Chapter XI: Part IV (5)

Then there came a day When Allan call’d his son, and said, “My son: I married late, but I would wish to see My grandchild on my knees before I die: And I have set my heart upon a match. Now therefore look to Dora; she is well To look to; thrifty too beyond her age. She is my brother’s daughter: he and I Had once hard words, and parted, and he died In foreign lands; but for his sake I bred His daughter Dora: take her for your wife; For I have wish’d this marriage, night and day, For many years.” But William answer’d short; “I cannot marry Dora; by my life, I will not marry Dora”. Then the old man Was wroth, and doubled up his hands, and said: “You will not, boy! you dare to answer thus! But in my time a father’s word was law, And so it shall be now for me. Look to it; Consider, William: take a month to think, And let me have an answer to my wish; Or, by the Lord that made me, you shall pack, And never more darken my doors again.” But William answer’d madly; bit his lips, And broke away.[1] The more he look’d at her The less he liked her; and his ways were harsh; But Dora bore them meekly. Then before The month was out he left his father’s house, And hired himself to work within the fields; And half in love, half spite, he woo’d and wed A labourer’s daughter, Mary Morrison. Then, when the bells were ringing,Allan call’d His niece and said: “My girl, I love you well; But if you speak with him that was my son, Or change a word with her he calls his wife, My home is none of yours. My will is law.” And Dora promised, being meek. She thought, “It cannot be: my uncle’s mind will change!” And days went on, and there was born a boy To William; then distresses came on him; And day by day he pass’d his father’s gate, Heart-broken, and his father helped him not. But Dora stored what little she could save, And sent it them by stealth, nor did they know Who sent it; till at last a fever seized On William, and in harvest time he died. Then Dora went to Mary. Mary sat And look’d with tears upon her boy, and thought Hard things of Dora. Dora came and said: “I have obey’d my uncle until now, And I have sinn’d, for it was all thro’ me This evil came on William at the first. But, Mary, for the sake of him that’s gone, And for your sake, the woman that he chose, And for this orphan, I am come to you: You know there has not been for these five years So full a harvest, let me take the boy, And I will set him in my uncle’s eye Among the wheat; that when his heart is glad Of the full harvest, he may see the boy, And bless him for the sake of him that’s gone.” And Dora took the child, and went her way Across the wheat, and sat upon a mound That was unsown, where many poppies grew. Far off the farmer came into the field And spied her not; for none of all his men Dare tell him Dora waited with the child; And Dora would have risen and gone to him, But her heart fail’d her; and the reapers reap’d And the sun fell, and all the land was dark. But when the morrow came, she rose and took The child once more, and sat upon the mound; And made a little wreath of all the flowers That grew about, and tied it round his hat To make him pleasing in her uncle’s eye. Then when the farmer passed into the field He spied her, and he left his men at work, And came and said: “Where were you yesterday? Whose child is that? What are you doing here?” So Dora cast her eyes upon the ground, And answer’d softly, “This is William’s child?” “And did I not,” said Allan, “did I not Forbid you, Dora?” Dora said again: “Do with me as you will, but take the child And bless him for the sake of him that’s gone!” And Allan said: “I see it is a trick Got up betwixt you and the woman there. I must be taught my duty, and by you! You knew my word was law, and yet you dared To slight it. Well—for I will take the boy; But go you hence, and never see me more.” So saying, he took the boy, that cried aloud And struggled hard. The wreath of flowers fell At Dora’s feet. She bow’d upon her hands, And the boy’s cry came to her from the field, More and more distant. She bow’d down her head, Remembering the day when first she came, And all the things that had been. She bow’d down And wept in secret; and the reapers reap’d, And the sun fell, and all the land was dark. Then Dora went to Mary’s house, and stood Upon the threshold. Mary saw the boy Was not with Dora. She broke out in praise To God, that help’d her in her widowhood. And Dora said, “My uncle took the boy; But, Mary, let me live and work with you: He says that he will never see me more”. Then answer’d Mary, “This shall never be, That thou shouldst take my trouble on thyself: And, now, I think, he shall not have the boy, For he will teach him hardness, and to slight His mother; therefore thou and I will go, And I will have my boy, and bring him home; And I will beg of him to take thee back; But if he will not take thee back again, Then thou and I will live within one house, And work for William’s child until he grows Of age to help us.”

So the women kiss’d Each other, and set out, and reach’d the farm. The door was off the latch: they peep’d, and saw The boy set up betwixt his grandsire’s knees, Who thrust him in the hollows of his arm, And clapt him on the hands and on the cheeks, Like one that loved him; and the lad stretch’d out And babbled for the golden seal, that hung From Allan’s watch, and sparkled by the fire. Then they came in: but when the boy beheld His mother, he cried out to come to her: And Allan set him down, and Mary said: “O Father!—if you let me call you so— I never came a-begging for myself, Or William, or this child; but now I come For Dora: take her back; she loves you well. O Sir, when William died, he died at peace With all men; for I ask’d him, and he said, He could not ever rue his marrying me— I have been a patient wife: but, Sir, he said That he was wrong to cross his father thus: ‘God bless him!’ he said, ‘and may he never know The troubles I have gone thro’!’ Then he turn’d His face and pass’d—unhappy that I am! But now, Sir, let me have my boy, for you Will make him hard, and he will learn to slight His father’s memory; and take Dora back, And let all this be as it was before.” So Mary said, and Dora hid her face By Mary. There was silence in the room; And all at once the old man burst in sobs: “I have been to blame—to blame. I have kill’d my son. I have kill’d him—but I loved him—my dear son. May God forgive me!—I have been to blame. Kiss me, my children.”

Then they clung about The old man’s neck, and kiss’d him many times. And all the man was broken with remorse; And all his love came back a hundredfold; And for three hours he sobb’d o’er William’s child, Thinking of William.

So those four abode Within one house together; and as years Went forward, Mary took another mate; But Dora lived unmarried till her death.

[1] In 1842 thus:—

“Look to’t, Consider: take a month to think, and give An answer to my wish; or by the Lord That made me, you shall pack, and nevermore Darken my doors again.” And William heard, And answered something madly; bit his lips, And broke away.

All editions previous to 1853 have

“Look to’t.

Audley Court

First published in 1842.

Only four alterations were made in the text after 1842, all of which are duly noted. Tennyson told his son that the poem was partially suggested by Abbey Park at Torquay where it was written, and that the last lines described the scene from the hill looking over the bay. He saw he said “a star of phosphorescence made by the buoy appearing and disappearing in the dark sea,” but it is curious that the line describing that was not inserted till long after the poem had been published. The poem, though a trifle, is a triumph of felicitous description and expression, whether we regard the pie or the moonlit bay.

“The Bull, the Fleece are cramm’d, and not a room For love or money. Let us picnic there At Audley Court.” I spoke, while Audley feast Humm’d like a hive all round the narrow quay, To Francis, with a basket on his arm, To Francis just alighted from the boat, And breathing of the sea. “With all my heart,” Said Francis. Then we shoulder’d thro’[1] the swarm, And rounded by the stillness of the beach To where the bay runs up its latest horn. We left the dying ebb that faintly lipp’d The flat red granite; so by many a sweep Of meadow smooth from aftermath we reach’d The griffin-guarded gates and pass’d thro’ all The pillar’d dusk[2] of sounding sycamores And cross’d the garden to the gardener’s lodge, With all its casements bedded, and its walls And chimneys muffled in the leafy vine. There, on a slope of orchard, Francis laid A damask napkin wrought with horse and hound, Brought out a dusky loaf that smelt of home, And, half-cut-down, a pasty costly-made, Where quail and pigeon, lark and leveret lay, Like fossils of the rock, with golden yolks[3] Imbedded and injellied; last with these, A flask of cider from his father’s vats, Prime, which I knew; and so we sat and eat And talk’d old matters over; who was dead, Who married, who was like to be, and how The races went, and who would rent the hall: Then touch’d upon the game, how scarce it was This season; glancing thence, discuss’d the farm, The fourfield system, and the price of grain;[4] And struck upon the corn-laws, where we split, And came again together on the king With heated faces; till he laugh’d aloud; And, while the blackbird on the pippin hung To hear him, clapt his hand in mine and sang— “Oh! who would fight and march and counter-march, Be shot for sixpence in a battle-field, And shovell’d up into a[5] bloody trench Where no one knows? but let me live my life. “Oh! who would cast and balance at a desk, Perch’d like a crow upon a three-legg’d stool, Till all his juice is dried, and all his joints Are full of chalk? but let me live my life. “Who’d serve the state? for if I carved my name Upon the cliffs that guard my native land, I might as well have traced it in the sands; The sea wastes all: but let me live my life. “Oh! who would love? I wooed a woman once, But she was sharper than an eastern wind, And all my heart turn’d from her, as a thorn Turns from the sea: but let me live my life.” He sang his song, and I replied with mine: I found it in a volume, all of songs, Knock’d down to me, when old Sir Robert’s pride, His books—the more the pity, so I said— Came to the hammer here in March—and this— I set the words, and added names I knew. “Sleep, Ellen Aubrey, sleep and dream of me: Sleep, Ellen, folded in thy sister’s arm, And sleeping, haply dream her arm is mine. “Sleep, Ellen, folded in Emilia’s arm; Emilia, fairer than all else but thou, For thou art fairer than all else that is. “Sleep, breathing health and peace upon her breast: Sleep, breathing love and trust against her lip: I go to-night: I come to-morrow morn. “I go, but I return: I would I were The pilot of the darkness and the dream. Sleep, Ellen Aubrey, love, and dream of me.” So sang we each to either, Francis Hale, The farmer’s son who lived across the bay, My friend; and I, that having wherewithal, And in the fallow leisure of my life A rolling stone of here and everywhere,[6] Did what I would; but ere the night we rose And saunter’d home beneath a moon that, just In crescent, dimly rain’d about the leaf Twilights of airy silver, till we reach’d The limit of the hills; and as we sank From rock to rock upon the gloomy quay, The town was hush’d beneath us: lower down The bay was oily-calm: the harbour buoy With one green sparkle ever and anon[7] Dipt by itself, and we were glad at heart.[8]

[1] 1842 to 1850. Through.

[2] _cf_. Milton, _Paradise Lost_, ix., 1106-7:—

A pillar’d shade High overarch’d.

[3] 1842. Golden yokes.

[4] That is planting turnips, barley, clover and wheat, by which land is kept constantly fresh and vigorous.

[5] 1872. Some.

[6] Inserted in 1857.

[7] Here was inserted, in 1872, the line—Sole star of phosphorescence in the calm.

[8] Like the shepherd in Homer at the moonlit landscape, γέγηθε δὲ τε φρένα ποιμήν, _Il_., viii., 559.

Walking to the Mail

First published in 1842. Not altered in any respect after 1853.

_John_. I’m glad I walk’d. How fresh the meadows look Above the river, and, but a month ago, The whole hill-side was redder than a fox. Is yon plantation where this byway joins The turnpike?[1]

_James_. Yes.

_John_. And when does this come by?

_James_. The mail? At one o’clock.

_John_. What is it now?

_James_. A quarter to.

_John_. Whose house is that I see?[2] No, not the County Member’s with the vane: Up higher with the yewtree by it, and half A score of gables.

_James_. That? Sir Edward Head’s: But he’s abroad: the place is to be sold.

_John_. Oh, his. He was not broken?

_James_. No, sir, he, Vex’d with a morbid devil in his blood That veil’d the world with jaundice, hid his face From all men, and commercing with himself, He lost the sense that handles daily life— That keeps us all in order more or less— And sick of home went overseas for change.

_John_. And whither?

_James_. Nay, who knows? he’s here and there. But let him go; his devil goes with him, As well as with his tenant, Jockey Dawes.

_John_. What’s that?

_James_. You saw the man—on Monday, was it?—[3] There by the hump-back’d willow; half stands up And bristles; half has fall’n and made a bridge; And there he caught the younker tickling trout— Caught in _flagrante_—what’s the Latin word?— _Delicto_; but his house, for so they say, Was haunted with a jolly ghost, that shook The curtains, whined in lobbies, tapt at doors, And rummaged like a rat: no servant stay’d: The farmer vext packs up his beds and chairs, And all his household stuff; and with his boy Betwixt his knees, his wife upon the tilt, Sets out,[4] and meets a friend who hails him, “What! You’re flitting!” “Yes, we’re flitting,” says the ghost (For they had pack’d the thing among the beds). “Oh, well,” says he, “you flitting with us too— Jack, turn the horses’ heads and home again”.[5]

_John_. He left _his_ wife behind; for so I heard.

_James_. He left her, yes. I met my lady once: A woman like a butt, and harsh as crabs.

_John_. Oh, yet, but I remember, ten years back— ’Tis now at least ten years—and then she was— You could not light upon a sweeter thing: A body slight and round and like a pear In growing, modest eyes, a hand a foot Lessening in perfect cadence, and a skin As clean and white as privet when it flowers.

_James_. Ay, ay, the blossom fades and they that loved At first like dove and dove were cat and dog. She was the daughter of a cottager, Out of her sphere. What betwixt shame and pride, New things and old, himself and her, she sour’d To what she is: a nature never kind! Like men, like manners: like breeds like, they say. Kind nature is the best: those manners next That fit us like a nature second-hand; Which are indeed the manners of the great.

_John_. But I had heard it was this bill that past, And fear of change at home, that drove him hence.

_James_. That was the last drop in the cup of gall. I once was near him, when his bailiff brought A Chartist pike. You should have seen him wince As from a venomous thing: he thought himself A mark for all, and shudder’d, lest a cry Should break his sleep by night, and his nice eyes Should see the raw mechanic’s bloody thumbs Sweat on his blazon’d chairs; but, sir, you know That these two parties still divide the world— Of those that want, and those that have: and still The same old sore breaks out from age to age With much the same result. Now I myself,[6] A Tory to the quick, was as a boy Destructive, when I had not what I would. I was at school—a college in the South: There lived a flayflint near; we stole his fruit, His hens, his eggs; but there was law for _us_; We paid in person. He had a sow, sir. She, With meditative grunts of much content,[7] Lay great with pig, wallowing in sun and mud. By night we dragg’d her to the college tower From her warm bed, and up the corkscrew stair With hand and rope we haled the groaning sow, And on the leads we kept her till she pigg’d. Large range of prospect had the mother sow, And but for daily loss of one she loved, As one by one we took them—but for this— As never sow was higher in this world— Might have been happy: but what lot is pure! We took them all, till she was left alone Upon her tower, the Niobe of swine, And so return’d unfarrowed to her sty.

_John_. They found you out?

_James_. Not they.

_John_. Well—after all—What know we of the secret of a man? His nerves were wrong. What ails us, who are sound, That we should mimic this raw fool the world, Which charts us all in its coarse blacks or whites, As ruthless as a baby with a worm, As cruel as a schoolboy ere he grows To Pity—more from ignorance than will, But put your best foot forward, or I fear That we shall miss the mail: and here it comes With five at top: as quaint a four-in-hand As you shall see—three pyebalds and a roan.

[1] 1842.

_John_. I’m glad I walk’d. How fresh the country looks! Is yonder planting where this byway joins The turnpike?

[2] Thus 1843 to 1850:—

_John_. Whose house is that I see Beyond the watermills?

_James_. Sir Edward Head’s: But he’s abroad, etc.

[3] Thus 1842 to 1851:—

_James_. You saw the man but yesterday: He pick’d the pebble from your horse’s foot. His house was haunted by a jolly ghost That rummaged like a rat.

[4] 1842. Sets forth. Added in 1853.

[5] This is a folk-lore story which has its variants, Mr. Alfred Nutt
tells me, in almost every country in Europe. The Lincolnshire version
of it is given in Miss Peacock’s MS. collection of Lincolnshire
folk-lore, of which she has most kindly sent me a copy, and it runs
thus:—
“There is a house in East Halton which is haunted by a
hob-thrush.... Some years ago, it is said, a family who had lived
in the house for more than a hundred years were much annoyed by it,
and determined to quit the dwelling. They had placed their goods on
a waggon, and were just on the point of starting when a neighbour
asked the farmer whether he was leaving. On this the hobthrush put
his head out of the splash-churn, which was amongst the household
stuff, and said, ‘Ay, we’re flitting’. Whereupon the farmer decided
to give up the attempt to escape from it and remain where he was.”
The same story is told of a Cluricaune in Croker’s _Fairy Legends
and Traditions_ in the South of Ireland. See _The Haunted Cellar_
in p. 81 of the edition of 1862, and as Tennyson has elsewhere in
_Guinevere_ borrowed a passage from the same story (see
_Illustrations of Tennyson_, p. 152) it is probable that that was
the source of the story here, though there the Cluricaune uses the
expression, “Here we go altogether”.

[6] 1842 and 1843. I that am. Now, I that am.

[7] 1842.

scored upon the part Which cherubs want.

Edwin Morris, or The Lake

This poem first appeared in the seventh edition of the _Poems_, 1851. It was written at Llanberis. Several alterations were made in the eighth edition of 1853, since then none, with the exception of “breath” for “breaths” in line 66.

O Me, my pleasant rambles by the lake, My sweet, wild, fresh three-quarters of a year, My one Oasis in the dust and drouth Of city life! I was a sketcher then: See here, my doing: curves of mountain, bridge, Boat, island, ruins of a castle, built When men knew how to build, upon a rock, With turrets lichen-gilded like a rock: And here, new-comers in an ancient hold, New-comers from the Mersey, millionaires, Here lived the Hills—a Tudor-chimnied bulk Of mellow brickwork on an isle of bowers. O me, my pleasant rambles by the lake With Edwin Morris and with Edward Bull The curate; he was fatter than his cure.

But Edwin Morris, he that knew the names, Long-learned names of agaric, moss and fern,[1] Who forged a thousand theories of the rocks, Who taught me how to skate, to row, to swim, Who read me rhymes elaborately good, His own—I call’d him Crichton, for he seem’d All-perfect, finish’d to the finger nail.[2] And once I ask’d him of his early life, And his first passion; and he answer’d me; And well his words became him: was he not A full-cell’d honeycomb of eloquence Stored from all flowers? Poet-like he spoke.

“My love for Nature is as old as I; But thirty moons, one honeymoon to that, And three rich sennights more, my love for her. My love for Nature and my love for her, Of different ages, like twin-sisters grew,[3] Twin-sisters differently beautiful. To some full music rose and sank the sun, And some full music seem’d to move and change With all the varied changes of the dark, And either twilight and the day between; For daily hope fulfill’d, to rise again Revolving toward fulfilment, made it sweet To walk, to sit, to sleep, to wake, to breathe.”[4]

Or this or something like to this he spoke. Then said the fat-faced curate Edward Bull, “I take it, God made the woman for the man, And for the good and increase of the world, A pretty face is well, and this is well, To have a dame indoors, that trims us up, And keeps us tight; but these unreal ways Seem but the theme of writers, and indeed Worn threadbare. Man is made of solid stuff. I say, God made the woman for the man, And for the good and increase of the world.”

“Parson,” said I, “you pitch the pipe too low: But I have sudden touches, and can run My faith beyond my practice into his: Tho’ if, in dancing after Letty Hill, I do not hear the bells upon my cap, I scarce hear[5] other music: yet say on. What should one give to light on such a dream?” I ask’d him half-sardonically.

“Give? Give all thou art,” he answer’d, and a light Of laughter dimpled in his swarthy cheek; “I would have hid her needle in my heart, To save her little finger from a scratch No deeper than the skin: my ears could hear Her lightest breaths: her least remark was worth The experience of the wise. I went and came; Her voice fled always thro’ the summer land; I spoke her name alone. Thrice-happy days! The flower of each, those moments when we met, The crown of all, we met to part no more.”

Were not his words delicious, I a beast To take them as I did? but something jarr’d; Whether he spoke too largely; that there seem’d A touch of something false, some self-conceit, Or over-smoothness: howsoe’er it was, He scarcely hit my humour, and I said:—

“Friend Edwin, do not think yourself alone Of all men happy. Shall not Love to me, As in the Latin song I learnt at school, Sneeze out a full God-bless-you right and left?[6] But you can talk: yours is a kindly vein: I have I think—Heaven knows—as much within; Have or should have, but for a thought or two, That like a purple beech[7] among the greens Looks out of place: ’tis from no want in her: It is my shyness, or my self-distrust, Or something of a wayward modern mind Dissecting passion. Time will set me right.”

So spoke I knowing not the things that were. Then said the fat-faced curate, Edward Bull: “God made the woman for the use of man, And for the good and increase of the world”. And I and Edwin laugh’d; and now we paused About the windings of the marge to hear The soft wind blowing over meadowy holms And alders, garden-isles[8]; and now we left The clerk behind us, I and he, and ran By ripply shallows of the lisping lake, Delighted with the freshness and the sound. But, when the bracken rusted on their crags, My suit had wither’d, nipt to death by him That was a God, and is a lawyer’s clerk, The rentroll Cupid of our rainy isles.[9]

’Tis true, we met; one hour I had, no more: She sent a note, the seal an _Elle vous suit_,[10] The close “Your Letty, only yours”; and this Thrice underscored. The friendly mist of morn Clung to the lake. I boated over, ran My craft aground, and heard with beating heart The Sweet-Gale rustle round the shelving keel; And out I stept, and up I crept: she moved, Like Proserpine in Enna, gathering flowers:[11] Then low and sweet I whistled thrice; and she, She turn’d, we closed, we kiss’d, swore faith, I breathed In some new planet: a silent cousin stole Upon us and departed: “Leave,” she cried, “O leave me!” “Never, dearest, never: here I brave the worst:” and while we stood like fools Embracing, all at once a score of pugs And poodles yell’d within, and out they came Trustees and Aunts and Uncles. “What, with him! “Go” (shrill’d the cottonspinning chorus) “him!” I choked. Again they shriek’d the burthen “Him!” Again with hands of wild rejection “Go!— Girl, get you in!” She went—and in one month[12] They wedded her to sixty thousand pounds, To lands in Kent and messuages in York, And slight Sir Robert with his watery smile And educated whisker. But for me, They set an ancient creditor to work: It seems I broke a close with force and arms: There came a mystic token from the king To greet the sheriff, needless courtesy! I read, and fled by night, and flying turn’d: Her taper glimmer’d in the lake below: I turn’d once more, close-button’d to the storm; So left the place,[13] left Edwin, nor have seen Him since, nor heard of her, nor cared to hear. Nor cared to hear? perhaps; yet long ago I have pardon’d little Letty; not indeed, It may be, for her own dear sake but this, She seems a part of those fresh days to me; For in the dust and drouth of London life She moves among my visions of the lake, While the prime swallow dips his wing, or then While the gold-lily blows, and overhead The light cloud smoulders on the summer crag.

[1] Agaric (some varieties are deadly) is properly the fungus on the larch; it then came to mean fungus generally. Minshew calls it “a white soft mushroom”. See Halliwell, _Dict. of Archaic and Provincial Words, sub vocent_.

[2] The Latin _factus ad unguem_. For Crichton, a half-mythical figure, see Tytler’s _Life_ of him.

[3] 1851. Of different ages, like twin-sisters throve.

[4] 1853. To breathe, to wake.

[5] 1872. Have.

[6] The reference is to the _Acme_ and _Septimius_ of Catullus, xliv.—

Hoc ut dixit, Amor, sinistram, ut ante, Dextram sternuit approbationem.

[7] 1851. That like a copper beech.

[8] 1851.

garden-isles; and now we ran By ripply shallows.

[9] 1851. The rainy isles.

[10] Cf. Byron, _Don Juan_, i., xcvii.:—

The seal a sunflower—_elle vous suit partout_.

[11] _Cf_. Milton, _Par. Lost_, iv., 268-9:—

Not that fair field Of Enna where Proserpine gathering flowers ... Was gather’d.

[12] 1851.

“Go Sir!” Again they shrieked the burthen “Him!” Again with hands of wild rejection “Go! Girl, get you in” to her—and in one month, etc.

[13] 1851.

I read and wish’d to crush the race of man, And fled by night; turn’d once upon the hills; Her taper glimmer’d in the lake; and then I left the place, etc.

St Simon Stylites

First published in 1842, reprinted in all the subsequent editions of the poems but with no alterations in the text, except that in eighth line from the end “my” was substituted for “mine” in 1846. Tennyson informed a friend that it was not from the _Acta Sanctorum_, but from Hone’s _Every-Day Book_, vol. i., pp. 35-36, that he got the material for this poem, and a comparison with the narrative in Hone and the poem seems to show that this was the case.

It is not easy to identify the St. Simeon Stylites of Hone’s narrative and Tennyson’s poem, whether he is to be identified with St. Simeon the Elder, of whom there are three memoirs given in the _Acta Sanctorum_, tom. i., 5th January, 261-286, or with St. Simeon Stylites, Junior, of whom there is an elaborate biography in Greek by Nicephorus printed with a Latin translation and notes in the _Acta Sanctorum_, tom. v., 24th May, 298-401. It seems clear that whoever compiled the account popularised by Hone had read both and amalgamated them. The main lines in the story of both saints are exactly the same. Both stood on columns, both tortured themselves in the same ways, both wrought miracles, and both died at their posts of penance. St. Simeon the Elder was born at Sisan in Syria about A.D. 390, and was buried at Antioch in A.D. 459 or 460. The Simeon the Younger was born at Antioch A. D. 521 and died in A.D. 592. His life, which is of singular interest, is much more elaborately related.

This poem is not simply a dramatic study. It bears very directly on Tennyson’s philosophy of life. In these early poems he has given us four studies in the morbid anatomy of character: _The Palace of Art_, which illustrates the abuse of æsthetic and intellectual enjoyment of self; _The Vision of Sin_, which illustrates the effects of similar indulgence in the grosser pleasures of the senses; _The Two Voices_, which illustrates the mischief of despondent self-absorption, while the present poem illustrates the equally pernicious indulgence in an opposite extreme, asceticism affected for the mere gratification of personal vanity.

Altho’ I be the basest of mankind, From scalp to sole one slough and crust of sin, Unfit for earth, unfit for heaven, scarce meet For troops of devils, mad with blasphemy, I will not cease to grasp the hope I hold Of saintdom, and to clamour, morn and sob, Battering the gates of heaven with storms of prayer, Have mercy, Lord, and take away my sin. Let this avail, just, dreadful, mighty God, This not be all in vain that thrice ten years, Thrice multiplied by superhuman pangs, In hungers and in thirsts, fevers and cold, In coughs, aches, stitches, ulcerous throes and cramps, A sign betwixt the meadow and the cloud, Patient on this tall pillar I have borne Rain, wind, frost, heat, hail, damp, and sleet, and snow; And I had hoped that ere this period closed Thou wouldst have caught me up into Thy rest, Denying not these weather-beaten limbs The meed of saints, the white robe and the palm. O take the meaning, Lord: I do not breathe, Not whisper, any murmur of complaint. Pain heap’d ten-hundred-fold to this, were still Less burthen, by ten-hundred-fold, to bear, Than were those lead-like tons of sin, that crush’d My spirit flat before thee.

O Lord, Lord, Thou knowest I bore this better at the first, For I was strong and hale of body then; And tho’ my teeth, which now are dropt away, Would chatter with the cold, and all my beard Was tagg’d with icy fringes in the moon, I drown’d the whoopings of the owl with sound Of pious hymns and psalms, and sometimes saw An angel stand and watch me, as I sang. Now am I feeble grown; my end draws nigh; I hope my end draws nigh: half deaf I am, So that I scarce can hear the people hum About the column’s base, and almost blind, And scarce can recognise the fields I know; And both my thighs are rotted with the dew; Yet cease I not to clamour and to cry, While my stiff spine can hold my weary head, Till all my limbs drop piecemeal from the stone, Have mercy, mercy: take away my sin. O Jesus, if thou wilt not save my soul, Who may be saved? who is it may be saved? Who may be made a saint, if I fail here? Show me the man hath suffered more than I. For did not all thy martyrs die one death? For either they were stoned, or crucified, Or burn’d in fire, or boil’d in oil, or sawn In twain beneath the ribs; but I die here To-day, and whole years long, a life of death. Bear witness, if I could have found a way (And heedfully I sifted all my thought) More slowly-painful to subdue this home Of sin, my flesh, which I despise and hate, I had not stinted practice, O my God. For not alone this pillar-punishment,[1] Not this alone I bore: but while I lived In the white convent down the valley there, For many weeks about my loins I wore The rope that haled the buckets from the well, Twisted as tight as I could knot the noose; And spake not of it to a single soul, Until the ulcer, eating thro’ my skin, Betray’d my secret penance, so that all My brethren marvell’d greatly. More than this I bore, whereof, O God, thou knowest all.[2] Three winters, that my soul might grow to thee, I lived up there on yonder mountain side. My right leg chain’d into the crag, I lay Pent in a roofless close of ragged stones; Inswathed sometimes in wandering mist, and twice Black’d with thy branding thunder, and sometimes Sucking the damps for drink, and eating not, Except the spare chance-gift of those that came To touch my body and be heal’d, and live: And they say then that I work’d miracles, Whereof my fame is loud amongst mankind, Cured lameness, palsies, cancers. Thou, O God, Knowest alone whether this was or no. Have mercy, mercy; cover all my sin. Then, that I might be more alone with thee,[3] Three years I lived upon a pillar, high Six cubits, and three years on one of twelve; And twice three years I crouch’d on one that rose Twenty by measure; last of all, I grew Twice ten long weary weary years to this, That numbers forty cubits from the soil. I think that I have borne as much as this— Or else I dream—and for so long a time, If I may measure time by yon slow light, And this high dial, which my sorrow crowns— So much—even so.

And yet I know not well, For that the evil ones comes here, and say, “Fall down, O Simeon: thou hast suffer’d long For ages and for ages!” then they prate Of penances I cannot have gone thro’, Perplexing me with lies; and oft I fall, Maybe for months, in such blind lethargies, That Heaven, and Earth, and Time are choked.

But yet Bethink thee, Lord, while thou and all the saints Enjoy themselves in Heaven, and men on earth House in the shade of comfortable roofs, Sit with their wives by fires, eat wholesome food, And wear warm clothes, and even beasts have stalls, I, ’tween the spring and downfall of the light, Bow down one thousand and two hundred times, To Christ, the Virgin Mother, and the Saints; Or in the night, after a little sleep, I wake: the chill stars sparkle; I am wet With drenching dews, or stiff with crackling frost. I wear an undress’d goatskin on my back; A grazing iron collar grinds my neck; And in my weak, lean arms I lift the cross, And strive and wrestle with thee till I die: O mercy, mercy! wash away my sin. O Lord, thou knowest what a man I am; A sinful man, conceived and born in sin: ’Tis their own doing; this is none of mine; Lay it not to me. Am I to blame for this, That here come those that worship me? Ha! ha! They think that I am somewhat. What am I? The silly people take me for a saint, And bring me offerings of fruit and flowers: And I, in truth (thou wilt bear witness here) Have all in all endured as much, and more Than many just and holy men, whose names Are register’d and calendar’d for saints. Good people, you do ill to kneel to me. What is it I can have done to merit this? I am a sinner viler than you all. It may be I have wrought some miracles,[4] And cured some halt and maim’d; but what of that? It may be, no one, even among the saints, May match his pains with mine; but what of that? Yet do not rise: for you may look on me, And in your looking you may kneel to God. Speak! is there any of you halt or maim’d? I think you know I have some power with Heaven From my long penance: let him speak his wish. Yes, I can heal. Power goes forth from me. They say that they are heal’d. Ah, hark! they shout “St. Simeon Stylites”. Why, if so, God reaps a harvest in me. O my soul, God reaps a harvest in thee. If this be, Can I work miracles and not be saved? This is not told of any. They were saints. It cannot be but that I shall be saved; Yea, crown’d a saint. They shout, “Behold a saint!” And lower voices saint me from above. Courage, St. Simeon! This dull chrysalis Cracks into shining wings, and hope ere death Spreads more and more and more, that God hath now Sponged and made blank of crimeful record all My mortal archives.

O my sons, my sons, I, Simeon of the pillar, by surname Stylites, among men; I, Simeon, The watcher on the column till the end; I, Simeon, whose brain the sunshine bakes; I, whose bald brows in silent hours become Unnaturally hoar with rime, do now From my high nest of penance here proclaim That Pontius and Iscariot by my side Show’d like fair seraphs. On the coals I lay, A vessel full of sin: all hell beneath Made me boil over. Devils pluck’d my sleeve;[5] Abaddon and Asmodeus caught at me. I smote them with the cross; they swarm’d again. In bed like monstrous apes they crush’d my chest: They flapp’d my light out as I read: I saw Their faces grow between me and my book: With colt-like whinny and with hoggish whine They burst my prayer. Yet this way was left, And by this way I’scaped them. Mortify Your flesh, like me, with scourges and with thorns; Smite, shrink not, spare not. If it may be, fast Whole Lents, and pray. I hardly, with slow steps, With slow, faint steps, and much exceeding pain, Have scrambled past those pits of fire, that still Sing in mine ears. But yield not me the praise: God only thro’ his bounty hath thought fit, Among the powers and princes of this world, To make me an example to mankind, Which few can reach to. Yet I do not say But that a time may come—yea, even now, Now, now, his footsteps smite the threshold stairs Of life—I say, that time is at the doors When you may worship me without reproach; For I will leave my relics in your land, And you may carve a shrine about my dust, And burn a fragrant lamp before my bones, When I am gather’d to the glorious saints. While I spake then, a sting of shrewdest pain Ran shrivelling thro’ me, and a cloudlike change, In passing, with a grosser film made thick These heavy, horny eyes. The end! the end! Surely the end! What’s here? a shape, a shade, A flash of light. Is that the angel there That holds a crown? Come, blessed brother, come, I know thy glittering face. I waited long; My brows are ready. What! deny it now? Nay, draw, draw, draw nigh. So I clutch it. Christ! ’Tis gone: ’tis here again; the crown! the crown![6] So now ’tis fitted on and grows to me, And from it melt the dews of Paradise, Sweet! sweet! spikenard, and balm, and frankincense. Ah! let me not be fool’d, sweet saints: I trust That I am whole, and clean, and meet for Heaven. Speak, if there be a priest, a man of God, Among you there, and let him presently Approach, and lean a ladder on the shaft, And climbing up into my airy home, Deliver me the blessed sacrament; For by the warning of the Holy Ghost, I prophesy that I shall die to-night, A quarter before twelve.[7] But thou, O Lord, Aid all this foolish people; let them take Example, pattern: lead them to thy light.

[1] For this incident _cf. Acta_, v., 317:

“Petit aliquando ab aliquo ad se invisente funem, acceptumque circa corpus convolvit constringitque tam arete ut, exesâ carne, quæ istuc mollis admodum ac tenera est, nudæ costæ exstarent”.

The same is told also of the younger Stylites, where the incident of concealing the torture is added, _Acta_, i., 265.

[2] For this retirement to a mountain see _Acta_, i., 270, and it is referred to in the other lives:

“Post hæc egressus occulte perrexit in montem non longe a monasterio, ibique sibi clausulam de siccâ petrâ fecit, et stetit sic annos tres.”

[3] In accurate accordance with the third life, _Acta_, i., 277:

“Primum quidem columna ad sex erecta cubitos est, deinde ad duodecim, post ad vigenti extensa est”;

but for the thirty-six cubits which is assigned as the height of the last column Tennyson’s authority, drawing on another account (_Id._, 271), substitutes forty:

“Fecerunt illi columnam habentem cubitos quadraginta”.

[4] For the miracles wrought by him see all the lives.

[5] These details seem taken from the well-known stories about Luther and Bunyan. All that the _Acta_ say about St. Simeon is that he was pestered by devils.

[6] The _Acta_ say nothing about the crown, but dwell on the supernatural fragrance which exhaled from the saint.

[7] Tennyson has given a very poor substitute for the beautifully pathetic account given of the death of St. Simeon in _Acta_, i., 168, and again in the ninth chapter of the second Life, _Ibid_., 273. But this is to be explained perhaps by the moral purpose of the poem.

The Talking Oak

First published in 1842, and republished in all subsequent editions with only two slight alterations: in line 113 a mere variant in spelling, and in line 185, where in place of the present reading the editions between 1842 and 1848 read, “For, ah! the Dryad-days were brief”.

Tennyson told Mr. Aubrey de Vere that the poem was an experiment meant to test the degree in which it is in the power of poetry to humanise external nature. Tennyson might have remembered that Ovid had made the same experiment nearly two thousand years ago, while Goethe had immediately anticipated him in his charming _Der Junggesett und der Mühlbach_. There was certainly no novelty in such an attempt. The poem is in parts charmingly written, but the oak is certainly “garrulously given,” and comes perilously near to tediousness.

Once more the gate behind me falls; Once more before my face I see the moulder’d Abbey-walls, That stand within the chace.

Beyond the lodge the city lies, Beneath its drift of smoke; And ah! with what delighted eyes I turn to yonder oak.

For when my passion first began, Ere that, which in me burn’d, The love, that makes me thrice a man, Could hope itself return’d;

To yonder oak within the field I spoke without restraint, And with a larger faith appeal’d Than Papist unto Saint.

For oft I talk’d with him apart, And told him of my choice, Until he plagiarised a heart, And answer’d with a voice.

Tho’ what he whisper’d, under Heaven None else could understand; I found him garrulously given, A babbler in the land.

But since I heard him make reply Is many a weary hour; ’Twere well to question him, and try If yet he keeps the power.

Hail, hidden to the knees in fern, Broad Oak of Sumner-chace, Whose topmost branches can discern The roofs of Sumner-place!

Say thou, whereon I carved her name, If ever maid or spouse, As fair as my Olivia, came To rest beneath thy boughs.—

“O Walter, I have shelter’d here Whatever maiden grace The good old Summers, year by year, Made ripe in Sumner-chace:

“Old Summers, when the monk was fat, And, issuing shorn and sleek, Would twist his girdle tight, and pat The girls upon the cheek.

“Ere yet, in scorn of Peter’s-pence, And number’d bead, and shrift, Bluff Harry broke into the spence,[1] And turn’d the cowls adrift:

“And I have seen some score of those Fresh faces, that would thrive When his man-minded offset rose To chase the deer at five;

“And all that from the town would stroll, Till that wild wind made work In which the gloomy brewer’s soul Went by me, like a stork:

“The slight she-slips of loyal blood, And others, passing praise, Strait-laced, but all too full in bud For puritanic stays:[2]>

“And I have shadow’d many a group Of beauties, that were born In teacup-times of hood and hoop, Or while the patch was worn;

“And, leg and arm with love-knots gay, About me leap’d and laugh’d The Modish Cupid of the day, And shrill’d his tinsel shaft.

“I swear (and else may insects prick Each leaf into a gall) This girl, for whom your heart is sick, Is three times worth them all;

“For those and theirs, by Nature’s law, Have faded long ago; But in these latter springs I saw Your own Olivia blow,

“From when she gamboll’d on the greens, A baby-germ, to when The maiden blossoms of her teens Could number five from ten.

“I swear, by leaf, and wind, and rain (And hear me with thine ears), That, tho’ I circle in the grain Five hundred rings of years—

“Yet, since I first could cast a shade, Did never creature pass So slightly, musically made, So light upon the grass:

“For as to fairies, that will flit To make the greensward fresh, I hold them exquisitely knit, But far too spare of flesh.”

Oh, hide thy knotted knees in fern, And overlook the chace; And from thy topmost branch discern The roofs of Sumner-place.

But thou, whereon I carved her name, That oft hast heard my vows, Declare when last Olivia came To sport beneath thy boughs.

“O yesterday, you know, the fair Was holden at the town; Her father left his good arm-chair, And rode his hunter down.

“And with him Albert came on his. I look’d at him with joy: As cowslip unto oxlip is, So seems she to the boy.

“An hour had past—and, sitting straight Within the low-wheel’d chaise, Her mother trundled to the gate Behind the dappled grays.

“But, as for her, she stay’d[3] at home, And on the roof she went, And down the way you use to come, She look’d with discontent.

“She left the novel half-uncut Upon the rosewood shelf; She left the new piano shut: She could not please herself.

“Then ran she, gamesome as the colt, And livelier than a lark She sent her voice thro’ all the holt Before her, and the park.

“A light wind chased her on the wing, And in the chase grew wild, As close as might be would he cling About the darling child:

“But light as any wind that blows So fleetly did she stir, The flower she touch’d on dipt and rose, And turn’d to look at her.

“And here she came, and round me play’d, And sang to me the whole Of those three stanzas that you made About my ‘giant bole’;

“And in a fit of frolic mirth She strove to span my waist: Alas, I was so broad of girth, I could not be embraced.

“I wish’d myself the fair young beech That here beside me stands, That round me, clasping each in each, She might have lock’d her hands.

“Yet seem’d the pressure thrice as sweet As woodbine’s fragile hold, Or when I feel about my feet The berried briony fold.”

O muffle round thy knees with fern, And shadow Sumner-chace! Long may thy topmost branch discern The roofs of Sumner-place!

But tell me, did she read the name I carved with many vows When last with throbbing heart I came To rest beneath thy boughs?

“O yes, she wander’d round and round These knotted knees of mine, And found, and kiss’d the name she found, And sweetly murmur’d thine.

“A teardrop trembled from its source, And down my surface crept. My sense of touch is something coarse, But I believe she wept.

“Then flush’d her cheek with rosy light, She glanced across the plain; But not a creature was in sight: She kiss’d me once again.

“Her kisses were so close and kind, That, trust me on my word, Hard wood I am, and wrinkled rind, But yet my sap was stirr’d:

“And even into my inmost ring A pleasure I discern’d Like those blind motions of the Spring, That show the year is turn’d.

“Thrice-happy he that may caress The ringlet’s waving balm The cushions of whose touch may press The maiden’s tender palm.

“I, rooted here among the groves, But languidly adjust My vapid vegetable loves[4] With anthers and with dust:

“For, ah! my friend, the days were brief[5] Whereof the poets talk, When that, which breathes within the leaf, Could slip its bark and walk.

“But could I, as in times foregone, From spray, and branch, and stem, Have suck’d and gather’d into one The life that spreads in them,

“She had not found me so remiss; But lightly issuing thro’, I would have paid her kiss for kiss With usury thereto.”

O flourish high, with leafy towers, And overlook the lea, Pursue thy loves among the bowers, But leave thou mine to me.

O flourish, hidden deep in fern, Old oak, I love thee well; A thousand thanks for what I learn And what remains to tell.

“’Tis little more: the day was warm; At last, tired out with play, She sank her head upon her arm, And at my feet she lay.

“Her eyelids dropp’d their silken eaves. I breathed upon her eyes Thro’ all the summer of my leaves A welcome mix’d with sighs.

“I took the swarming sound of life— The music from the town— The murmurs of the drum and fife And lull’d them in my own.

“Sometimes I let a sunbeam slip, To light her shaded eye; A second flutter’d round her lip Like a golden butterfly;

“A third would glimmer on her neck To make the necklace shine; Another slid, a sunny fleck, From head to ancle fine.

“Then close and dark my arms I spread, And shadow’d all her rest— Dropt dews upon her golden head, An acorn in her breast.

“But in a pet she started up, And pluck’d it out, and drew My little oakling from the cup, And flung him in the dew.

“And yet it was a graceful gift— I felt a pang within As when I see the woodman lift His axe to slay my kin.