No More Learning

My dearest brother Edmund sleeps,
Not by the well-known stream and rustic spire,
But unfamiliar Arno, and the dome
Of Brunelleschi - sleeps in peace; and he,
Poor Philip, of all his lavish waste of words
Remains the lean P. W. on his tomb-
I scraped the lichen from it; Katie walks
By the long wash of Australasian seas
Far off, and holds her head to other stars,
And breathes in April-autumns. All are gone. "
So Lawrence Aylmer, seated on a stile
In the long hedge, and rolling in his mind
Old waifs of rhyme, and bowing o'er the brook
A tonsured head in middle age forlorn,
Mused, and was mute. On a sudden a low breath
Of tender air made tremble in the hedge
The fragile bindweed bells and briony rings;
And he looked up. There stood a maiden near,
Waiting to pass. In much amaze he stared
On eyes a bashful azure, and on hair
In gloss and hue the chestnut, when the shell
Divides threefold to show the fruit within;
Then, wondering, asked her, “Are you from the farm? »


## p. 14609 (#179) ##########################################

ALFRED TENNYSON
14609
"Yes," answered she. -"Pray stay a little: pardon me—
What do they call you? "-"Katie. ” — “That were strange.
What surname ? » — « "Willows. " » — “No! ” —"That is my
d
-
name. ».
-
"Indeed! " and here he looked so self-perplext
That Katie laughed, and laughing blushed, till he
Laughed also, but as one before he wakes,
Who feels a glimmering strangeness in his dream.
Then looking at her-"Too happy, fresh, and fair,
Too fresh and fair in our sad world's best bloom,
To be the ghost of one who bore your name
About these meadows, twenty years ago. "
"Have you not heard? " said Katie: "we came back.
We bought the farm we tenanted before.
Am I so like her? so they said on board.
Sir, if you knew her in her English days,
My mother, as it seems you did,- the days
That most she loves to talk of,-come with me.
My brother James is in the harvest-field;
But she- you will be welcome-oh, come in! "
SONG: "THE SPLENDOR FALLS ON CASTLE WALLS »
From The Princess'
THE
HE splendor falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story:
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle, blow! set the wild echoes flying!
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes — dying, dying, dying.
XXV-914
Oh hark, oh hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going!
Oh, sweet and far from cliff and scar
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
Blow! let us hear the purple glens replying:
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes — dying, dying, dying.
O love, they die in yon rich sky,
They faint on hill or field or river:
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow for ever and for ever.
Blow, bugle, blow! set the wild echoes flying!
And answer, echoes, answer-dying, dying, dying.


## p. 14610 (#180) ##########################################

14610
ALFRED TENNYSON
SONG: "TEARS, IDLE TEARS»
From The Princess'
TEA
EARS, idle tears, I know not what they mean:
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.
Fres as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld;
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge:
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.
Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square:
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.
Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret —
O death in Life, the days that are no more.
PERFECT UNITY
From The Princess >
"B
LAME not thyself too much," I said, "nor blame
Too much the sons of men and barbarous laws:
These were the rough ways of the world till now.
Henceforth thou hast a helper, me, that know
The woman's cause is man's; they rise or sink
Together, dwarfed or godlike, bond or free:
For she that out of Lethe scales with man
The shining steps of Nature, shares with man
His nights, his days, moves with him to one goal,
Stays all the fair young planet in her hands-
If she be small, slight-natured, miserable,
How shall men grow? But work no more alone!
Our place is much: as far as in us lies


## p. 14611 (#181) ##########################################

ALFRED TENNYSON
14611
We two will serve them both in aiding her;
Will clear away the parasitic forms
That seem to keep her up but drag her down;
Will leave her space to burgeon out of all
Within her; let her make herself her own
To give or keep, to live and learn and be
All that not harms distinctive womanhood.
For women is not undevelopt man,
But diverse: could we make her as the man,
Sweet Love were slain; his dearest bond is this,
Not like to like, but like in difference.
Yet in the long years liker must they grow;
The man be more of woman, she of man:
He gain in sweetness and in moral height,
Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world;
She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care,
Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind:
Till at the last she set herself to man,
Like perfect music unto noble words;
And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time,
Sit side by side, full-summed in all their powers,
Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be,
Self-reverent each and reverencing each,
Distinct in individualities,
But like each other even as those who love.
Then comes the statelier Eden back to men;
Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste and calm;
Then springs the crowning race of human-kind.
May these things be! "
Sighing she spoke, "I fear
They will not. "
"Dear, but let us type them now
In our own lives, and this proud watchword rest
Of equal; seeing either sex alone
Is half itself, and in true marriage lies
Nor equal, nor unequal; each fulfills
Defect in each, and always thought in thought,
Purpose in purpose, will in will, they grow,
The single pure and perfect animal,
The two-celled heart beating, with one full stroke,
Life. "
And again sighing she spoke: "A dream
That once was mine! What woman taught you this? "
"Alone," I said, "from earlier than I know,
Immersed in rich foreshadowings of the world,


## p. 14612 (#182) ##########################################

14612
ALFRED TENNYSON
I loved the woman: he that doth not, lives
A drowning life, besotted in sweet self,
Or pines in sad experience worse than death,
Or keeps his winged affections clipt with crime:
Yet was there one through whom I loved her,—one
Not learned, save in gracious household ways;
Not perfect, nay, but full of tender wants;
No Angel, but a dearer being, all dipt
In Angel instincts, breathing Paradise,
Interpreter between the Gods and men;
Who looked all native to her place, and yet
On tiptoe seemed to touch upon a sphere
Too gross to tread, and all male minds perforce
Swayed to her from their orbits as they moved,
And girdled her with music. Happy he
With such a mother! Faith in womankind
Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high
Comes easy to him; and though he trip and fall,
He shall not blind his soul with clay. "
"But I,"
Said Ida tremulously, "so all unlike -
It seems you love to cheat yourself with words:
This mother is your model. I have heard
Of your strange doubts: they well might be; I seem
A mockery to my own self. Never, Prince:
You cannot love me. "
«< Nay, but thee,” I said,
"From year-long poring on thy pictured eyes,
Ere seen I loved, and loved thee seen, and saw
Thee woman through the crust of iron moods
That masked thee from men's reverence up, and forced
Sweet love on pranks of saucy boyhood: now,
Given back to life, to life indeed, through thee,
Indeed I love; the new day comes, the light
Dearer for night, as dearer thou for faults
Lived over: lift thine eyes; my doubts are dead,
My haunting sense of hollow shows: the change,
This truthful change in thee, has killed it. Dear,
Look up, and let thy nature strike on mine,
Like yonder morning on the blind half-world;
Approach and fear not; breathe upon my brows:
In that fine air I tremble; all the past
Melts mist-like into this bright hour, and this
Is morn to more, and all the rich to-come
Reels, as the golden Autumn woodland reels


## p. 14613 (#183) ##########################################

ALFRED TENNYSON
14613
Athwart the smoke of burning weeds. Forgive me
I waste my heart in signs: let be. My bride,
My wife, my life. Oh, we will walk this world,
Yoked in all exercise of noble end,
And so through those dark gates across the wild
That no man knows. Indeed I love thee; come,
Yield thyself up,-my hopes and thine are one:
Accomplish thou my manhood and thyself;
Lay thy sweet hands in mine and trust to me. "
THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE
I
H
ALF a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
«Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns! " he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
II
"Forward, the Light Brigade! "
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
Some one had blundered:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
III
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,


## p. 14614 (#184) ##########################################

14614
ALFRED TENNYSON
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.
IV
Flashed all their sabres bare,
Flashed as they turned in air,
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wondered:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right through the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reeled from the sabre-stroke
Shattered and sundered.
Then they rode back, but not-
Not the six hundred.
V
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came through the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.
VI
When can their glory fade?
Oh, the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made!
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!


## p. 14615 (#185) ##########################################

ALFRED TENNYSON
14015
FROM IN MEMORIAM'
ST
TRONG Son of God, immortal Love,
Whom we, that have not seen thy face,
By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove:
Thine are these orbs of light and shade;
Thou madest Life in man and brute;
Thou madest Death: and lo, thy foot
Is on the skull which thou hast made.
Thou wilt not leave us in the dust:
Thou madest man, he knows not why,-
He thinks he was not made to die;
And thou hast made him: thou art just.
Thou seemest human and divine,
The highest, holiest manhood, thou:
Our wills are ours, we know not how;
Our wills are ours, to make them thine.
Our little systems have their day;
They have their day and cease to be:
They are but broken lights of thee,
And thou, O Lord, art more than they.
We have but faith; we cannot know:
For knowledge is of things we see;
And yet we trust it comes from thee,
A beam in darkness: let it grow.
Let knowledge grow from more to more,
But more of reverence in us dwell;
That mind and soul, according well,
May make one music as before,
But vaster. We are fools and slight;
We mock thee when we do not fear:
But help thy foolish ones to bear;
Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light.
Forgive what seemed my sin in me;
What seemed my worth since I began:
For merit lives from man to man,
And not from man, O Lord, to thee.


## p. 14616 (#186) ##########################################

14616
ALFRED TENNYSON
Forgive my grief for one removed,—
Thy creature, whom I found so fair:
I trust he lives in thee, and there
I find him worthier to be loved.
Forgive these wild and wandering cries,
Confusions of a wasted youth;
Forgive them where they fail in truth,
And in thy wisdom make me wise.
I ENVY not in any moods
The captive void of noble rage,
The linnet born within the cage,
That never knew the summer woods;
I envy not the beast that takes
His license in the field of time,
Unfettered by the sense of crime,
To whom a conscience never wakes;
Nor, what may count itself as blest,
The heart that never plighted troth,
But stagnates in the weeds of sloth;
Nor any want-begotten rest.
I hold it true, whate'er befall,-
I feel it when I sorrow most,-
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
THAT each, who seems a separate whole,
Should move his rounds, and fusing all
The skirts of self again, should fall
Remerging in the general Soul,
Is faith as vague as all unsweet:
Eternal form shall still divide
The eternal soul from all beside;
And I shall know him when we meet;
And we shall sit at endless feast,
Enjoying each the other's good:
What vaster dream can hit the mood
Of Love on earth? He seeks at least
H


## p. 14617 (#187) ##########################################

ALFRED TENNYSON
14617
Upon the last and sharpest height,
Before the spirits fade away,
Some landing-place, to clasp and say,
"Farewell! We lose ourselves in light. "
OH YET we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill,
To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;
That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroyed,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete
That not a worm is cloven in vain;
That not a moth with vain desire
Is shriveled in a fruitless fire,
Or but subserves another's gain.
Behold, we know not anything;
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last far off- at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring.
So runs my dream: but what am I?
An infant crying in the night;
An infant crying for the light:
And with no language but a cry.
The wish, that of the living whole
No life may fail beyond the grave,
Derives it not from what we have
The likest God within the soul?
Are God and Nature then at strife,
That Nature lends such evil dreams?
So careful of the type she seems,
So careless of the single life;
That I, considering everywhere
Her secret meaning in her deeds,
And finding that of fifty seeds
She often brings but one to bear,


## p. 14618 (#188) ##########################################

14618
ALFRED TENNYSON
I falter where I firmly trod,
And falling with my weight of cares
Upon the great world's altar-stairs
That slope through darkness up to God,
I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,
And gather dust and chaff, and call
To what I feel is Lord of all,
And faintly trust the larger hope.
"So careful of the type? " but no.
From scarpèd cliff and quarried stone
She cries, "A thousand types are gone:
I care for nothing; all shall go.
"Thou makest thine appeal to me:
I bring to life, I bring to death;
The spirit does but mean the breath:
I know no more. " And he, shall he,
Man, her last work, who seemed so fair,
Such splendid purpose in his eyes,
Who rolled the psalm to wintry skies,
Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer,
Who trusted God was love indeed,
And love Creation's final law,-
Though Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shrieked against his creed, -
Who loved, who suffered countless ills,
Who battled for the True, the Just,-
Be blown about the desert dust,
Or sealed within the iron hills?
No more? A monster then, a dream,
A discord. Dragons of the prime,
That tare each other in their slime,
Were mellow music matched with him.
•
O life as futile, then, as frail!
Oh for thy voice to soothe and bless!
What hope of answer, or redress?
Behind the veil, behind the veil.


## p. 14619 (#189) ##########################################

ALFRED TENNYSON
14619
RING out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow;
The year is going, let him go:
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.
Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
LOVE is and was my Lord and King,
And in his presence I attend
To hear the tidings of my friend,
Which every hour his couriers bring.


## p. 14620 (#190) ##########################################

14620
ALFRED TENNYSON
Love is and was my King and Lord,
And will be, though as yet I keep
Within his court on earth, and sleep
Encompassed by his faithful guard,
And hear at times a sentinel
Who moves about from place to place,
And whispers to the worlds of space,
In the deep night, that all is well.
O LIVING will that shalt endure
When all that seems shall suffer shock,
Rise in the spiritual rock,
Flow through our deeds and make them pure;
That we may lift from out of dust
A voice as unto him that hears,
A cry above the conquered years
To one that with us works, and trust,
With faith that comes of self-control,
The truths that never can be proved
Until we close with all we loved,
And all we flow from, soul in soul.
O TRUE and tried, so well and long,
Demand not thou a marriage lay:
In that it is thy marriage day
Is music more than any song.
Nor have I felt so much of bliss
Since first he told me that he loved
A daughter of our house; nor proved
Since that dark day a day like this:
Though I since then have numbered o'er
Some thrice three years; they went and came,
Remade the blood and changed the frame,
And yet is love not less, but more:
No longer caring to embalm
In dying songs a dead regret,
But like a statue solid-set,
And molded in colossal calm.


## p. 14621 (#191) ##########################################

ALFRED TENNYSON
14621
Regret is dead, but love is more
Than in the summers that are flown,
For I myself with these have grown
To something greater than before;
Which makes appear the songs I made
As echoes out of weaker times,
As half but idle brawling rhymes,
The sport of random sun and shade.
But where is she, the bridal flower,
That must be made a wife ete noon?
She enters, glowing like the moon
Of Eden on its bridal bower:
On me she bends her blissful eyes,
And then on thee; they meet thy look,
And brighten like the star that shook
Betwixt the palms of Paradise.
Oh, when her life was yet in bud,
He too foretold the perfect rose.
For thee she grew, for thee she grows
For ever, and as fair as good.
And thou art worthy: full of power,
As gentle; liberal-minded, great,
Consistent; wearing all that weight
Of learning lightly like a flower.
But now set out: the noon is near,
And I must give away the bride;
She fears not, or with thee beside
And me behind her, will not fear.
For I that danced her on my knee,
That watched her on her nurse's arm,
That shielded all her life from harm,
At last must part with her to thee:
Now waiting to be made a wife,
Her feet, my darling, on the dead;
Their pensive tablets round her head,
And the most living words of life
·


## p. 14622 (#192) ##########################################

14622
ALFRED TENNYSON
Breathed in her ear. The ring is on,
The "wilt thou" answered, and again
The "wilt thou" asked, till out of twain
Her sweet "I will" has made you one.
Now sign your names, which shall be read,
Mute symbols of a joyful morn,
By village eyes as yet unborn;-
The names are signed, and overhead
-
Begins the clash and clang that tells
The joy to every wandering breeze;
The blind wall rocks, and on the trees
The dead leaf trembles to the bells.
O happy hour, and happier hours
Await them. Many a merry face
Salutes them - maidens of the place,
That pelt us in the porch with flowers.
O happy hour, behold the bride
With him to whom her hand I gave.
They leave the porch, they pass the grave
That has to-day its sunny side.
To-day the grave is bright for me;
For them the light of life increased.
Who stay to share the morning feast,
Who rest to-night beside the sea.
Let all my genial spirits advance
To meet and greet a whiter sun;
My drooping memory will not shun
The foaming grape of eastern France.
It circles round, and fancy plays,
And hearts are warmed and faces bloom,
As drinking health to bride and groom
We wish them store of happy days.
Nor count me all to blame if I
Conjecture of a stiller guest,
Perchance, perchance, among the rest,
And though in silence, wishing joy.


## p. 14623 (#193) ##########################################

ALFRED TENNYSON
14623
But they must go,- the time draws on,
And those white-favored horses wait:
They rise, but linger; it is late:
Farewell, we kiss, and they are gone.
A shade falls on us like the dark
From little cloudlets on the grass;
But sweeps away as out we pass
To range the woods, to roam the park,
Discussing how their courtship grew,
And talk of others that are wed,
And how she looked, and what he said,—
And back we come at fall of dew.
Again the feast, the speech, the glee,
The shade of passing thought, the wealth
Of words and wit, the double health,
The crowning cup, the three-times-three.
And last the dance; - till I retire.
Dumb is that tower which spake so loud,
And high in heaven the streaming cloud,
And on the downs a rising fire:
And rise, O moon, from yonder down,
Till over down and over dale
All night the shining vapor sail
And pass the silent-lighted town,
The white-faced halls, the glancing rills,
And catch at every mountain head,
And o'er the friths that branch and spread
Their sleeping silver through the hills;
And touch with shade the bridal doors,
With tender gloom the roof, the wall;
And breaking let the splendor fall
To spangle all the happy shores
By which they rest, and ocean sounds,
And, star and system rolling past,
A soul shall draw from out the vast
And strike his being into bounds,


## p. 14624 (#194) ##########################################

14624
ALFRED TENNYSON
And, moved through life of lower phase,
Result in man, be born and think,
And act and love, a closer link
Betwixt us and the crowning race
Of those that, eye to eye, shall look
On knowledge: under whose command
Is Earth and Earth's, and in their hand
Is Nature like an open book:
No longer half akin to brute,
For all we thought and loved and did
And hoped and suffered, is but seed
Of what in them is flower and fruit;
Whereof the man that with me trod
This planet was a noble type,
Appearing ere the times were ripe,-
That friend of mine who lives in God;
That God which ever lives and loves,—
One God, one law, one element,
And one far-off Divine event,
To which the whole creation moves.
«COME INTO THE GARDEN, MAUD»
From Maud'
C
OME into the garden, Maud,
For the black bat, night, has flown;
Come into the garden, Maud,
I am here at the gate alone;
And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad,
And the musk of the rose is blown.
For a breeze of morning moves,
And the planet of Love is on high,
Beginning to faint in the light that she loves
On a bed of daffodil sky,
To faint in the light of the sun she loves,
To faint in his light, and to die.
All night have the roses heard
The flute, violin, bassoon;


## p. 14625 (#195) ##########################################

ALFRED TENNYSON
14625
XXV-915
All night has the casement jessamine stirred
To the dancers dancing in tune:
Till a silence fell with the waking bird,
And a hush with the setting moon.
I said to the lily, "There is but one
With whom she has heart to be gay.
When will the dancers leave her alone?
She is weary of dance and play. "
Now half to the setting moon are gone,
And half to the rising day;
Low on the sand and loud on the stone
The last wheel echoes away.
I said to the rose, «The brief night goes
In babble and revel and wine.
O young lord-lover, what sighs are those,
For one that will never be thine?
But mine, but mine," so I swear to the rose,
"For ever and ever, mine. "
And the soul of the rose went into my blood,
As the music clashed in the hall:
And long by the garden lake I stood,
For I heard your rivulet fall
From the lake to the meadow and on to the wood,-
Our wood, that is dearer than all;
From the meadow your walks have left so sweet
That whenever a March wind sighs,
He sets the jewel-print of your feet
In violets blue as your eyes,
To the woody hollows in which we meet
And the valleys of Paradise.
The slender acacia would not shake
One long milk-bloom on the tree;
The white lake-blossom fell into the lake
As the pimpernel dozed on the lea:
But the rose was awake all night for your sake,
Knowing your promise to me;
The lilies and roses were all awake,-
They sighed for the dawn and thee.
Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls,
Come hither-the dances are done -


## p. 14626 (#196) ##########################################

14626
ALFRED TENNYSON
In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls.
Queen lily and rose in one;
Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls,
To the flowers, and be their sun.
There has fallen a splendid tear
From the passion-flower at the gate.
She is coming, my dove, my dear;
She is coming, my life, my fate;
The red rose cries, "She is near, she is near;">
And the white rose weeps, "She is late;"
The larkspur listens, "I hear, I hear;"
And the lily whispers, "I wait. "
She is coming, my own, my sweet.
Were it ever so airy a tread,
My heart would hear her and beat,
Were it earth in an earthly bed;
My dust would hear her and beat,
Had I lain for a century dead;
Would start and tremble under her feet,
And blossom in purple and red.
"OH THAT 'TWERE POSSIBLE »
From Maud
H THAT 'twere possible
After long grief and pain
To find the arms of my true love
Round me once again!
OF
When I was wont to meet her
In the silent woody places
By the home that gave me birth,
We stood tranced in long embraces,
Mixt with kisses sweeter, sweeter,
Than anything on earth.
A shadow flits before me,
Not thou, but like to thee:
Ah Christ! that it were possible
For one short hour to see
The souls we loved, that they might tell us
What and where they be.


## p. 14627 (#197) ##########################################

ALFRED TENNYSON
14627
It leads me forth at evening;
It lightly winds and steals
In a cold white robe before me,
When all my spirit reels
At the shouts, the leagues of lights,
And the roaring of the wheels.
Half the night I waste in sighs,
Half in dreams I sorrow after
The delight of early skies;
In a wakeful doze I sorrow
For the hand, the lips, the eyes,
For the meeting of the morrow,
The delight of happy laughter,
The delight of low replies.
'Tis a morning pure and sweet,
And a dewy splendor falls
On the little flower that clings
To the turrets and the walls;
'Tis a morning pure and sweet,
And the light and shadow fleet:
She is walking in the meadow,
And the woodland echo rings;
In a moment we shall meet;
She is singing in the meadow,
And the rivulet at her feet
Ripples on in light and shadow
To the ballad that she sings.
Do I hear her sing as of old,
My bird with the shining head,
My own dove with the tender eye?
But there rings on a sudden a passionate cry,
There is some one dying or dead,
And a sullen thunder is rolled;
For a tumult shakes the city,
And I wake my dream is fled;
In the shuddering dawn, behold,
Without knowledge, without pity,
By the curtains of my bed
That abiding phantom cold.
Get thee hence, nor come again;
Mix not memory with doubt;


## p. 14628 (#198) ##########################################

14628
ALFRED TENNYSON
Pass, thou deathlike type of pain,
Pass and cease to move about!
'Tis the blot upon the brain
That will show itself without.
Then I rise; the eavedrops fall,
And the yellow vapors choke
The great city sounding wide;
The day comes, a dull red ball
Wrapt in drifts of lurid smoke
On the misty river-tide.
Through the hubbub of the market
I steal, a wasted frame;
It crosses here, it crosses there,
Through all that crowd confused and loud,
The shadow still the same;
And on my heavy eyelids
My anguish hangs like shame.
Alas for her that met me,
That heard me softly call,
Came glimmering through the laurels
At the quiet evenfall,
In the garden by the turrets
Of the old manorial hall.
Would the happy spirit descend,
From the realms of light and song,
In the chamber or the street,
As she looks among the blest,-
Should I fear to greet my friend,
Or to say "Forgive the wrong,"
Or to ask her, "Take me, sweet,
To the regions of thy rest? »
But the broad light glares and beats,
And the shadow flits and fleets
And will not let me be:
And I loathe the squares and streets,
And the faces that one meets,
Hearts with no love for me;
Always I long to creep
Into some still cavern deep,
There to weep, and weep, and weep
My whole soul out to thee.


## p. 14629 (#199) ##########################################

ALFRED TENNYSON
14629
THE FAREWELL OF KING ARTHUR TO QUEEN GUINEVERE
From Idylls of the King'
B
UT when the Queen, immersed in such a trance,
And moving through the past unconsciously,
Came to that point where first she saw the King
Ride toward her from the city, sighed to find
Her journey done, glanced at him, thought him cold,
High, self-contained, and passionless, not like him,
"Not like my Lancelot "-while she brooded thus
And grew half guilty in her thoughts again,
There rode an armèd warrior to the doors.
A murmuring whisper through the nunnery ran,
Then on a sudden a cry, "The King! " She sat
Stiff-stricken, listening: but when armèd feet
Through the long gallery from the outer doors
Rang coming, prone from off her seat she fell,
And groveled with her face against the floor;
There with her milk-white arms and shadowy hair
She made her face a darkness from the King;
And in the darkness heard his armed feet
Pause by her: then came silence, then a voice,
Monotonous and hollow like a ghost's
Denouncing judgment, but though changed, the King's:—
"Liest thou here so low, the child of one
I honored, happy, dead before thy shame ?
Well is it that no child is born of thee.
The children born of thee are sword and fire,
Red ruin, and the breaking-up of laws,
The craft of kindred, and the Godless hosts
Of heathen swarming o'er the Northern Sea;
Whom I, while yet Sir Lancelot, my right arm,
The mightiest of my knights, abode with me,
Have everywhere about this land of Christ
In twelve great battles ruining overthrown.
And knowest thou now from whence I come? - From him,
From waging bitter war with him; and he,
That did not shun to smite me in worse way,
Had yet that grace of courtesy in him left,
He spared to lift his hand against the King
Who made him knight: but many a knight was slain;
And many more, and all his kith and kin
Clave to him, and abode in his own land.


## p. 14630 (#200) ##########################################

14630
ALFRED TENNYSON
And many more when Modred raised revolt,
Forgetful of their troth and fealty, clave
To Modred, and a remnant stays with me.
And of this remnant will I leave a part,
True men who love me still, for whom I live,
To guard thee in the wild hour coming on,
Lest but a hair of this low head be harmed.
Fear not thou shalt be guarded till my death.
Howbeit I know, if ancient prophecies
Have erred not, that I march to meet my doom.
Thou hast not made my life so sweet to me,
That I the King should greatly care to live;
For thou hast spoilt the purpose of my life.
Bear with me for the last time while I show,
Even for thy sake, the sin which thou hast sinned.
For when the Roman left us, and their law
Relaxed its hold upon us, and the ways
Were filled with rapine, here and there a deed
Of prowess done redressed a random wrong.
But I was first of all the kings who drew
The knighthood-errant of this realm and all
The realms together under me, their Head,
In that fair Order of my Table Round,-
A glorious company, the flower of men,
To serve as model for the mighty world,
And be the fair beginning of a time.
I made them lay their hands in mine, and swear
To reverence the King as if he were
Their conscience, and their conscience as their King,
To break the heathen and uphold the Christ,
To ride abroad redressing human wrongs,
To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it,
To honor his own word as if his God's,
To lead sweet lives in purest chastity,
To love one maiden only, cleave to her,
And worship her by years of noble deeds
Until they won her; for indeed I knew
Of no more subtle master under heaven
Than is the maiden passion for a maid,
Not only to keep down the base in man,
But teach high thought, and amiable words,
And courtliness, and the desire of fame,
And love of truth, and all that makes a man.
And all this throve before I wedded thee,


## p. 14631 (#201) ##########################################

ALFRED TENNYSON
14631
Believing, 'Lo mine helpmate, one to feel
My purpose and rejoicing in my joy. '
Then came thy shameful sin with Lancelot;
Then came the sin of Tristram and Isolt;
Then others, following these my mightiest knights,
And drawing foul ensample from fair names,
Sinned also, till the loathsome opposite
Of all my heart had destined did obtain,
And all through thee! so that this life of mine
I guard as God's high gift from scathe and wrong,
Not greatly care to lose; but rather think
How sad it were for Arthur, should he live,
To sit once more within his lonely hall,
And miss the wonted number of my knights,
And miss to hear high talk of noble deeds
As in the golden days before thy sin.
For which of us, who might be left, could speak
Of the pure heart, nor seem to glance at thee?
And in thy bowers of Camelot or of Usk
Thy shadow still would glide from room to room,
And I should evermore be vext with thee
In hanging robe or vacant ornament,
Or ghostly footfall echoing on the stair.
For think not, though thou wouldst not love thy lord,
Thy lord has wholly lost his love for thee.
I am not made of so slight elements.
Yet must I leave thee, woman, to thy shame.
I hold that man the worst of public foes
Who either for his own or children's sake.
To save his blood from scandal, lets the wife
Whom he knows false, abide and rule the house;
For being through his cowardice allowed
Her station, taken everywhere for pure,
She like a new disease, unknown to men,
Creeps, no precaution used, among the crowd,
Makes wicked lightnings of her eyes, and saps
The fealty of our friends, and stirs the pulse
With devil's leaps, and poisons half the young.
Worst of the worst were that man he that reigns!
Better the King's waste hearth and aching heart
Than thou reseated in thy place of light,
The mockery of my people, and their bane. "
He paused, and in the pause she crept an inch
Nearer, and laid her hands about his feet.


## p. 14632 (#202) ##########################################

14632
ALFRED TENNYSON
Far off a solitary trumpet blew.
Then waiting by the doors the war-horse neighed
As at a friend's voice, and he spake again:-
"Yet think not that I come to urge thy crimes;
I did not come to curse thee, Guinevere,—
I, whose vast pity almost makes me die
To see thee, laying there thy golden head,
My pride in happier summers, at my feet.
The wrath which forced my thoughts on that fierce law,
The doom of treason and the flaming death,
(When first I learnt thee hidden here) is past.
The pang which while I weighed thy heart with one
Too wholly true to dream untruth in thee,
Made my tears burn, is also past-in part.
And all is past, the sin is sinned, and I,
Lo! I forgive thee, as Eternal God
Forgives: do thou for thine own soul the rest.
But how to take last leave of all I loved?
O golden hair, with which I used to play,
Not knowing! O imperial-molded form,
And beauty such as never woman wore,
Until it came a kingdom's curse with thee-
I cannot touch thy lips,-they are not mine,
But Lancelot's: nay, they never were the King's.
I cannot take thy hand,- that too is flesh,
And in the flesh thou hast sinned; and mine own flesh,
Here looking down on thine polluted, cries
'I loathe thee;' yet not less, O Guinevere,—
For I was ever virgin save for thee,-
My love through flesh hath wrought into my life.
So far, that my doom is, I love thee still.
Let no man dream but that I love thee still.
Perchance, and so thou purify thy soul,
And so thou lean on our fair father Christ,
Hereafter in that world where all are pure
We two may meet before high God, and thou
Wilt spring to me, and claim me thine, and know
I am thine husband- not a smaller soul,
Nor Lancelot, nor another. Leave me that,
I,charge thee, my last hope. Now must I hence.
Through the thick night I hear the trumpet blow:
They summon me their King to lead mine hosts
Far down to that great battle in the west,
Where I must strike against the man they call
I


## p. 14633 (#203) ##########################################

ALFRED TENNYSON
14633
My sister's son no kin of mine, who leagues
With Lords of the White Horse, heathen, and knights,
Traitors and strike him dead, and meet myself
Death, or I know not what mysterious doom.
And thou remaining here wilt learn the event:
But hither shall I never come again,
Never lie by thy side; see thee no more—
Farewell! "
-
And while she groveled at his feet,
She felt the King's breath wander o'er her neck,
And in the darkness o'er her fallen head
Perceived the waving of his hands that blest.
IN THE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL
EMMIE
I
O
UR doctor had called in another: I never had seen him before,
But he sent a chill to my heart when I saw him come in at
the door,
Fresh from the surgery-schools of France and of other lands—
Harsh red hair, big voice, big chest, big merciless hands!
Wonderful cures he had done, oh yes, but they said too of him
He was happier using the knife than in trying to save the limb;
And that I can well believe, for he looked so coarse and so red,
I could think he was one of those who would break their jests on
the dead,
And mangle the living dog that had loved him and fawned at his
knee-
Drenched with the hellish oorali - that ever such things should be!
II
Here was a boy-I am sure that some of our children would die
But for the voice of Love, and the smile, and the comforting eye
Here was a boy in the ward, every bone seemed out of its place —
Caught in a mill and crushed-it was all-but a hopeless case:
And he handled him gently enough; but his voice and his face were
not kind,
-
And it was but a hopeless case,- he had seen it and made up his
mind;


## p. 14634 (#204) ##########################################

14634
ALFRED TENNYSON
And he said to me roughly, "The lad will need little more of your
care. "
"All the more need," I told him, "to seek the Lord Jesus in prayer;
They are all his children here, and I pray for them all as my own. "
But he turned to me, "Ay, good woman, can prayer set a broken
bone? "
Then he muttered half to himself, but I know that I heard him say,
"All very well- but the good Lord Jesus has had his day. "
III
Had? has it come? It has only dawned. It will come by-and-by.
Oh, how could I serve in the wards if the hope of the world were
a lie?
How could I bear with the sights and the loathsome smells of disease
But that He said, "Ye do it to me, when ye do it to these "?
IV
So he went. And we past to this ward where the younger children
are laid:
Here is the cot of our orphan, our darling, our meek little maid;
Empty you see just now! We have lost her who loved her so much
Patient of pain though as quick as a sensitive plant to the touch;
Hers was the prettiest prattle, -it often moved me to tears;
Hers was the gratefulest heart I have found in a child of her years-
Nay, you remember our Emmie: you used to send her the flowers;
How she would smile at 'em, play with 'em, talk to 'em hours after
hours!
-
They that can wander at will where the works of the Lord are re-
vealed
Little guess what joy can be got from a cowslip out of the field:
Flowers to these "spirits in prison" are all they can know of the
spring;
They freshen and sweeten the wards like the waft of an angel's
wing;
And she lay with a flower in one hand and her thin hands crost on
her breast,-
Wan, but as pretty as heart can desire,- and we thought her at rest,
Quietly sleeping; so quiet, our doctor said, "Poor little dear!
Nurse, I must do it to-morrow: she'll never live through it, I fear. ”
V
I walked with our kindly old doctor as far as the head of the stair,
Then I returned to the ward; the child didn't see I was there.


## p. 14635 (#205) ##########################################

ALFRED TENNYSON
14635
-
VI
Never since I was nurse, had I been so grieved and so vext!
Emmie had heard him. Softly she called from her cot to the next:
"He says I shall never live through it—O Annie, what shall I do? »
Annie considered. "If I," said the wise little Annie, «< was you,
I should cry to the dear Lord Jesus to help me; for, Emmie, you see,
It's all in the picture there: 'Little children should come to me. '"
(Meaning the print that you gave us,-I find that it always can please
Our children,-the dear Lord Jesus with children about his knees:)
"Yes, and I will," said Emmie; "but then if I call to the Lord,
How should he know that it's me? such a lot of beds in the ward! "
That was a puzzle for Annie. Again she considered and said:-
"Emmie, you put out your arms, and you leave 'em outside on the
bed-
The Lord has so much to see to! but, Emmie, you tell it him plain,
It's the little girl with her arms lying out on the counterpane. "
VII
I had sat three nights by the child-I could not watch her for four;
My brain had begun to reel-I felt I could do it no more.
That was my sleeping-night; but I thought that it never would pass.
There was a thunderclap once, and a clatter of hail on the glass,
And there was a phantom cry that I heard as I tost about,
The motherless bleat of a lamb in the storm and the darkness with-
out;
My sleep was broken besides with dreams of the dreadful knife,
And fears for our delicate Emmie, who scarce would escape with her
life;
Then in the gray of the morning it seemed she stood by me and
smiled,
And the doctor came at his hour, and we went to see to the child.
VIII
He had brought his ghastly tools: we believed her asleep again —
Her dear, long, lean, little arms lying out on the counterpane;
Say that His day is done! Ah, why should we care what they say?
The Lord of the children had heard her, and Emmie had past away.


## p. 14636 (#206) ##########################################

14636
ALFRED TENNYSON
THE THROSTLE
S
UMMER is coming, summer is coming.
I know it, I know it, I know it.
Light again, leaf again, life again, love again. "
Yes, my wild little Poet.
Sing the new year in under the blue.
Last year you sang it as gladly.
"New, new, new, new! " Is it then so new
That you should carol so madly?
"Love again, song again, nest again, young again,"
Never a prophet so crazy!
And hardly a daisy as yet, little friend,
See, there is hardly a daisy.
"Here again, here, here, here, happy year! "
Oh, warble unchidden, unbidden!
Summer is coming, is coming, my dear,
And all the winters are hidden.
THE OAK
IVE thy Life,
L Young and old,
Like yon oak,
Bright in spring,
Living gold;
Summer-rich
Then; and then
Autumn-changed,
Soberer-hued
Gold again.
All his leaves
Fallen at length,
Look, he stands,
Trunk and bough,
Naked strength.


## p. 14637 (#207) ##########################################

ALFRED TENNYSON
14637
SUNS
CROSSING THE BAR
UNSET and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For though from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.


## p. 14638 (#208) ##########################################

14638
CHARLES TENNYSON TURNER
(1808-1879)
HE poetic gift in the Tennyson family was not confined to the
laureate, although his accomplishment and fame overshadow
his brothers. But both Frederick and Charles Tennyson
were verse-writers of no mean power; and of Charles-who in 1835
assumed the name of Turner upon inheriting the estate of a great-
uncle-it may be said that he was one of the most attractive and
genuine of the minor Victorian lyric singers. His sonnets have a
delicacy of art, a loveliness of expression, and a depth of feeling,
which give them distinction and charm.
They are quiet, reflective, unobtrusive; but
their attraction is strong and lasting. This
poet's range was not wide, but his note was
very true and sweet.

Charles Tennyson Turner was the son
of the Rev. George Clayton Tennyson, rec-
tor of Somersby and Enderby in Lincoln-
shire, and was born in the former village
on July 4th, 1808; being a year the elder of
Alfred. Charles was educated at Louth
Grammar School, and with Alfred at Trin-
ity College, Cambridge, where he got his
degree in 1832. As a Trinity student he
did fine work in the classics, and won the
Bell Scholarship. In 1835 he was appointed Vicar of Grasby, and
spent most of his life in the faithful discharge of the duties of a
country parish, much beloved by his people. He married in 1836
Louisa Sellwood, the younger sister of Lady Tennyson.
Charles's initial appearance as a poet was with Alfred in the
anonymous volume, now so much coveted, 'Poems by Two Brothers';
which was published in 1827, and drew the attention of the public
to a new talent in English verse. Charles's share in the volume
was but modest. His independent publication began three years
later with the 'Sonnets and Fugitive Pieces'; and further volumes
were 'Sonnets' (1864), Small Tableaux' (1868), 'Sonnets, Lyrics, and
Translations (1873), 'Collected Sonnets, Old and New' (1880), - the
last a posthumous publication. The poet's death occurred at Chelten-
ham, April 25th, 1879.
TENNYSON TURNER


## p. 14639 (#209) ##########################################

CHARLES TENNYSON TURNER
14639
The ethical is strongly marked in Charles Tennyson Turner's
verse. His interest in spiritual themes rarely gave his poems the
didactic flavor too commonly found in religious poetry. This was
because he was naturally an artist; and also because he was full of
feeling, richly human. He chose for the most part simple homely
themes suggested by his environment, and illuminated them with
tender imagination. As to poetic forms, the sonnet, "poising one
bright thought," was with him the favorite mold into which to pour
his thought and emotion. Its lyric requirements and demands suited
his gift, and he gained mastery in it. Few sonneteers excel him
for sentiment choicely and musically expressed. In such poems
as 'Letty's Globe' and 'The Mummy,' he touches the heart and
delights the sense of beauty. The former poem awoke the enthusi-
asm of Swinburne, who declared it to be unsurpassed among English
child poems.
At times too he was stimulated by a motif like that
in The Lion's Skeleton' into a noble largeness of conception and
utterance. Charles Tennyson Turner's sweet, pure pastoral melody
must long afford pleasure and find appreciation.
Η
THE LION'S SKELETON
ow long, O lion, hast thou fleshless lain?
What rapt thy fierce and thirsty eyes away?
First came the vulture; worms, heat, wind, and rain
Ensued, and ardors of the tropic day.
I know not-if they spared it thee-how long
The canker sate within thy monstrous mane,
Till it fell piecemeal, and bestrewed the plain,
Or, shredded by the storming sands, was flung
Again to earth: but now thine ample front,
Whereon the great frowns gathered, is laid bare;
The thunders of thy throat, which erst were wont
To scare the desert, are no longer there:
Thy claws remain; but worms, wind, rain, and heat
Have sifted out the substance of thy feet.
THE LATTICE AT SUNRISE
A$
S ON my bed at dawn I mused and prayed,
I saw my lattice pranked upon the wall,
The flaunting leaves and flitting birds withal,-
A sunny phantom interlaced with shade:


## p. 14640 (#210) ##########################################

14640
CHARLES TENNYSON TURNER
"Thanks be to Heaven," in happy mood I said,
"What sweeter aid my matins could befall
Than the fair glory from the East hath made?
What holy sleights hath God, the Lord of all,
To bid us feel and see! We are not free
To say we see not, for the glory comes
Nightly and daily, like the flowing sea;
His lustre pierceth through the midnight glooms,
And, at prime hour, behold! he follows me
With golden shadows to my secret rooms. "
THE ROOKERY
ETHOUGHT, as I beheld the rookery pass
Homeward at dusk upon the rising wind,
How every heart in that close-flying mass
M
Was well befriended by the Almighty mind:
He marks each sable wing that soars or drops,
He sees them forth at morning to their fare,
He sets them floating on his evening air,
He sends them home to rest on the tree-tops.
And when through umbered leaves the night-winds pour,
With lusty impulse rocking all the grove,
The stress is measured by an eye of love:
No root is burst, though all the branches roar;
And in the morning, cheerly as before,
The dark clan talks, the social instincts move.
ORION
How
ow oft I've watched thee from the garden croft,
In silence, when the busy day was done,
Shining with wondrous brilliancy aloft,
And flickering like a casement 'gainst the sun!
I've seen thee soar from out some snowy cloud,
Which held the frozen breath of land and sea,
Yet broke and severed as the wind grew loud-
But earth-bound winds could not dismember thee,
Nor shake thy frame of jewels: I have guessed
At thy strange shape and function, haply felt
The charm of that old myth about thy belt
And sword; but most, my spirit was possessed
By His great Presence, who is never far
From his light-bearers, whether man or star.


## p. 14641 (#211) ##########################################

CHARLES TENNYSON TURNER
14641
LETTY'S GLOBE
HEN Letty had scarce passed her third glad year,
WHE And her young, artless words began to flow,
One day we gave the child a colored sphere
Of the wide earth, that she might mark and know,
By tint and outline, all its sea and land.
She patted all the world; old empires peeped
Between her baby fingers; her soft hand
Was welcome at all frontiers. How she leaped,
And laughed, and prattled in her world-wide bliss!
But when we turned her sweet unlearned eye
On our own isle, she raised a joyous cry:
"Oh yes! I see it; Letty's home is there! "
And while she hid all England with a kiss,
Bright over Europe fell her golden hair!
HER FIRST-BORN
IT
T WAS her first sweet child, her heart's delight;
And though we all foresaw his early doom,
We kept the fearful secret out of sight;
We saw the canker, but she kissed the bloom.
And yet it might not be: we could not brook
To vex her happy heart with vague alarms,
To blanch with fear her fond intrepid look,
Or send a thrill through those encircling arms.
She smiled upon him, waking or at rest;
She could not dream her little child would die;
She tossed him fondly with an upward eye;
She seemed as buoyant as a summer spray
That dances with a blossom on its breast,
Nor knows how soon it will be borne away.
XXV-916
OUR MARY AND THE CHILD MUMMY
WH
HEN the four quarters of the globe shall rise,—
Men, women, children, at the judgment-time,—
Perchance this Memphian girl, dead ere her prime,
Shall drop her mask, and with dark, new-born eyes


## p. 14642 (#212) ##########################################

14642
CHARLES TENNYSON TURNER
Salute our English Mary, loved and lost:
The Father knows her little scroll of prayer,
And life as pure as his Egyptian air;-
For though she knew not Jesus, nor the cost
At which he won the world, she learned to pray;
And though our own sweet babe on Christ's good name
Spent her last breath, premonished and advised
Of him, and in his glorious church baptized,-
She will not spurn this old-world child away,
Nor put her poor embalmèd heart to sham
THE BUOY-BELL
ow like the leper, with his own sad cry
Enforcing its own solitude, it tolls!
H
That lonely bell set in the rushing shoals,
To warn us from the place of jeopardy!
O friend of man! sore vexed by Ocean's power,
The changing tides wash o'er thee day by day;
Thy trembling mouth is filled with bitter spray:
Yet still thou ringest on from hour to hour.
High is thy mission, though thy lot is wild:
To be in danger's realm a guardian sound;
-
In seamen's dreams a pleasant part to bear,
And earn their blessing as the year goes round;
And strike the keynote of each grateful prayer
Breathed in their distant homes by wife or child.


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14643
TERENCE
(B. C. 185-159? )
BY THOMAS BOND LINDSAY
HE Comedy of Manners, to which the work of Terence
belongs, represents in general the contemporary life of the
people in its superficial aspect; the state of society which
it depicts changes rapidly, and the comedy itself often loses interest
except to the student of past forms of social development. The Eng-
lish comedies of this class that have retained popular favor, owe their
continued existence rather to the power of the presentation than to
their subject-matter. Where, however, the
life of a particular community has evidently
and forcibly affected the succeeding history
of the world, the case is different: the life
of such a people at such a time becomes of
cosmopolitan importance. In estimating,
then, the permanent value of the comedies
of Terence, we must consider both the sub-
ject of his work and the quality of the
workman. No amount of artistic subtlety
can produce an enduring monument from
perishable material; a marble statue is not
formed from clay, nor are noble thoughts
evolved from trivial platitudes. On the
other hand, the barren-minded or unskillful
fashioner may make the marble valueless as clay itself, and sink
men's highest aspirations to the level of the street-boy's slang. The
influence of Greek life and thought upon modern Europe is as remark-
able as it is undisputed. The power of Terence to represent this
life, as it was in the third century before Christ, will appear as we
proceed. Suffice it for the present to suggest that his treatment of
it was cosmopolitan, natural, and formally almost perfect. It was
cosmopolitan, because as an African slave, writing at Rome and in
the Roman speech, of the life of the Greeks, he had that perspective
which in some form or other local, chronological, or tempera-
mental-is essential to clear vision and to the appreciation of rel-
ative values. It was natural, because he had the facts all before him

TERENCE


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14644
TERENCE
in the works of the Greek writers whom he followed, because he
was young, and because he was an artist. It was formally almost
perfect, because he used with an artist's power a speech form that
had put off the crudities of his literary predecessors, and had become
the most nearly perfect medium for the expression of thought that
the world has ever known.
Roman comedy, as it has come down to us, is almost entirely
founded on Greek models. Of the indigenous Latin comedy which
preceded the translation made by Nævius (who died 204 B. C. ) from
the Greek, we know very little. The conflicts of rustic raillery at
the vintage season, and at other festivals, gave rise to the Fescen-
nine verses, which were probably modified by Etruscan influence and
developed into the 'Saturæ,'- dramatic medleys with some musical
accompaniment, upon which the later literary Saturæ of Lucilius,
and his successors Horace, Persius, and Juvenal, were based.
Among the Oscans in southern Italy there arose a form of comedy
called the Fabula Atellana. ' This seems to have contained a large
pantomimic element, and produced the stock characters of Macco the
stupid, Bucco the glutton, Pappus the vain old man, and Dosennus
the wily rascal. The Romans possessed-in common with all Ital-
ians, both ancient and modern- a keen sense of the ridiculous, a tal-
ent for repartee, a gift of improvisation, and an art of mimicry, that
might well have formed a really national comedy from these rude
beginnings, had they not come into competition with the finer forms
of Greek dramatic art. As a matter of fact, however, the influence
of this national drama upon the literature of Rome was insignificant;
and so far as extant writings are concerned, Roman comedy means
the works of Plautus and Terence.