Is there
confusion
in the little isle?
Tennyson
Lady Clara Vere de Vere,
There stands a spectre in your hall:
The guilt of blood is at your door:
You changed a wholesome heart to gall.
You held your course without remorse,
To make him trust his modest worth,
And, last, you fix'd a vacant stare,
And slew him with your noble birth.
Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere,
From yon blue heavens above us bent
The grand old gardener and his wife [1]
Smile at the claims of long descent.
Howe'er it be, it seems to me,
'Tis only noble to be good.
Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood.
I know you, Clara Vere de Vere:
You pine among your halls and towers:
The languid light of your proud eyes
Is wearied of the rolling hours.
In glowing health, with boundless wealth,
But sickening of a vague disease,
You know so ill to deal with time,
You needs must play such pranks as these.
Clara, Clara Vere de Vere,
If Time be heavy on your hands,
Are there no beggars at your gate,
Nor any poor about your lands?
Oh! teach the orphan-boy to read,
Or teach the orphan-girl to sew,
Pray Heaven for a human heart,
And let the foolish yoeman go.
[Footnote 1: 1842 and 1843. "The gardener Adam and his wife. " In 1845 it
was altered to the present text. ]
THE MAY QUEEN
The first two parts were first published in 1833.
The scenery is typical of Lincolnshire; in Fitzgerald's phrase, it is
all Lincolnshire inland, as 'Locksley Hall' is seaboard.
You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear;
To-morrow 'ill be the happiest time of all the glad [1] New-year;
Of all the glad New-year, mother, the maddest merriest day;
For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.
There's many a black, black eye, they say, but none so bright as mine;
There's Margaret and Mary, there's Kate and Caroline:
But none so fair as little Alice in all the land they say,
So I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.
I sleep so sound all night, mother, that I shall never wake,
If you [2] do not call me loud when the day begins to break:
But I must gather knots of flowers, and buds and garlands gay,
For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.
As I came up the valley whom think ye should I see,
But Robin [3] leaning on the bridge beneath the hazel-tree?
He thought of that sharp look, mother, I gave him yesterday,--
But I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.
He thought I was a ghost, mother, for I was all in white,
And I ran by him without speaking, like a flash of light.
They call me cruel-hearted, but I care not what they say,
For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.
They say he's dying all for love, but that can never be:
They say his heart is breaking, mother--what is that to me?
There's many a bolder lad 'ill woo me any summer day,
And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.
Little Effie shall go with me to-morrow to the green,
And you'll be there, too, mother, to see me made the Queen;
For the shepherd lads on every side 'ill come from far away,
And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.
The honeysuckle round the porch has wov'n its wavy bowers,
And by the meadow-trenches blow the faint sweet cuckoo-flowers;
And the wild marsh-marigold shines like fire in swamps and hollows gray,
And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.
The night-winds come and go, mother, upon the meadow-grass,
And the happy stars above them seem to brighten as they pass;
There will not be a drop of rain the whole of the live-long day,
And I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.
All the valley, mother, 'ill be fresh and green and still,
And the cowslip and the crowfoot are over all the hill,
And the rivulet in the flowery dale 'ill merrily glance and play,
For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.
So you must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear,
To-morrow 'ill be the happiest time of all the glad New-year:
To-morrow 'ill be of all the year the maddest merriest day,
For I'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I'm to be Queen o' the May.
[Footnote 1: 1833. "Blythe" for "glad". ]
[Footnote 2: 1883. Ye. ]
[Footnote 3: 1842. Robert. This is a curious illustration of Tennyson's
scrupulousness about trifles: in 1833 it was "Robin," in 1842 "Robert,"
then in 1843 and afterwards he returned to "Robin". ]
NEW-YEAR'S EVE
If you're waking call me early, call me early, mother dear,
For I would see the sun rise upon the glad New-year.
It is the last New-year that I shall ever see,
Then you may lay me low i' the mould and think no more of me.
To-night I saw the sun set: he set and left behind
The good old year, the dear old time, and all my peace of mind;
And the New-year's coming up, mother, but I shall never see
The blossom on [1] the blackthorn, the leaf upon the tree.
Last May we made a crown of flowers: we had a merry day;
Beneath the hawthorn on the green they made me Queen of May;
And we danced about the may-pole and in the hazel copse,
Till Charles's Wain came out above the tall white chimney-tops.
There's not a flower on all the hills: the frost is on the pane:
I only wish to live till the snowdrops come again:
I wish the snow would melt and the sun come out on high:
I long to see a flower so before the day I die.
The building rook'll caw from the windy tall elm-tree,
And the tufted plover pipe along the fallow lea,
And the swallow'll come back again with summer o'er the wave.
But I shall lie alone, mother, within the mouldering grave.
Upon the chancel-casement, and upon that grave of mine,
In the early, early morning the summer sun'll shine,
Before the red cock crows from the farm upon the hill,
When you are warm-asleep, mother, and all the world is still.
When the flowers come again, mother, beneath the waning light
You'll never see me more in the long gray fields at night;
When from the dry dark wold the summer airs blow cool
On the oat-grass and the sword-grass, and the bulrush in the pool.
You'll bury me, [2] my mother, just beneath the hawthorn shade,
And you'll come [3] sometimes and see me where I am lowly laid.
I shall not forget you, mother, I shall hear you when you pass,[4]
With your feet above my head in the long and pleasant grass.
I have been wild and wayward, but you'll forgive [5] me now;
You'll kiss me, my own mother, and forgive me ere I go; [6]
Nay, nay, you must not weep, [7] nor let your grief be wild,
You should not fret for me, mother, you [8] have another child.
If I can I'll come again, mother, from out my resting-place;
Tho' you'll [9] not see me, mother, I shall look upon your face;
Tho' I cannot speak a word, 1 shall harken what you [10] say,
And be often, often with you when you think [11] I'm far away.
Good-night, good-night, when I have said good-night for evermore,
And you [12] see me carried out from the threshold of the door;
Don't let Effie come to see me till my grave be growing green:
She'll be a better child to you than ever I have been.
She'll find my garden-tools upon the granary floor:
Let her take 'em: they are hers: I shall never garden more:
But tell her, when I'm gone, to train the rose-bush that I set
About the parlour-window and the box of mignonette.
Good-night, sweet mother: call me before the day is born. [13]
All night I lie awake, but I fall asleep at morn;
But I would see the sun rise upon the glad New-year,
So, if your waking, call me, call me early, mother dear.
[Footnote 1: 1833. The may upon. ]
[Footnote 2: 1833. Ye'll bury me. ]
[Footnote 3: 1833. And ye'll come. ]
[Footnote 4: 1833. I shall not forget ye, mother, I shall hear ye when
ye pass. ]
[Footnote 5: 1833. But ye'll forgive. ]
[Footnote 6: 1833. Ye'll kiss me, my own mother, upon my cheek and brow.
1850. And foregive me ere I go. ]
[Footnote 7: 1833. Ye must not weep. ]
[Footnote 8: 1833. Ye . . . ye. ]
[Footnote 9: 1833. Ye'll. ]
[Footnote 10: 1833. Ye. ]
[Footnote 11: 1833. Ye when ye think. ]
[Footnote 12: 1833. Ye. ]
[Footnote 13: 1833. Call me when it begins to dawn. 1842. Before the day
is born. ]
CONCLUSION
Added in 1842.
I thought to pass away before, and yet alive I am;
And in the fields all round I hear the bleating of the lamb.
How sadly, I remember, rose the morning of the year!
To die before the snowdrop came, and now the violet's here.
O sweet is the new violet, that comes beneath the skies,
And sweeter is the young lamb's voice to me that cannot rise,
And sweet is all the land about, and all the flowers that blow,
And sweeter far is death than life to me that long to go.
It seem'd so hard at first, mother, to leave the blessed sun,
And now it seems as hard to stay, and yet His will be done!
But still I think it can't be long before I find release;
And that good man, the clergyman, has told me words of peace. [1]
O blessings on his kindly voice and on his silver hair!
And blessings on his whole life long, until he meet me there!
O blessings on his kindly heart and on his silver head!
A thousand times I blest him, as he knelt beside my bed.
He taught me all the mercy, for he show'd [2] me all the sin.
Now, tho' my lamp was lighted late, there's One will let me in:
Nor would I now be well, mother, again, if that could be,
For my desire is but to pass to Him that died for me.
I did not hear the dog howl, mother, or the death-watch beat,
There came a sweeter token when the night and morning meet:
But sit beside my bed, mother, and put your hand in mine,
And Effie on the other side, and I will tell the sign.
All in the wild March-morning I heard the angels call;
It was when the moon was setting, and the dark was over all;
The trees began to whisper, and the wind began to roll,
And in the wild March-morning I heard them call my soul.
For lying broad awake I thought of you and Effie dear;
I saw you sitting in the house, and I no longer here;
With all my strength I pray'd for both, and so I felt resign'd,
And up the valley came a swell of music on the wind.
I thought that it was fancy, and I listen'd in my bed,
And then did something speak to me--I know not what was said;
For great delight and shuddering took hold of all my mind,
And up the valley came again the music on the wind.
But you were sleeping; and I said, "It's not for them: it's mine".
And if it comes [3] three times, I thought, I take it for a sign.
And once again it came, and close beside the window-bars,
Then seem'd to go right up to Heaven and die among the stars.
So now I think my time is near. I trust it is. I know
The blessed music went that way my soul will have to go.
And for myself, indeed, I care not if I go to-day.
But, Effie, you must comfort _her_ when I am past away.
And say to Robin [4] a kind word, and tell him not to fret;
There's many worthier than I, would make him happy yet.
If I had lived--I cannot tell--I might have been his wife;
But all these things have ceased to be, with my desire of life.
O look! the sun begins to rise, the heavens are in a glow;
He shines upon a hundred fields, and all of them I know.
And there I move no longer now, and there his light may shine--
Wild flowers in the valley for other hands than mine.
O sweet and strange it seems to me, that ere this day is done
The voice, that now is speaking, may be beyond the sun--
For ever and for ever with those just souls and true--
And what is life, that we should moan? why make we such ado?
For ever and for ever, all in a blessed home--
And there to wait a little while till you and Effie come--
To lie within the light of God, as I lie upon your breast--
And the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.
[Footnote 1: 1842.
But still it can't be long, mother, before I find release;
And that good man, the clergyman, he preaches words of peace.
Present reading 1843. ]
[Footnote 2: 1842-1848.
He show'd me all the mercy, for he taught me all the sin.
Now, though, etc.
1850. For show'd he me all the sin. ]
[Footnote 3: 1889. Come. ]
[Footnote 4: 1842. Robert. 1843. Robin restored. ]
THE LOTOS-EATERS
First published in 1833, but when republished in 1842 the alterations in
the way of excision, alteration, and addition were very extensive. The
text of 1842 is practically the final text. This charming poem is
founded on 'Odyssey', ix. , 82 'seq. '
"On the tenth day we set foot on the land of the lotos-eaters who eat
a flowery food. So we stepped ashore and drew water. . . When we had
tasted meat and drink I sent forth certain of my company to go and
make search what manner of men they were who here live upon the earth
by bread. . . Then straightway they went and mixed with the men of the
lotos-eaters, and so it was that the lotos-eaters devised not death
for our fellows but gave them of the lotos to taste. Now whosoever of
them did eat the honey-sweet fruit of the lotos had no more wish to
bring tidings nor to come back, but there he chose to abide with the
lotos-eating men ever feeding on the lotos and forgetful of his
homeward way. Therefore I led them back to the ships weeping and sore
against their will . . . lest haply any should eat of the lotos and be
forgetful of returning. "
(Lang and Butcher's translation. )
But in the details of his poem Tennyson has laid many other poets under
contribution, notably Moschus, 'Idyll', v. ; Bion, 'Idyll', v. ; Spenser,
'Faerie Queen', II. vi. (description of the 'Idle Lake'), and Thomson's
'Castle of Indolence'.
"Courage! " he said, and pointed toward the land,
"This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon. "
In the afternoon they came unto a land,
In which it seemed always afternoon.
All round the coast the languid air did swoon,
Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.
Full-faced above the valley stood the moon; [1]
And like a downward smoke, the slender stream
Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.
A land of streams! some, like a downward smoke,
Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go;
And some thro' wavering lights and shadows broke,
Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below.
They saw the gleaming river seaward flow [2]
From the inner land: far off, three mountain-tops,
Three silent pinnacles of aged snow, [3]
Stood sunset-flush'd: and, dew'd with showery drops,
Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse.
The charmed sunset linger'd low adown
In the red West: thro' mountain clefts the dale
Was seen far inland, and the yellow down
Border'd with palm, and many a winding vale
And meadow, set with slender galingale;
A land where all things always seem'd the same!
And round about the keel with faces pale,
Dark faces pale against that rosy flame,
The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came.
Branches they bore of that enchanted stem,
Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gave
To each, but whoso did receive of them,
And taste, to him the gushing of the wave
Far far away did seem to mourn and rave
On alien shores; and if his fellow spake,
His voice was thin, as voices from the grave;
And deep-asleep he seem'd, yet all awake,
And music in his ears his beating heart did make.
They sat them down upon the yellow sand,
Between the sun and moon upon the shore;
And sweet it was to dream of Father-land,
Of child, and wife, and slave; but evermore
Most weary seem'd the sea, weary the oar,
Weary the wandering fields of barren foam.
Then some one said, "We will return no more";
And all at once they sang, "Our island home
Is far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam".
[Footnote 1: 1883. Above the valley burned the golden moon. ]
[Footnote 2: 1883. River's seaward flow. ]
[Footnote 3: 1833. Three thunder-cloven thrones of oldest snow. ]
CHORIC SONG
1
There is sweet music here that softer falls
Than petals from blown roses on the grass,
Or night-dews on still waters between walls
Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass;
Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,
Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes;
Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies.
Here are cool mosses deep,
And thro' the moss the ivies creep,
And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep,
And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.
2
Why are we weigh'd upon with heaviness,
And utterly consumed with sharp distress,
While all things else have rest from weariness?
All things have rest: why should we toil alone,
We only toil, who are the first of things,
And make perpetual moan,
Still from one sorrow to another thrown:
Nor ever fold our wings,
And cease from wanderings,
Nor steep our brows in slumber's holy balm;
Nor harken what the inner spirit sings,
"There is no joy but calm! "
Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things?
3
Lo! in the middle of the wood,
The folded leaf is woo'd from out the bud
With winds upon the branch, and there
Grows green and broad, and takes no care,
Sun-steep'd at noon, and in the moon
Nightly dew-fed; and turning yellow
Falls, and floats adown the air.
Lo! sweeten'd with the summer light,
The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow,
Drops in a silent autumn night.
All its allotted length of days,
The flower ripens in its place,
Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil,
Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil.
4
Hateful is the dark-blue sky,
Vaulted o'er the dark-blue sea. [1]
Death is the end of life; ah, why
Should life all labour be?
Let us alone.
Time driveth onward fast,
And in a little while our lips are dumb.
Let us alone.
What is it that will last?
All things are taken from us, and become
Portions and parcels of the dreadful Past.
Let us alone.
What pleasure can we have
To war with evil? Is there any peace
In ever climbing up the climbing wave? [2]
All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave [3]
In silence; ripen, fall and cease:
Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease.
5
How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream,
With half-shut eyes ever to seem
Falling asleep in a half-dream!
To dream and dream, like yonder amber light,
Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height;
To hear each other's whisper'd speech:
Eating the Lotos day by day,
To watch the crisping ripples on the beach,
And tender curving lines of creamy spray;
To lend our hearts and spirits wholly
To the influence of mild-minded melancholy;
To muse and brood and live again in memory,
With those [4] old faces of our infancy
Heap'd over with a mound of grass,
Two handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn of brass!
6
Dear is the memory of our wedded lives,
And dear the last embraces of our wives
And their warm tears: but all hath suffer'd change;
For surely now our household hearths are cold:
Our sons inherit us: our looks are strange:
And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy.
Or else the island princes over-bold
Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings
Before them of the ten-years' war in Troy,
And our great deeds, as half-forgotten things.
Is there confusion in the little isle? [5]
Let what is broken so remain.
The Gods are hard to reconcile:
'Tis hard to settle order once again.
There 'is' confusion worse than death,
Trouble on trouble, pain on pain,
Long labour unto aged breath,
Sore task to hearts worn out with [6] many wars
And eyes grow dim with gazing on the pilot-stars. [7]
7
But, propt on beds [8] of amaranth and moly,
How sweet (while warm airs lull us, blowing lowly)
With half-dropt eyelids still,
Beneath a heaven dark and holy,
To watch the long bright river drawing slowly
His waters from the purple hill--
To hear the dewy echoes calling
From cave to cave thro' the thick-twined vine--
To watch [9] the emerald-colour'd water falling
Thro' many a wov'n acanthus-wreath divine!
Only to hear and see the far-off sparkling brine,
Only to hear were sweet, stretch'd out beneath the pine.
8
The Lotos blooms below the barren peak: [9]
The Lotos blows by every winding creek:
All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone:
Thro' every hollow cave and alley lone
Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos-dust is blown.
We have had enough of action, and of motion we,
Roll'd to starboard, roll'd to larboard, when the surge was seething
free,
Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea.
Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind,
In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined
On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind.
For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl'd
Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl'd
Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world:
Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands,
Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery
sands,
Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships and praying
hands.
But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song
Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong,
Like a tale of little meaning tho' the words are strong;
Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil,
Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil,
Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil;
Till they perish and they suffer--some,'tis whisper'd--down in hell
Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell,
Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel.
Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore
Than labour in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar;
Oh rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more. [10]
[Footnote 1: 'Cf. ' Virgil, AEn. , iv. , 451:--
Taedet caeli convexa tueri.
Paraphrased from Moschus, 'Idyll', v. , 11-15. ]
[Footnote 2: For climbing up the wave 'cf. ' Virgil, 'AEn. ',
i. , 381: "Conscendi navilus aequor," and 'cf. ' generally Bion,
'Idyll', v. , 11-15. ]
[Footnote 3: From Moschus, 'Idyll', v. ,'passim'.
[Footnote 4: 1833. The. ]
[Footnote 5: The little isle, 'i. e. ', Ithaca. ]
[Footnote 6: 1863 By. ]
[Footnote 7: Added in 1842. ]
[Footnote 8: 1833. Or, propt on lavish beds. ]
[Footnote 9: 1833 to 1850 inclusive. Hear. ]
[Footnote 10: 1833 to 1850 inclusive. Flowery peak. ]
[Footnote 11: In 1833 we have the following, which in 1842 was excised
and the present text substituted:--
We have had enough of motion,
Weariness and wild alarm,
Tossing on the tossing ocean,
Where the tusked sea-horse walloweth
In a stripe of grass-green calm,
At noontide beneath the lee;
And the monstrous narwhale swalloweth
His foam-fountains in the sea.
Long enough the wine-dark 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.
The fine picture in the text of the gods of Epicurus was no doubt
immediately suggested by 'Lucretius', iii. , 15 'seq. ', while the
'Icaromenippus' of Lucian furnishes an excellent commentary on
Tennyson's picture of those gods and what they see. 'Cf. ' too the Song
of the Parcae in Goethe's 'Iphigenie auf Tauris', iv. , 5. ]
A DREAM OF FAIR WOMEN
First published in 1833 but very extensively altered on its
republication in 1842. It had been written by June, 1832, and appears to
have been originally entitled 'Legend of Fair Women' (see Spedding's
letter dated 21st June, 1832, 'Life', i. , 116). In nearly every edition
between 1833 and 1853 it was revised, and perhaps no poem proves more
strikingly the scrupulous care which Tennyson took to improve what he
thought susceptible of improvement. The work which inspired it,
Chaucer's 'Legend of Good Women', was written about 1384, thus
"preluding" by nearly two hundred years the "spacious times of great
Elizabeth". There is no resemblance between the poems beyond the fact
that both are visions and both have as their heroines illustrious women
who have been unfortunate. Cleopatra is the only one common to the two
poems. Tennyson's is an exquisite work of art--the transition from the
anarchy of dreams to the dreamland landscape and to the sharply denned
figures--the skill with which the heroines (what could be more perfect
that Cleopatra and Jephtha's daughter? ) are chosen and contrasted--the
wonderful way in which the Iphigenia of Euripides and Lucretius and the
Cleopatra of Shakespeare are realised are alike admirable. The poem
opened in 1833 with the following strangely irrelevant verses, excised
in 1842, which as Fitzgerald observed "make a perfect poem by themselves
without affecting the 'dream '":--
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 ruby-like 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 deepfurrowed thought with many a name,
Whose glory will not die.
I read, before my eyelids dropt their shade,
"The Legend of Good Women," long ago
Sung by the morning star [1] of song, who made
His music heard below;
Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath
Preluded those melodious bursts, that fill
The spacious times of great Elizabeth
With sounds that echo still.
And, for a while, the knowledge of his art
Held me above the subject, as strong gales
Hold swollen clouds from raining, tho' my heart,
Brimful of those wild tales,
Charged both mine eyes with tears.
In every land I saw, wherever light illumineth,
Beauty and anguish walking hand in hand
The downward slope to death. [2]
Those far-renowned brides of ancient song
Peopled the hollow dark, like burning stars,
And I heard sounds of insult, shame, and wrong,
And trumpets blown for wars;
And clattering flints batter'd with clanging hoofs:
And I saw crowds in column'd sanctuaries;
And forms that pass'd [3] at windows and on roofs
Of marble palaces;
Corpses across the threshold; heroes tall
Dislodging pinnacle and parapet
Upon the tortoise creeping to the wall; [4]
Lances in ambush set;
And high shrine-doors burst thro' with heated blasts
That run before the fluttering tongues of fire;
White surf wind-scatter'd over sails and masts,
And ever climbing higher;
Squadrons and squares of men in brazen plates,
Scaffolds, still sheets of water, divers woes,
Ranges of glimmering vaults with iron grates,
And hush'd seraglios.
So shape chased shape as swift as, when to land
Bluster the winds and tides the self-same way,
Crisp foam-flakes scud along the level sand,
Torn from the fringe of spray.
I started once, or seem'd to start in pain,
Resolved on noble things, and strove to speak,
As when a great thought strikes along the brain,
And flushes all the cheek.
And once my arm was lifted to hew down,
A cavalier from off his saddle-bow,
That bore a lady from a leaguer'd town;
And then, I know not how,
All those sharp fancies, by down-lapsing thought
Stream'd onward, lost their edges, and did creep
Roll'd on each other, rounded, smooth'd and brought
Into the gulfs of sleep.
At last methought that I had wander'd far
In an old wood: fresh-wash'd in coolest dew,
The maiden splendours of the morning star
Shook in the steadfast [5] blue.
Enormous elmtree-boles did stoop and lean
Upon the dusky brushwood underneath
Their broad curved branches, fledged with clearest green,
New from its silken sheath.
The dim red morn had died, her journey done,
And with dead lips smiled at the twilight plain,
Half-fall'n across the threshold of the sun,
Never to rise again.
There was no motion in the dumb dead air,
Not any song of bird or sound of rill;
Gross darkness of the inner sepulchre
Is not so deadly still
As that wide forest.
Growths of jasmine turn'd
Their humid arms festooning tree to tree, [6]
And at the root thro' lush green grasses burn'd
The red anemone.
I knew the flowers, I knew the leaves, I knew
The tearful glimmer of the languid dawn
On those long, rank, dark wood-walks, drench'd in dew,
Leading from lawn to lawn.
The smell of violets, hidden in the green,
Pour'd back into my empty soul and frame
The times when I remember to have been
Joyful and free from blame.
And from within me a clear under-tone
Thrill'd thro' mine ears in that unblissful clime
"Pass freely thro': the wood is all thine own,
Until the end of time".
At length I saw a lady [7] within call,
Stiller than chisell'd marble, standing there;
A daughter of the gods, divinely tall, [8]
And most divinely fair.
Her loveliness with shame and with surprise
Froze my swift speech: she turning on my face
The star-like sorrows of immortal eyes,
Spoke slowly in her place.
"I had great beauty: ask thou not my name:
No one can be more wise than destiny.
Many drew swords and died.
Where'er I came I brought calamity. "
"No marvel, sovereign lady [9]: in fair field
Myself for such a face had boldly died," [10]
I answer'd free; and turning I appeal'd
To one [11] that stood beside.
But she, with sick and scornful looks averse,
To her full height her stately stature draws;
"My youth," she said, "was blasted with a curse:
This woman was the cause.
"I was cut off from hope in that sad place, [12]
Which yet to name my spirit loathes and fears: [13]
My father held his hand upon his face;
I, blinded with my tears,
"Still strove to speak: my voice was thick with sighs
As in a dream. Dimly I could descry
The stern black-bearded kings with wolfish eyes,
Waiting to see me die.
"The high masts flicker'd as they lay afloat;
The crowds, the temples, waver'd, and the shore;
The bright death quiver'd at the victim's throat;
Touch'd; and I knew no more. " [14]
Whereto the other with a downward brow:
"I would the white cold heavy-plunging foam, [15]
Whirl'd by the wind, had roll'd me deep below,
Then when I left my home. "
Her slow full words sank thro' the silence drear,
As thunder-drops fall on a sleeping sea:
Sudden I heard a voice that cried, "Come here,
That I may look on thee".
I turning saw, throned on a flowery rise,
One sitting on a crimson scarf unroll'd;
A queen, with swarthy cheeks [16] and bold black eyes,
Brow-bound with burning gold.
She, flashing forth a haughty smile, began:
"I govern'd men by change, and so I sway'd
All moods. Tis long since I have seen a man.
Once, like the moon, I made
"The ever-shifting currents of the blood
According to my humour ebb and flow.
I have no men to govern in this wood:
That makes my only woe.
"Nay--yet it chafes me that I could not bend
One will; nor tame and tutor with mine eye
That dull cold-blooded Caesar. Prythee, friend,
Where is Mark Antony? [17]
"The man, my lover, with whom I rode sublime
On Fortune's neck: we sat as God by God:
The Nilus would have risen before his time
And flooded at our nod. [18]
"We drank the Libyan [19] Sun to sleep, and lit
Lamps which outburn'd Canopus. O my life In Egypt!
O the dalliance and the wit,
The flattery and the strife, [20]
"And the wild kiss, when fresh from war's alarms, [21]
My Hercules, my Roman Antony,
My mailed Bacchus leapt into my arms,
Contented there to die!
"And there he died: and when I heard my name
Sigh'd forth with life, I would not brook my fear [22]
Of the other: with a worm I balk'd his fame.
What else was left? look here! "
(With that she tore her robe apart, and half
The polish'd argent of her breast to sight
Laid bare. Thereto she pointed with a laugh,
Showing the aspick's bite. )
"I died a Queen. The Roman soldier found [23]
Me lying dead, my crown about my brows,
A name for ever! --lying robed and crown'd,
Worthy a Roman spouse. "
Her warbling voice, a lyre of widest range
Struck [24] by all passion, did fall down and glance
From tone to tone, and glided thro' all change
Of liveliest utterance.
When she made pause I knew not for delight;
Because with sudden motion from the ground
She raised her piercing orbs, and fill'd with light
The interval of sound.
Still with their fires Love tipt his keenest darts;
As once they drew into two burning rings
All beams of Love, melting the mighty hearts
Of captains and of kings.
Slowly my sense undazzled. Then I heard
A noise of some one coming thro' the lawn,
And singing clearer than the crested bird,
That claps his wings at dawn.
"The torrent brooks of hallow'd Israel
From craggy hollows pouring, late and soon,
Sound all night long, in falling thro' the dell,
Far-heard beneath the moon.
"The balmy moon of blessed Israel
Floods all the deep-blue gloom with beams divine:
All night the splinter'd crags that wall the dell
With spires of silver shine. "
As one that museth where broad sunshine laves
The lawn by some cathedral, thro' the door
Hearing the holy organ rolling waves
Of sound on roof and floor,
Within, and anthem sung, is charm'd and tied
To where he stands,--so stood I, when that flow
Of music left the lips of her that died
To save her father's vow;
The daughter of the warrior Gileadite, [25]
A maiden pure; as when she went along
From Mizpeh's tower'd gate with welcome light,
With timbrel and with song.
My words leapt forth: "Heaven heads the count of crimes
With that wild oath". She render'd answer high:
"Not so, nor once alone; a thousand times
I would be born and die.
"Single I grew, like some green plant, whose root
Creeps to the garden water-pipes beneath,
Feeding the flower; but ere my flower to fruit
Changed, I was ripe for death.
"My God, my land, my father--these did move
Me from my bliss of life, that Nature gave,
Lower'd softly with a threefold cord of love
Down to a silent grave.
"And I went mourning, 'No fair Hebrew boy
Shall smile away my maiden blame among
The Hebrew mothers'--emptied of all joy,
Leaving the dance and song,
"Leaving the olive-gardens far below,
Leaving the promise of my bridal bower,
The valleys of grape-loaded vines that glow
Beneath the battled tower
"The light white cloud swam over us. Anon
We heard the lion roaring from his den; [26]
We saw the large white stars rise one by one,
Or, from the darken'd glen,
"Saw God divide the night with flying flame,
And thunder on the everlasting hills.
I heard Him, for He spake, and grief became
A solemn scorn of ills.
"When the next moon was roll'd into the sky,
Strength came to me that equall'd my desire.
How beautiful a thing it was to die
For God and for my sire!
"It comforts me in this one thought to dwell,
That I subdued me to my father's will;
Because the kiss he gave me, ere I fell,
Sweetens the spirit still.
"Moreover it is written that my race
Hew'd Ammon, hip and thigh, from Aroer [27]
On Arnon unto Minneth. " Here her face
Glow'd, as I look'd at her.
She lock'd her lips: she left me where I stood:
"Glory to God," she sang, and past afar,
Thridding the sombre boskage of the wood,
Toward the morning-star.
Losing her carol I stood pensively,
As one that from a casement leans his head,
When midnight bells cease ringing suddenly,
And the old year is dead.
"Alas! alas! " a low voice, full of care,
Murmur'd beside me: "Turn and look on me:
I am that Rosamond, whom men call fair,
If what I was I be.
"Would I had been some maiden coarse and poor!
O me, that I should ever see the light!
Those dragon eyes of anger'd Eleanor
Do haunt me, day and night. "
She ceased in tears, fallen from hope and trust:
To whom the Egyptian: "O, you tamely died!
You should have clung to Fulvia's waist, and thrust
The dagger thro' her side".
With that sharp sound the white dawn's creeping beams,
Stol'n to my brain, dissolved the mystery
Of folded sleep. The captain of my dreams
Ruled in the eastern sky.
Morn broaden'd on the borders of the dark,
Ere I saw her, who clasp'd in her last trance
Her murder'd father's head, or Joan of Arc, [28]
A light of ancient France;
Or her, who knew that Love can vanquish Death,
Who kneeling, with one arm about her king,
Drew forth the poison with her balmy breath, [29]
Sweet as new buds in Spring.
No memory labours longer from the deep
Gold-mines of thought to lift the hidden ore
That glimpses, moving up, than I from sleep
To gather and tell o'er
Each little sound and sight. With what dull pain
Compass'd, how eagerly I sought to strike
Into that wondrous track of dreams again!
But no two dreams are like.
As when a soul laments, which hath been blest,
Desiring what is mingled with past years,
In yearnings that can never be exprest
By sighs or groans or tears;
Because all words, tho' cull'd [30] with choicest art,
Failing to give the bitter of the sweet,
Wither beneath the palate, and the heart
Faints, faded by its heat.
[Footnote 1: Suggested apparently by Denham, 'Verses on Cowley's
Death':--
Old Chaucer, like the morning star
To us discovers
Day from far. ]
[Footnote 2: Here follow in 1833 two stanzas excised in 1842:--
In every land I thought that, more or less,
The stronger sterner nature overbore
The softer, uncontrolled by gentleness
And selfish evermore:
And whether there were any means whereby,
In some far aftertime, the gentler mind
Might reassume its just and full degree
Of rule among mankind. ]
[Footnote 3: 1833. Screamed. ]
[Footnote 4: The Latin 'testudo' formed of the shields of soldiers
held over their heads. ]
[Footnote 5: 1883 to 1848 inclusive. Stedfast. ]
[Footnote 6: 1833.
Clasping jasmine turned
Its twined arms festooning tree to tree.
Altered to present reading, 1842. ]
[Footnote 7: A lady, i. e. , Helen. ]
[Footnote 8: Tennyson has here noticed what is so often emphasised by
Greek writers, that tallness was a great beauty in women. See Aristotle,
'Ethics', iv. , 3, and Homer, 'passim, Odyssey', viii. , 416;
xviii. , 190 and 248; xxi. , 6. So Xenophon in describing Panthea
emphasises her tallness, 'Cyroped. ', v. ]
[Footnote 9: 1883. Sovran lady. ]
[Footnote 10: As the old men say, 'Iliad', iii. , 156-8. ]
[Footnote 11: The one is Iphigenia. ]
[Footnote 12: Aulis. ]
[Footnote 13: It was not till 1884 that this line was altered to the
reading of the final edition, 'i. e. ', "Which men called Aulis in
those iron years". For the "iron years" of that reading 'cf. '
Thomson, 'Spring', 384, "'iron' times". ]
[Footnote 14: From 1833 till 1853 this stanza ran:--
"The tall masts quivered as they lay afloat,
The temples and the people and the shore,
One drew a sharp knife thro' my tender throat
Slowly,--and nothing more".
It is curious that Tennyson should have allowed the last line to stand
so long; possibly it may have been to defy Lockhart's sarcastic
commentary: "What touching simplicity, what pathetic resignation--he cut
my throat, nothing more! " With Tennyson's picture should be compared
AEschylus, 'Agamem. ', 225-49, and Lucretius, i. , 85-100. For the bold and
picturesque substitution of the effect for the cause in the "bright
death quiver'd" 'cf. ' Sophocles, 'Electra', 1395,
[Greek: 'neakonaeton aima cheiroin ech_on,']
"with the newly-whetted blood on his hands". So "vulnus" is frequently
used by Virgil, and 'cf. ' Silius Italicus, 'Punica', ix. ,
368-9:--
Per pectora 'saevas'
Exceptat 'mortes'. ]
[Footnote 15: She expresses the same wish in 'Iliad', iii. , 73-4. ]
[Footnote 16: Cleopatra. The skill with which Tennyson has here given us,
in quintessence as it were, Shakespeare's superb creation needs no
commentary, but it is somewhat surprising to find an accurate scholar
like Tennyson guilty of the absurdity of representing Cleopatra as of
gipsy complexion. The daughter of Ptolemy Aulates and a lady of Pontus,
she was of Greek descent, and had no taint at all of African
intermixtures. See Peacock's remarks in 'Gryll Grange', p. 206, 7th
edit. , 1861. ]
[Footnote 17: After this in 1833 and in 1842 are the following stanzas,
afterwards excised:--
"By him great Pompey dwarfs and suffers pain,
A mortal man before immortal Mars;
The glories of great Julius lapse and wane,
And shrink from suns to stars.
"That man of all the men I ever knew
Most touched my fancy.
