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.

[Footnote 1: For this incident 'cf. Acta', v., 317:

"Petit aliquando ab aliquo ad se invisente funem, acceptumque circa corpus convolvit constringitque tarn arete ut, exesa carne, quae istuc mollis admodum ac tenera est, nudae costae exstarent".

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

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

"Post haec egressus occulte perrexit in montem non longe a monasterio, ibique sibi clausulam de sicca petra fecit, et stetit sic annos tres."]

[Footnote 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".]

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

[Footnote 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.]

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

[Footnote 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 Muehlbach'. There was certainly no novelty in such an attempt. The poem is in parts charmingly written, but the oak is certainly "garrulously given," and comes perilously near to tediousness.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I shook him down because he was The finest on the tree. He lies beside thee on the grass. O kiss him once for me.

"O kiss him twice and thrice for me, That have no lips to kiss, For never yet was oak on lea Shall grow so fair as this."

Step deeper yet in herb and fern, Look further thro' the chace, Spread upward till thy boughs discern The front of Sumner-place.

This fruit of thine by Love is blest, That but a moment lay Where fairer fruit of Love may rest Some happy future day.

I kiss it twice, I kiss it thrice, The warmth it thence shall win To riper life may magnetise The baby-oak within.

But thou, while kingdoms overset, Or lapse from hand to hand, Thy leaf shall never fail, nor yet Thine acorn in the land.

May never saw dismember thee, Nor wielded axe disjoint, That art the fairest-spoken tree From here to Lizard-point.

O rock upon thy towery top All throats that gurgle sweet! All starry culmination drop Balm-dews to bathe thy feet!

All grass of silky feather grow— And while he sinks or swells The full south-breeze around thee blow The sound of minster bells.

The fat earth feed thy branchy root, That under deeply strikes! The northern morning o'er thee shoot High up, in silver spikes!

Nor ever lightning char thy grain, But, rolling as in sleep, Low thunders bring the mellow rain, That makes thee broad and deep!

And hear me swear a solemn oath, That only by thy side Will I to Olive plight my troth, And gain her for my bride.

And when my marriage morn may fall, She, Dryad-like, shall wear Alternate leaf and acorn-ball In wreath about her hair.

And I will work in prose and rhyme, And praise thee more in both Than bard has honour'd beech or lime, Or that Thessalian growth, [6]

In which the swarthy ringdove sat, And mystic sentence spoke; And more than England honours that, Thy famous brother-oak,

Wherein the younger Charles abode Till all the paths were dim, And far below the Roundhead rode, And humm'd a surly hymn.

[Footnote 1: Spence is a larder and buttery. In the 'Promptorium Parverum it is defined as "cellarium promptuarium".]

[Footnote 2: Cf. Burns' "godly laces," 'To the Unco Righteous'.]

[Footnote 3: All editions previous to 1853 have 'staid'.]

[Footnote 4: The phrase is Marvell's. 'Cf. To his Coy Mistress' (a favourite poem of Tennyson's), "my vegetable loves should grow".]

[Footnote 5: 1842 to 1850. "For, ah! the Dryad-days were brief.]

[Footnote 6: A reference to the oracular oaks of Dodona which was, of course, in Epirus, but the Ancients believed, no doubt erroneously, that there was another Dodona in Thessaly. See the article "Dodona" in Smith's 'Dict. of Greek and Roman Geography'.]



LOVE AND DUTY

Published first in 1842.

Whether this beautiful poem is autobiographical and has reference to the compulsory separation of Tennyson and Miss Emily Sellwood, afterwards his wife, in 1840, it is impossible for this editor to say, as Lord Tennyson in his 'Life' of his father is silent on the subject.

Of love that never found his earthly close, What sequel? Streaming eyes and breaking hearts? Or all the same as if he had not been? Not so. Shall Error in the round of time Still father Truth? O shall the braggart shout [1] For some blind glimpse of freedom work itself Thro' madness, hated by the wise, to law System and empire? Sin itself be found The cloudy porch oft opening on the Sun? And only he, this wonder, dead, become Mere highway dust? or year by year alone Sit brooding in the ruins of a life, Nightmare of youth, the spectre of himself! If this were thus, if this, indeed, were all, Better the narrow brain, the stony heart, The staring eye glazed o'er with sapless days, The long mechanic pacings to and fro, The set gray life, and apathetic end. But am I not the nobler thro' thy love? O three times less unworthy! likewise thou Art more thro' Love, and greater than thy years. The Sun will run his orbit, and the Moon Her circle. Wait, and Love himself will bring The drooping flower of knowledge changed to fruit Of wisdom. [2] Wait: my faith is large in Time, And that which shapes it to some perfect end. Will some one say, then why not ill for good? Why took ye not your pastime? To that man My work shall answer, since I knew the right And did it; for a man is not as God, But then most Godlike being most a man.— So let me think 'tis well for thee and me— Ill-fated that I am, what lot is mine Whose foresight preaches peace, my heart so slow To feel it! For how hard it seem'd to me, When eyes, love-languid thro' half-tears, would dwell One earnest, earnest moment upon mine, Then not to dare to see! when thy low voice, Faltering, would break its syllables, to keep My own full-tuned,—hold passion in a leash, And not leap forth and fall about thy neck, And on thy bosom, (deep-desired relief!) Rain out the heavy mist of tears, that weigh'd Upon my brain, my senses, and my soul! For love himself took part against himself To warn us off, and Duty loved of Love— O this world's curse—beloved but hated—came Like Death betwixt thy dear embrace and mine, And crying, "Who is this? behold thy bride," She push'd me from thee.

If the sense is hard To alien ears, I did not speak to these— No, not to thee, but to thyself in me: Hard is my doom and thine: thou knowest it all. Could Love part thus? was it not well to speak, To have spoken once? It could not but be well. The slow sweet hours that bring us all things good, [3] The slow sad hours that bring us all things ill, And all good things from evil, brought the night In which we sat together and alone, And to the want, that hollow'd all the heart, Gave utterance by the yearning of an eye, That burn'd upon its object thro' such tears As flow but once a life. The trance gave way To those caresses, when a hundred times In that last kiss, which never was the last, Farewell, like endless welcome, lived and died. Then follow'd counsel, comfort and the words That make a man feel strong in speaking truth; Till now the dark was worn, and overhead The lights of sunset and of sunrise mix'd In that brief night; the summer night, that paused Among her stars to hear us; stars that hung Love-charm'd to listen: all the wheels of Time Spun round in station, but the end had come. O then like those, who clench [4] their nerves to rush Upon their dissolution, we two rose, There-closing like an individual life— In one blind cry of passion and of pain, Like bitter accusation ev'n to death, Caught up the whole of love and utter'd it, And bade adieu for ever. Live—yet live— Shall sharpest pathos blight us, knowing all Life needs for life is possible to will— Live happy; tend thy flowers; be tended by My blessing! Should my Shadow cross thy thoughts Too sadly for their peace, remand it thou For calmer hours to Memory's darkest hold, [5] If not to be forgotten—not at once— Not all forgotten. Should it cross thy dreams, O might it come like one that looks content, With quiet eyes unfaithful to the truth, And point thee forward to a distant light, Or seem to lift a burthen from thy heart And leave thee freer, till thou wake refresh'd, Then when the first low matin-chirp hath grown Full quire, and morning driv'n her plow of pearl [6] Far furrowing into light the mounded rack, Beyond the fair green field and eastern sea.

[Footnote 1: As this passage is a little obscure, it may not be superfluous to point out that "shout" is a substantive.]

[Footnote 2: The distinction between "knowledge" and "wisdom" is a favourite one with Tennyson. See 'In Memoriam', cxiv.; 'Locksley Hall', 141, and for the same distinction see Cowper, 'Task', vi., 88-99.]

[Footnote 3: Suggested by Theocritus, 'Id'., xv., 104-5.]

[Footnote 4: 1842 to 1845. O then like those, that clench.]

[Footnote 5: Pathos, in the Greek sense, "suffering". All editions up to and including 1850 have a small "s" and a small "m" for Shadow and Memory, and read thus:—

Too sadly for their peace, so put it back For calmer hours in memory's darkest hold, If unforgotten! should it cross thy dreams, So might it come, etc.]

[Footnote 6: 'Cf. Princess', iii.:—

Morn in the white wake of the morning star Came furrowing all the orient into gold,

and with both cf. Greene, 'Orlando Furioso', i., 2:—

Seest thou not Lycaon's son? The hardy plough-swain unto mighty Jove Hath trac'd his silver furrows in the heaven,

which in its turn is borrowed from Ariosto, 'Orl. Fur.', xx., lxxxii.:—

Apena avea Licaonia prole Per li solchi del ciel volto L'aratro.]



THE GOLDEN YEAR

This poem was first published in the fourth edition of the poems 1846. No alterations were made in it after 1851. The poem had a message for the time at which it was written. The country was in a very troubled state. The contest between the Protectionists and Free-traders was at its acutest stage. The Maynooth endowment and the "godless colleges" had brought into prominence questions of the gravest moment in religion and education, while the Corn Bill and the Coercion Bill had inflamed the passions of party politicians almost to madness. Tennyson, his son tells us, entered heartily into these questions, believing that the remedies for these distempers lay in the spread of education, a more catholic spirit in the press, a partial adoption of Free Trade principles, and union as far as possible among the different sections of Christianity.

Well, you shall have that song which Leonard wrote: It was last summer on a tour in Wales: Old James was with me: we that day had been Up Snowdon; and I wish'd for Leonard there, And found him in Llanberis: [1] then we crost Between the lakes, and clamber'd half-way up The counterside; and that same song of his He told me; for I banter'd him, and swore They said he lived shut up within himself, A tongue-tied Poet in the feverous days, That, setting the how much before the how, Cry, like the daughters of the horseleech, "Give, [2] Cram us with all," but count not me the herd! To which "They call me what they will," he said: "But I was born too late: the fair new forms, That float about the threshold of an age, Like truths of Science waiting to be caught— Catch me who can, and make the catcher crown'd— Are taken by the forelock. Let it be. But if you care indeed to listen, hear These measured words, my work of yestermorn. "We sleep and wake and sleep, but all things move; The Sun flies forward to his brother Sun; The dark Earth follows wheel'd in her ellipse; And human things returning on themselves Move onward, leading up the golden year. "Ah, tho' the times, when some new thought can bud, Are but as poets' seasons when they flower, Yet seas, that daily gain upon the shore, [3] Have ebb and flow conditioning their march, And slow and sure comes up the golden year. "When wealth no more shall rest in mounded heaps, But smit with freer light shall slowly melt In many streams to fatten lower lands, And light shall spread, and man be liker man Thro' all the season of the golden year. "Shall eagles not be eagles? wrens be wrens? If all the world were falcons, what of that? The wonder of the eagle were the less, But he not less the eagle. Happy days Roll onward, leading up the golden year. "Fly happy happy sails and bear the Press; Fly happy with the mission of the Cross; Knit land to land, and blowing havenward With silks, and fruits, and spices, clear of toll, Enrich the markets of the golden year. "But we grow old! Ah! when shall all men's good Be each man's rule, and universal Peace Lie like a shaft of light across the land, And like a lane of beams athwart the sea, Thro' all the circle of the golden year?" Thus far he flow'd, and ended; whereupon "Ah, folly!" in mimic cadence answer'd James— "Ah, folly! for it lies so far away. Not in our time, nor in our children's time, 'Tis like the second world to us that live; 'Twere all as one to fix our hopes on Heaven As on this vision of the golden year." With that he struck his staff against the rocks And broke it,—James,—you know him,—old, but full Of force and choler, and firm upon his feet, And like an oaken stock in winter woods, O'erflourished with the hoary clematis: Then added, all in heat: "What stuff is this! Old writers push'd the happy season back,— The more fools they,—we forward: dreamers both: You most, that in an age, when every hour Must sweat her sixty minutes to the death, Live on, God love us, as if the seedsman, rapt Upon the teeming harvest, should not dip [4] His hand into the bag: but well I know That unto him who works, and feels he works, This same grand year is ever at the doors." He spoke; and, high above, I heard them blast The steep slate-quarry, and the great echo flap And buffet round the hills from bluff to bluff.



[Footnote 1: 1846 to 1850.

And joined him in Llanberis; and that same song He told me, etc.]

[Footnote 2: Proverbs xxx. 15:

"The horseleach hath two daughters, crying, Give, give".]

[Footnote 3: 1890. Altered to "Yet oceans daily gaining on the land".]

[Footnote 4: 'Selections', 1865. Plunge.]



ULYSSES

First published in 1842, no alterations were made in it subsequently.

This noble poem, which is said to have induced Sir Robert Peel to give Tennyson his pension, was written soon after Arthur Hallam's death, presumably therefore in 1833. "It gave my feeling," Tennyson said to his son, "about the need of going forward and braving the struggle of life perhaps more simply than anything in 'In Memoriam'." It is not the 'Ulysses' of Homer, nor was it suggested by the 'Odyssey'. The germ, the spirit and the sentiment of the poem are from the twenty-sixth canto of Dante's 'Inferno', where Ulysses in the Limbo of the Deceivers speaks from the flame which swathes him. I give a literal version of the passage:—

"Neither fondness for my son nor reverence for my aged sire nor the due love which ought to have gladdened Penelope could conquer in me the ardour which I had to become experienced in the world and in human vice and worth. I put out into the deep open sea with but one ship and with that small company which had not deserted me.... I and my companions were old and tardy when we came to that narrow pass where Hercules assigned his landmarks. 'O brothers,' I said, 'who through a hundred thousand dangers have reached the West deny not to this the brief vigil of your senses that remain, experience of the unpeopled world beyond the sun. Consider your origin, ye were not formed to live like Brutes but to follow virtue and knowledge.... Night already saw the other pole with all its stars and ours so low that it rose not from the ocean floor'"

('Inferno', xxvi., 94-126).

But if the germ is here the expansion is Tennyson's; he has added elaboration and symmetry, fine touches, magical images and magical diction. There is nothing in Dante which answers to—

Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades For ever and for ever when I move.

or

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Of these lines well does Carlyle say what so many will feel: "These lines do not make me weep, but there is in me what would till whole Lacrymatorics as I read".

It little profits that an idle king, By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race, That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. I cannot rest from travel: I will drink Life to the lees: all times I have enjoy'd Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades [1] Vext the dim sea: I am become a name; For always roaming with a hungry heart Much have I seen and known; cities of men And manners, climates, councils, governments, [2] Myself not least, but honour'd of them all; And drunk delight of battle with my peers, Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. I am a part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades For ever and for ever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end, [3] To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use! As tho' to breathe were life. Life piled on life Were all too little, and of one to me Little remains: but every hour is saved From that eternal silence, something more, A bringer of new things; and vile it were For some three suns to store and hoard myself, And this gray spirit yearning in desire To follow knowledge, like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus, [4] To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle— Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil This labour, by slow prudence to make mild A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees Subdue them to the useful and the good. Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere Of common duties, decent not to fail In offices of tenderness, and pay Meet adoration to my household gods, When I am gone. He works his work, I mine. There lies the port: the vessel puffs her sail: There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners, Souls that have toil'd and wrought, and thought with me— That ever with a frolic welcome took The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old; Old age hath yet his honour and his toil; Death closes all; but something ere the end, Some work of noble note, may yet be done, Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks: The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, [5] And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.



[Footnote 1: Virgil, 'AEn'., i., 748, and iii., 516.]

[Footnote 2: 'Odyssey', i., 1-4.]

[Footnote 3: 'Cf'. Shakespeare, 'Troilus and Cressida':—

Perseverance, dear, my lord, Keeps honour bright: To have done, is to hang Quite out of fashion, like a rusty nail In monumental mockery.]

[Footnote 4: How admirably has Tennyson touched off the character of the Telemachus of the 'Odyssey'.]

[Footnote 5: The Happy Isles, the 'Fortunatae Insulae' of the Romans and the

[Greek: ai ton Makaron naesoi]

of the Greeks, have been identified by geographers as those islands in the Atlantic off the west coast of Africa; some take them to mean the Canary Islands, the Madeira group and the Azores, while they may have included the Cape de Verde Islands as well. What seems certain is that these places with their soft delicious climate and lovely scenery gave the poets an idea of a happy abode for departed spirits, and so the conception of the Elysian Fields. The loci classici on these abodes are Homer, Odyssey, iv., 563 seqq.:—

[Greek: alla s' es Elysion pedion kai peirata gaiaes athanatoi pempsousin, hothi xanthos Rhadamanthus tae per rhaeistae biotae pelei anthropoisin, ou niphetos, out' ar cheimon polus, oute pot' ombros all' aiei Zephuroio ligu pneiontas aaetas okeanos aniaesin anapsuchein anthropous.

[But the Immortals will convey thee to the Elysian plain and the world's limits where is Rhadamanthus of the golden hair, where life is easiest for man; no snow is there, no nor no great storm, nor any rain, but always ocean sendeth forth the shrilly breezes of the West to cool and refresh men],

and Pindar, 'Olymp'., ii., 178 'seqq'., compared with the splendid fragment at the beginning of the 'Dirges'. Elysium was afterwards placed in the netherworld, as by Virgil. Thus, as so often the suggestion was from the facts of geography, the rest soon became an allegorical myth, and to attempt to identify and localise "the Happy Isles" is as great an absurdity as to attempt to identify and localise the island of Shakespeare's 'Tempest'.]



LOCKSLEY HALL

First published in 1842, and no alterations were made in it subsequently to the edition of 1850; except that in the Selections published in 1865 in the third stanza the reading was "half in ruin" for "in the distance". This poem, as Tennyson explained, was not autobiographic but purely imaginary, "representing young life, its good side, its deficiences and its yearnings". The poem, he added, was written in Trochaics because the elder Hallam told him that the English people liked that metre. The hero is a sort of preliminary sketch of the hero in 'Maud', the position and character of each being very similar: both are cynical and querulous, and break out into tirades against their kind and society; both have been disappointed in love, and both find the same remedy for their afflictions by mixing themselves with action and becoming "one with their kind".

'Locksley Hall' was suggested, as Tennyson acknowledged, by Sir William Jones' translation of the old Arabian Moallakat, a collection from the works of pre-Mahommedan poets. See Sir William Jones' works, quarto edition, vol. iv., pp. 247-57. But only one of these poems, namely the poem of Amriolkais, could have immediately influenced him. In this the poet supposes himself attended on a journey by a company of friends, and they pass near a place where his mistress had lately lived, but from which her tribe had then removed. He desires them to stop awhile, that he may weep over the deserted remains of her tent. They comply with his request, but exhort him to show more strength of mind, and urge two topics of consolation, namely, that he had before been equally unhappy and that he had enjoyed his full share of pleasures. Thus by the recollection of his past delights his imagination is kindled and his grief suspended. But Tennyson's chief indebtedness is rather in the oriental colouring given to his poem, chiefly in the sentiment and imagery. Thus in the couplet—

Many a night I saw the Pleiads rising through the mellow shade Glitter like a swarm of fireflies tangl'd in a silver braid,

we are reminded of "It was the hour when the Pleiads appeared in the firmament like the folds of a silken sash variously decked with gems".

Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet 'tis early morn: Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle horn.

'Tis the place, and all around it, [1] as of old, the curlews call, Dreary gleams [2] about the moorland flying over Locksley Hall;

Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts, And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts.

Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest, Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West.

Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow shade, Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid.

Here about the beach I wander'd, nourishing a youth sublime With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of Time;

When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed; When I clung to all the present for the promise that it closed:

When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see; Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be.—

In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's [3] breast; In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest;

In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove; In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.

Then her cheek was pale and thinner than should be for one so young, And her eyes on all my motions with a mute observance hung.

And I said, "My cousin Amy, speak, and speak the truth to me, Trust me, cousin, all the current of my being sets to thee."

On her pallid cheek and forehead came a colour and a light, As I have seen the rosy red flushing in the northern night.

And she turn'd—her bosom shaken with a sudden storm of sighs— All the spirit deeply dawning in the dark of hazel eyes—

Saying, "I have hid my feelings, fearing they should do me wrong"; Saying, "Dost thou love me, cousin?" weeping, "I have loved thee long".

Love took up the glass of Time, and turn'd it in his glowing hands; Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands. [4]

Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might; Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of sight.

Many a morning on the moorland did we hear the copses ring, And her whisper throng'd my pulses with the fulness of the Spring.

Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately ships, And our spirits rush'd together at the touching of the lips. [5]

O my cousin, shallow-hearted! O my Amy, mine no more! O the dreary, dreary moorland! O the barren, barren shore!

Falser than all fancy fathoms, falser than all songs have sung, Puppet to a father's threat, and servile to a shrewish tongue!

Is it well to wish thee happy?—having known me—to decline On a range of lower feelings and a narrower heart than mine!

Yet it shall be: thou shalt lower to his level day by day, What is fine within thee growing coarse to sympathise with clay.

As the husband is, the wife is: thou art mated with a clown, And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down.

He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force, Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse.

What is this? his eyes are heavy: think not they are glazed with wine. Go to him: it is thy duty: kiss him: take his hand in thine.

It may be my lord is weary, that his brain is overwrought: Soothe him with thy finer fancies, touch him with thy lighter thought.

He will answer to the purpose, easy things to understand— Better thou wert dead before me, tho' I slew thee with my hand!

Better thou and I were lying, hidden from the heart's disgrace, Roll'd in one another's arms, and silent in a last embrace.

Cursed be the social wants that sin against the strength of youth! Cursed be the social lies that warp us from the living truth!

Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest Nature's rule! Cursed be the gold that gilds the straiten'd forehead of the fool!

Well—'tis well that I should bluster!—Hadst thou less unworthy proved— Would to God—for I had loved thee more than ever wife was loved.

Am I mad, that I should cherish that which bears but bitter fruit? I will pluck it from my bosom, tho' my heart be at the root.

Never, tho' my mortal summers to such length of years should come As the many-winter'd crow that leads the clanging rookery home. [6]

Where is comfort? in division of the records of the mind? Can I part her from herself, and love her, as I knew her, kind?

I remember one that perish'd: sweetly did she speak and move: Such a one do I remember, whom to look it was to love.

Can I think of her as dead, and love her for the love she bore? No—she never loved me truly: love is love for evermore.

Comfort? comfort scorn'd of devils! this is truth the poet sings, That a sorrow's crown of sorrow [7] is remembering happier things.

Drug thy memories, lest thou learn it, lest thy heart be put to proof, In the dead unhappy night, and when the rain is on the roof.

Like a dog, he hunts in dreams, and thou art staring at the wall, Where the dying night-lamp flickers, and the shadows rise and fall.

Then a hand shall pass before thee, pointing to his drunken sleep, To thy widow'd marriage-pillows, to the tears that thou wilt weep.

Thou shalt hear the "Never, never," whisper'd by the phantom years, And a song from out the distance in the ringing of thine ears;

And an eye shall vex thee, looking ancient kindness on thy pain. Turn thee, turn thee on thy pillow: get thee to thy rest again.

Nay, but Nature brings thee solace; for a tender voice will cry, 'Tis a purer life than thine; a lip to drain thy trouble dry.

Baby lips will laugh me down: my latest rival brings thee rest. Baby fingers, waxen touches, press me from the mother's breast.

O, the child too clothes the father with a dearness not his due. Half is thine and half is his: it will be worthy of the two.

O, I see thee old and formal, fitted to thy petty part, With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter's heart.

"They were dangerous guides the feelings—she herself was not exempt— Truly, she herself had suffer'd"—Perish in thy self-contempt!

Overlive it—lower yet—be happy! wherefore should I care, I myself must mix with action, lest I wither by despair.

What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon days like these? Every door is barr'd with gold, and opens but to golden keys.

Every gate is throng'd with suitors, all the markets overflow. I have but an angry fancy: what is that which I should do?

I had been content to perish, falling on the foeman's ground, When the ranks are roll'd in vapour, and the winds are laid with sound.

But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that Honour feels, And the nations do but murmur, snarling at each other's heels.

Can I but relive in sadness? I will turn that earlier page. Hide me from my deep emotion, O thou wondrous Mother-Age!

Make me feel the wild pulsation that I felt before the strife, When I heard my days before me, and the tumult of my life;

Yearning for the large excitement that the coming years would yield, Eager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves his father's field,

And at night along the dusky highway near and nearer drawn, Sees in heaven the light of London flaring like a dreary dawn; [8]

And his spirit leaps within him to be gone before him then, Underneath the light he looks at, in among the throngs of men;

Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new: That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do:

For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be; [9]

Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales; [10]

Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain'd a ghastly dew From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue; [10]

Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm, With the standards of the peoples plunging thro' the thunderstorm; [10]

Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were furl'd In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world. [10]

There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.

So I triumph'd, ere my passion sweeping thro' me left me dry, Left me with the palsied heart, and left me with the jaundiced eye;

Eye, to which all order festers, all things here are out of joint, Science moves, but slowly slowly, creeping on from point to point:

Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lion, creeping nigher, [11] Glares at one that nods and winks behind a slowly-dying fire.

Yet I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of men are widen'd with the process of the suns.

What is that to him that reaps not harvest of his youthful joys, Tho' the deep heart of existence beat for ever like a boy's?

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I linger on the shore, And the individual withers, and the world is more and more.

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and he bears a laden breast, Full of sad experience, moving toward the stillness of his rest.

Hark, my merry comrades call me, sounding on the bugle-horn, They to whom my foolish passion were a target for their scorn:

Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a moulder'd string? I am shamed thro' all my nature to have loved so slight a thing.

Weakness to be wroth with weakness! woman's pleasure, woman's pain— [12] Nature made them blinder motions bounded in a shallower brain:

Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, match'd with mine, Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine—

Here at least, where nature sickens, nothing. Ah, for some retreat Deep in yonder shining Orient, where my life began to beat;

Where in wild Mahratta-battle fell my father evil-starr'd;— I was left a trampled orphan, and a selfish uncle's ward.

Or to burst all links of habit—there to wander far away, On from island unto island at the gateways of the day.

Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies, Breadths of tropic shade and palms in cluster, knots of Paradise. [13]

Never comes the trader, never floats an European flag, Slides the bird o'er lustrous woodland, swings the trailer [14] from the crag;

Droops the heavy-blossom'd bower, hangs the heavy-fruited tree— Summer isles of Eden lying in dark-purple spheres of sea.

There methinks would be enjoyment more than in this march of mind, In the steamship, in the railway, in the thoughts that shake mankind.

There the passions cramp'd no longer shall have scope and breathing-space; I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my dusky race.

Iron-jointed, supple-sinew'd, they shall dive, and they shall run, Catch the wild goat by the hair, and hurl their lances in the sun;

Whistle back the parrot's call, and leap the rainbows of the brooks. Not with blinded eyesight poring over miserable books—

Fool, again the dream, the fancy! but I know my words are wild, But I count the gray barbarian lower than the Christian child.

I, to herd with narrow foreheads, vacant of our glorious gains, [15] Like a beast with lower pleasures, like a beast with lower pains!

Mated with a squalid savage—what to me were sun or clime? I the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time—

I that rather held it better men should perish one by one, Than that earth should stand at gaze like Joshua's moon in Ajalon!

Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us range. Let the great world spin [16] for ever down the ringing grooves [17] of change.

Thro' the shadow of the globe [18] we sweep into the younger day: Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay. [19]

Mother-Age (for mine I knew not) help me as when life begun: Rift the hills, and roll the waters, flash the lightnings, weigh the Sun—[20]

O, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath not set. Ancient founts of inspiration well thro' all my fancy yet.

Howsoever these things be, a long farewell to Locksley Hall! Now for me the woods may wither, now for me the roof-tree fall.

Comes a vapour from the margin, blackening over heath and holt, Cramming all the blast before it, in its breast a thunderbolt.

Let it fall on Locksley Hall, with rain or hail, or fire or snow; For the mighty wind arises, roaring seaward, and I go.



[Footnote 1: 1842. And round the gables.]

[Footnote 2: "Gleams," it appears, is a Lincolnshire word for the cry of the curlew, and so by removing the comma after call we get an interpretation which perhaps improves the sense and certainly gets rid of a very un-Tennysonian cumbrousness in the second line. But Tennyson had never, he said, heard of that meaning of "gleams," adding he wished he had. He meant nothing more in the passage than "to express the flying gleams of light across a dreary moorland when looking at it under peculiarly dreary circumstances". See for this, 'Life', iii., 82.]

[Footnote 3: 1842 and all up to and including 1850 have a capital 'R' to robin.]

[Footnote 4: Cf. W. R. Spencer ('Poems', p. 166):—

What eye with clear account remarks The ebbing of his glass, When all its sands are diamond sparks That dazzle as they pass.

But this is of course in no way parallel to Tennyson's subtly beautiful image, which he himself pronounced to be the best simile he had ever made.]

[Footnote 5: Cf. Guarini, 'Pastor Fido':—

Ma i colpi di due labbre innamorate Quando a ferir si va bocca con bocca, ... ove l' un alma e l'altra Corre.]

[Footnote 6: Cf. Horace's 'Annosa Cornix', Odes III., xvii., 13.]

[Footnote 7: The reference is to Dante, 'Inferno', v. 121-3:—

Nessun maggior dolore Che ricordarsi del tempo felice Nella miseria.

For the pedigree and history of this see the present editor's 'Illustrations of Tennyson', p. 63.]

[Footnote 8: The epithet "dreary" shows that Tennyson preferred realistic picturesqueness to dramatic propriety.]

[Footnote 9: See the introductory note to 'The Golden Year'.]

[Footnote 10: See the introductory note to 'The Golden Year'.]

[Footnote 11: Tennyson said that this simile was suggested by a passage in 'Pringle's Travels;' the incident only is described, and with thrilling vividness, by Pringle; but its application in simile is Tennyson's. See 'A Narrative of a Residence in South Africa', by Thomas Pringle, p. 39:

"The night was extremely dark and the rain fell so heavily that in spite of the abundant supply of dry firewood, which we had luckily provided, it was not without difficulty that we could keep one watchfire burning.... About midnight we were suddenly roused by the roar of a lion close to our tents. It was so loud and tremendous that for the moment I actually thought that a thunderstorm had burst upon us.... We roused up the half-extinguished fire to a roaring blaze ... this unwonted display probably daunted our grim visitor, for he gave us no further trouble that night."]

[Footnote 12: With this 'cf'. Leopardi, 'Aspasia', 53-60:—

Non cape in quelle Anguste fronti ugual concetto. E male Al vivo sfolgora di quegli sguardi Spera l'uomo ingannato, e mal chiede Sensi profondi, sconosciuti, e molto Piu che virili, in chi dell' uomo al tutto Da natura e minor. Che se piu molli E piu tenui le membra, essa la mente Men capace e men forte anco riceve.]

[Footnote 13: One wonders Tennyson could have had the heart to excise the beautiful couplet which in his MS. followed this stanza.

All about a summer ocean, leagues on leagues of golden calm, And within melodious waters rolling round the knolls of palm.]

[Footnote 14: 1842 and all up to and inclusive of 1850. Droops the trailer. This is one of Tennyson's many felicitous corrections. In the monotonous, motionless splendour of a tropical landscape the smallest movement catches the eye, the flight of a bird, the gentle waving of the trailer stirred by the breeze from the sea.]

[Footnote 15: 'Cf'. Shakespeare, "foreheads villainously low".]

[Footnote 16: 1842. Peoples spin.]

[Footnote 17: Tennyson tells us that when he travelled by the first train from Liverpool to Manchester in 1830 it was night and he thought that the wheels ran in a groove, hence this line.]

[Footnote 18: 1842. The world.]

[Footnote 19: Cathay, the old name for China.]

[Footnote 20: 'Cf'. Tasso, 'Gems', ix., st. 91:—

Nuova nube di polve ecco vicina Che fulgori in grembo tiene.

(Lo! a fresh cloud of dust is near which Carries in its breast thunderbolts.)]



GODIVA

First published in 1842. No alteration was made in any subsequent edition.

The poem was written in 1840 when Tennyson was returning from Coventry to London, after his visit to Warwickshire in that year. The Godiva pageant takes place in that town at the great fair on Friday in Trinity week. Earl Leofric was the Lord of Coventry in the reign of Edward the Confessor, and he and his wife Godiva founded a magnificent Benedictine monastery at Coventry. The first writer who mentions this legend is Matthew of Westminster, who wrote in 1307, that is some 250 years after Leofric's time, and what authority he had for it is not known. It is certainly not mentioned by the many preceding writers who have left accounts of Leofric and Godiva (see Gough's edition of Camden's 'Britannia', vol. ii., p. 346, and for a full account of the legend see W. Reader, 'The History and Description of Coventry Show Fair, with the History of Leofric and Godiva'). With Tennyson's should be compared Moultrie's beautiful poem on the same subject, and Landor's Imaginary Conversation between Leofric and Godiva.

[1] I waited for the train at Coventry; I hung with grooms and porters on the bridge, To match the three tall spires; [2] and there I shaped The city's ancient legend into this: Not only we, the latest seed of Time, New men, that in the flying of a wheel Cry down the past, not only we, that prate Of rights and wrongs, have loved the people well, And loathed to see them overtax'd; but she Did more, and underwent, and overcame, The woman of a thousand summers back, Godiva, wife to that grim Earl, who ruled In Coventry: for when he laid a tax Upon his town, and all the mothers brought Their children, clamouring, "If we pay, we starve!" She sought her lord, and found him, where he strode About the hall, among his dogs, alone, His beard a foot before him, and his hair A yard behind. She told him of their tears, And pray'd him, "If they pay this tax, they starve". Whereat he stared, replying, half-amazed, "You would not let your little finger ache For such as these?"—"But I would die," said she. He laugh'd, and swore by Peter and by Paul; Then fillip'd at the diamond in her ear; "O ay, ay, ay, you talk!"—"Alas!" she said, "But prove me what it is I would not do." And from a heart as rough as Esau's hand, He answer'd, "Ride you naked thro' the town, And I repeal it"; and nodding as in scorn, He parted, with great strides among his dogs. So left alone, the passions of her mind, As winds from all the compass shift and blow, Made war upon each other for an hour, Till pity won. She sent a herald forth, And bad him cry, with sound of trumpet, all The hard condition; but that she would loose The people: therefore, as they loved her well, From then till noon no foot should pace the street, No eye look down, she passing; but that all Should keep within, door shut, and window barr'd. Then fled she to her inmost bower, and there Unclasp'd the wedded eagles of her belt, The grim Earl's gift; but ever at a breath She linger'd, looking like a summer moon Half-dipt in cloud: anon she shook her head, And shower'd the rippled ringlets to her knee; Unclad herself in haste; adown the stair Stole on; and, like a creeping sunbeam, slid From pillar unto pillar, until she reach'd The gateway; there she found her palfrey trapt In purple blazon'd with armorial gold. Then she rode forth, clothed on with chastity: The deep air listen'd round her as she rode, And all the low wind hardly breathed for fear. The little wide-mouth'd heads upon the spout Had cunning eyes to see: the barking cur Made her cheek flame: her palfrey's footfall shot Light horrors thro' her pulses: the blind walls Were full of chinks and holes; and overhead Fantastic gables, crowding, stared: but she Not less thro' all bore up, till, last, she saw The white-flower'd elder-thicket from the field Gleam thro' the Gothic archways [3]in the wall. Then she rode back cloth'd on with chastity: And one low churl, [4] compact of thankless earth, The fatal byword of all years to come, Boring a little auger-hole in fear, Peep'd—but his eyes, before they had their will, Were shrivell'd into darkness in his head, And dropt before him. So the Powers, who wait On noble deeds, cancell'd a sense misused; And she, that knew not, pass'd: and all at once, With twelve great shocks of sound, the shameless noon Was clash'd and hammer'd from a hundred towers, [5] One after one: but even then she gain'd Her bower; whence reissuing, robed and crown'd, To meet her lord, she took the tax away, And built herself an everlasting name.

[Footnote 1: These four lines are not in the privately printed volume of 1842, but were added afterwards.]

[Footnote 2: St. Michael's, Trinity, and St. John.]

[Footnote 3: 1844. Archway.]

[Footnote 4: His effigy is still to be seen, protruded from an upper window in High Street, Coventry.]

[Footnote 5: A most poetical licence. Thirty-two towers are the very utmost allowed by writers on ancient Coventry.]



THE TWO VOICES

First published in 1842, though begun as early as 1833 and in course of composition in 1834. See Spedding's letter dated 19th September, 1834. Its original title was 'The Thoughts of a Suicide'. No alterations were made in the poem after 1842.

It adds interest to this poem to know that it is autobiographical. It was written soon after the death of Arthur Hallam when Tennyson's depression was deepest. "When I wrote 'The Two Voices' I was so utterly miserable, a burden to myself and to my family, that I said, 'Is life worth anything?'" It is the history—as Spedding put it—of the agitations, the suggestions and counter-suggestions of a mind sunk in hopeless despondency, and meditating self-destruction, together with the manner of its recovery to a more healthy condition. We have two singularly interesting parallels to it in preceding poetry. The one is in the third book of Lucretius (830-1095), where the arguments for suicide are urged, not merely by the poet himself, but by arguments placed by him in the mouth of Nature herself, and urged with such cogency that they are said to have induced one of his editors and translators, Creech, to put an end to his life. The other is in Spenser, in the dialogue between Despair and the Red Cross Knight, where Despair puts the case for self-destruction, and the Red Cross Knight rebuts the arguments ('Faerie Queene', I. ix., st. xxxviii.-liv.).

A still small voice spake unto me, "Thou art so full of misery, Were it not better not to be?"

Then to the still small voice I said; "Let me not cast in endless shade What is so wonderfully made".

To which the voice did urge reply; "To-day I saw the dragon-fly Come from the wells where he did lie.

"An inner impulse rent the veil Of his old husk: from head to tail Came out clear plates of sapphire mail.

"He dried his wings: like gauze they grew: Thro' crofts and pastures wet with dew A living flash of light he flew."

I said, "When first the world began Young Nature thro' five cycles ran, And in the sixth she moulded man.

"She gave him mind, the lordliest Proportion, and, above the rest, Dominion in the head and breast."

Thereto the silent voice replied; "Self-blinded are you by your pride: Look up thro' night: the world is wide.

"This truth within thy mind rehearse, That in a boundless universe Is boundless better, boundless worse.

"Think you this mould of hopes and fears Could find no statelier than his peers In yonder hundred million spheres?"

It spake, moreover, in my mind: "Tho' thou wert scatter'd to the wind, Yet is there plenty of the kind".

Then did my response clearer fall: "No compound of this earthly ball Is like another, all in all".

To which he answer'd scoffingly; "Good soul! suppose I grant it thee, Who'll weep for thy deficiency?

"Or will one beam [1] be less intense, When thy peculiar difference Is cancell'd in the world of sense?"

I would have said, "Thou canst not know," But my full heart, that work'd below, Rain'd thro' my sight its overflow.

Again the voice spake unto me: "Thou art so steep'd in misery, Surely 'twere better not to be.

"Thine anguish will not let thee sleep, Nor any train of reason keep: Thou canst not think, but thou wilt weep."

I said, "The years with change advance: If I make dark my countenance, I shut my life from happier chance.

"Some turn this sickness yet might take, Ev'n yet." But he: "What drug can make A wither'd palsy cease to shake?"

I wept, "Tho' I should die, I know That all about the thorn will blow In tufts of rosy-tinted snow;

"And men, thro' novel spheres of thought Still moving after truth long sought, Will learn new things when I am not."

"Yet," said the secret voice, "some time, Sooner or later, will gray prime Make thy grass hoar with early rime.

"Not less swift souls that yearn for light, Rapt after heaven's starry flight, Would sweep the tracts of day and night.

"Not less the bee would range her cells, The furzy prickle fire the dells, The foxglove cluster dappled bells."

I said that "all the years invent; Each month is various to present The world with some development.

"Were this not well, to bide mine hour, Tho' watching from a ruin'd tower How grows the day of human power?"

"The highest-mounted mind," he said, "Still sees the sacred morning spread The silent summit overhead.

"Will thirty seasons render plain Those lonely lights that still remain, Just breaking over land and main?

"Or make that morn, from his cold crown And crystal silence creeping down, Flood with full daylight glebe and town?

"Forerun thy peers, thy time, and let Thy feet, millenniums hence, be set In midst of knowledge, dream'd not yet.

"Thou hast not gain'd a real height, Nor art thou nearer to the light, Because the scale is infinite.

"'Twere better not to breathe or speak, Than cry for strength, remaining weak, And seem to find, but still to seek.

"Moreover, but to seem to find Asks what thou lackest, thought resign'd, A healthy frame, a quiet mind."

I said, "When I am gone away, 'He dared not tarry,' men will say, Doing dishonour to my clay."

"This is more vile," he made reply, "To breathe and loathe, to live and sigh, Than once from dread of pain to die.

"Sick art thou—a divided will Still heaping on the fear of ill The fear of men, a coward still.

"Do men love thee? Art thou so bound To men, that how thy name may sound Will vex thee lying underground?

"The memory of the wither'd leaf In endless time is scarce more brief Than of the garner'd Autumn-sheaf.

"Go, vexed Spirit, sleep in trust; The right ear, that is fill'd with dust, Hears little of the false or just."

"Hard task, to pluck resolve," I cried, "From emptiness and the waste wide Of that abyss, or scornful pride!

"Nay—rather yet that I could raise One hope that warm'd me in the days While still I yearn'd for human praise.

"When, wide in soul, and bold of tongue, Among the tents I paused and sung, The distant battle flash'd and rung.

"I sung the joyful Paean clear, And, sitting, burnish'd without fear The brand, the buckler, and the spear—

"Waiting to strive a happy strife, To war with falsehood to the knife, And not to lose the good of life—

"Some hidden principle to move, To put together, part and prove, And mete the bounds of hate and love—

"As far as might be, to carve out Free space for every human doubt, That the whole mind might orb about—

"To search thro' all I felt or saw, The springs of life, the depths of awe, And reach the law within the law:

"At least, not rotting like a weed, But, having sown some generous seed, Fruitful of further thought and deed,

"To pass, when Life her light withdraws, Not void of righteous self-applause, Nor in a merely selfish cause—

"In some good cause, not in mine own, To perish, wept for, honour'd, known, And like a warrior overthrown;

"Whose eyes are dim with glorious tears, When, soil'd with noble dust, he hears His country's war-song thrill his ears:

"Then dying of a mortal stroke, What time the foeman's line is broke. And all the war is roll'd in smoke." [2]

"Yea!" said the voice, "thy dream was good, While thou abodest in the bud. It was the stirring of the blood.

"If Nature put not forth her power [2] About the opening of the flower, Who is it that could live an hour?

"Then comes the check, the change, the fall. Pain rises up, old pleasures pall. There is one remedy for all.

"Yet hadst thou, thro' enduring pain, Link'd month to month with such a chain Of knitted purport, all were vain.

"Thou hadst not between death and birth Dissolved the riddle of the earth. So were thy labour little worth.

"That men with knowledge merely play'd, I told thee—hardly nigher made, Tho' scaling slow from grade to grade;

"Much less this dreamer, deaf and blind, Named man, may hope some truth to find, That bears relation to the mind.

"For every worm beneath the moon Draws different threads, and late and soon Spins, toiling out his own cocoon.

"Cry, faint not: either Truth is born Beyond the polar gleam forlorn, Or in the gateways of the morn.

"Cry, faint not, climb: the summits slope Beyond the furthest nights of hope, Wrapt in dense cloud from base to cope.

"Sometimes a little corner shines, As over rainy mist inclines A gleaming crag with belts of pines.

"I will go forward, sayest thou, I shall not fail to find her now. Look up, the fold is on her brow.

"If straight thy track, or if oblique, Thou know'st not. Shadows thou dost strike, Embracing cloud, Ixion-like;

"And owning but a little more Than beasts, abidest lame and poor, Calling thyself a little lower

"Than angels. Cease to wail and brawl! Why inch by inch to darkness crawl? There is one remedy for all."

"O dull, one-sided voice," said I, "Wilt thou make everything a lie, To flatter me that I may die?

"I know that age to age succeeds, Blowing a noise of tongues and deeds, A dust of systems and of creeds.

"I cannot hide that some have striven, Achieving calm, to whom was given The joy that mixes man with Heaven:

"Who, rowing hard against the stream, Saw distant gates of Eden gleam, And did not dream it was a dream";

"But heard, by secret transport led, [3] Ev'n in the charnels of the dead, The murmur of the fountain-head—

"Which did accomplish their desire,— Bore and forbore, and did not tire, Like Stephen, an unquenched fire.

"He heeded not reviling tones, Nor sold his heart to idle moans, Tho' cursed and scorn'd, and bruised with stones:

"But looking upward, full of grace, He pray'd, and from a happy place God's glory smote him on the face."

The sullen answer slid betwixt: "Not that the grounds of hope were fix'd, The elements were kindlier mix'd." [4]

I said, "I toil beneath the curse, But, knowing not the universe, I fear to slide from bad to worse. [5]

"And that, in seeking to undo One riddle, and to find the true, I knit a hundred others new:

"Or that this anguish fleeting hence, Unmanacled from bonds of sense, Be fix'd and froz'n to permanence:

"For I go, weak from suffering here; Naked I go, and void of cheer: What is it that I may not fear?"

"Consider well," the voice replied, "His face, that two hours since hath died; Wilt thou find passion, pain or pride?

"Will he obey when one commands? Or answer should one press his hands? He answers not, nor understands.

"His palms are folded on his breast: There is no other thing express'd But long disquiet merged in rest.

"His lips are very mild and meek: Tho' one should smite him on the cheek, And on the mouth, he will not speak.

"His little daughter, whose sweet face He kiss'd, taking his last embrace, Becomes dishonour to her race—

"His sons grow up that bear his name, Some grow to honour, some to shame,— But he is chill to praise or blame. [6]

"He will not hear the north wind rave, Nor, moaning, household shelter crave From winter rains that beat his grave.

"High up the vapours fold and swim: About him broods the twilight dim: The place he knew forgetteth him."

"If all be dark, vague voice," I said, "These things are wrapt in doubt and dread, Nor canst thou show the dead are dead.

"The sap dries up: the plant declines. [7] A deeper tale my heart divines. Know I not Death? the outward signs?

"I found him when my years were few; A shadow on the graves I knew, And darkness in the village yew.

"From grave to grave the shadow crept: In her still place the morning wept: Touch'd by his feet the daisy slept.

"The simple senses crown'd his head: [8] 'Omega! thou art Lord,' they said; 'We find no motion in the dead.'

"Why, if man rot in dreamless ease, Should that plain fact, as taught by these, Not make him sure that he shall cease?

"Who forged that other influence, That heat of inward evidence, By which he doubts against the sense?

"He owns the fatal gift of eyes, [9] That read his spirit blindly wise, Not simple as a thing that dies.

"Here sits he shaping wings to fly: His heart forebodes a mystery: He names the name Eternity.

"That type of Perfect in his mind In Nature can he nowhere find. He sows himself in every wind.

"He seems to hear a Heavenly Friend, And thro' thick veils to apprehend A labour working to an end.

"The end and the beginning vex His reason: many things perplex, With motions, checks, and counterchecks.

"He knows a baseness in his blood At such strange war with something good, He may not do the thing he would.

"Heaven opens inward, chasms yawn. Vast images in glimmering dawn, Half shown, are broken and withdrawn.

"Ah! sure within him and without, Could his dark wisdom find it out, There must be answer to his doubt.

"But thou canst answer not again. With thine own weapon art thou slain, Or thou wilt answer but in vain.

"The doubt would rest, I dare not solve. In the same circle we revolve. Assurance only breeds resolve."

As when a billow, blown against, Falls back, the voice with which I fenced A little ceased, but recommenced.

"Where wert thou when thy father play'd In his free field, and pastime made, A merry boy in sun and shade?

"A merry boy they called him then. He sat upon the knees of men In days that never come again,

"Before the little ducts began To feed thy bones with lime, and ran Their course, till thou wert also man:

"Who took a wife, who rear'd his race, Whose wrinkles gather'd on his face, Whose troubles number with his days:

"A life of nothings, nothing-worth, From that first nothing ere his birth To that last nothing under earth!"

"These words," I said, "are like the rest, No certain clearness, but at best A vague suspicion of the breast:

"But if I grant, thou might'st defend The thesis which thy words intend— That to begin implies to end;

"Yet how should I for certain hold, [10] Because my memory is so cold, That I first was in human mould?

"I cannot make this matter plain, But I would shoot, howe'er in vain, A random arrow from the brain.

"It may be that no life is found, Which only to one engine bound Falls off, but cycles always round.

"As old mythologies relate, Some draught of Lethe might await The slipping thro' from state to state.

"As here we find in trances, men Forget the dream that happens then, Until they fall in trance again.

"So might we, if our state were such As one before, remember much, For those two likes might meet and touch. [11]

"But, if I lapsed from nobler place, Some legend of a fallen race Alone might hint of my disgrace;

"Some vague emotion of delight In gazing up an Alpine height, Some yearning toward the lamps of night.

"Or if thro' lower lives I came— Tho' all experience past became Consolidate in mind and frame—

"I might forget my weaker lot; For is not our first year forgot? The haunts of memory echo not.

"And men, whose reason long was blind, From cells of madness unconfined, [12] Oft lose whole years of darker mind.

"Much more, if first I floated free, As naked essence, must I be Incompetent of memory:

"For memory dealing but with time, And he with matter, could she climb Beyond her own material prime?

"Moreover, something is or seems, That touches me with mystic gleams, Like glimpses of forgotten dreams—

"Of something felt, like something here; Of something done, I know not where; Such as no language may declare."

The still voice laugh'd. "I talk," said he, "Not with thy dreams. Suffice it thee Thy pain is a reality."

"But thou," said I, "hast miss'd thy mark, Who sought'st to wreck my mortal ark, By making all the horizon dark.

"Why not set forth, if I should do This rashness, that which might ensue With this old soul in organs new?

"Whatever crazy sorrow saith, No life that breathes with human breath Has ever truly long'd for death.

"'Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant, Oh life, not death, for which we pant; More life, and fuller, that I want."

I ceased, and sat as one forlorn. Then said the voice, in quiet scorn, "Behold it is the Sabbath morn".

And I arose, and I released The casement, and the light increased With freshness in the dawning east.

Like soften'd airs that blowing steal, When meres begin to uncongeal, The sweet church bells began to peal.

On to God's house the people prest: Passing the place where each must rest, Each enter'd like a welcome guest.

One walk'd between his wife and child, With measur'd footfall firm and mild, And now and then he gravely smiled.

The prudent partner of his blood Lean'd on him, faithful, gentle, good, [13] Wearing the rose of womanhood.

And in their double love secure, The little maiden walk'd demure, Pacing with downward eyelids pure.

These three made unity so sweet, My frozen heart began to beat, Remembering its ancient heat.

I blest them, and they wander'd on: I spoke, but answer came there none: The dull and bitter voice was gone.

A second voice was at mine ear, A little whisper silver-clear, A murmur, "Be of better cheer".

As from some blissful neighbourhood, A notice faintly understood, "I see the end, and know the good".

A little hint to solace woe, A hint, a whisper breathing low, "I may not speak of what I know".

Like an Aeolian harp that wakes No certain air, but overtakes Far thought with music that it makes:

Such seem'd the whisper at my side: "What is it thou knowest, sweet voice?" I cried. "A hidden hope," the voice replied:

So heavenly-toned, that in that hour From out my sullen heart a power Broke, like the rainbow from the shower,

To feel, altho' no tongue can prove That every cloud, that spreads above And veileth love, itself is love.

And forth into the fields I went, And Nature's living motion lent The pulse of hope to discontent.

I wonder'd at the bounteous hours, The slow result of winter showers: You scarce could see the grass for flowers.

I wonder'd, while I paced along: The woods were fill'd so full with song, There seem'd no room for sense of wrong.

So variously seem'd all things wrought, [14] I marvell'd how the mind was brought To anchor by one gloomy thought;

And wherefore rather I made choice To commune with that barren voice, Than him that said, "Rejoice! rejoice!"

[Footnote 1: The insensibility of Nature to man's death has been the eloquent theme of many poets. 'Cf'. Byron, 'Lara', canto ii. 'ad init'., and Matthew Arnold, 'The Youth of Nature'.]

[Footnote 2: 'Cf. Palace of Art', "the riddle of the painful earth".]

[Footnote 3: 'Seq'. The reference is to Acts of the Apostles vii. 54-60.]

[Footnote 4: Suggested by Shakespeare, 'Julius Caesar', Act v., Sc. 5:—

and the elements So mix'd in' him that Nature, etc.]

[Footnote 5: An excellent commentary on this is Clough's

Perche pensa, pensando vecchia.]

[Footnote 6: 'Cf'. Job xiv. 21:

"His sons come to honour, and he knowcth it not; and they are brought low, but he perceiveth it not of them."]

[Footnote 7: So Bishop Butler, 'Analogy', ch. i.:

"We cannot argue from the reason of the thing that death is the destruction of living agents because we know not at all what death is in itself, but only some of its effects".]

[Footnote 8: So Milton, enfolding this idea of death, 'Paradise Lost', ii., 672-3:—

What seemed his head The likeness of a kingly crown had on.]

[Footnote 9: 'Cf'. Plato, 'Phaedo', x.:—

[Greek: ara echei alaetheian tina opsis te kai akoae tois anthropois. Ae ta ge toiauta kai oi poiaetai haemin aei thrulousin oti out akouomen akribes ouden oute oromen]

"Have sight and hearing any truth in them? Are they not, as poets are always telling us, inaccurate witnesses?"

The proper commentary on the whole of this passage is Plato 'passim', but the 'Phaedo' particularly, 'cf. Republic', vii., viii. and xiv.-xv.]

[Footnote 10: An allusion to the myth that when souls are sent to occupy a body again they drink of Lethe that they may forget their previous existence. See the famous passage towards the end of the tenth book of Plato's 'Republic':

"All persons are compelled to drink a certain quantity of the water, but those who are not preserved by prudence drink more than the quantity, and each as he drinks forgets everything".

So Milton, 'Paradise Lost', ii., 582-4.]

[Footnote 11: The best commentary on this will be found in Herbert Spencer's 'Psychology'.]

[Footnote 12: Compare with this Tennyson's first sonnet ('Works', Globe Edition, 25), and the lines in the 'Ancient Sage' in the 'Passion of the Past' ('Id'., 551). 'Cf'. too the lines in Wordsworth's ode on 'Intimations of Immortality':—

But there's a tree, of many one, A single field which I have looked upon, Both of them speak of something that is gone; The pansy at my feet Doth the same tale repeat.

For other remarkable illustrations of this see the present writer's 'Illustrations of Tennyson', p. 38.]

[Footnote 13: 'Cf'. Coleridge, 'Ancient Mariner, iv'.:—

"O happy living things ... I blessed them The self-same moment I could pray."

There is a close parallel between the former and the latter state described here and in Coleridge's mystic allegory; in both cases the sufferers "wake to love," the curse falling off them when they can "bless".]

[Footnote 14: 1884. And all so variously wrought (with semi-colon instead of full stop at the end of the preceding line).]



THE DAY-DREAM

First published in 1842, but written in 1835. In it is incorporated, though with several alterations, 'The Sleeping Beauty', published among the poems of 1830, but excised in subsequent editions. Half extravaganza and half apologue, like the 'Midsummer Night's Dream', this delightful poem may be safely left to deliver its own message and convey its own meaning. It is an excellent illustration of the truth of Tennyson's own remark: "Poetry is like shot silk with many glancing colours. Every reader must find his own interpretation according to his ability, and according to his sympathy with the poet."

PROLOGUE

(No alteration has been made in the Prologue since 1842.)

O, Lady Flora, let me speak: A pleasant hour has past away While, dreaming on your damask cheek, The dewy sister-eyelids lay.

As by the lattice you reclined, I went thro' many wayward moods To see you dreaming—and, behind, A summer crisp with shining woods. And I too dream'd, until at last Across my fancy, brooding warm, The reflex of a legend past, And loosely settled into form. And would you have the thought I had, And see the vision that I saw, Then take the broidery-frame, and add A crimson to the quaint Macaw, And I will tell it. Turn your face, Nor look with that too-earnest eye— The rhymes are dazzled from their place, And order'd words asunder fly.



THE SLEEPING PALACE

(No alteration since 1851.)

1

The varying year with blade and sheaf Clothes and reclothes the happy plains; Here rests the sap within the leaf, Here stays the blood along the veins. Faint shadows, vapours lightly curl'd, Faint murmurs from the meadows come, Like hints and echoes of the world To spirits folded in the womb.

2

Soft lustre bathes the range of urns On every slanting terrace-lawn. The fountain to his place returns Deep in the garden lake withdrawn. Here droops the banner on the tower, On the hall-hearths the festal fires, The peacock in his laurel bower, The parrot in his gilded wires.

3

Roof-haunting martins warm their eggs: In these, in those the life is stay'd. The mantles from the golden pegs Droop sleepily: no sound is made, Not even of a gnat that sings. More like a picture seemeth all Than those old portraits of old kings, That watch the sleepers from the wall.

4

Here sits the Butler with a flask Between his knees, half-drain'd; and there The wrinkled steward at his task, The maid-of-honour blooming fair: The page has caught her hand in his: Her lips are sever'd as to speak: His own are pouted to a kiss: The blush is fix'd upon her cheek.

5

Till all the hundred summers pass, The beams, that thro' the Oriel shine, Make prisms in every carven glass, And beaker brimm'd with noble wine. Each baron at the banquet sleeps, Grave faces gather'd in a ring. His state the king reposing keeps. He must have been a jovial king. [1]

6

All round a hedge upshoots, and shows At distance like a little wood; Thorns, ivies, woodbine, misletoes, And grapes with bunches red as blood; All creeping plants, a wall of green Close-matted, bur and brake and briar, And glimpsing over these, just seen, High up, the topmost palace-spire.

7

When will the hundred summers die, And thought and time be born again, And newer knowledge, drawing nigh, Bring truth that sways the soul of men? Here all things in there place remain, As all were order'd, ages since. Come, Care and Pleasure, Hope and Pain, And bring the fated fairy Prince.

[Footnote 1: All editions up to and including 1851:—He must have been a jolly king.]



THE SLEEPING BEAUTY

(First printed in 1830, but does not reappear again till 1842. No alteration since 1842.)

1

Year after year unto her feet, She lying on her couch alone, Across the purpled coverlet, The maiden's jet-black hair has grown, [1] On either side her tranced form Forth streaming from a braid of pearl: The slumbrous light is rich and warm, And moves not on the rounded curl.

2

The silk star-broider'd [2] coverlid Unto her limbs itself doth mould Languidly ever; and, amid Her full black ringlets downward roll'd, Glows forth each softly-shadow'd arm, With bracelets of the diamond bright: Her constant beauty doth inform Stillness with love, and day with light.

3

She sleeps: her breathings are not heard In palace chambers far apart. [3] The fragrant tresses are not stirr'd That lie upon her charmed heart. She sleeps: on either hand [4] upswells The gold-fringed pillow lightly prest: She sleeps, nor dreams, but ever dwells A perfect form in perfect rest.



[Footnote 1: 1830.

The while she slumbereth alone, Over the purple coverlet, The maiden's jet-black hair hath grown.]

[Footnote 2: 1830. Star-braided.]

[Footnote 3: A writer in 'Notes and Queries', February, 1880, asks whether these lines mean that the lovely princess did not snore so loud that she could be heard from one end of the palace to the other and whether it would not have detracted from her charms had that state of things been habitual. This brings into the field Dr. Gatty and other admirers of Tennyson, who, it must be owned, are not very successful in giving a satisfactory reply.]

[Footnote 4: 1830. Side.]



THE ARRIVAL

(No alteration after 1853.)

1

All precious things, discover'd late, To those that seek them issue forth; For love in sequel works with fate, And draws the veil from hidden worth. He travels far from other skies His mantle glitters on the rocks— A fairy Prince, with joyful eyes, And lighter footed than the fox.

2

The bodies and the bones of those That strove in other days to pass, Are wither'd in the thorny close, Or scatter'd blanching on [1] the grass. He gazes on the silent dead: "They perish'd in their daring deeds." This proverb flashes thro' his head, "The many fail: the one succeeds".

3

He comes, scarce knowing what he seeks: He breaks the hedge: he enters there: The colour flies into his cheeks: He trusts to light on something fair; For all his life the charm did talk About his path, and hover near With words of promise in his walk, And whisper'd voices at his ear. [2]

4

More close and close his footsteps wind; The Magic Music [3] in his heart Beats quick and quicker, till he find The quiet chamber far apart. His spirit flutters like a lark, He stoops—to kiss her—on his knee. "Love, if thy tresses be so dark, How dark those hidden eyes must be!



[Footnote 1: 1842 to 1851. In.]

[Footnote 2: All editions up to and including 1850. In his ear.]

[Footnote 3: All editions up to and including 1851. Not capitals in magic music.]



THE REVIVAL

No alteration after 1853.

1

A touch, a kiss! the charm was snapt. There rose a noise of striking clocks, And feet that ran, and doors that clapt, And barking dogs, and crowing cocks; A fuller light illumined all, A breeze thro' all the garden swept, A sudden hubbub shook the hall, And sixty feet the fountain leapt.

2

The hedge broke in, the banner blew, The butler drank, the steward scrawl'd, The fire shot up, the martin flew, The parrot scream'd, the peacock squall'd, The maid and page renew'd their strife, The palace bang'd, and buzz'd and clackt, And all the long-pent stream of life Dash'd downward in a cataract.

3

And last with these [1] the king awoke, And in his chair himself uprear'd, And yawn'd, and rubb'd his face, and spoke, "By holy rood, a royal beard! How say you? we have slept, my lords, My beard has grown into my lap." The barons swore, with many words, 'Twas but an after-dinner's nap.

4

"Pardy," return'd the king, "but still My joints are something [2] stiff or so. My lord, and shall we pass the bill I mention'd half an hour ago?" The chancellor, sedate and vain, In courteous words return'd reply: But dallied with his golden chain, And, smiling, put the question by.



[Footnote 1: 1842 to 1851. And last of all.]

[Footnote 2: 1863. Somewhat.]



THE DEPARTURE

(No alteration since 1842.)

1

And on her lover's arm she leant, And round her waist she felt it fold, And far across the hills they went In that new world which is the old: Across the hills and far away Beyond their utmost purple rim, And deep into the dying day The happy princess follow'd him.

2

"I'd sleep another hundred years, O love, for such another kiss;" "O wake for ever, love," she hears, "O love, 'twas such as this and this." And o'er them many a sliding star, And many a merry wind was borne, And, stream'd thro' many a golden bar, The twilight melted into morn.

3

"O eyes long laid in happy sleep!" "O happy sleep, that lightly fled!" "O happy kiss, that woke thy sleep!" "O love, thy kiss would wake the dead!" And o'er them many a flowing range Of vapour buoy'd the crescent-bark, And, rapt thro' many a rosy change, The twilight died into the dark.

4

"A hundred summers! can it be? And whither goest thou, tell me where?" "O seek my father's court with me! For there are greater wonders there." And o'er the hills, and far away Beyond their utmost purple rim, Beyond the night across the day, Thro' all the world she follow'd him.



MORAL

(No alteration since 1842.)

1

So, Lady Flora, take my lay, And if you find no moral there, Go, look in any glass and say, What moral is in being fair. Oh, to what uses shall we put The wildweed-flower that simply blows? And is there any moral shut Within the bosom of the rose?

2

But any man that walks the mead, In bud or blade, or bloom, may find, According as his humours lead, A meaning suited to his mind. And liberal applications lie In Art like Nature, dearest friend; [1] So 'twere to cramp its use, if I Should hook it to some useful end.

[Foonote 1: So Wordsworth:—

O Reader! had you in your mind Such stores as silent thought can bring, O gentle Reader! you would find A tale in everything.

—'Simon Lee'.]



L'ENVOI

(No alteration since 1843 except in numbering the stanzas.)

1

You shake your head. A random string Your finer female sense offends. Well—were it not a pleasant thing To fall asleep with all one's friends; To pass with all our social ties To silence from the paths of men; And every hundred years to rise And learn the world, and sleep again; To sleep thro' terms of mighty wars, And wake on science grown to more, On secrets of the brain, the stars, As wild as aught of fairy lore; And all that else the years will show, The Poet-forms of stronger hours, The vast Republics that may grow, The Federations and the Powers; Titanic forces taking birth In divers seasons, divers climes; For we are Ancients of the earth, And in the morning of the times.

2

So sleeping, so aroused from sleep Thro' sunny decads new and strange, Or gay quinquenniads would we reap The flower and quintessence of change.

3

Ah, yet would I—and would I might! So much your eyes my fancy take— Be still the first to leap to light That I might kiss those eyes awake! For, am I right or am I wrong, To choose your own you did not care; You'd have 'my' moral from the song, And I will take my pleasure there: And, am I right or am I wrong, My fancy, ranging thro' and thro', To search a meaning for the song, Perforce will still revert to you; Nor finds a closer truth than this All-graceful head, so richly curl'd, And evermore a costly kiss The prelude to some brighter world.