The Early Poems of Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Preface

A Critical edition of Tennyson’s poems has long been an acknowledged want. He has taken his place among the English Classics, and as a Classic he is, and will be, studied, seriously and minutely, by many thousands of his countrymen, both in the present generation as well as in future ages. As in the works of his more illustrious brethren, so in his trifles will become subjects of curious interest, and assume an importance of which we have no conception now. Here he will engage the attention of the antiquary, there of the social historian. Long after his politics, his ethics, his theology have ceased to be immediately influential, they will be of immense historical significance. A consummate artist and a consummate master of our language, the process by which he achieved results so memorable can never fail to be of interest, and of absorbing interest, to critical students.

I must, I fear, claim the indulgence due to one who attempts, for the first time, a critical edition of a text so perplexingly voluminous in variants as Tennyson’s. I can only say that I have spared neither time nor labour to be accurate and exhaustive. I have myself collated, or have had collated for me, every edition recorded in the British Museum Catalogue, and where that has been deficient I have had recourse to other public libraries, and to the libraries of private friends. I am not conscious that I have left any variant unrecorded, but I should not like to assert that this is the case. Tennyson was so restlessly indefatigable in his corrections that there may lurk, in editions of the poems which I have not seen, other variants; and it is also possible that, in spite of my vigilance, some may have escaped me even in the editions which have been collated, and some may have been made at a date earlier than the date recorded. But I trust this has not been the case.

Of the Bibliography I can say no more than that I have done my utmost to make it complete, and that it is very much fuller than any which has hitherto appeared. That it is exhaustive I dare not promise.

With regard to the Notes and Commentaries, I have spared no pains to explain everything which seemed to need explanation. There are, I think, only two points which I have not been able to clear up, namely, the name of the friend to whom the The Palace of Art was addressed, and the name of the friend to whom the Verses after reading a Life and Letters were addressed. I have consulted every one who would be likely to throw light on the subject, including the poet’s surviving sister, many of his friends, and the present Lord Tennyson, but without success; so the names, if they were not those of some imaginary person, appear to be irrecoverable. The Prize Poem, Timbuctoo, as well as the poems which were temporarily or finally suppressed in the volumes published in 1830 and 1832 have been printed in the Appendix: those which were subsequently incorporated in his Works, in large type; those which he never reprinted, in small.

The text here adopted is that of 1857, but Messrs. Macmillan, to whom I beg to express my hearty thanks, have most generously allowed me to record all the variants which are still protected by copyright. I have to thank them, too, for assistance in the Bibliography. I have also to thank Mr. J. T. Wise for his kindness in lending me the privately printed volume containing the Morte d’Arthur, Dora, etc.

Introduction

I

The development of Tennyson’s genius, methods, aims and capacity of achievement in poetry can be studied with singular precision and fulness in the history of the poems included in the present volume. In 1842 he published the two volumes which gave him, by almost general consent, the first place among the poets of his time, for, though Wordsworth was alive, Wordsworth’s best work had long been done. These two volumes contained poems which had appeared before, some in 1830 and some in 1832, and some which were then given to the world for the first time, so that they represent work belonging to three eras in the poet’s life, poems written before he had completed his twenty-second year and belonging for the most part to his boyhood, poems written in his early manhood, and poems written between his thirty-first and thirty-fourth year.

The poems published in 1830 had the following title-page: “Poems, Chiefly Lyrical, by Alfred Tennyson. London: Effingham Wilson, Royal Exchange, 1830”. They are fifty-six in number and the titles are:—

Claribel.
Lilian.
Isabel.
Elegiacs.*
The “How” and the “Why”.
Mariana.
To —— .
Madeline.
The Merman.
The Mermaid.
Supposed Confessions of a second-rate sensitive mind not in unity with itself.*
The Burial of Love.
To — (Sainted Juliet dearest name.)
Song. The Owl.
Second Song. To the same.
Recollections of the Arabian Nights.
Ode to Memory.
Song. (I’ the glooming light.)
Song. (A spirit haunts.)
Adeline.
A Character.
Song. (The lint-white and the throstle cock.)
Song. (Every day hath its night.)
The Poet.
The Poet’s Mind.
Nothing will die.*
All things will die.*
Hero to Leander.
The Mystic.
The Dying Swan.
A Dirge.
The Grasshopper.
Love, Pride and Forgetfulness.
Chorus (in an unpublished drama written very early).
Lost Hope.
The Deserted House.*†
The Tears of Heaven.
Love and Sorrow.
To a Lady Sleeping.
Sonnet. (Could I outwear my present state of woe.)
Sonnet. (Though Night hath climbed her peak of highest noon.)
Sonnet. (Shall the hag Evil die with child of Good.)
Sonnet. (The pallid thunderstricken sigh for gain.)
Love.
Love and Death.
The Kraken.*
The Ballad of Oriana.
Circumstance.
English War Song.
National Song.
The Sleeping Beauty.
Dualisms.
We are Free.
The Sea-Fairies.*†
Sonnet to J.M.K.
οἱ ῥέοντες

Of these the poems in italics appeared in the edition of 1842, and were not much altered. Those with an asterisk were, in addition to the italicised poems, afterwards included among the Juvenilia in the collected works (1871-1872), though excluded from all preceding editions of the poems. Those with both a dagger and an asterisk were restored in editions previous to the first collected editions of the works.

In December, 1832, appeared a second volume (it is dated on the title-page, 1833): “Poems by Alfred Tennyson. London: Moxon, MDCCCXXXIII.” This contains thirty poems:—

Sonnet.†† (Mine be the strength of spirit fierce and free.)
To— .†† (All good things have not kept aloof.)
Buonaparte.††
Sonnet I. (O Beauty passing beauty, sweetest Sweet.)
Sonnet II.†† (But were I loved, as I desire to be.)
The Lady of Shalott.*
Mariana in the South.*
Eleanore.
The Miller’s Daughter.*
φαίνεταί μοι κῆνος ἴσος θεοῖσιν Ἔμμεν ἀνήρ.
Œnone.
The Sisters.
To— . (With the Palace of Art.)*
The Palace of Art*
The May Queen.
New Year’s Eve.
The Hesperides.
The Lotos Eaters.
Rosalind.††
A Dream of Fair Women*
Song. (Who can say.)
Margaret.
Kate.
Sonnet. Written on hearing of the outbreak of the Polish Insurrection.
Sonnet.†† On the result of the late Russian invasion of Poland.
Sonnet.†† (As when with downcast eyes we muse and brood.)
O Darling Room.
To Christopher North.
The Death of the Old Year.
To J. S.

Of these the poems italicised were included in the edition of 1842; those marked with an asterisk being greatly altered and in some cases almost rewritten, those marked with a dagger being practically unaltered. To those reprinted in the collected works a double dagger is prefixed.

In 1842 appeared the two volumes which contained, in addition to the selections made from the two former volumes, several new poems:—

“Poems by Alfred Tennyson. In two volumes. London: Edward Moxon, MDCCCXLII.”

The first volume is divided into two parts: Selections from the poems published in 1830, Claribel to the Sonnet to J. M. K. inclusive. Selections from the poems of 1832, The Lady of Shalott to The Goose inclusive. The second volume contains poems then, with two exceptions, first published.

The Epic.
Morte d’Arthur.
The Gardener’s Daughter.
Dora.
Audley Court.
Walking to the Mail.
St. Simeon Stylites.
Conclusion to the May Queen.
The Talking Oak.
Lady Clara Vere de Vere.
Love and Duty.
Ulysses.
Locksley Hall.
Godiva.
The Two Voices.
The Day Dream.
Prologue.
The Sleeping Palace.
The Sleeping Beauty.
The Arrival.
The Revival.
The Departure.
Moral.
L’Envoi.
Epilogue.
Amphion.
St. Agnes.
Sir Galahad.
Edward Gray.
Will Waterproofs Lyrical Monologue, made at the Cock.
Lady Clare.
The Lord of Burleigh.
Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere.
A Farewell.
The Beggar Maid.
The Vision of Sin.
The Skipping Rope.
“Move Eastward, happy Earth.”
“Break, break, break.”
The Poet’s Song.

Only two of these poems had been published before, namely, St. Agnes, which was printed in The Keepsake for 1837, and The Sleeping Beauty in The Day Dream, which was adopted with some alterations from the 1830 poem, and only one of these poems was afterwards suppressed, The Skipping Rope, which was, however, allowed to stand till 1851. In 1843 appeared the second edition of these poems, which is merely a reprint with a few unimportant alterations, and which was followed in 1845 and in 1846 by a third and fourth edition equally unimportant in their variants, but in the fourth The Golden Year was added. In the next edition, the fifth, 1848, The Deserted House was included from the poems of 1830. In the sixth edition, 1850, was included another poem, To— , after reading a Life and Letters, reprinted, with some alterations, from the Examiner of 24th March, 1849.

The seventh edition, 1851, contained important additions. First the Dedication to the Queen, then Edwin Morris, the fragment of The Eagle, and the stanzas, “Come not when I am dead,” first printed in The Keepsake for 1851, under the title of Stanzas. In this edition the absurd trifle The Skipping Rope was excised and finally cancelled. In the eighth edition, 1853, The Sea-Fairies, though greatly altered, was included from the poems of 1830, and the poem To E. L. on his Travels in Greece was added. This edition, the eighth, may be regarded as the final one. Nothing afterwards of much importance was added or subtracted, and comparatively few alterations were made in the text from that date to the last collected edition in 1898.

All the editions up to, and including, that of 1898 have been carefully collated, so that the student of Tennyson can follow step by step the process by which he arrived at that perfection of expression which is perhaps his most striking characteristic as a poet. And it was indeed a trophy of labour, of the application “of patient touches of unwearied art”. Whoever will turn, say to The Palace of Art, to Œnone, to the Dream of Fair Women, or even to The Sea-Fairies and to The Lady of Shalott, will see what labour was expended on their composition. Nothing indeed can be more interesting than to note the touches, the substitution of which measured the whole distance between mediocrity and excellence. Take, for example, the magical alteration in the couplet in the Dream of Fair Women:—

One drew a sharp knife thro’ my tender throat
    Slowly,—and nothing more,

into

The bright death quiver’d at the victim’s throat;
    Touch’d; and I knew no more.

Or, in the same poem:—

What nights we had in Egypt! I could hit
    His humours while I cross’d him. O the life
I led him, and the dalliance and the wit,

into

We drank the Libyan 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.

Or, in Mariana in the South:—

She mov’d her lips, she pray’d alone,
    She praying, disarray’d and warm
From slumber, deep her wavy form
    In the dark lustrous mirror shone,

into

Complaining, “Mother, give me grace
    To help me of my weary load”.
    And on the liquid mirror glow’d
The clear perfection of her face.

How happy is this slight alteration in the verses To J. S. which corrects one of the falsest notes ever struck by a poet:—

A tear
Dropt on my tablets as I wrote.

A tear
Dropt on the letters as I wrote.

or where in Locksley Hall a splendidly graphic touch of description is gained by the alteration of “droops the trailer from the crag” into “swings the trailer”.

So again in Love and Duty:—

    Should my shadow cross thy thoughts
Too sadly for their peace, so put it back.
For calmer hours in memory’s darkest hold,

where by altering “so put it back” into “remand it thou,” a somewhat ludicrous image is at all events softened.

What great care Tennyson took with his phraseology is curiously illustrated in The May Queen. In the 1842 edition “Robin” was the name of the May Queen’s lover. In 1843 it was altered to “Robert,” and in 1845 and subsequent editions back to “Robin”.

Compare, again, the old stanza in The Miller’s Daughter:—

How dear to me in youth, my love,
    Was everything about the mill;
The black and silent pool above,
    The pool beneath it never still,

with what was afterwards substituted:—

I loved the brimming wave that swam
    Through quiet meadows round the mill,
The sleepy pool above the dam,
    The pool beneath it never still.

Another most felicitous emendation is to be found in The Poet, where the edition of 1830 reads:—

And in the bordure of her robe was writ
    Wisdom, a name to shake
Hoar anarchies, as with a thunderfit.

This in 1842 appears as:—

And in her raiment’s hem was trac’d in flame
    Wisdom, a name to shake
All evil dreams of power—a sacred name.

Again, in the Lotos Eaters

Three thunder-cloven thrones of oldest snow
Stood sunset-flushed

is changed into

Three silent pinnacles of aged snow.

So in Will Waterproof the cumbrous

Like Hezekiah’s backward runs
    The shadow of my days,

was afterwards simplified into

Against its fountain upward runs
    The current of my days.

Not less felicitous have been the additions made from time to time. Thus in Audley Court the concluding lines ran:—

The harbour buoy,
With one green sparkle ever and anon
Dipt by itself.

But what vividness is there in the subsequent insertion of

“Sole star of phosphorescence in the calm.”

between the first line and the second.

So again in the Morte d’Arthur how greatly are imagery and rhythm improved by the insertion of

Across the ridge, and paced beside the mere,

between

Then went Sir Bedivere the second time,

and

Counting the dewy pebbles, fix’d in thought.

There is an alteration in Œnone which is very interesting. Till 1884 this was allowed to stand:—

The lizard, with his shadow on the stone,
Rests like a shadow, and the cicala sleeps.

No one could have known better than Tennyson that the cicala is loudest in the torrid calm of the noonday, as Theocritus, Virgil, Byron and innumerable other poets have noticed; at last he altered it, but at the heavy price of a cumbrous pleonasm, into “and the winds are dead”.

He allowed many years to elapse before he corrected another error in natural history—but at last the alteration came. In The Poet’s Song in the line—

The swallow stopt as he hunted the bee,

the “fly” which the swallow does hunt was substituted for what it does not hunt, and that for very obvious reasons.

But whoever would see what Tennyson’s poetry has owed to elaborate revision and scrupulous care would do well to compare the first edition of Mariana in the South, The Sea-Fairies, Œnone, The Lady of Shalott, The Palace of Art and A Dream of Fair Women with the poems as they are presented in 1853. Poets do not always improve their verses by revision, as all students of Wordsworth’s text could abundantly illustrate; but it may be doubted whether, in these poems at least, Tennyson ever made a single alteration which was not for the better. Fitzgerald, indeed, contended that in some cases, particularly in The Miller’s Daughter, Tennyson would have done well to let the first reading stand, but few critics would agree with him in the instances he gives. We may perhaps regret the sacrifice of such a stanza as this—

Each coltsfoot down the grassy bent,
    Whose round leaves hold the gathered shower,
Each quaintly folded cuckoo pint,
    And silver-paly cuckoo flower.

II

Tennyson’s genius was slow in maturing. The poems contributed by him to the volume of 1827, Poems by Two Brothers, are not without some slight promise, but are very far from indicating extraordinary powers. A great advance is discernible in Timbuctoo, but that Matthew Arnold should have discovered in it the germ of Tennyson’s future powers is probably to be attributed to the youth of the critic. Tennyson was in his twenty-second year when the Poems Chiefly Lyrical appeared, and what strikes us in these poems is certainly not what Arthur Hallam saw in them: much rather what Coleridge and Wilson discerned in them. They are the poems of a fragile and somewhat morbid young man in whose temper we seem to see a touch of Hamlet, a touch of Romeo and, more healthily, a touch of Mercutio. Their most promising characteristic is the versatility displayed. Thus we find Mariana side by side with the Supposed Confessions, the Ode to Memory with οἱ ῥέοντες, The Ballad of Oriana with The Dying Swan, Recollections of The Arabian Nights with The Poet. Their worst fault is affectation. Perhaps the utmost that can be said for them is that they display a fine but somewhat thin vein of original genius, after deducing what they owe to Coleridge, to Keats and to other poets. This is seen in the magical touches of description, in the exquisite felicity of expression and rhythm which frequently mark them, in the pathos and power of such a poem as Oriana, in the pathos and charm of such poems as Mariana and A Dirge, in the rich and almost gorgeous fancy displayed in The Recollections.

The poems of 1833 are much more ambitious and strike deeper notes. Here comes in for the first time that σπουδαιότης, that high seriousness which is one of Tennyson’s chief characteristics—we see it in The Palace of Art, in Œnone and in the verses To J. S. But in intrinsic merit the poems were no advance on their predecessors, for the execution was not equal to the design. The best, such as Œnone, A Dream of Fair Women, The Palace of Art, The Lady of Shalott—I am speaking of course of these poems in their first form—were full of extraordinary blemishes. The volume was degraded by pieces which were very unworthy of him, such as O Darling Room and the verses To Christopher North, and affectations of the worst kind deformed many, nay, perhaps the majority of the poems. But the capital defect lay in the workmanship. The diction is often languid and slipshod, sometimes quaintly affected, and we can never go far without encountering lines, stanzas, whole poems which cry aloud for the file. The power and charm of Tennyson’s poetry, even at its ripest, depend very largely, often mainly, on expression, and the couplet which he envied Browning,

The little more, and how much it is,
The little less, and what worlds away,

is strangely applicable to his own art. On a single word, on a subtle collocation, on a slight touch depend often his finest effects: “the little less” reduces him to mediocrity, “the little more” and he is with the masters. To no poetry would the application of Goethe’s test be, as a rule, more fatal—that the real poetic quality in poetry is that which remains when it has been translated literally into prose.

Whoever will compare the poems of 1832 with the same poems as they appeared in 1842 will see that the difference is not so much a difference in degree, but almost a difference in kind. In the collection of 1832 there were three gems, The Sisters, the lines To J. S. and The May Queen. Almost all the others which are of any value were, in the edition of 1842, carefully revised, and in some cases practically rewritten. If Tennyson’s career had closed in 1833 he would hardly have won a prominent place among the minor poets of the present century. The nine years which intervened between the publication of his second volume and the volumes of 1842 were the making of him, and transformed a mere dilettante into a master. Much has been said about the brutality of Lockhart’s review in the Quarterly. In some respects it was stupid, in some respects it was unjust, but of one thing there can be no doubt—it had a most salutary effect. It held up the mirror to weaknesses and deficiencies which, if Tennyson did not care to acknowledge to others, he must certainly have acknowledged to himself. It roused him and put him on his mettle. It was a wholesome antidote to the enervating flattery of coteries and “apostles” who were certainly talking a great deal of nonsense about him, as Arthur Hallam’s essay in the Englishman shows. During the next nine years he published nothing, with the exception of two unimportant contributions to certain minor periodicals.^[1] But he was educating himself, saturating himself with all that is best in the poetry of Ancient Greece and Rome, of modern Italy, of Germany and of his own country, studying theology, metaphysics, natural history, geology, astronomy and travels, observing nature with the eye of a poet, a painter and a naturalist. Nor was he a recluse. He threw himself heartily into the life of his time, following with the keenest interest all the great political and social movements, the progress and effects of the Reform Bill, the troubles in Ireland, the troubles with the Colonies, the struggles between the Protectionists and the Free Traders, Municipal Reform, the advance of the democracy, Chartism, the popular education question. He travelled on the Continent, he travelled in Wales and Scotland, he visited most parts of England, not as an idle tourist, but as a student with note-book in hand. And he had been submitted also to the discipline which is of all disciplines the most necessary to the poet, and without which, as Goethe says, “he knows not the heavenly powers”: he had “ate his bread in sorrow”. The death of his father in 1831 had already brought him face to face, as he has himself expressed it, with the most solemn of all mysteries. In 1833 he had an awful shock in the sudden death of his friend Arthur Hallam, “an overwhelming sorrow which blotted out all joy from his life and made him long for death”. He had other minor troubles which contributed greatly to depress him,—the breaking up of the old home at Somersby, his own poverty and uncertain prospects, his being compelled in consequence to break off all intercourse with Miss Emily Selwood. It is possible that Love and Duty may have reference to this sorrow; it is certain that The Two Voices is autobiographical.

Such was his education between 1832 and 1842, and such the influences which were moulding him, while he was slowly evolving In Memoriam and the poems first published in the latter year. To the revision of the old poems he brought tastes and instincts cultivated by the critical study of all that was best in the poetry of the world, and more particularly by a familiarity singularly intimate and affectionate with the masterpieces of the ancient classics; he brought also the skill of a practised workman, for his diligence in production was literally that of Sir Joshua Reynolds in the sister art—nulla dies sine line’. Into the composition of the new poems all this entered. He was no longer a trifler and a Hedonist. As Spedding has said, his former poems betrayed “an over-indulgence in the luxuries of the senses, a profusion of splendours, harmonies, perfumes, gorgeous apparel, luscious meals and drinks, and creature comforts which rather pall upon the sense, and make the glories of the outward world to obscure a little the world within”. Like his own Lady of Shalott, he had communed too much with shadows. But the serious poet now speaks. He appeals less to the ear and the eye, and more to the heart. The sensuous is subordinated to the spiritual and the moral. He deals immediately with the dearest concerns of man and of society. He has ceased to trifle. The σπουδαιότης, the high seriousness of the true poet, occasional before, now pervades and enters essentially into his work. It is interesting to note how many of these poems have direct didactic purpose. How solemn is the message delivered in such poems as The Palace of Art and The Vision of Sin, how noble the teaching in Love and Duty, in Œnone, in Godiva, in Ulysses; to how many must such a poem as The Two Voices have brought solace and light; how full of salutary lessons are the political poems You ask me, why, though ill at ease and Love thou thy Land, and how noble is their expression! And, even where the poems are less directly didactic, it is such refreshment as busy life needs to converse with them, so pure, so wholesome, so graciously human is their tone, so tranquilly beautiful is their world. Who could lay down The Miller’s Daughter, Dora, The Golden Year, The Gardener’s Daughter, The Talking Oak, Audley Court, The Day Dream without something of the feeling which Goethe felt when he first laid down The Vicar of Wakefield? In the best lyrics in these volumes, such as Break, Break, and Move Eastward, Happy Earth, the most fastidious of critics must recognise flawless gems. In the two volumes of 1842 Tennyson carried to perfection all that was best in his earlier poems, and displayed powers of which he may have given some indication in his cruder efforts, but which must certainly have exceeded the expectation of the most sanguine of his rational admirers. These volumes justly gave him the first place among the poets of his time, and that supremacy he maintained—in the opinion of most—till the day of his death. It would be absurd to contend that Tennyson’s subsequent publications added nothing to the fame which will be secured to him by these poems. But this at least is certain, that, taken with In Memorium, they represent the crown and flower of his achievement. What is best in them he never excelled and perhaps never equalled. We should be the poorer, and much the poorer, for the loss of anything which he produced subsequently, it is true; but would we exchange half a dozen of the best of these poems or a score of the best sections of In Memoriam for all that he produced between 1850 and his death?

[1] In The Keepsake, “St. Agnes’ Eve”; in The Tribute, “Stanzas”: “Oh! that ’twere possible”. Between 1831 and 1832 he had contributed to The Gem three, “No more,” “Anacreontics,” and “A Fragment”; in The Englishman!s Magazine, a Sonnet; in The Yorkshire Literary Annual, lines, “There are three things that fill my heart with sighs”; in Friendship’s Offering, lines, “Me my own fate”.

III

The poems of 1842 naturally divide themselves into seven groups:—

(i.) Studies in Fancy.

Claribel.
Lilian.
Isabel.
Madeline.
A Spirit Haunts.
Recollections of the Arabian Nights.
Adeline.
The Dying Swan.
A Dream of Fair Women.
The Sea-Fairies.
The Deserted House.
Love and Death.
The Merman.
The Mermaid.
The Lady of Shalott.
Eleanore.
Margaret.
The Death of the Old Year.
St. Agnes.
Sir Galahad.
The Day Dream.
Will Waterproof’s Monologue.
Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere.
The Talking Oak.
The Poet’s Song.

(ii.) Studies of Passion.

Mariana.
Mariana in the South.
Oriana.
Fatima.
The Sisters.
Locksley Hall.
Edward Gray.

(iii.) Psychological Studies.

A Character.
The Poet.
The Poet’s Mind.
The Two Voices.
The Palace of Art.
The Vision of Sin.
St. Simeon Stylites.

(iv.) Idylls.
(a.) Classical.

Œnone.
The Lotos Eaters.
Ulysses.

(b.) English.

The Miller’s Daughter.
The May Queen.
Morte d’Arthur.
The Gardener’s Daughter.
Dora.
Audley Court.
Walking to the Mail.
Edwin Morris.
The Golden Year.

(v.) Ballads.

Oriana.
Lady Clara Vere de Vere.
Edward Gray.
Lady Clare.
The Lord of Burleigh.
The Beggar Maid.

(vi.) Autobiographical.

Ode to Memory.
Sonnet to J. M. K.
To—— with the Palace of Art.
To J.S.
Amphion.
To E. L. on his Travels in Greece.
To—— after reading a Life and Letters.
“Come not when I am Dead.”
A Farewell.
“Move Eastward, Happy Earth.”
“Break, Break, Break.”

(vii.) Political Group.

“You ask me.”
“Of old sat Freedom.”
“Love thou thy Land.”
The Goose.

In surveying these poems two things must strike every one— their very wide range and their very fragmentary character. There is scarcely any side of life on which they do not touch, scarcely any phase of passion and emotion to which they do not give exquisite expression. Take the love poems: compare Fatima with Isabel, The Miller’s Daughter with Locksley Hall, The Gardener’s Daughter with Madeline, or Mariana with Cleopatra in the Dream of Fair Women. When did love find purer and nobler expression than in Love and Duty? When has sorrow found utterance more perfect than in the verses To J.S., or the passion for the past than in Break, Break, Break, or revenge and jealousy than in The Sisters? In The Two Voices, The Palace of Art and The Vision of Sin we are in another sphere. They are appeals to the soul of man on subjects of momentous concern to him. And each is a masterpiece. What is proper to philosophy and what is proper to poetry have never perhaps been so happily blended. They have all the sensuous charm of Keats, but the prose of Hume could not have presented the truths which they are designed to convey with more lucidity and precision. In that superb fragment the Morte d’Arthur we have many of the noblest attributes of Epic poetry. ënone is the perfection of the classical idyll, The Gardener’s Daughter and the idylls that follow it of the romantic. Sir Galahad and St. Agnes are in the vein of Keats and Coleridge, but Keats and Coleridge have produced nothing more exquisite and nothing so ethereal. The Lotos Eaters is perhaps the most purely delicious poem ever written, the ne plus ultra of sensuous loveliness, and yet the poet who gave us that has given us also the political poems, poems as trenchant and austerely dignified in style as they are pregnant with practical wisdom. There is the same versatility displayed in the trifles.

But all is fragmentary. No thread strings these jewels. They form a collection of gems unset and unarranged. Without any system or any definite scope they have nothing of that unity in diversity which is so perceptible in the lyrics and minor poems of Goethe and Wordsworth. Capricious as the gyrations of a sea-gull seem the poet’s moods and movements. We have now the reveries of a love-sick maiden, now the picture of a soul wrestling with despair and death; here a study from rural life, or a study in character, there a sermon on politics, or a descent into the depths of psychological truth, or a sketch from nature. But nothing could be more concentrated than the power employed to shape each fragment into form. What Pope says of the Æneid may be applied with very literal truth to these poems:—

Finish’d the whole, and laboured every part
With patient touches of unwearied art.

In the poems of 1842 we have the secret of Tennyson’s eminence as a poet as well as the secret of his limitations. He appears to have been constitutionally deficient in what the Greeks called architektoniké, combination and disposition on a large scale. The measure of his power as a constructive artist is given us in the poem in which the English idylls may be said to culminate, namely, Enoch Arden. In Memoriam and the Idylls of the King have a sort of spiritual unity, but they are a series of fragments tacked rather than fused together. It is the same with Maud, and it is the same with The Princess. His poems have always a tendency to resolve themselves into a series of cameos: it is only the short poems which have organic unity. A gift of felicitous and musical expression which is absolutely marvellous; an instinctive sympathy with what is best and most elevated in the sphere of ordinary life, of ordinary thought and sentiment, of ordinary activity with consummate representative power; a most rare faculty of seizing and fixing in very perfect form what is commonly so inexpressible because so impalpable and evanescent in emotion and expression; a power of catching and rendering the charm of nature with a fidelity and vividness which resemble magic; and lastly, unrivalled skill in choosing, repolishing and remounting the gems which are our common inheritance from the past: these are the gifts which will secure permanence for his work as long as the English language lasts.

In his power of crystallising commonplaces he stands next to Pope, in subtle felicity of expression beside Virgil. And, when he says of Virgil that we find in his diction “all the grace of all the muses often flowering in one lonely word,” he says what is literally true of his own work. As a master of style his place is in the first rank among English classical poets. But his style is the perfection of art. His diction, like the diction of Milton and Gray, resembles mosaic work. With a touch here and a touch there, now from memory, now from unconscious assimilation, inlaying here an epithet and there a phrase, adding, subtracting, heightening, modifying, substituting one metaphor for another, developing what is latent in the suggestive imagery of a predecessor, laying under contribution the most intimate familiarity with what is best in the literature of the ancient and modern world, the unwearied artist toils patiently on till his precious mosaic work is without a flaw. All the resources of rhetoric are employed to give distinction to his style and every figure in rhetoric finds expression in his diction: Hypallage as in

The pillard dusk
Of sounding sycamores.

—Audley Court.

Paronomasia as in

The seawind sang
Shrill, chill with flakes of foam.

—Morte d’Arthur.

Oxymoron as

Behold them unbeheld, unheard
Hear all.

—Œnone.

Hyperbaton as in

The dew-impearled winds of dawn.

—Ode to Memory.

Metonymy as in

The bright death quiver’d at the victim’s throat.

—Dream of Fair Women.

or in

For some three careless moans
The summer pilot of an empty heart.

—Gardener’s Daughter.

No poet since Milton has employed what is known as Onomatopoeia with so much effect. Not to go farther than the poems of 1842, we have in the Morte d’Arthur:—

So all day long the noise of battle rolled
Among the mountains by the winter sea;

or

Dry clashed 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 bas’d
His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang
Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels—

or the exquisite

I heard the water lapping on the crag,
And the long ripple washing in the reeds.

So in The Dying Swan,

And the wavy swell of the soughing reeds.

See too the whole of Oriana and the description of the dance at the beginning of The Vision of Sin.

Assonance, alliteration, the revival or adoption of obsolete and provincial words, the transplantation of phrases and idioms from the Greek and Latin languages, the employment of common words in uncommon senses, all are pressed into the service of adding distinction to his diction. His diction blends the two extremes of simplicity and artificiality, but with such fine tact that this strange combination has seldom the effect of incongruity. Longinus has remarked that “as the fainter lustre of the stars is put out of sight by the all-encompassing rays of the sun, so when sublimity sheds its light round the sophistries of rhetoric they become invisible”.^[2] What Longinus says of “sublimity” is equally true of sincerity and truthfulness in combination with exquisitely harmonious expression. We have an illustration in Gray’s Elegy. Nothing could be more artificial than the style, but what poem in the world appeals more directly to the heart and to the eye? It is one thing to call art to the assistance of art, it is quite another thing to call art to the assistance of nature. And this is what both Gray and Tennyson do, and this is why their artificiality, so far from shocking us, “passes in music out of sight”. But this cannot be said of Tennyson without reserve. At times his strained endeavours to give distinction to his style by putting common things in an uncommon way led him into intolerable affectation. Thus we have “the knightly growth that fringed his lips” for a moustache, “azure pillars of the hearth” for ascending smoke, “ambrosial orbs” for apples, “frayed magnificence” for a shabby dress, “the secular abyss to come” for future ages, “the sinless years that breathed beneath the Syrian blue” for the life of Christ, “up went the hush’d amaze of hand and eye” for a gesture of surprise, and the like. One of the worst instances is in In Memoriam, where what is appropriate to the simple sentiment finds, as it should do, corresponding simplicity of expression in the first couplet, to collapse into the falsetto of strained artificiality in the second:—

To rest beneath the clover sod
    That takes the sunshine and the rains,
    Or where the kneeling hamlet drains
The chalice of the grapes of God.

An illustration of the same thing, almost as offensive, is in Enoch Arden, where, in an otherwise studiously simple diction, Enoch’s wares as a fisherman become

Enoch’s ocean spoil
In ocean-smelling osier.

But these peculiarities are less common in the earlier poems than in the later: it was a vicious habit which grew on him.

But, if exception may sometimes be taken to his diction, no exception can be taken to his rhythm. No English poet since Milton, Tennyson’s only superior in this respect, had a finer ear or a more consummate mastery over all the resources of rhythmical expression. What colours are to a painter rhythm is, in description, to the poet, and few have rivalled, none have excelled Tennyson in this. Take the following:—

    And ghastly thro’ the drizzling rain
On the bald street strikes the blank day.

—In Memoriam.

See particularly In Memoriam, cvii., the lines beginning “Fiercely flies,” to “darken on the rolling brine”: the description of the island in Enoch Arden; but specification is needless, it applies to all his descriptive poetry. It is marvellous that he can produce such effects by such simple means: a mere enumeration of particulars will often do it, as here:—

No gray old grange or lonely fold,
    Or low morass and whispering reed,
    Or simple style from mead to mead,
Or sheep walk up the windy wold.

—In Memoriam, c.

Or here:—

The meal sacks on the whitened floor,
    The dark round of the dripping wheel,
The very air about the door
    Made misty with the floating meal.

—The Miller’s Daughter.

His blank verse is best described by negatives. It has not the endless variety, the elasticity and freedom of Shakespeare’s, it has not the massiveness and majesty of Milton’s, it has not the austere grandeur of Wordsworth’s at its best, it has not the wavy swell, “the linked sweetness long drawn out” of Shelley’s, but its distinguishing feature is, if we may use the expression, its importunate beauty. What Coleridge said of Claudian’s style may be applied to it: “Every line, nay every word stops, looks full in your face and asks and begs for praise”. is earlier blank verse is less elaborate and seemingly more spontaneous and easy than his later.^[3] But it is in his lyric verse that his rhythm is seen in its greatest perfection. No English lyrics have more magic or more haunting beauty, more of that which charms at once and charms for ever.

In his description of nature he is incomparable. Take the following from The Dying Swan:—

Some blue peaks in the distance rose,
And white against the cold-white sky,
Shone out their crowning snows.
One willow over the river wept,
And shook the wave as the wind did sigh;
Above in the wind was the swallow,
    Chasing itself at its own wild will,

or the opening scene in Œnone and in The Lotos Eaters, or the meadow scene in The Gardener’s Daughter, or the conclusion of Audley Court, or the forest scene in the Dream of Fair Women, or this stanza in Mariana in the South:—

There all in spaces rosy-bright
    Large Hesper glitter’d on her tears,
    And deepening through the silent spheres,
Heaven over Heaven rose the night.

A single line, nay, a single word, and a scene is by magic before us, as here where the sea is looked down upon from an immense height:—

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls.

—The Eagle.

Or here of a ship at sea, in the distance:—

And on through zones of light and shadow
Glimmer away to the lonely deep.

—To the Rev. F. D. Maurice.

Or here of waters falling high up on mountains:—

Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke.

—The Princess.

Or of a water-fall seen at a distance:—

And like a downward smoke the slender stream
Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.

Or here again:—

We left the dying ebb that faintly lipp’d
The flat red granite.

Or here of a wave:—

Like a wave in the wild North Sea
Green glimmering toward the summit bears with all
Its stormy crests that smoke against the skies
Down on a bark.

—Elaine.

That beech will gather brown,
This maple burn itself away.

—In Memoriam.

The wide-wing’d sunset of the misty marsh.

—Last Tournament.

But illustrations would be endless. Nothing seems to escape him in Nature. Take the following:—

Like a purple beech among the greens
Looks out of place.

—Edwin Morris.

Or

Delays as the tender ash delays To clothe herself, when all the woods are green.

—The Princess.

As black as ash-buds in the front of March.

—The Gardener’s Daughter.

A gusty April morn
That puff’d the swaying branches into smoke.

—Holy Grail.

So with flowers, trees, birds and insects:—

The fox-glove clusters dappled bells.

—The Two Voices.

The sunflower:—

Rays round with flame its disk of seed.

—In Memoriam.

The dog-rose:—

Tufts of rosy-tinted snow.

—Two Voices.

A million emeralds break from the ruby-budded lime.

—Maud.

In gloss and hue the chestnut, when the shell
Divides threefold to show the fruit within.
—The Brook.

Or of a chrysalis:—

And flash’d as those
Dull-coated things, that making slide apart
Their dusk wing cases, all beneath there burns
A Jewell’d harness, ere they pass and fly.

—Gareth and Lynette.

So again:—

Wan-sallow, as the plant that feeds itself,
Root-bitten by white lichen.

—Id.

And again:—

All the silvery gossamers
That twinkle into green and gold.

—In Memoriam.

His epithets are in themselves a study: “the dewy-tassell’d wood,” “the tender-pencill’d shadow,” “crimson-circl’d star,” the “hoary clematis,” “creamy spray,” “dry-tongued laurels”. But whatever he describes is described with the same felicitous vividness. How magical is this in the verses to Edward Lear:—

Naiads oar’d
A glimmering shoulder under gloom
Of cavern pillars.

Or this:—

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.

—A Dream of Fair Women.

But if in the world of Nature nothing escaped his sensitive and sympathetic observation,—and indeed it might be said of him as truly as of Shelley’s Alastor

Every sight
And sound from the vast earth and ambient air
Sent to his heart its choicest impulses,

—he had studied the world of books with not less sympathy and attention. In the sense of a profound and extensive acquaintance with all that is best in ancient and modern poetry, and in an extraordinarily wide knowledge of general literature, of philosophy and theology, of geography and travel, and of various branches of natural science, he is one of the most erudite of English poets. With the poetry of the Greek and Latin classics he was, like Milton and Gray, thoroughly saturated. Its influence penetrates his work, now in indirect reminiscence, now in direct imitation, now inspiring, now modifying, now moulding. He tells us in The Daisy how when at Como “the rich Virgilian rustic measure of Lari Maxume” haunted him all day, and in a later fragment how, as he rowed from Desenzano to Sirmio, Catullus was with him. And they and their brethren, from Homer to Theocritus, from Lucretius to Claudian, always were with him. I have illustrated so fully in the notes and elsewhere^[4] the influence of the Greek and Roman classics on the poems of 1842 that it is not necessary to go into detail here. But a few examples of the various ways in which they affected Tennyson’s work generally may be given. Sometimes he transfers a happy epithet or expression in literal translation, as in:—

On either shining shoulder laid a hand,

which is Homer’s epithet for the shoulder—

ἀνὰ φαιδίμῳ ὤμῳ

—Od., xi., 128.

It was the red cock shouting to the light,

exactly the

ἕος ἐβόησεν ἀλέκτωρ
(Until the cock shouted).

—Batrachomyomachia, 192.

And all in passion utter’d a dry shriek,

which is the sicca vox of the Roman poets. So in The Lotos Eaters:—

His voice was thin as voices from the grave,

which is Theocritus’ voice of Hylas from his watery grave:—

ἀραιὰ δ’ Ἱκετο φωνά

So in The Princess, sect. i.:—

And cook’d his spleen,

which is a phrase from the Greek, as in Homer, Il., iv., 513:—

ἐπι νηυσὶ χόλον θυμαλγέα πέσσει
(At the ships he cooks his heart-grieving spleen).

Again in The Princess, sect. iv.:—

Laugh’d with alien lips,

which is Homer’s (Od., 69-70)—

διδ’ ἤδη γναθμοῖσι γελῴων ἀλλοτρίοισι

So in Edwin Morris—

All perfect, finished to the finger nail,

which is a phrase transferred from Latin through the Greek; cf., Horace, Sat., i., v., 32:—

Ad unguem
Factus homo

(A man fashioned to the finger nail).

“The brute earth,” In Memoriam, cxxvii., which is Horace’s

Bruta tellus.

—Odes, i., xxxiv., 9.

So again:—

A bevy of roses apple-cheek’d

in The Island, which is Theocritus’ μαλοπάρῃος. The line in the Morte d’Arthur,

This way and that, dividing the swift mind,

is an almost literal translation of Virgil’s Æn., iv., 285:—

Atque animum nunc huc celerem nunc dividit illuc
(And this way and that he divides his swift mind).

Another way in which they affect him is where, without direct imitation, they colour passages and poems as in Œnone, The Lotos Eaters, Tithonus, Tiresias, The Death of Œnone, Demeter and Persephone, the passage beginning “From the woods” in The Gardener’s Daughter, which is a parody of Theocritus, Id., vii., 139 seq., while the Cyclops’ invocation to Galatea in Theocritus, Id., xi., 29-79, was plainly the model for the idyll, “Come down, O Maid,” in the seventh section of The Princess, just as the tournament in the same poem recalls closely the epic of Homer and Virgil. Tennyson had a wonderful way of transfusing, as it were, the essence of some beautiful passage in a Greek or Roman poet into English. A striking illustration of this would be the influence of reminiscences of Virgil’s fourth Æneid on the idyll of Elaine and Guinevere. Compare, for instance, the following: he is describing the love-wasted Elaine, as she sits brooding in the lonely evening, with the shadow of the wished-for death falling on her:—

But when they left her to herself again,
Death, like a friend’s voice from a distant field,
Approaching through the darkness, call’d; the owls
Wailing had power upon her, and she mix’d
Her fancies with the sallow-rifted glooms
Of evening and the moanings of the wind.

How exactly does this recall, in a manner to be felt rather than exactly defined, a passage equally exquisite and equally pathetic in Virgil’s picture of Dido, where, with the shadow of her death also falling upon her, she seems to hear the phantom voice of her dead husband, and “mixes her fancies” with the glooms of night and the owl’s funereal wail:—

Hinc exaudiri voces et verba vocantis
Visa viri, nox quum terras obscura teneret;
Solaque culminibus ferali carmine bubo
Sæpe queri, et longas in fletum ducere voces.

—Æn., iv., 460.)

    (From it she thought she clearly heard a voice, even the accents of her husband calling her when night was wrapping the earth with darkness; and on the roof the lonely owl in funereal strains kept oft complaining, drawing out into a wail its protracted notes.)

Similar passages, though not so striking, would be the picture of Pindar’s Elysium in Tiresias, the sentiment pervading The Lotos Eaters transferred so faithfully from the Greek poets, the scenery in Œnone so crowded with details from Homer, Theocritus and Callimachus. Sometimes we find similes suggested by the classical poets, but enriched by touches from original observation, as here in The Princess:—

As one that climbs a peak to gaze
O’er land and main, and sees a great black cloud
Drag inward from the deeps, a wall of night
Blot out the slope of sea from verge to shore.
...
And quenching lake by lake and tarn by tarn
Expunge the world,

which was plainly suggested by Homer, iv., 275:—

ὡς δ’ ὅτ’ ἀπὸ σκοπιῆς εἴδε νέφος αἰπολος ἀνήρ
ἐρχόμενον κατὰ πόντον ὑπὸ Ζεφύροιο ἰωῆς
τῷ δε τ’ ἄνευθεν ἐόντι, μελάντερον ἠΰτε πίσσα,
φαίνετ’ ἰὸν κατὰ πόντον, ἄγει δέ τε λαῖλαπα πολλὴν.
(As when a goat-herd from some hill-peak sees a cloud coming across the deep with the blast of the west wind behind it; and to him, being as he is afar, it seems blacker, even as pitch, as it goes along the deep, bringing with it a great whirlwind.)

So again the fine simile in Elaine, beginning

Bare as a wild wave in the wide North Sea,

is at least modelled on the simile in Iliad, xv., 381-4, with reminiscences of the same similes in Iliad, xv., 624, and Iliad, iv., 42-56. The simile in the first section of the Princess,

As when a field of corn
Bows all its ears before the roaring East,

reminds us of Homer’s

ὡς δ’ ὅτε κινήση Ζέφυρος βαθυλήϊον, ἐλθὼν
λάβρος, ἐπαιγίζων, ἐπὶ τ’ ἠμύει ἀσταχύεσσιν.
(As when the west wind tosses a deep cornfield rushing down with furious blast, and it bows with all its ears.)

Nothing could be more happy than such an adaptation as the following—

Ever fail’d to draw
The quiet night into her blood,

from Virgil, Æn., iv., 530:—

Neque unquam Solvitur in somnos oculisve aut pectore noctem
Accipit.
(And she never relaxes into sleep, or receives the night in eyes or bosom),

or than the following (in Enid) from Theocritus:—

Arms on which the standing muscle sloped,
As slopes a wild brook o’er a little stone,
Running too vehemently to break upon it.

ἐν δὲ μύες στερεοῖσι βραχίοσιν ἄκρον ὑπ’ ὦμον
ἔστασαν, ἠύτε πέτροι ὀλοίτροχοι οὕς τε κυλίνδον
χειμάῤῥους ποταμὸς μεγάλαις περιέξεσε δίναις.
                    —Idyll, xxii., 48 seq.
(And the muscles on his brawny arms close under the shoulder stood out like boulders which the wintry torrent has rolled and worn smooth with the mighty eddies.)

But there was another use to which Tennyson applied his accurate and intimate acquaintance with the classics. It lay in developing what was suggested by them, in unfolding, so to speak, what was furled in their imagery. Nothing is more striking in ancient classical poetry than its pregnant condensation. It often expresses in an epithet what might be expanded into a detailed picture, or calls up in a single phrase a whole scene or a whole position. Where in Merlin and Vivian Tennyson described

The blind wave feeling round his long sea hall
In silence,

he was merely unfolding to its full Homer’s κῦμα κωφόν—“dumb wave”; just as the best of all comments on Horace’s expression, “Vultus nimium lubricus aspici,” Odes, I., xix., 8, is given us in Tennyson’s picture of the Oread in Lucretius:—

How the sun delights
To glance and shift about her slippery sides.

Or take again this passage in the Agamemnon, 404-5, describing Menelaus pining in his desolate palace for the lost Helen:—

πόθῳ δ’ ὑπερποντίας
φάσμα δόξει δόμων ἀνάσσειν
(And in his yearning love for her who is over the sea a phantom will seem to reign over his palace.)

What are the lines in Guinevere but an expansion of what is latent but unfolded in the pregnant suggestiveness of the Greek poet:—

And in thy bowers of Camelot or of Usk
Thy shadow still would glide from room to room,
And I should evermore be vex’d with thee
In hanging robe or vacant ornament,
Or ghostly foot-fall echoing on the stair—

with a reminiscence also perhaps of Constance’s speech in King John, III., iv.

It need hardly be said that these particular passages, and possibly some of the others, may be mere coincidences, but they illustrate what numberless other passages which could be cited prove that Tennyson’s careful and meditative study of the Greek and Roman poets enabled him to enrich his work by these felicitous adaptations.

He used those poets as his master Virgil used his Greek predecessors, and what the elder Seneca said of Ovid, who had appropriated a line from Virgil, might exactly be applied to Tennyson: “Fecisse quod in multis aliis versibus Virgilius fecerat, non surripiendi caus, sed palam imitandi, hoc animo ut vellet agnosci”.^[5]

He had plainly studied with equal attention the chief Italian poets, especially Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto and Tasso. On a passage in Dante he founded his Ulysses, and imitations of that master are frequent throughout his poems. In Memoriam, both in its general scheme as well as in numberless particular passages, closely recalls Petrarch; and Ariosto and Tasso have each influenced his work. In the poetry of his own country nothing seems to have escaped him, either in the masters or the minor poets.^[6] To apply the term plagiarism to Tennyson’s use of his predecessors would be as absurd as to resolve some noble fabric into its stones and bricks, and confounding the one with the other to taunt the architect with appropriating an honour which belongs to the quarry and the potter. Tennyson’s method was exactly the method of two of the greatest poets in the world, Virgil and Milton, of the poet who stands second to Virgil in Roman poetry, Horace, of one of the most illustrious of our own minor poets, Gray.

An artist more fastidious than Tennyson never existed. As scrupulous a purist in language as Cicero, Chesterfield and Macaulay in prose, as Virgil, Milton, and Leopardi in verse, his care extended to the nicest minutiæ of word-forms. Thus “ancle” is always spelt with a “c” when it stands alone, with a “k” when used in compounds; thus he spelt “Idylls” with one “l” in the short poems, with two “l’s” in the epic poems; thus the employment of “through” or “thro’,” of “bad” or “bade,” and the retention or suppression of “e” in past participles are always carefully studied. He took immense pains to avoid the clash of “s” with “s,” and to secure the predominance of open vowels when rhythm rendered them appropriate. Like the Greek painter with his partridge, he thought nothing of sacrificing good things if, in any way, they interfered with unity and symmetry, and thus, his son tells us, many stanzas, in themselves of exquisite beauty, have been lost to us.

[2] De Sublimitate, xvii.

[3] Tennyson’s blank verse in the Idylls of the King (excepting in the Morte d’Arthur and in the grander passages), is obviously modelled in rhythm on that of Shakespeare’s earlier style seen to perfection in King John. Compare the following lines with the rhythm say of Elaine or Guinevere;—

    But now will canker sorrow eat my bud,
    And chase the native beauty from his cheek,
    And he will look as hollow as a ghost;
    As dim and meagre as an ague’s fit:
    And so he’ll die; and, rising so again,
    When I shall meet him in the court of heaven
    I shall not know him: therefore never, never
    Must I behold my pretty Arthur more.

    —King John, III., iv.

[4] Illustrations of Tennyson.

[5] Seneca, third Suasoria.

[6] For fuller illustrations of all this, and for the influence of the ancient classics on Tennyson, I may perhaps venture to refer the reader to my Illustrations of Tennyson. And may I here take the opportunity of pointing out that nothing could have been farther from my intention in that book than what has so often been most unfairly attributed to it, namely, an attempt to show that a charge of plagiarism might be justly urged against Tennyson. No honest critic, who had even cursorily inspected the book, could so utterly misrepresent its purpose.

IV

Tennyson’s place is not among the “lords of the visionary eye,” among seers, among prophets, but not the least part of the debt which his countrymen owe to him is his dedication of his art to the noblest purposes. At a time when poetry was beginning to degenerate into what it has now almost universally become—a mere sense-pampering siren, and when critics were telling us, as they are still telling us, that we are to understand by it “all literary production which attains the power of giving pleasure by its form as distinct from its matter,” he remained true to the creed of his great predecessors. “L’art pour art,” he would say, quoting Georges Sand, “est un vain mot: l’art pour le vrai, l’art pour le beau et le bon, voila la religion que je cherche.” When he succeeded to the laureateship he was proud to remember that the wreath which had descended to him was

greener from the brows
Of him that utter’d nothing base,

and he was a loyal disciple of that poet whose aim had been, in his own words, “to console the afflicted, to add sunshine to daylight by making the happy happier, to teach the young and the gracious of every age to see, to think, to feel, and therefore to become more actively and securely virtuous”.^[7] Wordsworth had said that he wished to be regarded as a teacher or as nothing, but unhappily he did not always distinguish between the way in which a poet and a philosopher should teach. He forgot that the didactic element in a poem should be, to employ a homely illustration, what garlic should be in a salad, “scarce suspected, animate the whole,” that the poet teaches not as the moralist and the preacher teach, but as nature and life teach us. He taught us when he wrote The Fountain and The Highland Reaper, The Leach-gatherer and Michael, he merely wearied us when he sermonised in The Excursion and in The Prelude. Tennyson never makes this mistake. He is seldom directly didactic. Would he inculcate subjugation to the law of duty—he gives us the funeral ode on Wellington, The Charge of the Light Brigade, and Love and Duty. Would he inculcate resignationto the will of God, and the moral efficacy of conventional Christianity—he gives us Enoch Arden. Would he picture the endless struggle between the sensual and the spiritual, and the relation of ideals to life—he gives us the Idylls of the King. Would he point to what atheism may lead—he gives us Lucretius. Poems which are masterpieces of sensuous art, such as mere æsthetes, like Rosetti and his school, must contemplate with admiring despair, he makes vehicles of the most serious moral and spiritual teaching. The Vision of Sin is worth a hundred sermons on the disastrous effects of unbridled profligacy. In The Palace of Art we have the quintessence of The Book of Ecclesiastes and much more besides. Even in The Lotos Eaters we have the mirror held up to Hedonism. On the education of the affections and on the purity of domestic life must depend very largely, not merely the happiness of individuals, but the well-being of society, and how wide a space is filled by poems in Tennyson’s works bearing influentially on these subjects is obvious. And they admit us into a pleasaunce with which it is good to be familiar, so pure and wholesome is their atmosphere, so tranquilly beautiful the world in which the characters move and the little dramas unfold themselves. They preach nothing, but deep into every heart must sink their silent lessons. “Upon the sacredness of home life,” writes his son, “he would maintain that the stability and greatness of a nation largely depend; and one of the secrets of his power over mankind was his true joy in the family duties and affections.” What sermons have we in The Miller’s Daughter, in Dora, in The Gardener’s Daughter and in Love and Duty. The Princess was a direct contribution to a social question of momentous importance to our time. Maud had an immediate political purpose, while in In Memoriam he became the interpreter and teacher of his generation in a still higher sense.

Since Shakespeare no English poet has been so essentially patriotic, or appealed so directly to the political conscience of the nation. In his noble eulogies of the English constitution and of the virtue and wisdom of its architects, in his spirit-stirring pictures of the heroic actions of our forefathers and contemporaries both by land and sea, in his passionate denunciations of all that he believed would detract from England’s greatness and be prejudicial to her real interests, in his hearty sympathy with every movement and with every measure which he believed would contribute to her honour and her power, in all this he stands alone among modern poets. But if he loved England as Shakespeare loved her, he had other lessons than Shakespeare’s to teach her. The responsibilities imposed on the England of our time—and no poet knew this better—are very different from those imposed on the England of Elizabeth. An empire vaster and more populous than that of the Cæsars has since then been added to our dominion. Millions, indeed, who are of the same blood as ourselves and who speak our language have, by the folly of common ancestors, become aliens. But how immense are the realms peopled by the colonies which are still loyal to us, and by the three hundred millions who in India own us as their rulers: of this vast empire England is now the capital and centre. That she should fulfil completely and honourably the duties to which destiny has called her will be the prayer of every patriot, that he should by his own efforts contribute all in his power to further such fulfilment must be his earnest desire. It would be no exaggeration to say that Tennyson contributed more than any man who has ever lived to what may be called the higher political education of the English-speaking races. Of imperial federation he was at once the apostle and the pioneer. In poetry which appealed as probably no other poetry has appealed to every class, wherever our language is spoken, he dwelt fondly on all that constitutes the greatness and glory of England, on her grandeur in the past, on the magnificent promise of the part she will play in the future, if her sons are true to her. There should be no distinction, for she recognises no distinction between her children at home and her children in her colonies. She is the common mother of a common race: one flag, one sceptre, the same proud ancestry, the same splendid inheritance. “How strange England cannot see,” he once wrote, “that her true policy lies in a close union with her colonies.”

Sharers of our glorious past,
Shall we not thro’ good and ill
Cleave to one another still?
Britain’s myriad voices call,
Sons be welded all and all
Into one imperial whole,
One with Britain, heart and soul!
One life, one flag, one fleet, one Throne!

Thus did the poetry of Tennyson draw closer, and thus will it continue to draw closer those sentimental ties—ties, in Burke’s phrase, “light as air, but strong as links of iron,” which bind the colonies to the mother country; and in so doing, if he did not actually initiate, he furthered, as no other single man has furthered, the most important movement of our time. Nor has any man of genius in the present century—not Dickens, not Ruskin—been moved by a purer spirit of philanthropy, or done more to show how little the qualities and actions which dignify humanity depend, or need depend, on the accidents of fortune. He brought poetry into touch with the discoveries of science, and with the speculations of theology and metaphysics, and though, in treating such subjects, his power is not, perhaps, equal to his charm, the debt which his countrymen owe him, even intellectually, is incalculable.

[7] See Wordsworth’s letter to Lady Beaumont, Prose Works, vol. ii., p. 176.

Early Poems

To the Queen

This dedication was first prefixed to the seventh edition of these poems in 1851, Tennyson having succeeded Wordsworth as Poet Laureate, 19th Nov., 1850.

Revered, beloved^[1]—O you that hold
A nobler office upon earth
Than arms, or power of brain, or birth
Could give the warrior kings of old,

Victoria,^[2]—since your Royal grace
To one of less desert allows
This laurel greener from the brows
Of him that utter’d nothing base;

And should your greatness, and the care
That yokes with empire, yield you time
To make demand of modern rhyme
If aught of ancient worth be there;

Then—while^[3] a sweeter music wakes,
And thro’ wild March the throstle calls,
Where all about your palace-walls
The sun-lit almond-blossom shakes—

Take, Madam, this poor book of song;
For tho’ the faults were thick as dust
In vacant chambers, I could trust
Your kindness.^[4] May you rule us long.

And leave us rulers of your blood
As noble till the latest day!
May children of our children say,
“She wrought her people lasting good;^[5]

“Her court was pure; her life serene;
God gave her peace; her land reposed;
A thousand claims to reverence closed
In her as Mother, Wife and Queen;

“And statesmen at her council met
Who knew the seasons, when to take
Occasion by the hand, and make
The bounds of freedom wider yet^[6]

“By shaping some august decree,
Which kept her throne unshaken still,
Broad-based upon her people’s will,^[7]
And compass’d by the inviolate sea.”

MARCH, 1851.

[1] 1851. Revered Victoria, you that hold.

[2] 1851. I thank you that your Royal grace.

[3] This stanza added in 1853.

[4] 1851. Your sweetness.

[5] In 1851 the following stanza referring to the first Crystal Palace, opened 1st May, 1851, was inserted here:—

She brought a vast design to pass,
When Europe and the scatter’d ends
Of our fierce world were mixt as friends
And brethren, in her halls of glass.

[6] 1851. Broader yet.

[7] With this cf. Shelley, Ode to Liberty:—

Athens diviner yet
Gleam’d with its crest of columns on the will
Of man.

Claribel

a melody

First published in 1830.

In 1830 and in 1842 edd. the poem is in one long stanza, with a full stop in 1830 ed. after line 8; 1842 ed. omits the full stop. The name “Claribel” may have been suggested by Spenser (F. Q., ii., iv., or Shakespeare, Tempest).

1

Where Claribel low-lieth
The breezes pause and die,
Letting the rose-leaves fall:
But the solemn oak-tree sigheth,
Thick-leaved, ambrosial,
With an ancient melody
Of an inward agony,
Where Claribel low-lieth.

2

At eve the beetle boometh
Athwart the thicket lone:
At noon the wild bee^[1] hummeth
About the moss’d headstone:
At midnight the moon cometh,
And looketh down alone.
Her song the lintwhite swelleth,
The clear-voiced mavis dwelleth,
The callow throstle^[2] lispeth,
The slumbrous wave outwelleth,
The babbling runnel crispeth,
The hollow grot replieth
Where Claribel low-lieth.

[1] 1830. “Wild” omitted, and “low” inserted with a hyphen before “hummeth”.

[2] 1851 and all previous editions, “fledgling” for “callow”.

Lilian

First printed in 1830.

1

Airy, fairy Lilian,
Flitting, fairy Lilian,
When I ask her if she love me,
Claps her tiny hands above me,
Laughing all she can;
She’ll not tell me if she love me,
Cruel little Lilian.

2

When my passion seeks
Pleasance in love-sighs
She, looking thro’ and thro’^[1] me
Thoroughly to undo me,
Smiling, never speaks:
So innocent-arch, so cunning-simple,
From beneath her gather’d wimple^[2]
Glancing with black-beaded eyes,
Till the lightning laughters dimple
The baby-roses in her cheeks;
Then away she flies.

3

Prythee weep, May Lilian!
Gaiety without eclipse
Wearieth me, May Lilian:
Thro’^[3] my very heart it thrilleth
When from crimson-threaded^[4] lips
Silver-treble laughter^[5] trilleth:
Prythee weep, May Lilian.

4

Praying all I can,
If prayers will not hush thee,
Airy Lilian,
Like a rose-leaf I will crush thee,
Fairy Lilian.

[1] 1830. Through and through me.

[2] 1830. Purfled.

[3] 1830. Through.

[4] With “crimson-threaded” cf. Cleveland’s Sing-song on Clarinda’s Wedding, “Her lips those threads of scarlet dye”; but the original is Solomons Song iv. 3, “Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet”.

[5] 1830. Silver treble-laughter.

Isabel

First printed in 1830. Lord Tennyson tells us (Life of Tennyson, i., 43) that in this poem his father more or less described his own mother, who was a “remarkable and saintly woman”. In this as in the other poems elaborately painting women we may perhaps suspect the influence of Wordsworth’s Triad, which should be compared with them.

1

Eyes not down-dropt nor over-bright, but fed
With the clear-pointed flame of chastity,
Clear, without heat, undying, tended by
Pure vestal thoughts in the translucent fane
Of her still spirit^[1]; locks not wide-dispread,
Madonna-wise on either side her head;
Sweet lips whereon perpetually did reign
The summer calm of golden charity,
Were fixed shadows of thy fixed mood,
Revered Isabel, the crown and head,
The stately flower of female fortitude,
Of perfect wifehood and pure lowlihead.^[2]

2

The intuitive decision of a bright
And thorough-edged intellect to part
Error from crime; a prudence to withhold;
The laws of marriage^[3] character’d in gold
Upon the blanched^[4] tablets of her heart;
A love still burning upward, giving light
To read those laws; an accent very low
In blandishment, but a most silver flow
Of subtle-paced counsel in distress,
Right to the heart and brain, tho’ undescried,
Winning its way with extreme gentleness
Thro’^[5] all the outworks of suspicious pride;
A courage to endure and to obey;
A hate of gossip parlance, and of sway,
Crown’d Isabel, thro’^[6] all her placid life,
The queen of marriage, a most perfect wife.

3

The mellow’d reflex of a winter moon;
A clear stream flowing with a muddy one,
Till in its onward current it absorbs
With swifter movement and in purer light
The vexed eddies of its wayward brother:
A leaning and upbearing parasite,
Clothing the stem, which else had fallen quite,
With cluster’d flower-bells and ambrosial orbs
Of rich fruit-bunches leaning on each other—
Shadow forth thee:—the world hath not another
(Though all her fairest forms are types of thee,
And thou of God in thy great charity)
Of such a finish’d chasten’d purity,

[1] With these lines may be compared Shelley, Dedication to the Revolt of Islam:—

And through thine eyes, e’en in thy soul, I see
A lamp of vestal fire burning eternally.

[2] Lowlihead a favourite word with Chaucer and Spenser.

[3] 1830. Wifehood.

[4] 1830. Blenched.

[5] 1830 and all before 1853. Through.

[6] 1830. Through.

Mariana

“Mariana in the moated grange.”—Measure for Measure.

First printed in 1830.

This poem as we know from the motto prefixed to it was suggested by Shakespeare (Measure for Measure, iii., 1, “at the moated grange resides this dejected Mariana,”) but the poet may have had in his mind the exquisite fragment of Sappho:—

δέδυκε μὲν ἁ σελάννα
καὶ Πληϊαδες, μέδαι δὲ
νύκτες, παρὰ δ’ ἔρχετ’ ὥρα,
ἔγω δὲ μόνα κατεύδω.

“The moon has set and the Pleiades, and it is midnight: the hour too is going by, but I sleep alone.” It was long popularly supposed that the scene of the poem was a farm near Somersby known as Baumber’s farm, but Tennyson denied this and said it was a purely “imaginary house in the fen,” and that he “never so much as dreamed of Baumbers farm”. See Life, i., 28.

With blackest moss the flower-plots
Were thickly crusted, one and all:
The rusted nails fell from the knots
That held the peach^[1] to the garden-wall.^[2]
The broken sheds look’d sad and strange:
Unlifted was the clinking latch;
Weeded and worn the ancient thatch
Upon the lonely moated grange.
She only said, “My life is dreary,
He cometh not,” she said;
She said, “I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!”

Her tears fell with the dews at even;
Her tears fell ere the dews were dried;^[3]
She could not look on the sweet heaven,
Either at morn or eventide.
After the flitting of the bats,
When thickest dark did trance the sky,
She drew her casement-curtain by,
And glanced athwart the glooming flats.
She only said, “The night is dreary,
He cometh not,” she said;
She said, “I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!”

Upon the middle of the night,
Waking she heard the night-fowl crow:
The cock sung out an hour ere light:
From the dark fen the oxen’s low
Came to her: without hope of change,
In sleep she seem’d to walk forlorn,
Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed^[4] morn
About the lonely moated grange.
She only said, “The day is dreary,
He cometh not,” she said;
She said, “I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!”

About a stone-cast from the wall
A sluice with blacken’d waters slept,
And o’er it many, round and small,
The cluster’d marish-mosses crept.
Hard by a poplar shook alway,
All silver-green with gnarled bark:
For leagues no other tree did mark^[5]
The level waste, the rounding gray.^[6]
She only said, “My life is dreary,
He cometh not,” she said;
She said, “I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!”

And ever when the moon was low,
And the shrill winds were up and away,^[7]
In the white curtain, to and fro,
She saw the gusty shadow sway.
But when the moon was very low,
And wild winds bound within their cell,
The shadow of the poplar fell
Upon her bed, across her brow.
She only said, “The night is dreary,
He cometh not,” she said;
She said, “I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!”

All day within the dreamy house,
The doors upon their hinges creak’d;
The blue fly sung in the pane;^[8] the mouse
Behind the mouldering wainscot shriek’d,
Or from the crevice peer’d about.
Old faces glimmer’d thro’ the doors,
Old footsteps trod the upper floors,
Old voices called her from without.
She only said, “My life is dreary,
He cometh not,” she said;
She said, “I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!”

The sparrow’s chirrup on the roof,
The slow clock ticking, and the sound,
Which to the wooing wind aloof
The poplar made, did all confound
Her sense; but most she loathed the hour
When the thick-moted sunbeam lay
Athwart the chambers, and the day
Was sloping^[9] toward his western bower.
Then, said she, “I am very dreary,
He will not come,” she said;
She wept, “I am aweary, aweary,
O God, that I were dead!”

[1] 1863. Pear.

[2] 1872. Gable-wall.

[3] With this beautiful couplet may be compared a couplet of Helvius Cinna:—

Te matutinus flentem conspexit Eous,
Te flentem paullo vidit post Hesperus idem.

(Cinnae Reliq. Ed. Mueller, p. 83.)

[4] 1830. Grey-eyed. Cf. Romeo and Juliet, ii., 3,

“The grey morn smiles on the frowning night”.

[5] 1830, 1842, 1843. Dark.

[6] 1830. Grey.

[7] 1830. An’ away.

[8] All editions before 1851. I’ the pane. With this line cf. Maud, I., vi., 8, “and the shrieking rush of the wainscot mouse”.

[9] 1830. Downsloped was westering in his bower.

To——

First printed in 1830.

The friend to whom these verses were addressed was Joseph William Blakesley, third Classic and Senior Chancellor’s Medallist in 1831, and afterwards Dean of Lincoln. Tennyson said of him: “He ought to be Lord Chancellor, for he is a subtle and powerful reasoner, and an honest man”.—Life, i., 65. He was a contributor to the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews, and died in April, 1885. See memoir of him in the Dictionary of National Biography.

1

Clear-headed friend, whose joyful scorn,
Edged with sharp laughter, cuts atwain
The knots that tangle human creeds,^[1]
The wounding cords that^[2] bind and strain
The heart until it bleeds,
Ray-fringed eyelids of the morn
Roof not a glance so keen as thine:
If aught of prophecy be mine,
Thou wilt not live in vain.

2

Low-cowering shall the Sophist sit;
Falsehood shall bear her plaited brow:
Fair-fronted Truth shall droop not now
With shrilling shafts of subtle wit.
Nor martyr-flames, nor trenchant swords
Can do away that ancient lie;
A gentler death shall Falsehood die,
Shot thro’ and thro’^[3] with cunning words.

3

Weak Truth a-leaning on her crutch,
Wan, wasted Truth in her utmost need,
Thy kingly intellect shall feed,
Until she be an athlete bold,
And weary with a finger’s touch
Those writhed limbs of lightning speed;
Like that strange angel^[4] which of old,
Until the breaking of the light,
Wrestled with wandering Israel,
Past Yabbok brook the livelong night,
And heaven’s mazed signs stood still
In the dim tract of Penuel.

[1] 1830. The knotted lies of human creeds.

[2] 1830. “Which” for “that”.

[3] 1830. Through and through.

[4] The reference is to Genesis xxxii. 24-32.

Madeline

First published in 1830.

1

Thou art not steep’d in golden languors,
No tranced summer calm is thine,
Ever varying Madeline.
Thro’^[1] light and shadow thou dost range,
Sudden glances, sweet and strange,
Delicious spites and darling angers,
And airy^[2] forms of flitting change.

2

Smiling, frowning, evermore,
Thou art perfect in love-lore.
Revealings deep and clear are thine
Of wealthy smiles: but who may know
Whether smile or frown be fleeter?
Whether smile or frown be sweeter,
Who may know?
Frowns perfect-sweet along the brow
Light-glooming over eyes divine,
Like little clouds sun-fringed, are thine,
Ever varying Madeline.
Thy smile and frown are not aloof
From one another,
Each to each is dearest brother;
Hues of the silken sheeny woof
Momently shot into each other.
All the mystery is thine;
Smiling, frowning, evermore,
Thou art perfect in love-lore,
Ever varying Madeline.

3

A subtle, sudden flame,
By veering passion fann’d,
About thee breaks and dances
When I would kiss thy hand,
The flush of anger’d shame
O’erflows thy calmer glances,
And o’er black brows drops down
A sudden curved frown:
But when I turn away,
Thou, willing me to stay,
Wooest not, nor vainly wranglest;
But, looking fixedly the while,
All my bounding heart entanglest
In a golden-netted smile;
Then in madness and in bliss,
If my lips should dare to kiss
Thy taper fingers amorously,^[3]
Again thou blushest angerly;
And o’er black brows drops down
A sudden-curved frown.

[1] 1830. Through.

[2] 1830. Aery.

[3] 1830. Three-times-three; though noted as an erratum for amorously.

Song—The Owl

First printed in 1830.

1

When cats run home and light is come,
And dew is cold upon the ground,
And the far-off stream is dumb,
And the whirring sail goes round,
And the whirring sail goes round;
Alone and warming his five wits,
The white owl in the belfry sits.

2

When merry milkmaids click the latch,
And rarely smells the new-mown hay,
And the cock hath sung beneath the thatch
Twice or thrice his roundelay,
Twice or thrice his roundelay;
Alone and warming his five wits,
The white owl in the belfry sits.

Second Song—To the Same

First printed in 1830.

1

Thy tuwhits are lull’d I wot,
Thy tuwhoos of yesternight,
Which upon the dark afloat,
So took echo with delight,
So took echo with delight,
That her voice untuneful grown,
Wears all day a fainter tone.

2

I would mock thy chaunt anew;
But I cannot mimick it;
Not a whit of thy tuwhoo,
Thee to woo to thy tuwhit,
Thee to woo to thy tuwhit,
With a lengthen’d loud halloo,
Tuwhoo, tuwhit, tuwhit, tuwhoo-o-o.

Recollections of the Arabian Nights

First printed in 1830.

With this poem should be compared the description of Harun al Rashid’s Garden of Gladness in the story of Nur-al-din Ali and the damsel Anis al Talis in the Thirty-Sixth Night. The style appears to have been modelled on Coleridge’s Kubla Khan and Lewti, and the influence of Coleridge is very perceptible throughout the poem.

When the breeze of a joyful dawn blew free
In the silken sail of infancy,
The tide of time flow’d back with me,
The forward-flowing tide of time;
And many a sheeny summer-morn,
Adown the Tigris I was borne,
By Bagdat’s shrines of fretted gold,
High-walled gardens green and old;
True Mussulman was I and sworn,
For it was in the golden prime^[1]
Of good Haroun Alraschid.

Anight my shallop, rustling thro’^[2]
The low and bloomed foliage, drove
The fragrant, glistening deeps, and clove
The citron-shadows in the blue:
By garden porches on the brim,
The costly doors flung open wide,
Gold glittering thro’^[3] lamplight dim,
And broider’d sofas^[4] on each side:
In sooth it was a goodly time,
For it was in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.

Often, where clear-stemm’d platans guard
The outlet, did I turn away
The boat-head down a broad canal
From the main river sluiced, where all
The sloping of the moon-lit sward
Was damask-work, and deep inlay
Of braided blooms^[5] unmown, which crept
Adown to where the waters slept.
A goodly place, a goodly time,
For it was in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.

A motion from the river won
Ridged the smooth level, bearing on
My shallop thro’ the star-strown calm,
Until another night in night
I enter’d, from the clearer light,
Imbower’d vaults of pillar’d palm,
Imprisoning sweets, which, as they clomb
Heavenward, were stay’d beneath the dome
Of hollow boughs.—A goodly time,
For it was in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.

Still onward; and the clear canal
Is rounded to as clear a lake.
From the green rivage many a fall
Of diamond rillets musical,
Thro’ little crystal^[6] arches low
Down from the central fountain’s flow
Fall’n silver-chiming, seem’d to shake
The sparkling flints beneath the prow.
A goodly place, a goodly time,
For it was in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.

Above thro’^[7] many a bowery turn
A walk with vary-colour’d shells
Wander’d engrain’d. On either side
All round about the fragrant marge
From fluted vase, and brazen urn
In order, eastern flowers large,
Some dropping low their crimson bells
Half-closed, and others studded wide
With disks and tiars, fed the time
With odour in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.

Far off, and where the lemon-grove
In closest coverture upsprung,
The living airs of middle night
Died round the bulbul^[8] as he sung;
Not he: but something which possess’d
The darkness of the world, delight,
Life, anguish, death, immortal love,
Ceasing not, mingled, unrepress’d.
Apart from place, withholding^[9] time,
But flattering the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.

Black the^[10] garden-bowers and grots
Slumber’d: the solemn palms were ranged
Above, unwoo’d of summer wind:
A sudden splendour from behind
Flush’d all the leaves with rich gold-green,
And, flowing rapidly between
Their interspaces, counterchanged
The level lake with diamond-plots
Of dark and bright.^[11] A lovely time,
For it was in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.

Dark-blue the deep sphere overhead,
Distinct with vivid stars inlaid,^[12]
Grew darker from that under-flame:
So, leaping lightly from the boat,
With silver anchor left afloat,
In marvel whence that glory came
Upon me, as in sleep I sank
In cool soft turf upon the bank,
Entranced with that place and time,
So worthy of the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.

Thence thro’ the garden I was drawn—^[13]
A realm of pleasance, many a mound,
And many a shadow-chequer’d lawn
Full of the city’s stilly sound,^[14]
And deep myrrh-thickets blowing round
The stately cedar, tamarisks,
Thick rosaries^[15] of scented thorn,
Tall orient shrubs, and obelisks
Graven with emblems of the time,
In honour of the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.

With dazed vision unawares
From the long alley’s latticed shade
Emerged, I came upon the great
Pavilion of the Caliphat.
Right to the carven cedarn doors,
Flung inward over spangled floors,
Broad-based flights of marble stairs
Ran up with golden balustrade,
After the fashion of the time,
And humour of the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.

The fourscore windows all alight
As with the quintessence of flame,
A million tapers flaring bright
From twisted silvers look’d^[16] to shame
The hollow-vaulted dark, and stream’d
Upon the mooned domes aloof
In inmost Bagdat, till there seem’d
Hundreds of crescents on the roof
Of night new-risen, that marvellous time,
To celebrate the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.

Then stole I up, and trancedly
Gazed on the Persian girl alone,
Serene with argent-lidded eyes
Amorous, and lashes like to rays
Of darkness, and a brow of pearl
Tressed with redolent ebony,
In many a dark delicious curl,
Flowing beneath^[17] her rose-hued zone;
The sweetest lady of the time,
Well worthy of the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.

Six columns, three on either side,
Pure silver, underpropt^[18] a rich
Throne of the^[19] massive ore, from which
Down-droop’d, in many a floating fold,
Engarlanded and diaper’d
With inwrought flowers, a cloth of gold.
Thereon, his deep eye laughter-stirr’d
With merriment of kingly pride,
Sole star of all that place and time,
I saw him—in his golden prime,
THE GOOD HAROUN ALRASCHID!

[1] “Golden prime” from Shakespeare. “That cropp’d the golden prime of this sweet prince.” (Rich. III., i., sc. ii., 248.)

[2] 1830. Through.

[3] 1830. Through.

[4] 1830 and 1842. Sophas.

[5] 1830. Breaded blosms.

[6] 1830. Through crystal.

[7] 1830. Through.

[8] “Bulbul” is the Persian for nightingale. Cf. Princes, iv., 104:—

    “O Bulbul, any rose of Gulistan
    Shall brush her veil”.

[9] 1830. Witholding. So 1842, 1843, 1845.

[10] 1830. Blackgreen.

[11] 1830. Of saffron light.

[12] 1830. Unrayed.

[13] 1830. Through ... borne.

[14] Shakespeare has the same expression: “The hum of either army stilly sounds”. (Henry V., act iv., prol.)

[15] 1842. Roseries.

[16] 1830. Wreathed.

[17] 1830. Below.

[18] 1830. Underpropped. 1842. Underpropp’d.

[19] 1830. O’ the.

Ode to Memory

First printed in 1830.

After the title in 1830 ed. is “Written very early in life”. The influence most perceptible in this poem is plainly Coleridge, on whose Songs of the Pixies it seems to have been modelled. Tennyson considered it, and no wonder, as one of the very best of “his early and peculiarly concentrated Nature-poems”. See Life, i., 27. It is full of vivid and accurate pictures of his Lincolnshire home and haunts. See Life, i., 25-48, passim.

1

Thou who stealest fire,
From the fountains of the past,
To glorify the present; oh, haste,
Visit my low desire!
Strengthen me, enlighten me!
I faint in this obscurity,
Thou dewy dawn of memory.

2

Come not as thou camest^[1] of late,
Flinging the gloom of yesternight
On the white day; but robed in soften’d light
Of orient state.
Whilome thou camest with the morning mist,
Even as a maid, whose stately brow
The dew-impearled winds of dawn have kiss’d,^[2]
When she, as thou,
Stays on her floating locks the lovely freight
Of overflowing blooms, and earliest shoots
Of orient green, giving safe pledge of fruits,
Which in wintertide shall star
The black earth with brilliance rare.

3

Whilome thou camest with the morning mist.
And with the evening cloud,
Showering thy gleaned wealth into my open breast,
(Those peerless flowers which in the rudest wind
Never grow sere,
When rooted in the garden of the mind,
Because they are the earliest of the year).
Nor was the night thy shroud.
In sweet dreams softer than unbroken rest
Thou leddest by the hand thine infant Hope.
The eddying of her garments caught from thee
The light of thy great presence; and the cope
Of the half-attain’d futurity,
Though deep not fathomless,
Was cloven with the million stars which tremble
O’er the deep mind of dauntless infancy.
Small thought was there of life’s distress;
For sure she deem’d no mist of earth could dull
Those spirit-thrilling eyes so keen and beautiful:
Sure she was nigher to heaven’s spheres,
Listening the lordly music flowing from
The illimitable years.^[3]
O strengthen me, enlighten me!
I faint in this obscurity,
Thou dewy dawn of memory.

4

Come forth I charge thee, arise,
Thou of the many tongues, the myriad eyes!
Thou comest not with shows of flaunting vines
Unto mine inner eye,
Divinest Memory!
Thou wert not nursed by the waterfall
Which ever sounds and shines
A pillar of white light upon the wall
Of purple cliffs, aloof descried:
Come from the woods that belt the grey hill-side,
The seven elms, the poplars^[4] four
That stand beside my father’s door,
And chiefly from the brook^[5] that loves
To purl o’er matted cress and ribbed sand,
Or dimple in the dark of rushy coves,
Drawing into his narrow earthen urn,
In every elbow and turn,
The filter’d tribute of the rough woodland.
O! hither lead thy feet!
Pour round mine ears the livelong bleat
Of the thick-fleeced sheep from wattled folds,
Upon the ridged wolds,
When the first matin-song hath waken’d^[6] loud
Over the dark dewy earth forlorn,
What time the amber morn
Forth gushes from beneath a low-hung cloud.

5

Large dowries doth the raptured eye
To the young spirit present
When first she is wed;
And like a bride of old
In triumph led,
With music and sweet showers
Of festal flowers,
Unto the dwelling she must sway.
Well hast thou done, great artist Memory,
In setting round thy first experiment
With royal frame-work of wrought gold;
Needs must thou dearly love thy first essay,
And foremost in thy various gallery
Place it, where sweetest sunlight falls
Upon the storied walls;
For the discovery
And newness of thine art so pleased thee,
That all which thou hast drawn of fairest
Or boldest since, but lightly weighs
With thee unto the love thou bearest
The first-born of thy genius.
Artist-like,
Ever retiring thou dost gaze
On the prime labour of thine early days:
No matter what the sketch might be;
Whether the high field on the bushless Pike,
Or even a sand-built ridge
Of heaped hills that mound the sea,
Overblown with murmurs harsh,
Or even a lowly cottage^[7] whence we see
Stretch’d wide and wild the waste enormous marsh,
Where from the frequent bridge,
Like emblems of infinity,^[8]
The trenched waters run from sky to sky;
Or a garden bower’d close
With plaited^[9] alleys of the trailing rose,
Long alleys falling down to twilight grots,
Or opening upon level plots
Of crowned lilies, standing near
Purple-spiked lavender:
Whither in after life retired
From brawling storms,
From weary wind,
With youthful fancy reinspired,
We may hold converse with all forms
Of the many-sided mind,
And those^[10] whom passion hath not blinded,
Subtle-thoughted, myriad-minded.
My friend, with you^[11] to live alone,
Were how much^[12] better than to own
A crown, a sceptre, and a throne!
O strengthen, enlighten me!
I faint in this obscurity,
Thou dewy dawn of memory.

[1] 1830. Cam’st.

[2] 1830. Kist.

[3] Transferred from Timbuctoo.

        And these with lavish’d sense
        Listenist the lordly music flowing from
        The illimitable years.

[4] The poplars have now disappeared but the seven elms are still to be seen in the garden behind the house. See Napier, The Laureate’s County, pp. 22, 40-41.

[5] This is the Somersby brook which so often reappears in Tennyson’s poetry, cf. Millers Daughter, A Farewell, and In Memoriam, 1 xxix. and c.

[6] 1830. Waked. For the epithet “dew-impearled” cf. Drayton, Ideas, sonnet liii., “amongst the dainty dew-impearled flowers,” where the epithet is more appropriate and intelligible.

[7] 1830. The few.

[8] 1830 and 1842. Thee.

[9] 1830. Methinks were, so till 1850, when it was altered to the present reading.

[10] The cottage at Maplethorpe where the Tennysons used to spend the summer holidays. (See Life, i., 46.)

[11] 1830. Emblems or Glimpses of Eternity.

[12] 1830. Pleached. The whole of this passage is an exact description of the Parsonage garden at Somersby. See Life, i., 27.

Song

First printed in 1830.

The poem was written in the garden at the Old Rectory, Somersby; an autumn scene there which it faithfully describes. This poem seems to have haunted Poe, a fervent admirer of Tennyson’s early poems.

1

A Spirit haunts the year’s last hours
Dwelling amid these yellowing bowers:
To himself he talks;
For at eventide, listening earnestly,
At his work you may hear him sob and sigh
In the walks;
Earthward he boweth the heavy stalks
Of the mouldering flowers:
Heavily hangs the broad sunflower
Over its grave i’ the earth so chilly;
Heavily hangs the hollyhock,
Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.

2

The air is damp, and hush’d, and close,
As a sick man’s room when he taketh repose
An hour before death;
My very heart faints and my whole soul grieves
At the moist rich smell of the rotting leaves,
And the breath
Of the fading edges of box beneath,
And the year’s last rose.
Heavily hangs the broad sunflower
Over its grave i’ the earth so chilly;
Heavily hangs the hollyhock,
Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.

Adeline

First printed in 1830.

1

Mystery of mysteries,
Faintly smiling Adeline,
Scarce of earth nor all divine,
Nor unhappy, nor at rest,
But beyond expression fair
With thy floating flaxen hair;
Thy rose-lips and full blue eyes
Take the heart from out my breast.
Wherefore those dim looks of thine,
Shadowy, dreaming Adeline?

2

Whence that aery bloom of thine,
Like a lily which the sun
Looks thro’ in his sad decline,
And a rose-bush leans upon,
Thou that faintly smilest still,
As a Naïad in a well,
Looking at the set of day,
Or a phantom two hours old
Of a maiden passed away,
Ere the placid lips be cold?
Wherefore those faint smiles of thine,
Spiritual Adeline?

3

What hope or fear or joy is thine?
Who talketh with thee, Adeline?
For sure thou art not all alone:
Do beating hearts of salient springs
Keep measure with thine own?
Hast thou heard the butterflies
What they say betwixt their wings?
Or in stillest evenings
With what voice the violet woos
To his heart the silver dews?
Or when little airs arise,
How the merry bluebell rings^[1]
To the mosses underneath?
Hast thou look’d upon the breath
Of the lilies at sunrise?
Wherefore that faint smile of thine,
Shadowy, dreaming Adeline?

4

Some honey-converse feeds thy mind,
Some spirit of a crimson rose
In love with thee forgets to close
His curtains, wasting odorous sighs
All night long on darkness blind.
What aileth thee? whom waitest thou
With thy soften’d, shadow’d brow,
And those dew-lit eyes of thine,^[2]
Thou faint smiler, Adeline?

5

Lovest thou the doleful wind
When thou gazest at the skies?
Doth the low-tongued Orient^[3]
Wander from the side of^[4] the morn,
Dripping with Sabæan spice
On thy pillow, lowly bent
With melodious airs lovelorn,
Breathing Light against thy face,
While his locks a-dropping^[5] twined
Round thy neck in subtle ring
Make a carcanet of rays,^[6]
And ye talk together still,
In the language wherewith Spring
Letters cowslips on the hill?
Hence that look and smile of thine,
Spiritual Adeline.

[1] This conceit seems to have been borrowed from Shelley, Sensitive Plant, i.:—

        And the hyacinth, purple and white and blue,
        Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew
        Of music.

[2] Cf. Collins, Ode to Pity, “and eyes of dewy light”.

[3] What “the low-tongued Orient” may mean I cannot explain.

[4] 1830 and all editions till 1853. O’.

[5] 1863. A-drooping.

[6] A carcanet is a necklace, diminutive from old French “Carcan”. Cf. Comedy of Errors, in., i, “To see the making of her Carcanet”.

A Character

First printed in 1830.

The only authoritative light thrown on the person here described is what the present Lord Tennyson gives, who tells us that “the then well-known Cambridge orator S—was partly described”. He was “a very plausible, parliament-like, self-satisfied speaker at the Union Debating Society”. The character reminds us of Wordsworth’s Moralist. See Poet’s Epitaph;—

One to whose smooth-rubbed soul can cling,
    Nor form nor feeling, great nor small;
A reasoning, self-sufficient thing,
    An intellectual all in all.

Shakespeare’s fop, too (Hotspur’s speech, Henry IV., i., i., 2), seems to have suggested a touch or two.

With a half-glance upon the sky
At night he said, “The wanderings
Of this most intricate Universe
Teach me the nothingness of things”.
Yet could not all creation pierce
Beyond the bottom of his eye.

He spake of beauty: that the dull
Saw no divinity in grass,
Life in dead stones, or spirit in air;
Then looking as ’twere in a glass,
He smooth’d his chin and sleek’d his hair,
And said the earth was beautiful.

He spake of virtue: not the gods
More purely, when they wish to charm
Pallas and Juno sitting by:
And with a sweeping of the arm,
And a lack-lustre dead-blue eye,
Devolved his rounded periods.

Most delicately hour by hour
He canvass’d human mysteries,
And trod on silk, as if the winds
Blew his own praises in his eyes,
And stood aloof from other minds
In impotence of fancied power.

With lips depress’d as he were meek,
Himself unto himself he sold:
Upon himself himself did feed:
Quiet, dispassionate, and cold,
And other than his form of creed,
With chisell’d features clear and sleek.

The Poet

First printed in 1830.

In this poem we have the first grand note struck by Tennyson, the first poem exhibiting the σπουδαιότης of the true poet.

The poet in a golden clime was born,
With golden stars above;
Dower’d with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn,^[1]
The love of love.

He saw thro’^[2] life and death, thro’^[3] good and ill,
He saw thro’^[4] his own soul.
The marvel of the everlasting will,
An open scroll,

Before him lay: with echoing feet he threaded
The secretest walks of fame:
The viewless arrows of his thoughts were headed
And wing’d with flame,—

Like Indian reeds blown from his silver tongue,
And of so fierce a flight,
From Calpe unto Caucasus they sung,
Filling with light

And vagrant melodies the winds which bore
Them earthward till they lit;
Then, like the arrow-seeds of the field flower,
The fruitful wit

Cleaving, took root, and springing forth anew
Where’er they fell, behold,
Like to the mother plant in semblance, grew
A flower all gold,

And bravely furnish’d all abroad to fling
The winged shafts of truth,
To throng with stately blooms the breathing spring
Of Hope and Youth.

So many minds did gird their orbs with beams,
Tho’^[5] one did fling the fire.
Heaven flow’d upon the soul in many dreams
Of high desire.

Thus truth was multiplied on truth, the world
Like one^[6] great garden show’d,
And thro’ the wreaths of floating dark upcurl’d,
Rare sunrise flow’d.

And Freedom rear’d in that august sunrise
Her beautiful bold brow,
When rites and forms before his burning eyes
Melted like snow.

There was no blood upon her maiden robes
Sunn’d by those orient skies;
But round about the circles of the globes
Of her keen eyes

And in her raiment’s hem was traced in flame
WISDOM, a name to shake
All evil dreams of power—a sacred name.^[7]
And when she spake,

Her words did gather thunder as they ran,
And as the lightning to the thunder
Which follows it, riving the spirit of man,
Making earth wonder,

So was their meaning to her words.
No sword
Of wrath her right arm whirl’d,^[8]
But one poor poet’s scroll, and with his word
She shook the world.

[1] The expression, as is not uncommon with Tennyson, is extremely ambiguous; it may mean that he hated hatred, scorned scorn, and loved love, or that he had hatred, scorn and love as it were in quintessence, like Dante, and that is no doubt the meaning

[2] 1830. Through.

[3] 1830. Through.

[4] 1830. Through.

[5] 1830 till 1851. Though.

[6] 1830. A.

[7] 1830.

And in the bordure of her robe was writ
    Wisdom, a name to shake
Hoar anarchies, as with a thunderfit.

[8] 1830. Hurled.

The Poet’s Mind

First published in 1830.
A companion poem to the preceding.

After line 7 in 1830 appears this stanza, afterwards omitted:—

Clear as summer mountain streams,
Bright as the inwoven beams,
Which beneath their crisping sapphire
In the midday, floating o’er
The golden sands, make evermore
To a blossom-starrèd shore.
Hence away, unhallowed laughter!

1

Vex not thou the poet’s mind
With thy shallow wit:
Vex not thou the poet’s mind;
For thou canst not fathom it.
Clear and bright it should be ever,
Flowing like a crystal river;
Bright as light, and clear as wind.

2

Dark-brow’d sophist, come not anear;
All the place^[1] is holy ground;
Hollow smile and frozen sneer
Come not here.
Holy water will I pour
Into every spicy flower
Of the laurel-shrubs that hedge it around.
The flowers would faint at your cruel cheer.
In your eye there is death,
There is frost in your breath
Which would blight the plants.
Where you stand you cannot hear
From the groves within
The wild-bird’s din.
In the heart of the garden the merry bird chants,
It would fall to the ground if you came in.
In the middle leaps a fountain
Like sheet lightning,
Ever brightening
With a low melodious thunder;
All day and all night it is ever drawn
From the brain of the purple mountain
Which stands in the distance yonder:
It springs on a level of bowery lawn,
And the mountain draws it from Heaven above,
And it sings a song of undying love;
And yet, tho’^[2] its voice be so clear and full,
You never would hear it; your ears are so dull;
So keep where you are: you are foul with sin;
It would shrink to the earth if you came in.

[1] 1830. The poet’s mind. With this may be compared the opening stanza of Gray’s Installation Ode: “Hence! avaunt! ’tis holy ground,” and for the sentiments cf. Wordsworth’s Poet’s Epitaph.

[2] 1830 to 1851. Though.

The Sea Fairies

First published in 1830 but excluded from all editions till its restoration, when it was greatly altered, in 1853. I here give the text as it appeared in 1830; where the present text is the same as that of 1830 asterisks indicate it.

This poem is a sort of prelude to the Lotos-Eaters, the burthen being the same, a siren song: “Why work, why toil, when all must be over so soon, and when at best there is so little to reward?”

Slow sailed the weary mariners, and saw
Between the green brink and the running foam
White limbs unrobed in a chrystal air,
Sweet faces, etc.
...
middle sea.

SONG

Whither away, whither away, whither away?
Fly no more!
Whither away wi’ the singing sail? whither away wi’ the oar?
Whither away from the high green field and the happy blossoming shore?
Weary mariners, hither away,
One and all, one and all,
Weary mariners, come and play;
We will sing to you all the day;
Furl the sail and the foam will fall
From the prow! one and all
Furl the sail! drop the oar!
Leap ashore!
Know danger and trouble and toil no more.
Whither away wi’ the sail and the oar?
Drop the oar,
Leap ashore,
Fly no more!
Whither away wi’ the sail? whither away wi’ the oar?
Day and night to the billow, etc.
...
over the lea;
They freshen the silvery-crimson shells,
And thick with white bells the cloverhill swells
High over the full-toned sea.
Merrily carol the revelling gales
Over the islands free:
From the green seabanks the rose downtrails
To the happy brimmèd sea.
Come hither, come hither, and be our lords,
For merry brides are we:
We will kiss sweet kisses, etc.
...
With pleasure and love and revelry;
...
ridgèd sea.
Ye will not find so happy a shore
Weary mariners! all the world o’er;
Oh! fly no more!
Harken ye, harken ye, sorrow shall darken ye,
Danger and trouble and toil no more;
Whither away?
Drop the oar;
Hither away,
Leap ashore;
Oh! fly no more—no more.
Whither away, whither away, whither away with the sail and the oar?

Slow sail’d the weary mariners and saw,
Betwixt the green brink and the running foam,
Sweet faces, rounded arms, and bosoms prest
To little harps of gold; and while they mused,
Whispering to each other half in fear,
Shrill music reach’d them on the middle sea.

Whither away, whither away, whither away? fly no more.
Whither away from the high green field, and the happy blossoming shore?
Day and night to the billow the fountain calls;
Down shower the gambolling waterfalls
From wandering over the lea:
Out of the live-green heart of the dells
They freshen the silvery-crimsoned shells,
And thick with white bells the clover-hill swells
High over the full-toned sea:
O hither, come hither and furl your sails,
Come hither to me and to me:
Hither, come hither and frolic and play;
Here it is only the mew that wails;
We will sing to you all the day:
Mariner, mariner, furl your sails,
For here are the blissful downs and dales,
And merrily merrily carol the gales,
And the spangle dances in bight^[1] and bay,
And the rainbow forms and flies on the land
Over the islands free;
And the rainbow lives in the curve of the sand;
Hither, come hither and see;
And the rainbow hangs on the poising wave,
And sweet is the colour of cove and cave,

And sweet shall your welcome be:
O hither, come hither, and be our lords
For merry brides are we:
We will kiss sweet kisses, and speak sweet words:
O listen, listen, your eyes shall glisten
With pleasure and love and jubilee:
O listen, listen, your eyes shall glisten
When the sharp clear twang of the golden cords
Runs up the ridged sea.
Who can light on as happy a shore
All the world o’er, all the world o’er?
Whither away? listen and stay: mariner, mariner, fly no more.

[1] Bight is properly the coil of a rope; it then came to mean a bend, and so a corner or bay. The same phrase occurs in the Voyage of Maledune, v.: “and flung them in bight and bay”.

The Deserted House

First printed in 1830, omitted in all the editions till 1848 when it was restored. The poem is of course allegorical, and is very much in the vein of many poems in Anglo-Saxon poetry.

1

Life and Thought have gone away
Side by side,
Leaving door and windows wide:

2

All within is dark as night:
In the windows is no light;
And no murmur at the door,
So frequent on its hinge before.

3

Close the door, the shutters close,
Or thro’^[1] the windows we shall see
The nakedness and vacancy
Of the dark deserted house.

4

Come away: no more of mirth
Is here or merry-making sound.
The house was builded of the earth,
And shall fall again to ground.

5

Come away: for Life and Thought
Here no longer dwell;
But in a city glorious—
A great and distant city—have bought
A mansion incorruptible.
Would they could have stayed with us!

[1] 1848 and 1851. Through.

The Dying Swan

First printed in 1830.

The superstition here assumed is so familiar from the Classics as well as from modern tradition that it scarcely needs illustration or commentary. But see Plato, Phaedrus, xxxi., and Shakespeare, King John, v., 7.

1

The plain was grassy, wild and bare,
Wide, wild, and open to the air,
Which had built up everywhere
An under-roof of doleful gray.^[1]
With an inner voice the river ran,
Adown it floated a dying swan,
And^[2] loudly did lament.
It was the middle of the day.
Ever the weary wind went on,
And took the reed-tops as it went.

2

Some blue peaks in the distance rose,
And white against the cold-white sky,
Shone out their crowning snows.
One willow over the water^[3] wept,
And shook the wave as the wind did sigh;
Above in the wind was^[4] the swallow,
Chasing itself at its own wild will,
And far thro’^[5] the marish green and still
The tangled water-courses slept,
Shot over with purple, and green, and yellow.

3

The wild swan’s death-hymn took the soul
Of that waste place with joy
Hidden in sorrow: at first to the ear
The warble was low, and full and clear;
And floating about the under-sky,
Prevailing in weakness, the coronach^[6] stole
Sometimes afar, and sometimes anear;
But anon her awful jubilant voice,
With a music strange and manifold,
Flow’d forth on a carol free and bold;
As when a mighty people rejoice
With shawms, and with cymbals, and harps of gold,
And the tumult of their acclaim is roll’d
Thro’^[7] the open gates of the city afar,
To the shepherd who watcheth the evening star.
And the creeping mosses and clambering weeds,
And the willow-branches hoar and dank,
And the wavy swell of the soughing reeds,
And the wave-worn horns of the echoing bank,
And the silvery marish-flowers that throng
The desolate creeks and pools among,
Were flooded over with eddying song.

[1] 1830. Grey.

[2] 1830 till 1848. Which.

[3] 1863. River.

[4] 1830. Sung.

[5] 1830. Through.

[6] A coronach is a funeral song or lamentation, from the Gaelic Corranach. Cf. Scott’s Waverley, ch. xv., “Their wives and daughters came clapping their hands and crying the coronach and shrieking”.

[7] 1830 till 1851. Through.

A Dirge

First printed in 1830.

1

Now is done thy long day’s work;
Fold thy palms across thy breast,
Fold thine arms, turn to thy rest.
Let them rave.
Shadows of the silver birk^[1]
Sweep the green that folds thy grave.
Let them rave.

2

Thee nor carketh^[2] care nor slander;
Nothing but the small cold worm
Fretteth thine enshrouded form.
Let them rave.
Light and shadow ever wander
O’er the green that folds thy grave.
Let them rave.

3

Thou wilt not turn upon thy bed;
Chaunteth not the brooding bee
Sweeter tones than calumny?
Let them rave.
Thou wilt never raise thine head
From the green that folds thy grave.
Let them rave.

4

Crocodiles wept tears for thee;
The woodbine and eglatere
Drip sweeter dews than traitor’s tear.
Let them rave.
Rain makes music in the tree
O’er the green that folds thy grave.
Let them rave.

5

Round thee blow, self-pleached^[3] deep,
Bramble-roses, faint and pale,
And long purples^[4] of the dale.
Let them rave.
These in every shower creep.
Thro’^[5] the green that folds thy grave.
Let them rave.

6

The gold-eyed kingcups fine:
The frail bluebell peereth over
Rare broidry of the purple clover.
Let them rave.
Kings have no such couch as thine,
As the green that folds thy grave.
Let them rave.

7

Wild words wander here and there;
God’s great gift of speech abused
Makes thy memory confused:
But let them rave.
The balm-cricket^[6] carols clear
In the green that folds thy grave.
Let them rave.

[1] Still used in the north of England for “birch”.

[2] Carketh. Here used transitively, “troubles,” though in Old English it is generally intransitive, meaning to be careful or thoughtful; it is from the Anglo-Saxon Carian; it became obsolete in the seventeenth century. The substantive cark, trouble or anxiety, is generally in Old English coupled with “care”.

[3] Self-pleached, self-entangled or intertwined. Cf. Shakespeare, “pleached bower,” Much Ado, iii., i., 7.

[4] 1830. “Long purples,” thus marking that the phrase is borrowed from Shakespeare, Hamlet, iv., vii., 169:—

and long purples
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name.
It is the purple-flowered orchis, orchis mascula.

[5] 1830. Through.

[6] Balm cricket, the tree cricket; balm is a corruption of baum.

Love and Death

First printed in 1830.

What time the mighty moon was gathering light^[1]
Love paced the thymy plots of Paradise,
And all about him roll’d his lustrous eyes;
When, turning round a cassia, full in view
Death, walking all alone beneath a yew,
And talking to himself, first met his sight:
“You must begone,” said Death, “these walks are mine”.
Love wept and spread his sheeny vans^[2] for flight;
Yet ere he parted said, “This hour is thine;
Thou art the shadow of life, and as the tree
Stands in the sun and shadows all beneath,
So in the light of great eternity
Life eminent creates the shade of death;
The shadow passeth when the tree shall fall,
But I shall reign for ever over all”.^[3]

[1] The expression is Virgil’s, Georg., i., 427: “Luna revertentes cum primum colligit ignes”.

[2] Vans used also for “wings” by Milton, Paradise Lost, ii., 927-8:—
        His sail-broad vans
        He spreads for flight.

So also Tasso, Ger. Lib., ix., 60: “Indi spiega al gran volo i vanni aurati”.

[3] Cf. Lockley Hall Sixty Years After: “Love will conquer at the last”.

The Ballad of Oriana

First published in 1830, not in 1833.

This fine ballad was evidently suggested by the old ballad of Helen of Kirkconnel, both poems being based on a similar incident, and both being the passionate soliloquy of the bereaved lover, though Tennyson’s treatment of the subject is his own. Helen of Kirkconnel was one of the poems which he was fond of reciting, and Fitzgerald says that he used also to recite this poem, in a way not to be forgotten, at Cambridge tables. Life, i., p. 77.

My heart is wasted with my woe, Oriana.
There is no rest for me below, Oriana.
When the long dun wolds are ribb’d with snow,
And loud the Norland whirlwinds blow, Oriana,
Alone I wander to and fro, Oriana.

Ere the light on dark was growing, Oriana,
At midnight the cock was crowing, Oriana:
Winds were blowing, waters flowing,
We heard the steeds to battle going, Oriana;
Aloud the hollow bugle blowing, Oriana.

In the yew-wood black as night, Oriana,
Ere I rode into the fight, Oriana,
While blissful tears blinded my sight
By star-shine and by moonlight, Oriana,
I to thee my troth did plight, Oriana.

She stood upon the castle wall, Oriana:
She watch’d my crest among them all, Oriana:
She saw me fight, she heard me call,
When forth there stept a foeman tall, Oriana,
Atween me and the castle wall, Oriana.

The bitter arrow went aside, Oriana:
The false, false arrow went aside, Oriana:
The damned arrow glanced aside,
And pierced thy heart, my love, my bride, Oriana!
Thy heart, my life, my love, my bride, Oriana!

Oh! narrow, narrow was the space, Oriana.
Loud, loud rung out the bugle’s brays, Oriana.
Oh! deathful stabs were dealt apace,
The battle deepen’d in its place, Oriana;
But I was down upon my face, Oriana.

They should have stabb’d me where I lay, Oriana!
How could I rise and come away, Oriana?
How could I look upon the day?
They should have stabb’d me where I lay, Oriana
They should have trod me into clay, Oriana.

O breaking heart that will not break, Oriana!
O pale, pale face so sweet and meek, Oriana!
Thou smilest, but thou dost not speak,
And then the tears run down my cheek, Oriana:
What wantest thou? whom dost thou seek, Oriana?

I cry aloud: none hear my cries, Oriana.
Thou comest atween me and the skies, Oriana.
I feel the tears of blood arise
Up from my heart unto my eyes, Oriana.
Within my heart my arrow lies, Oriana.

O cursed hand! O cursed blow! Oriana!
O happy thou that liest low, Oriana!
All night the silence seems to flow
Beside me in my utter woe, Oriana.
A weary, weary way I go, Oriana.

When Norland winds pipe down the sea, Oriana,
I walk, I dare not think of thee, Oriana.
Thou liest beneath the greenwood tree,
I dare not die and come to thee, Oriana.
I hear the roaring of the sea, Oriana.

Circumstance

First published in 1830.

Two children in two neighbour villages
Playing mad pranks along the healthy leas;
Two strangers meeting at a festival;
Two lovers whispering by an orchard wall;
Two lives bound fast in one with golden ease;
Two graves grass-green beside a gray church-tower,
Wash’d with still rains and daisy-blossomed;
Two children in one hamlet born and bred;
So runs^[1] the round of life from hour to hour.

[1] 1830. Fill up.

The Merman

First printed in 1830.

1

Who would be
A merman bold,
Sitting alone,
Singing alone
Under the sea,
With a crown of gold,
On a throne?

2

I would be a merman bold;
I would sit and sing the whole of the day;
I would fill the sea-halls with a voice of power;
But at night I would roam abroad and play
With the mermaids in and out of the rocks,
Dressing their hair with the white sea-flower;
And holding them back by their flowing locks
I would kiss them often under the sea,
And kiss them again till they kiss’d me
Laughingly, laughingly;
And then we would wander away, away
To the pale-green sea-groves straight and high,
Chasing each other merrily.

3

There would be neither moon nor star;
But the wave would make music above us afar—
Low thunder and light in the magic night—
Neither moon nor star.
We would call aloud in the dreamy dells,
Call to each other and whoop and cry
All night, merrily, merrily;
They would pelt me with starry spangles and shells,
Laughing and clapping their hands between,
All night, merrily, merrily:
But I would throw to them back in mine
Turkis and agate and almondine:^[1]
Then leaping out upon them unseen
I would kiss them often under the sea,
And kiss them again till they kiss’d me
Laughingly, laughingly.
Oh! what a happy life were mine
Under the hollow-hung ocean green!
Soft are the moss-beds under the sea;
We would live merrily, merrily.

[1] Almondine. This should be “almandine,” the word probably being a corruption of alabandina, a gem so called because found at Alabanda in Caria; it is a garnet of a violet or amethystine tint. Cf. Browning, Fefine at the Fair, xv., “that string of mock-turquoise, these almandines of glass”.

The Mermaid

First printed in 1830.

1

Who would be
A mermaid fair,
Singing alone,
Combing her hair
Under the sea,
In a golden curl
With a comb of pearl,
On a throne?

2

I would be a mermaid fair;
I would sing to myself the whole of the day;
With a comb of pearl I would comb my hair;
And still as I comb’d I would sing and say,
“Who is it loves me? who loves not me?”
I would comb my hair till my ringlets would fall,
Low adown, low adown,
From under my starry sea-bud crown
Low adown and around,
And I should look like a fountain of gold
Springing alone
With a shrill inner sound,
Over the throne
In the midst of the hall;
Till that^[1] great sea-snake under the sea
From his coiled sleeps in the central deeps
Would slowly trail himself sevenfold
Round the hall where I sate, and look in at the gate
With his large calm eyes for the love of me.
And all the mermen under the sea
Would feel their^[2] immortality
Die in their hearts for the love of me.

3

But at night I would wander away, away,
I would fling on each side my low-flowing locks,
And lightly vault from the throne and play
With the mermen in and out of the rocks;
We would run to and fro, and hide and seek,
On the broad sea-wolds in the^[3] crimson shells,
Whose silvery spikes are nighest the sea.
But if any came near I would call, and shriek,
And adown the steep like a wave I would leap
From the diamond-ledges that jut from the dells;
For I would not be kiss’d^[4] by all who would list,
Of the bold merry mermen under the sea;
They would sue me, and woo me, and flatter me,
In the purple twilights under the sea;
But the king of them all would carry me,
Woo me, and win me, and marry me,
In the branching jaspers under the sea;
Then all the dry pied things that be
In the hueless mosses under the sea
Would curl round my silver feet silently,
All looking up for the love of me.
And if I should carol aloud, from aloft
All things that are forked, and horned, and soft
Would lean out from the hollow sphere of the sea,
All looking down for the love of me.

[1] Till 1857. The.

[2] Till 1857. The.

[3] 1830. ’I the. So till 1853.

[4] 1830 Kist.

Sonnet to J. M. K.

First printed in 1830, not in 1833.

This sonnet was addressed to John Mitchell Kemble, the well-known Editor of the Beowulf and other Anglo-Saxon poems. He intended to go into the Church, but was never ordained, and devoted his life to early English studies. See memoir of him in Dict, of Nat. Biography.

My hope and heart is with thee—thou wilt be
A latter Luther, and a soldier-priest
To scare church-harpies from the master’s feast;
Our dusted velvets have much need of thee:
Thou art no Sabbath-drawler of old saws,
Distill’d from some worm-canker’d homily;
But spurr’d at heart with fieriest energy
To embattail and to wall about thy cause
With iron-worded proof, hating to hark
The humming of the drowsy pulpit-drone
Half God’s good sabbath, while the worn-out clerk
Brow-beats his desk below. Thou from a throne
Mounted in heaven wilt shoot into the dark
Arrows of lightnings. I will stand and mark.

The Lady of Shalott

First published in 1833.

This poem was composed in its first form as early as May, 1832 or 1833, as we learn from Fitzgerald’s note—of the exact year he was not certain (Life of Tennyson, i., 147). The evolution of the poem is an interesting study. How greatly it was altered in the second edition of 1842 will be evident from the collation which follows. The text of 1842 became the permanent text, and in this no subsequent material alterations were made. The poem is more purely fanciful than Tennyson perhaps was willing to own; certainly his explanation of the allegory, as he gave it to Canon Ainger, is not very intelligible: “The new-born love for something, for some one in the wide world from which she has been so long excluded, takes her out of the region of shadows into that of realities”. Poe’s commentary is most to the point: “Why do some persons fatigue themselves in endeavours to unravel such phantasy pieces as the Lady of Shallot? As well unweave the ventum textilem”.—Democratic Review, Dec., 1844, quoted by Mr. Herne Shepherd. Mr. Palgrave says (selection from the Lyric Poems of Tennyson, p. 257) the poem was suggested by an Italian romance upon the Donna di Scalotta. On what authority this is said I do not know, nor can I identify the novel. In Novella, lxxxi., a collection of novels printed at Milan in 1804, there is one which tells but very briefly the story of Elaine’s love and death, “Qui conta come la Damigella di scalot mori per amore di Lancealotto di Lac,” and as in this novel Camelot is placed near the sea, this may be the novel referred to. In any case the poem is a fanciful and possibly an allegorical variant of the story of Elaine, Shalott being a form, through the French, of Astolat.

Part I

On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And thro’ the field the road runs by
To many-tower’d Camelot;
And up and down the people go,
Gazing where the lilies blow
Round an island there below,
The island of Shalott.^[1]

Willows whiten, aspens quiver,^[2]
Little breezes dusk and shiver
Thro’ the wave that runs for ever
By the island in the river
Flowing down to Camelot.
Four gray walls, and four gray towers,
Overlook a space of flowers,
And the silent isle imbowers
The Lady of Shalott.

By the margin, willow-veil’d
Slide the heavy barges trail’d
By slow horses; and unhail’d
The shallop flitteth silken-sail’d
Skimming down to Camelot:
But who hath seen her wave her hand?
Or at the casement seen her stand?
Or is she known in all the land,
The Lady of Shalott?^[3]

Only reapers, reaping early
In among the bearded barley,
Hear a song that echoes cheerly
From the river winding clearly,
Down to tower’d Camelot:
And by the moon the reaper weary,
Piling sheaves in uplands airy,
Listening, whispers “’Tis the fairy
Lady of Shalott”.^[4]

Part II

There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay.
She has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on her if she stay^[5]
To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be,
And so^[6] she weaveth steadily,
And little other care hath she,
The Lady of Shalott.

And moving thro’ a mirror clear
That hangs before her all the year,
Shadows of the world appear.
There she sees the highway near
Winding down to Camelot:
There the river eddy whirls,
And there the surly village-churls,^[7]
And the red cloaks of market girls,
Pass onward from Shalott.

Sometimes a troop of damsels glad,
An abbot on an ambling pad,
Sometimes a curly shepherd-lad,
Or long-hair’d page in crimson clad,
Goes by to tower’d Camelot;
And sometimes thro’ the mirror blue
The knights come riding two and two:
She hath no loyal knight and true,
The Lady of Shalott.

But in her web she still delights
To weave the mirror’s magic sights,
For often thro’ the silent nights
A funeral, with plumes and lights,
And music, went to Camelot:^[8]
Or when the moon was overhead,
Came two young lovers lately wed;
“I am half-sick of shadows,” said
The Lady of Shalott.^[9]

Part III

A bow-shot from her bower-eaves,
He rode between the barley sheaves,
The sun came dazzling thro’ the leaves,
And flamed upon the brazen greaves
Of bold Sir Lancelot.
A redcross knight for ever kneel’d
To a lady in his shield,
That sparkled on the yellow field,
Beside remote Shalott.

The gemmy bridle glitter’d free,
Like to some branch of stars we see
Hung in the golden Galaxy.^[10]
The bridle bells rang merrily
As he rode down to^[11] Camelot:
And from his blazon’d baldric slung
A mighty silver bugle hung,
And as he rode his armour rung,
Beside remote Shalott.

All in the blue unclouded weather
Thick-jewell’d shone the saddle-leather,
The helmet and the helmet-feather
Burn’d like one burning flame together,
As he rode down to Camelot.^[12]
As often thro’ the purple night,
Below the starry clusters bright,
Some bearded meteor, trailing light,
Moves over still Shalott.^[13]

His broad clear brow in sunlight glow’d;
On burnish’d hooves his war-horse trode;
From underneath his helmet flow’d
His coal-black curls as on he rode,
As he rode down to Camelot.^[14]
From the bank and from the river
He flashed into the crystal mirror,
“Tirra lirra,” by the river^[15]
Sang Sir Lancelot.

She left the web, she left the loom;
She made three paces thro’ the room,
She saw the water-lily^[16] bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She look’d down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack’d from side to side;
“The curse is come upon me,” cried
The Lady of Shalott.

Part IV

In the stormy east-wind straining,
The pale yellow woods were waning,
The broad stream in his banks complaining,
Heavily the low sky raining
Over tower’d Camelot;
Down she came and found a boat
Beneath a willow left afloat,
And round about the prow she wrote
The Lady of Shalott.^[17]

And down the river’s dim expanse—
Like some bold seër in a trance,
Seeing all his own mischance—
With a glassy countenance
Did she look to Camelot.
And at the closing of the day
She loosed the chain, and down she lay;
The broad stream bore her far away,
The Lady of Shalott.

Lying, robed in snowy white
That loosely flew to left and right—
The leaves upon her falling light—
Thro’ the noises of the night
She floated down to Camelot;
And as the boat-head wound along
The willowy hills and fields among,
They heard her singing her last song,
The Lady of Shalott.^[18]

Heard a carol, mournful, holy,
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her blood was frozen slowly,
And her eyes were darken’d wholly,^[19]
Turn’d to tower’d Camelot;
For ere she reach’d upon the tide
The first house by the water-side,
Singing in her song she died,
The Lady of Shalott.

Under tower and balcony,
By garden-wall and gallery,
A gleaming shape she floated by,
Dead-pale^[20] between the houses high,
Silent into Camelot.
Out upon the wharfs they came,
Knight and burgher, lord and dame,
And round the prow they read her name,
The Lady of Shalott^[21]

Who is this? and what is here?
And in the lighted palace near
Died the sound of royal cheer;
And they cross’d themselves for fear,
All the knights at Camelot:
But Lancelot^[22] mused a little space;
He said, “She has a lovely face;
God in his mercy lend her grace,
The Lady of Shalott”.^[23]

[1] 1833.

To many towered Camelot
The yellow leaved water lily,
The green sheathed daffodilly,
Tremble in the water chilly,
Round about Shalott.

[2] 1833.

... shiver,
The sunbeam-showers break and quiver
In the stream that runneth ever
By the island, etc.

[3] 1833.

Underneath the bearded barley,
The reaper, reaping late and early,
Hears her ever chanting cheerly,
Like an angel, singing clearly,
O’er the stream of Camelot.
Piling the sheaves in furrows airy,
Beneath the moon, the reaper weary
Listening whispers, “’tis the fairy
Lady of Shalott”.

[4] 1833.

The little isle is all inrailed
With a rose-fence, and overtrailed
With roses: by the marge unhailed
The shallop flitteth silkensailed,
Skimming down to Camelot.
A pearl garland winds her head:
She leaneth on a velvet bed,
Full royally apparelled,
The Lady of Shalott.

[5] 1833.

No time hath she to sport and play:
A charmed web she weaves alway.
A curse is on her, if she stay
Her weaving, either night or day

[6] 1833.

Therefore ...
Therefore ...
The Lady of Shalott.

[7] 1833.

She lives with little joy or fear
Over the water running near,
The sheep bell tinkles in her ear,
Before her hangs a mirror clear,
Reflecting towered Camelot.
And, as the mazy web she whirls,
She sees the surly village-churls.

[8] 1833. Came from Camelot.

[9] In these lines are to be found, says the present Lord Tennyson, the key to the mystic symbolism of the poem. But it is not easy to see how death could be an advantageous exchange for fancy-haunted solitude. The allegory is clearer in lines 114-115, for love will so break up mere phantasy.

[10] 1833. Hung in the golden galaxy.

[11] 1833. From.

[12] 1833. From Camelot.

[13] 1833. Green Shalott.

[14] 1833. From Camelot.

[15] 1833. “Tirra lirra, tirra lirra.”

[16] 1833. Water flower.

[17] 1833.

Outside the isle a shallow boat
Beneath a willow lay afloat,
Below the carven stern she wrote,
THE LADY OF SHALOTT.

[18] 1833.

A cloud-white crown of pearl she dight,
All raimented in snowy white
That loosely flew (her zone in sight,
Clasped with one blinding diamond bright),
Her wide eyes fixed on Camelot,
Though the squally eastwind keenly
Blew, with folded arms serenely
By the water stood the queenly
Lady of Shalott.

With a steady, stony glance—
Like some bold seer in a trance,
Beholding all his own mischance,
Mute, with a glassy countenance—
She looked down to Camelot.
It was the closing of the day,
She loosed the chain, and down she lay,
The broad stream bore her far away,
The Lady of Shalott.

As when to sailors while they roam,
By creeks and outfalls far from home,
Rising and dropping with the foam,
From dying swans wild warblings come,
Blown shoreward; so to Camelot
Still as the boat-head wound along
The willowy hills and fields among,
They heard her chanting her death song,
The Lady of Shalott.

[19] 1833.

A long drawn carol, mournful, holy,
She chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her eyes were darkened wholly,
And her smooth face sharpened slowly.

[20] “A corse” (1853) is a variant for the “Dead-pale” of 1857.

[21] 1833.

A pale, pale corpse she floated by,
Dead cold, between the houses high,
Dead into towered Camelot.
Knight and burgher, lord and dame,
To the plankèd wharfage came:
Below the stern they read her name,
“The Lady of Shalott”.

[22] 1833. Spells it “Launcelot” all through.

[23] 1833.

They crossed themselves, their stars they blest,
Knight, minstrel, abbot, squire and guest,
There lay a parchment on her breast,
That puzzled more than all the rest,
The well-fed wits at Camelot.
“The web was woven curiously,
The charm is broken utterly,
Draw near and fear not—this is I,
The Lady of Shalott.”

Mariana in the South

First printed in 1833.

This poem had been written as early as 1831 (see Arthur Hallam’s letter, Life, i., 284-5, Appendix), and Lord Tennyson tells us that it “came to my father as he was travelling between Narbonne and Perpignan”; how vividly the characteristic features of Southern France are depicted must be obvious to every one who is familiar with them. It is interesting to compare it with the companion poem; the central position is the same in both, desolate loneliness, and the mood is the same, but the setting is far more picturesque and is therefore more dwelt upon. The poem was very greatly altered when re-published in 1842, that text being practically the final one, there being no important variants afterwards.

In the edition of 1833 the poem opened with the following stanza, which was afterwards excised and the stanza of the present text substituted.

Behind the barren hill upsprung
With pointed rocks against the light,
The crag sharpshadowed overhung
Each glaring creek and inlet bright.
Far, far, one light blue ridge was seen,
Looming like baseless fairyland;
Eastward a slip of burning sand,
Dark-rimmed with sea, and bare of green,
Down in the dry salt-marshes stood
That house dark latticed. Not a breath
Swayed the sick vineyard underneath,
Or moved the dusty southernwood.
“Madonna,” with melodious moan
Sang Mariana, night and morn,
“Madonna! lo! I am all alone,
Love-forgotten and love-forlorn.”

With one black shadow at its feet,
The house thro’ all the level shines,
Close-latticed to the brooding heat,
And silent in its dusty vines:
A faint-blue ridge upon the right,
An empty river-bed before,
And shallows on a distant shore,
In glaring sand and inlets bright.
But “Ave Mary,” made she moan,
And “Ave Mary,” night and morn,
And “Ah,” she sang, “to be all alone,
To live forgotten, and love forlorn”.

She, as her carol sadder grew,
From brow and bosom slowly down^[1]
Thro’ rosy taper fingers drew
Her streaming curls of deepest brown
To left and right,^[2] and made appear,
Still-lighted in a secret shrine,
Her melancholy eyes divine,^[3]
The home of woe without a tear.
And “Ave Mary,” was her moan,^[4]
“Madonna, sad is night and morn”;
And “Ah,” she sang, “to be all alone,
To live forgotten, and love forlorn”.

Till all the crimson changed,^[5] and past
Into deep orange o’er the sea,
Low on her knees herself she cast,
Before Our Lady murmur’d she;
Complaining, “Mother, give me grace
To help me of my weary load”.
And on the liquid mirror glow’d
The clear perfection of her face.
“Is this the form,” she made her moan,
“That won his praises night and morn?”
And “Ah,” she said, “but I wake alone,
I sleep forgotten, I wake forlorn”.^[6]

Nor bird would sing, nor lamb would bleat,
Nor any cloud would cross the vault,
But day increased from heat to heat,
On stony drought and steaming salt;
Till now at noon she slept again,
And seem’d knee-deep in mountain grass,
And heard her native breezes pass,
And runlets babbling down the glen.
She breathed in sleep a lower moan,
And murmuring, as at night and morn,
She thought, “My spirit is here alone,
Walks forgotten, and is forlorn”.^[7]

Dreaming, she knew it was a dream:
She felt he was and was not there,^[8]
She woke: the babble of the stream
Fell, and without the steady glare
Shrank one sick willow^[9] sere and small.
The river-bed was dusty-white;
And all the furnace of the light
Struck up against the blinding wall.^[10]
She whisper’d, with a stifled moan
More inward than at night or morn,
“Sweet Mother, let me not here alone
Live forgotten, and die forlorn”.<sup>[11]

[12]</sup>And rising, from her bosom drew
Old letters, breathing of her worth,
For “Love,” they said, “must needs be true,
To what is loveliest upon earth”.
An image seem’d to pass the door,
To look at her with slight, and say,
“But now thy beauty flows away,
So be alone for evermore”.
“O cruel heart,” she changed her tone,
“And cruel love, whose end is scorn,
Is this the end to be left alone,
To live forgotten, and die forlorn!”

But sometimes in the falling day
An image seem’d to pass the door,
To look into her eyes and say,
“But thou shalt be alone no more”.
And flaming downward over all
From heat to heat the day decreased,
And slowly rounded to the east
The one black shadow from the wall.
“The day to night,” she made her moan,
“The day to night, the night to morn,
And day and night I am left alone
To live forgotten, and love forlorn.”

At eve a dry cicala sung,
There came a sound as of the sea;
Backward the lattice-blind she flung,
And lean’d upon the balcony.
There all in spaces rosy-bright
Large Hesper glitter’d on her tears,
And deepening thro’ the silent spheres,
Heaven over Heaven rose the night.
And weeping then she made her moan,
“The night comes on that knows not morn,
When I shall cease to be all alone,
To live forgotten, and love forlorn”.^[13]

[1] 1833 From her warm brow and bosom down.

[2] 1833. On either side.

[3] Compare Keats, Eve of St. Agnes, “her maiden eyes divine”.

[4] 1833. “Madonna,” with melodious moan Sang Mariana, etc.

[5] 1833. When the dawncrimson changed.

[6] 1833.

Unto our Lady prayed she.
She moved her lips, she prayed alone,
She praying disarrayed and warm
From slumber, deep her wavy form
In the dark-lustrous mirror shone.
“Madonna,” in a low clear tone
Said Mariana, night and morn,
Low she mourned, “I am all alone,
Love-forgotten, and love-forlorn”.

[7] 1833.

At noon she slumbered. All along
The silvery field, the large leaves talked
With one another, as among
The spikèd maize in dreams she walked.
The lizard leapt: the sunlight played:
She heard the callow nestling lisp,
And brimful meadow-runnels crisp.
In the full-leavèd platan-shade.
In sleep she breathed in a lower tone,
Murmuring as at night and morn,
“Madonna! lo! I am all alone.
Love-forgotten and love-forlorn”.

[8] 1835. Most false: he was and was not there.

[9] 1833. The sick olive. So the text remained till 1850, when “one” was substituted.

[10] 1833.

From the bald rock the blinding light
Beat ever on the sunwhite wall.

[11] 1833.

“Madonna, leave me not all alone,
To die forgotten and live forlorn.”

[12] This stanza and the next not in 1833.

[13] 1833.

One dry cicala’s summer song
At night filled all the gallery.
Ever the low wave seemed to roll
Up to the coast: far on, alone
In the East, large Hesper overshone
The mourning gulf, and on her soul
Poured divine solace, or the rise
Of moonlight from the margin gleamed,
Volcano-like, afar, and streamed
On her white arm, and heavenward eyes.
Not all alone she made her moan,
Yet ever sang she, night and morn,
“Madonna! lo! I am all alone,
Love-forgotten and love-forlorn”.

Eleänore

First printed in 1833. When reprinted in 1842 the alterations noted were then made, and after that the text remained unchanged.

1

Thy dark eyes open’d not,
Nor first reveal’d themselves to English air,
For there is nothing here,
Which, from the outward to the inward brought,
Moulded thy baby thought.
Far off from human neighbourhood,
Thou wert born, on a summer morn,
A mile beneath the cedar-wood.
Thy bounteous forehead was not fann’d
With breezes from our oaken glades,
But thou wert nursed in some delicious land
Of lavish lights, and floating shades:
And flattering thy childish thought
The oriental fairy brought,
At the moment of thy birth,
From old well-heads of haunted rills,
And the hearts of purple hills,
And shadow’d coves on a sunny shore,
The choicest wealth of all the earth,
Jewel or shell, or starry ore,
To deck thy cradle, Eleänore.^[1]

2

Or the yellow-banded bees,^[2]
Thro’^[3] half-open lattices
Coming in the scented breeze,
Fed thee, a child, lying alone,
With whitest honey in fairy gardens cull’d—
A glorious child, dreaming alone,
In silk-soft folds, upon yielding down,
With the hum of swarming bees
Into dreamful slumber lull’d.

3

Who may minister to thee?
Summer herself should minister
To thee, with fruitage golden-rinded
On golden salvers, or it may be,
Youngest Autumn, in a bower
Grape-thicken’d from the light, and blinded
With many a deep-hued bell-like flower
Of fragrant trailers, when the air
Sleepeth over all the heaven,
And the crag that fronts the Even,
All along the shadowing shore,
Crimsons over an inland^[4] mere,^[5]
Eleänore!

4

How may full-sail’d verse express,
How may measured words adore
The full-flowing harmony
Of thy swan-like stateliness,
Eleänore?
The luxuriant symmetry
Of thy floating gracefulness,
Eleänore?
Every turn and glance of thine,
Every lineament divine,
Eleänore,
And the steady sunset glow,
That stays upon thee? For in thee
Is nothing sudden, nothing single;
Like two streams of incense free
From one censer, in one shrine,
Thought and motion mingle,
Mingle ever. Motions flow
To one another, even as tho’^[6]
They were modulated so
To an unheard melody,
Which lives about thee, and a sweep
Of richest pauses, evermore
Drawn from each other mellow-deep;
Who may express thee, Eleänore?

5

I stand before thee, Eleänore;
I see thy beauty gradually unfold,
Daily and hourly, more and more.
I muse, as in a trance, the while
Slowly, as from a cloud of gold,
Comes out thy deep ambrosial smile.^[7] I muse, as in a trance, whene’er
The languors of thy love-deep eyes
Float on to me. I would I were
So tranced, so rapt in ecstacies,
To stand apart, and to adore,
Gazing on thee for evermore,
Serene, imperial Eleänore!

6

Sometimes, with most intensity
Gazing, I seem to see
Thought folded over thought, smiling asleep,
Slowly awaken’d, grow so full and deep
In thy large eyes, that, overpower’d quite,
I cannot veil, or droop my sight,
But am as nothing in its light:
As tho’^[8] a star, in inmost heaven set,
Ev’n while we gaze on it,
Should slowly round his orb, and slowly grow
To a full face, there like a sun remain
Fix’d—then as slowly fade again,
And draw itself to what it was before;
So full, so deep, so slow,
Thought seems to come and go
In thy large eyes, imperial Eleänore.

7

As thunder-clouds that, hung on high,
Roof’d the world with doubt and fear,^[9]
Floating thro’ an evening atmosphere,
Grow golden all about the sky;
In thee all passion becomes passionless,
Touch’d by thy spirit’s mellowness,
Losing his fire and active might
In a silent meditation,
Falling into a still delight,
And luxury of contemplation:
As waves that up a quiet cove
Rolling slide, and lying still
Shadow forth the banks at will:^[10]
Or sometimes they swell and move,
Pressing up against the land,
With motions of the outer sea:
And the self-same influence
Controlleth all the soul and sense
Of Passion gazing upon thee.
His bow-string slacken’d, languid Love,
Leaning his cheek upon his hand,^[11]
Droops both his wings, regarding thee,
And so would languish evermore,
Serene, imperial Eleänore.

8

But when I see thee roam, with tresses unconfined,
While the amorous, odorous wind
Breathes low between the sunset and the moon;
Or, in a shadowy saloon,
On silken cushions half reclined;
I watch thy grace; and in its place
My heart a charmed slumber keeps,^[12]
While I muse upon thy face;
And a languid fire creeps
Thro’ my veins to all my frame,
Dissolvingly and slowly: soon
From thy rose-red lips MY name
Floweth; and then, as in a swoon,^[13]
With dinning sound my ears are rife,
My tremulous tongue faltereth,
I lose my colour, I lose my breath,
I drink the cup of a costly death,
Brimm’d with delirious draughts of warmest life.
I die with my delight, before
I hear what I would hear from thee;
Yet tell my name again to me,
I would^[14] be dying evermore,
So dying ever, Eleänore.

[1] With the picture of Eleänore may be compared the description which Ibycus gives of Euryalus. See Bergk’s Anthologia Lyrica (Ibycus), p. 396.

[2] With yellow banded bees cf. Keats’s “yellow girted bees,” Endymion, i. With this may be compared Pindar’s beautiful picture of lamus, who was also fed on honey, Olympian, vi., 50-80.

[3] 1833 and 1842. Through.

[4] Till 1857. Island.

[5] 1833. Meer.

[6] 1842 and 1843. Though.

[7] Ambrosial, the Greek sense of ἀμβρόσιος, divine.

[8] 1833 to 1851. Though.

[9] 1833. Did roof noonday with doubt and fear.

[10] 1833.

As waves that from the outer deep
Roll into a quiet cove,
There fall away, and lying still,
Having glorious dreams in sleep,
Shadow forth the banks at will.

[11] Cf. Horace, Odes, iii., xxvii., 66-8:

Aderat querenti
Perfidum ridens Venus, et remisso
Filius arcu.

[12] 1833.

I gaze on thee the cloudless noon
Of mortal beauty.

[13] 1833. Then I faint, I swoon. The latter part of the eighth stanza is little more than an adaptation of Sappho’s famous Ode, filtered perhaps through the version of Catullus.

[14] It is curious that a poet so scrupulous as Tennyson should have retained to the last the italics.

The Miller’s Daughter

First published in 1833. It was greatly altered when republished in 1842, and in some respects, so Fitzgerald thought, not for the better. No alterations of much importance were made in it after 1842. The characters as well as the scenery were, it seems, purely imaginary. Tennyson said that if he thought of any mill it was that of Trumpington, near Cambridge, which bears a general resemblance to the picture here given.

In the first edition the poem opened with the following stanza, which the Quarterly ridiculed, and which was afterwards excised. Its omission is surely not to be regretted, whatever Fitzgerald may have thought.

I met in all the close green ways,
While walking with my line and rod,
The wealthy miller’s mealy face,
Like the moon in an ivy-tod.
He looked so jolly and so good—
While fishing in the milldam-water,
I laughed to see him as he stood,
And dreamt not of the miller’s daughter.

I see the wealthy miller yet,
His double chin, his portly size,
And who that knew him could forget
The busy wrinkles round his eyes?
The slow wise smile that, round about
His dusty forehead drily curl’d,
Seem’d half-within and half-without,
And full of dealings with the world?

In yonder chair I see him sit,
Three fingers round the old silver cup—
I see his gray eyes twinkle yet
At his own jest—gray eyes lit up
With summer lightnings of a soul
So full of summer warmth, so glad,
So healthy, sound, and clear and whole,
His memory scarce can make me^[1] sad.

Yet fill my glass: give me one kiss:
My own sweet^[2] Alice, we must die.
There’s somewhat in this world amiss
Shall be unriddled by and by.
There’s somewhat flows to us in life,
But more is taken quite away.
Pray, Alice, pray, my darling wife,^[3]
That we may die the self-same day.

Have I not found a happy earth?
I least should breathe a thought of pain.
Would God renew me from my birth
I’d almost live my life again.
So sweet it seems with thee to walk,
And once again to woo thee mine—
It seems in after-dinner talk
Across the walnuts and the wine—^[4]

To be the long and listless boy
Late-left an orphan of the squire,
Where this old mansion mounted high
Looks down upon the village spire:^[5]
For even here,^[6] where I and you
Have lived and loved alone so long,
Each morn my sleep was broken thro’
By some wild skylark’s matin song.

And oft I heard the tender dove
In firry woodlands making moan;^[7]
But ere I saw your eyes, my love,
I had no motion of my own.
For scarce my life with fancy play’d
Before I dream’d that pleasant dream—
Still hither thither idly sway’d
Like those long mosses^[8] in the stream.

Or from the bridge I lean’d to hear
The milldam rushing down with noise,
And see the minnows everywhere
In crystal eddies glance and poise,
The tall flag-flowers when^[9] they sprung
Below the range of stepping-stones,
Or those three chestnuts near, that hung
In masses thick with milky cones.^[10]

But, Alice, what an hour was that,
When after roving in the woods
(’Twas April then), I came and sat
Below the chestnuts, when their buds
Were glistening to the breezy blue;
And on the slope, an absent fool,
I cast me down, nor thought of you,
But angled in the higher pool.^[11]

A love-song I had somewhere read,
An echo from a measured strain,
Beat time to nothing in my head
From some odd corner of the brain.
It haunted me, the morning long,
With weary sameness in the rhymes,
The phantom of a silent song,
That went and came a thousand times.

Then leapt a trout. In lazy mood
I watch’d the little circles die;
They past into the level flood,
And there a vision caught my eye;
The reflex of a beauteous form,
A glowing arm, a gleaming neck,
As when a sunbeam wavers warm
Within the dark and dimpled beck.^[12]

For you remember, you had set,
That morning, on the casement’s edge^[13]
A long green box of mignonette,
And you were leaning from the ledge:
And when I raised my eyes, above
They met with two so full and bright—
Such eyes! I swear to you, my love,
That these have never lost their light.^[14]

I loved, and love dispell’d the fear
That I should die an early death:
For love possess’d the atmosphere,
And filled the breast with purer breath.
My mother thought, What ails the boy?
For I was alter’d, and began
To move about the house with joy,
And with the certain step of man.

I loved the brimming wave that swam
Thro’ quiet meadows round the mill,
The sleepy pool above the dam,
The pool beneath it never still,
The meal-sacks on the whiten’d floor,
The dark round of the dripping wheel,
The very air about the door
Made misty with the floating meal.

And oft in ramblings on the wold,
When April nights begin to blow,
And April’s crescent glimmer’d cold,
I saw the village lights below;
I knew your taper far away,
And full at heart of trembling hope,
From off the wold I came, and lay
Upon the freshly-flower’d slope.^[15]

The deep brook groan’d beneath the mill;
And “by that lamp,” I thought “she sits!”
The white chalk-quarry^[16] from the hill
Gleam’d to the flying moon by fits.
“O that I were beside her now!
O will she answer if I call?
O would she give me vow for vow,
Sweet Alice, if I told her all?”^[17]

Sometimes I saw you sit and spin;
And, in the pauses of the wind,
Sometimes I heard you sing within;
Sometimes your shadow cross’d the blind.
At last you rose and moved the light,
And the long shadow of the chair
Flitted across into the night,
And all the casement darken’d there.

But when at last I dared to speak,
The lanes, you know, were white with may,
Your ripe lips moved not, but your cheek
Flush’d like the coming of the day;^[18]
And so it was—half-sly, half-shy,^[19]
You would, and would not, little one!
Although I pleaded tenderly,
And you and I were all alone.

And slowly was my mother brought
To yield consent to my desire:
She wish’d me happy, but she thought
I might have look’d a little higher;
And I was young—too young to wed:
“Yet must I love her for your sake;
Go fetch your Alice here,” she said:
Her eyelid quiver’d as she spake.

And down I went to fetch my bride:
But, Alice, you were ill at ease;
This dress and that by turns you tried,
Too fearful that you should not please.
I loved you better for your fears,
I knew you could not look but well;
And dews, that would have fall’n in tears,
I kiss’d away before they fell.^[20]

I watch’d the little flutterings,
The doubt my mother would not see;
She spoke at large of many things,
And at the last she spoke of me;
And turning look’d upon your face,
As near this door you sat apart,
And rose, and, with a silent grace
Approaching, press’d you heart to heart.^[21]

Ah, well—but sing the foolish song
I gave you, Alice, on the day^[22]
When, arm in arm, we went along,
A pensive pair, and you were gay,
With bridal flowers—that I may seem,
As in the nights of old, to lie
Beside the mill-wheel in the stream,
While those full chestnuts whisper by.^[23]

It is the miller’s daughter,
And she is grown so dear, so dear,
That I would be the jewel
That trembles at^[24] her ear:
For hid in ringlets day and night,
I’d touch her neck so warm and white.

And I would be the girdle
About her dainty, dainty waist,
And her heart would beat against me,
In sorrow and in rest:
And I should know if it beat right,
I’d clasp it round so close and tight.^[25]

And I would be the necklace,
And all day long to fall and rise^[26]
Upon her balmy bosom,
With her laughter or her sighs,
And I would lie so light, so light,^[27]
I scarce should be^[28] unclasp’d at night.

A trifle, sweet! which true love spells
True love interprets—right alone.
His light upon the letter dwells,
For all the spirit is his own.^[29]
So, if I waste words now, in truth
You must blame Love. His early rage
Had force to make me rhyme in youth
And makes me talk too much in age.^[30]

And now those vivid hours are gone,
Like mine own life to me thou art,
Where Past and Present, wound in one,
Do make a garland for the heart:
So sing^[31] that other song I made,
Half anger’d with my happy lot,
The day, when in the chestnut shade
I found the blue Forget-me-not.^[32]

Love that hath us in the net,^[33]
Can he pass, and we forget?
Many suns arise and set.
Many a chance the years beget.
Love the gift is Love the debt.
Even so.
Love is hurt with jar and fret.
Love is made a vague regret.
Eyes with idle tears are wet.
Idle habit links us yet.
What is love? for we forget:
Ah, no! no!^[34]

Look thro’ mine eyes with thine. True wife,
Round my true heart thine arms entwine;
My other dearer life in life,
Look thro’ my very soul with thine!
Untouch’d with any shade of years,
May those kind eyes for ever dwell!
They have not shed a many tears,
Dear eyes, since first I knew them well.

Yet tears they shed: they had their part
Of sorrow: for when time was ripe,
The still affection of the heart
Became an outward breathing type,
That into stillness past again,
And left a want unknown before;
Although the loss that brought us pain,
That loss but made us love the more.

With farther lookings on. The kiss,
The woven arms, seem but to be
Weak symbols of the settled bliss,
The comfort, I have found in thee:
But that God bless thee, dear—who wrought
Two spirits to one equal mind—
With blessings beyond hope or thought,
With blessings which no words can find.

Arise, and let us wander forth,
To yon old mill across the wolds;
For look, the sunset, south and north,^[35]
Winds all the vale in rosy folds,
And fires your narrow casement glass,
Touching the sullen pool below:
On the chalk-hill the bearded grass
Is dry and dewless. Let us go.

[1] 1833. Scarce makes me.

[2] 1833. Darling.

[3] 1833. Own sweet wife.

[4] This stanza was added in 1842.

[5] 1833.

My father’s mansion, mounted high
Looked down upon the village spire.
I was a long and listless boy,
And son and heir unto the squire.

[6] 1833. In these dear walls.

[7] 1833.

I often heard the cooing dove
In firry woodlands mourn alone.

[8] 1833. The long mosses.

[9] 1842-1851. Where.

[10] This stanza was added in 1842, taking the place of the following which was excised:—

Sometimes I whistled in the wind,
Sometimes I angled, thought and deed
Torpid, as swallows left behind
That winter ’neath the floating weed:
At will to wander every way
From brook to brook my sole delight,
As lithe eels over meadows gray
Oft shift their glimmering pool by night.

In 1833 this stanza ran thus:—

I loved from off the bridge to hear
The rushing sound the water made,
And see the fish that everywhere
In the back-current glanced and played;
Low down the tall flag-flower that sprung
Beside the noisy stepping-stones,
And the massed chestnut boughs that hung
Thick-studded over with white cones,

[11] In 1833 the following took the place of the above stanza which was added in 1842:—

How dear to me in youth, my love,
Was everything about the mill,
The black and silent pool above,
The pool beneath that ne’er stood still,
The meal sacks on the whitened floor,
The dark round of the dripping wheel,
The very air about the door—
Made misty with the floating meal!

Thus in 1833:—

Remember you that pleasant day
When, after roving in the woods,
(’Twas April then) I came and lay
Beneath those gummy chestnut bud
That glistened in the April blue,
Upon the slope so smooth and cool,
I lay and never thought of you,
But angled in the deep mill pool.

[12] Thus in 1833:—

A water-rat from off the bank
Plunged in the stream. With idle care,
Downlooking thro’ the sedges rank,
I saw your troubled image there.
Upon the dark and dimpled beck
It wandered like a floating light,
A full fair form, a warm white neck,
And two white arms—how rosy white!

[13] 1872. Casement-edge.

[14] Thus in 1833:—

If you remember, you had set
Upon the narrow casement-edge
A long green box of mignonette,
And you were leaning from the ledge.
I raised my eyes at once: above
They met two eyes so blue and bright,
Such eyes! I swear to you, my love,
That they have never lost their light.

After this stanza the following was inserted in 1833 but excised in 1842:—

That slope beneath the chestnut tall
Is wooed with choicest breaths of air:
Methinks that I could tell you all
The cowslips and the kingcups there.
Each coltsfoot down the grassy bent,
Whose round leaves hold the gathered shower,
Each quaintly-folded cuckoo pint,
And silver-paly cuckoo flower.

[15] Thus in 1833:—

In rambling on the eastern wold,
When thro’ the showery April nights
Their hueless crescent glimmered cold,
From all the other village lights
I knew your taper far away.
My heart was full of trembling hope,
Down from the wold I came and lay
Upon the dewy-swarded slope.

[16] Mr. Cuming Walters in his interesting volume In Tennyson Land, p. 75, notices that the white chalk quarry at Thetford can be seen from Stockworth Mill, which seems to show that if Tennyson did take the mill from Trumpington he must also have had his mind on Thetford Mill. Tennyson seems to have taken delight in baffling those who wished to localise his scenes. He went out of his way to say that the topographical studies of Messrs. Church and Napier were the only ones which could be relied upon. But Mr. Cuming Walters’ book is far more satisfactory than their thin studies.

[17] Thus in 1833:—

The white chalk quarry from the hill
Upon the broken ripple gleamed,
I murmured lowly, sitting still,
While round my feet the eddy streamed:
“Oh! that I were the wreath she wreathes,
The mirror where her sight she feeds,
The song she sings, the air she breathes,
The letters of the books she reads”.

[18] 1833.

I loved, but when I dared to speak
My love, the lanes were white with May
Your ripe lips moved not, but your cheek
Flushed like the coming of the day.

[19] 1833. Rosecheekt, roselipt, half-sly, half-shy.

[20] Cf. Milton, Paradise Lost;—

Two other precious drops that ready stood
He, ere they fell, kiss’d.

[21] These three stanzas were added in 1842, the following being excised:—

Remember you the clear moonlight,
That whitened all the eastern ridge,
When o’er the water, dancing white,
I stepped upon the old mill-bridge.
I heard you whisper from above
A lute-toned whisper, “I am here”;
I murmured, “Speak again, my love,
The stream is loud: I cannot hear”.

I heard, as I have seemed to hear,
When all the under-air was still,
The low voice of the glad new year
Call to the freshly-flowered hill.
I heard, as I have often heard
The nightingale in leavy woods
Call to its mate, when nothing stirred
To left or right but falling floods.

[22] 1842. I gave you on the joyful day.

[23] In 1833 the following stanza took the place of the one here substituted in 1842:—

Come, Alice, sing to me the song
I made you on our marriage day,
When, arm in arm, we went along
Half-tearfully, and you were gay
With brooch and ring: for I shall seem,
The while you sing that song, to hear
The mill-wheel turning in the stream,
And the green chestnut whisper near.

In 1833 the song began thus, the present stanza taking its place in 1842:—

I wish I were her earring,
Ambushed in auburn ringlets sleek,
(So might my shadow tremble
Over her downy cheek),
Hid in her hair, all day and night,
Touching her neck so warm and white.

[24] 1872. In.

[25] 1833.

I wish I were the girdle
Buckled about her dainty waist,
That her heart might beat against me,
In sorrow and in rest.
I should know well if it beat right,
I’d clasp it round so close and tight.

This stanza bears so close a resemblance to a stanza in Joshua Sylvester’s Woodman’s Bear (see Sylvester’s Works, ed. 1641, p. 616) that a correspondent asked Tennyson whether Sylvester had suggested it. Tennyson replied that he had never seen Sylvester’s lines (Life of Tennyson, iii., 51). The lines are:—

But her slender virgin waste
Made mee beare her girdle spight
Which the same by day imbrac’t
Though it were cast off by night
That I wisht, I dare not say,
To be girdle night and day.

For other parallels see the present Editor’s Illustrations of Tennyson, p. 39.

[26] 1833.

I wish I were her necklace,
So might I ever fall and rise.

[27] 1833. So warm and light.

[28] 1833. I would not be.

[29] 1833.

For o’er each letter broods and dwells,
(Like light from running waters thrown
On flowery swaths) the blissful flame
Of his sweet eyes, that, day and night,
With pulses thrilling thro’ his frame
Do inly tremble, starry bright.

[30] Thus in 1833:—

How I waste language—yet in truth
You must blame love, whose early rage
Made me a rhymster in my youth,
And over-garrulous in age.

[31] 1833. Sing me.

[32] 1833.

When in the breezy limewood-shade.
I found the blue forget-me-not.

[33] In 1833 the following song took the place of the song in the text:—

All yesternight you met me not,
My ladylove, forget me not.
When I am gone, regret me not.
But, here or there, forget me not.
With your arched eyebrow threat me not,
And tremulous eyes, like April skies,
That seem to say, “forget me not,”
I pray you, love, forget me not.

In idle sorrow set me not;
Regret me not; forget me not;
Oh! leave me not: oh, let me not
Wear quite away;—forget me not.
With roguish laughter fret me not.
From dewy eyes, like April skies,
That ever look, “forget me not”.
Blue as the blue forget-me-not.

[34] These two stanzas were added in 1842.

[35] 1833.

I’ve half a mind to walk, my love,
To the old mill across the wolds
For look! the sunset from above,

Fatima

First printed in 1833.

The 1833 edition has no title but this quotation from Sappho prefixed:—

φαίνεταί μοι κῆνος ἴσος θεοῖσιν
Ἔμμεν ἀνήρ.—SAPPHO.

The title was prefixed in 1842; it is a name taken from The Arabian Nights or from the Moallâkat. The poem was evidently inspired by Sappho’s great ode. Cf. also Fragment I. of Ibycus. In the intensity of the passion it stands alone among Tennyson’s poems.

O Love, Love, Love! O withering might!
O sun, that from^[1] thy noonday height
Shudderest when I strain my sight,
Throbbing thro’ all thy heat and light,
Lo, falling from my constant mind,
Lo, parch’d and wither’d, deaf and blind,
I whirl like leaves in roaring wind.

Last night I wasted hateful hours
Below the city’s eastern towers:
I thirsted for the brooks, the showers:
I roll’d among the tender flowers:
I crush’d them on my breast, my mouth:
I look’d athwart the burning drouth
Of that long desert to the south.^[2]

Last night, when some one spoke his name,^[3]
From my swift blood that went and came
A thousand little shafts of flame.
Were shiver’d in my narrow frame
O Love, O fire! once he drew
With one long kiss, my whole soul thro’
My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.^[4]>

Before he mounts the hill, I know
He cometh quickly: from below
Sweet gales, as from deep gardens, blow
Before him, striking on my brow.
In my dry brain my spirit soon,
Down-deepening from swoon to swoon,
Faints like a dazzled morning moon.

The wind sounds like a silver wire,
And from beyond the noon a fire
Is pour’d upon the hills, and nigher
The skies stoop down in their desire;
And, isled in sudden seas of light,
My heart, pierced thro’ with fierce delight,
Bursts into blossom in his sight.

My whole soul waiting silently,
All naked in a sultry sky,
Droops blinded with his shining eye:
I will possess him or will die.
I will grow round him in his place,
Grow, live, die looking on his face,
Die, dying clasp’d in his embrace.

[1] 1833. At.

[2] This stanza was added in 1842.

[3] Cf. Byron, Occasional Pieces:—

They name thee before me
A knell to mine ear,
A shudder comes o’er me,
Why wert thou so dear?

[4] Cf, Achilles Tatius, Clitophon and Leucippe, bk. i., I: ἡδε (ψυχή) ταραχθεῖσα τῷ φιλήματι πάλλεται, εἰ δὲ μὴ τοῖς σπλάγχνοις ἦν δεδεμένη ἠκολούθησεν ἄν ἑλκυθεῖσα ἄνω τοῖς φιλήμασιν
(Her soul, distracted by the kiss, throbs, and had it not been close bound by the flesh would have followed, drawn upward by the kisses.)

Œnone

First published in 1833, On being republished in 1842 this poem was practically rewritten, the alterations and additions so transforming the poem as to make it almost a new work. I have therefore printed a complete transcript of the edition of 1833, which the reader can compare. The final text is, with the exception of one alteration which will be noticed, precisely that of 1842, so there is no trouble with variants. Œnone is the first of Tennyson’s fine classical studies. The poem is modelled partly on the Alexandrian Idyll, such an Idyll for instance as the second Idyll of Theocritus or the Megara or Europa of Moschus, and partly perhaps on the narratives in the Metamorphoses of Ovid, to which the opening bears a typical resemblance. It is possible that the poem may have been suggested by Beattie’s Judgment of Paris which tells the same story, and tells it on the same lines on which it is told here, though it is not placed in the mouth of Œnone. Beattie’s poem opens with an elaborate description of Ida and of Troy in the distance. Paris, the husband of Œnone, is one afternoon confronted with the three goddesses who are, as in Tennyson’s Idyll, elaborately delineated as symbolising what they here symbolise. Each makes her speech and each offers what she has to offer, worldly dominion, wisdom, sensual pleasure. There is, of course, no comparison in point of merit between the two poems, Beattie’s being in truth perfectly commonplace. In its symbolic aspect the poem may be compared with the temptations to which Christ is submitted in Paradise Regained. See books iii. and iv.

There lies a vale in Ida, lovelier^[1]
Than all the valleys of Ionian hills.
The swimming vapour slopes athwart the glen,
Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine,
And loiters, slowly drawn. On either hand
The lawns and meadow-ledges midway down
Hang rich in flowers, and far below them roars
The long brook falling thro’ the clov’n ravine
In cataract after cataract to the sea.
Behind the valley topmost Gargarus^[2]>
Stands up and takes the morning: but in front
The gorges, opening wide apart, reveal
Troas and Ilion’s column’d citadel,
The crown of Troas.

Hither came at noon
Mournful Œnone, wandering forlorn
Of Paris, once her playmate on the hills.
Her cheek had lost the rose, and round her neck
Floated her hair or seem’d to float in rest.
She, leaning on a fragment twined with vine,
Sang to the stillness, till the mountain-shade
Sloped downward to her seat from the upper cliff.

“O mother Ida, many-fountain’d^[3] Ida,
Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
For now the noonday quiet holds the hill:^[4]
The grasshopper is silent in the grass;
The lizard, with his shadow on the stone,^[5]
Rests like a shadow, and the cicala sleeps.^[6]
The purple flowers droop: the golden bee
Is lily-cradled: I alone awake.
My eyes are full of tears, my heart of love,
My heart is breaking, and my eyes are dim,^[7]
And I am all aweary of my life.

“O mother Ida, many-fountain’d Ida,
Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
Hear me O Earth, hear me O Hills, O Caves
That house the cold crown’d snake! O mountain brooks,
I am the daughter of a River-God,^[8]
Hear me, for I will speak, and build up all
My sorrow with my song, as yonder walls
Rose slowly to a music slowly breathed,^[9]
A cloud that gather’d shape: for it may be
That, while I speak of it, a little while
My heart may wander from its deeper woe.

“O mother Ida, many-fountain’d Ida,
Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
I waited underneath the dawning hills,
Aloft the mountain lawn was dewy-dark,
And dewy-dark aloft the mountain pine:
Beautiful Paris, evil-hearted Paris,
Leading a jet-black goat white-horn’d, white-hooved,
Came up from reedy Simois^[10] all alone.

“O mother Ida, harken ere I die.
Far-off the torrent call’d me from the cleft:
Far up the solitary morning smote
The streaks of virgin snow. With down-dropt eyes
I sat alone: white-breasted like a star
Fronting the dawn he moved; a leopard skin
Droop’d from his shoulder, but his sunny hair
Cluster’d about his temples like a God’s;
And his cheek brighten’d as the foam-bow brightens
When the wind blows the foam, and all my heart
Went forth to embrace him coming ere he came.

“Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
He smiled, and opening out his milk-white palm
Disclosed a fruit of pure Hesperian gold,
That smelt ambrosially, and while I look’d
And listen’d, the full-flowing river of speech
Came down upon my heart.

“‘My own Œnone,
Beautiful-brow’d Œnone, my own soul,
Behold this fruit, whose gleaming rind ingrav’n
“For the most fair,” would seem to award it thine,
As lovelier than whatever Oread haunt
The knolls of Ida, loveliest in all grace
Of movement, and the charm of married brows.’^[11]
“Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
He prest the blossom of his lips to mine,
And added ‘This was cast upon the board,
When all the full-faced presence of the Gods
Ranged in the halls of Peleus; whereupon
Rose feud, with question unto whom ’twere due:
But light-foot Iris brought it yester-eve,
Delivering, that to me, by common voice
Elected umpire, Herè comes to-day,
Pallas and Aphrodite, claiming each
This meed of fairest. Thou, within the cave
Behind yon whispering tuft of oldest pine,
Mayst well behold them unbeheld, unheard
Hear all, and see thy Paris judge of Gods.’

“Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
It was the deep midnoon: one silvery cloud
Had lost his way between the piney sides
Of this long glen. Then to the bower they came,
Naked they came to that smooth-swarded bower,
And at their feet the crocus brake like fire,^[12]
Violet, amaracus, and asphodel,
Lotos and lilies: and a wind arose,
And overhead the wandering ivy and vine,
This way and that, in many a wild festoon
Ran riot, garlanding the gnarled boughs
With bunch and berry and flower thro’ and thro’.

“O mother Ida, harken ere I die.
On the tree-tops a crested peacock lit,
And o’er him flow’d a golden cloud, and lean’d
Upon him, slowing dropping fragrant dew.
Then first I heard the voice of her, to whom
Coming thro’ Heaven, like a light that grows
Larger and clearer, with one mind the Gods
Rise up for reverence. She to Paris made
Proffer of royal power, ample rule
Unquestion’d, overflowing revenue
Wherewith to embellish state, ‘from many a vale
And river-sunder’d champaign clothed with corn,
Or labour’d mines undrainable of ore.
Honour,’ she said, ‘and homage, tax and toll,
From many an inland town and haven large,
Mast-throng’d beneath her shadowing citadel
In glassy bays among her tallest towers.’

“O mother Ida, harken ere I die.
Still she spake on and still she spake of power,
‘Which in all action is the end of all;
Power fitted to the season; wisdom-bred
And throned of wisdom—from all neighbour crowns
Alliance and allegiance, till thy hand
Fail from the sceptre staff. Such boon from me,
From me, Heaven’s Queen, Paris to thee king-born,
A shepherd all thy life but yet king-born,
Should come most welcome, seeing men, in power
Only, are likest gods, who have attain’d
Rest in a happy place and quiet seats
Above the thunder, with undying bliss
In knowledge of their own supremacy.’

“Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
She ceased, and Paris held the costly fruit
Out at arm’s-length, so much the thought of power
Flatter’d his spirit; but Pallas where she stood
Somewhat apart, her clear and bared limbs
O’erthwarted with the brazen-headed spear
Upon her pearly shoulder leaning cold,
The while, above, her full and earnesteye
Over her snow-cold breast and angry cheek^[13]
Kept watch, waiting decision, made reply.

“‘Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control,
These three alone lead life to sovereign power.
Yet not for power, (power of herself
Would come uncall’d for) but to live by law,
Acting the law we live by without fear;
And, because right is right, to follow right^[14]
Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence.’

“Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
Again she said: ‘I woo thee not with gifts.
Sequel of guerdon could not alter me
To fairer. Judge thou me by what I am,
So shalt thou find me fairest.

Yet indeed,
If gazing on divinity disrobed
Thy mortal eyes are frail to judge of fair,
Unbiass’d by self-profit, oh! rest thee sure
That I shall love thee well and cleave to thee,
So that my vigour, wedded to thy blood,^[15]
Shall strike within thy pulses, like a God’s,
To push thee forward thro’ a life of shocks,
Dangers, and deeds, until endurance grow
Sinew’d with action, and the full-grown will.
Circled thro’ all experiences, pure law,
Commeasure perfect freedom.’

“Here she ceased,
And Paris ponder’d, and I cried, ‘O Paris,
Give it to Pallas!’ but he heard me not,
Or hearing would not hear me, woe is me!

“O mother Ida, many-fountain’d Ida.
Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
Idalian Aphrodite, beautiful,
Fresh as the foam, new-bathed in Paphian^[16] wells,
With rosy slender fingers backward drew
From her warm brows and bosom^[17] her deep hair
Ambrosial, golden round her lucid throat
And shoulder: from the violets her light foot
Shone rosy-white, and o’er her rounded form
Between the shadows of the vine-bunches
Floated the glowing sunlights, as she moved.

“Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
She with a subtle smile in her mild eyes,
The herald of her triumph, drawing nigh
Half-whisper’d in his ear, ‘I promise thee
The fairest and most loving wife in Greece’.
She spoke and laugh’d: I shut my sight for fear:
But when I look’d, Paris had raised his arm,
And I beheld great Herè’s angry eyes,
As she withdrew into the golden cloud,
And I was left alone within the bower;
And from that time to this I am alone,
And I shall be alone until I die.

“Yet, mother Ida, harken ere I die.
Fairest—why fairest wife? am I not fair?
My love hath told me so a thousand times.
Methinks I must be fair, for yesterday,
When I past by, a wild and wanton pard,
Eyed like the evening star, with playful tail
Crouch’d fawning in the weed. Most loving is she?
Ah me, my mountain shepherd, that my arms
Were wound about thee, and my hot lips prest
Close, close to thine in that quick-falling dew
Of fruitful kisses, thick as Autumn rains
Flash in the pools of whirling Simois.

“O mother, hear me yet before I die.
They came, they cut away my tallest pines,
My dark tall pines, that plumed the craggy ledge
High over the blue gorge, and all between
The snowy peak and snow-white cataract
Foster’d the callow eaglet—from beneath
Whose thick mysterious boughs in the dark morn
The panther’s roar came muffled, while I sat
Low in the valley. Never, never more
Shall lone Œnone see the morning mist
Sweep thro’ them; never see them overlaid
With narrow moon-lit slips of silver cloud,
Between the loud stream and the trembling stars.

“O mother, here me yet before I die.
I wish that somewhere in the ruin’d folds,
Among the fragments tumbled from the glens,
Or the dry thickets, I could meet with her,
The Abominable,^[18] that uninvited came
Into the fair Peleïan banquet-hall,
And cast the golden fruit upon the board,
And bred this change; that I might speak my mind,
And tell her to her face how much I hate
Her presence, hated both of Gods and men.

“O mother, here me yet before I die.
Hath he not sworn his love a thousand times,
In this green valley, under this green hill,
Ev’n on this hand, and sitting on this stone?
Seal’d it with kisses? water’d it with tears?
O happy tears, and how unlike to these!
O happy Heaven, how canst thou see my face?
O happy earth, how canst thou bear my weight?
O death, death, death, thou ever-floating cloud,
There are enough unhappy on this earth,
Pass by the happy souls, that love to live:
I pray thee, pass before my light of life,
And shadow all my soul, that I may die.
Thou weighest heavy on the heart within,
Weigh heavy on my eyelids: let me die.

“O mother, hear me yet before I die.
I will not die alone, for fiery thoughts
Do shape themselves within me, more and more,
Whereof I catch the issue, as I hear
Dead sounds at night come from the inmost hills,
Like footsteps upon wool. I dimly see
My far-off doubtful purpose, as a mother
Conjectures of the features of her child
Ere it is born: her child!—a shudder comes
Across me: never child be born of me,
Unblest, to vex me with his father’s eyes!

“O mother, hear me yet before I die.
Hear me, O earth. I will not die alone,
Lest their shrill happy laughter come to me
Walking the cold and starless road of Death
Uncomforted, leaving my ancient love
With the Greek woman.^[19] I will rise and go
Down into Troy, and ere the stars come forth
Talk with the wild Cassandra,^[20] for she says
A fire dances before her, and a sound
Rings ever in her ears of armed men.
What this may be I know not, but I know
That, wheresoe’er I am by night and day,
All earth and air seem only burning fire.”

1833

There is a dale in Ida, lovelier
Than any in old Ionia, beautiful
With emerald slopes of sunny sward, that lean
Above the loud glenriver, which hath worn
A path thro’ steepdown granite walls below
Mantled with flowering tendriltwine. In front
The cedarshadowy valleys open wide.
Far-seen, high over all the God-built wall
And many a snowycolumned range divine,
Mounted with awful sculptures—men and Gods,
The work of Gods—bright on the dark-blue sky
The windy citadel of Ilion
Shone, like the crown of Troas. Hither came
Mournful Œnone wandering forlorn
Of Paris, once her playmate. Round her neck,
Her neck all marblewhite and marblecold,
Floated her hair or seemed to float in rest.
She, leaning on a vine-entwinèd stone,
Sang to the stillness, till the mountain-shadow
Sloped downward to her seat from the upper cliff.

“O mother Ida, manyfountained Ida,
Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
The grasshopper is silent in the grass,
The lizard with his shadow on the stone
Sleeps like a shadow, and the scarletwinged^[21]
Cicala in the noonday leapeth not
Along the water-rounded granite-rock.
The purple flower droops: the golden bee
Is lilycradled: I alone awake.
My eyes are full of tears, my heart of love,
My heart is breaking and my eyes are dim,
And I am all aweary of my life.

“O mother Ida, manyfountained Ida,
Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
Hear me O Earth, hear me O Hills, O Caves
That house the cold crowned snake! O mountain brooks,
I am the daughter of a River-God,
Hear me, for I will speak, and build up all
My sorrow with my song, as yonder walls
Rose slowly to a music slowly breathed,
A cloud that gathered shape: for it may be
That, while I speak of it, a little while
My heart may wander from its deeper woe.

“O mother Ida, manyfountained Ida,
Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
Aloft the mountain lawn was dewydark,
And dewydark aloft the mountain pine;
Beautiful Paris, evil-hearted Paris,
Leading a jetblack goat whitehorned, whitehooved,
Came up from reedy Simois all alone.

“O mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
I sate alone: the goldensandalled morn
Rosehued the scornful hills: I sate alone
With downdropt eyes: white-breasted like a star
Fronting the dawn he came: a leopard skin
From his white shoulder drooped: his sunny hair
Clustered about his temples like a God’s:
And his cheek brightened, as the foambow brightens
When the wind blows the foam; and I called out,
‘Welcome Apollo, welcome home Apollo,
Apollo, my Apollo, loved Apollo’.

“Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
He, mildly smiling, in his milk-white palm
Close-held a golden apple, lightningbright
With changeful flashes, dropt with dew of Heaven
Ambrosially smelling. From his lip,
Curved crimson, the full-flowing river of speech
Came down upon my heart.

“‘My own Œnone,
Beautifulbrowed Œnone, mine own soul,
Behold this fruit, whose gleaming rind ingrav’n
“For the most fair,” in aftertime may breed
Deep evilwilledness of heaven and sore
Heartburning toward hallowed Ilion;
And all the colour of my afterlife
Will be the shadow of to-day. To-day
Herè and Pallas and the floating grace
Of laughter-loving Aphrodite meet
In manyfolded Ida to receive
This meed of beauty, she to whom my hand
Award the palm. Within the green hillside,
Under yon whispering tuft of oldest pine,
Is an ingoing grotto, strown with spar
And ivymatted at the mouth, wherein
Thou unbeholden may’st behold, unheard
Hear all, and see thy Paris judge of Gods.’

“Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
It was the deep midnoon: one silvery cloud
Had lost his way between the piney hills.
They came—all three—the Olympian goddesses.
Naked they came to the smoothswarded bower,
Lustrous with lilyflower, violeteyed
Both white and blue, with lotetree-fruit thickset,
Shadowed with singing-pine; and all the while,
Above, the overwandering ivy and vine
This way and that in many a wild festoon
Ran riot, garlanding the gnarled boughs
With bunch and berry and flower thro’ and thro’.
On the treetops a golden glorious cloud
Leaned, slowly dropping down ambrosial dew.
How beautiful they were, too beautiful
To look upon! but Paris was to me
More lovelier than all the world beside.

“O mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
First spake the imperial Olympian
With archèd eyebrow smiling sovranly,
Fulleyèd here. She to Paris made
Proffer of royal power, ample rule
Unquestioned, overflowing revenue
Wherewith to embellish state, ‘from many a vale
And river-sundered champaign clothed with corn,
Or upland glebe wealthy in oil and wine—
Honour and homage, tribute, tax and toll,
From many an inland town and haven large,
Mast-thronged below her shadowing citadel
In glassy bays among her tallest towers.’

“O mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
Still she spake on and still she spake of power
‘Which in all action is the end of all.
Power fitted to the season, measured by
The height of the general feeling, wisdomborn
And throned of wisdom—from all neighbour crowns
Alliance and allegiance evermore. Such boon from me
Heaven’s Queen to thee kingborn,
A shepherd all thy life and yet kingborn,
Should come most welcome, seeing men, in this
Only are likest gods, who have attained
Rest in a happy place and quiet seats
Above the thunder, with undying bliss
In knowledge of their own supremacy;
The changeless calm of undisputed right,
The highest height and topmost strength of power.’

“Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
She ceased, and Paris held the costly fruit
Out at arm’s length, so much the thought of power
Flattered his heart: but Pallas where she stood
Somewhat apart, her clear and barèd limbs
O’erthwarted with the brazen-headed spear
Upon her pearly shoulder leaning cold;
The while, above, her full and earnest eye
Over her snowcold breast and angry cheek
Kept watch, waiting decision, made reply.

“‘Selfreverence, selfknowledge, selfcontrol
Are the three hinges of the gates of Life,
That open into power, everyway
Without horizon, bound or shadow or cloud.
Yet not for power (power of herself
Will come uncalled-for) but to live by law
Acting the law we live by without fear,
And, because right is right, to follow right
Were wisdom, in the scorn of consequence.

(Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.)
Not as men value gold because it tricks
And blazons outward Life with ornament,
But rather as the miser, for itself.
Good for selfgood doth half destroy selfgood.
The means and end, like two coiled snakes, infect
Each other, bound in one with hateful love.
So both into the fountain and the stream
A drop of poison falls. Come hearken to me,
And look upon me and consider me,
So shall thou find me fairest, so endurance,
Like to an athlete’s arm, shall still become
Sinewed with motion, till thine active will
(As the dark body of the Sun robed round
With his own ever-emanating lights)
Be flooded o’er with her own effluences,
And thereby grow to freedom.’

“Here she ceased
And Paris pondered. I cried out, ‘Oh, Paris,
Give it to Pallas!’ but he heard me not,
Or hearing would not hear me, woe is me!

“O mother Ida, manyfountained Ida,
Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
Idalian Aphrodite oceanborn,
Fresh as the foam, newbathed in Paphian wells,
With rosy slender fingers upward drew
From her warm brow and bosom her dark hair
Fragrant and thick, and on her head upbound
In a purple band: below her lucid neck
Shone ivorylike, and from the ground her foot
Gleamed rosywhite, and o’er her rounded form
Between the shadows of the vine-bunches
Floated the glowing sunlights, as she moved.

“Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
She with a subtle smile in her mild eyes,
The herald of her triumph, drawing nigh
Half-whispered in his ear, ‘I promise thee
The fairest and most loving wife in Greece’.
I only saw my Paris raise his arm:
I only saw great Herè’s angry eyes,
As she withdrew into the golden cloud,
And I was left alone within the bower;
And from that time to this I am alone.
And I shall be alone until I die.

“Yet, mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
Fairest—why fairest wife? am I not fair?
My love hath told me so a thousand times.
Methinks I must be fair, for yesterday,
When I passed by, a wild and wanton pard,
Eyed like the evening star, with playful tail
Crouched fawning in the weed. Most loving is she?
Ah me, my mountain shepherd, that my arms
Were wound about thee, and my hot lips prest
Close-close to thine in that quickfalling dew
Of fruitful kisses, thick as Autumn rains
Flash in the pools of whirling Simois.

“Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
They came, they cut away my tallest pines—
My dark tall pines, that plumed the craggy ledge
High over the blue gorge, or lower down
Filling greengulphèd Ida, all between
The snowy peak and snowwhite cataract
Fostered the callow eaglet—from beneath
Whose thick mysterious boughs in the dark
The panther’s roar came muffled, while I sat
Low in the valley. Never, nevermore
Shall lone Œnone see the morning mist
Sweep thro’ them—never see them overlaid
With narrow moon-lit slips of silver cloud,
Between the loud stream and the trembling stars.

“Oh! mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
Hath he not sworn his love a thousand times,
In this green valley, under this green hill,
Ev’n on this hand, and sitting on this stone?
Sealed it with kisses? watered it with tears?
Oh happy tears, and how unlike to these!
Oh happy Heaven, how can’st thou see my face?
Oh happy earth, how can’st thou bear my weight?
O death, death, death, thou ever-floating cloud,
There are enough unhappy on this earth,
Pass by the happy souls, that love to live:
I pray thee, pass before my light of life.
And shadow all my soul, that I may die.
Thou weighest heavy on the heart within,
Weigh heavy on my eyelids—let me die.

“Yet, mother Ida, hear me ere I die.
I will not die alone, for fiery thoughts
Do shape themselves within me, more and more,
Whereof I catch the issue, as I hear
Dead sounds at night come from the inmost hills,
Like footsteps upon wool. I dimly see
My far-off doubtful purpose, as a mother
Conjectures of the features of her child
Ere it is born. I will not die alone.
“Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
Hear me, O earth. I will not die alone,
Lest their shrill, happy laughter, etc.
(Same as last stanza of subsequent editions.)

[1] Tennyson, as we learn from his Life (vol. i., p. 83), began Œnone while he and Arthur Hallam were in Spain, whither they went with money for the insurgent allies of Torrigos in the summer of 1830. He wrote part of it in the valley of Cauteretz in the Pyrenees, the picturesque beauty of which fascinated him and not only suggested the scenery of this Idyll, but inspired many years afterwards the poem All along the valley. The exquisite scene with which the Idyll opens bears no resemblance at all to Mount Ida and the Troad.

[2] Gargarus or Gargaron is the highest peak of the Ida range, rising about 4650 feet above the level of the sea.

[3] The epithet many-fountain’d πλπῖδαοξ is Homer’s stock epithet for Ida. Cf. Iliad, viii., 47; xiv., 283, etc., etc.

[4] A literal translation from a line in Callimachus, Lavacrum Palladis, 72: μεσαμβρινὴ δ’ ἔιχ’ ὅρος ἡσυχία (noonday quiet held the hill).

[5] So Theocritus, Idyll, vii., 22:—
Ανίκα δὴ καὶ σαῦρος ἐφ’ αἱμασιᾶισι καθεύδει.
(When indeed the very lizard is sleeping on the loose stones of the wall.)

[6] This extraordinary mistake in natural history (the cicala being of course loudest in mid noonday when the heat is greatest) Tennyson allowed to stand, till securing accuracy at the heavy price of a pointless pleonasm, he substituted in 1884 “and the winds are dead”.

[7] An echo from Henry VI., 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.