No More Learning

XIII

=Love and Sorrow=

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




XIV

=To a Lady Sleeping=

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




XV

=Sonnet=

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




XVI

=Sonnet=

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




XVII

=Sonnet=

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




XVIII

=Sonnet=

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




XIX

=Love=

I

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

II

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

III

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




XX

=English War Song=

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

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

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

_Chorus_. --Shout for England! etc.

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

_Chorus_. --Shout for England! etc.

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

_Chorus_. --Shout for England! etc.

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

_Chorus_. --Shout for England! etc.




XXI

=National Song=

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

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

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

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

_Chorus_. --For the French, etc.

[Sixty years after first publication this Song was incorporated in
'The Foresters' (published 1892) as the opening chorus of the second
act. The two verses were unaltered, but the two choruses were
re-written. ]




XXII

=Dualisms=

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

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

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




XXIII

[Greek: ohi rheontes]

I

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

II

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


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




XXIV

=Song=

I

The lintwhite and the throstlecock
Have voices sweet and clear;
All in the bloomed May.
They from the blosmy brere
Call to the fleeting year,
If that he would them hear
And stay.
Alas! that one so beautiful
Should have so dull an ear.

II

Fair year, fair year, thy children call,
But thou art deaf as death;
All in the bloomed May.
When thy light perisheth
That from thee issueth,
Our life evanisheth:
Oh! stay.
Alas! that lips so cruel dumb
Should have so sweet a breath!

III

Fair year, with brows of royal love
Thou comest, as a King.
All in the bloomed May.
Thy golden largess fling,
And longer hear us sing;
Though thou art fleet of wing,
Yet stay.
Alas! that eyes so full of light
Should be so wandering!

IV

Thy locks are full of sunny sheen
In rings of gold yronne,[C]
All in the bloomed May,
We pri' thee pass not on;
If thou dost leave the sun,
Delight is with thee gone,
Oh! stay.
Thou art the fairest of thy feres,
We pri' thee pass not on.

[Footnote C: His crispe hair in ringis was yronne. --Chaucer, _Knight's
Tale_. (Tennyson's note. )]




=Contributions to Periodicals 1831-32=


XXV

=A Fragment=

[Published in _The Gem: a Literary Annual_. London: W. Marshall,
Holborn Bars, mdcccxxxi. ]

Where is the Giant of the Sun, which stood
In the midnoon the glory of old Rhodes,
A perfect Idol, with profulgent brows
Far sheening down the purple seas to those
Who sailed from Mizraim underneath the star
Named of the Dragon--and between whose limbs
Of brassy vastness broad-blown Argosies
Drave into haven? Yet endure unscathed
Of changeful cycles the great Pyramids
Broad-based amid the fleeting sands, and sloped
Into the slumberous summer noon; but where,
Mysterious Egypt, are thine obelisks
Graven with gorgeous emblems undiscerned?
Thy placid Sphinxes brooding o'er the Nile?
Thy shadowy Idols in the solitudes,
Awful Memnonian countenances calm
Looking athwart the burning flats, far off
Seen by the high-necked camel on the verge
Journeying southward? Where are thy monuments
Piled by the strong and sunborn Anakim
Over their crowned brethren [Greek: ON] and [Greek: ORE]?
Thy Memnon, when his peaceful lips are kissed
With earliest rays, that from his mother's eyes
Flow over the Arabian bay, no more
Breathes low into the charmed ears of morn
Clear melody flattering the crisped Nile
By columned Thebes. Old Memphis hath gone down:
The Pharaohs are no more: somewhere in death
They sleep with staring eyes and gilded lips,
Wrapped round with spiced cerements in old grots
Rock-hewn and sealed for ever.




XXVI

=Anacreontics=

[Published in _The Gem: a Literary Annual_. London: W. Marshall,
Holborn Bars, mdcccxxxi. ]

With roses musky breathed,
And drooping daffodilly,
And silverleaved lily,
And ivy darkly-wreathed,
I wove a crown before her,
For her I love so dearly,
A garland for Lenora.
With a silken cord I bound it.
Lenora, laughing clearly
A light and thrilling laughter,
About her forehead wound it,
And loved me ever after.




XXVII

[Published in _The Gem: a Literary Annual_. London: W. Marshall,
Holborn Bars, mdcccxxxi. ]

O sad _No more! _ O sweet _No more! _
O strange _No more! _
By a mossed brookbank on a stone
I smelt a wildweed flower alone;
There was a ringing in my ears,
And both my eyes gushed out with tears.
Surely all pleasant things had gone before,
Low-buried fathom deep beneath with thee,
NO MORE!




XXVIII

=Sonnet=

[Published in the _Englishman's Magazine_, August, 1831. London:
Edward Moxon, 64 New Bond Street. Reprinted in _Friendship's Offering:
a Literary Album_ for 1833. London; Smith and Elder. ]

Check every outflash, every ruder sally
Of thought and speech; speak low, and give up wholly
Thy spirit to mild-minded Melancholy;
This is the place. Through yonder poplar alley
Below, the blue-green river windeth slowly;
But in the middle of the sombre valley
The crisped waters whisper musically,
And all the haunted place is dark and holy.
The nightingale, with long and low preamble,
Warbled from yonder knoll of solemn larches,
And in and out the woodbine's flowery arches
The summer midges wove their wanton gambol,
And all the white-stemmed pinewood slept above--
When in this valley first I told my love.




XXIX

=Sonnet=

[Published in _Friendships Offering: a Literary Album_ for 1832.
London: Smith and Elder. ]

Me my own fate to lasting sorrow doometh:
Thy woes are birds of passage, transitory:
Thy spirit, circled with a living glory,
In summer still a summer joy resumeth.
Alone my hopeless melancholy gloometh,
Like a lone cypress, through the twilight hoary,
From an old garden where no flower bloometh,
One cypress on an inland promontory.
But yet my lonely spirit follows thine,
As round the rolling earth night follows day:
But yet thy lights on my horizon shine
Into my night when thou art far away;
I am so dark, alas! and thou so bright,
When we two meet there's never perfect light.




XXX

=Sonnet=

[Published in the _Yorkshire Literary Annual_ for 1832. Edited by C. F.
Edgar, London: Longman and Co. Reprinted in the _Athenaeum_, 4 May,
1867. ]

There are three things that fill my heart with sighs
And steep my soul in laughter (when I view
Fair maiden forms moving like melodies),
Dimples, roselips, and eyes of any hue.

There are three things beneath the blessed skies
For which I live--black eyes, and brown and blue;
I hold them all most dear; but oh! black eyes,
I live and die, and only die for you.

Of late such eyes looked at me--while I mused
At sunset, underneath a shadowy plane
In old Bayona, nigh the Southern Sea--
From an half-open lattice looked at _me_.

I saw no more only those eyes--confused
And dazzled to the heart with glorious pain.




=Poems, 1833=


[The poems numbered XXXI-XXXIX were published in the 1832 volume
(_Poems by Alfred Tennyson_. London: Edward Moxon, 94 New Bond Street.
MDCCCXXXIII; published December, 1832), and were thereafter
suppressed. ]




XXXI

=Sonnet=

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




XXXII

=The Hesperides=

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

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


_Song_

I

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

II

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

III

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

IV

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




XXXIII

=Rosalind=

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




XXXIV

=Song=

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




XXXV

=Sonnet=

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

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




XXXVI

=O Darling Room=[D]

I

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

II

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

III

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

[Footnote D: 'As soon as this poem was published, I altered the second
line to "All books and pictures ranged aright"; yet "Dear room, the
apple of my sight" (which was much abused) is not as bad as "Do go,
dear rain, do go away. "' [Note initialed 'A. T. ' in _Life_, vol. I, p.
89. ] The worthlessness of much of the criticism lavished on Tennyson
by his coterie of adulating friends may be judged from the fact that
Arthur Hallam wrote to Tennyson that this poem was 'mighty
pleasant. ']




XXXVII

=To Christopher North=

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

[This epigram was Tennyson's reply to an article by Professor
Wilson--'Christopher North'--in _Blackwood's Magazine_ for May 1832,
dealing in sensible fashion with Tennyson's 1830 volume, and
ridiculing the fulsome praise lavished on him by his inconsiderate
friends--especially referring to Arthur Hallam's article in the
_Englishman's Magazine_ for August, 1831. ]




XXXVIII

=The Lotos-Eaters=

[These forty lines formed the conclusion to the original (1833)
version of the poem. When the poem was reprinted in the 1842 volumes
these lines were suppressed. ]

We have had enough of motion,
Weariness and wild alarm,
Tossing on the tossing ocean,
Where the tusked seahorse walloweth
In a stripe of grassgreen calm,
At noon-tide beneath the lea;
And the monstrous narwhale swalloweth
His foamfountains in the sea.
Long enough the winedark wave our weary bark did carry.
This is lovelier and sweeter,
Men of Ithaca, this is meeter,
In the hollow rosy vale to tarry,
Like a dreamy Lotos-eater, a delirious Lotos-eater!
We will eat the Lotos, sweet
As the yellow honeycomb,
In the valley some, and some
On the ancient heights divine;
And no more roam,
On the loud hoar foam,
To the melancholy home
At the limit of the brine,
The little isle of Ithaca, beneath the day's decline.
We'll lift no more the shattered oar,
No more unfurl the straining sail;
With the blissful Lotos-eaters pale
We will abide in the golden vale
Of the Lotos-land, till the Lotos fail;
We will not wander more.
Hark! how sweet the horned ewes bleat
On the solitary steeps,
And the merry lizard leaps,
And the foam-white waters pour;
And the dark pine weeps,
And the lithe vine creeps,
And the heavy melon sleeps
On the level of the shore:
Oh! islanders of Ithaca, we will not wander more,
Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore
Than labour in the ocean, and rowing with the oar,
Oh! islanders of Ithaca, we will return no more.




XXXIX

=A Dream of Fair Women=

[In the 1833 volume the poem opened with the following four verses,
suppressed after 1842. These Fitz Gerald considered made 'a perfect
poem by themselves. ']

As when a man, that sails in a balloon,
Downlooking sees the solid shining ground
Stream from beneath him in the broad blue noon,
Tilth, hamlet, mead and mound:

And takes his flags and waves them to the mob
That shout below, all faces turned to where
Glows rubylike the far-up crimson globe,
Filled with a finer air:

So, lifted high, the poet at his will
Lets the great world flit from him, seeing all,
Higher thro' secret splendours mounting still,
Self-poised, nor fears to fall.

Hearing apart the echoes of his fame.
While I spoke thus, the seedsman, Memory,
Sowed my deep-furrowed thought with many a name
Whose glory will not die.




=Miscellaneous Poems and Contributions to Periodicals=
=1833-1868=




XL

=Cambridge=

[This poem is written in pencil on the fly-leaf of a copy of _Poems_
1833 in the Dyce Collection in South Kensington Museum. Reprinted with
many alterations in _Life_, vol. I, p. 67. ]

Therefore your halls, your ancient colleges,
Your portals statued with old kings and queens,
Your bridges and your busted libraries,
Wax-lighted chapels and rich carved screens,
Your doctors and your proctors and your deans
Shall not avail you when the day-beam sports
New-risen o'er awakened Albion--No,
Nor yet your solemn organ-pipes that blow
Melodious thunders through your vacant courts
At morn and even; for your manner sorts
Not with this age, nor with the thoughts that roll,
Because the words of little children preach
Against you,--ye that did profess to teach
And have taught nothing, feeding on the soul.




XLI

=The Germ of 'Maud'=

[There was published in 1837 in _The Tribute_, (a collection of
original poems by various authors, edited by Lord Northampton), a
contribution by Tennyson entitled 'Stanzas,' consisting of xvi stanzas
of varying lengths (110 lines in all). In 1855 the first xii stanzas
were published as the fourth section of the second part of 'Maud. '
Some verbal changes and transpositions of lines were made; a new
stanza (the present sixth) and several new lines were introduced, and
the xth stanza of 1837 became the xiiith of 1855. But stanzas xiii-xvi
of 1837 have never been reprinted in any edition of Tennyson's works,
though quoted in whole or part in various critical studies of the
poet. Swinburne refers to this poem as 'the poem of deepest charm and
fullest delight of pathos and melody ever written, even by Mr
Tennyson. ' This poem in _The Tribute_ gained Tennyson his first notice
in the _Edinburgh Review_, which had till then ignored him. ]

XIII

But she tarries in her place
And I paint the beauteous face
Of the maiden, that I lost,
In my inner eyes again,
Lest my heart be overborne,
By the thing I hold in scorn,
By a dull mechanic ghost
And a juggle of the brain.

XIV

I can shadow forth my bride
As I knew her fair and kind
As I woo'd her for my wife;
She is lovely by my side
In the silence of my life--
'Tis a phantom of the mind.

XV

'Tis a phantom fair and good
I can call it to my side,
So to guard my life from ill,
Tho' its ghastly sister glide
And be moved around me still
With the moving of the blood
That is moved not of the will.

XVI

Let it pass, the dreary brow,
Let the dismal face go by,
Will it lead me to the grave?
Then I lose it: it will fly:
Can it overlast the nerves?
Can it overlive the eye?
But the other, like a star,
Thro' the channel windeth far
Till it fade and fail and die,
To its Archetype that waits
Clad in light by golden gates,
Clad in light the Spirit waits
To embrace me in the sky.




XLII

[On the fly-leaf of a book illustrated by Bewick, in the library of
the late Lord Ravensworth, the following lines in Tennyson's autograph
were discovered in 1903. ]

A gate and a field half ploughed,
A solitary cow,
A child with a broken slate,
And a titmarsh in the bough.
But where, alack, is Bewick
To tell the meaning now?




XLIII

=The Skipping-Rope=

[This poem, published in the second volume of _Poems by Alfred
Tennyson_ (in two volumes, London, Edward Moxon, MDCCCXLII), was
reprinted in every edition until 1851, when it was suppressed. ]

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




XLIV

=The New Timon and the Poets=

[From _Punch_, February 28, 1846. Bulwer Lytton published in 1845 his
satirical poem 'New Timon: a Romance of London,' in which he bitterly
attacked Tennyson for the civil list pension granted the previous
year, particularly referring to the poem 'O Darling Room' in the 1833
volume. Tennyson replied in the following vigorous verses, which made
the literary sensation of the year. Tennyson afterwards declared: 'I
never sent my lines to _Punch_. John Forster did. They were too
bitter. I do not think that I should ever have published
them. '--_Life_, vol. I, p. 245. ]

We know him, out of Shakespeare's art,
And those fine curses which he spoke;
The old Timon, with his noble heart,
That, strongly loathing, greatly broke.

So died the Old: here comes the New:
Regard him: a familiar face:
I _thought_ we knew him: What, it's you
The padded man--that wears the stays--

Who killed the girls and thrill'd the boys
With dandy pathos when you wrote,
A Lion, you, that made a noise,
And shook a mane en papillotes.

And once you tried the Muses too:
You fail'd, Sir: therefore now you turn,
You fall on those who are to you
As captain is to subaltern.

But men of long enduring hopes,
And careless what this hour may bring,
Can pardon little would-be Popes
And Brummels, when they try to sting.

An artist, Sir, should rest in art,
And wave a little of his claim;
To have the deep poetic heart
Is more than all poetic fame.

But you, Sir, you are hard to please;
You never look but half content:
Nor like a gentleman at ease
With moral breadth of temperament.

And what with spites and what with fears,
You cannot let a body be:
It's always ringing in your ears,
'They call this man as good as _me_. '

What profits now to understand
The merits of a spotless shirt--
A dapper boot--a little hand--
If half the little soul is dirt?

_You_ talk of tinsel! why we see
The old mark of rouge upon your cheeks.
_You_ prate of nature! you are he
That spilt his life about the cliques.

A Timon you! Nay, nay, for shame:
It looks too arrogant a jest--
The fierce old man--to take _his_ name
You bandbox. Off, and let him rest.




XLV

=Mablethorpe=

[Published in _Manchester Athaenaum Album_, 1850. Written, 1837.
Republished, altered, in _Life_, vol. I, p. 161. ]

How often, when a child I lay reclined,
I took delight in this locality!
Here stood the infant Ilion of the mind,
And here the Grecian ships did seem to be.

And here again I come and only find
The drain-cut levels of the marshy lea,--
Gray sand banks and pale sunsets--dreary wind,
Dim shores, dense rains, and heavy clouded sea.




XLVI

[Published in _The Keepsake for 1851: an illustrated annual_, edited
by Miss Power. London: David Bogue. To this issue of the Keepsake
Tennyson also contributed 'Come not when I am dead' now included in
the collected Works. ]

What time I wasted youthful hours
One of the shining winged powers,
Show'd me vast cliffs with crown of towers,

As towards the gracious light I bow'd,
They seem'd high palaces and proud,
Hid now and then with sliding cloud.

He said, 'The labour is not small;
Yet winds the pathway free to all:--
Take care thou dost not fear to fall! '




XLVII

=Britons, Guard your Own=

[Published in _The Examiner_, January 31, 1852. Verses 1 (considerably
altered), 7, 8 and 10, are reprinted in Life, vol. I, p. 344. ]

Rise, Britons, rise, if manhood be not dead;
The world's last tempest darkens overhead;
The Pope has bless'd him;
The Church caress'd him;
He triumphs; maybe, we shall stand alone:
Britons, guard your own.

His ruthless host is bought with plunder'd gold,
By lying priest's the peasant's votes controlled.
All freedom vanish'd,
The true men banished,
He triumphs; maybe, we shall stand alone.
Britons, guard your own.

Peace-lovers we--sweet Peace we all desire--
Peace-lovers we--but who can trust a liar? --
Peace-lovers, haters
Of shameless traitors,
We hate not France, but this man's heart of stone.
Britons, guard your own.

We hate not France, but France has lost her voice
This man is France, the man they call her choice.
By tricks and spying,
By craft and lying,
And murder was her freedom overthrown.
Britons, guard your own.

'Vive l'Empereur' may follow by and bye;
'God save the Queen' is here a truer cry.
God save the Nation,
The toleration,
And the free speech that makes a Briton known.
Britons, guard your own.

Rome's dearest daughter now is captive France,
The Jesuit laughs, and reckoning on his chance,
Would, unrelenting,
Kill all dissenting,
Till we were left to fight for truth alone.
Britons, guard your own.

Call home your ships across Biscayan tides,
To blow the battle from their oaken sides.
Why waste they yonder
Their idle thunder?
Why stay they there to guard a foreign throne?
Seamen, guard your own.

We were the best of marksmen long ago,
We won old battles with our strength, the bow.
Now practise, yeomen,
Like those bowmen,
Till your balls fly as their true shafts have flown.
Yeomen, guard your own.

His soldier-ridden Highness might incline
To take Sardinia, Belgium, or the Rhine:
Shall we stand idle,
Nor seek to bridle
His vile aggressions, till we stand alone?
Make their cause your own.

Should he land here, and for one hour prevail,
There must no man go back to bear the tale:
No man to bear it--
Swear it! We swear it!
Although we fought the banded world alone,
We swear to guard our own.




XLVIII

=Hands all Round=

[Published in _The Examiner_, February 7, 1852. Reprinted, slightly
altered, in Life, vol. I, p. 345. Included, almost entirely
re-written, in collected Works. ]

First drink a health, this solemn night,
A health to England, every guest;
That man's the best cosmopolite
Who loves his native country best.
May Freedom's oak for ever live
With stronger life from day to day;
That man's the best Conservative
Who lops the mouldered branch away.
Hands all round!
God the tyrant's hope confound!
To this great cause of Freedom drink, my friends,
And the great name of England round and round.

A health to Europe's honest men!
Heaven guard them from her tyrants' jails!
From wronged Poerio's noisome den,
From iron limbs and tortured nails!
We curse the crimes of Southern kings,
The Russian whips and Austrian rods--
We likewise have our evil things;
Too much we make our Ledgers, Gods.
Yet hands all round!
God the tyrant's cause confound!
To Europe's better health we drink, my friends,
And the great name of England round and round.

What health to France, if France be she
Whom martial progress only charms?
Yet tell her--better to be free
Than vanquish all the world in arms.
Her frantic city's flashing heats
But fire, to blast the hopes of men.
Why change the titles of your streets?
You fools, you'll want them all again.
Hands all round!
God the tyrant's cause confound!
To France, the wiser France, we drink, my friends,
And the great name of England round and round.

Gigantic daughter of the West,
We drink to thee across the flood,
We know thee most, we love thee best,
For art thou not of British blood?
Should war's mad blast again be blown,
Permit not thou the tyrant powers
To fight thy mother here alone,
But let thy broadsides roar with ours.
Hands all round!
God the tyrant's cause confound!
To our great kinsmen of the West, my friends,
And the great name of England round and round.

O rise, our strong Atlantic sons,
When war against our freedom springs!
O speak to Europe through your guns!
They _can_ be understood by kings.
You must not mix our Queen with those
That wish to keep their people fools;
Our freedom's foemen are her foes,
She comprehends the race she rules.
Hands all round!
God the tyrant's cause confound!
To our dear kinsmen of the West, my friends,
And the great name of England round and round.




XLIX

=Suggested by Reading an Article in a Newspaper=

[Published in _The Examiner_, February 14, 1852, and never reprinted
nor acknowledged. The proof sheets of the poem, with alterations in
Tennyson's autograph, were offered for public sale in 1906. ]

To the Editor of _The Examiner_.

SIR,--I have read with much interest the poems of Merlin. The enclosed
is longer than either of those, and certainly not so good: yet as I
flatter myself that it has a smack of Merlin's style in it, and as I
feel that it expresses forcibly enough some of the feelings of our
time, perhaps you may be induced to admit it.

TALIESSEN.


How much I love this writer's manly style!
By such men led, our press had ever been
The public conscience of our noble isle,
Severe and quick to feel a civic sin,
To raise the people and chastise the times
With such a heat as lives in great creative rhymes.

O you, the Press! what good from you might spring!
What power is yours to blast a cause or bless!
I fear for you, as for some youthful king,
Lest you go wrong from power in excess.
Take heed of your wide privileges! we
The thinking men of England, loathe a tyranny.

A freeman is, I doubt not, freest here;
The single voice may speak his mind aloud;
An honest isolation need not fear
The Court, the Church, the Parliament, the crowd.
No, nor the Press! and look you well to that--
We must not dread in you the nameless autocrat.

And you, dark Senate of the public pen,
You may not, like yon tyrant, deal in spies.
Yours are the public acts of public men,
But yours are not their household privacies.
I grant you one of the great Powers on earth,
But be not you the blatant traitors of the hearth.

You hide the hand that writes: it must be so,
For better so you fight for public ends;
But some you strike can scarce return the blow;
You should be all the nobler, O my friends.
Be noble, you! nor work with faction's tools
To charm a lower sphere of fulminating fools.

But knowing all your power to heat or cool,
To soothe a civic wound or keep it raw,
Be loyal, if you wish for wholesome rule:
Our ancient boast is this--we reverence law.
We still were loyal in our wildest fights,
Or loyally disloyal battled for our rights.

O Grief and Shame if while I preach of laws
Whereby to guard our Freedom from offence--
And trust an ancient manhood and the cause
Of England and her health of commonsense--
There hang within the heavens a dark disgrace,
Some vast Assyrian doom to burst upon our race.

I feel the thousand cankers of our State,
I fain would shake their triple-folded ease,
The hogs who can believe in nothing great,
Sneering bedridden in the down of Peace
Over their scrips and shares, their meats and wine,
With stony smirks at all things human and divine!

I honour much, I say, this man's appeal.
We drag so deep in our commercial mire,
We move so far from greatness, that I feel
Exception to be character'd in fire.
Who looks for Godlike greatness here shall see
The British Goddess, sleek Respectability.

Alas for her and all her small delights!
She feels not how the social frame is rack'd.
She loves a little scandal which excites;
A little feeling is a want of tact.
For her there lie in wait millions of foes,
And yet the 'not too much' is all the rule she knows.

Poor soul!