part ii
., act ii., se. iii.:—
Mine eyes arc full of tears, my heart of grief.
[8] Œnone was the daughter of the River-God Kebren.
[9] For the myth here referred to see Ovid, _Heroides_, xvi., 179-80:—
Ilion aspicies, firmataque turribus altis Moenia, Phoeboeae; structa canore lyrae.
It was probably an application of the Theban legend of Amphion, and arose from the association of Apollo with Poseidon in founding Troy.
A fabric huge _Rose like an exhalation,_
(Milton’s _Paradise Lost_, i., 710-11.)
_Cf. Gareth and Lynette_, 254-7.
[10] The river Simois, so often referred to in the _Iliad_, had its origin in Mount Cotylus, and passing by Ilion joined the Scamander below the city.
[11] _Cf._ the σύνοφρυς κόρα (the maid of the meeting brows) of Theocritus, _Id._, viii., 72. This was considered a great beauty among the Greeks, Romans and Orientals. Ovid, _Ars. Amat_., iii., 201, speaks of women effecting this by art: “Arte, supercilii confinia nuda repletis”.
[12] The whole of this gorgeous passage is taken, with one or two additions and alterations in the names of the flowers, from _Iliad_, xiv., 347-52, with a reminiscence no doubt of Milton, _Paradise Lost_, iv., 695-702.
[13] The “_angry_ cheek” is a fine touch.
[14] This fine sentiment is, of course, a commonplace among ancient philosophers, but it may be interesting to put beside it a passage from Cicero, _De Finibus_, 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.
[15] 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”.
[16] The Paphos referred to is the old Paphos which was sacred to Aphrodite; it was on the south-west extremity of Cyprus.
[17] Adopted from a line excised in _Mariana in the South_. See _supra_.
[18] This was Eris.
[19] Helen.
[20] With these verses should be compared Schiller’s fine lyric _Kassandra_, and with the line, “All earth and air seem only burning fire,” from Webster’s _Duchess of Malfi_:—
The heaven o’er my head seems made of molten brass, The earth of flaming sulphur.
[21] 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.
The Sisters
First published in 1833.
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 _Ballad Book_, 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.
We were two daughters of one race: She was the fairest in the face: The wind is blowing in turret and tree. They were together and she fell; Therefore revenge became me well. O the Earl was fair to see!
She died: she went to burning flame: She mix’d her ancient blood with shame. The wind is howling in turret and tree. Whole weeks and months, and early and late, To win his love I lay in wait: O the Earl was fair to see!
I made a feast; I bad him come; I won his love, I brought him home. The wind is roaring in turret and tree. And after supper, on a bed, Upon my lap he laid his head: O the Earl was fair to see!
I kiss’d his eyelids into rest: His ruddy cheek upon my breast. The wind is raging in turret and tree. I hated him with the hate of hell, But I loved his beauty passing well. O the Earl was fair to see!
I rose up in the silent night: I made my dagger sharp and bright. The wind is raving in turret and tree. As half-asleep his breath he drew, Three times I stabb’d him thro’ and thro’. O the Earl was fair to see!
I curl’d and comb’d his comely head, He look’d so grand when he was dead. The wind is blowing in turret and tree. I wrapt his body in the sheet, And laid him at his mother’s feet. O the Earl was fair to see!
To——
with the following poem.
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 _Tennyson’s Life_ (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”. _Cf._ his own lines in _Love and Duty_:—
For a man is not as God, But then most God-like being most a man.
It is a companion poem to the _Vision of Sin_; 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.
I send you here a sort of allegory, (For you will understand it) of a soul,[1] A sinful soul possess’d of many gifts, A spacious garden full of flowering weeds, A glorious Devil, large in heart and brain, That did love Beauty only, (Beauty seen In all varieties of mould and mind) And Knowledge for its beauty; or if Good, Good only for its beauty, seeing not That beauty, Good, and Knowledge, are three sisters That doat upon each other, friends to man, Living together under the same roof, And never can be sunder’d without tears. And he that shuts Love out, in turn shall be Shut out from Love, and on her threshold lie Howling in outer darkness. Not for this Was common clay ta’en from the common earth, Moulded by God, and temper’d with the tears Of angels to the perfect shape of man.
[1] 1833.
I send you, Friend, a sort of allegory, (You are an artist and will understand Its many lesser meanings) of a soul.
The Palace of Art
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 _Ecclesiastes_ 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 _Obermann Once More_. 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 _Tennyson’s Life_, vol. i., p. 226.
I built my soul a lordly pleasure-house Wherein at ease for aye to dwell. I said, “O Soul, make merry and carouse, Dear soul, for all is well”.
A huge crag-platform, smooth as burnish’d brass, I chose. The ranged ramparts bright From level meadow-bases of deep grass[1] Suddenly scaled the light.
Thereon I built it firm. Of ledge or shelf The rock rose clear, or winding stair. My soul would live alone unto herself In her high palace there.
And “while the world[2] runs round and round,” I said, “Reign thou apart, a quiet king, Still as, while Saturn[3] whirls, his stedfast[4] shade Sleeps on his luminous[5] ring.”
To which my soul made answer readily: “Trust me, in bliss I shall abide In this great mansion, that is built for me, So royal-rich and wide”
...
Four courts I made, East, West and South and North, In each a squared lawn, wherefrom The golden gorge of dragons spouted forth A flood of fountain-foam.[6]
And round the cool green courts there ran a row Of cloisters, branch’d like mighty woods, Echoing all night to that sonorous flow Of spouted fountain-floods.[6]
And round the roofs a gilded gallery That lent broad verge to distant lands, Far as the wild swan wings, to where the sky Dipt down to sea and sands.[6]
From those four jets four currents in one swell Across the mountain stream’d below In misty folds, that floating as they fell Lit up a torrent-bow.[6]
And high on every peak a statue seem’d To hang on tiptoe, tossing up A cloud of incense of all odour steam’d From out a golden cup.[6]
So that she thought, “And who shall gaze upon My palace with unblinded eyes, While this great bow will waver in the sun, And that sweet incense rise?”[6]
For that sweet incense rose and never fail’d, And, while day sank or mounted higher, The light aerial gallery, golden-rail’d, Burnt like a fringe of fire.[6]
Likewise the deep-set windows, stain’d and traced, Would seem slow-flaming crimson fires From shadow’d grots of arches interlaced, And tipt with frost-like spires.[6]
...
Full of long-sounding corridors it was, That over-vaulted grateful gloom,[7] Thro’ which the livelong day my soul did pass, Well-pleased, from room to room.
Full of great rooms and small the palace stood, All various, each a perfect whole From living Nature, fit for every mood[8] And change of my still soul.
For some were hung with arras green and blue, Showing a gaudy summer-morn, Where with puff’d cheek the belted hunter blew His wreathed bugle-horn.[9]
One seem’d all dark and red—a tract of sand, And some one pacing there alone, Who paced for ever in a glimmering land, Lit with a low large moon.[10]>
One show’d an iron coast and angry waves. You seem’d to hear them climb and fall And roar rock-thwarted under bellowing caves, Beneath the windy wall.[11]
And one, a full-fed river winding slow By herds upon an endless plain, The ragged rims of thunder brooding low, With shadow-streaks of rain.[11]
And one, the reapers at their sultry toil. In front they bound the sheaves. Behind Were realms of upland, prodigal in oil, And hoary to the wind.[11]
And one, a foreground black with stones and slags, Beyond, a line of heights, and higher All barr’d with long white cloud the scornful crags, And highest, snow and fire.[12]
And one, an English home—gray twilight pour’d On dewy pastures, dewy trees, Softer than sleep—all things in order stored, A haunt of ancient Peace.[13]
Nor these alone, but every landscape fair, As fit for every mood of mind, Or gay, or grave, or sweet, or stern, was there, Not less than truth design’d.[14]
...
Or the maid-mother by a crucifix, In tracts of pasture sunny-warm, Beneath branch-work of costly sardonyx Sat smiling, babe in arm.[15]
Or in a clear-wall’d city on the sea, Near gilded organ-pipes, her hair Wound with white roses, slept St. Cecily; An angel look’d at her.
Or thronging all one porch of Paradise, A group of Houris bow’d to see The dying Islamite, with hands and eyes That said, We wait for thee.[16]
Or mythic Uther’s deeply-wounded son In some fair space of sloping greens Lay, dozing in the vale of Avalon, And watch’d by weeping queens.[17]
Or hollowing one hand against his ear, To list a foot-fall, ere he saw The wood-nymph, stay’d the Ausonian king to hear Of wisdom and of law.[18]
Or over hills with peaky tops engrail’d, And many a tract of palm and rice, The throne of Indian Cama[19] slowly sail’d A summer fann’d with spice.
Or sweet Europa’s[20] mantle blew unclasp’d, From off her shoulder backward borne: From one hand droop’d a crocus: one hand grasp’d The mild bull’s golden horn.[21]
Or else flush’d Ganymede, his rosy thigh Half-buried in the Eagle’s down, Sole as a flying star shot thro’ the sky Above[22] the pillar’d town.
Nor[23] these alone: but every[24] legend fair Which the supreme Caucasian mind[25] Carved out of Nature for itself, was there, Not less than life, design’d.[26]
Then in the towers I placed great bells that swung, Moved of themselves, with silver sound; And with choice paintings of wise men I hung The royal dais round.
For there was Milton like a seraph strong, Beside him Shakespeare bland and mild; And there the world-worn Dante grasp’d his song, And somewhat grimly smiled.[27]
And there the Ionian father of the rest;[28] A million wrinkles carved his skin; A hundred winters snow’d upon his breast, From cheek and throat and chin.[29]
Above, the fair hall-ceiling stately set Many an arch high up did lift, And angels rising and descending met With interchange of gift.[29]
Below was all mosaic choicely plann’d With cycles of the human tale Of this wide world, the times of every land So wrought, they will not fail.[29]
The people here, a beast of burden slow, Toil’d onward, prick’d with goads and stings; Here play’d, a tiger, rolling to and fro The heads and crowns of kings;[29]
Here rose, an athlete, strong to break or bind All force in bonds that might endure, And here once more like some sick man declined, And trusted any cure.[29]
But over these she trod: and those great bells Began to chime. She took her throne: She sat betwixt the shining Oriels, To sing her songs alone.[29]
And thro’ the topmost Oriels’ colour’d flame Two godlike faces gazed below; Plato the wise, and large-brow’d Verulam, The first of those who know.[29]
And all those names, that in their motion were Full-welling fountain-heads of change, Betwixt the slender shafts were blazon’d fair In diverse raiment strange:[30]
Thro’ which the lights, rose, amber, emerald, blue, Flush’d in her temples and her eyes, And from her lips, as morn from Memnon,[31] drew Rivers of melodies.
No nightingale delighteth to prolong Her low preamble all alone, More than my soul to hear her echo’d song Throb thro’ the ribbed stone;
Singing and murmuring in her feastful mirth, Joying to feel herself alive, Lord over Nature, Lord of[32] the visible earth, Lord of the senses five;
Communing with herself: “All these are mine, And let the world have peace or wars, ’Tis one to me”. She—when young night divine Crown’d dying day with stars,
Making sweet close of his delicious toils— Lit light in wreaths and anadems, And pure quintessences of precious oils In hollow’d moons of gems,
To mimic heaven; and clapt her hands and cried, “I marvel if my still delight In this great house so royal-rich, and wide, Be flatter’d to the height.[33]
“O all things fair to sate my various eyes! O shapes and hues that please me well! O silent faces of the Great and Wise, My Gods, with whom I dwell![34]
“O God-like isolation which art mine, I can but count thee perfect gain, What time I watch the darkening droves of swine That range on yonder plain.[34]
“In filthy sloughs they roll a prurient skin, They graze and wallow, breed and sleep; And oft some brainless devil enters in, And drives them to the deep.”[34]
Then of the moral instinct would she prate, And of the rising from the dead, As hers by right of full-accomplish’d Fate; And at the last she said:
“I take possession of man’s mind and deed. I care not what the sects may brawl, I sit as God holding no form of creed, But contemplating all.”[35]
Full oft[36] the riddle of the painful earth Flash’d thro’ her as she sat alone, Yet not the less held she her solemn mirth, And intellectual throne.
And so she throve and prosper’d: so three years She prosper’d: on the fourth she fell,[37] Like Herod,[38] when the shout was in his ears, Struck thro’ with pangs of hell.
Lest she should fail and perish utterly, God, before whom ever lie bare The abysmal deeps of Personality,[39] Plagued her with sore despair.
When she would think, where’er she turn’d her sight, The airy hand confusion wrought, Wrote “Mene, mene,” and divided quite The kingdom of her thought.[40]
Deep dread and loathing of her solitude Fell on her, from which mood was born Scorn of herself; again, from out that mood Laughter at her self-scorn.[41]
“What! is not this my place of strength,” she said, “My spacious mansion built for me, Whereof the strong foundation-stones were laid Since my first memory?”
But in dark corners of her palace stood Uncertain shapes; and unawares On white-eyed phantasms weeping tears of blood, And horrible nightmares,
And hollow shades enclosing hearts of flame, And, with dim fretted foreheads all, On corpses three-months-old at noon she came, That stood against the wall.
A spot of dull stagnation, without light Or power of movement, seem’d my soul, ’Mid onward-sloping[42] motions infinite Making for one sure goal.
A still salt pool, lock’d in with bars of sand; Left on the shore; that hears all night The plunging seas draw backward from the land Their moon-led waters white.
A star that with the choral starry dance Join’d not, but stood, and standing saw The hollow orb of moving Circumstance Roll’d round by one fix’d law.
Back on herself her serpent pride had curl’d. “No voice,” she shriek’d in that lone hall, “No voice breaks thro’ the stillness of this world: One deep, deep silence all!”
She, mouldering with the dull earth’s mouldering sod, Inwrapt tenfold in slothful shame, Lay there exiled from eternal God, Lost to her place and name;
And death and life she hated equally, And nothing saw, for her despair, But dreadful time, dreadful eternity, No comfort anywhere;
Remaining utterly confused with fears, And ever worse with growing time, And ever unrelieved by dismal tears, And all alone in crime:
Shut up as in a crumbling tomb, girt round With blackness as a solid wall, Far off she seem’d to hear the dully sound Of human footsteps fall.
As in strange lands a traveller walking slow, In doubt and great perplexity, A little before moon-rise hears the low Moan of an unknown sea;
And knows not if it be thunder or a sound Of rocks[43] thrown down, or one deep cry Of great wild beasts; then thinketh, “I have found A new land, but I die”.
She howl’d aloud, “I am on fire within. There comes no murmur of reply. What is it that will take away my sin, And save me lest I die?”
So when four years were wholly finished, She threw her royal robes away. “Make me a cottage in the vale,” she said, “Where I may mourn and pray.[44]
“Yet pull not down my palace towers, that are So lightly, beautifully built: Perchance I may return with others there When I have purged my guilt.”[45]
[1] 1833.
I chose, whose ranged ramparts bright From great broad meadow bases of deep grass.
[2] 1833. “While the great world.”
[3] “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.
[4] 1833 and 1842. Steadfast.
[5] After this stanza in 1833 this, deleted in 1842:—
“And richly feast within thy palace hall, Like to the dainty bird that sups, Lodged in the lustrous crown-imperial, Draining the honey cups.”
[6]
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 _infra._
[7] 1833.
Gloom, Roofed with thick plates of green and orange glass Ending in stately rooms.
[8] 1833.
All various, all beautiful, Looking all ways, fitted to every mood.
[9] Here in 1833 was inserted the stanza, “One showed an English home,” afterwards transferred to its present position 85-88.
[10] 1833.
Some were all dark and red, a glimmering land Lit with a low round moon, Among brown rocks a man upon the sand Went weeping all alone.
[11]
These three stanzas were added in 1842.
[12] Thus in 1833:—
One seemed a foreground black with stones and slags, Below sun-smitten icy spires Rose striped with long white cloud the scornful crags, Deep trenched with thunder fires.
[13] Not inserted here in 1833, but the following in its place:—
Some showed far-off thick woods mounted with towers, Nearer, a flood of mild sunshine Poured on long walks and lawns and beds and bowers Trellised with bunchy vine.
[14] Inserted in 1842.
[15] Thus in 1833, followed by the note:—
Or the maid-mother by a crucifix, In yellow pastures sunny-warm, Beneath branch-work of costly sardonyx, Sat smiling, babe in arm.
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 _devise_ a statue in verse. Judge whether I have succeeded in the statues of Elijah and Olympias.
One was the Tishbite whom the raven fed, As when he stood on Carmel steeps, With one arm stretched out bare, and mocked and said, “Come cry aloud-he sleeps”.
Tall, eager, lean and strong, his cloak wind-borne Behind, his forehead heavenly bright From the clear marble pouring glorious scorn, Lit as with inner light.
One, was Olympias: the floating snake Rolled round her ancles, round her waist Knotted, and folded once about her neck, Her perfect lips to taste.
Round by the shoulder moved: she seeming blythe Declined her head: on every side The dragon’s curves melted and mingled with The woman’s youthful pride Of rounded limbs.
Or Venus in a snowy shell alone, Deep-shadowed in the glassy brine, Moonlike glowed double on the blue, and shone A naked shape divine.
[16] Inserted in 1842.
[17] Thus in 1833:—
Or that deep-wounded child of Pendragon Mid misty woods on sloping greens Dozed in the valley of Avilion, Tended by crowned queens.
The present reading is that of 1842. The reference is, of course, to King Arthur, the supposed son of Uther Pendragon.
In 1833 the following stanza, excised in 1842, followed:—
Or blue-eyed Kriemhilt from a craggy hold, Athwart the light-green rows of vine, Poured blazing hoards of Nibelungen gold, Down to the gulfy Rhine.
[18] Inserted in 1842 thus:—
Or hollowing one hand against his ear, To listen for a footfall, ere he saw The wood-nymph, stay’d the Tuscan king to hear Of wisdom and of law.
List a footfall, 1843. Ausonian for Tuscan, 1850. The reference is to Egeria and Numa Pompilius. _Cf._ Juvenal, iii., 11-18:—
Hic ubi nocturnæ Numa constituebat amicæ ... In vallem Ægeriæ descendimus et speluneas Dissimiles veris.
and the beautiful passage in Byron’s _Childe Harold_, iv., st. cxv.-cxix.
[19] This is Camadev or Camadeo, the Cupid or God of Love of the Hindu mythology.
[20] This picture of Europa seems to have been suggested by Moschus, _Idyll_, ii., 121-5:—
ἡ δ’ αρ’ ἐφεζομένη Ζηνὸς βόεοις ἐπὶ νώτόις τῇ μεν ἔχεν ταύρου δολιχὸν κέρας, ἐν χερὶ δ’ ἄλλῃ εἴρυε πορφυρεας κόλπου πτύχας.
“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, _Clitophon and Leucippe_, lib. i., _ad init._; and in Politian’s finely picturesque poem.
[21] In 1833 thus:—
Europa’s scarf blew in an arch, unclasped, From her bare shoulder backward borne.
Off inserted in 1842. Here in 1833 follows a stanza, excised in 1842:—
He thro’ the streaming crystal swam, and rolled Ambrosial breaths that seemed to float In light-wreathed curls. She from the ripple cold Updrew her sandalled foot.
[22] 1833. Over.
[23] 1833. Not.
[24] 1833. Many a.
[25] 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.
[26] 1833. Broidered in screen and blind.
In the edition of 1833 appear the following stanzas, excised in 1842:—
So that my soul beholding in her pride All these, from room to room did pass; And all things that she saw, she multiplied, A many-faced glass.
And, being both the sower and the seed, Remaining in herself became All that she saw, Madonna, Ganymede, Or the Asiatic dame—
Still changing, as a lighthouse in the night Changeth athwart the gleaming main, From red to yellow, yellow to pale white, Then back to red again.
“From change to change four times within the womb The brain is moulded,” she began, “So thro’ all phases of all thought I come Into the perfect man.
“All nature widens upward: evermore The simpler essence lower lies, More complex is more perfect, owning more Discourse, more widely wise.
“I take possession of men’s minds and deeds. I live in all things great and small. I dwell apart, holding no forms of creeds, But contemplating all.”
Four ample courts there were, East, West, South, North, In each a squarèd lawn where from A golden-gorged dragon spouted forth The fountain’s diamond foam.
All round the cool green courts there ran a row Of cloisters, branched like mighty woods, Echoing all night to that sonorous flow Of spouted fountain floods.
From those four jets four currents in one swell Over the black rock streamed below In steamy folds, that, floating as they fell, Lit up a torrent bow.
And round the roofs ran gilded galleries That gave large view to distant lands, Tall towns and mounds, and close beneath the skies Long lines of amber sands.
Huge incense-urns along the balustrade, Hollowed of solid amethyst, Each with a different odour fuming, made The air a silver mist.
Far-off ’twas wonderful to look upon Those sumptuous towers between the gleam Of that great foam-bow trembling in the sun, And the argent incense-steam;
And round the terraces and round the walls, While day sank lower or rose higher, To see those rails with all their knobs and balls, Burn like a fringe of fire.
Likewise the deepset windows, stained and traced. Burned, like slow-flaming crimson fires, From shadowed grots of arches interlaced, And topped with frostlike spires.
[27] 1833.
There deep-haired Milton like an angel tall Stood limnèd, Shakspeare bland and mild, Grim Dante pressed his lips, and from the wall The bald blind Homer smiled.
Recast in its present form in 1842. After this stanza in 1833 appear the following stanzas, excised in 1842:—
And underneath fresh carved in cedar wood, Somewhat alike in form and face, The Genii of every climate stood, All brothers of one race:
Angels who sway the seasons by their art, And mould all shapes in earth and sea; And with great effort build the human heart From earliest infancy.
And in the sun-pierced Oriels’ coloured flame Immortal Michæl Angelo Looked down, bold Luther, large-browed Verulam, The King of those who know.[A]
Cervantes, the bright face of Calderon, Robed David touching holy strings, The Halicarnassean, and alone, Alfred the flower of kings.
Isaiah with fierce Ezekiel, Swarth Moses by the Coptic sea, Plato, Petrarca, Livy, and Raphael, And eastern Confutzer.
[A] Il maëstro di color chi sanno.—Dante, _Inf._, iii.
[28] Homer. _Cf._ Pope’s _Temple of Fame_, 183-7:—
Father of verse in holy fillets dress’d, His silver beard wav’d gently o’er his breast, Though blind a boldness in his looks appears, In years he seem’d but not impaired by years.
[29]
All these stanzas were added in 1842. In 1833 appear the following stanzas, excised in 1842:—
As some rich tropic mountain, that infolds All change, from flats of scattered palms Sloping thro’ five great zones of climate, holds His head in snows and calms—
Full of her own delight and nothing else, My vain-glorious, gorgeous soul Sat throned between the shining oriels, In pomp beyond control;
With piles of flavorous fruits in basket-twine Of gold, upheaped, crushing down Musk-scented blooms—all taste—grape, gourd or pine— In bunch, or single grown—
Our growths, and such as brooding Indian heats Make out of crimson blossoms deep, Ambrosial pulps and juices, sweets from sweets Sun-changed, when sea-winds sleep.
With graceful chalices of curious wine, Wonders of art—and costly jars, And bossed salvers. Ere young night divine Crowned dying day with stars,
Making sweet close of his delicious toils, She lit white streams of dazzling gas, And soft and fragrant flames of precious oils In moons of purple glass
Ranged on the fretted woodwork to the ground. Thus her intense untold delight, In deep or vivid colour, smell and sound, Was nattered day and night.[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.
Hither, when all the deep unsounded skies Shuddered with silent stars she clomb, And as with optic glasses her keen eyes Pierced thro’ the mystic dome,
Regions of lucid matter taking forms, Brushes of fire, hazy gleams, Clusters and beds of worlds, and bee-like swarms Of suns, and starry streams.
She saw the snowy poles of moonless Mars, That marvellous round of milky light Below Orion, and those double stars Whereof the one more bright Is circled by the other, etc.
[30] Thus in 1833:—
And many more, that in their lifetime were Full-welling fountain heads of change, Between the stone shafts glimmered, blazoned fair In divers raiment strange.
[31] 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 _Pausanias_, i., 42; Tacitus, _Annals_, ii., 61; and Juvenal, _Sat._, xv., 5:
“Dimidio magicæ resonant ubi Memnone Chordæ,”
and compare Akenside’s verses, _Plea. of Imag._, i., 109-113:—
Old Memnon’s image, long renown’d By fabling Nilus: to the quivering touch Of Titan’s ray, with each repulsive string Consenting, sounded thro’ the warbling air Unbidden strains.
[32] 1833. O’.
[33] Here added in 1842 and remaining till 1851 when they were excised are two stanzas:—
“From shape to shape at first within the womb The brain is modell’d,” she began, “And thro’ all phases of all thought I come Into the perfect man. “All nature widens upward. Evermore The simpler essence lower lies: More complex is more perfect, owning more Discourse, more widely wise.”
[34]
These stanzas were added in 1851.
[35] Added in 1842, with the following variants which remained till 1851, when the present text was substituted:—
“I take possession of men’s minds and deeds. I live in all things great and small. I sit apart holding no forms of creeds, But contemplating all.”
[36] 1833. Sometimes.
[37] And intellectual throne
Of full-sphered contemplation. So three years She throve, but on the fourth she fell.
And so the text remained till 1850, when the present reading was substituted.
[38] For the reference to Herod see _Acts_ xii. 21-23.
[39] Cf. Hallam’s _Remains_, p. 132: “That, _i. e._ Redemption,” is in the power of God’s election with whom alone rest _the abysmal secrets of personality_.
[40] See _Daniel_ v. 24-27.
[41] In 1833 the following stanza, excised in 1842:—
“Who hath drawn dry the fountains of delight, That from my deep heart everywhere Moved in my blood and dwelt, as power and might Abode in Sampson’s hair?”
[42] 1833. Downward-sloping.
[43] 1833.
Or the sound Of stones.
So till 1851, when “a sound of rocks” was substituted.
[44] 1833. “Dying the death I die?” Present reading substituted in 1842.
[45] Because intellectual and æsthetic pleasures are _abused_ and their purpose and scope mistaken, there is no reason why they should not be enjoyed. See the allegory in _In Memoriam_, ciii., stanzas 12-13.
Lady Clara Vere de Vere
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.
Lady Clara Vere de Vere, Of me you shall not win renown: You thought to break a country heart For pastime, ere you went to town. At me you smiled, but unbeguiled I saw the snare, and I retired: The daughter of a hundred Earls, You are not one to be desired.
Lady Clara Vere de Vere, I know you proud to bear your name, Your pride is yet no mate for mine, Too proud to care from whence I came. Nor would I break for your sweet sake A heart that doats on truer charms. A simple maiden in her flower Is worth a hundred coats-of-arms.
Lady Clara Vere de Vere, Some meeker pupil you must find, For were you queen of all that is, I could not stoop to such a mind. You sought to prove how I could love, And my disdain is my reply. The lion on your old stone gates Is not more cold to you than I.
Lady Clara Vere de Vere, You put strange memories in my head. Not thrice your branching limes have blown Since I beheld young Laurence dead. Oh your sweet eyes, your low replies: A great enchantress you may be; But there was that across his throat Which you hardly cared to see.
Lady Clara Vere de Vere, When thus he met his mother’s view, She had the passions of her kind, She spake some certain truths of you.
Indeed I heard one bitter word That scarce is fit for you to hear; Her manners had not that repose Which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere.
Lady Clara Vere de Vere, There stands a spectre in your hall: The guilt of blood is at your door: You changed a wholesome heart to gall. You held your course without remorse, To make him trust his modest worth, And, last, you fix’d a vacant stare, And slew him with your noble birth.
Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere, From yon blue heavens above us bent The grand old gardener and his wife[1] Smile at the claims of long descent. Howe’er it be, it seems to me, ’Tis only noble to be good. Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood.
I know you, Clara Vere de Vere: You pine among your halls and towers: The languid light of your proud eyes Is wearied of the rolling hours. In glowing health, with boundless wealth, But sickening of a vague disease, You know so ill to deal with time, You needs must play such pranks as these.
Clara, Clara Vere de Vere, If Time be heavy on your hands, Are there no beggars at your gate, Nor any poor about your lands? Oh! teach the orphan-boy to read, Or teach the orphan-girl to sew, Pray Heaven for a human heart, And let the foolish yoeman go.
[1] 1842 and 1843. “The gardener Adam and his wife.” In 1845 it was altered to the present text.
The May Queen
The first two parts were first published in 1833.
The scenery is typical of Lincolnshire; in Fitzgerald’s phrase, it is all Lincolnshire inland, as _Locksley Hall_ is seaboard.
You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear; To-morrow ’ill be the happiest time of all the glad[1] New-year; Of all the glad New-year, mother, the maddest merriest day; For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.
There’s many a black, black eye, they say, but none so bright as mine; There’s Margaret and Mary, there’s Kate and Caroline: But none so fair as little Alice in all the land they say, So I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.
I sleep so sound all night, mother, that I shall never wake, If you[2] do not call me loud when the day begins to break: But I must gather knots of flowers, and buds and garlands gay, For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.
As I came up the valley whom think ye should I see, But Robin[3] leaning on the bridge beneath the hazel-tree? He thought of that sharp look, mother, I gave him yesterday,— But I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.
He thought I was a ghost, mother, for I was all in white, And I ran by him without speaking, like a flash of light. They call me cruel-hearted, but I care not what they say, For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.
They say he’s dying all for love, but that can never be: They say his heart is breaking, mother—what is that to me? There’s many a bolder lad ’ill woo me any summer day, And I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.
Little Effie shall go with me to-morrow to the green, And you’ll be there, too, mother, to see me made the Queen; For the shepherd lads on every side ’ill come from far away, And I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.
The honeysuckle round the porch has wov’n its wavy bowers, And by the meadow-trenches blow the faint sweet cuckoo-flowers; And the wild marsh-marigold shines like fire in swamps and hollows gray, And I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.
The night-winds come and go, mother, upon the meadow-grass, And the happy stars above them seem to brighten as they pass; There will not be a drop of rain the whole of the live-long day, And I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.
All the valley, mother, ’ill be fresh and green and still, And the cowslip and the crowfoot are over all the hill, And the rivulet in the flowery dale ’ill merrily glance and play, For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.
So you must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear, To-morrow ’ill be the happiest time of all the glad New-year: To-morrow ’ill be of all the year the maddest merriest day, For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.
[1] 1833. “Blythe” for “glad”.
[2] 1883. Ye.
[3] 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”.
New Year’s Eve
If you’re waking call me early, call me early, mother dear, For I would see the sun rise upon the glad New-year. It is the last New-year that I shall ever see, Then you may lay me low i’ the mould and think no more of me.
To-night I saw the sun set: he set and left behind The good old year, the dear old time, and all my peace of mind; And the New-year’s coming up, mother, but I shall never see The blossom on[1] the blackthorn, the leaf upon the tree.
Last May we made a crown of flowers: we had a merry day; Beneath the hawthorn on the green they made me Queen of May; And we danced about the may-pole and in the hazel copse, Till Charles’s Wain came out above the tall white chimney-tops.
There’s not a flower on all the hills: the frost is on the pane: I only wish to live till the snowdrops come again: I wish the snow would melt and the sun come out on high: I long to see a flower so before the day I die.
The building rook’ll caw from the windy tall elm-tree, And the tufted plover pipe along the fallow lea, And the swallow’ll come back again with summer o’er the wave. But I shall lie alone, mother, within the mouldering grave.
Upon the chancel-casement, and upon that grave of mine, In the early, early morning the summer sun’ll shine, Before the red cock crows from the farm upon the hill, When you are warm-asleep, mother, and all the world is still.
When the flowers come again, mother, beneath the waning light You’ll never see me more in the long gray fields at night; When from the dry dark wold the summer airs blow cool On the oat-grass and the sword-grass, and the bulrush in the pool.
You’ll bury me,[2] my mother, just beneath the hawthorn shade, And you’ll come[3] sometimes and see me where I am lowly laid. I shall not forget you, mother, I shall hear you when you pass,[4] With your feet above my head in the long and pleasant grass.
I have been wild and wayward, but you’ll forgive[5] me now; You’ll kiss me, my own mother, and forgive me ere I go;[6] Nay, nay, you must not weep,[7] nor let your grief be wild, You should not fret for me, mother, you[8] have another child.
If I can I’ll come again, mother, from out my resting-place; Tho’ you’ll[9] not see me, mother, I shall look upon your face; Tho’ I cannot speak a word, 1 shall harken what you[10] say, And be often, often with you when you think[11] I’m far away.
Good-night, good-night, when I have said good-night for evermore, And you[12] see me carried out from the threshold of the door; Don’t let Effie come to see me till my grave be growing green: She’ll be a better child to you than ever I have been.
She’ll find my garden-tools upon the granary floor: Let her take ’em: they are hers: I shall never garden more: But tell her, when I’m gone, to train the rose-bush that I set About the parlour-window and the box of mignonette.
Good-night, sweet mother: call me before the day is born.[13]> All night I lie awake, but I fall asleep at morn; But I would see the sun rise upon the glad New-year, So, if your waking, call me, call me early, mother dear.
[1] 1833. The may upon.
[2] 1833. Ye’ll bury me.
[3] 1833. And ye’ll come.
[4] 1833. I shall not forget ye, mother, I shall hear ye when ye pass.
[5] 1833. But ye’ll forgive.
[6] 1833. Ye’ll kiss me, my own mother, upon my cheek and brow. 1850. And foregive me ere I go.
[7] 1833. Ye must not weep.
[8] 1833. Ye ... ye.
[9] 1833. Ye’ll.
[10] 1833. Ye.
[11] 1833. Ye when ye think.
[12] 1833. Ye.
[13] 1833. Call me when it begins to dawn. 1842. Before the day is born.
Conclusion
Added in 1842.
I thought to pass away before, and yet alive I am; And in the fields all round I hear the bleating of the lamb. How sadly, I remember, rose the morning of the year! To die before the snowdrop came, and now the violet’s here.
O sweet is the new violet, that comes beneath the skies, And sweeter is the young lamb’s voice to me that cannot rise, And sweet is all the land about, and all the flowers that blow, And sweeter far is death than life to me that long to go.
It seem’d so hard at first, mother, to leave the blessed sun, And now it seems as hard to stay, and yet His will be done! But still I think it can’t be long before I find release; And that good man, the clergyman, has told me words of peace.[1]
O blessings on his kindly voice and on his silver hair! And blessings on his whole life long, until he meet me there! O blessings on his kindly heart and on his silver head! A thousand times I blest him, as he knelt beside my bed.
He taught me all the mercy, for he show’d[2] me all the sin. Now, tho’ my lamp was lighted late, there’s One will let me in: Nor would I now be well, mother, again, if that could be, For my desire is but to pass to Him that died for me.
I did not hear the dog howl, mother, or the death-watch beat, There came a sweeter token when the night and morning meet: But sit beside my bed, mother, and put your hand in mine, And Effie on the other side, and I will tell the sign.
All in the wild March-morning I heard the angels call; It was when the moon was setting, and the dark was over all; The trees began to whisper, and the wind began to roll, And in the wild March-morning I heard them call my soul.
For lying broad awake I thought of you and Effie dear; I saw you sitting in the house, and I no longer here; With all my strength I pray’d for both, and so I felt resign’d, And up the valley came a swell of music on the wind.
I thought that it was fancy, and I listen’d in my bed, And then did something speak to me—I know not what was said; For great delight and shuddering took hold of all my mind, And up the valley came again the music on the wind.
But you were sleeping; and I said, “It’s not for them: it’s mine”. And if it comes[3] three times, I thought, I take it for a sign. And once again it came, and close beside the window-bars, Then seem’d to go right up to Heaven and die among the stars.
So now I think my time is near. I trust it is. I know The blessed music went that way my soul will have to go. And for myself, indeed, I care not if I go to-day. But, Effie, you must comfort _her_ when I am past away.
And say to Robin[4] a kind word, and tell him not to fret; There’s many worthier than I, would make him happy yet. If I had lived—I cannot tell—I might have been his wife; But all these things have ceased to be, with my desire of life.
O look! the sun begins to rise, the heavens are in a glow; He shines upon a hundred fields, and all of them I know. And there I move no longer now, and there his light may shine— Wild flowers in the valley for other hands than mine.
O sweet and strange it seems to me, that ere this day is done The voice, that now is speaking, may be beyond the sun— For ever and for ever with those just souls and true— And what is life, that we should moan? why make we such ado?
For ever and for ever, all in a blessed home— And there to wait a little while till you and Effie come— To lie within the light of God, as I lie upon your breast— And the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.
[1] 1842.
But still it can’t be long, mother, before I find release; And that good man, the clergyman, he preaches words of peace.
Present reading 1843.
[2] 1842-1848.
He show’d me all the mercy, for he taught me all the sin. Now, though, etc.
1850. For show’d he me all the sin.
[3] 1889. Come.
[4] 1842. Robert. 1843. Robin restored.
The Lotos Eaters
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.
This charming poem is founded on _Odyssey_, ix., 82 _seq._
“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, _Idyll_, v.; Bion, _Idyll_, v.; Spenser, _Faerie Queen_, II. vi. (description of the _Idle Lake_), and Thomson’s _Castle of Indolence_.
“Courage!” he said, and pointed toward the land, “This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon.” In the afternoon they came unto a land, In which it seemed always afternoon. All round the coast the languid air did swoon, Breathing like one that hath a weary dream. Full-faced above the valley stood the moon;[1] And like a downward smoke, the slender stream Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.
A land of streams! some, like a downward smoke, Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go; And some thro’ wavering lights and shadows broke, Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below. They saw the gleaming river seaward flow[2] From the inner land: far off, three mountain-tops, Three silent pinnacles of aged snow,[3] Stood sunset-flush’d: and, dew’d with showery drops, Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse.
The charmed sunset linger’d low adown In the red West: thro’ mountain clefts the dale Was seen far inland, and the yellow down Border’d with palm, and many a winding vale And meadow, set with slender galingale; A land where all things always seem’d the same! And round about the keel with faces pale, Dark faces pale against that rosy flame, The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came.
Branches they bore of that enchanted stem, Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gave To each, but whoso did receive of them, And taste, to him the gushing of the wave Far far away did seem to mourn and rave On alien shores; and if his fellow spake, His voice was thin, as voices from the grave; And deep-asleep he seem’d, yet all awake, And music in his ears his beating heart did make.
They sat them down upon the yellow sand, Between the sun and moon upon the shore; And sweet it was to dream of Father-land, Of child, and wife, and slave; but evermore Most weary seem’d the sea, weary the oar, Weary the wandering fields of barren foam. Then some one said, “We will return no more”; And all at once they sang, “Our island home Is far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam”.
Choric Song
1
There is sweet music here that softer falls Than petals from blown roses on the grass, Or night-dews on still waters between walls Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass; Music that gentlier on the spirit lies, Than tir’d eyelids upon tir’d eyes; Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies. Here are cool mosses deep, And thro’ the moss the ivies creep, And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep, And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.
2
Why are we weigh’d upon with heaviness, And utterly consumed with sharp distress, While all things else have rest from weariness? All things have rest: why should we toil alone, We only toil, who are the first of things, And make perpetual moan, Still from one sorrow to another thrown: Nor ever fold our wings, And cease from wanderings, Nor steep our brows in slumber’s holy balm; Nor harken what the inner spirit sings, “There is no joy but calm!” Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things?
3
Lo! in the middle of the wood, The folded leaf is woo’d from out the bud With winds upon the branch, and there Grows green and broad, and takes no care, Sun-steep’d at noon, and in the moon Nightly dew-fed; and turning yellow Falls, and floats adown the air. Lo! sweeten’d with the summer light, The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow, Drops in a silent autumn night. All its allotted length of days, The flower ripens in its place, Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil, Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil.
4
Hateful is the dark-blue sky, Vaulted o’er the dark-blue sea.[4] Death is the end of life; ah, why Should life all labour be? Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast, And in a little while our lips are dumb. Let us alone. What is it that will last? All things are taken from us, and become Portions and parcels of the dreadful Past. Let us alone. What pleasure can we have To war with evil? Is there any peace In ever climbing up the climbing wave?[5] All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave[6] In silence; ripen, fall and cease: Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease.
5
How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream, With half-shut eyes ever to seem Falling asleep in a half-dream! To dream and dream, like yonder amber light, Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height; To hear each other’s whisper’d speech: Eating the Lotos day by day, To watch the crisping ripples on the beach, And tender curving lines of creamy spray; To lend our hearts and spirits wholly To the influence of mild-minded melancholy; To muse and brood and live again in memory, With those[7] old faces of our infancy Heap’d over with a mound of grass, Two handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn of brass!
6
Dear is the memory of our wedded lives, And dear the last embraces of our wives And their warm tears: but all hath suffer’d change; For surely now our household hearths are cold: Our sons inherit us: our looks are strange: And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy. Or else the island princes over-bold Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings Before them of the ten-years’ war in Troy, And our great deeds, as half-forgotten things. Is there confusion in the little isle?[8] Let what is broken so remain. The Gods are hard to reconcile: ’Tis hard to settle order once again. There _is_ confusion worse than death, Trouble on trouble, pain on pain, Long labour unto aged breath, Sore task to hearts worn out with[9] many wars And eyes grow dim with gazing on the pilot-stars[10]
7
But, propt on beds[11] of amaranth and moly, How sweet (while warm airs lull us, blowing lowly) With half-dropt eyelids still, Beneath a heaven dark and holy, To watch the long bright river drawing slowly His waters from the purple hill— To hear the dewy echoes calling From cave to cave thro’ the thick-twined vine— To watch[12] the emerald-colour’d water falling Thro’ many a wov’n acanthus-wreath divine! Only to hear and see the far-off sparkling brine, Only to hear were sweet, stretch’d out beneath the pine.
8
The Lotos blooms below the barren peak:[13] The Lotos blows by every winding creek: All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone: Thro’ every hollow cave and alley lone Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos-dust is blown. We have had enough of action, and of motion we, Roll’d to starboard, roll’d to larboard, when the surge was seething free, Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea. Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind, In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind. For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl’d Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl’d Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world: Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands, Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands, Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships and praying hands. But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong, Like a tale of little meaning tho’ the words are strong; Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil, Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil, Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil; Till they perish and they suffer—some, ’tis whisper’d—down in hell Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell, Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel. Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore Than labour in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar; Oh rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more.[14]
[1] 1883. Above the valley burned the golden moon.
[2] 1883. River’s seaward flow.
[3] 1833. Three thunder-cloven thrones of oldest snow.
[4] _Cf._ Virgil, Æn., iv., 451:—
Tædet cæli convexa tueri.
Paraphrased from Moschus, _Idyll_, v., 11-15.
[5] For climbing up the wave _cf._ Virgil, _Æn._, i., 381: “Conscendi navilus æquor,” and _cf._ generally Bion, _Idyll_, v., 11-15.
[6] From Moschus, _Idyll_, v.,_passim_.
[7] 1833. The.
[8] The little isle, _i. e._, Ithaca.
[9] 1863 By.
[10] Added in 1842.
[11] 1833. Or, propt on lavish beds.
[12] 1833 to 1850 inclusive. Hear.
[13] 1833 to 1850 inclusive. Flowery peak.
[14] In 1833 we have the following, which in 1842 was excised and the present text substituted:—
We have had enough of motion, Weariness and wild alarm, Tossing on the tossing ocean, Where the tusked sea-horse walloweth In a stripe of grass-green calm, At noontide beneath the lee; And the monstrous narwhale swalloweth His foam-fountains in the sea. Long enough the wine-dark wave our weary bark did carry. This is lovelier and sweeter, Men of Ithaca, this is meeter, In the hollow rosy vale to tarry, Like a dreamy Lotos-eater, a delirious Lotos-eater! We will eat the Lotos, sweet As the yellow honeycomb, In the valley some, and some On the ancient heights divine; And no more roam, On the loud hoar foam, To the melancholy home At the limit of the brine, The little isle of Ithaca, beneath the day’s decline. We’ll lift no more the shattered oar, No more unfurl the straining sail; With the blissful Lotos-eaters pale We will abide in the golden vale Of the Lotos-land till the Lotos fail; We will not wander more. Hark! how sweet the horned ewes bleat On the solitary steeps, And the merry lizard leaps, And the foam-white waters pour; And the dark pine weeps, And the lithe vine creeps, And the heavy melon sleeps On the level of the shore: Oh! islanders of Ithaca, we will not wander more, Surely, surely slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore Than labour in the ocean, and rowing with the oar, Oh! islanders of Ithaca, we will return no more.
The fine picture in the text of the gods of Epicurus was no doubt immediately suggested by _Lucretius_, iii., 15 _seq._, while the _Icaromenippus_ of Lucian furnishes an excellent commentary on Tennyson’s picture of those gods and what they see. _Cf._ too the Song of the Parcae in Goethe’s _Iphigenie auf Tauris_, iv., 5.
A Dream of Fair Women
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 _Legend of Fair Women_ (see Spedding’s letter dated 21st June, 1832, _Life_, 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 _Legend of Good Women_, 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.
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’”:—
As when a man, that sails in a balloon, Downlooking sees the solid shining ground Stream from beneath him in the broad blue noon, Tilth, hamlet, mead and mound:
And takes his flags and waves them to the mob, That shout below, all faces turned to where Glows ruby-like the far up crimson globe, Filled with a finer air:
So lifted high, the Poet at his will Lets the great world flit from him, seeing all, Higher thro’ secret splendours mounting still, Self-poised, nor fears to fall.
Hearing apart the echoes of his fame. While I spoke thus, the seedsman, memory, Sowed my deepfurrowed thought with many a name, Whose glory will not die.
I read, before my eyelids dropt their shade, _“The Legend of Good Women,”_ long ago Sung by the morning star[1] of song, who made His music heard below;
Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath Preluded those melodious bursts, that fill The spacious times of great Elizabeth With sounds that echo still.
And, for a while, the knowledge of his art Held me above the subject, as strong gales Hold swollen clouds from raining, tho’ my heart, Brimful of those wild tales,
Charged both mine eyes with tears. In every land I saw, wherever light illumineth, Beauty and anguish walking hand in hand The downward slope to death.[2]
Those far-renowned brides of ancient song Peopled the hollow dark, like burning stars, And I heard sounds of insult, shame, and wrong, And trumpets blown for wars;
And clattering flints batter’d with clanging hoofs: And I saw crowds in column’d sanctuaries; And forms that pass’d[3] at windows and on roofs Of marble palaces;
Corpses across the threshold; heroes tall Dislodging pinnacle and parapet Upon the tortoise creeping to the wall;[4] Lances in ambush set;
And high shrine-doors burst thro’ with heated blasts That run before the fluttering tongues of fire; White surf wind-scatter’d over sails and masts, And ever climbing higher;
Squadrons and squares of men in brazen plates, Scaffolds, still sheets of water, divers woes, Ranges of glimmering vaults with iron grates, And hush’d seraglios.
So shape chased shape as swift as, when to land Bluster the winds and tides the self-same way, Crisp foam-flakes scud along the level sand, Torn from the fringe of spray.
I started once, or seem’d to start in pain, Resolved on noble things, and strove to speak, As when a great thought strikes along the brain, And flushes all the cheek.
And once my arm was lifted to hew down, A cavalier from off his saddle-bow, That bore a lady from a leaguer’d town; And then, I know not how,
All those sharp fancies, by down-lapsing thought Stream’d onward, lost their edges, and did creep Roll’d on each other, rounded, smooth’d and brought Into the gulfs of sleep.
At last methought that I had wander’d far In an old wood: fresh-wash’d in coolest dew, The maiden splendours of the morning star Shook in the steadfast[5] blue.
Enormous elmtree-boles did stoop and lean Upon the dusky brushwood underneath Their broad curved branches, fledged with clearest green, New from its silken sheath.
The dim red morn had died, her journey done, And with dead lips smiled at the twilight plain, Half-fall’n across the threshold of the sun, Never to rise again.
There was no motion in the dumb dead air, Not any song of bird or sound of rill; Gross darkness of the inner sepulchre Is not so deadly still
As that wide forest. Growths of jasmine turn’d Their humid arms festooning tree to tree,[6] And at the root thro’ lush green grasses burn’d The red anemone.
I knew the flowers, I knew the leaves, I knew The tearful glimmer of the languid dawn On those long, rank, dark wood-walks, drench’d in dew, Leading from lawn to lawn.
The smell of violets, hidden in the green, Pour’d back into my empty soul and frame The times when I remember to have been Joyful and free from blame.
And from within me a clear under-tone Thrill’d thro’ mine ears in that unblissful clime “Pass freely thro’: the wood is all thine own, Until the end of time”.
At length I saw a lady[7] within call, Stiller than chisell’d marble, standing there; A daughter of the gods, divinely tall,[8] And most divinely fair.
Her loveliness with shame and with surprise Froze my swift speech: she turning on my face The star-like sorrows of immortal eyes, Spoke slowly in her place.
“I had great beauty: ask thou not my name: No one can be more wise than destiny. Many drew swords and died. Where’er I came I brought calamity.”
“No marvel, sovereign lady[9]: in fair field Myself for such a face had boldly died,”[10] I answer’d free; and turning I appeal’d To one[11] that stood beside.
But she, with sick and scornful looks averse, To her full height her stately stature draws; “My youth,” she said, “was blasted with a curse: This woman was the cause.
“I was cut off from hope in that sad place,[12] Which yet to name my spirit loathes and fears:[13] My father held his hand upon his face; I, blinded with my tears,
“Still strove to speak: my voice was thick with sighs As in a dream. Dimly I could descry The stern black-bearded kings with wolfish eyes, Waiting to see me die.
“The high masts flicker’d as they lay afloat; The crowds, the temples, waver’d, and the shore; The bright death quiver’d at the victim’s throat; Touch’d; and I knew no more.”[14]
Whereto the other with a downward brow: “I would the white cold heavy-plunging foam,[15] Whirl’d by the wind, had roll’d me deep below, Then when I left my home.”
Her slow full words sank thro’ the silence drear, As thunder-drops fall on a sleeping sea: Sudden I heard a voice that cried, “Come here, That I may look on thee”.
I turning saw, throned on a flowery rise, One sitting on a crimson scarf unroll’d; A queen, with swarthy cheeks[16] and bold black eyes, Brow-bound with burning gold.
She, flashing forth a haughty smile, began: “I govern’d men by change, and so I sway’d All moods. Tis long since I have seen a man. Once, like the moon, I made
“The ever-shifting currents of the blood According to my humour ebb and flow. I have no men to govern in this wood: That makes my only woe.
“Nay—yet it chafes me that I could not bend One will; nor tame and tutor with mine eye That dull cold-blooded Caesar. Prythee, friend, Where is Mark Antony?[17]
“The man, my lover, with whom I rode sublime On Fortune’s neck: we sat as God by God: The Nilus would have risen before his time And flooded at our nod.[18]
“We drank the Libyan[19] Sun to sleep, and lit Lamps which outburn’d Canopus. O my life In Egypt! O the dalliance and the wit, The flattery and the strife,[20]
“And the wild kiss, when fresh from war’s alarms,[21] My Hercules, my Roman Antony, My mailèd Bacchus leapt into my arms, Contented there to die!
“And there he died: and when I heard my name Sigh’d forth with life, I would not brook my fear[22] Of the other: with a worm I balk’d his fame. What else was left? look here!”
(With that she tore her robe apart, and half The polish’d argent of her breast to sight Laid bare. Thereto she pointed with a laugh, Showing the aspick’s bite.)
“I died a Queen. The Roman soldier found[23] Me lying dead, my crown about my brows, A name for ever!—lying robed and crown’d, Worthy a Roman spouse.”
Her warbling voice, a lyre of widest range Struck[24] by all passion, did fall down and glance From tone to tone, and glided thro’ all change Of liveliest utterance.
When she made pause I knew not for delight; Because with sudden motion from the ground She raised her piercing orbs, and fill’d with light The interval of sound.
Still with their fires Love tipt his keenest darts; As once they drew into two burning rings All beams of Love, melting the mighty hearts Of captains and of kings.
Slowly my sense undazzled. Then I heard A noise of some one coming thro’ the lawn, And singing clearer than the crested bird, That claps his wings at dawn.
“The torrent brooks of hallow’d Israel From craggy hollows pouring, late and soon, Sound all night long, in falling thro’ the dell, Far-heard beneath the moon.
“The balmy moon of blessed Israel Floods all the deep-blue gloom with beams divine: All night the splinter’d crags that wall the dell With spires of silver shine.”
As one that museth where broad sunshine laves The lawn by some cathedral, thro’ the door Hearing the holy organ rolling waves Of sound on roof and floor,
Within, and anthem sung, is charm’d and tied To where he stands,—so stood I, when that flow Of music left the lips of her that died To save her father’s vow;
The daughter of the warrior Gileadite,[25] A maiden pure; as when she went along From Mizpeh’s tower’d gate with welcome light, With timbrel and with song.
My words leapt forth: “Heaven heads the count of crimes With that wild oath”. She render’d answer high: “Not so, nor once alone; a thousand times I would be born and die.
“Single I grew, like some green plant, whose root Creeps to the garden water-pipes beneath, Feeding the flower; but ere my flower to fruit Changed, I was ripe for death.
“My God, my land, my father—these did move Me from my bliss of life, that Nature gave, Lower’d softly with a threefold cord of love Down to a silent grave.
“And I went mourning, ‘No fair Hebrew boy Shall smile away my maiden blame among The Hebrew mothers’—emptied of all joy, Leaving the dance and song,
“Leaving the olive-gardens far below, Leaving the promise of my bridal bower, The valleys of grape-loaded vines that glow Beneath the battled tower
“The light white cloud swam over us. Anon We heard the lion roaring from his den;[26] We saw the large white stars rise one by one, Or, from the darken’d glen,
“Saw God divide the night with flying flame, And thunder on the everlasting hills. I heard Him, for He spake, and grief became A solemn scorn of ills.
“When the next moon was roll’d into the sky, Strength came to me that equall’d my desire. How beautiful a thing it was to die For God and for my sire!
“It comforts me in this one thought to dwell, That I subdued me to my father’s will; Because the kiss he gave me, ere I fell, Sweetens the spirit still.
“Moreover it is written that my race Hew’d Ammon, hip and thigh, from Aroer[27] On Arnon unto Minneth.” Here her face Glow’d, as I look’d at her.
She lock’d her lips: she left me where I stood: “Glory to God,” she sang, and past afar, Thridding the sombre boskage of the wood, Toward the morning-star.
Losing her carol I stood pensively, As one that from a casement leans his head, When midnight bells cease ringing suddenly, And the old year is dead.
“Alas! alas!” a low voice, full of care, Murmur’d beside me: “Turn and look on me: I am that Rosamond, whom men call fair, If what I was I be.
“Would I had been some maiden coarse and poor! O me, that I should ever see the light! Those dragon eyes of anger’d Eleanor Do haunt me, day and night.”
She ceased in tears, fallen from hope and trust: To whom the Egyptian: “O, you tamely died! You should have clung to Fulvia’s waist, and thrust The dagger thro’ her side”.
With that sharp sound the white dawn’s creeping beams, Stol’n to my brain, dissolved the mystery Of folded sleep. The captain of my dreams Ruled in the eastern sky.
Morn broaden’d on the borders of the dark, Ere I saw her, who clasp’d in her last trance Her murder’d father’s head, or Joan of Arc,[28] A light of ancient France;
Or her, who knew that Love can vanquish Death, Who kneeling, with one arm about her king, Drew forth the poison with her balmy breath,[29] Sweet as new buds in Spring.
No memory labours longer from the deep Gold-mines of thought to lift the hidden ore That glimpses, moving up, than I from sleep To gather and tell o’er
Each little sound and sight. With what dull pain Compass’d, how eagerly I sought to strike Into that wondrous track of dreams again! But no two dreams are like.
As when a soul laments, which hath been blest, Desiring what is mingled with past years, In yearnings that can never be exprest By sighs or groans or tears;
Because all words, tho’ cull’d[30] with choicest art, Failing to give the bitter of the sweet, Wither beneath the palate, and the heart Faints, faded by its heat.
[1] Suggested apparently by Denham, _Verses on Cowley’s Death_:—
Old Chaucer, like the morning star To us discovers Day from far.
[2] Here follow in 1833 two stanzas excised in 1842:—
In every land I thought that, more or less, The stronger sterner nature overbore The softer, uncontrolled by gentleness And selfish evermore:
And whether there were any means whereby, In some far aftertime, the gentler mind Might reassume its just and full degree Of rule among mankind.
[3] 1833. Screamed.
[4] The Latin _testudo_ formed of the shields of soldiers held over their heads.
[5] 1883 to 1848 inclusive. Stedfast.
[6] 1833.
Clasping jasmine turned Its twined arms festooning tree to tree.
Altered to present reading, 1842.
[7] A lady, _i. e._, Helen.
[8] Tennyson has here noticed what is so often emphasised by Greek writers, that tallness was a great beauty in women. See Aristotle, _Ethics_, iv., 3, and Homer, _passim, Odyssey_, viii., 416; xviii., 190 and 248; xxi., 6. So Xenophon in describing Panthea emphasises her tallness, _Cyroped._, v.
[9] 1883. Sovran lady.
[10] As the old men say, _Iliad_, iii., 156-8.
[11] The one is Iphigenia.
[12] Aulis.
[13] It was not till 1884 that this line was altered to the reading of the final edition, _i. e._, “Which men called Aulis in those iron years”. For the “iron years” of that reading _cf._ Thomson, _Spring_, 384, “_iron_ times”.
[14] From 1833 till 1853 this stanza ran:— “The tall masts quivered as they lay afloat, The temples and the people and the shore, One drew a sharp knife thro’ my tender throat Slowly,—and nothing more”. 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, _Agamem._, 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” _cf._ Sophocles, _Electra_, 1395, νεακόνητον αἷμα χειροῖν ἔχων, “with the newly-whetted blood on his hands”. So “vulnus” is frequently used by Virgil, and _cf._ Silius Italicus, _Punica_, ix., 368-9:— Per pectora _sævas_ Exceptat _mortes_.
[15] She expresses the same wish in _Iliad_, iii., 73-4.
[16] 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 _Gryll Grange_, p. 206, 7th edit., 1861.
[17] After this in 1833 and in 1842 are the following stanzas, afterwards excised:—
“By him great Pompey dwarfs and suffers pain, A mortal man before immortal Mars; The glories of great Julius lapse and wane, And shrink from suns to stars.
“That man of all the men I ever knew Most touched my fancy. O! what days and nights We had in Egypt, ever reaping new Harvest of ripe delights.
“Realm-draining revels! Life was one long feast, What wit! what words! what sweet words, only made Less sweet by the kiss that broke ’em, liking best To be so richly stayed!
“What dainty strifes, when fresh from war’s alarms, My Hercules, my gallant Antony, My mailed captain leapt into my arms, Contented there to die!
“And in those arms he died: I heard my name Sighed forth with life: then I shook off all fear: Oh, what a little snake stole Caesar’s fame! What else was left? look here!”
“With that she tore her robe apart,” etc.
[18] This stanza was added in 1843.
[19] 1845-1848. Lybian.
[20] Added in 1845 as a substitute for
“What nights we had in Egypt! I could hit His humours while I crossed them: O the life I led him, and the dalliance and the wit, The flattery and the strife,
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, _Hist. Nat._, vi., xxiv.
“Fatentes Canopum noctibus sidus ingens et clarum”.
_Cf._ Manilius, _Astron._, i., 216-17,
“Nusquam invenies fulgere Canopum donec Niliacas per pontum veneris oras,”
and Lucan, _Pharsal._, viii., 181-3.
[21] Substituted in 1843 for the reading of 1833 and 1842.
[22] Substituted in 1845 for the reading of 1833, 1842, 1843, which ran as recorded _supra_. 1845 to 1848. Lybian. And for the reading of 1843
Sigh’d forth with life I had no further fear, O what a little worm stole Caesar’s fame!
[23] A splendid transfusion of Horace’s lines about her, Ode I., xxxvii.
Invidens Privata deduci superto Non humilis mulier triumpho.
[24] 1833 and 1842. Touched.
[25] For the story of Jephtha’s daughter see Judges, chap. xi.
[26] All editions up to and including 1851. In his den.
[27] For reference see Judges xi, 33.
[28] 1833.
Ere I saw her, that in her latest trance Clasped her dead father’s heart, or Joan of Arc.
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.
[29] Eleanor, the wife of Edward I., is said to have thus saved his life when he was stabbed at Acre with a poisoned dagger.
[30] The earliest and latest editions, _i. e._, 1833 and 1853, have “tho’,” and all the editions between “though”. “Though culled,” etc.
Margaret
First printed in 1833.
Another of Tennyson’s delicious fancy portraits, the twin sister to Adeline.
1
O sweet pale Margaret, O rare pale Margaret, What lit your eyes with tearful power, Like moonlight on a falling shower? Who lent you, love, your mortal dower Of pensive thought and aspect pale, Your melancholy sweet and frail As perfume of the cuckoo-flower? From the westward-winding flood, From the evening-lighted wood, From all things outward you have won A tearful grace, as tho’[1] you stood Between the rainbow and the sun. The very smile before you speak, That dimples your transparent cheek, Encircles all the heart, and feedeth The senses with a still delight Of dainty sorrow without sound, Like the tender amber round, Which the moon about her spreadeth, Moving thro’ a fleecy night.
2
You love, remaining peacefully, To hear the murmur of the strife, But enter not the toil of life. Your spirit is the calmed sea, Laid by the tumult of the fight. You are the evening star, alway Remaining betwixt dark and bright: Lull’d echoes of laborious day Come to you, gleams of mellow light Float by you on the verge of night.
3
What can it matter, Margaret, What songs below the waning stars The lion-heart, Plantagenet,[2] Sang looking thro’ his prison bars? Exquisite Margaret, who can tell The last wild thought of Chatelet,[3] Just ere the falling axe did part The burning brain from the true heart, Even in her sight he loved so well?
4
A fairy shield your Genius made And gave you on your natal day. Your sorrow, only sorrow’s shade, Keeps real sorrow far away. You move not in such solitudes, You are not less divine, But more human in your moods, Than your twin-sister, Adeline. Your hair is darker, and your eyes Touch’d with a somewhat darker hue, And less aerially blue, But ever trembling thro’ the dew[4] Of dainty-woeful sympathies.
5
O sweet pale Margaret, O rare pale Margaret, Come down, come down, and hear me speak: Tie up the ringlets on your cheek: The sun is just about to set. The arching lines are tall and shady, And faint, rainy lights are seen, Moving in the leavy beech. Rise from the feast of sorrow, lady, Where all day long you sit between Joy and woe, and whisper each. Or only look across the lawn, Look out below your bower-eaves, Look down, and let your blue eyes dawn Upon me thro’ the jasmine-leaves.[5]
[1] All editions except 1833 and 1853. Though.
[2] 1833. Lion-souled Plantagenet. For songs supposed to have been composed by Richard I. during the time of his captivity see Sismondi, _Littérature du Midi de l’Europe_, vol. i., p. 149, and _La Tour Ténébreuse_ (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 _Hist. of Music_, vol. ii., p. 238, and Walpole’s _Royal and Noble Authors_, sub.-tit. “Richard I.,” and the fourth volume of Reynouard’s _Choix des Poésies des Troubadours_. All these poems are probably spurious.
[3] 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, _History of Scotland_, vi., p. 319, and Mr. Swinburne’s tragedy.
[4] 1833.
And more aërially blue, And ever trembling thro’ the dew.
[5] 1833. Jasmin-leaves.
The Blackbird
Not in 1833. This is another poem placed among the poems of 1833, but not printed till 1842.
The espaliers and the standards all Are thine; the range of lawn and park: The unnetted black-hearts ripen dark, All thine, against the garden wall.
Yet, tho’ I spared thee all the spring,[1] Thy sole delight is, sitting still, With that gold dagger of thy bill To fret the summer jenneting.[2]
A golden bill! the silver tongue, Cold February loved, is dry: Plenty corrupts the melody That made thee famous once, when young:
And in the sultry garden-squares,[3] Now thy flute-notes are changed to coarse, I hear thee not at all,[4] or hoarse As when a hawker hawks his wares.
Take warning! he that will not sing While yon sun prospers in the blue, Shall sing for want, ere leaves are new, Caught in the frozen palms of Spring.
[1] 1842. Yet, though I spared thee kith and kin. And so till 1853, when it was altered to the present reading.
[2] 1842 to 1851. Jennetin, altered in 1853 to present reading.
[3] 1842. I better brook the drawling stares. Altered, 1843.
[4] 1842. Not hearing thee at all. Altered, 1843.
The Death of the Old Year
First printed in 1833.
Only one alteration has been made in this poem, in line 41, where in 1842 “one’ was altered to” twelve”.
Full knee-deep lies the winter snow, And the winter winds are wearily sighing: Toll ye the church-bell sad and slow, And tread softly and speak low, For the old year lies a-dying. Old year, you must not die; You came to us so readily, You lived with us so steadily, Old year, you shall not die.
He lieth still: he doth not move: He will not see the dawn of day. He hath no other life above. He gave me a friend, and a true, true-love, And the New-year will take ’em away. Old year, you must not go; So long as you have been with us, Such joy as you have seen with us, Old year, you shall not go.
He froth’d his bumpers to the brim; A jollier year we shall not see. But tho’ his eyes are waxing dim, And tho’ his foes speak ill of him, He was a friend to me. Old year, you shall not die; We did so laugh and cry with you, I’ve half a mind to die with you, Old year, if you must die.
He was full of joke and jest, But all his merry quips are o’er. To see him die, across the waste His son and heir doth ride post-haste, But he’ll be dead before. Every one for his own. The night is starry and cold, my friend, And the New-year blithe and bold, my friend, Comes up to take his own.
How hard he breathes! over the snow I heard just now the crowing cock. The shadows flicker to and fro: The cricket chirps: the light burns low: ’Tis nearly twelve[1] o’clock. Shake hands, before you die. Old year, we’ll dearly rue for you: What is it we can do for you? Speak out before you die.
His face is growing sharp and thin. Alack! our friend is gone. Close up his eyes: tie up his chin: Step from the corpse, and let him in That standeth there alone, And waiteth at the door. There’s a new foot on the floor, my friend, And a new face at the door, my friend, A new face at the door.
[1] 1833. One.
To J. S.
First published in 1833.
This beautiful poem was addressed to James Spedding on the death of his brother Edward.
The wind, that beats the mountain, blows More softly round the open wold,[1] And gently comes the world to those That are cast in gentle mould.
And me this knowledge bolder made, Or else I had not dared to flow[2] In these words toward you, and invade Even with a verse your holy woe.
’Tis strange that those we lean on most, Those in whose laps our limbs are nursed, Fall into shadow, soonest lost: Those we love first are taken first.
God gives us love. Something to love He lends us; but, when love is grown To ripeness, that on which it throve Falls off, and love is left alone.
This is the curse of time. Alas! In grief I am not all unlearn’d; Once thro’ mine own doors Death did pass;[3] One went, who never hath return’d.
He will not smile—nor speak to me Once more. Two years his chair is seen Empty before us. That was he Without whose life I had not been.
Your loss is rarer; for this star Rose with you thro’ a little arc Of heaven, nor having wander’d far Shot on the sudden into dark.
I knew your brother: his mute dust I honour and his living worth: A man more pure and bold[4] and just Was never born into the earth.
I have not look’d upon you nigh, Since that dear soul hath fall’n asleep. Great Nature is more wise than I: I will not tell you not to weep.
And tho’ mine own eyes fill with dew, Drawn from the spirit thro’ the brain,[5] I will not even preach to you, “Weep, weeping dulls the inward pain”.
Let Grief be her own mistress still. She loveth her own anguish deep More than much pleasure. Let her will Be done—to weep or not to weep.
I will not say “God’s ordinance Of Death is blown in every wind”; For that is not a common chance That takes away a noble mind.
His memory long will live alone In all our hearts, as mournful light That broods above the fallen sun,[6] And dwells in heaven half the night.
Vain solace! Memory standing near Cast down her eyes, and in her throat Her voice seem’d distant, and a tear Dropt on the letters[7] as I wrote.
I wrote I know not what. In truth, How _should_ I soothe you anyway, Who miss the brother of your youth? Yet something I did wish to say:
For he too was a friend to me: Both are my friends, and my true breast Bleedeth for both; yet it may be That only[8] silence suiteth best.
Words weaker than your grief would make Grief more. ’Twere better I should cease; Although myself could almost take[9] The place of him that sleeps in peace.
Sleep sweetly, tender heart, in peace: Sleep, holy spirit, blessed soul, While the stars burn, the moons increase, And the great ages onward roll.
Sleep till the end, true soul and sweet. Nothing comes to thee new or strange. Sleep full of rest from head to feet; Lie still, dry dust, secure of change.
[1] Possibly suggested by Tasso, _Gerus._, lib. xx., st. lviii.:—
Qual vento a cui s’oppone o selva o colle Doppía nella contesa i soffi e l’ ira; Ma con fiato piu placido e più molle Per le compagne libere poi spira.
[2] 1833.
My heart this knowledge bolder made, Or else it had not dared to flow.
Altered in 1842.
[3] Tennyson’s father died in March, 1831.
[4] 1833. Mild.
[5] _Cf._ Gray’s Alcaic stanza on West’s death:—
O lacrymarum fons tenero sacros _Ducentium ortus ex animo_.
[6] 1833. Sunken sun. Altered to present reading, 1842. The image may have been suggested by Henry Vaughan, _Beyond the Veil_:—
Their very memory is fair and bright, ... It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast Like stars ... Or those faint beams in which the hill is drest After the sun’s remove.
[7] 1833, 1842, 1843. My tablets. This affected phrase was altered to the present reading in 1845.
[8] 1833. Holy. Altered to “only,” 1842.
[9] 1833. Altho’ to calm you I would take. Altered to present reading, 1842.
“You ask me, why, tho’ ill at ease”
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 (_Life_, 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 _Life of Tennyson_, vol. i., appendix.
You ask me, why, tho’[1] ill at ease, Within this region I subsist, Whose spirits falter in the mist,[2] And languish for the purple seas?
It is the land that freemen till, That sober-suited Freedom chose, The land, where girt with friends or foes A man may speak the thing he will;
A land of settled government, A land of just and old renown, Where Freedom broadens slowly down From precedent to precedent:
Where faction seldom gathers head, But by degrees to fulness wrought, The strength of some diffusive thought Hath time and space to work and spread.
Should banded unions persecute Opinion, and induce a time When single thought is civil crime, And individual freedom mute;
Tho’ Power should make from land to land[3] The name of Britain trebly great— Tho’ every channel[4] of the State Should almost choke with golden sand—
Yet waft me from the harbour-mouth, Wild wind! I seek a warmer sky, And I will see before I die The palms and temples of the South.
[1] 1842 and 1851. Though.
[2] 1842 to 1843. Whose spirits fail within the mist. Altered to present reading in 1845.
[3] All editions up to and including 1851. Though Power, etc.
[4] 1842-1850. Though every channel.
“Of old sat Freedom on the heights”
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.
Of old sat Freedom on the heights, The thunders breaking at her feet: Above her shook the starry lights: She heard the torrents meet.
There in her place[1] she did rejoice, Self-gather’d in her prophet-mind, But fragments of her mighty voice Came rolling on the wind.
Then stept she down thro’ town and field To mingle with the human race, And part by part to men reveal’d The fullness of her face—
Grave mother of majestic works, From her isle-altar gazing down, Who, God-like, grasps the triple forks,[2] And, King-like, wears the crown:
Her open eyes desire the truth. The wisdom of a thousand years Is in them. May perpetual youth Keep dry their light from tears;
That her fair form may stand and shine, Make bright our days and light our dreams, Turning to scorn with lips divine The falsehood of extremes!
[1] 1842 to 1850 inclusive. Within her place. Altered to present reading, 1850.
[2] The “trisulci ignes” or “trisulca tela” of the Roman poets.
“Love thou thy land, with love far-brought”
First published in 1842.
This poem had been written by 1834, for Tennyson sends it in a letter dated that year to James Spedding (see _Life_, i., 173).
Love thou thy land, with love far-brought From out the storied Past, and used Within the Present, but transfused Thro’ future time by power of thought.
True love turn’d round on fixed poles, Love, that endures not sordid ends, For English natures, freemen, friends, Thy brothers and immortal souls.
But pamper not a hasty time, Nor feed with crude imaginings The herd, wild hearts and feeble wings, That every sophister can lime.
Deliver not the tasks of might To weakness, neither hide the ray From those, not blind, who wait for day, Tho’[1] sitting girt with doubtful light.
Make knowledge[2] circle with the winds; But let her herald, Reverence, fly Before her to whatever sky Bear seed of men and growth[3] of minds.
Watch what main-currents draw the years: Cut Prejudice against the grain: But gentle words are always gain: Regard the weakness of thy peers:
Nor toil for title, place, or touch Of pension, neither count on praise: It grows to guerdon after-days: Nor deal in watch-words overmuch;
Not clinging to some ancient saw; Not master’d by some modern term; Not swift nor slow to change, but firm: And in its season bring the law;
That from Discussion’s lip may fall With Life, that, working strongly, binds— Set in all lights by many minds, To close the interests of all.
For Nature also, cold and warm, And moist and dry, devising long, Thro’ many agents making strong, Matures the individual form.
Meet is it changes should control Our being, lest we rust in ease. We all are changed by still degrees, All but the basis of the soul.
So let the change which comes be free To ingroove itself with that, which flies, And work, a joint of state, that plies Its office, moved with sympathy.
A saying, hard to shape an act; For all the past of Time reveals A bridal dawn of thunder-peals, Wherever Thought hath wedded Fact.
Ev’n now we hear with inward strife A motion toiling in the gloom— The Spirit of the years to come Yearning to mix himself with Life.
A slow-develop’d strength awaits Completion in a painful school; Phantoms of other forms of rule, New Majesties of mighty States—
The warders of the growing hour, But vague in vapour, hard to mark; And round them sea and air are dark With great contrivances of Power.
Of many changes, aptly join’d, Is bodied forth the second whole, Regard gradation, lest the soul Of Discord race the rising wind;
A wind to puff your idol-fires, And heap their ashes on the head; To shame the boast so often made,[4] That we are wiser than our sires.
Oh, yet, if Nature’s evil star Drive men in manhood, as in youth, To follow flying steps of Truth Across the brazen bridge of war—[5]
If New and Old, disastrous feud, Must ever shock, like armed foes, And this be true, till Time shall close, That Principles are rain’d in blood;
Not yet the wise of heart would cease To hold his hope thro’ shame and guilt, But with his hand against the hilt, Would pace the troubled land, like Peace;
Not less, tho’ dogs of Faction bay,[6] Would serve his kind in deed and word, Certain, if knowledge bring the sword, That knowledge takes the sword away—
Would love the gleams of good that broke From either side, nor veil his eyes; And if some dreadful need should rise Would strike, and firmly, and one stroke:
To-morrow yet would reap to-day, As we bear blossom of the dead; Earn well the thrifty months, nor wed Raw haste, half-sister to Delay.
[1] 1842 and so till 1851. Though.
[2] 1842. Knowledge is spelt with a capital K.
[3] 1842. Or growth.
[4] 1842. The boasting words we said.
[5] Possibly suggested by Homer’s expression, ἀνὰ πτολέμοιο γεφύρας, _Il_., 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.
[6] All up to and including 1851. Not less, though dogs of Faction bay.
The Goose
This was first published in 1842. No alteration has since been made in it.
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.
I knew an old wife lean and poor, Her rags scarce held together; There strode a stranger to the door, And it was windy weather.
He held a goose upon his arm, He utter’d rhyme and reason, “Here, take the goose, and keep you warm, It is a stormy season”.
She caught the white goose by the leg, A goose—’twas no great matter. The goose let fall a golden egg With cackle and with clatter.
She dropt the goose, and caught the pelf, And ran to tell her neighbours; And bless’d herself, and cursed herself, And rested from her labours.
And feeding high, and living soft, Grew plump and able-bodied; Until the grave churchwarden doff’d, The parson smirk’d and nodded.
So sitting, served by man and maid, She felt her heart grow prouder: But, ah! the more the white goose laid It clack’d and cackled louder.
It clutter’d here, it chuckled there; It stirr’d the old wife’s mettle: She shifted in her elbow-chair, And hurl’d the pan and kettle.
“A quinsy choke thy cursed note!” Then wax’d her anger stronger: “Go, take the goose, and wring her throat, I will not bear it longer”.
Then yelp’d the cur, and yawl’d the cat; Ran Gaffer, stumbled Gammer. The goose flew this way and flew that, And fill’d the house with clamour.
As head and heels upon the floor They flounder’d all together, There strode a stranger to the door, And it was windy weather:
He took the goose upon his arm, He utter’d words of scorning; “So keep you cold, or keep you warm, It is a stormy morning”.
The wild wind rang from park and plain, And round the attics rumbled, Till all the tables danced again, And half the chimneys tumbled.
The glass blew in, the fire blew out, The blast was hard and harder. Her cap blew off, her gown blew up, And a whirlwind clear’d the larder;
And while on all sides breaking loose Her household fled the danger, Quoth she, “The Devil take the goose, And God forget the stranger!”
The Epic
First published in 1842; “tho’” for “though” in line 44 has been the only alteration made since 1850.
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.
At Francis Allen’s on the Christmas-eve,— The game of forfeits done—the girls all kiss’d Beneath the sacred bush and past away— The parson Holmes, the poet Everard Hall, The host, and I sat round the wassail-bowl, Then half-way ebb’d: and there we held a talk, How all the old honour had from Christmas gone, Or gone, or dwindled down to some odd games In some odd nooks like this; till I, tired out With cutting eights that day upon the pond, Where, three times slipping from the outer edge, I bump’d the ice into three several stars, Fell in a doze; and half-awake I heard The parson taking wide and wider sweeps, Now harping on the church-commissioners,[1] Now hawking at Geology and schism; Until I woke, and found him settled down Upon the general decay of faith Right thro’ the world, “at home was little left, And none abroad: there was no anchor, none, To hold by”. Francis, laughing, clapt his hand On Everard’s shoulder, with “I hold by him”. “And I,” quoth Everard, “by the wassail-bowl.” “Why, yes,” I said, “we knew your gift that way At college: but another which you had, I mean of verse (for so we held it then), What came of that?” “You know,” said Frank, “he burnt His epic, his King Arthur, some twelve books”—[2] And then to me demanding why? “Oh, sir, He thought that nothing new was said, or else Something so said ’twas nothing—that a truth Looks freshest in the fashion of the day: God knows: he has a mint of reasons: ask. It pleased _me_ well enough.” “Nay, nay,” said Hall, “Why take the style of those heroic times? For nature brings not back the Mastodon, Nor we those times; and why should any man Remodel models? these twelve books of mine[3] Were faint Homeric echoes, nothing-worth, Mere chaff and draff, much better burnt.” “But I,” Said Francis, “pick’d the eleventh from this hearth, And have it: keep a thing its use will come. I hoard it as a sugar-plum for Holmes.” He laugh’d, and I, though sleepy, like a horse That hears the corn-bin open, prick’d my ears; For I remember’d Everard’s college fame When we were Freshmen: then at my request He brought it; and the poet little urged, But with some prelude of disparagement, Read, mouthing out his hollow oes and aes, Deep-chested music, and to this result.
[1] A burning topic with the clergy in and about 1833.
[2] 1842 to 1844. “You know,” said Frank, “he flung His epic of King Arthur in the fire!” The present reading, 1850.
[3] 1842, 1843.v
Remodel models rather than the life? And these twelve books of mine (to speak the truth).
Present reading, 1845.
Morte d’Arthur
This is Tennyson’s first study from Malory’s _Morte d’Arthur_. 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?” (_Life_, 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, _The Idylls of the King_. The substance of the poem is drawn from the third, fourth and fifth chapters of the twenty-first book of Malory’s _Romance_, 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:—
“Across the ridge and pac’d beside the mere.”
So all day long the noise of battle roll’d Among the mountains by the winter sea; Until King Arthur’s table, man by man, Had fall’n in Lyonness about their Lord, King Arthur: then, because his wound was deep, The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him, Sir Bedivere, the last of all his knights, And bore him to a chapel nigh the field,[1] A broken chancel with a broken cross, That stood on a dark strait of barren land. On one side lay the Ocean, and on one Lay a great water, and the moon was full. Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere: “The sequel of to-day unsolders all The goodliest fellowship of famous knights Whereof this world holds record. Such a sleep They sleep—the men I loved. I think that we Shall never more, at any future time, Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds, Walking about the gardens and the halls Of Camelot, as in the days that were. I perish by this people which I made,— Tho’ Merlin sware that I should come again To rule once more—but let what will be, be, I am so deeply smitten thro’ the helm That without help I cannot last till morn. Thou therefore take my brand[2] Excalibur, Which was my pride: for thou rememberest how In those old days, one summer noon, an arm Rose up from out the bosom of the lake, Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, Holding the sword—and how I row’d across And took it, and have worn it, like a king: And, wheresoever I am sung or told In aftertime, this also shall be known: But now delay not: take Excalibur, And fling him far into the middle mere: Watch what thou seëst, and lightly bring me word.” To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere: “It is not meet, Sir King, to leave thee thus, Aidless, alone, and smitten thro’ the helm. A little thing may harm a wounded man. Yet I thy hest will all perform at full, Watch what I see, and lightly bring thee word.” So saying, from the ruin’d shrine he stept And in the moon athwart the place of tombs, Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men, Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam. He, stepping down By zig-zag paths, and juts of pointed rock, Came on the shining levels of the lake. There drew he forth the brand Excalibur, And o’er him, drawing it, the winter moon, Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt: For all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks,[3] Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth-work Of subtlest jewellery. He gazed so long That both his eyes were dazzled, as he stood, This way and that dividing the swift mind,[4] In act to throw: but at the last it seem’d Better to leave Excalibur conceal’d There in the many-knotted waterflags, That whistled stiff and dry about the marge. So strode he back slow to the wounded king. Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere: “Hast thou perform’d my mission which I gave? What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard?” And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere: “I heard the ripple washing in the reeds,[5] And the wild water lapping on the crag.” To whom replied King Arthur, faint and pale: “Thou hast betray’d thy nature and thy name, Not rendering true answer, as beseem’d Thy fëalty, nor like a noble knight: For surer sign had follow’d, either hand, Or voice, or else a motion of the mere. This is a shameful thing for men to lie. Yet now, I charge thee, quickly go again[6] As thou art lief and dear, and do the thing I bade thee, watch, and lightly bring me word.” Then went Sir Bedivere the second time Across the ridge, and paced beside the mere,[7] Counting the dewy pebbles, fix’d in thought; But when he saw the wonder of the hilt, How curiously and strangely chased, he smote His palms together, and he cried aloud, “And if indeed I cast the brand away, Surely a precious thing, one worthy note, Should thus be lost for ever from the earth, Which might have pleased the eyes of many men. What good should follow this, if this were done? What harm, undone? deep harm to disobey, Seeing obedience is the bond of rule, Were it well to obey then, if a king demand An act unprofitable against himself? The king is sick, and knows not what he does. What record, or what relic of my lord Should be to aftertime, but empty breath And rumours of a doubt? but were this kept, Stored in some treasure-house of mighty kings, Some one might show it at a joust of arms, Saying, ‘King Arthur’s sword, Excalibur, Wrought by the lonely maiden of the Lake. Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps Upon the hidden bases of the hills.” So might some old man speak in the aftertime To all the people, winning reverence. But now much honour and much fame were lost.” So spake he, clouded with his own conceit, And hid Excalibur the second time, And so strode back slow to the wounded King. Then spoke King Arthur, breathing heavily: “What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard?” And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere: “I heard the water lapping on the crag, And the long ripple washing in the reeds.” To whom replied King Arthur, much in wrath: “Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue,[8] Unknightly, traitor-hearted! Woe is me! Authority forgets a dying king,[9] Laid widow’d of the power in his eye That bow’d the will. I see thee what thou art, For thou, the latest-left of all my knights, In whom should meet the offices of all, Thou wouldst betray me for the precious hilt; Either from lust of gold, or like a girl Valuing the giddy pleasure of the eyes. Yet, for a man may fail in duty twice, And the third time may prosper, get thee hence: But, if thou spare to fling Excalibur, I will arise and slay thee with my hands.” Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran,[10] And, leaping down the ridges lightly, plunged Among the bulrush-beds, and clutch’d the sword, And strongly wheel’d and threw it. The great brand Made lightnings in the splendour of the moon, And flashing round and round, and whirl’d in an arch, Shot like a streamer of the northern morn, Seen where the moving isles of winter shock By night, with noises of the northern sea. So flash’d and fell the brand Excalibur: But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, And caught him by the hilt, and brandish’d him Three times, and drew him under in the mere. And lightly went the other to the King. Then spoke King Arthur, drawing thicker breath: ‘Now see I by thine eyes that this is done. Speak out: what is it thou hast heard, or seen?” And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere: “Sir King, I closed mine eyelids, lest the gems Should blind my purpose, for I never saw, Nor shall see, here or elsewhere, till I die, Not tho’ I live three lives of mortal men, So great a miracle as yonder hilt. Then with both hands I flung him, wheeling him; But when I look’d again, behold an arm, Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, That caught him by the hilt, and brandish’d him Three times, and drew him under in the mere.” And answer made King Arthur, breathing hard: “My end draws nigh; ’tis time that I were gone. Make broad thy shoulders to receive my weight, And bear me to the margin; yet I fear[11] My wound hath taken cold, and I shall die.” So saying, from the pavement he hath rose, Slowly, with pain, reclining on his arm, And looking wistfully with wide blue eyes As in a picture. Him Sir Bedivere Remorsefully regarded thro’ his tears, And would have spoken, but he found not words, Then took with care, and kneeling on one knee, O’er both his shoulders drew the languid hands, And rising bore him thro’ the place of tombs. But, as he walk’d, King Arthur panted hard, Like one that feels a nightmare on his bed When all the house is mute. So sigh’d the King, Muttering and murmuring at his ear “Quick, quick! I fear it is too late, and I shall die”. But the other swiftly strode from ridge to ridge, Clothed with his breath, and looking, as he walk’d, Larger than human on the frozen hills. He heard the deep behind him, and a cry Before. His own thought drove him like a goad. Dry clash’d his harness in the icy caves And barren chasms, and all to left and right The bare black cliff clang’d round him, as he based His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels— And on a sudden, lo! the level lake, And the long glories of the winter moon. Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge,[12] Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern, Beneath them; and descending they were ware That all the decks were dense with stately forms Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream—by these Three Queens with crowns of gold—and from them rose A cry that shiver’d to the tingling stars, And, as it were one voice, an agony Of lamentation, like a wind, that shrills All night in a waste land, where no one comes, Or hath come, since the making of the world. Then murmur’d Arthur, “Place me in the barge,” And to the barge they came. There those three Queens Put forth their hands, and took the King, and wept. But she, that rose the tallest of them all And fairest, laid his head upon her lap, And loosed the shatter’d casque, and chafed his hands, And call’d him by his name, complaining loud, And dropping bitter tears against his brow Striped with dark blood: for all his face was white And colourless, and like the wither’d moon Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east; And all his greaves and cuisses dash’d with drops Of onset; and the light and lustrous curls— That made his forehead like a rising sun High from the däis-throne—were parch’d with dust; Or, clotted into points and hanging loose, Mix’d with the knightly growth that fringed his lips. So like a shatter’d column lay the King; Not like that Arthur who, with lance in rest, From spur to plume a star of tournament, Shot thro’ the lists at Camelot, and charged Before the eyes of ladies and of kings. Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere,[13] “Ah! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go? Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes? For now I see the true old times are dead, When every morning brought a noble chance, And every chance brought out a noble knight. Such times have been not since the light that led The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh. But now the whole ROUND TABLE is dissolved Which was an image of the mighty world; And I, the last, go forth companionless. And the days darken round me, and the years, Among new men, strange faces, other minds.” And slowly answer’d Arthur from the barge: “The old order changeth, yielding place to new, And God fulfils Himself in many ways,[14] Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me? I have lived my life, and that which I have done May He within Himself make pure! but thou, If thou shouldst never see my face again, Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice Rise like a fountain for me night and day. For what are men better than sheep or goats That nourish a blind life within the brain, If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer Both for themselves and those who call them friend? For so the whole round earth is every way Bound by gold chains[15] about the feet of God. But now farewell. I am going a long way With these thou seëst—if indeed I go— (For all my mind is clouded with a doubt) To the island-valley of Avilion; Where falls not hail, or rain,[16] or any snow, Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies Deep-meadow’d, happy, fair with orchard-lawns And bowery hollows crown’d with summer sea,[17] Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.” So said he, and the barge with oar and sail Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan That, fluting a wild carol ere her death, Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere Revolving many memories, till the hull Look’d one black dot against the verge of dawn. And on the mere the wailing died away.
Here ended Hall, and our last light, that long Had wink’d and threaten’d darkness, flared and fell: At which the Parson, sent to sleep with sound, And waked with silence, grunted “Good!” but we Sat rapt: It was the tone with which he read— Perhaps some modern touches here and there Redeem’d it from the charge of nothingness— Or else we loved the man, and prized his work; I know not: but we sitting, as I said, The cock crew loud; as at that time of year The lusty bird takes every hour for dawn: Then Francis, muttering, like a man ill-used, “There now—that’s nothing!” drew a little back, And drove his heel into the smoulder’d log, That sent a blast of sparkles up the flue; And so to bed; where yet in sleep I seem’d To sail with Arthur under looming shores. Point after point; till on to dawn, when dreams Begin to feel the truth and stir of day, To me, methought, who waited with a crowd, There came a bark that, blowing forward, bore, King Arthur, like a modern gentleman Of stateliest port; and all the people cried, “Arthur is come again: he cannot die”. Then those that stood upon the hills behind Repeated—“Come again, and thrice as fair”; And, further inland, voices echoed— “Come With all good things, and war shall be no more”. At this a hundred bells began to peal, That with the sound I woke, and heard indeed The clear church-bells ring in the Christmas morn.
[1] _Cf. Morte d’Arthur_, xxxi., iv.:
“They led him betwixt them to a little chapel from the not far seaside”.
[2] _Cf. Id._, v.:
“‘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.’
‘My lord,’ said Bedivere, ‘your commandment shall be done and lightly will I bring thee word again.’
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.”
[3] 1842-1853. Studs.
[4] Literally from Virgil (_Æn._, iv., 285).
“Atque animum nunc huc celerem nunc dividit illuc.”
[5] _Cf. Romance, Id._, v.:
“‘I saw nothing but the waters wap and the waves wan.’”
[6] _Romance, Id._, v.:
“‘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.’
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.”
[7] This line was not inserted till 1853.
[8] _Romance, Id._, v.:
“‘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.’”
[9] 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.
‘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.’”
Lingard, _Hist._, vol. vi., p. 316.
[10] _Romance, Id._, v.:
“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.”
[11] _Romance, Id._, v.:
“‘Alas,’ said the king, ‘help me hence for I dread me I have tarried over long’.
Then Sir Bedivere took the king upon his back and so went with him to that water.”
[12] _Romance, Id_., v.:
“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?’”
[13] _Romance, Id_., v.:
“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?’
‘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.’”
[14] With this _cf_. Greene, _James IV_., v., 4:—
“Should all things still remain in one estate Should not in greatest arts some scars be found Were all upright nor chang’d what world were this? A chaos made of quiet, yet no world.”
And _cf_. Shakespeare, _Coriolanus_, ii., iii.:—
What custom wills in all things should we do it, The dust on antique Time would be unswept, And mountainous error too highly heaped For Truth to overpeer.
[15] _Cf._ Archdeacon Hare’s “Sermon on the Law of Self-Sacrifice”.
“This is the golden chain of love whereby the whole creation is bound to the throne of the Creator.”
For further illustrations see _Illust. of Tennyson_, p. 158.
[16] Paraphrased from _Odyssey_, vi., 42-5, or _Lucretius_, iii., 18-22.
[17] The expression “_crowned_ with summer _sea_” from _Odyssey_, x., 195: νῆσον τὴν πέρι πόντος απείριτος ἐσταφάνωται.
The Gardener’s Daughter or, The Pictures
First published in 1842.
In the _Gardener’s Daughter_ we have the first of that delightful series of poems dealing with scenes and characters from ordinary English life, and named appropriately _English Idylls_. The originator of this species of poetry in England was Southey, in his _English Eclogues_, 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: _The Old Mansion House_, _The Grandmother’s Tale_, _Hannah_, _The Sailor’s Mother_, _The Witch_, _The Ruined Cottage_, _The Last of the Family_ and _The Alderman’s Funeral_. Southey was followed by Wordsworth in _The Brothers_ and _Michael_. 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 _The Ruined Cottage_. 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.
_The Gardener’s Daughter_ was written as early as 1835, as it was read to Fitzgerald in that year (_Life of Tennyson_, i., 182). Tennyson originally intended to insert a prologue to be entitled _The Antechamber_, which contained an elaborate picture of himself, but he afterwards suppressed it. It is given in the _Life_, 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”.
This morning is the morning of the day, When I and Eustace from the city went To see the Gardener’s Daughter; I and he, Brothers in Art; a friendship so complete Portion’d in halves between us, that we grew The fable of the city where we dwelt. My Eustace might have sat for Hercules; So muscular he spread, so broad of breast. He, by some law that holds in love, and draws The greater to the lesser, long desired A certain miracle of symmetry, A miniature of loveliness, all grace Summ’d up and closed in little;—Juliet, she[1] So light of foot, so light of spirit—oh, she To me myself, for some three careless moons, The summer pilot of an empty heart Unto the shores of nothing! Know you not Such touches are but embassies of love, To tamper with the feelings, ere he found Empire for life? but Eustace painted her, And said to me, she sitting with us then, “When will _you_ paint like this?” and I replied, (My words were half in earnest, half in jest), “’Tis not your work, but Love’s. Love, unperceived, A more ideal Artist he than all, Came, drew your pencil from you, made those eyes Darker than darkest pansies, and that hair More black than ashbuds in the front of March.” And Juliet answer’d laughing, “Go and see The Gardener’s daughter: trust me, after that, You scarce can fail to match his masterpiece”. And up we rose, and on the spur we went. Not wholly in the busy world, nor quite Beyond it, blooms the garden that I love. News from the humming city comes to it In sound of funeral or of marriage bells; And, sitting muffled in dark leaves, you hear The windy clanging of the minster clock; Although between it and the garden lies A league of grass, wash’d by a slow broad stream, That, stirr’d with languid pulses of the oar, Waves all its lazy lilies, and creeps on, Barge-laden, to three arches of a bridge Crown’d with the minster-towers.
The fields between Are dewy-fresh, browsed by deep-udder’d kine, And all about the large lime feathers low, The lime a summer home of murmurous wings.[2] In that still place she, hoarded in herself, Grew, seldom seen: not less among us lived Her fame from lip to lip. Who had not heard Of Rose, the Gardener’s daughter? Where was he, So blunt in memory, so old at heart, At such a distance from his youth in grief, That, having seen, forgot? The common mouth, So gross to express delight, in praise of her Grew oratory. Such a lord is Love, And Beauty such a mistress of the world. And if I said that Fancy, led by Love, Would play with flying forms and images, Yet this is also true, that, long before I look’d upon her, when I heard her name My heart was like a prophet to my heart, And told me I should love. A crowd of hopes, That sought to sow themselves like winged seeds, Born out of everything I heard and saw, Flutter’d about my senses and my soul; And vague desires, like fitful blasts of balm To one that travels quickly, made the air Of Life delicious, and all kinds of thought, That verged upon them sweeter than the dream Dream’d by a happy man, when the dark East, Unseen, is brightening to his bridal morn. And sure this orbit of the memory folds For ever in itself the day we went To see her. All the land in flowery squares, Beneath a broad and equal-blowing wind, Smelt of the coming summer, as one large cloud[3] Drew downward: but all else of heaven was pure Up to the Sun, and May from verge to verge, And May with me from head to heel. And now, As tho’ ’twere yesterday, as tho’ it were The hour just flown, that morn with all its sound (For those old Mays had thrice the life of these), Rings in mine ears. The steer forgot to graze, And, where the hedge-row cuts the pathway, stood, Leaning his horns into the neighbour field, And lowing to his fellows. From the woods Came voices of the well-contented doves. The lark could scarce get out his notes for joy, But shook his song together as he near’d His happy home, the ground. To left and right, The cuckoo told his name to all the hills; The mellow ouzel fluted in the elm; The redcap[4] whistled;[5] and the nightingale Sang loud, as tho’ he were the bird of day. And Eustace turn’d, and smiling said to me, “Hear how the bushes echo! by my life, These birds have joyful thoughts. Think you they sing Like poets, from the vanity of song? Or have they any sense of why they sing? And would they praise the heavens for what they have?” And I made answer, “Were there nothing else For which to praise the heavens but only love, That only love were cause enough for praise”. Lightly he laugh’d, as one that read my thought, And on we went; but ere an hour had pass’d, We reach’d a meadow slanting to the North; Down which a well-worn pathway courted us To one green wicket in a privet hedge; This, yielding, gave into a grassy walk Thro’ crowded lilac-ambush trimly pruned; And one warm gust, full-fed with perfume, blew Beyond us, as we enter’d in the cool. The garden stretches southward. In the midst A cedar spread his dark-green layers of shade. The garden-glasses shone, and momently The twinkling laurel scatter’d silver lights. “Eustace,” I said, “This wonder keeps the house.” He nodded, but a moment afterwards He cried, “Look! look!” Before he ceased I turn’d, And, ere a star can wink, beheld her there. For up the porch there grew an Eastern rose, That, flowering high, the last night’s gale had caught, And blown across the walk. One arm aloft— Gown’d in pure white, that fitted to the shape— Holding the bush, to fix it back, she stood. A single stream of all her soft brown hair Pour’d on one side: the shadow of the flowers Stole all the golden gloss, and, wavering Lovingly lower, trembled on her waist— Ah, happy shade—and still went wavering down, But, ere it touch’d a foot, that might have danced The greensward into greener circles, dipt, And mix’d with shadows of the common ground! But the full day dwelt on her brows, and sunn’d Her violet eyes, and all her Hebe-bloom, And doubled his own warmth against her lips, And on the bounteous wave of such a breast As never pencil drew. Half light, half shade, She stood, a sight to make an old man young. So rapt, we near’d the house; but she, a Rose In roses, mingled with her fragrant toil, Nor heard us come, nor from her tendance turn’d Into the world without; till close at hand, And almost ere I knew mine own intent, This murmur broke the stillness of that air Which brooded round about her:
“Ah, one rose, One rose, but one, by those fair fingers cull’d, Were worth a hundred kisses press’d on lips Less exquisite than thine.”
She look’d: but all Suffused with blushes—neither self-possess’d Nor startled, but betwixt this mood and that, Divided in a graceful quiet—paused, And dropt the branch she held, and turning, wound Her looser hair in braid, and stirr’d her lips For some sweet answer, tho’ no answer came, Nor yet refused the rose, but granted it, And moved away, and left me, statue-like, In act to render thanks.
I, that whole day, Saw her no more, altho’ I linger’d there Till every daisy slept, and Love’s white star Beam’d thro’ the thicken’d cedar in the dusk. So home we went, and all the livelong way With solemn gibe did Eustace banter me. “Now,” said he, “will you climb the top of Art; You cannot fail but work in hues to dim The Titianic Flora. Will you match My Juliet? you, not you,—the Master, Love, A more ideal Artist he than all.” So home I went, but could not sleep for joy, Reading her perfect features in the gloom, Kissing the rose she gave me o’er and o’er, And shaping faithful record of the glance That graced the giving—such a noise of life Swarm’d in the golden present, such a voice Call’d to me from the years to come, and such A length of bright horizon rimm’d the dark. And all that night I heard the watchmen peal The sliding season: all that night I heard The heavy clocks knolling the drowsy hours. The drowsy hours, dispensers of all good, O’er the mute city stole with folded wings, Distilling odours on me as they went To greet their fairer sisters of the East. Love at first sight, first-born, and heir to all, Made this night thus. Henceforward squall nor storm Could keep me from that Eden where she dwelt. Light pretexts drew me: sometimes a Dutch love For tulips; then for roses, moss or musk, To grace my city-rooms; or fruits and cream Served in the weeping elm; and more and more A word could bring the colour to my cheek; A thought would fill my eyes with happy dew; Love trebled life within me, and with each The year increased.
The daughters of the year, One after one, thro’ that still garden pass’d: Each garlanded with her peculiar flower Danced into light, and died into the shade; And each in passing touch’d with some new grace Or seem’d to touch her, so that day by day, Like one that never can be wholly known,[6] Her beauty grew; till Autumn brought an hour For Eustace, when I heard his deep “I will,” Breathed, like the covenant of a God, to hold From thence thro’ all the worlds: but I rose up Full of his bliss, and following her dark eyes Felt earth as air beneath me,[7] till I reach’d The wicket-gate, and found her standing there. There sat we down upon a garden mound, Two mutually enfolded; Love, the third, Between us, in the circle of his arms Enwound us both; and over many a range Of waning lime the gray cathedral towers, Across a hazy glimmer of the west, Reveal’d their shining windows: from them clash’d The bells; we listen’d; with the time we play’d; We spoke of other things; we coursed about The subject most at heart, more near and near, Like doves about a dovecote, wheeling round The central wish, until we settled there.[8] Then, in that time and place, I spoke to her, Requiring, tho’ I knew it was mine own, Yet for the pleasure that I took to hear, Requiring at her hand the greatest gift, A woman’s heart, the heart of her I loved; And in that time and place she answer’d me, And in the compass of three little words, More musical than ever came in one, The silver fragments of a broken voice, Made me most happy, faltering[9] “I am thine”. Shall I cease here? Is this enough to say That my desire, like all strongest hopes, By its own energy fulfilled itself, Merged in completion? Would you learn at full How passion rose thro’ circumstantial grades Beyond all grades develop’d? and indeed I had not staid so long to tell you all, But while I mused came Memory with sad eyes, Holding the folded annals of my youth; And while I mused, Love with knit brows went by, And with a flying finger swept my lips, And spake, “Be wise: not easily forgiven Are those, who setting wide the doors, that bar The secret bridal chambers of the heart. Let in the day”. Here, then, my words have end. Yet might I tell of meetings, of farewells— Of that which came between, more sweet than each, In whispers, like the whispers of the leaves That tremble round a nightingale—in sighs Which perfect Joy, perplex’d for utterance, Stole from her[10] sister Sorrow. Might I not tell Of difference, reconcilement, pledges given, And vows, where there was never need of vows, And kisses, where the heart on one wild leap Hung tranced from all pulsation, as above The heavens between their fairy fleeces pale Sow’d all their mystic gulfs with fleeting stars; Or while the balmy glooming, crescent-lit, Spread the light haze along the river-shores, And in the hollows; or as once we met Unheedful, tho’ beneath a whispering rain Night slid down one long stream of sighing wind, And in her bosom bore the baby, Sleep. But this whole hour your eyes have been intent On that veil’d picture—veil’d, for what it holds May not be dwelt on by the common day. This prelude has prepared thee. Raise thy soul; Make thine heart ready with thine eyes: the time Is come to raise the veil.
Behold her there, As I beheld her ere she knew my heart, My first, last love; the idol of my youth, The darling of my manhood, and, alas! Now the most blessed memory of mine age.
[1] _Cf. Romeo and Juliet_, ii., vi.:—
O so light a foot Will ne’er wear out the everlasting flint.
[2] _Cf._ Keats, _Ode to Nightingale_:—
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.
[3] _Cf_. Theocritus, _Id_., vii., 143:—παντ’ ὦσδεν θέρεος μάλα πἰονος.
[4] Provincial name for the goldfinch. See Tennyson’s letter to the Duke of Argyll, _Life_, ii., 221.
[5] This passage is imitated from Theocritus, vii., 143 _seqq_.
[6] This passage originally ran:—
Her beauty grew till drawn in narrowing arcs The southing autumn touch’d with sallower gleams The granges on the fallows. At that time, Tir’d of the noisy town I wander’d there. The bell toll’d four, and by the time I reach’d The wicket-gate I found her by herself.
But Fitzgerald pointing out that the autumn landscape was taken from the background of Titian (Lord Ellesmere’s _Ages of Man_) Tennyson struck out the passage. If this was the reason he must have been in an unusually scrupulous mood. See his _Life_, i., 232.
[7] So Massinger, _City Madam_, iii., 3:—
I am sublim’d. Gross earth Supports me not. _I walk on air_.
[8] _Cf._ Dante, _Inferno_, v., 81-83:—
Quali columbe dal desio chiamatè, Con l’ ali aperte e ferme, al dolce nido Volan.
[9] 1842-1850. Lisping.
[10] In privately printed volume 1842. His.
Dora
First published in 1842.
This poem had been written as early as 1835, when it was read to Fitzgerald and Spedding (_Life_, 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, _The Tale of Dora Creswell_ (_Our Village_, 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:—
And Dora took the child, and went her way Across the wheat, and sat upon a mound That was unsown, where many poppies grew. .... She rose and took The child once more, and sat upon the mound; And made a little wreath of all the flowers That grew about, and tied it round his hat.
“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 _Odyssey_.
With farmer Allan at the farm abode William and Dora. William was his son, And she his niece. He often look’d at them, And often thought “I’ll make them man and wife”. Now Dora felt her uncle’s will in all, And yearn’d towards William; but the youth, because He had been always with her in the house, Thought not of Dora.
Then there came a day When Allan call’d his son, and said, “My son: I married late, but I would wish to see My grandchild on my knees before I die: And I have set my heart upon a match. Now therefore look to Dora; she is well To look to; thrifty too beyond her age. She is my brother’s daughter: he and I Had once hard words, and parted, and he died In foreign lands; but for his sake I bred His daughter Dora: take her for your wife; For I have wish’d this marriage, night and day, For many years.” But William answer’d short; “I cannot marry Dora; by my life, I will not marry Dora”. Then the old man Was wroth, and doubled up his hands, and said: “You will not, boy! you dare to answer thus! But in my time a father’s word was law, And so it shall be now for me. Look to it; Consider, William: take a month to think, And let me have an answer to my wish; Or, by the Lord that made me, you shall pack, And never more darken my doors again.” But William answer’d madly; bit his lips, And broke away.[1] The more he look’d at her The less he liked her; and his ways were harsh; But Dora bore them meekly. Then before The month was out he left his father’s house, And hired himself to work within the fields; And half in love, half spite, he woo’d and wed A labourer’s daughter, Mary Morrison. Then, when the bells were ringing,Allan call’d His niece and said: “My girl, I love you well; But if you speak with him that was my son, Or change a word with her he calls his wife, My home is none of yours. My will is law.” And Dora promised, being meek. She thought, “It cannot be: my uncle’s mind will change!” And days went on, and there was born a boy To William; then distresses came on him; And day by day he pass’d his father’s gate, Heart-broken, and his father helped him not. But Dora stored what little she could save, And sent it them by stealth, nor did they know Who sent it; till at last a fever seized On William, and in harvest time he died. Then Dora went to Mary. Mary sat And look’d with tears upon her boy, and thought Hard things of Dora. Dora came and said: “I have obey’d my uncle until now, And I have sinn’d, for it was all thro’ me This evil came on William at the first. But, Mary, for the sake of him that’s gone, And for your sake, the woman that he chose, And for this orphan, I am come to you: You know there has not been for these five years So full a harvest, let me take the boy, And I will set him in my uncle’s eye Among the wheat; that when his heart is glad Of the full harvest, he may see the boy, And bless him for the sake of him that’s gone.” And Dora took the child, and went her way Across the wheat, and sat upon a mound That was unsown, where many poppies grew. Far off the farmer came into the field And spied her not; for none of all his men Dare tell him Dora waited with the child; And Dora would have risen and gone to him, But her heart fail’d her; and the reapers reap’d And the sun fell, and all the land was dark. But when the morrow came, she rose and took The child once more, and sat upon the mound; And made a little wreath of all the flowers That grew about, and tied it round his hat To make him pleasing in her uncle’s eye. Then when the farmer passed into the field He spied her, and he left his men at work, And came and said: “Where were you yesterday? Whose child is that? What are you doing here?” So Dora cast her eyes upon the ground, And answer’d softly, “This is William’s child?” “And did I not,” said Allan, “did I not Forbid you, Dora?” Dora said again: “Do with me as you will, but take the child And bless him for the sake of him that’s gone!” And Allan said: “I see it is a trick Got up betwixt you and the woman there. I must be taught my duty, and by you! You knew my word was law, and yet you dared To slight it. Well—for I will take the boy; But go you hence, and never see me more.” So saying, he took the boy, that cried aloud And struggled hard. The wreath of flowers fell At Dora’s feet. She bow’d upon her hands, And the boy’s cry came to her from the field, More and more distant. She bow’d down her head, Remembering the day when first she came, And all the things that had been. She bow’d down And wept in secret; and the reapers reap’d, And the sun fell, and all the land was dark. Then Dora went to Mary’s house, and stood Upon the threshold. Mary saw the boy Was not with Dora. She broke out in praise To God, that help’d her in her widowhood. And Dora said, “My uncle took the boy; But, Mary, let me live and work with you: He says that he will never see me more”. Then answer’d Mary, “This shall never be, That thou shouldst take my trouble on thyself: And, now, I think, he shall not have the boy, For he will teach him hardness, and to slight His mother; therefore thou and I will go, And I will have my boy, and bring him home; And I will beg of him to take thee back; But if he will not take thee back again, Then thou and I will live within one house, And work for William’s child until he grows Of age to help us.”
So the women kiss’d Each other, and set out, and reach’d the farm. The door was off the latch: they peep’d, and saw The boy set up betwixt his grandsire’s knees, Who thrust him in the hollows of his arm, And clapt him on the hands and on the cheeks, Like one that loved him; and the lad stretch’d out And babbled for the golden seal, that hung From Allan’s watch, and sparkled by the fire. Then they came in: but when the boy beheld His mother, he cried out to come to her: And Allan set him down, and Mary said: “O Father!—if you let me call you so— I never came a-begging for myself, Or William, or this child; but now I come For Dora: take her back; she loves you well. O Sir, when William died, he died at peace With all men; for I ask’d him, and he said, He could not ever rue his marrying me— I have been a patient wife: but, Sir, he said That he was wrong to cross his father thus: ‘God bless him!’ he said, ‘and may he never know The troubles I have gone thro’!’ Then he turn’d His face and pass’d—unhappy that I am! But now, Sir, let me have my boy, for you Will make him hard, and he will learn to slight His father’s memory; and take Dora back, And let all this be as it was before.” So Mary said, and Dora hid her face By Mary. There was silence in the room; And all at once the old man burst in sobs: “I have been to blame—to blame. I have kill’d my son. I have kill’d him—but I loved him—my dear son. May God forgive me!—I have been to blame. Kiss me, my children.”
Then they clung about The old man’s neck, and kiss’d him many times. And all the man was broken with remorse; And all his love came back a hundredfold; And for three hours he sobb’d o’er William’s child, Thinking of William.
So those four abode Within one house together; and as years Went forward, Mary took another mate; But Dora lived unmarried till her death.
[1] In 1842 thus:—
“Look to’t, Consider: take a month to think, and give An answer to my wish; or by the Lord That made me, you shall pack, and nevermore Darken my doors again.” And William heard, And answered something madly; bit his lips, And broke away.
All editions previous to 1853 have
“Look to’t.
Audley Court
First published in 1842.
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.
“The Bull, the Fleece are cramm’d, and not a room For love or money. Let us picnic there At Audley Court.” I spoke, while Audley feast Humm’d like a hive all round the narrow quay, To Francis, with a basket on his arm, To Francis just alighted from the boat, And breathing of the sea. “With all my heart,” Said Francis. Then we shoulder’d thro’[1] the swarm, And rounded by the stillness of the beach To where the bay runs up its latest horn. We left the dying ebb that faintly lipp’d The flat red granite; so by many a sweep Of meadow smooth from aftermath we reach’d The griffin-guarded gates and pass’d thro’ all The pillar’d dusk[2] of sounding sycamores And cross’d the garden to the gardener’s lodge, With all its casements bedded, and its walls And chimneys muffled in the leafy vine. There, on a slope of orchard, Francis laid A damask napkin wrought with horse and hound, Brought out a dusky loaf that smelt of home, And, half-cut-down, a pasty costly-made, Where quail and pigeon, lark and leveret lay, Like fossils of the rock, with golden yolks[3] Imbedded and injellied; last with these, A flask of cider from his father’s vats, Prime, which I knew; and so we sat and eat And talk’d old matters over; who was dead, Who married, who was like to be, and how The races went, and who would rent the hall: Then touch’d upon the game, how scarce it was This season; glancing thence, discuss’d the farm, The fourfield system, and the price of grain;[4] And struck upon the corn-laws, where we split, And came again together on the king With heated faces; till he laugh’d aloud; And, while the blackbird on the pippin hung To hear him, clapt his hand in mine and sang— “Oh! who would fight and march and counter-march, Be shot for sixpence in a battle-field, And shovell’d up into a[5] bloody trench Where no one knows? but let me live my life. “Oh! who would cast and balance at a desk, Perch’d like a crow upon a three-legg’d stool, Till all his juice is dried, and all his joints Are full of chalk? but let me live my life. “Who’d serve the state? for if I carved my name Upon the cliffs that guard my native land, I might as well have traced it in the sands; The sea wastes all: but let me live my life. “Oh! who would love? I wooed a woman once, But she was sharper than an eastern wind, And all my heart turn’d from her, as a thorn Turns from the sea: but let me live my life.” He sang his song, and I replied with mine: I found it in a volume, all of songs, Knock’d down to me, when old Sir Robert’s pride, His books—the more the pity, so I said— Came to the hammer here in March—and this— I set the words, and added names I knew. “Sleep, Ellen Aubrey, sleep and dream of me: Sleep, Ellen, folded in thy sister’s arm, And sleeping, haply dream her arm is mine. “Sleep, Ellen, folded in Emilia’s arm; Emilia, fairer than all else but thou, For thou art fairer than all else that is. “Sleep, breathing health and peace upon her breast: Sleep, breathing love and trust against her lip: I go to-night: I come to-morrow morn. “I go, but I return: I would I were The pilot of the darkness and the dream. Sleep, Ellen Aubrey, love, and dream of me.” So sang we each to either, Francis Hale, The farmer’s son who lived across the bay, My friend; and I, that having wherewithal, And in the fallow leisure of my life A rolling stone of here and everywhere,[6] Did what I would; but ere the night we rose And saunter’d home beneath a moon that, just In crescent, dimly rain’d about the leaf Twilights of airy silver, till we reach’d The limit of the hills; and as we sank From rock to rock upon the gloomy quay, The town was hush’d beneath us: lower down The bay was oily-calm: the harbour buoy With one green sparkle ever and anon[7] Dipt by itself, and we were glad at heart.[8]
[1] 1842 to 1850. Through.
[2] _cf_. Milton, _Paradise Lost_, ix., 1106-7:—
A pillar’d shade High overarch’d.
[3] 1842. Golden yokes.
[4] That is planting turnips, barley, clover and wheat, by which land is kept constantly fresh and vigorous.
[5] 1872. Some.
[6] Inserted in 1857.
[7] Here was inserted, in 1872, the line—Sole star of phosphorescence in the calm.
[8] Like the shepherd in Homer at the moonlit landscape, γέγηθε δὲ τε φρένα ποιμήν, _Il_., viii., 559.
Walking to the Mail
First published in 1842. Not altered in any respect after 1853.
_John_. I’m glad I walk’d. How fresh the meadows look Above the river, and, but a month ago, The whole hill-side was redder than a fox. Is yon plantation where this byway joins The turnpike?[1]
_James_. Yes.
_John_. And when does this come by?
_James_. The mail? At one o’clock.
_John_. What is it now?
_James_. A quarter to.
_John_. Whose house is that I see?[2] No, not the County Member’s with the vane: Up higher with the yewtree by it, and half A score of gables.
_James_. That? Sir Edward Head’s: But he’s abroad: the place is to be sold.
_John_. Oh, his. He was not broken?
_James_. No, sir, he, Vex’d with a morbid devil in his blood That veil’d the world with jaundice, hid his face From all men, and commercing with himself, He lost the sense that handles daily life— That keeps us all in order more or less— And sick of home went overseas for change.
_John_. And whither?
_James_. Nay, who knows? he’s here and there. But let him go; his devil goes with him, As well as with his tenant, Jockey Dawes.
_John_. What’s that?
_James_. You saw the man—on Monday, was it?—[3] There by the hump-back’d willow; half stands up And bristles; half has fall’n and made a bridge; And there he caught the younker tickling trout— Caught in _flagrante_—what’s the Latin word?— _Delicto_; but his house, for so they say, Was haunted with a jolly ghost, that shook The curtains, whined in lobbies, tapt at doors, And rummaged like a rat: no servant stay’d: The farmer vext packs up his beds and chairs, And all his household stuff; and with his boy Betwixt his knees, his wife upon the tilt, Sets out,[4] and meets a friend who hails him, “What! You’re flitting!” “Yes, we’re flitting,” says the ghost (For they had pack’d the thing among the beds). “Oh, well,” says he, “you flitting with us too— Jack, turn the horses’ heads and home again”.[5]
_John_. He left _his_ wife behind; for so I heard.
_James_. He left her, yes. I met my lady once: A woman like a butt, and harsh as crabs.
_John_. Oh, yet, but I remember, ten years back— ’Tis now at least ten years—and then she was— You could not light upon a sweeter thing: A body slight and round and like a pear In growing, modest eyes, a hand a foot Lessening in perfect cadence, and a skin As clean and white as privet when it flowers.
_James_. Ay, ay, the blossom fades and they that loved At first like dove and dove were cat and dog. She was the daughter of a cottager, Out of her sphere. What betwixt shame and pride, New things and old, himself and her, she sour’d To what she is: a nature never kind! Like men, like manners: like breeds like, they say. Kind nature is the best: those manners next That fit us like a nature second-hand; Which are indeed the manners of the great.
_John_. But I had heard it was this bill that past, And fear of change at home, that drove him hence.
_James_. That was the last drop in the cup of gall. I once was near him, when his bailiff brought A Chartist pike. You should have seen him wince As from a venomous thing: he thought himself A mark for all, and shudder’d, lest a cry Should break his sleep by night, and his nice eyes Should see the raw mechanic’s bloody thumbs Sweat on his blazon’d chairs; but, sir, you know That these two parties still divide the world— Of those that want, and those that have: and still The same old sore breaks out from age to age With much the same result. Now I myself,[6] A Tory to the quick, was as a boy Destructive, when I had not what I would. I was at school—a college in the South: There lived a flayflint near; we stole his fruit, His hens, his eggs; but there was law for _us_; We paid in person. He had a sow, sir. She, With meditative grunts of much content,[7] Lay great with pig, wallowing in sun and mud. By night we dragg’d her to the college tower From her warm bed, and up the corkscrew stair With hand and rope we haled the groaning sow, And on the leads we kept her till she pigg’d. Large range of prospect had the mother sow, And but for daily loss of one she loved, As one by one we took them—but for this— As never sow was higher in this world— Might have been happy: but what lot is pure! We took them all, till she was left alone Upon her tower, the Niobe of swine, And so return’d unfarrowed to her sty.
_John_. They found you out?
_James_. Not they.
_John_. Well—after all—What know we of the secret of a man? His nerves were wrong. What ails us, who are sound, That we should mimic this raw fool the world, Which charts us all in its coarse blacks or whites, As ruthless as a baby with a worm, As cruel as a schoolboy ere he grows To Pity—more from ignorance than will, But put your best foot forward, or I fear That we shall miss the mail: and here it comes With five at top: as quaint a four-in-hand As you shall see—three pyebalds and a roan.
[1] 1842.
_John_. I’m glad I walk’d. How fresh the country looks! Is yonder planting where this byway joins The turnpike?
[2] Thus 1843 to 1850:—
_John_. Whose house is that I see Beyond the watermills?
_James_. Sir Edward Head’s: But he’s abroad, etc.
[3] Thus 1842 to 1851:—
_James_. You saw the man but yesterday: He pick’d the pebble from your horse’s foot. His house was haunted by a jolly ghost That rummaged like a rat.
[4] 1842. Sets forth. Added in 1853.
[5] 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:— “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.” The same story is told of a Cluricaune in Croker’s _Fairy Legends and Traditions_ in the South of Ireland. See _The Haunted Cellar_ in p. 81 of the edition of 1862, and as Tennyson has elsewhere in _Guinevere_ borrowed a passage from the same story (see _Illustrations of Tennyson_, 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”.
[6] 1842 and 1843. I that am. Now, I that am.
[7] 1842.
scored upon the part Which cherubs want.
Edwin Morris, or The Lake
This poem first appeared in the seventh edition of the _Poems_, 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.
O Me, my pleasant rambles by the lake, My sweet, wild, fresh three-quarters of a year, My one Oasis in the dust and drouth Of city life! I was a sketcher then: See here, my doing: curves of mountain, bridge, Boat, island, ruins of a castle, built When men knew how to build, upon a rock, With turrets lichen-gilded like a rock: And here, new-comers in an ancient hold, New-comers from the Mersey, millionaires, Here lived the Hills—a Tudor-chimnied bulk Of mellow brickwork on an isle of bowers. O me, my pleasant rambles by the lake With Edwin Morris and with Edward Bull The curate; he was fatter than his cure.
But Edwin Morris, he that knew the names, Long-learned names of agaric, moss and fern,[1] Who forged a thousand theories of the rocks, Who taught me how to skate, to row, to swim, Who read me rhymes elaborately good, His own—I call’d him Crichton, for he seem’d All-perfect, finish’d to the finger nail.[2] And once I ask’d him of his early life, And his first passion; and he answer’d me; And well his words became him: was he not A full-cell’d honeycomb of eloquence Stored from all flowers? Poet-like he spoke.
“My love for Nature is as old as I; But thirty moons, one honeymoon to that, And three rich sennights more, my love for her. My love for Nature and my love for her, Of different ages, like twin-sisters grew,[3] Twin-sisters differently beautiful. To some full music rose and sank the sun, And some full music seem’d to move and change With all the varied changes of the dark, And either twilight and the day between; For daily hope fulfill’d, to rise again Revolving toward fulfilment, made it sweet To walk, to sit, to sleep, to wake, to breathe.”[4]
Or this or something like to this he spoke. Then said the fat-faced curate Edward Bull, “I take it, God made the woman for the man, And for the good and increase of the world, A pretty face is well, and this is well, To have a dame indoors, that trims us up, And keeps us tight; but these unreal ways Seem but the theme of writers, and indeed Worn threadbare. Man is made of solid stuff. I say, God made the woman for the man, And for the good and increase of the world.”
“Parson,” said I, “you pitch the pipe too low: But I have sudden touches, and can run My faith beyond my practice into his: Tho’ if, in dancing after Letty Hill, I do not hear the bells upon my cap, I scarce hear[5] other music: yet say on. What should one give to light on such a dream?” I ask’d him half-sardonically.
“Give? Give all thou art,” he answer’d, and a light Of laughter dimpled in his swarthy cheek; “I would have hid her needle in my heart, To save her little finger from a scratch No deeper than the skin: my ears could hear Her lightest breaths: her least remark was worth The experience of the wise. I went and came; Her voice fled always thro’ the summer land; I spoke her name alone. Thrice-happy days! The flower of each, those moments when we met, The crown of all, we met to part no more.”
Were not his words delicious, I a beast To take them as I did? but something jarr’d; Whether he spoke too largely; that there seem’d A touch of something false, some self-conceit, Or over-smoothness: howsoe’er it was, He scarcely hit my humour, and I said:—
“Friend Edwin, do not think yourself alone Of all men happy. Shall not Love to me, As in the Latin song I learnt at school, Sneeze out a full God-bless-you right and left?[6] But you can talk: yours is a kindly vein: I have I think—Heaven knows—as much within; Have or should have, but for a thought or two, That like a purple beech[7] among the greens Looks out of place: ’tis from no want in her: It is my shyness, or my self-distrust, Or something of a wayward modern mind Dissecting passion. Time will set me right.”
So spoke I knowing not the things that were. Then said the fat-faced curate, Edward Bull: “God made the woman for the use of man, And for the good and increase of the world”. And I and Edwin laugh’d; and now we paused About the windings of the marge to hear The soft wind blowing over meadowy holms And alders, garden-isles[8]; and now we left The clerk behind us, I and he, and ran By ripply shallows of the lisping lake, Delighted with the freshness and the sound. But, when the bracken rusted on their crags, My suit had wither’d, nipt to death by him That was a God, and is a lawyer’s clerk, The rentroll Cupid of our rainy isles.[9]
’Tis true, we met; one hour I had, no more: She sent a note, the seal an _Elle vous suit_,[10] The close “Your Letty, only yours”; and this Thrice underscored. The friendly mist of morn Clung to the lake. I boated over, ran My craft aground, and heard with beating heart The Sweet-Gale rustle round the shelving keel; And out I stept, and up I crept: she moved, Like Proserpine in Enna, gathering flowers:[11] Then low and sweet I whistled thrice; and she, She turn’d, we closed, we kiss’d, swore faith, I breathed In some new planet: a silent cousin stole Upon us and departed: “Leave,” she cried, “O leave me!” “Never, dearest, never: here I brave the worst:” and while we stood like fools Embracing, all at once a score of pugs And poodles yell’d within, and out they came Trustees and Aunts and Uncles. “What, with him! “Go” (shrill’d the cottonspinning chorus) “him!” I choked. Again they shriek’d the burthen “Him!” Again with hands of wild rejection “Go!— Girl, get you in!” She went—and in one month[12] They wedded her to sixty thousand pounds, To lands in Kent and messuages in York, And slight Sir Robert with his watery smile And educated whisker. But for me, They set an ancient creditor to work: It seems I broke a close with force and arms: There came a mystic token from the king To greet the sheriff, needless courtesy! I read, and fled by night, and flying turn’d: Her taper glimmer’d in the lake below: I turn’d once more, close-button’d to the storm; So left the place,[13] left Edwin, nor have seen Him since, nor heard of her, nor cared to hear. Nor cared to hear? perhaps; yet long ago I have pardon’d little Letty; not indeed, It may be, for her own dear sake but this, She seems a part of those fresh days to me; For in the dust and drouth of London life She moves among my visions of the lake, While the prime swallow dips his wing, or then While the gold-lily blows, and overhead The light cloud smoulders on the summer crag.
[1] 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, _Dict. of Archaic and Provincial Words, sub vocent_.
[2] The Latin _factus ad unguem_. For Crichton, a half-mythical figure, see Tytler’s _Life_ of him.
[3] 1851. Of different ages, like twin-sisters throve.
[4] 1853. To breathe, to wake.
[5] 1872. Have.
[6] The reference is to the _Acme_ and _Septimius_ of Catullus, xliv.—
Hoc ut dixit, Amor, sinistram, ut ante, Dextram sternuit approbationem.
[7] 1851. That like a copper beech.
[8] 1851.
garden-isles; and now we ran By ripply shallows.
[9] 1851. The rainy isles.
[10] Cf. Byron, _Don Juan_, i., xcvii.:—
The seal a sunflower—_elle vous suit partout_.
[11] _Cf_. Milton, _Par. Lost_, iv., 268-9:—
Not that fair field Of Enna where Proserpine gathering flowers ... Was gather’d.
[12] 1851.
“Go Sir!” Again they shrieked the burthen “Him!” Again with hands of wild rejection “Go! Girl, get you in” to her—and in one month, etc.
[13] 1851.
I read and wish’d to crush the race of man, And fled by night; turn’d once upon the hills; Her taper glimmer’d in the lake; and then I left the place, etc.
St Simon Stylites
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 _Acta Sanctorum_, but from Hone’s _Every-Day Book_, 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.
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 _Acta Sanctorum_, 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 _Acta Sanctorum_, 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.
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: _The Palace of Art_, which illustrates the abuse of æsthetic and intellectual enjoyment of self; _The Vision of Sin_, which illustrates the effects of similar indulgence in the grosser pleasures of the senses; _The Two Voices_, 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.
Altho’ I be the basest of mankind, From scalp to sole one slough and crust of sin, Unfit for earth, unfit for heaven, scarce meet For troops of devils, mad with blasphemy, I will not cease to grasp the hope I hold Of saintdom, and to clamour, morn and sob, Battering the gates of heaven with storms of prayer, Have mercy, Lord, and take away my sin. Let this avail, just, dreadful, mighty God, This not be all in vain that thrice ten years, Thrice multiplied by superhuman pangs, In hungers and in thirsts, fevers and cold, In coughs, aches, stitches, ulcerous throes and cramps, A sign betwixt the meadow and the cloud, Patient on this tall pillar I have borne Rain, wind, frost, heat, hail, damp, and sleet, and snow; And I had hoped that ere this period closed Thou wouldst have caught me up into Thy rest, Denying not these weather-beaten limbs The meed of saints, the white robe and the palm. O take the meaning, Lord: I do not breathe, Not whisper, any murmur of complaint. Pain heap’d ten-hundred-fold to this, were still Less burthen, by ten-hundred-fold, to bear, Than were those lead-like tons of sin, that crush’d My spirit flat before thee.
O Lord, Lord, Thou knowest I bore this better at the first, For I was strong and hale of body then; And tho’ my teeth, which now are dropt away, Would chatter with the cold, and all my beard Was tagg’d with icy fringes in the moon, I drown’d the whoopings of the owl with sound Of pious hymns and psalms, and sometimes saw An angel stand and watch me, as I sang. Now am I feeble grown; my end draws nigh; I hope my end draws nigh: half deaf I am, So that I scarce can hear the people hum About the column’s base, and almost blind, And scarce can recognise the fields I know; And both my thighs are rotted with the dew; Yet cease I not to clamour and to cry, While my stiff spine can hold my weary head, Till all my limbs drop piecemeal from the stone, Have mercy, mercy: take away my sin. O Jesus, if thou wilt not save my soul, Who may be saved? who is it may be saved? Who may be made a saint, if I fail here? Show me the man hath suffered more than I. For did not all thy martyrs die one death? For either they were stoned, or crucified, Or burn’d in fire, or boil’d in oil, or sawn In twain beneath the ribs; but I die here To-day, and whole years long, a life of death. Bear witness, if I could have found a way (And heedfully I sifted all my thought) More slowly-painful to subdue this home Of sin, my flesh, which I despise and hate, I had not stinted practice, O my God. For not alone this pillar-punishment,[1] Not this alone I bore: but while I lived In the white convent down the valley there, For many weeks about my loins I wore The rope that haled the buckets from the well, Twisted as tight as I could knot the noose; And spake not of it to a single soul, Until the ulcer, eating thro’ my skin, Betray’d my secret penance, so that all My brethren marvell’d greatly. More than this I bore, whereof, O God, thou knowest all.[2] Three winters, that my soul might grow to thee, I lived up there on yonder mountain side. My right leg chain’d into the crag, I lay Pent in a roofless close of ragged stones; Inswathed sometimes in wandering mist, and twice Black’d with thy branding thunder, and sometimes Sucking the damps for drink, and eating not, Except the spare chance-gift of those that came To touch my body and be heal’d, and live: And they say then that I work’d miracles, Whereof my fame is loud amongst mankind, Cured lameness, palsies, cancers. Thou, O God, Knowest alone whether this was or no. Have mercy, mercy; cover all my sin. Then, that I might be more alone with thee,[3] Three years I lived upon a pillar, high Six cubits, and three years on one of twelve; And twice three years I crouch’d on one that rose Twenty by measure; last of all, I grew Twice ten long weary weary years to this, That numbers forty cubits from the soil. I think that I have borne as much as this— Or else I dream—and for so long a time, If I may measure time by yon slow light, And this high dial, which my sorrow crowns— So much—even so.
And yet I know not well, For that the evil ones comes here, and say, “Fall down, O Simeon: thou hast suffer’d long For ages and for ages!” then they prate Of penances I cannot have gone thro’, Perplexing me with lies; and oft I fall, Maybe for months, in such blind lethargies, That Heaven, and Earth, and Time are choked.
But yet Bethink thee, Lord, while thou and all the saints Enjoy themselves in Heaven, and men on earth House in the shade of comfortable roofs, Sit with their wives by fires, eat wholesome food, And wear warm clothes, and even beasts have stalls, I, ’tween the spring and downfall of the light, Bow down one thousand and two hundred times, To Christ, the Virgin Mother, and the Saints; Or in the night, after a little sleep, I wake: the chill stars sparkle; I am wet With drenching dews, or stiff with crackling frost. I wear an undress’d goatskin on my back; A grazing iron collar grinds my neck; And in my weak, lean arms I lift the cross, And strive and wrestle with thee till I die: O mercy, mercy! wash away my sin. O Lord, thou knowest what a man I am; A sinful man, conceived and born in sin: ’Tis their own doing; this is none of mine; Lay it not to me. Am I to blame for this, That here come those that worship me? Ha! ha! They think that I am somewhat. What am I? The silly people take me for a saint, And bring me offerings of fruit and flowers: And I, in truth (thou wilt bear witness here) Have all in all endured as much, and more Than many just and holy men, whose names Are register’d and calendar’d for saints. Good people, you do ill to kneel to me. What is it I can have done to merit this? I am a sinner viler than you all. It may be I have wrought some miracles,[4] And cured some halt and maim’d; but what of that? It may be, no one, even among the saints, May match his pains with mine; but what of that? Yet do not rise: for you may look on me, And in your looking you may kneel to God. Speak! is there any of you halt or maim’d? I think you know I have some power with Heaven From my long penance: let him speak his wish. Yes, I can heal. Power goes forth from me. They say that they are heal’d. Ah, hark! they shout “St. Simeon Stylites”. Why, if so, God reaps a harvest in me. O my soul, God reaps a harvest in thee. If this be, Can I work miracles and not be saved? This is not told of any. They were saints. It cannot be but that I shall be saved; Yea, crown’d a saint. They shout, “Behold a saint!” And lower voices saint me from above. Courage, St. Simeon! This dull chrysalis Cracks into shining wings, and hope ere death Spreads more and more and more, that God hath now Sponged and made blank of crimeful record all My mortal archives.
O my sons, my sons, I, Simeon of the pillar, by surname Stylites, among men; I, Simeon, The watcher on the column till the end; I, Simeon, whose brain the sunshine bakes; I, whose bald brows in silent hours become Unnaturally hoar with rime, do now From my high nest of penance here proclaim That Pontius and Iscariot by my side Show’d like fair seraphs. On the coals I lay, A vessel full of sin: all hell beneath Made me boil over. Devils pluck’d my sleeve;[5] Abaddon and Asmodeus caught at me. I smote them with the cross; they swarm’d again. In bed like monstrous apes they crush’d my chest: They flapp’d my light out as I read: I saw Their faces grow between me and my book: With colt-like whinny and with hoggish whine They burst my prayer. Yet this way was left, And by this way I’scaped them. Mortify Your flesh, like me, with scourges and with thorns; Smite, shrink not, spare not. If it may be, fast Whole Lents, and pray. I hardly, with slow steps, With slow, faint steps, and much exceeding pain, Have scrambled past those pits of fire, that still Sing in mine ears. But yield not me the praise: God only thro’ his bounty hath thought fit, Among the powers and princes of this world, To make me an example to mankind, Which few can reach to. Yet I do not say But that a time may come—yea, even now, Now, now, his footsteps smite the threshold stairs Of life—I say, that time is at the doors When you may worship me without reproach; For I will leave my relics in your land, And you may carve a shrine about my dust, And burn a fragrant lamp before my bones, When I am gather’d to the glorious saints. While I spake then, a sting of shrewdest pain Ran shrivelling thro’ me, and a cloudlike change, In passing, with a grosser film made thick These heavy, horny eyes. The end! the end! Surely the end! What’s here? a shape, a shade, A flash of light. Is that the angel there That holds a crown? Come, blessed brother, come, I know thy glittering face. I waited long; My brows are ready. What! deny it now? Nay, draw, draw, draw nigh. So I clutch it. Christ! ’Tis gone: ’tis here again; the crown! the crown![6] So now ’tis fitted on and grows to me, And from it melt the dews of Paradise, Sweet! sweet! spikenard, and balm, and frankincense. Ah! let me not be fool’d, sweet saints: I trust That I am whole, and clean, and meet for Heaven. Speak, if there be a priest, a man of God, Among you there, and let him presently Approach, and lean a ladder on the shaft, And climbing up into my airy home, Deliver me the blessed sacrament; For by the warning of the Holy Ghost, I prophesy that I shall die to-night, A quarter before twelve.[7] But thou, O Lord, Aid all this foolish people; let them take Example, pattern: lead them to thy light.
[1] For this incident _cf. Acta_, v., 317:
“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”.
The same is told also of the younger Stylites, where the incident of concealing the torture is added, _Acta_, i., 265.
[2] For this retirement to a mountain see _Acta_, i., 270, and it is referred to in the other lives:
“Post hæc egressus occulte perrexit in montem non longe a monasterio, ibique sibi clausulam de siccâ petrâ fecit, et stetit sic annos tres.”
[3] In accurate accordance with the third life, _Acta_, i., 277:
“Primum quidem columna ad sex erecta cubitos est, deinde ad duodecim, post ad vigenti extensa est”;
but for the thirty-six cubits which is assigned as the height of the last column Tennyson’s authority, drawing on another account (_Id._, 271), substitutes forty:
“Fecerunt illi columnam habentem cubitos quadraginta”.
[4] For the miracles wrought by him see all the lives.
[5] These details seem taken from the well-known stories about Luther and Bunyan. All that the _Acta_ say about St. Simeon is that he was pestered by devils.
[6] The _Acta_ say nothing about the crown, but dwell on the supernatural fragrance which exhaled from the saint.
[7] Tennyson has given a very poor substitute for the beautifully pathetic account given of the death of St. Simeon in _Acta_, i., 168, and again in the ninth chapter of the second Life, _Ibid_., 273. But this is to be explained perhaps by the moral purpose of the poem.
The Talking Oak
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”.
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 _Der Junggesett und der Mühlbach_. 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.
Once more the gate behind me falls; Once more before my face I see the moulder’d Abbey-walls, That stand within the chace.
Beyond the lodge the city lies, Beneath its drift of smoke; And ah! with what delighted eyes I turn to yonder oak.
For when my passion first began, Ere that, which in me burn’d, The love, that makes me thrice a man, Could hope itself return’d;
To yonder oak within the field I spoke without restraint, And with a larger faith appeal’d Than Papist unto Saint.
For oft I talk’d with him apart, And told him of my choice, Until he plagiarised a heart, And answer’d with a voice.
Tho’ what he whisper’d, under Heaven None else could understand; I found him garrulously given, A babbler in the land.
But since I heard him make reply Is many a weary hour; ’Twere well to question him, and try If yet he keeps the power.
Hail, hidden to the knees in fern, Broad Oak of Sumner-chace, Whose topmost branches can discern The roofs of Sumner-place!
Say thou, whereon I carved her name, If ever maid or spouse, As fair as my Olivia, came To rest beneath thy boughs.—
“O Walter, I have shelter’d here Whatever maiden grace The good old Summers, year by year, Made ripe in Sumner-chace:
“Old Summers, when the monk was fat, And, issuing shorn and sleek, Would twist his girdle tight, and pat The girls upon the cheek.
“Ere yet, in scorn of Peter’s-pence, And number’d bead, and shrift, Bluff Harry broke into the spence,[1] And turn’d the cowls adrift:
“And I have seen some score of those Fresh faces, that would thrive When his man-minded offset rose To chase the deer at five;
“And all that from the town would stroll, Till that wild wind made work In which the gloomy brewer’s soul Went by me, like a stork:
“The slight she-slips of loyal blood, And others, passing praise, Strait-laced, but all too full in bud For puritanic stays:[2]>
“And I have shadow’d many a group Of beauties, that were born In teacup-times of hood and hoop, Or while the patch was worn;
“And, leg and arm with love-knots gay, About me leap’d and laugh’d The Modish Cupid of the day, And shrill’d his tinsel shaft.
“I swear (and else may insects prick Each leaf into a gall) This girl, for whom your heart is sick, Is three times worth them all;
“For those and theirs, by Nature’s law, Have faded long ago; But in these latter springs I saw Your own Olivia blow,
“From when she gamboll’d on the greens, A baby-germ, to when The maiden blossoms of her teens Could number five from ten.
“I swear, by leaf, and wind, and rain (And hear me with thine ears), That, tho’ I circle in the grain Five hundred rings of years—
“Yet, since I first could cast a shade, Did never creature pass So slightly, musically made, So light upon the grass:
“For as to fairies, that will flit To make the greensward fresh, I hold them exquisitely knit, But far too spare of flesh.”
Oh, hide thy knotted knees in fern, And overlook the chace; And from thy topmost branch discern The roofs of Sumner-place.
But thou, whereon I carved her name, That oft hast heard my vows, Declare when last Olivia came To sport beneath thy boughs.
“O yesterday, you know, the fair Was holden at the town; Her father left his good arm-chair, And rode his hunter down.
“And with him Albert came on his. I look’d at him with joy: As cowslip unto oxlip is, So seems she to the boy.
“An hour had past—and, sitting straight Within the low-wheel’d chaise, Her mother trundled to the gate Behind the dappled grays.
“But, as for her, she stay’d[3] at home, And on the roof she went, And down the way you use to come, She look’d with discontent.
“She left the novel half-uncut Upon the rosewood shelf; She left the new piano shut: She could not please herself.
“Then ran she, gamesome as the colt, And livelier than a lark She sent her voice thro’ all the holt Before her, and the park.
“A light wind chased her on the wing, And in the chase grew wild, As close as might be would he cling About the darling child:
“But light as any wind that blows So fleetly did she stir, The flower she touch’d on dipt and rose, And turn’d to look at her.
“And here she came, and round me play’d, And sang to me the whole Of those three stanzas that you made About my ‘giant bole’;
“And in a fit of frolic mirth She strove to span my waist: Alas, I was so broad of girth, I could not be embraced.
“I wish’d myself the fair young beech That here beside me stands, That round me, clasping each in each, She might have lock’d her hands.
“Yet seem’d the pressure thrice as sweet As woodbine’s fragile hold, Or when I feel about my feet The berried briony fold.”
O muffle round thy knees with fern, And shadow Sumner-chace! Long may thy topmost branch discern The roofs of Sumner-place!
But tell me, did she read the name I carved with many vows When last with throbbing heart I came To rest beneath thy boughs?
“O yes, she wander’d round and round These knotted knees of mine, And found, and kiss’d the name she found, And sweetly murmur’d thine.
“A teardrop trembled from its source, And down my surface crept. My sense of touch is something coarse, But I believe she wept.
“Then flush’d her cheek with rosy light, She glanced across the plain; But not a creature was in sight: She kiss’d me once again.
“Her kisses were so close and kind, That, trust me on my word, Hard wood I am, and wrinkled rind, But yet my sap was stirr’d:
“And even into my inmost ring A pleasure I discern’d Like those blind motions of the Spring, That show the year is turn’d.
“Thrice-happy he that may caress The ringlet’s waving balm The cushions of whose touch may press The maiden’s tender palm.
“I, rooted here among the groves, But languidly adjust My vapid vegetable loves[4] With anthers and with dust:
“For, ah! my friend, the days were brief[5] Whereof the poets talk, When that, which breathes within the leaf, Could slip its bark and walk.
“But could I, as in times foregone, From spray, and branch, and stem, Have suck’d and gather’d into one The life that spreads in them,
“She had not found me so remiss; But lightly issuing thro’, I would have paid her kiss for kiss With usury thereto.”
O flourish high, with leafy towers, And overlook the lea, Pursue thy loves among the bowers, But leave thou mine to me.
O flourish, hidden deep in fern, Old oak, I love thee well; A thousand thanks for what I learn And what remains to tell.
“’Tis little more: the day was warm; At last, tired out with play, She sank her head upon her arm, And at my feet she lay.
“Her eyelids dropp’d their silken eaves. I breathed upon her eyes Thro’ all the summer of my leaves A welcome mix’d with sighs.
“I took the swarming sound of life— The music from the town— The murmurs of the drum and fife And lull’d them in my own.
“Sometimes I let a sunbeam slip, To light her shaded eye; A second flutter’d round her lip Like a golden butterfly;
“A third would glimmer on her neck To make the necklace shine; Another slid, a sunny fleck, From head to ancle fine.
“Then close and dark my arms I spread, And shadow’d all her rest— Dropt dews upon her golden head, An acorn in her breast.
“But in a pet she started up, And pluck’d it out, and drew My little oakling from the cup, And flung him in the dew.
“And yet it was a graceful gift— I felt a pang within As when I see the woodman lift His axe to slay my kin.
“I shook him down because he was The finest on the tree. He lies beside thee on the grass. O kiss him once for me.
“O kiss him twice and thrice for me, That have no lips to kiss, For never yet was oak on lea Shall grow so fair as this.”
Step deeper yet in herb and fern, Look further thro’ the chace, Spread upward till thy boughs discern The front of Sumner-place.
This fruit of thine by Love is blest, That but a moment lay Where fairer fruit of Love may rest Some happy future day.
I kiss it twice, I kiss it thrice, The warmth it thence shall win To riper life may magnetise The baby-oak within.
But thou, while kingdoms overset, Or lapse from hand to hand, Thy leaf shall never fail, nor yet Thine acorn in the land.
May never saw dismember thee, Nor wielded axe disjoint, That art the fairest-spoken tree From here to Lizard-point.
O rock upon thy towery top All throats that gurgle sweet! All starry culmination drop Balm-dews to bathe thy feet!
All grass of silky feather grow— And while he sinks or swells The full south-breeze around thee blow The sound of minster bells.
The fat earth feed thy branchy root, That under deeply strikes! The northern morning o’er thee shoot High up, in silver spikes!
Nor ever lightning char thy grain, But, rolling as in sleep, Low thunders bring the mellow rain, That makes thee broad and deep!
And hear me swear a solemn oath, That only by thy side Will I to Olive plight my troth, And gain her for my bride.
And when my marriage morn may fall, She, Dryad-like, shall wear Alternate leaf and acorn-ball In wreath about her hair.
And I will work in prose and rhyme, And praise thee more in both Than bard has honour’d beech or lime, Or that Thessalian growth,[6]
In which the swarthy ringdove sat, And mystic sentence spoke; And more than England honours that, Thy famous brother-oak,
Wherein the younger Charles abode Till all the paths were dim, And far below the Roundhead rode, And humm’d a surly hymn.
[1] Spence is a larder and buttery. In the _Promptorium Parverum_ it is defined as “cellarium promptuarium”.
[2] Cf. Burns’ “godly laces,” _To the Unco Righteous_.
[3] All editions previous to 1853 have ‘staid’.
[4] The phrase is Marvell’s. _Cf. To his Coy Mistress_ (a favourite poem of Tennyson’s), “my vegetable loves should grow”.
[5] 1842 to 1850. “For, ah! the Dryad-days were brief.
[6] 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 _Dict. of Greek and Roman Geography_.
Love and Duty
Published first in 1842.
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 _Life_ of his father is silent on the subject.
Of love that never found his earthly close, What sequel? Streaming eyes and breaking hearts? Or all the same as if he had not been? Not so. Shall Error in the round of time Still father Truth? O shall the braggart shout[1] For some blind glimpse of freedom work itself Thro’ madness, hated by the wise, to law System and empire? Sin itself be found The cloudy porch oft opening on the Sun? And only he, this wonder, dead, become Mere highway dust? or year by year alone Sit brooding in the ruins of a life, Nightmare of youth, the spectre of himself! If this were thus, if this, indeed, were all, Better the narrow brain, the stony heart, The staring eye glazed o’er with sapless days, The long mechanic pacings to and fro, The set gray life, and apathetic end. But am I not the nobler thro’ thy love? O three times less unworthy! likewise thou Art more thro’ Love, and greater than thy years. The Sun will run his orbit, and the Moon Her circle. Wait, and Love himself will bring The drooping flower of knowledge changed to fruit Of wisdom.[2] Wait: my faith is large in Time, And that which shapes it to some perfect end. Will some one say, then why not ill for good? Why took ye not your pastime? To that man My work shall answer, since I knew the right And did it; for a man is not as God, But then most Godlike being most a man.— So let me think ’tis well for thee and me— Ill-fated that I am, what lot is mine Whose foresight preaches peace, my heart so slow To feel it! For how hard it seem’d to me, When eyes, love-languid thro’ half-tears, would dwell One earnest, earnest moment upon mine, Then not to dare to see! when thy low voice, Faltering, would break its syllables, to keep My own full-tuned,—hold passion in a leash, And not leap forth and fall about thy neck, And on thy bosom, (deep-desired relief!) Rain out the heavy mist of tears, that weigh’d Upon my brain, my senses, and my soul! For love himself took part against himself To warn us off, and Duty loved of Love— O this world’s curse—beloved but hated—came Like Death betwixt thy dear embrace and mine, And crying, “Who is this? behold thy bride,” She push’d me from thee.
If the sense is hard To alien ears, I did not speak to these— No, not to thee, but to thyself in me: Hard is my doom and thine: thou knowest it all. Could Love part thus? was it not well to speak, To have spoken once? It could not but be well. The slow sweet hours that bring us all things good,[3] The slow sad hours that bring us all things ill, And all good things from evil, brought the night In which we sat together and alone, And to the want, that hollow’d all the heart, Gave utterance by the yearning of an eye, That burn’d upon its object thro’ such tears As flow but once a life.
The trance gave way To those caresses, when a hundred times In that last kiss, which never was the last, Farewell, like endless welcome, lived and died. Then follow’d counsel, comfort and the words That make a man feel strong in speaking truth; Till now the dark was worn, and overhead The lights of sunset and of sunrise mix’d In that brief night; the summer night, that paused Among her stars to hear us; stars that hung Love-charm’d to listen: all the wheels of Time Spun round in station, but the end had come. O then like those, who clench[4] their nerves to rush Upon their dissolution, we two rose, There-closing like an individual life— In one blind cry of passion and of pain, Like bitter accusation ev’n to death, Caught up the whole of love and utter’d it, And bade adieu for ever.
Live—yet live— Shall sharpest pathos blight us, knowing all Life needs for life is possible to will— Live happy; tend thy flowers; be tended by My blessing! Should my Shadow cross thy thoughts Too sadly for their peace, remand it thou For calmer hours to Memory’s darkest hold,[5] If not to be forgotten—not at once— Not all forgotten. Should it cross thy dreams, O might it come like one that looks content, With quiet eyes unfaithful to the truth, And point thee forward to a distant light, Or seem to lift a burthen from thy heart And leave thee frëer, till thou wake refresh’d, Then when the first low matin-chirp hath grown Full quire, and morning driv’n her plow of pearl[6] Far furrowing into light the mounded rack, Beyond the fair green field and eastern sea.
[1] As this passage is a little obscure, it may not be superfluous to point out that “shout” is a substantive.
[2] The distinction between “knowledge” and “wisdom” is a favourite one with Tennyson. See _In Memoriam_, cxiv.; _Locksley Hall_, 141, and for the same distinction see Cowper, _Task_, vi., 88-99.
[3] Suggested by Theocritus, _Id_., xv., 104-5.
[4] 1842 to 1845. O then like those, that clench.
[5] 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:—
Too sadly for their peace, so put it back For calmer hours in memory’s darkest hold, If unforgotten! should it cross thy dreams, So might it come, etc.
[6] _Cf. Princess_, iii.:—
Morn in the white wake of the morning star Came furrowing all the orient into gold,
and with both cf. Greene, _Orlando Furioso_, i., 2:—
Seest thou not Lycaon’s son? The hardy plough-swain unto mighty Jove Hath _trac’d his silver furrows in the heaven_,
which in its turn is borrowed from Ariosto, _Orl. Fur._, xx., lxxxii.:—
Apena avea Licaonia prole Per li solchi del ciel volto L’aratro.
The Golden Year
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.
Well, you shall have that song which Leonard wrote: It was last summer on a tour in Wales: Old James was with me: we that day had been Up Snowdon; and I wish’d for Leonard there, And found him in Llanberis:[1] then we crost Between the lakes, and clamber’d half-way up The counterside; and that same song of his He told me; for I banter’d him, and swore They said he lived shut up within himself, A tongue-tied Poet in the feverous days, That, setting the _how much_ before the _how_, Cry, like the daughters of the horseleech, “Give,[2] Cram us with all,” but count not me the herd! To which “They call me what they will,” he said: “But I was born too late: the fair new forms, That float about the threshold of an age, Like truths of Science waiting to be caught— Catch me who can, and make the catcher crown’d— Are taken by the forelock. Let it be. But if you care indeed to listen, hear These measured words, my work of yestermorn. “We sleep and wake and sleep, but all things move; The Sun flies forward to his brother Sun; The dark Earth follows wheel’d in her ellipse; And human things returning on themselves Move onward, leading up the golden year. “Ah, tho’ the times, when some new thought can bud, Are but as poets’ seasons when they flower, Yet seas, that daily gain upon the shore,[3] Have ebb and flow conditioning their march, And slow and sure comes up the golden year. “When wealth no more shall rest in mounded heaps, But smit with freer light shall slowly melt In many streams to fatten lower lands, And light shall spread, and man be liker man Thro’ all the season of the golden year. “Shall eagles not be eagles? wrens be wrens? If all the world were falcons, what of that? The wonder of the eagle were the less, But he not less the eagle. Happy days Roll onward, leading up the golden year. “Fly happy happy sails and bear the Press; Fly happy with the mission of the Cross; Knit land to land, and blowing havenward With silks, and fruits, and spices, clear of toll, Enrich the markets of the golden year. “But we grow old! Ah! when shall all men’s good Be each man’s rule, and universal Peace Lie like a shaft of light across the land, And like a lane of beams athwart the sea, Thro’ all the circle of the golden year?” Thus far he flow’d, and ended; whereupon “Ah, folly!” in mimic cadence answer’d James— “Ah, folly! for it lies so far away. Not in our time, nor in our children’s time, ’Tis like the second world to us that live; ’Twere all as one to fix our hopes on Heaven As on this vision of the golden year.” With that he struck his staff against the rocks And broke it,—James,—you know him,—old, but full Of force and choler, and firm upon his feet, And like an oaken stock in winter woods, O’erflourished with the hoary clematis: Then added, all in heat: “What stuff is this! Old writers push’d the happy season back,— The more fools they,—we forward: dreamers both: You most, that in an age, when every hour Must sweat her sixty minutes to the death, Live on, God love us, as if the seedsman, rapt Upon the teeming harvest, should not dip[4] His hand into the bag: but well I know That unto him who works, and feels he works, This same grand year is ever at the doors.” He spoke; and, high above, I heard them blast The steep slate-quarry, and the great echo flap And buffet round the hills from bluff to bluff.
[1] 1846 to 1850.
And joined him in Llanberis; and that same song He told me, etc.
[2] Proverbs xxx. 15:
“The horseleach hath two daughters, crying, Give, give”.
[3] 1890. Altered to “Yet oceans daily gaining on the land”.
[4] _Selections_, 1865. Plunge.
Ulysses
First published in 1842, no alterations were made in it subsequently.
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 _In Memoriam_.” It is not the _Ulysses_ of Homer, nor was it suggested by the _Odyssey_. The germ, the spirit and the sentiment of the poem are from the twenty-sixth canto of Dante’s _Inferno_, where Ulysses in the Limbo of the Deceivers speaks from the flame which swathes him. I give a literal version of the passage:—
“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’” (_Inferno_, xxvi., 94-126).
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—
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’ Gleams that untravell’d world, whose margin fades For ever and for ever when I move.
or
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
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”.
It little profits that an idle king, By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Match’d with an aged wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race, That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. I cannot rest from travel: I will drink Life to the lees: all times I have enjoy’d Greatly, have suffer’d greatly, both with those That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when Thro’ scudding drifts the rainy Hyades[1] Vext the dim sea: I am become a name; For always roaming with a hungry heart Much have I seen and known; cities of men And manners, climates, councils, governments,[2] Myself not least, but honour’d of them all; And drunk delight of battle with my peers, Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. I am a part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’ Gleams that untravell’d world, whose margin fades For ever and for ever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end,[3] To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use! As tho’ to breathe were life. Life piled on life Were all too little, and of one to me Little remains: but every hour is saved From that eternal silence, something more, A bringer of new things; and vile it were For some three suns to store and hoard myself, And this gray spirit yearning in desire To follow knowledge, like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. This is my son, mine own Telemachus,[4] To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle— Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil This labour, by slow prudence to make mild A rugged people, and thro’ soft degrees Subdue them to the useful and the good. Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere Of common duties, decent not to fail In offices of tenderness, and pay Meet adoration to my household gods, When I am gone. He works his work, I mine. There lies the port: the vessel puffs her sail: There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners, Souls that have toil’d and wrought, and thought with me— That ever with a frolic welcome took The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old; Old age hath yet his honour and his toil; Death closes all; but something ere the end, Some work of noble note, may yet be done, Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks: The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, ’Tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,[5] And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’ We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
[1] Virgil, _Æn_., i., 748, and iii., 516.
[2] _Odyssey_, i., 1-4.
[3] _Cf_. Shakespeare, _Troilus and Cressida_:—
Perseverance, dear, my lord, Keeps honour bright: To have done, is to hang Quite out of fashion, like a rusty nail In monumental mockery.
[4] How admirably has Tennyson touched off the character of the Telemachus of the _Odyssey_.
[5] The Happy Isles, the _Fortunatæ Insulæ_ 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 _Elysian Fields_. The _loci classici_ on these abodes are Homer, Odyssey, iv., 563 _seqq._:—
ᾁλλά σ’ ες Ἠλύσιον πεδίον καὶ πέιρατα γαιής
ἀθάνατοι πέμψουσιν, ὅθι ξανθὸς Ῥαδάμανθυς
τῇ περ ῥηίστη βιοτὴ πέλει ἀνθρώποισιν,
οὐ νιφετὸς, οὔτ’ ἄρ χειμὼν πολὺς, οὔτε ποτ’ ὄμβρος
ἀλλ’ άιεὶ Ζεφύροιο λιγὺ πνέιοντας ἀήτας
ὠκεανὸς ἀνιήσιν ἀναψύχειν ἀνθρώπους.
[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, _Olymp_., ii., 178 _seqq_., compared with the splendid fragment at the beginning of the _Dirges_. 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 _Tempest_.
Locksley Hall
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 _Maud_, 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”.
_Locksley Hall_ 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—
Many a night I saw the Pleiads rising through the mellow shade Glitter like a swarm of fireflies tangl’d in a silver braid,
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”.
Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet ’tis early morn: Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle horn.
’Tis the place, and all around it,[1] as of old, the curlews call, Dreary gleams[2] about the moorland flying over Locksley Hall;
Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts, And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts.
Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest, Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West.
Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro’ the mellow shade, Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid.
Here about the beach I wander’d, nourishing a youth sublime With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of Time;
When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed; When I clung to all the present for the promise that it closed:
When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see; Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be.—
In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin’s[3] breast; In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest;
In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish’d dove; In the Spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.
Then her cheek was pale and thinner than should be for one so young, And her eyes on all my motions with a mute observance hung.
And I said, “My cousin Amy, speak, and speak the truth to me, Trust me, cousin, all the current of my being sets to thee.”
On her pallid cheek and forehead came a colour and a light, As I have seen the rosy red flushing in the northern night.
And she turn’d—her bosom shaken with a sudden storm of sighs— All the spirit deeply dawning in the dark of hazel eyes—
Saying, “I have hid my feelings, fearing they should do me wrong”; Saying, “Dost thou love me, cousin?” weeping, “I have loved thee long”.
Love took up the glass of Time, and turn’d it in his glowing hands; Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands.[4]
Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might; Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass’d in music out of sight.
Many a morning on the moorland did we hear the copses ring, And her whisper throng’d my pulses with the fulness of the Spring.
Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately ships, And our spirits rush’d together at the touching of the lips.[5]
O my cousin, shallow-hearted! O my Amy, mine no more! O the dreary, dreary moorland! O the barren, barren shore!
Falser than all fancy fathoms, falser than all songs have sung, Puppet to a father’s threat, and servile to a shrewish tongue!
Is it well to wish thee happy?—having known me—to decline On a range of lower feelings and a narrower heart than mine!
Yet it shall be: thou shalt lower to his level day by day, What is fine within thee growing coarse to sympathise with clay.
As the husband is, the wife is: thou art mated with a clown, And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down.
He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force, Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse.
What is this? his eyes are heavy: think not they are glazed with wine. Go to him: it is thy duty: kiss him: take his hand in thine.
It may be my lord is weary, that his brain is overwrought: Soothe him with thy finer fancies, touch him with thy lighter thought.
He will answer to the purpose, easy things to understand— Better thou wert dead before me, tho’ I slew thee with my hand!
Better thou and I were lying, hidden from the heart’s disgrace, Roll’d in one another’s arms, and silent in a last embrace.
Cursed be the social wants that sin against the strength of youth! Cursed be the social lies that warp us from the living truth!
Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest Nature’s rule! Cursed be the gold that gilds the straiten’d forehead of the fool!
Well—’tis well that I should bluster!—Hadst thou less unworthy proved— Would to God—for I had loved thee more than ever wife was loved.
Am I mad, that I should cherish that which bears but bitter fruit? I will pluck it from my bosom, tho’ my heart be at the root.
Never, tho’ my mortal summers to such length of years should come As the many-winter’d crow that leads the clanging rookery home.[6]
Where is comfort? in division of the records of the mind? Can I part her from herself, and love her, as I knew her, kind?
I remember one that perish’d: sweetly did she speak and move: Such a one do I remember, whom to look it was to love.
Can I think of her as dead, and love her for the love she bore? No—she never loved me truly: love is love for evermore.
Comfort? comfort scorn’d of devils! this is truth the poet sings, That a sorrow’s crown of sorrow[7] is remembering happier things.
Drug thy memories, lest thou learn it, lest thy heart be put to proof, In the dead unhappy night, and when the rain is on the roof.
Like a dog, he hunts in dreams, and thou art staring at the wall, Where the dying night-lamp flickers, and the shadows rise and fall.
Then a hand shall pass before thee, pointing to his drunken sleep, To thy widow’d marriage-pillows, to the tears that thou wilt weep.
Thou shalt hear the “Never, never,” whisper’d by the phantom years, And a song from out the distance in the ringing of thine ears;
And an eye shall vex thee, looking ancient kindness on thy pain. Turn thee, turn thee on thy pillow: get thee to thy rest again.
Nay, but Nature brings thee solace; for a tender voice will cry, ’Tis a purer life than thine; a lip to drain thy trouble dry.
Baby lips will laugh me down: my latest rival brings thee rest. Baby fingers, waxen touches, press me from the mother’s breast.
O, the child too clothes the father with a dearness not his due. Half is thine and half is his: it will be worthy of the two.
O, I see thee old and formal, fitted to thy petty part, With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter’s heart.
“They were dangerous guides the feelings—she herself was not exempt— Truly, she herself had suffer’d”—Perish in thy self-contempt!
Overlive it—lower yet—be happy! wherefore should I care, I myself must mix with action, lest I wither by despair.
What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon days like these? Every door is barr’d with gold, and opens but to golden keys.
Every gate is throng’d with suitors, all the markets overflow. I have but an angry fancy: what is that which I should do?
I had been content to perish, falling on the foeman’s ground, When the ranks are roll’d in vapour, and the winds are laid with sound.
But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that Honour feels, And the nations do but murmur, snarling at each other’s heels.
Can I but relive in sadness? I will turn that earlier page. Hide me from my deep emotion, O thou wondrous Mother-Age!
Make me feel the wild pulsation that I felt before the strife, When I heard my days before me, and the tumult of my life;
Yearning for the large excitement that the coming years would yield, Eager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves his father’s field,
And at night along the dusky highway near and nearer drawn, Sees in heaven the light of London flaring like a dreary dawn;[8]
And his spirit leaps within him to be gone before him then, Underneath the light he looks at, in among the throngs of men;
Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new: That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do:
For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;[9]
Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales;[10]
Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain’d a ghastly dew From the nations’ airy navies grappling in the central blue;[10]
Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm, With the standards of the peoples plunging thro’ the thunderstorm;[10]
Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were furl’d In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.[10]
There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.
So I triumph’d, ere my passion sweeping thro’ me left me dry, Left me with the palsied heart, and left me with the jaundiced eye;
Eye, to which all order festers, all things here are out of joint, Science moves, but slowly slowly, creeping on from point to point:
Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lion, creeping nigher,[11] Glares at one that nods and winks behind a slowly-dying fire.
Yet I doubt not thro’ the ages one increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of men are widen’d with the process of the suns.
What is that to him that reaps not harvest of his youthful joys, Tho’ the deep heart of existence beat for ever like a boy’s?
Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I linger on the shore, And the individual withers, and the world is more and more.
Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and he bears a laden breast, Full of sad experience, moving toward the stillness of his rest.
Hark, my merry comrades call me, sounding on the bugle-horn, They to whom my foolish passion were a target for their scorn:
Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a moulder’d string? I am shamed thro’ all my nature to have loved so slight a thing.
Weakness to be wroth with weakness! woman’s pleasure, woman’s pain—[12] Nature made them blinder motions bounded in a shallower brain:
Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, match’d with mine, Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine—
Here at least, where nature sickens, nothing. Ah, for some retreat Deep in yonder shining Orient, where my life began to beat;
Where in wild Mahratta-battle fell my father evil-starr’d;— I was left a trampled orphan, and a selfish uncle’s ward.
Or to burst all links of habit—there to wander far away, On from island unto island at the gateways of the day.
Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies, Breadths of tropic shade and palms in cluster, knots of Paradise.[13]
Never comes the trader, never floats an European flag, Slides the bird o’er lustrous woodland, swings the trailer[14] from the crag;
Droops the heavy-blossom’d bower, hangs the heavy-fruited tree— Summer isles of Eden lying in dark-purple spheres of sea.
There methinks would be enjoyment more than in this march of mind, In the steamship, in the railway, in the thoughts that shake mankind.
There the passions cramp’d no longer shall have scope and breathing-space; I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my dusky race.
Iron-jointed, supple-sinew’d, they shall dive, and they shall run, Catch the wild goat by the hair, and hurl their lances in the sun;
Whistle back the parrot’s call, and leap the rainbows of the brooks. Not with blinded eyesight poring over miserable books—
Fool, again the dream, the fancy! but I _know_ my words are wild, But I count the gray barbarian lower than the Christian child.
_I_, to herd with narrow foreheads, vacant of our glorious gains,[15] Like a beast with lower pleasures, like a beast with lower pains!
Mated with a squalid savage—what to me were sun or clime? I the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time—
I that rather held it better men should perish one by one, Than that earth should stand at gaze like Joshua’s moon in Ajalon!
Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us range. Let the great world spin[16] for ever down the ringing grooves[17] of change.
Thro’ the shadow of the globe[18] we sweep into the younger day: Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.[19]
Mother-Age (for mine I knew not) help me as when life begun: Rift the hills, and roll the waters, flash the lightnings, weigh the Sun—[20]
O, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath not set. Ancient founts of inspiration well thro’ all my fancy yet.
Howsoever these things be, a long farewell to Locksley Hall! Now for me the woods may wither, now for me the roof-tree fall.
Comes a vapour from the margin, blackening over heath and holt, Cramming all the blast before it, in its breast a thunderbolt.
Let it fall on Locksley Hall, with rain or hail, or fire or snow; For the mighty wind arises, roaring seaward, and I go.
[1] 1842. And round the gables.
[2] “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, _Life_, iii., 82.
[3] 1842 and all up to and including 1850 have a capital _R_ to robin.
[4] Cf. W. R. Spencer (_Poems_, p. 166):—
What eye with clear account remarks The ebbing of his glass, When all its sands are diamond sparks That dazzle as they pass.
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.
[5] Cf. Guarini, _Pastor Fido_:—
Ma i colpi di due labbre innamorate Quando a ferir si va bocca con bocca, ... ove l’ un alma e l’altra Corre.
[6] _Cf._ Horace’s _Annosa Cornix_, Odes III., xvii., 13.
[7] The reference is to Dante, _Inferno_, v. 121-3:—
Nessun maggior dolore Che ricordarsi del tempo felice Nella miseria.
For the pedigree and history of this see the present editor’s _Illustrations of Tennyson_, p. 63.
[8] The epithet “dreary” shows that Tennyson preferred realistic picturesqueness to dramatic propriety.
[9] See the introductory note to _The Golden Year_.
[10]
See the introductory note to _The Golden Year_.
[11] Tennyson said that this simile was suggested by a passage in _Pringle’s Travels;_ the incident only is described, and with thrilling vividness, by Pringle; but its application in simile is Tennyson’s. See _A Narrative of a Residence in South Africa_, by Thomas Pringle, p. 39:
“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.”
[12] With this _cf_. Leopardi, _Aspasia_, 53-60:—
Non cape in quelle Anguste fronti ugual concetto. E male Al vivo sfolgora di quegli sguardi Spera l’uomo ingannato, e mal chiede Sensi profondi, sconosciuti, è molto Più che virili, in chi dell’ uomo al tutto Da natura è minor. Che se più molli E più tenui le membra, essa la mente Men capace e men forte anco riceve.
[13] One wonders Tennyson could have had the heart to excise the beautiful couplet which in his MS. followed this stanza.
All about a summer ocean, leagues on leagues of golden calm, And within melodious waters rolling round the knolls of palm.
[14] 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.
[15] _Cf_. Shakespeare, “foreheads villainously low”.
[16] 1842. Peoples spin.
[17] 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.
[18] 1842. The world.
[19] Cathay, the old name for China.
[20] _Cf_. Tasso, _Gems_, ix., st. 91:—
Nuova nube di polve ecco vicina Che fulgori in grembo tiene.
(Lo! a fresh cloud of dust is near which Carries in its breast thunderbolts.)
Godiva
First published in 1842. No alteration was made in any subsequent edition.
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 _Britannia_, vol. ii., p. 346, and for a full account of the legend see W. Reader, _The History and Description of Coventry Show Fair, with the History of Leofric and Godiva_). With Tennyson’s should be compared Moultrie’s beautiful poem on the same subject, and Landor’s Imaginary Conversation between Leofric and Godiva.
[1] _I waited for the train at Coventry; I hung with grooms and porters on the bridge, To match the three tall spires;_[2] _and there I shaped The city’s ancient legend into this:_ Not only we, the latest seed of Time, New men, that in the flying of a wheel Cry down the past, not only we, that prate Of rights and wrongs, have loved the people well, And loathed to see them overtax’d; but she Did more, and underwent, and overcame, The woman of a thousand summers back, Godiva, wife to that grim Earl, who ruled In Coventry: for when he laid a tax Upon his town, and all the mothers brought Their children, clamouring, “If we pay, we starve!” She sought her lord, and found him, where he strode About the hall, among his dogs, alone, His beard a foot before him, and his hair A yard behind. She told him of their tears, And pray’d him, “If they pay this tax, they starve”. Whereat he stared, replying, half-amazed, “You would not let your little finger ache For such as _these_?”—“But I would die,” said she. He laugh’d, and swore by Peter and by Paul; Then fillip’d at the diamond in her ear; “O ay, ay, ay, you talk!”—“Alas!” she said, “But prove me what it is I would not do.” And from a heart as rough as Esau’s hand, He answer’d, “Ride you naked thro’ the town, And I repeal it”; and nodding as in scorn, He parted, with great strides among his dogs. So left alone, the passions of her mind, As winds from all the compass shift and blow, Made war upon each other for an hour, Till pity won. She sent a herald forth, And bad him cry, with sound of trumpet, all The hard condition; but that she would loose The people: therefore, as they loved her well, From then till noon no foot should pace the street, No eye look down, she passing; but that all Should keep within, door shut, and window barr’d. Then fled she to her inmost bower, and there Unclasp’d the wedded eagles of her belt, The grim Earl’s gift; but ever at a breath She linger’d, looking like a summer moon Half-dipt in cloud: anon she shook her head, And shower’d the rippled ringlets to her knee; Unclad herself in haste; adown the stair Stole on; and, like a creeping sunbeam, slid From pillar unto pillar, until she reach’d The gateway; there she found her palfrey trapt In purple blazon’d with armorial gold. Then she rode forth, clothed on with chastity: The deep air listen’d round her as she rode, And all the low wind hardly breathed for fear. The little wide-mouth’d heads upon the spout Had cunning eyes to see: the barking cur Made her cheek flame: her palfrey’s footfall shot Light horrors thro’ her pulses: the blind walls Were full of chinks and holes; and overhead Fantastic gables, crowding, stared: but she Not less thro’ all bore up, till, last, she saw The white-flower’d elder-thicket from the field Gleam thro’ the Gothic archways[3] in the wall. Then she rode back cloth’d on with chastity: And one low churl,[4] compact of thankless earth, The fatal byword of all years to come, Boring a little auger-hole in fear, Peep’d—but his eyes, before they had their will, Were shrivell’d into darkness in his head, And dropt before him. So the Powers, who wait On noble deeds, cancell’d a sense misused; And she, that knew not, pass’d: and all at once, With twelve great shocks of sound, the shameless noon Was clash’d and hammer’d from a hundred towers,[5] One after one: but even then she gain’d Her bower; whence reissuing, robed and crown’d, To meet her lord, she took the tax away, And built herself an everlasting name.
[1] These four lines are not in the privately printed volume of 1842, but were added afterwards.
[2] St. Michael’s, Trinity, and St. John.
[3] 1844. Archway.
[4] His effigy is still to be seen, protruded from an upper window in High Street, Coventry.
[5] A most poetical licence. Thirty-two towers are the very utmost allowed by writers on ancient Coventry.
The Two Voices
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 _The Thoughts of a Suicide_. No alterations were made in the poem after 1842.
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 _The Two Voices_ 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 (_Faerie Queene_, I. ix., st. xxxviii.-liv.).
A still small voice spake unto me, “Thou art so full of misery, Were it not better not to be?”
Then to the still small voice I said; “Let me not cast in endless shade What is so wonderfully made”.
To which the voice did urge reply; “To-day I saw the dragon-fly Come from the wells where he did lie.
“An inner impulse rent the veil Of his old husk: from head to tail Came out clear plates of sapphire mail.
“He dried his wings: like gauze they grew: Thro’ crofts and pastures wet with dew A living flash of light he flew.”
I said, “When first the world began Young Nature thro’ five cycles ran, And in the sixth she moulded man.
“She gave him mind, the lordliest Proportion, and, above the rest, Dominion in the head and breast.”
Thereto the silent voice replied; “Self-blinded are you by your pride: Look up thro’ night: the world is wide.
“This truth within thy mind rehearse, That in a boundless universe Is boundless better, boundless worse.
“Think you this mould of hopes and fears Could find no statelier than his peers In yonder hundred million spheres?”
It spake, moreover, in my mind: “Tho’ thou wert scatter’d to the wind, Yet is there plenty of the kind”.
Then did my response clearer fall: “No compound of this earthly ball Is like another, all in all”.
To which he answer’d scoffingly; “Good soul! suppose I grant it thee, Who’ll weep for thy deficiency?
“Or will one beam[1] be less intense, When thy peculiar difference Is cancell’d in the world of sense?”
I would have said, “Thou canst not know,” But my full heart, that work’d below, Rain’d thro’ my sight its overflow.
Again the voice spake unto me: “Thou art so steep’d in misery, Surely ’twere better not to be.
“Thine anguish will not let thee sleep, Nor any train of reason keep: Thou canst not think, but thou wilt weep.”
I said, “The years with change advance: If I make dark my countenance, I shut my life from happier chance.
“Some turn this sickness yet might take, Ev’n yet.” But he: “What drug can make A wither’d palsy cease to shake?”
I wept, “Tho’ I should die, I know That all about the thorn will blow In tufts of rosy-tinted snow;
“And men, thro’ novel spheres of thought Still moving after truth long sought, Will learn new things when I am not.”
“Yet,” said the secret voice, “some time, Sooner or later, will gray prime Make thy grass hoar with early rime.
“Not less swift souls that yearn for light, Rapt after heaven’s starry flight, Would sweep the tracts of day and night.
“Not less the bee would range her cells, The furzy prickle fire the dells, The foxglove cluster dappled bells.”
I said that “all the years invent; Each month is various to present The world with some development.
“Were this not well, to bide mine hour, Tho’ watching from a ruin’d tower How grows the day of human power?”
“The highest-mounted mind,” he said, “Still sees the sacred morning spread The silent summit overhead.
“Will thirty seasons render plain Those lonely lights that still remain, Just breaking over land and main?
“Or make that morn, from his cold crown And crystal silence creeping down, Flood with full daylight glebe and town?
“Forerun thy peers, thy time, and let Thy feet, millenniums hence, be set In midst of knowledge, dream’d not yet.
“Thou hast not gain’d a real height, Nor art thou nearer to the light, Because the scale is infinite.
“’Twere better not to breathe or speak, Than cry for strength, remaining weak, And seem to find, but still to seek.
“Moreover, but to seem to find Asks what thou lackest, thought resign’d, A healthy frame, a quiet mind.”
I said, “When I am gone away, ‘He dared not tarry,’ men will say, Doing dishonour to my clay.”
“This is more vile,” he made reply, “To breathe and loathe, to live and sigh, Than once from dread of pain to die.
“Sick art thou—a divided will Still heaping on the fear of ill The fear of men, a coward still.
“Do men love thee? Art thou so bound To men, that how thy name may sound Will vex thee lying underground?
“The memory of the wither’d leaf In endless time is scarce more brief Than of the garner’d Autumn-sheaf.
“Go, vexed Spirit, sleep in trust; The right ear, that is fill’d with dust, Hears little of the false or just.”
“Hard task, to pluck resolve,” I cried, “From emptiness and the waste wide Of that abyss, or scornful pride!
“Nay—rather yet that I could raise One hope that warm’d me in the days While still I yearn’d for human praise.
“When, wide in soul, and bold of tongue, Among the tents I paused and sung, The distant battle flash’d and rung.
“I sung the joyful Paean clear, And, sitting, burnish’d without fear The brand, the buckler, and the spear—
“Waiting to strive a happy strife, To war with falsehood to the knife, And not to lose the good of life—
“Some hidden principle to move, To put together, part and prove, And mete the bounds of hate and love—
“As far as might be, to carve out Free space for every human doubt, That the whole mind might orb about—
“To search thro’ all I felt or saw, The springs of life, the depths of awe, And reach the law within the law:
“At least, not rotting like a weed, But, having sown some generous seed, Fruitful of further thought and deed,
“To pass, when Life her light withdraws, Not void of righteous self-applause, Nor in a merely selfish cause—
“In some good cause, not in mine own, To perish, wept for, honour’d, known, And like a warrior overthrown;
“Whose eyes are dim with glorious tears, When, soil’d with noble dust, he hears His country’s war-song thrill his ears:
“Then dying of a mortal stroke, What time the foeman’s line is broke. And all the war is roll’d in smoke.”[2]
“Yea!” said the voice, “thy dream was good, While thou abodest in the bud. It was the stirring of the blood.
“If Nature put not forth her power[2] About the opening of the flower, Who is it that could live an hour?
“Then comes the check, the change, the fall. Pain rises up, old pleasures pall. There is one remedy for all.
“Yet hadst thou, thro’ enduring pain, Link’d month to month with such a chain Of knitted purport, all were vain.
“Thou hadst not between death and birth Dissolved the riddle of the earth. So were thy labour little worth.
“That men with knowledge merely play’d, I told thee—hardly nigher made, Tho’ scaling slow from grade to grade;
“Much less this dreamer, deaf and blind, Named man, may hope some truth to find, That bears relation to the mind.
“For every worm beneath the moon Draws different threads, and late and soon Spins, toiling out his own cocoon.
“Cry, faint not: either Truth is born Beyond the polar gleam forlorn, Or in the gateways of the morn.
“Cry, faint not, climb: the summits slope Beyond the furthest nights of hope, Wrapt in dense cloud from base to cope.
“Sometimes a little corner shines, As over rainy mist inclines A gleaming crag with belts of pines.
“I will go forward, sayest thou, I shall not fail to find her now. Look up, the fold is on her brow.
“If straight thy track, or if oblique, Thou know’st not. Shadows thou dost strike, Embracing cloud, Ixion-like;
“And owning but a little more Than beasts, abidest lame and poor, Calling thyself a little lower
“Than angels. Cease to wail and brawl! Why inch by inch to darkness crawl? There is one remedy for all.”
“O dull, one-sided voice,” said I, “Wilt thou make everything a lie, To flatter me that I may die?
“I know that age to age succeeds, Blowing a noise of tongues and deeds, A dust of systems and of creeds.
“I cannot hide that some have striven, Achieving calm, to whom was given The joy that mixes man with Heaven:
“Who, rowing hard against the stream, Saw distant gates of Eden gleam, And did not dream it was a dream”;
“But heard, by secret transport led,[3] Ev’n in the charnels of the dead, The murmur of the fountain-head—
“Which did accomplish their desire,— Bore and forbore, and did not tire, Like Stephen, an unquenched fire.
“He heeded not reviling tones, Nor sold his heart to idle moans, Tho’ cursed and scorn’d, and bruised with stones:
“But looking upward, full of grace, He pray’d, and from a happy place God’s glory smote him on the face.”
The sullen answer slid betwixt: “Not that the grounds of hope were fix’d, The elements were kindlier mix’d.”[4]
I said, “I toil beneath the curse, But, knowing not the universe, I fear to slide from bad to worse.[5]>
“And that, in seeking to undo One riddle, and to find the true, I knit a hundred others new:
“Or that this anguish fleeting hence, Unmanacled from bonds of sense, Be fix’d and froz’n to permanence:
“For I go, weak from suffering here; Naked I go, and void of cheer: What is it that I may not fear?”
“Consider well,” the voice replied, “His face, that two hours since hath died; Wilt thou find passion, pain or pride?
“Will he obey when one commands? Or answer should one press his hands? He answers not, nor understands.
“His palms are folded on his breast: There is no other thing express’d But long disquiet merged in rest.
“His lips are very mild and meek: Tho’ one should smite him on the cheek, And on the mouth, he will not speak.
“His little daughter, whose sweet face He kiss’d, taking his last embrace, Becomes dishonour to her race—
“His sons grow up that bear his name, Some grow to honour, some to shame,— But he is chill to praise or blame.[6]
“He will not hear the north wind rave, Nor, moaning, household shelter crave From winter rains that beat his grave.
“High up the vapours fold and swim: About him broods the twilight dim: The place he knew forgetteth him.”
“If all be dark, vague voice,” I said, “These things are wrapt in doubt and dread, Nor canst thou show the dead are dead. “The sap dries up: the plant declines.[7] A deeper tale my heart divines. Know I not Death? the outward signs?
“I found him when my years were few; A shadow on the graves I knew, And darkness in the village yew.
“From grave to grave the shadow crept: In her still place the morning wept: Touch’d by his feet the daisy slept.
“The simple senses crown’d his head:[8] ‘Omega! thou art Lord,’ they said; ‘We find no motion in the dead.’
“Why, if man rot in dreamless ease, Should that plain fact, as taught by these, Not make him sure that he shall cease?
“Who forged that other influence, That heat of inward evidence, By which he doubts against the sense?
“He owns the fatal gift of eyes,[9] That read his spirit blindly wise, Not simple as a thing that dies.
“Here sits he shaping wings to fly: His heart forebodes a mystery: He names the name Eternity.
“That type of Perfect in his mind In Nature can he nowhere find. He sows himself in every wind.
“He seems to hear a Heavenly Friend, And thro’ thick veils to apprehend A labour working to an end.
“The end and the beginning vex His reason: many things perplex, With motions, checks, and counterchecks.
“He knows a baseness in his blood At such strange war with something good, He may not do the thing he would.
“Heaven opens inward, chasms yawn. Vast images in glimmering dawn, Half shown, are broken and withdrawn.
“Ah! sure within him and without, Could his dark wisdom find it out, There must be answer to his doubt.
“But thou canst answer not again. With thine own weapon art thou slain, Or thou wilt answer but in vain.
“The doubt would rest, I dare not solve. In the same circle we revolve. Assurance only breeds resolve.”
As when a billow, blown against, Falls back, the voice with which I fenced A little ceased, but recommenced.
“Where wert thou when thy father play’d In his free field, and pastime made, A merry boy in sun and shade?
“A merry boy they called him then. He sat upon the knees of men In days that never come again,
“Before the little ducts began To feed thy bones with lime, and ran Their course, till thou wert also man:
“Who took a wife, who rear’d his race, Whose wrinkles gather’d on his face, Whose troubles number with his days:
“A life of nothings, nothing-worth, From that first nothing ere his birth To that last nothing under earth!”
“These words,” I said, “are like the rest, No certain clearness, but at best A vague suspicion of the breast:
“But if I grant, thou might’st defend The thesis which thy words intend— That to begin implies to end;
“Yet how should I for certain hold,[10] Because my memory is so cold, That I first was in human mould?
“I cannot make this matter plain, But I would shoot, howe’er in vain, A random arrow from the brain.
“It may be that no life is found, Which only to one engine bound Falls off, but cycles always round.
“As old mythologies relate, Some draught of Lethe might await The slipping thro’ from state to state.
“As here we find in trances, men Forget the dream that happens then, Until they fall in trance again.
“So might we, if our state were such As one before, remember much, For those two likes might meet and touch.[11]
“But, if I lapsed from nobler place, Some legend of a fallen race Alone might hint of my disgrace;
“Some vague emotion of delight In gazing up an Alpine height, Some yearning toward the lamps of night.
“Or if thro’ lower lives I came— Tho’ all experience past became Consolidate in mind and frame—
“I might forget my weaker lot; For is not our first year forgot? The haunts of memory echo not.
“And men, whose reason long was blind, From cells of madness unconfined,[12] Oft lose whole years of darker mind.
“Much more, if first I floated free, As naked essence, must I be Incompetent of memory:
“For memory dealing but with time, And he with matter, could she climb Beyond her own material prime?
“Moreover, something is or seems, That touches me with mystic gleams, Like glimpses of forgotten dreams—
“Of something felt, like something here; Of something done, I know not where; Such as no language may declare.”
The still voice laugh’d. “I talk,” said he, “Not with thy dreams. Suffice it thee Thy pain is a reality.”
“But thou,” said I, “hast miss’d thy mark, Who sought’st to wreck my mortal ark, By making all the horizon dark.
“Why not set forth, if I should do This rashness, that which might ensue With this old soul in organs new?
“Whatever crazy sorrow saith, No life that breathes with human breath Has ever truly long’d for death.
“’Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant, Oh life, not death, for which we pant; More life, and fuller, that I want.”
I ceased, and sat as one forlorn. Then said the voice, in quiet scorn, “Behold it is the Sabbath morn”.
And I arose, and I released The casement, and the light increased With freshness in the dawning east.
Like soften’d airs that blowing steal, When meres begin to uncongeal, The sweet church bells began to peal.
On to God’s house the people prest: Passing the place where each must rest, Each enter’d like a welcome guest.
One walk’d between his wife and child, With measur’d footfall firm and mild, And now and then he gravely smiled.
The prudent partner of his blood Lean’d on him, faithful, gentle, good,[13] Wearing the rose of womanhood.
And in their double love secure, The little maiden walk’d demure, Pacing with downward eyelids pure.
These three made unity so sweet, My frozen heart began to beat, Remembering its ancient heat.
I blest them, and they wander’d on: I spoke, but answer came there none: The dull and bitter voice was gone.
A second voice was at mine ear, A little whisper silver-clear, A murmur, “Be of better cheer”.
As from some blissful neighbourhood, A notice faintly understood, “I see the end, and know the good”.
A little hint to solace woe, A hint, a whisper breathing low, “I may not speak of what I know”.
Like an Aeolian harp that wakes No certain air, but overtakes Far thought with music that it makes:
Such seem’d the whisper at my side: “What is it thou knowest, sweet voice?” I cried. “A hidden hope,” the voice replied:
So heavenly-toned, that in that hour From out my sullen heart a power Broke, like the rainbow from the shower,
To feel, altho’ no tongue can prove That every cloud, that spreads above And veileth love, itself is love.
And forth into the fields I went, And Nature’s living motion lent The pulse of hope to discontent.
I wonder’d at the bounteous hours, The slow result of winter showers: You scarce could see the grass for flowers.
I wonder’d, while I paced along: The woods were fill’d so full with song, There seem’d no room for sense of wrong.
So variously seem’d all things wrought,[14] I marvell’d how the mind was brought To anchor by one gloomy thought;
And wherefore rather I made choice To commune with that barren voice, Than him that said, “Rejoice! rejoice!”
[1] The insensibility of Nature to man’s death has been the eloquent theme of many poets. _Cf_. Byron, _Lara_, canto ii. _ad init_., and Matthew Arnold, _The Youth of Nature_.
[2] _Cf. Palace of Art_, “the riddle of the painful earth”.
[3] _Seq_. The reference is to Acts of the Apostles vii. 54-60.
[4] Suggested by Shakespeare, _Julius Cæsar_, Act v., Sc. 5:—
and _the elements So mix’d in_ him that Nature, etc.
[5] An excellent commentary on this is Clough’s
_Perché pensa, pensando vecchia_.
[6] _Cf_. Job xiv. 21:
“His sons come to honour, and he knoweth it not; and they are brought low, but he perceiveth it not of them.”
[7] So Bishop Butler, _Analogy_, ch. i.:
“We cannot argue _from the reason of the thing_ 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”.
[8] So Milton, enfolding this idea of death, _Paradise Lost_, ii., 672-3:—
What seemed his head The _likeness_ of a kingly crown had on.
[9] _Cf_. Plato, _Phaedo_, 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.
“Have sight and hearing any truth in them? Are they not, as poets are always telling us, inaccurate witnesses?”
“Have sight and hearing any truth in them? Are they not, as poets are always telling us, inaccurate witnesses?”
The proper commentary on the whole of this passage is Plato _passim_, but the _Phaedo_ particularly, _cf. Republic_, vii., viii. and xiv.-xv.
[10] 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 _Republic_:
“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”.
So Milton, _Paradise Lost_, ii., 582-4.
[11] The best commentary on this will be found in Herbert Spencer’s _Psychology_.
[12] Compare with this Tennyson’s first sonnet (_Works_, Globe Edition, 25), and the lines in the _Ancient Sage_ in the _Passion of the Past_ (_Id_., 551). _Cf_. too the lines in Wordsworth’s ode on _Intimations of Immortality_:—
But there’s a tree, of many one, A single field which I have looked upon, Both of them speak of something that is gone; The pansy at my feet Doth the same tale repeat.
For other remarkable illustrations of this see the present writer’s _Illustrations of Tennyson_, p. 38.
[13] _Cf_. Coleridge, _Ancient Mariner,_ iv.:—
“O happy living things ... I blessed them The self-same moment I could pray.”
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”.
[14] 1884. And all so variously wrought (with semi-colon instead of full stop at the end of the preceding line).
The Day-Dream
First published in 1842, but written in 1835. In it is incorporated, though with several alterations, _The Sleeping Beauty_, published among the poems of 1830, but excised in subsequent editions. Half extravaganza and half apologue, like the _Midsummer Night’s Dream_, 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.”
Prologue
(No alteration has been made in the Prologue since 1842).
O, Lady Flora, let me speak: A pleasant hour has past away While, dreaming on your damask cheek, The dewy sister-eyelids lay. As by the lattice you reclined, I went thro’ many wayward moods To see you dreaming—and, behind, A summer crisp with shining woods. And I too dream’d, until at last Across my fancy, brooding warm, The reflex of a legend past, And loosely settled into form. And would you have the thought I had, And see the vision that I saw, Then take the broidery-frame, and add A crimson to the quaint Macaw, And I will tell it. Turn your face, Nor look with that too-earnest eye— The rhymes are dazzled from their place, And order’d words asunder fly.
The Sleeping Palace
(No alteration since 1851.)
1
The varying year with blade and sheaf Clothes and reclothes the happy plains; Here rests the sap within the leaf, Here stays the blood along the veins. Faint shadows, vapours lightly curl’d, Faint murmurs from the meadows come, Like hints and echoes of the world To spirits folded in the womb.
2
Soft lustre bathes the range of urns On every slanting terrace-lawn. The fountain to his place returns Deep in the garden lake withdrawn. Here droops the banner on the tower, On the hall-hearths the festal fires, The peacock in his laurel bower, The parrot in his gilded wires.
3
Roof-haunting martins warm their eggs: In these, in those the life is stay’d. The mantles from the golden pegs Droop sleepily: no sound is made, Not even of a gnat that sings. More like a picture seemeth all Than those old portraits of old kings, That watch the sleepers from the wall.
4
Here sits the Butler with a flask Between his knees, half-drain’d; and there The wrinkled steward at his task, The maid-of-honour blooming fair: The page has caught her hand in his: Her lips are sever’d as to speak: His own are pouted to a kiss: The blush is fix’d upon her cheek.
5
Till all the hundred summers pass, The beams, that thro’ the Oriel shine, Make prisms in every carven glass, And beaker brimm’d with noble wine. Each baron at the banquet sleeps, Grave faces gather’d in a ring. His state the king reposing keeps. He must have been a jovial king.[1]
6
All round a hedge upshoots, and shows At distance like a little wood; Thorns, ivies, woodbine, misletoes, And grapes with bunches red as blood; All creeping plants, a wall of green Close-matted, bur and brake and briar, And glimpsing over these, just seen, High up, the topmost palace-spire.
7
When will the hundred summers die, And thought and time be born again, And newer knowledge, drawing nigh, Bring truth that sways the soul of men? Here all things in there place remain, As all were order’d, ages since. Come, Care and Pleasure, Hope and Pain, And bring the fated fairy Prince.
[1] All editions up to and including 1851:—He must have been a jolly king.
The Sleeping Beauty
(First printed in 1830, but does not reappear again till 1842. No alteration since 1842.)
1
Year after year unto her feet, She lying on her couch alone, Across the purpled coverlet, The maiden’s jet-black hair has grown,[1] On either side her tranced form Forth streaming from a braid of pearl: The slumbrous light is rich and warm, And moves not on the rounded curl.
2
The silk star-broider’d[2]coverlid Unto her limbs itself doth mould Languidly ever; and, amid Her full black ringlets downward roll’d, Glows forth each softly-shadow’d arm, With bracelets of the diamond bright: Her constant beauty doth inform Stillness with love, and day with light.
3
She sleeps: her breathings are not heard In palace chambers far apart.[3] The fragrant tresses are not stirr’d That lie upon her charmed heart. She sleeps: on either hand[4] upswells The gold-fringed pillow lightly prest: She sleeps, nor dreams, but ever dwells A perfect form in perfect rest.
[1] 1830.
The while she slumbereth alone, _Over_ the purple coverlet, The maiden’s jet-black hair hath grown.
[2] 1830. Star-braided.
[3] A writer in _Notes and Queries_, February, 1880, asks whether these lines mean that the lovely princess did _not_ 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.
[4] 1830. Side.
The Arrival
(No alteration after 1853.)
1
All precious things, discover’d late, To those that seek them issue forth; For love in sequel works with fate, And draws the veil from hidden worth. He travels far from other skies His mantle glitters on the rocks— A fairy Prince, with joyful eyes, And lighter footed than the fox.
2
The bodies and the bones of those That strove in other days to pass, Are wither’d in the thorny close, Or scatter’d blanching on[1]the grass. He gazes on the silent dead: “They perish’d in their daring deeds.” This proverb flashes thro’ his head, “The many fail: the one succeeds”.
3
He comes, scarce knowing what he seeks: He breaks the hedge: he enters there: The colour flies into his cheeks: He trusts to light on something fair; For all his life the charm did talk About his path, and hover near With words of promise in his walk, And whisper’d voices at his ear.[2]
4
More close and close his footsteps wind; The Magic Music[3] in his heart Beats quick and quicker, till he find The quiet chamber far apart. His spirit flutters like a lark, He stoops—to kiss her—on his knee. “Love, if thy tresses be so dark, How dark those hidden eyes must be!
[1] 1842 to 1851. In.
[2] All editions up to and including 1850. In his ear.
[3] All editions up to and including 1851. Not capitals in magic music.
The Revival
(No alteration after 1853.)
1
A touch, a kiss! the charm was snapt. There rose a noise of striking clocks, And feet that ran, and doors that clapt, And barking dogs, and crowing cocks; A fuller light illumined all, A breeze thro’ all the garden swept, A sudden hubbub shook the hall, And sixty feet the fountain leapt.
2
The hedge broke in, the banner blew, The butler drank, the steward scrawl’d, The fire shot up, the martin flew, The parrot scream’d, the peacock squall’d, The maid and page renew’d their strife, The palace bang’d, and buzz’d and clackt, And all the long-pent stream of life Dash’d downward in a cataract.
3
And last with these[1] the king awoke, And in his chair himself uprear’d, And yawn’d, and rubb’d his face, and spoke, “By holy rood, a royal beard! How say you? we have slept, my lords, My beard has grown into my lap.” The barons swore, with many words, ’Twas but an after-dinner’s nap.
4
“Pardy,” return’d the king, “but still My joints are something[2] stiff or so. My lord, and shall we pass the bill I mention’d half an hour ago?” The chancellor, sedate and vain, In courteous words return’d reply: But dallied with his golden chain, And, smiling, put the question by.
[1] 1842 to 1851. And last of all.
[2] 1863. Somewhat.
The Departure
(No alteration since 1842.)
1
And on her lover’s arm she leant, And round her waist she felt it fold, And far across the hills they went In that new world which is the old: Across the hills and far away Beyond their utmost purple rim, And deep into the dying day The happy princess follow’d him.
2
“I’d sleep another hundred years, O love, for such another kiss;” “O wake for ever, love,” she hears, “O love, ’twas such as this and this.” And o’er them many a sliding star, And many a merry wind was borne, And, stream’d thro’ many a golden bar, The twilight melted into morn.
3
“O eyes long laid in happy sleep!” “O happy sleep, that lightly fled!” “O happy kiss, that woke thy sleep!” “O love, thy kiss would wake the dead!” And o’er them many a flowing range Of vapour buoy’d the crescent-bark, And, rapt thro’ many a rosy change, The twilight died into the dark.
4
“A hundred summers! can it be? And whither goest thou, tell me where?” “O seek my father’s court with me! For there are greater wonders there.” And o’er the hills, and far away Beyond their utmost purple rim, Beyond the night across the day, Thro’ all the world she follow’d him.
Moral
(No alteration since 1842.)
1
So, Lady Flora, take my lay, And if you find no moral there, Go, look in any glass and say, What moral is in being fair. Oh, to what uses shall we put The wildweed-flower that simply blows? And is there any moral shut Within the bosom of the rose?
2
But any man that walks the mead, In bud or blade, or bloom, may find, According as his humours lead, A meaning suited to his mind. And liberal applications lie In Art like Nature, dearest friend;[1] So ’twere to cramp its use, if I Should hook it to some useful end.
[1] So Wordsworth:—
O Reader! had you in your mind Such stores as silent thought can bring, O gentle Reader! you would find A tale in everything.
—_Simon Lee_.
L’Envoi
(No alteration since 1843 except in numbering the stanzas.)
1
You shake your head. A random string Your finer female sense offends. Well—were it not a pleasant thing To fall asleep with all one’s friends; To pass with all our social ties To silence from the paths of men; And every hundred years to rise And learn the world, and sleep again; To sleep thro’ terms of mighty wars, And wake on science grown to more, On secrets of the brain, the stars, As wild as aught of fairy lore; And all that else the years will show, The Poet-forms of stronger hours, The vast Republics that may grow, The Federations and the Powers; Titanic forces taking birth In divers seasons, divers climes; For we are Ancients of the earth, And in the morning of the times.
2
So sleeping, so aroused from sleep Thro’ sunny decads new and strange, Or gay quinquenniads would we reap The flower and quintessence of change.
3
Ah, yet would I—and would I might! So much your eyes my fancy take— Be still the first to leap to light That I might kiss those eyes awake! For, am I right or am I wrong, To choose your own you did not care; You’d have _my_ moral from the song, And I will take my pleasure there: And, am I right or am I wrong, My fancy, ranging thro’ and thro’, To search a meaning for the song, Perforce will still revert to you; Nor finds a closer truth than this All-graceful head, so richly curl’d, And evermore a costly kiss The prelude to some brighter world.
4
For since the time when Adam first Embraced his Eve in happy hour, And every bird of Eden burst In carol, every bud to flower, What eyes, like thine, have waken’d hopes? What lips, like thine, so sweetly join’d? Where on the double rosebud droops The fullness of the pensive mind; Which all too dearly self-involved,[1] Yet sleeps a dreamless sleep to me; A sleep by kisses undissolved, That lets thee[2] neither hear nor see: But break it. In the name of wife, And in the rights that name may give, Are clasp’d the moral of thy life, And that for which I care to live.
[1] 1842. The pensive mind that, self-involved.
[2] 1842. Which lets thee.
Epilogue
(No alteration since 1842.)
So, Lady Flora, take my lay, And, if you find a meaning there, O whisper to your glass, and say, “What wonder, if he thinks me fair?” What wonder I was all unwise, To shape the song for your delight Like long-tail’d birds of Paradise, That float thro’ Heaven, and cannot light? Or old-world trains, upheld at court By Cupid-boys of blooming hue— But take it—earnest wed with sport, And either sacred unto you.
Amphion
First published in 1842. No alteration since 1850.
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.
My father left a park to me, But it is wild and barren, A garden too with scarce a tree And waster than a warren: Yet say the neighbours when they call, It is not bad but good land, And in it is the germ of all That grows within the woodland.
O had I lived when song was great In days of old Amphion,[1] And ta’en my fiddle to the gate, Nor cared for seed or scion! And had I lived when song was great, And legs of trees were limber, And ta’en my fiddle to the gate, And fiddled in the timber!
’Tis said he had a tuneful tongue, Such happy intonation, Wherever he sat down and sung He left a small plantation; Wherever in a lonely grove He set up his forlorn pipes, The gouty oak began to move, And flounder into hornpipes.
The mountain stirr’d its bushy crown, And, as tradition teaches, Young ashes pirouetted down Coquetting with young beeches; And briony-vine and ivy-wreath Ran forward to his rhyming, And from the valleys underneath Came little copses climbing.
The linden broke her ranks and rent The woodbine wreathes that bind her, And down the middle, buzz! she went, With all her bees behind her.[2] The poplars, in long order due, With cypress promenaded, The shock-head willows two and two By rivers gallopaded.
Came wet-shot alder from the wave, Came yews, a dismal coterie; Each pluck’d his one foot from the grave, Poussetting with a sloe-tree: Old elms came breaking from the vine, The vine stream’d out to follow, And, sweating rosin, plump’d the pine From many a cloudy hollow.
And wasn’t it a sight to see When, ere his song was ended, Like some great landslip, tree by tree, The country-side descended; And shepherds from the mountain-caves Look’d down, half-pleased, half-frighten’d, As dash’d about the drunken leaves The random sunshine lighten’d!
Oh, nature first was fresh to men, And wanton without measure; So youthful and so flexile then, You moved her at your pleasure. Twang out, my fiddle! shake the twigs! And make her dance attendance; Blow, flute, and stir the stiff-set sprigs, And scirrhous roots and tendons.
’Tis vain! in such a brassy age I could not move a thistle; The very sparrows in the hedge Scarce answer to my whistle; Or at the most, when three-parts-sick With strumming and with scraping, A jackass heehaws from the rick, The passive oxen gaping.
But what is that I hear? a sound Like sleepy counsel pleading: O Lord!—’tis in my neighbour’s ground, The modern Muses reading. They read Botanic Treatises. And works on Gardening thro’ there, And Methods of transplanting trees To look as if they grew there.
The wither’d Misses! how they prose O’er books of travell’d seamen, And show you slips of all that grows From England to Van Diemen. They read in arbours clipt and cut, And alleys, faded places, By squares of tropic summer shut And warm’d in crystal cases.
But these, tho’ fed with careful dirt, Are neither green nor sappy; Half-conscious of the garden-squirt, The spindlings look unhappy,[3] Better to me the meanest weed That blows upon its mountain, The vilest herb that runs to seed Beside its native fountain.
And I must work thro’ months of toil, And years of cultivation, Upon my proper patch of soil To grow my own plantation. I’ll take the showers as they fall, I will not vex my bosom: Enough if at the end of all A little garden blossom.
[1] 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.
[2] Till 1857 these four lines ran thus:—
The birch-tree swang her fragrant hair, The bramble cast her berry. The gin within the juniper Began to make him merry.
[3] All editions up to and including 1850. The poor things look unhappy.
St. Agnes
This exquisite little poem was first published in 1837 in the _Keepsake_, 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.
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.
Deep on the convent-roof the snows Are sparkling to the moon: My breath to heaven like vapour goes: May my soul follow soon! The shadows of the convent-towers Slant down the snowy sward, Still creeping with the creeping hours That lead me to my Lord: Make Thou[1] my spirit pure and clear As are the frosty skies, Or this first snowdrop of the year That in[2] my bosom lies.
As these white robes are soiled and dark, To yonder shining ground; As this pale taper’s earthly spark, To yonder argent round; So shows my soul before the Lamb, My spirit before Thee; So in mine earthly house I am, To that I hope to be. Break up the heavens, O Lord! and far, Thro’ all yon starlight keen, Draw me, thy bride, a glittering star, In raiment white and clean.
He lifts me to the golden doors; The flashes come and go; All heaven bursts her starry floors, And strows[3] her lights below, And deepens on and up! the gates Roll back, and far within For me the Heavenly Bridegroom waits,[4] To make me pure of sin.[5] The sabbaths of Eternity, One sabbath deep and wide— A light upon the shining sea— The Bridegroom[6] with his bride!
[1] In _Keepsake_: not capital in Thou.
[2] In _Keepsake_: On.
[3] In _Keepsake_: Strews.
[4] In _Keepsake_: not capitals in Heavenly and Bridegroom.
[5] In _Keepsake_: To wash me pure from sin.
[6] In _Keepsake_: capital in Bridegroom.
Sir Galahad
Published in 1842. No alteration has been made in it since. This poem may be regarded as a prelude to _The Holy Grail_. The character of Galahad is deduced principally from the seventeenth book of the _Morte d’Arthur_. 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”.
My good blade carves the casques of men, My tough lance thrusteth sure, My strength is as the strength of ten, Because my heart is pure.
The shattering trumpet shrilleth high, The hard brands shiver on the steel, The splinter’d spear-shafts crack and fly, The horse and rider reel:
They reel, they roll in clanging lists, And when the tide of combat stands, Perfume and flowers fall in showers, That lightly rain from ladies’ hands.
How sweet are looks that ladies bend On whom their favours fall! For them I battle till the end, To save from shame and thrall: But all my heart is drawn above, My knees are bow’d in crypt and shrine: I never felt the kiss of love, Nor maiden’s hand in mine. More bounteous aspects on me beam, Me mightier transports move and thrill; So keep I fair thro’ faith and prayer A virgin heart in work and will.
When down the stormy crescent goes, A light before me swims, Between dark stems the forest glows, I hear a noise of hymns: Then by some secret shrine I ride; I hear a voice, but none are there; The stalls are void, the doors are wide, The tapers burning fair. Fair gleams the snowy altar-cloth, The silver vessels sparkle clean, The shrill bell rings, the censer swings, And solemn chaunts resound between.
Sometimes on lonely mountain-meres I find a magic bark; I leap on board: no helmsman steers: I float till all is dark. A gentle sound, an awful light! Three angels bear the holy Grail: With folded feet, in stoles of white, On sleeping wings they sail. Ah, blessed vision! blood of God! My spirit beats her mortal bars, As down dark tides the glory slides, And star-like mingles with the stars.
When on my goodly charger borne Thro’ dreaming towns I go, The cock crows ere the Christmas morn, The streets are dumb with snow. The tempest crackles on the leads, And, ringing, spins from brand and mail; But o’er the dark a glory spreads, And gilds the driving hail. I leave the plain, I climb the height; No branchy thicket shelter yields; But blessed forms in whistling storms Fly o’er waste fens and windy fields.
A maiden knight—to me is given Such hope, I know not fear; I yearn to breathe the airs of heaven That often meet me here. I muse on joy that will not cease, Pure spaces clothed in living beams, Pure lilies of eternal peace, Whose odours haunt my dreams; And, stricken by an angel’s hand, This mortal armour that I wear, This weight and size, this heart and eyes, Are touch’d, are turn’d to finest air.
The clouds are broken in the sky, And thro’ the mountain-walls A rolling organ-harmony Swells up, and shakes and falls. Then move the trees, the copses nod, Wings flutter, voices hover clear: “O just and faithful knight of God! Ride on! the prize is near”. So pass I hostel, hall, and grange; By bridge and ford, by park and pale, All-arm’d I ride, whate’er betide, Until I find the holy Grail.
Edward Gray
First published in 1842 but written in or before 1840. See _Life_, i., 209. Not altered since.
Sweet Emma Moreland of yonder town Met me walking on yonder way, “And have you lost your heart?” she said; “And are you married yet, Edward Gray?”
Sweet Emma Moreland spoke to me: Bitterly weeping I turn’d away: “Sweet Emma Moreland, love no more Can touch the heart of Edward Gray.
“Ellen Adair she loved me well, Against her father’s and mother’s will: To-day I sat for an hour and wept, By Ellen’s grave, on the windy hill.
“Shy she was, and I thought her cold; Thought her proud, and fled over the sea; Fill’d I was with folly and spite, When Ellen Adair was dying for me.
“Cruel, cruel the words I said! Cruelly came they back to-day: ‘You’re too slight and fickle,’ I said, ‘To trouble the heart of Edward Gray’.
“There I put my face in the grass— Whisper’d, ‘Listen to my despair: I repent me of all I did: Speak a little, Ellen Adair!’
“Then I took a pencil, and wrote On the mossy stone, as I lay, ‘Here lies the body of Ellen Adair; And here the heart of Edward Gray!’
“Love may come, and love may go, And fly, like a bird, from tree to tree: But I will love no more, no more, Till Ellen Adair come back to me.
“Bitterly wept I over the stone: Bitterly weeping I turn’d away; There lies the body of Ellen Adair! And there the heart of Edward Gray!”
Will Waterproof’s Lyrical Monologue
made at The Cock.
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’ _Diary_, 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 _Notes and Queries_, seventh series, vol. i., 442-6. I give a short extract:
“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 _menu_ 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 _de trop_ in a place so masculine and so carnivorous.”
O plump head-waiter at The Cock, To which I most resort, How goes the time? ’Tis five o’clock. Go fetch a pint of port: But let it not be such as that You set before chance-comers, But such whose father-grape grew fat On Lusitanian summers.
No vain libation to the Muse, But may she still be kind, And whisper lovely words, and use Her influence on the mind, To make me write my random rhymes, Ere they be half-forgotten; Nor add and alter, many times, Till all be ripe and rotten.
I pledge her, and she comes and dips Her laurel in the wine, And lays it thrice upon my lips, These favour’d lips of mine; Until the charm have power to make New life-blood warm the bosom, And barren commonplaces break In full and kindly[1] blossom.
I pledge her silent at the board; Her gradual fingers steal And touch upon the master-chord Of all I felt and feel. Old wishes, ghosts of broken plans, And phantom hopes assemble; And that child’s heart within the man’s Begins to move and tremble.
Thro’ many an hour of summer suns By many pleasant ways, Against its fountain upward runs The current of my days:[2] I kiss the lips I once have kiss’d; The gas-light wavers dimmer; And softly, thro’ a vinous mist, My college friendships glimmer.
I grow in worth, and wit, and sense, Unboding critic-pen, Or that eternal want of pence, Which vexes public men, Who hold their hands to all, and cry For that which all deny them— Who sweep the crossings, wet or dry, And all the world go by them. Ah yet, tho’[3] all the world forsake, Tho’[3] fortune clip my wings, I will not cramp my heart, nor take Half-views of men and things. Let Whig and Tory stir their blood; There must be stormy weather; But for some true result of good All parties work together.
Let there be thistles, there are grapes; If old things, there are new; Ten thousand broken lights and shapes, Yet glimpses of the true. Let raffs be rife in prose and rhyme, We lack not rhymes and reasons, As on this whirligig of Time[4] We circle with the seasons.
This earth is rich in man and maid; With fair horizons bound: This whole wide earth of light and shade Comes out, a perfect round. High over roaring Temple-bar, And, set in Heaven’s third story, I look at all things as they are, But thro’ a kind of glory.
Head-waiter, honour’d by the guest Half-mused, or reeling-ripe, The pint, you brought me, was the best That ever came from pipe. But tho’[5] the port surpasses praise, My nerves have dealt with stiffer. Is there some magic in the place? Or do my peptics differ?
For since I came to live and learn, No pint of white or red Had ever half the power to turn This wheel within my head,
Which bears a season’d brain about, Unsubject to confusion, Tho’[5] soak’d and saturate, out and out, Thro’ every convolution.
For I am of a numerous house, With many kinsmen gay, Where long and largely we carouse As who shall say me nay: Each month, a birthday coming on, We drink defying trouble, Or sometimes two would meet in one, And then we drank it double;
Whether the vintage, yet unkept, Had relish, fiery-new, Or, elbow-deep in sawdust, slept, As old as Waterloo; Or stow’d (when classic Canning died) In musty bins and chambers, Had cast upon its crusty side The gloom of ten Decembers.
The Muse, the jolly Muse, it is! She answer’d to my call, She changes with that mood or this, Is all-in-all to all: She lit the spark within my throat, To make my blood run quicker, Used all her fiery will, and smote Her life into the liquor.
And hence this halo lives about The waiter’s hands, that reach To each his perfect pint of stout, His proper chop to each. He looks not like the common breed That with the napkin dally; I think he came like Ganymede, From some delightful valley.
The Cock was of a larger egg Than modern poultry drop, Stept forward on a firmer leg, And cramm’d a plumper crop; Upon an ampler dunghill trod, Crow’d lustier late and early, Sipt wine from silver, praising God, And raked in golden barley.
A private life was all his joy, Till in a court he saw A something-pottle-bodied boy, That knuckled at the taw: He stoop’d and clutch’d him, fair and good, Flew over roof and casement: His brothers of the weather stood Stock-still for sheer amazement.
But he, by farmstead, thorpe and spire, And follow’d with acclaims, A sign to many a staring shire, Came crowing over Thames. Right down by smoky Paul’s they bore, Till, where the street grows straiter,[6] One fix’d for ever at the door, And one became head-waiter.
But whither would my fancy go? How out of place she makes The violet of a legend blow Among the chops and steaks! ’Tis but a steward of the can, One shade more plump than common; As just and mere a serving-man As any born of woman.
I ranged too high: what draws me down Into the common day? Is it the weight of that half-crown, Which I shall have to pay? For, something duller than at first, Nor wholly comfortable, I sit (my empty glass reversed), And thrumming on the table:
Half-fearful that, with self at strife I take myself to task; Lest of the fullness of my life I leave an empty flask: For I had hope, by something rare, To prove myself a poet; But, while I plan and plan, my hair Is gray before I know it.
So fares it since the years began, Till they be gather’d up; The truth, that flies the flowing can, Will haunt the vacant cup: And others’ follies teach us not, Nor much their wisdom teaches; And most, of sterling worth, is what Our own experience preaches.
Ah, let the rusty theme alone! We know not what we know. But for my pleasant hour, ’tis gone, ’Tis gone, and let it go. ’Tis gone: a thousand such have slipt Away from my embraces, And fall’n into the dusty crypt Of darken’d forms and faces.
Go, therefore, thou! thy betters went Long since, and came no more; With peals of genial clamour sent From many a tavern-door, With twisted quirks and happy hits, From misty men of letters; The tavern-hours of mighty wits— Thine elders and thy betters.
Hours, when the Poet’s words and looks Had yet their native glow: Not yet the fear of little books Had made him talk for show: But, all his vast heart sherris-warm’d, He flash’d his random speeches; Ere days, that deal in ana, swarm’d His literary leeches.
So mix for ever with the past, Like all good things on earth! For should I prize thee, couldst thou last, At half thy real worth? I hold it good, good things should pass: With time I will not quarrel: It is but yonder empty glass That makes me maudlin-moral.
Head-waiter of the chop-house here, To which I most resort, I too must part: I hold thee dear For this good pint of port. For this, thou shalt from all things suck Marrow of mirth and laughter; And, wheresoe’er thou move, good luck Shall fling her old shoe after.
But thou wilt never move from hence, The sphere thy fate allots: Thy latter days increased with pence Go down among the pots: Thou battenest by the greasy gleam In haunts of hungry sinners, Old boxes, larded with the steam Of thirty thousand dinners.
_We_ fret, _we_ fume, would shift our skins, Would quarrel with our lot; _Thy_ care is, under polish’d tins, To serve the hot-and-hot; To come and go, and come again, Returning like the pewit, And watch’d by silent gentlemen, That trifle with the cruet.
Live long, ere from thy topmost head The thick-set hazel dies; Long, ere the hateful crow shall tread The corners of thine eyes: Live long, nor feel in head or chest Our changeful equinoxes, Till mellow Death, like some late guest, Shall call thee from the boxes.
But when he calls, and thou shalt cease To pace the gritted floor, And, laying down an unctuous lease Of life, shalt earn no more; No carved cross-bones, the types of Death, Shall show thee past to Heaven: But carved cross-pipes, and, underneath, A pint-pot neatly graven.
[1] 1842 and all previous to 1853. To full and kindly.
[2] All previous to 1853:—
Like Hezekiah’s, backward runs The shadow of my days.
[3] All previous to 1853. Though.
[4] The expression is Shakespeare’s, _Twelfth Night_, v., i.,
“and thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges”.
[5] All previous to 1853. Though.
[6] 1842 to 1843. With motion less or greater.
To——
after reading a Life and Letters
Originally published in the _Examiner_ 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) _Letters and Literary Remains of Keats_ 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,_Homes and Haunts of Tennyson_, 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.
You might have won the Poet’s name If such be worth the winning now, And gain’d a laurel for your brow Of sounder leaf than I can claim;
But you have made the wiser choice, A life that moves to gracious ends Thro’ troops of unrecording friends, A deedful life, a silent voice:
And you have miss’d the irreverent doom Of those that wear the Poet’s crown: Hereafter, neither knave nor clown Shall hold their orgies at your tomb.
For now the Poet cannot die Nor leave his music as of old, But round him ere he scarce be cold Begins the scandal and the cry:
“Proclaim the faults he would not show: Break lock and seal: betray the trust: Keep nothing sacred: ’tis but just The many-headed beast should know”.
Ah, shameless! for he did but sing. A song that pleased us from its worth; No public life was his on earth, No blazon’d statesman he, nor king.
He gave the people of his best: His worst he kept, his best he gave. My Shakespeare’s curse on[1] clown and knave Who will not let his ashes rest!
Who make it seem more sweet[2] to be The little life of bank and brier, The bird that pipes his lone desire And dies unheard within his tree,
Than he that warbles long and loud And drops at Glory’s temple-gates, For whom the carrion vulture waits To tear his heart before the crowd!
[1] In Examiner and in 1850. My curse upon the.
[2] In Examiner. Sweeter seem. For the sentiment _cf._ Goethe:—
Ich singe, wie der Vogel singt Der in den Zweigen wohnet; Das Lied das aus dem Seele dringt Ist Lohn, der reichlich lohnet.
(_Der Sänger._)
To E. L. on his travels in Greece.
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.
Illyrian woodlands, echoing falls Of water, sheets of summer glass, The long divine Peneian pass,[1] The vast Akrokeraunian walls,[2]
Tomohrit,[3] Athos, all things fair, With such a pencil, such a pen, You shadow forth to distant men, I read and felt that I was there:
And trust me, while I turn’d the page, And track’d you still on classic ground, I grew in gladness till I found My spirits in the golden age.
For me the torrent ever pour’d And glisten’d—here and there alone The broad-limb’d Gods at random thrown By fountain-urns;-and Naiads oar’d
A glimmering shoulder under gloom Of cavern pillars; on the swell The silver lily heaved and fell; And many a slope was rich in bloom
From him that on the mountain lea By dancing rivulets fed his flocks, To him who sat upon the rocks, And fluted to the morning sea.
[1] _Cf_. Lear’s description of Tempe:
“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.”
(_Journal_, 409.)
[2] The Akrokeraunian walls: the promontory now called Glossa.
[3] 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”.
Lady Clare
First published 1842. After 1851 no alterations were made.
This poem was suggested by Miss Ferrier’s powerful novel _The Inheritance_. 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.
The 1842 and all editions up to and including 1850 begin with the following stanza and omit stanza 2:—
Lord Ronald courted Lady Clare, I trow they did not part in scorn; Lord Ronald, her cousin, courted her And they will wed the morrow morn.
It was the time when lilies blow, And clouds are highest up in air, Lord Ronald brought a lily-white doe To give his cousin Lady Clare.
I trow they did not part in scorn: Lovers long-betroth’d were they: They two will wed the morrow morn! God’s blessing on the day!
“He does not love me for my birth, Nor for my lands so broad and fair; He loves me for my own true worth, And that is well,” said Lady Clare.
In there came old Alice the nurse, Said, “Who was this that went from thee?” “It was my cousin,” said Lady Clare, “To-morrow he weds with me.”
“O God be thank’d!” said Alice the nurse, “That all comes round so just and fair: Lord Ronald is heir of all your lands, And you are not the Lady Clare.”
“Are ye out of your mind, my nurse, my nurse?” Said Lady Clare, “that ye speak so wild”; “As God’s above,” said Alice the nurse, “I speak the truth: you are my child.
“The old Earl’s daughter died at my breast; I speak the truth, as I live by bread! I buried her like my own sweet child, And put my child in her stead.”
“Falsely, falsely have ye done, O mother,” she said, “if this be true, To keep the best man under the sun So many years from his due.”
“Nay now, my child,” said Alice the nurse, “But keep the secret for your life, And all you have will be Lord Ronald’s, When you are man and wife.”
“If I’m a beggar born,” she said, “I will speak out, for I dare not lie. Pull off, pull off, the broach[1] of gold, And fling the diamond necklace by.”
“Nay now, my child,” said Alice the nurse, “But keep the secret all ye can.” She said, “Not so: but I will know If there be any faith in man”.
“Nay now, what faith?” said Alice the nurse, “The man will cleave unto his right.” “And he shall have it,” the lady replied, “Tho’[2] I should die to-night.”
“Yet give one kiss to your mother dear! Alas, my child, I sinn’d for thee.” “O mother, mother, mother,” she said, “So strange it seems to me.
“Yet here’s a kiss for my mother dear, My mother dear, if this be so, And lay your hand upon my head, And bless me, mother, ere I go.”
She clad herself in a russet gown, She was no longer Lady Clare: She went by dale, and she went by down, With a single rose in her hair.
The lily-white doe Lord Ronald had brought Leapt up from where she lay, Dropt her head in the maiden’s hand, And follow’d her all the way.[3]
Down stept Lord Ronald from his tower: “O Lady Clare, you shame your worth! Why come you drest like a village maid, That are the flower of the earth?”
“If I come drest like a village maid, I am but as my fortunes are: I am a beggar born,” she said,[4] “And not the Lady Clare.”
“Play me no tricks,” said Lord Ronald, “For I am yours in word and in deed. Play me no tricks,” said Lord Ronald, “Your riddle is hard to read.”
O and proudly stood she up! Her heart within her did not fail: She look’d into Lord Ronald’s eyes, And told him all her nurse’s tale.
He laugh’d a laugh of merry scorn: He turn’d, and kiss’d her where she stood: “If you are not the heiress born, And I,” said he, “the next in blood—
“If you are not the heiress born, And I,” said he, “the lawful heir, We two will wed to-morrow morn, And you shall still be Lady Clare.”
[1] All up to and including 1850. Brooch.
[2] All up to and including 1850. Though.
[3] 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”.
[4] 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”.
The Lord of Burleigh
Written, as we learn from _Life_, i., 182, by 1835. First published in 1842. No alteration since with the exception of “tho’” for “though”.
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 _Tales of Great Families_, first series, vol. i., 65-82, and two interesting papers signed W. O. Woodall in _Notes and Queries_, seventh series, vol. xii., 221-23; _ibid_., 281-84, and Napier’s _Homes and Haunts of Tennyson_, 104-111.
In her ear he whispers gaily, “If my heart by signs can tell, Maiden, I have watch’d thee daily, And I think thou lov’st me well”. She replies, in accents fainter, “There is none I love like thee”. He is but a landscape-painter, And a village maiden she. He to lips, that fondly falter, Presses his without reproof: Leads her to the village altar, And they leave her father’s roof. “I can make no marriage present; Little can I give my wife. Love will make our cottage pleasant, And I love thee more than life.” They by parks and lodges going See the lordly castles stand: Summer woods, about them blowing, Made a murmur in the land. From deep thought himself he rouses, Says to her that loves him well, “Let us see these handsome houses Where the wealthy nobles dwell”. So she goes by him attended, Hears him lovingly converse, Sees whatever fair and splendid Lay betwixt his home and hers; Parks with oak and chestnut shady, Parks and order’d gardens great, Ancient homes of lord and lady, Built for pleasure and for state. All he shows her makes him dearer: Evermore she seems to gaze On that cottage growing nearer, Where they twain will spend their days. O but she will love him truly! He shall have a cheerful home; She will order all things duly, When beneath his roof they come. Thus her heart rejoices greatly, Till a gateway she discerns With armorial bearings stately, And beneath the gate she turns; Sees a mansion more majestic Than all those she saw before: Many a gallant gay domestic Bows before him at the door. And they speak in gentle murmur, When they answer to his call, While he treads with footstep firmer, Leading on from hall to hall. And, while now she wonders blindly, Nor the meaning can divine, Proudly turns he round and kindly, “All of this is mine and thine”. Here he lives in state and bounty, Lord of Burleigh, fair and free, Not a lord in all the county Is so great a lord as he. All at once the colour flushes Her sweet face from brow to chin: As it were with shame she blushes, And her spirit changed within. Then her countenance all over Pale again as death did prove: But he clasp’d her like a lover, And he cheer’d her soul with love. So she strove against her weakness, Tho’ at times her spirits sank: Shaped her heart with woman’s meekness To all duties of her rank: And a gentle consort made he, And her gentle mind was such That she grew a noble lady, And the people loved her much. But a trouble weigh’d upon her, And perplex’d her, night and morn, With the burthen of an honour Unto which she was not born. Faint she grew, and ever fainter, As she murmur’d “Oh, that he Were once more that landscape-painter Which did win my heart from me!” So she droop’d and droop’d before him, Fading slowly from his side: Three fair children first she bore him, Then before her time she died. Weeping, weeping late and early, Walking up and pacing down, Deeply mourn’d the Lord of Burleigh, Burleigh-house by Stamford-town. And he came to look upon her, And he look’d at her and said, “Bring the dress and put it on her, That she wore when she was wed”. Then her people, softly treading, Bore to earth her body, drest In the dress that she was wed in, That her spirit might have rest.
Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere
a fragment
First published in 1842. Not altered since 1853.
See for what may have given the hint for this fragment _Morte D’Arthur_, bk. xix., ch. i., and bk. xx., ch. i., and _cf. Coming of Arthur_:—
And Launcelot pass’d away among the flowers, For then was latter April, and return’d Among the flowers in May with Guinevere.
Like souls that balance joy and pain, With tears and smiles from heaven again The maiden Spring upon the plain Came in a sun-lit fall of rain. In crystal vapour everywhere Blue isles of heaven laugh’d between, And, far in forest-deeps unseen, The topmost elm-tree[1] gather’d green From draughts of balmy air.
Sometimes the linnet piped his song: Sometimes the throstle whistled strong: Sometimes the sparhawk, wheel’d along, Hush’d all the groves from fear of wrong: By grassy capes with fuller sound In curves the yellowing river ran, And drooping chestnut-buds began To spread into the perfect fan, Above the teeming ground.
Then, in the boyhood of the year, Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere Rode thro’ the coverts of the deer, With blissful treble ringing clear. She seem’d a part of joyous Spring: A gown of grass-green silk she wore, Buckled with golden clasps before; A light-green tuft of plumes she bore Closed in a golden ring.
Now on some twisted ivy-net, Now by some tinkling rivulet, In mosses mixt[2] with violet Her cream-white mule his pastern set: And fleeter now[3] she skimm’d the plains Than she whose elfin prancer springs By night to eery warblings, When all the glimmering moorland rings With jingling bridle-reins.
As she fled fast thro’ sun and shade, The happy winds upon her play’d, Blowing the ringlet from the braid: She look’d so lovely, as she sway’d The rein with dainty finger-tips, A man had given all other bliss, And all his worldly worth for this, To waste his whole heart in one kiss Upon her perfect lips.
[1] Up to 1848. Linden.
[2] All editions up to and including 1850. On mosses thick.
[3] 1842 to 1851. And now more fleet,
A Farewell
First published in 1842. Not altered since 1843.
This poem was dedicated to the brook at Somersby described in the _Ode to Memory_ and referred to so often in _In Memoriam_. Possibly it may have been written in 1837 when the Tennysons left Somersby. _Cf. In Memoriam_, sect. ci.
Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea, Thy tribute wave deliver: No more by thee my steps shall be, For ever and for ever.
Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea, A rivulet then a river: No where by thee my steps shall be, For ever and for ever.
But here will sigh thine alder tree, And here thine aspen shiver; And here by thee will hum the bee, For ever and for ever.
A thousand suns[1] will stream on thee, A thousand moons will quiver; But not by thee my steps shall be, For ever and for ever.
[1] 1842. A hundred suns
The Beggar Maid
First published in 1842, not altered since.
Suggested probably by the fine ballad in Percy’s _Reliques_, first series,