lights)<br/> +Be flooded o’er with her own effluences,<br/> +And thereby grow to freedom.’<br/> +<br/> +“Here she ceased<br/> +And Paris pondered. I cried out, ‘Oh, Paris,<br/> +Give it to Pallas!’ but he heard me not,<br/> +Or hearing would not hear me, woe is me!<br/> +<br/> +“O mother Ida, manyfountained Ida,<br/> +Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.<br/> +Idalian Aphrodite oceanborn,<br/> +Fresh as the foam, newbathed in Paphian wells,<br/> +With rosy slender fingers upward drew<br/> +From her warm brow and bosom her dark hair<br/> +Fragrant and thick, and on her head upbound<br/> +In a purple band: below her lucid neck<br/> +Shone ivorylike, and from the ground her foot<br/> +Gleamed rosywhite, and o’er her rounded form<br/> +Between the shadows of the vine-bunches<br/> +Floated the glowing sunlights, as she moved.<br/> +<br/> +“Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.<br/> +She with a subtle smile in her mild eyes,<br/> +The herald of her triumph, drawing nigh<br/> +Half-whispered in his ear, ‘I promise thee<br/> +The fairest and most loving wife in Greece’.<br/> +I only saw my Paris raise his arm:<br/> +I only saw great Herè’s angry eyes,<br/> +As she withdrew into the golden cloud,<br/> +And I was left alone within the bower;<br/> +And from that time to this I am alone.<br/> +And I shall be alone until I die.<br/> +<br/> +“Yet, mother Ida, hearken ere I die.<br/> +Fairest—why fairest wife? am I not fair?<br/> +My love hath told me so a thousand times.<br/> +Methinks I must be fair, for yesterday,<br/> +When I passed by, a wild and wanton pard,<br/> +Eyed like the evening star, with playful tail<br/> +Crouched fawning in the weed. Most loving is she?<br/> +Ah me, my mountain shepherd, that my arms<br/> +Were wound about thee, and my hot lips prest<br/> +Close-close to thine in that quickfalling dew<br/> +Of fruitful kisses, thick as Autumn rains<br/> +Flash in the pools of whirling Simois.<br/> +<br/> +“Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.<br/> +They came, they cut away my tallest pines—<br/> +My dark tall pines, that plumed the craggy ledge<br/> +High over the blue gorge, or lower down<br/> +Filling greengulphèd Ida, all between<br/> +The snowy peak and snowwhite cataract<br/> +Fostered the callow eaglet—from beneath<br/> +Whose thick mysterious boughs in the dark<br/> +The panther’s roar came muffled, while I sat<br/> +Low in the valley. Never, nevermore<br/> +Shall lone Œnone see the morning mist<br/> +Sweep thro’ them—never see them overlaid<br/> +With narrow moon-lit slips of silver cloud,<br/> +Between the loud stream and the trembling stars.<br/> +<br/> +“Oh! mother Ida, hearken ere I die.<br/> +Hath he not sworn his love a thousand times,<br/> +In this green valley, under this green hill,<br/> +Ev’n on this hand, and sitting on this stone?<br/> +Sealed it with kisses? watered it with tears?<br/> +Oh happy tears, and how unlike to these!<br/> +Oh happy Heaven, how can’st thou see my face?<br/> +Oh happy earth, how can’st thou bear my weight?<br/> +O death, death, death, thou ever-floating cloud,<br/> +There are enough unhappy on this earth,<br/> +Pass by the happy souls, that love to live:<br/> +I pray thee, pass before my light of life.<br/> +And shadow all my soul, that I may die.<br/> +Thou weighest heavy on the heart within,<br/> +Weigh heavy on my eyelids—let me die.<br/> +<br/> +“Yet, mother Ida, hear me ere I die.<br/> +I will not die alone, for fiery thoughts<br/> +Do shape themselves within me, more and more,<br/> +Whereof I catch the issue, as I hear<br/> +Dead sounds at night come from the inmost hills,<br/> +Like footsteps upon wool. I dimly see<br/> +My far-off doubtful purpose, as a mother<br/> +Conjectures of the features of her child<br/> +Ere it is born. I will not die alone.<br/> +“Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.<br/> +Hear me, O earth. I will not die alone,<br/> +Lest their shrill, happy laughter, etc.<br/> +(Same as last stanza of subsequent editions.) +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-204" id="linknote-204"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-204">[1]</a> +Tennyson, as we learn from his <i>Life</i> (vol. i., p. 83), began <i>Œnone</i> +while he and Arthur Hallam were in Spain, whither they went with money for the +insurgent allies of Torrigos in the summer of 1830. He wrote part of it in the +valley of Cauteretz in the Pyrenees, the picturesque beauty of which fascinated +him and not only suggested the scenery of this Idyll, but inspired many years +afterwards the poem <i>All along the valley</i>. The exquisite scene with which +the Idyll opens bears no resemblance at all to Mount Ida and the Troad. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-205" id="linknote-205"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-205">[2]</a> +Gargarus or Gargaron is the highest peak of the Ida range, rising about 4650 +feet above the level of the sea. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-206" id="linknote-206"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-206">[3]</a> +The epithet many-fountain’d +πλπῖδαοξ is Homer’s stock +epithet for Ida. <i>Cf. Iliad</i>, viii., 47; xiv., 283, etc., etc. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-207" id="linknote-207"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-207">[4]</a> +A literal translation from a line in Callimachus, <i>Lavacrum Palladis</i>, 72: +μεσαμβρινὴ δ’ +ἔιχ’ ὅρος +ἡσυχία (noonday quiet held the hill). + +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-208" id="linknote-208"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-208">[5]</a> +So Theocritus, <i>Idyll</i>, vii., 22:—<br/> +Ανίκα δὴ καὶ +σαῦρος ἐφ’ +αἱμασιᾶισι +καθεύδει.<br/> +(When indeed the very lizard is sleeping on the loose stones of the wall.) + +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-209" id="linknote-209"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-209">[6]</a> +This extraordinary mistake in natural history (the cicala being of course +loudest in mid noonday when the heat is greatest) Tennyson allowed to stand, +till securing accuracy at the heavy price of a pointless pleonasm, he +substituted in 1884 “and the winds are dead”. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-210" id="linknote-210"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-210">[7]</a> +An echo from <i>Henry VI.</i>, part ii., act ii., se. iii.:—<br/> +<br/> +Mine eyes arc full of tears, my heart of grief. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-211" id="linknote-211"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-211">[8]</a> +Œnone was the daughter of the River-God Kebren. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-212" id="linknote-212"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-212">[9]</a> +For the myth here referred to see Ovid, <i>Heroides</i>, xvi., +179-80:—<br/> +<br/> +Ilion aspicies, firmataque turribus altis Moenia,<br/> +Phoeboeae; structa canore lyrae.<br/> +<br/> +It was probably an application of the Theban legend of Amphion, and arose from +the association of Apollo with Poseidon in founding Troy.<br/> +<br/> +A fabric huge <i>Rose like an exhalation,</i><br/> +<br/> +(Milton’s <i>Paradise Lost</i>, i., 710-11.)<br/> +<br/> +<i>Cf. Gareth and Lynette</i>, 254-7. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-213" id="linknote-213"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-213">[10]</a> +The river Simois, so often referred to in the <i>Iliad</i>, had its origin in +Mount Cotylus, and passing by Ilion joined the Scamander below the city. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-214" id="linknote-214"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-214">[11]</a> +<i>Cf.</i> the σύνοφρυς +κόρα (the maid of the meeting brows) of Theocritus, +<i>Id.</i>, viii., 72. This was considered a great beauty among the Greeks, +Romans and Orientals. Ovid, <i>Ars. Amat</i>., iii., 201, speaks of women +effecting this by art: “Arte, supercilii confinia nuda repletis”. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-215" id="linknote-215"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-215">[12]</a> +The whole of this gorgeous passage is taken, with one or two additions and +alterations in the names of the flowers, from <i>Iliad</i>, xiv., 347-52, with +a reminiscence no doubt of Milton, <i>Paradise Lost</i>, iv., 695-702. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-216" id="linknote-216"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-216">[13]</a> +The “<i>angry</i> cheek” is a fine touch. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-217" id="linknote-217"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-217">[14]</a> +This fine sentiment is, of course, a commonplace among ancient philosophers, +but it may be interesting to put beside it a passage from Cicero, <i>De +Finibus</i>, ii., 14, 45: “Honestum id intelligimus quod tale est ut, +detractâ omni utilitate, sine ullis præmiis fructibusve per se ipsum +possit jure laudari”. We are to understand by the truly honourable that +which, setting aside all consideration of utility, may be rightly praised in +itself, exclusive of any prospect of reward or compensation. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-218" id="linknote-218"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-218">[15]</a> +This passage is very obscurely expressed, but the general meaning is clear: +“Until endurance grow sinewed with action, and the full-grown will, +circled through all experiences grow or become law, be identified with law, and +commeasure perfect freedom”. The true moral ideal is to bring the will +into absolute harmony with law, so that virtuous action becomes an instinct, +the will no longer rebelling against the law, “service” being in +very truth “perfect freedom”. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-219" id="linknote-219"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-219">[16]</a> +The Paphos referred to is the old Paphos which was sacred to Aphrodite; it was +on the south-west extremity of Cyprus. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-220" id="linknote-220"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-220">[17]</a> +Adopted from a line excised in <i>Mariana in the South</i>. See <i>supra</i>. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-221" id="linknote-221"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-221">[18]</a> +This was Eris. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-222" id="linknote-222"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-222">[19]</a> +Helen. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-223" id="linknote-223"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-223">[20]</a> +With these verses should be compared Schiller’s fine lyric +<i>Kassandra</i>, and with the line, “All earth and air seem only burning +fire,” from Webster’s <i>Duchess of Malfi</i>:—<br/> +<br/> +The heaven o’er my head seems made of molten brass,<br/> +The earth of flaming sulphur. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-224" id="linknote-224"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-224">[21]</a> +In the Pyrenees, where part of this poem was written, I saw a very beautiful +species of Cicala, which had scarlet wings spotted with black. Probably nothing +of the kind exists in Mount Ida. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap34"></a>The Sisters</h3> + +<p class="center"> +First published in 1833. +</p> + +<p> +The only alterations which have been made in it since have simply consisted in +the alteration of “‘an’” for “and” in the +third line of each stanza, and “through and through” for +“thro’ and thro’” in line 29, and “wrapt” +for “wrapped” in line 34. It is curious that in 1842 the original +“bad” was altered to “bade,” but all subsequent +editions keep to the original. It has been said that this poem was founded on +the old Scotch ballad “The Twa Sisters” (see for that ballad +Sharpe’s <i>Ballad Book</i>, No. x., p. 30), but there is no resemblance +at all between the ballad and this poem beyond the fact that in each there are +two sisters who are both loved by a certain squire, the elder in jealousy +pushing the younger into a river and drowning her.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +We were two daughters of one race:<br/> +She was the fairest in the face:<br/> +The wind is blowing in turret and tree.<br/> +They were together and she fell;<br/> +Therefore revenge became me well.<br/> +O the Earl was fair to see!<br/> +<br/> +She died: she went to burning flame:<br/> +She mix’d her ancient blood with shame.<br/> +The wind is howling in turret and tree.<br/> +Whole weeks and months, and early and late,<br/> +To win his love I lay in wait:<br/> +O the Earl was fair to see!<br/> +<br/> +I made a feast; I bad him come;<br/> +I won his love, I brought him home.<br/> +The wind is roaring in turret and tree.<br/> +And after supper, on a bed,<br/> +Upon my lap he laid his head:<br/> +O the Earl was fair to see!<br/> +<br/> +I kiss’d his eyelids into rest:<br/> +His ruddy cheek upon my breast.<br/> +The wind is raging in turret and tree.<br/> +I hated him with the hate of hell,<br/> +But I loved his beauty passing well.<br/> +O the Earl was fair to see!<br/> +<br/> +I rose up in the silent night:<br/> +I made my dagger sharp and bright.<br/> +The wind is raving in turret and tree.<br/> +As half-asleep his breath he drew,<br/> +Three times I stabb’d him thro’ and thro’.<br/> +O the Earl was fair to see!<br/> +<br/> +I curl’d and comb’d his comely head,<br/> +He look’d so grand when he was dead.<br/> +The wind is blowing in turret and tree.<br/> +I wrapt his body in the sheet,<br/> +And laid him at his mother’s feet.<br/> +O the Earl was fair to see! +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap35"></a>To——</h3> + +<p class="center"> +<b>with the following poem.</b> +</p> + +<p> +I have not been able to ascertain to whom this dedication was addressed. Sir +Franklin Lushington tells me that he thinks it was an imaginary person. The +dedication explains the allegory intended. The poem appears to have been +suggested, as we learn from <i>Tennyson’s Life</i> (vol. i., p. 150), by +a remark of Trench to Tennyson when they were undergraduates at Trinity: +“We cannot live in art”. It was the embodiment Tennyson added of +his belief “that the God-like life is with man and for man”. +<i>Cf.</i> his own lines in <i>Love and Duty</i>:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +For a man is not as God,<br/> +But then most God-like being most a man. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +It is a companion poem to the <i>Vision of Sin</i>; in that poem is traced the +effect of indulgence in the grosser pleasures of sense, in this the effect of +the indulgence in the more refined pleasures of sense.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +I send you here a sort of allegory,<br/> +(For you will understand it) of a soul,<a href="#linknote-225" name="linknoteref-225" id="linknoteref-225"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/> +A sinful soul possess’d of many gifts,<br/> +A spacious garden full of flowering weeds,<br/> +A glorious Devil, large in heart and brain,<br/> +That did love Beauty only, (Beauty seen<br/> +In all varieties of mould and mind)<br/> +And Knowledge for its beauty; or if Good,<br/> +Good only for its beauty, seeing not<br/> +That beauty, Good, and Knowledge, are three sisters<br/> +That doat upon each other, friends to man,<br/> +Living together under the same roof,<br/> +And never can be sunder’d without tears.<br/> +And he that shuts Love out, in turn shall be<br/> +Shut out from Love, and on her threshold lie<br/> +Howling in outer darkness. Not for this<br/> +Was common clay ta’en from the common earth,<br/> +Moulded by God, and temper’d with the tears<br/> +Of angels to the perfect shape of man. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-225" id="linknote-225"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-225">[1]</a> +1833.<br/> +<br/> +I send you, Friend, a sort of allegory,<br/> +(You are an artist and will understand<br/> +Its many lesser meanings) of a soul. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap36"></a>The Palace of Art</h3> + +<p> +First published in 1833, but altered so extensively on its republication in +1842 as to be practically rewritten. The alterations in it after 1842 were not +numerous, consisting chiefly in the deletion of two stanzas after line 192 and +the insertion of the three stanzas which follow in the present text, together +with other minor verbal corrections, all of which have been noted. No +alterations were made in the text after 1853. The allegory Tennyson explains in +the dedicatory verses, but the framework of the poem was evidently suggested by +<i>Ecclesiastes</i> ii. 1-17. The position of the hero is precisely that of +Solomon. Both began by assuming that man is self-sufficing and the world +sufficient; the verdict of the one in consequence being “vanity of +vanities, all is vanity,” of the other what the poet here records. An +admirable commentary on the poem is afforded by Matthew Arnold’s picture +of the Romans before Christ taught the secret of the only real happiness +possible to man. See <i>Obermann Once More</i>. The teaching of the poem has +been admirably explained by Spedding. It “represents allegorically the +condition of a mind which, in the love of beauty and the triumphant +consciousness of knowledge and intellectual supremacy, in the intense enjoyment +of its own power and glory, has lost sight of its relation to man and +God”. See <i>Tennyson’s Life</i>, vol. i., p. 226.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +I built my soul a lordly pleasure-house<br/> +Wherein at ease for aye to dwell.<br/> +I said, “O Soul, make merry and carouse,<br/> +Dear soul, for all is well”.<br/> +<br/> +A huge crag-platform, smooth as burnish’d brass,<br/> +I chose. The ranged ramparts bright<br/> +From level meadow-bases of deep grass<a href="#linknote-226" name="linknoteref-226" id="linknoteref-226"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/> +Suddenly scaled the light.<br/> +<br/> +Thereon I built it firm. Of ledge or shelf<br/> +The rock rose clear, or winding stair.<br/> +My soul would live alone unto herself<br/> +In her high palace there.<br/> +<br/> +And “while the world<a href="#linknote-227" name="linknoteref-227" id="linknoteref-227"><sup>[2]</sup></a> runs round and round,” I said,<br/> +“Reign thou apart, a quiet king,<br/> +Still as, while Saturn<a href="#linknote-228" name="linknoteref-228" id="linknoteref-228"><sup>[3]</sup></a> whirls, his stedfast<a href="#linknote-229" name="linknoteref-229" id="linknoteref-229"><sup>[4]</sup></a> shade<br/> +Sleeps on his luminous<a href="#linknote-230" name="linknoteref-230" id="linknoteref-230"><sup>[5]</sup></a> ring.”<br/> +<br/> +To which my soul made answer readily:<br/> +“Trust me, in bliss I shall abide<br/> +In this great mansion, that is built for me,<br/> +So royal-rich and wide”<br/> +<br/> +...<br/> +<br/> +Four courts I made, East, West and South and North,<br/> +In each a squared lawn, wherefrom<br/> +The golden gorge of dragons spouted forth<br/> +A flood of fountain-foam.<a href="#linknote-231" name="linknoteref-231" id="linknoteref-231"><sup>[6]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +And round the cool green courts there ran a row<br/> +Of cloisters, branch’d like mighty woods,<br/> +Echoing all night to that sonorous flow<br/> +Of spouted fountain-floods.<a href="#linknote-232" name="linknoteref-232" id="linknoteref-232"><sup>[6]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +And round the roofs a gilded gallery<br/> +That lent broad verge to distant lands,<br/> +Far as the wild swan wings, to where the sky<br/> +Dipt down to sea and sands.<a href="#linknote-233" name="linknoteref-233" id="linknoteref-233"><sup>[6]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +From those four jets four currents in one swell<br/> +Across the mountain stream’d below<br/> +In misty folds, that floating as they fell<br/> +Lit up a torrent-bow.<a href="#linknote-234" name="linknoteref-234" id="linknoteref-234"><sup>[6]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +And high on every peak a statue seem’d<br/> +To hang on tiptoe, tossing up<br/> +A cloud of incense of all odour steam’d<br/> +From out a golden cup.<a href="#linknote-235" name="linknoteref-235" id="linknoteref-235"><sup>[6]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +So that she thought, “And who shall gaze upon<br/> +My palace with unblinded eyes,<br/> +While this great bow will waver in the sun,<br/> +And that sweet incense rise?”<a href="#linknote-236" name="linknoteref-236" id="linknoteref-236"><sup>[6]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +For that sweet incense rose and never fail’d,<br/> +And, while day sank or mounted higher,<br/> +The light aerial gallery, golden-rail’d,<br/> +Burnt like a fringe of fire.<a href="#linknote-237" name="linknoteref-237" id="linknoteref-237"><sup>[6]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +Likewise the deep-set windows, stain’d and traced,<br/> +Would seem slow-flaming crimson fires<br/> +From shadow’d grots of arches interlaced,<br/> +And tipt with frost-like spires.<a href="#linknote-238" name="linknoteref-238" id="linknoteref-238"><sup>[6]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +...<br/> +<br/> +Full of long-sounding corridors it was,<br/> +That over-vaulted grateful gloom,<a href="#linknote-239" name="linknoteref-239" id="linknoteref-239"><sup>[7]</sup></a><br/> +Thro’ which the livelong day my soul did pass,<br/> +Well-pleased, from room to room.<br/> +<br/> +Full of great rooms and small the palace stood,<br/> +All various, each a perfect whole<br/> +From living Nature, fit for every mood<a href="#linknote-240" name="linknoteref-240" id="linknoteref-240"><sup>[8]</sup></a><br/> +And change of my still soul.<br/> +<br/> +For some were hung with arras green and blue,<br/> +Showing a gaudy summer-morn,<br/> +Where with puff’d cheek the belted hunter blew<br/> +His wreathed bugle-horn.<a href="#linknote-241" name="linknoteref-241" id="linknoteref-241"><sup>[9]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +One seem’d all dark and red—a tract of sand,<br/> +And some one pacing there alone,<br/> +Who paced for ever in a glimmering land,<br/> +Lit with a low large moon.<a href="#linknote-242" name="linknoteref-242" id="linknoteref-242"><sup>[10]</sup></a>><br/> +<br/> +One show’d an iron coast and angry waves.<br/> +You seem’d to hear them climb and fall<br/> +And roar rock-thwarted under bellowing caves,<br/> +Beneath the windy wall.<a href="#linknote-243" name="linknoteref-243" id="linknoteref-243"><sup>[11]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +And one, a full-fed river winding slow<br/> +By herds upon an endless plain,<br/> +The ragged rims of thunder brooding low,<br/> +With shadow-streaks of rain.<a href="#linknote-244" name="linknoteref-244" id="linknoteref-244"><sup>[11]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +And one, the reapers at their sultry toil.<br/> +In front they bound the sheaves. Behind<br/> +Were realms of upland, prodigal in oil,<br/> +And hoary to the wind.<a href="#linknote-245" name="linknoteref-245" id="linknoteref-245"><sup>[11]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +And one, a foreground black with stones and slags,<br/> +Beyond, a line of heights, and higher<br/> +All barr’d with long white cloud the scornful +crags,<br/> +And highest, snow and fire.<a href="#linknote-246" name="linknoteref-246" id="linknoteref-246"><sup>[12]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +And one, an English home—gray twilight pour’d<br/> +On dewy pastures, dewy trees,<br/> +Softer than sleep—all things in order +stored,<br/> +A haunt of ancient Peace.<a href="#linknote-247" name="linknoteref-247" id="linknoteref-247"><sup>[13]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +Nor these alone, but every landscape fair,<br/> +As fit for every mood of mind,<br/> +Or gay, or grave, or sweet, or stern, was +there,<br/> +Not less than truth design’d.<a href="#linknote-248" name="linknoteref-248" id="linknoteref-248"><sup>[14]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +...<br/> +<br/> +Or the maid-mother by a crucifix,<br/> +In tracts of pasture sunny-warm,<br/> +Beneath branch-work of costly sardonyx<br/> +Sat smiling, babe in arm.<a href="#linknote-249" name="linknoteref-249" id="linknoteref-249"><sup>[15]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +Or in a clear-wall’d city on the sea,<br/> +Near gilded organ-pipes, her hair<br/> +Wound with white roses, slept St. Cecily;<br/> +An angel look’d at her.<br/> +<br/> +Or thronging all one porch of Paradise,<br/> +A group of Houris bow’d to see<br/> +The dying Islamite, with hands and eyes<br/> +That said, We wait for thee.<a href="#linknote-250" name="linknoteref-250" id="linknoteref-250"><sup>[16]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +Or mythic Uther’s deeply-wounded son<br/> +In some fair space of sloping greens<br/> +Lay, dozing in the vale of Avalon,<br/> +And watch’d by weeping queens.<a href="#linknote-251" name="linknoteref-251" id="linknoteref-251"><sup>[17]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +Or hollowing one hand against his ear,<br/> +To list a foot-fall, ere he saw<br/> +The wood-nymph, stay’d the Ausonian king to hear<br/> +Of wisdom and of law.<a href="#linknote-252" name="linknoteref-252" id="linknoteref-252"><sup>[18]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +Or over hills with peaky tops engrail’d,<br/> +And many a tract of palm and rice,<br/> +The throne of Indian Cama<a href="#linknote-253" name="linknoteref-253" id="linknoteref-253"><sup>[19]</sup></a> slowly sail’d<br/> +A summer fann’d with spice.<br/> +<br/> +Or sweet Europa’s<a href="#linknote-254" name="linknoteref-254" id="linknoteref-254"><sup>[20]</sup></a> mantle blew unclasp’d,<br/> +From off her shoulder backward borne:<br/> +From one hand droop’d a crocus: one hand grasp’d<br/> +The mild bull’s golden horn.<a href="#linknote-255" name="linknoteref-255" id="linknoteref-255"><sup>[21]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +Or else flush’d Ganymede, his rosy thigh<br/> +Half-buried in the Eagle’s down,<br/> +Sole as a flying star shot thro’ the sky<br/> +Above<a href="#linknote-256" name="linknoteref-256" id="linknoteref-256"><sup>[22]</sup></a> the pillar’d town.<br/> +<br/> +Nor<a href="#linknote-257" name="linknoteref-257" id="linknoteref-257"><sup>[23]</sup></a> these alone: but every<a href="#linknote-258" name="linknoteref-258" id="linknoteref-258"><sup>[24]</sup></a> legend fair<br/> +Which the supreme Caucasian mind<a href="#linknote-259" name="linknoteref-259" id="linknoteref-259"><sup>[25]</sup></a><br/> +Carved out of Nature for itself, was there,<br/> +Not less than life, design’d.<a href="#linknote-260" name="linknoteref-260" id="linknoteref-260"><sup>[26]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +Then in the towers I placed great bells that swung,<br/> +Moved of themselves, with silver sound;<br/> +And with choice paintings of wise men I hung<br/> +The royal dais round.<br/> +<br/> +For there was Milton like a seraph strong,<br/> +Beside him Shakespeare bland and mild;<br/> +And there the world-worn Dante grasp’d his song,<br/> +And somewhat grimly smiled.<a href="#linknote-261" name="linknoteref-261" id="linknoteref-261"><sup>[27]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +And there the Ionian father of the rest;<a href="#linknote-262" name="linknoteref-262" id="linknoteref-262"><sup>[28]</sup></a><br/> +A million wrinkles carved his skin;<br/> +A hundred winters snow’d upon his breast,<br/> +From cheek and throat and chin.<a href="#linknote-263" name="linknoteref-263" id="linknoteref-263"><sup>[29]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +Above, the fair hall-ceiling stately set<br/> +Many an arch high up did lift,<br/> +And angels rising and descending met<br/> +With interchange of gift.<a href="#linknote-264" name="linknoteref-264" id="linknoteref-264"><sup>[29]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +Below was all mosaic choicely plann’d<br/> +With cycles of the human tale<br/> +Of this wide world, the times of every land<br/> +So wrought, they will not fail.<a href="#linknote-265" name="linknoteref-265" id="linknoteref-265"><sup>[29]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +The people here, a beast of burden slow,<br/> +Toil’d onward, prick’d with goads and stings;<br/> +Here play’d, a tiger, rolling to and fro<br/> +The heads and crowns of kings;<a href="#linknote-266" name="linknoteref-266" id="linknoteref-266"><sup>[29]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +Here rose, an athlete, strong to break or bind<br/> +All force in bonds that might endure,<br/> +And here once more like some sick man declined,<br/> +And trusted any cure.<a href="#linknote-267" name="linknoteref-267" id="linknoteref-267"><sup>[29]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +But over these she trod: and those great bells<br/> +Began to chime. She took her throne:<br/> +She sat betwixt the shining Oriels,<br/> +To sing her songs alone.<a href="#linknote-268" name="linknoteref-268" id="linknoteref-268"><sup>[29]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +And thro’ the topmost Oriels’ colour’d flame<br/> +Two godlike faces gazed below;<br/> +Plato the wise, and large-brow’d Verulam,<br/> +The first of those who know.<a href="#linknote-269" name="linknoteref-269" id="linknoteref-269"><sup>[29]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +And all those names, that in their motion were<br/> +Full-welling fountain-heads of change,<br/> +Betwixt the slender shafts were blazon’d fair<br/> +In diverse raiment strange:<a href="#linknote-270" name="linknoteref-270" id="linknoteref-270"><sup>[30]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +Thro’ which the lights, rose, amber, emerald, blue,<br/> +Flush’d in her temples and her eyes,<br/> +And from her lips, as morn from Memnon,<a href="#linknote-271" name="linknoteref-271" id="linknoteref-271"><sup>[31]</sup></a> drew<br/> +Rivers of melodies.<br/> +<br/> +No nightingale delighteth to prolong<br/> +Her low preamble all alone,<br/> +More than my soul to hear her echo’d song<br/> +Throb thro’ the ribbed stone;<br/> +<br/> +Singing and murmuring in her feastful mirth,<br/> +Joying to feel herself alive,<br/> +Lord over Nature, Lord of<a href="#linknote-272" name="linknoteref-272" id="linknoteref-272"><sup>[32]</sup></a> the visible earth,<br/> +Lord of the senses five;<br/> +<br/> +Communing with herself: “All these are mine,<br/> +And let the world have peace or wars,<br/> +’Tis one to me”. She—when young night divine<br/> +Crown’d dying day with stars,<br/> +<br/> +Making sweet close of his delicious toils—<br/> +Lit light in wreaths and anadems,<br/> +And pure quintessences of precious oils<br/> +In hollow’d moons of gems,<br/> +<br/> +To mimic heaven; and clapt her hands and cried,<br/> +“I marvel if my still delight<br/> +In this great house so royal-rich, and wide,<br/> +Be flatter’d to the height.<a href="#linknote-273" name="linknoteref-273" id="linknoteref-273"><sup>[33]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +“O all things fair to sate my various eyes!<br/> +O shapes and hues that please me well!<br/> +O silent faces of the Great and Wise,<br/> +My Gods, with whom I dwell!<a href="#linknote-274" name="linknoteref-274" id="linknoteref-274"><sup>[34]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +“O God-like isolation which art mine,<br/> +I can but count thee perfect gain,<br/> +What time I watch the darkening droves of swine<br/> +That range on yonder plain.<a href="#linknote-275" name="linknoteref-275" id="linknoteref-275"><sup>[34]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +“In filthy sloughs they roll a prurient skin,<br/> +They graze and wallow, breed and sleep;<br/> +And oft some brainless devil enters in,<br/> +And drives them to the deep.”<a href="#linknote-276" name="linknoteref-276" id="linknoteref-276"><sup>[34]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +Then of the moral instinct would she prate,<br/> +And of the rising from the dead,<br/> +As hers by right of full-accomplish’d Fate;<br/> +And at the last she said:<br/> +<br/> +“I take possession of man’s mind and deed.<br/> +I care not what the sects may brawl,<br/> +I sit as God holding no form of creed,<br/> +But contemplating all.”<a href="#linknote-277" name="linknoteref-277" id="linknoteref-277"><sup>[35]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +Full oft<a href="#linknote-278" name="linknoteref-278" id="linknoteref-278"><sup>[36]</sup></a> the riddle of the painful earth<br/> +Flash’d thro’ her as she sat alone,<br/> +Yet not the less held she her solemn mirth,<br/> +And intellectual throne.<br/> +<br/> +And so she throve and prosper’d: so three years<br/> +She prosper’d: on the fourth she fell,<a href="#linknote-279" name="linknoteref-279" id="linknoteref-279"><sup>[37]</sup></a><br/> +Like Herod,<a href="#linknote-280" name="linknoteref-280" id="linknoteref-280"><sup>[38]</sup></a> when the shout was in his ears,<br/> +Struck thro’ with pangs of hell.<br/> +<br/> +Lest she should fail and perish utterly,<br/> +God, before whom ever lie bare<br/> +The abysmal deeps of Personality,<a href="#linknote-281" name="linknoteref-281" id="linknoteref-281"><sup>[39]</sup></a><br/> +Plagued her with sore despair.<br/> +<br/> +When she would think, where’er she turn’d her sight,<br/> +The airy hand confusion wrought,<br/> +Wrote “Mene, mene,” and divided quite<br/> +The kingdom of her thought.<a href="#linknote-282" name="linknoteref-282" id="linknoteref-282"><sup>[40]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +Deep dread and loathing of her solitude<br/> +Fell on her, from which mood was born<br/> +Scorn of herself; again, from out that mood<br/> +Laughter at her self-scorn.<a href="#linknote-283" name="linknoteref-283" id="linknoteref-283"><sup>[41]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +“What! is not this my place of strength,” she said,<br/> +“My spacious mansion built for me,<br/> +Whereof the strong foundation-stones were laid<br/> +Since my first memory?”<br/> +<br/> +But in dark corners of her palace stood<br/> +Uncertain shapes; and unawares<br/> +On white-eyed phantasms weeping tears of blood,<br/> +And horrible nightmares,<br/> +<br/> +And hollow shades enclosing hearts of flame,<br/> +And, with dim fretted foreheads all,<br/> +On corpses three-months-old at noon she came,<br/> +That stood against the wall.<br/> +<br/> +A spot of dull stagnation, without light<br/> +Or power of movement, seem’d my soul,<br/> +’Mid onward-sloping<a href="#linknote-284" name="linknoteref-284" id="linknoteref-284"><sup>[42]</sup></a> motions infinite<br/> +Making for one sure goal.<br/> +<br/> +A still salt pool, lock’d in with bars of sand;<br/> +Left on the shore; that hears all night<br/> +The plunging seas draw backward from the land<br/> +Their moon-led waters white.<br/> +<br/> +A star that with the choral starry dance<br/> +Join’d not, but stood, and standing saw<br/> +The hollow orb of moving Circumstance<br/> +Roll’d round by one fix’d law.<br/> +<br/> +Back on herself her serpent pride had curl’d.<br/> +“No voice,” she shriek’d in that lone hall,<br/> +“No voice breaks thro’ the stillness of this world:<br/> +One deep, deep silence all!”<br/> +<br/> +She, mouldering with the dull earth’s mouldering sod,<br/> +Inwrapt tenfold in slothful shame,<br/> +Lay there exiled from eternal God,<br/> +Lost to her place and name;<br/> +<br/> +And death and life she hated equally,<br/> +And nothing saw, for her despair,<br/> +But dreadful time, dreadful eternity,<br/> +No comfort anywhere;<br/> +<br/> +Remaining utterly confused with fears,<br/> +And ever worse with growing time,<br/> +And ever unrelieved by dismal tears,<br/> +And all alone in crime:<br/> +<br/> +Shut up as in a crumbling tomb, girt round<br/> +With blackness as a solid wall,<br/> +Far off she seem’d to hear the dully sound<br/> +Of human footsteps fall.<br/> +<br/> +As in strange lands a traveller walking slow,<br/> +In doubt and great perplexity,<br/> +A little before moon-rise hears the low<br/> +Moan of an unknown sea;<br/> +<br/> +And knows not if it be thunder or a sound<br/> +Of rocks<a href="#linknote-285" name="linknoteref-285" id="linknoteref-285"><sup>[43]</sup></a> thrown down, or one deep cry<br/> +Of great wild beasts; then thinketh, “I have found<br/> +A new land, but I die”.<br/> +<br/> +She howl’d aloud, “I am on fire within.<br/> +There comes no murmur of reply.<br/> +What is it that will take away my sin,<br/> +And save me lest I die?”<br/> +<br/> +So when four years were wholly finished,<br/> +She threw her royal robes away.<br/> +“Make me a cottage in the vale,” she said,<br/> +“Where I may mourn and pray.<a href="#linknote-286" name="linknoteref-286" id="linknoteref-286"><sup>[44]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +“Yet pull not down my palace towers, that are<br/> +So lightly, beautifully built:<br/> +Perchance I may return with others there<br/> +When I have purged my guilt.”<a href="#linknote-287" name="linknoteref-287" id="linknoteref-287"><sup>[45]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-226" id="linknote-226"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-226">[1]</a> +1833.<br/> +<br/> +I chose, whose ranged ramparts bright<br/> +From great broad meadow bases of deep grass. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-227" id="linknote-227"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-227">[2]</a> +1833. “While the great world.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-228" id="linknote-228"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-228">[3]</a> +“The shadow of Saturn thrown upon the bright ring that surrounds the +planet appears motionless, though the body of the planet revolves. Saturn +rotates on its axis in the short period of ten and a half hours, but the shadow +of this swiftly whirling mass shows no more motion than is seen in the shadow +of a top spinning so rapidly that it seems to be standing still.” Rowe +and Webb’s note, which I gladly borrow. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-229" id="linknote-229"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-229">[4]</a> +1833 and 1842. Steadfast. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-230" id="linknote-230"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-230">[5]</a> +After this stanza in 1833 this, deleted in 1842:—<br/> +<br/> +“And richly feast within thy palace hall,<br/> +Like to the dainty bird that sups,<br/> +Lodged in the lustrous crown-imperial,<br/> +Draining the honey cups.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-231" id="linknote-231"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-231">[6]</a> +<a name="linknote-232" id="linknote-232"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-232"></a> +<a name="linknote-233" id="linknote-233"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-233"></a> +<a name="linknote-234" id="linknote-234"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-234"></a> +<a name="linknote-235" id="linknote-235"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-235"></a> +<a name="linknote-236" id="linknote-236"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-236"></a> +<a name="linknote-237" id="linknote-237"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-237"></a> +<a name="linknote-238" id="linknote-238"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-238"></a> +In 1833 these eight stanzas were inserted after the stanza beginning, “I +take possession of men’s minds and deeds”; in 1842 they were +transferred, greatly altered, to their present position. For the alterations on +them see <i>infra.</i> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-239" id="linknote-239"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-239">[7]</a> +1833.<br/> +<br/> +Gloom,<br/> +Roofed with thick plates of green and orange glass<br/> +Ending in stately rooms. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-240" id="linknote-240"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-240">[8]</a> +1833.<br/> +<br/> +All various, all beautiful,<br/> +Looking all ways, fitted to every mood. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-241" id="linknote-241"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-241">[9]</a> +Here in 1833 was inserted the stanza, “One showed an English home,” +afterwards transferred to its present position 85-88. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-242" id="linknote-242"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-242">[10]</a> +1833.<br/> +<br/> +Some were all dark and red, a glimmering land<br/> +Lit with a low round moon,<br/> +Among brown rocks a man upon the sand<br/> +Went weeping all alone. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-243" id="linknote-243"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-243">[11]</a> +<a name="linknote-244" id="linknote-244"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-244"></a> +<a name="linknote-245" id="linknote-245"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-245"></a> +These three stanzas were added in 1842. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-246" id="linknote-246"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-246">[12]</a> +Thus in 1833:—<br/> +<br/> +One seemed a foreground black with stones and slags,<br/> +Below sun-smitten icy spires<br/> +Rose striped with long white cloud the scornful crags,<br/> +Deep trenched with thunder fires. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-247" id="linknote-247"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-247">[13]</a> +Not inserted here in 1833, but the following in its place:—<br/> +<br/> +Some showed far-off thick woods mounted with towers,<br/> +Nearer, a flood of mild sunshine<br/> +Poured on long walks and lawns and beds and bowers<br/> +Trellised with bunchy vine. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-248" id="linknote-248"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-248">[14]</a> +Inserted in 1842. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-249" id="linknote-249"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-249">[15]</a> +Thus in 1833, followed by the note:—<br/> +<br/> +Or the maid-mother by a crucifix,<br/> +In yellow pastures sunny-warm,<br/> +Beneath branch-work of costly sardonyx,<br/> +Sat smiling, babe in arm.<br/> +<br/> +When I first conceived the plan of the Palace of Art, I intended to have +introduced both sculptures and paintings into it; but it is the most difficult +of all things to <i>devise</i> a statue in verse. Judge whether I have +succeeded in the statues of Elijah and Olympias.<br/> +<br/> +One was the Tishbite whom the raven fed,<br/> +As when he stood on Carmel steeps,<br/> +With one arm stretched out bare, and mocked and said,<br/> +“Come cry aloud-he sleeps”.<br/> +<br/> +Tall, eager, lean and strong, his cloak wind-borne<br/> +Behind, his forehead heavenly bright<br/> +From the clear marble pouring glorious scorn,<br/> +Lit as with inner light.<br/> +<br/> +One, was Olympias: the floating snake<br/> +Rolled round her ancles, round her waist<br/> +Knotted, and folded once about her neck,<br/> +Her perfect lips to taste.<br/> +<br/> +Round by the shoulder moved: she seeming blythe<br/> +Declined her head: on every side<br/> +The dragon’s curves melted and mingled with<br/> +The woman’s youthful pride<br/> +Of rounded limbs.<br/> +<br/> +Or Venus in a snowy shell alone,<br/> +Deep-shadowed in the glassy brine,<br/> +Moonlike glowed double on the blue, and shone<br/> +A naked shape divine. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-250" id="linknote-250"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-250">[16]</a> +Inserted in 1842. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-251" id="linknote-251"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-251">[17]</a> +Thus in 1833:—<br/> +<br/> +Or that deep-wounded child of Pendragon<br/> +Mid misty woods on sloping greens<br/> +Dozed in the valley of Avilion,<br/> +Tended by crowned queens.<br/> +<br/> +The present reading is that of 1842. The reference is, of course, to King +Arthur, the supposed son of Uther Pendragon.<br/> +<br/> +In 1833 the following stanza, excised in 1842, followed:—<br/> +<br/> +Or blue-eyed Kriemhilt from a craggy hold,<br/> +Athwart the light-green rows of vine,<br/> +Poured blazing hoards of Nibelungen gold,<br/> +Down to the gulfy Rhine. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-252" id="linknote-252"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-252">[18]</a> +Inserted in 1842 thus:—<br/> +<br/> +Or hollowing one hand against his ear,<br/> +To listen for a footfall, ere he saw<br/> +The wood-nymph, stay’d the Tuscan king to hear<br/> +Of wisdom and of law.<br/> +<br/> +List a footfall, 1843. Ausonian for Tuscan, 1850. The reference is to Egeria +and Numa Pompilius. <i>Cf.</i> Juvenal, iii., 11-18:—<br/> +<br/> +Hic ubi nocturnæ<br/> +Numa constituebat amicæ<br/> +...<br/> +In vallem Ægeriæ descendimus et speluneas<br/> +Dissimiles veris.<br/> +<br/> +and the beautiful passage in Byron’s <i>Childe Harold</i>, iv., st. +cxv.-cxix. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-253" id="linknote-253"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-253">[19]</a> +This is Camadev or Camadeo, the Cupid or God of Love of the Hindu mythology. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-254" id="linknote-254"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-254">[20]</a> +This picture of Europa seems to have been suggested by Moschus, <i>Idyll</i>, +ii., 121-5:—<br/> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> + ἡ δ’ αρ’ +ἐφεζομένη +Ζηνὸς βόεοις +ἐπὶ νώτόις<br/> + τῇ μεν ἔχεν +ταύρου +δολιχὸν κέρας, +ἐν χερὶ δ’ +ἄλλῃ<br/> + εἴρυε +πορφυρεας +κόλπου πτύχας. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +“Then, seated on the back of the divine bull, with one hand did she grasp +the bull’s long horn and with the other she was catching up the purple +folds of her garment, and the robe on her shoulders was swelled out.” +See, too, the beautiful picture of the same scene in Achilles Tatius, +<i>Clitophon and Leucippe</i>, lib. i., <i>ad init.</i>; and in +Politian’s finely picturesque poem. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-255" id="linknote-255"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-255">[21]</a> +In 1833 thus:—<br/> +<br/> +Europa’s scarf blew in an arch, unclasped,<br/> +From her bare shoulder backward borne.<br/> +<br/> +Off inserted in 1842. Here in 1833 follows a stanza, excised in +1842:—<br/> +<br/> +He thro’ the streaming crystal swam, and rolled<br/> +Ambrosial breaths that seemed to float<br/> +In light-wreathed curls. She from the ripple cold<br/> +Updrew her sandalled foot. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-256" id="linknote-256"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-256">[22]</a> +1833. Over. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-257" id="linknote-257"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-257">[23]</a> +1833. Not. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-258" id="linknote-258"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-258">[24]</a> +1833. Many a. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-259" id="linknote-259"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-259">[25]</a> +The Caucasian range forms the north-west margin of the great tableland of +Western Asia, and as it was the home of those races who afterwards peopled +Europe and Western Asia and so became the fathers of civilisation and culture, +the “Supreme Caucasian mind” is a historically correct but +certainly recondite expression for the intellectual flower of the human race, +for the perfection of human ability. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-260" id="linknote-260"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-260">[26]</a> +1833. Broidered in screen and blind.<br/> +<br/> +In the edition of 1833 appear the following stanzas, excised in 1842:—<br/> +<br/> +So that my soul beholding in her pride<br/> +All these, from room to room did pass;<br/> +And all things that she saw, she multiplied,<br/> +A many-faced glass.<br/> +<br/> +And, being both the sower and the seed,<br/> +Remaining in herself became<br/> +All that she saw, Madonna, Ganymede,<br/> +Or the Asiatic dame—<br/> +<br/> +Still changing, as a lighthouse in the night<br/> +Changeth athwart the gleaming main,<br/> +From red to yellow, yellow to pale white,<br/> +Then back to red again.<br/> +<br/> +“From change to change four times within the womb<br/> +The brain is moulded,” she began,<br/> +“So thro’ all phases of all thought I come<br/> +Into the perfect man.<br/> +<br/> +“All nature widens upward: evermore<br/> +The simpler essence lower lies,<br/> +More complex is more perfect, owning more<br/> +Discourse, more widely wise.<br/> +<br/> +“I take possession of men’s minds and deeds.<br/> +I live in all things great and small.<br/> +I dwell apart, holding no forms of creeds,<br/> +But contemplating all.”<br/> +<br/> +Four ample courts there were, East, West, South, North,<br/> +In each a squarèd lawn where from<br/> +A golden-gorged dragon spouted forth<br/> +The fountain’s diamond foam.<br/> +<br/> +All round the cool green courts there ran a row<br/> +Of cloisters, branched like mighty woods,<br/> +Echoing all night to that sonorous flow<br/> +Of spouted fountain floods.<br/> +<br/> +From those four jets four currents in one swell<br/> +Over the black rock streamed below<br/> +In steamy folds, that, floating as they fell,<br/> +Lit up a torrent bow.<br/> +<br/> +And round the roofs ran gilded galleries<br/> +That gave large view to distant lands,<br/> +Tall towns and mounds, and close beneath the skies<br/> +Long lines of amber sands.<br/> +<br/> +Huge incense-urns along the balustrade,<br/> +Hollowed of solid amethyst,<br/> +Each with a different odour fuming, made<br/> +The air a silver mist.<br/> +<br/> +Far-off ’twas wonderful to look upon<br/> +Those sumptuous towers between the gleam<br/> +Of that great foam-bow trembling in the sun,<br/> +And the argent incense-steam;<br/> +<br/> +And round the terraces and round the walls,<br/> +While day sank lower or rose higher,<br/> +To see those rails with all their knobs and balls,<br/> +Burn like a fringe of fire.<br/> +<br/> +Likewise the deepset windows, stained and traced.<br/> +Burned, like slow-flaming crimson fires,<br/> +From shadowed grots of arches interlaced,<br/> +And topped with frostlike spires. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-261" id="linknote-261"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-261">[27]</a> +1833.<br/> +<br/> +There deep-haired Milton like an angel tall<br/> +Stood limnèd, Shakspeare bland and mild,<br/> +Grim Dante pressed his lips, and from the wall<br/> +The bald blind Homer smiled.<br/> +<br/> +Recast in its present form in 1842. After this stanza in 1833 appear the +following stanzas, excised in 1842:—<br/> +<br/> +And underneath fresh carved in cedar wood,<br/> +Somewhat alike in form and face,<br/> +The Genii of every climate stood,<br/> +All brothers of one race:<br/> +<br/> +Angels who sway the seasons by their art,<br/> +And mould all shapes in earth and sea;<br/> +And with great effort build the human heart<br/> +From earliest infancy.<br/> +<br/> +And in the sun-pierced Oriels’ coloured flame<br/> +Immortal Michæl Angelo<br/> +Looked down, bold Luther, large-browed +Verulam,<br/> +The King of those who know.<a href="#linknote-2611" name="linknoteref-2611" id="linknoteref-2611"><sup>[A]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +Cervantes, the bright face of Calderon,<br/> +Robed David touching holy strings,<br/> +The Halicarnassean, and alone,<br/> +Alfred the flower of kings.<br/> +<br/> +Isaiah with fierce Ezekiel,<br/> +Swarth Moses by the Coptic sea,<br/> +Plato, Petrarca, Livy, and Raphael,<br/> +And eastern Confutzer. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-2611" id="linknote-2611"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-2611">[A]</a> +Il maëstro di color chi sanno.—Dante, <i>Inf.</i>, iii. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-262" id="linknote-262"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-262">[28]</a> +Homer. <i>Cf.</i> Pope’s <i>Temple of Fame</i>, 183-7:—<br/> +<br/> +Father of verse in holy fillets dress’d,<br/> +His silver beard wav’d gently o’er his breast,<br/> +Though blind a boldness in his looks appears,<br/> +In years he seem’d but not impaired by years. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-263" id="linknote-263"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-263">[29]</a> +<a name="linknote-264" id="linknote-264"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-264"></a> +<a name="linknote-265" id="linknote-265"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-265"></a> +<a name="linknote-266" id="linknote-266"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-266"></a> +<a name="linknote-267" id="linknote-267"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-267"></a> +<a name="linknote-268" id="linknote-268"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-268"></a> +<a name="linknote-269" id="linknote-269"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-269"></a> +All these stanzas were added in 1842. In 1833 appear the following stanzas, +excised in 1842:—<br/> +<br/> +As some rich tropic mountain, that infolds<br/> +All change, from flats of scattered palms<br/> +Sloping thro’ five great zones of climate, holds<br/> +His head in snows and calms—<br/> +<br/> +Full of her own delight and nothing else,<br/> +My vain-glorious, gorgeous soul<br/> +Sat throned between the shining oriels,<br/> +In pomp beyond control;<br/> +<br/> +With piles of flavorous fruits in basket-twine<br/> +Of gold, upheaped, crushing down<br/> +Musk-scented blooms—all taste—grape, gourd or pine—<br/> +In bunch, or single grown—<br/> +<br/> +Our growths, and such as brooding Indian heats<br/> +Make out of crimson blossoms deep,<br/> +Ambrosial pulps and juices, sweets from sweets<br/> +Sun-changed, when sea-winds sleep.<br/> +<br/> +With graceful chalices of curious wine,<br/> +Wonders of art—and costly jars,<br/> +And bossed salvers. Ere young night divine<br/> +Crowned dying day with stars,<br/> +<br/> +Making sweet close of his delicious toils,<br/> +She lit white streams of dazzling gas,<br/> +And soft and fragrant flames of precious oils<br/> +In moons of purple glass<br/> +<br/> +Ranged on the fretted woodwork to the ground.<br/> +Thus her intense untold delight,<br/> +In deep or vivid colour, smell and sound,<br/> +Was nattered day and night.<a href="#linknote-2631" name="linknoteref-2631" id="linknoteref-2631"><sup>[A]</sup></a><br/> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-2631" id="linknote-2631"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-2631">[A]</a> +If the poem were not already too long, I should have inserted in the text the +following stanzas, expressive of the joy wherewith the soul contemplated the +results of astronomical experiment. In the centre of the four quadrangles rose +an immense tower. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +Hither, when all the deep unsounded skies<br/> +Shuddered with silent stars she clomb,<br/> +And as with optic glasses her keen eyes<br/> +Pierced thro’ the mystic dome,<br/> +<br/> +Regions of lucid matter taking forms,<br/> +Brushes of fire, hazy gleams,<br/> +Clusters and beds of worlds, and bee-like swarms<br/> +Of suns, and starry streams.<br/> +<br/> +She saw the snowy poles of moonless Mars,<br/> +That marvellous round of milky light<br/> +Below Orion, and those double stars<br/> +Whereof the one more bright<br/> +Is circled by the other, etc. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-270" id="linknote-270"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-270">[30]</a> +Thus in 1833:—<br/> +<br/> +And many more, that in their lifetime were<br/> +Full-welling fountain heads of change,<br/> +Between the stone shafts glimmered, blazoned fair<br/> +In divers raiment strange. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-271" id="linknote-271"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-271">[31]</a> +The statue of Memnon near Thebes in Egypt when first struck by the rays of the +rising sun is said to have become vocal, to have emitted responsive sounds. See +for an account of this <i>Pausanias</i>, i., 42; Tacitus, <i>Annals</i>, ii., +61; and Juvenal, <i>Sat.</i>, xv., 5:<br/> +<br/> +“Dimidio magicæ resonant ubi Memnone Chordæ,”<br/> +<br/> +and compare Akenside’s verses, <i>Plea. of Imag.</i>, i., +109-113:—<br/> +<br/> +Old Memnon’s image, long renown’d<br/> +By fabling Nilus: to the quivering touch<br/> +Of Titan’s ray, with each repulsive string<br/> +Consenting, sounded thro’ the warbling air<br/> +Unbidden strains. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-272" id="linknote-272"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-272">[32]</a> +1833. O’. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-273" id="linknote-273"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-273">[33]</a> +Here added in 1842 and remaining till 1851 when they were excised are two +stanzas:—<br/> +<br/> +“From shape to shape at first within the womb<br/> +The brain is modell’d,” she began,<br/> +“And thro’ all phases of all thought I come<br/> +Into the perfect man.<br/> +“All nature widens upward. Evermore<br/> +The simpler essence lower lies:<br/> +More complex is more perfect, owning more<br/> +Discourse, more widely wise.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-274" id="linknote-274"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-274">[34]</a> +<a name="linknote-275" id="linknote-275"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-275"></a> +<a name="linknote-276" id="linknote-276"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-276"></a> +These stanzas were added in 1851. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-277" id="linknote-277"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-277">[35]</a> +Added in 1842, with the following variants which remained till 1851, when the +present text was substituted:—<br/> +<br/> +“I take possession of men’s minds and deeds.<br/> +I live in all things great and small.<br/> +I sit apart holding no forms of creeds,<br/> +But contemplating all.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-278" id="linknote-278"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-278">[36]</a> +1833. Sometimes. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-279" id="linknote-279"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-279">[37]</a> +And intellectual throne<br/> +<br/> +Of full-sphered contemplation. So three years<br/> +She throve, but on the fourth she fell.<br/> +<br/> +And so the text remained till 1850, when the present reading was substituted. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-280" id="linknote-280"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-280">[38]</a> +For the reference to Herod see <i>Acts</i> xii. 21-23. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-281" id="linknote-281"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-281">[39]</a> +Cf. Hallam’s <i>Remains</i>, p. 132: “That, <i>i. e.</i> +Redemption,” is in the power of God’s election with whom alone rest +<i>the abysmal secrets of personality</i>. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-282" id="linknote-282"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-282">[40]</a> +See <i>Daniel</i> v. 24-27. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-283" id="linknote-283"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-283">[41]</a> +In 1833 the following stanza, excised in 1842:—<br/> +<br/> +“Who hath drawn dry the fountains of delight,<br/> +That from my deep heart everywhere<br/> +Moved in my blood and dwelt, as power and might<br/> +Abode in Sampson’s hair?” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-284" id="linknote-284"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-284">[42]</a> +1833. Downward-sloping. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-285" id="linknote-285"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-285">[43]</a> +1833.<br/> +<br/> +Or the sound<br/> +Of stones.<br/> +<br/> +So till 1851, when “a sound of rocks” was substituted. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-286" id="linknote-286"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-286">[44]</a> +1833. “Dying the death I die?” Present reading substituted in 1842. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-287" id="linknote-287"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-287">[45]</a> +Because intellectual and æsthetic pleasures are <i>abused</i> and their purpose +and scope mistaken, there is no reason why they should not be enjoyed. See the +allegory in <i>In Memoriam</i>, ciii., stanzas 12-13. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap37"></a>Lady Clara Vere de Vere</h3> + +<p> +Though this is placed among the poems published in 1833 it first appeared in +print in 1842. The subsequent alterations were very slight, and after 1848 none +at all were made.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Lady Clara Vere de Vere,<br/> +Of me you shall not win renown:<br/> +You thought to break a country heart<br/> +For pastime, ere you went to town.<br/> +At me you smiled, but unbeguiled<br/> +I saw the snare, and I retired:<br/> +The daughter of a hundred Earls,<br/> +You are not one to be desired.<br/> +<br/> +Lady Clara Vere de Vere,<br/> +I know you proud to bear your name,<br/> +Your pride is yet no mate for mine,<br/> +Too proud to care from whence I came.<br/> +Nor would I break for your sweet sake<br/> +A heart that doats on truer charms.<br/> +A simple maiden in her flower<br/> +Is worth a hundred coats-of-arms.<br/> +<br/> +Lady Clara Vere de Vere,<br/> +Some meeker pupil you must find,<br/> +For were you queen of all that is,<br/> +I could not stoop to such a mind.<br/> +You sought to prove how I could love,<br/> +And my disdain is my reply.<br/> +The lion on your old stone gates<br/> +Is not more cold to you than I.<br/> +<br/> +Lady Clara Vere de Vere,<br/> +You put strange memories in my head.<br/> +Not thrice your branching limes have blown<br/> +Since I beheld young Laurence dead.<br/> +Oh your sweet eyes, your low replies:<br/> +A great enchantress you may be;<br/> +But there was that across his throat<br/> +Which you hardly cared to see.<br/> +<br/> +Lady Clara Vere de Vere,<br/> +When thus he met his mother’s view,<br/> +She had the passions of her kind,<br/> +She spake some certain truths of you.<br/> +<br/> +Indeed I heard one bitter word<br/> +That scarce is fit for you to hear;<br/> +Her manners had not that repose<br/> +Which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere.<br/> +<br/> +Lady Clara Vere de Vere,<br/> +There stands a spectre in your hall:<br/> +The guilt of blood is at your door:<br/> +You changed a wholesome heart to gall.<br/> +You held your course without remorse,<br/> +To make him trust his modest worth,<br/> +And, last, you fix’d a vacant stare,<br/> +And slew him with your noble birth.<br/> +<br/> +Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere,<br/> +From yon blue heavens above us bent<br/> +The grand old gardener and his wife<a href="#linknote-288" name="linknoteref-288" id="linknoteref-288"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/> +Smile at the claims of long descent.<br/> +Howe’er it be, it seems to me,<br/> +’Tis only noble to be good.<br/> +Kind hearts are more than coronets,<br/> +And simple faith than Norman blood.<br/> +<br/> +I know you, Clara Vere de Vere:<br/> +You pine among your halls and towers:<br/> +The languid light of your proud eyes<br/> +Is wearied of the rolling hours.<br/> +In glowing health, with boundless wealth,<br/> +But sickening of a vague disease,<br/> +You know so ill to deal with time,<br/> +You needs must play such pranks as these.<br/> +<br/> +Clara, Clara Vere de Vere,<br/> +If Time be heavy on your hands,<br/> +Are there no beggars at your gate,<br/> +Nor any poor about your lands?<br/> +Oh! teach the orphan-boy to read,<br/> +Or teach the orphan-girl to sew,<br/> +Pray Heaven for a human heart,<br/> +And let the foolish yoeman go. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-288" id="linknote-288"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-288">[1]</a> +1842 and 1843. “The gardener Adam and his wife.” In 1845 it was +altered to the present text. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap38"></a>The May Queen</h3> + +<p class="center"> +The first two parts were first published in 1833. +</p> + +<p> +The scenery is typical of Lincolnshire; in Fitzgerald’s phrase, it is all +Lincolnshire inland, as <i>Locksley Hall</i> is seaboard.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear;<br/> +To-morrow ’ill be the happiest time of all the glad<a href="#linknote-289" name="linknoteref-289" id="linknoteref-v"><sup>[1]</sup></a> New-year;<br/> +Of all the glad New-year, mother, the maddest merriest day;<br/> +For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.<br/> +<br/> +There’s many a black, black eye, they say, but none so bright as mine;<br/> +There’s Margaret and Mary, there’s Kate and Caroline:<br/> +But none so fair as little Alice in all the land they say,<br/> +So I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.<br/> +<br/> +I sleep so sound all night, mother, that I shall never wake,<br/> +If you<a href="#linknote-290" name="linknoteref-290" id="linknoteref-290"><sup>[2]</sup></a> do not call me loud when the day begins to break:<br/> +But I must gather knots of flowers, and buds and garlands gay,<br/> +For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.<br/> +<br/> +As I came up the valley whom think ye should I see,<br/> +But Robin<a href="#linknote-291" name="linknoteref-291" id="linknoteref-291"><sup>[3]</sup></a> leaning on the bridge beneath the hazel-tree?<br/> +He thought of that sharp look, mother, I gave him yesterday,—<br/> +But I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.<br/> +<br/> +He thought I was a ghost, mother, for I was all in white,<br/> +And I ran by him without speaking, like a flash of light.<br/> +They call me cruel-hearted, but I care not what they say,<br/> +For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.<br/> +<br/> +They say he’s dying all for love, but that can never be:<br/> +They say his heart is breaking, mother—what is that to me?<br/> +There’s many a bolder lad ’ill woo me any summer day,<br/> +And I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.<br/> +<br/> +Little Effie shall go with me to-morrow to the green,<br/> +And you’ll be there, too, mother, to see me made the Queen;<br/> +For the shepherd lads on every side ’ill come from far away,<br/> +And I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.<br/> +<br/> +The honeysuckle round the porch has wov’n its wavy bowers,<br/> +And by the meadow-trenches blow the faint sweet cuckoo-flowers;<br/> +And the wild marsh-marigold shines like fire in swamps and hollows gray,<br/> +And I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.<br/> +<br/> +The night-winds come and go, mother, upon the meadow-grass,<br/> +And the happy stars above them seem to brighten as they pass;<br/> +There will not be a drop of rain the whole of the live-long day,<br/> +And I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.<br/> +<br/> +All the valley, mother, ’ill be fresh and green and still,<br/> +And the cowslip and the crowfoot are over all the hill,<br/> +And the rivulet in the flowery dale ’ill merrily glance and play,<br/> +For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.<br/> +<br/> +So you must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear,<br/> +To-morrow ’ill be the happiest time of all the glad New-year:<br/> +To-morrow ’ill be of all the year the maddest merriest day,<br/> +For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-289" id="linknote-289"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-289">[1]</a> +1833. “Blythe” for “glad”. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-290" id="linknote-290"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-290">[2]</a> +1883. Ye. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-291" id="linknote-291"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-291">[3]</a> +1842. Robert. This is a curious illustration of Tennyson’s scrupulousness +about trifles: in 1833 it was “Robin,” in 1842 +“Robert,” then in 1843 and afterwards he returned to +“Robin”. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap39"></a>New Year’s Eve</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +If you’re waking call me early, call me early, mother dear,<br/> +For I would see the sun rise upon the glad New-year.<br/> +It is the last New-year that I shall ever see,<br/> +Then you may lay me low i’ the mould and think no more of me.<br/> +<br/> +To-night I saw the sun set: he set and left behind<br/> +The good old year, the dear old time, and all my peace of mind;<br/> +And the New-year’s coming up, mother, but I shall never see<br/> +The blossom on<a href="#linknote-292" name="linknoteref-292" id="linknoteref-292"><sup>[1]</sup></a> the blackthorn, the leaf upon the tree.<br/> +<br/> +Last May we made a crown of flowers: we had a merry day;<br/> +Beneath the hawthorn on the green they made me Queen of May;<br/> +And we danced about the may-pole and in the hazel copse,<br/> +Till Charles’s Wain came out above the tall white +chimney-tops.<br/> +<br/> +There’s not a flower on all the hills: the frost is on the pane:<br/> +I only wish to live till the snowdrops come again:<br/> +I wish the snow would melt and the sun come out on high:<br/> +I long to see a flower so before the day I die.<br/> +<br/> +The building rook’ll caw from the windy tall elm-tree,<br/> +And the tufted plover pipe along the fallow lea,<br/> +And the swallow’ll come back again with summer o’er the wave.<br/> +But I shall lie alone, mother, within the mouldering grave.<br/> +<br/> +Upon the chancel-casement, and upon that grave of mine,<br/> +In the early, early morning the summer sun’ll shine,<br/> +Before the red cock crows from the farm upon the hill,<br/> +When you are warm-asleep, mother, and all the world is still.<br/> +<br/> +When the flowers come again, mother, beneath the waning light<br/> +You’ll never see me more in the long gray fields at night;<br/> +When from the dry dark wold the summer airs blow cool<br/> +On the oat-grass and the sword-grass, and the bulrush in the pool.<br/> +<br/> +You’ll bury me,<a href="#linknote-293" name="linknoteref-293" id="linknoteref-293"><sup>[2]</sup></a> my mother, just beneath the hawthorn shade,<br/> +And you’ll come<a href="#linknote-294" name="linknoteref-294" id="linknoteref-294"><sup>[3]</sup></a> sometimes and see me where I am lowly laid.<br/> +I shall not forget you, mother, I shall hear you when you pass,<a href="#linknote-295" name="linknoteref-295" id="linknoteref-295"><sup>[4]</sup></a><br/> +With your feet above my head in the long and pleasant grass.<br/> +<br/> +I have been wild and wayward, but you’ll forgive<a href="#linknote-296" name="linknoteref-296" id="linknoteref-296"><sup>[5]</sup></a> me now;<br/> +You’ll kiss me, my own mother, and forgive me ere I go;<a href="#linknote-297" name="linknoteref-297" id="linknoteref-297"><sup>[6]</sup></a><br/> +Nay, nay, you must not weep,<a href="#linknote-298" name="linknoteref-298" id="linknoteref-298"><sup>[7]</sup></a> nor let your grief be wild,<br/> +You should not fret for me, mother, you<a href="#linknote-299" name="linknoteref-299" id="linknoteref-299"><sup>[8]</sup></a> have another child.<br/> +<br/> +If I can I’ll come again, mother, from out my resting-place;<br/> +Tho’ you’ll<a href="#linknote-300" name="linknoteref-300" id="linknoteref-300"><sup>[9]</sup></a> not see me, mother, I shall look upon your face;<br/> +Tho’ I cannot speak a word, 1 shall harken what you<a href="#linknote-301" name="linknoteref-301" id="linknoteref-301"><sup>[10]</sup></a> say,<br/> +And be often, often with you when you think<a href="#linknote-302" name="linknoteref-302" id="linknoteref-302"><sup>[11]</sup></a> I’m far away.<br/> +<br/> +Good-night, good-night, when I have said good-night for evermore,<br/> +And you<a href="#linknote-303" name="linknoteref-303" id="linknoteref-303"><sup>[12]</sup></a> see me carried out from the threshold of the door;<br/> +Don’t let Effie come to see me till my grave be growing green:<br/> +She’ll be a better child to you than ever I have been.<br/> +<br/> +She’ll find my garden-tools upon the granary floor:<br/> +Let her take ’em: they are hers: I shall never garden more:<br/> +But tell her, when I’m gone, to train the rose-bush that I set<br/> +About the parlour-window and the box of mignonette.<br/> +<br/> +Good-night, sweet mother: call me before the day is born.<a href="#linknote-304" name="linknoteref-304" id="linknoteref-304"><sup>[13]</sup></a>><br/> +All night I lie awake, but I fall asleep at morn;<br/> +But I would see the sun rise upon the glad New-year,<br/> +So, if your waking, call me, call me early, mother dear. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-292" id="linknote-292"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-292">[1]</a> +1833. The may upon. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-293" id="linknote-293"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-293">[2]</a> +1833. Ye’ll bury me. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-294" id="linknote-294"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-294">[3]</a> +1833. And ye’ll come. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-295" id="linknote-295"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-295">[4]</a> +1833. I shall not forget ye, mother, I shall hear ye when ye pass. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-296" id="linknote-296"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-296">[5]</a> +1833. But ye’ll forgive. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-297" id="linknote-297"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-297">[6]</a> +1833. Ye’ll kiss me, my own mother, upon my cheek and brow. 1850. And +foregive me ere I go. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-298" id="linknote-298"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-298">[7]</a> +1833. Ye must not weep. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-299" id="linknote-299"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-299">[8]</a> +1833. Ye ... ye. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-300" id="linknote-300"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-300">[9]</a> +1833. Ye’ll. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-301" id="linknote-301"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-301">[10]</a> +1833. Ye. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-302" id="linknote-302"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-302">[11]</a> +1833. Ye when ye think. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-303" id="linknote-303"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-303">[12]</a> +1833. Ye. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-304" id="linknote-304"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-304">[13]</a> +1833. Call me when it begins to dawn. 1842. Before the day is born. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap40"></a>Conclusion</h3> + +<p class="center"> +Added in 1842.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +I thought to pass away before, and yet alive I am;<br/> +And in the fields all round I hear the bleating of the lamb.<br/> +How sadly, I remember, rose the morning of the year!<br/> +To die before the snowdrop came, and now the violet’s here.<br/> +<br/> +O sweet is the new violet, that comes beneath the skies,<br/> +And sweeter is the young lamb’s voice to me that cannot rise,<br/> +And sweet is all the land about, and all the flowers that blow,<br/> +And sweeter far is death than life to me that long to go.<br/> +<br/> +It seem’d so hard at first, mother, to leave the blessed sun,<br/> +And now it seems as hard to stay, and yet His will be done!<br/> +But still I think it can’t be long before I find release;<br/> +And that good man, the clergyman, has told me words of peace.<a href="#linknote-305" name="linknoteref-305" id="linknoteref-305"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +O blessings on his kindly voice and on his silver hair!<br/> +And blessings on his whole life long, until he meet me there!<br/> +O blessings on his kindly heart and on his silver head!<br/> +A thousand times I blest him, as he knelt beside my bed.<br/> +<br/> +He taught me all the mercy, for he show’d<a href="#linknote-306" name="linknoteref-306" id="linknoteref-306"><sup>[2]</sup></a> me all the sin.<br/> +Now, tho’ my lamp was lighted late, there’s One will let me in:<br/> +Nor would I now be well, mother, again, if that could be,<br/> +For my desire is but to pass to Him that died for me.<br/> +<br/> +I did not hear the dog howl, mother, or the death-watch beat,<br/> +There came a sweeter token when the night and morning meet:<br/> +But sit beside my bed, mother, and put your hand in mine,<br/> +And Effie on the other side, and I will tell the sign.<br/> +<br/> +All in the wild March-morning I heard the angels call;<br/> +It was when the moon was setting, and the dark was over all;<br/> +The trees began to whisper, and the wind began to roll,<br/> +And in the wild March-morning I heard them call my soul.<br/> +<br/> +For lying broad awake I thought of you and Effie dear;<br/> +I saw you sitting in the house, and I no longer here;<br/> +With all my strength I pray’d for both, and so I felt resign’d,<br/> +And up the valley came a swell of music on the wind.<br/> +<br/> +I thought that it was fancy, and I listen’d in my bed,<br/> +And then did something speak to me—I know not what was said;<br/> +For great delight and shuddering took hold of all my mind,<br/> +And up the valley came again the music on the wind.<br/> +<br/> +But you were sleeping; and I said, “It’s not for them: it’s mine”.<br/> +And if it comes<a href="#linknote-307" name="linknoteref-307" id="linknoteref-307"><sup>[3]</sup></a> three times, I thought, I take it for a sign.<br/> +And once again it came, and close beside the window-bars,<br/> +Then seem’d to go right up to Heaven and die among the stars.<br/> +<br/> +So now I think my time is near. I trust it is. I know<br/> +The blessed music went that way my soul will have to go.<br/> +And for myself, indeed, I care not if I go to-day.<br/> +But, Effie, you must comfort <i>her</i> when I am past away.<br/> +<br/> +And say to Robin<a href="#linknote-308" name="linknoteref-308" id="linknoteref-308"><sup>[4]</sup></a> a kind word, and tell him not to fret;<br/> +There’s many worthier than I, would make him happy yet.<br/> +If I had lived—I cannot tell—I might have been his wife;<br/> +But all these things have ceased to be, with my desire of life.<br/> +<br/> +O look! the sun begins to rise, the heavens are in a glow;<br/> +He shines upon a hundred fields, and all of them I know.<br/> +And there I move no longer now, and there his light may shine—<br/> +Wild flowers in the valley for other hands than mine.<br/> +<br/> +O sweet and strange it seems to me, that ere this day is done<br/> +The voice, that now is speaking, may be beyond the sun—<br/> +For ever and for ever with those just souls and true—<br/> +And what is life, that we should moan? why make we such ado?<br/> +<br/> +For ever and for ever, all in a blessed home—<br/> +And there to wait a little while till you and Effie come—<br/> +To lie within the light of God, as I lie upon your breast—<br/> +And the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-305" id="linknote-305"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-305">[1]</a> +1842.<br/> +<br/> +But still it can’t be long, mother, before I find release;<br/> +And that good man, the clergyman, he preaches words of peace.<br/> +<br/> +Present reading 1843. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-306" id="linknote-306"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-306">[2]</a> +1842-1848.<br/> +<br/> +He show’d me all the mercy, for he taught me all the sin.<br/> +Now, though, etc.<br/> +<br/> +1850. For show’d he me all the sin. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-307" id="linknote-307"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-307">[3]</a> +1889. Come. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-308" id="linknote-308"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-308">[4]</a> +1842. Robert. 1843. Robin restored. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap41"></a>The Lotos Eaters</h3> + +<p> +First published in 1833, but when republished in 1842 the alterations in the +way of excision, alteration, and addition were very extensive. The text of 1842 +is practically the final text. +</p> + +<p> +This charming poem is founded on <i>Odyssey</i>, ix., 82 <i>seq.</i> +</p> + +<p> +“On the tenth day we set foot on the land of the lotos-eaters who eat a +flowery food. So we stepped ashore and drew water.... When we had tasted meat +and drink I sent forth certain of my company to go and make search what manner +of men they were who here live upon the earth by bread.... Then straightway +they went and mixed with the men of the lotos-eaters, and so it was that the +lotos-eaters devised not death for our fellows but gave them of the lotos to +taste. Now whosoever of them did eat the honey-sweet fruit of the lotos had no +more wish to bring tidings nor to come back, but there he chose to abide with +the lotos-eating men ever feeding on the lotos and forgetful of his homeward +way. Therefore I led them back to the ships weeping and sore against their will +... lest haply any should eat of the lotos and be forgetful of +returning.” (Lang and Butcher’s translation.) But in the details of +his poem Tennyson has laid many other poets under contribution, notably +Moschus, <i>Idyll</i>, v.; Bion, <i>Idyll</i>, v.; Spenser, <i>Faerie +Queen</i>, II. vi. (description of the <i>Idle Lake</i>), and Thomson’s +<i>Castle of Indolence</i>.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +“Courage!” he said, and pointed toward the land,<br/> +“This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon.”<br/> +In the afternoon they came unto a land,<br/> +In which it seemed always afternoon.<br/> +All round the coast the languid air did swoon,<br/> +Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.<br/> +Full-faced above the valley stood the moon;<a href="#linknote-309" name="linknoteref-309" id="linknoteref-309"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/> +And like a downward smoke, the slender stream<br/> +Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.<br/> +<br/> +A land of streams! some, like a downward smoke,<br/> +Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go;<br/> +And some thro’ wavering lights and shadows broke,<br/> +Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below.<br/> +They saw the gleaming river seaward flow<a href="#linknote-310" name="linknoteref-310" id="linknoteref-310"><sup>[2]</sup></a><br/> +From the inner land: far off, three mountain-tops,<br/> +Three silent pinnacles of aged snow,<a href="#linknote-311" name="linknoteref-311" id="linknoteref-311"><sup>[3]</sup></a><br/> +Stood sunset-flush’d: and, dew’d with showery drops,<br/> +Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse.<br/> +<br/> +The charmed sunset linger’d low adown<br/> +In the red West: thro’ mountain clefts the dale<br/> +Was seen far inland, and the yellow down<br/> +Border’d with palm, and many a winding vale<br/> +And meadow, set with slender galingale;<br/> +A land where all things always seem’d the same!<br/> +And round about the keel with faces pale,<br/> +Dark faces pale against that rosy flame,<br/> +The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came.<br/> +<br/> +Branches they bore of that enchanted stem,<br/> +Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gave<br/> +To each, but whoso did receive of them,<br/> +And taste, to him the gushing of the wave<br/> +Far far away did seem to mourn and rave<br/> +On alien shores; and if his fellow spake,<br/> +His voice was thin, as voices from the grave;<br/> +And deep-asleep he seem’d, yet all awake,<br/> +And music in his ears his beating heart did make.<br/> +<br/> +They sat them down upon the yellow sand,<br/> +Between the sun and moon upon the shore;<br/> +And sweet it was to dream of Father-land,<br/> +Of child, and wife, and slave; but evermore<br/> +Most weary seem’d the sea, weary the oar,<br/> +Weary the wandering fields of barren foam.<br/> +Then some one said, “We will return no more”;<br/> +And all at once they sang, “Our island home<br/> +Is far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam”. +</p> + +<h4>Choric Song</h4> + +<p class="left"> +1 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +There is sweet music here that softer falls<br/> +Than petals from blown roses on the grass,<br/> +Or night-dews on still waters between walls<br/> +Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass;<br/> +Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,<br/> +Than tir’d eyelids upon tir’d eyes;<br/> +Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies.<br/> +Here are cool mosses deep,<br/> +And thro’ the moss the ivies creep,<br/> +And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep,<br/> +And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +2 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Why are we weigh’d upon with heaviness,<br/> +And utterly consumed with sharp distress,<br/> +While all things else have rest from weariness?<br/> +All things have rest: why should we toil alone,<br/> +We only toil, who are the first of things,<br/> +And make perpetual moan,<br/> +Still from one sorrow to another thrown:<br/> +Nor ever fold our wings,<br/> +And cease from wanderings,<br/> +Nor steep our brows in slumber’s holy balm;<br/> +Nor harken what the inner spirit sings,<br/> +“There is no joy but calm!”<br/> +Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things? +</p> + +<p class="left"> +3 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Lo! in the middle of the wood,<br/> +The folded leaf is woo’d from out the bud<br/> +With winds upon the branch, and there<br/> +Grows green and broad, and takes no care,<br/> +Sun-steep’d at noon, and in the moon<br/> +Nightly dew-fed; and turning yellow<br/> +Falls, and floats adown the air.<br/> +Lo! sweeten’d with the summer light,<br/> +The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow,<br/> +Drops in a silent autumn night.<br/> +All its allotted length of days,<br/> +The flower ripens in its place,<br/> +Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil,<br/> +Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +4 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Hateful is the dark-blue sky,<br/> +Vaulted o’er the dark-blue sea.<a href="#linknote-312" name="linknoteref-312" id="linknoteref-312"><sup>[4]</sup></a><br/> +Death is the end of life; ah, why<br/> +Should life all labour be?<br/> +Let us alone.<br/> +Time driveth onward fast,<br/> +And in a little while our lips are dumb.<br/> +Let us alone.<br/> +What is it that will last?<br/> +All things are taken from us, and become<br/> +Portions and parcels of the dreadful Past.<br/> +Let us alone.<br/> +What pleasure can we have<br/> +To war with evil? Is there any peace<br/> +In ever climbing up the climbing wave?<a href="#linknote-313" name="linknoteref-313" id="linknoteref-313"><sup>[5]</sup></a><br/> +All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave<a href="#linknote-314" name="linknoteref-314" id="linknoteref-314"><sup>[6]</sup></a><br/> +In silence; ripen, fall and cease:<br/> +Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +5 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream,<br/> +With half-shut eyes ever to seem<br/> +Falling asleep in a half-dream!<br/> +To dream and dream, like yonder amber light,<br/> +Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height;<br/> +To hear each other’s whisper’d speech:<br/> +Eating the Lotos day by day,<br/> +To watch the crisping ripples on the beach,<br/> +And tender curving lines of creamy spray;<br/> +To lend our hearts and spirits wholly<br/> +To the influence of mild-minded melancholy;<br/> +To muse and brood and live again in memory,<br/> +With those<a href="#linknote-315" name="linknoteref-315" id="linknoteref-315"><sup>[7]</sup></a> old faces of our infancy<br/> +Heap’d over with a mound of grass,<br/> +Two handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn of brass! +</p> + +<p class="left"> +6 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Dear is the memory of our wedded lives,<br/> +And dear the last embraces of our wives<br/> +And their warm tears: but all hath suffer’d change;<br/> +For surely now our household hearths are cold:<br/> +Our sons inherit us: our looks are strange:<br/> +And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy.<br/> +Or else the island princes over-bold<br/> +Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings<br/> +Before them of the ten-years’ war in Troy,<br/> +And our great deeds, as half-forgotten +things.<br/> +Is there confusion in the little isle?<a href="#linknote-316" name="linknoteref-316" id="linknoteref-316"><sup>[8]</sup></a><br/> +Let what is broken so remain.<br/> +The Gods are hard to reconcile:<br/> +’Tis hard to settle order once again.<br/> +There <i>is</i> confusion worse than death,<br/> +Trouble on trouble, pain on pain,<br/> +Long labour unto aged breath,<br/> +Sore task to hearts worn out with<a href="#linknote-317" name="linknoteref-317" id="linknoteref-317"><sup>[9]</sup></a> many wars<br/> +And eyes grow dim with gazing on the pilot-stars<a href="#linknote-318" name="linknoteref-318" id="linknoteref-318"><sup>[10]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="left"> +7 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +But, propt on beds<a href="#linknote-319" name="linknoteref-319" id="linknoteref-319"><sup>[11]</sup></a> of amaranth and moly,<br/> +How sweet (while warm airs lull us, blowing lowly)<br/> +With half-dropt eyelids still,<br/> +Beneath a heaven dark and holy,<br/> +To watch the long bright river drawing slowly<br/> +His waters from the purple hill—<br/> +To hear the dewy echoes calling<br/> +From cave to cave thro’ the thick-twined vine—<br/> +To watch<a href="#linknote-320" name="linknoteref-320" id="linknoteref-320"><sup>[12]</sup></a> the emerald-colour’d water falling<br/> +Thro’ many a wov’n acanthus-wreath divine!<br/> +Only to hear and see the far-off sparkling brine,<br/> +Only to hear were sweet, stretch’d out beneath the pine. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +8 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The Lotos blooms below the barren peak:<a href="#linknote-321" name="linknoteref-321" id="linknoteref-321"><sup>[13]</sup></a><br/> +The Lotos blows by every winding creek:<br/> +All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone:<br/> +Thro’ every hollow cave and alley lone<br/> +Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos-dust is blown.<br/> +We have had enough of action, and of motion we,<br/> +Roll’d to starboard, roll’d to larboard, when the surge was seething free,<br/> +Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea.<br/> +Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind,<br/> +In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined<br/> +On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind.<br/> +For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl’d<br/> +Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl’d<br/> +Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world:<br/> +Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands,<br/> +Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands,<br/> +Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships and praying hands.<br/> +But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song<br/> +Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong,<br/> +Like a tale of little meaning tho’ the words are strong;<br/> +Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil,<br/> +Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil,<br/> +Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil;<br/> +Till they perish and they suffer—some, ’tis whisper’d—down in hell<br/> +Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell,<br/> +Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel.<br/> +Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore<br/> +Than labour in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar;<br/> +Oh rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more.<a href="#linknote-322" name="linknoteref-322" id="linknoteref-322"><sup>[14]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-309" id="linknote-309"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-309">[1]</a> +1883. Above the valley burned the golden moon. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-310" id="linknote-310"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-310">[2]</a> +1883. River’s seaward flow. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-311" id="linknote-311"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-311">[3]</a> +1833. Three thunder-cloven thrones of oldest snow. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-312" id="linknote-312"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-312">[4]</a> +<i>Cf.</i> Virgil, Æn., iv., 451:—<br/> +<br/> +Tædet cæli convexa tueri.<br/> +<br/> +Paraphrased from Moschus, <i>Idyll</i>, v., 11-15. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-313" id="linknote-313"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-313">[5]</a> +For climbing up the wave <i>cf.</i> Virgil, <i>Æn.</i>, i., 381: +“Conscendi navilus æquor,” and <i>cf.</i> generally Bion, +<i>Idyll</i>, v., 11-15. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-314" id="linknote-314"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-314">[6]</a> +From Moschus, <i>Idyll</i>, v.,<i>passim</i>. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-315" id="linknote-315"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-315">[7]</a> +1833. The. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-316" id="linknote-316"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-316">[8]</a> +The little isle, <i>i. e.</i>, Ithaca. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-317" id="linknote-317"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-317">[9]</a> +1863 By. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-318" id="linknote-318"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-318">[10]</a> +Added in 1842. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-319" id="linknote-319"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-319">[11]</a> +1833. Or, propt on lavish beds. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-320" id="linknote-320"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-320">[12]</a> +1833 to 1850 inclusive. Hear. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-321" id="linknote-321"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-321">[13]</a> +1833 to 1850 inclusive. Flowery peak. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-322" id="linknote-322"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-322">[14]</a> +In 1833 we have the following, which in 1842 was excised and the present text +substituted:—<br/> +<br/> +We have had enough of motion,<br/> +Weariness and wild alarm,<br/> +Tossing on the tossing ocean,<br/> +Where the tusked sea-horse walloweth<br/> +In a stripe of grass-green calm,<br/> +At noontide beneath the lee;<br/> +And the monstrous narwhale swalloweth<br/> +His foam-fountains in the sea.<br/> +Long enough the wine-dark wave our weary bark did carry.<br/> +This is lovelier and sweeter,<br/> +Men of Ithaca, this is meeter,<br/> +In the hollow rosy vale to tarry,<br/> +Like a dreamy Lotos-eater, a delirious Lotos-eater!<br/> +We will eat the Lotos, sweet<br/> +As the yellow honeycomb,<br/> +In the valley some, and some<br/> +On the ancient heights divine;<br/> +And no more roam,<br/> +On the loud hoar foam,<br/> +To the melancholy home<br/> +At the limit of the brine,<br/> +The little isle of Ithaca, beneath the day’s decline.<br/> +We’ll lift no more the shattered oar,<br/> +No more unfurl the straining sail;<br/> +With the blissful Lotos-eaters pale<br/> +We will abide in the golden vale<br/> +Of the Lotos-land till the Lotos fail;<br/> +We will not wander more.<br/> +Hark! how sweet the horned ewes bleat<br/> +On the solitary steeps,<br/> +And the merry lizard leaps,<br/> +And the foam-white waters pour;<br/> +And the dark pine weeps,<br/> +And the lithe vine creeps,<br/> +And the heavy melon sleeps<br/> +On the level of the shore:<br/> +Oh! islanders of Ithaca, we will not wander more,<br/> +Surely, surely slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore<br/> +Than labour in the ocean, and rowing with the oar,<br/> +Oh! islanders of Ithaca, we will return no more.<br/> +<br/> +The fine picture in the text of the gods of Epicurus was no doubt immediately +suggested by <i>Lucretius</i>, iii., 15 <i>seq.</i>, while the +<i>Icaromenippus</i> of Lucian furnishes an excellent commentary on +Tennyson’s picture of those gods and what they see. <i>Cf.</i> too the +Song of the Parcae in Goethe’s <i>Iphigenie auf Tauris</i>, iv., 5. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap42"></a>A Dream of Fair Women</h3> + +<p> +First published in 1833 but very extensively altered on its republication in +1842. It had been written by June, 1832, and appears to have been originally +entitled <i>Legend of Fair Women</i> (see Spedding’s letter dated 21st +June, 1832, <i>Life</i>, i., 116). In nearly every edition between 1833 and +1853 it was revised, and perhaps no poem proves more strikingly the scrupulous +care which Tennyson took to improve what he thought susceptible of improvement. +The work which inspired it, Chaucer’s <i>Legend of Good Women</i>, was +written about 1384, thus “preluding” by nearly two hundred years +the “spacious times of great Elizabeth”. There is no resemblance +between the poems beyond the fact that both are visions and both have as their +heroines illustrious women who have been unfortunate. Cleopatra is the only one +common to the two poems. Tennyson’s is an exquisite work of art—the +transition from the anarchy of dreams to the dreamland landscape and to the +sharply penned figures—the skill with which the heroines (what could be +more perfect that Cleopatra and Jephtha’s daughter?) are chosen and +contrasted—the wonderful way in which the Iphigenia of Euripides and +Lucretius and the Cleopatra of Shakespeare are realised are alike admirable. +</p> + +<p> +The poem opened in 1833 with the following strangely irrelevant verses, excised +in 1842, which as Fitzgerald observed “make a perfect poem by themselves +without affecting the ‘dream’”:—<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +As when a man, that sails in a balloon,<br/> +Downlooking sees the solid shining ground<br/> +Stream from beneath him in the broad blue noon,<br/> +Tilth, hamlet, mead and mound:<br/> +<br/> +And takes his flags and waves them to the mob,<br/> +That shout below, all faces turned to where<br/> +Glows ruby-like the far up crimson globe,<br/> +Filled with a finer air:<br/> +<br/> +So lifted high, the Poet at his will<br/> +Lets the great world flit from him, seeing all,<br/> +Higher thro’ secret splendours mounting still,<br/> +Self-poised, nor fears to fall.<br/> +<br/> +Hearing apart the echoes of his fame.<br/> +While I spoke thus, the seedsman, memory,<br/> +Sowed my deepfurrowed thought with many a name,<br/> +Whose glory will not die.<br/> +<br/> +I read, before my eyelids dropt their shade,<br/> +<i>“The Legend of Good Women,”</i> long ago<br/> +Sung by the morning star<a href="#linknote-323" name="linknoteref-323" id="linknoteref-323"><sup>[1]</sup></a> of song, who made<br/> +His music heard below;<br/> +<br/> +Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath<br/> +Preluded those melodious bursts, that fill<br/> +The spacious times of great Elizabeth<br/> +With sounds that echo still.<br/> +<br/> +And, for a while, the knowledge of his art<br/> +Held me above the subject, as strong gales<br/> +Hold swollen clouds from raining, tho’ my heart,<br/> +Brimful of those wild tales,<br/> +<br/> +Charged both mine eyes with tears.<br/> +In every land I saw, wherever light illumineth,<br/> +Beauty and anguish walking hand in hand<br/> +The downward slope to death.<a href="#linknote-324" name="linknoteref-324" id="linknoteref-324"><sup>[2]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +Those far-renowned brides of ancient song<br/> +Peopled the hollow dark, like burning stars,<br/> +And I heard sounds of insult, shame, and wrong,<br/> +And trumpets blown for wars;<br/> +<br/> +And clattering flints batter’d with clanging hoofs:<br/> +And I saw crowds in column’d sanctuaries;<br/> +And forms that pass’d<a href="#linknote-325" name="linknoteref-325" id="linknoteref-325"><sup>[3]</sup></a> at windows and on roofs<br/> +Of marble palaces;<br/> +<br/> +Corpses across the threshold; heroes tall<br/> +Dislodging pinnacle and parapet<br/> +Upon the tortoise creeping to the wall;<a href="#linknote-326" name="linknoteref-326" id="linknoteref-326"><sup>[4]</sup></a><br/> +Lances in ambush set;<br/> +<br/> +And high shrine-doors burst thro’ with heated blasts<br/> +That run before the fluttering tongues of fire;<br/> +White surf wind-scatter’d over sails and masts,<br/> +And ever climbing higher;<br/> +<br/> +Squadrons and squares of men in brazen plates,<br/> +Scaffolds, still sheets of water, divers woes,<br/> +Ranges of glimmering vaults with iron grates,<br/> +And hush’d seraglios.<br/> +<br/> +So shape chased shape as swift as, when to land<br/> +Bluster the winds and tides the self-same way,<br/> +Crisp foam-flakes scud along the level sand,<br/> +Torn from the fringe of spray.<br/> +<br/> +I started once, or seem’d to start in pain,<br/> +Resolved on noble things, and strove to speak,<br/> +As when a great thought strikes along the brain,<br/> +And flushes all the cheek.<br/> +<br/> +And once my arm was lifted to hew down,<br/> +A cavalier from off his saddle-bow,<br/> +That bore a lady from a leaguer’d town;<br/> +And then, I know not how,<br/> +<br/> +All those sharp fancies, by down-lapsing thought<br/> +Stream’d onward, lost their edges, and did creep<br/> +Roll’d on each other, rounded, smooth’d and brought<br/> +Into the gulfs of sleep.<br/> +<br/> +At last methought that I had wander’d far<br/> +In an old wood: fresh-wash’d in coolest dew,<br/> +The maiden splendours of the morning star<br/> +Shook in the steadfast<a href="#linknote-327" name="linknoteref-327" id="linknoteref-327"><sup>[5]</sup></a> blue.<br/> +<br/> +Enormous elmtree-boles did stoop and lean<br/> +Upon the dusky brushwood underneath<br/> +Their broad curved branches, fledged with clearest green,<br/> +New from its silken sheath.<br/> +<br/> +The dim red morn had died, her journey done,<br/> +And with dead lips smiled at the twilight plain,<br/> +Half-fall’n across the threshold of the sun,<br/> +Never to rise again.<br/> +<br/> +There was no motion in the dumb dead air,<br/> +Not any song of bird or sound of rill;<br/> +Gross darkness of the inner sepulchre<br/> +Is not so deadly still<br/> +<br/> +As that wide forest.<br/> +Growths of jasmine turn’d<br/> +Their humid arms festooning tree to tree,<a href="#linknote-328" name="linknoteref-328" id="linknoteref-328"><sup>[6]</sup></a><br/> +And at the root thro’ lush green grasses burn’d<br/> +The red anemone.<br/> +<br/> +I knew the flowers, I knew the leaves, I knew<br/> +The tearful glimmer of the languid dawn<br/> +On those long, rank, dark wood-walks, drench’d in dew,<br/> +Leading from lawn to lawn.<br/> +<br/> +The smell of violets, hidden in the green,<br/> +Pour’d back into my empty soul and frame<br/> +The times when I remember to have been<br/> +Joyful and free from blame.<br/> +<br/> +And from within me a clear under-tone<br/> +Thrill’d thro’ mine ears in that unblissful clime<br/> +“Pass freely thro’: the wood is all thine own,<br/> +Until the end of time”.<br/> +<br/> +At length I saw a lady<a href="#linknote-329" name="linknoteref-329" id="linknoteref-329"><sup>[7]</sup></a> within call,<br/> +Stiller than chisell’d marble, standing there;<br/> +A daughter of the gods, divinely tall,<a href="#linknote-330" name="linknoteref-330" id="linknoteref-330"><sup>[8]</sup></a><br/> +And most divinely fair.<br/> +<br/> +Her loveliness with shame and with surprise<br/> +Froze my swift speech: she turning on my face<br/> +The star-like sorrows of immortal eyes,<br/> +Spoke slowly in her place.<br/> +<br/> +“I had great beauty: ask thou not my name:<br/> +No one can be more wise than destiny.<br/> +Many drew swords and died.<br/> +Where’er I came I brought calamity.”<br/> +<br/> +“No marvel, sovereign lady<a href="#linknote-331" name="linknoteref-331" id="linknoteref-331"><sup>[9]</sup></a>: in fair field<br/> +Myself for such a face had boldly died,”<a href="#linknote-332" name="linknoteref-332" id="linknoteref-332"><sup>[10]</sup></a><br/> +I answer’d free; and turning I appeal’d<br/> +To one<a href="#linknote-333" name="linknoteref-333" id="linknoteref-333"><sup>[11]</sup></a> that stood beside.<br/> +<br/> +But she, with sick and scornful looks averse,<br/> +To her full height her stately stature draws;<br/> +“My youth,” she said, “was blasted with a curse:<br/> +This woman was the cause.<br/> +<br/> +“I was cut off from hope in that sad place,<a href="#linknote-334" name="linknoteref-334" id="linknoteref-334"><sup>[12]</sup></a><br/> +Which yet to name my spirit loathes and fears:<a href="#linknote-335" name="linknoteref-335" id="linknoteref-335"><sup>[13]</sup></a><br/> +My father held his hand upon his face;<br/> +I, blinded with my tears,<br/> +<br/> +“Still strove to speak: my voice was thick with sighs<br/> +As in a dream. Dimly I could descry<br/> +The stern black-bearded kings with wolfish eyes,<br/> +Waiting to see me die.<br/> +<br/> +“The high masts flicker’d as they lay afloat;<br/> +The crowds, the temples, waver’d, and the shore;<br/> +The bright death quiver’d at the victim’s throat;<br/> +Touch’d; and I knew no more.”<a href="#linknote-336" name="linknoteref-336" id="linknoteref-336"><sup>[14]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +Whereto the other with a downward brow:<br/> +“I would the white cold heavy-plunging foam,<a href="#linknote-337" name="linknoteref-337" id="linknoteref-337"><sup>[15]</sup></a><br/> +Whirl’d by the wind, had roll’d me deep below,<br/> +Then when I left my home.”<br/> +<br/> +Her slow full words sank thro’ the silence drear,<br/> +As thunder-drops fall on a sleeping sea:<br/> +Sudden I heard a voice that cried, “Come here,<br/> +That I may look on thee”.<br/> +<br/> +I turning saw, throned on a flowery rise,<br/> +One sitting on a crimson scarf unroll’d;<br/> +A queen, with swarthy cheeks<a href="#linknote-338" name="linknoteref-338" id="linknoteref-338"><sup>[16]</sup></a> and bold black eyes,<br/> +Brow-bound with burning gold.<br/> +<br/> +She, flashing forth a haughty smile, began:<br/> +“I govern’d men by change, and so I sway’d<br/> +All moods. Tis long since I have seen a man.<br/> +Once, like the moon, I made<br/> +<br/> +“The ever-shifting currents of the blood<br/> +According to my humour ebb and flow.<br/> +I have no men to govern in this wood:<br/> +That makes my only woe.<br/> +<br/> +“Nay—yet it chafes me that I could not bend<br/> +One will; nor tame and tutor with mine eye<br/> +That dull cold-blooded Caesar. Prythee, friend,<br/> +Where is Mark Antony?<a href="#linknote-339" name="linknoteref-339" id="linknoteref-339"><sup>[17]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +“The man, my lover, with whom I rode sublime<br/> +On Fortune’s neck: we sat as God by God:<br/> +The Nilus would have risen before his time<br/> +And flooded at our nod.<a href="#linknote-340" name="linknoteref-340" id="linknoteref-340"><sup>[18]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +“We drank the Libyan<a href="#linknote-341" name="linknoteref-341" id="linknoteref-341"><sup>[19]</sup></a> Sun to sleep, and lit<br/> +Lamps which outburn’d Canopus. O my life<br/> +In Egypt! O the dalliance and the wit,<br/> +The flattery and the strife,<a href="#linknote-342" name="linknoteref-342" id="linknoteref-342"><sup>[20]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +“And the wild kiss, when fresh from war’s alarms,<a href="#linknote-343" name="linknoteref-343" id="linknoteref-343"><sup>[21]</sup></a><br/> +My Hercules, my Roman Antony,<br/> +My mailèd Bacchus leapt into my arms,<br/> +Contented there to die!<br/> +<br/> +“And there he died: and when I heard my name<br/> +Sigh’d forth with life, I would not brook my fear<a href="#linknote-344" name="linknoteref-344" id="linknoteref-344"><sup>[22]</sup></a><br/> +Of the other: with a worm I balk’d his fame.<br/> +What else was left? look here!”<br/> +<br/> +(With that she tore her robe apart, and half<br/> +The polish’d argent of her breast to sight<br/> +Laid bare. Thereto she pointed with a laugh,<br/> +Showing the aspick’s bite.)<br/> +<br/> +“I died a Queen. The Roman soldier found<a href="#linknote-345" name="linknoteref-345" id="linknoteref-345"><sup>[23]</sup></a><br/> +Me lying dead, my crown about my brows,<br/> +A name for ever!—lying robed and crown’d,<br/> +Worthy a Roman spouse.”<br/> +<br/> +Her warbling voice, a lyre of widest range<br/> +Struck<a href="#linknote-346" name="linknoteref-346" id="linknoteref-346"><sup>[24]</sup></a> by all passion, did fall down and glance<br/> +From tone to tone, and glided thro’ all change<br/> +Of liveliest utterance.<br/> +<br/> +When she made pause I knew not for delight;<br/> +Because with sudden motion from the ground<br/> +She raised her piercing orbs, and fill’d with light<br/> +The interval of sound.<br/> +<br/> +Still with their fires Love tipt his keenest darts;<br/> +As once they drew into two burning rings<br/> +All beams of Love, melting the mighty hearts<br/> +Of captains and of kings.<br/> +<br/> +Slowly my sense undazzled. Then I heard<br/> +A noise of some one coming thro’ the lawn,<br/> +And singing clearer than the crested bird,<br/> +That claps his wings at dawn.<br/> +<br/> +“The torrent brooks of hallow’d Israel<br/> +From craggy hollows pouring, late and soon,<br/> +Sound all night long, in falling thro’ the dell,<br/> +Far-heard beneath the moon.<br/> +<br/> +“The balmy moon of blessed Israel<br/> +Floods all the deep-blue gloom with beams divine:<br/> +All night the splinter’d crags that wall the dell<br/> +With spires of silver shine.”<br/> +<br/> +As one that museth where broad sunshine laves<br/> +The lawn by some cathedral, thro’ the door<br/> +Hearing the holy organ rolling waves<br/> +Of sound on roof and floor,<br/> +<br/> +Within, and anthem sung, is charm’d and tied<br/> +To where he stands,—so stood I, when that flow<br/> +Of music left the lips of her that died<br/> +To save her father’s vow;<br/> +<br/> +The daughter of the warrior Gileadite,<a href="#linknote-347" name="linknoteref-347" id="linknoteref-347"><sup>[25]</sup></a><br/> +A maiden pure; as when she went along<br/> +From Mizpeh’s tower’d gate with welcome light,<br/> +With timbrel and with song.<br/> +<br/> +My words leapt forth: “Heaven heads the count of crimes<br/> +With that wild oath”. She render’d answer high:<br/> +“Not so, nor once alone; a thousand times<br/> +I would be born and die.<br/> +<br/> +“Single I grew, like some green plant, whose root<br/> +Creeps to the garden water-pipes beneath,<br/> +Feeding the flower; but ere my flower to fruit<br/> +Changed, I was ripe for death.<br/> +<br/> +“My God, my land, my father—these did move<br/> +Me from my bliss of life, that Nature gave,<br/> +Lower’d softly with a threefold cord of love<br/> +Down to a silent grave.<br/> +<br/> +“And I went mourning, ‘No fair Hebrew boy<br/> +Shall smile away my maiden blame among<br/> +The Hebrew mothers’—emptied of all joy,<br/> +Leaving the dance and song,<br/> +<br/> +“Leaving the olive-gardens far below,<br/> +Leaving the promise of my bridal bower,<br/> +The valleys of grape-loaded vines that glow<br/> +Beneath the battled tower<br/> +<br/> +“The light white cloud swam over us. Anon<br/> +We heard the lion roaring from his den;<a href="#linknote-348" name="linknoteref-348" id="linknoteref-348"><sup>[26]</sup></a><br/> +We saw the large white stars rise one by one,<br/> +Or, from the darken’d glen,<br/> +<br/> +“Saw God divide the night with flying flame,<br/> +And thunder on the everlasting hills.<br/> +I heard Him, for He spake, and grief became<br/> +A solemn scorn of ills.<br/> +<br/> +“When the next moon was roll’d into the sky,<br/> +Strength came to me that equall’d my desire.<br/> +How beautiful a thing it was to die<br/> +For God and for my sire!<br/> +<br/> +“It comforts me in this one thought to dwell,<br/> +That I subdued me to my father’s will;<br/> +Because the kiss he gave me, ere I fell,<br/> +Sweetens the spirit still.<br/> +<br/> +“Moreover it is written that my race<br/> +Hew’d Ammon, hip and thigh, from Aroer<a href="#linknote-349" name="linknoteref-349" id="linknoteref-349"><sup>[27]</sup></a><br/> +On Arnon unto Minneth.” Here her face<br/> +Glow’d, as I look’d at her.<br/> +<br/> +She lock’d her lips: she left me where I stood:<br/> +“Glory to God,” she sang, and past afar,<br/> +Thridding the sombre boskage of the wood,<br/> +Toward the morning-star.<br/> +<br/> +Losing her carol I stood pensively,<br/> +As one that from a casement leans his head,<br/> +When midnight bells cease ringing suddenly,<br/> +And the old year is dead.<br/> +<br/> +“Alas! alas!” a low voice, full of care,<br/> +Murmur’d beside me: “Turn and look on me:<br/> +I am that Rosamond, whom men call fair,<br/> +If what I was I be.<br/> +<br/> +“Would I had been some maiden coarse and poor!<br/> +O me, that I should ever see the light!<br/> +Those dragon eyes of anger’d Eleanor<br/> +Do haunt me, day and night.”<br/> +<br/> +She ceased in tears, fallen from hope and trust:<br/> +To whom the Egyptian: “O, you tamely died!<br/> +You should have clung to Fulvia’s waist, and thrust<br/> +The dagger thro’ her side”.<br/> +<br/> +With that sharp sound the white dawn’s creeping beams,<br/> +Stol’n to my brain, dissolved the mystery<br/> +Of folded sleep. The captain of my dreams<br/> +Ruled in the eastern sky.<br/> +<br/> +Morn broaden’d on the borders of the dark,<br/> +Ere I saw her, who clasp’d in her last +trance<br/> +Her murder’d father’s head, or Joan of Arc,<a href="#linknote-350" name="linknoteref-350" id="linknoteref-350"><sup>[28]</sup></a><br/> +A light of ancient France;<br/> +<br/> +Or her, who knew that Love can vanquish Death,<br/> +Who kneeling, with one arm about her king,<br/> +Drew forth the poison with her balmy breath,<a href="#linknote-351" name="linknoteref-351" id="linknoteref-351"><sup>[29]</sup></a><br/> +Sweet as new buds in Spring.<br/> +<br/> +No memory labours longer from the deep<br/> +Gold-mines of thought to lift the hidden ore<br/> +That glimpses, moving up, than I from sleep<br/> +To gather and tell o’er<br/> +<br/> +Each little sound and sight. With what dull pain<br/> +Compass’d, how eagerly I sought to strike<br/> +Into that wondrous track of dreams again!<br/> +But no two dreams are like.<br/> +<br/> +As when a soul laments, which hath been blest,<br/> +Desiring what is mingled with past years,<br/> +In yearnings that can never be exprest<br/> +By sighs or groans or tears;<br/> +<br/> +Because all words, tho’ cull’d<a href="#linknote-352" name="linknoteref-352" id="linknoteref-352"><sup>[30]</sup></a> with choicest art,<br/> +Failing to give the bitter of the sweet,<br/> +Wither beneath the palate, and the heart<br/> +Faints, faded by its heat. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-323" id="linknote-323"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-323">[1]</a> +Suggested apparently by Denham, <i>Verses on Cowley’s +Death</i>:—<br/> +<br/> +Old Chaucer, like the morning star<br/> +To us discovers<br/> +Day from far. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-324" id="linknote-324"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-324">[2]</a> +Here follow in 1833 two stanzas excised in 1842:—<br/> +<br/> +In every land I thought that, more or less,<br/> +The stronger sterner nature overbore<br/> +The softer, uncontrolled by gentleness<br/> +And selfish evermore:<br/> +<br/> +And whether there were any means whereby,<br/> +In some far aftertime, the gentler mind<br/> +Might reassume its just and full degree<br/> +Of rule among mankind. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-325" id="linknote-325"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-325">[3]</a> +1833. Screamed. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-326" id="linknote-326"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-326">[4]</a> +The Latin <i>testudo</i> formed of the shields of soldiers held over their +heads. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-327" id="linknote-327"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-327">[5]</a> +1883 to 1848 inclusive. Stedfast. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-328" id="linknote-328"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-328">[6]</a> +1833.<br/> +<br/> +Clasping jasmine turned<br/> +Its twined arms festooning tree to tree.<br/> +<br/> +Altered to present reading, 1842. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-329" id="linknote-329"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-329">[7]</a> +A lady, <i>i. e.</i>, Helen. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-330" id="linknote-330"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-330">[8]</a> +Tennyson has here noticed what is so often emphasised by Greek writers, that +tallness was a great beauty in women. See Aristotle, <i>Ethics</i>, iv., 3, and +Homer, <i>passim, Odyssey</i>, viii., 416; xviii., 190 and 248; xxi., 6. So +Xenophon in describing Panthea emphasises her tallness, <i>Cyroped.</i>, v. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-331" id="linknote-331"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-331">[9]</a> +1883. Sovran lady. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-332" id="linknote-332"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-332">[10]</a> +As the old men say, <i>Iliad</i>, iii., 156-8. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-333" id="linknote-333"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-333">[11]</a> +The one is Iphigenia. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-334" id="linknote-334"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-334">[12]</a> +Aulis. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-335" id="linknote-335"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-335">[13]</a> +It was not till 1884 that this line was altered to the reading of the final +edition, <i>i. e.</i>, “Which men called Aulis in those iron +years”. For the “iron years” of that reading <i>cf.</i> +Thomson, <i>Spring</i>, 384, “<i>iron</i> times”. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-336" id="linknote-336"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-336">[14]</a> +From 1833 till 1853 this stanza ran:—<br/> + “The tall masts quivered as they lay afloat,<br/> + The temples and the people and the shore,<br/> + One drew a sharp knife thro’ my tender throat<br/> + Slowly,—and nothing more”.<br/> +It is curious that Tennyson should have allowed the last line to stand so long; +possibly it may have been to defy Lockhart’s sarcastic commentary: +“What touching simplicity, what pathetic resignation—he cut my +throat, nothing more!” With Tennyson’s picture should be compared +Æschylus, <i>Agamem.</i>, 225-49, and Lucretius, i., 85-100. For the bold and +picturesque substitution of the effect for the cause in the “bright death +quiver’d” <i>cf.</i> Sophocles, <i>Electra</i>, 1395, +νεακόνητον +αἷμα χειροῖν +ἔχων, “with the newly-whetted blood on his +hands”. So “vulnus” is frequently used by Virgil, and +<i>cf.</i> Silius Italicus, <i>Punica</i>, ix., 368-9:—<br/> +Per pectora <i>sævas</i><br/> +Exceptat <i>mortes</i>. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-337" id="linknote-337"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-337">[15]</a> +She expresses the same wish in <i>Iliad</i>, iii., 73-4. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-338" id="linknote-338"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-338">[16]</a> +Cleopatra. The skill with which Tennyson has here given us, in quintessence as +it were, Shakespeare’s superb creation needs no commentary, but it is +somewhat surprising to find an accurate scholar like Tennyson guilty of the +absurdity of representing Cleopatra as of gipsy complexion. The daughter of +Ptolemy Aulates and a lady of Pontus, she was of Greek descent, and had no +taint at all of African intermixtures. See Peacock’s remarks in <i>Gryll +Grange</i>, p. 206, 7th edit., 1861. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-339" id="linknote-339"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-339">[17]</a> +After this in 1833 and in 1842 are the following stanzas, afterwards +excised:—<br/> +<br/> +“By him great Pompey dwarfs and suffers pain,<br/> +A mortal man before immortal Mars;<br/> +The glories of great Julius lapse and wane,<br/> +And shrink from suns to stars.<br/> +<br/> +“That man of all the men I ever knew<br/> +Most touched my fancy.<br/> +O! what days and nights<br/> +We had in Egypt, ever reaping new<br/> +Harvest of ripe delights.<br/> +<br/> +“Realm-draining revels! Life was one long feast,<br/> +What wit! what words! what sweet words, only made<br/> +Less sweet by the kiss that broke ’em, liking best<br/> +To be so richly stayed!<br/> +<br/> +“What dainty strifes, when fresh from war’s alarms,<br/> +My Hercules, my gallant Antony,<br/> +My mailed captain leapt into my arms,<br/> +Contented there to die!<br/> +<br/> +“And in those arms he died: I heard my name<br/> +Sighed forth with life: then I shook off all fear:<br/> +Oh, what a little snake stole Caesar’s fame!<br/> +What else was left? look here!”<br/> +<br/> +“With that she tore her robe apart,” etc. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-340" id="linknote-340"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-340">[18]</a> +This stanza was added in 1843. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-341" id="linknote-341"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-341">[19]</a> +1845-1848. Lybian. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-342" id="linknote-342"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-342">[20]</a> +Added in 1845 as a substitute for<br/> +<br/> +“What nights we had in Egypt! I could hit<br/> +His humours while I crossed them:<br/> +O the life I led him, and the dalliance and the wit,<br/> +The flattery and the strife,<br/> +<br/> +which is the reading of 1843. Canopus is a star in Argo, not +visible in the West, but a conspicuous feature in the sky when +seen from Egypt, as Pliny notices, <i>Hist. Nat.</i>, vi., xxiv.<br/> +<br/> +“Fatentes Canopum noctibus sidus ingens et clarum”.<br/> +<br/> +<i>Cf.</i> Manilius, <i>Astron.</i>, i., 216-17,<br/> +<br/> +“Nusquam invenies fulgere Canopum donec Niliacas per pontum veneris +oras,”<br/> +<br/> +and Lucan, <i>Pharsal.</i>, viii., 181-3. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-343" id="linknote-343"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-343">[21]</a> +Substituted in 1843 for the reading of 1833 and 1842. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-344" id="linknote-344"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-344">[22]</a> +Substituted in 1845 for the reading of 1833, 1842, 1843, which ran as recorded +<i>supra</i>. 1845 to 1848. Lybian. And for the reading of 1843<br/> +<br/> +Sigh’d forth with life I had no further fear,<br/> +O what a little worm stole Caesar’s fame! +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-345" id="linknote-345"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-345">[23]</a> +A splendid transfusion of Horace’s lines about her, Ode I., xxxvii.<br/> +<br/> +Invidens Privata deduci superto<br/> +Non humilis mulier triumpho. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-346" id="linknote-346"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-346">[24]</a> +1833 and 1842. Touched. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-347" id="linknote-347"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-347">[25]</a> +For the story of Jephtha’s daughter see Judges, chap. xi. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-348" id="linknote-348"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-348">[26]</a> +All editions up to and including 1851. In his den. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-349" id="linknote-349"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-349">[27]</a> +For reference see Judges xi, 33. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-350" id="linknote-350"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-350">[28]</a> +1833.<br/> +<br/> +Ere I saw her, that in her latest trance<br/> +Clasped her dead father’s heart, or Joan of Arc.<br/> +<br/> +The reference is, of course, to the well-known story of Margaret Roper, the +daughter of Sir Thomas More, who is said to have taken his head when he was +executed and preserved it till her death. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-351" id="linknote-351"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-351">[29]</a> +Eleanor, the wife of Edward I., is said to have thus saved his life when he was +stabbed at Acre with a poisoned dagger. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-352" id="linknote-352"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-352">[30]</a> +The earliest and latest editions, <i>i. e.</i>, 1833 and 1853, have +“tho’,” and all the editions between “though”. +“Though culled,” etc. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap43"></a>Margaret</h3> + +<p class="center"> +First printed in 1833. +</p> + +<p> +Another of Tennyson’s delicious fancy portraits, the twin sister to +Adeline.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="left"> +1 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +O sweet pale Margaret,<br/> +O rare pale Margaret,<br/> +What lit your eyes with tearful power,<br/> +Like moonlight on a falling shower?<br/> +Who lent you, love, your mortal dower<br/> +Of pensive thought and aspect pale,<br/> +Your melancholy sweet and frail<br/> +As perfume of the cuckoo-flower?<br/> +From the westward-winding flood,<br/> +From the evening-lighted wood,<br/> +From all things outward you have won<br/> +A tearful grace, as tho’<a href="#linknote-353" name="linknoteref-353" id="linknoteref-353"><sup>[1]</sup></a> you stood<br/> +Between the rainbow and the sun.<br/> +The very smile before you speak,<br/> +That dimples your transparent cheek,<br/> +Encircles all the heart, and feedeth<br/> +The senses with a still delight<br/> +Of dainty sorrow without sound,<br/> +Like the tender amber round,<br/> +Which the moon about her spreadeth,<br/> +Moving thro’ a fleecy night. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +2 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +You love, remaining peacefully,<br/> +To hear the murmur of the strife,<br/> +But enter not the toil of life.<br/> +Your spirit is the calmed sea,<br/> +Laid by the tumult of the fight.<br/> +You are the evening star, alway<br/> +Remaining betwixt dark and bright:<br/> +Lull’d echoes of laborious day<br/> +Come to you, gleams of mellow light<br/> +Float by you on the verge of night. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +3 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +What can it matter, Margaret,<br/> +What songs below the waning stars<br/> +The lion-heart, Plantagenet,<a href="#linknote-354" name="linknoteref-354" id="linknoteref-354"><sup>[2]</sup></a><br/> +Sang looking thro’ his prison bars?<br/> +Exquisite Margaret, who can tell<br/> +The last wild thought of Chatelet,<a href="#linknote-355" name="linknoteref-355" id="linknoteref-355"><sup>[3]</sup></a><br/> +Just ere the falling axe did part<br/> +The burning brain from the true heart,<br/> +Even in her sight he loved so well? +</p> + +<p class="left"> +4 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +A fairy shield your Genius made<br/> +And gave you on your natal day.<br/> +Your sorrow, only sorrow’s shade,<br/> +Keeps real sorrow far away.<br/> +You move not in such solitudes,<br/> +You are not less divine,<br/> +But more human in your moods,<br/> +Than your twin-sister, Adeline.<br/> +Your hair is darker, and your eyes<br/> +Touch’d with a somewhat darker hue,<br/> +And less aerially blue,<br/> +But ever trembling thro’ the dew<a href="#linknote-356" name="linknoteref-356" id="linknoteref-356"><sup>[4]</sup></a><br/> +Of dainty-woeful sympathies. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +5 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +O sweet pale Margaret,<br/> +O rare pale Margaret,<br/> +Come down, come down, and hear me speak:<br/> +Tie up the ringlets on your cheek:<br/> +The sun is just about to set.<br/> +The arching lines are tall and shady,<br/> +And faint, rainy lights are seen,<br/> +Moving in the leavy beech.<br/> +Rise from the feast of sorrow, lady,<br/> +Where all day long you sit between<br/> +Joy and woe, and whisper each.<br/> +Or only look across the lawn,<br/> +Look out below your bower-eaves,<br/> +Look down, and let your blue eyes dawn<br/> +Upon me thro’ the jasmine-leaves.<a href="#linknote-357" name="linknoteref-357" id="linknoteref-357"><sup>[5]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-353" id="linknote-353"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-353">[1]</a> +All editions except 1833 and 1853. Though. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-354" id="linknote-354"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-354">[2]</a> +1833. Lion-souled Plantagenet. For songs supposed to have been composed by +Richard I. during the time of his captivity see Sismondi, <i>Littérature du +Midi de l’Europe</i>, vol. i., p. 149, and <i>La Tour Ténébreuse</i> +(1705), which contains a poem said to have been written by Richard and Blondel +in mixed Romance and Provençal, and a love-song in Norman French, which have +frequently been reprinted. See, too, Barney’s <i>Hist. of Music</i>, vol. +ii., p. 238, and Walpole’s <i>Royal and Noble Authors</i>, sub.-tit. +“Richard I.,” and the fourth volume of Reynouard’s <i>Choix +des Poésies des Troubadours</i>. All these poems are probably spurious. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-355" id="linknote-355"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-355">[3]</a> +Chatelet was a poet-squire in the suite of the Marshal Damville, who was +executed for a supposed intrigue with Mary Queen of Scots. See Tytler, +<i>History of Scotland</i>, vi., p. 319, and Mr. Swinburne’s tragedy. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-356" id="linknote-356"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-356">[4]</a> +1833.<br/> +<br/> +And more aërially blue,<br/> +And ever trembling thro’ the dew. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-357" id="linknote-357"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-357">[5]</a> +1833. Jasmin-leaves. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap44"></a>The Blackbird</h3> + +<p class="center"> +Not in 1833.<br/> +This is another poem placed among the poems of 1833, but not printed till 1842. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The espaliers and the standards all<br/> +Are thine; the range of lawn and park:<br/> +The unnetted black-hearts ripen dark,<br/> +All thine, against the garden wall.<br/> +<br/> +Yet, tho’ I spared thee all the spring,<a href="#linknote-358" name="linknoteref-358" id="linknoteref-358"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/> +Thy sole delight is, sitting still,<br/> +With that gold dagger of thy bill<br/> +To fret the summer jenneting.<a href="#linknote-359" name="linknoteref-359" id="linknoteref-359"><sup>[2]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +A golden bill! the silver tongue,<br/> +Cold February loved, is dry:<br/> +Plenty corrupts the melody<br/> +That made thee famous once, when young:<br/> +<br/> +And in the sultry garden-squares,<a href="#linknote-360" name="linknoteref-360" id="linknoteref-360"><sup>[3]</sup></a><br/> +Now thy flute-notes are changed to coarse,<br/> +I hear thee not at all,<a href="#linknote-361" name="linknoteref-361" id="linknoteref-361"><sup>[4]</sup></a> or hoarse<br/> +As when a hawker hawks his wares.<br/> +<br/> +Take warning! he that will not sing<br/> +While yon sun prospers in the blue,<br/> +Shall sing for want, ere leaves are new,<br/> +Caught in the frozen palms of Spring. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-358" id="linknote-358"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-358">[1]</a> +1842. Yet, though I spared thee kith and kin. And so till 1853, when it was +altered to the present reading. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-359" id="linknote-359"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-359">[2]</a> +1842 to 1851. Jennetin, altered in 1853 to present reading. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-360" id="linknote-360"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-360">[3]</a> +1842. I better brook the drawling stares. Altered, 1843. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-361" id="linknote-361"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-361">[4]</a> +1842. Not hearing thee at all. Altered, 1843. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap45"></a>The Death of the Old Year</h3> + +<p class="center"> +First printed in 1833. +</p> + +<p> +Only one alteration has been made in this poem, in line 41, where in 1842 +“one’ was altered to” twelve”.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Full knee-deep lies the winter snow,<br/> +And the winter winds are wearily sighing:<br/> +Toll ye the church-bell sad and slow,<br/> +And tread softly and speak low,<br/> +For the old year lies a-dying.<br/> +Old year, you must not die;<br/> +You came to us so readily,<br/> +You lived with us so steadily,<br/> +Old year, you shall not die.<br/> +<br/> +He lieth still: he doth not move:<br/> +He will not see the dawn of day.<br/> +He hath no other life above.<br/> +He gave me a friend, and a true, true-love,<br/> +And the New-year will take ’em away.<br/> +Old year, you must not go;<br/> +So long as you have been with us,<br/> +Such joy as you have seen with us,<br/> +Old year, you shall not go.<br/> +<br/> +He froth’d his bumpers to the brim;<br/> +A jollier year we shall not see.<br/> +But tho’ his eyes are waxing dim,<br/> +And tho’ his foes speak ill of him,<br/> +He was a friend to me.<br/> +Old year, you shall not die;<br/> +We did so laugh and cry with you,<br/> +I’ve half a mind to die with you,<br/> +Old year, if you must die.<br/> +<br/> +He was full of joke and jest,<br/> +But all his merry quips are o’er.<br/> +To see him die, across the waste<br/> +His son and heir doth ride post-haste,<br/> +But he’ll be dead before.<br/> +Every one for his own.<br/> +The night is starry and cold, my friend,<br/> +And the New-year blithe and bold, my friend,<br/> +Comes up to take his own.<br/> +<br/> +How hard he breathes! over the snow<br/> +I heard just now the crowing cock.<br/> +The shadows flicker to and fro:<br/> +The cricket chirps: the light burns low:<br/> +’Tis nearly twelve<a href="#linknote-362" name="linknoteref-362" id="linknoteref-362"><sup>[1]</sup></a> o’clock.<br/> +Shake hands, before you die.<br/> +Old year, we’ll dearly rue for you:<br/> +What is it we can do for you?<br/> +Speak out before you die.<br/> +<br/> +His face is growing sharp and thin.<br/> +Alack! our friend is gone.<br/> +Close up his eyes: tie up his chin:<br/> +Step from the corpse, and let him in<br/> +That standeth there alone,<br/> +And waiteth at the door.<br/> +There’s a new foot on the floor, my friend,<br/> +And a new face at the door, my friend,<br/> +A new face at the door. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-362" id="linknote-362"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-362">[1]</a> +1833. One. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap46"></a>To J. S.</h3> + +<p class="center"> +First published in 1833. +</p> + +<p> +This beautiful poem was addressed to James Spedding on the death of his brother +Edward.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The wind, that beats the mountain, blows<br/> +More softly round the open wold,<a href="#linknote-363" name="linknoteref-363" id="linknoteref-363"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/> +And gently comes the world to those<br/> +That are cast in gentle mould.<br/> +<br/> +And me this knowledge bolder made,<br/> +Or else I had not dared to flow<a href="#linknote-364" name="linknoteref-364" id="linknoteref-364"><sup>[2]</sup></a><br/> +In these words toward you, and invade<br/> +Even with a verse your holy woe.<br/> +<br/> +’Tis strange that those we lean on most,<br/> +Those in whose laps our limbs are nursed,<br/> +Fall into shadow, soonest lost:<br/> +Those we love first are taken first.<br/> +<br/> +God gives us love. Something to love<br/> +He lends us; but, when love is grown<br/> +To ripeness, that on which it throve<br/> +Falls off, and love is left alone.<br/> +<br/> +This is the curse of time. Alas!<br/> +In grief I am not all unlearn’d;<br/> +Once thro’ mine own doors Death did pass;<a href="#linknote-365" name="linknoteref-365" id="linknoteref-365"><sup>[3]</sup></a><br/> +One went, who never hath return’d.<br/> +<br/> +He will not smile—nor speak to me<br/> +Once more. Two years his chair is seen<br/> +Empty before us. That was he<br/> +Without whose life I had not been.<br/> +<br/> +Your loss is rarer; for this star<br/> +Rose with you thro’ a little arc<br/> +Of heaven, nor having wander’d far<br/> +Shot on the sudden into dark.<br/> +<br/> +I knew your brother: his mute dust<br/> +I honour and his living worth:<br/> +A man more pure and bold<a href="#linknote-366" name="linknoteref-366" id="linknoteref-366"><sup>[4]</sup></a> and just<br/> +Was never born into the earth.<br/> +<br/> +I have not look’d upon you nigh,<br/> +Since that dear soul hath fall’n asleep.<br/> +Great Nature is more wise than I:<br/> +I will not tell you not to weep.<br/> +<br/> +And tho’ mine own eyes fill with dew,<br/> +Drawn from the spirit thro’ the brain,<a href="#linknote-367" name="linknoteref-367" id="linknoteref-367"><sup>[5]</sup></a><br/> +I will not even preach to you,<br/> +“Weep, weeping dulls the inward pain”.<br/> +<br/> +Let Grief be her own mistress still.<br/> +She loveth her own anguish deep<br/> +More than much pleasure. Let her will<br/> +Be done—to weep or not to weep.<br/> +<br/> +I will not say “God’s ordinance<br/> +Of Death is blown in every wind”;<br/> +For that is not a common chance<br/> +That takes away a noble mind.<br/> +<br/> +His memory long will live alone<br/> +In all our hearts, as mournful light<br/> +That broods above the fallen sun,<a href="#linknote-368" name="linknoteref-368" id="linknoteref-368"><sup>[6]</sup></a><br/> +And dwells in heaven half the night.<br/> +<br/> +Vain solace! Memory standing near<br/> +Cast down her eyes, and in her throat<br/> +Her voice seem’d distant, and a tear<br/> +Dropt on the letters<a href="#linknote-369" name="linknoteref-369" id="linknoteref-369"><sup>[7]</sup></a> as I wrote.<br/> +<br/> +I wrote I know not what. In truth,<br/> +How <i>should</i> I soothe you anyway,<br/> +Who miss the brother of your youth?<br/> +Yet something I did wish to say:<br/> +<br/> +For he too was a friend to me:<br/> +Both are my friends, and my true breast<br/> +Bleedeth for both; yet it may be<br/> +That only<a href="#linknote-370" name="linknoteref-370" id="linknoteref-370"><sup>[8]</sup></a> silence suiteth best.<br/> +<br/> +Words weaker than your grief would make<br/> +Grief more. ’Twere better I should cease;<br/> +Although myself could almost take<a href="#linknote-371" name="linknoteref-371" id="linknoteref-371"><sup>[9]</sup></a><br/> +The place of him that sleeps in peace.<br/> +<br/> +Sleep sweetly, tender heart, in peace:<br/> +Sleep, holy spirit, blessed soul,<br/> +While the stars burn, the moons increase,<br/> +And the great ages onward roll.<br/> +<br/> +Sleep till the end, true soul and sweet.<br/> +Nothing comes to thee new or strange.<br/> +Sleep full of rest from head to feet;<br/> +Lie still, dry dust, secure of change. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-363" id="linknote-363"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-363">[1]</a> +Possibly suggested by Tasso, <i>Gerus.</i>, lib. xx., st. lviii.:—<br/> +<br/> +Qual vento a cui s’oppone o selva o colle<br/> +Doppía nella contesa i soffi e l’ ira;<br/> +Ma con fiato piu placido e più molle<br/> +Per le compagne libere poi spira. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-364" id="linknote-364"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-364">[2]</a> +1833.<br/> +<br/> +My heart this knowledge bolder made,<br/> +Or else it had not dared to flow.<br/> +<br/> +Altered in 1842. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-365" id="linknote-365"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-365">[3]</a> +Tennyson’s father died in March, 1831. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-366" id="linknote-366"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-366">[4]</a> +1833. Mild. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-367" id="linknote-367"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-367">[5]</a> +<i>Cf.</i> Gray’s Alcaic stanza on West’s death:—<br/> + +<br/> +O lacrymarum fons tenero sacros<br/> +<i>Ducentium ortus ex animo</i>. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-368" id="linknote-368"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-368">[6]</a> +1833. Sunken sun. Altered to present reading, 1842. The image may have been +suggested by Henry Vaughan, <i>Beyond the Veil</i>:—<br/> +<br/> +Their very memory is fair and bright,<br/> +...<br/> +It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast Like stars<br/> +...<br/> +Or those faint beams in which the hill is drest<br/> +After the sun’s remove. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-369" id="linknote-369"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-369">[7]</a> +1833, 1842, 1843. My tablets. This affected phrase was altered to the present +reading in 1845. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-370" id="linknote-370"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-370">[8]</a> +1833. Holy. Altered to “only,” 1842. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-371" id="linknote-371"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-371">[9]</a> +1833. Altho’ to calm you I would take. Altered to present reading, 1842. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap47"></a>“You ask me, why, tho’ ill at ease”</h3> + +<p> +This is another poem which, though included among those belonging to 1833, was +not published till 1842. It is an interesting illustration, like the next poem +but one, of Tennyson’s political opinions; he was, he said, “of the +same politics as Shakespeare, Bacon and every sane man”. He was either +ignorant of the politics of Shakespeare and Bacon or did himself great +injustice by the remark. It would have been more true to say—for all his +works illustrate it—that he was of the same politics as Burke. He is +here, and in all his poems, a Liberal-Conservative in the proper sense of the +term. At the time this trio of poems was written England was passing through +the throes which preceded, accompanied and followed the Reform Bill, and the +lessons which Tennyson preaches in them were particularly appropriate. He +belonged to the Liberal Party rather in relation to social and religious than +to political questions. Thus he ardently supported the Anti-slavery Convention +and advocated the measure for abolishing subscription to the Thirty-nine +Articles, but he was, as a politician, on the side of Canning, Peel and the +Duke of Wellington, regarding as they did the new-born democracy with mingled +feelings of apprehension and perplexity. His exact attitude is indicated by +some verses written about this time published by his son (<i>Life</i>, i., +69-70). If Mr. Aubrey de Vere is correct this and the following poem were +occasioned by some popular demonstrations connected with the Reform Bill and +its rejection by the House of Lords. See <i>Life of Tennyson</i>, vol. i., +appendix.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +You ask me, why, tho’<a href="#linknote-372" name="linknoteref-372" id="linknoteref-372"><sup>[1]</sup></a> ill at ease,<br/> +Within this region I subsist,<br/> +Whose spirits falter in the mist,<a href="#linknote-373" name="linknoteref-373" id="linknoteref-373"><sup>[2]</sup></a><br/> +And languish for the purple seas?<br/> +<br/> +It is the land that freemen till,<br/> +That sober-suited Freedom chose,<br/> +The land, where girt with friends or foes<br/> +A man may speak the thing he will;<br/> +<br/> +A land of settled government,<br/> +A land of just and old renown,<br/> +Where Freedom broadens slowly down<br/> +From precedent to precedent:<br/> +<br/> +Where faction seldom gathers head,<br/> +But by degrees to fulness wrought,<br/> +The strength of some diffusive thought<br/> +Hath time and space to work and spread.<br/> +<br/> +Should banded unions persecute<br/> +Opinion, and induce a time<br/> +When single thought is civil crime,<br/> +And individual freedom mute;<br/> +<br/> +Tho’ Power should make from land to land<a href="#linknote-374" name="linknoteref-374" id="linknoteref-374"><sup>[3]</sup></a><br/> +The name of Britain trebly great—<br/> +Tho’ every channel<a href="#linknote-375" name="linknoteref-375" id="linknoteref-375"><sup>[4]</sup></a> of the State<br/> +Should almost choke with golden sand—<br/> +<br/> +Yet waft me from the harbour-mouth,<br/> +Wild wind! I seek a warmer sky,<br/> +And I will see before I die<br/> +The palms and temples of the South. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-372" id="linknote-372"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-372">[1]</a> +1842 and 1851. Though. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-373" id="linknote-373"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-373">[2]</a> +1842 to 1843. Whose spirits fail within the mist. Altered to present reading in +1845. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-374" id="linknote-374"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-374">[3]</a> +All editions up to and including 1851. Though Power, etc. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-375" id="linknote-375"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-375">[4]</a> +1842-1850. Though every channel. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap48"></a>“Of old sat Freedom on the heights”</h3> + +<p> +First published in 1842, but it seems to have been written in 1834. The fourth +and fifth stanzas are given in a postscript of a letter from Tennyson to James +Spedding, dated 1834.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Of old sat Freedom on the heights,<br/> +The thunders breaking at her feet:<br/> +Above her shook the starry lights:<br/> +She heard the torrents meet.<br/> +<br/> +There in her place<a href="#linknote-376" name="linknoteref-376" id="linknoteref-376"><sup>[1]</sup></a> she did rejoice,<br/> +Self-gather’d in her prophet-mind,<br/> +But fragments of her mighty voice<br/> +Came rolling on the wind.<br/> +<br/> +Then stept she down thro’ town and field<br/> +To mingle with the human race,<br/> +And part by part to men reveal’d<br/> +The fullness of her face—<br/> +<br/> +Grave mother of majestic works,<br/> +From her isle-altar gazing down,<br/> +Who, God-like, grasps the triple forks,<a href="#linknote-377" name="linknoteref-377" id="linknoteref-377"><sup>[2]</sup></a><br/> +And, King-like, wears the crown:<br/> +<br/> +Her open eyes desire the truth.<br/> +The wisdom of a thousand years<br/> +Is in them. May perpetual youth<br/> +Keep dry their light from tears;<br/> +<br/> +That her fair form may stand and shine,<br/> +Make bright our days and light our dreams,<br/> +Turning to scorn with lips divine<br/> +The falsehood of extremes! +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-376" id="linknote-376"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-376">[1]</a> +1842 to 1850 inclusive. Within her place. Altered to present reading, 1850. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-377" id="linknote-377"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-377">[2]</a> +The “trisulci ignes” or “trisulca tela” of the Roman +poets. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap49"></a>“Love thou thy land, with love far-brought”</h3> + +<p class="center"> +First published in 1842. +</p> + +<p> +This poem had been written by 1834, for Tennyson sends it in a letter dated +that year to James Spedding (see <i>Life</i>, i., 173).<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Love thou thy land, with love far-brought<br/> +From out the storied Past, and used<br/> +Within the Present, but transfused<br/> +Thro’ future time by power of thought.<br/> +<br/> +True love turn’d round on fixed poles,<br/> +Love, that endures not sordid ends,<br/> +For English natures, freemen, friends,<br/> +Thy brothers and immortal souls.<br/> +<br/> +But pamper not a hasty time,<br/> +Nor feed with crude imaginings<br/> +The herd, wild hearts and feeble wings,<br/> +That every sophister can lime.<br/> +<br/> +Deliver not the tasks of might<br/> +To weakness, neither hide the ray<br/> +From those, not blind, who wait for day,<br/> +Tho’<a href="#linknote-378" name="linknoteref-378" id="linknoteref-378"><sup>[1]</sup></a> sitting girt with doubtful light.<br/> +<br/> +Make knowledge<a href="#linknote-379" name="linknoteref-379" id="linknoteref-379"><sup>[2]</sup></a> circle with the winds;<br/> +But let her herald, Reverence, fly<br/> +Before her to whatever sky<br/> +Bear seed of men and growth<a href="#linknote-380" name="linknoteref-380" id="linknoteref-380"><sup>[3]</sup></a> of minds.<br/> +<br/> +Watch what main-currents draw the years:<br/> +Cut Prejudice against the grain:<br/> +But gentle words are always gain:<br/> +Regard the weakness of thy peers:<br/> +<br/> +Nor toil for title, place, or touch<br/> +Of pension, neither count on praise:<br/> +It grows to guerdon after-days:<br/> +Nor deal in watch-words overmuch;<br/> +<br/> +Not clinging to some ancient saw;<br/> +Not master’d by some modern term;<br/> +Not swift nor slow to change, but firm:<br/> +And in its season bring the law;<br/> +<br/> +That from Discussion’s lip may fall<br/> +With Life, that, working strongly, binds—<br/> +Set in all lights by many minds,<br/> +To close the interests of all.<br/> +<br/> +For Nature also, cold and warm,<br/> +And moist and dry, devising long,<br/> +Thro’ many agents making strong,<br/> +Matures the individual form.<br/> +<br/> +Meet is it changes should control<br/> +Our being, lest we rust in ease.<br/> +We all are changed by still degrees,<br/> +All but the basis of the soul.<br/> +<br/> +So let the change which comes be free<br/> +To ingroove itself with that, which flies,<br/> +And work, a joint of state, that plies<br/> +Its office, moved with sympathy.<br/> +<br/> +A saying, hard to shape an act;<br/> +For all the past of Time reveals<br/> +A bridal dawn of thunder-peals,<br/> +Wherever Thought hath wedded Fact.<br/> +<br/> +Ev’n now we hear with inward strife<br/> +A motion toiling in the gloom—<br/> +The Spirit of the years to come<br/> +Yearning to mix himself with Life.<br/> +<br/> +A slow-develop’d strength awaits<br/> +Completion in a painful school;<br/> +Phantoms of other forms of rule,<br/> +New Majesties of mighty States—<br/> +<br/> +The warders of the growing hour,<br/> +But vague in vapour, hard to mark;<br/> +And round them sea and air are dark<br/> +With great contrivances of Power.<br/> +<br/> +Of many changes, aptly join’d,<br/> +Is bodied forth the second whole,<br/> +Regard gradation, lest the soul<br/> +Of Discord race the rising wind;<br/> +<br/> +A wind to puff your idol-fires,<br/> +And heap their ashes on the head;<br/> +To shame the boast so often made,<a href="#linknote-381" name="linknoteref-381" id="linknoteref-381"><sup>[4]</sup></a><br/> +That we are wiser than our sires.<br/> +<br/> +Oh, yet, if Nature’s evil star<br/> +Drive men in manhood, as in youth,<br/> +To follow flying steps of Truth<br/> +Across the brazen bridge of war—<a href="#linknote-382" name="linknoteref-382" id="linknoteref-382"><sup>[5]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +If New and Old, disastrous feud,<br/> +Must ever shock, like armed foes,<br/> +And this be true, till Time shall close,<br/> +That Principles are rain’d in blood;<br/> +<br/> +Not yet the wise of heart would cease<br/> +To hold his hope thro’ shame and guilt,<br/> +But with his hand against the hilt,<br/> +Would pace the troubled land, like Peace;<br/> +<br/> +Not less, tho’ dogs of Faction bay,<a href="#linknote-383" name="linknoteref-383" id="linknoteref-383"><sup>[6]</sup></a><br/> +Would serve his kind in deed and word,<br/> +Certain, if knowledge bring the sword,<br/> +That knowledge takes the sword away—<br/> +<br/> +Would love the gleams of good that broke<br/> +From either side, nor veil his eyes;<br/> +And if some dreadful need should rise<br/> +Would strike, and firmly, and one stroke:<br/> +<br/> +To-morrow yet would reap to-day,<br/> +As we bear blossom of the dead;<br/> +Earn well the thrifty months, nor wed<br/> +Raw haste, half-sister to Delay. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-378" id="linknote-378"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-378">[1]</a> +1842 and so till 1851. Though. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-379" id="linknote-379"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-379">[2]</a> +1842. Knowledge is spelt with a capital K. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-380" id="linknote-380"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-380">[3]</a> +1842. Or growth. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-381" id="linknote-381"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-381">[4]</a> +1842. The boasting words we said. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-382" id="linknote-382"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-382">[5]</a> +Possibly suggested by Homer’s expression, ἀνὰ +πτολέμοιο +γεφύρας, <i>Il</i>., viii., 549, and +elsewhere; but Homer’s and Tennyson’s meaning can hardly be the +same. In Homer the “bridges of war” seem to mean the spaces between +the lines of tents in a bivouac: in Tennyson the meaning is probably the +obvious one. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-383" id="linknote-383"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-383">[6]</a> +All up to and including 1851. Not less, though dogs of Faction bay. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap50"></a>The Goose</h3> + +<p class="center"> +This was first published in 1842. No alteration has since been +made in it. +</p> + +<p> +This poem, which was written at the time of the Reform Bill agitation, is a +political allegory showing how illusory were the supposed advantages held out +by the Radicals to the poor and labouring classes. The old woman typifies these +classes, the stranger the Radicals, the goose the Radical programme, Free Trade +and the like, the eggs such advantages as the proposed Radical measures might +for a time seem to confer, the cluttering goose, the storm and whirlwind the +heavy price which would have to be paid for them in the social anarchy +resulting from triumphant Radicalism. The allegory may be narrowed to the Free +Trade question.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +I knew an old wife lean and poor,<br/> +Her rags scarce held together;<br/> +There strode a stranger to the door,<br/> +And it was windy weather.<br/> +<br/> +He held a goose upon his arm,<br/> +He utter’d rhyme and reason,<br/> +“Here, take the goose, and keep you warm,<br/> +It is a stormy season”.<br/> +<br/> +She caught the white goose by the leg,<br/> +A goose—’twas no great matter.<br/> +The goose let fall a golden egg<br/> +With cackle and with clatter.<br/> +<br/> +She dropt the goose, and caught the pelf,<br/> +And ran to tell her neighbours;<br/> +And bless’d herself, and cursed herself,<br/> +And rested from her labours.<br/> +<br/> +And feeding high, and living soft,<br/> +Grew plump and able-bodied;<br/> +Until the grave churchwarden doff’d,<br/> +The parson smirk’d and nodded.<br/> +<br/> +So sitting, served by man and maid,<br/> +She felt her heart grow prouder:<br/> +But, ah! the more the white goose laid<br/> +It clack’d and cackled louder.<br/> +<br/> +It clutter’d here, it chuckled there;<br/> +It stirr’d the old wife’s mettle:<br/> +She shifted in her elbow-chair,<br/> +And hurl’d the pan and kettle.<br/> +<br/> +“A quinsy choke thy cursed note!”<br/> +Then wax’d her anger stronger:<br/> +“Go, take the goose, and wring her throat,<br/> +I will not bear it longer”.<br/> +<br/> +Then yelp’d the cur, and yawl’d the cat;<br/> +Ran Gaffer, stumbled Gammer.<br/> +The goose flew this way and flew that,<br/> +And fill’d the house with clamour.<br/> +<br/> +As head and heels upon the floor<br/> +They flounder’d all together,<br/> +There strode a stranger to the door,<br/> +And it was windy weather:<br/> +<br/> +He took the goose upon his arm,<br/> +He utter’d words of scorning;<br/> +“So keep you cold, or keep you warm,<br/> +It is a stormy morning”.<br/> +<br/> +The wild wind rang from park and plain,<br/> +And round the attics rumbled,<br/> +Till all the tables danced again,<br/> +And half the chimneys tumbled.<br/> +<br/> +The glass blew in, the fire blew out,<br/> +The blast was hard and harder.<br/> +Her cap blew off, her gown blew up,<br/> +And a whirlwind clear’d the larder;<br/> +<br/> +And while on all sides breaking loose<br/> +Her household fled the danger,<br/> +Quoth she, “The Devil take the goose,<br/> +And God forget the stranger!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap51"></a>The Epic</h3> + +<p> +First published in 1842; “tho’” for “though” in +line 44 has been the only alteration made since 1850. +</p> + +<p> +This Prologue was written, like the Epilogue, after “The Epic” had +been composed, being added, Fitzgerald says, to anticipate or excuse “the +faint Homeric echoes,” to give a reason for telling an old-world tale. +The poet “mouthing out his hollow oes and aes” is, we are told, a +good description of Tennyson’s tone and manner of reading.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +At Francis Allen’s on the Christmas-eve,—<br/> +The game of forfeits done—the girls all kiss’d<br/> +Beneath the sacred bush and past away—<br/> +The parson Holmes, the poet Everard Hall,<br/> +The host, and I sat round the wassail-bowl,<br/> +Then half-way ebb’d: and there we held a talk,<br/> +How all the old honour had from Christmas gone,<br/> +Or gone, or dwindled down to some odd games<br/> +In some odd nooks like this; till I, tired out<br/> +With cutting eights that day upon the pond,<br/> +Where, three times slipping from the outer edge,<br/> +I bump’d the ice into three several stars,<br/> +Fell in a doze; and half-awake I heard<br/> +The parson taking wide and wider sweeps,<br/> +Now harping on the church-commissioners,<a href="#linknote-384" name="linknoteref-384" id="linknoteref-384"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/> +Now hawking at Geology and schism;<br/> +Until I woke, and found him settled down<br/> +Upon the general decay of faith<br/> +Right thro’ the world, “at home was little left,<br/> +And none abroad: there was no anchor, none,<br/> +To hold by”. Francis, laughing, clapt his hand<br/> +On Everard’s shoulder, with “I hold by him”.<br/> +“And I,” quoth Everard, “by the wassail-bowl.”<br/> +“Why, yes,” I said, “we knew your gift that way<br/> +At college: but another which you had,<br/> +I mean of verse (for so we held it then),<br/> +What came of that?” “You know,” said Frank, “he burnt<br/> +His epic, his King Arthur, some twelve books”—<a href="#linknote-385" name="linknoteref-385" id="linknoteref-385"><sup>[2]</sup></a><br/> +And then to me demanding why? “Oh, sir,<br/> +He thought that nothing new was said, or else<br/> +Something so said ’twas nothing—that a truth<br/> +Looks freshest in the fashion of the day:<br/> +God knows: he has a mint of reasons: ask.<br/> +It pleased <i>me</i> well enough.” “Nay, nay,” said Hall,<br/> +“Why take the style of those heroic times?<br/> +For nature brings not back the Mastodon,<br/> +Nor we those times; and why should any man<br/> +Remodel models? these twelve books of mine<a href="#linknote-386" name="linknoteref-386" id="linknoteref-386"><sup>[3]</sup></a><br/> +Were faint Homeric echoes, nothing-worth,<br/> +Mere chaff and draff, much better burnt.”<br/> +“But I,” Said Francis, “pick’d the eleventh from this hearth,<br/> +And have it: keep a thing its use will come.<br/> +I hoard it as a sugar-plum for Holmes.”<br/> +He laugh’d, and I, though sleepy, like a horse<br/> +That hears the corn-bin open, prick’d my ears;<br/> +For I remember’d Everard’s college fame<br/> +When we were Freshmen: then at my request<br/> +He brought it; and the poet little urged,<br/> +But with some prelude of disparagement,<br/> +Read, mouthing out his hollow oes and aes,<br/> +Deep-chested music, and to this result. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-384" id="linknote-384"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-384">[1]</a> +A burning topic with the clergy in and about 1833. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-385" id="linknote-385"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-385">[2]</a> +1842 to 1844. “You know,” said Frank, “he flung His epic of +King Arthur in the fire!” The present reading, 1850. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-386" id="linknote-386"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-386">[3]</a> +1842, 1843.v +<br/> +Remodel models rather than the life?<br/> +And these twelve books of mine (to speak the truth).<br/> +<br/> +Present reading, 1845. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap52"></a>Morte d’Arthur</h3> + +<p> +This is Tennyson’s first study from Malory’s <i>Morte +d’Arthur</i>. We learn from Fitzgerald that it was written as early as +the spring of 1835, for in that year Tennyson read it to Fitzgerald and +Spedding, “out of a MS. in a little red book,” and again we learn +that he repeated some lines of it at the end of May, 1835, one calm day on +Windermere, adding “Not bad that, Fitz., is it?” (<i>Life</i>, i., +184). It is here represented as the eleventh book of an Epic, the rest of which +had been destroyed, though Tennyson afterwards incorporated it, adding +introductory lines, with what was virtually to prove an Epic in twelve books, +<i>The Idylls of the King</i>. The substance of the poem is drawn from the +third, fourth and fifth chapters of the twenty-first book of Malory’s +<i>Romance</i>, which is followed very closely. It is called “an Homeric +echo,” but the diction bears a much closer resemblance to that of Virgil +than to that of Homer, though the rhythm is perhaps more Homeric than +Virgilian. It is Tennyson’s masterpiece in “the grand style,” +and is indeed as near perfection as any work of this kind could be. In spite of +its singular mixture of simplicity, purely Homeric, and artificiality, at times +ultra-Virgilian, the incongruity never shocks, so noble and impressive is the +general effect. The text of 1842 was never subsequently altered except in the +spelling of “mere” and “though” in lines 37, 77, 147, +155, 162, 272, and in the insertion in 1853 of the line:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Across the ridge and pac’d beside the mere.” +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +So all day long the noise of battle roll’d<br/> +Among the mountains by the winter sea;<br/> +Until King Arthur’s table, man by man,<br/> +Had fall’n in Lyonness about their Lord,<br/> +King Arthur: then, because his wound was deep,<br/> +The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him,<br/> +Sir Bedivere, the last of all his knights,<br/> +And bore him to a chapel nigh the field,<a href="#linknote-387" name="linknoteref-387" id="linknoteref-387"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/> +A broken chancel with a broken cross,<br/> +That stood on a dark strait of barren land.<br/> +On one side lay the Ocean, and on one<br/> +Lay a great water, and the moon was full.<br/> + Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere:<br/> +“The sequel of to-day unsolders all<br/> +The goodliest fellowship of famous knights<br/> +Whereof this world holds record. Such a sleep<br/> +They sleep—the men I loved. I think that we<br/> +Shall never more, at any future time,<br/> +Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds,<br/> +Walking about the gardens and the halls<br/> +Of Camelot, as in the days that were.<br/> +I perish by this people which I made,—<br/> +Tho’ Merlin sware that I should come again<br/> +To rule once more—but let what will be, be,<br/> +I am so deeply smitten thro’ the helm<br/> +That without help I cannot last till morn.<br/> +Thou therefore take my brand<a href="#linknote-388" name="linknoteref-388" id="linknoteref-388"><sup>[2]</sup></a> Excalibur,<br/> +Which was my pride: for thou rememberest how<br/> +In those old days, one summer noon, an arm<br/> +Rose up from out the bosom of the lake,<br/> +Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,<br/> +Holding the sword—and how I row’d across<br/> +And took it, and have worn it, like a king:<br/> +And, wheresoever I am sung or told<br/> +In aftertime, this also shall be known:<br/> +But now delay not: take Excalibur,<br/> +And fling him far into the middle mere:<br/> +Watch what thou seëst, and lightly bring me word.”<br/> + To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere:<br/> +“It is not meet, Sir King, to leave thee thus,<br/> +Aidless, alone, and smitten thro’ the helm.<br/> +A little thing may harm a wounded man.<br/> +Yet I thy hest will all perform at full,<br/> +Watch what I see, and lightly bring thee word.”<br/> + So saying, from the ruin’d shrine he stept<br/> +And in the moon athwart the place of tombs,<br/> +Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men,<br/> +Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang<br/> +Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam. He, stepping down<br/> +By zig-zag paths, and juts of pointed rock,<br/> +Came on the shining levels of the lake.<br/> + There drew he forth the brand Excalibur,<br/> +And o’er him, drawing it, the winter moon,<br/> +Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth<br/> +And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt:<br/> +For all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks,<a href="#linknote-389" name="linknoteref-389" id="linknoteref-389"><sup>[3]</sup></a><br/> +Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth-work<br/> +Of subtlest jewellery. He gazed so long<br/> +That both his eyes were dazzled, as he stood,<br/> +This way and that dividing the swift mind,<a href="#linknote-390" name="linknoteref-390" id="linknoteref-390"><sup>[4]</sup></a><br/> +In act to throw: but at the last it seem’d<br/> +Better to leave Excalibur conceal’d<br/> +There in the many-knotted waterflags,<br/> +That whistled stiff and dry about the marge.<br/> +So strode he back slow to the wounded king.<br/> + Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere:<br/> +“Hast thou perform’d my mission which I gave?<br/> +What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard?”<br/> + And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere:<br/> +“I heard the ripple washing in the reeds,<a href="#linknote-391" name="linknoteref-391" id="linknoteref-391"><sup>[5]</sup></a><br/> +And the wild water lapping on the crag.”<br/> + To whom replied King Arthur, faint and pale:<br/> +“Thou hast betray’d thy nature and thy name,<br/> +Not rendering true answer, as beseem’d<br/> +Thy fëalty, nor like a noble knight:<br/> +For surer sign had follow’d, either hand,<br/> +Or voice, or else a motion of the mere.<br/> +This is a shameful thing for men to lie.<br/> +Yet now, I charge thee, quickly go again<a href="#linknote-392" name="linknoteref-392" id="linknoteref-392"><sup>[6]</sup></a><br/> +As thou art lief and dear, and do the thing<br/> +I bade thee, watch, and lightly bring me word.”<br/> + Then went Sir Bedivere the second time<br/> +Across the ridge, and paced beside the mere,<a href="#linknote-393" name="linknoteref-393" id="linknoteref-393"><sup>[7]</sup></a><br/> +Counting the dewy pebbles, fix’d in thought;<br/> +But when he saw the wonder of the hilt,<br/> +How curiously and strangely chased, he smote<br/> +His palms together, and he cried aloud,<br/> + “And if indeed I cast the brand away,<br/> +Surely a precious thing, one worthy note,<br/> +Should thus be lost for ever from the earth,<br/> +Which might have pleased the eyes of many men.<br/> +What good should follow this, if this were done?<br/> +What harm, undone? deep harm to disobey,<br/> +Seeing obedience is the bond of rule,<br/> +Were it well to obey then, if a king demand<br/> +An act unprofitable against himself?<br/> +The king is sick, and knows not what he does.<br/> +What record, or what relic of my lord<br/> +Should be to aftertime, but empty breath<br/> +And rumours of a doubt? but were this kept,<br/> +Stored in some treasure-house of mighty kings,<br/> +Some one might show it at a joust of arms,<br/> +Saying, ‘King Arthur’s sword, Excalibur,<br/> +Wrought by the lonely maiden of the Lake.<br/> +Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps<br/> +Upon the hidden bases of the hills.”<br/> +So might some old man speak in the aftertime<br/> +To all the people, winning reverence.<br/> +But now much honour and much fame were lost.”<br/> + So spake he, clouded with his own conceit,<br/> +And hid Excalibur the second time,<br/> +And so strode back slow to the wounded King.<br/> + Then spoke King Arthur, breathing heavily:<br/> +“What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard?”<br/> +And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere:<br/> +“I heard the water lapping on the crag,<br/> +And the long ripple washing in the reeds.”<br/> + To whom replied King Arthur, much in wrath:<br/> +“Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue,<a href="#linknote-394" name="linknoteref-394" id="linknoteref-394"><sup>[8]</sup></a><br/> +Unknightly, traitor-hearted! Woe is me!<br/> +Authority forgets a dying king,<a href="#linknote-395" name="linknoteref-395" id="linknoteref-395"><sup>[9]</sup></a><br/> +Laid widow’d of the power in his eye<br/> +That bow’d the will. I see thee what thou art,<br/> +For thou, the latest-left of all my knights,<br/> +In whom should meet the offices of all,<br/> +Thou wouldst betray me for the precious hilt;<br/> +Either from lust of gold, or like a girl<br/> +Valuing the giddy pleasure of the eyes.<br/> +Yet, for a man may fail in duty twice,<br/> +And the third time may prosper, get thee hence:<br/> +But, if thou spare to fling Excalibur,<br/> +I will arise and slay thee with my hands.”<br/> + Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran,<a href="#linknote-396" name="linknoteref-396" id="linknoteref-396"><sup>[10]</sup></a><br/> +And, leaping down the ridges lightly, plunged<br/> +Among the bulrush-beds, and clutch’d the sword,<br/> +And strongly wheel’d and threw it. The great brand<br/> +Made lightnings in the splendour of the moon,<br/> +And flashing round and round, and whirl’d in an arch,<br/> +Shot like a streamer of the northern morn,<br/> +Seen where the moving isles of winter shock<br/> +By night, with noises of the northern sea.<br/> +So flash’d and fell the brand Excalibur:<br/> +But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm<br/> +Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,<br/> +And caught him by the hilt, and brandish’d him<br/> +Three times, and drew him under in the mere.<br/> +And lightly went the other to the King.<br/> + Then spoke King Arthur, drawing thicker breath:<br/> +‘Now see I by thine eyes that this is done.<br/> +Speak out: what is it thou hast heard, or seen?”<br/> + And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere:<br/> +“Sir King, I closed mine eyelids, lest the gems<br/> +Should blind my purpose, for I never saw,<br/> +Nor shall see, here or elsewhere, till I die,<br/> +Not tho’ I live three lives of mortal men,<br/> +So great a miracle as yonder hilt.<br/> +Then with both hands I flung him, wheeling him;<br/> +But when I look’d again, behold an arm,<br/> +Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,<br/> +That caught him by the hilt, and brandish’d him<br/> +Three times, and drew him under in the mere.”<br/> + And answer made King Arthur, breathing hard:<br/> +“My end draws nigh; ’tis time that I were gone.<br/> +Make broad thy shoulders to receive my weight,<br/> +And bear me to the margin; yet I fear<a href="#linknote-397" name="linknoteref-397" id="linknoteref-397"><sup>[11]</sup></a><br/> +My wound hath taken cold, and I shall die.”<br/> + So saying, from the pavement he hath rose,<br/> +Slowly, with pain, reclining on his arm,<br/> +And looking wistfully with wide blue eyes<br/> +As in a picture. Him Sir Bedivere<br/> +Remorsefully regarded thro’ his tears,<br/> +And would have spoken, but he found not words,<br/> +Then took with care, and kneeling on one knee,<br/> +O’er both his shoulders drew the languid hands,<br/> +And rising bore him thro’ the place of tombs.<br/> + But, as he walk’d, King Arthur panted hard,<br/> +Like one that feels a nightmare on his bed<br/> +When all the house is mute. So sigh’d the King,<br/> +Muttering and murmuring at his ear<br/> +“Quick, quick! I fear it is too late, and I shall die”.<br/> +But the other swiftly strode from ridge to ridge,<br/> +Clothed with his breath, and looking, as he walk’d,<br/> +Larger than human on the frozen hills.<br/> +He heard the deep behind him, and a cry<br/> +Before. His own thought drove him like a goad.<br/> +Dry clash’d his harness in the icy caves<br/> +And barren chasms, and all to left and right<br/> +The bare black cliff clang’d round him, as he based<br/> +His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang<br/> +Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels—<br/> +And on a sudden, lo! the level lake,<br/> +And the long glories of the winter moon.<br/> + Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge,<a href="#linknote-398" name="linknoteref-398" id="linknoteref-398"><sup>[12]</sup></a><br/> +Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern,<br/> +Beneath them; and descending they were ware<br/> +That all the decks were dense with stately forms<br/> +Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream—by these<br/> +Three Queens with crowns of gold—and from them rose<br/> +A cry that shiver’d to the tingling stars,<br/> +And, as it were one voice, an agony<br/> +Of lamentation, like a wind, that shrills<br/> +All night in a waste land, where no one comes,<br/> +Or hath come, since the making of the world.<br/> + Then murmur’d Arthur, “Place me in the barge,”<br/> +And to the barge they came. There those three Queens<br/> +Put forth their hands, and took the King, and wept.<br/> +But she, that rose the tallest of them all<br/> +And fairest, laid his head upon her lap,<br/> +And loosed the shatter’d casque, and chafed his hands,<br/> +And call’d him by his name, complaining loud,<br/> +And dropping bitter tears against his brow<br/> +Striped with dark blood: for all his face was white<br/> +And colourless, and like the wither’d moon<br/> +Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east;<br/> +And all his greaves and cuisses dash’d with drops<br/> +Of onset; and the light and lustrous curls—<br/> +That made his forehead like a rising sun<br/> +High from the däis-throne—were parch’d with dust;<br/> +Or, clotted into points and hanging loose,<br/> +Mix’d with the knightly growth that fringed his lips.<br/> +So like a shatter’d column lay the King;<br/> +Not like that Arthur who, with lance in rest,<br/> +From spur to plume a star of tournament,<br/> +Shot thro’ the lists at Camelot, and charged<br/> +Before the eyes of ladies and of kings.<br/> + Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere,<a href="#linknote-399" name="linknoteref-399" id="linknoteref-399"><sup>[13]</sup></a><br/> +“Ah! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go?<br/> +Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes?<br/> +For now I see the true old times are dead,<br/> +When every morning brought a noble chance,<br/> +And every chance brought out a noble knight.<br/> +Such times have been not since the light that led<br/> +The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh.<br/> +But now the whole ROUND TABLE is dissolved<br/> +Which was an image of the mighty world;<br/> +And I, the last, go forth companionless.<br/> +And the days darken round me, and the years,<br/> +Among new men, strange faces, other minds.”<br/> + And slowly answer’d Arthur from the barge:<br/> +“The old order changeth, yielding place to new,<br/> +And God fulfils Himself in many ways,<a href="#linknote-400" name="linknoteref-400" id="linknoteref-400"><sup>[14]</sup></a><br/> +Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.<br/> +Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me?<br/> +I have lived my life, and that which I have done<br/> +May He within Himself make pure! but thou,<br/> +If thou shouldst never see my face again,<br/> +Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer<br/> +Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice<br/> +Rise like a fountain for me night and day.<br/> +For what are men better than sheep or goats<br/> +That nourish a blind life within the brain,<br/> +If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer<br/> +Both for themselves and those who call them friend?<br/> +For so the whole round earth is every way<br/> +Bound by gold chains<a href="#linknote-401" name="linknoteref-401" id="linknoteref-401"><sup>[15]</sup></a> about the feet of God.<br/> +But now farewell. I am going a long way<br/> +With these thou seëst—if indeed I go—<br/> +(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt)<br/> +To the island-valley of Avilion;<br/> +Where falls not hail, or rain,<a href="#linknote-402" name="linknoteref-402" id="linknoteref-402"><sup>[16]</sup></a> or any snow,<br/> +Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies<br/> +Deep-meadow’d, happy, fair with orchard-lawns<br/> +And bowery hollows crown’d with summer sea,<a href="#linknote-403" name="linknoteref-403" id="linknoteref-403"><sup>[17]</sup></a><br/> +Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.”<br/> + So said he, and the barge with oar and sail<br/> +Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan<br/> +That, fluting a wild carol ere her death,<br/> +Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood<br/> +With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere<br/> +Revolving many memories, till the hull<br/> +Look’d one black dot against the verge of dawn.<br/> +And on the mere the wailing died away.<br/> +<br/> + Here ended Hall, and our last light, that long<br/> +Had wink’d and threaten’d darkness, flared and fell:<br/> +At which the Parson, sent to sleep with sound,<br/> +And waked with silence, grunted “Good!” but we<br/> +Sat rapt: It was the tone with which he read—<br/> +Perhaps some modern touches here and there<br/> +Redeem’d it from the charge of nothingness—<br/> +Or else we loved the man, and prized his work;<br/> +I know not: but we sitting, as I said,<br/> +The cock crew loud; as at that time of year<br/> +The lusty bird takes every hour for dawn:<br/> +Then Francis, muttering, like a man ill-used,<br/> +“There now—that’s nothing!” drew a little back,<br/> +And drove his heel into the smoulder’d log,<br/> +That sent a blast of sparkles up the flue;<br/> +And so to bed; where yet in sleep I seem’d<br/> +To sail with Arthur under looming shores.<br/> +Point after point; till on to dawn, when dreams<br/> +Begin to feel the truth and stir of day,<br/> +To me, methought, who waited with a crowd,<br/> +There came a bark that, blowing forward, bore,<br/> +King Arthur, like a modern gentleman<br/> +Of stateliest port; and all the people cried,<br/> +“Arthur is come again: he cannot die”.<br/> +Then those that stood upon the hills behind<br/> +Repeated—“Come again, and thrice as fair”;<br/> +And, further inland, voices echoed—<br/> +“Come With all good things, and war shall be no more”.<br/> +At this a hundred bells began to peal,<br/> +That with the sound I woke, and heard indeed<br/> +The clear church-bells ring in the Christmas morn. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-387" id="linknote-387"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-387">[1]</a> +<i>Cf. Morte d’Arthur</i>, xxxi., iv.:<br/> +<br/> +“They led him betwixt them to a little chapel from the not far +seaside”. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-388" id="linknote-388"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-388">[2]</a> +<i>Cf. Id.</i>, v.:<br/> +<br/> +“‘Therefore,’ said Arthur, ‘take thou my good sword +Excalibur and go with it to yonder waterside. And when thou comest there I +charge thee throw my sword on that water and come again and tell me what thou +there seest.’<br/> +<br/> +‘My lord,’ said Bedivere, ‘your commandment shall be done and +lightly will I bring thee word again.’<br/> +<br/> +So Sir Bedivere departed and by the way he beheld that noble sword, that the +pommel and the haft were all of precious stones, and then he said to himself, +‘If I throw this rich sword in the water, thereof shall never come to +good but harm and loss’. And then Sir Bedivere hid Excalibur under a +tree.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-389" id="linknote-389"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-389">[3]</a> +1842-1853. Studs. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-390" id="linknote-390"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-390">[4]</a> +Literally from Virgil (<i>Æn.</i>, iv., 285).<br/> +<br/> +“Atque animum nunc huc celerem nunc dividit illuc.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-391" id="linknote-391"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-391">[5]</a> +<i>Cf. Romance, Id.</i>, v.:<br/> +<br/> +“‘I saw nothing but the waters wap and the waves wan.’” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-392" id="linknote-392"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-392">[6]</a> +<i>Romance, Id.</i>, v.:<br/> +<br/> +“‘That is untruly said of thee,’ said the king, +‘therefore go thou lightly again and do my command as thou to me art lief +and dear; spare not, but throw in.’<br/> +<br/> +Then Sir Bedivere returned again and took the sword in his hand, and then him +thought sin and shame to throw away that noble sword, and so eft he hid the +sword and returned again, and told the king that he had been to the water and +done his commandment.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-393" id="linknote-393"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-393">[7]</a> +This line was not inserted till 1853. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-394" id="linknote-394"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-394">[8]</a> +<i>Romance, Id.</i>, v.:<br/> +<br/> +“‘Ah, traitor untrue!’ said King Arthur, ‘now thou hast +betrayed me twice. Who would have weened that thou that hast been so lief and +dear, and thou that art named a noble knight, would betray me for the riches of +the sword. But now go again lightly.... And but if thou do not now as I bid +thee, if ever I may see thee I shall slay thee with mine own +hands.’” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-395" id="linknote-395"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-395">[9]</a> +There is a curious illustration of this in an anecdote told of Queen Elizabeth. +“Cecil intimated that she must go to bed, if it were only to satisfy her +people.<br/> +<br/> +‘Must!’ she exclaimed; ‘is must a word to be addressed to +princes? Little man, little man, thy father if he had been alive durst not have +used that word, but thou hast grown presumptuous because thou knowest that I +shall die.’”<br/> +<br/> +Lingard, <i>Hist.</i>, vol. vi., p. 316. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-396" id="linknote-396"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-396">[10]</a> +<i>Romance, Id.</i>, v.:<br/> +<br/> +“Then Sir Bedivere departed and went to the sword and lightly took it up +and went to the waterside, and then he bound the girdle about the hilt and then +he threw the sword as far into the water as he might, and then came an arm and +a hand above the water, and met it and caught it and so shook it thrice and +brandished it, and then vanished away the hand with the sword in the +water.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-397" id="linknote-397"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-397">[11]</a> +<i>Romance, Id.</i>, v.:<br/> +<br/> +“‘Alas,’ said the king, ‘help me hence for I dread me I +have tarried over long’.<br/> +<br/> +Then Sir Bedivere took the king upon his back and so went with him to that +water.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-398" id="linknote-398"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-398">[12]</a> +<i>Romance, Id</i>., v.:<br/> +<br/> +“And when they were at the waterside even fast by the bank hoved a little +barge and many fair ladies in it, and among them all was a queen and all they +had black hoods and all they wept and shrieked when they saw King Arthur. +‘Now put me into the barge,’ said the king, and so they did softly. +And there received him three queens with great mourning, and so they set him +down and in one of their laps King Arthur laid his head; and then that queen +said: ‘Ah, dear brother, why have ye tarried so long from +me?’” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-399" id="linknote-399"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-399">[13]</a> +<i>Romance, Id</i>., v.:<br/> +<br/> +“Then Sir Bedivere cried: ‘Ah, my Lord Arthur, what shall become of +me now ye go from me and leave me here alone among mine enemies?’<br/> +<br/> +‘Comfort thyself,’ said the king, ‘and do as well as thou +mayest, for in me is no trust to trust in. For I will unto the vale of Avilion +to heal me of my grievous wound. And if thou never hear more of me, pray for my +soul.’” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-400" id="linknote-400"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-400">[14]</a> +With this <i>cf</i>. Greene, <i>James IV</i>., v., 4:—<br/> +<br/> +“Should all things still remain in one estate<br/> +Should not in greatest arts some scars be found<br/> +Were all upright nor chang’d what world were this?<br/> +A chaos made of quiet, yet no world.”<br/> +<br/> +And <i>cf</i>. Shakespeare, <i>Coriolanus</i>, ii., iii.:—<br/> +<br/> +What custom wills in all things should we do it,<br/> +The dust on antique Time would be unswept,<br/> +And mountainous error too highly heaped<br/> +For Truth to overpeer. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-401" id="linknote-401"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-401">[15]</a> +<i>Cf.</i> Archdeacon Hare’s “Sermon on the Law of +Self-Sacrifice”.<br/> +<br/> +“This is the golden chain of love whereby the whole creation is bound to +the throne of the Creator.”<br/> +<br/> +For further illustrations see <i>Illust. of Tennyson</i>, p. 158. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-402" id="linknote-402"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-402">[16]</a> +Paraphrased from <i>Odyssey</i>, vi., 42-5, or <i>Lucretius</i>, iii., 18-22. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-403" id="linknote-403"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-403">[17]</a> +The expression “<i>crowned</i> with summer <i>sea</i>” from +<i>Odyssey</i>, x., 195: νῆσον τὴν +πέρι πόντος +απείριτος +ἐσταφάνωται. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap53"></a>The Gardener’s Daughter<br/> +or,<br/> +The Pictures</h3> + +<p class="center"> +First published in 1842. +</p> + +<p> +In the <i>Gardener’s Daughter</i> we have the first of that delightful +series of poems dealing with scenes and characters from ordinary English life, +and named appropriately <i>English Idylls</i>. The originator of this species +of poetry in England was Southey, in his <i>English Eclogues</i>, written +before 1799. In the preface to these eclogues, which are in blank verse, +Southey says: “The following eclogues, I believe, bear no resemblance to +any poems in our language. This species of composition has become popular in +Germany, and I was induced to attempt it by an account of the German idylls +given me in conversation.” Southey’s eclogues are eight in number: +<i>The Old Mansion House</i>, <i>The Grandmother’s Tale</i>, +<i>Hannah</i>, <i>The Sailor’s Mother</i>, <i>The Witch</i>, <i>The +Ruined Cottage</i>, <i>The Last of the Family</i> and <i>The Alderman’s +Funeral</i>. Southey was followed by Wordsworth in <i>The Brothers</i> and +<i>Michael</i>. Southey has nothing of the charm, grace and classical finish of +his disciple, but how nearly Tennyson follows him, as copy and model, may be +seen by anyone who compares Tennyson’s studies with <i>The Ruined +Cottage</i>. But Tennyson’s real master was Theocritus, whose influence +pervades these poems not so much directly in definite imitation as indirectly +in colour and tone. +</p> + +<p> +<i>The Gardener’s Daughter</i> was written as early as 1835, as it was +read to Fitzgerald in that year (<i>Life of Tennyson</i>, i., 182). Tennyson +originally intended to insert a prologue to be entitled <i>The Antechamber</i>, +which contained an elaborate picture of himself, but he afterwards suppressed +it. It is given in the <i>Life</i>, i., 233-4. This poem stands alone among the +Idylls in being somewhat overloaded with ornament. The text of 1842 remained +unaltered through all the subsequent editions except in line 235. After 1851 +the form “tho’” is substituted for +“though”.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +This morning is the morning of the day,<br/> +When I and Eustace from the city went<br/> +To see the Gardener’s Daughter; I and he,<br/> +Brothers in Art; a friendship so complete<br/> +Portion’d in halves between us, that we grew<br/> +The fable of the city where we dwelt.<br/> + My Eustace might have sat for Hercules;<br/> +So muscular he spread, so broad of breast.<br/> +He, by some law that holds in love, and draws<br/> +The greater to the lesser, long desired<br/> +A certain miracle of symmetry,<br/> +A miniature of loveliness, all grace<br/> +Summ’d up and closed in little;—Juliet, she<a href="#linknote-404" name="linknoteref-404" id="linknoteref-404"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/> +So light of foot, so light of spirit—oh, she<br/> +To me myself, for some three careless moons,<br/> +The summer pilot of an empty heart<br/> +Unto the shores of nothing! Know you not<br/> +Such touches are but embassies of love,<br/> +To tamper with the feelings, ere he found<br/> +Empire for life? but Eustace painted her,<br/> +And said to me, she sitting with us then,<br/> +“When will <i>you</i> paint like this?” and I replied,<br/> +(My words were half in earnest, half in jest),<br/> +“’Tis not your work, but Love’s. Love, unperceived,<br/> +A more ideal Artist he than all,<br/> +Came, drew your pencil from you, made those eyes<br/> +Darker than darkest pansies, and that hair<br/> +More black than ashbuds in the front of March.”<br/> +And Juliet answer’d laughing, “Go and see<br/> +The Gardener’s daughter: trust me, after that,<br/> +You scarce can fail to match his masterpiece”.<br/> +And up we rose, and on the spur we went.<br/> + Not wholly in the busy world, nor quite<br/> +Beyond it, blooms the garden that I love.<br/> +News from the humming city comes to it<br/> +In sound of funeral or of marriage bells;<br/> +And, sitting muffled in dark leaves, you hear<br/> +The windy clanging of the minster clock;<br/> +Although between it and the garden lies<br/> +A league of grass, wash’d by a slow broad stream,<br/> +That, stirr’d with languid pulses of the oar,<br/> +Waves all its lazy lilies, and creeps on,<br/> +Barge-laden, to three arches of a bridge<br/> +Crown’d with the minster-towers.<br/> +<br/> +The fields between<br/> +Are dewy-fresh, browsed by deep-udder’d kine,<br/> +And all about the large lime feathers low,<br/> +The lime a summer home of murmurous wings.<a href="#linknote-405" name="linknoteref-405" id="linknoteref-405"><sup>[2]</sup></a><br/> + In that still place she, hoarded in herself,<br/> +Grew, seldom seen: not less among us lived<br/> +Her fame from lip to lip. Who had not heard<br/> +Of Rose, the Gardener’s daughter? Where was he,<br/> +So blunt in memory, so old at heart,<br/> +At such a distance from his youth in grief,<br/> +That, having seen, forgot? The common mouth,<br/> +So gross to express delight, in praise of her<br/> +Grew oratory. Such a lord is Love,<br/> +And Beauty such a mistress of the world.<br/> + And if I said that Fancy, led by Love,<br/> +Would play with flying forms and images,<br/> +Yet this is also true, that, long before<br/> +I look’d upon her, when I heard her name<br/> +My heart was like a prophet to my heart,<br/> +And told me I should love. A crowd of hopes,<br/> +That sought to sow themselves like winged seeds,<br/> +Born out of everything I heard and saw,<br/> +Flutter’d about my senses and my soul;<br/> +And vague desires, like fitful blasts of balm<br/> +To one that travels quickly, made the air<br/> +Of Life delicious, and all kinds of thought,<br/> +That verged upon them sweeter than the dream<br/> +Dream’d by a happy man, when the dark East,<br/> +Unseen, is brightening to his bridal morn.<br/> + And sure this orbit of the memory folds<br/> +For ever in itself the day we went<br/> +To see her. All the land in flowery squares,<br/> +Beneath a broad and equal-blowing wind,<br/> +Smelt of the coming summer, as one large cloud<a href="#linknote-406" name="linknoteref-406" id="linknoteref-406"><sup>[3]</sup></a><br/> +Drew downward: but all else of heaven was pure<br/> +Up to the Sun, and May from verge to verge,<br/> +And May with me from head to heel. And now,<br/> +As tho’ ’twere yesterday, as tho’ it were<br/> +The hour just flown, that morn with all its sound<br/> +(For those old Mays had thrice the life of these),<br/> +Rings in mine ears. The steer forgot to graze,<br/> +And, where the hedge-row cuts the pathway, stood,<br/> +Leaning his horns into the neighbour field,<br/> +And lowing to his fellows. From the woods<br/> +Came voices of the well-contented doves.<br/> +The lark could scarce get out his notes for joy,<br/> +But shook his song together as he near’d<br/> +His happy home, the ground. To left and right,<br/> +The cuckoo told his name to all the hills;<br/> +The mellow ouzel fluted in the elm;<br/> +The redcap<a href="#linknote-407" name="linknoteref-407" id="linknoteref-407"><sup>[4]</sup></a> whistled;<a href="#linknote-408" name="linknoteref-408" id="linknoteref-408"><sup>[5]</sup></a> and the nightingale<br/> +Sang loud, as tho’ he were the bird of day.<br/> + And Eustace turn’d, and smiling said to me,<br/> +“Hear how the bushes echo! by my life,<br/> +These birds have joyful thoughts. Think you they sing<br/> +Like poets, from the vanity of song?<br/> +Or have they any sense of why they sing?<br/> +And would they praise the heavens for what they have?”<br/> +And I made answer, “Were there nothing else<br/> +For which to praise the heavens but only love,<br/> +That only love were cause enough for praise”.<br/> + Lightly he laugh’d, as one that read my thought,<br/> +And on we went; but ere an hour had pass’d,<br/> +We reach’d a meadow slanting to the North;<br/> +Down which a well-worn pathway courted us<br/> +To one green wicket in a privet hedge;<br/> +This, yielding, gave into a grassy walk<br/> +Thro’ crowded lilac-ambush trimly pruned;<br/> +And one warm gust, full-fed with perfume, blew<br/> +Beyond us, as we enter’d in the cool.<br/> +The garden stretches southward. In the midst<br/> +A cedar spread his dark-green layers of shade.<br/> +The garden-glasses shone, and momently<br/> +The twinkling laurel scatter’d silver lights.<br/> + “Eustace,” I said, “This wonder keeps the house.”<br/> +He nodded, but a moment afterwards<br/> +He cried, “Look! look!” Before he ceased I turn’d,<br/> +And, ere a star can wink, beheld her there.<br/> + For up the porch there grew an Eastern rose,<br/> +That, flowering high, the last night’s gale had caught,<br/> +And blown across the walk. One arm aloft—<br/> +Gown’d in pure white, that fitted to the shape—<br/> +Holding the bush, to fix it back, she stood.<br/> +A single stream of all her soft brown hair<br/> +Pour’d on one side: the shadow of the flowers<br/> +Stole all the golden gloss, and, wavering<br/> +Lovingly lower, trembled on her waist—<br/> +Ah, happy shade—and still went wavering down,<br/> +But, ere it touch’d a foot, that might have danced<br/> +The greensward into greener circles, dipt,<br/> +And mix’d with shadows of the common ground!<br/> +But the full day dwelt on her brows, and sunn’d<br/> +Her violet eyes, and all her Hebe-bloom,<br/> +And doubled his own warmth against her lips,<br/> +And on the bounteous wave of such a breast<br/> +As never pencil drew. Half light, half shade,<br/> +She stood, a sight to make an old man young.<br/> + So rapt, we near’d the house; but she, a Rose<br/> +In roses, mingled with her fragrant toil,<br/> +Nor heard us come, nor from her tendance turn’d<br/> +Into the world without; till close at hand,<br/> +And almost ere I knew mine own intent,<br/> +This murmur broke the stillness of that air<br/> +Which brooded round about her:<br/> +<br/> +“Ah, one rose,<br/> +One rose, but one, by those fair fingers cull’d,<br/> +Were worth a hundred kisses press’d on lips<br/> +Less exquisite than thine.”<br/> +<br/> +She look’d: but all<br/> +Suffused with blushes—neither self-possess’d<br/> +Nor startled, but betwixt this mood and that,<br/> +Divided in a graceful quiet—paused,<br/> +And dropt the branch she held, and turning, wound<br/> +Her looser hair in braid, and stirr’d her lips<br/> +For some sweet answer, tho’ no answer came,<br/> +Nor yet refused the rose, but granted it,<br/> +And moved away, and left me, statue-like,<br/> +In act to render thanks.<br/> +<br/> +I, that whole day,<br/> +Saw her no more, altho’ I linger’d there<br/> +Till every daisy slept, and Love’s white star<br/> +Beam’d thro’ the thicken’d cedar in the dusk.<br/> + So home we went, and all the livelong way<br/> +With solemn gibe did Eustace banter me.<br/> +“Now,” said he, “will you climb the top of Art;<br/> +You cannot fail but work in hues to dim<br/> +The Titianic Flora. Will you match<br/> +My Juliet? you, not you,—the Master,<br/> +Love, A more ideal Artist he than all.”<br/> + So home I went, but could not sleep for joy,<br/> +Reading her perfect features in the gloom,<br/> +Kissing the rose she gave me o’er and o’er,<br/> +And shaping faithful record of the glance<br/> +That graced the giving—such a noise of life<br/> +Swarm’d in the golden present, such a voice<br/> +Call’d to me from the years to come, and such<br/> +A length of bright horizon rimm’d the dark.<br/> +And all that night I heard the watchmen peal<br/> +The sliding season: all that night I heard<br/> +The heavy clocks knolling the drowsy hours.<br/> +The drowsy hours, dispensers of all good,<br/> +O’er the mute city stole with folded wings,<br/> +Distilling odours on me as they went<br/> +To greet their fairer sisters of the East.<br/> + Love at first sight, first-born, and heir to all,<br/> +Made this night thus. Henceforward squall nor storm<br/> +Could keep me from that Eden where she dwelt.<br/> +Light pretexts drew me: sometimes a<br/> +Dutch love For tulips; then for roses, moss or musk,<br/> +To grace my city-rooms; or fruits and cream<br/> +Served in the weeping elm; and more and more<br/> +A word could bring the colour to my cheek;<br/> +A thought would fill my eyes with happy dew;<br/> +Love trebled life within me, and with each<br/> +The year increased.<br/> +<br/> +The daughters of the year,<br/> +One after one, thro’ that still garden pass’d:<br/> +Each garlanded with her peculiar flower<br/> +Danced into light, and died into the shade;<br/> +And each in passing touch’d with some new grace<br/> +Or seem’d to touch her, so that day by day,<br/> +Like one that never can be wholly known,<a href="#linknote-409" name="linknoteref-409" id="linknoteref-409"><sup>[6]</sup></a><br/> +Her beauty grew; till Autumn brought an hour<br/> +For Eustace, when I heard his deep “I will,”<br/> +Breathed, like the covenant of a God, to hold<br/> +From thence thro’ all the worlds: but I rose up<br/> +Full of his bliss, and following her dark eyes<br/> +Felt earth as air beneath me,<a href="#linknote-410" name="linknoteref-410" id="linknoteref-410"><sup>[7]</sup></a> till I reach’d<br/> +The wicket-gate, and found her standing there.<br/> + There sat we down upon a garden mound,<br/> +Two mutually enfolded; Love, the third,<br/> +Between us, in the circle of his arms<br/> +Enwound us both; and over many a range<br/> +Of waning lime the gray cathedral towers,<br/> +Across a hazy glimmer of the west,<br/> +Reveal’d their shining windows: from them clash’d<br/> +The bells; we listen’d; with the time we play’d;<br/> +We spoke of other things; we coursed about<br/> +The subject most at heart, more near and near,<br/> +Like doves about a dovecote, wheeling round<br/> +The central wish, until we settled there.<a href="#linknote-411" name="linknoteref-411" id="linknoteref-411"><sup>[8]</sup></a><br/> + Then, in that time and place, I spoke to her,<br/> +Requiring, tho’ I knew it was mine own,<br/> +Yet for the pleasure that I took to hear,<br/> +Requiring at her hand the greatest gift,<br/> +A woman’s heart, the heart of her I loved;<br/> +And in that time and place she answer’d me,<br/> +And in the compass of three little words,<br/> +More musical than ever came in one,<br/> +The silver fragments of a broken voice,<br/> +Made me most happy, faltering<a href="#linknote-412" name="linknoteref-412" id="linknoteref-412"><sup>[9]</sup></a> “I am thine”.<br/> + Shall I cease here? Is this enough to say<br/> +That my desire, like all strongest hopes,<br/> +By its own energy fulfilled itself,<br/> +Merged in completion? Would you learn at full<br/> +How passion rose thro’ circumstantial grades<br/> +Beyond all grades develop’d? and indeed<br/> +I had not staid so long to tell you all,<br/> +But while I mused came Memory with sad eyes,<br/> +Holding the folded annals of my youth;<br/> +And while I mused, Love with knit brows went by,<br/> +And with a flying finger swept my lips,<br/> +And spake, “Be wise: not easily forgiven<br/> +Are those, who setting wide the doors, that bar<br/> +The secret bridal chambers of the heart.<br/> +Let in the day”. Here, then, my words have end.<br/> + Yet might I tell of meetings, of farewells—<br/> +Of that which came between, more sweet than each,<br/> +In whispers, like the whispers of the leaves<br/> +That tremble round a nightingale—in sighs<br/> +Which perfect Joy, perplex’d for utterance,<br/> +Stole from her<a href="#linknote-413" name="linknoteref-413" id="linknoteref-413"><sup>[10]</sup></a> sister Sorrow. Might I not tell<br/> +Of difference, reconcilement, pledges given,<br/> +And vows, where there was never need of vows,<br/> +And kisses, where the heart on one wild leap<br/> +Hung tranced from all pulsation, as above<br/> +The heavens between their fairy fleeces pale<br/> +Sow’d all their mystic gulfs with fleeting stars;<br/> +Or while the balmy glooming, crescent-lit,<br/> +Spread the light haze along the river-shores,<br/> +And in the hollows; or as once we met<br/> +Unheedful, tho’ beneath a whispering rain<br/> +Night slid down one long stream of sighing wind,<br/> +And in her bosom bore the baby, Sleep.<br/> + But this whole hour your eyes have been intent<br/> +On that veil’d picture—veil’d, for what it holds<br/> +May not be dwelt on by the common day.<br/> +This prelude has prepared thee. Raise thy soul;<br/> +Make thine heart ready with thine eyes: the time<br/> +Is come to raise the veil.<br/> +<br/> +Behold her there,<br/> +As I beheld her ere she knew my heart,<br/> +My first, last love; the idol of my youth,<br/> +The darling of my manhood, and, alas!<br/> +Now the most blessed memory of mine age. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-404" id="linknote-404"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-404">[1]</a> +<i>Cf. Romeo and Juliet</i>, ii., vi.:—<br/> +<br/> +O so light a foot<br/> +Will ne’er wear out the everlasting flint. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-405" id="linknote-405"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-405">[2]</a> +<i>Cf.</i> Keats, <i>Ode to Nightingale</i>:—<br/> +<br/> +The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-406" id="linknote-406"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-406">[3]</a> +<i>Cf</i>. Theocritus, <i>Id</i>., vii., +143:—παντ’ ὦσδεν +θέρεος μάλα +πἰονος. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-407" id="linknote-407"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-407">[4]</a> +Provincial name for the goldfinch. See Tennyson’s letter to the Duke of +Argyll, <i>Life</i>, ii., 221. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-408" id="linknote-408"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-408">[5]</a> +This passage is imitated from Theocritus, vii., 143 <i>seqq</i>. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-409" id="linknote-409"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-409">[6]</a> +This passage originally ran:—<br/> +<br/> +Her beauty grew till drawn in narrowing arcs<br/> +The southing autumn touch’d with sallower gleams<br/> +The granges on the fallows. At that time,<br/> +Tir’d of the noisy town I wander’d there.<br/> +The bell toll’d four, and by the time I reach’d<br/> +The wicket-gate I found her by herself.<br/> +<br/> +But Fitzgerald pointing out that the autumn landscape was taken from the +background of Titian (Lord Ellesmere’s <i>Ages of Man</i>) Tennyson +struck out the passage. If this was the reason he must have been in an +unusually scrupulous mood. See his <i>Life</i>, i., 232. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-410" id="linknote-410"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-410">[7]</a> +So Massinger, <i>City Madam</i>, iii., 3:—<br/> +<br/> +I am sublim’d.<br/> +Gross earth<br/> +Supports me not.<br/> +<i>I walk on air</i>. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-411" id="linknote-411"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-411">[8]</a> +<i>Cf.</i> Dante, <i>Inferno</i>, v., 81-83:—<br/> +<br/> +Quali columbe dal desio chiamatè,<br/> +Con l’ ali aperte e ferme, al dolce nido<br/> +Volan. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-412" id="linknote-412"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-412">[9]</a> +1842-1850. Lisping. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-413" id="linknote-413"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-413">[10]</a> +In privately printed volume 1842. His. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap54"></a>Dora</h3> + +<p class="center"> +First published in 1842. +</p> + +<p> +This poem had been written as early as 1835, when it was read to Fitzgerald and +Spedding (<i>Life</i>, i., 182). No alterations were made in the text after +1853. The story in this poem was taken even to the minutest details from a +prose story of Miss Mitford’s, namely, <i>The Tale of Dora Creswell</i> +(<i>Our Village</i>, vol. in., 242-53), the only alterations being in the +names, Farmer Cresswell, Dora Creswell, Walter Cresswell, and Mary Hay becoming +respectively Allan, Dora, William, and Mary Morrison. How carefully the poet +has preserved the picturesque touches of the original may be seen by comparing +the following two passages:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +And Dora took the child, and went her way<br/> +Across the wheat, and sat upon a mound<br/> +That was unsown, where many poppies grew.<br/> +.... She rose and took<br/> +The child once more, and sat upon the mound;<br/> +And made a little wreath of all the flowers<br/> +That grew about, and tied it round his hat.<br/> +</p> + +<p> +“A beautiful child lay on the ground at some distance, whilst a young +girl, resting from the labour of reaping, was twisting a rustic wreath of +enamelled cornflowers, brilliant poppies ... round its hat.” The style is +evidently modelled closely on that of the +<i>Odyssey</i>.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +With farmer Allan at the farm abode<br/> +William and Dora. William was his son,<br/> +And she his niece. He often look’d at them,<br/> +And often thought “I’ll make them man and wife”.<br/> +Now Dora felt her uncle’s will in all,<br/> +And yearn’d towards William; but the youth, because<br/> +He had been always with her in the house,<br/> +Thought not of Dora.<br/> +<br/> +Then there came a day<br/> +When Allan call’d his son, and said,<br/> +“My son: I married late, but I would wish to see<br/> +My grandchild on my knees before I die:<br/> +And I have set my heart upon a match.<br/> +Now therefore look to Dora; she is well<br/> +To look to; thrifty too beyond her age.<br/> +She is my brother’s daughter: he and I<br/> +Had once hard words, and parted, and he died<br/> +In foreign lands; but for his sake I bred<br/> +His daughter Dora: take her for your wife;<br/> +For I have wish’d this marriage, night and day,<br/> +For many years.” But William answer’d short;<br/> +“I cannot marry Dora; by my life,<br/> +I will not marry Dora”. Then the old man<br/> +Was wroth, and doubled up his hands, and said:<br/> +“You will not, boy! you dare to answer thus!<br/> +But in my time a father’s word was law,<br/> +And so it shall be now for me. Look to it;<br/> +Consider, William: take a month to think,<br/> +And let me have an answer to my wish;<br/> +Or, by the Lord that made me, you shall pack,<br/> +And never more darken my doors again.”<br/> +But William answer’d madly; bit his lips,<br/> +And broke away.<a href="#linknote-414" name="linknoteref-414" id="linknoteref-414"><sup>[1]</sup></a> The more he look’d at her<br/> +The less he liked her; and his ways were harsh;<br/> +But Dora bore them meekly. Then before<br/> +The month was out he left his father’s house,<br/> +And hired himself to work within the fields;<br/> +And half in love, half spite, he woo’d and wed<br/> +A labourer’s daughter, Mary Morrison.<br/> + Then, when the bells were ringing,Allan call’d <br/> +His niece and said: “My girl, I love you well;<br/> +But if you speak with him that was my son,<br/> +Or change a word with her he calls his wife,<br/> +My home is none of yours. My will is law.”<br/> +And Dora promised, being meek. She thought,<br/> +“It cannot be: my uncle’s mind will change!”<br/> + And days went on, and there was born a boy<br/> +To William; then distresses came on him;<br/> +And day by day he pass’d his father’s gate,<br/> +Heart-broken, and his father helped him not.<br/> +But Dora stored what little she could save,<br/> +And sent it them by stealth, nor did they know<br/> +Who sent it; till at last a fever seized<br/> +On William, and in harvest time he died.<br/> + Then Dora went to Mary. Mary sat<br/> +And look’d with tears upon her boy, and thought<br/> +Hard things of Dora. Dora came and said:<br/> + “I have obey’d my uncle until now,<br/> +And I have sinn’d, for it was all thro’ me<br/> +This evil came on William at the first.<br/> +But, Mary, for the sake of him that’s gone,<br/> +And for your sake, the woman that he chose,<br/> +And for this orphan, I am come to you:<br/> +You know there has not been for these five years<br/> +So full a harvest, let me take the boy,<br/> +And I will set him in my uncle’s eye<br/> +Among the wheat; that when his heart is glad<br/> +Of the full harvest, he may see the boy,<br/> +And bless him for the sake of him that’s gone.”<br/> + And Dora took the child, and went her way<br/> +Across the wheat, and sat upon a mound<br/> +That was unsown, where many poppies grew.<br/> +Far off the farmer came into the field<br/> +And spied her not; for none of all his men<br/> +Dare tell him Dora waited with the child;<br/> +And Dora would have risen and gone to him,<br/> +But her heart fail’d her; and the reapers reap’d<br/> +And the sun fell, and all the land was dark.<br/> +But when the morrow came, she rose and took<br/> +The child once more, and sat upon the mound;<br/> +And made a little wreath of all the flowers<br/> +That grew about, and tied it round his hat<br/> +To make him pleasing in her uncle’s eye.<br/> +Then when the farmer passed into the field<br/> +He spied her, and he left his men at work,<br/> +And came and said: “Where were you yesterday?<br/> +Whose child is that? What are you doing here?”<br/> +So Dora cast her eyes upon the ground,<br/> +And answer’d softly, “This is William’s child?”<br/> +“And did I not,” said Allan, “did I not<br/> +Forbid you, Dora?” Dora said again:<br/> +“Do with me as you will, but take the child<br/> +And bless him for the sake of him that’s gone!”<br/> +And Allan said: “I see it is a trick<br/> +Got up betwixt you and the woman there.<br/> +I must be taught my duty, and by you!<br/> +You knew my word was law, and yet you dared<br/> +To slight it. Well—for I will take the boy;<br/> +But go you hence, and never see me more.”<br/> + So saying, he took the boy, that cried aloud<br/> +And struggled hard. The wreath of flowers fell<br/> +At Dora’s feet. She bow’d upon her hands,<br/> +And the boy’s cry came to her from the field,<br/> +More and more distant. She bow’d down her head,<br/> +Remembering the day when first she came,<br/> +And all the things that had been. She bow’d down<br/> +And wept in secret; and the reapers reap’d,<br/> +And the sun fell, and all the land was dark.<br/> + Then Dora went to Mary’s house, and stood<br/> +Upon the threshold. Mary saw the boy<br/> +Was not with Dora. She broke out in praise<br/> +To God, that help’d her in her widowhood.<br/> +And Dora said, “My uncle took the boy;<br/> +But, Mary, let me live and work with you:<br/> +He says that he will never see me more”.<br/> +Then answer’d Mary, “This shall never be,<br/> +That thou shouldst take my trouble on thyself:<br/> +And, now, I think, he shall not have the boy,<br/> +For he will teach him hardness, and to slight<br/> +His mother; therefore thou and I will go,<br/> +And I will have my boy, and bring him home;<br/> +And I will beg of him to take thee back;<br/> +But if he will not take thee back again,<br/> +Then thou and I will live within one house,<br/> +And work for William’s child until he grows<br/> +Of age to help us.”<br/> +<br/> +So the women kiss’d<br/> +Each other, and set out, and reach’d the farm.<br/> +The door was off the latch: they peep’d, and saw<br/> +The boy set up betwixt his grandsire’s knees,<br/> +Who thrust him in the hollows of his arm,<br/> +And clapt him on the hands and on the cheeks,<br/> +Like one that loved him; and the lad stretch’d out<br/> +And babbled for the golden seal, that hung<br/> +From Allan’s watch, and sparkled by the fire.<br/> +Then they came in: but when the boy beheld<br/> +His mother, he cried out to come to her:<br/> +And Allan set him down, and Mary said:<br/> + “O Father!—if you let me call you so—<br/> +I never came a-begging for myself,<br/> +Or William, or this child; but now I come<br/> +For Dora: take her back; she loves you well.<br/> +O Sir, when William died, he died at peace<br/> +With all men; for I ask’d him, and he said,<br/> +He could not ever rue his marrying me—<br/> +I have been a patient wife: but, Sir, he said<br/> +That he was wrong to cross his father thus:<br/> +‘God bless him!’ he said, ‘and may he never know<br/> +The troubles I have gone thro’!’ Then he turn’d<br/> +His face and pass’d—unhappy that I am!<br/> +But now, Sir, let me have my boy, for you<br/> +Will make him hard, and he will learn to slight<br/> +His father’s memory; and take Dora back,<br/> +And let all this be as it was before.”<br/> + So Mary said, and Dora hid her face<br/> +By Mary. There was silence in the room;<br/> +And all at once the old man burst in sobs:<br/> +“I have been to blame—to blame. I have kill’d my son.<br/> +I have kill’d him—but I loved him—my dear son.<br/> +May God forgive me!—I have been to blame.<br/> +Kiss me, my children.”<br/> +<br/> +Then they clung about<br/> +The old man’s neck, and kiss’d him many times.<br/> +And all the man was broken with remorse;<br/> +And all his love came back a hundredfold;<br/> +And for three hours he sobb’d o’er William’s child,<br/> +Thinking of William.<br/> +<br/> +So those four abode<br/> +Within one house together; and as years<br/> +Went forward, Mary took another mate;<br/> +But Dora lived unmarried till her death. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-414" id="linknote-414"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-414">[1]</a> +In 1842 thus:—<br/> +<br/> +“Look to’t,<br/> +Consider: take a month to think, and give<br/> +An answer to my wish; or by the Lord<br/> +That made me, you shall pack, and nevermore<br/> +Darken my doors again.” And William heard,<br/> +And answered something madly; bit his lips,<br/> +And broke away.<br/> +<br/> +All editions previous to 1853 have<br/> +<br/> +“Look to’t. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap55"></a>Audley Court</h3> + +<p class="center"> +First published in 1842. +</p> + +<p> +Only four alterations were made in the text after 1842, all of which are duly +noted. Tennyson told his son that the poem was partially suggested by Abbey +Park at Torquay where it was written, and that the last lines described the +scene from the hill looking over the bay. He saw he said “a star of +phosphorescence made by the buoy appearing and disappearing in the dark +sea,” but it is curious that the line describing that was not inserted +till long after the poem had been published. The poem, though a trifle, is a +triumph of felicitous description and expression, whether we regard the pie or +the moonlit bay.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +“The Bull, the Fleece are cramm’d, and not a room<br/> +For love or money. Let us picnic there<br/> +At Audley Court.” I spoke, while Audley feast<br/> +Humm’d like a hive all round the narrow quay,<br/> +To Francis, with a basket on his arm,<br/> +To Francis just alighted from the boat,<br/> +And breathing of the sea. “With all my heart,”<br/> +Said Francis. Then we shoulder’d thro’<a href="#linknote-415" name="linknoteref-415" id="linknoteref-415"><sup>[1]</sup></a> the swarm,<br/> +And rounded by the stillness of the beach<br/> +To where the bay runs up its latest horn.<br/> +We left the dying ebb that faintly lipp’d<br/> +The flat red granite; so by many a sweep<br/> +Of meadow smooth from aftermath we reach’d<br/> +The griffin-guarded gates and pass’d thro’ all<br/> +The pillar’d dusk<a href="#linknote-416" name="linknoteref-416" id="linknoteref-416"><sup>[2]</sup></a> of sounding sycamores<br/> +And cross’d the garden to the gardener’s lodge,<br/> +With all its casements bedded, and its walls<br/> +And chimneys muffled in the leafy vine.<br/> +There, on a slope of orchard, Francis laid<br/> +A damask napkin wrought with horse and hound,<br/> +Brought out a dusky loaf that smelt of home,<br/> +And, half-cut-down, a pasty costly-made,<br/> +Where quail and pigeon, lark and leveret lay,<br/> +Like fossils of the rock, with golden yolks<a href="#linknote-417" name="linknoteref-417" id="linknoteref-417"><sup>[3]</sup></a><br/> +Imbedded and injellied; last with these,<br/> +A flask of cider from his father’s vats,<br/> +Prime, which I knew; and so we sat and eat<br/> +And talk’d old matters over; who was dead,<br/> +Who married, who was like to be, and how<br/> +The races went, and who would rent the hall:<br/> +Then touch’d upon the game, how scarce it was<br/> +This season; glancing thence, discuss’d the farm,<br/> +The fourfield system, and the price of grain;<a href="#linknote-418" name="linknoteref-418" id="linknoteref-418"><sup>[4]</sup></a><br/> +And struck upon the corn-laws, where we split,<br/> +And came again together on the king<br/> +With heated faces; till he laugh’d aloud;<br/> +And, while the blackbird on the pippin hung<br/> +To hear him, clapt his hand in mine and sang—<br/> +“Oh! who would fight and march and counter-march,<br/> +Be shot for sixpence in a battle-field,<br/> +And shovell’d up into a<a href="#linknote-419" name="linknoteref-419" id="linknoteref-419"><sup>[5]</sup></a> bloody trench<br/> +Where no one knows? but let me live my life.<br/> +“Oh! who would cast and balance at a desk,<br/> +Perch’d like a crow upon a three-legg’d stool,<br/> +Till all his juice is dried, and all his joints<br/> +Are full of chalk? but let me live my life.<br/> +“Who’d serve the state? for if I carved my name<br/> +Upon the cliffs that guard my native land,<br/> +I might as well have traced it in the sands;<br/> +The sea wastes all: but let me live my life.<br/> +“Oh! who would love? I wooed a woman once,<br/> +But she was sharper than an eastern wind,<br/> +And all my heart turn’d from her, as a thorn<br/> +Turns from the sea: but let me live my life.”<br/> +He sang his song, and I replied with mine:<br/> +I found it in a volume, all of songs,<br/> +Knock’d down to me, when old Sir Robert’s pride,<br/> +His books—the more the pity, so I said—<br/> +Came to the hammer here in March—and this—<br/> +I set the words, and added names I knew.<br/> +“Sleep, Ellen Aubrey, sleep and dream of me:<br/> +Sleep, Ellen, folded in thy sister’s arm,<br/> +And sleeping, haply dream her arm is mine.<br/> +“Sleep, Ellen, folded in Emilia’s arm;<br/> +Emilia, fairer than all else but thou,<br/> +For thou art fairer than all else that is.<br/> +“Sleep, breathing health and peace upon her breast:<br/> +Sleep, breathing love and trust against her lip:<br/> +I go to-night: I come to-morrow morn.<br/> +“I go, but I return: I would I were<br/> +The pilot of the darkness and the dream.<br/> +Sleep, Ellen Aubrey, love, and dream of me.”<br/> +So sang we each to either, Francis Hale,<br/> +The farmer’s son who lived across the bay,<br/> +My friend; and I, that having wherewithal,<br/> +And in the fallow leisure of my life<br/> +A rolling stone of here and everywhere,<a href="#linknote-420" name="linknoteref-420" id="linknoteref-420"><sup>[6]</sup></a><br/> +Did what I would; but ere the night we rose<br/> +And saunter’d home beneath a moon that, just<br/> +In crescent, dimly rain’d about the leaf<br/> +Twilights of airy silver, till we reach’d<br/> +The limit of the hills; and as we sank<br/> +From rock to rock upon the gloomy quay,<br/> +The town was hush’d beneath us: lower down<br/> +The bay was oily-calm: the harbour buoy<br/> +With one green sparkle ever and anon<a href="#linknote-421" name="linknoteref-421" id="linknoteref-421"><sup>[7]</sup></a><br/> +Dipt by itself, and we were glad at heart.<a href="#linknote-422" name="linknoteref-422" id="linknoteref-422"><sup>[8]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-415" id="linknote-415"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-415">[1]</a> +1842 to 1850. Through. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-416" id="linknote-416"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-416">[2]</a> +<i>cf</i>. Milton, <i>Paradise Lost</i>, ix., 1106-7:—<br/> +<br/> +A pillar’d shade<br/> +High overarch’d. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-417" id="linknote-417"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-417">[3]</a> +1842. Golden yokes. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-418" id="linknote-418"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-418">[4]</a> +That is planting turnips, barley, clover and wheat, by which land is kept +constantly fresh and vigorous. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-419" id="linknote-419"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-419">[5]</a> +1872. Some. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-420" id="linknote-420"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-420">[6]</a> +Inserted in 1857. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-421" id="linknote-421"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-421">[7]</a> +Here was inserted, in 1872, the line—Sole star of phosphorescence in the +calm. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-422" id="linknote-422"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-422">[8]</a> +Like the shepherd in Homer at the moonlit landscape, +γέγηθε δὲ τε +φρένα ποιμήν, +<i>Il</i>., viii., 559. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap56"></a>Walking to the Mail</h3> + +<p class="center"> +First published in 1842. Not altered in any respect after 1853. +</p> + +<p> +<i>John</i>. I’m glad I walk’d. How fresh the meadows look<br/> +Above the river, and, but a month ago,<br/> +The whole hill-side was redder than a fox.<br/> +Is yon plantation where this byway joins<br/> +The turnpike?<a href="#linknote-423" name="linknoteref-423" id="linknoteref-423"><sup>[1]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p> +<i>James</i>. Yes. +</p> + +<p> +<i>John</i>. And when does this come by? +</p> + +<p> +<i>James</i>. The mail? At one o’clock. +</p> + +<p> +<i>John</i>. What is it now? +</p> + +<p> +<i>James</i>. A quarter to. +</p> + +<p> +<i>John</i>. Whose house is that I see?<a href="#linknote-424" name="linknoteref-424" id="linknoteref-424"><sup>[2]</sup></a><br/> +No, not the County Member’s with the vane:<br/> +Up higher with the yewtree by it, and half<br/> +A score of gables. +</p> + +<p> +<i>James</i>. That? Sir Edward Head’s:<br/> +But he’s abroad: the place is to be sold. +</p> + +<p> +<i>John</i>. Oh, his. He was not broken? +</p> + +<p> +<i>James</i>. No, sir, he,<br/> +Vex’d with a morbid devil in his blood<br/> +That veil’d the world with jaundice, hid his face<br/> +From all men, and commercing with himself,<br/> +He lost the sense that handles daily life—<br/> +That keeps us all in order more or less—<br/> +And sick of home went overseas for change. +</p> + +<p> +<i>John</i>. And whither? +</p> + +<p> +<i>James</i>. Nay, who knows? he’s here and there.<br/> +But let him go; his devil goes with him,<br/> +As well as with his tenant, Jockey Dawes. +</p> + +<p> +<i>John</i>. What’s that? +</p> + +<p> +<i>James</i>. You saw the man—on Monday, was it?—<a href="#linknote-425" name="linknoteref-425" id="linknoteref-425"><sup>[3]</sup></a><br/> +There by the hump-back’d willow; half stands up<br/> +And bristles; half has fall’n and made a bridge;<br/> +And there he caught the younker tickling trout—<br/> +Caught in <i>flagrante</i>—what’s the Latin word?—<br/> +<i>Delicto</i>; but his house, for so they say,<br/> +Was haunted with a jolly ghost, that shook<br/> +The curtains, whined in lobbies, tapt at doors,<br/> +And rummaged like a rat: no servant stay’d:<br/> +The farmer vext packs up his beds and chairs,<br/> +And all his household stuff; and with his boy<br/> +Betwixt his knees, his wife upon the tilt,<br/> +Sets out,<a href="#linknote-426" name="linknoteref-426" id="linknoteref-426"><sup>[4]</sup></a> and meets a friend who hails him,<br/> +“What! You’re flitting!” “Yes, we’re flitting,” says the ghost<br/> +(For they had pack’d the thing among the beds).<br/> +“Oh, well,” says he, “you flitting with us too—<br/> +Jack, turn the horses’ heads and home again”.<a href="#linknote-427" name="linknoteref-427" id="linknoteref-427"><sup>[5]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p> +<i>John</i>. He left <i>his</i> wife behind; for so I heard. +</p> + +<p> +<i>James</i>. He left her, yes. I met my lady once:<br/> +A woman like a butt, and harsh as crabs. +</p> + +<p> +<i>John</i>. Oh, yet, but I remember, ten years back—<br/> +’Tis now at least ten years—and then she was—<br/> +You could not light upon a sweeter thing:<br/> +A body slight and round and like a pear<br/> +In growing, modest eyes, a hand a foot<br/> +Lessening in perfect cadence, and a skin<br/> +As clean and white as privet when it flowers. +</p> + +<p> +<i>James</i>. Ay, ay, the blossom fades and they that loved<br/> +At first like dove and dove were cat and dog.<br/> +She was the daughter of a cottager,<br/> +Out of her sphere. What betwixt shame and pride,<br/> +New things and old, himself and her, she sour’d<br/> +To what she is: a nature never kind!<br/> +Like men, like manners: like breeds like, they say.<br/> +Kind nature is the best: those manners next<br/> +That fit us like a nature second-hand;<br/> +Which are indeed the manners of the great. +</p> + +<p> +<i>John</i>. But I had heard it was this bill that past,<br/> +And fear of change at home, that drove him hence. +</p> + +<p> +<i>James</i>. That was the last drop in the cup of gall.<br/> +I once was near him, when his bailiff brought<br/> +A Chartist pike. You should have seen him wince<br/> +As from a venomous thing: he thought himself<br/> +A mark for all, and shudder’d, lest a cry<br/> +Should break his sleep by night, and his nice eyes<br/> +Should see the raw mechanic’s bloody thumbs<br/> +Sweat on his blazon’d chairs; but, sir, you know<br/> +That these two parties still divide the world—<br/> +Of those that want, and those that have: and still<br/> +The same old sore breaks out from age to age<br/> +With much the same result. Now I myself,<a href="#linknote-428" name="linknoteref-428" id="linknoteref-428"><sup>[6]</sup></a><br/> +A Tory to the quick, was as a boy<br/> +Destructive, when I had not what I would.<br/> +I was at school—a college in the South:<br/> +There lived a flayflint near; we stole his fruit,<br/> +His hens, his eggs; but there was law for <i>us</i>;<br/> +We paid in person. He had a sow, sir. She,<br/> +With meditative grunts of much content,<a href="#linknote-429" name="linknoteref-429" id="linknoteref-429"><sup>[7]</sup></a><br/> +Lay great with pig, wallowing in sun and mud.<br/> +By night we dragg’d her to the college tower<br/> +From her warm bed, and up the corkscrew stair<br/> +With hand and rope we haled the groaning sow,<br/> +And on the leads we kept her till she pigg’d.<br/> +Large range of prospect had the mother sow,<br/> +And but for daily loss of one she loved,<br/> +As one by one we took them—but for this—<br/> +As never sow was higher in this world—<br/> +Might have been happy: but what lot is pure!<br/> +We took them all, till she was left alone<br/> +Upon her tower, the Niobe of swine,<br/> +And so return’d unfarrowed to her sty. +</p> + +<p> +<i>John</i>. They found you out? +</p> + +<p> +<i>James</i>. Not they. +</p> + +<p> +<i>John</i>. Well—after all—What know we of the secret of a man?<br/> +His nerves were wrong. What ails us, who are sound,<br/> +That we should mimic this raw fool the world,<br/> +Which charts us all in its coarse blacks or whites,<br/> +As ruthless as a baby with a worm,<br/> +As cruel as a schoolboy ere he grows<br/> +To Pity—more from ignorance than will,<br/> +But put your best foot forward, or I fear<br/> +That we shall miss the mail: and here it comes<br/> +With five at top: as quaint a four-in-hand<br/> +As you shall see—three pyebalds and a roan. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-423" id="linknote-423"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-423">[1]</a> +1842.<br/> +<br/> +<i>John</i>. I’m glad I walk’d. How fresh the country looks!<br/> +Is yonder planting where this byway joins<br/> +The turnpike? +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-424" id="linknote-424"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-424">[2]</a> +Thus 1843 to 1850:—<br/> +<br/> +<i>John</i>. Whose house is that I see<br/> +Beyond the watermills?<br/> +<br/> +<i>James</i>. Sir Edward Head’s: But he’s abroad, etc. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-425" id="linknote-425"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-425">[3]</a> +Thus 1842 to 1851:—<br/> +<br/> +<i>James</i>. You saw the man but yesterday:<br/> +He pick’d the pebble from your horse’s foot.<br/> +His house was haunted by a jolly ghost<br/> +That rummaged like a rat. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-426" id="linknote-426"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-426">[4]</a> +1842. Sets forth. Added in 1853. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-427" id="linknote-427"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-427">[5]</a> +This is a folk-lore story which has its variants, Mr. Alfred Nutt tells me, in +almost every country in Europe. The Lincolnshire version of it is given in Miss +Peacock’s MS. collection of Lincolnshire folk-lore, of which she has most +kindly sent me a copy, and it runs thus:—<br/> + “There is a house in East Halton which is haunted by a hob-thrush.... +Some years ago, it is said, a family who had lived in the house for more than a +hundred years were much annoyed by it, and determined to quit the dwelling. +They had placed their goods on a waggon, and were just on the point of starting +when a neighbour asked the farmer whether he was leaving. On this the hobthrush +put his head out of the splash-churn, which was amongst the household stuff, +and said, ‘Ay, we’re flitting’. Whereupon the farmer decided +to give up the attempt to escape from it and remain where he was.”<br/> + The same story is told of a Cluricaune in Croker’s <i>Fairy Legends +and Traditions</i> in the South of Ireland. See <i>The Haunted Cellar</i> in p. +81 of the edition of 1862, and as Tennyson has elsewhere in <i>Guinevere</i> +borrowed a passage from the same story (see <i>Illustrations of Tennyson</i>, +p. 152) it is probable that that was the source of the story here, though there +the Cluricaune uses the expression, “Here we go altogether”. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-428" id="linknote-428"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-428">[6]</a> +1842 and 1843. I that am. Now, I that am. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-429" id="linknote-429"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-429">[7]</a> +1842.<br/> +<br/> +scored upon the part<br/> +Which cherubs want. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap57"></a>Edwin Morris,<br/> +<small>or The Lake</small></h3> + +<p> +This poem first appeared in the seventh edition of the <i>Poems</i>, 1851. It +was written at Llanberis. Several alterations were made in the eighth edition +of 1853, since then none, with the exception of “breath” for +“breaths” in line 66.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +O Me, my pleasant rambles by the lake,<br/> +My sweet, wild, fresh three-quarters of a year,<br/> +My one Oasis in the dust and drouth<br/> +Of city life! I was a sketcher then:<br/> +See here, my doing: curves of mountain, bridge,<br/> +Boat, island, ruins of a castle, built<br/> +When men knew how to build, upon a rock,<br/> +With turrets lichen-gilded like a rock:<br/> +And here, new-comers in an ancient hold,<br/> +New-comers from the Mersey, millionaires,<br/> +Here lived the Hills—a Tudor-chimnied bulk<br/> +Of mellow brickwork on an isle of bowers.<br/> +O me, my pleasant rambles by the lake<br/> +With Edwin Morris and with Edward Bull<br/> +The curate; he was fatter than his cure.<br/> +<br/> +But Edwin Morris, he that knew the names,<br/> +Long-learned names of agaric, moss and fern,<a href="#linknote-430" name="linknoteref-430" id="linknoteref-430"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/> +Who forged a thousand theories of the rocks,<br/> +Who taught me how to skate, to row, to swim,<br/> +Who read me rhymes elaborately good,<br/> +His own—I call’d him Crichton, for he seem’d<br/> +All-perfect, finish’d to the finger nail.<a href="#linknote-431" name="linknoteref-431" id="linknoteref-431"><sup>[2]</sup></a><br/> +And once I ask’d him of his early life,<br/> +And his first passion; and he answer’d me;<br/> +And well his words became him: was he not<br/> +A full-cell’d honeycomb of eloquence<br/> +Stored from all flowers? Poet-like he spoke.<br/> +<br/> +“My love for Nature is as old as I;<br/> +But thirty moons, one honeymoon to that,<br/> +And three rich sennights more, my love for her.<br/> +My love for Nature and my love for her,<br/> +Of different ages, like twin-sisters grew,<a href="#linknote-432" name="linknoteref-432" id="linknoteref-432"><sup>[3]</sup></a><br/> +Twin-sisters differently beautiful.<br/> +To some full music rose and sank the sun,<br/> +And some full music seem’d to move and change<br/> +With all the varied changes of the dark,<br/> +And either twilight and the day between;<br/> +For daily hope fulfill’d, to rise again<br/> +Revolving toward fulfilment, made it sweet<br/> +To walk, to sit, to sleep, to wake, to breathe.”<a href="#linknote-433" name="linknoteref-433" id="linknoteref-433"><sup>[4]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +Or this or something like to this he spoke.<br/> +Then said the fat-faced curate Edward Bull,<br/> +“I take it, God made the woman for the man,<br/> +And for the good and increase of the world,<br/> +A pretty face is well, and this is well,<br/> +To have a dame indoors, that trims us up,<br/> +And keeps us tight; but these unreal ways<br/> +Seem but the theme of writers, and indeed<br/> +Worn threadbare. Man is made of solid stuff.<br/> +I say, God made the woman for the man,<br/> +And for the good and increase of the world.”<br/> +<br/> +“Parson,” said I, “you pitch the pipe too low:<br/> +But I have sudden touches, and can run<br/> +My faith beyond my practice into his:<br/> +Tho’ if, in dancing after Letty Hill,<br/> +I do not hear the bells upon my cap,<br/> +I scarce hear<a href="#linknote-434" name="linknoteref-434" id="linknoteref-434"><sup>[5]</sup></a> other music: yet say on.<br/> +What should one give to light on such a dream?”<br/> +I ask’d him half-sardonically.<br/> +<br/> +“Give? Give all thou art,” he answer’d, and a light<br/> +Of laughter dimpled in his swarthy cheek;<br/> +“I would have hid her needle in my heart,<br/> +To save her little finger from a scratch<br/> +No deeper than the skin: my ears could hear<br/> +Her lightest breaths: her least remark was worth<br/> +The experience of the wise. I went and came;<br/> +Her voice fled always thro’ the summer land;<br/> +I spoke her name alone. Thrice-happy days!<br/> +The flower of each, those moments when we met,<br/> +The crown of all, we met to part no more.”<br/> +<br/> +Were not his words delicious, I a beast<br/> +To take them as I did? but something jarr’d;<br/> +Whether he spoke too largely; that there seem’d<br/> +A touch of something false, some self-conceit,<br/> +Or over-smoothness: howsoe’er it was,<br/> +He scarcely hit my humour, and I said:—<br/> +<br/> +“Friend Edwin, do not think yourself alone<br/> +Of all men happy. Shall not Love to me,<br/> +As in the Latin song I learnt at school,<br/> +Sneeze out a full God-bless-you right and left?<a href="#linknote-435" name="linknoteref-435" id="linknoteref-435"><sup>[6]</sup></a><br/> +But you can talk: yours is a kindly vein:<br/> +I have I think—Heaven knows—as much within;<br/> +Have or should have, but for a thought or two,<br/> +That like a purple beech<a href="#linknote-436" name="linknoteref-436" id="linknoteref-436"><sup>[7]</sup></a> among the greens<br/> +Looks out of place: ’tis from no want in her:<br/> +It is my shyness, or my self-distrust,<br/> +Or something of a wayward modern mind<br/> +Dissecting passion. Time will set me right.”<br/> +<br/> +So spoke I knowing not the things that were.<br/> +Then said the fat-faced curate, Edward Bull:<br/> +“God made the woman for the use of man,<br/> +And for the good and increase of the world”.<br/> +And I and Edwin laugh’d; and now we paused<br/> +About the windings of the marge to hear<br/> +The soft wind blowing over meadowy holms<br/> +And alders, garden-isles<a href="#linknote-437" name="linknoteref-437" id="linknoteref-437"><sup>[8]</sup></a>; and now we left<br/> +The clerk behind us, I and he, and ran<br/> +By ripply shallows of the lisping lake,<br/> +Delighted with the freshness and the sound.<br/> + But, when the bracken rusted on their crags,<br/> +My suit had wither’d, nipt to death by him<br/> +That was a God, and is a lawyer’s clerk,<br/> +The rentroll Cupid of our rainy isles.<a href="#linknote-438" name="linknoteref-438" id="linknoteref-438"><sup>[9]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +’Tis true, we met; one hour I had, no more:<br/> +She sent a note, the seal an <i>Elle vous suit</i>,<a href="#linknote-439" name="linknoteref-439" id="linknoteref-439"><sup>[10]</sup></a><br/> +The close “Your Letty, only yours”; and this<br/> +Thrice underscored. The friendly mist of morn<br/> +Clung to the lake. I boated over, ran<br/> +My craft aground, and heard with beating heart<br/> +The Sweet-Gale rustle round the shelving keel;<br/> +And out I stept, and up I crept: she moved,<br/> +Like Proserpine in Enna, gathering flowers:<a href="#linknote-440" name="linknoteref-440" id="linknoteref-440"><sup>[11]</sup></a><br/> +Then low and sweet I whistled thrice; and she,<br/> +She turn’d, we closed, we kiss’d, swore faith, I breathed<br/> +In some new planet: a silent cousin stole<br/> +Upon us and departed: “Leave,” she cried,<br/> +“O leave me!” “Never, dearest, never: here<br/> +I brave the worst:” and while we stood like fools<br/> +Embracing, all at once a score of pugs<br/> +And poodles yell’d within, and out they came<br/> +Trustees and Aunts and Uncles. “What, with him!<br/> +“Go” (shrill’d the cottonspinning chorus) “him!”<br/> +I choked. Again they shriek’d the burthen “Him!”<br/> +Again with hands of wild rejection “Go!—<br/> +Girl, get you in!” She went—and in one month<a href="#linknote-441" name="linknoteref-441" id="linknoteref-441"><sup>[12]</sup></a><br/> +They wedded her to sixty thousand pounds,<br/> +To lands in Kent and messuages in York,<br/> +And slight Sir Robert with his watery smile<br/> +And educated whisker. But for me,<br/> +They set an ancient creditor to work:<br/> +It seems I broke a close with force and arms:<br/> +There came a mystic token from the king<br/> +To greet the sheriff, needless courtesy!<br/> +I read, and fled by night, and flying turn’d:<br/> +Her taper glimmer’d in the lake below:<br/> +I turn’d once more, close-button’d to the storm;<br/> +So left the place,<a href="#linknote-442" name="linknoteref-442" id="linknoteref-442"><sup>[13]</sup></a> left Edwin, nor have seen<br/> +Him since, nor heard of her, nor cared to hear.<br/> + Nor cared to hear? perhaps; yet long ago<br/> +I have pardon’d little Letty; not indeed,<br/> +It may be, for her own dear sake but this,<br/> +She seems a part of those fresh days to me;<br/> +For in the dust and drouth of London life<br/> +She moves among my visions of the lake,<br/> +While the prime swallow dips his wing, or then<br/> +While the gold-lily blows, and overhead<br/> +The light cloud smoulders on the summer crag. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-430" id="linknote-430"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-430">[1]</a> +Agaric (some varieties are deadly) is properly the fungus on the larch; it then +came to mean fungus generally. Minshew calls it “a white soft +mushroom”. See Halliwell, <i>Dict. of Archaic and Provincial Words, sub +vocent</i>. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-431" id="linknote-431"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-431">[2]</a> +The Latin <i>factus ad unguem</i>. For Crichton, a half-mythical figure, see +Tytler’s <i>Life</i> of him. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-432" id="linknote-432"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-432">[3]</a> +1851. Of different ages, like twin-sisters throve. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-433" id="linknote-433"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-433">[4]</a> +1853. To breathe, to wake. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-434" id="linknote-434"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-434">[5]</a> +1872. Have. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-435" id="linknote-435"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-435">[6]</a> +The reference is to the <i>Acme</i> and <i>Septimius</i> of Catullus, +xliv.—<br/> +<br/> +Hoc ut dixit,<br/> +Amor, sinistram, ut ante,<br/> +Dextram sternuit approbationem. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-436" id="linknote-436"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-436">[7]</a> +1851. That like a copper beech. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-437" id="linknote-437"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-437">[8]</a> +1851.<br/> +<br/> +garden-isles; and now we ran<br/> +By ripply shallows. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-438" id="linknote-438"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-438">[9]</a> +1851. The rainy isles. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-439" id="linknote-439"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-439">[10]</a> +Cf. Byron, <i>Don Juan</i>, i., xcvii.:—<br/> +<br/> +The seal a sunflower—<i>elle vous suit partout</i>. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-440" id="linknote-440"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-440">[11]</a> +<i>Cf</i>. Milton, <i>Par. Lost</i>, iv., 268-9:—<br/> +<br/> +Not that fair field<br/> +Of Enna where Proserpine gathering flowers<br/> +...<br/> +Was gather’d. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-441" id="linknote-441"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-441">[12]</a> +1851.<br/> +<br/> +“Go Sir!” Again they shrieked the burthen “Him!”<br/> +Again with hands of wild rejection “Go!<br/> +Girl, get you in” to her—and in one month, etc. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-442" id="linknote-442"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-442">[13]</a> +1851.<br/> +<br/> +I read and wish’d to crush the race of man,<br/> +And fled by night; turn’d once upon the hills;<br/> +Her taper glimmer’d in the lake; and then<br/> +I left the place, etc. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap58"></a>St Simon Stylites</h3> + +<p> +First published in 1842, reprinted in all the subsequent editions of the poems +but with no alterations in the text, except that in eighth line from the end +“my” was substituted for “mine” in 1846. Tennyson +informed a friend that it was not from the <i>Acta Sanctorum</i>, but from +Hone’s <i>Every-Day Book</i>, vol. i., pp. 35-36, that he got the +material for this poem, and a comparison with the narrative in Hone and the +poem seems to show that this was the case. +</p> + +<p> +It is not easy to identify the St. Simeon Stylites of Hone’s narrative +and Tennyson’s poem, whether he is to be identified with St. Simeon the +Elder, of whom there are three memoirs given in the <i>Acta Sanctorum</i>, tom. +i., 5th January, 261-286, or with St. Simeon Stylites, Junior, of whom there is +an elaborate biography in Greek by Nicephorus printed with a Latin translation +and notes in the <i>Acta Sanctorum</i>, tom. v., 24th May, 298-401. It seems +clear that whoever compiled the account popularised by Hone had read both and +amalgamated them. The main lines in the story of both saints are exactly the +same. Both stood on columns, both tortured themselves in the same ways, both +wrought miracles, and both died at their posts of penance. St. Simeon the Elder +was born at Sisan in Syria about A.D. 390, and was buried at Antioch in A.D. +459 or 460. The Simeon the Younger was born at Antioch A. D. 521 and died in +A.D. 592. His life, which is of singular interest, is much more elaborately +related. +</p> + +<p> +This poem is not simply a dramatic study. It bears very directly on +Tennyson’s philosophy of life. In these early poems he has given us four +studies in the morbid anatomy of character: <i>The Palace of Art</i>, which +illustrates the abuse of æsthetic and intellectual enjoyment of self; <i>The +Vision of Sin</i>, which illustrates the effects of similar indulgence in the +grosser pleasures of the senses; <i>The Two Voices</i>, which illustrates the +mischief of despondent self-absorption, while the present poem illustrates the +equally pernicious indulgence in an opposite extreme, asceticism affected for +the mere gratification of personal vanity.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Altho’ I be the basest of mankind,<br/> +From scalp to sole one slough and crust of sin,<br/> +Unfit for earth, unfit for heaven, scarce meet<br/> +For troops of devils, mad with blasphemy,<br/> +I will not cease to grasp the hope I hold<br/> +Of saintdom, and to clamour, morn and sob,<br/> +Battering the gates of heaven with storms of prayer,<br/> +Have mercy, Lord, and take away my sin.<br/> + Let this avail, just, dreadful, mighty God,<br/> +This not be all in vain that thrice ten years,<br/> +Thrice multiplied by superhuman pangs,<br/> +In hungers and in thirsts, fevers and cold,<br/> +In coughs, aches, stitches, ulcerous throes and cramps,<br/> +A sign betwixt the meadow and the cloud,<br/> +Patient on this tall pillar I have borne<br/> +Rain, wind, frost, heat, hail, damp, and sleet, and snow;<br/> +And I had hoped that ere this period closed<br/> +Thou wouldst have caught me up into Thy rest,<br/> +Denying not these weather-beaten limbs<br/> +The meed of saints, the white robe and the palm.<br/> + O take the meaning, Lord: I do not breathe,<br/> +Not whisper, any murmur of complaint.<br/> +Pain heap’d ten-hundred-fold to this, were still<br/> +Less burthen, by ten-hundred-fold, to bear,<br/> +Than were those lead-like tons of sin, that crush’d<br/> +My spirit flat before thee.<br/> +<br/> +O Lord, Lord,<br/> +Thou knowest I bore this better at the first,<br/> +For I was strong and hale of body then;<br/> +And tho’ my teeth, which now are dropt away,<br/> +Would chatter with the cold, and all my beard<br/> +Was tagg’d with icy fringes in the moon,<br/> +I drown’d the whoopings of the owl with sound<br/> +Of pious hymns and psalms, and sometimes saw<br/> +An angel stand and watch me, as I sang.<br/> +Now am I feeble grown; my end draws nigh;<br/> +I hope my end draws nigh: half deaf I am,<br/> +So that I scarce can hear the people hum<br/> +About the column’s base, and almost blind,<br/> +And scarce can recognise the fields I know;<br/> +And both my thighs are rotted with the dew;<br/> +Yet cease I not to clamour and to cry,<br/> +While my stiff spine can hold my weary head,<br/> +Till all my limbs drop piecemeal from the stone,<br/> +Have mercy, mercy: take away my sin.<br/> + O Jesus, if thou wilt not save my soul,<br/> +Who may be saved? who is it may be saved?<br/> +Who may be made a saint, if I fail here?<br/> +Show me the man hath suffered more than I.<br/> +For did not all thy martyrs die one death?<br/> +For either they were stoned, or crucified,<br/> +Or burn’d in fire, or boil’d in oil, or sawn<br/> +In twain beneath the ribs; but I die here<br/> +To-day, and whole years long, a life of death.<br/> +Bear witness, if I could have found a way<br/> +(And heedfully I sifted all my thought)<br/> +More slowly-painful to subdue this home<br/> +Of sin, my flesh, which I despise and hate,<br/> +I had not stinted practice, O my God.<br/> + For not alone this pillar-punishment,<a href="#linknote-443" name="linknoteref-443" id="linknoteref-443"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/> +Not this alone I bore: but while I lived<br/> +In the white convent down the valley there,<br/> +For many weeks about my loins I wore<br/> +The rope that haled the buckets from the well,<br/> +Twisted as tight as I could knot the noose;<br/> +And spake not of it to a single soul,<br/> +Until the ulcer, eating thro’ my skin,<br/> +Betray’d my secret penance, so that all<br/> +My brethren marvell’d greatly. More than this<br/> +I bore, whereof, O God, thou knowest all.<a href="#linknote-444" name="linknoteref-444" id="linknoteref-444"><sup>[2]</sup></a><br/> + Three winters, that my soul might grow to thee,<br/> +I lived up there on yonder mountain side.<br/> +My right leg chain’d into the crag, I lay<br/> +Pent in a roofless close of ragged stones;<br/> +Inswathed sometimes in wandering mist, and twice<br/> +Black’d with thy branding thunder, and sometimes<br/> +Sucking the damps for drink, and eating not,<br/> +Except the spare chance-gift of those that came<br/> +To touch my body and be heal’d, and live:<br/> +And they say then that I work’d miracles,<br/> +Whereof my fame is loud amongst mankind,<br/> +Cured lameness, palsies, cancers. Thou, O God,<br/> +Knowest alone whether this was or no.<br/> +Have mercy, mercy; cover all my sin.<br/> + Then, that I might be more alone with thee,<a href="#linknote-445" name="linknoteref-445" id="linknoteref-445"><sup>[3]</sup></a><br/> +Three years I lived upon a pillar, high<br/> +Six cubits, and three years on one of twelve;<br/> +And twice three years I crouch’d on one that rose<br/> +Twenty by measure; last of all, I grew<br/> +Twice ten long weary weary years to this,<br/> +That numbers forty cubits from the soil.<br/> + I think that I have borne as much as this—<br/> +Or else I dream—and for so long a time,<br/> +If I may measure time by yon slow light,<br/> +And this high dial, which my sorrow crowns—<br/> +So much—even so.<br/> +<br/> +And yet I know not well,<br/> +For that the evil ones comes here, and say,<br/> +“Fall down, O Simeon: thou hast suffer’d long<br/> +For ages and for ages!” then they prate<br/> +Of penances I cannot have gone thro’,<br/> +Perplexing me with lies; and oft I fall,<br/> +Maybe for months, in such blind lethargies,<br/> +That Heaven, and Earth, and Time are choked.<br/> +<br/> +But yet<br/> +Bethink thee, Lord, while thou and all the saints<br/> +Enjoy themselves in Heaven, and men on earth<br/> +House in the shade of comfortable roofs,<br/> +Sit with their wives by fires, eat wholesome food,<br/> +And wear warm clothes, and even beasts have stalls,<br/> +I, ’tween the spring and downfall of the light,<br/> +Bow down one thousand and two hundred times,<br/> +To Christ, the Virgin Mother, and the Saints;<br/> +Or in the night, after a little sleep,<br/> +I wake: the chill stars sparkle; I am wet<br/> +With drenching dews, or stiff with crackling frost.<br/> +I wear an undress’d goatskin on my back;<br/> +A grazing iron collar grinds my neck;<br/> +And in my weak, lean arms I lift the cross,<br/> +And strive and wrestle with thee till I die:<br/> +O mercy, mercy! wash away my sin.<br/> + O Lord, thou knowest what a man I am;<br/> +A sinful man, conceived and born in sin:<br/> +’Tis their own doing; this is none of mine;<br/> +Lay it not to me. Am I to blame for this,<br/> +That here come those that worship me? Ha! ha!<br/> +They think that I am somewhat. What am I?<br/> +The silly people take me for a saint,<br/> +And bring me offerings of fruit and flowers:<br/> +And I, in truth (thou wilt bear witness here)<br/> +Have all in all endured as much, and more<br/> +Than many just and holy men, whose names<br/> +Are register’d and calendar’d for saints.<br/> + Good people, you do ill to kneel to me.<br/> +What is it I can have done to merit this?<br/> +I am a sinner viler than you all.<br/> +It may be I have wrought some miracles,<a href="#linknote-446" name="linknoteref-446" id="linknoteref-446"><sup>[4]</sup></a><br/> +And cured some halt and maim’d; but what of that?<br/> +It may be, no one, even among the saints,<br/> +May match his pains with mine; but what of that?<br/> +Yet do not rise: for you may look on me,<br/> +And in your looking you may kneel to God.<br/> +Speak! is there any of you halt or maim’d?<br/> +I think you know I have some power with Heaven<br/> +From my long penance: let him speak his wish.<br/> + Yes, I can heal. Power goes forth from me.<br/> +They say that they are heal’d. Ah, hark! they shout<br/> +“St. Simeon Stylites”. Why, if so,<br/> +God reaps a harvest in me. O my soul,<br/> +God reaps a harvest in thee. If this be,<br/> +Can I work miracles and not be saved?<br/> +This is not told of any. They were saints.<br/> +It cannot be but that I shall be saved;<br/> +Yea, crown’d a saint. They shout, “Behold a saint!”<br/> +And lower voices saint me from above.<br/> +Courage, St. Simeon! This dull chrysalis<br/> +Cracks into shining wings, and hope ere death<br/> +Spreads more and more and more, that God hath now<br/> +Sponged and made blank of crimeful record all<br/> +My mortal archives.<br/> +<br/> +O my sons, my sons,<br/> +I, Simeon of the pillar, by surname Stylites, among men;<br/> +I, Simeon, The watcher on the column till the end;<br/> +I, Simeon, whose brain the sunshine bakes;<br/> +I, whose bald brows in silent hours become<br/> +Unnaturally hoar with rime, do now<br/> +From my high nest of penance here proclaim<br/> +That Pontius and Iscariot by my side<br/> +Show’d like fair seraphs. On the coals I lay,<br/> +A vessel full of sin: all hell beneath<br/> +Made me boil over. Devils pluck’d my sleeve;<a href="#linknote-447" name="linknoteref-447" id="linknoteref-447"><sup>[5]</sup></a><br/> +Abaddon and Asmodeus caught at me.<br/> +I smote them with the cross; they swarm’d again.<br/> +In bed like monstrous apes they crush’d my chest:<br/> +They flapp’d my light out as I read: I saw<br/> +Their faces grow between me and my book:<br/> +With colt-like whinny and with hoggish whine<br/> +They burst my prayer. Yet this way was left,<br/> +And by this way I’scaped them. Mortify<br/> +Your flesh, like me, with scourges and with thorns;<br/> +Smite, shrink not, spare not. If it may be, fast<br/> +Whole Lents, and pray. I hardly, with slow steps,<br/> +With slow, faint steps, and much exceeding pain,<br/> +Have scrambled past those pits of fire, that still<br/> +Sing in mine ears. But yield not me the praise:<br/> +God only thro’ his bounty hath thought fit,<br/> +Among the powers and princes of this world,<br/> +To make me an example to mankind,<br/> +Which few can reach to. Yet I do not say<br/> +But that a time may come—yea, even now,<br/> +Now, now, his footsteps smite the threshold stairs<br/> +Of life—I say, that time is at the doors<br/> +When you may worship me without reproach;<br/> +For I will leave my relics in your land,<br/> +And you may carve a shrine about my dust,<br/> +And burn a fragrant lamp before my bones,<br/> +When I am gather’d to the glorious saints.<br/> + While I spake then, a sting of shrewdest pain<br/> +Ran shrivelling thro’ me, and a cloudlike change,<br/> +In passing, with a grosser film made thick<br/> +These heavy, horny eyes. The end! the end!<br/> +Surely the end! What’s here? a shape, a shade,<br/> +A flash of light. Is that the angel there<br/> +That holds a crown? Come, blessed brother, come,<br/> +I know thy glittering face. I waited long;<br/> +My brows are ready. What! deny it now?<br/> +Nay, draw, draw, draw nigh. So I clutch it. Christ!<br/> +’Tis gone: ’tis here again; the crown! the crown!<a href="#linknote-448" name="linknoteref-448" id="linknoteref-448"><sup>[6]</sup></a><br/> +So now ’tis fitted on and grows to me,<br/> +And from it melt the dews of Paradise,<br/> +Sweet! sweet! spikenard, and balm, and frankincense.<br/> +Ah! let me not be fool’d, sweet saints: I trust<br/> +That I am whole, and clean, and meet for Heaven.<br/> + Speak, if there be a priest, a man of God,<br/> +Among you there, and let him presently<br/> +Approach, and lean a ladder on the shaft,<br/> +And climbing up into my airy home,<br/> +Deliver me the blessed sacrament;<br/> +For by the warning of the Holy Ghost,<br/> +I prophesy that I shall die to-night,<br/> +A quarter before twelve.<a href="#linknote-449" name="linknoteref-449" id="linknoteref-449"><sup>[7]</sup></a> But thou, O Lord,<br/> +Aid all this foolish people; let them take<br/> +Example, pattern: lead them to thy light. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-443" id="linknote-443"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-443">[1]</a> +For this incident <i>cf. Acta</i>, v., 317:<br/> +<br/> +“Petit aliquando ab aliquo ad se invisente funem, acceptumque circa +corpus convolvit constringitque tam arete ut, exesâ carne, quæ istuc +mollis admodum ac tenera est, nudæ costæ exstarent”.<br/> +<br/> +The same is told also of the younger Stylites, where the incident of concealing +the torture is added, <i>Acta</i>, i., 265.<br/> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-444" id="linknote-444"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-444">[2]</a> +For this retirement to a mountain see <i>Acta</i>, i., 270, and it is referred +to in the other lives:<br/> +<br/> +“Post hæc egressus occulte perrexit in montem non longe a monasterio, +ibique sibi clausulam de siccâ petrâ fecit, et stetit sic annos tres.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-445" id="linknote-445"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-445">[3]</a> +In accurate accordance with the third life, <i>Acta</i>, i., 277:<br/> +<br/> +“Primum quidem columna ad sex erecta cubitos est, deinde ad duodecim, +post ad vigenti extensa est”;<br/> +<br/> +but for the thirty-six cubits which is assigned as the height of the last +column Tennyson’s authority, drawing on another account (<i>Id.</i>, +271), substitutes forty:<br/> +<br/> +“Fecerunt illi columnam habentem cubitos quadraginta”. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-446" id="linknote-446"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-446">[4]</a> +For the miracles wrought by him see all the lives. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-447" id="linknote-447"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-447">[5]</a> +These details seem taken from the well-known stories about Luther and Bunyan. +All that the <i>Acta</i> say about St. Simeon is that he was pestered by +devils. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-448" id="linknote-448"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-448">[6]</a> +The <i>Acta</i> say nothing about the crown, but dwell on the supernatural +fragrance which exhaled from the saint. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-449" id="linknote-449"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-449">[7]</a> +Tennyson has given a very poor substitute for the beautifully pathetic account +given of the death of St. Simeon in <i>Acta</i>, i., 168, and again in the +ninth chapter of the second Life, <i>Ibid</i>., 273. But this is to be +explained perhaps by the moral purpose of the poem. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap59"></a>The Talking Oak</h3> + +<p> +First published in 1842, and republished in all subsequent +editions with only two slight alterations: in line 113 a mere +variant in spelling, and in line 185, where in place of the +present reading the editions between 1842 and 1848 read, “For, +ah! the Dryad-days were brief”. +</p> + +<p> +Tennyson told Mr. Aubrey de Vere that the poem was an experiment +meant to test the degree in which it is in the power of poetry to +humanise external nature. Tennyson might have remembered that +Ovid had made the same experiment nearly two thousand years ago, +while Goethe had immediately anticipated him in his charming +<i>Der Junggesett und der Mühlbach</i>. There was certainly +no novelty in such an attempt. The poem is in parts charmingly +written, but the oak is certainly “garrulously given,” and comes +perilously near to tediousness.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Once more the gate behind me falls;<br/> +Once more before my face<br/> +I see the moulder’d Abbey-walls,<br/> +That stand within the chace.<br/> +<br/> +Beyond the lodge the city lies,<br/> +Beneath its drift of smoke;<br/> +And ah! with what delighted eyes<br/> +I turn to yonder oak.<br/> +<br/> +For when my passion first began,<br/> +Ere that, which in me burn’d,<br/> +The love, that makes me thrice a man,<br/> +Could hope itself return’d;<br/> +<br/> +To yonder oak within the field<br/> +I spoke without restraint,<br/> +And with a larger faith appeal’d<br/> +Than Papist unto Saint.<br/> +<br/> +For oft I talk’d with him apart,<br/> +And told him of my choice,<br/> +Until he plagiarised a heart,<br/> +And answer’d with a voice.<br/> +<br/> +Tho’ what he whisper’d, under Heaven<br/> +None else could understand;<br/> +I found him garrulously given,<br/> +A babbler in the land.<br/> +<br/> +But since I heard him make reply<br/> +Is many a weary hour;<br/> +’Twere well to question him, and try<br/> +If yet he keeps the power.<br/> +<br/> +Hail, hidden to the knees in fern,<br/> +Broad Oak of Sumner-chace,<br/> +Whose topmost branches can discern<br/> +The roofs of Sumner-place!<br/> +<br/> +Say thou, whereon I carved her name,<br/> +If ever maid or spouse,<br/> +As fair as my Olivia, came<br/> +To rest beneath thy boughs.—<br/> +<br/> +“O Walter, I have shelter’d here<br/> +Whatever maiden grace<br/> +The good old Summers, year by year,<br/> +Made ripe in Sumner-chace:<br/> +<br/> +“Old Summers, when the monk was fat,<br/> +And, issuing shorn and sleek,<br/> +Would twist his girdle tight, and pat<br/> +The girls upon the cheek.<br/> +<br/> +“Ere yet, in scorn of Peter’s-pence,<br/> +And number’d bead, and shrift,<br/> +Bluff Harry broke into the spence,<a href="#linknote-450" name="linknoteref-450" id="linknoteref-450"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/> +And turn’d the cowls adrift:<br/> +<br/> +“And I have seen some score of those<br/> +Fresh faces, that would thrive<br/> +When his man-minded offset rose<br/> +To chase the deer at five;<br/> +<br/> +“And all that from the town would stroll,<br/> +Till that wild wind made work<br/> +In which the gloomy brewer’s soul<br/> +Went by me, like a stork:<br/> +<br/> +“The slight she-slips of loyal blood,<br/> +And others, passing praise,<br/> +Strait-laced, but all too full in bud<br/> +For puritanic stays:<a href="#linknote-451" name="linknoteref-451" id="linknoteref-451"><sup>[2]</sup></a>><br/> +<br/> +“And I have shadow’d many a group<br/> +Of beauties, that were born<br/> +In teacup-times of hood and hoop,<br/> +Or while the patch was worn;<br/> +<br/> +“And, leg and arm with love-knots gay,<br/> +About me leap’d and laugh’d<br/> +The Modish Cupid of the day,<br/> +And shrill’d his tinsel shaft.<br/> +<br/> +“I swear (and else may insects prick<br/> +Each leaf into a gall)<br/> +This girl, for whom your heart is sick,<br/> +Is three times worth them all;<br/> +<br/> +“For those and theirs, by Nature’s law,<br/> +Have faded long ago;<br/> +But in these latter springs I saw<br/> +Your own Olivia blow,<br/> +<br/> +“From when she gamboll’d on the greens,<br/> +A baby-germ, to when<br/> +The maiden blossoms of her teens<br/> +Could number five from ten.<br/> +<br/> +“I swear, by leaf, and wind, and rain<br/> +(And hear me with thine ears),<br/> +That, tho’ I circle in the grain<br/> +Five hundred rings of years—<br/> +<br/> +“Yet, since I first could cast a shade,<br/> +Did never creature pass<br/> +So slightly, musically made,<br/> +So light upon the grass:<br/> +<br/> +“For as to fairies, that will flit<br/> +To make the greensward fresh,<br/> +I hold them exquisitely knit,<br/> +But far too spare of flesh.”<br/> +<br/> +Oh, hide thy knotted knees in fern,<br/> +And overlook the chace;<br/> +And from thy topmost branch discern<br/> +The roofs of Sumner-place.<br/> +<br/> +But thou, whereon I carved her name,<br/> +That oft hast heard my vows,<br/> +Declare when last Olivia came<br/> +To sport beneath thy boughs.<br/> +<br/> +“O yesterday, you know, the fair<br/> +Was holden at the town;<br/> +Her father left his good arm-chair,<br/> +And rode his hunter down.<br/> +<br/> +“And with him Albert came on his.<br/> +I look’d at him with joy:<br/> +As cowslip unto oxlip is,<br/> +So seems she to the boy.<br/> +<br/> +“An hour had past—and, sitting straight<br/> +Within the low-wheel’d chaise,<br/> +Her mother trundled to the gate<br/> +Behind the dappled grays.<br/> +<br/> +“But, as for her, she stay’d<a href="#linknote-452" name="linknoteref-452" id="linknoteref-452"><sup>[3]</sup></a> at home,<br/> +And on the roof she went,<br/> +And down the way you use to come,<br/> +She look’d with discontent.<br/> +<br/> +“She left the novel half-uncut<br/> +Upon the rosewood shelf;<br/> +She left the new piano shut:<br/> +She could not please herself.<br/> +<br/> +“Then ran she, gamesome as the colt,<br/> +And livelier than a lark<br/> +She sent her voice thro’ all the holt<br/> +Before her, and the park.<br/> +<br/> +“A light wind chased her on the wing,<br/> +And in the chase grew wild,<br/> +As close as might be would he cling<br/> +About the darling child:<br/> +<br/> +“But light as any wind that blows<br/> +So fleetly did she stir,<br/> +The flower she touch’d on dipt and rose,<br/> +And turn’d to look at her.<br/> +<br/> +“And here she came, and round me play’d,<br/> +And sang to me the whole<br/> +Of those three stanzas that you made<br/> +About my ‘giant bole’;<br/> +<br/> +“And in a fit of frolic mirth<br/> +She strove to span my waist:<br/> +Alas, I was so broad of girth,<br/> +I could not be embraced.<br/> +<br/> +“I wish’d myself the fair young beech<br/> +That here beside me stands,<br/> +That round me, clasping each in each,<br/> +She might have lock’d her hands.<br/> +<br/> +“Yet seem’d the pressure thrice as sweet<br/> +As woodbine’s fragile hold,<br/> +Or when I feel about my feet<br/> +The berried briony fold.”<br/> +<br/> +O muffle round thy knees with fern,<br/> +And shadow Sumner-chace!<br/> +Long may thy topmost branch discern<br/> +The roofs of Sumner-place!<br/> +<br/> +But tell me, did she read the name<br/> +I carved with many vows<br/> +When last with throbbing heart I came<br/> +To rest beneath thy boughs?<br/> +<br/> +“O yes, she wander’d round and round<br/> +These knotted knees of mine,<br/> +And found, and kiss’d the name she found,<br/> +And sweetly murmur’d thine.<br/> +<br/> +“A teardrop trembled from its source,<br/> +And down my surface crept.<br/> +My sense of touch is something coarse,<br/> +But I believe she wept.<br/> +<br/> +“Then flush’d her cheek with rosy light,<br/> +She glanced across the plain;<br/> +But not a creature was in sight:<br/> +She kiss’d me once again.<br/> +<br/> +“Her kisses were so close and kind,<br/> +That, trust me on my word,<br/> +Hard wood I am, and wrinkled rind,<br/> +But yet my sap was stirr’d:<br/> +<br/> +“And even into my inmost ring<br/> +A pleasure I discern’d<br/> +Like those blind motions of the Spring,<br/> +That show the year is turn’d.<br/> +<br/> +“Thrice-happy he that may caress<br/> +The ringlet’s waving balm<br/> +The cushions of whose touch may press<br/> +The maiden’s tender palm.<br/> +<br/> +“I, rooted here among the groves,<br/> +But languidly adjust<br/> +My vapid vegetable loves<a href="#linknote-453" name="linknoteref-453" id="linknoteref-453"><sup>[4]</sup></a><br/> +With anthers and with dust:<br/> +<br/> +“For, ah! my friend, the days were brief<a href="#linknote-454" name="linknoteref-454" id="linknoteref-454"><sup>[5]</sup></a><br/> +Whereof the poets talk,<br/> +When that, which breathes within the leaf,<br/> +Could slip its bark and walk.<br/> +<br/> +“But could I, as in times foregone,<br/> +From spray, and branch, and stem,<br/> +Have suck’d and gather’d into one<br/> +The life that spreads in them,<br/> +<br/> +“She had not found me so remiss;<br/> +But lightly issuing thro’,<br/> +I would have paid her kiss for kiss<br/> +With usury thereto.”<br/> +<br/> +O flourish high, with leafy towers,<br/> +And overlook the lea,<br/> +Pursue thy loves among the bowers,<br/> +But leave thou mine to me.<br/> +<br/> +O flourish, hidden deep in fern,<br/> +Old oak, I love thee well;<br/> +A thousand thanks for what I learn<br/> +And what remains to tell.<br/> +<br/> +“’Tis little more: the day was warm;<br/> +At last, tired out with play,<br/> +She sank her head upon her arm,<br/> +And at my feet she lay.<br/> +<br/> +“Her eyelids dropp’d their silken eaves.<br/> +I breathed upon her eyes<br/> +Thro’ all the summer of my leaves<br/> +A welcome mix’d with sighs.<br/> +<br/> +“I took the swarming sound of life—<br/> +The music from the town—<br/> +The murmurs of the drum and fife<br/> +And lull’d them in my own.<br/> +<br/> +“Sometimes I let a sunbeam slip,<br/> +To light her shaded eye;<br/> +A second flutter’d round her lip<br/> +Like a golden butterfly;<br/> +<br/> +“A third would glimmer on her neck<br/> +To make the necklace shine;<br/> +Another slid, a sunny fleck,<br/> +From head to ancle fine.<br/> +<br/> +“Then close and dark my arms I spread,<br/> +And shadow’d all her rest—<br/> +Dropt dews upon her golden head,<br/> +An acorn in her breast.<br/> +<br/> +“But in a pet she started up,<br/> +And pluck’d it out, and drew<br/> +My little oakling from the cup,<br/> +And flung him in the dew.<br/> +<br/> +“And yet it was a graceful gift—<br/> +I felt a pang within<br/> +As when I see the woodman lift<br/> +His axe to slay my kin.<br/> +<br/> +“I shook him down because he was<br/> +The finest on the tree.<br/> +He lies beside thee on the grass.<br/> +O kiss him once for me.<br/> +<br/> +“O kiss him twice and thrice for me,<br/> +That have no lips to kiss,<br/> +For never yet was oak on lea<br/> +Shall grow so fair as this.”<br/> +<br/> +Step deeper yet in herb and fern,<br/> +Look further thro’ the chace,<br/> +Spread upward till thy boughs discern<br/> +The front of Sumner-place.<br/> +<br/> +This fruit of thine by Love is blest,<br/> +That but a moment lay<br/> +Where fairer fruit of Love may rest<br/> +Some happy future day.<br/> +<br/> +I kiss it twice, I kiss it thrice,<br/> +The warmth it thence shall win<br/> +To riper life may magnetise<br/> +The baby-oak within.<br/> +<br/> +But thou, while kingdoms overset,<br/> +Or lapse from hand to hand,<br/> +Thy leaf shall never fail, nor yet<br/> +Thine acorn in the land.<br/> +<br/> +May never saw dismember thee,<br/> +Nor wielded axe disjoint,<br/> +That art the fairest-spoken tree<br/> +From here to Lizard-point.<br/> +<br/> +O rock upon thy towery top<br/> +All throats that gurgle sweet!<br/> +All starry culmination drop<br/> +Balm-dews to bathe thy feet!<br/> +<br/> +All grass of silky feather grow—<br/> +And while he sinks or swells<br/> +The full south-breeze around thee blow<br/> +The sound of minster bells.<br/> +<br/> +The fat earth feed thy branchy root,<br/> +That under deeply strikes!<br/> +The northern morning o’er thee shoot<br/> +High up, in silver spikes!<br/> +<br/> +Nor ever lightning char thy grain,<br/> +But, rolling as in sleep,<br/> +Low thunders bring the mellow rain,<br/> +That makes thee broad and deep!<br/> +<br/> +And hear me swear a solemn oath,<br/> +That only by thy side<br/> +Will I to Olive plight my troth,<br/> +And gain her for my bride.<br/> +<br/> +And when my marriage morn may fall,<br/> +She, Dryad-like, shall wear<br/> +Alternate leaf and acorn-ball<br/> +In wreath about her hair.<br/> +<br/> +And I will work in prose and rhyme,<br/> +And praise thee more in both<br/> +Than bard has honour’d beech or lime,<br/> +Or that Thessalian growth,<a href="#linknote-455" name="linknoteref-455" id="linknoteref-455"><sup>[6]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +In which the swarthy ringdove sat,<br/> +And mystic sentence spoke;<br/> +And more than England honours that,<br/> +Thy famous brother-oak,<br/> +<br/> +Wherein the younger Charles abode<br/> +Till all the paths were dim,<br/> +And far below the Roundhead rode,<br/> +And humm’d a surly hymn. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-450" id="linknote-450"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-450">[1]</a> +Spence is a larder and buttery. In the <i>Promptorium Parverum</i> it is +defined as “cellarium promptuarium”. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-451" id="linknote-451"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-451">[2]</a> +Cf. Burns’ “godly laces,” <i>To the Unco Righteous</i>. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-452" id="linknote-452"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-452">[3]</a> +All editions previous to 1853 have ‘staid’. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-453" id="linknote-453"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-453">[4]</a> +The phrase is Marvell’s. <i>Cf. To his Coy Mistress</i> (a favourite poem +of Tennyson’s), “my vegetable loves should grow”. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-454" id="linknote-454"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-454">[5]</a> +1842 to 1850. “For, ah! the Dryad-days were brief. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-455" id="linknote-455"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-455">[6]</a> +A reference to the oracular oaks of Dodona which was, of course, in Epirus, but +the Ancients believed, no doubt erroneously, that there was another Dodona in +Thessaly. See the article “Dodona” in Smith’s <i>Dict. of +Greek and Roman Geography</i>. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap60"></a>Love and Duty</h3> + +<p class="center"> +Published first in 1842. +</p> + +<p> +Whether this beautiful poem is autobiographical and has reference to the +compulsory separation of Tennyson and Miss Emily Sellwood, afterwards his wife, +in 1840, it is impossible for this editor to say, as Lord Tennyson in his +<i>Life</i> of his father is silent on the subject.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Of love that never found his earthly close,<br/> +What sequel? Streaming eyes and breaking hearts?<br/> +Or all the same as if he had not been?<br/> + Not so. Shall Error in the round of time<br/> +Still father Truth? O shall the braggart shout<a href="#linknote-456" name="linknoteref-456" id="linknoteref-456"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/> +For some blind glimpse of freedom work itself<br/> +Thro’ madness, hated by the wise, to law<br/> +System and empire? Sin itself be found<br/> +The cloudy porch oft opening on the Sun?<br/> +And only he, this wonder, dead, become<br/> +Mere highway dust? or year by year alone<br/> +Sit brooding in the ruins of a life,<br/> +Nightmare of youth, the spectre of himself!<br/> + If this were thus, if this, indeed, were all,<br/> +Better the narrow brain, the stony heart,<br/> +The staring eye glazed o’er with sapless days,<br/> +The long mechanic pacings to and fro,<br/> +The set gray life, and apathetic end.<br/> +But am I not the nobler thro’ thy love?<br/> +O three times less unworthy! likewise thou<br/> +Art more thro’ Love, and greater than thy years.<br/> +The Sun will run his orbit, and the Moon<br/> +Her circle. Wait, and Love himself will bring<br/> +The drooping flower of knowledge changed to fruit<br/> +Of wisdom.<a href="#linknote-457" name="linknoteref-457" id="linknoteref-457"><sup>[2]</sup></a> Wait: my faith is large in Time,<br/> +And that which shapes it to some perfect end.<br/> + Will some one say, then why not ill for good?<br/> +Why took ye not your pastime? To that man<br/> +My work shall answer, since I knew the right<br/> +And did it; for a man is not as God,<br/> +But then most Godlike being most a man.—<br/> +So let me think ’tis well for thee and me—<br/> +Ill-fated that I am, what lot is mine<br/> +Whose foresight preaches peace, my heart so slow<br/> +To feel it! For how hard it seem’d to me,<br/> +When eyes, love-languid thro’ half-tears, would dwell<br/> +One earnest, earnest moment upon mine,<br/> +Then not to dare to see! when thy low voice,<br/> +Faltering, would break its syllables, to keep<br/> +My own full-tuned,—hold passion in a leash,<br/> +And not leap forth and fall about thy neck,<br/> +And on thy bosom, (deep-desired relief!)<br/> +Rain out the heavy mist of tears, that weigh’d<br/> +Upon my brain, my senses, and my soul!<br/> + For love himself took part against himself<br/> +To warn us off, and Duty loved of Love—<br/> +O this world’s curse—beloved but hated—came <br/> +Like Death betwixt thy dear embrace and mine,<br/> +And crying, “Who is this? behold thy bride,”<br/> +She push’d me from thee.<br/> +<br/> +If the sense is hard<br/> +To alien ears, I did not speak to these—<br/> +No, not to thee, but to thyself in me:<br/> +Hard is my doom and thine: thou knowest it all.<br/> +Could Love part thus? was it not well to speak,<br/> +To have spoken once? It could not but be well.<br/> +The slow sweet hours that bring us all things good,<a href="#linknote-458" name="linknoteref-458" id="linknoteref-458"><sup>[3]</sup></a><br/> +The slow sad hours that bring us all things ill,<br/> +And all good things from evil, brought the night<br/> +In which we sat together and alone,<br/> +And to the want, that hollow’d all the heart,<br/> +Gave utterance by the yearning of an eye,<br/> +That burn’d upon its object thro’ such tears<br/> +As flow but once a life.<br/> +<br/> +The trance gave way<br/> +To those caresses, when a hundred times<br/> +In that last kiss, which never was the last,<br/> +Farewell, like endless welcome, lived and died.<br/> +Then follow’d counsel, comfort and the words<br/> +That make a man feel strong in speaking truth;<br/> +Till now the dark was worn, and overhead<br/> +The lights of sunset and of sunrise mix’d<br/> +In that brief night; the summer night, that paused<br/> +Among her stars to hear us; stars that hung<br/> +Love-charm’d to listen: all the wheels of Time<br/> +Spun round in station, but the end had come.<br/> + O then like those, who clench<a href="#linknote-459" name="linknoteref-459" id="linknoteref-459"><sup>[4]</sup></a> their nerves to rush<br/> +Upon their dissolution, we two rose,<br/> +There-closing like an individual life—<br/> +In one blind cry of passion and of pain,<br/> +Like bitter accusation ev’n to death,<br/> +Caught up the whole of love and utter’d it,<br/> +And bade adieu for ever.<br/> +<br/> +Live—yet live—<br/> +Shall sharpest pathos blight us, knowing all<br/> +Life needs for life is possible to will—<br/> +Live happy; tend thy flowers; be tended by<br/> +My blessing! Should my Shadow cross thy thoughts<br/> +Too sadly for their peace, remand it thou<br/> +For calmer hours to Memory’s darkest hold,<a href="#linknote-460" name="linknoteref-460" id="linknoteref-460"><sup>[5]</sup></a><br/> +If not to be forgotten—not at once—<br/> +Not all forgotten. Should it cross thy dreams,<br/> +O might it come like one that looks content,<br/> +With quiet eyes unfaithful to the truth,<br/> +And point thee forward to a distant light,<br/> +Or seem to lift a burthen from thy heart<br/> +And leave thee frëer, till thou wake refresh’d,<br/> +Then when the first low matin-chirp hath grown<br/> +Full quire, and morning driv’n her plow of pearl<a href="#linknote-461" name="linknoteref-461" id="linknoteref-461"><sup>[6]</sup></a><br/> +Far furrowing into light the mounded rack,<br/> +Beyond the fair green field and eastern sea. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-456" id="linknote-456"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-456">[1]</a> +As this passage is a little obscure, it may not be superfluous to point out +that “shout” is a substantive. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-457" id="linknote-457"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-457">[2]</a> +The distinction between “knowledge” and “wisdom” is a +favourite one with Tennyson. See <i>In Memoriam</i>, cxiv.; <i>Locksley +Hall</i>, 141, and for the same distinction see Cowper, <i>Task</i>, vi., +88-99. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-458" id="linknote-458"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-458">[3]</a> +Suggested by Theocritus, <i>Id</i>., xv., 104-5. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-459" id="linknote-459"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-459">[4]</a> +1842 to 1845. O then like those, that clench. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-460" id="linknote-460"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-460">[5]</a> +Pathos, in the Greek sense, “suffering”. All editions up to and +including 1850 have a small “s” and a small “m” for +Shadow and Memory, and read thus:—<br/> +<br/> +Too sadly for their peace, so put it back<br/> +For calmer hours in memory’s darkest hold,<br/> +If unforgotten! should it cross thy dreams,<br/> +So might it come, etc. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-461" id="linknote-461"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-461">[6]</a> +<i>Cf. Princess</i>, iii.:—<br/> +<br/> +Morn in the white wake of the morning star<br/> +Came furrowing all the orient into gold,<br/> +<br/> +and with both cf. Greene, <i>Orlando Furioso</i>, i., 2:—<br/> +<br/> +Seest thou not Lycaon’s son?<br/> +The hardy plough-swain unto mighty Jove<br/> +Hath <i>trac’d his silver furrows in the heaven</i>, +<br/> +which in its turn is borrowed from Ariosto, <i>Orl. Fur.</i>, xx., +lxxxii.:—<br/> +<br/> +Apena avea Licaonia prole<br/> +Per li solchi del ciel volto<br/> +L’aratro. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap61"></a>The Golden Year</h3> + +<p> +This poem was first published in the fourth edition of the poems 1846. No +alterations were made in it after 1851. The poem had a message for the time at +which it was written. The country was in a very troubled state. The contest +between the Protectionists and Free-traders was at its acutest stage. The +Maynooth endowment and the “godless colleges” had brought into +prominence questions of the gravest moment in religion and education, while the +Corn Bill and the Coercion Bill had inflamed the passions of party politicians +almost to madness. Tennyson, his son tells us, entered heartily into these +questions, believing that the remedies for these distempers lay in the spread +of education, a more catholic spirit in the press, a partial adoption of Free +Trade principles, and union as far as possible among the different sections of +Christianity.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Well, you shall have that song which Leonard wrote:<br/> +It was last summer on a tour in Wales:<br/> +Old James was with me: we that day had been<br/> +Up Snowdon; and I wish’d for Leonard there,<br/> +And found him in Llanberis:<a href="#linknote-462" name="linknoteref-462" id="linknoteref-462"><sup>[1]</sup></a> then we crost<br/> +Between the lakes, and clamber’d half-way up<br/> +The counterside; and that same song of his<br/> +He told me; for I banter’d him, and swore<br/> +They said he lived shut up within himself,<br/> +A tongue-tied Poet in the feverous days,<br/> +That, setting the <i>how much</i> before the <i>how</i>,<br/> +Cry, like the daughters of the horseleech, “Give,<a href="#linknote-463" name="linknoteref-463" id="linknoteref-463"><sup>[2]</sup></a><br/> +Cram us with all,” but count not me the herd!<br/> + To which “They call me what they will,” he said:<br/> +“But I was born too late: the fair new forms,<br/> +That float about the threshold of an age,<br/> +Like truths of Science waiting to be caught—<br/> +Catch me who can, and make the catcher crown’d—<br/> +Are taken by the forelock. Let it be.<br/> +But if you care indeed to listen, hear<br/> +These measured words, my work of yestermorn.<br/> + “We sleep and wake and sleep, but all things move;<br/> +The Sun flies forward to his brother Sun;<br/> +The dark Earth follows wheel’d in her ellipse;<br/> +And human things returning on themselves<br/> +Move onward, leading up the golden year.<br/> + “Ah, tho’ the times, when some new thought can bud,<br/> +Are but as poets’ seasons when they flower,<br/> +Yet seas, that daily gain upon the shore,<a href="#linknote-464" name="linknoteref-464" id="linknoteref-464"><sup>[3]</sup></a><br/> +Have ebb and flow conditioning their march,<br/> +And slow and sure comes up the golden year.<br/> + “When wealth no more shall rest in mounded heaps,<br/> +But smit with freer light shall slowly melt<br/> +In many streams to fatten lower lands,<br/> +And light shall spread, and man be liker man<br/> +Thro’ all the season of the golden year.<br/> + “Shall eagles not be eagles? wrens be wrens?<br/> +If all the world were falcons, what of that?<br/> +The wonder of the eagle were the less,<br/> +But he not less the eagle. Happy days<br/> +Roll onward, leading up the golden year.<br/> + “Fly happy happy sails and bear the Press;<br/> +Fly happy with the mission of the Cross;<br/> +Knit land to land, and blowing havenward<br/> +With silks, and fruits, and spices, clear of toll,<br/> +Enrich the markets of the golden year.<br/> + “But we grow old! Ah! when shall all men’s good<br/> +Be each man’s rule, and universal Peace<br/> +Lie like a shaft of light across the land,<br/> +And like a lane of beams athwart the sea,<br/> +Thro’ all the circle of the golden year?”<br/> + Thus far he flow’d, and ended; whereupon<br/> +“Ah, folly!” in mimic cadence answer’d James—<br/> +“Ah, folly! for it lies so far away.<br/> +Not in our time, nor in our children’s time,<br/> +’Tis like the second world to us that live;<br/> +’Twere all as one to fix our hopes on Heaven<br/> +As on this vision of the golden year.”<br/> + With that he struck his staff against the rocks<br/> +And broke it,—James,—you know him,—old, but full<br/> +Of force and choler, and firm upon his feet,<br/> +And like an oaken stock in winter woods,<br/> +O’erflourished with the hoary clematis:<br/> +Then added, all in heat: “What stuff is this!<br/> +Old writers push’d the happy season back,—<br/> +The more fools they,—we forward: dreamers both:<br/> +You most, that in an age, when every hour<br/> +Must sweat her sixty minutes to the death,<br/> +Live on, God love us, as if the seedsman, rapt<br/> +Upon the teeming harvest, should not dip<a href="#linknote-465" name="linknoteref-465" id="linknoteref-465"><sup>[4]</sup></a><br/> +His hand into the bag: but well I know<br/> +That unto him who works, and feels he works,<br/> +This same grand year is ever at the doors.”<br/> + He spoke; and, high above, I heard them blast<br/> +The steep slate-quarry, and the great echo flap<br/> +And buffet round the hills from bluff to bluff. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-462" id="linknote-462"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-462">[1]</a> +1846 to 1850.<br/> +<br/> +And joined him in Llanberis; and that same song<br/> +He told me, etc. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-463" id="linknote-463"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-463">[2]</a> +Proverbs xxx. 15:<br/> +<br/> +“The horseleach hath two daughters, crying,<br/> +Give, give”. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-464" id="linknote-464"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-464">[3]</a> +1890. Altered to “Yet oceans daily gaining on the land”. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-465" id="linknote-465"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-465">[4]</a> +<i>Selections</i>, 1865. Plunge. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap62"></a>Ulysses</h3> + +<p> +First published in 1842, no alterations were made in it subsequently. +</p> + +<p> +This noble poem, which is said to have induced Sir Robert Peel to give Tennyson +his pension, was written soon after Arthur Hallam’s death, presumably +therefore in 1833. “It gave my feeling,” Tennyson said to his son, +“about the need of going forward and braving the struggle of life perhaps +more simply than anything in <i>In Memoriam</i>.” It is not the +<i>Ulysses</i> of Homer, nor was it suggested by the <i>Odyssey</i>. The germ, +the spirit and the sentiment of the poem are from the twenty-sixth canto of +Dante’s <i>Inferno</i>, where Ulysses in the Limbo of the Deceivers +speaks from the flame which swathes him. I give a literal version of the +passage:— +</p> + +<p> +“Neither fondness for my son nor reverence for my aged sire nor the due +love which ought to have gladdened Penelope could conquer in me the ardour +which I had to become experienced in the world and in human vice and worth. I +put out into the deep open sea with but one ship and with that small company +which had not deserted me.... I and my companions were old and tardy when we +came to that narrow pass where Hercules assigned his landmarks. ‘O +brothers,’ I said, ‘who through a hundred thousand dangers have +reached the West deny not to this the brief vigil of your senses that remain, +experience of the unpeopled world beyond the sun. Consider your origin, ye were +not formed to live like Brutes but to follow virtue and knowledge.... Night +already saw the other pole with all its stars and ours so low that it rose not +from the ocean floor’” (<i>Inferno</i>, xxvi., 94-126). +</p> + +<p> +But if the germ is here the expansion is Tennyson’s; he has added +elaboration and symmetry, fine touches, magical images and magical diction. +There is nothing in Dante which answers to— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’<br/> +Gleams that untravell’d world, whose margin fades<br/> +For ever and for ever when I move. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +or +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:<br/> +It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,<br/> +And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. +</p> + +<p> +Of these lines well does Carlyle say what so many will feel: “These lines +do not make me weep, but there is in me what would till whole Lacrymatorics as +I read”.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +It little profits that an idle king,<br/> +By this still hearth, among these barren crags,<br/> +Match’d with an aged wife, I mete and dole<br/> +Unequal laws unto a savage race,<br/> +That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.<br/> +I cannot rest from travel: I will drink<br/> +Life to the lees: all times I have enjoy’d<br/> +Greatly, have suffer’d greatly, both with those<br/> +That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when<br/> +Thro’ scudding drifts the rainy Hyades<a href="#linknote-466" name="linknoteref-466" id="linknoteref-466"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/> +Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;<br/> +For always roaming with a hungry heart<br/> +Much have I seen and known; cities of men<br/> +And manners, climates, councils, governments,<a href="#linknote-467" name="linknoteref-467" id="linknoteref-467"><sup>[2]</sup></a><br/> +Myself not least, but honour’d of them all;<br/> +And drunk delight of battle with my peers,<br/> +Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.<br/> +I am a part of all that I have met;<br/> +Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’<br/> +Gleams that untravell’d world, whose margin fades<br/> +For ever and for ever when I move.<br/> +How dull it is to pause, to make an end,<a href="#linknote-468" name="linknoteref-468" id="linknoteref-468"><sup>[3]</sup></a><br/> +To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!<br/> +As tho’ to breathe were life. Life piled on life<br/> +Were all too little, and of one to me<br/> +Little remains: but every hour is saved<br/> +From that eternal silence, something more,<br/> +A bringer of new things; and vile it were<br/> +For some three suns to store and hoard myself,<br/> +And this gray spirit yearning in desire<br/> +To follow knowledge, like a sinking star,<br/> +Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.<br/> + This is my son, mine own Telemachus,<a href="#linknote-469" name="linknoteref-469" id="linknoteref-469"><sup>[4]</sup></a><br/> +To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle—<br/> +Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil<br/> +This labour, by slow prudence to make mild<br/> +A rugged people, and thro’ soft degrees<br/> +Subdue them to the useful and the good.<br/> +Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere<br/> +Of common duties, decent not to fail<br/> +In offices of tenderness, and pay<br/> +Meet adoration to my household gods,<br/> +When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.<br/> + There lies the port: the vessel puffs her sail:<br/> +There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,<br/> +Souls that have toil’d and wrought, and thought with me—<br/> +That ever with a frolic welcome took<br/> +The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed<br/> +Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;<br/> +Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;<br/> +Death closes all; but something ere the end,<br/> +Some work of noble note, may yet be done,<br/> +Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.<br/> +The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:<br/> +The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep<br/> +Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,<br/> +’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.<br/> +Push off, and sitting well in order smite<br/> +The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds<br/> +To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths<br/> +Of all the western stars, until I die.<br/> +It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:<br/> +It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,<a href="#linknote-470" name="linknoteref-470" id="linknoteref-470"><sup>[5]</sup></a><br/> +And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.<br/> +Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’<br/> +We are not now that strength which in old days<br/> +Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;<br/> +One equal temper of heroic hearts,<br/> +Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will<br/> +To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-466" id="linknote-466"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-466">[1]</a> +Virgil, <i>Æn</i>., i., 748, and iii., 516. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-467" id="linknote-467"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-467">[2]</a> +<i>Odyssey</i>, i., 1-4. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-468" id="linknote-468"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-468">[3]</a> +<i>Cf</i>. Shakespeare, <i>Troilus and Cressida</i>:—<br/> +<br/> +Perseverance, dear, my lord,<br/> +Keeps honour bright: To have done, is to hang<br/> +Quite out of fashion, like a rusty nail<br/> +In monumental mockery. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-469" id="linknote-469"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-469">[4]</a> +How admirably has Tennyson touched off the character of the Telemachus of the +<i>Odyssey</i>. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-470" id="linknote-470"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-470">[5]</a> +The Happy Isles, the <i>Fortunatæ Insulæ</i> of the Romans and the +αἱ τῶν Μακάρων +νῆσοι of the Greeks, have been identified by +geographers as those islands in the Atlantic off the west coast of Africa; some +take them to mean the Canary Islands, the Madeira group and the Azores, while +they may have included the Cape de Verde Islands as well. What seems certain is +that these places with their soft delicious climate and lovely scenery gave the +poets an idea of a happy abode for departed spirits, and so the conception of +the <i>Elysian Fields</i>. The <i>loci classici</i> on these abodes are Homer, +Odyssey, iv., 563 <i>seqq.</i>:— +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +ᾁλλά σ’ ες +Ἠλύσιον +πεδίον καὶ +πέιρατα +γαιής +<br/> +ἀθάνατοι +πέμψουσιν, +ὅθι ξανθὸς +Ῥαδάμανθυς +<br/> +τῇ περ ῥηίστη +βιοτὴ πέλει +ἀνθρώποισιν, +<br/> +οὐ νιφετὸς, οὔτ’ +ἄρ χειμὼν πολὺς, +οὔτε ποτ’ ὄμβρος +<br/> +ἀλλ’ άιεὶ +Ζεφύροιο λιγὺ +πνέιοντας +ἀήτας +<br/> +ὠκεανὸς ἀνιήσιν +ἀναψύχειν +ἀνθρώπους. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[But the Immortals will convey thee to the Elysian plain and the world’s +limits where is Rhadamanthus of the golden hair, where life is easiest for man; +no snow is there, no nor no great storm, nor any rain, but always ocean sendeth +forth the shrilly breezes of the West to cool and refresh men.], and Pindar, +<i>Olymp</i>., ii., 178 <i>seqq</i>., compared with the splendid fragment at +the beginning of the <i>Dirges</i>. Elysium was afterwards placed in the +netherworld, as by Virgil. Thus, as so often the suggestion was from the facts +of geography, the rest soon became an allegorical myth, and to attempt to +identify and localise “the Happy Isles” is as great an absurdity as +to attempt to identify and localise the island of Shakespeare’s +<i>Tempest</i>. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap63"></a>Locksley Hall</h3> + +<p> +First published in 1842, and no alterations were made in it subsequently to the +edition of 1850; except that in the Selections published in 1865 in the third +stanza the reading was “half in ruin” for “in the +distance”. This poem, as Tennyson explained, was not autobiographic but +purely imaginary, “representing young life, its good side, its +deficiences and its yearnings”. The poem, he added, was written in +Trochaics because the elder Hallam told him that the English people liked that +metre. The hero is a sort of preliminary sketch of the hero in <i>Maud</i>, the +position and character of each being very similar: both are cynical and +querulous, and break out into tirades against their kind and society; both have +been disappointed in love, and both find the same remedy for their afflictions +by mixing themselves with action and becoming “one with their +kind”. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Locksley Hall</i> was suggested, as Tennyson acknowledged, by Sir William +Jones’ translation of the old Arabian Moâllakât, a collection from the +works of pre-Mahommedan poets. See Sir William Jones’ works, quarto +edition, vol. iv., pp. 247-57. But only one of these poems, namely the poem of +Amriolkais, could have immediately influenced him. In this the poet supposes +himself attended on a journey by a company of friends, and they pass near a +place where his mistress had lately lived, but from which her tribe had then +removed. He desires them to stop awhile, that he may weep over the deserted +remains of her tent. They comply with his request, but exhort him to show more +strength of mind, and urge two topics of consolation, namely, that he had +before been equally unhappy and that he had enjoyed his full share of +pleasures. Thus by the recollection of his past delights his imagination is +kindled and his grief suspended. But Tennyson’s chief indebtedness is +rather in the oriental colouring given to his poem, chiefly in the sentiment +and imagery. Thus in the couplet— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Many a night I saw the Pleiads rising through the mellow shade<br/> +Glitter like a swarm of fireflies tangl’d in a silver braid, +</p> + +<p> +we are reminded of “It was the hour when the Pleiads appeared in the +firmament like the folds of a silken sash variously decked with +gems”.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet ’tis early morn:<br/> +Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle horn.<br/> +<br/> +’Tis the place, and all around it,<a href="#linknote-471" name="linknoteref-471" id="linknoteref-471"><sup>[1]</sup></a> as of old, the curlews call,<br/> +Dreary gleams<a href="#linknote-472" name="linknoteref-472" id="linknoteref-472"><sup>[2]</sup></a> about the moorland flying over Locksley Hall;<br/> +<br/> +Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts,<br/> +And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts.<br/> +<br/> +Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest,<br/> +Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West.<br/> +<br/> +Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro’ the mellow shade,<br/> +Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid.<br/> +<br/> +Here about the beach I wander’d, nourishing a youth sublime<br/> +With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of Time;<br/> +<br/> +When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed;<br/> +When I clung to all the present for the promise that it closed:<br/> +<br/> +When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see;<br/> +Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be.—<br/> +<br/> +In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin’s<a href="#linknote-473" name="linknoteref-473" id="linknoteref-473"><sup>[3]</sup></a> breast;<br/> +In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest;<br/> +<br/> +In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish’d dove;<br/> +In the Spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.<br/> +<br/> +Then her cheek was pale and thinner than should be for one so young,<br/> +And her eyes on all my motions with a mute observance hung.<br/> +<br/> +And I said, “My cousin Amy, speak, and speak the truth to me,<br/> +Trust me, cousin, all the current of my being sets to thee.”<br/> +<br/> +On her pallid cheek and forehead came a colour and a light,<br/> +As I have seen the rosy red flushing in the northern night.<br/> +<br/> +And she turn’d—her bosom shaken with a sudden storm of sighs—<br/> +All the spirit deeply dawning in the dark of hazel eyes—<br/> +<br/> +Saying, “I have hid my feelings, fearing they should do me wrong”;<br/> +Saying, “Dost thou love me, cousin?” weeping, “I have loved thee long”.<br/> +<br/> +Love took up the glass of Time, and turn’d it in his glowing hands;<br/> +Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands.<a href="#linknote-474" name="linknoteref-474" id="linknoteref-474"><sup>[4]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might;<br/> +Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass’d in music out of sight.<br/> +<br/> +Many a morning on the moorland did we hear the copses ring,<br/> +And her whisper throng’d my pulses with the fulness of the Spring.<br/> +<br/> +Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately ships,<br/> +And our spirits rush’d together at the touching of the lips.<a href="#linknote-475" name="linknoteref-475" id="linknoteref-475"><sup>[5]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +O my cousin, shallow-hearted! O my Amy, mine no more!<br/> +O the dreary, dreary moorland! O the barren, barren shore!<br/> +<br/> +Falser than all fancy fathoms, falser than all songs have sung,<br/> +Puppet to a father’s threat, and servile to a shrewish tongue!<br/> +<br/> +Is it well to wish thee happy?—having known me—to decline<br/> +On a range of lower feelings and a narrower heart than mine!<br/> +<br/> +Yet it shall be: thou shalt lower to his level day by day,<br/> +What is fine within thee growing coarse to sympathise with clay.<br/> +<br/> +As the husband is, the wife is: thou art mated with a clown,<br/> +And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down.<br/> +<br/> +He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force,<br/> +Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse.<br/> +<br/> +What is this? his eyes are heavy: think not they are glazed with wine.<br/> +Go to him: it is thy duty: kiss him: take his hand in thine.<br/> +<br/> +It may be my lord is weary, that his brain is overwrought:<br/> +Soothe him with thy finer fancies, touch him with thy lighter thought.<br/> +<br/> +He will answer to the purpose, easy things to understand—<br/> +Better thou wert dead before me, tho’ I slew thee with my hand!<br/> +<br/> +Better thou and I were lying, hidden from the heart’s disgrace,<br/> +Roll’d in one another’s arms, and silent in a last embrace.<br/> +<br/> +Cursed be the social wants that sin against the strength of youth!<br/> +Cursed be the social lies that warp us from the living truth!<br/> +<br/> +Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest Nature’s rule!<br/> +Cursed be the gold that gilds the straiten’d forehead of the fool!<br/> +<br/> +Well—’tis well that I should bluster!—Hadst thou less unworthy proved—<br/> +Would to God—for I had loved thee more than ever wife was loved.<br/> +<br/> +Am I mad, that I should cherish that which bears but bitter fruit?<br/> +I will pluck it from my bosom, tho’ my heart be at the root.<br/> +<br/> +Never, tho’ my mortal summers to such length of years should come<br/> +As the many-winter’d crow that leads the clanging rookery home.<a href="#linknote-476" name="linknoteref-476" id="linknoteref-476"><sup>[6]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +Where is comfort? in division of the records of the mind?<br/> +Can I part her from herself, and love her, as I knew her, kind?<br/> +<br/> +I remember one that perish’d: sweetly did she speak and move:<br/> +Such a one do I remember, whom to look it was to love.<br/> +<br/> +Can I think of her as dead, and love her for the love she bore?<br/> +No—she never loved me truly: love is love for evermore.<br/> +<br/> +Comfort? comfort scorn’d of devils! this is truth the poet sings,<br/> +That a sorrow’s crown of sorrow<a href="#linknote-477" name="linknoteref-477" id="linknoteref-477"><sup>[7]</sup></a> is remembering happier things.<br/> +<br/> +Drug thy memories, lest thou learn it, lest thy heart be put to proof,<br/> +In the dead unhappy night, and when the rain is on the roof.<br/> +<br/> +Like a dog, he hunts in dreams, and thou art staring at the wall,<br/> +Where the dying night-lamp flickers, and the shadows rise and fall.<br/> +<br/> +Then a hand shall pass before thee, pointing to his drunken sleep,<br/> +To thy widow’d marriage-pillows, to the tears that thou wilt weep.<br/> +<br/> +Thou shalt hear the “Never, never,” whisper’d by the phantom years,<br/> +And a song from out the distance in the ringing of thine ears;<br/> +<br/> +And an eye shall vex thee, looking ancient kindness on thy pain.<br/> +Turn thee, turn thee on thy pillow: get thee to thy rest again.<br/> +<br/> +Nay, but Nature brings thee solace; for a tender voice will cry,<br/> +’Tis a purer life than thine; a lip to drain thy trouble dry.<br/> +<br/> +Baby lips will laugh me down: my latest rival brings thee rest.<br/> +Baby fingers, waxen touches, press me from the mother’s breast.<br/> +<br/> +O, the child too clothes the father with a dearness not his due.<br/> +Half is thine and half is his: it will be worthy of the two.<br/> +<br/> +O, I see thee old and formal, fitted to thy petty part,<br/> +With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter’s +heart.<br/> +<br/> +“They were dangerous guides the feelings—she herself was not exempt—<br/> +Truly, she herself had suffer’d”—Perish in thy self-contempt!<br/> +<br/> +Overlive it—lower yet—be happy! wherefore should I care,<br/> +I myself must mix with action, lest I wither by despair.<br/> +<br/> +What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon days like these?<br/> +Every door is barr’d with gold, and opens but to golden keys.<br/> +<br/> +Every gate is throng’d with suitors, all the markets overflow.<br/> +I have but an angry fancy: what is that which I should do?<br/> +<br/> +I had been content to perish, falling on the foeman’s ground,<br/> +When the ranks are roll’d in vapour, and the winds are laid with sound.<br/> +<br/> +But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that Honour feels,<br/> +And the nations do but murmur, snarling at each other’s heels.<br/> +<br/> +Can I but relive in sadness? I will turn that earlier page.<br/> +Hide me from my deep emotion, O thou wondrous Mother-Age!<br/> +<br/> +Make me feel the wild pulsation that I felt before the strife,<br/> +When I heard my days before me, and the tumult of my life;<br/> +<br/> +Yearning for the large excitement that the coming years would yield,<br/> +Eager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves his father’s field,<br/> +<br/> +And at night along the dusky highway near and nearer drawn,<br/> +Sees in heaven the light of London flaring like a dreary dawn;<a href="#linknote-478" name="linknoteref-478" id="linknoteref-478"><sup>[8]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +And his spirit leaps within him to be gone before him then,<br/> +Underneath the light he looks at, in among the throngs of men;<br/> +<br/> +Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new:<br/> +That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do:<br/> +<br/> +For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,<br/> +Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;<a href="#linknote-479" name="linknoteref-479" id="linknoteref-479"><sup>[9]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,<br/> +Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales;<a href="#linknote-480" name="linknoteref-480" id="linknoteref-480"><sup>[10]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain’d a ghastly dew<br/> +From the nations’ airy navies grappling in the central blue;<a href="#linknote-481" name="linknoteref-481" id="linknoteref-481"><sup>[10]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm,<br/> +With the standards of the peoples plunging thro’ the thunderstorm;<a href="#linknote-482" name="linknoteref-482" id="linknoteref-482"><sup>[10]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were furl’d<br/> +In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.<a href="#linknote-483" name="linknoteref-483" id="linknoteref-483"><sup>[10]</sup></a> +<br/> +<br/> +There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,<br/> +And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.<br/> +<br/> +So I triumph’d, ere my passion sweeping thro’ me left me dry,<br/> +Left me with the palsied heart, and left me with the jaundiced eye;<br/> +<br/> +Eye, to which all order festers, all things here are out of joint,<br/> +Science moves, but slowly slowly, creeping on from point to point:<br/> +<br/> +Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lion, creeping nigher,<a href="#linknote-484" name="linknoteref-484" id="linknoteref-484"><sup>[11]</sup></a><br/> +Glares at one that nods and winks behind a slowly-dying fire.<br/> +<br/> +Yet I doubt not thro’ the ages one increasing purpose runs,<br/> +And the thoughts of men are widen’d with the process of the suns.<br/> +<br/> +What is that to him that reaps not harvest of his youthful joys,<br/> +Tho’ the deep heart of existence beat for ever like a boy’s?<br/> +<br/> +Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I linger on the shore,<br/> +And the individual withers, and the world is more and more.<br/> +<br/> +Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and he bears a laden breast,<br/> +Full of sad experience, moving toward the stillness of his rest.<br/> +<br/> +Hark, my merry comrades call me, sounding on the bugle-horn,<br/> +They to whom my foolish passion were a target for their scorn:<br/> +<br/> +Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a moulder’d string?<br/> +I am shamed thro’ all my nature to have loved so slight a thing.<br/> +<br/> +Weakness to be wroth with weakness! woman’s pleasure, woman’s pain—<a href="#linknote-485" name="linknoteref-485" id="linknoteref-485"><sup>[12]</sup></a><br/> +Nature made them blinder motions bounded in a shallower brain:<br/> +<br/> +Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, match’d with mine,<br/> +Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine—<br/> +<br/> +Here at least, where nature sickens, nothing. Ah, for some retreat<br/> +Deep in yonder shining Orient, where my life began to beat;<br/> +<br/> +Where in wild Mahratta-battle fell my father evil-starr’d;—<br/> +I was left a trampled orphan, and a selfish uncle’s ward.<br/> +<br/> +Or to burst all links of habit—there to wander far away,<br/> +On from island unto island at the gateways of the day.<br/> +<br/> +Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies,<br/> +Breadths of tropic shade and palms in cluster, knots of Paradise.<a href="#linknote-486" name="linknoteref-486" id="linknoteref-486"><sup>[13]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +Never comes the trader, never floats an European flag,<br/> +Slides the bird o’er lustrous woodland, swings the trailer<a href="#linknote-487" name="linknoteref-487" id="linknoteref-487"><sup>[14]</sup></a> from the crag;<br/> +<br/> +Droops the heavy-blossom’d bower, hangs the heavy-fruited tree—<br/> +Summer isles of Eden lying in dark-purple spheres of sea.<br/> +<br/> +There methinks would be enjoyment more than in this march of mind,<br/> +In the steamship, in the railway, in the thoughts that shake mankind.<br/> +<br/> +There the passions cramp’d no longer shall have scope and breathing-space;<br/> +I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my dusky race.<br/> +<br/> +Iron-jointed, supple-sinew’d, they shall dive, and they shall run,<br/> +Catch the wild goat by the hair, and hurl their lances in the sun;<br/> +<br/> +Whistle back the parrot’s call, and leap the rainbows of the brooks.<br/> +Not with blinded eyesight poring over miserable books—<br/> +<br/> +Fool, again the dream, the fancy! but I <i>know</i> my words are wild,<br/> +<a name="haunted">But</a> I count the gray barbarian lower than the Christian child.<br/> +<br/> +<i>I</i>, to herd with narrow foreheads, vacant of our glorious gains,<a href="#linknote-488" name="linknoteref-488" id="linknoteref-488"><sup>[15]</sup></a><br/> +Like a beast with lower pleasures, like a beast with lower pains!<br/> +<br/> +Mated with a squalid savage—what to me were sun or clime?<br/> +I the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time—<br/> +<br/> +I that rather held it better men should perish one by one,<br/> +Than that earth should stand at gaze like Joshua’s moon in Ajalon!<br/> +<br/> +Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us range.<br/> +Let the great world spin<a href="#linknote-489" name="linknoteref-489" id="linknoteref-489"><sup>[16]</sup></a> for ever down the ringing grooves<a href="#linknote-490" name="linknoteref-490" id="linknoteref-490"><sup>[17]</sup></a> of change.<br/> +<br/> +Thro’ the shadow of the globe<a href="#linknote-491" name="linknoteref-491" id="linknoteref-491"><sup>[18]</sup></a> we sweep into the younger day:<br/> +Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.<a href="#linknote-492" name="linknoteref-492" id="linknoteref-492"><sup>[19]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +Mother-Age (for mine I knew not) help me as when life begun:<br/> +Rift the hills, and roll the waters, flash the lightnings, weigh the Sun—<a href="#linknote-493" name="linknoteref-493" id="linknoteref-493"><sup>[20]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +O, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath not set.<br/> +Ancient founts of inspiration well thro’ all my fancy yet.<br/> +<br/> +Howsoever these things be, a long farewell to Locksley Hall!<br/> +Now for me the woods may wither, now for me the roof-tree fall.<br/> +<br/> +Comes a vapour from the margin, blackening over heath and holt,<br/> +Cramming all the blast before it, in its breast a thunderbolt.<br/> +<br/> +Let it fall on Locksley Hall, with rain or hail, or fire or snow;<br/> +For the mighty wind arises, roaring seaward, and I go. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-471" id="linknote-471"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-471">[1]</a> +1842. And round the gables. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-472" id="linknote-472"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-472">[2]</a> +“Gleams,” it appears, is a Lincolnshire word for the cry of the +curlew, and so by removing the comma after call we get an interpretation which +perhaps improves the sense and certainly gets rid of a very un-Tennysonian +cumbrousness in the second line. But Tennyson had never, he said, heard of that +meaning of “gleams,” adding he wished he had. He meant nothing more +in the passage than “to express the flying gleams of light across a +dreary moorland when looking at it under peculiarly dreary +circumstances”. See for this, <i>Life</i>, iii., 82. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-473" id="linknote-473"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-473">[3]</a> +1842 and all up to and including 1850 have a capital <i>R</i> to robin. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-474" id="linknote-474"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-474">[4]</a> +Cf. W. R. Spencer (<i>Poems</i>, p. 166):—<br/> +<br/> +What eye with clear account remarks<br/> +The ebbing of his glass,<br/> +When all its sands are diamond sparks<br/> +That dazzle as they pass.<br/> +<br/> +But this is of course in no way parallel to Tennyson’s subtly beautiful +image, which he himself pronounced to be the best simile he had ever made. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-475" id="linknote-475"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-475">[5]</a> +Cf. Guarini, <i>Pastor Fido</i>:—<br/> +<br/> +Ma i colpi di due labbre innamorate<br/> +Quando a ferir si va bocca con bocca,<br/> +... ove l’ un alma e l’altra Corre. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-476" id="linknote-476"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-476">[6]</a> +<i>Cf.</i> Horace’s <i>Annosa Cornix</i>, Odes III., xvii., 13. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-477" id="linknote-477"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-477">[7]</a> +The reference is to Dante, <i>Inferno</i>, v. 121-3:—<br/> +<br/> +Nessun maggior dolore<br/> +Che ricordarsi del tempo felice<br/> +Nella miseria.<br/> +<br/> +For the pedigree and history of this see the present editor’s +<i>Illustrations of Tennyson</i>, p. 63. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-478" id="linknote-478"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-478">[8]</a> +The epithet “dreary” shows that Tennyson preferred realistic +picturesqueness to dramatic propriety. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-479" id="linknote-479"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-479">[9]</a> +See the introductory note to <i>The Golden Year</i>. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-480" id="linknote-480"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-480">[10]</a> +<a name="linknote-481" id="linknote-481"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-481"></a> +<a name="linknote-482" id="linknote-482"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-482"></a> +<a name="linknote-483" id="linknote-483"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-483"></a> +See the introductory note to <i>The Golden Year</i>. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-484" id="linknote-484"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-484">[11]</a> +Tennyson said that this simile was suggested by a passage in <i>Pringle’s +Travels;</i> the incident only is described, and with thrilling vividness, by +Pringle; but its application in simile is Tennyson’s. See <i>A Narrative +of a Residence in South Africa</i>, by Thomas Pringle, p. 39:<br/> +<br/> +“The night was extremely dark and the rain fell so heavily that in spite +of the abundant supply of dry firewood, which we had luckily provided, it was +not without difficulty that we could keep one watchfire burning.... About +midnight we were suddenly roused by the roar of a lion close to our tents. It +was so loud and tremendous that for the moment I actually thought that a +thunderstorm had burst upon us.... We roused up the half-extinguished fire to a +roaring blaze ... this unwonted display probably daunted our grim visitor, for +he gave us no further trouble that night.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-485" id="linknote-485"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-485">[12]</a> +With this <i>cf</i>. Leopardi, <i>Aspasia</i>, 53-60:—<br/> +<br/> +Non cape in quelle<br/> +Anguste fronti ugual concetto. E male<br/> +Al vivo sfolgora di quegli sguardi<br/> +Spera l’uomo ingannato, e mal chiede<br/> +Sensi profondi, sconosciuti, è molto<br/> +Più che virili, in chi dell’ uomo al tutto<br/> +Da natura è minor. Che se più molli<br/> +E più tenui le membra, essa la mente<br/> +Men capace e men forte anco riceve. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-486" id="linknote-486"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-486">[13]</a> +One wonders Tennyson could have had the heart to excise the beautiful couplet +which in his MS. followed this stanza.<br/> +<br/> +All about a summer ocean, leagues on leagues of golden calm,<br/> +And within melodious waters rolling round the knolls of palm. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-487" id="linknote-487"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-487">[14]</a> +1842 and all up to and inclusive of 1850. Droops the trailer. This is one of +Tennyson’s many felicitous corrections. In the monotonous, motionless +splendour of a tropical landscape the smallest movement catches the eye, the +flight of a bird, the gentle waving of the trailer stirred by the breeze from +the sea. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-488" id="linknote-488"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-488">[15]</a> +<i>Cf</i>. Shakespeare, “foreheads villainously low”. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-489" id="linknote-489"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-489">[16]</a> +1842. Peoples spin. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-490" id="linknote-490"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-490">[17]</a> +Tennyson tells us that when he travelled by the first train from Liverpool to +Manchester in 1830 it was night and he thought that the wheels ran in a groove, +hence this line. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-491" id="linknote-491"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-491">[18]</a> +1842. The world. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-492" id="linknote-492"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-492">[19]</a> +Cathay, the old name for China. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-493" id="linknote-493"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-493">[20]</a> +<i>Cf</i>. Tasso, <i>Gems</i>, ix., st. 91:—<br/> +<br/> +Nuova nube di polve ecco vicina<br/> +Che fulgori in grembo tiene.<br/> +<br/> +(Lo! a fresh cloud of dust is near which<br/> +Carries in its breast thunderbolts.) +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap64"></a>Godiva</h3> + +<p> +First published in 1842. No alteration was made in any subsequent edition. +</p> + +<p> +The poem was written in 1840 when Tennyson was returning from Coventry to +London, after his visit to Warwickshire in that year. The Godiva pageant takes +place in that town at the great fair on Friday in Trinity week. Earl Leofric +was the Lord of Coventry in the reign of Edward the Confessor, and he and his +wife Godiva founded a magnificent Benedictine monastery at Coventry. The first +writer who mentions this legend is Matthew of Westminster, who wrote in 1307, +that is some 250 years after Leofric’s time, and what authority he had +for it is not known. It is certainly not mentioned by the many preceding +writers who have left accounts of Leofric and Godiva (see Gough’s edition +of Camden’s <i>Britannia</i>, vol. ii., p. 346, and for a full account of +the legend see W. Reader, <i>The History and Description of Coventry Show Fair, +with the History of Leofric and Godiva</i>). With Tennyson’s should be +compared Moultrie’s beautiful poem on the same subject, and +Landor’s Imaginary Conversation between Leofric and Godiva.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"><a href="#linknote-494" name="linknoteref-494" id="linknoteref-494"><sup>[1]</sup></a> <i>I waited for the train at Coventry;<br/> +I hung with grooms and porters on the bridge,<br/> +To match the three tall spires;</i><a href="#linknote-495" name="linknoteref-495" id="linknoteref-495"><sup>[2]</sup></a> <i>and there I shaped<br/> +The city’s ancient legend into this:</i><br/> + Not only we, the latest seed of Time,<br/> +New men, that in the flying of a wheel<br/> +Cry down the past, not only we, that prate<br/> +Of rights and wrongs, have loved the people well,<br/> +And loathed to see them overtax’d; but she<br/> +Did more, and underwent, and overcame,<br/> +The woman of a thousand summers back,<br/> +Godiva, wife to that grim Earl, who ruled<br/> +In Coventry: for when he laid a tax<br/> +Upon his town, and all the mothers brought<br/> +Their children, clamouring, “If we pay, we starve!”<br/> +She sought her lord, and found him, where he strode<br/> +About the hall, among his dogs, alone,<br/> +His beard a foot before him, and his hair<br/> +A yard behind. She told him of their tears,<br/> +And pray’d him, “If they pay this tax, they starve”.<br/> +Whereat he stared, replying, half-amazed,<br/> +“You would not let your little finger ache<br/> +For such as <i>these</i>?”—“But I would die,” said she.<br/> +He laugh’d, and swore by Peter and by Paul;<br/> +Then fillip’d at the diamond in her ear;<br/> +“O ay, ay, ay, you talk!”—“Alas!” she said,<br/> +“But prove me what it is I would not do.”<br/> +And from a heart as rough as Esau’s hand,<br/> +He answer’d, “Ride you naked thro’ the town,<br/> +And I repeal it”; and nodding as in scorn,<br/> +He parted, with great strides among his dogs.<br/> + So left alone, the passions of her mind,<br/> +As winds from all the compass shift and blow,<br/> +Made war upon each other for an hour,<br/> +Till pity won. She sent a herald forth,<br/> +And bad him cry, with sound of trumpet, all<br/> +The hard condition; but that she would loose<br/> +The people: therefore, as they loved her well,<br/> +From then till noon no foot should pace the street,<br/> +No eye look down, she passing; but that all<br/> +Should keep within, door shut, and window barr’d.<br/> + Then fled she to her inmost bower, and there<br/> +Unclasp’d the wedded eagles of her belt,<br/> +The grim Earl’s gift; but ever at a breath<br/> +She linger’d, looking like a summer moon<br/> +Half-dipt in cloud: anon she shook her head,<br/> +And shower’d the rippled ringlets to her knee;<br/> +Unclad herself in haste; adown the stair<br/> +Stole on; and, like a creeping sunbeam, slid<br/> +From pillar unto pillar, until she reach’d<br/> +The gateway; there she found her palfrey trapt<br/> +In purple blazon’d with armorial gold.<br/> + Then she rode forth, clothed on with chastity:<br/> +The deep air listen’d round her as she rode,<br/> +And all the low wind hardly breathed for fear.<br/> +The little wide-mouth’d heads upon the spout<br/> +Had cunning eyes to see: the barking cur<br/> +Made her cheek flame: her palfrey’s footfall shot<br/> +Light horrors thro’ her pulses: the blind walls<br/> +Were full of chinks and holes; and overhead<br/> +Fantastic gables, crowding, stared: but she<br/> +Not less thro’ all bore up, till, last, she saw<br/> +The white-flower’d elder-thicket from the field<br/> +Gleam thro’ the Gothic archways<a href="#linknote-496" name="linknoteref-496" id="linknoteref-496"><sup>[3]</sup></a> in the wall.<br/> + Then she rode back cloth’d on with chastity:<br/> +And one low churl,<a href="#linknote-497" name="linknoteref-497" id="linknoteref-497"><sup>[4]</sup></a> compact of thankless earth,<br/> +The fatal byword of all years to come,<br/> +Boring a little auger-hole in fear,<br/> +Peep’d—but his eyes, before they had their will,<br/> +Were shrivell’d into darkness in his head,<br/> +And dropt before him. So the Powers, who wait<br/> +On noble deeds, cancell’d a sense misused;<br/> +And she, that knew not, pass’d: and all at once,<br/> +With twelve great shocks of sound, the shameless noon<br/> +Was clash’d and hammer’d from a hundred towers,<a href="#linknote-498" name="linknoteref-498" id="linknoteref-498"><sup>[5]</sup></a><br/> +One after one: but even then she gain’d<br/> +Her bower; whence reissuing, robed and crown’d,<br/> +To meet her lord, she took the tax away,<br/> +And built herself an everlasting name. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-494" id="linknote-494"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-494">[1]</a> +These four lines are not in the privately printed volume of 1842, but were +added afterwards. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-495" id="linknote-495"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-495">[2]</a> +St. Michael’s, Trinity, and St. John. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-496" id="linknote-496"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-496">[3]</a> +1844. Archway. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-497" id="linknote-497"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-497">[4]</a> +His effigy is still to be seen, protruded from an upper window in High Street, +Coventry. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-498" id="linknote-498"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-498">[5]</a> +A most poetical licence. Thirty-two towers are the very utmost allowed by +writers on ancient Coventry. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap65"></a>The Two Voices</h3> + +<p> +First published in 1842, though begun as early as 1833 and in course of +composition in 1834. See Spedding’s letter dated 19th September, 1834. +Its original title was <i>The Thoughts of a Suicide</i>. No alterations were +made in the poem after 1842. +</p> + +<p> +It adds interest to this poem to know that it is autobiographical. It was +written soon after the death of Arthur Hallam when Tennyson’s depression +was deepest. “When I wrote <i>The Two Voices</i> I was so utterly +miserable, a burden to myself and to my family, that I said, ‘Is life +worth anything?’” It is the history—as Spedding put +it—of the agitations, the suggestions and counter-suggestions of a mind +sunk in hopeless despondency, and meditating self-destruction, together with +the manner of its recovery to a more healthy condition. We have two singularly +interesting parallels to it in preceding poetry. The one is in the third book +of Lucretius (830-1095), where the arguments for suicide are urged, not merely +by the poet himself, but by arguments placed by him in the mouth of Nature +herself, and urged with such cogency that they are said to have induced one of +his editors and translators, Creech, to put an end to his life. The other is in +Spenser, in the dialogue between Despair and the Red Cross Knight, where +Despair puts the case for self-destruction, and the Red Cross Knight rebuts the +arguments (<i>Faerie Queene</i>, I. ix., st. xxxviii.-liv.).<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +A still small voice spake unto me,<br/> +“Thou art so full of misery,<br/> +Were it not better not to be?”<br/> +<br/> +Then to the still small voice I said;<br/> +“Let me not cast in endless shade<br/> +What is so wonderfully made”.<br/> +<br/> +To which the voice did urge reply;<br/> +“To-day I saw the dragon-fly<br/> +Come from the wells where he did lie.<br/> +<br/> +“An inner impulse rent the veil<br/> +Of his old husk: from head to tail<br/> +Came out clear plates of sapphire mail.<br/> +<br/> +“He dried his wings: like gauze they grew:<br/> +Thro’ crofts and pastures wet with dew<br/> +A living flash of light he flew.”<br/> +<br/> +I said, “When first the world began<br/> +Young Nature thro’ five cycles ran,<br/> +And in the sixth she moulded man.<br/> +<br/> +“She gave him mind, the lordliest<br/> +Proportion, and, above the rest,<br/> +Dominion in the head and breast.”<br/> +<br/> +Thereto the silent voice replied;<br/> +“Self-blinded are you by your pride:<br/> +Look up thro’ night: the world is wide.<br/> +<br/> +“This truth within thy mind rehearse,<br/> +That in a boundless universe<br/> +Is boundless better, boundless worse.<br/> +<br/> +“Think you this mould of hopes and fears<br/> +Could find no statelier than his peers<br/> +In yonder hundred million spheres?”<br/> +<br/> +It spake, moreover, in my mind:<br/> +“Tho’ thou wert scatter’d to the wind,<br/> +Yet is there plenty of the kind”.<br/> +<br/> +Then did my response clearer fall:<br/> +“No compound of this earthly ball<br/> +Is like another, all in all”.<br/> +<br/> +To which he answer’d scoffingly;<br/> +“Good soul! suppose I grant it thee,<br/> +Who’ll weep for thy deficiency?<br/> +<br/> +“Or will one beam<a href="#linknote-499" name="linknoteref-499" id="linknoteref-499"><sup>[1]</sup></a> be less intense,<br/> +When thy peculiar difference<br/> +Is cancell’d in the world of sense?”<br/> +<br/> +I would have said, “Thou canst not know,”<br/> +But my full heart, that work’d below,<br/> +Rain’d thro’ my sight its overflow.<br/> +<br/> +Again the voice spake unto me:<br/> +“Thou art so steep’d in misery,<br/> +Surely ’twere better not to be.<br/> +<br/> +“Thine anguish will not let thee sleep,<br/> +Nor any train of reason keep:<br/> +Thou canst not think, but thou wilt weep.”<br/> +<br/> +I said, “The years with change advance:<br/> +If I make dark my countenance,<br/> +I shut my life from happier chance.<br/> +<br/> +“Some turn this sickness yet might take,<br/> +Ev’n yet.” But he: “What drug can make<br/> +A wither’d palsy cease to shake?”<br/> +<br/> +I wept, “Tho’ I should die, I know<br/> +That all about the thorn will blow<br/> +In tufts of rosy-tinted snow;<br/> +<br/> +“And men, thro’ novel spheres of thought<br/> +Still moving after truth long sought,<br/> +Will learn new things when I am not.”<br/> +<br/> +“Yet,” said the secret voice, “some time,<br/> +Sooner or later, will gray prime<br/> +Make thy grass hoar with early rime.<br/> +<br/> +“Not less swift souls that yearn for light,<br/> +Rapt after heaven’s starry flight,<br/> +Would sweep the tracts of day and night.<br/> +<br/> +“Not less the bee would range her cells,<br/> +The furzy prickle fire the dells,<br/> +The foxglove cluster dappled bells.”<br/> +<br/> +I said that “all the years invent;<br/> +Each month is various to present<br/> +The world with some development.<br/> +<br/> +“Were this not well, to bide mine hour,<br/> +Tho’ watching from a ruin’d tower<br/> +How grows the day of human power?”<br/> +<br/> +“The highest-mounted mind,” he said,<br/> +“Still sees the sacred morning spread<br/> +The silent summit overhead.<br/> +<br/> +“Will thirty seasons render plain<br/> +Those lonely lights that still remain,<br/> +Just breaking over land and main?<br/> +<br/> +“Or make that morn, from his cold crown<br/> +And crystal silence creeping down,<br/> +Flood with full daylight glebe and town?<br/> +<br/> +“Forerun thy peers, thy time, and let<br/> +Thy feet, millenniums hence, be set<br/> +In midst of knowledge, dream’d not yet.<br/> +<br/> +“Thou hast not gain’d a real height,<br/> +Nor art thou nearer to the light,<br/> +Because the scale is infinite.<br/> +<br/> +“’Twere better not to breathe or speak,<br/> +Than cry for strength, remaining weak,<br/> +And seem to find, but still to seek.<br/> +<br/> +“Moreover, but to seem to find<br/> +Asks what thou lackest, thought resign’d,<br/> +A healthy frame, a quiet mind.”<br/> +<br/> +I said, “When I am gone away,<br/> +‘He dared not tarry,’ men will say,<br/> +Doing dishonour to my clay.”<br/> +<br/> +“This is more vile,” he made reply,<br/> +“To breathe and loathe, to live and sigh,<br/> +Than once from dread of pain to die.<br/> +<br/> +“Sick art thou—a divided will<br/> +Still heaping on the fear of ill<br/> +The fear of men, a coward still.<br/> +<br/> +“Do men love thee? Art thou so bound<br/> +To men, that how thy name may sound<br/> +Will vex thee lying underground?<br/> +<br/> +“The memory of the wither’d leaf<br/> +In endless time is scarce more brief<br/> +Than of the garner’d Autumn-sheaf.<br/> +<br/> +“Go, vexed Spirit, sleep in trust;<br/> +The right ear, that is fill’d with dust,<br/> +Hears little of the false or just.”<br/> +<br/> +“Hard task, to pluck resolve,” I cried,<br/> +“From emptiness and the waste wide<br/> +Of that abyss, or scornful pride!<br/> +<br/> +“Nay—rather yet that I could raise<br/> +One hope that warm’d me in the days<br/> +While still I yearn’d for human praise.<br/> +<br/> +“When, wide in soul, and bold of tongue,<br/> +Among the tents I paused and sung,<br/> +The distant battle flash’d and rung.<br/> +<br/> +“I sung the joyful Paean clear,<br/> +And, sitting, burnish’d without fear<br/> +The brand, the buckler, and the spear—<br/> +<br/> +“Waiting to strive a happy strife,<br/> +To war with falsehood to the knife,<br/> +And not to lose the good of life—<br/> +<br/> +“Some hidden principle to move,<br/> +To put together, part and prove,<br/> +And mete the bounds of hate and love—<br/> +<br/> +“As far as might be, to carve out<br/> +Free space for every human doubt,<br/> +That the whole mind might orb about—<br/> +<br/> +“To search thro’ all I felt or saw,<br/> +The springs of life, the depths of awe,<br/> +And reach the law within the law:<br/> +<br/> +“At least, not rotting like a weed,<br/> +But, having sown some generous seed,<br/> +Fruitful of further thought and deed,<br/> +<br/> +“To pass, when Life her light withdraws,<br/> +Not void of righteous self-applause,<br/> +Nor in a merely selfish cause—<br/> +<br/> +“In some good cause, not in mine own,<br/> +To perish, wept for, honour’d, known,<br/> +And like a warrior overthrown;<br/> +<br/> +“Whose eyes are dim with glorious tears,<br/> +When, soil’d with noble dust, he hears<br/> +His country’s war-song thrill his ears:<br/> +<br/> +“Then dying of a mortal stroke,<br/> +What time the foeman’s line is broke.<br/> +And all the war is roll’d in smoke.”<a href="#linknote-500" name="linknoteref-500" id="linknoteref-500"><sup>[2]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +“Yea!” said the voice, “thy dream was good,<br/> +While thou abodest in the bud.<br/> +It was the stirring of the blood.<br/> +<br/> +“If Nature put not forth her power<a href="#linknote-501" name="linknoteref-501" id="linknoteref-501"><sup>[2]</sup></a><br/> +About the opening of the flower,<br/> +Who is it that could live an hour?<br/> +<br/> +“Then comes the check, the change, the fall.<br/> +Pain rises up, old pleasures pall.<br/> +There is one remedy for all.<br/> +<br/> +“Yet hadst thou, thro’ enduring pain,<br/> +Link’d month to month with such a chain<br/> +Of knitted purport, all were vain.<br/> +<br/> +“Thou hadst not between death and birth<br/> +Dissolved the riddle of the earth.<br/> +So were thy labour little worth.<br/> +<br/> +“That men with knowledge merely play’d,<br/> +I told thee—hardly nigher made,<br/> +Tho’ scaling slow from grade to grade;<br/> +<br/> +“Much less this dreamer, deaf and blind,<br/> +Named man, may hope some truth to find,<br/> +That bears relation to the mind.<br/> +<br/> +“For every worm beneath the moon<br/> +Draws different threads, and late and soon<br/> +Spins, toiling out his own cocoon.<br/> +<br/> +“Cry, faint not: either Truth is born<br/> +Beyond the polar gleam forlorn,<br/> +Or in the gateways of the morn.<br/> +<br/> +“Cry, faint not, climb: the summits slope<br/> +Beyond the furthest nights of hope,<br/> +Wrapt in dense cloud from base to cope.<br/> +<br/> +“Sometimes a little corner shines,<br/> +As over rainy mist inclines<br/> +A gleaming crag with belts of pines.<br/> +<br/> +“I will go forward, sayest thou,<br/> +I shall not fail to find her now.<br/> +Look up, the fold is on her brow.<br/> +<br/> +“If straight thy track, or if oblique,<br/> +Thou know’st not. Shadows thou dost strike,<br/> +Embracing cloud, Ixion-like;<br/> +<br/> +“And owning but a little more<br/> +Than beasts, abidest lame and poor,<br/> +Calling thyself a little lower<br/> +<br/> +“Than angels. Cease to wail and brawl!<br/> +Why inch by inch to darkness crawl?<br/> +There is one remedy for all.”<br/> +<br/> +“O dull, one-sided voice,” said I,<br/> +“Wilt thou make everything a lie,<br/> +To flatter me that I may die?<br/> +<br/> +“I know that age to age succeeds,<br/> +Blowing a noise of tongues and deeds,<br/> +A dust of systems and of creeds.<br/> +<br/> +“I cannot hide that some have striven,<br/> +Achieving calm, to whom was given<br/> +The joy that mixes man with Heaven:<br/> +<br/> +“Who, rowing hard against the stream,<br/> +Saw distant gates of Eden gleam,<br/> +And did not dream it was a dream”;<br/> +<br/> +“But heard, by secret transport led,<a href="#linknote-502" name="linknoteref-502" id="linknoteref-502"><sup>[3]</sup></a><br/> +Ev’n in the charnels of the dead,<br/> +The murmur of the fountain-head—<br/> +<br/> +“Which did accomplish their desire,—<br/> +Bore and forbore, and did not tire,<br/> +Like Stephen, an unquenched fire.<br/> +<br/> +“He heeded not reviling tones,<br/> +Nor sold his heart to idle moans,<br/> +Tho’ cursed and scorn’d, and bruised with stones:<br/> +<br/> +“But looking upward, full of grace,<br/> +He pray’d, and from a happy place<br/> +God’s glory smote him on the face.”<br/> +<br/> +The sullen answer slid betwixt:<br/> +“Not that the grounds of hope were fix’d,<br/> +The elements were kindlier mix’d.”<a href="#linknote-503" name="linknoteref-503" id="linknoteref-503"><sup>[4]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +I said, “I toil beneath the curse,<br/> +But, knowing not the universe,<br/> +I fear to slide from bad to worse.<a href="#linknote-504" name="linknoteref-504" id="linknoteref-504"><sup>[5]</sup></a>><br/> +<br/> +“And that, in seeking to undo<br/> +One riddle, and to find the true,<br/> +I knit a hundred others new:<br/> +<br/> +“Or that this anguish fleeting hence,<br/> +Unmanacled from bonds of sense,<br/> +Be fix’d and froz’n to permanence:<br/> +<br/> +“For I go, weak from suffering here;<br/> +Naked I go, and void of cheer:<br/> +What is it that I may not fear?”<br/> +<br/> +“Consider well,” the voice replied,<br/> +“His face, that two hours since hath died;<br/> +Wilt thou find passion, pain or pride?<br/> +<br/> +“Will he obey when one commands?<br/> +Or answer should one press his hands?<br/> +He answers not, nor understands.<br/> +<br/> +“His palms are folded on his breast:<br/> +There is no other thing express’d<br/> +But long disquiet merged in rest.<br/> +<br/> +“His lips are very mild and meek:<br/> +Tho’ one should smite him on the cheek,<br/> +And on the mouth, he will not speak.<br/> +<br/> +“His little daughter, whose sweet face<br/> +He kiss’d, taking his last embrace,<br/> +Becomes dishonour to her race—<br/> +<br/> +“His sons grow up that bear his name,<br/> +Some grow to honour, some to shame,—<br/> +But he is chill to praise or blame.<a href="#linknote-505" name="linknoteref-505" id="linknoteref-505"><sup>[6]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +“He will not hear the north wind rave,<br/> +Nor, moaning, household shelter crave<br/> +From winter rains that beat his grave.<br/> +<br/> +“High up the vapours fold and swim:<br/> +About him broods the twilight dim:<br/> +The place he knew forgetteth him.”<br/> +<br/> +“If all be dark, vague voice,” I said,<br/> +“These things are wrapt in doubt and dread,<br/> +Nor canst thou show the dead are dead.<br/> +“The sap dries up: the plant declines.<a href="#linknote-506" name="linknoteref-506" id="linknoteref-506"><sup>[7]</sup></a><br/> +A deeper tale my heart divines.<br/> +Know I not Death? the outward signs?<br/> +<br/> +“I found him when my years were few;<br/> +A shadow on the graves I knew,<br/> +And darkness in the village yew.<br/> +<br/> +“From grave to grave the shadow crept:<br/> +In her still place the morning wept:<br/> +Touch’d by his feet the daisy slept.<br/> +<br/> +“The simple senses crown’d his head:<a href="#linknote-507" name="linknoteref-507" id="linknoteref-507"><sup>[8]</sup></a><br/> +‘Omega! thou art Lord,’ they said;<br/> +‘We find no motion in the dead.’<br/> +<br/> +“Why, if man rot in dreamless ease,<br/> +Should that plain fact, as taught by these,<br/> +Not make him sure that he shall cease?<br/> +<br/> +“Who forged that other influence,<br/> +That heat of inward evidence,<br/> +By which he doubts against the sense?<br/> +<br/> +“He owns the fatal gift of eyes,<a href="#linknote-508" name="linknoteref-508" id="linknoteref-508"><sup>[9]</sup></a><br/> +That read his spirit blindly wise,<br/> +Not simple as a thing that dies.<br/> +<br/> +“Here sits he shaping wings to fly:<br/> +His heart forebodes a mystery:<br/> +He names the name Eternity.<br/> +<br/> +“That type of Perfect in his mind<br/> +In Nature can he nowhere find.<br/> +He sows himself in every wind.<br/> +<br/> +“He seems to hear a Heavenly Friend,<br/> +And thro’ thick veils to apprehend<br/> +A labour working to an end.<br/> +<br/> +“The end and the beginning vex<br/> +His reason: many things perplex,<br/> +With motions, checks, and counterchecks.<br/> +<br/> +“He knows a baseness in his blood<br/> +At such strange war with something good,<br/> +He may not do the thing he would.<br/> +<br/> +“Heaven opens inward, chasms yawn.<br/> +Vast images in glimmering dawn,<br/> +Half shown, are broken and withdrawn.<br/> +<br/> +“Ah! sure within him and without,<br/> +Could his dark wisdom find it out,<br/> +There must be answer to his doubt.<br/> +<br/> +“But thou canst answer not again.<br/> +With thine own weapon art thou slain,<br/> +Or thou wilt answer but in vain.<br/> +<br/> +“The doubt would rest, I dare not solve.<br/> +In the same circle we revolve.<br/> +Assurance only breeds resolve.”<br/> +<br/> +As when a billow, blown against,<br/> +Falls back, the voice with which I fenced<br/> +A little ceased, but recommenced.<br/> +<br/> +“Where wert thou when thy father play’d<br/> +In his free field, and pastime made,<br/> +A merry boy in sun and shade?<br/> +<br/> +“A merry boy they called him then.<br/> +He sat upon the knees of men<br/> +In days that never come again,<br/> +<br/> +“Before the little ducts began<br/> +To feed thy bones with lime, and ran<br/> +Their course, till thou wert also man:<br/> +<br/> +“Who took a wife, who rear’d his race,<br/> +Whose wrinkles gather’d on his face,<br/> +Whose troubles number with his days:<br/> +<br/> +“A life of nothings, nothing-worth,<br/> +From that first nothing ere his birth<br/> +To that last nothing under earth!”<br/> +<br/> +“These words,” I said, “are like the rest,<br/> +No certain clearness, but at best<br/> +A vague suspicion of the breast:<br/> +<br/> +“But if I grant, thou might’st defend<br/> +The thesis which thy words intend—<br/> +That to begin implies to end;<br/> +<br/> +“Yet how should I for certain hold,<a href="#linknote-509" name="linknoteref-509" id="linknoteref-509"><sup>[10]</sup></a><br/> +Because my memory is so cold,<br/> +That I first was in human mould?<br/> +<br/> +“I cannot make this matter plain,<br/> +But I would shoot, howe’er in vain,<br/> +A random arrow from the brain.<br/> +<br/> +“It may be that no life is found,<br/> +Which only to one engine bound<br/> +Falls off, but cycles always round.<br/> +<br/> +“As old mythologies relate,<br/> +Some draught of Lethe might await<br/> +The slipping thro’ from state to state.<br/> +<br/> +“As here we find in trances, men<br/> +Forget the dream that happens then,<br/> +Until they fall in trance again.<br/> +<br/> +“So might we, if our state were such<br/> +As one before, remember much,<br/> +For those two likes might meet and touch.<a href="#linknote-510" name="linknoteref-510" id="linknoteref-510"><sup>[11]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +“But, if I lapsed from nobler place,<br/> +Some legend of a fallen race<br/> +Alone might hint of my disgrace;<br/> +<br/> +“Some vague emotion of delight<br/> +In gazing up an Alpine height,<br/> +Some yearning toward the lamps of night.<br/> +<br/> +“Or if thro’ lower lives I came—<br/> +Tho’ all experience past became<br/> +Consolidate in mind and frame—<br/> +<br/> +“I might forget my weaker lot;<br/> +For is not our first year forgot?<br/> +The haunts of memory echo not.<br/> +<br/> +“And men, whose reason long was blind,<br/> +From cells of madness unconfined,<a href="#linknote-511" name="linknoteref-511" id="linknoteref-511"><sup>[12]</sup></a><br/> +Oft lose whole years of darker mind.<br/> +<br/> +“Much more, if first I floated free,<br/> +As naked essence, must I be<br/> +Incompetent of memory:<br/> +<br/> +“For memory dealing but with time,<br/> +And he with matter, could she climb<br/> +Beyond her own material prime?<br/> +<br/> +“Moreover, something is or seems,<br/> +That touches me with mystic gleams,<br/> +Like glimpses of forgotten dreams—<br/> +<br/> +“Of something felt, like something here;<br/> +Of something done, I know not where;<br/> +Such as no language may declare.”<br/> +<br/> +The still voice laugh’d. “I talk,” said he,<br/> +“Not with thy dreams. Suffice it thee<br/> +Thy pain is a reality.”<br/> +<br/> +“But thou,” said I, “hast miss’d thy mark,<br/> +Who sought’st to wreck my mortal ark,<br/> +By making all the horizon dark.<br/> +<br/> +“Why not set forth, if I should do<br/> +This rashness, that which might ensue<br/> +With this old soul in organs new?<br/> +<br/> +“Whatever crazy sorrow saith,<br/> +No life that breathes with human breath<br/> +Has ever truly long’d for death.<br/> +<br/> +“’Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant,<br/> +Oh life, not death, for which we pant;<br/> +More life, and fuller, that I want.”<br/> +<br/> +I ceased, and sat as one forlorn.<br/> +Then said the voice, in quiet scorn,<br/> +“Behold it is the Sabbath morn”.<br/> +<br/> +And I arose, and I released<br/> +The casement, and the light increased<br/> +With freshness in the dawning east.<br/> +<br/> +Like soften’d airs that blowing steal,<br/> +When meres begin to uncongeal,<br/> +The sweet church bells began to peal.<br/> +<br/> +On to God’s house the people prest:<br/> +Passing the place where each must rest,<br/> +Each enter’d like a welcome guest.<br/> +<br/> +One walk’d between his wife and child,<br/> +With measur’d footfall firm and mild,<br/> +And now and then he gravely smiled.<br/> +<br/> +The prudent partner of his blood<br/> +Lean’d on him, faithful, gentle, good,<a href="#linknote-512" name="linknoteref-512" id="linknoteref-512"><sup>[13]</sup></a><br/> +Wearing the rose of womanhood.<br/> +<br/> +And in their double love secure,<br/> +The little maiden walk’d demure,<br/> +Pacing with downward eyelids pure.<br/> +<br/> +These three made unity so sweet,<br/> +My frozen heart began to beat,<br/> +Remembering its ancient heat.<br/> +<br/> +I blest them, and they wander’d on:<br/> +I spoke, but answer came there none:<br/> +The dull and bitter voice was gone.<br/> +<br/> +A second voice was at mine ear,<br/> +A little whisper silver-clear,<br/> +A murmur, “Be of better cheer”.<br/> +<br/> +As from some blissful neighbourhood,<br/> +A notice faintly understood,<br/> +“I see the end, and know the good”.<br/> +<br/> +A little hint to solace woe,<br/> +A hint, a whisper breathing low,<br/> +“I may not speak of what I know”.<br/> +<br/> +Like an Aeolian harp that wakes<br/> +No certain air, but overtakes<br/> +Far thought with music that it makes:<br/> +<br/> +Such seem’d the whisper at my side:<br/> +“What is it thou knowest, sweet voice?” I cried.<br/> +“A hidden hope,” the voice replied:<br/> +<br/> +So heavenly-toned, that in that hour<br/> +From out my sullen heart a power<br/> +Broke, like the rainbow from the shower,<br/> +<br/> +To feel, altho’ no tongue can prove<br/> +That every cloud, that spreads above<br/> +And veileth love, itself is love.<br/> +<br/> +And forth into the fields I went,<br/> +And Nature’s living motion lent<br/> +The pulse of hope to discontent.<br/> +<br/> +I wonder’d at the bounteous hours,<br/> +The slow result of winter showers:<br/> +You scarce could see the grass for flowers.<br/> +<br/> +I wonder’d, while I paced along:<br/> +The woods were fill’d so full with song,<br/> +There seem’d no room for sense of wrong.<br/> +<br/> +So variously seem’d all things wrought,<a href="#linknote-513" name="linknoteref-513" id="linknoteref-513"><sup>[14]</sup></a><br/> +I marvell’d how the mind was brought<br/> +To anchor by one gloomy thought;<br/> +<br/> +And wherefore rather I made choice<br/> +To commune with that barren voice,<br/> +Than him that said, “Rejoice! rejoice!” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-499" id="linknote-499"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-499">[1]</a> +The insensibility of Nature to man’s death has been the eloquent theme of +many poets. <i>Cf</i>. Byron, <i>Lara</i>, canto ii. <i>ad init</i>., and +Matthew Arnold, <i>The Youth of Nature</i>. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-500" id="linknote-500"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-500">[2]</a> +<a name="linknote-501" id="linknote-501"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-501"></a> +<i>Cf. Palace of Art</i>, “the riddle of the painful earth”. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-502" id="linknote-502"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-502">[3]</a> +<i>Seq</i>. The reference is to Acts of the Apostles vii. 54-60. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-503" id="linknote-503"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-503">[4]</a> +Suggested by Shakespeare, <i>Julius Cæsar</i>, Act v., Sc. 5:—<br/> +<br/> +and <i>the elements<br/> +So mix’d in</i> him that Nature, etc. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-504" id="linknote-504"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-504">[5]</a> +An excellent commentary on this is Clough’s<br/> +<br/> +<i>Perché pensa, pensando vecchia</i>. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-505" id="linknote-505"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-505">[6]</a> +<i>Cf</i>. Job xiv. 21:<br/> +<br/> +“His sons come to honour, and he knoweth it not; and they are brought +low, but he perceiveth it not of them.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-506" id="linknote-506"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-506">[7]</a> +So Bishop Butler, <i>Analogy</i>, ch. i.:<br/> +<br/> +“We cannot argue <i>from the reason of the thing</i> that death is the +destruction of living agents because we know not at all what death is in +itself, but only some of its effects”. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-507" id="linknote-507"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-507">[8]</a> +So Milton, enfolding this idea of death, <i>Paradise Lost</i>, ii., +672-3:—<br/> +<br/> +What seemed his head<br/> +The <i>likeness</i> of a kingly crown had on. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-508" id="linknote-508"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-508">[9]</a> +<i>Cf</i>. Plato, <i>Phaedo</i>, x.:—ἆρα +ἔχει ἀληθειάν +τινα ὄψις τε καὶ +ἀκοὴ τοῖς +ἀνθρώποις. +ἤ τά γε τοιᾶυτα +καὶ οἱ ποἱηταὶ +ἡμὶν ἄει +θρυλοῦσιν ὅτι +οὐτ ακούομεν +ἀκριβὲς οὐδὲν +οὔτε ὁρῶμεν.<br/> +<br/> +“Have sight and hearing any truth in them? Are they not, as poets are +always telling us, inaccurate witnesses?”<br/> +<br/> +“Have sight and hearing any truth in them? Are they not, as poets are +always telling us, inaccurate witnesses?”<br/> +<br/> +The proper commentary on the whole of this passage is Plato <i>passim</i>, but +the <i>Phaedo</i> particularly, <i>cf. Republic</i>, vii., viii. and xiv.-xv. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-509" id="linknote-509"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-509">[10]</a> +An allusion to the myth that when souls are sent to occupy a body again they +drink of Lethe that they may forget their previous existence. See the famous +passage towards the end of the tenth book of Plato’s +<i>Republic</i>:<br/> +<br/> +“All persons are compelled to drink a certain quantity of the water, but +those who are not preserved by prudence drink more than the quantity, and each +as he drinks forgets everything”.<br/> +<br/> +So Milton, <i>Paradise Lost</i>, ii., 582-4. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-510" id="linknote-510"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-510">[11]</a> +The best commentary on this will be found in Herbert Spencer’s +<i>Psychology</i>. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-511" id="linknote-511"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-511">[12]</a> +Compare with this Tennyson’s first sonnet +(<i>Works</i>, Globe Edition, 25), and the lines in the <i>Ancient Sage</i> in +the <i>Passion of the Past</i> (<i>Id</i>., 551). <i>Cf</i>. too the lines in +Wordsworth’s ode on <i>Intimations of Immortality</i>:—<br/> +<br/> +But there’s a tree, of many one,<br/> +A single field which I have looked upon,<br/> +Both of them speak of something that is gone;<br/> +The pansy at my feet<br/> +Doth the same tale repeat.<br/> +<br/> +For other remarkable illustrations of this see the present writer’s +<i>Illustrations of Tennyson</i>, p. 38. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-512" id="linknote-512"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-512">[13]</a> +<i>Cf</i>. Coleridge, <i>Ancient Mariner,</i> iv.:—<br/> +<br/> +“O happy living things ... I blessed them<br/> +The self-same moment I could pray.”<br/> +<br/> +There is a close parallel between the former and the latter state described +here and in Coleridge’s mystic allegory; in both cases the sufferers +“wake to love,” the curse falling off them when they can +“bless”. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-513" id="linknote-513"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-513">[14]</a> +1884. And all so variously wrought (with semi-colon instead of full stop at the +end of the preceding line). +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap66"></a>The Day-Dream</h3> + +<p> +First published in 1842, but written in 1835. In it is incorporated, though +with several alterations, <i>The Sleeping Beauty</i>, published among the poems +of 1830, but excised in subsequent editions. Half extravaganza and half +apologue, like the <i>Midsummer Night’s Dream</i>, this delightful poem +may be safely left to deliver its own message and convey its own meaning. It is +an excellent illustration of the truth of Tennyson’s own remark: +“Poetry is like shot silk with many glancing colours. Every reader must +find his own interpretation according to his ability, and according to his +sympathy with the poet.” +</p> + +<h4>Prologue</h4> + +<p class="center"> +(No alteration has been made in the Prologue since 1842).<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +O, Lady Flora, let me speak:<br/> +A pleasant hour has past away<br/> +While, dreaming on your damask cheek,<br/> +The dewy sister-eyelids lay.<br/> +As by the lattice you reclined,<br/> +I went thro’ many wayward moods<br/> +To see you dreaming—and, behind,<br/> +A summer crisp with shining woods.<br/> +And I too dream’d, until at last<br/> +Across my fancy, brooding warm,<br/> +The reflex of a legend past,<br/> +And loosely settled into form.<br/> +And would you have the thought I had,<br/> +And see the vision that I saw,<br/> +Then take the broidery-frame, and add<br/> +A crimson to the quaint Macaw,<br/> +And I will tell it. Turn your face,<br/> +Nor look with that too-earnest eye—<br/> +The rhymes are dazzled from their place,<br/> +And order’d words asunder fly. +</p> + +<h4><a name="chap67"></a>The Sleeping Palace</h4> + +<p class="center"> +(No alteration since 1851.) +</p> + +<p class="left"> +1 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The varying year with blade and sheaf<br/> +Clothes and reclothes the happy plains;<br/> +Here rests the sap within the leaf,<br/> +Here stays the blood along the veins.<br/> +Faint shadows, vapours lightly curl’d,<br/> +Faint murmurs from the meadows come,<br/> +Like hints and echoes of the world<br/> +To spirits folded in the womb. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +2 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Soft lustre bathes the range of urns<br/> +On every slanting terrace-lawn.<br/> +The fountain to his place returns<br/> +Deep in the garden lake withdrawn.<br/> +Here droops the banner on the tower,<br/> +On the hall-hearths the festal fires,<br/> +The peacock in his laurel bower,<br/> +The parrot in his gilded wires. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +3 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Roof-haunting martins warm their eggs:<br/> +In these, in those the life is stay’d.<br/> +The mantles from the golden pegs<br/> +Droop sleepily: no sound is made,<br/> +Not even of a gnat that sings.<br/> +More like a picture seemeth all<br/> +Than those old portraits of old kings,<br/> +That watch the sleepers from the wall. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +4 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Here sits the Butler with a flask<br/> +Between his knees, half-drain’d; and there<br/> +The wrinkled steward at his task,<br/> +The maid-of-honour blooming fair:<br/> +The page has caught her hand in his:<br/> +Her lips are sever’d as to speak:<br/> +His own are pouted to a kiss:<br/> +The blush is fix’d upon her cheek. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +5 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Till all the hundred summers pass,<br/> +The beams, that thro’ the Oriel shine,<br/> +Make prisms in every carven glass,<br/> +And beaker brimm’d with noble wine.<br/> +Each baron at the banquet sleeps,<br/> +Grave faces gather’d in a ring.<br/> +His state the king reposing keeps.<br/> +He must have been a jovial king.<a href="#linknote-514" name="linknoteref-514" id="linknoteref-514"><sup>[1]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="left"> +6 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +All round a hedge upshoots, and shows<br/> +At distance like a little wood;<br/> +Thorns, ivies, woodbine, misletoes,<br/> +And grapes with bunches red as blood;<br/> +All creeping plants, a wall of green<br/> +Close-matted, bur and brake and briar,<br/> +And glimpsing over these, just seen,<br/> +High up, the topmost palace-spire. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +7 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +When will the hundred summers die,<br/> +And thought and time be born again,<br/> +And newer knowledge, drawing nigh,<br/> +Bring truth that sways the soul of men?<br/> +Here all things in there place remain,<br/> +As all were order’d, ages since.<br/> +Come, Care and Pleasure, Hope and Pain,<br/> +And bring the fated fairy Prince. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-514" id="linknote-514"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-514">[1]</a> +All editions up to and including 1851:—He must have been a jolly king. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h4><a name="chap68"></a>The Sleeping Beauty</h4> + +<p> +(First printed in 1830, but does not reappear again till 1842. No alteration +since 1842.)<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="left"> +1 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Year after year unto her feet,<br/> +She lying on her couch alone,<br/> +Across the purpled coverlet,<br/> +The maiden’s jet-black hair has grown,<a href="#linknote-515" name="linknoteref-515" id="linknoteref-515"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/> +On either side her tranced form<br/> +Forth streaming from a braid of pearl:<br/> +The slumbrous light is rich and warm,<br/> +And moves not on the rounded curl. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +2 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The silk star-broider’d<a href="#linknote-516" name="linknoteref-516" id="linknoteref-516"><sup>[2]</sup></a>coverlid<br/> +Unto her limbs itself doth mould<br/> +Languidly ever; and, amid<br/> +Her full black ringlets downward roll’d,<br/> +Glows forth each softly-shadow’d arm,<br/> +With bracelets of the diamond bright:<br/> +Her constant beauty doth inform<br/> +Stillness with love, and day with light. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +3 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +She sleeps: her breathings are not heard<br/> +In palace chambers far apart.<a href="#linknote-517" name="linknoteref-517" id="linknoteref-517"><sup>[3]</sup></a><br/> +The fragrant tresses are not stirr’d<br/> +That lie upon her charmed heart.<br/> +She sleeps: on either hand<a href="#linknote-518" name="linknoteref-518" id="linknoteref-518"><sup>[4]</sup></a> upswells<br/> +The gold-fringed pillow lightly prest:<br/> +She sleeps, nor dreams, but ever dwells<br/> +A perfect form in perfect rest. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-515" id="linknote-515"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-515">[1]</a> +1830.<br/> +<br/> +The while she slumbereth alone,<br/> +<i>Over</i> the purple coverlet,<br/> +The maiden’s jet-black hair hath grown. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-516" id="linknote-516"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-516">[2]</a> +1830. Star-braided. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-517" id="linknote-517"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-517">[3]</a> +A writer in <i>Notes and Queries</i>, February, 1880, asks whether these lines +mean that the lovely princess did <i>not</i> snore so loud that she could be +heard from one end of the palace to the other and whether it would not have +detracted from her charms had that state of things been habitual. This brings +into the field Dr. Gatty and other admirers of Tennyson, who, it must be owned, +are not very successful in giving a satisfactory reply. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-518" id="linknote-518"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-518">[4]</a> +1830. Side. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h4><a name="chap69"></a>The Arrival</h4> + +<p class="center"> +(No alteration after 1853.)<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="left"> +1 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +All precious things, discover’d late,<br/> +To those that seek them issue forth;<br/> +For love in sequel works with fate,<br/> +And draws the veil from hidden worth.<br/> +He travels far from other skies<br/> +His mantle glitters on the rocks—<br/> +A fairy Prince, with joyful eyes,<br/> +And lighter footed than the fox. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +2 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The bodies and the bones of those<br/> +That strove in other days to pass,<br/> +Are wither’d in the thorny close,<br/> +Or scatter’d blanching on<a href="#linknote-519" name="linknoteref-519" id="linknoteref-519"><sup>[1]</sup></a>the grass.<br/> +He gazes on the silent dead:<br/> +“They perish’d in their daring deeds.”<br/> +This proverb flashes thro’ his head,<br/> +“The many fail: the one succeeds”. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +3 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +He comes, scarce knowing what he seeks:<br/> +He breaks the hedge: he enters there:<br/> +The colour flies into his cheeks:<br/> +He trusts to light on something fair;<br/> +For all his life the charm did talk<br/> +About his path, and hover near<br/> +With words of promise in his walk,<br/> +And whisper’d voices at his ear.<a href="#linknote-520" name="linknoteref-520" id="linknoteref-520"><sup>[2]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="left"> +4 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +More close and close his footsteps wind;<br/> +The Magic Music<a href="#linknote-521" name="linknoteref-521" id="linknoteref-521"><sup>[3]</sup></a> in his heart<br/> +Beats quick and quicker, till he find<br/> +The quiet chamber far apart.<br/> +His spirit flutters like a lark,<br/> +He stoops—to kiss her—on his knee.<br/> +“Love, if thy tresses be so dark,<br/> +How dark those hidden eyes must be! +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-519" id="linknote-519"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-519">[1]</a> +1842 to 1851. In. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-520" id="linknote-520"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-520">[2]</a> +All editions up to and including 1850. In his ear. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-521" id="linknote-521"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-521">[3]</a> +All editions up to and including 1851. Not capitals in magic music. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h4><a name="chap70"></a>The Revival</h4> + +<p class="center"> +(No alteration after 1853.) +</p> + +<p class="left"> +1 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +A touch, a kiss! the charm was snapt.<br/> +There rose a noise of striking clocks,<br/> +And feet that ran, and doors that clapt,<br/> +And barking dogs, and crowing cocks;<br/> +A fuller light illumined all,<br/> +A breeze thro’ all the garden swept,<br/> +A sudden hubbub shook the hall,<br/> +And sixty feet the fountain leapt. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +2 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The hedge broke in, the banner blew,<br/> +The butler drank, the steward scrawl’d,<br/> +The fire shot up, the martin flew,<br/> +The parrot scream’d, the peacock squall’d,<br/> +The maid and page renew’d their strife,<br/> +The palace bang’d, and buzz’d and clackt,<br/> +And all the long-pent stream of life<br/> +Dash’d downward in a cataract. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +3 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +And last with these<a href="#linknote-522" name="linknoteref-522" id="linknoteref-522"><sup>[1]</sup></a> the king awoke,<br/> +And in his chair himself uprear’d,<br/> +And yawn’d, and rubb’d his face, and spoke,<br/> +“By holy rood, a royal beard!<br/> +How say you? we have slept, my lords,<br/> +My beard has grown into my lap.”<br/> +The barons swore, with many words,<br/> +’Twas but an after-dinner’s nap. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +4 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +“Pardy,” return’d the king, “but still<br/> +My joints are something<a href="#linknote-523" name="linknoteref-523" id="linknoteref-523"><sup>[2]</sup></a> stiff or so.<br/> +My lord, and shall we pass the bill<br/> +I mention’d half an hour ago?”<br/> +The chancellor, sedate and vain,<br/> +In courteous words return’d reply:<br/> +But dallied with his golden chain,<br/> +And, smiling, put the question by. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-522" id="linknote-522"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-522">[1]</a> +1842 to 1851. And last of all. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-523" id="linknote-523"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-523">[2]</a> +1863. Somewhat. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h4><a name="chap71"></a>The Departure</h4> + +<p class="center"> +(No alteration since 1842.) +</p> + +<p class="left"> +1 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +And on her lover’s arm she leant,<br/> +And round her waist she felt it fold,<br/> +And far across the hills they went<br/> +In that new world which is the old:<br/> +Across the hills and far away<br/> +Beyond their utmost purple rim,<br/> +And deep into the dying day<br/> +The happy princess follow’d him. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +2 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +“I’d sleep another hundred years,<br/> +O love, for such another kiss;”<br/> +“O wake for ever, love,” she hears,<br/> +“O love, ’twas such as this and this.”<br/> +And o’er them many a sliding star,<br/> +And many a merry wind was borne,<br/> +And, stream’d thro’ many a golden bar,<br/> +The twilight melted into morn. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +3 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +“O eyes long laid in happy sleep!”<br/> +“O happy sleep, that lightly fled!”<br/> +“O happy kiss, that woke thy sleep!”<br/> +“O love, thy kiss would wake the dead!”<br/> +And o’er them many a flowing range<br/> +Of vapour buoy’d the crescent-bark,<br/> +And, rapt thro’ many a rosy change,<br/> +The twilight died into the dark. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +4 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +“A hundred summers! can it be?<br/> +And whither goest thou, tell me where?”<br/> +“O seek my father’s court with me!<br/> +For there are greater wonders there.”<br/> +And o’er the hills, and far away<br/> +Beyond their utmost purple rim,<br/> +Beyond the night across the day,<br/> +Thro’ all the world she follow’d him. +</p> + +<h4>Moral</h4> + +<p class="center"> +(No alteration since 1842.) +</p> + +<p class="left"> +1 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +So, Lady Flora, take my lay,<br/> +And if you find no moral there,<br/> +Go, look in any glass and say,<br/> +What moral is in being fair.<br/> +Oh, to what uses shall we put<br/> +The wildweed-flower that simply blows?<br/> +And is there any moral shut<br/> +Within the bosom of the rose? +</p> + +<p class="left"> +2 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +But any man that walks the mead,<br/> +In bud or blade, or bloom, may find,<br/> +According as his humours lead,<br/> +A meaning suited to his mind.<br/> +And liberal applications lie<br/> +In Art like Nature, dearest friend;<a href="#linknote-524" name="linknoteref-524" id="linknoteref-524"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/> +So ’twere to cramp its use, if I<br/> +Should hook it to some useful end. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-524" id="linknote-524"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-524">[1]</a> +So Wordsworth:—<br/> +<br/> +O Reader! had you in your mind<br/> +Such stores as silent thought can bring,<br/> +O gentle Reader! you would find<br/> +A tale in everything.<br/> +<br/> +—<i>Simon Lee</i>. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h4><a name="chap72"></a>L’Envoi</h4> + +<p class="center"> +(No alteration since 1843 except in numbering the stanzas.) +</p> + +<p class="left"> +1 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +You shake your head. A random string<br/> +Your finer female sense offends.<br/> +Well—were it not a pleasant thing<br/> +To fall asleep with all one’s friends;<br/> +To pass with all our social ties<br/> +To silence from the paths of men;<br/> +And every hundred years to rise<br/> +And learn the world, and sleep again;<br/> +To sleep thro’ terms of mighty wars,<br/> +And wake on science grown to more,<br/> +On secrets of the brain, the stars,<br/> +As wild as aught of fairy lore;<br/> +And all that else the years will show,<br/> +The Poet-forms of stronger hours,<br/> +The vast Republics that may grow,<br/> +The Federations and the Powers;<br/> +Titanic forces taking birth<br/> +In divers seasons, divers climes;<br/> +For we are Ancients of the earth,<br/> +And in the morning of the times. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +2 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +So sleeping, so aroused from sleep<br/> +Thro’ sunny decads new and strange,<br/> +Or gay quinquenniads would we reap<br/> +The flower and quintessence of change. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +3 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Ah, yet would I—and would I might!<br/> +So much your eyes my fancy take—<br/> +Be still the first to leap to light<br/> +That I might kiss those eyes awake!<br/> +For, am I right or am I wrong,<br/> +To choose your own you did not care;<br/> +You’d have <i>my</i> moral from the song,<br/> +And I will take my pleasure there:<br/> +And, am I right or am I wrong,<br/> +My fancy, ranging thro’ and thro’,<br/> +To search a meaning for the song,<br/> +Perforce will still revert to you;<br/> +Nor finds a closer truth than this<br/> +All-graceful head, so richly curl’d,<br/> +And evermore a costly kiss<br/> +The prelude to some brighter world. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +4 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +For since the time when Adam first<br/> +Embraced his Eve in happy hour,<br/> +And every bird of Eden burst<br/> +In carol, every bud to flower,<br/> +What eyes, like thine, have waken’d hopes?<br/> +What lips, like thine, so sweetly join’d?<br/> +Where on the double rosebud droops<br/> +The fullness of the pensive mind;<br/> +Which all too dearly self-involved,<a href="#linknote-525" name="linknoteref-525" id="linknoteref-525"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/> +Yet sleeps a dreamless sleep to me;<br/> +A sleep by kisses undissolved,<br/> +That lets thee<a href="#linknote-526" name="linknoteref-526" id="linknoteref-526"><sup>[2]</sup></a> neither hear nor see:<br/> +But break it. In the name of wife,<br/> +And in the rights that name may give,<br/> +Are clasp’d the moral of thy life,<br/> +And that for which I care to live. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-525" id="linknote-525"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-525">[1]</a> +1842. The pensive mind that, self-involved. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-526" id="linknote-526"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-526">[2]</a> +1842. Which lets thee. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h4><a name="chap73"></a>Epilogue</h4> + +<p class="center"> +(No alteration since 1842.)<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +So, Lady Flora, take my lay,<br/> +And, if you find a meaning there,<br/> +O whisper to your glass, and say,<br/> +“What wonder, if he thinks me fair?”<br/> +What wonder I was all unwise,<br/> +To shape the song for your delight<br/> +Like long-tail’d birds of Paradise,<br/> +That float thro’ Heaven, and cannot light?<br/> +Or old-world trains, upheld at court<br/> +By Cupid-boys of blooming hue—<br/> +But take it—earnest wed with sport,<br/> +And either sacred unto you. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap74"></a>Amphion</h3> + +<p class="center"> +First published in 1842. No alteration since 1850. +</p> + +<p> +In this humorous allegory the poet bewails his unhappy lot on having fallen on +an age so unpropitious to poetry, contrasting it with the happy times so +responsive to his predecessors who piped to a world prepared to dance to their +music. However, he must toil and be satisfied if he can make a little garden +blossom.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +My father left a park to me,<br/> +But it is wild and barren,<br/> +A garden too with scarce a tree<br/> +And waster than a warren:<br/> +Yet say the neighbours when they call,<br/> +It is not bad but good land,<br/> +And in it is the germ of all<br/> +That grows within the woodland.<br/> +<br/> +O had I lived when song was great<br/> +In days of old Amphion,<a href="#linknote-527" name="linknoteref-527" id="linknoteref-527"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/> +And ta’en my fiddle to the gate,<br/> +Nor cared for seed or scion!<br/> +And had I lived when song was great,<br/> +And legs of trees were limber,<br/> +And ta’en my fiddle to the gate,<br/> +And fiddled in the timber!<br/> +<br/> +’Tis said he had a tuneful tongue,<br/> +Such happy intonation,<br/> +Wherever he sat down and sung<br/> +He left a small plantation;<br/> +Wherever in a lonely grove<br/> +He set up his forlorn pipes,<br/> +The gouty oak began to move,<br/> +And flounder into hornpipes.<br/> +<br/> +The mountain stirr’d its bushy crown,<br/> +And, as tradition teaches,<br/> +Young ashes pirouetted down<br/> +Coquetting with young beeches;<br/> +And briony-vine and ivy-wreath<br/> +Ran forward to his rhyming,<br/> +And from the valleys underneath<br/> +Came little copses climbing.<br/> +<br/> +The linden broke her ranks and rent<br/> +The woodbine wreathes that bind her,<br/> +And down the middle, buzz! she went,<br/> +With all her bees behind her.<a href="#linknote-528" name="linknoteref-528" id="linknoteref-528"><sup>[2]</sup></a><br/> +The poplars, in long order due,<br/> +With cypress promenaded,<br/> +The shock-head willows two and two<br/> +By rivers gallopaded.<br/> +<br/> +Came wet-shot alder from the wave,<br/> +Came yews, a dismal coterie;<br/> +Each pluck’d his one foot from the grave,<br/> +Poussetting with a sloe-tree:<br/> +Old elms came breaking from the vine,<br/> +The vine stream’d out to follow,<br/> +And, sweating rosin, plump’d the pine<br/> +From many a cloudy hollow.<br/> +<br/> +And wasn’t it a sight to see<br/> +When, ere his song was ended,<br/> +Like some great landslip, tree by tree,<br/> +The country-side descended;<br/> +And shepherds from the mountain-caves<br/> +Look’d down, half-pleased, half-frighten’d,<br/> +As dash’d about the drunken leaves<br/> +The random sunshine lighten’d!<br/> +<br/> +Oh, nature first was fresh to men,<br/> +And wanton without measure;<br/> +So youthful and so flexile then,<br/> +You moved her at your pleasure.<br/> +Twang out, my fiddle! shake the twigs!<br/> +And make her dance attendance;<br/> +Blow, flute, and stir the stiff-set sprigs,<br/> +And scirrhous roots and tendons.<br/> +<br/> +’Tis vain! in such a brassy age<br/> +I could not move a thistle;<br/> +The very sparrows in the hedge<br/> +Scarce answer to my whistle;<br/> +Or at the most, when three-parts-sick<br/> +With strumming and with scraping,<br/> +A jackass heehaws from the rick,<br/> +The passive oxen gaping.<br/> +<br/> +But what is that I hear? a sound<br/> +Like sleepy counsel pleading:<br/> +O Lord!—’tis in my neighbour’s ground,<br/> +The modern Muses reading.<br/> +They read Botanic Treatises.<br/> +And works on Gardening thro’ there,<br/> +And Methods of transplanting trees<br/> +To look as if they grew there.<br/> +<br/> +The wither’d Misses! how they prose<br/> +O’er books of travell’d seamen,<br/> +And show you slips of all that grows<br/> +From England to Van Diemen.<br/> +They read in arbours clipt and cut,<br/> +And alleys, faded places,<br/> +By squares of tropic summer shut<br/> +And warm’d in crystal cases.<br/> +<br/> +But these, tho’ fed with careful dirt,<br/> +Are neither green nor sappy;<br/> +Half-conscious of the garden-squirt,<br/> +The spindlings look unhappy,<a href="#linknote-529" name="linknoteref-529" id="linknoteref-529"><sup>[3]</sup></a><br/> +Better to me the meanest weed<br/> +That blows upon its mountain,<br/> +The vilest herb that runs to seed<br/> +Beside its native fountain.<br/> +<br/> +And I must work thro’ months of toil,<br/> +And years of cultivation,<br/> +Upon my proper patch of soil<br/> +To grow my own plantation.<br/> +I’ll take the showers as they fall,<br/> +I will not vex my bosom:<br/> +Enough if at the end of all<br/> +A little garden blossom. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-527" id="linknote-527"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-527">[1]</a> +Amphion was no doubt capable of performing all the feats here attributed to +him, but there is no record of them; he appears to have confined himself to +charming the stones into their places when Thebes was being built. Tennyson +seems to have confounded him with Orpheus. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-528" id="linknote-528"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-528">[2]</a> +Till 1857 these four lines ran thus:—<br/> +<br/> +The birch-tree swang her fragrant hair,<br/> +The bramble cast her berry.<br/> +The gin within the juniper<br/> +Began to make him merry. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-529" id="linknote-529"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-529">[3]</a> +All editions up to and including 1850. The poor things look unhappy. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap75"></a>St. Agnes</h3> + +<p> +This exquisite little poem was first published in 1837 in the <i>Keepsake</i>, +an annual edited by Lady Emmeline Stuart Wortley, and was included in the +edition of 1842. No alteration has been made in it since 1842. +</p> + +<p> +In 1857 the title was altered from “St. Agnes” to “St. +Agnes’ Eve,” thus bringing it near to Keats’ poem, which +certainly influenced Tennyson in writing it, as a comparison of the opening of +the two poems will show. The saint from whom the poem takes its name was a +young girl of thirteen who suffered martyrdom in the reign of Diocletian: she +is a companion to Sir Galahad.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Deep on the convent-roof the snows<br/> +Are sparkling to the moon:<br/> +My breath to heaven like vapour goes:<br/> +May my soul follow soon!<br/> +The shadows of the convent-towers<br/> +Slant down the snowy sward,<br/> +Still creeping with the creeping hours<br/> +That lead me to my Lord:<br/> +Make Thou<a href="#linknote-530" name="linknoteref-530" id="linknoteref-530"><sup>[1]</sup></a> my spirit pure and clear<br/> +As are the frosty skies,<br/> +Or this first snowdrop of the year<br/> +That in<a href="#linknote-531" name="linknoteref-531" id="linknoteref-531"><sup>[2]</sup></a> my bosom lies.<br/> +<br/> +As these white robes are soiled and dark,<br/> +To yonder shining ground;<br/> +As this pale taper’s earthly spark,<br/> +To yonder argent round;<br/> +So shows my soul before the Lamb,<br/> +My spirit before Thee;<br/> +So in mine earthly house I am,<br/> +To that I hope to be.<br/> +Break up the heavens, O Lord! and far,<br/> +Thro’ all yon starlight keen,<br/> +Draw me, thy bride, a glittering star,<br/> +In raiment white and clean.<br/> +<br/> +He lifts me to the golden doors;<br/> +The flashes come and go;<br/> +All heaven bursts her starry floors,<br/> +And strows<a href="#linknote-532" name="linknoteref-532" id="linknoteref-532"><sup>[3]</sup></a> her lights below,<br/> +And deepens on and up! the gates<br/> +Roll back, and far within<br/> +For me the Heavenly Bridegroom waits,<a href="#linknote-533" name="linknoteref-533" id="linknoteref-533"><sup>[4]</sup></a><br/> +To make me pure of sin.<a href="#linknote-534" name="linknoteref-534" id="linknoteref-534"><sup>[5]</sup></a><br/> +The sabbaths of Eternity,<br/> +One sabbath deep and wide—<br/> +A light upon the shining sea—<br/> +The Bridegroom<a href="#linknote-535" name="linknoteref-535" id="linknoteref-535"><sup>[6]</sup></a> with his bride! +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-530" id="linknote-530"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-530">[1]</a> +In <i>Keepsake</i>: not capital in Thou. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-531" id="linknote-531"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-531">[2]</a> +In <i>Keepsake</i>: On. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-532" id="linknote-532"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-532">[3]</a> +In <i>Keepsake</i>: Strews. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-533" id="linknote-533"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-533">[4]</a> +In <i>Keepsake</i>: not capitals in Heavenly and Bridegroom. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-534" id="linknote-534"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-534">[5]</a> +In <i>Keepsake</i>: To wash me pure from sin. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-535" id="linknote-535"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-535">[6]</a> +In <i>Keepsake</i>: capital in Bridegroom. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap76"></a>Sir Galahad</h3> + +<p> +Published in 1842. No alteration has been made in it since. This poem may be +regarded as a prelude to <i>The Holy Grail</i>. The character of Galahad is +deduced principally from the seventeenth book of the <i>Morte +d’Arthur</i>. In the twenty-second chapter of that book St. Joseph of +Arimathea says to him: “Thou hast resembled me in two things in that thou +hast seen the marvels of the sangreal, and in that thou has been a clean +maiden”.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +My good blade carves the casques of men,<br/> +My tough lance thrusteth sure,<br/> +My strength is as the strength of ten,<br/> +Because my heart is pure.<br/> +<br/> +The shattering trumpet shrilleth high,<br/> +The hard brands shiver on the steel,<br/> +The splinter’d spear-shafts crack and fly,<br/> +The horse and rider reel:<br/> +<br/> +They reel, they roll in clanging lists,<br/> +And when the tide of combat stands,<br/> +Perfume and flowers fall in showers,<br/> +That lightly rain from ladies’ hands.<br/> +<br/> +How sweet are looks that ladies bend<br/> +On whom their favours fall!<br/> +For them I battle till the end,<br/> +To save from shame and thrall:<br/> +But all my heart is drawn above,<br/> +My knees are bow’d in crypt and shrine:<br/> +I never felt the kiss of love,<br/> +Nor maiden’s hand in mine.<br/> +More bounteous aspects on me beam,<br/> +Me mightier transports move and thrill;<br/> +So keep I fair thro’ faith and prayer<br/> +A virgin heart in work and will.<br/> +<br/> +When down the stormy crescent goes,<br/> +A light before me swims,<br/> +Between dark stems the forest glows,<br/> +I hear a noise of hymns:<br/> +Then by some secret shrine I ride;<br/> +I hear a voice, but none are there;<br/> +The stalls are void, the doors are wide,<br/> +The tapers burning fair.<br/> +Fair gleams the snowy altar-cloth,<br/> +The silver vessels sparkle clean,<br/> +The shrill bell rings, the censer swings,<br/> +And solemn chaunts resound between.<br/> +<br/> +Sometimes on lonely mountain-meres<br/> +I find a magic bark;<br/> +I leap on board: no helmsman steers:<br/> +I float till all is dark.<br/> +A gentle sound, an awful light!<br/> +Three angels bear the holy Grail:<br/> +With folded feet, in stoles of white,<br/> +On sleeping wings they sail.<br/> +Ah, blessed vision! blood of God!<br/> +My spirit beats her mortal bars,<br/> +As down dark tides the glory slides,<br/> +And star-like mingles with the stars.<br/> +<br/> +When on my goodly charger borne<br/> +Thro’ dreaming towns I go,<br/> +The cock crows ere the Christmas morn,<br/> +The streets are dumb with snow.<br/> +The tempest crackles on the leads,<br/> +And, ringing, spins from brand and mail;<br/> +But o’er the dark a glory spreads,<br/> +And gilds the driving hail.<br/> +I leave the plain, I climb the height;<br/> +No branchy thicket shelter yields;<br/> +But blessed forms in whistling storms<br/> +Fly o’er waste fens and windy fields.<br/> +<br/> +A maiden knight—to me is given<br/> +Such hope, I know not fear;<br/> +I yearn to breathe the airs of heaven<br/> +That often meet me here.<br/> +I muse on joy that will not cease,<br/> +Pure spaces clothed in living beams,<br/> +Pure lilies of eternal peace,<br/> +Whose odours haunt my dreams;<br/> +And, stricken by an angel’s hand,<br/> +This mortal armour that I wear,<br/> +This weight and size, this heart and eyes,<br/> +Are touch’d, are turn’d to finest air.<br/> +<br/> +The clouds are broken in the sky,<br/> +And thro’ the mountain-walls<br/> +A rolling organ-harmony<br/> +Swells up, and shakes and falls.<br/> +Then move the trees, the copses nod,<br/> +Wings flutter, voices hover clear:<br/> +“O just and faithful knight of God!<br/> +Ride on! the prize is near”.<br/> +So pass I hostel, hall, and grange;<br/> +By bridge and ford, by park and pale,<br/> +All-arm’d I ride, whate’er betide,<br/> +Until I find the holy Grail. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap77"></a>Edward Gray</h3> + +<p> +First published in 1842 but written in or before 1840. See <i>Life</i>, i., +209. Not altered since.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Sweet Emma Moreland of yonder town<br/> +Met me walking on yonder way,<br/> +“And have you lost your heart?” she said;<br/> +“And are you married yet, Edward Gray?”<br/> +<br/> +Sweet Emma Moreland spoke to me:<br/> +Bitterly weeping I turn’d away:<br/> +“Sweet Emma Moreland, love no more<br/> +Can touch the heart of Edward Gray.<br/> +<br/> +“Ellen Adair she loved me well,<br/> +Against her father’s and mother’s will:<br/> +To-day I sat for an hour and wept,<br/> +By Ellen’s grave, on the windy hill.<br/> +<br/> +“Shy she was, and I thought her cold;<br/> +Thought her proud, and fled over the sea;<br/> +Fill’d I was with folly and spite,<br/> +When Ellen Adair was dying for me.<br/> +<br/> +“Cruel, cruel the words I said!<br/> +Cruelly came they back to-day:<br/> +‘You’re too slight and fickle,’ I said,<br/> +‘To trouble the heart of Edward Gray’.<br/> +<br/> +“There I put my face in the grass—<br/> +Whisper’d, ‘Listen to my despair:<br/> +I repent me of all I did:<br/> +Speak a little, Ellen Adair!’<br/> +<br/> +“Then I took a pencil, and wrote<br/> +On the mossy stone, as I lay,<br/> +‘Here lies the body of Ellen Adair;<br/> +And here the heart of Edward Gray!’<br/> +<br/> +“Love may come, and love may go,<br/> +And fly, like a bird, from tree to tree:<br/> +But I will love no more, no more,<br/> +Till Ellen Adair come back to me.<br/> +<br/> +“Bitterly wept I over the stone:<br/> +Bitterly weeping I turn’d away;<br/> +There lies the body of Ellen Adair!<br/> +And there the heart of Edward Gray!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap78"></a>Will Waterproof’s Lyrical Monologue</h3> + +<p class="center"> +made at The Cock. +</p> + +<p> +First published 1842. The final text was that of 1853, which has not been +altered since, except that in stanza 29 the two “we’s” in the +first line and the “thy” in the third line are not in later +editions italicised. The Cock Tavern, No. 201 Fleet Street, on the north side +of Fleet Street, stood opposite the Temple and was of great antiquity, going +back nearly 300 years. Strype, bk. iv., h. 117, describes it as “a noted +public-house,” and Pepys’ <i>Diary</i>, 23rd April, 1668, speaks of +himself as having been “mighty merry there”. The old carved +chimney-piece was of the age of James I., and the gilt bird over the portal was +the work of Grinling Gibbons. When Tennyson wrote this poem it was the +favourite resort of templars, journalists and literary people generally, as it +had long been. But the old place is now a thing of the past. On the evening of +10th April, 1886, it closed its doors for ever after an existence of nearly 300 +years. There is an admirable description of it, signed A. J. M., in <i>Notes +and Queries</i>, seventh series, vol. i., 442-6. I give a short extract: +</p> + +<p> +“At the end of a long room beyond the skylight which, except a feeble +side window, was its only light in the daytime, was a door that led past a +small lavatory and up half a dozen narrow steps to the kitchen, one of the +strangest and grimmest old kitchens you ever saw. Across a mighty hatch, +thronged with dishes, you looked into it and beheld there the white-jacketed +man-cook, served by his two robust and red-armed kitchen maids. For you they +were preparing chops, pork chops in winter, lamb chops in spring, mutton chops +always, and steaks and sausages, and kidneys and potatoes, and poached eggs and +Welsh rabbits, and stewed cheese, the special glory of the house. That was the +<i>menu</i> and men were the only guests. But of late years, as innovations +often precede a catastrophe, two new things were introduced, vegetables and +women. Both were respectable and both were good, but it was felt, especially by +the virtuous Smurthwaite, that they were <i>de trop</i> in a place so masculine +and so carnivorous.”<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +O plump head-waiter at The Cock,<br/> +To which I most resort,<br/> +How goes the time? ’Tis five o’clock.<br/> +Go fetch a pint of port:<br/> +But let it not be such as that<br/> +You set before chance-comers,<br/> +But such whose father-grape grew fat<br/> +On Lusitanian summers.<br/> +<br/> +No vain libation to the Muse,<br/> +But may she still be kind,<br/> +And whisper lovely words, and use<br/> +Her influence on the mind,<br/> +To make me write my random rhymes,<br/> +Ere they be half-forgotten;<br/> +Nor add and alter, many times,<br/> +Till all be ripe and rotten.<br/> +<br/> +I pledge her, and she comes and dips<br/> +Her laurel in the wine,<br/> +And lays it thrice upon my lips,<br/> +These favour’d lips of mine;<br/> +Until the charm have power to make<br/> +New life-blood warm the bosom,<br/> +And barren commonplaces break<br/> +In full and kindly<a href="#linknote-536" name="linknoteref-536" id="linknoteref-536"><sup>[1]</sup></a> blossom.<br/> +<br/> +I pledge her silent at the board;<br/> +Her gradual fingers steal<br/> +And touch upon the master-chord<br/> +Of all I felt and feel.<br/> +Old wishes, ghosts of broken plans,<br/> +And phantom hopes assemble;<br/> +And that child’s heart within the man’s<br/> +Begins to move and tremble.<br/> +<br/> +Thro’ many an hour of summer suns<br/> +By many pleasant ways,<br/> +Against its fountain upward runs<br/> +The current of my days:<a href="#linknote-537" name="linknoteref-537" id="linknoteref-537"><sup>[2]</sup></a><br/> +I kiss the lips I once have kiss’d;<br/> +The gas-light wavers dimmer;<br/> +And softly, thro’ a vinous mist,<br/> +My college friendships glimmer.<br/> +<br/> +I grow in worth, and wit, and sense,<br/> +Unboding critic-pen,<br/> +Or that eternal want of pence,<br/> +Which vexes public men,<br/> +Who hold their hands to all, and cry<br/> +For that which all deny them—<br/> +Who sweep the crossings, wet or dry,<br/> +And all the world go by them.<br/> +Ah yet, tho’<a href="#linknote-538" name="linknoteref-538" id="linknoteref-538"><sup>[3]</sup></a> all the world forsake,<br/> +Tho’<a href="#linknote-539" name="linknoteref-539" id="linknoteref-539"><sup>[3]</sup></a> fortune clip my wings,<br/> +I will not cramp my heart, nor take<br/> +Half-views of men and things.<br/> +Let Whig and Tory stir their blood;<br/> +There must be stormy weather;<br/> +But for some true result of good<br/> +All parties work together.<br/> +<br/> +Let there be thistles, there are grapes;<br/> +If old things, there are new;<br/> +Ten thousand broken lights and shapes,<br/> +Yet glimpses of the true.<br/> +Let raffs be rife in prose and rhyme,<br/> +We lack not rhymes and reasons,<br/> +As on this whirligig of Time<a href="#linknote-540" name="linknoteref-540" id="linknoteref-540"><sup>[4]</sup></a><br/> +We circle with the seasons.<br/> +<br/> +This earth is rich in man and maid;<br/> +With fair horizons bound:<br/> +This whole wide earth of light and shade<br/> +Comes out, a perfect round.<br/> +High over roaring Temple-bar,<br/> +And, set in Heaven’s third story,<br/> +I look at all things as they are,<br/> +But thro’ a kind of glory.<br/> +<br/> +Head-waiter, honour’d by the guest<br/> +Half-mused, or reeling-ripe,<br/> +The pint, you brought me, was the best<br/> +That ever came from pipe.<br/> +But tho’<a href="#linknote-541" name="linknoteref-541" id="linknoteref-541"><sup>[5]</sup></a> the port surpasses praise,<br/> +My nerves have dealt with stiffer.<br/> +Is there some magic in the place?<br/> +Or do my peptics differ?<br/> +<br/> +For since I came to live and learn,<br/> +No pint of white or red<br/> +Had ever half the power to turn<br/> +This wheel within my head,<br/> +<br/> +Which bears a season’d brain about,<br/> +Unsubject to confusion,<br/> +Tho’<a href="#linknote-542" name="linknoteref-542" id="linknoteref-542"><sup>[5]</sup></a> soak’d and saturate, out and out,<br/> +Thro’ every convolution.<br/> +<br/> +For I am of a numerous house,<br/> +With many kinsmen gay,<br/> +Where long and largely we carouse<br/> +As who shall say me nay:<br/> +Each month, a birthday coming on,<br/> +We drink defying trouble,<br/> +Or sometimes two would meet in one,<br/> +And then we drank it double;<br/> +<br/> +Whether the vintage, yet unkept,<br/> +Had relish, fiery-new,<br/> +Or, elbow-deep in sawdust, slept,<br/> +As old as Waterloo;<br/> +Or stow’d (when classic Canning died)<br/> +In musty bins and chambers,<br/> +Had cast upon its crusty side<br/> +The gloom of ten Decembers.<br/> +<br/> +The Muse, the jolly Muse, it is!<br/> +She answer’d to my call,<br/> +She changes with that mood or this,<br/> +Is all-in-all to all:<br/> +She lit the spark within my throat,<br/> +To make my blood run quicker,<br/> +Used all her fiery will, and smote<br/> +Her life into the liquor.<br/> +<br/> +And hence this halo lives about<br/> +The waiter’s hands, that reach<br/> +To each his perfect pint of stout,<br/> +His proper chop to each.<br/> +He looks not like the common breed<br/> +That with the napkin dally;<br/> +I think he came like Ganymede,<br/> +From some delightful valley.<br/> +<br/> +The Cock was of a larger egg<br/> +Than modern poultry drop,<br/> +Stept forward on a firmer leg,<br/> +And cramm’d a plumper crop;<br/> +Upon an ampler dunghill trod,<br/> +Crow’d lustier late and early,<br/> +Sipt wine from silver, praising God,<br/> +And raked in golden barley.<br/> +<br/> +A private life was all his joy,<br/> +Till in a court he saw<br/> +A something-pottle-bodied boy,<br/> +That knuckled at the taw:<br/> +He stoop’d and clutch’d him, fair and good,<br/> +Flew over roof and casement:<br/> +His brothers of the weather stood<br/> +Stock-still for sheer amazement.<br/> +<br/> +But he, by farmstead, thorpe and spire,<br/> +And follow’d with acclaims,<br/> +A sign to many a staring shire,<br/> +Came crowing over Thames.<br/> +Right down by smoky Paul’s they bore,<br/> +Till, where the street grows straiter,<a href="#linknote-543" name="linknoteref-543" id="linknoteref-543"><sup>[6]</sup></a><br/> +One fix’d for ever at the door,<br/> +And one became head-waiter.<br/> +<br/> +But whither would my fancy go?<br/> +How out of place she makes<br/> +The violet of a legend blow<br/> +Among the chops and steaks!<br/> +’Tis but a steward of the can,<br/> +One shade more plump than common;<br/> +As just and mere a serving-man<br/> +As any born of woman.<br/> +<br/> +I ranged too high: what draws me down<br/> +Into the common day?<br/> +Is it the weight of that half-crown,<br/> +Which I shall have to pay?<br/> +For, something duller than at first,<br/> +Nor wholly comfortable,<br/> +I sit (my empty glass reversed),<br/> +And thrumming on the table:<br/> +<br/> +Half-fearful that, with self at strife<br/> +I take myself to task;<br/> +Lest of the fullness of my life<br/> +I leave an empty flask:<br/> +For I had hope, by something rare,<br/> +To prove myself a poet;<br/> +But, while I plan and plan, my hair<br/> +Is gray before I know it.<br/> +<br/> +So fares it since the years began,<br/> +Till they be gather’d up;<br/> +The truth, that flies the flowing can,<br/> +Will haunt the vacant cup:<br/> +And others’ follies teach us not,<br/> +Nor much their wisdom teaches;<br/> +And most, of sterling worth, is what<br/> +Our own experience preaches.<br/> +<br/> +Ah, let the rusty theme alone!<br/> +We know not what we know.<br/> +But for my pleasant hour, ’tis gone,<br/> +’Tis gone, and let it go.<br/> +’Tis gone: a thousand such have slipt<br/> +Away from my embraces,<br/> +And fall’n into the dusty crypt<br/> +Of darken’d forms and faces.<br/> +<br/> +Go, therefore, thou! thy betters went<br/> +Long since, and came no more;<br/> +With peals of genial clamour sent<br/> +From many a tavern-door,<br/> +With twisted quirks and happy hits,<br/> +From misty men of letters;<br/> +The tavern-hours of mighty wits—<br/> +Thine elders and thy betters.<br/> +<br/> +Hours, when the Poet’s words and looks<br/> +Had yet their native glow:<br/> +Not yet the fear of little books<br/> +Had made him talk for show:<br/> +But, all his vast heart sherris-warm’d,<br/> +He flash’d his random speeches;<br/> +Ere days, that deal in ana, swarm’d<br/> +His literary leeches.<br/> +<br/> +So mix for ever with the past,<br/> +Like all good things on earth!<br/> +For should I prize thee, couldst thou last,<br/> +At half thy real worth?<br/> +I hold it good, good things should pass:<br/> +With time I will not quarrel:<br/> +It is but yonder empty glass<br/> +That makes me maudlin-moral.<br/> +<br/> +Head-waiter of the chop-house here,<br/> +To which I most resort,<br/> +I too must part: I hold thee dear<br/> +For this good pint of port.<br/> +For this, thou shalt from all things suck<br/> +Marrow of mirth and laughter;<br/> +And, wheresoe’er thou move, good luck<br/> +Shall fling her old shoe after.<br/> +<br/> +But thou wilt never move from hence,<br/> +The sphere thy fate allots:<br/> +Thy latter days increased with pence<br/> +Go down among the pots:<br/> +Thou battenest by the greasy gleam<br/> +In haunts of hungry sinners,<br/> +Old boxes, larded with the steam<br/> +Of thirty thousand dinners.<br/> +<br/> +<i>We</i> fret, <i>we</i> fume, would shift our skins,<br/> +Would quarrel with our lot;<br/> +<i>Thy</i> care is, under polish’d tins,<br/> +To serve the hot-and-hot;<br/> +To come and go, and come again,<br/> +Returning like the pewit,<br/> +And watch’d by silent gentlemen,<br/> +That trifle with the cruet.<br/> +<br/> +Live long, ere from thy topmost head<br/> +The thick-set hazel dies;<br/> +Long, ere the hateful crow shall tread<br/> +The corners of thine eyes:<br/> +Live long, nor feel in head or chest<br/> +Our changeful equinoxes,<br/> +Till mellow Death, like some late guest,<br/> +Shall call thee from the boxes.<br/> +<br/> +But when he calls, and thou shalt cease<br/> +To pace the gritted floor,<br/> +And, laying down an unctuous lease<br/> +Of life, shalt earn no more;<br/> +No carved cross-bones, the types of Death,<br/> +Shall show thee past to Heaven:<br/> +But carved cross-pipes, and, underneath,<br/> +A pint-pot neatly graven. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-536" id="linknote-536"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-536">[1]</a> +1842 and all previous to 1853. To full and kindly. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-537" id="linknote-537"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-537">[2]</a> +All previous to 1853:—<br/> +<br/> +Like Hezekiah’s, backward runs<br/> +The shadow of my days. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-538" id="linknote-538"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-538">[3]</a> +<a name="linknote-539" id="linknote-539"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-539"></a> +All previous to 1853. Though. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-540" id="linknote-540"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-540">[4]</a> +The expression is Shakespeare’s, <i>Twelfth Night</i>, v., i.,<br/> +<br/> +“and thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges”. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-541" id="linknote-541"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-541">[5]</a> +<a name="linknote-542" id="linknote-542"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-542"></a> +All previous to 1853. Though. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-543" id="linknote-543"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-543">[6]</a> +1842 to 1843. With motion less or greater. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap79"></a>To——</h3> + +<p class="center"> +after reading a Life and Letters +</p> + +<p> +Originally published in the <i>Examiner</i> for 24th March, 1849; then in the +sixth edition of the poems, 1850, with the second part of the title and the +alterations noted. When reprinted in 1851 one more slight alteration was made. +It has not been altered since. The work referred to was Moncton Milne’s +(afterwards Lord Houghton) <i>Letters and Literary Remains of Keats</i> +published in 1848, and the person to whom the poem may have been addressed was +Tennyson’s brother Charles, afterwards Charles Tennyson Turner, to the +facts of whose life and to whose character it would exactly apply. See +Napier,<i>Homes and Haunts of Tennyson</i>, 48-50. But Sir Franklin Lushington +tells me that it was most probably addressed to some imaginary person, as +neither he nor such of Tennyson’s surviving friends as he kindly +consulted for me are able to identify the person.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +You might have won the Poet’s name<br/> +If such be worth the winning now,<br/> +And gain’d a laurel for your brow<br/> +Of sounder leaf than I can claim;<br/> +<br/> +But you have made the wiser choice,<br/> +A life that moves to gracious ends<br/> +Thro’ troops of unrecording friends,<br/> +A deedful life, a silent voice:<br/> +<br/> +And you have miss’d the irreverent doom<br/> +Of those that wear the Poet’s crown:<br/> +Hereafter, neither knave nor clown<br/> +Shall hold their orgies at your tomb.<br/> +<br/> +For now the Poet cannot die<br/> +Nor leave his music as of old,<br/> +But round him ere he scarce be cold<br/> +Begins the scandal and the cry:<br/> +<br/> +“Proclaim the faults he would not show:<br/> +Break lock and seal: betray the trust:<br/> +Keep nothing sacred: ’tis but just<br/> +The many-headed beast should know”.<br/> +<br/> +Ah, shameless! for he did but sing.<br/> +A song that pleased us from its worth;<br/> +No public life was his on earth,<br/> +No blazon’d statesman he, nor king.<br/> +<br/> +He gave the people of his best:<br/> +His worst he kept, his best he gave.<br/> +My Shakespeare’s curse on<a href="#linknote-544" name="linknoteref-544" id="linknoteref-544"><sup>[1]</sup></a> clown and knave<br/> +Who will not let his ashes rest!<br/> +<br/> +Who make it seem more sweet<a href="#linknote-545" name="linknoteref-545" id="linknoteref-545"><sup>[2]</sup></a> to be<br/> +The little life of bank and brier,<br/> +The bird that pipes his lone desire<br/> +And dies unheard within his tree,<br/> +<br/> +Than he that warbles long and loud<br/> +And drops at Glory’s temple-gates,<br/> +For whom the carrion vulture waits<br/> +To tear his heart before the crowd! +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-544" id="linknote-544"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-544">[1]</a> +In Examiner and in 1850. My curse upon the. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-545" id="linknote-545"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-545">[2]</a> +In Examiner. Sweeter seem. For the sentiment <i>cf.</i> Goethe:—<br/> +<br/> +Ich singe, wie der Vogel singt<br/> +Der in den Zweigen wohnet;<br/> +Das Lied das aus dem Seele dringt<br/> +Ist Lohn, der reichlich lohnet.<br/> +<br/> +(<i>Der Sänger.</i>) +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap80"></a>To E. L. on his travels in Greece.</h3> + +<p> +This was first printed in 1853. It has not been altered since. The poem was +addressed to Edward Lear, the landscape painter, and refers to his +travels.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Illyrian woodlands, echoing falls<br/> +Of water, sheets of summer glass,<br/> +The long divine Peneian pass,<a href="#linknote-546" name="linknoteref-546" id="linknoteref-546"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/> +The vast Akrokeraunian walls,<a href="#linknote-547" name="linknoteref-547" id="linknoteref-547"><sup>[2]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +Tomohrit,<a href="#linknote-548" name="linknoteref-548" id="linknoteref-548"><sup>[3]</sup></a> Athos, all things fair,<br/> +With such a pencil, such a pen,<br/> +You shadow forth to distant men,<br/> +I read and felt that I was there:<br/> +<br/> +And trust me, while I turn’d the page,<br/> +And track’d you still on classic ground,<br/> +I grew in gladness till I found<br/> +My spirits in the golden age.<br/> +<br/> +For me the torrent ever pour’d<br/> +And glisten’d—here and there alone<br/> +The broad-limb’d Gods at random thrown<br/> +By fountain-urns;-and Naiads oar’d<br/> +<br/> +A glimmering shoulder under gloom<br/> +Of cavern pillars; on the swell<br/> +The silver lily heaved and fell;<br/> +And many a slope was rich in bloom<br/> +<br/> +From him that on the mountain lea<br/> +By dancing rivulets fed his flocks,<br/> +To him who sat upon the rocks,<br/> +And fluted to the morning sea. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-546" id="linknote-546"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-546">[1]</a> +<i>Cf</i>. Lear’s description of Tempe:<br/> +<br/> +“It is not a vale, it is a narrow pass, and although extremely beautiful +on account of the precipitous rocks on each side, the Peneus flowing deep in +the midst between the richest overhanging plane woods, still its character is +distinctly that of a ravine.”<br/> +<br/> +(<i>Journal</i>, 409.) +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-547" id="linknote-547"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-547">[2]</a> +The Akrokeraunian walls: the promontory now called Glossa. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-548" id="linknote-548"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-548">[3]</a> +Tomóhr, Tomorit, or Tomohritt is a lofty mountain in Albania not far +from Elbassan. Lear’s account of it is very graphic: “That calm +blue plain with Tomóhr in the midst like an azure island in a boundless +sea haunts my mind’s eye and varies the present with the past”. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap81"></a>Lady Clare</h3> + +<p> +First published 1842. After 1851 no alterations were made. +</p> + +<p> +This poem was suggested by Miss Ferrier’s powerful novel <i>The +Inheritance</i>. A comparison with the plot of Miss Ferrier’s novel will +show with what tact and skill Tennyson has adapted the tale to his ballad. +Thomas St. Clair, youngest son of the Earl of Rossville, marries a Miss Sarah +Black, a girl of humble and obscure birth. He dies, leaving a widow and as is +supposed a daughter, Gertrude, who claim the protection of Lord Rossville, as +the child is heiress presumptive to the earldom. On Lord Rossville’s +death she accordingly becomes Countess of Rossville. She has two lovers, both +distant connections, Colonel Delmour and Edward Lyndsay. At last it is +discovered that she was not the daughter of Thomas St. Clair and her supposed +mother, but of one Marion La Motte and Jacob Leviston, and that Mrs. St. Clair +had adopted her when a baby and passed her off as her own child, that she might +succeed to the title. Meanwhile Delmour by the death of his elder brother +succeeds to the title and estates forfeited by the detected foundling, but +instead of acting as Tennyson’s Lord Ronald does, he repudiates her and +marries a duchess. But her other lover Lyndsay is true to her and marries her. +Delmour not long afterwards dies without issue, and Lyndsay succeeds to the +title, Gertrude then becoming after all Countess of Rossville. In details +Tennyson follows the novel sometimes very closely. Thus the “single +rose,” the poor dress, the bitter exclamation about her being a beggar +born, are from the novel. +</p> + +<p> +The 1842 and all editions up to and including 1850 begin with the following +stanza and omit stanza 2:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Lord Ronald courted Lady Clare,<br/> +I trow they did not part in scorn;<br/> +Lord Ronald, her cousin, courted her<br/> +And they will wed the morrow morn.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +It was the time when lilies blow,<br/> +And clouds are highest up in air,<br/> +Lord Ronald brought a lily-white doe<br/> +To give his cousin Lady Clare.<br/> +<br/> +I trow they did not part in scorn:<br/> +Lovers long-betroth’d were they:<br/> +They two will wed the morrow morn!<br/> +God’s blessing on the day!<br/> +<br/> +“He does not love me for my birth,<br/> +Nor for my lands so broad and fair;<br/> +He loves me for my own true worth,<br/> +And that is well,” said Lady Clare.<br/> +<br/> +In there came old Alice the nurse,<br/> +Said, “Who was this that went from thee?”<br/> +“It was my cousin,” said Lady Clare,<br/> +“To-morrow he weds with me.”<br/> +<br/> +“O God be thank’d!” said Alice the nurse,<br/> +“That all comes round so just and fair:<br/> +Lord Ronald is heir of all your lands,<br/> +And you are not the Lady Clare.”<br/> +<br/> +“Are ye out of your mind, my nurse, my nurse?”<br/> +Said Lady Clare, “that ye speak so wild”;<br/> +“As God’s above,” said Alice the nurse,<br/> +“I speak the truth: you are my child.<br/> +<br/> +“The old Earl’s daughter died at my breast;<br/> +I speak the truth, as I live by bread!<br/> +I buried her like my own sweet child,<br/> +And put my child in her stead.”<br/> +<br/> +“Falsely, falsely have ye done,<br/> +O mother,” she said, “if this be true,<br/> +To keep the best man under the sun<br/> +So many years from his due.”<br/> +<br/> +“Nay now, my child,” said Alice the nurse,<br/> +“But keep the secret for your life,<br/> +And all you have will be Lord Ronald’s,<br/> +When you are man and wife.”<br/> +<br/> +“If I’m a beggar born,” she said,<br/> +“I will speak out, for I dare not lie.<br/> +Pull off, pull off, the broach<a href="#linknote-549" name="linknoteref-549" id="linknoteref-549"><sup>[1]</sup></a> of gold,<br/> +And fling the diamond necklace by.”<br/> +<br/> +“Nay now, my child,” said Alice the nurse,<br/> +“But keep the secret all ye can.”<br/> +She said, “Not so: but I will know<br/> +If there be any faith in man”.<br/> +<br/> +“Nay now, what faith?” said Alice the nurse,<br/> +“The man will cleave unto his right.”<br/> +“And he shall have it,” the lady replied,<br/> +“Tho’<a href="#linknote-550" name="linknoteref-550" id="linknoteref-550"><sup>[2]</sup></a> I should die to-night.”<br/> +<br/> +“Yet give one kiss to your mother dear!<br/> +Alas, my child, I sinn’d for thee.”<br/> +“O mother, mother, mother,” she said,<br/> +“So strange it seems to me.<br/> +<br/> +“Yet here’s a kiss for my mother dear,<br/> +My mother dear, if this be so,<br/> +And lay your hand upon my head,<br/> +And bless me, mother, ere I go.”<br/> +<br/> +She clad herself in a russet gown,<br/> +She was no longer Lady Clare:<br/> +She went by dale, and she went by down,<br/> +With a single rose in her hair.<br/> +<br/> +The lily-white doe Lord Ronald had brought<br/> +Leapt up from where she lay,<br/> +Dropt her head in the maiden’s hand,<br/> +And follow’d her all the way.<a href="#linknote-551" name="linknoteref-551" id="linknoteref-551"><sup>[3]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +Down stept Lord Ronald from his tower:<br/> +“O Lady Clare, you shame your worth!<br/> +Why come you drest like a village maid,<br/> +That are the flower of the earth?”<br/> +<br/> +“If I come drest like a village maid,<br/> +I am but as my fortunes are:<br/> +I am a beggar born,” she said,<a href="#linknote-552" name="linknoteref-552" id="linknoteref-552"><sup>[4]</sup></a><br/> +“And not the Lady Clare.”<br/> +<br/> +“Play me no tricks,” said Lord Ronald,<br/> +“For I am yours in word and in deed.<br/> +Play me no tricks,” said Lord Ronald,<br/> +“Your riddle is hard to read.”<br/> +<br/> +O and proudly stood she up!<br/> +Her heart within her did not fail:<br/> +She look’d into Lord Ronald’s eyes,<br/> +And told him all her nurse’s tale.<br/> +<br/> +He laugh’d a laugh of merry scorn:<br/> +He turn’d, and kiss’d her where she stood:<br/> +“If you are not the heiress born,<br/> +And I,” said he, “the next in blood—<br/> +<br/> +“If you are not the heiress born,<br/> +And I,” said he, “the lawful heir,<br/> +We two will wed to-morrow morn,<br/> +And you shall still be Lady Clare.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-549" id="linknote-549"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-549">[1]</a> +All up to and including 1850. Brooch. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-550" id="linknote-550"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-550">[2]</a> +All up to and including 1850. Though. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-551" id="linknote-551"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-551">[3]</a> +The stanza beginning “The lily-white doe” is omitted in 1842 and +1843, and in the subsequent editions up to and including 1850 begins “A +lily-white doe”. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-552" id="linknote-552"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-552">[4]</a> +In a letter addressed to Tennyson the late Mr. Peter Bayne ventured to object +to the dramatic propriety of Lady Clare speaking of herself as “a beggar +born”. Tennyson defended it by saying: “You make no allowance for +the shock of the fall from being Lady Clare to finding herself the child of a +nurse”. But the expression is Miss Ferrier’s: “Oh that she +had suffered me to remain the beggar I was born”; and again to her lover: +“You have loved an impostor and a beggar”. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap82"></a>The Lord of Burleigh</h3> + +<p> +Written, as we learn from <i>Life</i>, i., 182, by 1835. First published in +1842. No alteration since with the exception of “tho’” for +“though”. +</p> + +<p> +This poem tells the well-known story of Sarah Hoggins who married under the +circumstances related in the poem. She died in January, 1797, sinking, so it +was said, but without any authority for such a statement, under the burden of +an honour “unto which she was not born”. The story is that Henry +Cecil, heir presumptive to his uncle, the ninth Earl of Exeter, was staying at +Bolas, a rural village in Shropshire, where he met Sarah Hoggins and married +her. They lived together at Bolas, where the two eldest of his children were +born, for two years before he came into the title. She bore him two other +children after she was Countess of Exeter, dying at Burleigh House near +Stamford at the early age of twenty-four. The obituary notice runs thus: +“January, 1797. At Burleigh House near Stamford, aged twenty-four, to the +inexpressible surprise and concern of all acquainted with her, the Right Honbl. +Countess of Exeter.” For full information about this romantic incident +see Walford’s <i>Tales of Great Families</i>, first series, vol. i., +65-82, and two interesting papers signed W. O. Woodall in <i>Notes and +Queries</i>, seventh series, vol. xii., 221-23; <i>ibid</i>., 281-84, and +Napier’s <i>Homes and Haunts of Tennyson</i>, 104-111.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +In her ear he whispers gaily,<br/> +“If my heart by signs can tell,<br/> +Maiden, I have watch’d thee daily,<br/> +And I think thou lov’st me well”.<br/> +She replies, in accents fainter,<br/> +“There is none I love like thee”.<br/> +He is but a landscape-painter,<br/> +And a village maiden she.<br/> +He to lips, that fondly falter,<br/> +Presses his without reproof:<br/> +Leads her to the village altar,<br/> +And they leave her father’s roof.<br/> +“I can make no marriage present;<br/> +Little can I give my wife.<br/> +Love will make our cottage pleasant,<br/> +And I love thee more than life.”<br/> +They by parks and lodges going<br/> +See the lordly castles stand:<br/> +Summer woods, about them blowing,<br/> +Made a murmur in the land.<br/> +From deep thought himself he rouses,<br/> +Says to her that loves him well,<br/> +“Let us see these handsome houses<br/> +Where the wealthy nobles dwell”.<br/> +So she goes by him attended,<br/> +Hears him lovingly converse,<br/> +Sees whatever fair and splendid<br/> +Lay betwixt his home and hers;<br/> +Parks with oak and chestnut shady,<br/> +Parks and order’d gardens great,<br/> +Ancient homes of lord and lady,<br/> +Built for pleasure and for state.<br/> +All he shows her makes him dearer:<br/> +Evermore she seems to gaze<br/> +On that cottage growing nearer,<br/> +Where they twain will spend their days.<br/> +O but she will love him truly!<br/> +He shall have a cheerful home;<br/> +She will order all things duly,<br/> +When beneath his roof they come.<br/> +Thus her heart rejoices greatly,<br/> +Till a gateway she discerns<br/> +With armorial bearings stately,<br/> +And beneath the gate she turns;<br/> +Sees a mansion more majestic<br/> +Than all those she saw before:<br/> +Many a gallant gay domestic<br/> +Bows before him at the door.<br/> +And they speak in gentle murmur,<br/> +When they answer to his call,<br/> +While he treads with footstep firmer,<br/> +Leading on from hall to hall.<br/> +And, while now she wonders blindly,<br/> +Nor the meaning can divine,<br/> +Proudly turns he round and kindly,<br/> +“All of this is mine and thine”.<br/> +Here he lives in state and bounty,<br/> +Lord of Burleigh, fair and free,<br/> +Not a lord in all the county<br/> +Is so great a lord as he.<br/> +All at once the colour flushes<br/> +Her sweet face from brow to chin:<br/> +As it were with shame she blushes,<br/> +And her spirit changed within.<br/> +Then her countenance all over<br/> +Pale again as death did prove:<br/> +But he clasp’d her like a lover,<br/> +And he cheer’d her soul with love.<br/> +So she strove against her weakness,<br/> +Tho’ at times her spirits sank:<br/> +Shaped her heart with woman’s meekness<br/> +To all duties of her rank:<br/> +And a gentle consort made he,<br/> +And her gentle mind was such<br/> +That she grew a noble lady,<br/> +And the people loved her much.<br/> +But a trouble weigh’d upon her,<br/> +And perplex’d her, night and morn,<br/> +With the burthen of an honour<br/> +Unto which she was not born.<br/> +Faint she grew, and ever fainter,<br/> +As she murmur’d “Oh, that he<br/> +Were once more that landscape-painter<br/> +Which did win my heart from me!”<br/> +So she droop’d and droop’d before him,<br/> +Fading slowly from his side:<br/> +Three fair children first she bore him,<br/> +Then before her time she died.<br/> +Weeping, weeping late and early,<br/> +Walking up and pacing down,<br/> +Deeply mourn’d the Lord of Burleigh,<br/> +Burleigh-house by Stamford-town.<br/> +And he came to look upon her,<br/> +And he look’d at her and said,<br/> +“Bring the dress and put it on her,<br/> +That she wore when she was wed”.<br/> +Then her people, softly treading,<br/> +Bore to earth her body, drest<br/> +In the dress that she was wed in,<br/> +That her spirit might have rest. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap83"></a>Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere</h3> + +<p class="center"> +a fragment +</p> + +<p class="center"> +First published in 1842. Not altered since 1853. +</p> + +<p> +See for what may have given the hint for this fragment <i>Morte +D’Arthur</i>, bk. xix., ch. i., and bk. xx., ch. i., and <i>cf. +Coming of Arthur</i>:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +And Launcelot pass’d away among the flowers,<br/> +For then was latter April, and return’d<br/> +Among the flowers in May with Guinevere. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Like souls that balance joy and pain,<br/> +With tears and smiles from heaven again<br/> +The maiden Spring upon the plain<br/> +Came in a sun-lit fall of rain.<br/> +In crystal vapour everywhere<br/> +Blue isles of heaven laugh’d between,<br/> +And, far in forest-deeps unseen,<br/> +The topmost elm-tree<a href="#linknote-553" name="linknoteref-553" id="linknoteref-553"><sup>[1]</sup></a> gather’d green<br/> +From draughts of balmy air.<br/> +<br/> +Sometimes the linnet piped his song:<br/> +Sometimes the throstle whistled strong:<br/> +Sometimes the sparhawk, wheel’d along,<br/> +Hush’d all the groves from fear of wrong:<br/> +By grassy capes with fuller sound<br/> +In curves the yellowing river ran,<br/> +And drooping chestnut-buds began<br/> +To spread into the perfect fan,<br/> +Above the teeming ground.<br/> +<br/> +Then, in the boyhood of the year,<br/> +Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere<br/> +Rode thro’ the coverts of the deer,<br/> +With blissful treble ringing clear.<br/> +She seem’d a part of joyous Spring:<br/> +A gown of grass-green silk she wore,<br/> +Buckled with golden clasps before;<br/> +A light-green tuft of plumes she bore<br/> +Closed in a golden ring.<br/> +<br/> +Now on some twisted ivy-net,<br/> +Now by some tinkling rivulet,<br/> +In mosses mixt<a href="#linknote-554" name="linknoteref-554" id="linknoteref-554"><sup>[2]</sup></a> with violet<br/> +Her cream-white mule his pastern set:<br/> +And fleeter now<a href="#linknote-555" name="linknoteref-555" id="linknoteref-555"><sup>[3]</sup></a> she skimm’d the +plains<br/> +Than she whose elfin prancer springs<br/> +By night to eery warblings,<br/> +When all the glimmering moorland rings<br/> +With jingling bridle-reins.<br/> +<br/> +As she fled fast thro’ sun and shade,<br/> +The happy winds upon her play’d,<br/> +Blowing the ringlet from the braid:<br/> +She look’d so lovely, as she sway’d<br/> +The rein with dainty finger-tips,<br/> +A man had given all other bliss,<br/> +And all his worldly worth for this,<br/> +To waste his whole heart in one kiss<br/> +Upon her perfect lips. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-553" id="linknote-553"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-553">[1]</a> +Up to 1848. Linden. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-554" id="linknote-554"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-554">[2]</a> +All editions up to and including 1850. On mosses thick. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-555" id="linknote-555"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-555">[3]</a> +1842 to 1851. And now more fleet, +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap84"></a>A Farewell</h3> + +<p class="center"> +First published in 1842. Not altered since 1843. +</p> + +<p> +This poem was dedicated to the brook at Somersby described in the <i>Ode to +Memory</i> and referred to so often in <i>In Memoriam</i>. Possibly it may have +been written in 1837 when the Tennysons left Somersby. <i>Cf. In Memoriam</i>, +sect. ci.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea,<br/> +Thy tribute wave deliver:<br/> +No more by thee my steps shall be,<br/> +For ever and for ever.<br/> +<br/> +Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea,<br/> +A rivulet then a river:<br/> +No where by thee my steps shall be,<br/> +For ever and for ever.<br/> +<br/> +But here will sigh thine alder tree,<br/> +And here thine aspen shiver;<br/> +And here by thee will hum the bee,<br/> +For ever and for ever.<br/> +<br/> +A thousand suns<a href="#linknote-556" name="linknoteref-556" id="linknoteref-556"><sup>[1]</sup></a> will stream on thee,<br/> +A thousand moons will quiver;<br/> +But not by thee my steps shall be,<br/> +For ever and for ever. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-556" id="linknote-556"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-556">[1]</a> +1842. A hundred suns +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap85"></a>The Beggar Maid</h3> + +<p class="center"> +First published in 1842, not altered since. +</p> + +<p> +Suggested probably by the fine ballad in Percy’s <i>Reliques</i>, first +series, book ii., ballad vi.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Her arms across her breast she laid;<br/> +She was more fair than words can say:<br/> +Bare-footed came the beggar maid<br/> +Before the king Cophetua.<br/> +In robe and crown the king stept down,<br/> +To meet and greet her on her way;<br/> +“It is no wonder,” said the lords,<br/> +“She is more beautiful than day”.<br/> +<br/> +As shines the moon in clouded skies,<br/> +She in her poor attire was seen:<br/> +One praised her ancles, one her eyes,<br/> +One her dark hair and lovesome mien:<br/> +So sweet a face, such angel grace,<br/> +In all that land had never been:<br/> +Cophetua sware a royal oath:<br/> +“This beggar maid shall be my queen!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap86"></a>The Vision of Sin</h3> + +<p> +First published in 1842. No alteration made in it after 1851, except in the +insertion of a couplet afterwards omitted. +</p> + +<p> +This remarkable poem may be regarded as a sort of companion poem to <i>The +Palace of Art</i>; the one traces the effect of callous indulgence in mere +intellectual and æsthetic pleasures, the other of profligate indulgence in the +grosser forms of sensual enjoyment. At first all is ecstasy and intoxication, +then comes satiety, and all that satiety brings in its train, cynicism, +pessimism, the drying up of the very springs of life. “The body chilled, +jaded and ruined, the cup of pleasure drained to the dregs, the senses +exhausted of their power to enjoy, the spirit of its wish to aspire, nothing +left but loathing, craving and rottenness.” See Spedding in <i>Edinburgh +Review</i> for April, 1843. The poem concludes by leaving as an answer to the +awful question, “can there be final salvation for the poor wretch?” +a reply undecipherable by man, and dawn breaking in angry splendour. The best +commentary on the poem would be Byron’s lyric: “There’s not a +joy the world can give like that it takes away,” and <i>Don Juan</i>, +biography and daily life are indeed full of comments on the truth of this fine +allegory.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="left"> +1 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +I had a vision when the night was late:<br/> +A youth came riding toward a palace-gate.<br/> +He rode a horse with wings, that would have flown,<a href="#linknote-557" name="linknoteref-557" id="linknoteref-557"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/> +But that his heavy rider kept him down.<br/> +And from the palace came a child of sin,<br/> +And took him by the curls, and led him in,<br/> +Where sat a company with heated eyes,<br/> +Expecting when a fountain should arise:<br/> +A sleepy light upon their brows and lips—<br/> +As when the sun, a crescent of eclipse,<br/> +Dreams over lake and lawn, and isles and capes—<br/> +Suffused them, sitting, lying, languid shapes,<br/> +By heaps of gourds, and skins of wine, and piles of grapes. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +2 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Then methought I heard a mellow sound,<br/> +Gathering up from all the lower ground;<a href="#linknote-558" name="linknoteref-558" id="linknoteref-558"><sup>[2]</sup></a><br/> +Narrowing in to where they sat assembled<br/> +Low voluptuous music winding trembled,<br/> +Wov’n in circles: they that heard it sigh’d,<br/> +Panted hand in hand with faces pale,<br/> +Swung themselves, and in low tones replied;<br/> +Till the fountain spouted, showering wide<br/> +Sleet of diamond-drift and pearly hail;<br/> +Then the music touch’d the gates and died;<br/> +Rose again from where it seem’d to fail,<br/> +Storm’d in orbs of song, a growing gale;<br/> +Till thronging in and in, to where they waited,<br/> +As ’twere a hundred-throated nightingale,<br/> +The strong tempestuous treble throbb’d and palpitated;<br/> +Ran into its giddiest whirl of sound,<br/> +Caught the sparkles, and in circles,<br/> +Purple gauzes, golden hazes, liquid mazes,<br/> +Flung the torrent rainbow round:<br/> +Then they started from their places,<br/> +Moved with violence, changed in hue,<br/> +Caught each other with wild grimaces,<br/> +Half-invisible to the view,<br/> +Wheeling with precipitate paces<br/> +To the melody, till they flew,<br/> +Hair, and eyes, and limbs, and faces,<br/> +Twisted hard in fierce embraces,<br/> +Like to Furies, like to Graces,<br/> +Dash’d together in blinding dew:<br/> +Till, kill’d with some luxurious agony,<br/> +The nerve-dissolving melody<br/> +Flutter’d headlong from the sky. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +3 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +And then I look’d up toward a mountain-tract,<br/> +That girt the region with high cliff and lawn:<br/> +I saw that every morning, far withdrawn<br/> +Beyond the darkness and the cataract,<br/> +God made himself an awful rose of dawn,<a href="#linknote-559" name="linknoteref-559" id="linknoteref-559"><sup>[3]</sup></a><br/> +Unheeded: and detaching, fold by fold,<br/> +From those still heights, and, slowly drawing near,<br/> +A vapour heavy, hueless, formless, cold,<br/> +Came floating on for many a month and year,<br/> +Unheeded: and I thought I would have spoken,<br/> +And warn’d that madman ere it grew too late:<br/> +But, as in dreams, I could not. Mine was broken,<br/> +When that cold vapour touch’d the palace-gate,<br/> +And link’d again. I saw within my head<br/> +A gray and gap-tooth’d man as lean as death,<br/> +Who slowly rode across a wither’d heath,<br/> +And lighted at a ruin’d inn, and said: +</p> + +<p class="left"> +4 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +“Wrinkled ostler, grim and thin!<br/> +Here is custom come your way;<br/> +Take my brute, and lead him in,<br/> +Stuff his ribs with mouldy hay.<br/> +<br/> +“Bitter barmaid, waning fast!<br/> +See that sheets are on my bed;<br/> +What! the flower of life is past:<br/> +It is long before you wed.<br/> +<br/> +“Slip-shod waiter, lank and sour,<br/> +At the Dragon on the heath!<br/> +Let us have a quiet hour,<br/> +Let us hob-and-nob with Death.<br/> +<br/> +“I am old, but let me drink;<br/> +Bring me spices, bring me wine;<br/> +I remember, when I think,<br/> +That my youth was half divine.<br/> +<br/> +“Wine is good for shrivell’d lips,<br/> +When a blanket wraps the day,<br/> +When the rotten woodland drips,<br/> +And the leaf is stamp’d in clay.<br/> +<br/> +“Sit thee down, and have no shame,<br/> +Cheek by jowl, and knee by knee:<br/> +What care I for any name?<br/> +What for order or degree?<br/> +<br/> +“Let me screw thee up a peg:<br/> +Let me loose thy tongue with wine:<br/> +Callest thou that thing a leg?<br/> +Which is thinnest? thine or mine?<br/> +<br/> +“Thou shalt not be saved by works:<br/> +Thou hast been a sinner too:<br/> +Ruin’d trunks on wither’d forks,<br/> +Empty scarecrows, I and you!<br/> +<br/> +“Fill the cup, and fill the can:<br/> +Have a rouse before the morn:<br/> +Every moment dies a man,<br/> +Every moment one is born.<a href="#linknote-560" name="linknoteref-560" id="linknoteref-560"><sup>[4]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +“We are men of ruin’d blood;<br/> +Therefore comes it we are wise.<br/> +Fish are we that love the mud.<br/> +Rising to no fancy-flies.<br/> +<br/> +“Name and fame! to fly sublime<br/> +Thro’ the courts, the camps, the schools,<br/> +Is to be the ball of Time,<br/> +Bandied by the hands of fools.<br/> +<br/> +“Friendship!—to be two in one—<br/> +Let the canting liar pack!<br/> +Well I know, when I am gone,<br/> +How she mouths behind my back.<br/> +<br/> +“Virtue!—to be good and just—<br/> +Every heart, when sifted well,<br/> +Is a clot of warmer dust,<br/> +Mix’d with cunning sparks of hell.<br/> +<br/> +“O! we two as well can look<br/> +Whited thought and cleanly life<br/> +As the priest, above his book<br/> +Leering at his neighbour’s wife.<br/> +<br/> +“Fill the cup, and fill the can:<br/> +Have a rouse before the morn:<br/> +Every moment dies a man,<br/> +Every moment one is born.<a href="#linknote-561" name="linknoteref-561" id="linknoteref-561"><sup>[4]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +“Drink, and let the parties rave:<br/> +They are fill’d with idle spleen;<br/> +Rising, falling, like a wave,<br/> +For they know not what they mean.<br/> +<br/> +“He that roars for liberty<br/> +Faster binds a tyrant’s<a href="#linknote-562" name="linknoteref-562" id="linknoteref-562"><sup>[5]</sup></a> power;<br/> +And the tyrant’s cruel glee<br/> +Forces on the freer hour.<br/> +<br/> +“Fill the can, and fill the cup:<br/> +All the windy ways of men<br/> +Are but dust that rises up,<br/> +And is lightly laid again.<br/> +<br/> +“Greet her with applausive breath,<br/> +Freedom, gaily doth she tread;<br/> +In her right a civic wreath,<br/> +In her left a human head.<br/> +<br/> +“No, I love not what is new;<br/> +She is of an ancient house:<br/> +And I think we know the hue<br/> +Of that cap upon her brows.<br/> +<br/> +“Let her go! her thirst she slakes<br/> +Where the bloody conduit runs:<br/> +Then her sweetest meal she makes<br/> +On the first-born of her sons.<br/> +<br/> +“Drink to lofty hopes that cool—<br/> +Visions of a perfect State:<br/> +Drink we, last, the public fool,<br/> +Frantic love and frantic hate.<br/> +<br/> +“Chant me now some wicked stave,<br/> +Till thy drooping courage rise,<br/> +And the glow-worm of the grave<br/> +Glimmer in thy rheumy eyes.<br/> +<br/> +“Fear not thou to loose thy tongue;<br/> +Set thy hoary fancies free;<br/> +What is loathsome to the young<br/> +Savours well to thee and me.<br/> +<br/> +“Change, reverting to the years,<br/> +When thy nerves could understand<br/> +What there is in loving tears,<br/> +And the warmth of hand in hand.<br/> +<br/> +“Tell me tales of thy first love—<br/> +April hopes, the fools of chance;<br/> +Till the graves begin to move,<br/> +And the dead begin to dance.<br/> +<br/> +“Fill the can, and fill the cup:<br/> +All the windy ways of men<br/> +Are but dust that rises up,<br/> +And is lightly laid again.<br/> +<br/> +“Trooping from their mouldy dens<br/> +The chap-fallen circle spreads:<br/> +Welcome, fellow-citizens,<br/> +Hollow hearts and empty heads!<br/> +<br/> +“You are bones, and what of that?<br/> +Every face, however full,<br/> +Padded round with flesh and fat,<br/> +Is but modell’d on a skull.<br/> +<br/> +“Death is king, and Vivat Rex!<br/> +Tread a measure on the stones,<br/> +Madam—if I know your sex,<br/> +From the fashion of your bones.<br/> +<br/> +“No, I cannot praise the fire<br/> +In your eye—nor yet your lip:<br/> +All the more do I admire<br/> +Joints of cunning workmanship.<br/> +<br/> +“Lo! God’s likeness—the ground-plan—<br/> +Neither modell’d, glazed, or framed:<br/> +Buss me thou rough sketch of man,<br/> +Far too naked to be shamed!<br/> +<br/> +“Drink to Fortune, drink to Chance,<br/> +While we keep a little breath!<br/> +Drink to heavy Ignorance!<br/> +Hob-and-nob with brother Death!<br/> +<br/> +“Thou art mazed, the night is long,<br/> +And the longer night is near:<br/> +What! I am not all as wrong<br/> +As a bitter jest is dear.<br/> +<br/> +“Youthful hopes, by scores, to all,<br/> +When the locks are crisp and curl’d;<br/> +Unto me my maudlin gall<br/> +And my mockeries of the world.<br/> +<br/> +“Fill the cup, and fill the can!<br/> +Mingle madness, mingle scorn!<br/> +Dregs of life, and lees of man:<br/> +Yet we will not die forlorn.” +</p> + +<p class="left"> +5 +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The voice grew faint: there came a further change:<br/> +Once more uprose the mystic mountain-range:<br/> +Below were men and horses pierced with worms,<br/> +And slowly quickening into lower forms;<br/> +By shards and scurf of salt, and scum of dross,<br/> +Old plash of rains, and refuse patch’d with moss,<br/> +Then some one spake<a href="#linknote-563" name="linknoteref-563" id="linknoteref-563"><sup>[6]</sup></a>: “Behold! it was a crime<br/> +Of sense avenged by sense that wore with time”.<br/> +<a href="#linknote-564" name="linknoteref-564" id="linknoteref-564"><sup>[7]</sup></a>Another said: “The crime of sense became<br/> +The crime of malice, and is equal blame”.<br/> +And one: “He had not wholly quench’d his power;<br/> +A little grain of conscience made him sour”.<br/> +At last I heard a voice upon the slope<br/> +Cry to the summit, “Is there any hope?”<br/> +To which an answer peal’d from that high land.<br/> +But in a tongue no man could understand;<br/> +And on the glimmering limit far withdrawn<br/> +God made Himself an awful rose of dawn.<a href="#linknote-565" name="linknoteref-565" id="linknoteref-565"><sup>[8]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-557" id="linknote-557"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-557">[1]</a> +A reference to the famous passage in the <i>Phoedrus</i> where Plato compares +the soul to a chariot drawn by the two-winged steeds. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-558" id="linknote-558"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-558">[2]</a> +Imitated apparently from the dance in Shelley’s <i>Triumph of +Life</i>:—<br/> +<br/> +The wild dance maddens in the van; and those<br/> +...<br/> +Mix with each other in tempestuous measure<br/> +To savage music, wilder as it grows.<br/> +They, tortur’d by their agonising pleasure,<br/> +Convuls’d, and on the rapid whirlwinds spun<br/> +...<br/> +Maidens and youths fling their wild arms in air.<br/> +As their feet twinkle, etc. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-559" id="linknote-559"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-559">[3]</a> +See footnote to last line. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-560" id="linknote-560"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-560">[4]</a> +<a name="linknote-561" id="linknote-561"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-561"></a> +All up to and including 1850 read:—<br/> +<br/> +Every <i>minute</i> dies a man,<br/> +Every <i>minute</i> one is born.<br/> +<br/> +Mr. Babbage, the famous mathematician, is said to have addressed the following +letter to Tennyson in reference to this couplet:—<br/> +“I need hardly point out to you that this calculation would tend to keep +the sum total of the world’s population in a state of perpetual +equipoise, whereas it is a well-known fact that the said sum total is +constantly on the increase. I would therefore take the liberty of suggesting +that, in the next edition of your excellent poem, the erroneous calculation to +which I refer should be corrected as follows:—<br/> +<br/> +Every moment dies a man,<br/> +And one and a sixteenth is born.<br/> +<br/> +I may add that the exact figures are 1.167, but something must, of course, be +conceded to the laws of metre.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-562" id="linknote-562"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-562">[5]</a> +1842 and 1843. The tyrant’s. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-563" id="linknote-563"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-563">[6]</a> +1842. Said. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-564" id="linknote-564"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-564">[7]</a> +In the Selection published in 1865 Tennyson here inserted a couplet which he +afterwards omitted:—<br/> +<br/> +Another answer’d: “But a crime of sense!”<br/> +“Give him new nerves with old experience.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-565" id="linknote-565"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-565">[8]</a> +In Professor Tyndall’s reminiscences of Tennyson, inserted in +Tennyson’s <i>Life</i>, he says he once asked him for some explanation of +this line, and the poet’s reply was:<br/> +<br/> +“The power of explaining such concentrated expressions of the imagination +was very different from that of writing them”.<br/> +<br/> +And on another occasion he said very happily:<br/> +<br/> +“Poetry is like shot silk with many glancing colours. Every reader +must find his own interpretation, according to his ability, and according to +his sympathy with the poet”.<br/> +<br/> +Poetry in its essential forms always suggests infinitely more than it +expresses, and at once inspires and kindles the intelligence which is to +comprehend it; if that intelligence, which is perhaps only another name for +sympathy, does not exist, then, in Byron’s happy sarcasm:—<br/> +<br/> +“The gentle readers wax unkind,<br/> +And, not so studious for the poet’s ease,<br/> +Insist on knowing what he <i>means</i>, a hard<br/> +And hapless situation for a bard”.<br/> +<br/> +Possibly Tennyson may have had in his mind Keats’s line:—<br/> +<br/> +“There was an awful rainbow once in heaven” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap87"></a>Come not, when I am dead...</h3> + +<p class="center"> +First published in <i>The Keepsake</i> for 1851. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Come not, when I am dead,<br/> +To drop thy foolish tears upon my grave,<br/> +To trample round my fallen head,<br/> +And vex the unhappy dust thou wouldst not save.<br/> +There let the wind sweep and the plover cry;<br/> +But thou, go by.<a href="#linknote-566" name="linknoteref-566" id="linknoteref-566"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/> +<br/> +Child, if it were thine error or thy crime<br/> +I care no longer, being all unblest:<br/> +Wed whom thou wilt, but I am sick of Time,<a href="#linknote-567" name="linknoteref-567" id="linknoteref-567"><sup>[2]</sup></a><br/> +And I desire to rest.<br/> +Pass on, weak heart, and leave me where I lie:<br/> +Go by, go by. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-566" id="linknote-566"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-566">[1]</a> +<i>The Keepsake</i>:—But go thou by. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-567" id="linknote-567"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-567">[2]</a> +<i>The Keepsake</i> has a small <i>t</i> for Time. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap88"></a>The Eagle</h3> + +<p class="center"> +(fragment) +</p> + +<p class="center"> +First published in 1851. It has not been altered. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +He clasps the crag with hooked hands;<br/> +Close to the sun in lonely lands,<br/> +Ring’d with the azure world, he stands.<br/> +The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;<a href="#linknote-568" name="linknoteref-568" id="linknoteref-568"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/> +He watches from his mountain walls,<br/> +And like a thunderbolt he falls. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-568" id="linknote-568"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-568">[1]</a> +One of Tennyson’s most magically descriptive lines; nothing could exceed +the vividness of the words “wrinkled” and “crawls” +here. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap89"></a>Move eastward, happy earth...</h3> + +<p class="center"> +First published in 1842. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Move eastward, happy earth, and leave<br/> +Yon orange sunset waning slow:<br/> +From fringes of the faded eve,<br/> +O, happy planet, eastward go;<br/> +Till over thy dark shoulder glow<br/> +Thy silver sister-world, and rise<br/> +To glass herself in dewy eyes<br/> +That watch me from the glen below.<br/> +<br/> +Ah, bear me with thee, smoothly<a href="#linknote-569" name="linknoteref-569" id="linknoteref-569"><sup>[1]</sup></a> borne,<br/> +Dip forward under starry light,<br/> +And move me to my marriage-morn,<br/> +And round again to happy night. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-569" id="linknote-569"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-569">[1]</a> +1842 to 1853. Lightly. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap90"></a>Break, break, break...</h3> + +<p class="center"> +First published in 1842. No alteration. +</p> + +<p> +This exquisite poem was composed in a very different scene from +that to which it refers, namely in “a Lincolnshire lane at five +o’clock in the morning between blossoming hedges”. See <i>Life of +Tennyson</i>, vol. i., p. 223.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Break, break, break,<br/> +On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!<br/> +And I would that my tongue could utter<br/> +The thoughts that arise in me.<br/> +<br/> +O well for the fisherman’s boy,<br/> +That he shouts with his sister at play!<br/> +O well for the sailor lad,<br/> +That he sings in his boat on the bay!<br/> +<br/> +And the stately ships go on<br/> +To their haven under the hill;<br/> +But O for the touch of a vanish’d hand,<br/> +And the sound of a voice that is still!<br/> +<br/> +Break, break, break,<br/> +At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!<br/> +But the tender grace of a day that is dead<br/> +Will never come back to me. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap91"></a>The Poet’s Song</h3> + +<p class="center"> +First published in 1842. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The rain had fallen, the Poet arose,<br/> +He pass’d by the town and out of the street,<br/> +A light wind blew from the gates of the sun,<br/> +And waves of shadow went over the wheat,<br/> +And he sat him down in a lonely place,<br/> +And chanted a melody loud and sweet,<br/> +That made the wild-swan pause in her cloud,<br/> +And the lark drop down at his feet.<br/> +<br/> +The swallow stopt as he hunted the bee,<a href="#linknote-570" name="linknoteref-570" id="linknoteref-570"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/> +The snake slipt under a spray,<br/> +The wild hawk stood with the down on his beak,<br/> +And stared, with his foot on the prey,<br/> +And the nightingale thought, “I have sung many songs,<br/> +But never a one so gay,<br/> +For he sings of what the world will be<br/> +When the years have died away”. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-570" id="linknote-570"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-570">[1]</a> +1889, Fly. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap92"></a>Appendix</h3> + +<p> +The Poems published in MDCCCXXX and in MDCCCXXXIII which were temporarily or +finally suppressed. +</p> + +<h4>Poems published in MDCCCXXX</h4> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap93"></a>Elegiacs</h3> + +<p> +Reprinted in <i>Collected Works</i> among <i>Juvenilia</i>, with title altered +to <i>Leonine Elegiacs</i>. The only alterations made in the text were +“wood-dove” for “turtle,” and the substitution of +“or” for “and” in the last line but one.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Lowflowing breezes are roaming the broad valley dimm’d in the gloaming:<br/> +Thoro’ the black-stemm’d pines only the far river shines.<br/> +Creeping thro’ blossomy rushes and bowers of rose-blowing bushes,<br/> +Down by the poplar tall rivulets babble and fall.<br/> +Barketh the shepherd-dog cheerily; the grasshopper carolleth clearly;<br/> +Deeply the turtle coos; shrilly the owlet halloos;<br/> +Winds creep; dews fell chilly: in her first sleep earth breathes stilly:<br/> +Over the pools in the burn watergnats murmur and mourn.<br/> +Sadly the far kine loweth: the glimmering water outfloweth:<br/> +Twin peaks shadow’d with pine slope to the dark hyaline.<br/> +Lowthroned Hesper is stayed between the two peaks; but the Naiad<br/> +Throbbing in mild unrest holds him beneath in her breast.<br/> +The ancient poetess singeth, that Hesperus all things bringeth,<br/> +Smoothing the wearied mind: bring me my love, Rosalind.<br/> +Thou comest morning and even; she cometh not morning or even.<br/> +False-eyed Hesper, unkind, where is my sweet Rosalind? +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap94"></a>The “How” and the “Why”</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +I am any man’s suitor,<br/> +If any will be my tutor:<br/> +Some say this life is pleasant,<br/> +Some think it speedeth fast:<br/> +In time there is no present,<br/> +In eternity no future,<br/> +In eternity no past.<br/> +We laugh, we cry, we are born, we die,<br/> +Who will riddle me the <i>how</i> and the <i>why</i>?<br/> +<br/> +The bulrush nods unto its brother,<br/> +The wheatears whisper to each other:<br/> +What is it they say? What do they there?<br/> +Why two and two make four? Why round is not square?<br/> +Why the rocks stand still, and the light clouds fly?<br/> +Why the heavy oak groans, and the white willows sigh?<br/> +Why deep is not high, and high is not deep?<br/> +Whether we wake, or whether we sleep?<br/> +Whether we sleep, or whether we die?<br/> +How you are you? Why I am I?<br/> +Who will riddle me the <i>how</i> and the <i>why</i>?<br/> +<br/> +The world is somewhat; it goes on somehow;<br/> +But what is the meaning of <i>then</i> and <i>now</i>?<br/> +I feel there is something; but how and what?<br/> +I know there is somewhat; but what and why?<br/> +I cannot tell if that somewhat be I.<br/> +<br/> +The little bird pipeth, “why? why?”<br/> +In the summerwoods when the sun falls low<br/> +And the great bird sits on the opposite bough,<br/> +And stares in his face and shouts, “how? how?”<br/> +And the black owl scuds down the mellow twilight,<br/> +And chaunts, “how? how?” the whole of the night.<br/> +<br/> +Why the life goes when the blood is spilt?<br/> +What the life is? where the soul may lie?<br/> +Why a church is with a steeple built;<br/> +And a house with a chimneypot?<br/> +Who will riddle me the how and the what?<br/> +Who will riddle me the what and the why? +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap95"></a>Supposed Confessions...</h3> + +<p class="center"> +<b>of a second-rate sensitive mind not in unity with itself.</b> +</p> + +<p> +There has been only one important alteration made in this poem, when it was +reprinted among the <i>Juvenilia</i> in 1871, and that was the suppression of +the verses beginning “A grief not uninformed and dull” to +“Indued with immortality” inclusive, and the substitution of +“rosy” for “waxen”. Capitals are in all cases inserted +in the reprint where the Deity is referred to, “through” is altered +into “thro’” all through the poem, and hyphens are inserted +in the double epithets. No further alterations were made in the edition of +1830.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Oh God! my God! have mercy now.<br/> +I faint, I fall. Men say that thou<br/> +Didst die for me, for such as <i>me</i>,<br/> +Patient of ill, and death, and scorn,<br/> +And that my sin was as a thorn<br/> +Among the thorns that girt thy brow,<br/> +Wounding thy soul.—That even now,<br/> +In this extremest misery<br/> +Of ignorance, I should require<br/> +A sign! and if a bolt of fire<br/> +Would rive the slumbrous summernoon<br/> +While I do pray to thee alone,<br/> +Think my belief would stronger grow!<br/> +Is not my human pride brought low?<br/> +The boastings of my spirit still?<br/> +The joy I had in my freewill<br/> +All cold, and dead, and corpse-like grown?<br/> +And what is left to me, but thou,<br/> +And faith in thee? Men pass me by;<br/> +Christians with happy countenances—<br/> +And children all seem full of thee!<br/> +And women smile with saint-like glances<br/> +Like thine own mother’s when she bow’d<br/> +Above thee, on that happy morn<br/> +When angels spake to men aloud,<br/> +And thou and peace to earth were born.<br/> +Goodwill to me as well as all—<br/> +I one of them: my brothers they:<br/> +Brothers in Christ—a world of peace<br/> +And confidence, day after day;<br/> +And trust and hope till things should cease,<br/> +And then one Heaven receive us all.<br/> +How sweet to have a common faith!<br/> +To hold a common scorn of death!<br/> +And at a burial to hear<br/> +The creaking cords which wound and eat<br/> +Into my human heart, whene’er<br/> +Earth goes to earth, with grief, not fear,<br/> +With hopeful grief, were passing sweet!<br/> +<br/> +A grief not uninformed, and dull<br/> +Hearted with hope, of hope as full<br/> +As is the blood with life, or night<br/> +And a dark cloud with rich moonlight.<br/> +To stand beside a grave, and see<br/> +The red small atoms wherewith we<br/> +Are built, and smile in calm, and say—<br/> +“These little moles and graves shall be<br/> +Clothed on with immortality<br/> +More glorious than the noon of day—<br/> +All that is pass’d into the flowers<br/> +And into beasts and other men,<br/> +And all the Norland whirlwind showers<br/> +From open vaults, and all the sea<br/> +O’er washes with sharp salts, again<br/> +Shall fleet together all, and be<br/> +Indued with immortality.”<br/> +<br/> +Thrice happy state again to be<br/> +The trustful infant on the knee!<br/> +Who lets his waxen fingers play<br/> +About his mother’s neck, and knows<br/> +Nothing beyond his mother’s eyes.<br/> +They comfort him by night and day;<br/> +They light his little life alway;<br/> +He hath no thought of coming woes;<br/> +He hath no care of life or death,<br/> +Scarce outward signs of joy arise,<br/> +Because the Spirit of happiness<br/> +And perfect rest so inward is;<br/> +And loveth so his innocent heart,<br/> +Her temple and her place of birth,<br/> +Where she would ever wish to dwell,<br/> +Life of the fountain there, beneath<br/> +Its salient springs, and far apart,<br/> +Hating to wander out on earth,<br/> +Or breathe into the hollow air,<br/> +Whose dullness would make visible<br/> +Her subtil, warm, and golden breath,<br/> +Which mixing with the infant’s blood,<br/> +Fullfills him with beatitude.<br/> +Oh! sure it is a special care<br/> +Of God, to fortify from doubt,<br/> +To arm in proof, and guard about<br/> +With triple-mailed trust, and clear<br/> +Delight, the infant’s dawning year.<br/> +<br/> +Would that my gloomed fancy were<br/> +As thine, my mother, when with brows<br/> +Propped on thy knees, my hands upheld<br/> +In thine, I listen’d to thy vows,<br/> +For me outpour’d in holiest prayer—<br/> +For me unworthy!—and beheld<br/> +Thy mild deep eyes upraised, that knew<br/> +The beauty and repose of faith,<br/> +And the clear spirit shining through.<br/> +Oh! wherefore do we grow awry<br/> +From roots which strike so deep? why dare<br/> +Paths in the desert? Could not I<br/> +Bow myself down, where thou hast knelt,<br/> +To th’ earth—until the ice would melt<br/> +Here, and I feel as thou hast felt?<br/> +What Devil had the heart to scathe<br/> +Flowers thou hadst rear’d—to brush the dew<br/> +From thine own lily, when thy grave<br/> +Was deep, my mother, in the clay?<br/> +Myself? Is it thus? Myself? Had I<br/> +So little love for thee? But why<br/> +Prevail’d not thy pure prayers? Why pray<br/> +To one who heeds not, who can save<br/> +But will not? Great in faith, and strong<br/> +Against the grief of circumstance<br/> +Wert thou, and yet unheard. What if<br/> +Thou pleadest still, and seest me drive<br/> +Thro’ utter dark a fullsailed skiff,<br/> +Unpiloted i’ the echoing dance<br/> +Of reboant whirlwinds, stooping low<br/> +Unto the death, not sunk! I know<br/> +At matins and at evensong,<br/> +That thou, if thou were yet alive,<br/> +In deep and daily prayers wouldst strive<br/> +To reconcile me with thy God.<br/> +Albeit, my hope is gray, and cold<br/> +At heart, thou wouldest murmur still—<br/> +“Bring this lamb back into thy fold,<br/> +My Lord, if so it be thy will”.<br/> +Wouldst tell me I must brook the rod,<br/> +And chastisement of human pride;<br/> +That pride, the sin of devils, stood<br/> +Betwixt me and the light of God!<br/> +That hitherto I had defied<br/> +And had rejected God—that grace<br/> +Would drop from his o’erbrimming love,<br/> +As manna on my wilderness,<br/> +If I would pray—that God would move<br/> +And strike the hard hard rock, and thence,<br/> +Sweet in their utmost bitterness,<br/> +Would issue tears of penitence<br/> +Which would keep green hope’s life. Alas!<br/> +I think that pride hath now no place<br/> +Nor sojourn in me. I am void,<br/> +Dark, formless, utterly destroyed.<br/> +<br/> +Why not believe then? Why not yet<br/> +Anchor thy frailty there, where man<br/> +Hath moor’d and rested? Ask the sea<br/> +At midnight, when the crisp slope waves<br/> +After a tempest, rib and fret<br/> +The broadimbasèd beach, why he<br/> +Slumbers not like a mountain tarn?<br/> +Wherefore his ridges are not curls<br/> +And ripples of an inland mere?<br/> +Wherefore he moaneth thus, nor can<br/> +Draw down into his vexed pools<br/> +All that blue heaven which hues and paves<br/> +The other? I am too forlorn,<br/> +Too shaken: my own weakness fools<br/> +My judgment, and my spirit whirls,<br/> +Moved from beneath with doubt and fear.<br/> +<br/> +“Yet” said I, in my morn of youth,<br/> +The unsunned freshness of my strength,<br/> +When I went forth in quest of truth,<br/> +“It is man’s privilege to doubt,<br/> +If so be that from doubt at length,<br/> +Truth may stand forth unmoved of change,<br/> +An image with profulgent brows,<br/> +And perfect limbs, as from the storm<br/> +Of running fires and fluid range<br/> +Of lawless airs, at last stood out<br/> +This excellence and solid form<br/> +Of constant beauty. For the Ox<br/> +Feeds in the herb, and sleeps, or fills<br/> +The horned valleys all about,<br/> +And hollows of the fringed hills<br/> +In summerheats, with placid lows<br/> +Unfearing, till his own blood flows<br/> +About his hoof. And in the flocks<br/> +The lamb rejoiceth in the year,<br/> +And raceth freely with his fere,<br/> +And answers to his mother’s calls<br/> +From the flower’d furrow. In a time,<br/> +Of which he wots not, run short pains<br/> +Through his warm heart; and then, from whence<br/> +He knows not, on his light there falls<br/> +A shadow; and his native slope,<br/> +Where he was wont to leap and climb,<br/> +Floats from his sick and filmed eyes,<br/> +And something in the darkness draws<br/> +His forehead earthward, and he dies.<br/> +Shall man live thus, in joy and hope<br/> +As a young lamb, who cannot dream,<br/> +Living, but that he shall live on?<br/> +Shall we not look into the laws<br/> +Of life and death, and things that seem,<br/> +And things that be, and analyse<br/> +Our double nature, and compare<br/> +All creeds till we have found the one,<br/> +If one there be?” Ay me! I fear<br/> +All may not doubt, but everywhere<br/> +Some must clasp Idols. Yet, my God,<br/> +Whom call I Idol? Let thy dove<br/> +Shadow me over, and my sins<br/> +Be unremembered, and thy love<br/> +Enlighten me. Oh teach me yet<br/> +Somewhat before the heavy clod<br/> +Weighs on me, and the busy fret<br/> +Of that sharpheaded worm begins<br/> +In the gross blackness underneath.<br/> +<br/> +O weary life! O weary death!<br/> +O spirit and heart made desolate!<br/> +O damnèd vacillating state! +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap96"></a>The Burial of Love</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +His eyes in eclipse,<br/> +Pale cold his lips,<br/> +The light of his hopes unfed,<br/> +Mute his tongue,<br/> +His bow unstrung<br/> +With the tears he hath shed,<br/> +Backward drooping his graceful head,<br/> +<br/> +Love is dead;<br/> +His last arrow is sped;<br/> +He hath not another dart;<br/> +Go—carry him to his dark deathbed;<br/> +Bury him in the cold, cold heart—<br/> +Love is dead.<br/> +<br/> +Oh, truest love! art thou forlorn,<br/> +And unrevenged? thy pleasant wiles<br/> +Forgotten, and thine innocent joy?<br/> +Shall hollowhearted apathy,<br/> +The cruellest form of perfect scorn,<br/> +With languor of most hateful smiles,<br/> +For ever write<br/> +In the withered light<br/> +Of the tearless eye,<br/> +An epitaph that all may spy?<br/> +No! sooner she herself shall die.<br/> +<br/> +For her the showers shall not fall,<br/> +Nor the round sun that shineth to all;<br/> +Her light shall into darkness change;<br/> +For her the green grass shall not spring,<br/> +Nor the rivers flow, nor the sweet birds sing,<br/> +Till Love have his full revenge. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap97"></a>To——</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +Sainted Juliet! dearest name!<br/> +If to love be life alone,<br/> +Divinest Juliet,<br/> +I love thee, and live; and yet<br/> +Love unreturned is like the fragrant flame<br/> +Folding the slaughter of the sacrifice<br/> +Offered to gods upon an altarthrone;<br/> +My heart is lighted at thine eyes,<br/> +Changed into fire, and blown about with sighs. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap98"></a>Song—“I’ the glooming light...”</h3> + +<p class="left"> +I +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +I’ the glooming light<br/> +Of middle night<br/> +So cold and white,<br/> +Worn Sorrow sits by the moaning wave;<br/> +Beside her are laid<br/> +Her mattock and spade,<br/> +For she hath half delved her own deep grave.<br/> +Alone she is there:<br/> +The white clouds drizzle: her hair falls loose;<br/> +Her shoulders are bare;<br/> +Her tears are mixed with the bearded dews. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +II +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Death standeth by;<br/> +She will not die;<br/> +With glazed eye<br/> +She looks at her grave: she cannot sleep;<br/> +Ever alone<br/> +She maketh her moan:<br/> +She cannot speak; she can only weep;<br/> +For she will not hope.<br/> +The thick snow falls on her flake by flake,<br/> +The dull wave mourns down the slope,<br/> +The world will not change, and her heart will not break. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap99"></a>Song—“The lintwhite and the throstlecock...”</h3> + +<p class="left"> +I +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The lintwhite and the throstlecock<br/> +Have voices sweet and clear;<br/> +All in the bloomed May.<br/> +They from the blosmy brere<br/> +Call to the fleeting year,<br/> +If that he would them hear<br/> +And stay. Alas! that one so beautiful<br/> +Should have so dull an ear. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +II +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Fair year, fair year, thy children call,<br/> +But thou art deaf as death;<br/> +All in the bloomèd May.<br/> +When thy light perisheth<br/> +That from thee issueth,<br/> +Our life evanisheth: Oh! stay.<br/> +Alas! that lips so cruel-dumb<br/> +Should have so sweet a breath! +</p> + +<p class="left"> +III +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Fair year, with brows of royal love<br/> +Thou comest, as a king,<br/> +All in the bloomèd May.<br/> +Thy golden largess fling,<br/> +And longer hear us sing;<br/> +Though thou art fleet of wing,<br/> +Yet stay. Alas! that eyes so full of light<br/> +Should be so wandering! +</p> + +<p class="left"> +IV +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Thy locks are all of sunny sheen<br/> +In rings of gold yronne,<a href="#linknote-571" name="linknoteref-571" id="linknoteref-571"><sup>[1]</sup></a><br/> +All in the bloomèd May,<br/> +We pri’thee pass not on;<br/> +If thou dost leave the sun,<br/> +Delight is with thee gone, Oh! stay.<br/> +Thou art the fairest of thy feres,<br/> +We pri’thee pass not on. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-571" id="linknote-571"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-571">[1]</a> +His crispè hair in ringis was yronne.— Chaucer, <i>Knight’s +Tale</i>. (Tennyson’s note.) +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap100"></a>Song—“Every day hath its night...”</h3> + +<p class="left"> +I +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Every day hath its night:<br/> +Every night its morn:<br/> +Thorough dark and bright<br/> +Wingèd hours are borne;<br/> +Ah! welaway!<br/> +<br/> +Seasons flower and fade;<br/> +Golden calm and storm<br/> +Mingle day by day.<br/> +There is no bright form<br/> +Doth not cast a shade—<br/> +Ah! welaway! +</p> + +<p class="left"> +II +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +When we laugh, and our mirth<br/> +Apes the happy vein,<br/> +We’re so kin to earth,<br/> +Pleasaunce fathers pain—<br/> +Ah! welaway!<br/> +Madness laugheth loud:<br/> +Laughter bringeth tears:<br/> +Eyes are worn away<br/> +Till the end of fears<br/> +Cometh in the shroud,<br/> +Ah! welaway! +</p> + +<p class="left"> +III +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +All is change, woe or weal;<br/> +Joy is Sorrow’s brother;<br/> +Grief and gladness steal<br/> +Symbols of each other;<br/> +Ah! welaway!<br/> +Larks in heaven’s cope<br/> +Sing: the culvers mourn<br/> +All the livelong day.<br/> +Be not all forlorn;<br/> +Let us weep, in hope—<br/> +Ah! welaway! +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap101"></a>Nothing Will Die</h3> + +<p> +Reprinted without any important alteration among the <i>Juvenilia</i> in 1871 +and onward. No change made except that “through” is spelt +“thro’,” and in the last line “and” is +substituted for “all”.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +When will the stream be aweary of flowing<br/> +Under my eye?<br/> +When will the wind be aweary of blowing<br/> +Over the sky?<br/> +When will the clouds be aweary of fleeting?<br/> +When will the heart be aweary of beating?<br/> +And nature die?<br/> +Never, oh! never, nothing will die?<br/> +The stream flows,<br/> +The wind blows,<br/> +The cloud fleets,<br/> +The heart beats,<br/> +Nothing will die.<br/> +<br/> +Nothing will die;<br/> +All things will change<br/> +Through eternity.<br/> +’Tis the world’s winter;<br/> +Autumn and summer<br/> +Are gone long ago;<br/> +Earth is dry to the centre,<br/> +But spring, a new comer,<br/> +A spring rich and strange,<br/> +Shall make the winds blow<br/> +Round and round,<br/> +Through and through,<br/> +Here and there,<br/> +Till the air<br/> +And the ground<br/> +Shall be filled with life anew.<br/> +<br/> +The world was never made;<br/> +It will change, but it will not fade.<br/> +So let the wind range;<br/> +For even and morn<br/> +Ever will be<br/> +Through eternity.<br/> +Nothing was born;<br/> +Nothing will die;<br/> +All things will change. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap102"></a>All Things Will Die</h3> + +<p> +Reprinted among <i>Juvenilia</i> in 1872 and onward, without +alteration.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Clearly the blue river chimes in its flowing<br/> +Under my eye;<br/> +Warmly and broadly the south winds are blowing<br/> +Over the sky.<br/> +One after another the white clouds are fleeting;<br/> +Every heart this May morning in joyance is beating<br/> +Full merrily;<br/> +Yet all things must die.<br/> +The stream will cease to flow;<br/> +The wind will cease to blow;<br/> +The clouds will cease to fleet;<br/> +The heart will cease to beat;<br/> +For all things must die.<br/> +<br/> +All things must die.<br/> +Spring will come never more.<br/> +Oh! vanity!<br/> +Death waits at the door.<br/> +See! our friends are all forsaking<br/> +The wine and the merrymaking.<br/> +We are called—we must go.<br/> +Laid low, very low,<br/> +In the dark we must lie.<br/> +The merry glees are still;<br/> +The voice of the bird<br/> +Shall no more be heard,<br/> +Nor the wind on the hill.<br/> +Oh! misery!<br/> +Hark! death is calling<br/> +While I speak to ye,<br/> +The jaw is falling,<br/> +The red cheek paling,<br/> +The strong limbs failing;<br/> +Ice with the warm blood mixing;<br/> +The eyeballs fixing.<br/> +Nine times goes the passing bell:<br/> +Ye merry souls, farewell.<br/> +The old earth<br/> +Had a birth,<br/> +As all men know,<br/> +Long ago.<br/> +And the old earth must die.<br/> +So let the warm winds range,<br/> +And the blue wave beat the shore;<br/> +For even and morn<br/> +Ye will never see<br/> +Through eternity.<br/> +All things were born.<br/> +Ye will come never more,<br/> +For all things must die. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap103"></a>Hero to Leander</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +Oh go not yet, my love,<br/> +The night is dark and vast;<br/> +The white moon is hid in her heaven above,<br/> +And the waves climb high and fast.<br/> +Oh! kiss me, kiss me, once again,<br/> +Lest thy kiss should be the last.<br/> +Oh kiss me ere we part;<br/> +Grow closer to my heart.<br/> +My heart is warmer surely than the bosom of the main.<br/> +<br/> +Oh joy! O bliss of blisses!<br/> +My heart of hearts art thou.<br/> +Come bathe me with thy kisses,<br/> +My eyelids and my brow.<br/> +Hark how the wild rain hisses,<br/> +And the loud sea roars below.<br/> +<br/> +Thy heart beats through thy rosy limbs<br/> +So gladly doth it stir;<br/> +Thine eye in drops of gladness swims.<br/> +I have bathed thee with the pleasant myrrh;<br/> +Thy locks are dripping balm;<br/> +Thou shalt not wander hence to-night,<br/> +I’ll stay thee with my kisses.<br/> +To-night the roaring brine<br/> +Will rend thy golden tresses;<br/> +The ocean with the morrow light<br/> +Will be both blue and calm;<br/> +And the billow will embrace thee with a kiss as soft as +mine.<br/> +<br/> +No western odours wander<br/> +On the black and moaning sea,<br/> +And when thou art dead, Leander,<br/> +My soul must follow thee!<br/> +Oh go not yet, my love<br/> +Thy voice is sweet and low;<br/> +The deep salt wave breaks in above<br/> +Those marble steps below.<br/> +The turretstairs are wet<br/> +That lead into the sea.<br/> +Leander! go not yet.<br/> +The pleasant stars have set:<br/> +Oh! go not, go not yet,<br/> +Or I will follow thee. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap104"></a>The Mystic</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +Angels have talked with him, and showed him +thrones:<br/> +Ye knew him not: he was not one of ye,<br/> +Ye scorned him with an undiscerning scorn;<br/> +Ye could not read the marvel in his eye,<br/> +The still serene abstraction; he hath felt<br/> +The vanities of after and before;<br/> +Albeit, his spirit and his secret heart<br/> +The stern experiences of converse lives,<br/> +The linked woes of many a fiery change<br/> +Had purified, and chastened, and made free.<br/> +Always there stood before him, night and day,<br/> +Of wayward vary colored circumstance,<br/> +The imperishable presences serene<br/> +Colossal, without form, or sense, or sound,<br/> +Dim shadows but unwaning presences<br/> +Fourfaced to four corners of the sky;<br/> +And yet again, three shadows, fronting one,<br/> +One forward, one respectant, three but one;<br/> +And yet again, again and evermore,<br/> +For the two first were not, but only seemed,<br/> +One shadow in the midst of a great light,<br/> +One reflex from eternity on time,<br/> +One mighty countenance of perfect calm,<br/> +Awful with most invariable eyes.<br/> +For him the silent congregated hours,<br/> +Daughters of time, divinely tall, beneath<br/> +Severe and youthful brows, with shining eyes<br/> +Smiling a godlike smile (the innocent light<br/> +Of earliest youth pierced through and through with all<br/> +Keen knowledges of low-embowed eld)<br/> +Upheld, and ever hold aloft the cloud<br/> +Which droops low hung on either gate of life,<br/> +Both birth and death; he in the centre fixt,<br/> +Saw far on each side through the grated gates<br/> +Most pale and clear and lovely distances.<br/> +He often lying broad awake, and yet<br/> +Remaining from the body, and apart<br/> +In intellect and power and will, hath heard<br/> +Time flowing in the middle of the night,<br/> +And all things creeping to a day of doom.<br/> +How could ye know him? Ye were yet within<br/> +The narrower circle; he had wellnigh reached<br/> +The last, with which a region of white flame,<br/> +Pure without heat, into a larger air<br/> +Upburning, and an ether of black blue,<br/> +Investeth and ingirds all other lives. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap105"></a>The Grasshopper</h3> + +<p class="left"> +I +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Voice of the summerwind,<br/> +Joy of the summerplain,<br/> +Life of the summerhours,<br/> +Carol clearly, bound along.<br/> +No Tithon thou as poets feign<br/> +(Shame fall ’em they are deaf and blind)<br/> +But an insect lithe and strong,<br/> +Bowing the seeded summerflowers.<br/> +Prove their falsehood and thy quarrel,<br/> +Vaulting on thine airy feet.<br/> +Clap thy shielded sides and carol,<br/> +Carol clearly, chirrup sweet.<br/> +Thou art a mailéd warrior in youth and strength complete;<br/> +Armed cap-a-pie,<br/> +Full fair to see;<br/> +Unknowing fear,<br/> +Undreading loss,<br/> +A gallant cavalier<br/> +<i>Sans peur et sans reproche,</i><br/> +In sunlight and in shadow,<br/> +The Bayard of the meadow. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +II +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +I would dwell with thee,<br/> +Merry grasshopper,<br/> +Thou art so glad and free,<br/> +And as light as air;<br/> +Thou hast no sorrow or tears,<br/> +Thou hast no compt of years,<br/> +No withered immortality,<br/> +But a short youth sunny and free.<br/> +Carol clearly, bound along,<br/> +Soon thy joy is over,<br/> +A summer of loud song,<br/> +And slumbers in the clover.<br/> +What hast thou to do with evil<br/> +In thine hour of love and revel,<br/> +In thy heat of summerpride,<br/> +Pushing the thick roots aside<br/> +Of the singing flowered grasses,<br/> +That brush thee with their silken tresses?<br/> +What hast thou to do with evil,<br/> +Shooting, singing, ever springing<br/> +In and out the emerald glooms,<br/> +Ever leaping, ever singing,<br/> +Lighting on the golden blooms? +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap106"></a>Love, Pride and Forgetfulness</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +Ere yet my heart was sweet Love’s tomb,<br/> +Love laboured honey busily.<br/> +I was the hive and Love the bee,<br/> +My heart the honey-comb.<br/> +One very dark and chilly night<br/> +Pride came beneath and held a light.<br/> +<br/> +The cruel vapours went through all,<br/> +Sweet Love was withered in his cell;<br/> +Pride took Love’s sweets, and by a spell,<br/> +Did change them into gall;<br/> +And Memory tho’ fed by Pride<br/> +Did wax so thin on gall,<br/> +Awhile she scarcely lived at all,<br/> +What marvel that she died? +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap107"></a>Chorus: “The varied earth...”</h3> + +<p> +In an unpublished drama written very early.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The varied earth, the moving heaven,<br/> +The rapid waste of roving sea,<br/> +The fountainpregnant mountains riven<br/> +To shapes of wildest anarchy,<br/> +By secret fire and midnight storms<br/> +That wander round their windy cones,<br/> +The subtle life, the countless forms<br/> +Of living things, the wondrous tones<br/> +Of man and beast are full of strange<br/> +Astonishment and boundless change.<br/> +<br/> +The day, the diamonded light,<br/> +The echo, feeble child of sound,<br/> +The heavy thunder’s griding might,<br/> +The herald lightning’s starry bound,<br/> +The vocal spring of bursting bloom,<br/> +The naked summer’s glowing birth,<br/> +The troublous autumn’s sallow gloom,<br/> +The hoarhead winter paving earth<br/> +With sheeny white, are full of strange<br/> +Astonishment and boundless change.<br/> +<br/> +Each sun which from the centre flings<br/> +Grand music and redundant fire,<br/> +The burning belts, the mighty rings,<br/> +The murmurous planets’ rolling choir,<br/> +The globefilled arch that, cleaving air,<br/> +Lost in its effulgence sleeps,<br/> +The lawless comets as they glare,<br/> +And thunder thro’ the sapphire deeps<br/> +In wayward strength, are full of strange<br/> +Astonishment and boundless change. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap108"></a>Lost Hope</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +You cast to ground the hope which once was mine,<br/> +But did the while your harsh decree deplore,<br/> +Embalming with sweet tears the vacant shrine,<br/> +My heart, where Hope had been and was no more.<br/> +<br/> +So on an oaken sprout<br/> +A goodly acorn grew;<br/> +But winds from heaven shook the acorn out,<br/> +And filled the cup with dew. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap109"></a>The Tears of Heaven</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +Heaven weeps above the earth all night till morn,<br/> +In darkness weeps, as all ashamed to weep,<br/> +Because the earth hath made her state forlorn<br/> +With selfwrought evils of unnumbered years,<br/> +And doth the fruit of her dishonour reap.<br/> +And all the day heaven gathers back her tears<br/> +Into her own blue eyes so clear and deep,<br/> +And showering down the glory of lightsome day,<br/> +Smiles on the earth’s worn brow to win her if she may. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap110"></a>Love and Sorrow</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +O Maiden, fresher than the first green leaf<br/> +With which the fearful springtide flecks the lea,<br/> +Weep not, Almeida, that I said to thee<br/> +That thou hast half my heart, for bitter grief<br/> +Doth hold the other half in sovranty.<br/> +Thou art my heart’s sun in love’s crystalline:<br/> +Yet on both sides at once thou canst not shine:<br/> +Thine is the bright side of my heart, and thine<br/> +My heart’s day, but the shadow of my heart,<br/> +Issue of its own substance, my heart’s night<br/> +Thou canst not lighten even with <i>thy</i> light,<br/> +All powerful in beauty as thou art.<br/> +Almeida, if my heart were substanceless,<br/> +Then might thy rays pass thro’ to the other side,<br/> +So swiftly, that they nowhere would abide,<br/> +But lose themselves in utter emptiness.<br/> +Half-light, half-shadow, let my spirit sleep;<br/> +They never learnt to love who never knew to weep. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap111"></a>To a Lady Sleeping</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +O Thou whose fringed lids I gaze upon,<br/> +Through whose dim brain the winged dreams are borne,<br/> +Unroof the shrines of clearest vision,<br/> +In honour of the silverflecked morn:<br/> +Long hath the white wave of the virgin light<br/> +Driven back the billow of the dreamful dark.<br/> +Thou all unwittingly prolongest night,<br/> +Though long ago listening the poised lark,<br/> +With eyes dropt downward through the blue serene,<br/> +Over heaven’s parapets the angels lean. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap112"></a>Sonnet—“Could I outwear my present +state of woe...”</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +Could I outwear my present state of woe<br/> +With one brief winter, and indue i’ the spring<br/> +Hues of fresh youth, and mightily outgrow<br/> +The wan dark coil of faded suffering—<br/> +Forth in the pride of beauty issuing<br/> +A sheeny snake, the light of vernal bowers,<br/> +Moving his crest to all sweet plots of flowers<br/> +And watered vallies where the young birds sing;<br/> +Could I thus hope my lost delights renewing,<br/> +I straightly would commend the tears to creep<br/> +From my charged lids; but inwardly I weep:<br/> +Some vital heat as yet my heart is wooing:<br/> +This to itself hath drawn the frozen rain<br/> +From my cold eyes and melted it again. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap113"></a>Sonnet—“Though Night hath climbed +her peak of highest noon...”</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +Though Night hath climbed her peak of highest noon,<br/> +And bitter blasts the screaming autumn whirl,<br/> +All night through archways of the bridged pearl<br/> +And portals of pure silver walks the moon.<br/> +Wake on, my soul, nor crouch to agony,<br/> +Turn cloud to light, and bitterness to joy,<br/> +And dross to gold with glorious alchemy,<br/> +Basing thy throne above the world’s annoy.<br/> +Reign thou above the storms of sorrow and ruth<br/> +That roar beneath; unshaken peace hath won thee:<br/> +So shalt thou pierce the woven glooms of truth;<br/> +So shall the blessing of the meek be on thee;<br/> +So in thine hour of dawn, the body’s youth,<br/> +An honourable old shall come upon thee. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap114"></a>Sonnet—“Shall the hag Evil die +with child of Good...”</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +Shall the hag Evil die with child of Good,<br/> +Or propagate again her loathed kind,<br/> +Thronging the cells of the diseased mind,<br/> +Hateful with hanging cheeks, a withered brood,<br/> +Though hourly pastured on the salient blood?<br/> +Oh! that the wind which bloweth cold or heat<br/> +Would shatter and o’erbear the brazen beat<br/> +Of their broad vans, and in the solitude<br/> +Of middle space confound them, and blow back<br/> +Their wild cries down their cavernthroats, and slake<br/> +With points of blastborne hail their heated eyne!<br/> +So their wan limbs no more might come between<br/> +The moon and the moon’s reflex in the night;<br/> +Nor blot with floating shades the solar light. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap115"></a>Sonnet—“The pallid thunderstricken +sigh for gain...”</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +The pallid thunderstricken sigh for gain,<br/> +Down an ideal stream they ever float,<br/> +And sailing on Pactolus in a boat,<br/> +Drown soul and sense, while wistfully they strain<br/> +Weak eyes upon the glistering sands that robe<br/> +The understream. The wise could he behold<br/> +Cathedralled caverns of thick-ribbed gold<br/> +And branching silvers of the central globe,<br/> +Would marvel from so beautiful a sight<br/> +How scorn and ruin, pain and hate could flow:<br/> +But Hatred in a gold cave sits below,<br/> +Pleached with her hair, in mail of argent light<br/> +Shot into gold, a snake her forehead clips<br/> +And skins the colour from her trembling lips. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap116"></a>Love</h3> + +<p class="left"> +I +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Thou, from the first, unborn, undying love,<br/> +Albeit we gaze not on thy glories near,<br/> +Before the face of God didst breathe and move,<br/> +Though night and pain and ruin and death reign here.<br/> +Thou foldest, like a golden atmosphere,<br/> +The very throne of the eternal God:<br/> +Passing through thee the edicts of his fear<br/> +Are mellowed into music, borne abroad<br/> +By the loud winds, though they uprend the sea,<br/> +Even from his central deeps: thine empery<br/> +Is over all: thou wilt not brook eclipse;<br/> +Thou goest and returnest to His Lips<br/> +Like lightning: thou dost ever brood above<br/> +The silence of all hearts, unutterable Love. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +II +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +To know thee is all wisdom, and old age<br/> +Is but to know thee: dimly we behold thee<br/> +Athwart the veils of evil which enfold thee.<br/> +We beat upon our aching hearts with rage;<br/> +We cry for thee: we deem the world thy tomb.<br/> +As dwellers in lone planets look upon<br/> +The mighty disk of their majestic sun,<br/> +Hollowed in awful chasms of wheeling gloom,<br/> +Making their day dim, so we gaze on thee.<br/> +Come, thou of many crowns, white-robed love,<br/> +Oh! rend the veil in twain: all men adore thee;<br/> +Heaven crieth after thee; earth waileth for thee:<br/> +Breathe on thy winged throne, and it shall move<br/> +In music and in light o’er land and sea. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +III +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +And now—methinks I gaze upon thee now,<br/> +As on a serpent in his agonies<br/> +Awestricken Indians; what time laid low<br/> +And crushing the thick fragrant reeds he lies,<br/> +When the new year warm breathed on the earth,<br/> +Waiting to light him with his purple skies,<br/> +Calls to him by the fountain to uprise.<br/> +Already with the pangs of a new birth<br/> +Strain the hot spheres of his convulsed eyes,<br/> +And in his writhings awful hues begin<br/> +To wander down his sable sheeny sides,<br/> +Like light on troubled waters: from within<br/> +Anon he rusheth forth with merry din,<br/> +And in him light and joy and strength abides;<br/> +And from his brows a crown of living light<br/> +Looks through the thickstemmed woods by day and night. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap117"></a>The Kraken</h3> + +<p> +Reprinted without alteration, except in the spelling of “antient,” +among <i>Juvenilia</i> in 1871 and onward.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Below the thunders of the upper deep;<br/> +Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,<br/> +His antient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep<br/> +The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee<br/> +About his shadowy sides: above him swell<br/> +Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;<br/> +And far away into the sickly light,<br/> +From many a wondrous grot and secret cell<br/> +Unnumber’d and enormous polypi<br/> +Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.<br/> +There hath he lain for ages and will lie<br/> +Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep,<br/> +Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;<br/> +Then once by man and angels to be seen,<br/> +In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap118"></a>English War Song</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +Who fears to die? Who fears to die?<br/> +Is there any here who fears to die<br/> +He shall find what he fears, and none shall grieve<br/> +For the man who fears to die;<br/> +But the withering scorn of the many shall cleave<br/> +To the man who fears to die. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +<i>Chorus</i>.—<br/> +Shout for England!<br/> +Ho! for England!<br/> +George for England!<br/> +Merry England!<br/> +England for aye! +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The hollow at heart shall crouch forlorn,<br/> +He shall eat the bread of common scorn;<br/> +It shall be steeped in the salt, salt tear,<br/> +Shall be steeped in his own salt tear:<br/> +Far better, far better he never were born<br/> +Than to shame merry England here. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +<i>Chorus</i>.—Shout for England! etc. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +There standeth our ancient enemy;<br/> +Hark! he shouteth—the ancient enemy!<br/> +On the ridge of the hill his banners rise;<br/> +They stream like fire in the skies;<br/> +Hold up the Lion of England on high<br/> +Till it dazzle and blind his eyes. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +<i>Chorus</i>.—Shout for England! etc. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Come along! we alone of the earth are free;<br/> +The child in our cradles is bolder than he;<br/> +For where is the heart and strength of slaves?<br/> +Oh! where is the strength of slaves?<br/> +He is weak! we are strong; he a slave, we are free;<br/> +Come along! we will dig their graves. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +<i>Chorus</i>.—Shout for England! etc. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +There standeth our ancient enemy;<br/> +Will he dare to battle with the free?<br/> +Spur along! spur amain! charge to the fight:<br/> +Charge! charge to the fight!<br/> +Hold up the Lion of England on high!<br/> +Shout for God and our right! +</p> + +<p class="left"> +<i>Chorus</i>.-Shout for England! etc. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap119"></a>National Song</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +There is no land like England<br/> +Where’er the light of day be;<br/> +There are no hearts like English hearts,<br/> +Such hearts of oak as they be.<br/> +There is no land like England<br/> +Where’er the light of day be;<br/> +There are no men like Englishmen,<br/> +So tall and bold as they be. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +<i>Chorus</i>.<br/> +<br/> +For the French the Pope may shrive ’em,<br/> +For the devil a whit we heed ’em,<br/> +As for the French, God speed ’em<br/> +Unto their hearts’ desire,<br/> +And the merry devil drive ’em<br/> +Through the water and the fire. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +<i>Chorus</i>.<br/> +<br/> +Our glory is our freedom,<br/> +We lord it o’er the sea;<br/> +We are the sons of freedom,<br/> +We are free. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +There is no land like England,<br/> +Where’er the light of day be;<br/> +There are no wives like English wives,<br/> +So fair and chaste as they be.<br/> +There is no land like England,<br/> +Where’er the light of day be;<br/> +There are no maids like English maids,<br/> +So beautiful as they be. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +<i>Chorus</i>.—For the French, etc. + +<br/> +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap120"></a>Dualisms</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +Two bees within a chrystal flowerbell rocked<br/> +Hum a lovelay to the westwind at noontide.<br/> +Both alike, they buzz together,<br/> +Both alike, they hum together<br/> +Through and through the flowered heather.<br/> +<br/> +Where in a creeping cove the wave unshocked<br/> +Lays itself calm and wide,<br/> +Over a stream two birds of glancing feather<br/> +Do woo each other, carolling together.<br/> +Both alike, they glide together<br/> +Side by side;<br/> +Both alike, they sing together,<br/> +Arching blue-glossed necks beneath the purple weather.<br/> +<br/> +Two children lovelier than Love, adown the lea are singing,<br/> +As they gambol, lilygarlands ever stringing:<br/> +Both in blosmwhite silk are frockèd:<br/> +Like, unlike, they roam together<br/> +Under a summervault of golden weather;<br/> +Like, unlike, they sing together<br/> +Side by side,<br/> +Mid May’s darling goldenlockèd,<br/> +Summer’s tanling diamondeyed. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap121"></a>We are Free</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +The winds, as at their hour of birth,<br/> +Leaning upon the ridged sea,<br/> +Breathed low around the rolling earth<br/> +With mellow preludes, “We are Free”;<br/> +The streams through many a lilied row,<br/> +Down-carolling to the crispèd sea,<br/> +Low-tinkled with a bell-like flow<br/> +Atween the blossoms, “We are free”. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap122"></a>οἱ ῥέοντες</h3> + +<p class="left"> +I +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +All thoughts, all creeds, all dreams are true,<br/> +All visions wild and strange;<br/> +Man is the measure of all truth<br/> +Unto himself. All truth is change:<br/> +All men do walk in sleep, and all<br/> +Have faith in that they dream:<br/> +For all things are as they seem to all,<br/> +And all things flow like a stream. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +II +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +There is no rest, no calm, no pause,<br/> +Nor good nor ill, nor light nor shade,<br/> +Nor essence nor eternal laws:<br/> +For nothing is, but all is made.<br/> +But if I dream that all these are,<br/> +They are to me for that I dream;<br/> +For all things are as they seem to all,<br/> +And all things flow like a stream.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p> +Argal—This very opinion is only true relatively to the flowing +philosophers. (Tennyson’s note.) +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h4>Poems of MDCCCXXXIII</h4> + +<h3><a name="chap123"></a>“Mine be the strength of spirit...”</h3> + +<p> +Reprinted without any alteration, except that Power is spelt with a small p, +among the <i>Juvenilia</i> in 1871 and onward.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Mine be the strength of spirit, full and free,<br/> +Like some broad river rushing down alone,<br/> +With the selfsame impulse wherewith he was thrown<br/> +From his loud fount upon the echoing lea:—<br/> +Which with increasing might doth forward flee<br/> +By town, and tower, and hill, and cape, and isle,<br/> +And in the middle of the green salt sea<br/> +Keeps his blue waters fresh for many a mile.<br/> +Mine be the Power which ever to its sway<br/> +Will win the wise at once, and by degrees<br/> +May into uncongenial spirits flow;<br/> +Even as the great gulfstream of Florida<br/> +Floats far away into the Northern Seas<br/> +The lavish growths of Southern Mexico. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap124"></a>To—— (“My life is full...”)</h3> + +<p> +When this poem was republished among the <i>Juvenilia</i> in 1871 several +alterations were made in it. For the first stanza was substituted the +following:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +My life is full of weary days,<br/> +But good things have not kept aloof,<br/> +Nor wander’d into other ways:<br/> +I have not lack’d thy mild reproof,<br/> +Nor golden largess of thy praise. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The second began “And now shake hands”. In the fourth stanza for +“sudden laughters” of the jay was substituted the felicitous +“sudden scritches,” and the sixth and seventh stanzas were +suppressed.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="left"> +I +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +All good things have not kept aloof<br/> +Nor wandered into other ways:<br/> +I have not lacked thy mild reproof,<br/> +Nor golden largess of thy praise.<br/> +But life is full of weary days. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +II +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Shake hands, my friend, across the brink<br/> +Of that deep grave to which I go:<br/> +Shake hands once more: I cannot sink<br/> +So far—far down, but I shall know<br/> +Thy voice, and answer from below. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +III +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +When in the darkness over me<br/> +The fourhanded mole shall scrape,<br/> +Plant thou no dusky cypresstree,<br/> +Nor wreathe thy cap with doleful crape,<br/> +But pledge me in the flowing grape. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +IV +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +And when the sappy field and wood<br/> +Grow green beneath the showery gray,<br/> +And rugged barks begin to bud,<br/> +And through damp holts newflushed with May,<br/> +Ring sudden laughters of the Jay, +</p> + +<p class="left"> +V +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Then let wise Nature work her will,<br/> +And on my clay her darnels grow;<br/> +Come only, when the days are still,<br/> +And at my headstone whisper low,<br/> +And tell me if the woodbines blow. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +VI +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +If thou art blest, my mother’s smile<br/> +Undimmed, if bees are on the wing:<br/> +Then cease, my friend, a little while,<br/> +That I may hear the throstle sing<br/> +His bridal song, the boast of spring. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +VII +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Sweet as the noise in parchèd plains<br/> +Of bubbling wells that fret the stones,<br/> +(If any sense in me remains)<br/> +Thy words will be: thy cheerful tones<br/> +As welcome to my crumbling bones. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap125"></a>Buonoparte</h3> + +<p> +Reprinted without any alteration among <i>Early Sonnets</i> in 1872, and +unaltered since.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +He thought to quell the stubborn hearts of oak,<br/> +Madman!—to chain with chains, and bind with bands<br/> +That island queen who sways the floods and lands<br/> +From Ind to Ind, but in fair daylight woke,<br/> +When from her wooden walls, lit by sure hands,<br/> +With thunders and with lightnings and with smoke,<br/> +Peal after peal, the British battle broke,<br/> +Lulling the brine against the Coptic sands.<br/> +We taught him lowlier moods, when Elsinore<br/> +Heard the war moan along the distant sea,<br/> +Rocking with shatter’d spars, with sudden fires<br/> +Flamed over: at Trafalgar yet once more<br/> +We taught him: late he learned humility<br/> +Perforce, like those whom Gideon school’d with briers. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap126"></a>Sonnet—“Oh, beauty, passing beauty!...”</h3> + +<p class="left"> +I. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Oh, Beauty, passing beauty! sweetest Sweet!<br/> +How canst thou let me waste my youth in sighs?<br/> +I only ask to sit beside thy feet.<br/> +Thou knowest I dare not look into thine eyes,<br/> +Might I but kiss thy hand! I dare not fold<br/> +My arms about thee—scarcely dare to speak.<br/> +And nothing seems to me so wild and bold,<br/> +As with one kiss to touch thy blessed cheek.<br/> +Methinks if I should kiss thee, no control<br/> +Within the thrilling brain could keep afloat<br/> +The subtle spirit. Even while I spoke,<br/> +The bare word KISS hath made my inner soul<br/> +To tremble like a lutestring, ere the note<br/> +Hath melted in the silence that it broke. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +II. +</p> + +<p> +Reprinted in 1872 among <i>Early Sonnets</i> with two alterations, “If I +were loved” for “But were I loved,” and +“tho’” for “though”.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +But were I loved, as I desire to be,<br/> +What is there in the great sphere of the earth,<br/> +And range of evil between death and birth,<br/> +That I should fear—if I were loved by thee?<br/> +All the inner, all the outer world of pain<br/> +Clear Love would pierce and cleave, if thou wert mine,<br/> +As I have heard that, somewhere in the main,<br/> +Fresh water-springs come up through bitter brine.<br/> +’Twere joy, not fear, clasped hand in hand with thee,<br/> +To wait for death—mute—careless of all ills,<br/> +Apart upon a mountain, though the surge<br/> +Of some new deluge from a thousand hills<br/> +Flung leagues of roaring foam into the gorge<br/> +Below us, as far on as eye could see. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap127"></a>The Hesperides</h3> + +<p class="poem"> +Hesperus and his daughters three<br/> +That sing about the golden tree.<br/> +<br/> +—(Comus). +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The Northwind fall’n, in the newstarred night<br/> +Zidonian Hanno, voyaging beyond<br/> +The hoary promontory of Soloë<br/> +Past Thymiaterion, in calmèd bays,<br/> +Between the Southern and the Western Horn,<br/> +Heard neither warbling of the nightingale,<br/> +Nor melody o’ the Lybian lotusflute<br/> +Blown seaward from the shore; but from a slope<br/> +That ran bloombright into the Atlantic blue,<br/> +Beneath a highland leaning down a weight<br/> +Of cliffs, and zoned below with cedarshade,<br/> +Came voices, like the voices in a dream,<br/> +Continuous, till he reached the other sea. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap128"></a>Song—“The golden apple...”</h3> + +<p class="left"> +I</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The golden apple, the golden apple, the hallowed fruit,<br/> +Guard it well, guard it warily,<br/> +Singing airily,<br/> +Standing about the charmèd root.<br/> +Round about all is mute,<br/> +As the snowfield on the mountain-peaks,<br/> +As the sandfield at the mountain-foot.<br/> +Crocodiles in briny creeks<br/> +Sleep and stir not: all is mute.<br/> +If ye sing not, if ye make false measure,<br/> +We shall lose eternal pleasure,<br/> +Worth eternal want of rest.<br/> +Laugh not loudly: watch the treasure<br/> +Of the wisdom of the West.<br/> +In a corner wisdom whispers.<br/> +Five and three<br/> +(Let it not be preached abroad) make an awful mystery.<br/> +For the blossom unto three-fold music bloweth;<br/> +Evermore it is born anew;<br/> +And the sap to three-fold music floweth,<br/> +From the root<br/> +Drawn in the dark,<br/> +Up to the fruit,<br/> +Creeping under the fragrant bark,<br/> +Liquid gold, honeysweet thro’ and thro’.<br/> +Keen-eyed Sisters, singing airily,<br/> +Looking warily<br/> +Every way,<br/> +Guard the apple night and day,<br/> +Lest one from the East come and take it away. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +II +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Father Hesper, Father Hesper, watch, watch, ever and aye,<br/> +Looking under silver hair with a silver eye.<br/> +Father, twinkle not thy stedfast sight;<br/> +Kingdoms lapse, and climates change, and races die;<br/> +Honour comes with mystery;<br/> +Hoarded wisdom brings delight.<br/> +Number, tell them over and number<br/> +How many the mystic fruittree holds,<br/> +Lest the redcombed dragon slumber<br/> +Rolled together in purple folds.<br/> +Look to him, father, lest he wink, and the golden apple be +stol’n away,<br/> +For his ancient heart is drunk with over-watchings night and +day,<br/> +Round about the hallowed fruit tree curled—<br/> +Sing away, sing aloud evermore in the wind, without stop,<br/> +Lest his scalèd eyelid drop,<br/> +For he is older than the world.<br/> +If he waken, we waken,<br/> +Rapidly levelling eager eyes.<br/> +If he sleep, we sleep,<br/> +Dropping the eyelid over the eyes.<br/> +If the golden apple be taken<br/> +The world will be overwise.<br/> +Five links, a golden chain, are we,<br/> +Hesper, the dragon, and sisters three,<br/> +Bound about the golden tree. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +III +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Father Hesper, Father Hesper, watch, watch, night and day,<br/> +Lest the old wound of the world be healed,<br/> +The glory unsealed,<br/> +The golden apple stol’n away,<br/> +And the ancient secret revealed.<br/> +Look from west to east along:<br/> +Father, old Himala weakens,<br/> +Caucasus is bold and strong.<br/> +Wandering waters unto wandering waters call;<br/> +Let them clash together, foam and fall.<br/> +Out of watchings, out of wiles,<br/> +Comes the bliss of secret smiles.<br/> +All things are not told to all,<br/> +Half-round the mantling night is drawn,<br/> +Purplefringed with even and dawn.<br/> +Hesper hateth Phosphor, evening hateth morn. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +IV +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Every flower and every fruit the redolent breath<br/> +Of this warm seawind ripeneth,<br/> +Arching the billow in his sleep;<br/> +But the landwind wandereth,<br/> +Broken by the highland-steep,<br/> +Two streams upon the violet deep:<br/> +For the western sun and the western star,<br/> +And the low west wind, breathing afar,<br/> +The end of day and beginning of night<br/> +Make the apple holy and bright,<br/> +Holy and bright, round and full, bright and blest,<br/> +Mellowed in a land of rest;<br/> +Watch it warily day and night;<br/> +All good things are in the west,<br/> +Till midnoon the cool east light<br/> +Is shut out by the round of the tall hillbrow;<br/> +But when the fullfaced sunset yellowly<br/> +Stays on the flowering arch of the bough,<br/> +The luscious fruitage clustereth mellowly,<br/> +Goldenkernelled, goldencored,<br/> +Sunset-ripened, above on the tree,<br/> +The world is wasted with fire and sword,<br/> +But the apple of gold hangs over the sea,<br/> +Five links, a golden chain, are we,<br/> +Hesper, the dragon, and sisters three,<br/> +Daughters three,<br/> +Bound about<br/> +All round about<br/> +The gnarled bole of the charmèd tree,<br/> +The golden apple, the golden apple, the hallowed fruit,<br/> +Guard it well, guard it warily,<br/> +Watch it warily,<br/> +Singing airily,<br/> +Standing about the charmed root. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap129"></a>Rosalind</h3> + +<p> +Not reprinted till 1884 when it was unaltered, as it has remained +since: but the poem appended and printed by Tennyson in +<i>italics</i> has not been reprinted.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="left"> +I +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +My Rosalind, my Rosalind,<br/> +My frolic falcon, with bright eyes,<br/> +Whose free delight, from any height of rapid flight,<br/> +Stoops at all game that wing the skies,<br/> +My Rosalind, my Rosalind,<br/> +My bright-eyed, wild-eyed falcon, whither,<br/> +Careless both of wind and weather,<br/> +Whither fly ye, what game spy ye,<br/> +Up or down the streaming wind? +</p> + +<p class="left"> +II +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The quick lark’s closest-carolled strains,<br/> +The shadow rushing up the sea,<br/> +The lightningflash atween the rain,<br/> +The sunlight driving down the lea,<br/> +The leaping stream, the very wind,<br/> +That will not stay, upon his way,<br/> +To stoop the cowslip to the plains,<br/> +Is not so clear and bold and free<br/> +As you, my falcon Rosalind.<br/> +You care not for another’s pains,<br/> +Because you are the soul of joy,<br/> +Bright metal all without alloy.<br/> +Life shoots and glances thro’ your veins,<br/> +And flashes off a thousand ways,<br/> +Through lips and eyes in subtle rays.<br/> +Your hawkeyes are keen and bright,<br/> +Keen with triumph, watching still<br/> +To pierce me through with pointed light;<br/> +And oftentimes they flash and glitter<br/> +Like sunshine on a dancing rill,<br/> +And your words are seeming-bitter,<br/> +Sharp and few, but seeming-bitter<br/> +From excess of swift delight. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +III +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Come down, come home, my Rosalind,<br/> +My gay young hawk, my Rosalind:<br/> +Too long you keep the upper skies;<br/> +Too long you roam, and wheel at will;<br/> +But we must hood your random eyes,<br/> +That care not whom they kill,<br/> +And your cheek, whose brilliant hue<br/> +Is so sparkling fresh to view,<br/> +Some red heath-flower in the dew,<br/> +Touched with sunrise. We must bind<br/> +And keep you fast, my Rosalind,<br/> +Fast, fast, my wild-eyed Rosalind,<br/> +And clip your wings, and make you love:<br/> +When we have lured you from above,<br/> +And that delight of frolic flight, by day or night,<br/> +From North to South;<br/> +We’ll bind you fast in silken cords,<br/> +And kiss away the bitter words<br/> +From off your rosy mouth.<a href="#linknote-572" name="linknoteref-572" id="linknoteref-572"><sup>[1]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-572" id="linknote-572"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-572">[1]</a> +Perhaps the following lines may be allowed to stand as a separate poem; +originally they made part of the text, where they were manifestly +superfluous:—<br/> +<br/> +My Rosalind, my Rosalind,<br/> +Bold, subtle, careless Rosalind,<br/> +Is one of those who know no strife<br/> +Of inward woe or outward fear;<br/> +To whom the slope and stream of life,<br/> +The life before, the life behind,<br/> +In the ear, from far and near,<br/> +Chimeth musically clear.<br/> +My falconhearted Rosalind,<br/> +Fullsailed before a vigorous wind,<br/> +Is one of those who cannot weep<br/> +For others’ woes, but overleap<br/> +All the petty shocks and fears<br/> +That trouble life in early years,<br/> +With a flash of frolic scorn<br/> +And keen delight, that never falls<br/> +Away from freshness, self-upborne<br/> +With such gladness, as, whenever<br/> +The freshflushing springtime calls<br/> +To the flooding waters cool,<br/> +Young fishes, on an April morn,<br/> +Up and down a rapid river,<br/> +Leap the little waterfalls<br/> +That sing into the pebbled pool.<br/> +My happy falcon, Rosalind;<br/> +Hath daring fancies of her own,<br/> +Fresh as the dawn before the day,<br/> +Fresh as the early seasmell blown<br/> +Through vineyards from an inland bay.<br/> +My Rosalind, my Rosalind,<br/> +Because no shadow on you falls<br/> +Think you hearts are tennis balls<br/> +To play with, wanton Rosalind? +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap130"></a>Song—“Who can say...?”</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +Who can say<br/> +Why To-day<br/> +To-morrow will be yesterday?<br/> +Who can tell<br/> +Why to smell<br/> +The violet, recalls the dewy prime<br/> +Of youth and buried time?<br/> +The cause is nowhere found in rhyme. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap131"></a>Kate</h3> + +<p> +Reprinted without alteration among the <i>Juvenilia</i> in 1895.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +I know her by her angry air,<br/> +Her brightblack eyes, her brightblack hair,<br/> +Her rapid laughters wild and shrill,<br/> +As laughter of the woodpecker<br/> +From the bosom of a hill.<br/> +’Tis Kate—she sayeth what she will;<br/> +For Kate hath an unbridled tongue,<br/> +Clear as the twanging of a harp.<br/> +Her heart is like a throbbing star.<br/> +Kate hath a spirit ever strung<br/> +Like a new bow, and bright and sharp<br/> +As edges of the scymetar.<br/> +Whence shall she take a fitting mate?<br/> +For Kate no common love will feel;<br/> +My woman-soldier, gallant Kate,<br/> +As pure and true as blades of steel.<br/> +<br/> +Kate saith “the world is void of might”.<br/> +Kate saith “the men are gilded flies”.<br/> +Kate snaps her fingers at my vows;<br/> +Kate will not hear of lover’s sighs.<br/> +I would I were an armèd knight,<br/> +Far famed for wellwon enterprise,<br/> +And wearing on my swarthy brows<br/> +The garland of new-wreathed emprise:<br/> +For in a moment I would pierce<br/> +The blackest files of clanging fight,<br/> +And strongly strike to left and right,<br/> +In dreaming of my lady’s eyes.<br/> +Oh! Kate loves well the bold and fierce;<br/> +But none are bold enough for Kate,<br/> +She cannot find a fitting mate. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap132"></a>Sonnet—“Blow ye the trumpet, gather from afar...”</h3> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Written, on hearing of the outbreak of the Polish Insurrection.</i><br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Blow ye the trumpet, gather from afar<br/> +The hosts to battle: be not bought and sold.<br/> +Arise, brave Poles, the boldest of the bold;<br/> +Break through your iron shackles—fling them far.<br/> +O for those days of Piast, ere the Czar<br/> +Grew to this strength among his deserts cold;<br/> +When even to Moscow’s cupolas were rolled<br/> +The growing murmurs of the Polish war!<br/> +Now must your noble anger blaze out more<br/> +Than when from Sobieski, clan by clan,<br/> +The Moslem myriads fell, and fled before—<br/> +Than when Zamoysky smote the Tartar Khan,<br/> +Than earlier, when on the Baltic shore<br/> +Boleslas drove the Pomeranian. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap133"></a>Poland</h3> + +<p> +Reprinted without alteration in 1872, except the removal of italics in +“now” among the <i>Early Sonnets</i>.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +How long, O God, shall men be ridden down,<br/> +And trampled under by the last and least<br/> +Of men? The heart of Poland hath not ceased<br/> +To quiver, tho’ her sacred blood doth drown<br/> +The fields; and out of every smouldering town<br/> +Cries to Thee, lest brute Power be increased,<br/> +Till that o’ergrown Barbarian in the East<br/> +Transgress his ample bound to some new crown:—<br/> +Cries to thee, “Lord, how long shall these things be?<br/> +How long this icyhearted Muscovite<br/> +Oppress the region?” Us, O Just and Good,<br/> +Forgive, who smiled when she was torn in three;<br/> +Us, who stand now, when we should aid the right—<br/> +A matter to be wept with tears of blood! +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap134"></a>To—— (“As when, with downcast eyes...”)</h3> + +<p> +Reprinted without alteration as first of the <i>Early Sonnets</i> in 1872; +subsequently in the twelfth line “That tho’” was substituted +for “Altho’,” and the last line was altered to—<br/> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“And either lived in either’s heart and speech,” +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +and “hath” was not italicised.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +As when with downcast eyes we muse and brood,<br/> +And ebb into a former life, or seem<br/> +To lapse far back in some confused dream<br/> +To states of mystical similitude;<br/> +If one but speaks or hems or stirs his chair,<br/> +Ever the wonder waxeth more and more,<br/> +So that we say, “All this hath been before,<br/> +All this <i>hath</i> been, I know not when or where”.<br/> +So, friend, when first I look’d upon your face,<br/> +Our thought gave answer each to each, so true—<br/> +Opposed mirrors each reflecting each—<br/> +Altho’ I knew not in what time or place,<br/> +Methought that I had often met with you,<br/> +And each had lived in the other’s mind and speech. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap135"></a>O Darling Room</h3> + +<p class="left"> +I +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +O darling room, my heart’s delight,<br/> +Dear room, the apple of my sight,<br/> +With thy two couches soft and white,<br/> +There is no room so exquisite,<br/> +No little room so warm and bright,<br/> +Wherein to read, wherein to write. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +II +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +For I the Nonnenwerth have seen,<br/> +And Oberwinter’s vineyards green,<br/> +Musical Lurlei; and between<br/> +The hills to Bingen have I been,<br/> +Bingen in Darmstadt, where the Rhene<br/> +Curves towards Mentz, a woody scene. +</p> + +<p class="left"> +III +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Yet never did there meet my sight,<br/> +In any town, to left or right,<br/> +A little room so exquisite,<br/> +With two such couches soft and white;<br/> +Not any room so warm and bright,<br/> +Wherein to read, wherein to write. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap136"></a>To Christopher North</h3> + +<p class="noindent"> +You did late review my lays,<br/> +Crusty Christopher;<br/> +You did mingle blame and praise,<br/> +Rusty Christopher.<br/> +When I learnt from whom it came,<br/> +I forgave you all the blame,<br/> +Musty Christopher;<br/> +I could <i>not</i> forgive the praise,<br/> +Fusty Christopher. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap137"></a>The Skipping Rope</h3> + +<p> +This silly poem was first published in the edition of 1842, and was retained +unaltered till 1851, when it was finally suppressed.<br/><br/> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Sure never yet was Antelope<br/> +Could skip so lightly by,<br/> +Stand off, or else my skipping-rope<br/> +Will hit you in the eye.<br/> +How lightly whirls the skipping-rope!<br/> +How fairy-like you fly!<br/> +Go, get you gone, you muse and mope—<br/> +I hate that silly sigh.<br/> +Nay, dearest, teach me how to hope,<br/> +Or tell me how to die.<br/> +There, take it, take my skipping-rope,<br/> +And hang yourself thereby. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h3><a name="chap138"></a>Timbuctoo</h3> + +<p class="center"> +A poem which obtained<br/> +the Chancellor’s Medal<br/> +at the <i>Cambridge Commencement</i><br/> +M.DCCCXXIX<br/> +by A. TENNYSON<br/> +Of Trinity College. +</p> + +<p> +Printed in the Cambridge <i>Chronicle and Journal</i> for Friday, 10th July, +1839, and at the University Press by James Smith, among the <i>Profusiones +Academicæ Praemiis annuis dignatæ, et in Curiâ Cantabrigiensi Recitatæ Comitiis +Maximis</i> A.D. M.DCCCXXIX. Reprinted in an edition of the <i>Cambridge Prize +Poems</i> from 1813 to 1858 inclusive, by Messrs. Macmillan in 1859, but +without any alteration, except in punctuation and the substitution of small +letters for capitals where the change was appropriate; and again in 1893 in the +appendix to the reprint of the <i>Poems by Two Brothers</i>. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Deep in that lion-haunted island lies<br/> +A mystic city, goal of enterprise.—(Chapman.) +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +I stood upon the Mountain which o’erlooks<br/> +The narrow seas, whose rapid interval<br/> +Parts Afric from green Europe, when the Sun<br/> +Had fall’n below th’ Atlantick, and above<br/> +The silent Heavens were blench’d with faery light,<br/> +Uncertain whether faery light or cloud,<br/> +Flowing Southward, and the chasms of deep, deep blue<br/> +Slumber’d unfathomable, and the stars<br/> +Were flooded over with clear glory and pale.<br/> +I gaz’d upon the sheeny coast beyond,<br/> +There where the Giant of old Time infixed<br/> +The limits of his prowess, pillars high<br/> +Long time eras’d from Earth: even as the sea<br/> +When weary of wild inroad buildeth up<br/> +Huge mounds whereby to stay his yeasty waves.<br/> +And much I mus’d on legends quaint and old<br/> +Which whilome won the hearts of all on Earth<br/> +Toward their brightness, ev’n as flame draws air;<br/> +But had their being in the heart of Man<br/> +As air is th’ life of flame: and thou wert then<br/> +A center’d glory—circled Memory,<br/> +Divinest Atalantis, whom the waves<br/> +Have buried deep, and thou of later name<br/> +Imperial Eldorado roof’d with gold:<br/> +Shadows to which, despite all shocks of Change,<br/> +All on-set of capricious Accident,<br/> +Men clung with yearning Hope which would not die.<br/> +As when in some great City where the walls<br/> +Shake, and the streets with ghastly faces throng’d<br/> +Do utter forth a subterranean voice,<br/> +Among the inner columns far retir’d<br/> +At midnight, in the lone Acropolis.<br/> +Before the awful Genius of the place<br/> +Kneels the pale Priestess in deep faith, the while<br/> +Above her head the weak lamp dips and winks<br/> +Unto the fearful summoning without:<br/> +Nathless she ever clasps the marble knees,<br/> +Bathes the cold hand with tears, and gazeth on<br/> +Those eyes which wear no light but that wherewith<br/> +Her phantasy informs them. Where are ye<br/> +Thrones of the Western wave, fair Islands green?<br/> +Where are your moonlight halls, your cedarn glooms,<br/> +The blossoming abysses of your hills?<br/> +Your flowering Capes and your gold-sanded bays<br/> +Blown round with happy airs of odorous winds?<br/> +Where are the infinite ways which, Seraph-trod,<br/> +Wound thro’ your great Elysian solitudes,<br/> +Whose lowest depths were, as with visible love,<br/> +Fill’d with Divine effulgence, circumfus’d,<br/> +Flowing between the clear and polish’d stems,<br/> +And ever circling round their emerald cones<br/> +In coronals and glories, such as gird<br/> +The unfading foreheads of the Saints in Heaven?<br/> +For nothing visible, they say, had birth<br/> +In that blest ground but it was play’d about<br/> +With its peculiar glory. Then I rais’d<br/> +My voice and cried “Wide Afric, doth thy Sun<br/> +Lighten, thy hills enfold a City as fair<br/> +As those which starr’d the night o’ the Elder World?<br/> +Or is the rumour of thy Timbuctoo<br/> +A dream as frail as those of ancient Time?”<br/> +A curve of whitening, flashing, ebbing light!<br/> +A rustling of white wings! The bright descent<br/> +Of a young Seraph! and he stood beside me<br/> +There on the ridge, and look’d into my face<br/> +With his unutterable, shining orbs,<br/> +So that with hasty motion I did veil<br/> +My vision with both hands, and saw before me<br/> +Such colour’d spots as dance athwart the eyes<br/> +Of those that gaze upon the noonday Sun.<br/> +Girt with a Zone of flashing gold beneath<br/> +His breast, and compass’d round about his brow<br/> +With triple arch of everchanging bows,<br/> +And circled with the glory of living light<br/> +And alternation of all hues, he stood.<br/> +<br/> +“O child of man, why muse you here alone<br/> +Upon the Mountain, on the dreams of old<br/> +Which fill’d the Earth with passing loveliness,<br/> +Which flung strange music on the howling winds,<br/> +And odours rapt from remote Paradise?<br/> +Thy sense is clogg’d with dull mortality,<br/> +Thy spirit fetter’d with the bond of clay:<br/> +Open thine eye and see.” I look’d, but not<br/> +Upon his face, for it was wonderful<br/> +With its exceeding brightness, and the light<br/> +Of the great angel mind which look’d from out<br/> +The starry glowing of his restless eyes.<br/> +I felt my soul grow mighty, and my spirit<br/> +With supernatural excitation bound<br/> +Within me, and my mental eye grew large<br/> +With such a vast circumference of thought,<br/> +That in my vanity I seem’d to stand<br/> +Upon the outward verge and bound alone<br/> +Of full beautitude. Each failing sense<br/> +As with a momentary flash of light<br/> +Grew thrillingly distinct and keen. I saw<br/> +The smallest grain that dappled the dark Earth,<br/> +The indistinctest atom in deep air,<br/> +The Moon’s white cities, and the opal width<br/> +Of her small glowing lakes, her silver heights<br/> +Unvisited with dew of vagrant cloud,<br/> +And the unsounded, undescended depth<br/> +Of her black hollows. The clear Galaxy<br/> +Shorn of its hoary lustre, wonderful,<br/> +Distinct and vivid with sharp points of light<br/> +Blaze within blaze, an unimagin’d depth<br/> +And harmony of planet-girded Suns<br/> +And moon-encircled planets, wheel in wheel,<br/> +Arch’d the wan Sapphire. Nay, the hum of men,<br/> +Or other things talking in unknown tongues,<br/> +And notes of busy life in distant worlds<br/> +Beat like a far wave on my anxious ear.<br/> +<br/> +A maze of piercing, trackless, thrilling thoughts<br/> +Involving and embracing each with each<br/> +Rapid as fire, inextricably link’d,<br/> +Expanding momently with every sight<br/> +And sound which struck the palpitating sense,<br/> +The issue of strong impulse, hurried through<br/> +The riv’n rapt brain: as when in some large lake<br/> +From pressure of descendant crags, which lapse<br/> +Disjointed, crumbling from their parent slope<br/> +At slender interval, the level calm<br/> +Is ridg’d with restless and increasing spheres<br/> +Which break upon each other, each th’ effect<br/> +Of separate impulse, but more fleet and strong<br/> +Than its precursor, till the eye in vain<br/> +Amid the wild unrest of swimming shade<br/> +Dappled with hollow and alternate rise<br/> +Of interpenetrated arc, would scan<br/> +Definite round.<br/> +<br/> +I know not if I shape<br/> +These things with accurate similitude<br/> +From visible objects, for but dimly now,<br/> +Less vivid than a half-forgotten dream,<br/> +The memory of that mental excellence<br/> +Comes o’er me, and it may be I entwine<br/> +The indecision of my present mind<br/> +With its past clearness, yet it seems to me<br/> +As even then the torrent of quick thought<br/> +Absorbed me from the nature of itself<br/> +With its own fleetness. Where is he that borne<br/> +Adown the sloping of an arrowy stream,<br/> +Could link his shallop to the fleeting edge,<br/> +And muse midway with philosophic calm<br/> +Upon the wondrous laws which regulate<br/> +The fierceness of the bounding element?<br/> +My thoughts which long had grovell’d in the slime<br/> +Of this dull world, like dusky worms which house<br/> +Beneath unshaken waters, but at once<br/> +Upon some earth-awakening day of spring<br/> +Do pass from gloom to glory, and aloft<br/> +Winnow the purple, bearing on both sides<br/> +Double display of starlit wings which burn<br/> +Fanlike and fibred, with intensest bloom:<br/> +E’en so my thoughts, ere while so low, now felt<br/> +Unutterable buoyancy and strength<br/> +To bear them upward through the trackless fields<br/> +Of undefin’d existence far and free.<br/> +<br/> +Then first within the South methought I saw<br/> +A wilderness of spires, and chrystal pile<br/> +Of rampart upon rampart, dome on dome,<br/> +Illimitable range of battlement<br/> +On battlement, and the Imperial height<br/> +Of Canopy o’ercanopied.<br/> +<br/> +Behind,<br/> +In diamond light, upsprung the dazzling Cones<br/> +Of Pyramids, as far surpassing Earth’s<br/> +As Heaven than Earth is fairer. Each aloft<br/> +Upon his narrow’d Eminence bore globes<br/> +Of wheeling suns, or stars, or semblances<br/> +Of either, showering circular abyss<br/> +Of radiance. But the glory of the place<br/> +Stood out a pillar’d front of burnish’d gold<br/> +Interminably high, if gold it were<br/> +Or metal more ethereal, and beneath<br/> +Two doors of blinding brilliance, where no gaze<br/> +Might rest, stood open, and the eye could scan<br/> +Through length of porch and lake and boundless hall,<br/> +Part of a throne of fiery flame, where from<br/> +The snowy skirting of a garment hung,<br/> +And glimpse of multitudes of multitudes<br/> +That minister’d around it—if I saw<br/> +These things distinctly, for my human brain<br/> +Stagger’d beneath the vision, and thick night<br/> +Came down upon my eyelids, and I fell.<br/> +<br/> +With ministering hand he rais’d me up;<br/> +Then with a mournful and ineffable smile,<br/> +Which but to look on for a moment fill’d<br/> +My eyes with irresistible sweet tears,<br/> +In accents of majestic melody,<br/> +Like a swol’n river’s gushings in still night<br/> +Mingled with floating music, thus he spake:<br/> +<br/> +“There is no mightier Spirit than I to sway<br/> +The heart of man: and teach him to attain<br/> +By shadowing forth the Unattainable;<br/> +And step by step to scale that mighty stair<br/> +Whose landing-place is wrapt about with clouds<br/> +Of glory of Heaven.<a href="#linknote-573" name="linknoteref-573" id="linknoteref-573"><sup>[1]</sup></a> With earliest Light of Spring,<br/> +And in the glow of sallow Summertide,<br/> +And in red Autumn when the winds are wild<br/> +With gambols, and when full-voiced Winter roofs<br/> +The headland with inviolate white snow,<br/> +I play about his heart a thousand ways,<br/> +Visit his eyes with visions, and his ears<br/> +With harmonies of wind and wave and wood—<br/> +Of winds which tell of waters, and of waters<br/> +Betraying the close kisses of the wind—<br/> +And win him unto me: and few there be<br/> +So gross of heart who have not felt and known<br/> +A higher than they see: They with dim eyes<br/> +Behold me darkling. Lo! I have given thee<br/> +To understand my presence, and to feel<br/> +My fullness; I have fill’d thy lips with power.<br/> +I have rais’d thee nigher to the Spheres of Heaven,<br/> +Man’s first, last home: and thou with ravish’d sense<br/> +Listenest the lordly music flowing from<br/> +Th’illimitable years. I am the Spirit,<br/> +The permeating life which courseth through<br/> +All th’ intricate and labyrinthine veins<br/> +Of the great vine of Fable, which, outspread<br/> +With growth of shadowing leaf and clusters rare,<br/> +Reacheth to every corner under Heaven,<br/> +Deep-rooted in the living soil of truth:<br/> +So that men’s hopes and fears take refuge in<br/> +The fragrance of its complicated glooms<br/> +And cool impleached twilights. Child of Man,<br/> +See’st thou yon river, whose translucent wave,<br/> +Forth issuing from darkness, windeth through<br/> +The argent streets o’ the City, imaging<br/> +The soft inversion of her tremulous Domes.<br/> +Her gardens frequent with the stately Palm,<br/> +Her Pagods hung with music of sweet bells.<br/> +Her obelisks of ranged Chrysolite,<br/> +Minarets and towers? Lo! how he passeth by,<br/> +And gulphs himself in sands, as not enduring<br/> +To carry through the world those waves, which bore<br/> +The reflex of my City in their depths.<br/> +Oh City! Oh latest Throne! where I was rais’d<br/> +To be a mystery of loveliness<br/> +Unto all eyes, the time is well nigh come<br/> +When I must render up this glorious home<br/> +To keen <i>Discovery</i>: soon yon brilliant towers<br/> +Shall darken with the waving of her wand;<br/> +Darken, and shrink and shiver into huts,<br/> +Black specks amid a waste of dreary sand,<br/> +Low-built, mud-wall’d, Barbarian settlement,<br/> +How chang’d from this fair City!”<br/> +<br/> +Thus far the Spirit:<br/> +Then parted Heavenward on the wing: and I<br/> +Was left alone on Calpe, and the Moon<br/> +Had fallen from the night, and all was dark! +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="linknote-573" id="linknote-573"></a> <a href="#linknoteref-573">[1]</a> +Be ye perfect even as your Father in Heaven is perfect. +</p> + +<hr /> +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap139"></a>Bibliography of the <i>Poems</i> of 1842</h2> + +<p> +1830 <i>Poems, chiefly Lyrical</i>, by Alfred Tennyson. London: Effingham +Wilson, 1830. +</p> + +<p> +1832 <i>Poems</i> by Alfred Tennyson. London: Edward Moxon, 1833 (published at +the end of 1832). +</p> + +<p> +1837 In the <i>Keepsake</i>, an Annual, appears the poem “St. +Agnes’ Eve,” afterwards republished in the Poems of 1842, as +“St. Agnes”. +</p> + +<p> +1842 <i>Morte d’Arthur, Dora, and other Idyls</i>. (Privately printed for +the Author.) +</p> + +<p> +1842 <i>Poems</i>. In 2 vols. By Alfred Tennyson. London: Edward Moxon, Dover +Street, 1842. +</p> + +<p> +1843 <i>Id</i>. 2 vols. Second Edition, 1843. +</p> + +<p> +1845 <i>Id</i>. Third Edition, 1845. +</p> + +<p> +1846 <i>Id</i>. Fourth Edition, 1846. +</p> + +<p> +1848 <i>Id.</i> Fifth Edition, 1848. +</p> + +<p> +1849 In the <i>Examiner</i> for 24th March, 1849, appeared the poem +“To—— , after reading a Life and Letters,” republished +in the Sixth Edition of the Poems. +</p> + +<p> +1850 <i>Poems</i>. 2 vols. Sixth Edition, 1850. +</p> + +<p> +1851 In the <i>Keepsake</i> appeared the verses: “Come not when I am +Dead,” reprinted in the Seventh Edition of the Poems. +</p> + +<p> +1851 <i>Poems</i>. Seventh Edition. London: Edward Moxon, 1851. i vol. +</p> + +<p> +1853 <i>Id</i>. Eighth Edition, 1853. i vol. +</p> + +<p> +1857 <i>Poems</i> by Alfred Tennyson, Poet Laureate. With engraving of bust by +Woolner, and illustrations by Thomas Creswick, John Everett Millais, William +Holman Hunt, William Macready, John Calcott Horsley, Dante Gabriel Rosetti, +Clarkson Stanfield, and Daniel Maclise. Pp. xiii., 375. London: Edward Moxon, +1857. 8vo. +</p> + +<p> +1862 <i>Poems</i> MDCCCXXX, MDCCCXXXIII. Privately printed. This was suppressed +by an injunction in Chancery. It was compiled and edited by Mr. Dykes Campbell +for Camden Hotten. +</p> + +<p> +1863 <i>Poems</i> by Alfred Tennyson, D.C.L. I vol. Edward Moxon, 1863. +(Recorded as being the Fifteenth Edition, but I have not seen any Edition +between 1857 and this one.) +</p> + +<p> +1865 <i>A selection from the works of Alfred Tennyson. Poet Laureate.</i> +(Moxon’s Miniature Poets.) Edward Moxon & Co., 1865. Containing +several minor alterations, and an additional couplet in the “Vision of +Sin”. +</p> + +<p> +1869 Pocket Edition of <i>Complete Poems</i>. Strahan, 1869. (I have not seen +this, but it is entered in the London Catalogue.) +</p> + +<p> +1870 <i>Id</i>. Post-Octavo, 1870 (entered in the London Catalogue). +</p> + +<p> +1871 Miniature or Cabinet Edition of the <i>Complete Works</i> of Alfred +Tennyson, printed by Whittaker, Strahan & Co., 1871. +</p> + +<p> +1871 <i>Complete Works.</i> Edited by A. C. Loffalt. Rotterdam: 12mo, 1871. +</p> + +<p> +1872 Imperial Library Edition of the <i>Works</i> of Alfred Tennyson. In 6 +vols. Strahan & Co., 1872. +</p> + +<p> +1874-7 The <i>Works</i> of Alfred Tennyson. Cabinet edition in 10 vols. +H.S.King. London: 1874-1877. +</p> + +<p> +1875 The <i>Poetical Works</i> of Alfred Tennyson. 6 vols. H. S. King. 1875-77. +</p> + +<p> +1875 The <i>Author’s Edition</i> in 4 vols. Henry S. King & Co. 1875. +</p> + +<p> +1877 The <i>Works</i> of Alfred Tennyson. H. S. King. 7 vols. 1877, and in the +same year by the same publisher the completion of the Miniature Edition. +</p> + +<p> +1881 The <i>Works</i> of Alfred Tennyson. With portrait and illustrations, +1881. C. Kegan Paul & Co. +</p> + +<p> +1884 The <i>Works</i> of Alfred Tennyson. Macmillan & Co., 1884. In the +same year a school edition in four parts by the same publishers. +</p> + +<p> +1885 The <i>Poetical Works</i> of Alfred Tennyson. Complete Edition. New York: +T. Y. Cowell & Co., 1885. +</p> + +<p> +1886 The <i>Poetical Works</i> of Alfred Tennyson. In 10 vols. Macmillan & +Co., 1886. +</p> + +<p> +1886-91 The <i>Poetical Works</i> of Alfred Tennyson. 12 vols. (The dramatic +works in 4 vols.) 16 vols. 1886-91. +</p> + +<p> +1889 The <i>Works</i> of Alfred Tennyson. London: Macmillan & Co., 1889. +</p> + +<p> +1890 The <i>Poetical Works</i> of Alfred Tennyson. Pocket Edition, without the +plays. London: Macmillan & Co., 1890. +</p> + +<p> +1890 <i>Selections</i>. Edited by Rowe and Webb (frequently reprinted). +</p> + +<p> +1891 <i>Complete Works</i>, i vol. Reprinted ten times between this date and +November, 1899. +</p> + +<p> +1891 <i>Poetical Works</i>. Miniature Edition. 12 vols. +</p> + +<p> +1891 <i>Tennyson for the Young</i>, i vol. With introduction and notes by +Alfred Ainger, reprinted six times between this date and 1899. +</p> + +<p> +1893 <i>Poems</i>. Illustrated. I vol. (This contains the poems and +illustrations of the Illustrated Edition published in 1857.) +</p> + +<p> +1894 The <i>Works</i> of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Poet Laureate, with last +alterations, etc. London: Macmillan & Co., 1894. +</p> + +<p> +1895 The <i>Poetical Works</i> of Alfred, Lord Tennyson (without the plays). +(The People’s Edition.) London: Macmillan & Co., 1895. +</p> + +<p> +1896 <i>Id.</i> Pocket Edition. +</p> + +<p> +1898 The <i>Life and Works</i> of Alfred, Lord Tennyson. (Edition de Luxe.) 12 +vols. Macmillan & Co., 1898. +</p> + +<p> +1899 The <i>Works</i> of Alfred Tennyson. 8 vols. +</p> + +<p> +1899 <i>Poetical Works</i> of Alfred Lord Tennyson. Globe Edition. Macmillan. +This Edition was supplied to Messrs. Warne and published by them as the Albion +Edition. +</p> + +<p> +1899 <i>Poems</i> including <i>In Memoriam</i>. Popular Edition, 1 vol. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Early Poems of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EARLY POEMS OF ALFRED LORD TENNYSON *** + +***** This file should be named 8601-h.htm or 8601-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/6/0/8601/ + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Clytie Siddall, Charles Franks, +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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