With
blackest
moss the flower-plots
Were thickly crusted, one and all:
The rusted nails fell from the knots
That held the peach [1] to the garden-wall.
Were thickly crusted, one and all:
The rusted nails fell from the knots
That held the peach [1] to the garden-wall.
Tennyson
, iv.
, 460.
(From it she thought she clearly heard a voice, even the accents of
her husband calling her when night was wrapping the earth with
darkness; and on the roof the lonely owl in funereal strains kept oft
complaining, drawing out into a wail its protracted notes. )
Similar passages, though not so striking, would be the picture of
Pindar's Elysium in 'Tiresias', the sentiment pervading 'The Lotos
Eaters' transferred so faithfully from the Greek poets, the scenery in
'? none' so crowded with details from Homer, Theocritus and Callimachus.
Sometimes we find similes suggested by the classical poets, but enriched
by touches from original observation, as here in 'The Princess':--
As one that climbs a peak to gaze
O'er land and main, and sees a great black cloud
Drag inward from the deeps, a wall of night
Blot out the slope of sea from verge to shore.
. . .
And quenching lake by lake and tarn by tarn Expunge the world,
which was plainly suggested by Homer, iv. , 275:--
[Greek: hos d' hot apo skopiaes eide nephos aipolos anaer
erchomenon kata ponton hupo Zephuroio i_oaes tps de t' aneuthen eonti,
melanteron aeute pissa, phainet ion kata ponton, agei de te lailapa
pollaen. ]
(As when a goat-herd from some hill-peak sees a cloud coming across
the deep with the blast of the west wind behind it; and to him, being
as he is afar, it seems blacker, even as pitch, as it goes along the
deep, bringing with it a great whirlwind. )
So again the fine simile in 'Elaine', beginning
Bare as a wild wave in the wide North Sea,
is at least modelled on the simile in 'Iliad', xv. , 381-4, with
reminiscences of the same similes in 'Iliad', xv. , 624, and 'Iliad',
iv. , 42-56. The simile in the first section of the 'Princess',
As when a field of corn
Bows all its ears before the roaring East,
reminds us of Homer's
[Greek: hos d' ote kinaesae Zephyros Bathulaeion, elthon labros,
epaigixon, epi t' aemuei astachuessin]
(As when the west wind tosses a deep cornfield rushing down with
furious blast, and it bows with all its ears. )
Nothing could be more happy than such an adaptation as the following--
Ever fail'd to draw
The quiet night into her blood,
from Virgil, 'Aen'. , iv. , 530:--
Neque unquam Solvitur in somnos _oculisve aut pectore noctem
Accipit_.
(And she never relaxes into sleep, or receives the night in eyes or
bosom),
or than the following (in 'Enid') from Theocritus:--
Arms on which the standing muscle sloped,
As slopes a wild brook o'er a little stone,
Running too vehemently to break upon it.
[Greek: en de mues stereoisi brachiosin akron hyp' _omon estasan,
aeute petroi oloitrochoi ous te kylind_on cheimarrhous potamos
megalais periexese dinais. ]
--'Idyll', xxii. , 48 'seq. '
(And the muscles on his brawny arms close under the shoulder stood out
like boulders which the wintry torrent has rolled and worn smooth with
the mighty eddies. )
But there was another use to which Tennyson applied his accurate and
intimate acquaintance with the classics. It lay in developing what was
suggested by them, in unfolding, so to speak, what was furled in their
imagery. Nothing is more striking in ancient classical poetry than its
pregnant condensation. It often expresses in an epithet what might be
expanded into a detailed picture, or calls up in a single phrase a whole
scene or a whole position. Where in 'Merlin and Vivian' Tennyson
described
The _blind wave feeling round his long sea hall
In silence_,
he was merely unfolding to its full Homer's [Greek: kuma k_ophon]--"dumb
wave"; just as the best of all comments on Horace's expression, "Vultus
nimium lubricus aspici," 'Odes', I. , xix. , 8, is given us in Tennyson's
picture of the Oread in Lucretius:--
How the sun delights
To _glance and shift about her slippery sides_.
Or take again this passage in the 'Agamemnon', 404-5, describing
Menelaus pining in his desolate palace for the lost Helen:--
[Greek: pothoi d' uperpontias phasma doxei dom_on anassein. ]
(And in his yearning love for her who is over the sea a phantom will
seem to reign over his palace. )
What are the lines in 'Guinevere' but an expansion of what is latent but
unfolded in the pregnant suggestiveness of the Greek poet:--
And in thy bowers of Camelot or of Usk
Thy shadow still would glide from room to room,
And I should evermore be vex'd with thee
In hanging robe or vacant ornament,
Or ghostly foot-fall echoing on the stair--
with a reminiscence also perhaps of Constance's speech in 'King John',
III. , iv.
It need hardly be said that these particular passages, and possibly some
of the others, may be mere coincidences, but they illustrate what
numberless other passages which could be cited prove that Tennyson's
careful and meditative study of the Greek and Roman poets enabled him to
enrich his work by these felicitous adaptations.
He used those poets as his master Virgil used his Greek predecessors,
and what the elder Seneca said of Ovid, who had appropriated a line from
Virgil, might exactly be applied to Tennyson: "Fecisse quod in multis
aliis versibus Virgilius fecerat, non surripiendi causa sed palam
imitandi, hoc animo ut vellet agnosci". [4]
He had plainly studied with equal attention the chief Italian poets,
especially Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto and Tasso. On a passage in Dante he
founded his 'Ulysses', and imitations of that master are frequent
throughout his poems. 'In Memoriam', both in its general scheme as
well as in numberless particular passages, closely recalls Petrarch; and
Ariosto and Tasso have each influenced his work. In the poetry of his
own country nothing seems to have escaped him, either in the masters or
the minor poets. [5] To apply the term plagiarism to Tennyson's use of
his predecessors would be as absurd as to resolve some noble fabric into
its stones and bricks, and confounding the one with the other to taunt
the architect with appropriating an honour which belongs to the quarry
and the potter. Tennyson's method was exactly the method of two of the
greatest poets in the world, Virgil and Milton, of the poet who stands
second to Virgil in Roman poetry, Horace, of one of the most illustrious
of our own minor poets, Gray.
An artist more fastidious than Tennyson never existed. As scrupulous a
purist in language as Cicero, Chesterfield and Macaulay in prose, as
Virgil, Milton, and Leopardi in verse, his care extended to the nicest
minutiae of word-forms. Thus "ancle" is always spelt with a "c" when it
stands alone, with a "k" when used in compounds; thus he spelt "Idylls"
with one "l" in the short poems, with two "l's" in the epic poems; thus
the employment of "through" or "thro'," of "bad" or "bade," and the
retention or suppression of "e" in past participles are always carefully
studied. He took immense pains to avoid the clash of "s" with "s," and
to secure the predominance of open vowels when rhythm rendered them
appropriate. Like the Greek painter with his partridge, he thought
nothing of sacrificing good things if, in any way, they interfered with
unity and symmetry, and thus, his son tells us, many stanzas, in
themselves of exquisite beauty, have been lost to us.
[Footnote 1: 'De Sublimitate,' xvii. ]
[Footnote 2: Tennyson's blank verse in the _Idylls of the King_
(excepting in the _Morte d'Arthur_ and in the grander passages), is
obviously modelled in rhythm on that of Shakespeare's earlier style seen
to perfection in _King John_. Compare the following lines with the
rhythm say of _Elaine_ or _Guinevere_;--
But now will canker sorrow eat my bud,
And chase the native beauty from his cheek,
And he will look as hollow as a ghost;
As dim and meagre as an ague's fit:
And so he'll die; and, rising so again,
When I shall meet him in the court of heaven
I shall not know him: therefore never, never
Must I behold my pretty Arthur more.
--_King John_, III. , iv. ]
[Footnote 3: 'Illustrations of Tennyson'. ]
[Footnote 4: Seneca, third 'Suasoria'. ]
[Footnote 5: For fuller illustrations of all this, and for the influence
of the ancient classics on Tennyson, I may perhaps venture to refer the
reader to my 'Illustrations of Tennyson'. And may I here take the
opportunity of pointing out that nothing could have been farther from my
intention in that book than what has so often been most unfairly
attributed to it, namely, an attempt to show that a charge of plagiarism
might be justly urged against Tennyson. No honest critic, who had even
cursorily inspected the book, could so utterly misrepresent its purpose. ]
IV
Tennyson's place is not among the "lords of the visionary eye," among
seers, among prophets, but not the least part of the debt which his
countrymen owe to him is his dedication of his art to the noblest
purposes. At a time when poetry was beginning to degenerate into what it
has now almost universally become--a mere sense-pampering siren, and
when critics were telling us, as they are still telling us, that we are
to understand by it "all literary production which attains the power of
giving pleasure by its form as distinct from its matter," he remained
true to the creed of his great predecessors. "L'art pour art," he would
say, quoting Georges Sand, "est un vain mot: l'art pour le vrai, l'art
pour le beau et le bon, voila la religion que je cherche. " When he
succeeded to the laureateship he was proud to remember that the wreath
which had descended to him was
greener from the brows
Of him that utter'd nothing base,
and he was a loyal disciple of that poet whose aim had been, in his own
words, "to console the afflicted, to add sunshine to daylight by making
the happy happier, to teach the young and the gracious of every age to
see, to think, to feel, and therefore to become more actively and
securely virtuous". [1] Wordsworth had said that he wished to be
regarded as a teacher or as nothing, but unhappily he did not always
distinguish between the way in which a poet and a philosopher should
teach. He forgot that the didactic element in a poem should be, to
employ a homely illustration, what garlic should be in a salad, "scarce
suspected, animate the whole," that the poet teaches not as the moralist
and the preacher teach, but as nature and life teach us. He taught us
when he wrote 'The Fountain' and 'The Highland Reaper, The
Leach-gatherer' and 'Michael', he merely wearied us when he sermonised
in 'The Excursion' and in 'The Prelude'. Tennyson never makes this
mistake. He is seldom directly didactic. Would he inculcate subjugation
to the law of duty--he gives us the funeral ode on Wellington, 'The
Charge of the Light Brigade', and 'Love and Duty'. Would he inculcate
resignation to the will of God, and the moral efficacy of conventional
Christianity--he gives us 'Enoch Arden'. Would he picture the endless
struggle between the sensual and the spiritual, and the relation of
ideals to life--he gives us the 'Idylls of the King'. Would he point to
what atheism may lead--he gives us 'Lucretius'. Poems which are
masterpieces of sensuous art, such as mere aesthetes, like Rosetti and
his school, must contemplate with admiring despair, he makes vehicles of
the most serious moral and spiritual teaching. 'The Vision of Sin' is
worth a hundred sermons on the disastrous effects of unbridled
profligacy. In 'The Palace of Art' we have the quintessence of 'The Book
of Ecclesiastes' and much more besides. Even in 'The Lotos Eaters' we
have the mirror held up to Hedonism. On the education of the affections
and on the purity of domestic life must depend very largely, not merely
the happiness of individuals, but the well-being of society, and how
wide a space is filled by poems in Tennyson's works bearing
influentially on these subjects is obvious. And they admit us into a
pleasaunce with which it is good to be familiar, so pure and wholesome
is their atmosphere, so tranquilly beautiful the world in which the
characters move and the little dramas unfold themselves. They preach
nothing, but deep into every heart must sink their silent lessons. "Upon
the sacredness of home life," writes his son, "he would maintain that
the stability and greatness of a nation largely depend; and one of the
secrets of his power over mankind was his true joy in the family duties
and affections. " What sermons have we in 'The Miller's Daughter', in
'Dora', in 'The Gardener's Daughter' and in 'Love and Duty'. 'The
Princess' was a direct contribution to a social question of momentous
importance to our time. 'Maud' had an immediate political purpose, while
in 'In Memoriam' he became the interpreter and teacher of his generation
in a still higher sense.
Since Shakespeare no English poet has been so essentially patriotic, or
appealed so directly to the political conscience of the nation. In his
noble eulogies of the English constitution and of the virtue and wisdom
of its architects, in his spirit-stirring pictures of the heroic actions
of our forefathers and contemporaries both by land and sea, in his
passionate denunciations of all that he believed would detract from
England's greatness and be prejudicial to her real interests, in his
hearty sympathy with every movement and with every measure which he
believed would contribute to her honour and her power, in all this he
stands alone among modern poets. But if he loved England as Shakespeare
loved her, he had other lessons than Shakespeare's to teach her. The
responsibilities imposed on the England of our time--and no poet knew
this better--are very different from those imposed on the England of
Elizabeth. An empire vaster and more populous than that of the Caesars
has since then been added to our dominion. Millions, indeed, who are of
the same blood as ourselves and who speak our language have, by the
folly of common ancestors, become aliens. But how immense are the realms
peopled by the colonies which are still loyal to us, and by the three
hundred millions who in India own us as their rulers: of this vast
empire England is now the capital and centre. That she should fulfil
completely and honourably the duties to which destiny has called her
will be the prayer of every patriot, that he should by his own efforts
contribute all in his power to further such fulfilment must be his
earnest desire. It would be no exaggeration to say that Tennyson
contributed more than any man who has ever lived to what may be called
the higher political education of the English-speaking races. Of
imperial federation he was at once the apostle and the pioneer. In
poetry which appealed as probably no other poetry has appealed to every
class, wherever our language is spoken, he dwelt fondly on all that
constitutes the greatness and glory of England, on her grandeur in the
past, on the magnificent promise of the part she will play in the
future, if her sons are true to her. There should be no distinction, for
she recognises no distinction between her children at home and her
children in her colonies. She is the common mother of a common race: one
flag, one sceptre, the same proud ancestry, the same splendid
inheritance. "How strange England cannot see," he once wrote, "that her
true policy lies in a close union with her colonies. "
Sharers of our glorious past,
Shall we not thro' good and ill
Cleave to one another still?
Britain's myriad voices call,
Sons be welded all and all
Into one imperial whole,
One with Britain, heart and soul!
One life, one flag, one fleet, one Throne!
Thus did the poetry of Tennyson draw closer, and thus will it continue
to draw closer those sentimental ties--ties, in Burke's phrase, "light
as air, but strong as links of iron," which bind the colonies to the
mother country; and in so doing, if he did not actually initiate, he
furthered, as no other single man has furthered, the most important
movement of our time. Nor has any man of genius in the present
century--not Dickens, not Ruskin--been moved by a purer spirit of
philanthropy, or done more to show how little the qualities and actions
which dignify humanity depend, or need depend, on the accidents of
fortune. He brought poetry into touch with the discoveries of science,
and with the speculations of theology and metaphysics, and though, in
treating such subjects, his power is not, perhaps, equal to his charm,
the debt which his countrymen owe him, even intellectually, is
incalculable.
[Footnote 1: See Wordsworth's letter to Lady Beaumont, 'Prose Works',
vol. ii. , p. 176. ]
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
EARLY POEMS:--
To the Queen
Claribel: a Melody
Lilian
Isabel
Mariana
To----("Clear-headed friend, whose joyful scorn")
Madeline
Song--The Owl
Second Song to the Same
Recollections of the Arabian Nights
Ode to Memory
Song ("A spirit haunts the year's last hours")
Adeline
A Character
The Poet
The Poet's Mind
The Sea-Fairies
The Deserted House
The Dying Swan
A Dirge
Love and Death
The Ballad of Oriana
Circumstance
The Merman
The Mermaid
Sonnet to J. M. K.
The Lady of Shalott
Mariana in the South
Eleanore
The Miller's Daughter
Fatima *
? none
The Sisters
To-----("I send you here a sort of allegory")
The Palace of Art
Lady Clara Vere de Vere
The May Queen
New Year's Eve
Conclusion
The Lotos-Eaters
Dream of Fair Women
Margaret
The Blackbird
The Death of the Old Year
To J. S.
"You ask me, why, tho' ill at ease"
"Of old sat Freedom on the heights"
"Love thou thy land, with love far-brought"
The Goose
The Epic
Morte d'Arthur
The Gardener's Daughter; or, The Pictures
Dora
Audley Court
Walking to the Mail
Edwin Morris; or, The Lake
St. Simeon Stylites
The Talking Oak
Love and Duty
The Golden Year
Ulysses
Locksley Hall
Godiva
The Two Voices
The Day-Dream:--Prologue
The Sleeping Palace
The Sleeping Beauty
The Arrival
The Revival
The Departure
Moral
L'Envoi
Epilogue
Amphion
St. Agnes
Sir Galahad
Edward Gray
Will Waterproofs Lyrical Monologue
To----, after reading a Life and Letters
To E. L. , on his Travels in Greece
Lady Clare
The Lord of Burleigh
Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere: a Fragment
A Farewell
The Beggar Maid
The Vision of Sin
"Come not, when I am dead"
The Eagle
"Move eastward, happy earth, and leave"
"Break, break, break"
The Poet's Song
APPENDIX. --SUPPRESSED POEMS:--
Elegiacs
The "How" and the "Why"
Supposed Confessions
The Burial of Love
To----("Sainted Juliet! dearest name ! ")
Song ("I' the glooming light")
Song ("The lintwhite and the throstlecock")
Song ("Every day hath its night")
Nothing will Die
All Things will Die
Hero to Leander
The Mystic
The Grasshopper
Love, Pride and Forgetfulness
Chorus ("The varied earth, the moving heaven")
Lost Hope
The Tears of Heaven
Love and Sorrow
To a Lady Sleeping
Sonnet ("Could I outwear my present state of woe")
Sonnet ("Though Night hath climbed her peak of highest noon")
Sonnet ("Shall the hag Evil die with child of Good")
Sonnet ("The pallid thunderstricken sigh for gain")
Love
The Kraken
English War Song
National Song
Dualisms
We are Free
[Greek: oi rheontes]
"Mine be the strength of spirit, full and free"
To--("All good things have not kept aloof)
Buonaparte
Sonnet ("Oh, Beauty, passing beauty! sweetest Sweet! ")
The Hesperides
Song ("The golden apple, the golden apple, the hallowed fruit")
Rosalind
Song ("Who can say")
Kate
Sonnet ("Blow ye the trumpet, gather from afar")
Poland
To--("As when with downcast eyes we muse and brood")
O Darling Room
To Christopher North
The Skipping Rope
Timbuctoo
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE POEMS OF 1842
TO THE QUEEN
This dedication was first prefixed to the seventh edition of these poems
in 1851, Tennyson having succeeded Wordsworth as Poet Laureate, 19th
Nov. , 1850.
Revered, beloved [1]--O you that hold
A nobler office upon earth
Than arms, or power of brain, or birth
Could give the warrior kings of old,
Victoria, [2]--since your Royal grace
To one of less desert allows
This laurel greener from the brows
Of him that utter'd nothing base;
And should your greatness, and the care
That yokes with empire, yield you time
To make demand of modern rhyme
If aught of ancient worth be there;
Then--while [3] a sweeter music wakes,
And thro' wild March the throstle calls,
Where all about your palace-walls
The sun-lit almond-blossom shakes--
Take, Madam, this poor book of song;
For tho' the faults were thick as dust
In vacant chambers, I could trust
Your kindness. [4] May you rule us long.
And leave us rulers of your blood
As noble till the latest day!
May children of our children say,
"She wrought her people lasting good; [5]
"Her court was pure; her life serene;
God gave her peace; her land reposed;
A thousand claims to reverence closed
In her as Mother, Wife and Queen;
"And statesmen at her council met
Who knew the seasons, when to take
Occasion by the hand, and make
The bounds of freedom wider yet [6]
"By shaping some august decree,
Which kept her throne unshaken still,
Broad-based upon her people's will, [7]
And compass'd by the inviolate sea. "
MARCH, 1851.
[Footnote 1: 1851. Revered Victoria, you that hold. ]
[Footnote 2: 1851. I thank you that your Royal grace. ]
[Footnote 3: This stanza added in 1853. ]
[Footnote 4: 1851. Your sweetness. ]
[Footnote 5: In 1851 the following stanza referring to the first Crystal
Palace, opened 1st May, 1851, was inserted here:--
She brought a vast design to pass,
When Europe and the scatter'd ends
Of our fierce world were mixt as friends
And brethren, in her halls of glass. ]
[Footnote 6: 1851. Broader yet. ]
[Footnote 7: With this cf. Shelley, 'Ode to Liberty':--
Athens diviner yet
Gleam'd with its crest of columns _on the will_
Of man. ]
CLARIBEL
A MELODY
First published in 1830.
In 1830 and in 1842 edd. the poem is in one long stanza, with a full
stop in 1830 ed. after line 8; 1842 ed. omits the full stop. The name
"Claribel" may have been suggested by Spenser ('F. Q. ', ii. , iv. , or
Shakespeare, 'Tempest').
1
Where Claribel low-lieth
The breezes pause and die,
Letting the rose-leaves fall:
But the solemn oak-tree sigheth,
Thick-leaved, ambrosial,
With an ancient melody
Of an inward agony,
Where Claribel low-lieth.
2
At eve the beetle boometh
Athwart the thicket lone:
At noon the wild bee [1] hummeth
About the moss'd headstone:
At midnight the moon cometh,
And looketh down alone.
Her song the lintwhite swelleth,
The clear-voiced mavis dwelleth,
The callow throstle [2] lispeth,
The slumbrous wave outwelleth,
The babbling runnel crispeth,
The hollow grot replieth
Where Claribel low-lieth.
[Footnote 1: 1830. "Wild" omitted, and "low" inserted with a hyphen
before "hummeth". ]
[Footnote 2: 1851 and all previous editions, "fledgling" for "callow". ]
LILIAN
First printed in 1830.
1
Airy, fairy Lilian,
Flitting, fairy Lilian,
When I ask her if she love me,
Claps her tiny hands above me,
Laughing all she can;
She'll not tell me if she love me,
Cruel little Lilian.
2
When my passion seeks
Pleasance in love-sighs
She, looking thro' and thro' [1] me
Thoroughly to undo me,
Smiling, never speaks:
So innocent-arch, so cunning-simple,
From beneath her gather'd wimple [2]
Glancing with black-beaded eyes,
Till the lightning laughters dimple
The baby-roses in her cheeks;
Then away she flies.
3
Prythee weep, May Lilian!
Gaiety without eclipse
Wearieth me, May Lilian:
Thro' [3] my very heart it thrilleth
When from crimson-threaded [4] lips
Silver-treble laughter [5] trilleth:
Prythee weep, May Lilian.
4
Praying all I can,
If prayers will not hush thee,
Airy Lilian,
Like a rose-leaf I will crush thee,
Fairy Lilian.
[Footnote 1: 1830. Through and through me. ]
[Footnote 2: 1830. Purfled. ]
[Footnote 3: 1830. Through. ]
[Footnote 4: With "crimson-threaded" 'cf. ' Cleveland's 'Sing-song on
Clarinda's Wedding', "Her 'lips those threads of scarlet dye'"; but the
original is 'Solomons Song' iv. 3, "Thy lips are 'like a thread of
scarlet'". ]
[Footnote 5: 1830. Silver treble-laughter. ]
ISABEL
First printed in 1830.
Lord Tennyson tells us ('Life of Tennyson', i. , 43) that in this poem
his father more or less described his own mother, who was a "remarkable
and saintly woman". In this as in the other poems elaborately painting
women we may perhaps suspect the influence of Wordsworth's 'Triad',
which should be compared with them.
1
Eyes not down-dropt nor over-bright, but fed
With the clear-pointed flame of chastity,
Clear, without heat, undying, tended by
Pure vestal thoughts in the translucent fane
Of her still spirit [1]; locks not wide-dispread,
Madonna-wise on either side her head;
Sweet lips whereon perpetually did reign
The summer calm of golden charity,
Were fixed shadows of thy fixed mood,
Revered Isabel, the crown and head,
The stately flower of female fortitude,
Of perfect wifehood and pure lowlihead. [2]
2
The intuitive decision of a bright
And thorough-edged intellect to part
Error from crime; a prudence to withhold;
The laws of marriage [3] character'd in gold
Upon the blanched [4] tablets of her heart;
A love still burning upward, giving light
To read those laws; an accent very low
In blandishment, but a most silver flow
Of subtle-paced counsel in distress,
Right to the heart and brain, tho' undescried,
Winning its way with extreme gentleness
Thro' [5] all the outworks of suspicious pride.
A courage to endure and to obey;
A hate of gossip parlance, and of sway,
Crown'd Isabel, thro' [6] all her placid life,
The queen of marriage, a most perfect wife.
3
The mellow'd reflex of a winter moon;
A clear stream flowing with a muddy one,
Till in its onward current it absorbs
With swifter movement and in purer light
The vexed eddies of its wayward brother:
A leaning and upbearing parasite,
Clothing the stem, which else had fallen quite,
With cluster'd flower-bells and ambrosial orbs
Of rich fruit-bunches leaning on each other--
Shadow forth thee:--the world hath not another
(Though all her fairest forms are types of thee,
And thou of God in thy great charity)
Of such a finish'd chasten'd purity,
[Footnote 1: With these lines may be compared Shelley, 'Dedication to
the Revolt of Islam':--
And through thine eyes, e'en in thy soul, I see
A lamp of vestal fire burning eternally. ]
[Footnote 2: Lowlihead a favourite word with Chaucer and Spenser. ]
[Footnote 3: 1830. Wifehood. ]
[Footnote 4: 1830. Blenched. ]
[Footnote 5: 1830 and all before 1853. Through. ]
[Footnote 6: 1830. Through. ]
MARIANA
"Mariana in the moated grange. "--'Measure for Measure'.
First printed in 1830.
This poem as we know from the motto prefixed to it was suggested by
Shakespeare ('Measure for Measure', iii. , 1, "at the moated grange
resides this dejected Mariana,") but the poet may have had in his mind
the exquisite fragment of Sappho:--
[Greek: deduke men ha selanna kai Plaeiades, mesai de nuktes, para d'
erchet h'ora ego de mona kateud'o. ]
"The moon has set and the Pleiades, and it is midnight: the hour too
is going by, but I sleep alone. "
It was long popularly supposed that the scene of the poem was a farm
near Somersby known as Baumber's farm, but Tennyson denied this and said
it was a purely "imaginary house in the fen," and that he "never so much
as dreamed of Baumbers farm". See 'Life', i. , 28.
With blackest moss the flower-plots
Were thickly crusted, one and all:
The rusted nails fell from the knots
That held the peach [1] to the garden-wall. [2]
The broken sheds look'd sad and strange:
Unlifted was the clinking latch;
Weeded and worn the ancient thatch
Upon the lonely moated grange.
She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead! "
Her tears fell with the dews at even;
Her tears fell ere the dews were dried; [3]
She could not look on the sweet heaven,
Either at morn or eventide.
After the flitting of the bats,
When thickest dark did trance the sky,
She drew her casement-curtain by,
And glanced athwart the glooming flats.
She only said, "The night is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead! "
Upon the middle of the night,
Waking she heard the night-fowl crow:
The cock sung out an hour ere light:
From the dark fen the oxen's low
Came to her: without hope of change,
In sleep she seem'd to walk forlorn,
Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed [4] morn
About the lonely moated grange.
She only said, "The day is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead! "
About a stone-cast from the wall
A sluice with blacken'd waters slept,
And o'er it many, round and small,
The cluster'd marish-mosses crept.
Hard by a poplar shook alway,
All silver-green with gnarled bark:
For leagues no other tree did mark [5]
The level waste, the rounding gray. [6]
She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead! "
And ever when the moon was low,
And the shrill winds were up and away,[7]
In the white curtain, to and fro,
She saw the gusty shadow sway.
But when the moon was very low,
And wild winds bound within their cell,
The shadow of the poplar fell
Upon her bed, across her brow.
She only said, "The night is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead! "
All day within the dreamy house,
The doors upon their hinges creak'd;
The blue fly sung in the pane; [8] the mouse
Behind the mouldering wainscot shriek'd,
Or from the crevice peer'd about.
Old faces glimmer'd thro' the doors,
Old footsteps trod the upper floors,
Old voices called her from without.
She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead! "
The sparrow's chirrup on the roof,
The slow clock ticking, and the sound,
Which to the wooing wind aloof
The poplar made, did all confound
Her sense; but most she loathed the hour
When the thick-moted sunbeam lay
Athwart the chambers, and the day
Was sloping [9] toward his western bower.
Then, said she, "I am very dreary,
He will not come," she said;
She wept, "I am aweary, aweary,
O God, that I were dead! ".
[Footnote 1: 1863. Pear. ]
[Footnote 2: 1872. Gable-wall. ]
[Footnote 3: With this beautiful couplet may be compared a couplet of
Helvius Cinna:--
Te matutinus flentem conspexit Eous,
Te flentem paullo vidit post Hesperus idem.
--'Cinnae Reliq'. Ed. Mueller, p. 83. ]
[Footnote 4: 1830. _Grey_-eyed. 'Cf'. 'Romeo and Juliet', ii. , 3,
"The _grey morn_ smiles on the frowning night". ]
[Footnote 5: 1830, 1842, 1843. Dark. ]
[Footnote 6: 1830. Grey. ]
[Footnote 7: 1830. An' away. ]
[Footnote 8: All editions before 1851. I' the pane. With this line
'cf'. 'Maud', I. , vi. , 8, "and the shrieking rush of the wainscot
mouse". ]
[Footnote 9: 1830. Downsloped was westering in his bower. ]
TO----
First printed in 1830.
The friend to whom these verses were addressed was Joseph William
Blakesley, third Classic and Senior Chancellor's Medallist in 1831, and
afterwards Dean of Lincoln. Tennyson said of him: "He ought to be Lord
Chancellor, for he is a subtle and powerful reasoner, and an honest
man". --'Life', i. , 65. He was a contributor to the 'Edinburgh' and
'Quarterly Reviews', and died in April, 1885. See memoir of him in the
'Dictionary of National Biography'.
1
Clear-headed friend, whose joyful scorn,
Edged with sharp laughter, cuts atwain
The knots that tangle human creeds, [1]
The wounding cords that [2] bind and strain
The heart until it bleeds,
Ray-fringed eyelids of the morn
Roof not a glance so keen as thine:
If aught of prophecy be mine,
Thou wilt not live in vain.
2
Low-cowering shall the Sophist sit;
Falsehood shall bear her plaited brow:
Fair-fronted Truth shall droop not now
With shrilling shafts of subtle wit.
Nor martyr-flames, nor trenchant swords
Can do away that ancient lie;
A gentler death shall Falsehood die,
Shot thro' and thro'[3] with cunning words.
3
Weak Truth a-leaning on her crutch,
Wan, wasted Truth in her utmost need,
Thy kingly intellect shall feed,
Until she be an athlete bold,
And weary with a finger's touch
Those writhed limbs of lightning speed;
Like that strange angel [4] which of old,
Until the breaking of the light,
Wrestled with wandering Israel,
Past Yabbok brook the livelong night,
And heaven's mazed signs stood still
In the dim tract of Penuel.
[Footnote 1: 1830. The knotted lies of human creeds. ]
[Footnote 2: 1830. "Which" for "that". ]
[Footnote 3: 1830. Through and through. ]
[Footnote 4: The reference is to Genesis xxxii. 24-32. ]
MADELINE
First published in 1830.
1
Thou art not steep'd in golden languors,
No tranced summer calm is thine,
Ever varying Madeline.
Thro' [1] light and shadow thou dost range,
Sudden glances, sweet and strange,
Delicious spites and darling angers,
And airy [2] forms of flitting change.
2
Smiling, frowning, evermore,
Thou art perfect in love-lore.
Revealings deep and clear are thine
Of wealthy smiles: but who may know
Whether smile or frown be fleeter?
Whether smile or frown be sweeter,
Who may know?
Frowns perfect-sweet along the brow
Light-glooming over eyes divine,
Like little clouds sun-fringed, are thine,
Ever varying Madeline.
Thy smile and frown are not aloof
From one another,
Each to each is dearest brother;
Hues of the silken sheeny woof
Momently shot into each other.
All the mystery is thine;
Smiling, frowning, evermore,
Thou art perfect in love-lore,
Ever varying Madeline.
3
A subtle, sudden flame,
By veering passion fann'd,
About thee breaks and dances
When I would kiss thy hand,
The flush of anger'd shame
O'erflows thy calmer glances,
And o'er black brows drops down
A sudden curved frown:
But when I turn away,
Thou, willing me to stay,
Wooest not, nor vainly wranglest;
But, looking fixedly the while,
All my bounding heart entanglest
In a golden-netted smile;
Then in madness and in bliss,
If my lips should dare to kiss
Thy taper fingers amorously, [3]
Again thou blushest angerly;
And o'er black brows drops down
A sudden-curved frown.
[Footnote 1: 1830. Through. ]
[Footnote 2: 1830. Aery. ]
[Footnote 3: 1830. Three-times-three; though noted as an _erratum_ for
amorously. ]
SONG. --THE OWL
First printed in 1830.
1
When cats run home and light is come,
And dew is cold upon the ground,
And the far-off stream is dumb,
And the whirring sail goes round,
And the whirring sail goes round;
Alone and warming his five wits,
The white owl in the belfry sits.
2
When merry milkmaids click the latch,
And rarely smells the new-mown hay,
And the cock hath sung beneath the thatch
Twice or thrice his roundelay,
Twice or thrice his roundelay;
Alone and warming his five wits,
The white owl in the belfry sits.
SECOND SONG
TO THE SAME.
First printed in 1830.
1
Thy tuwhits are lull'd I wot,
Thy tuwhoos of yesternight,
Which upon the dark afloat,
So took echo with delight,
So took echo with delight,
That her voice untuneful grown,
Wears all day a fainter tone.
2
I would mock thy chaunt anew;
But I cannot mimick it;
Not a whit of thy tuwhoo,
Thee to woo to thy tuwhit,
Thee to woo to thy tuwhit,
With a lengthen'd loud halloo,
Tuwhoo, tuwhit, tuwhit, tuwhoo-o-o.
RECOLLECTIONS OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS
First printed in 1830.
With this poem should be compared the description of Harun al Rashid's
Garden of Gladness in the story of Nur-al-din Ali and the damsel Anis al
Talis in the Thirty-Sixth Night. The style appears to have been modelled
on Coleridge's 'Kubla Khan' and 'Lewti', and the influence of Coleridge
is very perceptible throughout the poem.
When the breeze of a joyful dawn blew free
In the silken sail of infancy,
The tide of time flow'd back with me,
The forward-flowing tide of time;
And many a sheeny summer-morn,
Adown the Tigris I was borne,
By Bagdat's shrines of fretted gold,
High-walled gardens green and old;
True Mussulman was I and sworn,
For it was in the golden prime [1]
Of good Haroun Alraschid.
Anight my shallop, rustling thro' [2]
The low and bloomed foliage, drove
The fragrant, glistening deeps, and clove
The citron-shadows in the blue:
By garden porches on the brim,
The costly doors flung open wide,
Gold glittering thro' [3] lamplight dim,
And broider'd sofas [4] on each side:
In sooth it was a goodly time,
For it was in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.
Often, where clear-stemm'd platans guard
The outlet, did I turn away
The boat-head down a broad canal
From the main river sluiced, where all
The sloping of the moon-lit sward
Was damask-work, and deep inlay
Of braided blooms [5] unmown, which crept
Adown to where the waters slept.
A goodly place, a goodly time,
For it was in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.
A motion from the river won
Ridged the smooth level, bearing on
My shallop thro' the star-strown calm,
Until another night in night
I enter'd, from the clearer light,
Imbower'd vaults of pillar'd palm,
Imprisoning sweets, which, as they clomb
Heavenward, were stay'd beneath the dome
Of hollow boughs. --A goodly time,
For it was in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.
Still onward; and the clear canal
Is rounded to as clear a lake.
From the green rivage many a fall
Of diamond rillets musical,
Thro' little crystal [6] arches low
Down from the central fountain's flow
Fall'n silver-chiming, seem'd to shake
The sparkling flints beneath the prow.
A goodly place, a goodly time,
For it was in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.
Above thro' [7] many a bowery turn
A walk with vary-colour'd shells
Wander'd engrain'd. On either side
All round about the fragrant marge
From fluted vase, and brazen urn
In order, eastern flowers large,
Some dropping low their crimson bells
Half-closed, and others studded wide
With disks and tiars, fed the time
With odour in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.
Far off, and where the lemon-grove
In closest coverture upsprung,
The living airs of middle night
Died round the bulbul [8] as he sung;
Not he: but something which possess'd
The darkness of the world, delight,
Life, anguish, death, immortal love,
Ceasing not, mingled, unrepress'd.
Apart from place, withholding [9] time,
But flattering the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.
Black the [10] garden-bowers and grots
Slumber'd: the solemn palms were ranged
Above, unwoo'd of summer wind:
A sudden splendour from behind
Flush'd all the leaves with rich gold-green,
And, flowing rapidly between
Their interspaces, counterchanged
The level lake with diamond-plots
Of dark and bright. [11] A lovely time,
For it was in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.
Dark-blue the deep sphere overhead,
Distinct with vivid stars inlaid, [12]
Grew darker from that under-flame:
So, leaping lightly from the boat,
With silver anchor left afloat,
In marvel whence that glory came
Upon me, as in sleep I sank
In cool soft turf upon the bank,
Entranced with that place and time,
So worthy of the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.
Thence thro' the garden I was drawn--[13]
A realm of pleasance, many a mound,
And many a shadow-chequer'd lawn
Full of the city's stilly sound, [14]
And deep myrrh-thickets blowing round
The stately cedar, tamarisks,
Thick rosaries [15] of scented thorn,
Tall orient shrubs, and obelisks
Graven with emblems of the time,
In honour of the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.
With dazed vision unawares
From the long alley's latticed shade
Emerged, I came upon the great
Pavilion of the Caliphat.
Right to the carven cedarn doors,
Flung inward over spangled floors,
Broad-based flights of marble stairs
Ran up with golden balustrade,
After the fashion of the time,
And humour of the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.
The fourscore windows all alight
As with the quintessence of flame,
A million tapers flaring bright
From twisted silvers look'd [16] to shame
The hollow-vaulted dark, and stream'd
Upon the mooned domes aloof
In inmost Bagdat, till there seem'd
Hundreds of crescents on the roof
Of night new-risen, that marvellous time,
To celebrate the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.
Then stole I up, and trancedly
Gazed on the Persian girl alone,
Serene with argent-lidded eyes
Amorous, and lashes like to rays
Of darkness, and a brow of pearl
Tressed with redolent ebony,
In many a dark delicious curl,
Flowing beneath [17] her rose-hued zone;
The sweetest lady of the time,
Well worthy of the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.
Six columns, three on either side,
Pure silver, underpropt [18] a rich
Throne of the [19] massive ore, from which
Down-droop'd, in many a floating fold,
Engarlanded and diaper'd
With inwrought flowers, a cloth of gold.
Thereon, his deep eye laughter-stirr'd
With merriment of kingly pride,
Sole star of all that place and time,
I saw him--in his golden prime,
THE GOOD HAROUN ALRASCHID!
[Footnote 1: "Golden prime" from Shakespeare.
"That cropp'd the _golden prime_ of this sweet prince. "
--_Rich. III. _, i. , sc. ii. , 248. ]
[Footnote 2: 1830. Through. ] [Footnote 3: 1830. Through. ]
[Footnote 4: 1830 and 1842. Sophas. ] [Footnote 5: 1830. Breaded blosms. ]
[Footnote 6: 1830. Through crystal. ] [Footnote 7: 1830. Through. ]
[Footnote 8: "Bulbul" is the Persian for nightingale. _Cf. Princes_,
iv. , 104:--
"O Bulbul, any rose of Gulistan Shall brush her veil". ]
[Footnote 9: 1830. Witholding. So 1842, 1843, 1845. ]
[Footnote 10: 1830. Blackgreen. ] [Footnote 11: 1830. Of saffron light. ]
[Footnote 12: 1830. Unrayed. ] [Footnote 13: 1830. Through . . . borne. ]
[Footnote 14: Shakespeare has the same expression:
"The hum of either army _stilly sounds_".
--_Henry V_. , act iv. , prol. ]
[Footnote 15: 1842. Roseries. ] [Footnote 16: 1830. Wreathed. ]
[Footnote 17: 1830. Below. ]
[Footnote 18: 1830. Underpropped. 1842. Underpropp'd. ]
[Footnote 19: 1830. O' the. ]
ODE TO MEMORY
First printed in 1830.
After the title in 1830 ed. is "Written very early in life". The
influence most perceptible in this poem is plainly Coleridge, on whose
'Songs of the Pixies' it seems to have been modelled. Tennyson
considered it, and no wonder, as one of the very best of "his early and
peculiarly concentrated Nature-poems". See 'Life', i. , 27. It is full
of vivid and accurate pictures of his Lincolnshire home and haunts. See
'Life', i. , 25-48, 'passim'.
1
Thou who stealest fire,
From the fountains of the past,
To glorify the present; oh, haste,
Visit my low desire!
Strengthen me, enlighten me!
I faint in this obscurity,
Thou dewy dawn of memory.
2
Come not as thou camest [1] of late,
Flinging the gloom of yesternight
On the white day; but robed in soften'd light
Of orient state.
Whilome thou camest with the morning mist,
Even as a maid, whose stately brow
The dew-impearled winds of dawn have kiss'd, [2]
When she, as thou,
Stays on her floating locks the lovely freight
Of overflowing blooms, and earliest shoots
Of orient green, giving safe pledge of fruits,
Which in wintertide shall star
The black earth with brilliance rare.
3
Whilome thou camest with the morning mist.
And with the evening cloud,
Showering thy gleaned wealth into my open breast,
(Those peerless flowers which in the rudest wind
Never grow sere,
When rooted in the garden of the mind,
Because they are the earliest of the year).
Nor was the night thy shroud.
In sweet dreams softer than unbroken rest
Thou leddest by the hand thine infant Hope.
The eddying of her garments caught from thee
The light of thy great presence; and the cope
Of the half-attain'd futurity,
Though deep not fathomless,
Was cloven with the million stars which tremble
O'er the deep mind of dauntless infancy.
Small thought was there of life's distress;
For sure she deem'd no mist of earth could dull
Those spirit-thrilling eyes so keen and beautiful:
Sure she was nigher to heaven's spheres,
Listening the lordly music flowing from
The illimitable years. [3]
O strengthen me, enlighten me!
I faint in this obscurity,
Thou dewy dawn of memory.
4
Come forth I charge thee, arise,
Thou of the many tongues, the myriad eyes!
Thou comest not with shows of flaunting vines
Unto mine inner eye,
Divinest Memory!
Thou wert not nursed by the waterfall
Which ever sounds and shines
A pillar of white light upon the wall
Of purple cliffs, aloof descried:
Come from the woods that belt the grey hill-side,
The seven elms, the poplars [4] four
That stand beside my father's door,
And chiefly from the brook [5] that loves
To purl o'er matted cress and ribbed sand,
Or dimple in the dark of rushy coves,
Drawing into his narrow earthen urn,
In every elbow and turn,
The filter'd tribute of the rough woodland.
O! hither lead thy feet!
Pour round mine ears the livelong bleat
Of the thick-fleeced sheep from wattled folds,
Upon the ridged wolds,
When the first matin-song hath waken'd [6] loud
Over the dark dewy earth forlorn,
What time the amber morn
Forth gushes from beneath a low-hung cloud.
5
Large dowries doth the raptured eye
To the young spirit present
When first she is wed;
And like a bride of old
In triumph led,
With music and sweet showers
Of festal flowers,
Unto the dwelling she must sway.
(From it she thought she clearly heard a voice, even the accents of
her husband calling her when night was wrapping the earth with
darkness; and on the roof the lonely owl in funereal strains kept oft
complaining, drawing out into a wail its protracted notes. )
Similar passages, though not so striking, would be the picture of
Pindar's Elysium in 'Tiresias', the sentiment pervading 'The Lotos
Eaters' transferred so faithfully from the Greek poets, the scenery in
'? none' so crowded with details from Homer, Theocritus and Callimachus.
Sometimes we find similes suggested by the classical poets, but enriched
by touches from original observation, as here in 'The Princess':--
As one that climbs a peak to gaze
O'er land and main, and sees a great black cloud
Drag inward from the deeps, a wall of night
Blot out the slope of sea from verge to shore.
. . .
And quenching lake by lake and tarn by tarn Expunge the world,
which was plainly suggested by Homer, iv. , 275:--
[Greek: hos d' hot apo skopiaes eide nephos aipolos anaer
erchomenon kata ponton hupo Zephuroio i_oaes tps de t' aneuthen eonti,
melanteron aeute pissa, phainet ion kata ponton, agei de te lailapa
pollaen. ]
(As when a goat-herd from some hill-peak sees a cloud coming across
the deep with the blast of the west wind behind it; and to him, being
as he is afar, it seems blacker, even as pitch, as it goes along the
deep, bringing with it a great whirlwind. )
So again the fine simile in 'Elaine', beginning
Bare as a wild wave in the wide North Sea,
is at least modelled on the simile in 'Iliad', xv. , 381-4, with
reminiscences of the same similes in 'Iliad', xv. , 624, and 'Iliad',
iv. , 42-56. The simile in the first section of the 'Princess',
As when a field of corn
Bows all its ears before the roaring East,
reminds us of Homer's
[Greek: hos d' ote kinaesae Zephyros Bathulaeion, elthon labros,
epaigixon, epi t' aemuei astachuessin]
(As when the west wind tosses a deep cornfield rushing down with
furious blast, and it bows with all its ears. )
Nothing could be more happy than such an adaptation as the following--
Ever fail'd to draw
The quiet night into her blood,
from Virgil, 'Aen'. , iv. , 530:--
Neque unquam Solvitur in somnos _oculisve aut pectore noctem
Accipit_.
(And she never relaxes into sleep, or receives the night in eyes or
bosom),
or than the following (in 'Enid') from Theocritus:--
Arms on which the standing muscle sloped,
As slopes a wild brook o'er a little stone,
Running too vehemently to break upon it.
[Greek: en de mues stereoisi brachiosin akron hyp' _omon estasan,
aeute petroi oloitrochoi ous te kylind_on cheimarrhous potamos
megalais periexese dinais. ]
--'Idyll', xxii. , 48 'seq. '
(And the muscles on his brawny arms close under the shoulder stood out
like boulders which the wintry torrent has rolled and worn smooth with
the mighty eddies. )
But there was another use to which Tennyson applied his accurate and
intimate acquaintance with the classics. It lay in developing what was
suggested by them, in unfolding, so to speak, what was furled in their
imagery. Nothing is more striking in ancient classical poetry than its
pregnant condensation. It often expresses in an epithet what might be
expanded into a detailed picture, or calls up in a single phrase a whole
scene or a whole position. Where in 'Merlin and Vivian' Tennyson
described
The _blind wave feeling round his long sea hall
In silence_,
he was merely unfolding to its full Homer's [Greek: kuma k_ophon]--"dumb
wave"; just as the best of all comments on Horace's expression, "Vultus
nimium lubricus aspici," 'Odes', I. , xix. , 8, is given us in Tennyson's
picture of the Oread in Lucretius:--
How the sun delights
To _glance and shift about her slippery sides_.
Or take again this passage in the 'Agamemnon', 404-5, describing
Menelaus pining in his desolate palace for the lost Helen:--
[Greek: pothoi d' uperpontias phasma doxei dom_on anassein. ]
(And in his yearning love for her who is over the sea a phantom will
seem to reign over his palace. )
What are the lines in 'Guinevere' but an expansion of what is latent but
unfolded in the pregnant suggestiveness of the Greek poet:--
And in thy bowers of Camelot or of Usk
Thy shadow still would glide from room to room,
And I should evermore be vex'd with thee
In hanging robe or vacant ornament,
Or ghostly foot-fall echoing on the stair--
with a reminiscence also perhaps of Constance's speech in 'King John',
III. , iv.
It need hardly be said that these particular passages, and possibly some
of the others, may be mere coincidences, but they illustrate what
numberless other passages which could be cited prove that Tennyson's
careful and meditative study of the Greek and Roman poets enabled him to
enrich his work by these felicitous adaptations.
He used those poets as his master Virgil used his Greek predecessors,
and what the elder Seneca said of Ovid, who had appropriated a line from
Virgil, might exactly be applied to Tennyson: "Fecisse quod in multis
aliis versibus Virgilius fecerat, non surripiendi causa sed palam
imitandi, hoc animo ut vellet agnosci". [4]
He had plainly studied with equal attention the chief Italian poets,
especially Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto and Tasso. On a passage in Dante he
founded his 'Ulysses', and imitations of that master are frequent
throughout his poems. 'In Memoriam', both in its general scheme as
well as in numberless particular passages, closely recalls Petrarch; and
Ariosto and Tasso have each influenced his work. In the poetry of his
own country nothing seems to have escaped him, either in the masters or
the minor poets. [5] To apply the term plagiarism to Tennyson's use of
his predecessors would be as absurd as to resolve some noble fabric into
its stones and bricks, and confounding the one with the other to taunt
the architect with appropriating an honour which belongs to the quarry
and the potter. Tennyson's method was exactly the method of two of the
greatest poets in the world, Virgil and Milton, of the poet who stands
second to Virgil in Roman poetry, Horace, of one of the most illustrious
of our own minor poets, Gray.
An artist more fastidious than Tennyson never existed. As scrupulous a
purist in language as Cicero, Chesterfield and Macaulay in prose, as
Virgil, Milton, and Leopardi in verse, his care extended to the nicest
minutiae of word-forms. Thus "ancle" is always spelt with a "c" when it
stands alone, with a "k" when used in compounds; thus he spelt "Idylls"
with one "l" in the short poems, with two "l's" in the epic poems; thus
the employment of "through" or "thro'," of "bad" or "bade," and the
retention or suppression of "e" in past participles are always carefully
studied. He took immense pains to avoid the clash of "s" with "s," and
to secure the predominance of open vowels when rhythm rendered them
appropriate. Like the Greek painter with his partridge, he thought
nothing of sacrificing good things if, in any way, they interfered with
unity and symmetry, and thus, his son tells us, many stanzas, in
themselves of exquisite beauty, have been lost to us.
[Footnote 1: 'De Sublimitate,' xvii. ]
[Footnote 2: Tennyson's blank verse in the _Idylls of the King_
(excepting in the _Morte d'Arthur_ and in the grander passages), is
obviously modelled in rhythm on that of Shakespeare's earlier style seen
to perfection in _King John_. Compare the following lines with the
rhythm say of _Elaine_ or _Guinevere_;--
But now will canker sorrow eat my bud,
And chase the native beauty from his cheek,
And he will look as hollow as a ghost;
As dim and meagre as an ague's fit:
And so he'll die; and, rising so again,
When I shall meet him in the court of heaven
I shall not know him: therefore never, never
Must I behold my pretty Arthur more.
--_King John_, III. , iv. ]
[Footnote 3: 'Illustrations of Tennyson'. ]
[Footnote 4: Seneca, third 'Suasoria'. ]
[Footnote 5: For fuller illustrations of all this, and for the influence
of the ancient classics on Tennyson, I may perhaps venture to refer the
reader to my 'Illustrations of Tennyson'. And may I here take the
opportunity of pointing out that nothing could have been farther from my
intention in that book than what has so often been most unfairly
attributed to it, namely, an attempt to show that a charge of plagiarism
might be justly urged against Tennyson. No honest critic, who had even
cursorily inspected the book, could so utterly misrepresent its purpose. ]
IV
Tennyson's place is not among the "lords of the visionary eye," among
seers, among prophets, but not the least part of the debt which his
countrymen owe to him is his dedication of his art to the noblest
purposes. At a time when poetry was beginning to degenerate into what it
has now almost universally become--a mere sense-pampering siren, and
when critics were telling us, as they are still telling us, that we are
to understand by it "all literary production which attains the power of
giving pleasure by its form as distinct from its matter," he remained
true to the creed of his great predecessors. "L'art pour art," he would
say, quoting Georges Sand, "est un vain mot: l'art pour le vrai, l'art
pour le beau et le bon, voila la religion que je cherche. " When he
succeeded to the laureateship he was proud to remember that the wreath
which had descended to him was
greener from the brows
Of him that utter'd nothing base,
and he was a loyal disciple of that poet whose aim had been, in his own
words, "to console the afflicted, to add sunshine to daylight by making
the happy happier, to teach the young and the gracious of every age to
see, to think, to feel, and therefore to become more actively and
securely virtuous". [1] Wordsworth had said that he wished to be
regarded as a teacher or as nothing, but unhappily he did not always
distinguish between the way in which a poet and a philosopher should
teach. He forgot that the didactic element in a poem should be, to
employ a homely illustration, what garlic should be in a salad, "scarce
suspected, animate the whole," that the poet teaches not as the moralist
and the preacher teach, but as nature and life teach us. He taught us
when he wrote 'The Fountain' and 'The Highland Reaper, The
Leach-gatherer' and 'Michael', he merely wearied us when he sermonised
in 'The Excursion' and in 'The Prelude'. Tennyson never makes this
mistake. He is seldom directly didactic. Would he inculcate subjugation
to the law of duty--he gives us the funeral ode on Wellington, 'The
Charge of the Light Brigade', and 'Love and Duty'. Would he inculcate
resignation to the will of God, and the moral efficacy of conventional
Christianity--he gives us 'Enoch Arden'. Would he picture the endless
struggle between the sensual and the spiritual, and the relation of
ideals to life--he gives us the 'Idylls of the King'. Would he point to
what atheism may lead--he gives us 'Lucretius'. Poems which are
masterpieces of sensuous art, such as mere aesthetes, like Rosetti and
his school, must contemplate with admiring despair, he makes vehicles of
the most serious moral and spiritual teaching. 'The Vision of Sin' is
worth a hundred sermons on the disastrous effects of unbridled
profligacy. In 'The Palace of Art' we have the quintessence of 'The Book
of Ecclesiastes' and much more besides. Even in 'The Lotos Eaters' we
have the mirror held up to Hedonism. On the education of the affections
and on the purity of domestic life must depend very largely, not merely
the happiness of individuals, but the well-being of society, and how
wide a space is filled by poems in Tennyson's works bearing
influentially on these subjects is obvious. And they admit us into a
pleasaunce with which it is good to be familiar, so pure and wholesome
is their atmosphere, so tranquilly beautiful the world in which the
characters move and the little dramas unfold themselves. They preach
nothing, but deep into every heart must sink their silent lessons. "Upon
the sacredness of home life," writes his son, "he would maintain that
the stability and greatness of a nation largely depend; and one of the
secrets of his power over mankind was his true joy in the family duties
and affections. " What sermons have we in 'The Miller's Daughter', in
'Dora', in 'The Gardener's Daughter' and in 'Love and Duty'. 'The
Princess' was a direct contribution to a social question of momentous
importance to our time. 'Maud' had an immediate political purpose, while
in 'In Memoriam' he became the interpreter and teacher of his generation
in a still higher sense.
Since Shakespeare no English poet has been so essentially patriotic, or
appealed so directly to the political conscience of the nation. In his
noble eulogies of the English constitution and of the virtue and wisdom
of its architects, in his spirit-stirring pictures of the heroic actions
of our forefathers and contemporaries both by land and sea, in his
passionate denunciations of all that he believed would detract from
England's greatness and be prejudicial to her real interests, in his
hearty sympathy with every movement and with every measure which he
believed would contribute to her honour and her power, in all this he
stands alone among modern poets. But if he loved England as Shakespeare
loved her, he had other lessons than Shakespeare's to teach her. The
responsibilities imposed on the England of our time--and no poet knew
this better--are very different from those imposed on the England of
Elizabeth. An empire vaster and more populous than that of the Caesars
has since then been added to our dominion. Millions, indeed, who are of
the same blood as ourselves and who speak our language have, by the
folly of common ancestors, become aliens. But how immense are the realms
peopled by the colonies which are still loyal to us, and by the three
hundred millions who in India own us as their rulers: of this vast
empire England is now the capital and centre. That she should fulfil
completely and honourably the duties to which destiny has called her
will be the prayer of every patriot, that he should by his own efforts
contribute all in his power to further such fulfilment must be his
earnest desire. It would be no exaggeration to say that Tennyson
contributed more than any man who has ever lived to what may be called
the higher political education of the English-speaking races. Of
imperial federation he was at once the apostle and the pioneer. In
poetry which appealed as probably no other poetry has appealed to every
class, wherever our language is spoken, he dwelt fondly on all that
constitutes the greatness and glory of England, on her grandeur in the
past, on the magnificent promise of the part she will play in the
future, if her sons are true to her. There should be no distinction, for
she recognises no distinction between her children at home and her
children in her colonies. She is the common mother of a common race: one
flag, one sceptre, the same proud ancestry, the same splendid
inheritance. "How strange England cannot see," he once wrote, "that her
true policy lies in a close union with her colonies. "
Sharers of our glorious past,
Shall we not thro' good and ill
Cleave to one another still?
Britain's myriad voices call,
Sons be welded all and all
Into one imperial whole,
One with Britain, heart and soul!
One life, one flag, one fleet, one Throne!
Thus did the poetry of Tennyson draw closer, and thus will it continue
to draw closer those sentimental ties--ties, in Burke's phrase, "light
as air, but strong as links of iron," which bind the colonies to the
mother country; and in so doing, if he did not actually initiate, he
furthered, as no other single man has furthered, the most important
movement of our time. Nor has any man of genius in the present
century--not Dickens, not Ruskin--been moved by a purer spirit of
philanthropy, or done more to show how little the qualities and actions
which dignify humanity depend, or need depend, on the accidents of
fortune. He brought poetry into touch with the discoveries of science,
and with the speculations of theology and metaphysics, and though, in
treating such subjects, his power is not, perhaps, equal to his charm,
the debt which his countrymen owe him, even intellectually, is
incalculable.
[Footnote 1: See Wordsworth's letter to Lady Beaumont, 'Prose Works',
vol. ii. , p. 176. ]
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
EARLY POEMS:--
To the Queen
Claribel: a Melody
Lilian
Isabel
Mariana
To----("Clear-headed friend, whose joyful scorn")
Madeline
Song--The Owl
Second Song to the Same
Recollections of the Arabian Nights
Ode to Memory
Song ("A spirit haunts the year's last hours")
Adeline
A Character
The Poet
The Poet's Mind
The Sea-Fairies
The Deserted House
The Dying Swan
A Dirge
Love and Death
The Ballad of Oriana
Circumstance
The Merman
The Mermaid
Sonnet to J. M. K.
The Lady of Shalott
Mariana in the South
Eleanore
The Miller's Daughter
Fatima *
? none
The Sisters
To-----("I send you here a sort of allegory")
The Palace of Art
Lady Clara Vere de Vere
The May Queen
New Year's Eve
Conclusion
The Lotos-Eaters
Dream of Fair Women
Margaret
The Blackbird
The Death of the Old Year
To J. S.
"You ask me, why, tho' ill at ease"
"Of old sat Freedom on the heights"
"Love thou thy land, with love far-brought"
The Goose
The Epic
Morte d'Arthur
The Gardener's Daughter; or, The Pictures
Dora
Audley Court
Walking to the Mail
Edwin Morris; or, The Lake
St. Simeon Stylites
The Talking Oak
Love and Duty
The Golden Year
Ulysses
Locksley Hall
Godiva
The Two Voices
The Day-Dream:--Prologue
The Sleeping Palace
The Sleeping Beauty
The Arrival
The Revival
The Departure
Moral
L'Envoi
Epilogue
Amphion
St. Agnes
Sir Galahad
Edward Gray
Will Waterproofs Lyrical Monologue
To----, after reading a Life and Letters
To E. L. , on his Travels in Greece
Lady Clare
The Lord of Burleigh
Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere: a Fragment
A Farewell
The Beggar Maid
The Vision of Sin
"Come not, when I am dead"
The Eagle
"Move eastward, happy earth, and leave"
"Break, break, break"
The Poet's Song
APPENDIX. --SUPPRESSED POEMS:--
Elegiacs
The "How" and the "Why"
Supposed Confessions
The Burial of Love
To----("Sainted Juliet! dearest name ! ")
Song ("I' the glooming light")
Song ("The lintwhite and the throstlecock")
Song ("Every day hath its night")
Nothing will Die
All Things will Die
Hero to Leander
The Mystic
The Grasshopper
Love, Pride and Forgetfulness
Chorus ("The varied earth, the moving heaven")
Lost Hope
The Tears of Heaven
Love and Sorrow
To a Lady Sleeping
Sonnet ("Could I outwear my present state of woe")
Sonnet ("Though Night hath climbed her peak of highest noon")
Sonnet ("Shall the hag Evil die with child of Good")
Sonnet ("The pallid thunderstricken sigh for gain")
Love
The Kraken
English War Song
National Song
Dualisms
We are Free
[Greek: oi rheontes]
"Mine be the strength of spirit, full and free"
To--("All good things have not kept aloof)
Buonaparte
Sonnet ("Oh, Beauty, passing beauty! sweetest Sweet! ")
The Hesperides
Song ("The golden apple, the golden apple, the hallowed fruit")
Rosalind
Song ("Who can say")
Kate
Sonnet ("Blow ye the trumpet, gather from afar")
Poland
To--("As when with downcast eyes we muse and brood")
O Darling Room
To Christopher North
The Skipping Rope
Timbuctoo
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE POEMS OF 1842
TO THE QUEEN
This dedication was first prefixed to the seventh edition of these poems
in 1851, Tennyson having succeeded Wordsworth as Poet Laureate, 19th
Nov. , 1850.
Revered, beloved [1]--O you that hold
A nobler office upon earth
Than arms, or power of brain, or birth
Could give the warrior kings of old,
Victoria, [2]--since your Royal grace
To one of less desert allows
This laurel greener from the brows
Of him that utter'd nothing base;
And should your greatness, and the care
That yokes with empire, yield you time
To make demand of modern rhyme
If aught of ancient worth be there;
Then--while [3] a sweeter music wakes,
And thro' wild March the throstle calls,
Where all about your palace-walls
The sun-lit almond-blossom shakes--
Take, Madam, this poor book of song;
For tho' the faults were thick as dust
In vacant chambers, I could trust
Your kindness. [4] May you rule us long.
And leave us rulers of your blood
As noble till the latest day!
May children of our children say,
"She wrought her people lasting good; [5]
"Her court was pure; her life serene;
God gave her peace; her land reposed;
A thousand claims to reverence closed
In her as Mother, Wife and Queen;
"And statesmen at her council met
Who knew the seasons, when to take
Occasion by the hand, and make
The bounds of freedom wider yet [6]
"By shaping some august decree,
Which kept her throne unshaken still,
Broad-based upon her people's will, [7]
And compass'd by the inviolate sea. "
MARCH, 1851.
[Footnote 1: 1851. Revered Victoria, you that hold. ]
[Footnote 2: 1851. I thank you that your Royal grace. ]
[Footnote 3: This stanza added in 1853. ]
[Footnote 4: 1851. Your sweetness. ]
[Footnote 5: In 1851 the following stanza referring to the first Crystal
Palace, opened 1st May, 1851, was inserted here:--
She brought a vast design to pass,
When Europe and the scatter'd ends
Of our fierce world were mixt as friends
And brethren, in her halls of glass. ]
[Footnote 6: 1851. Broader yet. ]
[Footnote 7: With this cf. Shelley, 'Ode to Liberty':--
Athens diviner yet
Gleam'd with its crest of columns _on the will_
Of man. ]
CLARIBEL
A MELODY
First published in 1830.
In 1830 and in 1842 edd. the poem is in one long stanza, with a full
stop in 1830 ed. after line 8; 1842 ed. omits the full stop. The name
"Claribel" may have been suggested by Spenser ('F. Q. ', ii. , iv. , or
Shakespeare, 'Tempest').
1
Where Claribel low-lieth
The breezes pause and die,
Letting the rose-leaves fall:
But the solemn oak-tree sigheth,
Thick-leaved, ambrosial,
With an ancient melody
Of an inward agony,
Where Claribel low-lieth.
2
At eve the beetle boometh
Athwart the thicket lone:
At noon the wild bee [1] hummeth
About the moss'd headstone:
At midnight the moon cometh,
And looketh down alone.
Her song the lintwhite swelleth,
The clear-voiced mavis dwelleth,
The callow throstle [2] lispeth,
The slumbrous wave outwelleth,
The babbling runnel crispeth,
The hollow grot replieth
Where Claribel low-lieth.
[Footnote 1: 1830. "Wild" omitted, and "low" inserted with a hyphen
before "hummeth". ]
[Footnote 2: 1851 and all previous editions, "fledgling" for "callow". ]
LILIAN
First printed in 1830.
1
Airy, fairy Lilian,
Flitting, fairy Lilian,
When I ask her if she love me,
Claps her tiny hands above me,
Laughing all she can;
She'll not tell me if she love me,
Cruel little Lilian.
2
When my passion seeks
Pleasance in love-sighs
She, looking thro' and thro' [1] me
Thoroughly to undo me,
Smiling, never speaks:
So innocent-arch, so cunning-simple,
From beneath her gather'd wimple [2]
Glancing with black-beaded eyes,
Till the lightning laughters dimple
The baby-roses in her cheeks;
Then away she flies.
3
Prythee weep, May Lilian!
Gaiety without eclipse
Wearieth me, May Lilian:
Thro' [3] my very heart it thrilleth
When from crimson-threaded [4] lips
Silver-treble laughter [5] trilleth:
Prythee weep, May Lilian.
4
Praying all I can,
If prayers will not hush thee,
Airy Lilian,
Like a rose-leaf I will crush thee,
Fairy Lilian.
[Footnote 1: 1830. Through and through me. ]
[Footnote 2: 1830. Purfled. ]
[Footnote 3: 1830. Through. ]
[Footnote 4: With "crimson-threaded" 'cf. ' Cleveland's 'Sing-song on
Clarinda's Wedding', "Her 'lips those threads of scarlet dye'"; but the
original is 'Solomons Song' iv. 3, "Thy lips are 'like a thread of
scarlet'". ]
[Footnote 5: 1830. Silver treble-laughter. ]
ISABEL
First printed in 1830.
Lord Tennyson tells us ('Life of Tennyson', i. , 43) that in this poem
his father more or less described his own mother, who was a "remarkable
and saintly woman". In this as in the other poems elaborately painting
women we may perhaps suspect the influence of Wordsworth's 'Triad',
which should be compared with them.
1
Eyes not down-dropt nor over-bright, but fed
With the clear-pointed flame of chastity,
Clear, without heat, undying, tended by
Pure vestal thoughts in the translucent fane
Of her still spirit [1]; locks not wide-dispread,
Madonna-wise on either side her head;
Sweet lips whereon perpetually did reign
The summer calm of golden charity,
Were fixed shadows of thy fixed mood,
Revered Isabel, the crown and head,
The stately flower of female fortitude,
Of perfect wifehood and pure lowlihead. [2]
2
The intuitive decision of a bright
And thorough-edged intellect to part
Error from crime; a prudence to withhold;
The laws of marriage [3] character'd in gold
Upon the blanched [4] tablets of her heart;
A love still burning upward, giving light
To read those laws; an accent very low
In blandishment, but a most silver flow
Of subtle-paced counsel in distress,
Right to the heart and brain, tho' undescried,
Winning its way with extreme gentleness
Thro' [5] all the outworks of suspicious pride.
A courage to endure and to obey;
A hate of gossip parlance, and of sway,
Crown'd Isabel, thro' [6] all her placid life,
The queen of marriage, a most perfect wife.
3
The mellow'd reflex of a winter moon;
A clear stream flowing with a muddy one,
Till in its onward current it absorbs
With swifter movement and in purer light
The vexed eddies of its wayward brother:
A leaning and upbearing parasite,
Clothing the stem, which else had fallen quite,
With cluster'd flower-bells and ambrosial orbs
Of rich fruit-bunches leaning on each other--
Shadow forth thee:--the world hath not another
(Though all her fairest forms are types of thee,
And thou of God in thy great charity)
Of such a finish'd chasten'd purity,
[Footnote 1: With these lines may be compared Shelley, 'Dedication to
the Revolt of Islam':--
And through thine eyes, e'en in thy soul, I see
A lamp of vestal fire burning eternally. ]
[Footnote 2: Lowlihead a favourite word with Chaucer and Spenser. ]
[Footnote 3: 1830. Wifehood. ]
[Footnote 4: 1830. Blenched. ]
[Footnote 5: 1830 and all before 1853. Through. ]
[Footnote 6: 1830. Through. ]
MARIANA
"Mariana in the moated grange. "--'Measure for Measure'.
First printed in 1830.
This poem as we know from the motto prefixed to it was suggested by
Shakespeare ('Measure for Measure', iii. , 1, "at the moated grange
resides this dejected Mariana,") but the poet may have had in his mind
the exquisite fragment of Sappho:--
[Greek: deduke men ha selanna kai Plaeiades, mesai de nuktes, para d'
erchet h'ora ego de mona kateud'o. ]
"The moon has set and the Pleiades, and it is midnight: the hour too
is going by, but I sleep alone. "
It was long popularly supposed that the scene of the poem was a farm
near Somersby known as Baumber's farm, but Tennyson denied this and said
it was a purely "imaginary house in the fen," and that he "never so much
as dreamed of Baumbers farm". See 'Life', i. , 28.
With blackest moss the flower-plots
Were thickly crusted, one and all:
The rusted nails fell from the knots
That held the peach [1] to the garden-wall. [2]
The broken sheds look'd sad and strange:
Unlifted was the clinking latch;
Weeded and worn the ancient thatch
Upon the lonely moated grange.
She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead! "
Her tears fell with the dews at even;
Her tears fell ere the dews were dried; [3]
She could not look on the sweet heaven,
Either at morn or eventide.
After the flitting of the bats,
When thickest dark did trance the sky,
She drew her casement-curtain by,
And glanced athwart the glooming flats.
She only said, "The night is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead! "
Upon the middle of the night,
Waking she heard the night-fowl crow:
The cock sung out an hour ere light:
From the dark fen the oxen's low
Came to her: without hope of change,
In sleep she seem'd to walk forlorn,
Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed [4] morn
About the lonely moated grange.
She only said, "The day is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead! "
About a stone-cast from the wall
A sluice with blacken'd waters slept,
And o'er it many, round and small,
The cluster'd marish-mosses crept.
Hard by a poplar shook alway,
All silver-green with gnarled bark:
For leagues no other tree did mark [5]
The level waste, the rounding gray. [6]
She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead! "
And ever when the moon was low,
And the shrill winds were up and away,[7]
In the white curtain, to and fro,
She saw the gusty shadow sway.
But when the moon was very low,
And wild winds bound within their cell,
The shadow of the poplar fell
Upon her bed, across her brow.
She only said, "The night is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead! "
All day within the dreamy house,
The doors upon their hinges creak'd;
The blue fly sung in the pane; [8] the mouse
Behind the mouldering wainscot shriek'd,
Or from the crevice peer'd about.
Old faces glimmer'd thro' the doors,
Old footsteps trod the upper floors,
Old voices called her from without.
She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead! "
The sparrow's chirrup on the roof,
The slow clock ticking, and the sound,
Which to the wooing wind aloof
The poplar made, did all confound
Her sense; but most she loathed the hour
When the thick-moted sunbeam lay
Athwart the chambers, and the day
Was sloping [9] toward his western bower.
Then, said she, "I am very dreary,
He will not come," she said;
She wept, "I am aweary, aweary,
O God, that I were dead! ".
[Footnote 1: 1863. Pear. ]
[Footnote 2: 1872. Gable-wall. ]
[Footnote 3: With this beautiful couplet may be compared a couplet of
Helvius Cinna:--
Te matutinus flentem conspexit Eous,
Te flentem paullo vidit post Hesperus idem.
--'Cinnae Reliq'. Ed. Mueller, p. 83. ]
[Footnote 4: 1830. _Grey_-eyed. 'Cf'. 'Romeo and Juliet', ii. , 3,
"The _grey morn_ smiles on the frowning night". ]
[Footnote 5: 1830, 1842, 1843. Dark. ]
[Footnote 6: 1830. Grey. ]
[Footnote 7: 1830. An' away. ]
[Footnote 8: All editions before 1851. I' the pane. With this line
'cf'. 'Maud', I. , vi. , 8, "and the shrieking rush of the wainscot
mouse". ]
[Footnote 9: 1830. Downsloped was westering in his bower. ]
TO----
First printed in 1830.
The friend to whom these verses were addressed was Joseph William
Blakesley, third Classic and Senior Chancellor's Medallist in 1831, and
afterwards Dean of Lincoln. Tennyson said of him: "He ought to be Lord
Chancellor, for he is a subtle and powerful reasoner, and an honest
man". --'Life', i. , 65. He was a contributor to the 'Edinburgh' and
'Quarterly Reviews', and died in April, 1885. See memoir of him in the
'Dictionary of National Biography'.
1
Clear-headed friend, whose joyful scorn,
Edged with sharp laughter, cuts atwain
The knots that tangle human creeds, [1]
The wounding cords that [2] bind and strain
The heart until it bleeds,
Ray-fringed eyelids of the morn
Roof not a glance so keen as thine:
If aught of prophecy be mine,
Thou wilt not live in vain.
2
Low-cowering shall the Sophist sit;
Falsehood shall bear her plaited brow:
Fair-fronted Truth shall droop not now
With shrilling shafts of subtle wit.
Nor martyr-flames, nor trenchant swords
Can do away that ancient lie;
A gentler death shall Falsehood die,
Shot thro' and thro'[3] with cunning words.
3
Weak Truth a-leaning on her crutch,
Wan, wasted Truth in her utmost need,
Thy kingly intellect shall feed,
Until she be an athlete bold,
And weary with a finger's touch
Those writhed limbs of lightning speed;
Like that strange angel [4] which of old,
Until the breaking of the light,
Wrestled with wandering Israel,
Past Yabbok brook the livelong night,
And heaven's mazed signs stood still
In the dim tract of Penuel.
[Footnote 1: 1830. The knotted lies of human creeds. ]
[Footnote 2: 1830. "Which" for "that". ]
[Footnote 3: 1830. Through and through. ]
[Footnote 4: The reference is to Genesis xxxii. 24-32. ]
MADELINE
First published in 1830.
1
Thou art not steep'd in golden languors,
No tranced summer calm is thine,
Ever varying Madeline.
Thro' [1] light and shadow thou dost range,
Sudden glances, sweet and strange,
Delicious spites and darling angers,
And airy [2] forms of flitting change.
2
Smiling, frowning, evermore,
Thou art perfect in love-lore.
Revealings deep and clear are thine
Of wealthy smiles: but who may know
Whether smile or frown be fleeter?
Whether smile or frown be sweeter,
Who may know?
Frowns perfect-sweet along the brow
Light-glooming over eyes divine,
Like little clouds sun-fringed, are thine,
Ever varying Madeline.
Thy smile and frown are not aloof
From one another,
Each to each is dearest brother;
Hues of the silken sheeny woof
Momently shot into each other.
All the mystery is thine;
Smiling, frowning, evermore,
Thou art perfect in love-lore,
Ever varying Madeline.
3
A subtle, sudden flame,
By veering passion fann'd,
About thee breaks and dances
When I would kiss thy hand,
The flush of anger'd shame
O'erflows thy calmer glances,
And o'er black brows drops down
A sudden curved frown:
But when I turn away,
Thou, willing me to stay,
Wooest not, nor vainly wranglest;
But, looking fixedly the while,
All my bounding heart entanglest
In a golden-netted smile;
Then in madness and in bliss,
If my lips should dare to kiss
Thy taper fingers amorously, [3]
Again thou blushest angerly;
And o'er black brows drops down
A sudden-curved frown.
[Footnote 1: 1830. Through. ]
[Footnote 2: 1830. Aery. ]
[Footnote 3: 1830. Three-times-three; though noted as an _erratum_ for
amorously. ]
SONG. --THE OWL
First printed in 1830.
1
When cats run home and light is come,
And dew is cold upon the ground,
And the far-off stream is dumb,
And the whirring sail goes round,
And the whirring sail goes round;
Alone and warming his five wits,
The white owl in the belfry sits.
2
When merry milkmaids click the latch,
And rarely smells the new-mown hay,
And the cock hath sung beneath the thatch
Twice or thrice his roundelay,
Twice or thrice his roundelay;
Alone and warming his five wits,
The white owl in the belfry sits.
SECOND SONG
TO THE SAME.
First printed in 1830.
1
Thy tuwhits are lull'd I wot,
Thy tuwhoos of yesternight,
Which upon the dark afloat,
So took echo with delight,
So took echo with delight,
That her voice untuneful grown,
Wears all day a fainter tone.
2
I would mock thy chaunt anew;
But I cannot mimick it;
Not a whit of thy tuwhoo,
Thee to woo to thy tuwhit,
Thee to woo to thy tuwhit,
With a lengthen'd loud halloo,
Tuwhoo, tuwhit, tuwhit, tuwhoo-o-o.
RECOLLECTIONS OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS
First printed in 1830.
With this poem should be compared the description of Harun al Rashid's
Garden of Gladness in the story of Nur-al-din Ali and the damsel Anis al
Talis in the Thirty-Sixth Night. The style appears to have been modelled
on Coleridge's 'Kubla Khan' and 'Lewti', and the influence of Coleridge
is very perceptible throughout the poem.
When the breeze of a joyful dawn blew free
In the silken sail of infancy,
The tide of time flow'd back with me,
The forward-flowing tide of time;
And many a sheeny summer-morn,
Adown the Tigris I was borne,
By Bagdat's shrines of fretted gold,
High-walled gardens green and old;
True Mussulman was I and sworn,
For it was in the golden prime [1]
Of good Haroun Alraschid.
Anight my shallop, rustling thro' [2]
The low and bloomed foliage, drove
The fragrant, glistening deeps, and clove
The citron-shadows in the blue:
By garden porches on the brim,
The costly doors flung open wide,
Gold glittering thro' [3] lamplight dim,
And broider'd sofas [4] on each side:
In sooth it was a goodly time,
For it was in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.
Often, where clear-stemm'd platans guard
The outlet, did I turn away
The boat-head down a broad canal
From the main river sluiced, where all
The sloping of the moon-lit sward
Was damask-work, and deep inlay
Of braided blooms [5] unmown, which crept
Adown to where the waters slept.
A goodly place, a goodly time,
For it was in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.
A motion from the river won
Ridged the smooth level, bearing on
My shallop thro' the star-strown calm,
Until another night in night
I enter'd, from the clearer light,
Imbower'd vaults of pillar'd palm,
Imprisoning sweets, which, as they clomb
Heavenward, were stay'd beneath the dome
Of hollow boughs. --A goodly time,
For it was in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.
Still onward; and the clear canal
Is rounded to as clear a lake.
From the green rivage many a fall
Of diamond rillets musical,
Thro' little crystal [6] arches low
Down from the central fountain's flow
Fall'n silver-chiming, seem'd to shake
The sparkling flints beneath the prow.
A goodly place, a goodly time,
For it was in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.
Above thro' [7] many a bowery turn
A walk with vary-colour'd shells
Wander'd engrain'd. On either side
All round about the fragrant marge
From fluted vase, and brazen urn
In order, eastern flowers large,
Some dropping low their crimson bells
Half-closed, and others studded wide
With disks and tiars, fed the time
With odour in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.
Far off, and where the lemon-grove
In closest coverture upsprung,
The living airs of middle night
Died round the bulbul [8] as he sung;
Not he: but something which possess'd
The darkness of the world, delight,
Life, anguish, death, immortal love,
Ceasing not, mingled, unrepress'd.
Apart from place, withholding [9] time,
But flattering the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.
Black the [10] garden-bowers and grots
Slumber'd: the solemn palms were ranged
Above, unwoo'd of summer wind:
A sudden splendour from behind
Flush'd all the leaves with rich gold-green,
And, flowing rapidly between
Their interspaces, counterchanged
The level lake with diamond-plots
Of dark and bright. [11] A lovely time,
For it was in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.
Dark-blue the deep sphere overhead,
Distinct with vivid stars inlaid, [12]
Grew darker from that under-flame:
So, leaping lightly from the boat,
With silver anchor left afloat,
In marvel whence that glory came
Upon me, as in sleep I sank
In cool soft turf upon the bank,
Entranced with that place and time,
So worthy of the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.
Thence thro' the garden I was drawn--[13]
A realm of pleasance, many a mound,
And many a shadow-chequer'd lawn
Full of the city's stilly sound, [14]
And deep myrrh-thickets blowing round
The stately cedar, tamarisks,
Thick rosaries [15] of scented thorn,
Tall orient shrubs, and obelisks
Graven with emblems of the time,
In honour of the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.
With dazed vision unawares
From the long alley's latticed shade
Emerged, I came upon the great
Pavilion of the Caliphat.
Right to the carven cedarn doors,
Flung inward over spangled floors,
Broad-based flights of marble stairs
Ran up with golden balustrade,
After the fashion of the time,
And humour of the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.
The fourscore windows all alight
As with the quintessence of flame,
A million tapers flaring bright
From twisted silvers look'd [16] to shame
The hollow-vaulted dark, and stream'd
Upon the mooned domes aloof
In inmost Bagdat, till there seem'd
Hundreds of crescents on the roof
Of night new-risen, that marvellous time,
To celebrate the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.
Then stole I up, and trancedly
Gazed on the Persian girl alone,
Serene with argent-lidded eyes
Amorous, and lashes like to rays
Of darkness, and a brow of pearl
Tressed with redolent ebony,
In many a dark delicious curl,
Flowing beneath [17] her rose-hued zone;
The sweetest lady of the time,
Well worthy of the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.
Six columns, three on either side,
Pure silver, underpropt [18] a rich
Throne of the [19] massive ore, from which
Down-droop'd, in many a floating fold,
Engarlanded and diaper'd
With inwrought flowers, a cloth of gold.
Thereon, his deep eye laughter-stirr'd
With merriment of kingly pride,
Sole star of all that place and time,
I saw him--in his golden prime,
THE GOOD HAROUN ALRASCHID!
[Footnote 1: "Golden prime" from Shakespeare.
"That cropp'd the _golden prime_ of this sweet prince. "
--_Rich. III. _, i. , sc. ii. , 248. ]
[Footnote 2: 1830. Through. ] [Footnote 3: 1830. Through. ]
[Footnote 4: 1830 and 1842. Sophas. ] [Footnote 5: 1830. Breaded blosms. ]
[Footnote 6: 1830. Through crystal. ] [Footnote 7: 1830. Through. ]
[Footnote 8: "Bulbul" is the Persian for nightingale. _Cf. Princes_,
iv. , 104:--
"O Bulbul, any rose of Gulistan Shall brush her veil". ]
[Footnote 9: 1830. Witholding. So 1842, 1843, 1845. ]
[Footnote 10: 1830. Blackgreen. ] [Footnote 11: 1830. Of saffron light. ]
[Footnote 12: 1830. Unrayed. ] [Footnote 13: 1830. Through . . . borne. ]
[Footnote 14: Shakespeare has the same expression:
"The hum of either army _stilly sounds_".
--_Henry V_. , act iv. , prol. ]
[Footnote 15: 1842. Roseries. ] [Footnote 16: 1830. Wreathed. ]
[Footnote 17: 1830. Below. ]
[Footnote 18: 1830. Underpropped. 1842. Underpropp'd. ]
[Footnote 19: 1830. O' the. ]
ODE TO MEMORY
First printed in 1830.
After the title in 1830 ed. is "Written very early in life". The
influence most perceptible in this poem is plainly Coleridge, on whose
'Songs of the Pixies' it seems to have been modelled. Tennyson
considered it, and no wonder, as one of the very best of "his early and
peculiarly concentrated Nature-poems". See 'Life', i. , 27. It is full
of vivid and accurate pictures of his Lincolnshire home and haunts. See
'Life', i. , 25-48, 'passim'.
1
Thou who stealest fire,
From the fountains of the past,
To glorify the present; oh, haste,
Visit my low desire!
Strengthen me, enlighten me!
I faint in this obscurity,
Thou dewy dawn of memory.
2
Come not as thou camest [1] of late,
Flinging the gloom of yesternight
On the white day; but robed in soften'd light
Of orient state.
Whilome thou camest with the morning mist,
Even as a maid, whose stately brow
The dew-impearled winds of dawn have kiss'd, [2]
When she, as thou,
Stays on her floating locks the lovely freight
Of overflowing blooms, and earliest shoots
Of orient green, giving safe pledge of fruits,
Which in wintertide shall star
The black earth with brilliance rare.
3
Whilome thou camest with the morning mist.
And with the evening cloud,
Showering thy gleaned wealth into my open breast,
(Those peerless flowers which in the rudest wind
Never grow sere,
When rooted in the garden of the mind,
Because they are the earliest of the year).
Nor was the night thy shroud.
In sweet dreams softer than unbroken rest
Thou leddest by the hand thine infant Hope.
The eddying of her garments caught from thee
The light of thy great presence; and the cope
Of the half-attain'd futurity,
Though deep not fathomless,
Was cloven with the million stars which tremble
O'er the deep mind of dauntless infancy.
Small thought was there of life's distress;
For sure she deem'd no mist of earth could dull
Those spirit-thrilling eyes so keen and beautiful:
Sure she was nigher to heaven's spheres,
Listening the lordly music flowing from
The illimitable years. [3]
O strengthen me, enlighten me!
I faint in this obscurity,
Thou dewy dawn of memory.
4
Come forth I charge thee, arise,
Thou of the many tongues, the myriad eyes!
Thou comest not with shows of flaunting vines
Unto mine inner eye,
Divinest Memory!
Thou wert not nursed by the waterfall
Which ever sounds and shines
A pillar of white light upon the wall
Of purple cliffs, aloof descried:
Come from the woods that belt the grey hill-side,
The seven elms, the poplars [4] four
That stand beside my father's door,
And chiefly from the brook [5] that loves
To purl o'er matted cress and ribbed sand,
Or dimple in the dark of rushy coves,
Drawing into his narrow earthen urn,
In every elbow and turn,
The filter'd tribute of the rough woodland.
O! hither lead thy feet!
Pour round mine ears the livelong bleat
Of the thick-fleeced sheep from wattled folds,
Upon the ridged wolds,
When the first matin-song hath waken'd [6] loud
Over the dark dewy earth forlorn,
What time the amber morn
Forth gushes from beneath a low-hung cloud.
5
Large dowries doth the raptured eye
To the young spirit present
When first she is wed;
And like a bride of old
In triumph led,
With music and sweet showers
Of festal flowers,
Unto the dwelling she must sway.
