Consider
your origin, ye were not formed to live
like Brutes but to follow virtue and knowledge.
like Brutes but to follow virtue and knowledge.
Tennyson
,
273. But this is to be explained perhaps by the moral purpose of the
poem. ]
THE TALKING OAK
First published in 1842, and republished in all subsequent editions with
only two slight alterations: in line 113 a mere variant in spelling, and
in line 185, where in place of the present reading the editions between
1842 and 1848 read, "For, ah! the Dryad-days were brief".
Tennyson told Mr. Aubrey de Vere that the poem was an experiment meant
to test the degree in which it is in the power of poetry to humanise
external nature. Tennyson might have remembered that Ovid had made the
same experiment nearly two thousand years ago, while Goethe had
immediately anticipated him in his charming 'Der Junggesett und der
Muhlbach'. There was certainly no novelty in such an attempt. The poem
is in parts charmingly written, but the oak is certainly "garrulously
given," and comes perilously near to tediousness.
Once more the gate behind me falls;
Once more before my face
I see the moulder'd Abbey-walls,
That stand within the chace.
Beyond the lodge the city lies,
Beneath its drift of smoke;
And ah! with what delighted eyes
I turn to yonder oak.
For when my passion first began,
Ere that, which in me burn'd,
The love, that makes me thrice a man,
Could hope itself return'd;
To yonder oak within the field
I spoke without restraint,
And with a larger faith appeal'd
Than Papist unto Saint.
For oft I talk'd with him apart,
And told him of my choice,
Until he plagiarised a heart,
And answer'd with a voice.
Tho' what he whisper'd, under Heaven
None else could understand;
I found him garrulously given,
A babbler in the land.
But since I heard him make reply
Is many a weary hour;
'Twere well to question him, and try
If yet he keeps the power.
Hail, hidden to the knees in fern,
Broad Oak of Sumner-chace,
Whose topmost branches can discern
The roofs of Sumner-place!
Say thou, whereon I carved her name,
If ever maid or spouse,
As fair as my Olivia, came
To rest beneath thy boughs. --
"O Walter, I have shelter'd here
Whatever maiden grace
The good old Summers, year by year,
Made ripe in Sumner-chace:
"Old Summers, when the monk was fat,
And, issuing shorn and sleek,
Would twist his girdle tight, and pat
The girls upon the cheek.
"Ere yet, in scorn of Peter's-pence,
And number'd bead, and shrift,
Bluff Harry broke into the spence, [1]
And turn'd the cowls adrift:
"And I have seen some score of those
Fresh faces, that would thrive
When his man-minded offset rose
To chase the deer at five;
"And all that from the town would stroll,
Till that wild wind made work
In which the gloomy brewer's soul
Went by me, like a stork:
"The slight she-slips of loyal blood,
And others, passing praise,
Strait-laced, but all too full in bud
For puritanic stays: [2]
"And I have shadow'd many a group
Of beauties, that were born
In teacup-times of hood and hoop,
Or while the patch was worn;
"And, leg and arm with love-knots gay,
About me leap'd and laugh'd
The Modish Cupid of the day,
And shrill'd his tinsel shaft.
"I swear (and else may insects prick
Each leaf into a gall)
This girl, for whom your heart is sick,
Is three times worth them all;
"For those and theirs, by Nature's law,
Have faded long ago;
But in these latter springs I saw
Your own Olivia blow,
"From when she gamboll'd on the greens,
A baby-germ, to when
The maiden blossoms of her teens
Could number five from ten.
"I swear, by leaf, and wind, and rain
(And hear me with thine ears),
That, tho' I circle in the grain
Five hundred rings of years--
"Yet, since I first could cast a shade,
Did never creature pass
So slightly, musically made,
So light upon the grass:
"For as to fairies, that will flit
To make the greensward fresh,
I hold them exquisitely knit,
But far too spare of flesh. "
Oh, hide thy knotted knees in fern,
And overlook the chace;
And from thy topmost branch discern
The roofs of Sumner-place.
But thou, whereon I carved her name,
That oft hast heard my vows,
Declare when last Olivia came
To sport beneath thy boughs.
"O yesterday, you know, the fair
Was holden at the town;
Her father left his good arm-chair,
And rode his hunter down.
"And with him Albert came on his.
I look'd at him with joy:
As cowslip unto oxlip is,
So seems she to the boy.
"An hour had past--and, sitting straight
Within the low-wheel'd chaise,
Her mother trundled to the gate
Behind the dappled grays.
"But, as for her, she stay'd [3] at home,
And on the roof she went,
And down the way you use to come,
She look'd with discontent.
"She left the novel half-uncut
Upon the rosewood shelf;
She left the new piano shut:
She could not please herself.
"Then ran she, gamesome as the colt,
And livelier than a lark
She sent her voice thro' all the holt
Before her, and the park.
"A light wind chased her on the wing,
And in the chase grew wild,
As close as might be would he cling
About the darling child:
"But light as any wind that blows
So fleetly did she stir,
The flower she touch'd on dipt and rose,
And turn'd to look at her.
"And here she came, and round me play'd,
And sang to me the whole
Of those three stanzas that you made
About my 'giant bole';
"And in a fit of frolic mirth
She strove to span my waist:
Alas, I was so broad of girth,
I could not be embraced.
"I wish'd myself the fair young beech
That here beside me stands,
That round me, clasping each in each,
She might have lock'd her hands.
"Yet seem'd the pressure thrice as sweet
As woodbine's fragile hold,
Or when I feel about my feet
The berried briony fold. "
O muffle round thy knees with fern,
And shadow Sumner-chace!
Long may thy topmost branch discern
The roofs of Sumner-place!
But tell me, did she read the name
I carved with many vows
When last with throbbing heart I came
To rest beneath thy boughs?
"O yes, she wander'd round and round
These knotted knees of mine,
And found, and kiss'd the name she found,
And sweetly murmur'd thine.
"A teardrop trembled from its source,
And down my surface crept.
My sense of touch is something coarse,
But I believe she wept.
"Then flush'd her cheek with rosy light,
She glanced across the plain;
But not a creature was in sight:
She kiss'd me once again.
"Her kisses were so close and kind,
That, trust me on my word,
Hard wood I am, and wrinkled rind,
But yet my sap was stirr'd:
"And even into my inmost ring
A pleasure I discern'd
Like those blind motions of the Spring,
That show the year is turn'd.
"Thrice-happy he that may caress
The ringlet's waving balm
The cushions of whose touch may press
The maiden's tender palm.
"I, rooted here among the groves,
But languidly adjust
My vapid vegetable loves [4]
With anthers and with dust:
"For, ah! my friend, the days were brief [5]
Whereof the poets talk,
When that, which breathes within the leaf,
Could slip its bark and walk.
"But could I, as in times foregone,
From spray, and branch, and stem,
Have suck'd and gather'd into one
The life that spreads in them,
"She had not found me so remiss;
But lightly issuing thro',
I would have paid her kiss for kiss
With usury thereto. "
O flourish high, with leafy towers,
And overlook the lea,
Pursue thy loves among the bowers,
But leave thou mine to me.
O flourish, hidden deep in fern,
Old oak, I love thee well;
A thousand thanks for what I learn
And what remains to tell.
"'Tis little more: the day was warm;
At last, tired out with play,
She sank her head upon her arm,
And at my feet she lay.
"Her eyelids dropp'd their silken eaves.
I breathed upon her eyes
Thro' all the summer of my leaves
A welcome mix'd with sighs.
"I took the swarming sound of life--
The music from the town--
The murmurs of the drum and fife
And lull'd them in my own.
"Sometimes I let a sunbeam slip,
To light her shaded eye;
A second flutter'd round her lip
Like a golden butterfly;
"A third would glimmer on her neck
To make the necklace shine;
Another slid, a sunny fleck,
From head to ancle fine.
"Then close and dark my arms I spread,
And shadow'd all her rest--
Dropt dews upon her golden head,
An acorn in her breast.
"But in a pet she started up,
And pluck'd it out, and drew
My little oakling from the cup,
And flung him in the dew.
"And yet it was a graceful gift--
I felt a pang within
As when I see the woodman lift
His axe to slay my kin.
"I shook him down because he was
The finest on the tree.
He lies beside thee on the grass.
O kiss him once for me.
"O kiss him twice and thrice for me,
That have no lips to kiss,
For never yet was oak on lea
Shall grow so fair as this. "
Step deeper yet in herb and fern,
Look further thro' the chace,
Spread upward till thy boughs discern
The front of Sumner-place.
This fruit of thine by Love is blest,
That but a moment lay
Where fairer fruit of Love may rest
Some happy future day.
I kiss it twice, I kiss it thrice,
The warmth it thence shall win
To riper life may magnetise
The baby-oak within.
But thou, while kingdoms overset,
Or lapse from hand to hand,
Thy leaf shall never fail, nor yet
Thine acorn in the land.
May never saw dismember thee,
Nor wielded axe disjoint,
That art the fairest-spoken tree
From here to Lizard-point.
O rock upon thy towery top
All throats that gurgle sweet!
All starry culmination drop
Balm-dews to bathe thy feet!
All grass of silky feather grow--
And while he sinks or swells
The full south-breeze around thee blow
The sound of minster bells.
The fat earth feed thy branchy root,
That under deeply strikes!
The northern morning o'er thee shoot
High up, in silver spikes!
Nor ever lightning char thy grain,
But, rolling as in sleep,
Low thunders bring the mellow rain,
That makes thee broad and deep!
And hear me swear a solemn oath,
That only by thy side
Will I to Olive plight my troth,
And gain her for my bride.
And when my marriage morn may fall,
She, Dryad-like, shall wear
Alternate leaf and acorn-ball
In wreath about her hair.
And I will work in prose and rhyme,
And praise thee more in both
Than bard has honour'd beech or lime,
Or that Thessalian growth, [6]
In which the swarthy ringdove sat,
And mystic sentence spoke;
And more than England honours that,
Thy famous brother-oak,
Wherein the younger Charles abode
Till all the paths were dim,
And far below the Roundhead rode,
And humm'd a surly hymn.
[Footnote 1: Spence is a larder and buttery. In the 'Promptorium
Parverum it is defined as "cellarium promptuarium". ]
[Footnote 2: Cf. Burns' "godly laces," 'To the Unco Righteous'. ]
[Footnote 3: All editions previous to 1853 have 'staid'. ]
[Footnote 4: The phrase is Marvell's. 'Cf. To his Coy Mistress' (a
favourite poem of Tennyson's), "my vegetable loves should grow". ]
[Footnote 5: 1842 to 1850. "For, ah! the Dryad-days were brief. ]
[Footnote 6: A reference to the oracular oaks of Dodona which was, of
course, in Epirus, but the Ancients believed, no doubt erroneously, that
there was another Dodona in Thessaly. See the article "Dodona" in
Smith's 'Dict. of Greek and Roman Geography'. ]
LOVE AND DUTY
Published first in 1842.
Whether this beautiful poem is autobiographical and has reference to the
compulsory separation of Tennyson and Miss Emily Sellwood, afterwards
his wife, in 1840, it is impossible for this editor to say, as Lord
Tennyson in his 'Life' of his father is silent on the subject.
Of love that never found his earthly close,
What sequel? Streaming eyes and breaking hearts?
Or all the same as if he had not been?
Not so. Shall Error in the round of time
Still father Truth? O shall the braggart shout [1]
For some blind glimpse of freedom work itself
Thro' madness, hated by the wise, to law
System and empire? Sin itself be found
The cloudy porch oft opening on the Sun?
And only he, this wonder, dead, become
Mere highway dust? or year by year alone
Sit brooding in the ruins of a life,
Nightmare of youth, the spectre of himself!
If this were thus, if this, indeed, were all,
Better the narrow brain, the stony heart,
The staring eye glazed o'er with sapless days,
The long mechanic pacings to and fro,
The set gray life, and apathetic end.
But am I not the nobler thro' thy love?
O three times less unworthy! likewise thou
Art more thro' Love, and greater than thy years.
The Sun will run his orbit, and the Moon
Her circle. Wait, and Love himself will bring
The drooping flower of knowledge changed to fruit
Of wisdom. [2] Wait: my faith is large in Time,
And that which shapes it to some perfect end.
Will some one say, then why not ill for good?
Why took ye not your pastime? To that man
My work shall answer, since I knew the right
And did it; for a man is not as God,
But then most Godlike being most a man. --
So let me think 'tis well for thee and me--
Ill-fated that I am, what lot is mine
Whose foresight preaches peace, my heart so slow
To feel it! For how hard it seem'd to me,
When eyes, love-languid thro' half-tears, would dwell
One earnest, earnest moment upon mine,
Then not to dare to see! when thy low voice,
Faltering, would break its syllables, to keep
My own full-tuned,--hold passion in a leash,
And not leap forth and fall about thy neck,
And on thy bosom, (deep-desired relief! )
Rain out the heavy mist of tears, that weigh'd
Upon my brain, my senses, and my soul!
For love himself took part against himself
To warn us off, and Duty loved of Love--
O this world's curse--beloved but hated--came Like
Death betwixt thy dear embrace and mine,
And crying, "Who is this? behold thy bride,"
She push'd me from thee.
If the sense is hard
To alien ears, I did not speak to these--
No, not to thee, but to thyself in me:
Hard is my doom and thine: thou knowest it all.
Could Love part thus? was it not well to speak,
To have spoken once? It could not but be well.
The slow sweet hours that bring us all things good, [3]
The slow sad hours that bring us all things ill,
And all good things from evil, brought the night
In which we sat together and alone,
And to the want, that hollow'd all the heart,
Gave utterance by the yearning of an eye,
That burn'd upon its object thro' such tears
As flow but once a life. The trance gave way
To those caresses, when a hundred times
In that last kiss, which never was the last,
Farewell, like endless welcome, lived and died.
Then follow'd counsel, comfort and the words
That make a man feel strong in speaking truth;
Till now the dark was worn, and overhead
The lights of sunset and of sunrise mix'd
In that brief night; the summer night, that paused
Among her stars to hear us; stars that hung
Love-charm'd to listen: all the wheels of Time
Spun round in station, but the end had come.
O then like those, who clench [4] their nerves to rush
Upon their dissolution, we two rose,
There-closing like an individual life--
In one blind cry of passion and of pain,
Like bitter accusation ev'n to death,
Caught up the whole of love and utter'd it,
And bade adieu for ever. Live--yet live--
Shall sharpest pathos blight us, knowing all
Life needs for life is possible to will--
Live happy; tend thy flowers; be tended by
My blessing! Should my Shadow cross thy thoughts
Too sadly for their peace, remand it thou
For calmer hours to Memory's darkest hold, [5]
If not to be forgotten--not at once--
Not all forgotten. Should it cross thy dreams,
O might it come like one that looks content,
With quiet eyes unfaithful to the truth,
And point thee forward to a distant light,
Or seem to lift a burthen from thy heart
And leave thee freer, till thou wake refresh'd,
Then when the first low matin-chirp hath grown
Full quire, and morning driv'n her plow of pearl [6]
Far furrowing into light the mounded rack,
Beyond the fair green field and eastern sea.
[Footnote 1: As this passage is a little obscure, it may not be
superfluous to point out that "shout" is a substantive. ]
[Footnote 2: The distinction between "knowledge" and "wisdom" is a
favourite one with Tennyson. See 'In Memoriam', cxiv. ; 'Locksley
Hall', 141, and for the same distinction see Cowper, 'Task',
vi. , 88-99. ]
[Footnote 3: Suggested by Theocritus, 'Id'. , xv. , 104-5. ]
[Footnote 4: 1842 to 1845. O then like those, that clench. ]
[Footnote 5: Pathos, in the Greek sense, "suffering". All editions up to
and including 1850 have a small "s" and a small "m" for Shadow and
Memory, and read thus:--
Too sadly for their peace, so put it back
For calmer hours in memory's darkest hold,
If unforgotten! should it cross thy dreams,
So might it come, etc. ]
[Footnote 6: 'Cf. Princess', iii. :--
Morn in the white wake of the morning star
Came furrowing all the orient into gold,
and with both cf. Greene, 'Orlando Furioso', i. , 2:--
Seest thou not Lycaon's son?
The hardy plough-swain unto mighty Jove
Hath _trac'd his silver furrows in the heaven_,
which in its turn is borrowed from Ariosto, 'Orl. Fur. ', xx. ,
lxxxii. :--
Apena avea Licaonia prole
Per li solchi del ciel volto
L'aratro. ]
THE GOLDEN YEAR
This poem was first published in the fourth edition of the poems 1846.
No alterations were made in it after 1851. The poem had a message for
the time at which it was written. The country was in a very troubled
state. The contest between the Protectionists and Free-traders was at
its acutest stage. The Maynooth endowment and the "godless colleges" had
brought into prominence questions of the gravest moment in religion and
education, while the Corn Bill and the Coercion Bill had inflamed the
passions of party politicians almost to madness. Tennyson, his son tells
us, entered heartily into these questions, believing that the remedies
for these distempers lay in the spread of education, a more catholic
spirit in the press, a partial adoption of Free Trade principles, and
union as far as possible among the different sections of Christianity.
Well, you shall have that song which Leonard wrote:
It was last summer on a tour in Wales:
Old James was with me: we that day had been
Up Snowdon; and I wish'd for Leonard there,
And found him in Llanberis: [1] then we crost
Between the lakes, and clamber'd half-way up
The counterside; and that same song of his
He told me; for I banter'd him, and swore
They said he lived shut up within himself,
A tongue-tied Poet in the feverous days,
That, setting the _how much_ before the _how_,
Cry, like the daughters of the horseleech, "Give, [2]
Cram us with all," but count not me the herd!
To which "They call me what they will," he said:
"But I was born too late: the fair new forms,
That float about the threshold of an age,
Like truths of Science waiting to be caught--
Catch me who can, and make the catcher crown'd--
Are taken by the forelock. Let it be.
But if you care indeed to listen, hear
These measured words, my work of yestermorn.
"We sleep and wake and sleep, but all things move;
The Sun flies forward to his brother Sun;
The dark Earth follows wheel'd in her ellipse;
And human things returning on themselves
Move onward, leading up the golden year.
"Ah, tho' the times, when some new thought can bud,
Are but as poets' seasons when they flower,
Yet seas, that daily gain upon the shore, [3]
Have ebb and flow conditioning their march,
And slow and sure comes up the golden year.
"When wealth no more shall rest in mounded heaps,
But smit with freer light shall slowly melt
In many streams to fatten lower lands,
And light shall spread, and man be liker man
Thro' all the season of the golden year.
"Shall eagles not be eagles? wrens be wrens?
If all the world were falcons, what of that?
The wonder of the eagle were the less,
But he not less the eagle. Happy days
Roll onward, leading up the golden year.
"Fly happy happy sails and bear the Press;
Fly happy with the mission of the Cross;
Knit land to land, and blowing havenward
With silks, and fruits, and spices, clear of toll,
Enrich the markets of the golden year.
"But we grow old! Ah! when shall all men's good
Be each man's rule, and universal Peace
Lie like a shaft of light across the land,
And like a lane of beams athwart the sea,
Thro' all the circle of the golden year? "
Thus far he flow'd, and ended; whereupon
"Ah, folly! " in mimic cadence answer'd James--
"Ah, folly! for it lies so far away.
Not in our time, nor in our children's time,
'Tis like the second world to us that live;
'Twere all as one to fix our hopes on Heaven
As on this vision of the golden year. "
With that he struck his staff against the rocks
And broke it,--James,--you know him,--old, but full
Of force and choler, and firm upon his feet,
And like an oaken stock in winter woods,
O'erflourished with the hoary clematis:
Then added, all in heat: "What stuff is this!
Old writers push'd the happy season back,--
The more fools they,--we forward: dreamers both:
You most, that in an age, when every hour
Must sweat her sixty minutes to the death,
Live on, God love us, as if the seedsman, rapt
Upon the teeming harvest, should not dip [4]
His hand into the bag: but well I know
That unto him who works, and feels he works,
This same grand year is ever at the doors. "
He spoke; and, high above, I heard them blast
The steep slate-quarry, and the great echo flap
And buffet round the hills from bluff to bluff.
[Footnote 1: 1846 to 1850.
And joined him in Llanberis; and that same song
He told me, etc. ]
[Footnote 2: Proverbs xxx. 15:
"The horseleach hath two daughters, crying,
Give, give". ]
[Footnote 3: 1890. Altered to "Yet oceans daily gaining on the land". ]
[Footnote 4: 'Selections', 1865. Plunge. ]
ULYSSES
First published in 1842, no alterations were made in it subsequently.
This noble poem, which is said to have induced Sir Robert Peel to give
Tennyson his pension, was written soon after Arthur Hallam's death,
presumably therefore in 1833. "It gave my feeling," Tennyson said to his
son, "about the need of going forward and braving the struggle of life
perhaps more simply than anything in 'In Memoriam'. " It is not the
'Ulysses' of Homer, nor was it suggested by the 'Odyssey'. The germ, the
spirit and the sentiment of the poem are from the twenty-sixth canto of
Dante's 'Inferno', where Ulysses in the Limbo of the Deceivers speaks
from the flame which swathes him. I give a literal version of the
passage:--
"Neither fondness for my son nor reverence for my aged sire nor the
due love which ought to have gladdened Penelope could conquer in me
the ardour which I had to become experienced in the world and in human
vice and worth. I put out into the deep open sea with but one ship and
with that small company which had not deserted me. . . . I and my
companions were old and tardy when we came to that narrow pass where
Hercules assigned his landmarks. 'O brothers,' I said, 'who through a
hundred thousand dangers have reached the West deny not to this the
brief vigil of your senses that remain, experience of the unpeopled
world beyond the sun.
Consider your origin, ye were not formed to live
like Brutes but to follow virtue and knowledge. . . . Night already saw
the other pole with all its stars and ours so low that it rose not
from the ocean floor'"
('Inferno', xxvi. , 94-126).
But if the germ is here the expansion is Tennyson's; he has added
elaboration and symmetry, fine touches, magical images and magical
diction. There is nothing in Dante which answers to--
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
or
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Of these lines well does Carlyle say what so many will feel: "These
lines do not make me weep, but there is in me what would till whole
Lacrymatorics as I read".
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades [1]
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments, [2]
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end, [3]
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge, like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus, [4]
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle--
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port: the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd and wrought, and thought with me--
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads--you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, [5]
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
[Footnote 1: Virgil, 'AEn'. , i. , 748, and iii. , 516. ]
[Footnote 2: 'Odyssey', i. , 1-4. ]
[Footnote 3: 'Cf'. Shakespeare, 'Troilus and Cressida':--
Perseverance, dear, my lord,
Keeps honour bright: To have done, is to hang
Quite out of fashion, like a rusty nail
In monumental mockery. ]
[Footnote 4: How admirably has Tennyson touched off the character of the
Telemachus of the 'Odyssey'. ]
[Footnote 5: The Happy Isles, the 'Fortunatae Insulae' of the Romans and
the
[Greek: ai t_on Makar_on naesoi]
of the Greeks, have been identified by geographers as those islands in
the Atlantic off the west coast of Africa; some take them to mean the
Canary Islands, the Madeira group and the Azores, while they may have
included the Cape de Verde Islands as well. What seems certain is that
these places with their soft delicious climate and lovely scenery gave
the poets an idea of a happy abode for departed spirits, and so the
conception of the _Elysian Fields_. The _loci classici_ on these abodes
are Homer, Odyssey, iv. , 563 _seqq_. :--
[Greek: alla s' es Elysion pedion kai peirata gaiaes athanatoi
pempsousin, hothi xanthos Rhadamanthus tae per rhaeistae biotae pelei
anthr_opoisin, ou niphetos, out' ar cheim_on polus, oute pot' ombros
all' aiei Zephuroio ligu pneiontas aaetas _okeanos aniaesin
anapsuchein anthr_opous.
[But the Immortals will convey thee to the Elysian plain and the
world's limits where is Rhadamanthus of the golden hair, where life is
easiest for man; no snow is there, no nor no great storm, nor any
rain, but always ocean sendeth forth the shrilly breezes of the West
to cool and refresh men],
and Pindar, 'Olymp'. , ii. , 178 'seqq'. , compared with the splendid
fragment at the beginning of the 'Dirges'. Elysium was afterwards placed
in the netherworld, as by Virgil. Thus, as so often the suggestion was
from the facts of geography, the rest soon became an allegorical myth,
and to attempt to identify and localise "the Happy Isles" is as great an
absurdity as to attempt to identify and localise the island of
Shakespeare's 'Tempest'. ]
LOCKSLEY HALL
First published in 1842, and no alterations were made in it subsequently
to the edition of 1850; except that in the Selections published in 1865
in the third stanza the reading was "half in ruin" for "in the
distance". This poem, as Tennyson explained, was not autobiographic but
purely imaginary, "representing young life, its good side, its
deficiences and its yearnings". The poem, he added, was written in
Trochaics because the elder Hallam told him that the English people
liked that metre. The hero is a sort of preliminary sketch of the hero
in 'Maud', the position and character of each being very similar: both
are cynical and querulous, and break out into tirades against their kind
and society; both have been disappointed in love, and both find the same
remedy for their afflictions by mixing themselves with action and
becoming "one with their kind".
'Locksley Hall' was suggested, as Tennyson acknowledged, by Sir William
Jones' translation of the old Arabian Moallakat, a collection from the
works of pre-Mahommedan poets. See Sir William Jones' works, quarto
edition, vol. iv. , pp. 247-57. But only one of these poems, namely the
poem of Amriolkais, could have immediately influenced him. In this the
poet supposes himself attended on a journey by a company of friends, and
they pass near a place where his mistress had lately lived, but from
which her tribe had then removed. He desires them to stop awhile, that
he may weep over the deserted remains of her tent. They comply with his
request, but exhort him to show more strength of mind, and urge two
topics of consolation, namely, that he had before been equally unhappy
and that he had enjoyed his full share of pleasures. Thus by the
recollection of his past delights his imagination is kindled and his
grief suspended. But Tennyson's chief indebtedness is rather in the
oriental colouring given to his poem, chiefly in the sentiment and
imagery. Thus in the couplet--
Many a night I saw the Pleiads rising through the mellow shade
Glitter like a swarm of fireflies tangl'd in a silver braid,
we are reminded of "It was the hour when the Pleiads appeared in the
firmament like the folds of a silken sash variously decked with gems".
Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet 'tis early morn:
Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle horn.
'Tis the place, and all around it, [1] as of old, the curlews call,
Dreary gleams [2] about the moorland flying over Locksley Hall;
Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts,
And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts.
Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest,
Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West.
Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow shade,
Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid.
Here about the beach I wander'd, nourishing a youth sublime
With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of Time;
When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed;
When I clung to all the present for the promise that it closed:
When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see;
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be. --
In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's [3] breast;
In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest;
In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove;
In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.
Then her cheek was pale and thinner than should be for one so young,
And her eyes on all my motions with a mute observance hung.
And I said, "My cousin Amy, speak, and speak the truth to me,
Trust me, cousin, all the current of my being sets to thee. "
On her pallid cheek and forehead came a colour and a light,
As I have seen the rosy red flushing in the northern night.
And she turn'd--her bosom shaken with a sudden storm of sighs--
All the spirit deeply dawning in the dark of hazel eyes--
Saying, "I have hid my feelings, fearing they should do me wrong";
Saying, "Dost thou love me, cousin? " weeping, "I have loved thee
long".
Love took up the glass of Time, and turn'd it in his glowing hands;
Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands. [4]
Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might;
Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of
sight.
Many a morning on the moorland did we hear the copses ring,
And her whisper throng'd my pulses with the fulness of the Spring.
Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately ships,
And our spirits rush'd together at the touching of the lips. [5]
O my cousin, shallow-hearted! O my Amy, mine no more!
O the dreary, dreary moorland! O the barren, barren shore!
Falser than all fancy fathoms, falser than all songs have sung,
Puppet to a father's threat, and servile to a shrewish tongue!
Is it well to wish thee happy? --having known me--to decline
On a range of lower feelings and a narrower heart than mine!
Yet it shall be: thou shalt lower to his level day by day,
What is fine within thee growing coarse to sympathise with clay.
As the husband is, the wife is: thou art mated with a clown,
And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down.
He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force,
Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse.
What is this? his eyes are heavy: think not they are glazed with wine.
Go to him: it is thy duty: kiss him: take his hand in thine.
It may be my lord is weary, that his brain is overwrought:
Soothe him with thy finer fancies, touch him with thy lighter thought.
He will answer to the purpose, easy things to understand--
Better thou wert dead before me, tho' I slew thee with my hand!
Better thou and I were lying, hidden from the heart's disgrace,
Roll'd in one another's arms, and silent in a last embrace.
Cursed be the social wants that sin against the strength of youth!
Cursed be the social lies that warp us from the living truth!
Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest Nature's rule!
Cursed be the gold that gilds the straiten'd forehead of the fool!
Well--'tis well that I should bluster! --Hadst thou less unworthy
proved--
Would to God--for I had loved thee more than ever wife was loved.
Am I mad, that I should cherish that which bears but bitter fruit?
I will pluck it from my bosom, tho' my heart be at the root.
Never, tho' my mortal summers to such length of years should come
As the many-winter'd crow that leads the clanging rookery home. [6]
Where is comfort? in division of the records of the mind?
Can I part her from herself, and love her, as I knew her, kind?
I remember one that perish'd: sweetly did she speak and move:
Such a one do I remember, whom to look it was to love.
Can I think of her as dead, and love her for the love she bore?
No--she never loved me truly: love is love for evermore.
Comfort? comfort scorn'd of devils! this is truth the poet sings,
That a sorrow's crown of sorrow [7] is remembering happier things.
Drug thy memories, lest thou learn it, lest thy heart be put to proof,
In the dead unhappy night, and when the rain is on the roof.
Like a dog, he hunts in dreams, and thou art staring at the wall,
Where the dying night-lamp flickers, and the shadows rise and fall.
Then a hand shall pass before thee, pointing to his drunken sleep,
To thy widow'd marriage-pillows, to the tears that thou wilt weep.
Thou shalt hear the "Never, never," whisper'd by the phantom years,
And a song from out the distance in the ringing of thine ears;
And an eye shall vex thee, looking ancient kindness on thy pain.
Turn thee, turn thee on thy pillow: get thee to thy rest again.
Nay, but Nature brings thee solace; for a tender voice will cry,
'Tis a purer life than thine; a lip to drain thy trouble dry.
Baby lips will laugh me down: my latest rival brings thee rest.
Baby fingers, waxen touches, press me from the mother's breast.
O, the child too clothes the father with a dearness not his due.
Half is thine and half is his: it will be worthy of the two.
O, I see thee old and formal, fitted to thy petty part,
With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter's heart.
"They were dangerous guides the feelings--she herself was not exempt--
Truly, she herself had suffer'd"--Perish in thy self-contempt!
Overlive it--lower yet--be happy! wherefore should I care,
I myself must mix with action, lest I wither by despair.
What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon days like these?
Every door is barr'd with gold, and opens but to golden keys.
Every gate is throng'd with suitors, all the markets overflow.
I have but an angry fancy: what is that which I should do?
I had been content to perish, falling on the foeman's ground,
When the ranks are roll'd in vapour, and the winds are laid with
sound.
But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that Honour feels,
And the nations do but murmur, snarling at each other's heels.
Can I but relive in sadness? I will turn that earlier page.
Hide me from my deep emotion, O thou wondrous Mother-Age!
Make me feel the wild pulsation that I felt before the strife,
When I heard my days before me, and the tumult of my life;
Yearning for the large excitement that the coming years would yield,
Eager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves his father's field,
And at night along the dusky highway near and nearer drawn,
Sees in heaven the light of London flaring like a dreary dawn; [8]
And his spirit leaps within him to be gone before him then,
Underneath the light he looks at, in among the throngs of men;
Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new:
That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall
do:
For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be; [9]
Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales; [10]
Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain'd a ghastly dew
From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue; [10]
Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm,
With the standards of the peoples plunging thro' the thunderstorm;
[10]
Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were furl'd
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world. [10]
There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.
So I triumph'd, ere my passion sweeping thro' me left me dry,
Left me with the palsied heart, and left me with the jaundiced eye;
Eye, to which all order festers, all things here are out of joint,
Science moves, but slowly slowly, creeping on from point to point:
Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lion, creeping nigher, [11]
Glares at one that nods and winks behind a slowly-dying fire.
Yet I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose runs,
And the thoughts of men are widen'd with the process of the suns.
What is that to him that reaps not harvest of his youthful joys,
Tho' the deep heart of existence beat for ever like a boy's?
Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I linger on the shore,
And the individual withers, and the world is more and more.
Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and he bears a laden breast,
Full of sad experience, moving toward the stillness of his rest.
Hark, my merry comrades call me, sounding on the bugle-horn,
They to whom my foolish passion were a target for their scorn:
Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a moulder'd string?
I am shamed thro' all my nature to have loved so slight a thing.
Weakness to be wroth with weakness! woman's pleasure, woman's pain--
[12]
Nature made them blinder motions bounded in a shallower brain:
Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, match'd with mine,
Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine--
Here at least, where nature sickens, nothing. Ah, for some retreat
Deep in yonder shining Orient, where my life began to beat;
Where in wild Mahratta-battle fell my father evil-starr'd;--
I was left a trampled orphan, and a selfish uncle's ward.
Or to burst all links of habit--there to wander far away,
On from island unto island at the gateways of the day.
Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies,
Breadths of tropic shade and palms in cluster, knots of Paradise. [13]
Never comes the trader, never floats an European flag,
Slides the bird o'er lustrous woodland, swings the trailer [14] from
the crag;
Droops the heavy-blossom'd bower, hangs the heavy-fruited tree--
Summer isles of Eden lying in dark-purple spheres of sea.
There methinks would be enjoyment more than in this march of mind,
In the steamship, in the railway, in the thoughts that shake mankind.
There the passions cramp'd no longer shall have scope and
breathing-space;
I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my dusky race.
Iron-jointed, supple-sinew'd, they shall dive, and they shall run,
Catch the wild goat by the hair, and hurl their lances in the sun;
Whistle back the parrot's call, and leap the rainbows of the brooks.
Not with blinded eyesight poring over miserable books--
Fool, again the dream, the fancy! but I _know_ my words are wild,
But I count the gray barbarian lower than the Christian child.
_I_, to herd with narrow foreheads, vacant of our glorious gains, [15]
Like a beast with lower pleasures, like a beast with lower pains!
Mated with a squalid savage--what to me were sun or clime?
I the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time--
I that rather held it better men should perish one by one,
Than that earth should stand at gaze like Joshua's moon in Ajalon!
Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us range.
Let the great world spin [16] for ever down the ringing grooves [17]
of change.
Thro' the shadow of the globe [18] we sweep into the younger day:
Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay. [19]
Mother-Age (for mine I knew not) help me as when life begun:
Rift the hills, and roll the waters, flash the lightnings, weigh the
Sun--[20]
O, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath not set.
Ancient founts of inspiration well thro' all my fancy yet.
Howsoever these things be, a long farewell to Locksley Hall!
Now for me the woods may wither, now for me the roof-tree fall.
Comes a vapour from the margin, blackening over heath and holt,
Cramming all the blast before it, in its breast a thunderbolt.
Let it fall on Locksley Hall, with rain or hail, or fire or snow;
For the mighty wind arises, roaring seaward, and I go.
[Footnote 1: 1842. And round the gables. ]
[Footnote 2: "Gleams," it appears, is a Lincolnshire word for the cry of
the curlew, and so by removing the comma after call we get an
interpretation which perhaps improves the sense and certainly gets rid
of a very un-Tennysonian cumbrousness in the second line. But Tennyson
had never, he said, heard of that meaning of "gleams," adding he wished
he had. He meant nothing more in the passage than "to express the flying
gleams of light across a dreary moorland when looking at it under
peculiarly dreary circumstances". See for this, 'Life', iii. , 82. ]
[Footnote 3: 1842 and all up to and including 1850 have a capital 'R' to
robin. ]
[Footnote 4: Cf. W. R. Spencer ('Poems', p. 166):--
What eye with clear account remarks
The ebbing of his glass,
When all its sands are diamond sparks
That dazzle as they pass.
But this is of course in no way parallel to Tennyson's subtly beautiful
image, which he himself pronounced to be the best simile he had ever
made. ]
[Footnote 5: Cf. Guarini, 'Pastor Fido':--
Ma i colpi di due labbre innamorate
Quando a ferir si va bocca con bocca,
. . . ove l' un alma e l'altra Corre. ]
[Footnote 6: Cf. Horace's 'Annosa Cornix', Odes III. , xvii. , 13. ]
[Footnote 7: The reference is to Dante, 'Inferno', v. 121-3:--
Nessun maggior dolore
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria.
For the pedigree and history of this see the present editor's
'Illustrations of Tennyson', p. 63. ]
[Footnote 8: The epithet "dreary" shows that Tennyson preferred
realistic picturesqueness to dramatic propriety. ]
[Footnote 9: See the introductory note to 'The Golden Year'. ]
[Footnote 10: See the introductory note to 'The Golden Year'. ]
[Footnote 11: Tennyson said that this simile was suggested by a passage
in 'Pringle's Travels;' the incident only is described, and with
thrilling vividness, by Pringle; but its application in simile is
Tennyson's. See 'A Narrative of a Residence in South Africa', by Thomas
Pringle, p. 39:
"The night was extremely dark and the rain fell so heavily that in
spite of the abundant supply of dry firewood, which we had luckily
provided, it was not without difficulty that we could keep one
watchfire burning. .
273. But this is to be explained perhaps by the moral purpose of the
poem. ]
THE TALKING OAK
First published in 1842, and republished in all subsequent editions with
only two slight alterations: in line 113 a mere variant in spelling, and
in line 185, where in place of the present reading the editions between
1842 and 1848 read, "For, ah! the Dryad-days were brief".
Tennyson told Mr. Aubrey de Vere that the poem was an experiment meant
to test the degree in which it is in the power of poetry to humanise
external nature. Tennyson might have remembered that Ovid had made the
same experiment nearly two thousand years ago, while Goethe had
immediately anticipated him in his charming 'Der Junggesett und der
Muhlbach'. There was certainly no novelty in such an attempt. The poem
is in parts charmingly written, but the oak is certainly "garrulously
given," and comes perilously near to tediousness.
Once more the gate behind me falls;
Once more before my face
I see the moulder'd Abbey-walls,
That stand within the chace.
Beyond the lodge the city lies,
Beneath its drift of smoke;
And ah! with what delighted eyes
I turn to yonder oak.
For when my passion first began,
Ere that, which in me burn'd,
The love, that makes me thrice a man,
Could hope itself return'd;
To yonder oak within the field
I spoke without restraint,
And with a larger faith appeal'd
Than Papist unto Saint.
For oft I talk'd with him apart,
And told him of my choice,
Until he plagiarised a heart,
And answer'd with a voice.
Tho' what he whisper'd, under Heaven
None else could understand;
I found him garrulously given,
A babbler in the land.
But since I heard him make reply
Is many a weary hour;
'Twere well to question him, and try
If yet he keeps the power.
Hail, hidden to the knees in fern,
Broad Oak of Sumner-chace,
Whose topmost branches can discern
The roofs of Sumner-place!
Say thou, whereon I carved her name,
If ever maid or spouse,
As fair as my Olivia, came
To rest beneath thy boughs. --
"O Walter, I have shelter'd here
Whatever maiden grace
The good old Summers, year by year,
Made ripe in Sumner-chace:
"Old Summers, when the monk was fat,
And, issuing shorn and sleek,
Would twist his girdle tight, and pat
The girls upon the cheek.
"Ere yet, in scorn of Peter's-pence,
And number'd bead, and shrift,
Bluff Harry broke into the spence, [1]
And turn'd the cowls adrift:
"And I have seen some score of those
Fresh faces, that would thrive
When his man-minded offset rose
To chase the deer at five;
"And all that from the town would stroll,
Till that wild wind made work
In which the gloomy brewer's soul
Went by me, like a stork:
"The slight she-slips of loyal blood,
And others, passing praise,
Strait-laced, but all too full in bud
For puritanic stays: [2]
"And I have shadow'd many a group
Of beauties, that were born
In teacup-times of hood and hoop,
Or while the patch was worn;
"And, leg and arm with love-knots gay,
About me leap'd and laugh'd
The Modish Cupid of the day,
And shrill'd his tinsel shaft.
"I swear (and else may insects prick
Each leaf into a gall)
This girl, for whom your heart is sick,
Is three times worth them all;
"For those and theirs, by Nature's law,
Have faded long ago;
But in these latter springs I saw
Your own Olivia blow,
"From when she gamboll'd on the greens,
A baby-germ, to when
The maiden blossoms of her teens
Could number five from ten.
"I swear, by leaf, and wind, and rain
(And hear me with thine ears),
That, tho' I circle in the grain
Five hundred rings of years--
"Yet, since I first could cast a shade,
Did never creature pass
So slightly, musically made,
So light upon the grass:
"For as to fairies, that will flit
To make the greensward fresh,
I hold them exquisitely knit,
But far too spare of flesh. "
Oh, hide thy knotted knees in fern,
And overlook the chace;
And from thy topmost branch discern
The roofs of Sumner-place.
But thou, whereon I carved her name,
That oft hast heard my vows,
Declare when last Olivia came
To sport beneath thy boughs.
"O yesterday, you know, the fair
Was holden at the town;
Her father left his good arm-chair,
And rode his hunter down.
"And with him Albert came on his.
I look'd at him with joy:
As cowslip unto oxlip is,
So seems she to the boy.
"An hour had past--and, sitting straight
Within the low-wheel'd chaise,
Her mother trundled to the gate
Behind the dappled grays.
"But, as for her, she stay'd [3] at home,
And on the roof she went,
And down the way you use to come,
She look'd with discontent.
"She left the novel half-uncut
Upon the rosewood shelf;
She left the new piano shut:
She could not please herself.
"Then ran she, gamesome as the colt,
And livelier than a lark
She sent her voice thro' all the holt
Before her, and the park.
"A light wind chased her on the wing,
And in the chase grew wild,
As close as might be would he cling
About the darling child:
"But light as any wind that blows
So fleetly did she stir,
The flower she touch'd on dipt and rose,
And turn'd to look at her.
"And here she came, and round me play'd,
And sang to me the whole
Of those three stanzas that you made
About my 'giant bole';
"And in a fit of frolic mirth
She strove to span my waist:
Alas, I was so broad of girth,
I could not be embraced.
"I wish'd myself the fair young beech
That here beside me stands,
That round me, clasping each in each,
She might have lock'd her hands.
"Yet seem'd the pressure thrice as sweet
As woodbine's fragile hold,
Or when I feel about my feet
The berried briony fold. "
O muffle round thy knees with fern,
And shadow Sumner-chace!
Long may thy topmost branch discern
The roofs of Sumner-place!
But tell me, did she read the name
I carved with many vows
When last with throbbing heart I came
To rest beneath thy boughs?
"O yes, she wander'd round and round
These knotted knees of mine,
And found, and kiss'd the name she found,
And sweetly murmur'd thine.
"A teardrop trembled from its source,
And down my surface crept.
My sense of touch is something coarse,
But I believe she wept.
"Then flush'd her cheek with rosy light,
She glanced across the plain;
But not a creature was in sight:
She kiss'd me once again.
"Her kisses were so close and kind,
That, trust me on my word,
Hard wood I am, and wrinkled rind,
But yet my sap was stirr'd:
"And even into my inmost ring
A pleasure I discern'd
Like those blind motions of the Spring,
That show the year is turn'd.
"Thrice-happy he that may caress
The ringlet's waving balm
The cushions of whose touch may press
The maiden's tender palm.
"I, rooted here among the groves,
But languidly adjust
My vapid vegetable loves [4]
With anthers and with dust:
"For, ah! my friend, the days were brief [5]
Whereof the poets talk,
When that, which breathes within the leaf,
Could slip its bark and walk.
"But could I, as in times foregone,
From spray, and branch, and stem,
Have suck'd and gather'd into one
The life that spreads in them,
"She had not found me so remiss;
But lightly issuing thro',
I would have paid her kiss for kiss
With usury thereto. "
O flourish high, with leafy towers,
And overlook the lea,
Pursue thy loves among the bowers,
But leave thou mine to me.
O flourish, hidden deep in fern,
Old oak, I love thee well;
A thousand thanks for what I learn
And what remains to tell.
"'Tis little more: the day was warm;
At last, tired out with play,
She sank her head upon her arm,
And at my feet she lay.
"Her eyelids dropp'd their silken eaves.
I breathed upon her eyes
Thro' all the summer of my leaves
A welcome mix'd with sighs.
"I took the swarming sound of life--
The music from the town--
The murmurs of the drum and fife
And lull'd them in my own.
"Sometimes I let a sunbeam slip,
To light her shaded eye;
A second flutter'd round her lip
Like a golden butterfly;
"A third would glimmer on her neck
To make the necklace shine;
Another slid, a sunny fleck,
From head to ancle fine.
"Then close and dark my arms I spread,
And shadow'd all her rest--
Dropt dews upon her golden head,
An acorn in her breast.
"But in a pet she started up,
And pluck'd it out, and drew
My little oakling from the cup,
And flung him in the dew.
"And yet it was a graceful gift--
I felt a pang within
As when I see the woodman lift
His axe to slay my kin.
"I shook him down because he was
The finest on the tree.
He lies beside thee on the grass.
O kiss him once for me.
"O kiss him twice and thrice for me,
That have no lips to kiss,
For never yet was oak on lea
Shall grow so fair as this. "
Step deeper yet in herb and fern,
Look further thro' the chace,
Spread upward till thy boughs discern
The front of Sumner-place.
This fruit of thine by Love is blest,
That but a moment lay
Where fairer fruit of Love may rest
Some happy future day.
I kiss it twice, I kiss it thrice,
The warmth it thence shall win
To riper life may magnetise
The baby-oak within.
But thou, while kingdoms overset,
Or lapse from hand to hand,
Thy leaf shall never fail, nor yet
Thine acorn in the land.
May never saw dismember thee,
Nor wielded axe disjoint,
That art the fairest-spoken tree
From here to Lizard-point.
O rock upon thy towery top
All throats that gurgle sweet!
All starry culmination drop
Balm-dews to bathe thy feet!
All grass of silky feather grow--
And while he sinks or swells
The full south-breeze around thee blow
The sound of minster bells.
The fat earth feed thy branchy root,
That under deeply strikes!
The northern morning o'er thee shoot
High up, in silver spikes!
Nor ever lightning char thy grain,
But, rolling as in sleep,
Low thunders bring the mellow rain,
That makes thee broad and deep!
And hear me swear a solemn oath,
That only by thy side
Will I to Olive plight my troth,
And gain her for my bride.
And when my marriage morn may fall,
She, Dryad-like, shall wear
Alternate leaf and acorn-ball
In wreath about her hair.
And I will work in prose and rhyme,
And praise thee more in both
Than bard has honour'd beech or lime,
Or that Thessalian growth, [6]
In which the swarthy ringdove sat,
And mystic sentence spoke;
And more than England honours that,
Thy famous brother-oak,
Wherein the younger Charles abode
Till all the paths were dim,
And far below the Roundhead rode,
And humm'd a surly hymn.
[Footnote 1: Spence is a larder and buttery. In the 'Promptorium
Parverum it is defined as "cellarium promptuarium". ]
[Footnote 2: Cf. Burns' "godly laces," 'To the Unco Righteous'. ]
[Footnote 3: All editions previous to 1853 have 'staid'. ]
[Footnote 4: The phrase is Marvell's. 'Cf. To his Coy Mistress' (a
favourite poem of Tennyson's), "my vegetable loves should grow". ]
[Footnote 5: 1842 to 1850. "For, ah! the Dryad-days were brief. ]
[Footnote 6: A reference to the oracular oaks of Dodona which was, of
course, in Epirus, but the Ancients believed, no doubt erroneously, that
there was another Dodona in Thessaly. See the article "Dodona" in
Smith's 'Dict. of Greek and Roman Geography'. ]
LOVE AND DUTY
Published first in 1842.
Whether this beautiful poem is autobiographical and has reference to the
compulsory separation of Tennyson and Miss Emily Sellwood, afterwards
his wife, in 1840, it is impossible for this editor to say, as Lord
Tennyson in his 'Life' of his father is silent on the subject.
Of love that never found his earthly close,
What sequel? Streaming eyes and breaking hearts?
Or all the same as if he had not been?
Not so. Shall Error in the round of time
Still father Truth? O shall the braggart shout [1]
For some blind glimpse of freedom work itself
Thro' madness, hated by the wise, to law
System and empire? Sin itself be found
The cloudy porch oft opening on the Sun?
And only he, this wonder, dead, become
Mere highway dust? or year by year alone
Sit brooding in the ruins of a life,
Nightmare of youth, the spectre of himself!
If this were thus, if this, indeed, were all,
Better the narrow brain, the stony heart,
The staring eye glazed o'er with sapless days,
The long mechanic pacings to and fro,
The set gray life, and apathetic end.
But am I not the nobler thro' thy love?
O three times less unworthy! likewise thou
Art more thro' Love, and greater than thy years.
The Sun will run his orbit, and the Moon
Her circle. Wait, and Love himself will bring
The drooping flower of knowledge changed to fruit
Of wisdom. [2] Wait: my faith is large in Time,
And that which shapes it to some perfect end.
Will some one say, then why not ill for good?
Why took ye not your pastime? To that man
My work shall answer, since I knew the right
And did it; for a man is not as God,
But then most Godlike being most a man. --
So let me think 'tis well for thee and me--
Ill-fated that I am, what lot is mine
Whose foresight preaches peace, my heart so slow
To feel it! For how hard it seem'd to me,
When eyes, love-languid thro' half-tears, would dwell
One earnest, earnest moment upon mine,
Then not to dare to see! when thy low voice,
Faltering, would break its syllables, to keep
My own full-tuned,--hold passion in a leash,
And not leap forth and fall about thy neck,
And on thy bosom, (deep-desired relief! )
Rain out the heavy mist of tears, that weigh'd
Upon my brain, my senses, and my soul!
For love himself took part against himself
To warn us off, and Duty loved of Love--
O this world's curse--beloved but hated--came Like
Death betwixt thy dear embrace and mine,
And crying, "Who is this? behold thy bride,"
She push'd me from thee.
If the sense is hard
To alien ears, I did not speak to these--
No, not to thee, but to thyself in me:
Hard is my doom and thine: thou knowest it all.
Could Love part thus? was it not well to speak,
To have spoken once? It could not but be well.
The slow sweet hours that bring us all things good, [3]
The slow sad hours that bring us all things ill,
And all good things from evil, brought the night
In which we sat together and alone,
And to the want, that hollow'd all the heart,
Gave utterance by the yearning of an eye,
That burn'd upon its object thro' such tears
As flow but once a life. The trance gave way
To those caresses, when a hundred times
In that last kiss, which never was the last,
Farewell, like endless welcome, lived and died.
Then follow'd counsel, comfort and the words
That make a man feel strong in speaking truth;
Till now the dark was worn, and overhead
The lights of sunset and of sunrise mix'd
In that brief night; the summer night, that paused
Among her stars to hear us; stars that hung
Love-charm'd to listen: all the wheels of Time
Spun round in station, but the end had come.
O then like those, who clench [4] their nerves to rush
Upon their dissolution, we two rose,
There-closing like an individual life--
In one blind cry of passion and of pain,
Like bitter accusation ev'n to death,
Caught up the whole of love and utter'd it,
And bade adieu for ever. Live--yet live--
Shall sharpest pathos blight us, knowing all
Life needs for life is possible to will--
Live happy; tend thy flowers; be tended by
My blessing! Should my Shadow cross thy thoughts
Too sadly for their peace, remand it thou
For calmer hours to Memory's darkest hold, [5]
If not to be forgotten--not at once--
Not all forgotten. Should it cross thy dreams,
O might it come like one that looks content,
With quiet eyes unfaithful to the truth,
And point thee forward to a distant light,
Or seem to lift a burthen from thy heart
And leave thee freer, till thou wake refresh'd,
Then when the first low matin-chirp hath grown
Full quire, and morning driv'n her plow of pearl [6]
Far furrowing into light the mounded rack,
Beyond the fair green field and eastern sea.
[Footnote 1: As this passage is a little obscure, it may not be
superfluous to point out that "shout" is a substantive. ]
[Footnote 2: The distinction between "knowledge" and "wisdom" is a
favourite one with Tennyson. See 'In Memoriam', cxiv. ; 'Locksley
Hall', 141, and for the same distinction see Cowper, 'Task',
vi. , 88-99. ]
[Footnote 3: Suggested by Theocritus, 'Id'. , xv. , 104-5. ]
[Footnote 4: 1842 to 1845. O then like those, that clench. ]
[Footnote 5: Pathos, in the Greek sense, "suffering". All editions up to
and including 1850 have a small "s" and a small "m" for Shadow and
Memory, and read thus:--
Too sadly for their peace, so put it back
For calmer hours in memory's darkest hold,
If unforgotten! should it cross thy dreams,
So might it come, etc. ]
[Footnote 6: 'Cf. Princess', iii. :--
Morn in the white wake of the morning star
Came furrowing all the orient into gold,
and with both cf. Greene, 'Orlando Furioso', i. , 2:--
Seest thou not Lycaon's son?
The hardy plough-swain unto mighty Jove
Hath _trac'd his silver furrows in the heaven_,
which in its turn is borrowed from Ariosto, 'Orl. Fur. ', xx. ,
lxxxii. :--
Apena avea Licaonia prole
Per li solchi del ciel volto
L'aratro. ]
THE GOLDEN YEAR
This poem was first published in the fourth edition of the poems 1846.
No alterations were made in it after 1851. The poem had a message for
the time at which it was written. The country was in a very troubled
state. The contest between the Protectionists and Free-traders was at
its acutest stage. The Maynooth endowment and the "godless colleges" had
brought into prominence questions of the gravest moment in religion and
education, while the Corn Bill and the Coercion Bill had inflamed the
passions of party politicians almost to madness. Tennyson, his son tells
us, entered heartily into these questions, believing that the remedies
for these distempers lay in the spread of education, a more catholic
spirit in the press, a partial adoption of Free Trade principles, and
union as far as possible among the different sections of Christianity.
Well, you shall have that song which Leonard wrote:
It was last summer on a tour in Wales:
Old James was with me: we that day had been
Up Snowdon; and I wish'd for Leonard there,
And found him in Llanberis: [1] then we crost
Between the lakes, and clamber'd half-way up
The counterside; and that same song of his
He told me; for I banter'd him, and swore
They said he lived shut up within himself,
A tongue-tied Poet in the feverous days,
That, setting the _how much_ before the _how_,
Cry, like the daughters of the horseleech, "Give, [2]
Cram us with all," but count not me the herd!
To which "They call me what they will," he said:
"But I was born too late: the fair new forms,
That float about the threshold of an age,
Like truths of Science waiting to be caught--
Catch me who can, and make the catcher crown'd--
Are taken by the forelock. Let it be.
But if you care indeed to listen, hear
These measured words, my work of yestermorn.
"We sleep and wake and sleep, but all things move;
The Sun flies forward to his brother Sun;
The dark Earth follows wheel'd in her ellipse;
And human things returning on themselves
Move onward, leading up the golden year.
"Ah, tho' the times, when some new thought can bud,
Are but as poets' seasons when they flower,
Yet seas, that daily gain upon the shore, [3]
Have ebb and flow conditioning their march,
And slow and sure comes up the golden year.
"When wealth no more shall rest in mounded heaps,
But smit with freer light shall slowly melt
In many streams to fatten lower lands,
And light shall spread, and man be liker man
Thro' all the season of the golden year.
"Shall eagles not be eagles? wrens be wrens?
If all the world were falcons, what of that?
The wonder of the eagle were the less,
But he not less the eagle. Happy days
Roll onward, leading up the golden year.
"Fly happy happy sails and bear the Press;
Fly happy with the mission of the Cross;
Knit land to land, and blowing havenward
With silks, and fruits, and spices, clear of toll,
Enrich the markets of the golden year.
"But we grow old! Ah! when shall all men's good
Be each man's rule, and universal Peace
Lie like a shaft of light across the land,
And like a lane of beams athwart the sea,
Thro' all the circle of the golden year? "
Thus far he flow'd, and ended; whereupon
"Ah, folly! " in mimic cadence answer'd James--
"Ah, folly! for it lies so far away.
Not in our time, nor in our children's time,
'Tis like the second world to us that live;
'Twere all as one to fix our hopes on Heaven
As on this vision of the golden year. "
With that he struck his staff against the rocks
And broke it,--James,--you know him,--old, but full
Of force and choler, and firm upon his feet,
And like an oaken stock in winter woods,
O'erflourished with the hoary clematis:
Then added, all in heat: "What stuff is this!
Old writers push'd the happy season back,--
The more fools they,--we forward: dreamers both:
You most, that in an age, when every hour
Must sweat her sixty minutes to the death,
Live on, God love us, as if the seedsman, rapt
Upon the teeming harvest, should not dip [4]
His hand into the bag: but well I know
That unto him who works, and feels he works,
This same grand year is ever at the doors. "
He spoke; and, high above, I heard them blast
The steep slate-quarry, and the great echo flap
And buffet round the hills from bluff to bluff.
[Footnote 1: 1846 to 1850.
And joined him in Llanberis; and that same song
He told me, etc. ]
[Footnote 2: Proverbs xxx. 15:
"The horseleach hath two daughters, crying,
Give, give". ]
[Footnote 3: 1890. Altered to "Yet oceans daily gaining on the land". ]
[Footnote 4: 'Selections', 1865. Plunge. ]
ULYSSES
First published in 1842, no alterations were made in it subsequently.
This noble poem, which is said to have induced Sir Robert Peel to give
Tennyson his pension, was written soon after Arthur Hallam's death,
presumably therefore in 1833. "It gave my feeling," Tennyson said to his
son, "about the need of going forward and braving the struggle of life
perhaps more simply than anything in 'In Memoriam'. " It is not the
'Ulysses' of Homer, nor was it suggested by the 'Odyssey'. The germ, the
spirit and the sentiment of the poem are from the twenty-sixth canto of
Dante's 'Inferno', where Ulysses in the Limbo of the Deceivers speaks
from the flame which swathes him. I give a literal version of the
passage:--
"Neither fondness for my son nor reverence for my aged sire nor the
due love which ought to have gladdened Penelope could conquer in me
the ardour which I had to become experienced in the world and in human
vice and worth. I put out into the deep open sea with but one ship and
with that small company which had not deserted me. . . . I and my
companions were old and tardy when we came to that narrow pass where
Hercules assigned his landmarks. 'O brothers,' I said, 'who through a
hundred thousand dangers have reached the West deny not to this the
brief vigil of your senses that remain, experience of the unpeopled
world beyond the sun.
Consider your origin, ye were not formed to live
like Brutes but to follow virtue and knowledge. . . . Night already saw
the other pole with all its stars and ours so low that it rose not
from the ocean floor'"
('Inferno', xxvi. , 94-126).
But if the germ is here the expansion is Tennyson's; he has added
elaboration and symmetry, fine touches, magical images and magical
diction. There is nothing in Dante which answers to--
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
or
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Of these lines well does Carlyle say what so many will feel: "These
lines do not make me weep, but there is in me what would till whole
Lacrymatorics as I read".
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades [1]
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments, [2]
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end, [3]
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge, like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus, [4]
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle--
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port: the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd and wrought, and thought with me--
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads--you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, [5]
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
[Footnote 1: Virgil, 'AEn'. , i. , 748, and iii. , 516. ]
[Footnote 2: 'Odyssey', i. , 1-4. ]
[Footnote 3: 'Cf'. Shakespeare, 'Troilus and Cressida':--
Perseverance, dear, my lord,
Keeps honour bright: To have done, is to hang
Quite out of fashion, like a rusty nail
In monumental mockery. ]
[Footnote 4: How admirably has Tennyson touched off the character of the
Telemachus of the 'Odyssey'. ]
[Footnote 5: The Happy Isles, the 'Fortunatae Insulae' of the Romans and
the
[Greek: ai t_on Makar_on naesoi]
of the Greeks, have been identified by geographers as those islands in
the Atlantic off the west coast of Africa; some take them to mean the
Canary Islands, the Madeira group and the Azores, while they may have
included the Cape de Verde Islands as well. What seems certain is that
these places with their soft delicious climate and lovely scenery gave
the poets an idea of a happy abode for departed spirits, and so the
conception of the _Elysian Fields_. The _loci classici_ on these abodes
are Homer, Odyssey, iv. , 563 _seqq_. :--
[Greek: alla s' es Elysion pedion kai peirata gaiaes athanatoi
pempsousin, hothi xanthos Rhadamanthus tae per rhaeistae biotae pelei
anthr_opoisin, ou niphetos, out' ar cheim_on polus, oute pot' ombros
all' aiei Zephuroio ligu pneiontas aaetas _okeanos aniaesin
anapsuchein anthr_opous.
[But the Immortals will convey thee to the Elysian plain and the
world's limits where is Rhadamanthus of the golden hair, where life is
easiest for man; no snow is there, no nor no great storm, nor any
rain, but always ocean sendeth forth the shrilly breezes of the West
to cool and refresh men],
and Pindar, 'Olymp'. , ii. , 178 'seqq'. , compared with the splendid
fragment at the beginning of the 'Dirges'. Elysium was afterwards placed
in the netherworld, as by Virgil. Thus, as so often the suggestion was
from the facts of geography, the rest soon became an allegorical myth,
and to attempt to identify and localise "the Happy Isles" is as great an
absurdity as to attempt to identify and localise the island of
Shakespeare's 'Tempest'. ]
LOCKSLEY HALL
First published in 1842, and no alterations were made in it subsequently
to the edition of 1850; except that in the Selections published in 1865
in the third stanza the reading was "half in ruin" for "in the
distance". This poem, as Tennyson explained, was not autobiographic but
purely imaginary, "representing young life, its good side, its
deficiences and its yearnings". The poem, he added, was written in
Trochaics because the elder Hallam told him that the English people
liked that metre. The hero is a sort of preliminary sketch of the hero
in 'Maud', the position and character of each being very similar: both
are cynical and querulous, and break out into tirades against their kind
and society; both have been disappointed in love, and both find the same
remedy for their afflictions by mixing themselves with action and
becoming "one with their kind".
'Locksley Hall' was suggested, as Tennyson acknowledged, by Sir William
Jones' translation of the old Arabian Moallakat, a collection from the
works of pre-Mahommedan poets. See Sir William Jones' works, quarto
edition, vol. iv. , pp. 247-57. But only one of these poems, namely the
poem of Amriolkais, could have immediately influenced him. In this the
poet supposes himself attended on a journey by a company of friends, and
they pass near a place where his mistress had lately lived, but from
which her tribe had then removed. He desires them to stop awhile, that
he may weep over the deserted remains of her tent. They comply with his
request, but exhort him to show more strength of mind, and urge two
topics of consolation, namely, that he had before been equally unhappy
and that he had enjoyed his full share of pleasures. Thus by the
recollection of his past delights his imagination is kindled and his
grief suspended. But Tennyson's chief indebtedness is rather in the
oriental colouring given to his poem, chiefly in the sentiment and
imagery. Thus in the couplet--
Many a night I saw the Pleiads rising through the mellow shade
Glitter like a swarm of fireflies tangl'd in a silver braid,
we are reminded of "It was the hour when the Pleiads appeared in the
firmament like the folds of a silken sash variously decked with gems".
Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet 'tis early morn:
Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle horn.
'Tis the place, and all around it, [1] as of old, the curlews call,
Dreary gleams [2] about the moorland flying over Locksley Hall;
Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts,
And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts.
Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest,
Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West.
Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow shade,
Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid.
Here about the beach I wander'd, nourishing a youth sublime
With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of Time;
When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed;
When I clung to all the present for the promise that it closed:
When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see;
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be. --
In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's [3] breast;
In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest;
In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove;
In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.
Then her cheek was pale and thinner than should be for one so young,
And her eyes on all my motions with a mute observance hung.
And I said, "My cousin Amy, speak, and speak the truth to me,
Trust me, cousin, all the current of my being sets to thee. "
On her pallid cheek and forehead came a colour and a light,
As I have seen the rosy red flushing in the northern night.
And she turn'd--her bosom shaken with a sudden storm of sighs--
All the spirit deeply dawning in the dark of hazel eyes--
Saying, "I have hid my feelings, fearing they should do me wrong";
Saying, "Dost thou love me, cousin? " weeping, "I have loved thee
long".
Love took up the glass of Time, and turn'd it in his glowing hands;
Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands. [4]
Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might;
Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of
sight.
Many a morning on the moorland did we hear the copses ring,
And her whisper throng'd my pulses with the fulness of the Spring.
Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately ships,
And our spirits rush'd together at the touching of the lips. [5]
O my cousin, shallow-hearted! O my Amy, mine no more!
O the dreary, dreary moorland! O the barren, barren shore!
Falser than all fancy fathoms, falser than all songs have sung,
Puppet to a father's threat, and servile to a shrewish tongue!
Is it well to wish thee happy? --having known me--to decline
On a range of lower feelings and a narrower heart than mine!
Yet it shall be: thou shalt lower to his level day by day,
What is fine within thee growing coarse to sympathise with clay.
As the husband is, the wife is: thou art mated with a clown,
And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down.
He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force,
Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse.
What is this? his eyes are heavy: think not they are glazed with wine.
Go to him: it is thy duty: kiss him: take his hand in thine.
It may be my lord is weary, that his brain is overwrought:
Soothe him with thy finer fancies, touch him with thy lighter thought.
He will answer to the purpose, easy things to understand--
Better thou wert dead before me, tho' I slew thee with my hand!
Better thou and I were lying, hidden from the heart's disgrace,
Roll'd in one another's arms, and silent in a last embrace.
Cursed be the social wants that sin against the strength of youth!
Cursed be the social lies that warp us from the living truth!
Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest Nature's rule!
Cursed be the gold that gilds the straiten'd forehead of the fool!
Well--'tis well that I should bluster! --Hadst thou less unworthy
proved--
Would to God--for I had loved thee more than ever wife was loved.
Am I mad, that I should cherish that which bears but bitter fruit?
I will pluck it from my bosom, tho' my heart be at the root.
Never, tho' my mortal summers to such length of years should come
As the many-winter'd crow that leads the clanging rookery home. [6]
Where is comfort? in division of the records of the mind?
Can I part her from herself, and love her, as I knew her, kind?
I remember one that perish'd: sweetly did she speak and move:
Such a one do I remember, whom to look it was to love.
Can I think of her as dead, and love her for the love she bore?
No--she never loved me truly: love is love for evermore.
Comfort? comfort scorn'd of devils! this is truth the poet sings,
That a sorrow's crown of sorrow [7] is remembering happier things.
Drug thy memories, lest thou learn it, lest thy heart be put to proof,
In the dead unhappy night, and when the rain is on the roof.
Like a dog, he hunts in dreams, and thou art staring at the wall,
Where the dying night-lamp flickers, and the shadows rise and fall.
Then a hand shall pass before thee, pointing to his drunken sleep,
To thy widow'd marriage-pillows, to the tears that thou wilt weep.
Thou shalt hear the "Never, never," whisper'd by the phantom years,
And a song from out the distance in the ringing of thine ears;
And an eye shall vex thee, looking ancient kindness on thy pain.
Turn thee, turn thee on thy pillow: get thee to thy rest again.
Nay, but Nature brings thee solace; for a tender voice will cry,
'Tis a purer life than thine; a lip to drain thy trouble dry.
Baby lips will laugh me down: my latest rival brings thee rest.
Baby fingers, waxen touches, press me from the mother's breast.
O, the child too clothes the father with a dearness not his due.
Half is thine and half is his: it will be worthy of the two.
O, I see thee old and formal, fitted to thy petty part,
With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter's heart.
"They were dangerous guides the feelings--she herself was not exempt--
Truly, she herself had suffer'd"--Perish in thy self-contempt!
Overlive it--lower yet--be happy! wherefore should I care,
I myself must mix with action, lest I wither by despair.
What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon days like these?
Every door is barr'd with gold, and opens but to golden keys.
Every gate is throng'd with suitors, all the markets overflow.
I have but an angry fancy: what is that which I should do?
I had been content to perish, falling on the foeman's ground,
When the ranks are roll'd in vapour, and the winds are laid with
sound.
But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that Honour feels,
And the nations do but murmur, snarling at each other's heels.
Can I but relive in sadness? I will turn that earlier page.
Hide me from my deep emotion, O thou wondrous Mother-Age!
Make me feel the wild pulsation that I felt before the strife,
When I heard my days before me, and the tumult of my life;
Yearning for the large excitement that the coming years would yield,
Eager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves his father's field,
And at night along the dusky highway near and nearer drawn,
Sees in heaven the light of London flaring like a dreary dawn; [8]
And his spirit leaps within him to be gone before him then,
Underneath the light he looks at, in among the throngs of men;
Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new:
That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall
do:
For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be; [9]
Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales; [10]
Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain'd a ghastly dew
From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue; [10]
Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm,
With the standards of the peoples plunging thro' the thunderstorm;
[10]
Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were furl'd
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world. [10]
There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.
So I triumph'd, ere my passion sweeping thro' me left me dry,
Left me with the palsied heart, and left me with the jaundiced eye;
Eye, to which all order festers, all things here are out of joint,
Science moves, but slowly slowly, creeping on from point to point:
Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lion, creeping nigher, [11]
Glares at one that nods and winks behind a slowly-dying fire.
Yet I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose runs,
And the thoughts of men are widen'd with the process of the suns.
What is that to him that reaps not harvest of his youthful joys,
Tho' the deep heart of existence beat for ever like a boy's?
Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I linger on the shore,
And the individual withers, and the world is more and more.
Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and he bears a laden breast,
Full of sad experience, moving toward the stillness of his rest.
Hark, my merry comrades call me, sounding on the bugle-horn,
They to whom my foolish passion were a target for their scorn:
Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a moulder'd string?
I am shamed thro' all my nature to have loved so slight a thing.
Weakness to be wroth with weakness! woman's pleasure, woman's pain--
[12]
Nature made them blinder motions bounded in a shallower brain:
Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, match'd with mine,
Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine--
Here at least, where nature sickens, nothing. Ah, for some retreat
Deep in yonder shining Orient, where my life began to beat;
Where in wild Mahratta-battle fell my father evil-starr'd;--
I was left a trampled orphan, and a selfish uncle's ward.
Or to burst all links of habit--there to wander far away,
On from island unto island at the gateways of the day.
Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies,
Breadths of tropic shade and palms in cluster, knots of Paradise. [13]
Never comes the trader, never floats an European flag,
Slides the bird o'er lustrous woodland, swings the trailer [14] from
the crag;
Droops the heavy-blossom'd bower, hangs the heavy-fruited tree--
Summer isles of Eden lying in dark-purple spheres of sea.
There methinks would be enjoyment more than in this march of mind,
In the steamship, in the railway, in the thoughts that shake mankind.
There the passions cramp'd no longer shall have scope and
breathing-space;
I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my dusky race.
Iron-jointed, supple-sinew'd, they shall dive, and they shall run,
Catch the wild goat by the hair, and hurl their lances in the sun;
Whistle back the parrot's call, and leap the rainbows of the brooks.
Not with blinded eyesight poring over miserable books--
Fool, again the dream, the fancy! but I _know_ my words are wild,
But I count the gray barbarian lower than the Christian child.
_I_, to herd with narrow foreheads, vacant of our glorious gains, [15]
Like a beast with lower pleasures, like a beast with lower pains!
Mated with a squalid savage--what to me were sun or clime?
I the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time--
I that rather held it better men should perish one by one,
Than that earth should stand at gaze like Joshua's moon in Ajalon!
Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us range.
Let the great world spin [16] for ever down the ringing grooves [17]
of change.
Thro' the shadow of the globe [18] we sweep into the younger day:
Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay. [19]
Mother-Age (for mine I knew not) help me as when life begun:
Rift the hills, and roll the waters, flash the lightnings, weigh the
Sun--[20]
O, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath not set.
Ancient founts of inspiration well thro' all my fancy yet.
Howsoever these things be, a long farewell to Locksley Hall!
Now for me the woods may wither, now for me the roof-tree fall.
Comes a vapour from the margin, blackening over heath and holt,
Cramming all the blast before it, in its breast a thunderbolt.
Let it fall on Locksley Hall, with rain or hail, or fire or snow;
For the mighty wind arises, roaring seaward, and I go.
[Footnote 1: 1842. And round the gables. ]
[Footnote 2: "Gleams," it appears, is a Lincolnshire word for the cry of
the curlew, and so by removing the comma after call we get an
interpretation which perhaps improves the sense and certainly gets rid
of a very un-Tennysonian cumbrousness in the second line. But Tennyson
had never, he said, heard of that meaning of "gleams," adding he wished
he had. He meant nothing more in the passage than "to express the flying
gleams of light across a dreary moorland when looking at it under
peculiarly dreary circumstances". See for this, 'Life', iii. , 82. ]
[Footnote 3: 1842 and all up to and including 1850 have a capital 'R' to
robin. ]
[Footnote 4: Cf. W. R. Spencer ('Poems', p. 166):--
What eye with clear account remarks
The ebbing of his glass,
When all its sands are diamond sparks
That dazzle as they pass.
But this is of course in no way parallel to Tennyson's subtly beautiful
image, which he himself pronounced to be the best simile he had ever
made. ]
[Footnote 5: Cf. Guarini, 'Pastor Fido':--
Ma i colpi di due labbre innamorate
Quando a ferir si va bocca con bocca,
. . . ove l' un alma e l'altra Corre. ]
[Footnote 6: Cf. Horace's 'Annosa Cornix', Odes III. , xvii. , 13. ]
[Footnote 7: The reference is to Dante, 'Inferno', v. 121-3:--
Nessun maggior dolore
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice
Nella miseria.
For the pedigree and history of this see the present editor's
'Illustrations of Tennyson', p. 63. ]
[Footnote 8: The epithet "dreary" shows that Tennyson preferred
realistic picturesqueness to dramatic propriety. ]
[Footnote 9: See the introductory note to 'The Golden Year'. ]
[Footnote 10: See the introductory note to 'The Golden Year'. ]
[Footnote 11: Tennyson said that this simile was suggested by a passage
in 'Pringle's Travels;' the incident only is described, and with
thrilling vividness, by Pringle; but its application in simile is
Tennyson's. See 'A Narrative of a Residence in South Africa', by Thomas
Pringle, p. 39:
"The night was extremely dark and the rain fell so heavily that in
spite of the abundant supply of dry firewood, which we had luckily
provided, it was not without difficulty that we could keep one
watchfire burning. .
