none was the
daughter
of the River-God Kebren.
Tennyson
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.
O the Earl was fair to see!
She died: she went to burning flame:
She mix'd her ancient blood with shame.
The wind is howling in turret and tree.
Whole weeks and months, and early and late,
To win his love I lay in wait:
O the Earl was fair to see!
I made a feast; I bad him come;
I won his love, I brought him home.
The wind is roaring in turret and tree.
And after supper, on a bed,
Upon my lap he laid his head:
O the Earl was fair to see!
I kiss'd his eyelids into rest:
His ruddy cheek upon my breast.
The wind is raging in turret and tree.
I hated him with the hate of hell,
But I loved his beauty passing well.
O the Earl was fair to see!
I rose up in the silent night:
I made my dagger sharp and bright.
The wind is raving in turret and tree.
As half-asleep his breath he drew,
Three times I stabb'd him thro' and thro'.
O the Earl was fair to see!
I curl'd and comb'd his comely head,
He look'd so grand when he was dead.
The wind is blowing in turret and tree.
I wrapt his body in the sheet,
And laid him at his mother's feet.
O the Earl was fair to see!
TO-----
WITH THE FOLLOWING POEM
I have not been able to ascertain to whom this dedication was addressed.
Sir Franklin Lushington tells me that he thinks it was an imaginary
person. The dedication explains the allegory intended. The poem appears
to have been suggested, as we learn from 'Tennyson's Life' (vol. i. , p.
150), by a remark of Trench to Tennyson when they were undergraduates at
Trinity: "We cannot live in art". It was the embodiment Tennyson added
of his belief "that the God-like life is with man and for man". 'Cf. '
his own lines in 'Love and Duty':--$
For a man is not as God,
But then most God-like being most a man.
It is a companion poem to the 'Vision of Sin'; in that poem is traced
the effect of indulgence in the grosser pleasures of sense, in this the
effect of the indulgence in the more refined pleasures of sense.
I send you here a sort of allegory,
(For you will understand it) of a soul, [1]
A sinful soul possess'd of many gifts,
A spacious garden full of flowering weeds,
A glorious Devil, large in heart and brain,
That did love Beauty only, (Beauty seen
In all varieties of mould and mind)
And Knowledge for its beauty; or if Good,
Good only for its beauty, seeing not
That beauty, Good, and Knowledge, are three sisters
That doat upon each other, friends to man,
Living together under the same roof,
And never can be sunder'd without tears.
And he that shuts Love out, in turn shall be
Shut out from Love, and on her threshold lie
Howling in outer darkness. Not for this
Was common clay ta'en from the common earth,
Moulded by God, and temper'd with the tears
Of angels to the perfect shape of man.
[Footnote 1: 1833.
I send you, Friend, a sort of allegory,
(You are an artist and will understand
Its many lesser meanings) of a soul. ]
THE PALACE OF ART
First published in 1833, but altered so extensively on its republication
in 1842 as to be practically rewritten. The alterations in it after 1842
were not numerous, consisting chiefly in the deletion of two stanzas
after line 192 and the insertion of the three stanzas which follow in
the present text, together with other minor verbal corrections, all of
which have been noted. No alterations were made in the text after 1853.
The allegory Tennyson explains in the dedicatory verses, but the
framework of the poem was evidently suggested by 'Ecclesiastes' ii.
1-17. The position of the hero is precisely that of Solomon. Both began
by assuming that man is self-sufficing and the world sufficient; the
verdict of the one in consequence being "vanity of vanities, all is
vanity," of the other what the poet here records. An admirable
commentary on the poem is afforded by Matthew Arnold's picture of the
Romans before Christ taught the secret of the only real happiness
possible to man. See 'Obermann Once More'. The teaching of the poem
has been admirably explained by Spedding. It "represents allegorically
the condition of a mind which, in the love of beauty and the triumphant
consciousness of knowledge and intellectual supremacy, in the intense
enjoyment of its own power and glory, has lost sight of its relation to
man and God". See 'Tennyson's Life', vol. i. , p. 226.
I built my soul a lordly pleasure-house
Wherein at ease for aye to dwell.
I said, "O Soul, make merry and carouse,
Dear soul, for all is well".
A huge crag-platform, smooth as burnish'd brass,
I chose. The ranged ramparts bright
From level meadow-bases of deep grass [1]
Suddenly scaled the light.
Thereon I built it firm. Of ledge or shelf
The rock rose clear, or winding stair.
My soul would live alone unto herself
In her high palace there.
And "while the world [2] runs round and round,"
I said, "Reign thou apart, a quiet king,
Still as, while Saturn [3] whirls, his stedfast [4] shade
Sleeps on his luminous [5] ring. "
To which my soul made answer readily:
"Trust me, in bliss I shall abide
In this great mansion, that is built for me,
So royal-rich and wide"
* * * * *
Four courts I made, East, West and South and North,
In each a squared lawn, wherefrom
The golden gorge of dragons spouted forth
A flood of fountain-foam. [6]
And round the cool green courts there ran a row
Of cloisters, branch'd like mighty woods,
Echoing all night to that sonorous flow
Of spouted fountain-floods. [6]
And round the roofs a gilded gallery
That lent broad verge to distant lands,
Far as the wild swan wings, to where the sky
Dipt down to sea and sands. [6]
From those four jets four currents in one swell
Across the mountain stream'd below
In misty folds, that floating as they fell
Lit up a torrent-bow. [6]
And high on every peak a statue seem'd
To hang on tiptoe, tossing up
A cloud of incense of all odour steam'd
From out a golden cup. [6]
So that she thought, "And who shall gaze upon
My palace with unblinded eyes,
While this great bow will waver in the sun,
And that sweet incense rise? " [6]
For that sweet incense rose and never fail'd,
And, while day sank or mounted higher,
The light aerial gallery, golden-rail'd,
Burnt like a fringe of fire. [6]
Likewise the deep-set windows, stain'd and traced,
Would seem slow-flaming crimson fires
From shadow'd grots of arches interlaced,
And tipt with frost-like spires. [6]
* * * * *
Full of long-sounding corridors it was,
That over-vaulted grateful gloom, [7]
Thro' which the livelong day my soul did pass,
Well-pleased, from room to room.
Full of great rooms and small the palace stood,
All various, each a perfect whole
From living Nature, fit for every mood [8]
And change of my still soul.
For some were hung with arras green and blue,
Showing a gaudy summer-morn,
Where with puff'd cheek the belted hunter blew
His wreathed bugle-horn. [9]
One seem'd all dark and red--a tract of sand,
And some one pacing there alone,
Who paced for ever in a glimmering land,
Lit with a low large moon. [10]
One show'd an iron coast and angry waves.
You seem'd to hear them climb and fall
And roar rock-thwarted under bellowing caves,
Beneath the windy wall. [11]
And one, a full-fed river winding slow
By herds upon an endless plain,
The ragged rims of thunder brooding low,
With shadow-streaks of rain. [11]
And one, the reapers at their sultry toil.
In front they bound the sheaves.
Behind Were realms of upland, prodigal in oil,
And hoary to the wind. [11]
And one, a foreground black with stones and slags,
Beyond, a line of heights, and higher
All barr'd with long white cloud the scornful crags,
And highest, snow and fire. [12]
And one, an English home--gray twilight pour'd
On dewy pastures, dewy trees,
Softer than sleep--all things in order stored,
A haunt of ancient Peace. [13]
Nor these alone, but every landscape fair,
As fit for every mood of mind,
Or gay, or grave, or sweet, or stern, was there,
Not less than truth design'd. [14]
* * * *
Or the maid-mother by a crucifix,
In tracts of pasture sunny-warm,
Beneath branch-work of costly sardonyx
Sat smiling, babe in arm. [15]
Or in a clear-wall'd city on the sea,
Near gilded organ-pipes, her hair
Wound with white roses, slept St. Cecily;
An angel look'd at her.
Or thronging all one porch of Paradise,
A group of Houris bow'd to see
The dying Islamite, with hands and eyes
That said, We wait for thee. [16]
Or mythic Uther's deeply-wounded son
In some fair space of sloping greens
Lay, dozing in the vale of Avalon,
And watch'd by weeping queens. [17]
Or hollowing one hand against his ear,
To list a foot-fall, ere he saw
The wood-nymph, stay'd the Ausonian king to hear
Of wisdom and of law. [18]
Or over hills with peaky tops engrail'd,
And many a tract of palm and rice,
The throne of Indian Cama [19] slowly sail'd
A summer fann'd with spice.
Or sweet Europa's [20] mantle blew unclasp'd,
From off her shoulder backward borne:
From one hand droop'd a crocus: one hand grasp'd
The mild bull's golden horn. [21]
Or else flush'd Ganymede, his rosy thigh
Half-buried in the Eagle's down,
Sole as a flying star shot thro' the sky
Above [22] the pillar'd town.
Nor [23] these alone: but every [24] legend fair
Which the supreme Caucasian mind [25]
Carved out of Nature for itself, was there,
Not less than life, design'd. [26]
* * * *
Then in the towers I placed great bells that swung,
Moved of themselves, with silver sound;
And with choice paintings of wise men I hung
The royal dais round.
For there was Milton like a seraph strong,
Beside him Shakespeare bland and mild;
And there the world-worn Dante grasp'd his song,
And somewhat grimly smiled. [27]
And there the Ionian father of the rest; [28]
A million wrinkles carved his skin;
A hundred winters snow'd upon his breast,
From cheek and throat and chin. [29]
Above, the fair hall-ceiling stately set
Many an arch high up did lift,
And angels rising and descending met
With interchange of gift. [29]
Below was all mosaic choicely plann'd
With cycles of the human tale
Of this wide world, the times of every land
So wrought, they will not fail. [29]
The people here, a beast of burden slow,
Toil'd onward, prick'd with goads and stings;
Here play'd, a tiger, rolling to and fro
The heads and crowns of kings; [29]
Here rose, an athlete, strong to break or bind
All force in bonds that might endure,
And here once more like some sick man declined,
And trusted any cure. [29]
But over these she trod: and those great bells
Began to chime. She took her throne:
She sat betwixt the shining Oriels,
To sing her songs alone. [29]
And thro' the topmost Oriels' colour'd flame
Two godlike faces gazed below;
Plato the wise, and large-brow'd Verulam,
The first of those who know. [29]
And all those names, that in their motion were
Full-welling fountain-heads of change,
Betwixt the slender shafts were blazon'd fair
In diverse raiment strange: [30]
Thro' which the lights, rose, amber, emerald, blue,
Flush'd in her temples and her eyes,
And from her lips, as morn from Memnon, [31] drew
Rivers of melodies.
No nightingale delighteth to prolong
Her low preamble all alone,
More than my soul to hear her echo'd song
Throb thro' the ribbed stone;
Singing and murmuring in her feastful mirth,
Joying to feel herself alive,
Lord over Nature, Lord of [32] the visible earth,
Lord of the senses five;
Communing with herself: "All these are mine,
And let the world have peace or wars,
Tis one to me". She--when young night divine
Crown'd dying day with stars,
Making sweet close of his delicious toils--
Lit light in wreaths and anadems,
And pure quintessences of precious oils
In hollow'd moons of gems,
To mimic heaven; and clapt her hands and cried,
"I marvel if my still delight
In this great house so royal-rich, and wide,
Be flatter'd to the height. [33]
"O all things fair to sate my various eyes!
O shapes and hues that please me well!
O silent faces of the Great and Wise,
My Gods, with whom I dwell! [34]
"O God-like isolation which art mine,
I can but count thee perfect gain,
What time I watch the darkening droves of swine
That range on yonder plain. [34]
"In filthy sloughs they roll a prurient skin,
They graze and wallow, breed and sleep;
And oft some brainless devil enters in,
And drives them to the deep. " [34]
Then of the moral instinct would she prate,
And of the rising from the dead,
As hers by right of full-accomplish'd Fate;
And at the last she said:
"I take possession of man's mind and deed.
I care not what the sects may brawl,
I sit as God holding no form of creed,
But contemplating all. " [35]
* * *
Full oft [36] the riddle of the painful earth
Flash'd thro' her as she sat alone,
Yet not the less held she her solemn mirth,
And intellectual throne.
And so she throve and prosper'd: so three years
She prosper'd: on the fourth she fell, [37]
Like Herod, [38] when the shout was in his ears,
Struck thro' with pangs of hell.
Lest she should fail and perish utterly,
God, before whom ever lie bare
The abysmal deeps of Personality, [39]
Plagued her with sore despair.
When she would think, where'er she turn'd her sight,
The airy hand confusion wrought,
Wrote "Mene, mene," and divided quite
The kingdom of her thought. [40]
Deep dread and loathing of her solitude
Fell on her, from which mood was born
Scorn of herself; again, from out that mood
Laughter at her self-scorn. [41]
"What! is not this my place of strength," she said,
"My spacious mansion built for me,
Whereof the strong foundation-stones were laid
Since my first memory? "
But in dark corners of her palace stood
Uncertain shapes; and unawares
On white-eyed phantasms weeping tears of blood,
And horrible nightmares,
And hollow shades enclosing hearts of flame,
And, with dim fretted foreheads all,
On corpses three-months-old at noon she came,
That stood against the wall.
A spot of dull stagnation, without light
Or power of movement, seem'd my soul,
'Mid onward-sloping [42] motions infinite
Making for one sure goal.
A still salt pool, lock'd in with bars of sand;
Left on the shore; that hears all night
The plunging seas draw backward from the land
Their moon-led waters white.
A star that with the choral starry dance
Join'd not, but stood, and standing saw
The hollow orb of moving Circumstance
Roll'd round by one fix'd law.
Back on herself her serpent pride had curl'd.
"No voice," she shriek'd in that lone hall,
"No voice breaks thro' the stillness of this world:
One deep, deep silence all! "
She, mouldering with the dull earth's mouldering sod,
Inwrapt tenfold in slothful shame,
Lay there exiled from eternal God,
Lost to her place and name;
And death and life she hated equally,
And nothing saw, for her despair,
But dreadful time, dreadful eternity,
No comfort anywhere;
Remaining utterly confused with fears,
And ever worse with growing time,
And ever unrelieved by dismal tears,
And all alone in crime:
Shut up as in a crumbling tomb, girt round
With blackness as a solid wall,
Far off she seem'd to hear the dully sound
Of human footsteps fall.
As in strange lands a traveller walking slow,
In doubt and great perplexity,
A little before moon-rise hears the low
Moan of an unknown sea;
And knows not if it be thunder or a sound
Of rocks [43] thrown down, or one deep cry
Of great wild beasts; then thinketh, "I have found
A new land, but I die".
She howl'd aloud, "I am on fire within.
There comes no murmur of reply.
What is it that will take away my sin,
And save me lest I die? "
So when four years were wholly finished,
She threw her royal robes away.
"Make me a cottage in the vale," she said,
"Where I may mourn and pray. [44]
"Yet pull not down my palace towers, that are
So lightly, beautifully built:
Perchance I may return with others there
When I have purged my guilt. " [45]
[Footnote 1: 1833.
I chose, whose ranged ramparts bright
From great broad meadow bases of deep grass. ]
[Footnote 2: 1833. "While the great world. "]
[Footnote 3: "The shadow of Saturn thrown upon the bright ring that
surrounds the planet appears motionless, though the body of the planet
revolves. Saturn rotates on its axis in the short period of ten and a
half hours, but the shadow of this swiftly whirling mass shows no more
motion than is seen in the shadow of a top spinning so rapidly that it
seems to be standing still. " Rowe and Webb's note, which I gladly
borrow. ]
[Footnote 4: 1833 and 1842. Steadfast. ]
[Footnote 5: After this stanza in 1833 this, deleted in 1842:--
"And richly feast within thy palace hall,
Like to the dainty bird that sups,
Lodged in the lustrous crown-imperial,
Draining the honey cups. "]
[Footnote 6: In 1833 these eight stanzas were inserted after the stanza
beginning, "I take possession of men's minds and deeds"; in 1842 they
were transferred, greatly altered, to their present position. For the
alterations on them see 'infra. ']
[Footnote 7: 1833.
Gloom,
Roofed with thick plates of green and orange glass
Ending in stately rooms. ]
[Footnote 8: 1833.
All various, all beautiful,
Looking all ways, fitted to every mood. ]
[Footnote 9: Here in 1833 was inserted the stanza, "One showed an
English home," afterwards transferred to its present position 85-88. ]
[Footnote 10: 1833.
Some were all dark and red, a glimmering land
Lit with a low round moon,
Among brown rocks a man upon the sand
Went weeping all alone. ]
[Footnote 11: These three stanzas were added in 1842. ]
[Footnote 12: Thus in 1833:--
One seemed a foreground black with stones and slags,
Below sun-smitten icy spires
Rose striped with long white cloud the scornful crags,
Deep trenched with thunder fires. ]
[Footnote 13: Not inserted here in 1833, but the following in its
place:--
Some showed far-off thick woods mounted with towers,
Nearer, a flood of mild sunshine
Poured on long walks and lawns and beds and bowers
Trellised with bunchy vine. ]
[Footnote 14: Inserted in 1842. ]
[Footnote 15: Thus in 1833, followed by the note:--
Or the maid-mother by a crucifix,
In yellow pastures sunny-warm,
Beneath branch-work of costly sardonyx,
Sat smiling, babe in arm.
When I first conceived the plan of the Palace of Art, I intended to
have introduced both sculptures and paintings into it; but it is the
most difficult of all things to 'devise' a statue in verse. Judge
whether I have succeeded in the statues of Elijah and Olympias.
One was the Tishbite whom the raven fed,
As when he stood on Carmel steeps,
With one arm stretched out bare, and mocked and said,
"Come cry aloud-he sleeps".
Tall, eager, lean and strong, his cloak wind-borne
Behind, his forehead heavenly bright
From the clear marble pouring glorious scorn,
Lit as with inner light.
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.
O the Earl was fair to see!
She died: she went to burning flame:
She mix'd her ancient blood with shame.
The wind is howling in turret and tree.
Whole weeks and months, and early and late,
To win his love I lay in wait:
O the Earl was fair to see!
I made a feast; I bad him come;
I won his love, I brought him home.
The wind is roaring in turret and tree.
And after supper, on a bed,
Upon my lap he laid his head:
O the Earl was fair to see!
I kiss'd his eyelids into rest:
His ruddy cheek upon my breast.
The wind is raging in turret and tree.
I hated him with the hate of hell,
But I loved his beauty passing well.
O the Earl was fair to see!
I rose up in the silent night:
I made my dagger sharp and bright.
The wind is raving in turret and tree.
As half-asleep his breath he drew,
Three times I stabb'd him thro' and thro'.
O the Earl was fair to see!
I curl'd and comb'd his comely head,
He look'd so grand when he was dead.
The wind is blowing in turret and tree.
I wrapt his body in the sheet,
And laid him at his mother's feet.
O the Earl was fair to see!
TO-----
WITH THE FOLLOWING POEM
I have not been able to ascertain to whom this dedication was addressed.
Sir Franklin Lushington tells me that he thinks it was an imaginary
person. The dedication explains the allegory intended. The poem appears
to have been suggested, as we learn from 'Tennyson's Life' (vol. i. , p.
150), by a remark of Trench to Tennyson when they were undergraduates at
Trinity: "We cannot live in art". It was the embodiment Tennyson added
of his belief "that the God-like life is with man and for man". 'Cf. '
his own lines in 'Love and Duty':--$
For a man is not as God,
But then most God-like being most a man.
It is a companion poem to the 'Vision of Sin'; in that poem is traced
the effect of indulgence in the grosser pleasures of sense, in this the
effect of the indulgence in the more refined pleasures of sense.
I send you here a sort of allegory,
(For you will understand it) of a soul, [1]
A sinful soul possess'd of many gifts,
A spacious garden full of flowering weeds,
A glorious Devil, large in heart and brain,
That did love Beauty only, (Beauty seen
In all varieties of mould and mind)
And Knowledge for its beauty; or if Good,
Good only for its beauty, seeing not
That beauty, Good, and Knowledge, are three sisters
That doat upon each other, friends to man,
Living together under the same roof,
And never can be sunder'd without tears.
And he that shuts Love out, in turn shall be
Shut out from Love, and on her threshold lie
Howling in outer darkness. Not for this
Was common clay ta'en from the common earth,
Moulded by God, and temper'd with the tears
Of angels to the perfect shape of man.
[Footnote 1: 1833.
I send you, Friend, a sort of allegory,
(You are an artist and will understand
Its many lesser meanings) of a soul. ]
THE PALACE OF ART
First published in 1833, but altered so extensively on its republication
in 1842 as to be practically rewritten. The alterations in it after 1842
were not numerous, consisting chiefly in the deletion of two stanzas
after line 192 and the insertion of the three stanzas which follow in
the present text, together with other minor verbal corrections, all of
which have been noted. No alterations were made in the text after 1853.
The allegory Tennyson explains in the dedicatory verses, but the
framework of the poem was evidently suggested by 'Ecclesiastes' ii.
1-17. The position of the hero is precisely that of Solomon. Both began
by assuming that man is self-sufficing and the world sufficient; the
verdict of the one in consequence being "vanity of vanities, all is
vanity," of the other what the poet here records. An admirable
commentary on the poem is afforded by Matthew Arnold's picture of the
Romans before Christ taught the secret of the only real happiness
possible to man. See 'Obermann Once More'. The teaching of the poem
has been admirably explained by Spedding. It "represents allegorically
the condition of a mind which, in the love of beauty and the triumphant
consciousness of knowledge and intellectual supremacy, in the intense
enjoyment of its own power and glory, has lost sight of its relation to
man and God". See 'Tennyson's Life', vol. i. , p. 226.
I built my soul a lordly pleasure-house
Wherein at ease for aye to dwell.
I said, "O Soul, make merry and carouse,
Dear soul, for all is well".
A huge crag-platform, smooth as burnish'd brass,
I chose. The ranged ramparts bright
From level meadow-bases of deep grass [1]
Suddenly scaled the light.
Thereon I built it firm. Of ledge or shelf
The rock rose clear, or winding stair.
My soul would live alone unto herself
In her high palace there.
And "while the world [2] runs round and round,"
I said, "Reign thou apart, a quiet king,
Still as, while Saturn [3] whirls, his stedfast [4] shade
Sleeps on his luminous [5] ring. "
To which my soul made answer readily:
"Trust me, in bliss I shall abide
In this great mansion, that is built for me,
So royal-rich and wide"
* * * * *
Four courts I made, East, West and South and North,
In each a squared lawn, wherefrom
The golden gorge of dragons spouted forth
A flood of fountain-foam. [6]
And round the cool green courts there ran a row
Of cloisters, branch'd like mighty woods,
Echoing all night to that sonorous flow
Of spouted fountain-floods. [6]
And round the roofs a gilded gallery
That lent broad verge to distant lands,
Far as the wild swan wings, to where the sky
Dipt down to sea and sands. [6]
From those four jets four currents in one swell
Across the mountain stream'd below
In misty folds, that floating as they fell
Lit up a torrent-bow. [6]
And high on every peak a statue seem'd
To hang on tiptoe, tossing up
A cloud of incense of all odour steam'd
From out a golden cup. [6]
So that she thought, "And who shall gaze upon
My palace with unblinded eyes,
While this great bow will waver in the sun,
And that sweet incense rise? " [6]
For that sweet incense rose and never fail'd,
And, while day sank or mounted higher,
The light aerial gallery, golden-rail'd,
Burnt like a fringe of fire. [6]
Likewise the deep-set windows, stain'd and traced,
Would seem slow-flaming crimson fires
From shadow'd grots of arches interlaced,
And tipt with frost-like spires. [6]
* * * * *
Full of long-sounding corridors it was,
That over-vaulted grateful gloom, [7]
Thro' which the livelong day my soul did pass,
Well-pleased, from room to room.
Full of great rooms and small the palace stood,
All various, each a perfect whole
From living Nature, fit for every mood [8]
And change of my still soul.
For some were hung with arras green and blue,
Showing a gaudy summer-morn,
Where with puff'd cheek the belted hunter blew
His wreathed bugle-horn. [9]
One seem'd all dark and red--a tract of sand,
And some one pacing there alone,
Who paced for ever in a glimmering land,
Lit with a low large moon. [10]
One show'd an iron coast and angry waves.
You seem'd to hear them climb and fall
And roar rock-thwarted under bellowing caves,
Beneath the windy wall. [11]
And one, a full-fed river winding slow
By herds upon an endless plain,
The ragged rims of thunder brooding low,
With shadow-streaks of rain. [11]
And one, the reapers at their sultry toil.
In front they bound the sheaves.
Behind Were realms of upland, prodigal in oil,
And hoary to the wind. [11]
And one, a foreground black with stones and slags,
Beyond, a line of heights, and higher
All barr'd with long white cloud the scornful crags,
And highest, snow and fire. [12]
And one, an English home--gray twilight pour'd
On dewy pastures, dewy trees,
Softer than sleep--all things in order stored,
A haunt of ancient Peace. [13]
Nor these alone, but every landscape fair,
As fit for every mood of mind,
Or gay, or grave, or sweet, or stern, was there,
Not less than truth design'd. [14]
* * * *
Or the maid-mother by a crucifix,
In tracts of pasture sunny-warm,
Beneath branch-work of costly sardonyx
Sat smiling, babe in arm. [15]
Or in a clear-wall'd city on the sea,
Near gilded organ-pipes, her hair
Wound with white roses, slept St. Cecily;
An angel look'd at her.
Or thronging all one porch of Paradise,
A group of Houris bow'd to see
The dying Islamite, with hands and eyes
That said, We wait for thee. [16]
Or mythic Uther's deeply-wounded son
In some fair space of sloping greens
Lay, dozing in the vale of Avalon,
And watch'd by weeping queens. [17]
Or hollowing one hand against his ear,
To list a foot-fall, ere he saw
The wood-nymph, stay'd the Ausonian king to hear
Of wisdom and of law. [18]
Or over hills with peaky tops engrail'd,
And many a tract of palm and rice,
The throne of Indian Cama [19] slowly sail'd
A summer fann'd with spice.
Or sweet Europa's [20] mantle blew unclasp'd,
From off her shoulder backward borne:
From one hand droop'd a crocus: one hand grasp'd
The mild bull's golden horn. [21]
Or else flush'd Ganymede, his rosy thigh
Half-buried in the Eagle's down,
Sole as a flying star shot thro' the sky
Above [22] the pillar'd town.
Nor [23] these alone: but every [24] legend fair
Which the supreme Caucasian mind [25]
Carved out of Nature for itself, was there,
Not less than life, design'd. [26]
* * * *
Then in the towers I placed great bells that swung,
Moved of themselves, with silver sound;
And with choice paintings of wise men I hung
The royal dais round.
For there was Milton like a seraph strong,
Beside him Shakespeare bland and mild;
And there the world-worn Dante grasp'd his song,
And somewhat grimly smiled. [27]
And there the Ionian father of the rest; [28]
A million wrinkles carved his skin;
A hundred winters snow'd upon his breast,
From cheek and throat and chin. [29]
Above, the fair hall-ceiling stately set
Many an arch high up did lift,
And angels rising and descending met
With interchange of gift. [29]
Below was all mosaic choicely plann'd
With cycles of the human tale
Of this wide world, the times of every land
So wrought, they will not fail. [29]
The people here, a beast of burden slow,
Toil'd onward, prick'd with goads and stings;
Here play'd, a tiger, rolling to and fro
The heads and crowns of kings; [29]
Here rose, an athlete, strong to break or bind
All force in bonds that might endure,
And here once more like some sick man declined,
And trusted any cure. [29]
But over these she trod: and those great bells
Began to chime. She took her throne:
She sat betwixt the shining Oriels,
To sing her songs alone. [29]
And thro' the topmost Oriels' colour'd flame
Two godlike faces gazed below;
Plato the wise, and large-brow'd Verulam,
The first of those who know. [29]
And all those names, that in their motion were
Full-welling fountain-heads of change,
Betwixt the slender shafts were blazon'd fair
In diverse raiment strange: [30]
Thro' which the lights, rose, amber, emerald, blue,
Flush'd in her temples and her eyes,
And from her lips, as morn from Memnon, [31] drew
Rivers of melodies.
No nightingale delighteth to prolong
Her low preamble all alone,
More than my soul to hear her echo'd song
Throb thro' the ribbed stone;
Singing and murmuring in her feastful mirth,
Joying to feel herself alive,
Lord over Nature, Lord of [32] the visible earth,
Lord of the senses five;
Communing with herself: "All these are mine,
And let the world have peace or wars,
Tis one to me". She--when young night divine
Crown'd dying day with stars,
Making sweet close of his delicious toils--
Lit light in wreaths and anadems,
And pure quintessences of precious oils
In hollow'd moons of gems,
To mimic heaven; and clapt her hands and cried,
"I marvel if my still delight
In this great house so royal-rich, and wide,
Be flatter'd to the height. [33]
"O all things fair to sate my various eyes!
O shapes and hues that please me well!
O silent faces of the Great and Wise,
My Gods, with whom I dwell! [34]
"O God-like isolation which art mine,
I can but count thee perfect gain,
What time I watch the darkening droves of swine
That range on yonder plain. [34]
"In filthy sloughs they roll a prurient skin,
They graze and wallow, breed and sleep;
And oft some brainless devil enters in,
And drives them to the deep. " [34]
Then of the moral instinct would she prate,
And of the rising from the dead,
As hers by right of full-accomplish'd Fate;
And at the last she said:
"I take possession of man's mind and deed.
I care not what the sects may brawl,
I sit as God holding no form of creed,
But contemplating all. " [35]
* * *
Full oft [36] the riddle of the painful earth
Flash'd thro' her as she sat alone,
Yet not the less held she her solemn mirth,
And intellectual throne.
And so she throve and prosper'd: so three years
She prosper'd: on the fourth she fell, [37]
Like Herod, [38] when the shout was in his ears,
Struck thro' with pangs of hell.
Lest she should fail and perish utterly,
God, before whom ever lie bare
The abysmal deeps of Personality, [39]
Plagued her with sore despair.
When she would think, where'er she turn'd her sight,
The airy hand confusion wrought,
Wrote "Mene, mene," and divided quite
The kingdom of her thought. [40]
Deep dread and loathing of her solitude
Fell on her, from which mood was born
Scorn of herself; again, from out that mood
Laughter at her self-scorn. [41]
"What! is not this my place of strength," she said,
"My spacious mansion built for me,
Whereof the strong foundation-stones were laid
Since my first memory? "
But in dark corners of her palace stood
Uncertain shapes; and unawares
On white-eyed phantasms weeping tears of blood,
And horrible nightmares,
And hollow shades enclosing hearts of flame,
And, with dim fretted foreheads all,
On corpses three-months-old at noon she came,
That stood against the wall.
A spot of dull stagnation, without light
Or power of movement, seem'd my soul,
'Mid onward-sloping [42] motions infinite
Making for one sure goal.
A still salt pool, lock'd in with bars of sand;
Left on the shore; that hears all night
The plunging seas draw backward from the land
Their moon-led waters white.
A star that with the choral starry dance
Join'd not, but stood, and standing saw
The hollow orb of moving Circumstance
Roll'd round by one fix'd law.
Back on herself her serpent pride had curl'd.
"No voice," she shriek'd in that lone hall,
"No voice breaks thro' the stillness of this world:
One deep, deep silence all! "
She, mouldering with the dull earth's mouldering sod,
Inwrapt tenfold in slothful shame,
Lay there exiled from eternal God,
Lost to her place and name;
And death and life she hated equally,
And nothing saw, for her despair,
But dreadful time, dreadful eternity,
No comfort anywhere;
Remaining utterly confused with fears,
And ever worse with growing time,
And ever unrelieved by dismal tears,
And all alone in crime:
Shut up as in a crumbling tomb, girt round
With blackness as a solid wall,
Far off she seem'd to hear the dully sound
Of human footsteps fall.
As in strange lands a traveller walking slow,
In doubt and great perplexity,
A little before moon-rise hears the low
Moan of an unknown sea;
And knows not if it be thunder or a sound
Of rocks [43] thrown down, or one deep cry
Of great wild beasts; then thinketh, "I have found
A new land, but I die".
She howl'd aloud, "I am on fire within.
There comes no murmur of reply.
What is it that will take away my sin,
And save me lest I die? "
So when four years were wholly finished,
She threw her royal robes away.
"Make me a cottage in the vale," she said,
"Where I may mourn and pray. [44]
"Yet pull not down my palace towers, that are
So lightly, beautifully built:
Perchance I may return with others there
When I have purged my guilt. " [45]
[Footnote 1: 1833.
I chose, whose ranged ramparts bright
From great broad meadow bases of deep grass. ]
[Footnote 2: 1833. "While the great world. "]
[Footnote 3: "The shadow of Saturn thrown upon the bright ring that
surrounds the planet appears motionless, though the body of the planet
revolves. Saturn rotates on its axis in the short period of ten and a
half hours, but the shadow of this swiftly whirling mass shows no more
motion than is seen in the shadow of a top spinning so rapidly that it
seems to be standing still. " Rowe and Webb's note, which I gladly
borrow. ]
[Footnote 4: 1833 and 1842. Steadfast. ]
[Footnote 5: After this stanza in 1833 this, deleted in 1842:--
"And richly feast within thy palace hall,
Like to the dainty bird that sups,
Lodged in the lustrous crown-imperial,
Draining the honey cups. "]
[Footnote 6: In 1833 these eight stanzas were inserted after the stanza
beginning, "I take possession of men's minds and deeds"; in 1842 they
were transferred, greatly altered, to their present position. For the
alterations on them see 'infra. ']
[Footnote 7: 1833.
Gloom,
Roofed with thick plates of green and orange glass
Ending in stately rooms. ]
[Footnote 8: 1833.
All various, all beautiful,
Looking all ways, fitted to every mood. ]
[Footnote 9: Here in 1833 was inserted the stanza, "One showed an
English home," afterwards transferred to its present position 85-88. ]
[Footnote 10: 1833.
Some were all dark and red, a glimmering land
Lit with a low round moon,
Among brown rocks a man upon the sand
Went weeping all alone. ]
[Footnote 11: These three stanzas were added in 1842. ]
[Footnote 12: Thus in 1833:--
One seemed a foreground black with stones and slags,
Below sun-smitten icy spires
Rose striped with long white cloud the scornful crags,
Deep trenched with thunder fires. ]
[Footnote 13: Not inserted here in 1833, but the following in its
place:--
Some showed far-off thick woods mounted with towers,
Nearer, a flood of mild sunshine
Poured on long walks and lawns and beds and bowers
Trellised with bunchy vine. ]
[Footnote 14: Inserted in 1842. ]
[Footnote 15: Thus in 1833, followed by the note:--
Or the maid-mother by a crucifix,
In yellow pastures sunny-warm,
Beneath branch-work of costly sardonyx,
Sat smiling, babe in arm.
When I first conceived the plan of the Palace of Art, I intended to
have introduced both sculptures and paintings into it; but it is the
most difficult of all things to 'devise' a statue in verse. Judge
whether I have succeeded in the statues of Elijah and Olympias.
One was the Tishbite whom the raven fed,
As when he stood on Carmel steeps,
With one arm stretched out bare, and mocked and said,
"Come cry aloud-he sleeps".
Tall, eager, lean and strong, his cloak wind-borne
Behind, his forehead heavenly bright
From the clear marble pouring glorious scorn,
Lit as with inner light.
