No More Learning

The work which inspired it,
Chaucer's 'Legend of Good Women', was written about 1384, thus
"preluding" by nearly two hundred years the "spacious times of great
Elizabeth". There is no resemblance between the poems beyond the fact
that both are visions and both have as their heroines illustrious women
who have been unfortunate. Cleopatra is the only one common to the two
poems. Tennyson's is an exquisite work of art--the transition from the
anarchy of dreams to the dreamland landscape and to the sharply denned
figures--the skill with which the heroines (what could be more perfect
that Cleopatra and Jephtha's daughter? ) are chosen and contrasted--the
wonderful way in which the Iphigenia of Euripides and Lucretius and the
Cleopatra of Shakespeare are realised are alike admirable. The poem
opened in 1833 with the following strangely irrelevant verses, excised
in 1842, which as Fitzgerald observed "make a perfect poem by themselves
without affecting the 'dream '":--

As when a man, that sails in a balloon,
Downlooking sees the solid shining ground
Stream from beneath him in the broad blue noon,
Tilth, hamlet, mead and mound:

And takes his flags and waves them to the mob,
That shout below, all faces turned to where
Glows ruby-like the far up crimson globe,
Filled with a finer air:

So lifted high, the Poet at his will
Lets the great world flit from him, seeing all,
Higher thro' secret splendours mounting still,
Self-poised, nor fears to fall.



Hearing apart the echoes of his fame.
While I spoke thus, the seedsman, memory,
Sowed my deepfurrowed thought with many a name,
Whose glory will not die.

I read, before my eyelids dropt their shade,
"The Legend of Good Women," long ago
Sung by the morning star [1] of song, who made
His music heard below;

Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath
Preluded those melodious bursts, that fill
The spacious times of great Elizabeth
With sounds that echo still.

And, for a while, the knowledge of his art
Held me above the subject, as strong gales
Hold swollen clouds from raining, tho' my heart,
Brimful of those wild tales,

Charged both mine eyes with tears.
In every land I saw, wherever light illumineth,
Beauty and anguish walking hand in hand
The downward slope to death. [2]

Those far-renowned brides of ancient song
Peopled the hollow dark, like burning stars,
And I heard sounds of insult, shame, and wrong,
And trumpets blown for wars;

And clattering flints batter'd with clanging hoofs:
And I saw crowds in column'd sanctuaries;
And forms that pass'd [3] at windows and on roofs
Of marble palaces;

Corpses across the threshold; heroes tall
Dislodging pinnacle and parapet
Upon the tortoise creeping to the wall; [4]
Lances in ambush set;

And high shrine-doors burst thro' with heated blasts
That run before the fluttering tongues of fire;
White surf wind-scatter'd over sails and masts,
And ever climbing higher;

Squadrons and squares of men in brazen plates,
Scaffolds, still sheets of water, divers woes,
Ranges of glimmering vaults with iron grates,
And hush'd seraglios.

So shape chased shape as swift as, when to land
Bluster the winds and tides the self-same way,
Crisp foam-flakes scud along the level sand,
Torn from the fringe of spray.

I started once, or seem'd to start in pain,
Resolved on noble things, and strove to speak,
As when a great thought strikes along the brain,
And flushes all the cheek.

And once my arm was lifted to hew down,
A cavalier from off his saddle-bow,
That bore a lady from a leaguer'd town;
And then, I know not how,

All those sharp fancies, by down-lapsing thought
Stream'd onward, lost their edges, and did creep
Roll'd on each other, rounded, smooth'd and brought
Into the gulfs of sleep.

At last methought that I had wander'd far
In an old wood: fresh-wash'd in coolest dew,
The maiden splendours of the morning star
Shook in the steadfast [5] blue.

Enormous elmtree-boles did stoop and lean
Upon the dusky brushwood underneath
Their broad curved branches, fledged with clearest green,
New from its silken sheath.

The dim red morn had died, her journey done,
And with dead lips smiled at the twilight plain,
Half-fall'n across the threshold of the sun,
Never to rise again.

There was no motion in the dumb dead air,
Not any song of bird or sound of rill;
Gross darkness of the inner sepulchre
Is not so deadly still

As that wide forest.
Growths of jasmine turn'd
Their humid arms festooning tree to tree, [6]
And at the root thro' lush green grasses burn'd
The red anemone.

I knew the flowers, I knew the leaves, I knew
The tearful glimmer of the languid dawn
On those long, rank, dark wood-walks, drench'd in dew,
Leading from lawn to lawn.

The smell of violets, hidden in the green,
Pour'd back into my empty soul and frame
The times when I remember to have been
Joyful and free from blame.

And from within me a clear under-tone
Thrill'd thro' mine ears in that unblissful clime
"Pass freely thro': the wood is all thine own,
Until the end of time".

At length I saw a lady [7] within call,
Stiller than chisell'd marble, standing there;
A daughter of the gods, divinely tall, [8]
And most divinely fair.

Her loveliness with shame and with surprise
Froze my swift speech: she turning on my face
The star-like sorrows of immortal eyes,
Spoke slowly in her place.

"I had great beauty: ask thou not my name:
No one can be more wise than destiny.
Many drew swords and died.
Where'er I came I brought calamity. "

"No marvel, sovereign lady [9]: in fair field
Myself for such a face had boldly died," [10]
I answer'd free; and turning I appeal'd
To one [11] that stood beside.

But she, with sick and scornful looks averse,
To her full height her stately stature draws;
"My youth," she said, "was blasted with a curse:
This woman was the cause.

"I was cut off from hope in that sad place, [12]
Which yet to name my spirit loathes and fears: [13]
My father held his hand upon his face;
I, blinded with my tears,

"Still strove to speak: my voice was thick with sighs
As in a dream. Dimly I could descry
The stern black-bearded kings with wolfish eyes,
Waiting to see me die.

"The high masts flicker'd as they lay afloat;
The crowds, the temples, waver'd, and the shore;
The bright death quiver'd at the victim's throat;
Touch'd; and I knew no more. " [14]

Whereto the other with a downward brow:
"I would the white cold heavy-plunging foam, [15]
Whirl'd by the wind, had roll'd me deep below,
Then when I left my home. "

Her slow full words sank thro' the silence drear,
As thunder-drops fall on a sleeping sea:
Sudden I heard a voice that cried, "Come here,
That I may look on thee".

I turning saw, throned on a flowery rise,
One sitting on a crimson scarf unroll'd;
A queen, with swarthy cheeks [16] and bold black eyes,
Brow-bound with burning gold.

She, flashing forth a haughty smile, began:
"I govern'd men by change, and so I sway'd
All moods. Tis long since I have seen a man.
Once, like the moon, I made

"The ever-shifting currents of the blood
According to my humour ebb and flow.
I have no men to govern in this wood:
That makes my only woe.

"Nay--yet it chafes me that I could not bend
One will; nor tame and tutor with mine eye
That dull cold-blooded Caesar. Prythee, friend,
Where is Mark Antony? [17]

"The man, my lover, with whom I rode sublime
On Fortune's neck: we sat as God by God:
The Nilus would have risen before his time
And flooded at our nod. [18]

"We drank the Libyan [19] Sun to sleep, and lit
Lamps which outburn'd Canopus. O my life In Egypt!
O the dalliance and the wit,
The flattery and the strife, [20]

"And the wild kiss, when fresh from war's alarms, [21]
My Hercules, my Roman Antony,
My mailed Bacchus leapt into my arms,
Contented there to die!

"And there he died: and when I heard my name
Sigh'd forth with life, I would not brook my fear [22]
Of the other: with a worm I balk'd his fame.
What else was left? look here! "

(With that she tore her robe apart, and half
The polish'd argent of her breast to sight
Laid bare. Thereto she pointed with a laugh,
Showing the aspick's bite. )

"I died a Queen. The Roman soldier found [23]
Me lying dead, my crown about my brows,
A name for ever! --lying robed and crown'd,
Worthy a Roman spouse. "

Her warbling voice, a lyre of widest range
Struck [24] by all passion, did fall down and glance
From tone to tone, and glided thro' all change
Of liveliest utterance.

When she made pause I knew not for delight;
Because with sudden motion from the ground
She raised her piercing orbs, and fill'd with light
The interval of sound.

Still with their fires Love tipt his keenest darts;
As once they drew into two burning rings
All beams of Love, melting the mighty hearts
Of captains and of kings.

Slowly my sense undazzled. Then I heard
A noise of some one coming thro' the lawn,
And singing clearer than the crested bird,
That claps his wings at dawn.

"The torrent brooks of hallow'd Israel
From craggy hollows pouring, late and soon,
Sound all night long, in falling thro' the dell,
Far-heard beneath the moon.

"The balmy moon of blessed Israel
Floods all the deep-blue gloom with beams divine:
All night the splinter'd crags that wall the dell
With spires of silver shine. "

As one that museth where broad sunshine laves
The lawn by some cathedral, thro' the door
Hearing the holy organ rolling waves
Of sound on roof and floor,

Within, and anthem sung, is charm'd and tied
To where he stands,--so stood I, when that flow
Of music left the lips of her that died
To save her father's vow;

The daughter of the warrior Gileadite, [25]
A maiden pure; as when she went along
From Mizpeh's tower'd gate with welcome light,
With timbrel and with song.

My words leapt forth: "Heaven heads the count of crimes
With that wild oath". She render'd answer high:
"Not so, nor once alone; a thousand times
I would be born and die.

"Single I grew, like some green plant, whose root
Creeps to the garden water-pipes beneath,
Feeding the flower; but ere my flower to fruit
Changed, I was ripe for death.

"My God, my land, my father--these did move
Me from my bliss of life, that Nature gave,
Lower'd softly with a threefold cord of love
Down to a silent grave.

"And I went mourning, 'No fair Hebrew boy
Shall smile away my maiden blame among
The Hebrew mothers'--emptied of all joy,
Leaving the dance and song,

"Leaving the olive-gardens far below,
Leaving the promise of my bridal bower,
The valleys of grape-loaded vines that glow
Beneath the battled tower

"The light white cloud swam over us. Anon
We heard the lion roaring from his den; [26]
We saw the large white stars rise one by one,
Or, from the darken'd glen,

"Saw God divide the night with flying flame,
And thunder on the everlasting hills.
I heard Him, for He spake, and grief became
A solemn scorn of ills.

"When the next moon was roll'd into the sky,
Strength came to me that equall'd my desire.
How beautiful a thing it was to die
For God and for my sire!

"It comforts me in this one thought to dwell,
That I subdued me to my father's will;
Because the kiss he gave me, ere I fell,
Sweetens the spirit still.

"Moreover it is written that my race
Hew'd Ammon, hip and thigh, from Aroer [27]
On Arnon unto Minneth. " Here her face
Glow'd, as I look'd at her.

She lock'd her lips: she left me where I stood:
"Glory to God," she sang, and past afar,
Thridding the sombre boskage of the wood,
Toward the morning-star.

Losing her carol I stood pensively,
As one that from a casement leans his head,
When midnight bells cease ringing suddenly,
And the old year is dead.

"Alas! alas! " a low voice, full of care,
Murmur'd beside me: "Turn and look on me:
I am that Rosamond, whom men call fair,
If what I was I be.

"Would I had been some maiden coarse and poor!
O me, that I should ever see the light!
Those dragon eyes of anger'd Eleanor
Do haunt me, day and night. "

She ceased in tears, fallen from hope and trust:
To whom the Egyptian: "O, you tamely died!
You should have clung to Fulvia's waist, and thrust
The dagger thro' her side".

With that sharp sound the white dawn's creeping beams,
Stol'n to my brain, dissolved the mystery
Of folded sleep. The captain of my dreams
Ruled in the eastern sky.

Morn broaden'd on the borders of the dark,
Ere I saw her, who clasp'd in her last trance
Her murder'd father's head, or Joan of Arc, [28]
A light of ancient France;

Or her, who knew that Love can vanquish Death,
Who kneeling, with one arm about her king,
Drew forth the poison with her balmy breath, [29]
Sweet as new buds in Spring.

No memory labours longer from the deep
Gold-mines of thought to lift the hidden ore
That glimpses, moving up, than I from sleep
To gather and tell o'er

Each little sound and sight. With what dull pain
Compass'd, how eagerly I sought to strike
Into that wondrous track of dreams again!
But no two dreams are like.

As when a soul laments, which hath been blest,
Desiring what is mingled with past years,
In yearnings that can never be exprest
By sighs or groans or tears;

Because all words, tho' cull'd [30] with choicest art,
Failing to give the bitter of the sweet,
Wither beneath the palate, and the heart
Faints, faded by its heat.




[Footnote 1: Suggested apparently by Denham, 'Verses on Cowley's
Death':--

Old Chaucer, like the morning star
To us discovers
Day from far. ]


[Footnote 2: Here follow in 1833 two stanzas excised in 1842:--

In every land I thought that, more or less,
The stronger sterner nature overbore
The softer, uncontrolled by gentleness
And selfish evermore:

And whether there were any means whereby,
In some far aftertime, the gentler mind
Might reassume its just and full degree
Of rule among mankind. ]


[Footnote 3: 1833. Screamed. ]

[Footnote 4: The Latin 'testudo' formed of the shields of soldiers
held over their heads. ]

[Footnote 5: 1883 to 1848 inclusive. Stedfast. ]

[Footnote 6: 1833.

Clasping jasmine turned
Its twined arms festooning tree to tree.

Altered to present reading, 1842. ]


[Footnote 7: A lady, i. e. , Helen. ]

[Footnote 8: Tennyson has here noticed what is so often emphasised by
Greek writers, that tallness was a great beauty in women. See Aristotle,
'Ethics', iv. , 3, and Homer, 'passim, Odyssey', viii. , 416;
xviii. , 190 and 248; xxi. , 6. So Xenophon in describing Panthea
emphasises her tallness, 'Cyroped. ', v. ]

[Footnote 9: 1883. Sovran lady. ]

[Footnote 10: As the old men say, 'Iliad', iii. , 156-8. ]

[Footnote 11: The one is Iphigenia. ]

[Footnote 12: Aulis. ]

[Footnote 13: It was not till 1884 that this line was altered to the
reading of the final edition, 'i. e. ', "Which men called Aulis in
those iron years". For the "iron years" of that reading 'cf. '
Thomson, 'Spring', 384, "'iron' times". ]

[Footnote 14: From 1833 till 1853 this stanza ran:--

"The tall masts quivered as they lay afloat,
The temples and the people and the shore,
One drew a sharp knife thro' my tender throat
Slowly,--and nothing more".

It is curious that Tennyson should have allowed the last line to stand
so long; possibly it may have been to defy Lockhart's sarcastic
commentary: "What touching simplicity, what pathetic resignation--he cut
my throat, nothing more! " With Tennyson's picture should be compared
AEschylus, 'Agamem. ', 225-49, and Lucretius, i. , 85-100. For the bold and
picturesque substitution of the effect for the cause in the "bright
death quiver'd" 'cf. ' Sophocles, 'Electra', 1395,

[Greek: 'neakonaeton aima cheiroin ech_on,']

"with the newly-whetted blood on his hands". So "vulnus" is frequently
used by Virgil, and 'cf. ' Silius Italicus, 'Punica', ix. ,
368-9:--

Per pectora 'saevas'
Exceptat 'mortes'. ]



[Footnote 15: She expresses the same wish in 'Iliad', iii. , 73-4. ]

[Footnote 16: Cleopatra. The skill with which Tennyson has here given us,
in quintessence as it were, Shakespeare's superb creation needs no
commentary, but it is somewhat surprising to find an accurate scholar
like Tennyson guilty of the absurdity of representing Cleopatra as of
gipsy complexion. The daughter of Ptolemy Aulates and a lady of Pontus,
she was of Greek descent, and had no taint at all of African
intermixtures. See Peacock's remarks in 'Gryll Grange', p. 206, 7th
edit. , 1861. ]

[Footnote 17: After this in 1833 and in 1842 are the following stanzas,
afterwards excised:--

"By him great Pompey dwarfs and suffers pain,
A mortal man before immortal Mars;
The glories of great Julius lapse and wane,
And shrink from suns to stars.

"That man of all the men I ever knew
Most touched my fancy.
O! what days and nights
We had in Egypt, ever reaping new
Harvest of ripe delights.

"Realm-draining revels! Life was one long feast,
What wit! what words! what sweet words, only made
Less sweet by the kiss that broke 'em, liking best
To be so richly stayed!

"What dainty strifes, when fresh from war's alarms,
My Hercules, my gallant Antony,
My mailed captain leapt into my arms,
Contented there to die!

"And in those arms he died: I heard my name
Sighed forth with life: then I shook off all fear:
Oh, what a little snake stole Caesar's fame!
What else was left? look here! "

"With that she tore her robe apart," etc. ]


[Footnote l8: This stanza was added in 1843. ]

[Footnote 19: 1845-1848. Lybian. ]

[Footnote 20: Added in 1845 as a substitute for

"What nights we had in Egypt! I could hit
His humours while I crossed them:
O the life I led him, and the dalliance and the wit,
The flattery and the strife,

which is the reading of 1843. Canopus is a star in Argo, not visible in
the West, but a conspicuous feature in the sky when seen from Egypt, as
Pliny notices, 'Hist. Nat. ', vi. , xxiv. "Fatentes Canopum noctibus
sidus ingens et clarum". 'Cf. ' Manilius, 'Astron. ', i. ,
216-17, "Nusquam invenies fulgere Canopum donec Niliacas per pontum
veneris oras," and Lucan, 'Pharsal. ', viii. , 181-3. ]

[Footnote 21: Substituted in 1843 for the reading of 1833 and 1842. ]

[Footnote 22: Substituted in 1845 for
the reading of 1833, 1842, 1843, which ran as recorded 'supra'.
1845 to 1848. Lybian. And for the reading of 1843

Sigh'd forth with life I had no further fear,
O what a little worm stole Caesar's fame! ]

[Footnote 23: A splendid transfusion of Horace's lines about her, Ode I. ,
xxxvii.

Invidens Privata deduci superto
Non humilis mulier triumpho. ]


[Footnote 24: 1833 and 1842. Touched. ]

[Footnote 25: For the story of Jephtha's daughter see Judges, chap. xi. ]

[Footnote 26: All editions up to and including 1851. In his den. ]

[Footnote 27: For reference see Judges xi, 33. ]

[Footnote 28: 1833.

Ere I saw her, that in her latest trance
Clasped her dead father's heart, or Joan of Arc.

The reference is, of course, to the well-known story of Margaret Roper,
the daughter of Sir Thomas More, who is said to have taken his head when
he was executed and preserved it till her death. ]

[Footnote 29: Eleanor, the wife of Edward I. , is said to have thus saved
his life when he was stabbed at Acre with a poisoned dagger. ]

[Footnote 30: The earliest and latest editions, 'i. e. ', 1833 and
1853, have "tho'," and all the editions between "though". "Though
culled," etc. ]






MARGARET

First printed in 1833.

Another of Tennyson's delicious fancy portraits, the twin sister to
Adeline.


1

O sweet pale Margaret,
O rare pale Margaret,
What lit your eyes with tearful power,
Like moonlight on a falling shower?
Who lent you, love, your mortal dower
Of pensive thought and aspect pale,
Your melancholy sweet and frail
As perfume of the cuckoo-flower?
From the westward-winding flood,
From the evening-lighted wood,
From all things outward you have won
A tearful grace, as tho' [1] you stood
Between the rainbow and the sun.
The very smile before you speak,
That dimples your transparent cheek,
Encircles all the heart, and feedeth
The senses with a still delight
Of dainty sorrow without sound,
Like the tender amber round,
Which the moon about her spreadeth,
Moving thro' a fleecy night.
2

You love, remaining peacefully,
To hear the murmur of the strife,
But enter not the toil of life.
Your spirit is the calmed sea,
Laid by the tumult of the fight.
You are the evening star, alway
Remaining betwixt dark and bright:
Lull'd echoes of laborious day
Come to you, gleams of mellow light
Float by you on the verge of night.


3

What can it matter, Margaret,
What songs below the waning stars
The lion-heart, Plantagenet, [2]
Sang looking thro' his prison bars?
Exquisite Margaret, who can tell
The last wild thought of Chatelet, [3]
Just ere the falling axe did part
The burning brain from the true heart,
Even in her sight he loved so well?


4

A fairy shield your Genius made
And gave you on your natal day.
Your sorrow, only sorrow's shade,
Keeps real sorrow far away.
You move not in such solitudes,
You are not less divine,
But more human in your moods,
Than your twin-sister, Adeline.
Your hair is darker, and your eyes
Touch'd with a somewhat darker hue,
And less aerially blue,
But ever trembling thro' the dew [4]
Of dainty-woeful sympathies.


5

O sweet pale Margaret,
O rare pale Margaret,
Come down, come down, and hear me speak:
Tie up the ringlets on your cheek:
The sun is just about to set.
The arching lines are tall and shady,
And faint, rainy lights are seen,
Moving in the leavy beech.
Rise from the feast of sorrow, lady,
Where all day long you sit between
Joy and woe, and whisper each.
Or only look across the lawn,
Look out below your bower-eaves,
Look down, and let your blue eyes dawn
Upon me thro' the jasmine-leaves. [5]


[Footnote 1: All editions except 1833 and 1853. Though. ]

[Footnote 2: 1833. Lion-souled Plantagenet. For songs supposed to have
been composed by Richard I. during the time of his captivity see
Sismondi, 'Litterature du Midi de l'Europe', vol. i. , p. 149, and
'La Tour Tenebreuse' (1705), which contains a poem said to have
been written by Richard and Blondel in mixed Romance and Provencal, and
a love-song in Norman French, which have frequently been reprinted. See,
too, Barney's 'Hist. of Music', vol. ii. , p. 238, and Walpole's
'Royal and Noble Authors', sub. -tit. "Richard I. ," and the fourth
volume of Reynouard's 'Choix des Poesies des Troubadours'. All
these poems are probably spurious. ]

[Footnote 3: Chatelet was a poet-squire in the suite of the Marshal
Damville, who was executed for a supposed intrigue with Mary Queen of
Scots. See Tytler, 'History of Scotland', vi. , p. 319, and Mr.
Swinburne's tragedy. ]

[Footnote 4: 1833.

And more aerially blue,
And ever trembling thro' the dew. ]


[Footnote 5: 1833. Jasmin-leaves. ]







THE BLACKBIRD.

Not in 1833.

This is another poem placed among the poems of 1833, but not printed
till 1842.

O blackbird! sing me something well:
While all the neighbours shoot thee round,
I keep smooth plats of fruitful ground,
Where thou may'st warble, eat and dwell.

The espaliers and the standards all
Are thine; the range of lawn and park:
The unnetted black-hearts ripen dark,
All thine, against the garden wall.

Yet, tho' I spared thee all the spring, [1]
Thy sole delight is, sitting still,
With that gold dagger of thy bill
To fret the summer jenneting. [2]

A golden bill! the silver tongue,
Cold February loved, is dry:
Plenty corrupts the melody
That made thee famous once, when young:

And in the sultry garden-squares, [3]
Now thy flute-notes are changed to coarse,
I hear thee not at all, [4] or hoarse
As when a hawker hawks his wares.

Take warning! he that will not sing
While yon sun prospers in the blue,
Shall sing for want, ere leaves are new,
Caught in the frozen palms of Spring.


[Footnote 1: 1842. Yet, though I spared thee kith and kin. And so till
1853, when it was altered to the present reading. ]

[Footnote 2: 1842 to 1851. Jennetin, altered in 1853 to present
reading. ]

[Footnote 3: 1842. I better brook the drawling stares. Altered, 1843. ]

[Footnote 4: 1842. Not hearing thee at all. Altered, 1843. ]




THE DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR

First printed in 1833.

Only one alteration has been made in this poem, in line 41, where in
1842 "one' was altered to" twelve ".

Full knee-deep lies the winter snow,
And the winter winds are wearily sighing:
Toll ye the church-bell sad and slow,
And tread softly and speak low,
For the old year lies a-dying.
Old year, you must not die;
You came to us so readily,
You lived with us so steadily,
Old year, you shall not die.

He lieth still: he doth not move:
He will not see the dawn of day.
He hath no other life above.
He gave me a friend, and a true, true-love,
And the New-year will take 'em away.
Old year, you must not go;
So long as you have been with us,
Such joy as you have seen with us,
Old year, you shall not go.

He froth'd his bumpers to the brim;
A jollier year we shall not see.
But tho' his eyes are waxing dim,
And tho' his foes speak ill of him,
He was a friend to me.
Old year, you shall not die;
We did so laugh and cry with you,
I've half a mind to die with you,
Old year, if you must die.

He was full of joke and jest,
But all his merry quips are o'er.
To see him die, across the waste
His son and heir doth ride post-haste,
But he'll be dead before.
Every one for his own.
The night is starry and cold, my friend,
And the New-year blithe and bold, my friend,
Comes up to take his own.

How hard he breathes! over the snow
I heard just now the crowing cock.
The shadows flicker to and fro:
The cricket chirps: the light burns low:
'Tis nearly twelve [1] o'clock.
Shake hands, before you die.
Old year, we'll dearly rue for you:
What is it we can do for you?
Speak out before you die.

His face is growing sharp and thin.
Alack! our friend is gone.
Close up his eyes: tie up his chin:
Step from the corpse, and let him in
That standeth there alone,
And waiteth at the door.
There's a new foot on the floor, my friend,
And a new face at the door, my friend,
A new face at the door.


[Footnote 1: 1833. One. ]





TO J. S.

First published in 1833.

This beautiful poem was addressed to James Spedding on the death of his
brother Edward.

The wind, that beats the mountain, blows
More softly round the open wold, [1]
And gently comes the world to those
That are cast in gentle mould.

And me this knowledge bolder made,
Or else I had not dared to flow [2]
In these words toward you, and invade
Even with a verse your holy woe.

'Tis strange that those we lean on most,
Those in whose laps our limbs are nursed,
Fall into shadow, soonest lost:
Those we love first are taken first.

God gives us love. Something to love
He lends us; but, when love is grown
To ripeness, that on which it throve
Falls off, and love is left alone.

This is the curse of time. Alas!
In grief I am not all unlearn'd;
Once thro' mine own doors Death did pass; [3]
One went, who never hath return'd.

He will not smile--nor speak to me
Once more. Two years his chair is seen
Empty before us. That was he
Without whose life I had not been.

Your loss is rarer; for this star
Rose with you thro' a little arc
Of heaven, nor having wander'd far
Shot on the sudden into dark.

I knew your brother: his mute dust
I honour and his living worth:
A man more pure and bold [4] and just
Was never born into the earth.

I have not look'd upon you nigh,
Since that dear soul hath fall'n asleep.
Great Nature is more wise than I:
I will not tell you not to weep.

And tho' mine own eyes fill with dew,
Drawn from the spirit thro' the brain, [5]
I will not even preach to you,
"Weep, weeping dulls the inward pain".

Let Grief be her own mistress still.
She loveth her own anguish deep
More than much pleasure. Let her will
Be done--to weep or not to weep.

I will not say "God's ordinance
Of Death is blown in every wind";
For that is not a common chance
That takes away a noble mind.

His memory long will live alone
In all our hearts, as mournful light
That broods above the fallen sun, [6]
And dwells in heaven half the night.

Vain solace! Memory standing near
Cast down her eyes, and in her throat
Her voice seem'd distant, and a tear
Dropt on the letters [7] as I wrote.

I wrote I know not what. In truth,
How _should_ I soothe you anyway,
Who miss the brother of your youth?
Yet something I did wish to say:

For he too was a friend to me:
Both are my friends, and my true breast
Bleedeth for both; yet it may be
That only [8] silence suiteth best.

Words weaker than your grief would make
Grief more. 'Twere better I should cease;
Although myself could almost take [9]
The place of him that sleeps in peace.

Sleep sweetly, tender heart, in peace:
Sleep, holy spirit, blessed soul,
While the stars burn, the moons increase,
And the great ages onward roll.

Sleep till the end, true soul and sweet.
Nothing comes to thee new or strange.
Sleep full of rest from head to feet;
Lie still, dry dust, secure of change.


[Footnote 1: Possibly suggested by Tasso, 'Gerus. ', lib. xx. , st.
lviii. :--

Qual vento a cui s'oppone o selva o colle
Doppia nella contesa i soffi e l' ira;
Ma con fiato piu placido e piu molle
Per le compagne libere poi spira. ]


[Footnote 2: 1833.

My heart this knowledge bolder made,
Or else it had not dared to flow.

Altered in 1842. ]


[Footnote 3: Tennyson's father died in March, 1831. ]

[Footnote 4: 1833. Mild. ]

[Footnote 5: 'Cf. ' Gray's Alcaic stanza on West's death:--

O lacrymarum fons tenero sacros
'Ducentium ortus ex animo'. ]


[Footnote 6: 1833. Sunken sun. Altered to present reading, 1842. The
image may have been suggested by Henry Vaughan, 'Beyond the Veil':--

Their very memory is fair and bright,
. . .
It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast Like stars
. . .
Or those faint beams in which the hill is drest
After the sun's remove. ]


[Footnote 7: 1833, 1842, 1843. My tablets. This affected phrase was
altered to the present reading in 1845. ]

[Footnote 8: 1833. Holy. Altered to "only," 1842. ]

[Footnote 9: 1833. Altho' to calm you I would take. Altered to present
reading, 1842. ]





"YOU ASK ME WHY, THO' ILL AT EASE. . . "

This is another poem which, though included among those belonging to
1833, was not published till 1842. It is an interesting illustration,
like the next poem but one, of Tennyson's political opinions; he was, he
said, "of the same politics as Shakespeare, Bacon and every sane man".
He was either ignorant of the politics of Shakespeare and Bacon or did
himself great injustice by the remark. It would have been more true to
say--for all his works illustrate it--that he was of the same politics
as Burke. He is here, and in all his poems, a Liberal-Conservative in
the proper sense of the term. At the time this trio of poems was written
England was passing through the throes which preceded, accompanied and
followed the Reform Bill, and the lessons which Tennyson preaches in
them were particularly appropriate. He belonged to the Liberal Party
rather in relation to social and religious than to political questions.
Thus he ardently supported the Anti-slavery Convention and advocated the
measure for abolishing subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles, but he
was, as a politician, on the side of Canning, Peel and the Duke of
Wellington, regarding as they did the new-born democracy with mingled
feelings of apprehension and perplexity. His exact attitude is indicated
by some verses written about this time published by his son ('Life', i. ,
69-70). If Mr. Aubrey de Vere is correct this and the following poem
were occasioned by some popular demonstrations connected with the Reform
Bill and its rejection by the House of Lords. See 'Life of Tennyson',
vol. i. , appendix.

You ask me, why, tho' [1] ill at ease,
Within this region I subsist,
Whose spirits falter in the mist, [2]
And languish for the purple seas?

It is the land that freemen till,
That sober-suited Freedom chose,
The land, where girt with friends or foes
A man may speak the thing he will;

A land of settled government,
A land of just and old renown,
Where Freedom broadens slowly down
From precedent to precedent:

Where faction seldom gathers head,
But by degrees to fulness wrought,
The strength of some diffusive thought
Hath time and space to work and spread.

Should banded unions persecute
Opinion, and induce a time
When single thought is civil crime,
And individual freedom mute;

Tho' Power should make from land to land [3]
The name of Britain trebly great--
Tho' every channel [4] of the State
Should almost choke with golden sand--

Yet waft me from the harbour-mouth,
Wild wind! I seek a warmer sky,
And I will see before I die
The palms and temples of the South.


[Footnote 1: 1842 and 1851. Though. ]

[Footnote 2: 1842 to 1843. Whose spirits fail within the mist. Altered
to present reading in 1845. ]

[Footnote 3: All editions up to and including 1851. Though Power, etc. ]

[Footnote 4: 1842-1850. Though every channel. ]







"OF OLD SAT FREEDOM ON THE HEIGHTS. . . "


First published in 1842, but it seems to have been written in 1834. The
fourth and fifth stanzas are given in a postscript of a letter from
Tennyson to James Spedding, dated 1834.

Of old sat Freedom on the heights,
The thunders breaking at her feet:
Above her shook the starry lights:
She heard the torrents meet.

There in her place [1] she did rejoice,
Self-gather'd in her prophet-mind,
But fragments of her mighty voice
Came rolling on the wind.

Then stept she down thro' town and field
To mingle with the human race,
And part by part to men reveal'd
The fullness of her face--

Grave mother of majestic works,
From her isle-altar gazing down,
Who, God-like, grasps the triple forks, [2]
And, King-like, wears the crown:

Her open eyes desire the truth.
The wisdom of a thousand years
Is in them. May perpetual youth
Keep dry their light from tears;

That her fair form may stand and shine,
Make bright our days and light our dreams,
Turning to scorn with lips divine
The falsehood of extremes!



[Footnote 1: 1842 to 1850 inclusive.