rest thee sure
That I shall love thee well and cleave to thee,
So that my vigour, wedded to thy blood, [15]
Shall strike within thy pulses, like a God's,
To push thee forward thro' a life of shocks,
Dangers, and deeds, until endurance grow
Sinew'd with action, and the full-grown will.
That I shall love thee well and cleave to thee,
So that my vigour, wedded to thy blood, [15]
Shall strike within thy pulses, like a God's,
To push thee forward thro' a life of shocks,
Dangers, and deeds, until endurance grow
Sinew'd with action, and the full-grown will.
Tennyson
no!
[34]
Look thro' mine eyes with thine. True wife,
Round my true heart thine arms entwine;
My other dearer life in life,
Look thro' my very soul with thine!
Untouch'd with any shade of years,
May those kind eyes for ever dwell!
They have not shed a many tears,
Dear eyes, since first I knew them well.
Yet tears they shed: they had their part
Of sorrow: for when time was ripe,
The still affection of the heart
Became an outward breathing type,
That into stillness past again,
And left a want unknown before;
Although the loss that brought us pain,
That loss but made us love the more.
With farther lookings on. The kiss,
The woven arms, seem but to be
Weak symbols of the settled bliss,
The comfort, I have found in thee:
But that God bless thee, dear--who wrought
Two spirits to one equal mind--
With blessings beyond hope or thought,
With blessings which no words can find.
Arise, and let us wander forth,
To yon old mill across the wolds;
For look, the sunset, south and north, [35]
Winds all the vale in rosy folds,
And fires your narrow casement glass,
Touching the sullen pool below:
On the chalk-hill the bearded grass
Is dry and dewless. Let us go.
[Footnote 1: 1833. Scarce makes me. ]
[Footnote 2: 1833. Darling. ]
[Footnote 3: 1833. Own sweet wife. ]
[Footnote 4: This stanza was added in 1842. ]
[Footnote 5: 1833.
My father's mansion, mounted high
Looked down upon the village spire.
I was a long and listless boy,
And son and heir unto the squire. ]
[Footnote 6: 1833. In these dear walls. ]
[Footnote 7: 1833.
I often heard the cooing dove
In firry woodlands mourn alone. ]
[Footnote 8: 1833. The long mosses. ]
[Footnote 9: 1842-1851. Where. ]
[Footnote 10: This stanza was added in 1842, taking the place of the
following which was excised:--
Sometimes I whistled in the wind,
Sometimes I angled, thought and deed
Torpid, as swallows left behind
That winter 'neath the floating weed:
At will to wander every way
From brook to brook my sole delight,
As lithe eels over meadows gray
Oft shift their glimmering pool by night.
In 1833 this stanza ran thus:--
I loved from off the bridge to hear
The rushing sound the water made,
And see the fish that everywhere
In the back-current glanced and played;
Low down the tall flag-flower that sprung
Beside the noisy stepping-stones,
And the massed chestnut boughs that hung
Thick-studded over with white cones,]
[Footnote 11: In 1833 the following took the place of the above stanza
which was added in 1842:--
How dear to me in youth, my love,
Was everything about the mill,
The black and silent pool above,
The pool beneath that ne'er stood still,
The meal sacks on the whitened floor,
The dark round of the dripping wheel,
The very air about the door--
Made misty with the floating meal!
Thus in 1833:--
Remember you that pleasant day
When, after roving in the woods,
('Twas April then) I came and lay
Beneath those gummy chestnut bud
That glistened in the April blue,
Upon the slope so smooth and cool,
I lay and never thought of _you_,
But angled in the deep mill pool. ]
[Footnote 12: Thus in 1833:--
A water-rat from off the bank
Plunged in the stream. With idle care,
Downlooking thro' the sedges rank,
I saw your troubled image there.
Upon the dark and dimpled beck
It wandered like a floating light,
A full fair form, a warm white neck,
And two white arms--how rosy white! ]
[Footnote 13: 1872. Casement-edge. ]
[Footnote 14: Thus in 1833:--
If you remember, you had set
Upon the narrow casement-edge
A long green box of mignonette,
And you were leaning from the ledge.
I raised my eyes at once: above
They met two eyes so blue and bright,
Such eyes! I swear to you, my love,
That they have never lost their light.
After this stanza the following was inserted in 1833 but excised in
1842:--
That slope beneath the chestnut tall
Is wooed with choicest breaths of air:
Methinks that I could tell you all
The cowslips and the kingcups there.
Each coltsfoot down the grassy bent,
Whose round leaves hold the gathered shower,
Each quaintly-folded cuckoo pint,
And silver-paly cuckoo flower. ]
[Footnote 15: Thus in 1833:--
In rambling on the eastern wold,
When thro' the showery April nights
Their hueless crescent glimmered cold,
From all the other village lights
I knew your taper far away.
My heart was full of trembling hope,
Down from the wold I came and lay
Upon the dewy-swarded slope. ]
[Footnote 16; Mr. Cuming Walters in his interesting volume 'In Tennyson
Land', p. 75, notices that the white chalk quarry at Thetford can be
seen from Stockworth Mill, which seems to show that if Tennyson did take
the mill from Trumpington he must also have had his mind on Thetford
Mill. Tennyson seems to have taken delight in baffling those who wished
to localise his scenes. He went out of his way to say that the
topographical studies of Messrs. Church and Napier were the only ones
which could be relied upon. But Mr. Cuming Walters' book is far more
satisfactory than their thin studies. ]
[Footnote 17: Thus in 1833:--
The white chalk quarry from the hill
Upon the broken ripple gleamed,
I murmured lowly, sitting still,
While round my feet the eddy streamed:
"Oh! that I were the wreath she wreathes,
The mirror where her sight she feeds,
The song she sings, the air she breathes,
The letters of the books she reads". ]
[Footnote 18: 1833.
I loved, but when I dared to speak
My love, the lanes were white with May
Your ripe lips moved not, but your cheek
Flushed like the coming of the day. ]
[Footnote 19: 1833. Rosecheekt, roselipt, half-sly, half-shy. ]
[Footnote 20: Cf. Milton, 'Paradise Lost';--
Two other precious drops that ready stood
He, ere they fell, kiss'd. ]
[Footnote 21: These three stanzas were added in 1842, the following
being excised:--
Remember you the clear moonlight,
That whitened all the eastern ridge,
When o'er the water, dancing white,
I stepped upon the old mill-bridge.
I heard you whisper from above
A lute-toned whisper, "I am here";
I murmured, "Speak again, my love,
The stream is loud: I cannot hear ".
I heard, as I have seemed to hear,
When all the under-air was still,
The low voice of the glad new year
Call to the freshly-flowered hill.
I heard, as I have often heard
The nightingale in leavy woods
Call to its mate, when nothing stirred
To left or right but falling floods. ]
[Footnote 22: 1842. I gave you on the joyful day. ]
[Footnote 23: In 1833 the following stanza took the place of the one
here substituted in 1842:--
Come, Alice, sing to me the song
I made you on our marriage day,
When, arm in arm, we went along
Half-tearfully, and you were gay
With brooch and ring: for I shall seem,
The while you sing that song, to hear
The mill-wheel turning in the stream,
And the green chestnut whisper near.
In 1833 the song began thus, the present stanza taking its place in
1842:--
I wish I were her earring,
Ambushed in auburn ringlets sleek,
(So might my shadow tremble
Over her downy cheek),
Hid in her hair, all day and night,
Touching her neck so warm and white. ]
[Footnote 24: 1872. In. ]
[Footnote 25: 1833.
I wish I were the girdle
Buckled about her dainty waist,
That her heart might beat against me,
In sorrow and in rest.
I should know well if it beat right,
I'd clasp it round so close and tight.
This stanza bears so close a resemblance to a stanza in Joshua
Sylvester's 'Woodman's Bear' (see Sylvester's 'Works', ed. 1641, p. 616)
that a correspondent asked Tennyson whether Sylvester had suggested it.
Tennyson replied that he had never seen Sylvester's lines ('Life of
Tennyson', iii. , 51). The lines are:--
But her slender virgin waste
Made mee beare her girdle spight
Which the same by day imbrac't
Though it were cast off by night
That I wisht, I dare not say,
To be girdle night and day.
For other parallels see the present Editor's 'Illustrations of
Tennyson', p. 39. ]
[Footnote 26: 1833.
I wish I were her necklace,
So might I ever fall and rise. ]
[Footnote 27: 1833. So warm and light. ]
[Footnote 28: 1833. I would not be. ]
[Footnote 29: 1833.
For o'er each letter broods and dwells,
(Like light from running waters thrown
On flowery swaths) the blissful flame
Of his sweet eyes, that, day and night,
With pulses thrilling thro' his frame
Do inly tremble, starry bright. ]
[Footnote 30: Thus in 1833:--
How I waste language--yet in truth
You must blame love, whose early rage
Made me a rhymster in my youth,
And over-garrulous in age. ]
[Footnote 31: 1833. Sing me. ]
[Footnote 32: 1833.
When in the breezy limewood-shade.
I found the blue forget-me-not. ]
[Footnote 33: In 1833 the following song took the place of the song in
the text:--
All yesternight you met me not,
My ladylove, forget me not.
When I am gone, regret me not.
But, here or there, forget me not.
With your arched eyebrow threat me not,
And tremulous eyes, like April skies,
That seem to say, "forget me not,"
I pray you, love, forget me not.
In idle sorrow set me not;
Regret me not; forget me not;
Oh! leave me not: oh, let me not
Wear quite away;--forget me not.
With roguish laughter fret me not.
From dewy eyes, like April skies,
That ever _look_, "forget me not".
Blue as the blue forget-me-not. ]
[Footnote 34: These two stanzas were added in 1842. ]
[Footnote 35: 1833.
I've half a mind to walk, my love,
To the old mill across the wolds
For look! the sunset from above,]
FATIMA
First printed in 1833.
The 1833 edition has no title but this quotation from Sappho prefixed:--
'Phainetai moi kaenos isos theoisin Emmen anaer'--SAPPHO.
The title was prefixed in 1842; it is a name taken from 'The Arabian
Nights' or from the Moallakat. The poem was evidently inspired by
Sappho's great ode. 'Cf. ' also Fragment I. of Ibycus. In the intensity
of the passion it stands alone among Tennyson's poems.
O Love, Love, Love! O withering might!
O sun, that from [1] thy noonday height
Shudderest when I strain my sight,
Throbbing thro' all thy heat and light,
Lo, falling from my constant mind,
Lo, parch'd and wither'd, deaf and blind,
I whirl like leaves in roaring wind.
Last night I wasted hateful hours
Below the city's eastern towers:
I thirsted for the brooks, the showers:
I roll'd among the tender flowers:
I crush'd them on my breast, my mouth:
I look'd athwart the burning drouth
Of that long desert to the south. [2]
Last night, when some one spoke his name, [3]
From my swift blood that went and came
A thousand little shafts of flame.
Were shiver'd in my narrow frame
O Love, O fire! once he drew
With one long kiss, my whole soul thro'
My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew. [4]
Before he mounts the hill, I know
He cometh quickly: from below
Sweet gales, as from deep gardens, blow
Before him, striking on my brow.
In my dry brain my spirit soon,
Down-deepening from swoon to swoon,
Faints like a dazzled morning moon.
The wind sounds like a silver wire,
And from beyond the noon a fire
Is pour'd upon the hills, and nigher
The skies stoop down in their desire;
And, isled in sudden seas of light,
My heart, pierced thro' with fierce delight,
Bursts into blossom in his sight.
My whole soul waiting silently,
All naked in a sultry sky,
Droops blinded with his shining eye:
I 'will' possess him or will die.
I will grow round him in his place,
Grow, live, die looking on his face,
Die, dying clasp'd in his embrace.
[Footnote 1: 1833. At. ]
[Footnote 2: This stanza was added in 1842. ]
[Footnote 3: 'Cf. ' Byron, 'Occasional Pieces':--
They name thee before me A knell to mine ear, A shudder comes o'er me,
Why wert thou so dear? ]
[Footnote 4: 'Cf,' Achilles Tatius, 'Clitophon and Leucippe', bk. i. , I:
[Greek: 'AEde (psyche) tarachtheisa tps philaemati palletai, ei de
mae tois splagchnois in dedemenae aekolouthaesen an elkaetheisa ano tois
philaemasin. ']
(Her soul, distracted by the kiss, throbs, and had it not been close
bound by the flesh would have followed, drawn upward by the kisses. )]
? NONE
First published in 1833, On being republished in 1842 this poem was
practically rewritten, the alterations and additions so transforming the
poem as to make it almost a new work. I have therefore printed a
complete transcript of the edition of 1833, which the reader can
compare. The final text is, with the exception of one alteration which
will be noticed, precisely that of 1842, so there is no trouble with
variants. '? none' is the first of Tennyson's fine classical studies. The
poem is modelled partly on the Alexandrian Idyll, such an Idyll for
instance as the second Idyll of Theocritus or the 'Megara' or 'Europa'
of Moschus, and partly perhaps on the narratives in the 'Metamorphoses'
of Ovid, to which the opening bears a typical resemblance. It is
possible that the poem may have been suggested by Beattie's 'Judgment of
Paris' which tells the same story, and tells it on the same lines on
which it is told here, though it is not placed in the mouth of ? none.
Beattie's poem opens with an elaborate description of Ida and of Troy in
the distance. Paris, the husband of ? none, is one afternoon confronted
with the three goddesses who are, as in Tennyson's Idyll, elaborately
delineated as symbolising what they here symbolise. Each makes her
speech and each offers what she has to offer, worldly dominion, wisdom,
sensual pleasure. There is, of course, no comparison in point of merit
between the two poems, Beattie's being in truth perfectly commonplace.
In its symbolic aspect the poem may be compared with the temptations to
which Christ is submitted in 'Paradise Regained'. See books iii. and iv.
There lies a vale in Ida, lovelier [1]
Than all the valleys of Ionian hills.
The swimming vapour slopes athwart the glen,
Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine,
And loiters, slowly drawn. On either hand
The lawns and meadow-ledges midway down
Hang rich in flowers, and far below them roars
The long brook falling thro' the clov'n ravine
In cataract after cataract to the sea.
Behind the valley topmost Gargarus [2]
Stands up and takes the morning: but in front
The gorges, opening wide apart, reveal
Troas and Ilion's column'd citadel,
The crown of Troas.
Hither came at noon
Mournful ? none, wandering forlorn
Of Paris, once her playmate on the hills.
Her cheek had lost the rose, and round her neck
Floated her hair or seem'd to float in rest.
She, leaning on a fragment twined with vine,
Sang to the stillness, till the mountain-shade
Sloped downward to her seat from the upper cliff.
"O mother Ida, many-fountain'd [3] Ida,
Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
For now the noonday quiet holds the hill: [4]
The grasshopper is silent in the grass;
The lizard, with his shadow on the stone, [5]
Rests like a shadow, and the cicala sleeps. [6]
The purple flowers droop: the golden bee
Is lily-cradled: I alone awake.
My eyes are full of tears, my heart of love,
My heart is breaking, and my eyes are dim, [7]
And I am all aweary of my life.
"O mother Ida, many-fountain'd Ida,
Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
Hear me O Earth, hear me O Hills, O Caves
That house the cold crown'd snake! O mountain brooks,
I am the daughter of a River-God, [8]
Hear me, for I will speak, and build up all
My sorrow with my song, as yonder walls
Rose slowly to a music slowly breathed, [9]
A cloud that gather'd shape: for it may be
That, while I speak of it, a little while
My heart may wander from its deeper woe.
"O mother Ida, many-fountain'd Ida,
Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
I waited underneath the dawning hills,
Aloft the mountain lawn was dewy-dark,
And dewy-dark aloft the mountain pine:
Beautiful Paris, evil-hearted Paris,
Leading a jet-black goat white-horn'd, white-hooved,
Came up from reedy Simois [10] all alone.
"O mother Ida, harken ere I die.
Far-off the torrent call'd me from the cleft:
Far up the solitary morning smote
The streaks of virgin snow. With down-dropt eyes
I sat alone: white-breasted like a star
Fronting the dawn he moved; a leopard skin
Droop'd from his shoulder, but his sunny hair
Cluster'd about his temples like a God's;
And his cheek brighten'd as the foam-bow brightens
When the wind blows the foam, and all my heart
Went forth to embrace him coming ere he came.
"Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
He smiled, and opening out his milk-white palm
Disclosed a fruit of pure Hesperian gold,
That smelt ambrosially, and while I look'd
And listen'd, the full-flowing river of speech
Came down upon my heart.
"'My own ? none,
Beautiful-brow'd ? none, my own soul,
Behold this fruit, whose gleaming rind ingrav'n
"For the most fair," would seem to award it thine,
As lovelier than whatever Oread haunt
The knolls of Ida, loveliest in all grace
Of movement, and the charm of married brows. '[11]
"Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
He prest the blossom of his lips to mine,
And added 'This was cast upon the board,
When all the full-faced presence of the Gods
Ranged in the halls of Peleus; whereupon
Rose feud, with question unto whom 'twere due:
But light-foot Iris brought it yester-eve,
Delivering, that to me, by common voice
Elected umpire, Here comes to-day,
Pallas and Aphrodite, claiming each
This meed of fairest. Thou, within the cave
Behind yon whispering tuft of oldest pine,
Mayst well behold them unbeheld, unheard
Hear all, and see thy Paris judge of Gods. '
"Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
It was the deep midnoon: one silvery cloud
Had lost his way between the piney sides
Of this long glen. Then to the bower they came,
Naked they came to that smooth-swarded bower,
And at their feet the crocus brake like fire,[12]
Violet, amaracus, and asphodel,
Lotos and lilies: and a wind arose,
And overhead the wandering ivy and vine,
This way and that, in many a wild festoon
Ran riot, garlanding the gnarled boughs
With bunch and berry and flower thro' and thro'.
"O mother Ida, harken ere I die.
On the tree-tops a crested peacock lit,
And o'er him flow'd a golden cloud, and lean'd
Upon him, slowing dropping fragrant dew.
Then first I heard the voice of her, to whom
Coming thro' Heaven, like a light that grows
Larger and clearer, with one mind the Gods
Rise up for reverence. She to Paris made
Proffer of royal power, ample rule
Unquestion'd, overflowing revenue
Wherewith to embellish state, 'from many a vale
And river-sunder'd champaign clothed with corn,
Or labour'd mines undrainable of ore.
Honour,' she said, 'and homage, tax and toll,
From many an inland town and haven large,
Mast-throng'd beneath her shadowing citadel
In glassy bays among her tallest towers. '
"O mother Ida, harken ere I die.
Still she spake on and still she spake of power,
'Which in all action is the end of all;
Power fitted to the season; wisdom-bred
And throned of wisdom--from all neighbour crowns
Alliance and allegiance, till thy hand
Fail from the sceptre staff. Such boon from me,
From me, Heaven's Queen, Paris to thee king-born,
A shepherd all thy life but yet king-born,
Should come most welcome, seeing men, in power
Only, are likest gods, who have attain'd
Rest in a happy place and quiet seats
Above the thunder, with undying bliss
In knowledge of their own supremacy. '
"Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
She ceased, and Paris held the costly fruit
Out at arm's-length, so much the thought of power
Flatter'd his spirit; but Pallas where she stood
Somewhat apart, her clear and bared limbs
O'erthwarted with the brazen-headed spear
Upon her pearly shoulder leaning cold,
The while, above, her full and earnest eye
Over her snow-cold breast and angry cheek [13]
Kept watch, waiting decision, made reply.
"'Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control,
These three alone lead life to sovereign power.
Yet not for power, (power of herself
Would come uncall'd for) but to live by law,
Acting the law we live by without fear;
And, because right is right, to follow right [14]
Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence. '
"Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
Again she said: 'I woo thee not with gifts.
Sequel of guerdon could not alter me
To fairer. Judge thou me by what I am,
So shalt thou find me fairest. Yet indeed,
If gazing on divinity disrobed
Thy mortal eyes are frail to judge of fair,
Unbiass'd by self-profit, oh!
rest thee sure
That I shall love thee well and cleave to thee,
So that my vigour, wedded to thy blood, [15]
Shall strike within thy pulses, like a God's,
To push thee forward thro' a life of shocks,
Dangers, and deeds, until endurance grow
Sinew'd with action, and the full-grown will.
Circled thro' all experiences, pure law,
Commeasure perfect freedom. ' "Here she ceased,
And Paris ponder'd, and I cried, 'O Paris,
Give it to Pallas! ' but he heard me not,
Or hearing would not hear me, woe is me!
"O mother Ida, many-fountain'd Ida.
Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
Idalian Aphrodite, beautiful,
Fresh as the foam, new-bathed in Paphian [16] wells,
With rosy slender fingers backward drew
From her warm brows and bosom [17] her deep hair
Ambrosial, golden round her lucid throat
And shoulder: from the violets her light foot
Shone rosy-white, and o'er her rounded form
Between the shadows of the vine-bunches
Floated the glowing sunlights, as she moved.
"Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
She with a subtle smile in her mild eyes,
The herald of her triumph, drawing nigh
Half-whisper'd in his ear, 'I promise thee
The fairest and most loving wife in Greece'.
She spoke and laugh'd: I shut my sight for fear:
But when I look'd, Paris had raised his arm,
And I beheld great Here's angry eyes,
As she withdrew into the golden cloud,
And I was left alone within the bower;
And from that time to this I am alone,
And I shall be alone until I die.
"Yet, mother Ida, harken ere I die.
Fairest--why fairest wife? am I not fair?
My love hath told me so a thousand times.
Methinks I must be fair, for yesterday,
When I past by, a wild and wanton pard,
Eyed like the evening star, with playful tail
Crouch'd fawning in the weed. Most loving is she?
Ah me, my mountain shepherd, that my arms
Were wound about thee, and my hot lips prest
Close, close to thine in that quick-falling dew
Of fruitful kisses, thick as Autumn rains
Flash in the pools of whirling Simois.
"O mother, hear me yet before I die.
They came, they cut away my tallest pines,
My dark tall pines, that plumed the craggy ledge
High over the blue gorge, and all between
The snowy peak and snow-white cataract
Foster'd the callow eaglet--from beneath
Whose thick mysterious boughs in the dark morn
The panther's roar came muffled, while I sat
Low in the valley. Never, never more
Shall lone ? none see the morning mist
Sweep thro' them; never see them overlaid
With narrow moon-lit slips of silver cloud,
Between the loud stream and the trembling stars.
"O mother, here me yet before I die.
I wish that somewhere in the ruin'd folds,
Among the fragments tumbled from the glens,
Or the dry thickets, I could meet with her,
The Abominable, [18] that uninvited came
Into the fair Peleian banquet-hall,
And cast the golden fruit upon the board,
And bred this change; that I might speak my mind,
And tell her to her face how much I hate
Her presence, hated both of Gods and men.
"O mother, here me yet before I die.
Hath he not sworn his love a thousand times,
In this green valley, under this green hill,
Ev'n on this hand, and sitting on this stone?
Seal'd it with kisses? water'd it with tears?
O happy tears, and how unlike to these!
O happy Heaven, how canst thou see my face?
O happy earth, how canst thou bear my weight?
O death, death, death, thou ever-floating cloud,
There are enough unhappy on this earth,
Pass by the happy souls, that love to live:
I pray thee, pass before my light of life,
And shadow all my soul, that I may die.
Thou weighest heavy on the heart within,
Weigh heavy on my eyelids: let me die.
"O mother, hear me yet before I die.
I will not die alone, for fiery thoughts
Do shape themselves within me, more and more,
Whereof I catch the issue, as I hear
Dead sounds at night come from the inmost hills,
Like footsteps upon wool. I dimly see
My far-off doubtful purpose, as a mother
Conjectures of the features of her child
Ere it is born: her child! --a shudder comes
Across me: never child be born of me,
Unblest, to vex me with his father's eyes!
"O mother, hear me yet before I die.
Hear me, O earth. I will not die alone,
Lest their shrill happy laughter come to me
Walking the cold and starless road of
Death Uncomforted, leaving my ancient love
With the Greek woman. [19] I will rise and go
Down into Troy, and ere the stars come forth
Talk with the wild Cassandra, [20] for she says
A fire dances before her, and a sound
Rings ever in her ears of armed men.
What this may be I know not, but I know
That, wheresoe'er I am by night and day,
All earth and air seem only burning fire. "
[1833. ]
There is a dale in Ida, lovelier
Than any in old Ionia, beautiful
With emerald slopes of sunny sward, that lean
Above the loud glenriver, which hath worn
A path thro' steepdown granite walls below
Mantled with flowering tendriltwine. In front
The cedarshadowy valleys open wide.
Far-seen, high over all the God-built wall
And many a snowycolumned range divine,
Mounted with awful sculptures--men and Gods,
The work of Gods--bright on the dark-blue sky
The windy citadel of Ilion
Shone, like the crown of Troas. Hither came
Mournful ? none wandering forlorn
Of Paris, once her playmate. Round her neck,
Her neck all marblewhite and marblecold,
Floated her hair or seemed to float in rest.
She, leaning on a vine-entwined stone,
Sang to the stillness, till the mountain-shadow
Sloped downward to her seat from the upper cliff.
"O mother Ida, manyfountained Ida,
Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
The grasshopper is silent in the grass,
The lizard with his shadow on the stone
Sleeps like a shadow, and the scarletwinged [21]
Cicala in the noonday leapeth not
Along the water-rounded granite-rock.
The purple flower droops: the golden bee
Is lilycradled: I alone awake.
My eyes are full of tears, my heart of love,
My heart is breaking and my eyes are dim,
And I am all aweary of my life.
"O mother Ida, manyfountained Ida,
Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
Hear me O Earth, hear me O Hills, O Caves
That house the cold crowned snake! O mountain brooks,
I am the daughter of a River-God,
Hear me, for I will speak, and build up all
My sorrow with my song, as yonder walls
Rose slowly to a music slowly breathed,
A cloud that gathered shape: for it may be
That, while I speak of it, a little while
My heart may wander from its deeper woe.
"O mother Ida, manyfountained Ida,
Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
Aloft the mountain lawn was dewydark,
And dewydark aloft the mountain pine;
Beautiful Paris, evil-hearted Paris,
Leading a jetblack goat whitehorned, whitehooved,
Came up from reedy Simois all alone.
"O mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
I sate alone: the goldensandalled morn
Rosehued the scornful hills: I sate alone
With downdropt eyes: white-breasted like a star
Fronting the dawn he came: a leopard skin
From his white shoulder drooped: his sunny hair
Clustered about his temples like a God's:
And his cheek brightened, as the foambow brightens
When the wind blows the foam; and I called out,
'Welcome Apollo, welcome home Apollo,
Apollo, my Apollo, loved Apollo'.
"Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
He, mildly smiling, in his milk-white palm
Close-held a golden apple, lightningbright
With changeful flashes, dropt with dew of Heaven
Ambrosially smelling. From his lip,
Curved crimson, the full-flowing river of speech
Came down upon my heart.
"' My own ? none,
Beautifulbrowed ? none, mine own soul,
Behold this fruit, whose gleaming rind ingrav'n
"For the most fair," in aftertime may breed
Deep evilwilledness of heaven and sore
Heartburning toward hallowed Ilion;
And all the colour of my afterlife
Will be the shadow of to-day. To-day
Hera and Pallas and the floating grace
Of laughter-loving Aphrodite meet
In manyfolded Ida to receive
This meed of beauty, she to whom my hand
Award the palm. Within the green hillside,
Under yon whispering tuft of oldest pine,
Is an ingoing grotto, strown with spar
And ivymatted at the mouth, wherein
Thou unbeholden may'st behold, unheard
Hear all, and see thy Paris judge of Gods. '
"Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
It was the deep midnoon: one silvery cloud
Had lost his way between the piney hills.
They came--all three--the Olympian goddesses.
Naked they came to the smoothswarded bower,
Lustrous with lilyflower, violeteyed
Both white and blue, with lotetree-fruit thickset,
Shadowed with singing-pine; and all the while,
Above, the overwandering ivy and vine
This way and that in many a wild festoon
Ran riot, garlanding the gnarled boughs
With bunch and berry and flower thro' and thro'.
On the treetops a golden glorious cloud
Leaned, slowly dropping down ambrosial dew.
How beautiful they were, too beautiful
To look upon! but Paris was to me
More lovelier than all the world beside.
"O mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
First spake the imperial Olympian
With arched eyebrow smiling sovranly,
Fulleyed here. She to Paris made
Proffer of royal power, ample rule
Unquestioned, overflowing revenue
Wherewith to embellish state, 'from many a vale
And river-sundered champaign clothed with corn,
Or upland glebe wealthy in oil and wine--
Honour and homage, tribute, tax and toll,
From many an inland town and haven large,
Mast-thronged below her shadowing citadel
In glassy bays among her tallest towers. '
"O mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
Still she spake on and still she spake of power
'Which in all action is the end of all.
Power fitted to the season, measured by
The height of the general feeling, wisdomborn
And throned of wisdom--from all neighbour crowns
Alliance and allegiance evermore. Such boon from me
Heaven's Queen to thee kingborn,
A shepherd all thy life and yet kingborn,
Should come most welcome, seeing men, in this
Only are likest gods, who have attained
Rest in a happy place and quiet seats
Above the thunder, with undying bliss
In knowledge of their own supremacy;
The changeless calm of undisputed right,
The highest height and topmost strength of power. '
"Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
She ceased, and Paris held the costly fruit
Out at arm's length, so much the thought of power
Flattered his heart: but Pallas where she stood
Somewhat apart, her clear and bared limbs
O'erthwarted with the brazen-headed spear
Upon her pearly shoulder leaning cold;
The while, above, her full and earnest eye
Over her snowcold breast and angry cheek
Kept watch, waiting decision, made reply.
"'Selfreverence, selfknowledge, selfcontrol
Are the three hinges of the gates of Life,
That open into power, everyway
Without horizon, bound or shadow or cloud.
Yet not for power (power of herself
Will come uncalled-for) but to live by law
Acting the law we live by without fear,
And, because right is right, to follow right
Were wisdom, in the scorn of consequence.
(Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die. )
Not as men value gold because it tricks
And blazons outward Life with ornament,
But rather as the miser, for itself.
Good for selfgood doth half destroy selfgood.
The means and end, like two coiled snakes, infect
Each other, bound in one with hateful love.
So both into the fountain and the stream
A drop of poison falls. Come hearken to me,
And look upon me and consider me,
So shall thou find me fairest, so endurance,
Like to an athlete's arm, shall still become
Sinewed with motion, till thine active will
(As the dark body of the Sun robed round
With his own ever-emanating lights)
Be flooded o'er with her own effluences,
And thereby grow to freedom. ' "Here she ceased
And Paris pondered. I cried out, 'Oh, Paris,
Give it to Pallas! ' but he heard me not,
Or hearing would not hear me, woe is me!
"O mother Ida, manyfountained Ida,
Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
Idalian Aphrodite oceanborn,
Fresh as the foam, newbathed in Paphian wells,
With rosy slender fingers upward drew
From her warm brow and bosom her dark hair
Fragrant and thick, and on her head upbound
In a purple band: below her lucid neck
Shone ivorylike, and from the ground her foot
Gleamed rosywhite, and o'er her rounded form
Between the shadows of the vine-bunches
Floated the glowing sunlights, as she moved.
"Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
She with a subtle smile in her mild eyes,
The herald of her triumph, drawing nigh
Half-whispered in his ear, 'I promise thee
The fairest and most loving wife in Greece'.
I only saw my Paris raise his arm:
I only saw great Here's angry eyes,
As she withdrew into the golden cloud,
And I was left alone within the bower;
And from that time to this I am alone.
And I shall be alone until I die.
"Yet, mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
Fairest--why fairest wife? am I not fair?
My love hath told me so a thousand times.
Methinks I must be fair, for yesterday,
When I passed by, a wild and wanton pard,
Eyed like the evening star, with playful tail
Crouched fawning in the weed. Most loving is she?
Ah me, my mountain shepherd, that my arms
Were wound about thee, and my hot lips prest
Close-close to thine in that quickfalling dew
Of fruitful kisses, thick as Autumn rains
Flash in the pools of whirling Simois.
"Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
They came, they cut away my tallest pines--
My dark tall pines, that plumed the craggy ledge
High over the blue gorge, or lower down
Filling greengulphed Ida, all between
The snowy peak and snowwhite cataract
Fostered the callow eaglet--from beneath
Whose thick mysterious boughs in the dark
The panther's roar came muffled, while I sat
Low in the valley. Never, nevermore
Shall lone ? none see the morning mist
Sweep thro' them--never see them overlaid
With narrow moon-lit slips of silver cloud,
Between the loud stream and the trembling stars.
"Oh! mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
Hath he not sworn his love a thousand times,
In this green valley, under this green hill,
Ev'n on this hand, and sitting on this stone?
Sealed it with kisses? watered it with tears?
Oh happy tears, and how unlike to these!
Oh happy Heaven, how can'st thou see my face?
Oh happy earth, how can'st thou bear my weight?
O death, death, death, thou ever-floating cloud,
There are enough unhappy on this earth,
Pass by the happy souls, that love to live:
I pray thee, pass before my light of life.
And shadow all my soul, that I may die.
Thou weighest heavy on the heart within,
Weigh heavy on my eyelids--let me die.
"Yet, mother Ida, hear me ere I die.
I will not die alone, for fiery thoughts
Do shape themselves within me, more and more,
Whereof I catch the issue, as I hear
Dead sounds at night come from the inmost hills,
Like footsteps upon wool. I dimly see
My far-off doubtful purpose, as a mother
Conjectures of the features of her child
Ere it is born. I will not die alone.
"Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
Hear me, O earth. I will not die alone,
Lest their shrill, happy laughter, etc.
(Same as last stanza of subsequent editions. )
[Footnote 1: Tennyson, as we learn from his 'Life' (vol. i. , p. 83),
began '? none' while he and Arthur Hallam were in Spain, whither they
went with money for the insurgent allies of Torrigos in the summer of
1830. He wrote part of it in the valley of Cauteretz in the Pyrenees,
the picturesque beauty of which fascinated him and not only suggested
the scenery of this Idyll, but inspired many years afterwards the poem
'All along the valley'. The exquisite scene with which the Idyll opens
bears no resemblance at all to Mount Ida and the Troad. ]
[Footnote 2: Gargarus or Gargaron is the highest peak of the Ida range,
rising about 4650 feet above the level of the sea. ]
[Footnote 3: The epithet many-fountain'd [Greek:'polpidax'] is Homer's
stock epithet for Ida. 'Cf. Iliad', viii. , 47; xiv. , 283, etc. , etc. ]
[Footnote 4: A literal translation from a line in Callimachus, 'Lavacrum
Palladis', 72:
[Greek: 'mesambrinae d'eich horos haesuchia']
(noonday quiet held the hill). ]
[Footnote 5: So Theocritus, 'Idyll', vii. , 22:--
[Greek: 'Anika dae kai sauros eph aimasiaisi katheudei. ']
(When indeed the very lizard is sleeping on the loose stones of the
wall. )]
[Footnote 6: This extraordinary mistake in natural history (the cicala
being of course loudest in mid noonday when the heat is greatest)
Tennyson allowed to stand, till securing accuracy at the heavy price of
a pointless pleonasm, he substituted in 1884 "and the winds are dead". ]
[Footnote 7: An echo from 'Henry VI. ', part ii. , act ii. , se.
iii. :--
Mine eyes arc full of tears, my heart of grief. ]
[Footnote 8: ? none was the daughter of the River-God Kebren. ]
[Footnote 9: For the myth here referred to see Ovid, 'Heroides',
xvi. , 179-80:--
Ilion aspicies, firmataque turribus altis Moenia,
Phoeboeae; structa canore lyrae.
It was probably an application of the Theban legend of Amphion, and
arose from the association of Apollo with Poseidon in founding Troy.
A fabric huge 'Rose like an exhalation,'
--Milton's 'Paradise Lost', i. , 710-11.
'Cf. Gareth and Lynette', 254-7. ]
[Footnote 10: The river Simois, so often referred to in the 'Iliad',
had its origin in Mount Cotylus, and passing by Ilion joined the
Scamander below the city. ]
[Footnote 11: 'Cf'. the [Greek: synophrys kora](the maid of the meeting
brows) of Theocritus, 'Id'. , viii. , 72. This was considered a great
beauty among the Greeks, Romans and Orientals. Ovid, 'Ars. Amat'. , iii. ,
201, speaks of women effecting this by art: "Arte, supercilii confinia
nuda repletis". ]
[Footnote 12: The whole of this gorgeous passage is taken, with one or
two additions and alterations in the names of the flowers, from
'Iliad', xiv. , 347-52, with a reminiscence no doubt of Milton,
'Paradise Lost', iv. , 695-702. ]
[Footnote 13: The "'angry' cheek" is a fine touch. ]
[Footnote 14: This fine sentiment is, of course, a commonplace among
ancient philosophers, but it may be interesting to put beside it a
passage from Cicero, 'De Finibus', ii. , 14, 45:
"Honestum id intelligimus quod tale est ut, detracta omni utilitate,
sine ullis praemiis fructibusve per se ipsum possit jure laudari".
We are to understand by the truly honourable that which, setting aside
all consideration of utility, may be rightly praised in itself,
exclusive of any prospect of reward or compensation. ]
[Footnote 15: This passage is very obscurely expressed, but the general
meaning is clear: "Until endurance grow sinewed with action, and the
full-grown will, circled through all experiences grow or become law, be
identified with law, and commeasure perfect freedom". The true moral
ideal is to bring the will into absolute harmony with law, so that
virtuous action becomes an instinct, the will no longer rebelling
against the law, "service" being in very truth "perfect freedom". ]
[Footnote 16: The Paphos referred to is the old Paphos which was sacred
to Aphrodite; it was on the south-west extremity of Cyprus. ]
[Footnote 17: Adopted from a line excised in 'Mariana in the South'.
See 'supra'. ]
[Footnote 18: This was Eris. ]
[Footnote 19: Helen. ]
[Footnote 20: With these verses should be compared Schiller's fine lyric
'Kassandra', and with the line, "All earth and air seem only
burning fire,' from Webster's 'Duchess of Malfi':--
The heaven o'er my head seems made of molten brass,
The earth of flaming sulphur. ]
[Footnote 21: In the Pyrenees, where part of this poem was written, I saw
a very beautiful species of Cicala, which had scarlet wings spotted with
black. Probably nothing of the kind exists in Mount Ida. ]
THE SISTERS
First published in 1833.
The only alterations which have been made in it since have simply
consisted in the alteration of "'an'" for "and" in the third line of
each stanza, and "through and through" for "thro' and thro'" in line 29,
and "wrapt" for "wrapped" in line 34. It is curious that in 1842 the
original "bad" was altered to "bade," but all subsequent editions keep
to the original. It has been said that this poem was founded on the old
Scotch ballad "The Twa Sisters" (see for that ballad Sharpe's 'Ballad
Book', No. x. , p. 30), but there is no resemblance at all between the
ballad and this poem beyond the fact that in each there are two sisters
who are both loved by a certain squire, the elder in jealousy pushing
the younger into a river and drowning her.
We were two daughters of one race:
She was the fairest in the face:
The wind is blowing in turret and tree.
They were together and she fell;
Therefore revenge became me well.
Look thro' mine eyes with thine. True wife,
Round my true heart thine arms entwine;
My other dearer life in life,
Look thro' my very soul with thine!
Untouch'd with any shade of years,
May those kind eyes for ever dwell!
They have not shed a many tears,
Dear eyes, since first I knew them well.
Yet tears they shed: they had their part
Of sorrow: for when time was ripe,
The still affection of the heart
Became an outward breathing type,
That into stillness past again,
And left a want unknown before;
Although the loss that brought us pain,
That loss but made us love the more.
With farther lookings on. The kiss,
The woven arms, seem but to be
Weak symbols of the settled bliss,
The comfort, I have found in thee:
But that God bless thee, dear--who wrought
Two spirits to one equal mind--
With blessings beyond hope or thought,
With blessings which no words can find.
Arise, and let us wander forth,
To yon old mill across the wolds;
For look, the sunset, south and north, [35]
Winds all the vale in rosy folds,
And fires your narrow casement glass,
Touching the sullen pool below:
On the chalk-hill the bearded grass
Is dry and dewless. Let us go.
[Footnote 1: 1833. Scarce makes me. ]
[Footnote 2: 1833. Darling. ]
[Footnote 3: 1833. Own sweet wife. ]
[Footnote 4: This stanza was added in 1842. ]
[Footnote 5: 1833.
My father's mansion, mounted high
Looked down upon the village spire.
I was a long and listless boy,
And son and heir unto the squire. ]
[Footnote 6: 1833. In these dear walls. ]
[Footnote 7: 1833.
I often heard the cooing dove
In firry woodlands mourn alone. ]
[Footnote 8: 1833. The long mosses. ]
[Footnote 9: 1842-1851. Where. ]
[Footnote 10: This stanza was added in 1842, taking the place of the
following which was excised:--
Sometimes I whistled in the wind,
Sometimes I angled, thought and deed
Torpid, as swallows left behind
That winter 'neath the floating weed:
At will to wander every way
From brook to brook my sole delight,
As lithe eels over meadows gray
Oft shift their glimmering pool by night.
In 1833 this stanza ran thus:--
I loved from off the bridge to hear
The rushing sound the water made,
And see the fish that everywhere
In the back-current glanced and played;
Low down the tall flag-flower that sprung
Beside the noisy stepping-stones,
And the massed chestnut boughs that hung
Thick-studded over with white cones,]
[Footnote 11: In 1833 the following took the place of the above stanza
which was added in 1842:--
How dear to me in youth, my love,
Was everything about the mill,
The black and silent pool above,
The pool beneath that ne'er stood still,
The meal sacks on the whitened floor,
The dark round of the dripping wheel,
The very air about the door--
Made misty with the floating meal!
Thus in 1833:--
Remember you that pleasant day
When, after roving in the woods,
('Twas April then) I came and lay
Beneath those gummy chestnut bud
That glistened in the April blue,
Upon the slope so smooth and cool,
I lay and never thought of _you_,
But angled in the deep mill pool. ]
[Footnote 12: Thus in 1833:--
A water-rat from off the bank
Plunged in the stream. With idle care,
Downlooking thro' the sedges rank,
I saw your troubled image there.
Upon the dark and dimpled beck
It wandered like a floating light,
A full fair form, a warm white neck,
And two white arms--how rosy white! ]
[Footnote 13: 1872. Casement-edge. ]
[Footnote 14: Thus in 1833:--
If you remember, you had set
Upon the narrow casement-edge
A long green box of mignonette,
And you were leaning from the ledge.
I raised my eyes at once: above
They met two eyes so blue and bright,
Such eyes! I swear to you, my love,
That they have never lost their light.
After this stanza the following was inserted in 1833 but excised in
1842:--
That slope beneath the chestnut tall
Is wooed with choicest breaths of air:
Methinks that I could tell you all
The cowslips and the kingcups there.
Each coltsfoot down the grassy bent,
Whose round leaves hold the gathered shower,
Each quaintly-folded cuckoo pint,
And silver-paly cuckoo flower. ]
[Footnote 15: Thus in 1833:--
In rambling on the eastern wold,
When thro' the showery April nights
Their hueless crescent glimmered cold,
From all the other village lights
I knew your taper far away.
My heart was full of trembling hope,
Down from the wold I came and lay
Upon the dewy-swarded slope. ]
[Footnote 16; Mr. Cuming Walters in his interesting volume 'In Tennyson
Land', p. 75, notices that the white chalk quarry at Thetford can be
seen from Stockworth Mill, which seems to show that if Tennyson did take
the mill from Trumpington he must also have had his mind on Thetford
Mill. Tennyson seems to have taken delight in baffling those who wished
to localise his scenes. He went out of his way to say that the
topographical studies of Messrs. Church and Napier were the only ones
which could be relied upon. But Mr. Cuming Walters' book is far more
satisfactory than their thin studies. ]
[Footnote 17: Thus in 1833:--
The white chalk quarry from the hill
Upon the broken ripple gleamed,
I murmured lowly, sitting still,
While round my feet the eddy streamed:
"Oh! that I were the wreath she wreathes,
The mirror where her sight she feeds,
The song she sings, the air she breathes,
The letters of the books she reads". ]
[Footnote 18: 1833.
I loved, but when I dared to speak
My love, the lanes were white with May
Your ripe lips moved not, but your cheek
Flushed like the coming of the day. ]
[Footnote 19: 1833. Rosecheekt, roselipt, half-sly, half-shy. ]
[Footnote 20: Cf. Milton, 'Paradise Lost';--
Two other precious drops that ready stood
He, ere they fell, kiss'd. ]
[Footnote 21: These three stanzas were added in 1842, the following
being excised:--
Remember you the clear moonlight,
That whitened all the eastern ridge,
When o'er the water, dancing white,
I stepped upon the old mill-bridge.
I heard you whisper from above
A lute-toned whisper, "I am here";
I murmured, "Speak again, my love,
The stream is loud: I cannot hear ".
I heard, as I have seemed to hear,
When all the under-air was still,
The low voice of the glad new year
Call to the freshly-flowered hill.
I heard, as I have often heard
The nightingale in leavy woods
Call to its mate, when nothing stirred
To left or right but falling floods. ]
[Footnote 22: 1842. I gave you on the joyful day. ]
[Footnote 23: In 1833 the following stanza took the place of the one
here substituted in 1842:--
Come, Alice, sing to me the song
I made you on our marriage day,
When, arm in arm, we went along
Half-tearfully, and you were gay
With brooch and ring: for I shall seem,
The while you sing that song, to hear
The mill-wheel turning in the stream,
And the green chestnut whisper near.
In 1833 the song began thus, the present stanza taking its place in
1842:--
I wish I were her earring,
Ambushed in auburn ringlets sleek,
(So might my shadow tremble
Over her downy cheek),
Hid in her hair, all day and night,
Touching her neck so warm and white. ]
[Footnote 24: 1872. In. ]
[Footnote 25: 1833.
I wish I were the girdle
Buckled about her dainty waist,
That her heart might beat against me,
In sorrow and in rest.
I should know well if it beat right,
I'd clasp it round so close and tight.
This stanza bears so close a resemblance to a stanza in Joshua
Sylvester's 'Woodman's Bear' (see Sylvester's 'Works', ed. 1641, p. 616)
that a correspondent asked Tennyson whether Sylvester had suggested it.
Tennyson replied that he had never seen Sylvester's lines ('Life of
Tennyson', iii. , 51). The lines are:--
But her slender virgin waste
Made mee beare her girdle spight
Which the same by day imbrac't
Though it were cast off by night
That I wisht, I dare not say,
To be girdle night and day.
For other parallels see the present Editor's 'Illustrations of
Tennyson', p. 39. ]
[Footnote 26: 1833.
I wish I were her necklace,
So might I ever fall and rise. ]
[Footnote 27: 1833. So warm and light. ]
[Footnote 28: 1833. I would not be. ]
[Footnote 29: 1833.
For o'er each letter broods and dwells,
(Like light from running waters thrown
On flowery swaths) the blissful flame
Of his sweet eyes, that, day and night,
With pulses thrilling thro' his frame
Do inly tremble, starry bright. ]
[Footnote 30: Thus in 1833:--
How I waste language--yet in truth
You must blame love, whose early rage
Made me a rhymster in my youth,
And over-garrulous in age. ]
[Footnote 31: 1833. Sing me. ]
[Footnote 32: 1833.
When in the breezy limewood-shade.
I found the blue forget-me-not. ]
[Footnote 33: In 1833 the following song took the place of the song in
the text:--
All yesternight you met me not,
My ladylove, forget me not.
When I am gone, regret me not.
But, here or there, forget me not.
With your arched eyebrow threat me not,
And tremulous eyes, like April skies,
That seem to say, "forget me not,"
I pray you, love, forget me not.
In idle sorrow set me not;
Regret me not; forget me not;
Oh! leave me not: oh, let me not
Wear quite away;--forget me not.
With roguish laughter fret me not.
From dewy eyes, like April skies,
That ever _look_, "forget me not".
Blue as the blue forget-me-not. ]
[Footnote 34: These two stanzas were added in 1842. ]
[Footnote 35: 1833.
I've half a mind to walk, my love,
To the old mill across the wolds
For look! the sunset from above,]
FATIMA
First printed in 1833.
The 1833 edition has no title but this quotation from Sappho prefixed:--
'Phainetai moi kaenos isos theoisin Emmen anaer'--SAPPHO.
The title was prefixed in 1842; it is a name taken from 'The Arabian
Nights' or from the Moallakat. The poem was evidently inspired by
Sappho's great ode. 'Cf. ' also Fragment I. of Ibycus. In the intensity
of the passion it stands alone among Tennyson's poems.
O Love, Love, Love! O withering might!
O sun, that from [1] thy noonday height
Shudderest when I strain my sight,
Throbbing thro' all thy heat and light,
Lo, falling from my constant mind,
Lo, parch'd and wither'd, deaf and blind,
I whirl like leaves in roaring wind.
Last night I wasted hateful hours
Below the city's eastern towers:
I thirsted for the brooks, the showers:
I roll'd among the tender flowers:
I crush'd them on my breast, my mouth:
I look'd athwart the burning drouth
Of that long desert to the south. [2]
Last night, when some one spoke his name, [3]
From my swift blood that went and came
A thousand little shafts of flame.
Were shiver'd in my narrow frame
O Love, O fire! once he drew
With one long kiss, my whole soul thro'
My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew. [4]
Before he mounts the hill, I know
He cometh quickly: from below
Sweet gales, as from deep gardens, blow
Before him, striking on my brow.
In my dry brain my spirit soon,
Down-deepening from swoon to swoon,
Faints like a dazzled morning moon.
The wind sounds like a silver wire,
And from beyond the noon a fire
Is pour'd upon the hills, and nigher
The skies stoop down in their desire;
And, isled in sudden seas of light,
My heart, pierced thro' with fierce delight,
Bursts into blossom in his sight.
My whole soul waiting silently,
All naked in a sultry sky,
Droops blinded with his shining eye:
I 'will' possess him or will die.
I will grow round him in his place,
Grow, live, die looking on his face,
Die, dying clasp'd in his embrace.
[Footnote 1: 1833. At. ]
[Footnote 2: This stanza was added in 1842. ]
[Footnote 3: 'Cf. ' Byron, 'Occasional Pieces':--
They name thee before me A knell to mine ear, A shudder comes o'er me,
Why wert thou so dear? ]
[Footnote 4: 'Cf,' Achilles Tatius, 'Clitophon and Leucippe', bk. i. , I:
[Greek: 'AEde (psyche) tarachtheisa tps philaemati palletai, ei de
mae tois splagchnois in dedemenae aekolouthaesen an elkaetheisa ano tois
philaemasin. ']
(Her soul, distracted by the kiss, throbs, and had it not been close
bound by the flesh would have followed, drawn upward by the kisses. )]
? NONE
First published in 1833, On being republished in 1842 this poem was
practically rewritten, the alterations and additions so transforming the
poem as to make it almost a new work. I have therefore printed a
complete transcript of the edition of 1833, which the reader can
compare. The final text is, with the exception of one alteration which
will be noticed, precisely that of 1842, so there is no trouble with
variants. '? none' is the first of Tennyson's fine classical studies. The
poem is modelled partly on the Alexandrian Idyll, such an Idyll for
instance as the second Idyll of Theocritus or the 'Megara' or 'Europa'
of Moschus, and partly perhaps on the narratives in the 'Metamorphoses'
of Ovid, to which the opening bears a typical resemblance. It is
possible that the poem may have been suggested by Beattie's 'Judgment of
Paris' which tells the same story, and tells it on the same lines on
which it is told here, though it is not placed in the mouth of ? none.
Beattie's poem opens with an elaborate description of Ida and of Troy in
the distance. Paris, the husband of ? none, is one afternoon confronted
with the three goddesses who are, as in Tennyson's Idyll, elaborately
delineated as symbolising what they here symbolise. Each makes her
speech and each offers what she has to offer, worldly dominion, wisdom,
sensual pleasure. There is, of course, no comparison in point of merit
between the two poems, Beattie's being in truth perfectly commonplace.
In its symbolic aspect the poem may be compared with the temptations to
which Christ is submitted in 'Paradise Regained'. See books iii. and iv.
There lies a vale in Ida, lovelier [1]
Than all the valleys of Ionian hills.
The swimming vapour slopes athwart the glen,
Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine,
And loiters, slowly drawn. On either hand
The lawns and meadow-ledges midway down
Hang rich in flowers, and far below them roars
The long brook falling thro' the clov'n ravine
In cataract after cataract to the sea.
Behind the valley topmost Gargarus [2]
Stands up and takes the morning: but in front
The gorges, opening wide apart, reveal
Troas and Ilion's column'd citadel,
The crown of Troas.
Hither came at noon
Mournful ? none, wandering forlorn
Of Paris, once her playmate on the hills.
Her cheek had lost the rose, and round her neck
Floated her hair or seem'd to float in rest.
She, leaning on a fragment twined with vine,
Sang to the stillness, till the mountain-shade
Sloped downward to her seat from the upper cliff.
"O mother Ida, many-fountain'd [3] Ida,
Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
For now the noonday quiet holds the hill: [4]
The grasshopper is silent in the grass;
The lizard, with his shadow on the stone, [5]
Rests like a shadow, and the cicala sleeps. [6]
The purple flowers droop: the golden bee
Is lily-cradled: I alone awake.
My eyes are full of tears, my heart of love,
My heart is breaking, and my eyes are dim, [7]
And I am all aweary of my life.
"O mother Ida, many-fountain'd Ida,
Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
Hear me O Earth, hear me O Hills, O Caves
That house the cold crown'd snake! O mountain brooks,
I am the daughter of a River-God, [8]
Hear me, for I will speak, and build up all
My sorrow with my song, as yonder walls
Rose slowly to a music slowly breathed, [9]
A cloud that gather'd shape: for it may be
That, while I speak of it, a little while
My heart may wander from its deeper woe.
"O mother Ida, many-fountain'd Ida,
Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
I waited underneath the dawning hills,
Aloft the mountain lawn was dewy-dark,
And dewy-dark aloft the mountain pine:
Beautiful Paris, evil-hearted Paris,
Leading a jet-black goat white-horn'd, white-hooved,
Came up from reedy Simois [10] all alone.
"O mother Ida, harken ere I die.
Far-off the torrent call'd me from the cleft:
Far up the solitary morning smote
The streaks of virgin snow. With down-dropt eyes
I sat alone: white-breasted like a star
Fronting the dawn he moved; a leopard skin
Droop'd from his shoulder, but his sunny hair
Cluster'd about his temples like a God's;
And his cheek brighten'd as the foam-bow brightens
When the wind blows the foam, and all my heart
Went forth to embrace him coming ere he came.
"Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
He smiled, and opening out his milk-white palm
Disclosed a fruit of pure Hesperian gold,
That smelt ambrosially, and while I look'd
And listen'd, the full-flowing river of speech
Came down upon my heart.
"'My own ? none,
Beautiful-brow'd ? none, my own soul,
Behold this fruit, whose gleaming rind ingrav'n
"For the most fair," would seem to award it thine,
As lovelier than whatever Oread haunt
The knolls of Ida, loveliest in all grace
Of movement, and the charm of married brows. '[11]
"Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
He prest the blossom of his lips to mine,
And added 'This was cast upon the board,
When all the full-faced presence of the Gods
Ranged in the halls of Peleus; whereupon
Rose feud, with question unto whom 'twere due:
But light-foot Iris brought it yester-eve,
Delivering, that to me, by common voice
Elected umpire, Here comes to-day,
Pallas and Aphrodite, claiming each
This meed of fairest. Thou, within the cave
Behind yon whispering tuft of oldest pine,
Mayst well behold them unbeheld, unheard
Hear all, and see thy Paris judge of Gods. '
"Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
It was the deep midnoon: one silvery cloud
Had lost his way between the piney sides
Of this long glen. Then to the bower they came,
Naked they came to that smooth-swarded bower,
And at their feet the crocus brake like fire,[12]
Violet, amaracus, and asphodel,
Lotos and lilies: and a wind arose,
And overhead the wandering ivy and vine,
This way and that, in many a wild festoon
Ran riot, garlanding the gnarled boughs
With bunch and berry and flower thro' and thro'.
"O mother Ida, harken ere I die.
On the tree-tops a crested peacock lit,
And o'er him flow'd a golden cloud, and lean'd
Upon him, slowing dropping fragrant dew.
Then first I heard the voice of her, to whom
Coming thro' Heaven, like a light that grows
Larger and clearer, with one mind the Gods
Rise up for reverence. She to Paris made
Proffer of royal power, ample rule
Unquestion'd, overflowing revenue
Wherewith to embellish state, 'from many a vale
And river-sunder'd champaign clothed with corn,
Or labour'd mines undrainable of ore.
Honour,' she said, 'and homage, tax and toll,
From many an inland town and haven large,
Mast-throng'd beneath her shadowing citadel
In glassy bays among her tallest towers. '
"O mother Ida, harken ere I die.
Still she spake on and still she spake of power,
'Which in all action is the end of all;
Power fitted to the season; wisdom-bred
And throned of wisdom--from all neighbour crowns
Alliance and allegiance, till thy hand
Fail from the sceptre staff. Such boon from me,
From me, Heaven's Queen, Paris to thee king-born,
A shepherd all thy life but yet king-born,
Should come most welcome, seeing men, in power
Only, are likest gods, who have attain'd
Rest in a happy place and quiet seats
Above the thunder, with undying bliss
In knowledge of their own supremacy. '
"Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
She ceased, and Paris held the costly fruit
Out at arm's-length, so much the thought of power
Flatter'd his spirit; but Pallas where she stood
Somewhat apart, her clear and bared limbs
O'erthwarted with the brazen-headed spear
Upon her pearly shoulder leaning cold,
The while, above, her full and earnest eye
Over her snow-cold breast and angry cheek [13]
Kept watch, waiting decision, made reply.
"'Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control,
These three alone lead life to sovereign power.
Yet not for power, (power of herself
Would come uncall'd for) but to live by law,
Acting the law we live by without fear;
And, because right is right, to follow right [14]
Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence. '
"Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
Again she said: 'I woo thee not with gifts.
Sequel of guerdon could not alter me
To fairer. Judge thou me by what I am,
So shalt thou find me fairest. Yet indeed,
If gazing on divinity disrobed
Thy mortal eyes are frail to judge of fair,
Unbiass'd by self-profit, oh!
rest thee sure
That I shall love thee well and cleave to thee,
So that my vigour, wedded to thy blood, [15]
Shall strike within thy pulses, like a God's,
To push thee forward thro' a life of shocks,
Dangers, and deeds, until endurance grow
Sinew'd with action, and the full-grown will.
Circled thro' all experiences, pure law,
Commeasure perfect freedom. ' "Here she ceased,
And Paris ponder'd, and I cried, 'O Paris,
Give it to Pallas! ' but he heard me not,
Or hearing would not hear me, woe is me!
"O mother Ida, many-fountain'd Ida.
Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
Idalian Aphrodite, beautiful,
Fresh as the foam, new-bathed in Paphian [16] wells,
With rosy slender fingers backward drew
From her warm brows and bosom [17] her deep hair
Ambrosial, golden round her lucid throat
And shoulder: from the violets her light foot
Shone rosy-white, and o'er her rounded form
Between the shadows of the vine-bunches
Floated the glowing sunlights, as she moved.
"Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.
She with a subtle smile in her mild eyes,
The herald of her triumph, drawing nigh
Half-whisper'd in his ear, 'I promise thee
The fairest and most loving wife in Greece'.
She spoke and laugh'd: I shut my sight for fear:
But when I look'd, Paris had raised his arm,
And I beheld great Here's angry eyes,
As she withdrew into the golden cloud,
And I was left alone within the bower;
And from that time to this I am alone,
And I shall be alone until I die.
"Yet, mother Ida, harken ere I die.
Fairest--why fairest wife? am I not fair?
My love hath told me so a thousand times.
Methinks I must be fair, for yesterday,
When I past by, a wild and wanton pard,
Eyed like the evening star, with playful tail
Crouch'd fawning in the weed. Most loving is she?
Ah me, my mountain shepherd, that my arms
Were wound about thee, and my hot lips prest
Close, close to thine in that quick-falling dew
Of fruitful kisses, thick as Autumn rains
Flash in the pools of whirling Simois.
"O mother, hear me yet before I die.
They came, they cut away my tallest pines,
My dark tall pines, that plumed the craggy ledge
High over the blue gorge, and all between
The snowy peak and snow-white cataract
Foster'd the callow eaglet--from beneath
Whose thick mysterious boughs in the dark morn
The panther's roar came muffled, while I sat
Low in the valley. Never, never more
Shall lone ? none see the morning mist
Sweep thro' them; never see them overlaid
With narrow moon-lit slips of silver cloud,
Between the loud stream and the trembling stars.
"O mother, here me yet before I die.
I wish that somewhere in the ruin'd folds,
Among the fragments tumbled from the glens,
Or the dry thickets, I could meet with her,
The Abominable, [18] that uninvited came
Into the fair Peleian banquet-hall,
And cast the golden fruit upon the board,
And bred this change; that I might speak my mind,
And tell her to her face how much I hate
Her presence, hated both of Gods and men.
"O mother, here me yet before I die.
Hath he not sworn his love a thousand times,
In this green valley, under this green hill,
Ev'n on this hand, and sitting on this stone?
Seal'd it with kisses? water'd it with tears?
O happy tears, and how unlike to these!
O happy Heaven, how canst thou see my face?
O happy earth, how canst thou bear my weight?
O death, death, death, thou ever-floating cloud,
There are enough unhappy on this earth,
Pass by the happy souls, that love to live:
I pray thee, pass before my light of life,
And shadow all my soul, that I may die.
Thou weighest heavy on the heart within,
Weigh heavy on my eyelids: let me die.
"O mother, hear me yet before I die.
I will not die alone, for fiery thoughts
Do shape themselves within me, more and more,
Whereof I catch the issue, as I hear
Dead sounds at night come from the inmost hills,
Like footsteps upon wool. I dimly see
My far-off doubtful purpose, as a mother
Conjectures of the features of her child
Ere it is born: her child! --a shudder comes
Across me: never child be born of me,
Unblest, to vex me with his father's eyes!
"O mother, hear me yet before I die.
Hear me, O earth. I will not die alone,
Lest their shrill happy laughter come to me
Walking the cold and starless road of
Death Uncomforted, leaving my ancient love
With the Greek woman. [19] I will rise and go
Down into Troy, and ere the stars come forth
Talk with the wild Cassandra, [20] for she says
A fire dances before her, and a sound
Rings ever in her ears of armed men.
What this may be I know not, but I know
That, wheresoe'er I am by night and day,
All earth and air seem only burning fire. "
[1833. ]
There is a dale in Ida, lovelier
Than any in old Ionia, beautiful
With emerald slopes of sunny sward, that lean
Above the loud glenriver, which hath worn
A path thro' steepdown granite walls below
Mantled with flowering tendriltwine. In front
The cedarshadowy valleys open wide.
Far-seen, high over all the God-built wall
And many a snowycolumned range divine,
Mounted with awful sculptures--men and Gods,
The work of Gods--bright on the dark-blue sky
The windy citadel of Ilion
Shone, like the crown of Troas. Hither came
Mournful ? none wandering forlorn
Of Paris, once her playmate. Round her neck,
Her neck all marblewhite and marblecold,
Floated her hair or seemed to float in rest.
She, leaning on a vine-entwined stone,
Sang to the stillness, till the mountain-shadow
Sloped downward to her seat from the upper cliff.
"O mother Ida, manyfountained Ida,
Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
The grasshopper is silent in the grass,
The lizard with his shadow on the stone
Sleeps like a shadow, and the scarletwinged [21]
Cicala in the noonday leapeth not
Along the water-rounded granite-rock.
The purple flower droops: the golden bee
Is lilycradled: I alone awake.
My eyes are full of tears, my heart of love,
My heart is breaking and my eyes are dim,
And I am all aweary of my life.
"O mother Ida, manyfountained Ida,
Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
Hear me O Earth, hear me O Hills, O Caves
That house the cold crowned snake! O mountain brooks,
I am the daughter of a River-God,
Hear me, for I will speak, and build up all
My sorrow with my song, as yonder walls
Rose slowly to a music slowly breathed,
A cloud that gathered shape: for it may be
That, while I speak of it, a little while
My heart may wander from its deeper woe.
"O mother Ida, manyfountained Ida,
Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
Aloft the mountain lawn was dewydark,
And dewydark aloft the mountain pine;
Beautiful Paris, evil-hearted Paris,
Leading a jetblack goat whitehorned, whitehooved,
Came up from reedy Simois all alone.
"O mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
I sate alone: the goldensandalled morn
Rosehued the scornful hills: I sate alone
With downdropt eyes: white-breasted like a star
Fronting the dawn he came: a leopard skin
From his white shoulder drooped: his sunny hair
Clustered about his temples like a God's:
And his cheek brightened, as the foambow brightens
When the wind blows the foam; and I called out,
'Welcome Apollo, welcome home Apollo,
Apollo, my Apollo, loved Apollo'.
"Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
He, mildly smiling, in his milk-white palm
Close-held a golden apple, lightningbright
With changeful flashes, dropt with dew of Heaven
Ambrosially smelling. From his lip,
Curved crimson, the full-flowing river of speech
Came down upon my heart.
"' My own ? none,
Beautifulbrowed ? none, mine own soul,
Behold this fruit, whose gleaming rind ingrav'n
"For the most fair," in aftertime may breed
Deep evilwilledness of heaven and sore
Heartburning toward hallowed Ilion;
And all the colour of my afterlife
Will be the shadow of to-day. To-day
Hera and Pallas and the floating grace
Of laughter-loving Aphrodite meet
In manyfolded Ida to receive
This meed of beauty, she to whom my hand
Award the palm. Within the green hillside,
Under yon whispering tuft of oldest pine,
Is an ingoing grotto, strown with spar
And ivymatted at the mouth, wherein
Thou unbeholden may'st behold, unheard
Hear all, and see thy Paris judge of Gods. '
"Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
It was the deep midnoon: one silvery cloud
Had lost his way between the piney hills.
They came--all three--the Olympian goddesses.
Naked they came to the smoothswarded bower,
Lustrous with lilyflower, violeteyed
Both white and blue, with lotetree-fruit thickset,
Shadowed with singing-pine; and all the while,
Above, the overwandering ivy and vine
This way and that in many a wild festoon
Ran riot, garlanding the gnarled boughs
With bunch and berry and flower thro' and thro'.
On the treetops a golden glorious cloud
Leaned, slowly dropping down ambrosial dew.
How beautiful they were, too beautiful
To look upon! but Paris was to me
More lovelier than all the world beside.
"O mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
First spake the imperial Olympian
With arched eyebrow smiling sovranly,
Fulleyed here. She to Paris made
Proffer of royal power, ample rule
Unquestioned, overflowing revenue
Wherewith to embellish state, 'from many a vale
And river-sundered champaign clothed with corn,
Or upland glebe wealthy in oil and wine--
Honour and homage, tribute, tax and toll,
From many an inland town and haven large,
Mast-thronged below her shadowing citadel
In glassy bays among her tallest towers. '
"O mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
Still she spake on and still she spake of power
'Which in all action is the end of all.
Power fitted to the season, measured by
The height of the general feeling, wisdomborn
And throned of wisdom--from all neighbour crowns
Alliance and allegiance evermore. Such boon from me
Heaven's Queen to thee kingborn,
A shepherd all thy life and yet kingborn,
Should come most welcome, seeing men, in this
Only are likest gods, who have attained
Rest in a happy place and quiet seats
Above the thunder, with undying bliss
In knowledge of their own supremacy;
The changeless calm of undisputed right,
The highest height and topmost strength of power. '
"Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
She ceased, and Paris held the costly fruit
Out at arm's length, so much the thought of power
Flattered his heart: but Pallas where she stood
Somewhat apart, her clear and bared limbs
O'erthwarted with the brazen-headed spear
Upon her pearly shoulder leaning cold;
The while, above, her full and earnest eye
Over her snowcold breast and angry cheek
Kept watch, waiting decision, made reply.
"'Selfreverence, selfknowledge, selfcontrol
Are the three hinges of the gates of Life,
That open into power, everyway
Without horizon, bound or shadow or cloud.
Yet not for power (power of herself
Will come uncalled-for) but to live by law
Acting the law we live by without fear,
And, because right is right, to follow right
Were wisdom, in the scorn of consequence.
(Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die. )
Not as men value gold because it tricks
And blazons outward Life with ornament,
But rather as the miser, for itself.
Good for selfgood doth half destroy selfgood.
The means and end, like two coiled snakes, infect
Each other, bound in one with hateful love.
So both into the fountain and the stream
A drop of poison falls. Come hearken to me,
And look upon me and consider me,
So shall thou find me fairest, so endurance,
Like to an athlete's arm, shall still become
Sinewed with motion, till thine active will
(As the dark body of the Sun robed round
With his own ever-emanating lights)
Be flooded o'er with her own effluences,
And thereby grow to freedom. ' "Here she ceased
And Paris pondered. I cried out, 'Oh, Paris,
Give it to Pallas! ' but he heard me not,
Or hearing would not hear me, woe is me!
"O mother Ida, manyfountained Ida,
Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
Idalian Aphrodite oceanborn,
Fresh as the foam, newbathed in Paphian wells,
With rosy slender fingers upward drew
From her warm brow and bosom her dark hair
Fragrant and thick, and on her head upbound
In a purple band: below her lucid neck
Shone ivorylike, and from the ground her foot
Gleamed rosywhite, and o'er her rounded form
Between the shadows of the vine-bunches
Floated the glowing sunlights, as she moved.
"Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
She with a subtle smile in her mild eyes,
The herald of her triumph, drawing nigh
Half-whispered in his ear, 'I promise thee
The fairest and most loving wife in Greece'.
I only saw my Paris raise his arm:
I only saw great Here's angry eyes,
As she withdrew into the golden cloud,
And I was left alone within the bower;
And from that time to this I am alone.
And I shall be alone until I die.
"Yet, mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
Fairest--why fairest wife? am I not fair?
My love hath told me so a thousand times.
Methinks I must be fair, for yesterday,
When I passed by, a wild and wanton pard,
Eyed like the evening star, with playful tail
Crouched fawning in the weed. Most loving is she?
Ah me, my mountain shepherd, that my arms
Were wound about thee, and my hot lips prest
Close-close to thine in that quickfalling dew
Of fruitful kisses, thick as Autumn rains
Flash in the pools of whirling Simois.
"Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
They came, they cut away my tallest pines--
My dark tall pines, that plumed the craggy ledge
High over the blue gorge, or lower down
Filling greengulphed Ida, all between
The snowy peak and snowwhite cataract
Fostered the callow eaglet--from beneath
Whose thick mysterious boughs in the dark
The panther's roar came muffled, while I sat
Low in the valley. Never, nevermore
Shall lone ? none see the morning mist
Sweep thro' them--never see them overlaid
With narrow moon-lit slips of silver cloud,
Between the loud stream and the trembling stars.
"Oh! mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
Hath he not sworn his love a thousand times,
In this green valley, under this green hill,
Ev'n on this hand, and sitting on this stone?
Sealed it with kisses? watered it with tears?
Oh happy tears, and how unlike to these!
Oh happy Heaven, how can'st thou see my face?
Oh happy earth, how can'st thou bear my weight?
O death, death, death, thou ever-floating cloud,
There are enough unhappy on this earth,
Pass by the happy souls, that love to live:
I pray thee, pass before my light of life.
And shadow all my soul, that I may die.
Thou weighest heavy on the heart within,
Weigh heavy on my eyelids--let me die.
"Yet, mother Ida, hear me ere I die.
I will not die alone, for fiery thoughts
Do shape themselves within me, more and more,
Whereof I catch the issue, as I hear
Dead sounds at night come from the inmost hills,
Like footsteps upon wool. I dimly see
My far-off doubtful purpose, as a mother
Conjectures of the features of her child
Ere it is born. I will not die alone.
"Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
Hear me, O earth. I will not die alone,
Lest their shrill, happy laughter, etc.
(Same as last stanza of subsequent editions. )
[Footnote 1: Tennyson, as we learn from his 'Life' (vol. i. , p. 83),
began '? none' while he and Arthur Hallam were in Spain, whither they
went with money for the insurgent allies of Torrigos in the summer of
1830. He wrote part of it in the valley of Cauteretz in the Pyrenees,
the picturesque beauty of which fascinated him and not only suggested
the scenery of this Idyll, but inspired many years afterwards the poem
'All along the valley'. The exquisite scene with which the Idyll opens
bears no resemblance at all to Mount Ida and the Troad. ]
[Footnote 2: Gargarus or Gargaron is the highest peak of the Ida range,
rising about 4650 feet above the level of the sea. ]
[Footnote 3: The epithet many-fountain'd [Greek:'polpidax'] is Homer's
stock epithet for Ida. 'Cf. Iliad', viii. , 47; xiv. , 283, etc. , etc. ]
[Footnote 4: A literal translation from a line in Callimachus, 'Lavacrum
Palladis', 72:
[Greek: 'mesambrinae d'eich horos haesuchia']
(noonday quiet held the hill). ]
[Footnote 5: So Theocritus, 'Idyll', vii. , 22:--
[Greek: 'Anika dae kai sauros eph aimasiaisi katheudei. ']
(When indeed the very lizard is sleeping on the loose stones of the
wall. )]
[Footnote 6: This extraordinary mistake in natural history (the cicala
being of course loudest in mid noonday when the heat is greatest)
Tennyson allowed to stand, till securing accuracy at the heavy price of
a pointless pleonasm, he substituted in 1884 "and the winds are dead". ]
[Footnote 7: An echo from 'Henry VI. ', part ii. , act ii. , se.
iii. :--
Mine eyes arc full of tears, my heart of grief. ]
[Footnote 8: ? none was the daughter of the River-God Kebren. ]
[Footnote 9: For the myth here referred to see Ovid, 'Heroides',
xvi. , 179-80:--
Ilion aspicies, firmataque turribus altis Moenia,
Phoeboeae; structa canore lyrae.
It was probably an application of the Theban legend of Amphion, and
arose from the association of Apollo with Poseidon in founding Troy.
A fabric huge 'Rose like an exhalation,'
--Milton's 'Paradise Lost', i. , 710-11.
'Cf. Gareth and Lynette', 254-7. ]
[Footnote 10: The river Simois, so often referred to in the 'Iliad',
had its origin in Mount Cotylus, and passing by Ilion joined the
Scamander below the city. ]
[Footnote 11: 'Cf'. the [Greek: synophrys kora](the maid of the meeting
brows) of Theocritus, 'Id'. , viii. , 72. This was considered a great
beauty among the Greeks, Romans and Orientals. Ovid, 'Ars. Amat'. , iii. ,
201, speaks of women effecting this by art: "Arte, supercilii confinia
nuda repletis". ]
[Footnote 12: The whole of this gorgeous passage is taken, with one or
two additions and alterations in the names of the flowers, from
'Iliad', xiv. , 347-52, with a reminiscence no doubt of Milton,
'Paradise Lost', iv. , 695-702. ]
[Footnote 13: The "'angry' cheek" is a fine touch. ]
[Footnote 14: This fine sentiment is, of course, a commonplace among
ancient philosophers, but it may be interesting to put beside it a
passage from Cicero, 'De Finibus', ii. , 14, 45:
"Honestum id intelligimus quod tale est ut, detracta omni utilitate,
sine ullis praemiis fructibusve per se ipsum possit jure laudari".
We are to understand by the truly honourable that which, setting aside
all consideration of utility, may be rightly praised in itself,
exclusive of any prospect of reward or compensation. ]
[Footnote 15: This passage is very obscurely expressed, but the general
meaning is clear: "Until endurance grow sinewed with action, and the
full-grown will, circled through all experiences grow or become law, be
identified with law, and commeasure perfect freedom". The true moral
ideal is to bring the will into absolute harmony with law, so that
virtuous action becomes an instinct, the will no longer rebelling
against the law, "service" being in very truth "perfect freedom". ]
[Footnote 16: The Paphos referred to is the old Paphos which was sacred
to Aphrodite; it was on the south-west extremity of Cyprus. ]
[Footnote 17: Adopted from a line excised in 'Mariana in the South'.
See 'supra'. ]
[Footnote 18: This was Eris. ]
[Footnote 19: Helen. ]
[Footnote 20: With these verses should be compared Schiller's fine lyric
'Kassandra', and with the line, "All earth and air seem only
burning fire,' from Webster's 'Duchess of Malfi':--
The heaven o'er my head seems made of molten brass,
The earth of flaming sulphur. ]
[Footnote 21: In the Pyrenees, where part of this poem was written, I saw
a very beautiful species of Cicala, which had scarlet wings spotted with
black. Probably nothing of the kind exists in Mount Ida. ]
THE SISTERS
First published in 1833.
The only alterations which have been made in it since have simply
consisted in the alteration of "'an'" for "and" in the third line of
each stanza, and "through and through" for "thro' and thro'" in line 29,
and "wrapt" for "wrapped" in line 34. It is curious that in 1842 the
original "bad" was altered to "bade," but all subsequent editions keep
to the original. It has been said that this poem was founded on the old
Scotch ballad "The Twa Sisters" (see for that ballad Sharpe's 'Ballad
Book', No. x. , p. 30), but there is no resemblance at all between the
ballad and this poem beyond the fact that in each there are two sisters
who are both loved by a certain squire, the elder in jealousy pushing
the younger into a river and drowning her.
We were two daughters of one race:
She was the fairest in the face:
The wind is blowing in turret and tree.
They were together and she fell;
Therefore revenge became me well.
