Chapter XV: Part IV (9)

Angels have talked with him, and showed him thrones: Ye knew him not: he was not one of ye, Ye scorned him with an undiscerning scorn; Ye could not read the marvel in his eye, The still serene abstraction; he hath felt The vanities of after and before; Albeit, his spirit and his secret heart The stern experiences of converse lives, The linked woes of many a fiery change Had purified, and chastened, and made free. Always there stood before him, night and day, Of wayward vary colored circumstance, The imperishable presences serene Colossal, without form, or sense, or sound, Dim shadows but unwaning presences Fourfaced to four corners of the sky; And yet again, three shadows, fronting one, One forward, one respectant, three but one; And yet again, again and evermore, For the two first were not, but only seemed, One shadow in the midst of a great light, One reflex from eternity on time, One mighty countenance of perfect calm, Awful with most invariable eyes. For him the silent congregated hours, Daughters of time, divinely tall, beneath Severe and youthful brows, with shining eyes Smiling a godlike smile (the innocent light Of earliest youth pierced through and through with all Keen knowledges of low-embowed eld) Upheld, and ever hold aloft the cloud Which droops low hung on either gate of life, Both birth and death; he in the centre fixt, Saw far on each side through the grated gates Most pale and clear and lovely distances. He often lying broad awake, and yet Remaining from the body, and apart In intellect and power and will, hath heard Time flowing in the middle of the night, And all things creeping to a day of doom. How could ye know him? Ye were yet within The narrower circle; he had wellnigh reached The last, with which a region of white flame, Pure without heat, into a larger air Upburning, and an ether of black blue, Investeth and ingirds all other lives.

The Grasshopper

I

Voice of the summerwind, Joy of the summerplain, Life of the summerhours, Carol clearly, bound along. No Tithon thou as poets feign (Shame fall ’em they are deaf and blind) But an insect lithe and strong, Bowing the seeded summerflowers. Prove their falsehood and thy quarrel, Vaulting on thine airy feet. Clap thy shielded sides and carol, Carol clearly, chirrup sweet. Thou art a mailéd warrior in youth and strength complete; Armed cap-a-pie, Full fair to see; Unknowing fear, Undreading loss, A gallant cavalier _Sans peur et sans reproche,_ In sunlight and in shadow, The Bayard of the meadow.

II

I would dwell with thee, Merry grasshopper, Thou art so glad and free, And as light as air; Thou hast no sorrow or tears, Thou hast no compt of years, No withered immortality, But a short youth sunny and free. Carol clearly, bound along, Soon thy joy is over, A summer of loud song, And slumbers in the clover. What hast thou to do with evil In thine hour of love and revel, In thy heat of summerpride, Pushing the thick roots aside Of the singing flowered grasses, That brush thee with their silken tresses? What hast thou to do with evil, Shooting, singing, ever springing In and out the emerald glooms, Ever leaping, ever singing, Lighting on the golden blooms?

Love, Pride and Forgetfulness

Ere yet my heart was sweet Love’s tomb, Love laboured honey busily. I was the hive and Love the bee, My heart the honey-comb. One very dark and chilly night Pride came beneath and held a light.

The cruel vapours went through all, Sweet Love was withered in his cell; Pride took Love’s sweets, and by a spell, Did change them into gall; And Memory tho’ fed by Pride Did wax so thin on gall, Awhile she scarcely lived at all, What marvel that she died?

Chorus: “The varied earth...”

In an unpublished drama written very early.

The varied earth, the moving heaven, The rapid waste of roving sea, The fountainpregnant mountains riven To shapes of wildest anarchy, By secret fire and midnight storms That wander round their windy cones, The subtle life, the countless forms Of living things, the wondrous tones Of man and beast are full of strange Astonishment and boundless change.

The day, the diamonded light, The echo, feeble child of sound, The heavy thunder’s griding might, The herald lightning’s starry bound, The vocal spring of bursting bloom, The naked summer’s glowing birth, The troublous autumn’s sallow gloom, The hoarhead winter paving earth With sheeny white, are full of strange Astonishment and boundless change.

Each sun which from the centre flings Grand music and redundant fire, The burning belts, the mighty rings, The murmurous planets’ rolling choir, The globefilled arch that, cleaving air, Lost in its effulgence sleeps, The lawless comets as they glare, And thunder thro’ the sapphire deeps In wayward strength, are full of strange Astonishment and boundless change.

Lost Hope

You cast to ground the hope which once was mine, But did the while your harsh decree deplore, Embalming with sweet tears the vacant shrine, My heart, where Hope had been and was no more.

So on an oaken sprout A goodly acorn grew; But winds from heaven shook the acorn out, And filled the cup with dew.

The Tears of Heaven

Heaven weeps above the earth all night till morn, In darkness weeps, as all ashamed to weep, Because the earth hath made her state forlorn With selfwrought evils of unnumbered years, And doth the fruit of her dishonour reap. And all the day heaven gathers back her tears Into her own blue eyes so clear and deep, And showering down the glory of lightsome day, Smiles on the earth’s worn brow to win her if she may.

Love and Sorrow

O Maiden, fresher than the first green leaf With which the fearful springtide flecks the lea, Weep not, Almeida, that I said to thee That thou hast half my heart, for bitter grief Doth hold the other half in sovranty. Thou art my heart’s sun in love’s crystalline: Yet on both sides at once thou canst not shine: Thine is the bright side of my heart, and thine My heart’s day, but the shadow of my heart, Issue of its own substance, my heart’s night Thou canst not lighten even with _thy_ light, All powerful in beauty as thou art. Almeida, if my heart were substanceless, Then might thy rays pass thro’ to the other side, So swiftly, that they nowhere would abide, But lose themselves in utter emptiness. Half-light, half-shadow, let my spirit sleep; They never learnt to love who never knew to weep.

To a Lady Sleeping

O Thou whose fringed lids I gaze upon, Through whose dim brain the winged dreams are borne, Unroof the shrines of clearest vision, In honour of the silverflecked morn: Long hath the white wave of the virgin light Driven back the billow of the dreamful dark. Thou all unwittingly prolongest night, Though long ago listening the poised lark, With eyes dropt downward through the blue serene, Over heaven’s parapets the angels lean.

Sonnet—“Could I outwear my present state of woe...”

Could I outwear my present state of woe With one brief winter, and indue i’ the spring Hues of fresh youth, and mightily outgrow The wan dark coil of faded suffering— Forth in the pride of beauty issuing A sheeny snake, the light of vernal bowers, Moving his crest to all sweet plots of flowers And watered vallies where the young birds sing; Could I thus hope my lost delights renewing, I straightly would commend the tears to creep From my charged lids; but inwardly I weep: Some vital heat as yet my heart is wooing: This to itself hath drawn the frozen rain From my cold eyes and melted it again.

Sonnet—“Though Night hath climbed her peak of highest noon...”

Though Night hath climbed her peak of highest noon, And bitter blasts the screaming autumn whirl, All night through archways of the bridged pearl And portals of pure silver walks the moon. Wake on, my soul, nor crouch to agony, Turn cloud to light, and bitterness to joy, And dross to gold with glorious alchemy, Basing thy throne above the world’s annoy. Reign thou above the storms of sorrow and ruth That roar beneath; unshaken peace hath won thee: So shalt thou pierce the woven glooms of truth; So shall the blessing of the meek be on thee; So in thine hour of dawn, the body’s youth, An honourable old shall come upon thee.

Sonnet—“Shall the hag Evil die with child of Good...”

Shall the hag Evil die with child of Good, Or propagate again her loathed kind, Thronging the cells of the diseased mind, Hateful with hanging cheeks, a withered brood, Though hourly pastured on the salient blood? Oh! that the wind which bloweth cold or heat Would shatter and o’erbear the brazen beat Of their broad vans, and in the solitude Of middle space confound them, and blow back Their wild cries down their cavernthroats, and slake With points of blastborne hail their heated eyne! So their wan limbs no more might come between The moon and the moon’s reflex in the night; Nor blot with floating shades the solar light.

Sonnet—“The pallid thunderstricken sigh for gain...”

The pallid thunderstricken sigh for gain, Down an ideal stream they ever float, And sailing on Pactolus in a boat, Drown soul and sense, while wistfully they strain Weak eyes upon the glistering sands that robe The understream. The wise could he behold Cathedralled caverns of thick-ribbed gold And branching silvers of the central globe, Would marvel from so beautiful a sight How scorn and ruin, pain and hate could flow: But Hatred in a gold cave sits below, Pleached with her hair, in mail of argent light Shot into gold, a snake her forehead clips And skins the colour from her trembling lips.

Love

I

Thou, from the first, unborn, undying love, Albeit we gaze not on thy glories near, Before the face of God didst breathe and move, Though night and pain and ruin and death reign here. Thou foldest, like a golden atmosphere, The very throne of the eternal God: Passing through thee the edicts of his fear Are mellowed into music, borne abroad By the loud winds, though they uprend the sea, Even from his central deeps: thine empery Is over all: thou wilt not brook eclipse; Thou goest and returnest to His Lips Like lightning: thou dost ever brood above The silence of all hearts, unutterable Love.

II

To know thee is all wisdom, and old age Is but to know thee: dimly we behold thee Athwart the veils of evil which enfold thee. We beat upon our aching hearts with rage; We cry for thee: we deem the world thy tomb. As dwellers in lone planets look upon The mighty disk of their majestic sun, Hollowed in awful chasms of wheeling gloom, Making their day dim, so we gaze on thee. Come, thou of many crowns, white-robed love, Oh! rend the veil in twain: all men adore thee; Heaven crieth after thee; earth waileth for thee: Breathe on thy winged throne, and it shall move In music and in light o’er land and sea.

III

And now—methinks I gaze upon thee now, As on a serpent in his agonies Awestricken Indians; what time laid low And crushing the thick fragrant reeds he lies, When the new year warm breathed on the earth, Waiting to light him with his purple skies, Calls to him by the fountain to uprise. Already with the pangs of a new birth Strain the hot spheres of his convulsed eyes, And in his writhings awful hues begin To wander down his sable sheeny sides, Like light on troubled waters: from within Anon he rusheth forth with merry din, And in him light and joy and strength abides; And from his brows a crown of living light Looks through the thickstemmed woods by day and night.

The Kraken

Reprinted without alteration, except in the spelling of “antient,” among _Juvenilia_ in 1871 and onward.

Below the thunders of the upper deep; Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea, His antient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee About his shadowy sides: above him swell Huge sponges of millennial growth and height; And far away into the sickly light, From many a wondrous grot and secret cell Unnumber’d and enormous polypi Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green. There hath he lain for ages and will lie Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep, Until the latter fire shall heat the deep; Then once by man and angels to be seen, In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.

English War Song

Who fears to die? Who fears to die? Is there any here who fears to die He shall find what he fears, and none shall grieve For the man who fears to die; But the withering scorn of the many shall cleave To the man who fears to die.

_Chorus_.— Shout for England! Ho! for England! George for England! Merry England! England for aye!

The hollow at heart shall crouch forlorn, He shall eat the bread of common scorn; It shall be steeped in the salt, salt tear, Shall be steeped in his own salt tear: Far better, far better he never were born Than to shame merry England here.

_Chorus_.—Shout for England! etc.

There standeth our ancient enemy; Hark! he shouteth—the ancient enemy! On the ridge of the hill his banners rise; They stream like fire in the skies; Hold up the Lion of England on high Till it dazzle and blind his eyes.

_Chorus_.—Shout for England! etc.

Come along! we alone of the earth are free; The child in our cradles is bolder than he; For where is the heart and strength of slaves? Oh! where is the strength of slaves? He is weak! we are strong; he a slave, we are free; Come along! we will dig their graves.

_Chorus_.—Shout for England! etc.

There standeth our ancient enemy; Will he dare to battle with the free? Spur along! spur amain! charge to the fight: Charge! charge to the fight! Hold up the Lion of England on high! Shout for God and our right!

_Chorus_.-Shout for England! etc.

National Song

There is no land like England Where’er the light of day be; There are no hearts like English hearts, Such hearts of oak as they be. There is no land like England Where’er the light of day be; There are no men like Englishmen, So tall and bold as they be.

_Chorus_.

For the French the Pope may shrive ’em, For the devil a whit we heed ’em, As for the French, God speed ’em Unto their hearts’ desire, And the merry devil drive ’em Through the water and the fire.

_Chorus_.

Our glory is our freedom, We lord it o’er the sea; We are the sons of freedom, We are free.

There is no land like England, Where’er the light of day be; There are no wives like English wives, So fair and chaste as they be. There is no land like England, Where’er the light of day be; There are no maids like English maids, So beautiful as they be.

_Chorus_.—For the French, etc.

Dualisms

Two bees within a chrystal flowerbell rocked Hum a lovelay to the westwind at noontide. Both alike, they buzz together, Both alike, they hum together Through and through the flowered heather.

Where in a creeping cove the wave unshocked Lays itself calm and wide, Over a stream two birds of glancing feather Do woo each other, carolling together. Both alike, they glide together Side by side; Both alike, they sing together, Arching blue-glossed necks beneath the purple weather.

Two children lovelier than Love, adown the lea are singing, As they gambol, lilygarlands ever stringing: Both in blosmwhite silk are frockèd: Like, unlike, they roam together Under a summervault of golden weather; Like, unlike, they sing together Side by side, Mid May’s darling goldenlockèd, Summer’s tanling diamondeyed.

We are Free

The winds, as at their hour of birth, Leaning upon the ridged sea, Breathed low around the rolling earth With mellow preludes, “We are Free”; The streams through many a lilied row, Down-carolling to the crispèd sea, Low-tinkled with a bell-like flow Atween the blossoms, “We are free”.

οἱ ῥέοντες

I

All thoughts, all creeds, all dreams are true, All visions wild and strange; Man is the measure of all truth Unto himself. All truth is change: All men do walk in sleep, and all Have faith in that they dream: For all things are as they seem to all, And all things flow like a stream.

II

There is no rest, no calm, no pause, Nor good nor ill, nor light nor shade, Nor essence nor eternal laws: For nothing is, but all is made. But if I dream that all these are, They are to me for that I dream; For all things are as they seem to all, And all things flow like a stream.

Argal—This very opinion is only true relatively to the flowing philosophers. (Tennyson’s note.)

Poems of MDCCCXXXIII

“Mine be the strength of spirit...”

Reprinted without any alteration, except that Power is spelt with a small p, among the _Juvenilia_ in 1871 and onward.

Mine be the strength of spirit, full and free, Like some broad river rushing down alone, With the selfsame impulse wherewith he was thrown From his loud fount upon the echoing lea:— Which with increasing might doth forward flee By town, and tower, and hill, and cape, and isle, And in the middle of the green salt sea Keeps his blue waters fresh for many a mile. Mine be the Power which ever to its sway Will win the wise at once, and by degrees May into uncongenial spirits flow; Even as the great gulfstream of Florida Floats far away into the Northern Seas The lavish growths of Southern Mexico.

To—— (“My life is full...”)

When this poem was republished among the _Juvenilia_ in 1871 several alterations were made in it. For the first stanza was substituted the following:—

My life is full of weary days, But good things have not kept aloof, Nor wander’d into other ways: I have not lack’d thy mild reproof, Nor golden largess of thy praise.

The second began “And now shake hands”. In the fourth stanza for “sudden laughters” of the jay was substituted the felicitous “sudden scritches,” and the sixth and seventh stanzas were suppressed.

I

All good things have not kept aloof Nor wandered into other ways: I have not lacked thy mild reproof, Nor golden largess of thy praise. But life is full of weary days.

II

Shake hands, my friend, across the brink Of that deep grave to which I go: Shake hands once more: I cannot sink So far—far down, but I shall know Thy voice, and answer from below.

III

When in the darkness over me The fourhanded mole shall scrape, Plant thou no dusky cypresstree, Nor wreathe thy cap with doleful crape, But pledge me in the flowing grape.

IV

And when the sappy field and wood Grow green beneath the showery gray, And rugged barks begin to bud, And through damp holts newflushed with May, Ring sudden laughters of the Jay,

V

Then let wise Nature work her will, And on my clay her darnels grow; Come only, when the days are still, And at my headstone whisper low, And tell me if the woodbines blow.

VI

If thou art blest, my mother’s smile Undimmed, if bees are on the wing: Then cease, my friend, a little while, That I may hear the throstle sing His bridal song, the boast of spring.

VII

Sweet as the noise in parchèd plains Of bubbling wells that fret the stones, (If any sense in me remains) Thy words will be: thy cheerful tones As welcome to my crumbling bones.

Buonoparte

Reprinted without any alteration among _Early Sonnets_ in 1872, and unaltered since.

He thought to quell the stubborn hearts of oak, Madman!—to chain with chains, and bind with bands That island queen who sways the floods and lands From Ind to Ind, but in fair daylight woke, When from her wooden walls, lit by sure hands, With thunders and with lightnings and with smoke, Peal after peal, the British battle broke, Lulling the brine against the Coptic sands. We taught him lowlier moods, when Elsinore Heard the war moan along the distant sea, Rocking with shatter’d spars, with sudden fires Flamed over: at Trafalgar yet once more We taught him: late he learned humility Perforce, like those whom Gideon school’d with briers.

Sonnet—“Oh, beauty, passing beauty!...”

I.

Oh, Beauty, passing beauty! sweetest Sweet! How canst thou let me waste my youth in sighs? I only ask to sit beside thy feet. Thou knowest I dare not look into thine eyes, Might I but kiss thy hand! I dare not fold My arms about thee—scarcely dare to speak. And nothing seems to me so wild and bold, As with one kiss to touch thy blessed cheek. Methinks if I should kiss thee, no control Within the thrilling brain could keep afloat The subtle spirit. Even while I spoke, The bare word KISS hath made my inner soul To tremble like a lutestring, ere the note Hath melted in the silence that it broke.

II.

Reprinted in 1872 among _Early Sonnets_ with two alterations, “If I were loved” for “But were I loved,” and “tho’” for “though”.

But were I loved, as I desire to be, What is there in the great sphere of the earth, And range of evil between death and birth, That I should fear—if I were loved by thee? All the inner, all the outer world of pain Clear Love would pierce and cleave, if thou wert mine, As I have heard that, somewhere in the main, Fresh water-springs come up through bitter brine. ’Twere joy, not fear, clasped hand in hand with thee, To wait for death—mute—careless of all ills, Apart upon a mountain, though the surge Of some new deluge from a thousand hills Flung leagues of roaring foam into the gorge Below us, as far on as eye could see.

The Hesperides

Hesperus and his daughters three That sing about the golden tree.

—(Comus).

The Northwind fall’n, in the newstarred night Zidonian Hanno, voyaging beyond The hoary promontory of Soloë Past Thymiaterion, in calmèd bays, Between the Southern and the Western Horn, Heard neither warbling of the nightingale, Nor melody o’ the Lybian lotusflute Blown seaward from the shore; but from a slope That ran bloombright into the Atlantic blue, Beneath a highland leaning down a weight Of cliffs, and zoned below with cedarshade, Came voices, like the voices in a dream, Continuous, till he reached the other sea.

Song—“The golden apple...”

I

The golden apple, the golden apple, the hallowed fruit, Guard it well, guard it warily, Singing airily, Standing about the charmèd root. Round about all is mute, As the snowfield on the mountain-peaks, As the sandfield at the mountain-foot. Crocodiles in briny creeks Sleep and stir not: all is mute. If ye sing not, if ye make false measure, We shall lose eternal pleasure, Worth eternal want of rest. Laugh not loudly: watch the treasure Of the wisdom of the West. In a corner wisdom whispers. Five and three (Let it not be preached abroad) make an awful mystery. For the blossom unto three-fold music bloweth; Evermore it is born anew; And the sap to three-fold music floweth, From the root Drawn in the dark, Up to the fruit, Creeping under the fragrant bark, Liquid gold, honeysweet thro’ and thro’. Keen-eyed Sisters, singing airily, Looking warily Every way, Guard the apple night and day, Lest one from the East come and take it away.

II

Father Hesper, Father Hesper, watch, watch, ever and aye, Looking under silver hair with a silver eye. Father, twinkle not thy stedfast sight; Kingdoms lapse, and climates change, and races die; Honour comes with mystery; Hoarded wisdom brings delight. Number, tell them over and number How many the mystic fruittree holds, Lest the redcombed dragon slumber Rolled together in purple folds. Look to him, father, lest he wink, and the golden apple be stol’n away, For his ancient heart is drunk with over-watchings night and day, Round about the hallowed fruit tree curled— Sing away, sing aloud evermore in the wind, without stop, Lest his scalèd eyelid drop, For he is older than the world. If he waken, we waken, Rapidly levelling eager eyes. If he sleep, we sleep, Dropping the eyelid over the eyes. If the golden apple be taken The world will be overwise. Five links, a golden chain, are we, Hesper, the dragon, and sisters three, Bound about the golden tree.

III

Father Hesper, Father Hesper, watch, watch, night and day, Lest the old wound of the world be healed, The glory unsealed, The golden apple stol’n away, And the ancient secret revealed. Look from west to east along: Father, old Himala weakens, Caucasus is bold and strong. Wandering waters unto wandering waters call; Let them clash together, foam and fall. Out of watchings, out of wiles, Comes the bliss of secret smiles. All things are not told to all, Half-round the mantling night is drawn, Purplefringed with even and dawn. Hesper hateth Phosphor, evening hateth morn.

IV

Every flower and every fruit the redolent breath Of this warm seawind ripeneth, Arching the billow in his sleep; But the landwind wandereth, Broken by the highland-steep, Two streams upon the violet deep: For the western sun and the western star, And the low west wind, breathing afar, The end of day and beginning of night Make the apple holy and bright, Holy and bright, round and full, bright and blest, Mellowed in a land of rest; Watch it warily day and night; All good things are in the west, Till midnoon the cool east light Is shut out by the round of the tall hillbrow; But when the fullfaced sunset yellowly Stays on the flowering arch of the bough, The luscious fruitage clustereth mellowly, Goldenkernelled, goldencored, Sunset-ripened, above on the tree, The world is wasted with fire and sword, But the apple of gold hangs over the sea, Five links, a golden chain, are we, Hesper, the dragon, and sisters three, Daughters three, Bound about All round about The gnarled bole of the charmèd tree, The golden apple, the golden apple, the hallowed fruit, Guard it well, guard it warily, Watch it warily, Singing airily, Standing about the charmed root.

Rosalind

Not reprinted till 1884 when it was unaltered, as it has remained since: but the poem appended and printed by Tennyson in _italics_ has not been reprinted.

I

My Rosalind, my Rosalind, My frolic falcon, with bright eyes, Whose free delight, from any height of rapid flight, Stoops at all game that wing the skies, My Rosalind, my Rosalind, My bright-eyed, wild-eyed falcon, whither, Careless both of wind and weather, Whither fly ye, what game spy ye, Up or down the streaming wind?

II

The quick lark’s closest-carolled strains, The shadow rushing up the sea, The lightningflash atween the rain, The sunlight driving down the lea, The leaping stream, the very wind, That will not stay, upon his way, To stoop the cowslip to the plains, Is not so clear and bold and free As you, my falcon Rosalind. You care not for another’s pains, Because you are the soul of joy, Bright metal all without alloy. Life shoots and glances thro’ your veins, And flashes off a thousand ways, Through lips and eyes in subtle rays. Your hawkeyes are keen and bright, Keen with triumph, watching still To pierce me through with pointed light; And oftentimes they flash and glitter Like sunshine on a dancing rill, And your words are seeming-bitter, Sharp and few, but seeming-bitter From excess of swift delight.

III

Come down, come home, my Rosalind, My gay young hawk, my Rosalind: Too long you keep the upper skies; Too long you roam, and wheel at will; But we must hood your random eyes, That care not whom they kill, And your cheek, whose brilliant hue Is so sparkling fresh to view, Some red heath-flower in the dew, Touched with sunrise. We must bind And keep you fast, my Rosalind, Fast, fast, my wild-eyed Rosalind, And clip your wings, and make you love: When we have lured you from above, And that delight of frolic flight, by day or night, From North to South; We’ll bind you fast in silken cords, And kiss away the bitter words From off your rosy mouth.[1]

[1] Perhaps the following lines may be allowed to stand as a separate poem; originally they made part of the text, where they were manifestly superfluous:—

My Rosalind, my Rosalind, Bold, subtle, careless Rosalind, Is one of those who know no strife Of inward woe or outward fear; To whom the slope and stream of life, The life before, the life behind, In the ear, from far and near, Chimeth musically clear. My falconhearted Rosalind, Fullsailed before a vigorous wind, Is one of those who cannot weep For others’ woes, but overleap All the petty shocks and fears That trouble life in early years, With a flash of frolic scorn And keen delight, that never falls Away from freshness, self-upborne With such gladness, as, whenever The freshflushing springtime calls To the flooding waters cool, Young fishes, on an April morn, Up and down a rapid river, Leap the little waterfalls That sing into the pebbled pool. My happy falcon, Rosalind; Hath daring fancies of her own, Fresh as the dawn before the day, Fresh as the early seasmell blown Through vineyards from an inland bay. My Rosalind, my Rosalind, Because no shadow on you falls Think you hearts are tennis balls To play with, wanton Rosalind?

Song—“Who can say...?”

Who can say Why To-day To-morrow will be yesterday? Who can tell Why to smell The violet, recalls the dewy prime Of youth and buried time? The cause is nowhere found in rhyme.

Kate

Reprinted without alteration among the _Juvenilia_ in 1895.

I know her by her angry air, Her brightblack eyes, her brightblack hair, Her rapid laughters wild and shrill, As laughter of the woodpecker From the bosom of a hill. ’Tis Kate—she sayeth what she will; For Kate hath an unbridled tongue, Clear as the twanging of a harp. Her heart is like a throbbing star. Kate hath a spirit ever strung Like a new bow, and bright and sharp As edges of the scymetar. Whence shall she take a fitting mate? For Kate no common love will feel; My woman-soldier, gallant Kate, As pure and true as blades of steel.

Kate saith “the world is void of might”. Kate saith “the men are gilded flies”. Kate snaps her fingers at my vows; Kate will not hear of lover’s sighs. I would I were an armèd knight, Far famed for wellwon enterprise, And wearing on my swarthy brows The garland of new-wreathed emprise: For in a moment I would pierce The blackest files of clanging fight, And strongly strike to left and right, In dreaming of my lady’s eyes. Oh! Kate loves well the bold and fierce; But none are bold enough for Kate, She cannot find a fitting mate.

Sonnet—“Blow ye the trumpet, gather from afar...”

_Written, on hearing of the outbreak of the Polish Insurrection._

Blow ye the trumpet, gather from afar The hosts to battle: be not bought and sold. Arise, brave Poles, the boldest of the bold; Break through your iron shackles—fling them far. O for those days of Piast, ere the Czar Grew to this strength among his deserts cold; When even to Moscow’s cupolas were rolled The growing murmurs of the Polish war! Now must your noble anger blaze out more Than when from Sobieski, clan by clan, The Moslem myriads fell, and fled before— Than when Zamoysky smote the Tartar Khan, Than earlier, when on the Baltic shore Boleslas drove the Pomeranian.

Poland

Reprinted without alteration in 1872, except the removal of italics in “now” among the _Early Sonnets_.

How long, O God, shall men be ridden down, And trampled under by the last and least Of men? The heart of Poland hath not ceased To quiver, tho’ her sacred blood doth drown The fields; and out of every smouldering town Cries to Thee, lest brute Power be increased, Till that o’ergrown Barbarian in the East Transgress his ample bound to some new crown:— Cries to thee, “Lord, how long shall these things be? How long this icyhearted Muscovite Oppress the region?” Us, O Just and Good, Forgive, who smiled when she was torn in three; Us, who stand now, when we should aid the right— A matter to be wept with tears of blood!

To—— (“As when, with downcast eyes...”)

Reprinted without alteration as first of the _Early Sonnets_ in 1872; subsequently in the twelfth line “That tho’” was substituted for “Altho’,” and the last line was altered to—

“And either lived in either’s heart and speech,”

and “hath” was not italicised.

As when with downcast eyes we muse and brood, And ebb into a former life, or seem To lapse far back in some confused dream To states of mystical similitude; If one but speaks or hems or stirs his chair, Ever the wonder waxeth more and more, So that we say, “All this hath been before, All this _hath_ been, I know not when or where”. So, friend, when first I look’d upon your face, Our thought gave answer each to each, so true— Opposed mirrors each reflecting each— Altho’ I knew not in what time or place, Methought that I had often met with you, And each had lived in the other’s mind and speech.

O Darling Room

I

O darling room, my heart’s delight, Dear room, the apple of my sight, With thy two couches soft and white, There is no room so exquisite, No little room so warm and bright, Wherein to read, wherein to write.

II

For I the Nonnenwerth have seen, And Oberwinter’s vineyards green, Musical Lurlei; and between The hills to Bingen have I been, Bingen in Darmstadt, where the Rhene Curves towards Mentz, a woody scene.

III

Yet never did there meet my sight, In any town, to left or right, A little room so exquisite, With two such couches soft and white; Not any room so warm and bright, Wherein to read, wherein to write.

To Christopher North

You did late review my lays, Crusty Christopher; You did mingle blame and praise, Rusty Christopher. When I learnt from whom it came, I forgave you all the blame, Musty Christopher; I could _not_ forgive the praise, Fusty Christopher.

The Skipping Rope

This silly poem was first published in the edition of 1842, and was retained unaltered till 1851, when it was finally suppressed.

Sure never yet was Antelope Could skip so lightly by, Stand off, or else my skipping-rope Will hit you in the eye. How lightly whirls the skipping-rope! How fairy-like you fly! Go, get you gone, you muse and mope— I hate that silly sigh. Nay, dearest, teach me how to hope, Or tell me how to die. There, take it, take my skipping-rope, And hang yourself thereby.

Timbuctoo

A poem which obtained the Chancellor’s Medal at the _Cambridge Commencement_ M.DCCCXXIX by A. TENNYSON Of Trinity College.

Printed in the Cambridge _Chronicle and Journal_ for Friday, 10th July, 1839, and at the University Press by James Smith, among the _Profusiones Academicæ Praemiis annuis dignatæ, et in Curiâ Cantabrigiensi Recitatæ Comitiis Maximis_ A.D. M.DCCCXXIX. Reprinted in an edition of the _Cambridge Prize Poems_ from 1813 to 1858 inclusive, by Messrs. Macmillan in 1859, but without any alteration, except in punctuation and the substitution of small letters for capitals where the change was appropriate; and again in 1893 in the appendix to the reprint of the _Poems by Two Brothers_.

Deep in that lion-haunted island lies A mystic city, goal of enterprise.—(Chapman.)

I stood upon the Mountain which o’erlooks The narrow seas, whose rapid interval Parts Afric from green Europe, when the Sun Had fall’n below th’ Atlantick, and above The silent Heavens were blench’d with faery light, Uncertain whether faery light or cloud, Flowing Southward, and the chasms of deep, deep blue Slumber’d unfathomable, and the stars Were flooded over with clear glory and pale. I gaz’d upon the sheeny coast beyond, There where the Giant of old Time infixed The limits of his prowess, pillars high Long time eras’d from Earth: even as the sea When weary of wild inroad buildeth up Huge mounds whereby to stay his yeasty waves. And much I mus’d on legends quaint and old Which whilome won the hearts of all on Earth Toward their brightness, ev’n as flame draws air; But had their being in the heart of Man As air is th’ life of flame: and thou wert then A center’d glory—circled Memory, Divinest Atalantis, whom the waves Have buried deep, and thou of later name Imperial Eldorado roof’d with gold: Shadows to which, despite all shocks of Change, All on-set of capricious Accident, Men clung with yearning Hope which would not die. As when in some great City where the walls Shake, and the streets with ghastly faces throng’d Do utter forth a subterranean voice, Among the inner columns far retir’d At midnight, in the lone Acropolis. Before the awful Genius of the place Kneels the pale Priestess in deep faith, the while Above her head the weak lamp dips and winks Unto the fearful summoning without: Nathless she ever clasps the marble knees, Bathes the cold hand with tears, and gazeth on Those eyes which wear no light but that wherewith Her phantasy informs them. Where are ye Thrones of the Western wave, fair Islands green? Where are your moonlight halls, your cedarn glooms, The blossoming abysses of your hills? Your flowering Capes and your gold-sanded bays Blown round with happy airs of odorous winds? Where are the infinite ways which, Seraph-trod, Wound thro’ your great Elysian solitudes, Whose lowest depths were, as with visible love, Fill’d with Divine effulgence, circumfus’d, Flowing between the clear and polish’d stems, And ever circling round their emerald cones In coronals and glories, such as gird The unfading foreheads of the Saints in Heaven? For nothing visible, they say, had birth In that blest ground but it was play’d about With its peculiar glory. Then I rais’d My voice and cried “Wide Afric, doth thy Sun Lighten, thy hills enfold a City as fair As those which starr’d the night o’ the Elder World? Or is the rumour of thy Timbuctoo A dream as frail as those of ancient Time?” A curve of whitening, flashing, ebbing light! A rustling of white wings! The bright descent Of a young Seraph! and he stood beside me There on the ridge, and look’d into my face With his unutterable, shining orbs, So that with hasty motion I did veil My vision with both hands, and saw before me Such colour’d spots as dance athwart the eyes Of those that gaze upon the noonday Sun. Girt with a Zone of flashing gold beneath His breast, and compass’d round about his brow With triple arch of everchanging bows, And circled with the glory of living light And alternation of all hues, he stood.

“O child of man, why muse you here alone Upon the Mountain, on the dreams of old Which fill’d the Earth with passing loveliness, Which flung strange music on the howling winds, And odours rapt from remote Paradise? Thy sense is clogg’d with dull mortality, Thy spirit fetter’d with the bond of clay: Open thine eye and see.” I look’d, but not Upon his face, for it was wonderful With its exceeding brightness, and the light Of the great angel mind which look’d from out The starry glowing of his restless eyes. I felt my soul grow mighty, and my spirit With supernatural excitation bound Within me, and my mental eye grew large With such a vast circumference of thought, That in my vanity I seem’d to stand Upon the outward verge and bound alone Of full beautitude. Each failing sense As with a momentary flash of light Grew thrillingly distinct and keen. I saw The smallest grain that dappled the dark Earth, The indistinctest atom in deep air, The Moon’s white cities, and the opal width Of her small glowing lakes, her silver heights Unvisited with dew of vagrant cloud, And the unsounded, undescended depth Of her black hollows. The clear Galaxy Shorn of its hoary lustre, wonderful, Distinct and vivid with sharp points of light Blaze within blaze, an unimagin’d depth And harmony of planet-girded Suns And moon-encircled planets, wheel in wheel, Arch’d the wan Sapphire. Nay, the hum of men, Or other things talking in unknown tongues, And notes of busy life in distant worlds Beat like a far wave on my anxious ear.

A maze of piercing, trackless, thrilling thoughts Involving and embracing each with each Rapid as fire, inextricably link’d, Expanding momently with every sight And sound which struck the palpitating sense, The issue of strong impulse, hurried through The riv’n rapt brain: as when in some large lake From pressure of descendant crags, which lapse Disjointed, crumbling from their parent slope At slender interval, the level calm Is ridg’d with restless and increasing spheres Which break upon each other, each th’ effect Of separate impulse, but more fleet and strong Than its precursor, till the eye in vain Amid the wild unrest of swimming shade Dappled with hollow and alternate rise Of interpenetrated arc, would scan Definite round.

I know not if I shape These things with accurate similitude From visible objects, for but dimly now, Less vivid than a half-forgotten dream, The memory of that mental excellence Comes o’er me, and it may be I entwine The indecision of my present mind With its past clearness, yet it seems to me As even then the torrent of quick thought Absorbed me from the nature of itself With its own fleetness. Where is he that borne Adown the sloping of an arrowy stream, Could link his shallop to the fleeting edge, And muse midway with philosophic calm Upon the wondrous laws which regulate The fierceness of the bounding element? My thoughts which long had grovell’d in the slime Of this dull world, like dusky worms which house Beneath unshaken waters, but at once Upon some earth-awakening day of spring Do pass from gloom to glory, and aloft Winnow the purple, bearing on both sides Double display of starlit wings which burn Fanlike and fibred, with intensest bloom: E’en so my thoughts, ere while so low, now felt Unutterable buoyancy and strength To bear them upward through the trackless fields Of undefin’d existence far and free.

Then first within the South methought I saw A wilderness of spires, and chrystal pile Of rampart upon rampart, dome on dome, Illimitable range of battlement On battlement, and the Imperial height Of Canopy o’ercanopied.

Behind, In diamond light, upsprung the dazzling Cones Of Pyramids, as far surpassing Earth’s As Heaven than Earth is fairer. Each aloft Upon his narrow’d Eminence bore globes Of wheeling suns, or stars, or semblances Of either, showering circular abyss Of radiance. But the glory of the place Stood out a pillar’d front of burnish’d gold Interminably high, if gold it were Or metal more ethereal, and beneath Two doors of blinding brilliance, where no gaze Might rest, stood open, and the eye could scan Through length of porch and lake and boundless hall, Part of a throne of fiery flame, where from The snowy skirting of a garment hung, And glimpse of multitudes of multitudes That minister’d around it—if I saw These things distinctly, for my human brain Stagger’d beneath the vision, and thick night Came down upon my eyelids, and I fell.

With ministering hand he rais’d me up; Then with a mournful and ineffable smile, Which but to look on for a moment fill’d My eyes with irresistible sweet tears, In accents of majestic melody, Like a swol’n river’s gushings in still night Mingled with floating music, thus he spake:

“There is no mightier Spirit than I to sway The heart of man: and teach him to attain By shadowing forth the Unattainable; And step by step to scale that mighty stair Whose landing-place is wrapt about with clouds Of glory of Heaven.[1] With earliest Light of Spring, And in the glow of sallow Summertide, And in red Autumn when the winds are wild With gambols, and when full-voiced Winter roofs The headland with inviolate white snow, I play about his heart a thousand ways, Visit his eyes with visions, and his ears With harmonies of wind and wave and wood— Of winds which tell of waters, and of waters Betraying the close kisses of the wind— And win him unto me: and few there be So gross of heart who have not felt and known A higher than they see: They with dim eyes Behold me darkling. Lo! I have given thee To understand my presence, and to feel My fullness; I have fill’d thy lips with power. I have rais’d thee nigher to the Spheres of Heaven, Man’s first, last home: and thou with ravish’d sense Listenest the lordly music flowing from Th’illimitable years. I am the Spirit, The permeating life which courseth through All th’ intricate and labyrinthine veins Of the great vine of Fable, which, outspread With growth of shadowing leaf and clusters rare, Reacheth to every corner under Heaven, Deep-rooted in the living soil of truth: So that men’s hopes and fears take refuge in The fragrance of its complicated glooms And cool impleached twilights. Child of Man, See’st thou yon river, whose translucent wave, Forth issuing from darkness, windeth through The argent streets o’ the City, imaging The soft inversion of her tremulous Domes. Her gardens frequent with the stately Palm, Her Pagods hung with music of sweet bells. Her obelisks of ranged Chrysolite, Minarets and towers? Lo! how he passeth by, And gulphs himself in sands, as not enduring To carry through the world those waves, which bore The reflex of my City in their depths. Oh City! Oh latest Throne! where I was rais’d To be a mystery of loveliness Unto all eyes, the time is well nigh come When I must render up this glorious home To keen _Discovery_: soon yon brilliant towers Shall darken with the waving of her wand; Darken, and shrink and shiver into huts, Black specks amid a waste of dreary sand, Low-built, mud-wall’d, Barbarian settlement, How chang’d from this fair City!”

Thus far the Spirit: Then parted Heavenward on the wing: and I Was left alone on Calpe, and the Moon Had fallen from the night, and all was dark!

[1] Be ye perfect even as your Father in Heaven is perfect.

Bibliography of the _Poems_ of 1842

1830 _Poems, chiefly Lyrical_, by Alfred Tennyson. London: Effingham Wilson, 1830.

1832 _Poems_ by Alfred Tennyson. London: Edward Moxon, 1833 (published at the end of 1832).

1837 In the _Keepsake_, an Annual, appears the poem “St. Agnes’ Eve,” afterwards republished in the Poems of 1842, as “St. Agnes”.

1842 _Morte d’Arthur, Dora, and other Idyls_. (Privately printed for the Author.)

1842 _Poems_. In 2 vols. By Alfred Tennyson. London: Edward Moxon, Dover Street, 1842.

1843 _Id_. 2 vols. Second Edition, 1843.

1845 _Id_. Third Edition, 1845.

1846 _Id_. Fourth Edition, 1846.

1848 _Id._ Fifth Edition, 1848.

1849 In the _Examiner_ for 24th March, 1849, appeared the poem “To—— , after reading a Life and Letters,” republished in the Sixth Edition of the Poems.

1850 _Poems_. 2 vols. Sixth Edition, 1850.

1851 In the _Keepsake_ appeared the verses: “Come not when I am Dead,” reprinted in the Seventh Edition of the Poems.

1851 _Poems_. Seventh Edition. London: Edward Moxon, 1851. i vol.

1853 _Id_. Eighth Edition, 1853. i vol.

1857 _Poems_ by Alfred Tennyson, Poet Laureate. With engraving of bust by Woolner, and illustrations by Thomas Creswick, John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt, William Macready, John Calcott Horsley, Dante Gabriel Rosetti, Clarkson Stanfield, and Daniel Maclise. Pp. xiii., 375. London: Edward Moxon, 1857. 8vo.

1862 _Poems_ MDCCCXXX, MDCCCXXXIII. Privately printed. This was suppressed by an injunction in Chancery. It was compiled and edited by Mr. Dykes Campbell for Camden Hotten.

1863 _Poems_ by Alfred Tennyson, D.C.L. I vol. Edward Moxon, 1863. (Recorded as being the Fifteenth Edition, but I have not seen any Edition between 1857 and this one.)

1865 _A selection from the works of Alfred Tennyson. Poet Laureate._ (Moxon’s Miniature Poets.) Edward Moxon & Co., 1865. Containing several minor alterations, and an additional couplet in the “Vision of Sin”.

1869 Pocket Edition of _Complete Poems_. Strahan, 1869. (I have not seen this, but it is entered in the London Catalogue.)

1870 _Id_. Post-Octavo, 1870 (entered in the London Catalogue).

1871 Miniature or Cabinet Edition of the _Complete Works_ of Alfred Tennyson, printed by Whittaker, Strahan & Co., 1871.

1871 _Complete Works._ Edited by A. C. Loffalt. Rotterdam: 12mo, 1871.

1872 Imperial Library Edition of the _Works_ of Alfred Tennyson. In 6 vols. Strahan & Co., 1872.

1874-7 The _Works_ of Alfred Tennyson. Cabinet edition in 10 vols. H.S.King. London: 1874-1877.

1875 The _Poetical Works_ of Alfred Tennyson. 6 vols. H. S. King. 1875-77.

1875 The _Author’s Edition_ in 4 vols. Henry S. King & Co. 1875.

1877 The _Works_ of Alfred Tennyson. H. S. King. 7 vols. 1877, and in the same year by the same publisher the completion of the Miniature Edition.

1881 The _Works_ of Alfred Tennyson. With portrait and illustrations, 1881. C. Kegan Paul & Co.

1884 The _Works_ of Alfred Tennyson. Macmillan & Co., 1884. In the same year a school edition in four parts by the same publishers.

1885 The _Poetical Works_ of Alfred Tennyson. Complete Edition. New York: T. Y. Cowell & Co., 1885.

1886 The _Poetical Works_ of Alfred Tennyson. In 10 vols. Macmillan & Co., 1886.

1886-91 The _Poetical Works_ of Alfred Tennyson. 12 vols. (The dramatic works in 4 vols.) 16 vols. 1886-91.

1889 The _Works_ of Alfred Tennyson. London: Macmillan & Co., 1889.

1890 The _Poetical Works_ of Alfred Tennyson. Pocket Edition, without the plays. London: Macmillan & Co., 1890.

1890 _Selections_. Edited by Rowe and Webb (frequently reprinted).

1891 _Complete Works_, i vol. Reprinted ten times between this date and November, 1899.

1891 _Poetical Works_. Miniature Edition. 12 vols.

1891 _Tennyson for the Young_, i vol. With introduction and notes by Alfred Ainger, reprinted six times between this date and 1899.

1893 _Poems_. Illustrated. I vol. (This contains the poems and illustrations of the Illustrated Edition published in 1857.)

1894 The _Works_ of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Poet Laureate, with last alterations, etc. London: Macmillan & Co., 1894.

1895 The _Poetical Works_ of Alfred, Lord Tennyson (without the plays). (The People’s Edition.) London: Macmillan & Co., 1895.

1896 _Id._ Pocket Edition.

1898 The _Life and Works_ of Alfred, Lord Tennyson. (Edition de Luxe.) 12 vols. Macmillan & Co., 1898.

1899 The _Works_ of Alfred Tennyson. 8 vols.

1899 _Poetical Works_ of Alfred Lord Tennyson. Globe Edition. Macmillan. This Edition was supplied to Messrs. Warne and published by them as the Albion Edition.

1899 _Poems_ including _In Memoriam_. Popular Edition, 1 vol.