"
[Footnote 1: The insensibility of Nature to man's death has been the
eloquent theme of many poets.
[Footnote 1: The insensibility of Nature to man's death has been the
eloquent theme of many poets.
Tennyson
, p.
346, and for a full account of the legend see
W. Reader, 'The History and Description of Coventry Show Fair, with the
History of Leofric and Godiva'). With Tennyson's should be compared
Moultrie's beautiful poem on the same subject, and Landor's Imaginary
Conversation between Leofric and Godiva.
[1] _I waited for the train at Coventry;
I hung with grooms and porters on the bridge,
To match the three tall spires; [2] and there I shaped
The city's ancient legend into this:_
Not only we, the latest seed of Time,
New men, that in the flying of a wheel
Cry down the past, not only we, that prate
Of rights and wrongs, have loved the people well,
And loathed to see them overtax'd; but she
Did more, and underwent, and overcame,
The woman of a thousand summers back,
Godiva, wife to that grim Earl, who ruled
In Coventry: for when he laid a tax
Upon his town, and all the mothers brought
Their children, clamouring, "If we pay, we starve! "
She sought her lord, and found him, where he strode
About the hall, among his dogs, alone,
His beard a foot before him, and his hair
A yard behind. She told him of their tears,
And pray'd him, "If they pay this tax, they starve".
Whereat he stared, replying, half-amazed,
"You would not let your little finger ache
For such as _these? _"--"But I would die," said she.
He laugh'd, and swore by Peter and by Paul;
Then fillip'd at the diamond in her ear;
"O ay, ay, ay, you talk! "--"Alas! " she said,
"But prove me what it is I would not do. "
And from a heart as rough as Esau's hand,
He answer'd, "Ride you naked thro' the town,
And I repeal it"; and nodding as in scorn,
He parted, with great strides among his dogs.
So left alone, the passions of her mind,
As winds from all the compass shift and blow,
Made war upon each other for an hour,
Till pity won. She sent a herald forth,
And bad him cry, with sound of trumpet, all
The hard condition; but that she would loose
The people: therefore, as they loved her well,
From then till noon no foot should pace the street,
No eye look down, she passing; but that all
Should keep within, door shut, and window barr'd.
Then fled she to her inmost bower, and there
Unclasp'd the wedded eagles of her belt,
The grim Earl's gift; but ever at a breath
She linger'd, looking like a summer moon
Half-dipt in cloud: anon she shook her head,
And shower'd the rippled ringlets to her knee;
Unclad herself in haste; adown the stair
Stole on; and, like a creeping sunbeam, slid
From pillar unto pillar, until she reach'd
The gateway; there she found her palfrey trapt
In purple blazon'd with armorial gold.
Then she rode forth, clothed on with chastity:
The deep air listen'd round her as she rode,
And all the low wind hardly breathed for fear.
The little wide-mouth'd heads upon the spout
Had cunning eyes to see: the barking cur
Made her cheek flame: her palfrey's footfall shot
Light horrors thro' her pulses: the blind walls
Were full of chinks and holes; and overhead
Fantastic gables, crowding, stared: but she
Not less thro' all bore up, till, last, she saw
The white-flower'd elder-thicket from the field
Gleam thro' the Gothic archways [3]in the wall.
Then she rode back cloth'd on with chastity:
And one low churl, [4] compact of thankless earth,
The fatal byword of all years to come,
Boring a little auger-hole in fear,
Peep'd--but his eyes, before they had their will,
Were shrivell'd into darkness in his head,
And dropt before him. So the Powers, who wait
On noble deeds, cancell'd a sense misused;
And she, that knew not, pass'd: and all at once,
With twelve great shocks of sound, the shameless noon
Was clash'd and hammer'd from a hundred towers, [5]
One after one: but even then she gain'd
Her bower; whence reissuing, robed and crown'd,
To meet her lord, she took the tax away,
And built herself an everlasting name.
[Footnote 1: These four lines are not in the privately printed volume of
1842, but were added afterwards. ]
[Footnote 2: St. Michael's, Trinity, and St. John. ]
[Footnote 3: 1844. Archway. ]
[Footnote 4: His effigy is still to be seen, protruded from an upper
window in High Street, Coventry. ]
[Footnote 5: A most poetical licence. Thirty-two towers are the very
utmost allowed by writers on ancient Coventry. ]
THE TWO VOICES
First published in 1842, though begun as early as 1833 and in course of
composition in 1834. See Spedding's letter dated 19th September, 1834.
Its original title was 'The Thoughts of a Suicide'. No alterations were
made in the poem after 1842.
It adds interest to this poem to know that it is autobiographical. It
was written soon after the death of Arthur Hallam when Tennyson's
depression was deepest. "When I wrote 'The Two Voices' I was so utterly
miserable, a burden to myself and to my family, that I said, 'Is life
worth anything? '" It is the history--as Spedding put it--of the
agitations, the suggestions and counter-suggestions of a mind sunk in
hopeless despondency, and meditating self-destruction, together with the
manner of its recovery to a more healthy condition. We have two
singularly interesting parallels to it in preceding poetry. The one is
in the third book of Lucretius (830-1095), where the arguments for
suicide are urged, not merely by the poet himself, but by arguments
placed by him in the mouth of Nature herself, and urged with such
cogency that they are said to have induced one of his editors and
translators, Creech, to put an end to his life. The other is in Spenser,
in the dialogue between Despair and the Red Cross Knight, where Despair
puts the case for self-destruction, and the Red Cross Knight rebuts the
arguments ('Faerie Queene', I. ix. , st. xxxviii. -liv. ).
A still small voice spake unto me,
"Thou art so full of misery,
Were it not better not to be? "
Then to the still small voice I said;
"Let me not cast in endless shade
What is so wonderfully made".
To which the voice did urge reply;
"To-day I saw the dragon-fly
Come from the wells where he did lie.
"An inner impulse rent the veil
Of his old husk: from head to tail
Came out clear plates of sapphire mail.
"He dried his wings: like gauze they grew:
Thro' crofts and pastures wet with dew
A living flash of light he flew. "
I said, "When first the world began
Young Nature thro' five cycles ran,
And in the sixth she moulded man.
"She gave him mind, the lordliest
Proportion, and, above the rest,
Dominion in the head and breast. "
Thereto the silent voice replied;
"Self-blinded are you by your pride:
Look up thro' night: the world is wide.
"This truth within thy mind rehearse,
That in a boundless universe
Is boundless better, boundless worse.
"Think you this mould of hopes and fears
Could find no statelier than his peers
In yonder hundred million spheres? "
It spake, moreover, in my mind:
"Tho' thou wert scatter'd to the wind,
Yet is there plenty of the kind".
Then did my response clearer fall:
"No compound of this earthly ball
Is like another, all in all".
To which he answer'd scoffingly;
"Good soul! suppose I grant it thee,
Who'll weep for thy deficiency?
"Or will one beam [1] be less intense,
When thy peculiar difference
Is cancell'd in the world of sense? "
I would have said, "Thou canst not know,"
But my full heart, that work'd below,
Rain'd thro' my sight its overflow.
Again the voice spake unto me:
"Thou art so steep'd in misery,
Surely 'twere better not to be.
"Thine anguish will not let thee sleep,
Nor any train of reason keep:
Thou canst not think, but thou wilt weep. "
I said, "The years with change advance:
If I make dark my countenance,
I shut my life from happier chance.
"Some turn this sickness yet might take,
Ev'n yet. " But he: "What drug can make
A wither'd palsy cease to shake? "
I wept, "Tho' I should die, I know
That all about the thorn will blow
In tufts of rosy-tinted snow;
"And men, thro' novel spheres of thought
Still moving after truth long sought,
Will learn new things when I am not. "
"Yet," said the secret voice, "some time,
Sooner or later, will gray prime
Make thy grass hoar with early rime.
"Not less swift souls that yearn for light,
Rapt after heaven's starry flight,
Would sweep the tracts of day and night.
"Not less the bee would range her cells,
The furzy prickle fire the dells,
The foxglove cluster dappled bells. "
I said that "all the years invent;
Each month is various to present
The world with some development.
"Were this not well, to bide mine hour,
Tho' watching from a ruin'd tower
How grows the day of human power? "
"The highest-mounted mind," he said,
"Still sees the sacred morning spread
The silent summit overhead.
"Will thirty seasons render plain
Those lonely lights that still remain,
Just breaking over land and main?
"Or make that morn, from his cold crown
And crystal silence creeping down,
Flood with full daylight glebe and town?
"Forerun thy peers, thy time, and let
Thy feet, millenniums hence, be set
In midst of knowledge, dream'd not yet.
"Thou hast not gain'd a real height,
Nor art thou nearer to the light,
Because the scale is infinite.
"'Twere better not to breathe or speak,
Than cry for strength, remaining weak,
And seem to find, but still to seek.
"Moreover, but to seem to find
Asks what thou lackest, thought resign'd,
A healthy frame, a quiet mind. "
I said, "When I am gone away,
'He dared not tarry,' men will say,
Doing dishonour to my clay. "
"This is more vile," he made reply,
"To breathe and loathe, to live and sigh,
Than once from dread of pain to die.
"Sick art thou--a divided will
Still heaping on the fear of ill
The fear of men, a coward still.
"Do men love thee? Art thou so bound
To men, that how thy name may sound
Will vex thee lying underground?
"The memory of the wither'd leaf
In endless time is scarce more brief
Than of the garner'd Autumn-sheaf.
"Go, vexed Spirit, sleep in trust;
The right ear, that is fill'd with dust,
Hears little of the false or just. "
"Hard task, to pluck resolve," I cried,
"From emptiness and the waste wide
Of that abyss, or scornful pride!
"Nay--rather yet that I could raise
One hope that warm'd me in the days
While still I yearn'd for human praise.
"When, wide in soul, and bold of tongue,
Among the tents I paused and sung,
The distant battle flash'd and rung.
"I sung the joyful Paean clear,
And, sitting, burnish'd without fear
The brand, the buckler, and the spear--
"Waiting to strive a happy strife,
To war with falsehood to the knife,
And not to lose the good of life--
"Some hidden principle to move,
To put together, part and prove,
And mete the bounds of hate and love--
"As far as might be, to carve out
Free space for every human doubt,
That the whole mind might orb about--
"To search thro' all I felt or saw,
The springs of life, the depths of awe,
And reach the law within the law:
"At least, not rotting like a weed,
But, having sown some generous seed,
Fruitful of further thought and deed,
"To pass, when Life her light withdraws,
Not void of righteous self-applause,
Nor in a merely selfish cause--
"In some good cause, not in mine own,
To perish, wept for, honour'd, known,
And like a warrior overthrown;
"Whose eyes are dim with glorious tears,
When, soil'd with noble dust, he hears
His country's war-song thrill his ears:
"Then dying of a mortal stroke,
What time the foeman's line is broke.
And all the war is roll'd in smoke. " [2]
"Yea! " said the voice, "thy dream was good,
While thou abodest in the bud.
It was the stirring of the blood.
"If Nature put not forth her power [2]
About the opening of the flower,
Who is it that could live an hour?
"Then comes the check, the change, the fall.
Pain rises up, old pleasures pall.
There is one remedy for all.
"Yet hadst thou, thro' enduring pain,
Link'd month to month with such a chain
Of knitted purport, all were vain.
"Thou hadst not between death and birth
Dissolved the riddle of the earth.
So were thy labour little worth.
"That men with knowledge merely play'd,
I told thee--hardly nigher made,
Tho' scaling slow from grade to grade;
"Much less this dreamer, deaf and blind,
Named man, may hope some truth to find,
That bears relation to the mind.
"For every worm beneath the moon
Draws different threads, and late and soon
Spins, toiling out his own cocoon.
"Cry, faint not: either Truth is born
Beyond the polar gleam forlorn,
Or in the gateways of the morn.
"Cry, faint not, climb: the summits slope
Beyond the furthest nights of hope,
Wrapt in dense cloud from base to cope.
"Sometimes a little corner shines,
As over rainy mist inclines
A gleaming crag with belts of pines.
"I will go forward, sayest thou,
I shall not fail to find her now.
Look up, the fold is on her brow.
"If straight thy track, or if oblique,
Thou know'st not. Shadows thou dost strike,
Embracing cloud, Ixion-like;
"And owning but a little more
Than beasts, abidest lame and poor,
Calling thyself a little lower
"Than angels. Cease to wail and brawl!
Why inch by inch to darkness crawl?
There is one remedy for all. "
"O dull, one-sided voice," said I,
"Wilt thou make everything a lie,
To flatter me that I may die?
"I know that age to age succeeds,
Blowing a noise of tongues and deeds,
A dust of systems and of creeds.
"I cannot hide that some have striven,
Achieving calm, to whom was given
The joy that mixes man with Heaven:
"Who, rowing hard against the stream,
Saw distant gates of Eden gleam,
And did not dream it was a dream";
"But heard, by secret transport led, [3]
Ev'n in the charnels of the dead,
The murmur of the fountain-head--
"Which did accomplish their desire,--
Bore and forbore, and did not tire,
Like Stephen, an unquenched fire.
"He heeded not reviling tones,
Nor sold his heart to idle moans,
Tho' cursed and scorn'd, and bruised with stones:
"But looking upward, full of grace,
He pray'd, and from a happy place
God's glory smote him on the face. "
The sullen answer slid betwixt:
"Not that the grounds of hope were fix'd,
The elements were kindlier mix'd. " [4]
I said, "I toil beneath the curse,
But, knowing not the universe,
I fear to slide from bad to worse. [5]
"And that, in seeking to undo
One riddle, and to find the true,
I knit a hundred others new:
"Or that this anguish fleeting hence,
Unmanacled from bonds of sense,
Be fix'd and froz'n to permanence:
"For I go, weak from suffering here;
Naked I go, and void of cheer:
What is it that I may not fear? "
"Consider well," the voice replied,
"His face, that two hours since hath died;
Wilt thou find passion, pain or pride?
"Will he obey when one commands?
Or answer should one press his hands?
He answers not, nor understands.
"His palms are folded on his breast:
There is no other thing express'd
But long disquiet merged in rest.
"His lips are very mild and meek:
Tho' one should smite him on the cheek,
And on the mouth, he will not speak.
"His little daughter, whose sweet face
He kiss'd, taking his last embrace,
Becomes dishonour to her race--
"His sons grow up that bear his name,
Some grow to honour, some to shame,--
But he is chill to praise or blame. [6]
"He will not hear the north wind rave,
Nor, moaning, household shelter crave
From winter rains that beat his grave.
"High up the vapours fold and swim:
About him broods the twilight dim:
The place he knew forgetteth him. "
"If all be dark, vague voice," I said,
"These things are wrapt in doubt and dread,
Nor canst thou show the dead are dead.
"The sap dries up: the plant declines. [7]
A deeper tale my heart divines.
Know I not Death? the outward signs?
"I found him when my years were few;
A shadow on the graves I knew,
And darkness in the village yew.
"From grave to grave the shadow crept:
In her still place the morning wept:
Touch'd by his feet the daisy slept.
"The simple senses crown'd his head: [8]
'Omega! thou art Lord,' they
said; 'We find no motion in the dead. '
"Why, if man rot in dreamless ease,
Should that plain fact, as taught by these,
Not make him sure that he shall cease?
"Who forged that other influence,
That heat of inward evidence,
By which he doubts against the sense?
"He owns the fatal gift of eyes, [9]
That read his spirit blindly wise,
Not simple as a thing that dies.
"Here sits he shaping wings to fly:
His heart forebodes a mystery:
He names the name Eternity.
"That type of Perfect in his mind
In Nature can he nowhere find.
He sows himself in every wind.
"He seems to hear a Heavenly Friend,
And thro' thick veils to apprehend
A labour working to an end.
"The end and the beginning vex
His reason: many things perplex,
With motions, checks, and counterchecks.
"He knows a baseness in his blood
At such strange war with something good,
He may not do the thing he would.
"Heaven opens inward, chasms yawn.
Vast images in glimmering dawn,
Half shown, are broken and withdrawn.
"Ah! sure within him and without,
Could his dark wisdom find it out,
There must be answer to his doubt.
"But thou canst answer not again.
With thine own weapon art thou slain,
Or thou wilt answer but in vain.
"The doubt would rest, I dare not solve.
In the same circle we revolve.
Assurance only breeds resolve. "
As when a billow, blown against,
Falls back, the voice with which I fenced
A little ceased, but recommenced.
"Where wert thou when thy father play'd
In his free field, and pastime made,
A merry boy in sun and shade?
"A merry boy they called him then.
He sat upon the knees of men
In days that never come again,
"Before the little ducts began
To feed thy bones with lime, and ran
Their course, till thou wert also man:
"Who took a wife, who rear'd his race,
Whose wrinkles gather'd on his face,
Whose troubles number with his days:
"A life of nothings, nothing-worth,
From that first nothing ere his birth
To that last nothing under earth! "
"These words," I said, "are like the rest,
No certain clearness, but at best
A vague suspicion of the breast:
"But if I grant, thou might'st defend
The thesis which thy words intend--
That to begin implies to end;
"Yet how should I for certain hold, [10]
Because my memory is so cold,
That I first was in human mould?
"I cannot make this matter plain,
But I would shoot, howe'er in vain,
A random arrow from the brain.
"It may be that no life is found,
Which only to one engine bound
Falls off, but cycles always round.
"As old mythologies relate,
Some draught of Lethe might await
The slipping thro' from state to state.
"As here we find in trances, men
Forget the dream that happens then,
Until they fall in trance again.
"So might we, if our state were such
As one before, remember much,
For those two likes might meet and touch. [11]
"But, if I lapsed from nobler place,
Some legend of a fallen race
Alone might hint of my disgrace;
"Some vague emotion of delight
In gazing up an Alpine height,
Some yearning toward the lamps of night.
"Or if thro' lower lives I came--
Tho' all experience past became
Consolidate in mind and frame--
"I might forget my weaker lot;
For is not our first year forgot?
The haunts of memory echo not.
"And men, whose reason long was blind,
From cells of madness unconfined, [12]
Oft lose whole years of darker mind.
"Much more, if first I floated free,
As naked essence, must I be
Incompetent of memory:
"For memory dealing but with time,
And he with matter, could she climb
Beyond her own material prime?
"Moreover, something is or seems,
That touches me with mystic gleams,
Like glimpses of forgotten dreams--
"Of something felt, like something here;
Of something done, I know not where;
Such as no language may declare. "
The still voice laugh'd. "I talk," said he,
"Not with thy dreams.
Suffice it thee Thy pain is a reality. "
"But thou," said I, "hast miss'd thy mark,
Who sought'st to wreck my mortal ark,
By making all the horizon dark.
"Why not set forth, if I should do
This rashness, that which might ensue
With this old soul in organs new?
"Whatever crazy sorrow saith,
No life that breathes with human breath
Has ever truly long'd for death.
"'Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant,
Oh life, not death, for which we pant;
More life, and fuller, that I want. "
I ceased, and sat as one forlorn.
Then said the voice, in quiet scorn,
"Behold it is the Sabbath morn".
And I arose, and I released
The casement, and the light increased
With freshness in the dawning east.
Like soften'd airs that blowing steal,
When meres begin to uncongeal,
The sweet church bells began to peal.
On to God's house the people prest:
Passing the place where each must rest,
Each enter'd like a welcome guest.
One walk'd between his wife and child,
With measur'd footfall firm and mild,
And now and then he gravely smiled.
The prudent partner of his blood
Lean'd on him, faithful, gentle, good, [13]
Wearing the rose of womanhood.
And in their double love secure,
The little maiden walk'd demure,
Pacing with downward eyelids pure.
These three made unity so sweet,
My frozen heart began to beat,
Remembering its ancient heat.
I blest them, and they wander'd on:
I spoke, but answer came there none:
The dull and bitter voice was gone.
A second voice was at mine ear,
A little whisper silver-clear,
A murmur, "Be of better cheer".
As from some blissful neighbourhood,
A notice faintly understood,
"I see the end, and know the good".
A little hint to solace woe,
A hint, a whisper breathing low,
"I may not speak of what I know".
Like an Aeolian harp that wakes
No certain air, but overtakes
Far thought with music that it makes:
Such seem'd the whisper at my side:
"What is it thou knowest, sweet voice? " I cried.
"A hidden hope," the voice replied:
So heavenly-toned, that in that hour
From out my sullen heart a power
Broke, like the rainbow from the shower,
To feel, altho' no tongue can prove
That every cloud, that spreads above
And veileth love, itself is love.
And forth into the fields I went,
And Nature's living motion lent
The pulse of hope to discontent.
I wonder'd at the bounteous hours,
The slow result of winter showers:
You scarce could see the grass for flowers.
I wonder'd, while I paced along:
The woods were fill'd so full with song,
There seem'd no room for sense of wrong.
So variously seem'd all things wrought, [14]
I marvell'd how the mind was brought
To anchor by one gloomy thought;
And wherefore rather I made choice
To commune with that barren voice,
Than him that said, "Rejoice! rejoice!
"
[Footnote 1: The insensibility of Nature to man's death has been the
eloquent theme of many poets. 'Cf'. Byron, 'Lara', canto ii. 'ad init'. ,
and Matthew Arnold, 'The Youth of Nature'. ]
[Footnote 2: 'Cf. Palace of Art', "the riddle of the painful earth". ]
[Footnote 3: 'Seq'. The reference is to Acts of the Apostles vii.
54-60. ]
[Footnote 4: Suggested by Shakespeare, 'Julius Caesar', Act v. , Sc.
5:--
and _the elements_
So mix'd in' him that Nature, etc. ]
[Footnote 5: An excellent commentary on this is Clough's
_Perche pensa, pensando vecchia_. ]
[Footnote 6: 'Cf'. Job xiv. 21:
"His sons come to honour, and he knowcth it not; and they are brought
low, but he perceiveth it not of them. "]
[Footnote 7: So Bishop Butler, 'Analogy', ch. i. :
"We cannot argue _from the reason of the thing_ that death is the
destruction of living agents because we know not at all what death is
in itself, but only some of its effects". ]
[Footnote 8: So Milton, enfolding this idea of death, 'Paradise
Lost', ii. , 672-3:--
What seemed his head
The _likeness_ of a kingly crown had on. ]
[Footnote 9: 'Cf'. Plato, 'Phaedo', x. :--
[Greek: ara echei alaetheian tina opsis te kai akoae tois anthr_opois.
Ae ta ge toiauta kai oi poiaetai haemin aei thrulousin oti out
akouomen akribes ouden oute or_omen]
"Have sight and hearing any truth in them? Are they not, as poets are
always telling us, inaccurate witnesses? "
The proper commentary on the whole of this passage is Plato
'passim', but the 'Phaedo' particularly, 'cf. Republic',
vii. , viii. and xiv. -xv. ]
[Footnote 10: An allusion to the myth that when souls are sent to occupy
a body again they drink of Lethe that they may forget their previous
existence. See the famous passage towards the end of the tenth book of
Plato's 'Republic':
"All persons are compelled to drink a certain quantity of the water,
but those who are not preserved by prudence drink more than the
quantity, and each as he drinks forgets everything".
So Milton, 'Paradise Lost', ii. , 582-4. ]
[Footnote 11: The best commentary on this will be found in Herbert
Spencer's 'Psychology'. ]
[Footnote 12: Compare with this Tennyson's first sonnet ('Works', Globe
Edition, 25), and the lines in the 'Ancient Sage' in the 'Passion of the
Past' ('Id'. , 551). 'Cf'. too the lines in Wordsworth's ode on
'Intimations of Immortality':--
But there's a tree, of many one,
A single field which I have looked upon,
Both of them speak of something that is gone;
The pansy at my feet
Doth the same tale repeat.
For other remarkable illustrations of this see the present writer's
'Illustrations of Tennyson', p. 38. ]
[Footnote 13: 'Cf'. Coleridge, 'Ancient Mariner, iv'. :--
"O happy living things . . . I blessed them
The self-same moment I could pray. "
There is a close parallel between the former and the latter state
described here and in Coleridge's mystic allegory; in both cases the
sufferers "wake to love," the curse falling off them when they can
"bless". ]
[Footnote 14: 1884. And all so variously wrought (with semi-colon instead
of full stop at the end of the preceding line). ]
THE DAY-DREAM
First published in 1842, but written in 1835. In it is incorporated,
though with several alterations, 'The Sleeping Beauty', published among
the poems of 1830, but excised in subsequent editions. Half extravaganza
and half apologue, like the 'Midsummer Night's Dream', this delightful
poem may be safely left to deliver its own message and convey its own
meaning. It is an excellent illustration of the truth of Tennyson's own
remark: "Poetry is like shot silk with many glancing colours. Every
reader must find his own interpretation according to his ability, and
according to his sympathy with the poet. "
PROLOGUE
(No alteration has been made in the Prologue since 1842. )
O, Lady Flora, let me speak:
A pleasant hour has past away
While, dreaming on your damask cheek,
The dewy sister-eyelids lay.
As by the lattice you reclined,
I went thro' many wayward moods
To see you dreaming--and, behind,
A summer crisp with shining woods.
And I too dream'd, until at last
Across my fancy, brooding warm,
The reflex of a legend past,
And loosely settled into form.
And would you have the thought I had,
And see the vision that I saw,
Then take the broidery-frame, and add
A crimson to the quaint Macaw,
And I will tell it. Turn your face,
Nor look with that too-earnest eye--
The rhymes are dazzled from their place,
And order'd words asunder fly.
THE SLEEPING PALACE
(No alteration since 1851. )
1
The varying year with blade and sheaf
Clothes and reclothes the happy plains;
Here rests the sap within the leaf,
Here stays the blood along the veins.
Faint shadows, vapours lightly curl'd,
Faint murmurs from the meadows come,
Like hints and echoes of the world
To spirits folded in the womb.
2
Soft lustre bathes the range of urns
On every slanting terrace-lawn.
The fountain to his place returns
Deep in the garden lake withdrawn.
Here droops the banner on the tower,
On the hall-hearths the festal fires,
The peacock in his laurel bower,
The parrot in his gilded wires.
3
Roof-haunting martins warm their eggs:
In these, in those the life is stay'd.
The mantles from the golden pegs
Droop sleepily: no sound is made,
Not even of a gnat that sings.
More like a picture seemeth all
Than those old portraits of old kings,
That watch the sleepers from the wall.
4
Here sits the Butler with a flask
Between his knees, half-drain'd; and there
The wrinkled steward at his task,
The maid-of-honour blooming fair:
The page has caught her hand in his:
Her lips are sever'd as to speak:
His own are pouted to a kiss:
The blush is fix'd upon her cheek.
5
Till all the hundred summers pass,
The beams, that thro' the Oriel shine,
Make prisms in every carven glass,
And beaker brimm'd with noble wine.
Each baron at the banquet sleeps,
Grave faces gather'd in a ring.
His state the king reposing keeps.
He must have been a jovial king. [1]
6
All round a hedge upshoots, and shows
At distance like a little wood;
Thorns, ivies, woodbine, misletoes,
And grapes with bunches red as blood;
All creeping plants, a wall of green
Close-matted, bur and brake and briar,
And glimpsing over these, just seen,
High up, the topmost palace-spire.
7
When will the hundred summers die,
And thought and time be born again,
And newer knowledge, drawing nigh,
Bring truth that sways the soul of men?
Here all things in there place remain,
As all were order'd, ages since.
Come, Care and Pleasure, Hope and Pain,
And bring the fated fairy Prince.
[Footnote 1: All editions up to and including 1851:--He must have been
a jolly king. ]
THE SLEEPING BEAUTY
(First printed in 1830, but does not reappear again till 1842. No
alteration since 1842. )
1
Year after year unto her feet,
She lying on her couch alone,
Across the purpled coverlet,
The maiden's jet-black hair has grown, [1]
On either side her tranced form
Forth streaming from a braid of pearl:
The slumbrous light is rich and warm,
And moves not on the rounded curl.
2
The silk star-broider'd [2] coverlid
Unto her limbs itself doth mould
Languidly ever; and, amid
Her full black ringlets downward roll'd,
Glows forth each softly-shadow'd arm,
With bracelets of the diamond bright:
Her constant beauty doth inform
Stillness with love, and day with light.
3
She sleeps: her breathings are not heard
In palace chambers far apart. [3]
The fragrant tresses are not stirr'd
That lie upon her charmed heart.
She sleeps: on either hand [4] upswells
The gold-fringed pillow lightly prest:
She sleeps, nor dreams, but ever dwells
A perfect form in perfect rest.
[Footnote 1: 1830.
The while she slumbereth alone,
_Over_ the purple coverlet,
The maiden's jet-black hair hath grown. ]
[Footnote 2: 1830. Star-braided. ]
[Footnote 3: A writer in 'Notes and Queries', February, 1880, asks
whether these lines mean that the lovely princess did _not_ snore
so loud that she could be heard from one end of the palace to the other
and whether it would not have detracted from her charms had that state
of things been habitual. This brings into the field Dr. Gatty and other
admirers of Tennyson, who, it must be owned, are not very successful in
giving a satisfactory reply. ]
[Footnote 4: 1830. Side. ]
THE ARRIVAL
(No alteration after 1853. )
1
All precious things, discover'd late,
To those that seek them issue forth;
For love in sequel works with fate,
And draws the veil from hidden worth.
He travels far from other skies
His mantle glitters on the rocks--
A fairy Prince, with joyful eyes,
And lighter footed than the fox.
2
The bodies and the bones of those
That strove in other days to pass,
Are wither'd in the thorny close,
Or scatter'd blanching on [1] the grass.
He gazes on the silent dead:
"They perish'd in their daring deeds. "
This proverb flashes thro' his head,
"The many fail: the one succeeds".
3
He comes, scarce knowing what he seeks:
He breaks the hedge: he enters there:
The colour flies into his cheeks:
He trusts to light on something fair;
For all his life the charm did talk
About his path, and hover near
With words of promise in his walk,
And whisper'd voices at his ear. [2]
4
More close and close his footsteps wind;
The Magic Music [3] in his heart
Beats quick and quicker, till he find
The quiet chamber far apart.
His spirit flutters like a lark,
He stoops--to kiss her--on his knee.
"Love, if thy tresses be so dark,
How dark those hidden eyes must be!
[Footnote 1: 1842 to 1851. In. ]
[Footnote 2: All editions up to and including 1850. In his ear. ]
[Footnote 3: All editions up to and including 1851. Not capitals in
magic music. ]
THE REVIVAL
No alteration after 1853.
1
A touch, a kiss! the charm was snapt.
There rose a noise of striking clocks,
And feet that ran, and doors that clapt,
And barking dogs, and crowing cocks;
A fuller light illumined all,
A breeze thro' all the garden swept,
A sudden hubbub shook the hall,
And sixty feet the fountain leapt.
2
The hedge broke in, the banner blew,
The butler drank, the steward scrawl'd,
The fire shot up, the martin flew,
The parrot scream'd, the peacock squall'd,
The maid and page renew'd their strife,
The palace bang'd, and buzz'd and clackt,
And all the long-pent stream of life
Dash'd downward in a cataract.
3
And last with these [1] the king awoke,
And in his chair himself uprear'd,
And yawn'd, and rubb'd his face, and spoke,
"By holy rood, a royal beard!
How say you? we have slept, my lords,
My beard has grown into my lap. "
The barons swore, with many words,
'Twas but an after-dinner's nap.
4
"Pardy," return'd the king, "but still
My joints are something [2] stiff or so.
My lord, and shall we pass the bill
I mention'd half an hour ago? "
The chancellor, sedate and vain,
In courteous words return'd reply:
But dallied with his golden chain,
And, smiling, put the question by.
[Footnote 1: 1842 to 1851. And last of all. ]
[Footnote 2: 1863. Somewhat. ]
THE DEPARTURE
(No alteration since 1842. )
1
And on her lover's arm she leant,
And round her waist she felt it fold,
And far across the hills they went
In that new world which is the old:
Across the hills and far away
Beyond their utmost purple rim,
And deep into the dying day
The happy princess follow'd him.
2
"I'd sleep another hundred years,
O love, for such another kiss;"
"O wake for ever, love," she hears,
"O love, 'twas such as this and this. "
And o'er them many a sliding star,
And many a merry wind was borne,
And, stream'd thro' many a golden bar,
The twilight melted into morn.
3
"O eyes long laid in happy sleep! "
"O happy sleep, that lightly fled! "
"O happy kiss, that woke thy sleep! "
"O love, thy kiss would wake the dead! "
And o'er them many a flowing range
Of vapour buoy'd the crescent-bark,
And, rapt thro' many a rosy change,
The twilight died into the dark.
4
"A hundred summers! can it be?
And whither goest thou, tell me where? "
"O seek my father's court with me!
For there are greater wonders there. "
And o'er the hills, and far away
Beyond their utmost purple rim,
Beyond the night across the day,
Thro' all the world she follow'd him.
MORAL
(No alteration since 1842. )
1
So, Lady Flora, take my lay,
And if you find no moral there,
Go, look in any glass and say,
What moral is in being fair.
Oh, to what uses shall we put
The wildweed-flower that simply blows?
And is there any moral shut
Within the bosom of the rose?
2
But any man that walks the mead,
In bud or blade, or bloom, may find,
According as his humours lead,
A meaning suited to his mind.
And liberal applications lie
In Art like Nature, dearest friend; [1]
So 'twere to cramp its use, if I
Should hook it to some useful end.
[Foonote 1: So Wordsworth:--
O Reader! had you in your mind
Such stores as silent thought can bring,
O gentle Reader! you would find
A tale in everything.
--'Simon Lee'. ]
L'ENVOI
(No alteration since 1843 except in numbering the stanzas. )
1
You shake your head. A random string
Your finer female sense offends.
Well--were it not a pleasant thing
To fall asleep with all one's friends;
To pass with all our social ties
To silence from the paths of men;
And every hundred years to rise
And learn the world, and sleep again;
To sleep thro' terms of mighty wars,
And wake on science grown to more,
On secrets of the brain, the stars,
As wild as aught of fairy lore;
And all that else the years will show,
The Poet-forms of stronger hours,
The vast Republics that may grow,
The Federations and the Powers;
Titanic forces taking birth
In divers seasons, divers climes;
For we are Ancients of the earth,
And in the morning of the times.
2
So sleeping, so aroused from sleep
Thro' sunny decads new and strange,
Or gay quinquenniads would we reap
The flower and quintessence of change.
3
Ah, yet would I--and would I might!
So much your eyes my fancy take--
Be still the first to leap to light
That I might kiss those eyes awake!
For, am I right or am I wrong,
To choose your own you did not care;
You'd have 'my' moral from the song,
And I will take my pleasure there:
And, am I right or am I wrong,
My fancy, ranging thro' and thro',
To search a meaning for the song,
Perforce will still revert to you;
Nor finds a closer truth than this
All-graceful head, so richly curl'd,
And evermore a costly kiss
The prelude to some brighter world.
4
For since the time when Adam first
Embraced his Eve in happy hour,
And every bird of Eden burst
In carol, every bud to flower,
What eyes, like thine, have waken'd hopes?
What lips, like thine, so sweetly join'd?
Where on the double rosebud droops
The fullness of the pensive mind;
Which all too dearly self-involved, [1]
Yet sleeps a dreamless sleep to me;
A sleep by kisses undissolved,
That lets thee [2] neither hear nor see:
But break it. In the name of wife,
And in the rights that name may give,
Are clasp'd the moral of thy life,
And that for which I care to live.
[Foonote 1: 1842. The pensive mind that, self-involved. ]
[Foonote 2: 1842. Which lets thee. ]
EPILOGUE
(No alteration since 1842. )
So, Lady Flora, take my lay,
And, if you find a meaning there,
O whisper to your glass, and say,
"What wonder, if he thinks me fair? "
What wonder I was all unwise,
To shape the song for your delight
Like long-tail'd birds of Paradise,
That float thro' Heaven, and cannot light?
Or old-world trains, upheld at court
By Cupid-boys of blooming hue--
But take it--earnest wed with sport,
And either sacred unto you.
AMPHION
First published in 1842. No alteration since 1850.
In this humorous allegory the poet bewails his unhappy lot on having
fallen on an age so unpropitious to poetry, contrasting it with the
happy times so responsive to his predecessors who piped to a world
prepared to dance to their music. However, he must toil and be satisfied
if he can make a little garden blossom.
My father left a park to me,
But it is wild and barren,
A garden too with scarce a tree
And waster than a warren:
Yet say the neighbours when they call,
It is not bad but good land,
And in it is the germ of all
That grows within the woodland.
O had I lived when song was great
In days of old Amphion, [1]
And ta'en my fiddle to the gate,
Nor cared for seed or scion!
And had I lived when song was great,
And legs of trees were limber,
And ta'en my fiddle to the gate,
And fiddled in the timber!
'Tis said he had a tuneful tongue,
Such happy intonation,
Wherever he sat down and sung
He left a small plantation;
Wherever in a lonely grove
He set up his forlorn pipes,
The gouty oak began to move,
And flounder into hornpipes.
The mountain stirr'd its bushy crown,
And, as tradition teaches,
Young ashes pirouetted down
Coquetting with young beeches;
And briony-vine and ivy-wreath
Ran forward to his rhyming,
And from the valleys underneath
Came little copses climbing.
The linden broke her ranks and rent
The woodbine wreathes that bind her,
And down the middle, buzz! she went,
With all her bees behind her. [2]
The poplars, in long order due,
With cypress promenaded,
The shock-head willows two and two
By rivers gallopaded.
The birch-tree swang her fragrant hair,
The bramble cast her berry,
The gin within the juniper
Began to make him merry.
Came wet-shot alder from the wave,
Came yews, a dismal coterie;
Each pluck'd his one foot from the grave,
Poussetting with a sloe-tree:
Old elms came breaking from the vine,
The vine stream'd out to follow,
And, sweating rosin, plump'd the pine
From many a cloudy hollow.
And wasn't it a sight to see
When, ere his song was ended,
Like some great landslip, tree by tree,
The country-side descended;
And shepherds from the mountain-caves
Look'd down, half-pleased, half-frighten'd,
As dash'd about the drunken leaves
The random sunshine lighten'd!
Oh, nature first was fresh to men,
And wanton without measure;
So youthful and so flexile then,
You moved her at your pleasure.
Twang out, my fiddle! shake the twigs!
And make her dance attendance;
Blow, flute, and stir the stiff-set sprigs,
And scirrhous roots and tendons.
'Tis vain! in such a brassy age
I could not move a thistle;
The very sparrows in the hedge
Scarce answer to my whistle;
Or at the most, when three-parts-sick
With strumming and with scraping,
A jackass heehaws from the rick,
The passive oxen gaping.
But what is that I hear? a sound
Like sleepy counsel pleading:
O Lord! --'tis in my neighbour's ground,
The modern Muses reading.
They read Botanic Treatises.
And works on Gardening thro' there,
And Methods of transplanting trees
To look as if they grew there.
W. Reader, 'The History and Description of Coventry Show Fair, with the
History of Leofric and Godiva'). With Tennyson's should be compared
Moultrie's beautiful poem on the same subject, and Landor's Imaginary
Conversation between Leofric and Godiva.
[1] _I waited for the train at Coventry;
I hung with grooms and porters on the bridge,
To match the three tall spires; [2] and there I shaped
The city's ancient legend into this:_
Not only we, the latest seed of Time,
New men, that in the flying of a wheel
Cry down the past, not only we, that prate
Of rights and wrongs, have loved the people well,
And loathed to see them overtax'd; but she
Did more, and underwent, and overcame,
The woman of a thousand summers back,
Godiva, wife to that grim Earl, who ruled
In Coventry: for when he laid a tax
Upon his town, and all the mothers brought
Their children, clamouring, "If we pay, we starve! "
She sought her lord, and found him, where he strode
About the hall, among his dogs, alone,
His beard a foot before him, and his hair
A yard behind. She told him of their tears,
And pray'd him, "If they pay this tax, they starve".
Whereat he stared, replying, half-amazed,
"You would not let your little finger ache
For such as _these? _"--"But I would die," said she.
He laugh'd, and swore by Peter and by Paul;
Then fillip'd at the diamond in her ear;
"O ay, ay, ay, you talk! "--"Alas! " she said,
"But prove me what it is I would not do. "
And from a heart as rough as Esau's hand,
He answer'd, "Ride you naked thro' the town,
And I repeal it"; and nodding as in scorn,
He parted, with great strides among his dogs.
So left alone, the passions of her mind,
As winds from all the compass shift and blow,
Made war upon each other for an hour,
Till pity won. She sent a herald forth,
And bad him cry, with sound of trumpet, all
The hard condition; but that she would loose
The people: therefore, as they loved her well,
From then till noon no foot should pace the street,
No eye look down, she passing; but that all
Should keep within, door shut, and window barr'd.
Then fled she to her inmost bower, and there
Unclasp'd the wedded eagles of her belt,
The grim Earl's gift; but ever at a breath
She linger'd, looking like a summer moon
Half-dipt in cloud: anon she shook her head,
And shower'd the rippled ringlets to her knee;
Unclad herself in haste; adown the stair
Stole on; and, like a creeping sunbeam, slid
From pillar unto pillar, until she reach'd
The gateway; there she found her palfrey trapt
In purple blazon'd with armorial gold.
Then she rode forth, clothed on with chastity:
The deep air listen'd round her as she rode,
And all the low wind hardly breathed for fear.
The little wide-mouth'd heads upon the spout
Had cunning eyes to see: the barking cur
Made her cheek flame: her palfrey's footfall shot
Light horrors thro' her pulses: the blind walls
Were full of chinks and holes; and overhead
Fantastic gables, crowding, stared: but she
Not less thro' all bore up, till, last, she saw
The white-flower'd elder-thicket from the field
Gleam thro' the Gothic archways [3]in the wall.
Then she rode back cloth'd on with chastity:
And one low churl, [4] compact of thankless earth,
The fatal byword of all years to come,
Boring a little auger-hole in fear,
Peep'd--but his eyes, before they had their will,
Were shrivell'd into darkness in his head,
And dropt before him. So the Powers, who wait
On noble deeds, cancell'd a sense misused;
And she, that knew not, pass'd: and all at once,
With twelve great shocks of sound, the shameless noon
Was clash'd and hammer'd from a hundred towers, [5]
One after one: but even then she gain'd
Her bower; whence reissuing, robed and crown'd,
To meet her lord, she took the tax away,
And built herself an everlasting name.
[Footnote 1: These four lines are not in the privately printed volume of
1842, but were added afterwards. ]
[Footnote 2: St. Michael's, Trinity, and St. John. ]
[Footnote 3: 1844. Archway. ]
[Footnote 4: His effigy is still to be seen, protruded from an upper
window in High Street, Coventry. ]
[Footnote 5: A most poetical licence. Thirty-two towers are the very
utmost allowed by writers on ancient Coventry. ]
THE TWO VOICES
First published in 1842, though begun as early as 1833 and in course of
composition in 1834. See Spedding's letter dated 19th September, 1834.
Its original title was 'The Thoughts of a Suicide'. No alterations were
made in the poem after 1842.
It adds interest to this poem to know that it is autobiographical. It
was written soon after the death of Arthur Hallam when Tennyson's
depression was deepest. "When I wrote 'The Two Voices' I was so utterly
miserable, a burden to myself and to my family, that I said, 'Is life
worth anything? '" It is the history--as Spedding put it--of the
agitations, the suggestions and counter-suggestions of a mind sunk in
hopeless despondency, and meditating self-destruction, together with the
manner of its recovery to a more healthy condition. We have two
singularly interesting parallels to it in preceding poetry. The one is
in the third book of Lucretius (830-1095), where the arguments for
suicide are urged, not merely by the poet himself, but by arguments
placed by him in the mouth of Nature herself, and urged with such
cogency that they are said to have induced one of his editors and
translators, Creech, to put an end to his life. The other is in Spenser,
in the dialogue between Despair and the Red Cross Knight, where Despair
puts the case for self-destruction, and the Red Cross Knight rebuts the
arguments ('Faerie Queene', I. ix. , st. xxxviii. -liv. ).
A still small voice spake unto me,
"Thou art so full of misery,
Were it not better not to be? "
Then to the still small voice I said;
"Let me not cast in endless shade
What is so wonderfully made".
To which the voice did urge reply;
"To-day I saw the dragon-fly
Come from the wells where he did lie.
"An inner impulse rent the veil
Of his old husk: from head to tail
Came out clear plates of sapphire mail.
"He dried his wings: like gauze they grew:
Thro' crofts and pastures wet with dew
A living flash of light he flew. "
I said, "When first the world began
Young Nature thro' five cycles ran,
And in the sixth she moulded man.
"She gave him mind, the lordliest
Proportion, and, above the rest,
Dominion in the head and breast. "
Thereto the silent voice replied;
"Self-blinded are you by your pride:
Look up thro' night: the world is wide.
"This truth within thy mind rehearse,
That in a boundless universe
Is boundless better, boundless worse.
"Think you this mould of hopes and fears
Could find no statelier than his peers
In yonder hundred million spheres? "
It spake, moreover, in my mind:
"Tho' thou wert scatter'd to the wind,
Yet is there plenty of the kind".
Then did my response clearer fall:
"No compound of this earthly ball
Is like another, all in all".
To which he answer'd scoffingly;
"Good soul! suppose I grant it thee,
Who'll weep for thy deficiency?
"Or will one beam [1] be less intense,
When thy peculiar difference
Is cancell'd in the world of sense? "
I would have said, "Thou canst not know,"
But my full heart, that work'd below,
Rain'd thro' my sight its overflow.
Again the voice spake unto me:
"Thou art so steep'd in misery,
Surely 'twere better not to be.
"Thine anguish will not let thee sleep,
Nor any train of reason keep:
Thou canst not think, but thou wilt weep. "
I said, "The years with change advance:
If I make dark my countenance,
I shut my life from happier chance.
"Some turn this sickness yet might take,
Ev'n yet. " But he: "What drug can make
A wither'd palsy cease to shake? "
I wept, "Tho' I should die, I know
That all about the thorn will blow
In tufts of rosy-tinted snow;
"And men, thro' novel spheres of thought
Still moving after truth long sought,
Will learn new things when I am not. "
"Yet," said the secret voice, "some time,
Sooner or later, will gray prime
Make thy grass hoar with early rime.
"Not less swift souls that yearn for light,
Rapt after heaven's starry flight,
Would sweep the tracts of day and night.
"Not less the bee would range her cells,
The furzy prickle fire the dells,
The foxglove cluster dappled bells. "
I said that "all the years invent;
Each month is various to present
The world with some development.
"Were this not well, to bide mine hour,
Tho' watching from a ruin'd tower
How grows the day of human power? "
"The highest-mounted mind," he said,
"Still sees the sacred morning spread
The silent summit overhead.
"Will thirty seasons render plain
Those lonely lights that still remain,
Just breaking over land and main?
"Or make that morn, from his cold crown
And crystal silence creeping down,
Flood with full daylight glebe and town?
"Forerun thy peers, thy time, and let
Thy feet, millenniums hence, be set
In midst of knowledge, dream'd not yet.
"Thou hast not gain'd a real height,
Nor art thou nearer to the light,
Because the scale is infinite.
"'Twere better not to breathe or speak,
Than cry for strength, remaining weak,
And seem to find, but still to seek.
"Moreover, but to seem to find
Asks what thou lackest, thought resign'd,
A healthy frame, a quiet mind. "
I said, "When I am gone away,
'He dared not tarry,' men will say,
Doing dishonour to my clay. "
"This is more vile," he made reply,
"To breathe and loathe, to live and sigh,
Than once from dread of pain to die.
"Sick art thou--a divided will
Still heaping on the fear of ill
The fear of men, a coward still.
"Do men love thee? Art thou so bound
To men, that how thy name may sound
Will vex thee lying underground?
"The memory of the wither'd leaf
In endless time is scarce more brief
Than of the garner'd Autumn-sheaf.
"Go, vexed Spirit, sleep in trust;
The right ear, that is fill'd with dust,
Hears little of the false or just. "
"Hard task, to pluck resolve," I cried,
"From emptiness and the waste wide
Of that abyss, or scornful pride!
"Nay--rather yet that I could raise
One hope that warm'd me in the days
While still I yearn'd for human praise.
"When, wide in soul, and bold of tongue,
Among the tents I paused and sung,
The distant battle flash'd and rung.
"I sung the joyful Paean clear,
And, sitting, burnish'd without fear
The brand, the buckler, and the spear--
"Waiting to strive a happy strife,
To war with falsehood to the knife,
And not to lose the good of life--
"Some hidden principle to move,
To put together, part and prove,
And mete the bounds of hate and love--
"As far as might be, to carve out
Free space for every human doubt,
That the whole mind might orb about--
"To search thro' all I felt or saw,
The springs of life, the depths of awe,
And reach the law within the law:
"At least, not rotting like a weed,
But, having sown some generous seed,
Fruitful of further thought and deed,
"To pass, when Life her light withdraws,
Not void of righteous self-applause,
Nor in a merely selfish cause--
"In some good cause, not in mine own,
To perish, wept for, honour'd, known,
And like a warrior overthrown;
"Whose eyes are dim with glorious tears,
When, soil'd with noble dust, he hears
His country's war-song thrill his ears:
"Then dying of a mortal stroke,
What time the foeman's line is broke.
And all the war is roll'd in smoke. " [2]
"Yea! " said the voice, "thy dream was good,
While thou abodest in the bud.
It was the stirring of the blood.
"If Nature put not forth her power [2]
About the opening of the flower,
Who is it that could live an hour?
"Then comes the check, the change, the fall.
Pain rises up, old pleasures pall.
There is one remedy for all.
"Yet hadst thou, thro' enduring pain,
Link'd month to month with such a chain
Of knitted purport, all were vain.
"Thou hadst not between death and birth
Dissolved the riddle of the earth.
So were thy labour little worth.
"That men with knowledge merely play'd,
I told thee--hardly nigher made,
Tho' scaling slow from grade to grade;
"Much less this dreamer, deaf and blind,
Named man, may hope some truth to find,
That bears relation to the mind.
"For every worm beneath the moon
Draws different threads, and late and soon
Spins, toiling out his own cocoon.
"Cry, faint not: either Truth is born
Beyond the polar gleam forlorn,
Or in the gateways of the morn.
"Cry, faint not, climb: the summits slope
Beyond the furthest nights of hope,
Wrapt in dense cloud from base to cope.
"Sometimes a little corner shines,
As over rainy mist inclines
A gleaming crag with belts of pines.
"I will go forward, sayest thou,
I shall not fail to find her now.
Look up, the fold is on her brow.
"If straight thy track, or if oblique,
Thou know'st not. Shadows thou dost strike,
Embracing cloud, Ixion-like;
"And owning but a little more
Than beasts, abidest lame and poor,
Calling thyself a little lower
"Than angels. Cease to wail and brawl!
Why inch by inch to darkness crawl?
There is one remedy for all. "
"O dull, one-sided voice," said I,
"Wilt thou make everything a lie,
To flatter me that I may die?
"I know that age to age succeeds,
Blowing a noise of tongues and deeds,
A dust of systems and of creeds.
"I cannot hide that some have striven,
Achieving calm, to whom was given
The joy that mixes man with Heaven:
"Who, rowing hard against the stream,
Saw distant gates of Eden gleam,
And did not dream it was a dream";
"But heard, by secret transport led, [3]
Ev'n in the charnels of the dead,
The murmur of the fountain-head--
"Which did accomplish their desire,--
Bore and forbore, and did not tire,
Like Stephen, an unquenched fire.
"He heeded not reviling tones,
Nor sold his heart to idle moans,
Tho' cursed and scorn'd, and bruised with stones:
"But looking upward, full of grace,
He pray'd, and from a happy place
God's glory smote him on the face. "
The sullen answer slid betwixt:
"Not that the grounds of hope were fix'd,
The elements were kindlier mix'd. " [4]
I said, "I toil beneath the curse,
But, knowing not the universe,
I fear to slide from bad to worse. [5]
"And that, in seeking to undo
One riddle, and to find the true,
I knit a hundred others new:
"Or that this anguish fleeting hence,
Unmanacled from bonds of sense,
Be fix'd and froz'n to permanence:
"For I go, weak from suffering here;
Naked I go, and void of cheer:
What is it that I may not fear? "
"Consider well," the voice replied,
"His face, that two hours since hath died;
Wilt thou find passion, pain or pride?
"Will he obey when one commands?
Or answer should one press his hands?
He answers not, nor understands.
"His palms are folded on his breast:
There is no other thing express'd
But long disquiet merged in rest.
"His lips are very mild and meek:
Tho' one should smite him on the cheek,
And on the mouth, he will not speak.
"His little daughter, whose sweet face
He kiss'd, taking his last embrace,
Becomes dishonour to her race--
"His sons grow up that bear his name,
Some grow to honour, some to shame,--
But he is chill to praise or blame. [6]
"He will not hear the north wind rave,
Nor, moaning, household shelter crave
From winter rains that beat his grave.
"High up the vapours fold and swim:
About him broods the twilight dim:
The place he knew forgetteth him. "
"If all be dark, vague voice," I said,
"These things are wrapt in doubt and dread,
Nor canst thou show the dead are dead.
"The sap dries up: the plant declines. [7]
A deeper tale my heart divines.
Know I not Death? the outward signs?
"I found him when my years were few;
A shadow on the graves I knew,
And darkness in the village yew.
"From grave to grave the shadow crept:
In her still place the morning wept:
Touch'd by his feet the daisy slept.
"The simple senses crown'd his head: [8]
'Omega! thou art Lord,' they
said; 'We find no motion in the dead. '
"Why, if man rot in dreamless ease,
Should that plain fact, as taught by these,
Not make him sure that he shall cease?
"Who forged that other influence,
That heat of inward evidence,
By which he doubts against the sense?
"He owns the fatal gift of eyes, [9]
That read his spirit blindly wise,
Not simple as a thing that dies.
"Here sits he shaping wings to fly:
His heart forebodes a mystery:
He names the name Eternity.
"That type of Perfect in his mind
In Nature can he nowhere find.
He sows himself in every wind.
"He seems to hear a Heavenly Friend,
And thro' thick veils to apprehend
A labour working to an end.
"The end and the beginning vex
His reason: many things perplex,
With motions, checks, and counterchecks.
"He knows a baseness in his blood
At such strange war with something good,
He may not do the thing he would.
"Heaven opens inward, chasms yawn.
Vast images in glimmering dawn,
Half shown, are broken and withdrawn.
"Ah! sure within him and without,
Could his dark wisdom find it out,
There must be answer to his doubt.
"But thou canst answer not again.
With thine own weapon art thou slain,
Or thou wilt answer but in vain.
"The doubt would rest, I dare not solve.
In the same circle we revolve.
Assurance only breeds resolve. "
As when a billow, blown against,
Falls back, the voice with which I fenced
A little ceased, but recommenced.
"Where wert thou when thy father play'd
In his free field, and pastime made,
A merry boy in sun and shade?
"A merry boy they called him then.
He sat upon the knees of men
In days that never come again,
"Before the little ducts began
To feed thy bones with lime, and ran
Their course, till thou wert also man:
"Who took a wife, who rear'd his race,
Whose wrinkles gather'd on his face,
Whose troubles number with his days:
"A life of nothings, nothing-worth,
From that first nothing ere his birth
To that last nothing under earth! "
"These words," I said, "are like the rest,
No certain clearness, but at best
A vague suspicion of the breast:
"But if I grant, thou might'st defend
The thesis which thy words intend--
That to begin implies to end;
"Yet how should I for certain hold, [10]
Because my memory is so cold,
That I first was in human mould?
"I cannot make this matter plain,
But I would shoot, howe'er in vain,
A random arrow from the brain.
"It may be that no life is found,
Which only to one engine bound
Falls off, but cycles always round.
"As old mythologies relate,
Some draught of Lethe might await
The slipping thro' from state to state.
"As here we find in trances, men
Forget the dream that happens then,
Until they fall in trance again.
"So might we, if our state were such
As one before, remember much,
For those two likes might meet and touch. [11]
"But, if I lapsed from nobler place,
Some legend of a fallen race
Alone might hint of my disgrace;
"Some vague emotion of delight
In gazing up an Alpine height,
Some yearning toward the lamps of night.
"Or if thro' lower lives I came--
Tho' all experience past became
Consolidate in mind and frame--
"I might forget my weaker lot;
For is not our first year forgot?
The haunts of memory echo not.
"And men, whose reason long was blind,
From cells of madness unconfined, [12]
Oft lose whole years of darker mind.
"Much more, if first I floated free,
As naked essence, must I be
Incompetent of memory:
"For memory dealing but with time,
And he with matter, could she climb
Beyond her own material prime?
"Moreover, something is or seems,
That touches me with mystic gleams,
Like glimpses of forgotten dreams--
"Of something felt, like something here;
Of something done, I know not where;
Such as no language may declare. "
The still voice laugh'd. "I talk," said he,
"Not with thy dreams.
Suffice it thee Thy pain is a reality. "
"But thou," said I, "hast miss'd thy mark,
Who sought'st to wreck my mortal ark,
By making all the horizon dark.
"Why not set forth, if I should do
This rashness, that which might ensue
With this old soul in organs new?
"Whatever crazy sorrow saith,
No life that breathes with human breath
Has ever truly long'd for death.
"'Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant,
Oh life, not death, for which we pant;
More life, and fuller, that I want. "
I ceased, and sat as one forlorn.
Then said the voice, in quiet scorn,
"Behold it is the Sabbath morn".
And I arose, and I released
The casement, and the light increased
With freshness in the dawning east.
Like soften'd airs that blowing steal,
When meres begin to uncongeal,
The sweet church bells began to peal.
On to God's house the people prest:
Passing the place where each must rest,
Each enter'd like a welcome guest.
One walk'd between his wife and child,
With measur'd footfall firm and mild,
And now and then he gravely smiled.
The prudent partner of his blood
Lean'd on him, faithful, gentle, good, [13]
Wearing the rose of womanhood.
And in their double love secure,
The little maiden walk'd demure,
Pacing with downward eyelids pure.
These three made unity so sweet,
My frozen heart began to beat,
Remembering its ancient heat.
I blest them, and they wander'd on:
I spoke, but answer came there none:
The dull and bitter voice was gone.
A second voice was at mine ear,
A little whisper silver-clear,
A murmur, "Be of better cheer".
As from some blissful neighbourhood,
A notice faintly understood,
"I see the end, and know the good".
A little hint to solace woe,
A hint, a whisper breathing low,
"I may not speak of what I know".
Like an Aeolian harp that wakes
No certain air, but overtakes
Far thought with music that it makes:
Such seem'd the whisper at my side:
"What is it thou knowest, sweet voice? " I cried.
"A hidden hope," the voice replied:
So heavenly-toned, that in that hour
From out my sullen heart a power
Broke, like the rainbow from the shower,
To feel, altho' no tongue can prove
That every cloud, that spreads above
And veileth love, itself is love.
And forth into the fields I went,
And Nature's living motion lent
The pulse of hope to discontent.
I wonder'd at the bounteous hours,
The slow result of winter showers:
You scarce could see the grass for flowers.
I wonder'd, while I paced along:
The woods were fill'd so full with song,
There seem'd no room for sense of wrong.
So variously seem'd all things wrought, [14]
I marvell'd how the mind was brought
To anchor by one gloomy thought;
And wherefore rather I made choice
To commune with that barren voice,
Than him that said, "Rejoice! rejoice!
"
[Footnote 1: The insensibility of Nature to man's death has been the
eloquent theme of many poets. 'Cf'. Byron, 'Lara', canto ii. 'ad init'. ,
and Matthew Arnold, 'The Youth of Nature'. ]
[Footnote 2: 'Cf. Palace of Art', "the riddle of the painful earth". ]
[Footnote 3: 'Seq'. The reference is to Acts of the Apostles vii.
54-60. ]
[Footnote 4: Suggested by Shakespeare, 'Julius Caesar', Act v. , Sc.
5:--
and _the elements_
So mix'd in' him that Nature, etc. ]
[Footnote 5: An excellent commentary on this is Clough's
_Perche pensa, pensando vecchia_. ]
[Footnote 6: 'Cf'. Job xiv. 21:
"His sons come to honour, and he knowcth it not; and they are brought
low, but he perceiveth it not of them. "]
[Footnote 7: So Bishop Butler, 'Analogy', ch. i. :
"We cannot argue _from the reason of the thing_ that death is the
destruction of living agents because we know not at all what death is
in itself, but only some of its effects". ]
[Footnote 8: So Milton, enfolding this idea of death, 'Paradise
Lost', ii. , 672-3:--
What seemed his head
The _likeness_ of a kingly crown had on. ]
[Footnote 9: 'Cf'. Plato, 'Phaedo', x. :--
[Greek: ara echei alaetheian tina opsis te kai akoae tois anthr_opois.
Ae ta ge toiauta kai oi poiaetai haemin aei thrulousin oti out
akouomen akribes ouden oute or_omen]
"Have sight and hearing any truth in them? Are they not, as poets are
always telling us, inaccurate witnesses? "
The proper commentary on the whole of this passage is Plato
'passim', but the 'Phaedo' particularly, 'cf. Republic',
vii. , viii. and xiv. -xv. ]
[Footnote 10: An allusion to the myth that when souls are sent to occupy
a body again they drink of Lethe that they may forget their previous
existence. See the famous passage towards the end of the tenth book of
Plato's 'Republic':
"All persons are compelled to drink a certain quantity of the water,
but those who are not preserved by prudence drink more than the
quantity, and each as he drinks forgets everything".
So Milton, 'Paradise Lost', ii. , 582-4. ]
[Footnote 11: The best commentary on this will be found in Herbert
Spencer's 'Psychology'. ]
[Footnote 12: Compare with this Tennyson's first sonnet ('Works', Globe
Edition, 25), and the lines in the 'Ancient Sage' in the 'Passion of the
Past' ('Id'. , 551). 'Cf'. too the lines in Wordsworth's ode on
'Intimations of Immortality':--
But there's a tree, of many one,
A single field which I have looked upon,
Both of them speak of something that is gone;
The pansy at my feet
Doth the same tale repeat.
For other remarkable illustrations of this see the present writer's
'Illustrations of Tennyson', p. 38. ]
[Footnote 13: 'Cf'. Coleridge, 'Ancient Mariner, iv'. :--
"O happy living things . . . I blessed them
The self-same moment I could pray. "
There is a close parallel between the former and the latter state
described here and in Coleridge's mystic allegory; in both cases the
sufferers "wake to love," the curse falling off them when they can
"bless". ]
[Footnote 14: 1884. And all so variously wrought (with semi-colon instead
of full stop at the end of the preceding line). ]
THE DAY-DREAM
First published in 1842, but written in 1835. In it is incorporated,
though with several alterations, 'The Sleeping Beauty', published among
the poems of 1830, but excised in subsequent editions. Half extravaganza
and half apologue, like the 'Midsummer Night's Dream', this delightful
poem may be safely left to deliver its own message and convey its own
meaning. It is an excellent illustration of the truth of Tennyson's own
remark: "Poetry is like shot silk with many glancing colours. Every
reader must find his own interpretation according to his ability, and
according to his sympathy with the poet. "
PROLOGUE
(No alteration has been made in the Prologue since 1842. )
O, Lady Flora, let me speak:
A pleasant hour has past away
While, dreaming on your damask cheek,
The dewy sister-eyelids lay.
As by the lattice you reclined,
I went thro' many wayward moods
To see you dreaming--and, behind,
A summer crisp with shining woods.
And I too dream'd, until at last
Across my fancy, brooding warm,
The reflex of a legend past,
And loosely settled into form.
And would you have the thought I had,
And see the vision that I saw,
Then take the broidery-frame, and add
A crimson to the quaint Macaw,
And I will tell it. Turn your face,
Nor look with that too-earnest eye--
The rhymes are dazzled from their place,
And order'd words asunder fly.
THE SLEEPING PALACE
(No alteration since 1851. )
1
The varying year with blade and sheaf
Clothes and reclothes the happy plains;
Here rests the sap within the leaf,
Here stays the blood along the veins.
Faint shadows, vapours lightly curl'd,
Faint murmurs from the meadows come,
Like hints and echoes of the world
To spirits folded in the womb.
2
Soft lustre bathes the range of urns
On every slanting terrace-lawn.
The fountain to his place returns
Deep in the garden lake withdrawn.
Here droops the banner on the tower,
On the hall-hearths the festal fires,
The peacock in his laurel bower,
The parrot in his gilded wires.
3
Roof-haunting martins warm their eggs:
In these, in those the life is stay'd.
The mantles from the golden pegs
Droop sleepily: no sound is made,
Not even of a gnat that sings.
More like a picture seemeth all
Than those old portraits of old kings,
That watch the sleepers from the wall.
4
Here sits the Butler with a flask
Between his knees, half-drain'd; and there
The wrinkled steward at his task,
The maid-of-honour blooming fair:
The page has caught her hand in his:
Her lips are sever'd as to speak:
His own are pouted to a kiss:
The blush is fix'd upon her cheek.
5
Till all the hundred summers pass,
The beams, that thro' the Oriel shine,
Make prisms in every carven glass,
And beaker brimm'd with noble wine.
Each baron at the banquet sleeps,
Grave faces gather'd in a ring.
His state the king reposing keeps.
He must have been a jovial king. [1]
6
All round a hedge upshoots, and shows
At distance like a little wood;
Thorns, ivies, woodbine, misletoes,
And grapes with bunches red as blood;
All creeping plants, a wall of green
Close-matted, bur and brake and briar,
And glimpsing over these, just seen,
High up, the topmost palace-spire.
7
When will the hundred summers die,
And thought and time be born again,
And newer knowledge, drawing nigh,
Bring truth that sways the soul of men?
Here all things in there place remain,
As all were order'd, ages since.
Come, Care and Pleasure, Hope and Pain,
And bring the fated fairy Prince.
[Footnote 1: All editions up to and including 1851:--He must have been
a jolly king. ]
THE SLEEPING BEAUTY
(First printed in 1830, but does not reappear again till 1842. No
alteration since 1842. )
1
Year after year unto her feet,
She lying on her couch alone,
Across the purpled coverlet,
The maiden's jet-black hair has grown, [1]
On either side her tranced form
Forth streaming from a braid of pearl:
The slumbrous light is rich and warm,
And moves not on the rounded curl.
2
The silk star-broider'd [2] coverlid
Unto her limbs itself doth mould
Languidly ever; and, amid
Her full black ringlets downward roll'd,
Glows forth each softly-shadow'd arm,
With bracelets of the diamond bright:
Her constant beauty doth inform
Stillness with love, and day with light.
3
She sleeps: her breathings are not heard
In palace chambers far apart. [3]
The fragrant tresses are not stirr'd
That lie upon her charmed heart.
She sleeps: on either hand [4] upswells
The gold-fringed pillow lightly prest:
She sleeps, nor dreams, but ever dwells
A perfect form in perfect rest.
[Footnote 1: 1830.
The while she slumbereth alone,
_Over_ the purple coverlet,
The maiden's jet-black hair hath grown. ]
[Footnote 2: 1830. Star-braided. ]
[Footnote 3: A writer in 'Notes and Queries', February, 1880, asks
whether these lines mean that the lovely princess did _not_ snore
so loud that she could be heard from one end of the palace to the other
and whether it would not have detracted from her charms had that state
of things been habitual. This brings into the field Dr. Gatty and other
admirers of Tennyson, who, it must be owned, are not very successful in
giving a satisfactory reply. ]
[Footnote 4: 1830. Side. ]
THE ARRIVAL
(No alteration after 1853. )
1
All precious things, discover'd late,
To those that seek them issue forth;
For love in sequel works with fate,
And draws the veil from hidden worth.
He travels far from other skies
His mantle glitters on the rocks--
A fairy Prince, with joyful eyes,
And lighter footed than the fox.
2
The bodies and the bones of those
That strove in other days to pass,
Are wither'd in the thorny close,
Or scatter'd blanching on [1] the grass.
He gazes on the silent dead:
"They perish'd in their daring deeds. "
This proverb flashes thro' his head,
"The many fail: the one succeeds".
3
He comes, scarce knowing what he seeks:
He breaks the hedge: he enters there:
The colour flies into his cheeks:
He trusts to light on something fair;
For all his life the charm did talk
About his path, and hover near
With words of promise in his walk,
And whisper'd voices at his ear. [2]
4
More close and close his footsteps wind;
The Magic Music [3] in his heart
Beats quick and quicker, till he find
The quiet chamber far apart.
His spirit flutters like a lark,
He stoops--to kiss her--on his knee.
"Love, if thy tresses be so dark,
How dark those hidden eyes must be!
[Footnote 1: 1842 to 1851. In. ]
[Footnote 2: All editions up to and including 1850. In his ear. ]
[Footnote 3: All editions up to and including 1851. Not capitals in
magic music. ]
THE REVIVAL
No alteration after 1853.
1
A touch, a kiss! the charm was snapt.
There rose a noise of striking clocks,
And feet that ran, and doors that clapt,
And barking dogs, and crowing cocks;
A fuller light illumined all,
A breeze thro' all the garden swept,
A sudden hubbub shook the hall,
And sixty feet the fountain leapt.
2
The hedge broke in, the banner blew,
The butler drank, the steward scrawl'd,
The fire shot up, the martin flew,
The parrot scream'd, the peacock squall'd,
The maid and page renew'd their strife,
The palace bang'd, and buzz'd and clackt,
And all the long-pent stream of life
Dash'd downward in a cataract.
3
And last with these [1] the king awoke,
And in his chair himself uprear'd,
And yawn'd, and rubb'd his face, and spoke,
"By holy rood, a royal beard!
How say you? we have slept, my lords,
My beard has grown into my lap. "
The barons swore, with many words,
'Twas but an after-dinner's nap.
4
"Pardy," return'd the king, "but still
My joints are something [2] stiff or so.
My lord, and shall we pass the bill
I mention'd half an hour ago? "
The chancellor, sedate and vain,
In courteous words return'd reply:
But dallied with his golden chain,
And, smiling, put the question by.
[Footnote 1: 1842 to 1851. And last of all. ]
[Footnote 2: 1863. Somewhat. ]
THE DEPARTURE
(No alteration since 1842. )
1
And on her lover's arm she leant,
And round her waist she felt it fold,
And far across the hills they went
In that new world which is the old:
Across the hills and far away
Beyond their utmost purple rim,
And deep into the dying day
The happy princess follow'd him.
2
"I'd sleep another hundred years,
O love, for such another kiss;"
"O wake for ever, love," she hears,
"O love, 'twas such as this and this. "
And o'er them many a sliding star,
And many a merry wind was borne,
And, stream'd thro' many a golden bar,
The twilight melted into morn.
3
"O eyes long laid in happy sleep! "
"O happy sleep, that lightly fled! "
"O happy kiss, that woke thy sleep! "
"O love, thy kiss would wake the dead! "
And o'er them many a flowing range
Of vapour buoy'd the crescent-bark,
And, rapt thro' many a rosy change,
The twilight died into the dark.
4
"A hundred summers! can it be?
And whither goest thou, tell me where? "
"O seek my father's court with me!
For there are greater wonders there. "
And o'er the hills, and far away
Beyond their utmost purple rim,
Beyond the night across the day,
Thro' all the world she follow'd him.
MORAL
(No alteration since 1842. )
1
So, Lady Flora, take my lay,
And if you find no moral there,
Go, look in any glass and say,
What moral is in being fair.
Oh, to what uses shall we put
The wildweed-flower that simply blows?
And is there any moral shut
Within the bosom of the rose?
2
But any man that walks the mead,
In bud or blade, or bloom, may find,
According as his humours lead,
A meaning suited to his mind.
And liberal applications lie
In Art like Nature, dearest friend; [1]
So 'twere to cramp its use, if I
Should hook it to some useful end.
[Foonote 1: So Wordsworth:--
O Reader! had you in your mind
Such stores as silent thought can bring,
O gentle Reader! you would find
A tale in everything.
--'Simon Lee'. ]
L'ENVOI
(No alteration since 1843 except in numbering the stanzas. )
1
You shake your head. A random string
Your finer female sense offends.
Well--were it not a pleasant thing
To fall asleep with all one's friends;
To pass with all our social ties
To silence from the paths of men;
And every hundred years to rise
And learn the world, and sleep again;
To sleep thro' terms of mighty wars,
And wake on science grown to more,
On secrets of the brain, the stars,
As wild as aught of fairy lore;
And all that else the years will show,
The Poet-forms of stronger hours,
The vast Republics that may grow,
The Federations and the Powers;
Titanic forces taking birth
In divers seasons, divers climes;
For we are Ancients of the earth,
And in the morning of the times.
2
So sleeping, so aroused from sleep
Thro' sunny decads new and strange,
Or gay quinquenniads would we reap
The flower and quintessence of change.
3
Ah, yet would I--and would I might!
So much your eyes my fancy take--
Be still the first to leap to light
That I might kiss those eyes awake!
For, am I right or am I wrong,
To choose your own you did not care;
You'd have 'my' moral from the song,
And I will take my pleasure there:
And, am I right or am I wrong,
My fancy, ranging thro' and thro',
To search a meaning for the song,
Perforce will still revert to you;
Nor finds a closer truth than this
All-graceful head, so richly curl'd,
And evermore a costly kiss
The prelude to some brighter world.
4
For since the time when Adam first
Embraced his Eve in happy hour,
And every bird of Eden burst
In carol, every bud to flower,
What eyes, like thine, have waken'd hopes?
What lips, like thine, so sweetly join'd?
Where on the double rosebud droops
The fullness of the pensive mind;
Which all too dearly self-involved, [1]
Yet sleeps a dreamless sleep to me;
A sleep by kisses undissolved,
That lets thee [2] neither hear nor see:
But break it. In the name of wife,
And in the rights that name may give,
Are clasp'd the moral of thy life,
And that for which I care to live.
[Foonote 1: 1842. The pensive mind that, self-involved. ]
[Foonote 2: 1842. Which lets thee. ]
EPILOGUE
(No alteration since 1842. )
So, Lady Flora, take my lay,
And, if you find a meaning there,
O whisper to your glass, and say,
"What wonder, if he thinks me fair? "
What wonder I was all unwise,
To shape the song for your delight
Like long-tail'd birds of Paradise,
That float thro' Heaven, and cannot light?
Or old-world trains, upheld at court
By Cupid-boys of blooming hue--
But take it--earnest wed with sport,
And either sacred unto you.
AMPHION
First published in 1842. No alteration since 1850.
In this humorous allegory the poet bewails his unhappy lot on having
fallen on an age so unpropitious to poetry, contrasting it with the
happy times so responsive to his predecessors who piped to a world
prepared to dance to their music. However, he must toil and be satisfied
if he can make a little garden blossom.
My father left a park to me,
But it is wild and barren,
A garden too with scarce a tree
And waster than a warren:
Yet say the neighbours when they call,
It is not bad but good land,
And in it is the germ of all
That grows within the woodland.
O had I lived when song was great
In days of old Amphion, [1]
And ta'en my fiddle to the gate,
Nor cared for seed or scion!
And had I lived when song was great,
And legs of trees were limber,
And ta'en my fiddle to the gate,
And fiddled in the timber!
'Tis said he had a tuneful tongue,
Such happy intonation,
Wherever he sat down and sung
He left a small plantation;
Wherever in a lonely grove
He set up his forlorn pipes,
The gouty oak began to move,
And flounder into hornpipes.
The mountain stirr'd its bushy crown,
And, as tradition teaches,
Young ashes pirouetted down
Coquetting with young beeches;
And briony-vine and ivy-wreath
Ran forward to his rhyming,
And from the valleys underneath
Came little copses climbing.
The linden broke her ranks and rent
The woodbine wreathes that bind her,
And down the middle, buzz! she went,
With all her bees behind her. [2]
The poplars, in long order due,
With cypress promenaded,
The shock-head willows two and two
By rivers gallopaded.
The birch-tree swang her fragrant hair,
The bramble cast her berry,
The gin within the juniper
Began to make him merry.
Came wet-shot alder from the wave,
Came yews, a dismal coterie;
Each pluck'd his one foot from the grave,
Poussetting with a sloe-tree:
Old elms came breaking from the vine,
The vine stream'd out to follow,
And, sweating rosin, plump'd the pine
From many a cloudy hollow.
And wasn't it a sight to see
When, ere his song was ended,
Like some great landslip, tree by tree,
The country-side descended;
And shepherds from the mountain-caves
Look'd down, half-pleased, half-frighten'd,
As dash'd about the drunken leaves
The random sunshine lighten'd!
Oh, nature first was fresh to men,
And wanton without measure;
So youthful and so flexile then,
You moved her at your pleasure.
Twang out, my fiddle! shake the twigs!
And make her dance attendance;
Blow, flute, and stir the stiff-set sprigs,
And scirrhous roots and tendons.
'Tis vain! in such a brassy age
I could not move a thistle;
The very sparrows in the hedge
Scarce answer to my whistle;
Or at the most, when three-parts-sick
With strumming and with scraping,
A jackass heehaws from the rick,
The passive oxen gaping.
But what is that I hear? a sound
Like sleepy counsel pleading:
O Lord! --'tis in my neighbour's ground,
The modern Muses reading.
They read Botanic Treatises.
And works on Gardening thro' there,
And Methods of transplanting trees
To look as if they grew there.
