Part IV

In the stormy east-wind straining,

The pale yellow woods were waning,

The broad stream in his banks complaining,

Heavily the low sky raining

Over tower’d Camelot;

Down she came and found a boat

Beneath a willow left afloat,

And round about the prow she wrote

_The Lady of Shalott_.[17]

And down the river’s dim expanse—

Like some bold seër in a trance,

Seeing all his own mischance—

With a glassy countenance

Did she look to Camelot.

And at the closing of the day

She loosed the chain, and down she lay;

The broad stream bore her far away,

The Lady of Shalott.

Lying, robed in snowy white

That loosely flew to left and right—

The leaves upon her falling light—

Thro’ the noises of the night

She floated down to Camelot;

And as the boat-head wound along

The willowy hills and fields among,

They heard her singing her last song,

The Lady of Shalott.[18]

Heard a carol, mournful, holy,

Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,

Till her blood was frozen slowly,

And her eyes were darken’d wholly,[19]

Turn’d to tower’d Camelot;

For ere she reach’d upon the tide

The first house by the water-side,

Singing in her song she died,

The Lady of Shalott.

Under tower and balcony,

By garden-wall and gallery,

A gleaming shape she floated by,

Dead-pale[20] between the houses high,

Silent into Camelot.

Out upon the wharfs they came,

Knight and burgher, lord and dame,

And round the prow they read her name,

_The Lady of Shalott_[21]

Who is this? and what is here?

And in the lighted palace near

Died the sound of royal cheer;

And they cross’d themselves for fear,

All the knights at Camelot:

But Lancelot[22] mused a little space;

He said, “She has a lovely face;

God in his mercy lend her grace,

The Lady of Shalott”.[23]

[1] 1833.

To many towered Camelot

The yellow leaved water lily,

The green sheathed daffodilly,

Tremble in the water chilly,

Round about Shalott.

[2] 1833.

... shiver,

The sunbeam-showers break and quiver

In the stream that runneth ever

By the island, etc.

[3] 1833.

Underneath the bearded barley,

The reaper, reaping late and early,

Hears her ever chanting cheerly,

Like an angel, singing clearly,

O’er the stream of Camelot.

Piling the sheaves in furrows airy,

Beneath the moon, the reaper weary

Listening whispers, “’tis the fairy

Lady of Shalott”.

[4] 1833.

The little isle is all inrailed

With a rose-fence, and overtrailed

With roses: by the marge unhailed

The shallop flitteth silkensailed,

Skimming down to Camelot.

A pearl garland winds her head:

She leaneth on a velvet bed,

Full royally apparelled,

The Lady of Shalott.

[5] 1833.

No time hath she to sport and play:

A charmed web she weaves alway.

A curse is on her, if she stay

Her weaving, either night or day

[6] 1833.

Therefore ...

Therefore ...

The Lady of Shalott.

[7] 1833.

She lives with little joy or fear

Over the water running near,

The sheep bell tinkles in her ear,

Before her hangs a mirror clear,

Reflecting towered Camelot.

And, as the mazy web she whirls,

She sees the surly village-churls.

[8] 1833. Came from Camelot.

[9] In these lines are to be found, says the present Lord Tennyson,

the key to the mystic symbolism of the poem. But it is not easy to see

how death could be an advantageous exchange for fancy-haunted

solitude. The allegory is clearer in lines 114-115, for love will so

break up mere phantasy.

[10] 1833. Hung in the golden galaxy.

[11] 1833. From.

[12] 1833. From Camelot.

[13] 1833. Green Shalott.

[14] 1833. From Camelot.

[15] 1833. “Tirra lirra, tirra lirra.”

[16] 1833. Water flower.

[17] 1833.

Outside the isle a shallow boat

Beneath a willow lay afloat,

Below the carven stern she wrote,

THE LADY OF SHALOTT.

[18] 1833.

A cloud-white crown of pearl she dight,

All raimented in snowy white

That loosely flew (her zone in sight,

Clasped with one blinding diamond bright),

Her wide eyes fixed on Camelot,

Though the squally eastwind keenly

Blew, with folded arms serenely

By the water stood the queenly

Lady of Shalott.

With a steady, stony glance—

Like some bold seer in a trance,

Beholding all his own mischance,

Mute, with a glassy countenance—

She looked down to Camelot.

It was the closing of the day,

She loosed the chain, and down she lay,

The broad stream bore her far away,

The Lady of Shalott.

As when to sailors while they roam,

By creeks and outfalls far from home,

Rising and dropping with the foam,

From dying swans wild warblings come,

Blown shoreward; so to Camelot

Still as the boat-head wound along

The willowy hills and fields among,

They heard her chanting her death song,

The Lady of Shalott.

[19] 1833.

A long drawn carol, mournful, holy,

She chanted loudly, chanted lowly,

Till her eyes were darkened wholly,

And her smooth face sharpened slowly.

[20] “A corse” (1853) is a variant for the “Dead-pale” of 1857.

[21] 1833.

A pale, pale corpse she floated by,

Dead cold, between the houses high,

Dead into towered Camelot.

Knight and burgher, lord and dame,

To the plankèd wharfage came:

Below the stern they read her name,

“The Lady of Shalott”.

[22] 1833. Spells it “Launcelot” all through.

[23] 1833.

They crossed themselves, their stars they blest,

Knight, minstrel, abbot, squire and guest,

There lay a parchment on her breast,

That puzzled more than all the rest,

The well-fed wits at Camelot.

“_The web was woven curiously,

The charm is broken utterly,

Draw near and fear not—this is I,

The Lady of Shalott._”

Mariana in the South

First printed in 1833.

This poem had been written as early as 1831 (see Arthur Hallam’s

letter, _Life_, i., 284-5, Appendix), and Lord Tennyson tells us that

it “came to my father as he was travelling between Narbonne and

Perpignan”; how vividly the characteristic features of Southern France

are depicted must be obvious to every one who is familiar with them. It

is interesting to compare it with the companion poem; the central

position is the same in both, desolate loneliness, and the mood is the

same, but the setting is far more picturesque and is therefore more

dwelt upon. The poem was very greatly altered when re-published in

1842, that text being practically the final one, there being no

important variants afterwards.

In the edition of 1833 the poem opened with the following stanza, which

was afterwards excised and the stanza of the present text substituted.

Behind the barren hill upsprung

With pointed rocks against the light,

The crag sharpshadowed overhung

Each glaring creek and inlet bright.

Far, far, one light blue ridge was seen,

Looming like baseless fairyland;

Eastward a slip of burning sand,

Dark-rimmed with sea, and bare of green,

Down in the dry salt-marshes stood

That house dark latticed. Not a breath

Swayed the sick vineyard underneath,

Or moved the dusty southernwood.

“Madonna,” with melodious moan

Sang Mariana, night and morn,

“Madonna! lo! I am all alone,

Love-forgotten and love-forlorn.”

With one black shadow at its feet,

The house thro’ all the level shines,

Close-latticed to the brooding heat,

And silent in its dusty vines:

A faint-blue ridge upon the right,

An empty river-bed before,

And shallows on a distant shore,

In glaring sand and inlets bright.

But “Ave Mary,” made she moan,

And “Ave Mary,” night and morn,

And “Ah,” she sang, “to be all alone,

To live forgotten, and love forlorn”.

She, as her carol sadder grew,

From brow and bosom slowly down[1]

Thro’ rosy taper fingers drew

Her streaming curls of deepest brown

To left and right,[2] and made appear,

Still-lighted in a secret shrine,

Her melancholy eyes divine,[3]

The home of woe without a tear.

And “Ave Mary,” was her moan,[4]

“Madonna, sad is night and morn”;

And “Ah,” she sang, “to be all alone,

To live forgotten, and love forlorn”.

Till all the crimson changed,[5] and past

Into deep orange o’er the sea,

Low on her knees herself she cast,

Before Our Lady murmur’d she;

Complaining, “Mother, give me grace

To help me of my weary load”.

And on the liquid mirror glow’d

The clear perfection of her face.

“Is this the form,” she made her moan,

“That won his praises night and morn?”

And “Ah,” she said, “but I wake alone,

I sleep forgotten, I wake forlorn”.[6]

Nor bird would sing, nor lamb would bleat,

Nor any cloud would cross the vault,

But day increased from heat to heat,

On stony drought and steaming salt;

Till now at noon she slept again,

And seem’d knee-deep in mountain grass,

And heard her native breezes pass,

And runlets babbling down the glen.

She breathed in sleep a lower moan,

And murmuring, as at night and morn,

She thought, “My spirit is here alone,

Walks forgotten, and is forlorn”.[7]

Dreaming, she knew it was a dream:

She felt he was and was not there,[8]

She woke: the babble of the stream

Fell, and without the steady glare

Shrank one sick willow[9] sere and small.

The river-bed was dusty-white;

And all the furnace of the light

Struck up against the blinding wall.[10]

She whisper’d, with a stifled moan

More inward than at night or morn,

“Sweet Mother, let me not here alone

Live forgotten, and die forlorn”.[11]

[12]And rising, from her bosom drew

Old letters, breathing of her worth,

For “Love,” they said, “must needs be true,

To what is loveliest upon earth”.

An image seem’d to pass the door,

To look at her with slight, and say,

“But now thy beauty flows away,

So be alone for evermore”.

“O cruel heart,” she changed her tone,

“And cruel love, whose end is scorn,

Is this the end to be left alone,

To live forgotten, and die forlorn!”

But sometimes in the falling day

An image seem’d to pass the door,

To look into her eyes and say,

“But thou shalt be alone no more”.

And flaming downward over all

From heat to heat the day decreased,

And slowly rounded to the east

The one black shadow from the wall.

“The day to night,” she made her moan,

“The day to night, the night to morn,

And day and night I am left alone

To live forgotten, and love forlorn.”

At eve a dry cicala sung,

There came a sound as of the sea;

Backward the lattice-blind she flung,

And lean’d upon the balcony.

There all in spaces rosy-bright

Large Hesper glitter’d on her tears,

And deepening thro’ the silent spheres,

Heaven over Heaven rose the night.

And weeping then she made her moan,

“The night comes on that knows not morn,

When I shall cease to be all alone,

To live forgotten, and love forlorn”.[13]

[1] 1833 From her warm brow and bosom down.

[2] 1833. On either side.

[3] Compare Keats, _Eve of St. Agnes_, “her maiden eyes divine”.

[4] 1833. “Madonna,” with melodious moan Sang Mariana, etc.

[5] 1833. When the dawncrimson changed.

[6] 1833.

Unto our Lady prayed she.

She moved her lips, she prayed alone,

She praying disarrayed and warm

From slumber, deep her wavy form

In the dark-lustrous mirror shone.

“Madonna,” in a low clear tone

Said Mariana, night and morn,

Low she mourned, “I am all alone,

Love-forgotten, and love-forlorn”.

[7] 1833.

At noon she slumbered. All along

The silvery field, the large leaves talked

With one another, as among

The spikèd maize in dreams she walked.

The lizard leapt: the sunlight played:

She heard the callow nestling lisp,

And brimful meadow-runnels crisp.

In the full-leavèd platan-shade.

In sleep she breathed in a lower tone,

Murmuring as at night and morn,

“Madonna! lo! I am all alone.

Love-forgotten and love-forlorn”.

[8] 1835. Most false: he was and was not there.

[9] 1833. The sick olive. So the text remained till 1850, when “one”

was substituted.

[10] 1833.

From the bald rock the blinding light

Beat ever on the sunwhite wall.

[11] 1833.

“Madonna, leave me not all alone,

To die forgotten and live forlorn.”

[12] This stanza and the next not in 1833.

[13] 1833.

One dry cicala’s summer song

At night filled all the gallery.

Ever the low wave seemed to roll

Up to the coast: far on, alone

In the East, large Hesper overshone

The mourning gulf, and on her soul

Poured divine solace, or the rise

Of moonlight from the margin gleamed,

Volcano-like, afar, and streamed

On her white arm, and heavenward eyes.

Not all alone she made her moan,

Yet ever sang she, night and morn,

“Madonna! lo! I am all alone,

Love-forgotten and love-forlorn”.

Eleänore

First printed in 1833. When reprinted in 1842 the alterations noted

were then made, and after that the text remained unchanged.

1

Thy dark eyes open’d not,

Nor first reveal’d themselves to English air,

For there is nothing here,

Which, from the outward to the inward brought,

Moulded thy baby thought.

Far off from human neighbourhood,

Thou wert born, on a summer morn,

A mile beneath the cedar-wood.

Thy bounteous forehead was not fann’d

With breezes from our oaken glades,

But thou wert nursed in some delicious land

Of lavish lights, and floating shades:

And flattering thy childish thought

The oriental fairy brought,

At the moment of thy birth,

From old well-heads of haunted rills,

And the hearts of purple hills,

And shadow’d coves on a sunny shore,

The choicest wealth of all the earth,

Jewel or shell, or starry ore,

To deck thy cradle, Eleänore.[1]

2

Or the yellow-banded bees,[2]

Thro’[3] half-open lattices

Coming in the scented breeze,

Fed thee, a child, lying alone,

With whitest honey in fairy gardens cull’d—

A glorious child, dreaming alone,

In silk-soft folds, upon yielding down,

With the hum of swarming bees

Into dreamful slumber lull’d.

3

Who may minister to thee?

Summer herself should minister

To thee, with fruitage golden-rinded

On golden salvers, or it may be,

Youngest Autumn, in a bower

Grape-thicken’d from the light, and blinded

With many a deep-hued bell-like flower

Of fragrant trailers, when the air

Sleepeth over all the heaven,

And the crag that fronts the Even,

All along the shadowing shore,

Crimsons over an inland[4] mere,[5]

Eleänore!

4

How may full-sail’d verse express,

How may measured words adore

The full-flowing harmony

Of thy swan-like stateliness,

Eleänore?

The luxuriant symmetry

Of thy floating gracefulness,

Eleänore?

Every turn and glance of thine,

Every lineament divine,

Eleänore,

And the steady sunset glow,

That stays upon thee? For in thee

Is nothing sudden, nothing single;

Like two streams of incense free

From one censer, in one shrine,

Thought and motion mingle,

Mingle ever. Motions flow

To one another, even as tho’[6]

They were modulated so

To an unheard melody,

Which lives about thee, and a sweep

Of richest pauses, evermore

Drawn from each other mellow-deep;

Who may express thee, Eleänore?

5

I stand before thee, Eleänore;

I see thy beauty gradually unfold,

Daily and hourly, more and more.

I muse, as in a trance, the while

Slowly, as from a cloud of gold,

Comes out thy deep ambrosial smile.[7] I muse, as in a trance, whene’er

The languors of thy love-deep eyes

Float on to me. _I_ would _I_ were

So tranced, so rapt in ecstacies,

To stand apart, and to adore,

Gazing on thee for evermore,

Serene, imperial Eleänore!

6

Sometimes, with most intensity

Gazing, I seem to see

Thought folded over thought, smiling asleep,

Slowly awaken’d, grow so full and deep

In thy large eyes, that, overpower’d quite,

I cannot veil, or droop my sight,

But am as nothing in its light:

As tho’[8] a star, in inmost heaven set,

Ev’n while we gaze on it,

Should slowly round his orb, and slowly grow

To a full face, there like a sun remain

Fix’d—then as slowly fade again,

And draw itself to what it was before;

So full, so deep, so slow,

Thought seems to come and go

In thy large eyes, imperial Eleänore.

7

As thunder-clouds that, hung on high,

Roof’d the world with doubt and fear,[9]

Floating thro’ an evening atmosphere,

Grow golden all about the sky;

In thee all passion becomes passionless,

Touch’d by thy spirit’s mellowness,

Losing his fire and active might

In a silent meditation,

Falling into a still delight,

And luxury of contemplation:

As waves that up a quiet cove

Rolling slide, and lying still

Shadow forth the banks at will:[10]

Or sometimes they swell and move,

Pressing up against the land,

With motions of the outer sea:

And the self-same influence

Controlleth all the soul and sense

Of Passion gazing upon thee.

His bow-string slacken’d, languid Love,

Leaning his cheek upon his hand,[11]

Droops both his wings, regarding thee,

And so would languish evermore,

Serene, imperial Eleänore.

8

But when I see thee roam, with tresses unconfined,

While the amorous, odorous wind

Breathes low between the sunset and the moon;

Or, in a shadowy saloon,

On silken cushions half reclined;

I watch thy grace; and in its place

My heart a charmed slumber keeps,[12]

While I muse upon thy face;

And a languid fire creeps

Thro’ my veins to all my frame,

Dissolvingly and slowly: soon

From thy rose-red lips MY name

Floweth; and then, as in a swoon,[13]

With dinning sound my ears are rife,

My tremulous tongue faltereth,

I lose my colour, I lose my breath,

I drink the cup of a costly death,

Brimm’d with delirious draughts of warmest life.

I die with my delight, before

I hear what I would hear from thee;

Yet tell my name again to me,

I _would_[14] be dying evermore,

So dying ever, Eleänore.

[1] With the picture of Eleänore may be compared the description which

Ibycus gives of Euryalus. See Bergk’s _Anthologia Lyrica_ (Ibycus), p.

396.

[2] With yellow banded bees _cf_. Keats’s “yellow girted bees,”

_Endymion_, i. With this may be compared Pindar’s beautiful picture of

lamus, who was also fed on honey, _Olympian_, vi., 50-80.

[3] 1833 and 1842. Through.

[4] Till 1857. Island.

[5] 1833. Meer.

[6] 1842 and 1843. Though.

[7] Ambrosial, the Greek sense of ἀμβρόσιος, divine.

[8] 1833 to 1851. Though.

[9] 1833. Did roof noonday with doubt and fear.

[10] 1833.

As waves that from the outer deep

Roll into a quiet cove,

There fall away, and lying still,

Having glorious dreams in sleep,

Shadow forth the banks at will.

[11] _Cf_. Horace, _Odes_, iii., xxvii., 66-8:

Aderat querenti

Perfidum ridens Venus, et _remisso_

Filius _arcu_.

[12] 1833.

I gaze on thee the cloudless noon

Of mortal beauty.

[13] 1833. Then I faint, I swoon. The latter part of the eighth stanza

is little more than an adaptation of Sappho’s famous Ode, filtered

perhaps through the version of Catullus.

[14] It is curious that a poet so scrupulous as Tennyson should have

retained to the last the italics.

The Miller’s Daughter

First published in 1833. It was greatly altered when republished in

1842, and in some respects, so Fitzgerald thought, not for the better.

No alterations of much importance were made in it after 1842. The

characters as well as the scenery were, it seems, purely imaginary.

Tennyson said that if he thought of any mill it was that of

Trumpington, near Cambridge, which bears a general resemblance to the

picture here given.

In the first edition the poem opened with the following stanza, which

the _Quarterly_ ridiculed, and which was afterwards excised. Its

omission is surely not to be regretted, whatever Fitzgerald may have

thought.

I met in all the close green ways,

While walking with my line and rod,

The wealthy miller’s mealy face,

Like the moon in an ivy-tod.

He looked so jolly and so good—

While fishing in the milldam-water,

I laughed to see him as he stood,

And dreamt not of the miller’s daughter.

I see the wealthy miller yet,

His double chin, his portly size,

And who that knew him could forget

The busy wrinkles round his eyes?

The slow wise smile that, round about

His dusty forehead drily curl’d,

Seem’d half-within and half-without,

And full of dealings with the world?

In yonder chair I see him sit,

Three fingers round the old silver cup—

I see his gray eyes twinkle yet

At his own jest—gray eyes lit up

With summer lightnings of a soul

So full of summer warmth, so glad,

So healthy, sound, and clear and whole,

His memory scarce can make me[1] sad.

Yet fill my glass: give me one kiss:

My own sweet[2] Alice, we must die.

There’s somewhat in this world amiss

Shall be unriddled by and by.

There’s somewhat flows to us in life,

But more is taken quite away.

Pray, Alice, pray, my darling wife,[3]

That we may die the self-same day.

Have I not found a happy earth?

I least should breathe a thought of pain.

Would God renew me from my birth

I’d almost live my life again.

So sweet it seems with thee to walk,

And once again to woo thee mine—

It seems in after-dinner talk

Across the walnuts and the wine—[4]

To be the long and listless boy

Late-left an orphan of the squire,

Where this old mansion mounted high

Looks down upon the village spire:[5]

For even here,[6] where I and you

Have lived and loved alone so long,

Each morn my sleep was broken thro’

By some wild skylark’s matin song.

And oft I heard the tender dove

In firry woodlands making moan;[7]

But ere I saw your eyes, my love,

I had no motion of my own.

For scarce my life with fancy play’d

Before I dream’d that pleasant dream—

Still hither thither idly sway’d

Like those long mosses[8] in the stream.

Or from the bridge I lean’d to hear

The milldam rushing down with noise,

And see the minnows everywhere

In crystal eddies glance and poise,

The tall flag-flowers when[9] they sprung

Below the range of stepping-stones,

Or those three chestnuts near, that hung

In masses thick with milky cones.[10]

But, Alice, what an hour was that,

When after roving in the woods

(’Twas April then), I came and sat

Below the chestnuts, when their buds

Were glistening to the breezy blue;

And on the slope, an absent fool,

I cast me down, nor thought of you,

But angled in the higher pool.[11]

A love-song I had somewhere read,

An echo from a measured strain,

Beat time to nothing in my head

From some odd corner of the brain.

It haunted me, the morning long,

With weary sameness in the rhymes,

The phantom of a silent song,

That went and came a thousand times.

Then leapt a trout. In lazy mood

I watch’d the little circles die;

They past into the level flood,

And there a vision caught my eye;

The reflex of a beauteous form,

A glowing arm, a gleaming neck,

As when a sunbeam wavers warm

Within the dark and dimpled beck.[12]

For you remember, you had set,

That morning, on the casement’s edge[13]

A long green box of mignonette,

And you were leaning from the ledge:

And when I raised my eyes, above

They met with two so full and bright—

Such eyes! I swear to you, my love,

That these have never lost their light.[14]

I loved, and love dispell’d the fear

That I should die an early death:

For love possess’d the atmosphere,

And filled the breast with purer breath.

My mother thought, What ails the boy?

For I was alter’d, and began

To move about the house with joy,

And with the certain step of man.

I loved the brimming wave that swam

Thro’ quiet meadows round the mill,

The sleepy pool above the dam,

The pool beneath it never still,

The meal-sacks on the whiten’d floor,

The dark round of the dripping wheel,

The very air about the door

Made misty with the floating meal.

And oft in ramblings on the wold,

When April nights begin to blow,

And April’s crescent glimmer’d cold,

I saw the village lights below;

I knew your taper far away,

And full at heart of trembling hope,

From off the wold I came, and lay

Upon the freshly-flower’d slope.[15]

The deep brook groan’d beneath the mill;

And “by that lamp,” I thought “she sits!”

The white chalk-quarry[16] from the hill

Gleam’d to the flying moon by fits.

“O that I were beside her now!

O will she answer if I call?

O would she give me vow for vow,

Sweet Alice, if I told her all?”[17]

Sometimes I saw you sit and spin;

And, in the pauses of the wind,

Sometimes I heard you sing within;

Sometimes your shadow cross’d the blind.

At last you rose and moved the light,

And the long shadow of the chair

Flitted across into the night,

And all the casement darken’d there.

But when at last I dared to speak,

The lanes, you know, were white with may,

Your ripe lips moved not, but your cheek

Flush’d like the coming of the day;[18]

And so it was—half-sly, half-shy,[19]

You would, and would not, little one!

Although I pleaded tenderly,

And you and I were all alone.

And slowly was my mother brought

To yield consent to my desire:

She wish’d me happy, but she thought

I might have look’d a little higher;

And I was young—too young to wed:

“Yet must I love her for your sake;

Go fetch your Alice here,” she said:

Her eyelid quiver’d as she spake.

And down I went to fetch my bride:

But, Alice, you were ill at ease;

This dress and that by turns you tried,

Too fearful that you should not please.

I loved you better for your fears,

I knew you could not look but well;

And dews, that would have fall’n in tears,

I kiss’d away before they fell.[20]

I watch’d the little flutterings,

The doubt my mother would not see;

She spoke at large of many things,

And at the last she spoke of me;

And turning look’d upon your face,

As near this door you sat apart,

And rose, and, with a silent grace

Approaching, press’d you heart to heart.[21]

Ah, well—but sing the foolish song

I gave you, Alice, on the day[22]

When, arm in arm, we went along,

A pensive pair, and you were gay,

With bridal flowers—that I may seem,

As in the nights of old, to lie

Beside the mill-wheel in the stream,

While those full chestnuts whisper by.[23]

It is the miller’s daughter,

And she is grown so dear, so dear,

That I would be the jewel

That trembles at[24] her ear:

For hid in ringlets day and night,

I’d touch her neck so warm and white.

And I would be the girdle

About her dainty, dainty waist,

And her heart would beat against me,

In sorrow and in rest:

And I should know if it beat right,

I’d clasp it round so close and tight.[25]

And I would be the necklace,

And all day long to fall and rise[26]

Upon her balmy bosom,

With her laughter or her sighs,

And I would lie so light, so light,[27]

I scarce should be[28] unclasp’d at night.

A trifle, sweet! which true love spells

True love interprets—right alone.

His light upon the letter dwells,

For all the spirit is his own.[29]

So, if I waste words now, in truth

You must blame Love. His early rage

Had force to make me rhyme in youth

And makes me talk too much in age.[30]

And now those vivid hours are gone,

Like mine own life to me thou art,

Where Past and Present, wound in one,

Do make a garland for the heart:

So sing[31] that other song I made,

Half anger’d with my happy lot,

The day, when in the chestnut shade

I found the blue Forget-me-not.[32]

Love that hath us in the net,[33]

Can he pass, and we forget?

Many suns arise and set.

Many a chance the years beget.

Love the gift is Love the debt.

Even so.

Love is hurt with jar and fret.

Love is made a vague regret.

Eyes with idle tears are wet.

Idle habit links us yet.

What is love? for we forget:

Ah, no! no![34]

Look thro’ mine eyes with thine. True wife,

Round my true heart thine arms entwine;

My other dearer life in life,

Look thro’ my very soul with thine!

Untouch’d with any shade of years,

May those kind eyes for ever dwell!

They have not shed a many tears,

Dear eyes, since first I knew them well.

Yet tears they shed: they had their part

Of sorrow: for when time was ripe,

The still affection of the heart

Became an outward breathing type,

That into stillness past again,

And left a want unknown before;

Although the loss that brought us pain,

That loss but made us love the more.

With farther lookings on. The kiss,

The woven arms, seem but to be

Weak symbols of the settled bliss,

The comfort, I have found in thee:

But that God bless thee, dear—who wrought

Two spirits to one equal mind—

With blessings beyond hope or thought,

With blessings which no words can find.

Arise, and let us wander forth,

To yon old mill across the wolds;

For look, the sunset, south and north,[35]

Winds all the vale in rosy folds,

And fires your narrow casement glass,

Touching the sullen pool below:

On the chalk-hill the bearded grass

Is dry and dewless. Let us go.

[1] 1833. Scarce makes me.

[2] 1833. Darling.

[3] 1833. Own sweet wife.

[4] This stanza was added in 1842.

[5] 1833.

My father’s mansion, mounted high

Looked down upon the village spire.

I was a long and listless boy,

And son and heir unto the squire.

[6] 1833. In these dear walls.

[7] 1833.

I often heard the cooing dove

In firry woodlands mourn alone.

[8] 1833. The long mosses.

[9] 1842-1851. Where.

[10] This stanza was added in 1842, taking the place of the following

which was excised:—

Sometimes I whistled in the wind,

Sometimes I angled, thought and deed

Torpid, as swallows left behind

That winter ’neath the floating weed:

At will to wander every way

From brook to brook my sole delight,

As lithe eels over meadows gray

Oft shift their glimmering pool by night.

In 1833 this stanza ran thus:—

I loved from off the bridge to hear

The rushing sound the water made,

And see the fish that everywhere

In the back-current glanced and played;

Low down the tall flag-flower that sprung

Beside the noisy stepping-stones,

And the massed chestnut boughs that hung

Thick-studded over with white cones,

[11] In 1833 the following took the place of the above stanza which

was added in 1842:—

How dear to me in youth, my love,

Was everything about the mill,

The black and silent pool above,

The pool beneath that ne’er stood still,

The meal sacks on the whitened floor,

The dark round of the dripping wheel,

The very air about the door—

Made misty with the floating meal!

Thus in 1833:—

Remember you that pleasant day

When, after roving in the woods,

(’Twas April then) I came and lay

Beneath those gummy chestnut bud

That glistened in the April blue,

Upon the slope so smooth and cool,

I lay and never thought of _you_,

But angled in the deep mill pool.

[12] Thus in 1833:—

A water-rat from off the bank

Plunged in the stream. With idle care,

Downlooking thro’ the sedges rank,

I saw your troubled image there.

Upon the dark and dimpled beck

It wandered like a floating light,

A full fair form, a warm white neck,

And two white arms—how rosy white!

[13] 1872. Casement-edge.

[14] Thus in 1833:—

If you remember, you had set

Upon the narrow casement-edge

A long green box of mignonette,

And you were leaning from the ledge.

I raised my eyes at once: above

They met two eyes so blue and bright,

Such eyes! I swear to you, my love,

That they have never lost their light.

After this stanza the following was inserted in 1833 but excised in

1842:—

That slope beneath the chestnut tall

Is wooed with choicest breaths of air:

Methinks that I could tell you all

The cowslips and the kingcups there.

Each coltsfoot down the grassy bent,

Whose round leaves hold the gathered shower,

Each quaintly-folded cuckoo pint,

And silver-paly cuckoo flower.

[15] Thus in 1833:—

In rambling on the eastern wold,

When thro’ the showery April nights

Their hueless crescent glimmered cold,

From all the other village lights

I knew your taper far away.

My heart was full of trembling hope,

Down from the wold I came and lay

Upon the dewy-swarded slope.

[16] Mr. Cuming Walters in his interesting volume _In Tennyson Land_,

p. 75, notices that the white chalk quarry at Thetford can be seen

from Stockworth Mill, which seems to show that if Tennyson did take

the mill from Trumpington he must also have had his mind on Thetford

Mill. Tennyson seems to have taken delight in baffling those who

wished to localise his scenes. He went out of his way to say that the

topographical studies of Messrs. Church and Napier were the only ones

which could be relied upon. But Mr. Cuming Walters’ book is far more

satisfactory than their thin studies.

[17] Thus in 1833:—

The white chalk quarry from the hill

Upon the broken ripple gleamed,

I murmured lowly, sitting still,

While round my feet the eddy streamed:

“Oh! that I were the wreath she wreathes,

The mirror where her sight she feeds,

The song she sings, the air she breathes,

The letters of the books she reads”.

[18] 1833.

I loved, but when I dared to speak

My love, the lanes were white with May

Your ripe lips moved not, but your cheek

Flushed like the coming of the day.

[19] 1833. Rosecheekt, roselipt, half-sly, half-shy.

[20] Cf. Milton, _Paradise Lost_;—

Two other precious drops that ready stood

He, ere they fell, kiss’d.

[21] These three stanzas were added in 1842, the following being

excised:—

Remember you the clear moonlight,

That whitened all the eastern ridge,

When o’er the water, dancing white,

I stepped upon the old mill-bridge.

I heard you whisper from above

A lute-toned whisper, “I am here”;

I murmured, “Speak again, my love,

The stream is loud: I cannot hear”.

I heard, as I have seemed to hear,

When all the under-air was still,

The low voice of the glad new year

Call to the freshly-flowered hill.

I heard, as I have often heard

The nightingale in leavy woods

Call to its mate, when nothing stirred

To left or right but falling floods.

[22] 1842. I gave you on the joyful day.

[23] In 1833 the following stanza took the place of the one here

substituted in 1842:—

Come, Alice, sing to me the song

I made you on our marriage day,

When, arm in arm, we went along

Half-tearfully, and you were gay

With brooch and ring: for I shall seem,

The while you sing that song, to hear

The mill-wheel turning in the stream,

And the green chestnut whisper near.

In 1833 the song began thus, the present stanza taking its place in

1842:—

I wish I were her earring,

Ambushed in auburn ringlets sleek,

(So might my shadow tremble

Over her downy cheek),

Hid in her hair, all day and night,

Touching her neck so warm and white.

[24] 1872. In.

[25] 1833.

I wish I were the girdle

Buckled about her dainty waist,

That her heart might beat against me,

In sorrow and in rest.

I should know well if it beat right,

I’d clasp it round so close and tight.

This stanza bears so close a resemblance to a stanza in Joshua

Sylvester’s _Woodman’s Bear_ (see Sylvester’s _Works_, ed. 1641, p.

616) that a correspondent asked Tennyson whether Sylvester had

suggested it. Tennyson replied that he had never seen Sylvester’s lines

(_Life of Tennyson_, iii., 51). The lines are:—

But her slender virgin waste

Made mee beare her girdle spight

Which the same by day imbrac’t

Though it were cast off by night

That I wisht, I dare not say,

To be girdle night and day.

For other parallels see the present Editor’s _Illustrations of

Tennyson_, p. 39.

[26] 1833.

I wish I were her necklace,

So might I ever fall and rise.

[27] 1833. So warm and light.

[28] 1833. I would not be.

[29] 1833.

For o’er each letter broods and dwells,

(Like light from running waters thrown

On flowery swaths) the blissful flame

Of his sweet eyes, that, day and night,

With pulses thrilling thro’ his frame

Do inly tremble, starry bright.

[30] Thus in 1833:—

How I waste language—yet in truth

You must blame love, whose early rage

Made me a rhymster in my youth,

And over-garrulous in age.

[31] 1833. Sing me.

[32] 1833.

When in the breezy limewood-shade.

I found the blue forget-me-not.

[33] In 1833 the following song took the place of the song in the

text:—

All yesternight you met me not,

My ladylove, forget me not.

When I am gone, regret me not.

But, here or there, forget me not.

With your arched eyebrow threat me not,

And tremulous eyes, like April skies,

That seem to say, “forget me not,”

I pray you, love, forget me not.

In idle sorrow set me not;

Regret me not; forget me not;

Oh! leave me not: oh, let me not

Wear quite away;—forget me not.

With roguish laughter fret me not.

From dewy eyes, like April skies,

That ever _look_, “forget me not”.

Blue as the blue forget-me-not.

[34] These two stanzas were added in 1842.

[35] 1833.

I’ve half a mind to walk, my love,

To the old mill across the wolds

For look! the sunset from above,

Fatima

First printed in 1833.

The 1833 edition has no title but this quotation from Sappho prefixed:—

φαίνεταί μοι κῆνος ἴσος θεοῖσιν

Ἔμμεν ἀνήρ.—SAPPHO.

The title was prefixed in 1842; it is a name taken from _The Arabian

Nights_ or from the Moallâkat. The poem was evidently inspired by

Sappho’s great ode. _Cf._ also Fragment I. of Ibycus. In the intensity

of the passion it stands alone among Tennyson’s poems.

O Love, Love, Love! O withering might!

O sun, that from[1] thy noonday height

Shudderest when I strain my sight,

Throbbing thro’ all thy heat and light,

Lo, falling from my constant mind,

Lo, parch’d and wither’d, deaf and blind,

I whirl like leaves in roaring wind.

Last night I wasted hateful hours

Below the city’s eastern towers:

I thirsted for the brooks, the showers:

I roll’d among the tender flowers:

I crush’d them on my breast, my mouth:

I look’d athwart the burning drouth

Of that long desert to the south.[2]

Last night, when some one spoke his name,[3]

From my swift blood that went and came

A thousand little shafts of flame.

Were shiver’d in my narrow frame

O Love, O fire! once he drew

With one long kiss, my whole soul thro’

My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.[4]>

Before he mounts the hill, I know

He cometh quickly: from below

Sweet gales, as from deep gardens, blow

Before him, striking on my brow.

In my dry brain my spirit soon,

Down-deepening from swoon to swoon,

Faints like a dazzled morning moon.

The wind sounds like a silver wire,

And from beyond the noon a fire

Is pour’d upon the hills, and nigher

The skies stoop down in their desire;

And, isled in sudden seas of light,

My heart, pierced thro’ with fierce delight,

Bursts into blossom in his sight.

My whole soul waiting silently,

All naked in a sultry sky,

Droops blinded with his shining eye:

I _will_ possess him or will die.

I will grow round him in his place,

Grow, live, die looking on his face,

Die, dying clasp’d in his embrace.

[1] 1833. At.

[2] This stanza was added in 1842.

[3] _Cf._ Byron, _Occasional Pieces_:—

They name thee before me

A knell to mine ear,

A shudder comes o’er me,

Why wert thou so dear?

[4] _Cf,_ Achilles Tatius, _Clitophon and Leucippe_, bk. i., I: ἡδε

(ψυχή) ταραχθεῖσα τῷ φιλήματι πάλλεται, εἰ δὲ μὴ τοῖς σπλάγχνοις ἦν

δεδεμένη ἠκολούθησεν ἄν ἑλκυθεῖσα ἄνω τοῖς φιλήμασιν

(Her soul, distracted by the kiss, throbs, and had it not been close

bound by the flesh would have followed, drawn upward by the kisses.)

Œnone

First published in 1833, On being republished in 1842 this poem was

practically rewritten, the alterations and additions so transforming

the poem as to make it almost a new work. I have therefore printed a

complete transcript of the edition of 1833, which the reader can

compare. The final text is, with the exception of one alteration which

will be noticed, precisely that of 1842, so there is no trouble with

variants. _Œnone_ is the first of Tennyson’s fine classical studies.

The poem is modelled partly on the Alexandrian Idyll, such an Idyll for

instance as the second Idyll of Theocritus or the _Megara_ or _Europa_

of Moschus, and partly perhaps on the narratives in the _Metamorphoses_

of Ovid, to which the opening bears a typical resemblance. It is

possible that the poem may have been suggested by Beattie’s _Judgment

of Paris_ which tells the same story, and tells it on the same lines on

which it is told here, though it is not placed in the mouth of Œnone.

Beattie’s poem opens with an elaborate description of Ida and of Troy

in the distance. Paris, the husband of Œnone, is one afternoon

confronted with the three goddesses who are, as in Tennyson’s Idyll,

elaborately delineated as symbolising what they here symbolise. Each

makes her speech and each offers what she has to offer, worldly

dominion, wisdom, sensual pleasure. There is, of course, no comparison

in point of merit between the two poems, Beattie’s being in truth

perfectly commonplace. In its symbolic aspect the poem may be compared

with the temptations to which Christ is submitted in _Paradise

Regained_. See books iii. and iv.

There lies a vale in Ida, lovelier[1]

Than all the valleys of Ionian hills.

The swimming vapour slopes athwart the glen,

Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine,

And loiters, slowly drawn. On either hand

The lawns and meadow-ledges midway down

Hang rich in flowers, and far below them roars

The long brook falling thro’ the clov’n ravine

In cataract after cataract to the sea.

Behind the valley topmost Gargarus[2]>

Stands up and takes the morning: but in front

The gorges, opening wide apart, reveal

Troas and Ilion’s column’d citadel,

The crown of Troas.

Hither came at noon

Mournful Œnone, wandering forlorn

Of Paris, once her playmate on the hills.

Her cheek had lost the rose, and round her neck

Floated her hair or seem’d to float in rest.

She, leaning on a fragment twined with vine,

Sang to the stillness, till the mountain-shade

Sloped downward to her seat from the upper cliff.

“O mother Ida, many-fountain’d[3] Ida,

Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.

For now the noonday quiet holds the hill:[4]

The grasshopper is silent in the grass;

The lizard, with his shadow on the stone,[5]

Rests like a shadow, and the cicala sleeps.[6]

The purple flowers droop: the golden bee

Is lily-cradled: I alone awake.

My eyes are full of tears, my heart of love,

My heart is breaking, and my eyes are dim,[7]

And I am all aweary of my life.

“O mother Ida, many-fountain’d Ida,

Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.

Hear me O Earth, hear me O Hills, O Caves

That house the cold crown’d snake! O mountain brooks,

I am the daughter of a River-God,[8]

Hear me, for I will speak, and build up all

My sorrow with my song, as yonder walls

Rose slowly to a music slowly breathed,[9]

A cloud that gather’d shape: for it may be

That, while I speak of it, a little while

My heart may wander from its deeper woe.

“O mother Ida, many-fountain’d Ida,

Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.

I waited underneath the dawning hills,

Aloft the mountain lawn was dewy-dark,

And dewy-dark aloft the mountain pine:

Beautiful Paris, evil-hearted Paris,

Leading a jet-black goat white-horn’d, white-hooved,

Came up from reedy Simois[10] all alone.

“O mother Ida, harken ere I die.

Far-off the torrent call’d me from the cleft:

Far up the solitary morning smote

The streaks of virgin snow. With down-dropt eyes

I sat alone: white-breasted like a star

Fronting the dawn he moved; a leopard skin

Droop’d from his shoulder, but his sunny hair

Cluster’d about his temples like a God’s;

And his cheek brighten’d as the foam-bow brightens

When the wind blows the foam, and all my heart

Went forth to embrace him coming ere he came.

“Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.

He smiled, and opening out his milk-white palm

Disclosed a fruit of pure Hesperian gold,

That smelt ambrosially, and while I look’d

And listen’d, the full-flowing river of speech

Came down upon my heart.

“‘My own Œnone,

Beautiful-brow’d Œnone, my own soul,

Behold this fruit, whose gleaming rind ingrav’n

“For the most fair,” would seem to award it thine,

As lovelier than whatever Oread haunt

The knolls of Ida, loveliest in all grace

Of movement, and the charm of married brows.’[11]

“Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.

He prest the blossom of his lips to mine,

And added ‘This was cast upon the board,

When all the full-faced presence of the Gods

Ranged in the halls of Peleus; whereupon

Rose feud, with question unto whom ’twere due:

But light-foot Iris brought it yester-eve,

Delivering, that to me, by common voice

Elected umpire, Herè comes to-day,

Pallas and Aphrodite, claiming each

This meed of fairest. Thou, within the cave

Behind yon whispering tuft of oldest pine,

Mayst well behold them unbeheld, unheard

Hear all, and see thy Paris judge of Gods.’

“Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.

It was the deep midnoon: one silvery cloud

Had lost his way between the piney sides

Of this long glen. Then to the bower they came,

Naked they came to that smooth-swarded bower,

And at their feet the crocus brake like fire,[12]

Violet, amaracus, and asphodel,

Lotos and lilies: and a wind arose,

And overhead the wandering ivy and vine,

This way and that, in many a wild festoon

Ran riot, garlanding the gnarled boughs

With bunch and berry and flower thro’ and thro’.

“O mother Ida, harken ere I die.

On the tree-tops a crested peacock lit,

And o’er him flow’d a golden cloud, and lean’d

Upon him, slowing dropping fragrant dew.

Then first I heard the voice of her, to whom

Coming thro’ Heaven, like a light that grows

Larger and clearer, with one mind the Gods

Rise up for reverence. She to Paris made

Proffer of royal power, ample rule

Unquestion’d, overflowing revenue

Wherewith to embellish state, ‘from many a vale

And river-sunder’d champaign clothed with corn,

Or labour’d mines undrainable of ore.

Honour,’ she said, ‘and homage, tax and toll,

From many an inland town and haven large,

Mast-throng’d beneath her shadowing citadel

In glassy bays among her tallest towers.’

“O mother Ida, harken ere I die.

Still she spake on and still she spake of power,

‘Which in all action is the end of all;

Power fitted to the season; wisdom-bred

And throned of wisdom—from all neighbour crowns

Alliance and allegiance, till thy hand

Fail from the sceptre staff. Such boon from me,

From me, Heaven’s Queen, Paris to thee king-born,

A shepherd all thy life but yet king-born,

Should come most welcome, seeing men, in power

Only, are likest gods, who have attain’d

Rest in a happy place and quiet seats

Above the thunder, with undying bliss

In knowledge of their own supremacy.’

“Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.

She ceased, and Paris held the costly fruit

Out at arm’s-length, so much the thought of power

Flatter’d his spirit; but Pallas where she stood

Somewhat apart, her clear and bared limbs

O’erthwarted with the brazen-headed spear

Upon her pearly shoulder leaning cold,

The while, above, her full and earnesteye

Over her snow-cold breast and angry cheek[13]

Kept watch, waiting decision, made reply.

“‘Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control,

These three alone lead life to sovereign power.

Yet not for power, (power of herself

Would come uncall’d for) but to live by law,

Acting the law we live by without fear;

And, because right is right, to follow right[14]

Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence.’

“Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.

Again she said: ‘I woo thee not with gifts.

Sequel of guerdon could not alter me

To fairer. Judge thou me by what I am,

So shalt thou find me fairest.

Yet indeed,

If gazing on divinity disrobed

Thy mortal eyes are frail to judge of fair,

Unbiass’d by self-profit, oh! rest thee sure

That I shall love thee well and cleave to thee,

So that my vigour, wedded to thy blood,[15]

Shall strike within thy pulses, like a God’s,

To push thee forward thro’ a life of shocks,

Dangers, and deeds, until endurance grow

Sinew’d with action, and the full-grown will.

Circled thro’ all experiences, pure law,

Commeasure perfect freedom.’

“Here she ceased,

And Paris ponder’d, and I cried, ‘O Paris,

Give it to Pallas!’ but he heard me not,

Or hearing would not hear me, woe is me!

“O mother Ida, many-fountain’d Ida.

Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.

Idalian Aphrodite, beautiful,

Fresh as the foam, new-bathed in Paphian[16] wells,

With rosy slender fingers backward drew

From her warm brows and bosom[17] her deep hair

Ambrosial, golden round her lucid throat

And shoulder: from the violets her light foot

Shone rosy-white, and o’er her rounded form

Between the shadows of the vine-bunches

Floated the glowing sunlights, as she moved.

“Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.

She with a subtle smile in her mild eyes,

The herald of her triumph, drawing nigh

Half-whisper’d in his ear, ‘I promise thee

The fairest and most loving wife in Greece’.

She spoke and laugh’d: I shut my sight for fear:

But when I look’d, Paris had raised his arm,

And I beheld great Herè’s angry eyes,

As she withdrew into the golden cloud,

And I was left alone within the bower;

And from that time to this I am alone,

And I shall be alone until I die.

“Yet, mother Ida, harken ere I die.

Fairest—why fairest wife? am I not fair?

My love hath told me so a thousand times.

Methinks I must be fair, for yesterday,

When I past by, a wild and wanton pard,

Eyed like the evening star, with playful tail

Crouch’d fawning in the weed. Most loving is she?

Ah me, my mountain shepherd, that my arms

Were wound about thee, and my hot lips prest

Close, close to thine in that quick-falling dew

Of fruitful kisses, thick as Autumn rains

Flash in the pools of whirling Simois.

“O mother, hear me yet before I die.

They came, they cut away my tallest pines,

My dark tall pines, that plumed the craggy ledge

High over the blue gorge, and all between

The snowy peak and snow-white cataract

Foster’d the callow eaglet—from beneath

Whose thick mysterious boughs in the dark morn

The panther’s roar came muffled, while I sat

Low in the valley. Never, never more

Shall lone Œnone see the morning mist

Sweep thro’ them; never see them overlaid

With narrow moon-lit slips of silver cloud,

Between the loud stream and the trembling stars.

“O mother, here me yet before I die.

I wish that somewhere in the ruin’d folds,

Among the fragments tumbled from the glens,

Or the dry thickets, I could meet with her,

The Abominable,[18] that uninvited came

Into the fair Peleïan banquet-hall,

And cast the golden fruit upon the board,

And bred this change; that I might speak my mind,

And tell her to her face how much I hate

Her presence, hated both of Gods and men.

“O mother, here me yet before I die.

Hath he not sworn his love a thousand times,

In this green valley, under this green hill,

Ev’n on this hand, and sitting on this stone?

Seal’d it with kisses? water’d it with tears?

O happy tears, and how unlike to these!

O happy Heaven, how canst thou see my face?

O happy earth, how canst thou bear my weight?

O death, death, death, thou ever-floating cloud,

There are enough unhappy on this earth,

Pass by the happy souls, that love to live:

I pray thee, pass before my light of life,

And shadow all my soul, that I may die.

Thou weighest heavy on the heart within,

Weigh heavy on my eyelids: let me die.

“O mother, hear me yet before I die.

I will not die alone, for fiery thoughts

Do shape themselves within me, more and more,

Whereof I catch the issue, as I hear

Dead sounds at night come from the inmost hills,

Like footsteps upon wool. I dimly see

My far-off doubtful purpose, as a mother

Conjectures of the features of her child

Ere it is born: her child!—a shudder comes

Across me: never child be born of me,

Unblest, to vex me with his father’s eyes!

“O mother, hear me yet before I die.

Hear me, O earth. I will not die alone,

Lest their shrill happy laughter come to me

Walking the cold and starless road of Death

Uncomforted, leaving my ancient love

With the Greek woman.[19] I will rise and go

Down into Troy, and ere the stars come forth

Talk with the wild Cassandra,[20] for she says

A fire dances before her, and a sound

Rings ever in her ears of armed men.

What this may be I know not, but I know

That, wheresoe’er I am by night and day,

All earth and air seem only burning fire.”

1833

There is a dale in Ida, lovelier

Than any in old Ionia, beautiful

With emerald slopes of sunny sward, that lean

Above the loud glenriver, which hath worn

A path thro’ steepdown granite walls below

Mantled with flowering tendriltwine. In front

The cedarshadowy valleys open wide.

Far-seen, high over all the God-built wall

And many a snowycolumned range divine,

Mounted with awful sculptures—men and Gods,

The work of Gods—bright on the dark-blue sky

The windy citadel of Ilion

Shone, like the crown of Troas. Hither came

Mournful Œnone wandering forlorn

Of Paris, once her playmate. Round her neck,

Her neck all marblewhite and marblecold,

Floated her hair or seemed to float in rest.

She, leaning on a vine-entwinèd stone,

Sang to the stillness, till the mountain-shadow

Sloped downward to her seat from the upper cliff.

“O mother Ida, manyfountained Ida,

Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.

The grasshopper is silent in the grass,

The lizard with his shadow on the stone

Sleeps like a shadow, and the scarletwinged[21]

Cicala in the noonday leapeth not

Along the water-rounded granite-rock.

The purple flower droops: the golden bee

Is lilycradled: I alone awake.

My eyes are full of tears, my heart of love,

My heart is breaking and my eyes are dim,

And I am all aweary of my life.

“O mother Ida, manyfountained Ida,

Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.

Hear me O Earth, hear me O Hills, O Caves

That house the cold crowned snake! O mountain brooks,

I am the daughter of a River-God,

Hear me, for I will speak, and build up all

My sorrow with my song, as yonder walls

Rose slowly to a music slowly breathed,

A cloud that gathered shape: for it may be

That, while I speak of it, a little while

My heart may wander from its deeper woe.

“O mother Ida, manyfountained Ida,

Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.

Aloft the mountain lawn was dewydark,

And dewydark aloft the mountain pine;

Beautiful Paris, evil-hearted Paris,

Leading a jetblack goat whitehorned, whitehooved,

Came up from reedy Simois all alone.

“O mother Ida, hearken ere I die.

I sate alone: the goldensandalled morn

Rosehued the scornful hills: I sate alone

With downdropt eyes: white-breasted like a star

Fronting the dawn he came: a leopard skin

From his white shoulder drooped: his sunny hair

Clustered about his temples like a God’s:

And his cheek brightened, as the foambow brightens

When the wind blows the foam; and I called out,

‘Welcome Apollo, welcome home Apollo,

Apollo, my Apollo, loved Apollo’.

“Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.

He, mildly smiling, in his milk-white palm

Close-held a golden apple, lightningbright

With changeful flashes, dropt with dew of Heaven

Ambrosially smelling. From his lip,

Curved crimson, the full-flowing river of speech

Came down upon my heart.

“‘My own Œnone,

Beautifulbrowed Œnone, mine own soul,

Behold this fruit, whose gleaming rind ingrav’n

“For the most fair,” in aftertime may breed

Deep evilwilledness of heaven and sore

Heartburning toward hallowed Ilion;

And all the colour of my afterlife

Will be the shadow of to-day. To-day

Herè and Pallas and the floating grace

Of laughter-loving Aphrodite meet

In manyfolded Ida to receive

This meed of beauty, she to whom my hand

Award the palm. Within the green hillside,

Under yon whispering tuft of oldest pine,

Is an ingoing grotto, strown with spar

And ivymatted at the mouth, wherein

Thou unbeholden may’st behold, unheard

Hear all, and see thy Paris judge of Gods.’

“Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.

It was the deep midnoon: one silvery cloud

Had lost his way between the piney hills.

They came—all three—the Olympian goddesses.

Naked they came to the smoothswarded bower,

Lustrous with lilyflower, violeteyed

Both white and blue, with lotetree-fruit thickset,

Shadowed with singing-pine; and all the while,

Above, the overwandering ivy and vine

This way and that in many a wild festoon

Ran riot, garlanding the gnarled boughs

With bunch and berry and flower thro’ and thro’.

On the treetops a golden glorious cloud

Leaned, slowly dropping down ambrosial dew.

How beautiful they were, too beautiful

To look upon! but Paris was to me

More lovelier than all the world beside.

“O mother Ida, hearken ere I die.

First spake the imperial Olympian

With archèd eyebrow smiling sovranly,

Fulleyèd here. She to Paris made

Proffer of royal power, ample rule

Unquestioned, overflowing revenue

Wherewith to embellish state, ‘from many a vale

And river-sundered champaign clothed with corn,

Or upland glebe wealthy in oil and wine—

Honour and homage, tribute, tax and toll,

From many an inland town and haven large,

Mast-thronged below her shadowing citadel

In glassy bays among her tallest towers.’

“O mother Ida, hearken ere I die.

Still she spake on and still she spake of power

‘Which in all action is the end of all.

Power fitted to the season, measured by

The height of the general feeling, wisdomborn

And throned of wisdom—from all neighbour crowns

Alliance and allegiance evermore. Such boon from me

Heaven’s Queen to thee kingborn,

A shepherd all thy life and yet kingborn,

Should come most welcome, seeing men, in this

Only are likest gods, who have attained

Rest in a happy place and quiet seats

Above the thunder, with undying bliss

In knowledge of their own supremacy;

The changeless calm of undisputed right,

The highest height and topmost strength of power.’

“Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.

She ceased, and Paris held the costly fruit

Out at arm’s length, so much the thought of power

Flattered his heart: but Pallas where she stood

Somewhat apart, her clear and barèd limbs

O’erthwarted with the brazen-headed spear

Upon her pearly shoulder leaning cold;

The while, above, her full and earnest eye

Over her snowcold breast and angry cheek

Kept watch, waiting decision, made reply.

“‘Selfreverence, selfknowledge, selfcontrol

Are the three hinges of the gates of Life,

That open into power, everyway

Without horizon, bound or shadow or cloud.

Yet not for power (power of herself

Will come uncalled-for) but to live by law

Acting the law we live by without fear,

And, because right is right, to follow right

Were wisdom, in the scorn of consequence.

(Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.)

Not as men value gold because it tricks

And blazons outward Life with ornament,

But rather as the miser, for itself.

Good for selfgood doth half destroy selfgood.

The means and end, like two coiled snakes, infect

Each other, bound in one with hateful love.

So both into the fountain and the stream

A drop of poison falls. Come hearken to me,

And look upon me and consider me,

So shall thou find me fairest, so endurance,

Like to an athlete’s arm, shall still become

Sinewed with motion, till thine active will

(As the dark body of the Sun robed round

With his own ever-emanating lights)

Be flooded o’er with her own effluences,

And thereby grow to freedom.’

“Here she ceased

And Paris pondered. I cried out, ‘Oh, Paris,

Give it to Pallas!’ but he heard me not,

Or hearing would not hear me, woe is me!

“O mother Ida, manyfountained Ida,

Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.

Idalian Aphrodite oceanborn,

Fresh as the foam, newbathed in Paphian wells,

With rosy slender fingers upward drew

From her warm brow and bosom her dark hair

Fragrant and thick, and on her head upbound

In a purple band: below her lucid neck

Shone ivorylike, and from the ground her foot

Gleamed rosywhite, and o’er her rounded form

Between the shadows of the vine-bunches

Floated the glowing sunlights, as she moved.

“Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.

She with a subtle smile in her mild eyes,

The herald of her triumph, drawing nigh

Half-whispered in his ear, ‘I promise thee

The fairest and most loving wife in Greece’.

I only saw my Paris raise his arm:

I only saw great Herè’s angry eyes,

As she withdrew into the golden cloud,

And I was left alone within the bower;

And from that time to this I am alone.

And I shall be alone until I die.

“Yet, mother Ida, hearken ere I die.

Fairest—why fairest wife? am I not fair?

My love hath told me so a thousand times.

Methinks I must be fair, for yesterday,

When I passed by, a wild and wanton pard,

Eyed like the evening star, with playful tail

Crouched fawning in the weed. Most loving is she?

Ah me, my mountain shepherd, that my arms

Were wound about thee, and my hot lips prest

Close-close to thine in that quickfalling dew

Of fruitful kisses, thick as Autumn rains

Flash in the pools of whirling Simois.

“Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.

They came, they cut away my tallest pines—

My dark tall pines, that plumed the craggy ledge

High over the blue gorge, or lower down

Filling greengulphèd Ida, all between

The snowy peak and snowwhite cataract

Fostered the callow eaglet—from beneath

Whose thick mysterious boughs in the dark

The panther’s roar came muffled, while I sat

Low in the valley. Never, nevermore

Shall lone Œnone see the morning mist

Sweep thro’ them—never see them overlaid

With narrow moon-lit slips of silver cloud,

Between the loud stream and the trembling stars.

“Oh! mother Ida, hearken ere I die.

Hath he not sworn his love a thousand times,

In this green valley, under this green hill,

Ev’n on this hand, and sitting on this stone?

Sealed it with kisses? watered it with tears?

Oh happy tears, and how unlike to these!

Oh happy Heaven, how can’st thou see my face?

Oh happy earth, how can’st thou bear my weight?

O death, death, death, thou ever-floating cloud,

There are enough unhappy on this earth,

Pass by the happy souls, that love to live:

I pray thee, pass before my light of life.

And shadow all my soul, that I may die.

Thou weighest heavy on the heart within,

Weigh heavy on my eyelids—let me die.

“Yet, mother Ida, hear me ere I die.

I will not die alone, for fiery thoughts

Do shape themselves within me, more and more,

Whereof I catch the issue, as I hear

Dead sounds at night come from the inmost hills,

Like footsteps upon wool. I dimly see

My far-off doubtful purpose, as a mother

Conjectures of the features of her child

Ere it is born. I will not die alone.

“Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.

Hear me, O earth. I will not die alone,

Lest their shrill, happy laughter, etc.

(Same as last stanza of subsequent editions.)

[1] Tennyson, as we learn from his _Life_ (vol. i., p. 83), began

_Œnone_ while he and Arthur Hallam were in Spain, whither they went

with money for the insurgent allies of Torrigos in the summer of 1830.

He wrote part of it in the valley of Cauteretz in the Pyrenees, the

picturesque beauty of which fascinated him and not only suggested the

scenery of this Idyll, but inspired many years afterwards the poem

_All along the valley_. The exquisite scene with which the Idyll opens

bears no resemblance at all to Mount Ida and the Troad.

[2] Gargarus or Gargaron is the highest peak of the Ida range, rising

about 4650 feet above the level of the sea.

[3] The epithet many-fountain’d πλπῖδαοξ is Homer’s stock epithet for

Ida. _Cf. Iliad_, viii., 47; xiv., 283, etc., etc.

[4] A literal translation from a line in Callimachus, _Lavacrum

Palladis_, 72: μεσαμβρινὴ δ’ ἔιχ’ ὅρος ἡσυχία (noonday quiet held the

hill).

[5] So Theocritus, _Idyll_, vii., 22:—

Ανίκα δὴ καὶ σαῦρος ἐφ’ αἱμασιᾶισι καθεύδει.

(When indeed the very lizard is sleeping on the loose stones of the

wall.)

[6] This extraordinary mistake in natural history (the cicala being of

course loudest in mid noonday when the heat is greatest) Tennyson

allowed to stand, till securing accuracy at the heavy price of a

pointless pleonasm, he substituted in 1884 “and the winds are dead”.

[7] An echo from _Henry VI._, part ii., act ii., se. iii.:—

Mine eyes arc full of tears, my heart of grief.

[8] Œnone was the daughter of the River-God Kebren.

[9] For the myth here referred to see Ovid, _Heroides_, xvi., 179-80:—

Ilion aspicies, firmataque turribus altis Moenia,

Phoeboeae; structa canore lyrae.

It was probably an application of the Theban legend of Amphion, and

arose from the association of Apollo with Poseidon in founding Troy.

A fabric huge _Rose like an exhalation,_

(Milton’s _Paradise Lost_, i., 710-11.)

_Cf. Gareth and Lynette_, 254-7.

[10] The river Simois, so often referred to in the _Iliad_, had its

origin in Mount Cotylus, and passing by Ilion joined the Scamander

below the city.

[11] _Cf._ the σύνοφρυς κόρα (the maid of the meeting brows) of

Theocritus, _Id._, viii., 72. This was considered a great beauty among

the Greeks, Romans and Orientals. Ovid, _Ars. Amat_., iii., 201,

speaks of women effecting this by art: “Arte, supercilii confinia nuda

repletis”.

[12] The whole of this gorgeous passage is taken, with one or two

additions and alterations in the names of the flowers, from _Iliad_,

xiv., 347-52, with a reminiscence no doubt of Milton, _Paradise Lost_,

iv., 695-702.

[13] The “_angry_ cheek” is a fine touch.

[14] This fine sentiment is, of course, a commonplace among ancient

philosophers, but it may be interesting to put beside it a passage

from Cicero, _De Finibus_, ii., 14, 45: “Honestum id intelligimus quod

tale est ut, detractâ omni utilitate, sine ullis præmiis fructibusve

per se ipsum possit jure laudari”. We are to understand by the truly

honourable that which, setting aside all consideration of utility, may

be rightly praised in itself, exclusive of any prospect of reward or

compensation.

[15] This passage is very obscurely expressed, but the general meaning

is clear: “Until endurance grow sinewed with action, and the

full-grown will, circled through all experiences grow or become law,

be identified with law, and commeasure perfect freedom”. The true

moral ideal is to bring the will into absolute harmony with law, so

that virtuous action becomes an instinct, the will no longer rebelling

against the law, “service” being in very truth “perfect freedom”.

[16] The Paphos referred to is the old Paphos which was sacred to

Aphrodite; it was on the south-west extremity of Cyprus.

[17] Adopted from a line excised in _Mariana in the South_. See

_supra_.

[18] This was Eris.

[19] Helen.

[20] With these verses should be compared Schiller’s fine lyric

_Kassandra_, and with the line, “All earth and air seem only burning

fire,” from Webster’s _Duchess of Malfi_:—

The heaven o’er my head seems made of molten brass,

The earth of flaming sulphur.

[21] In the Pyrenees, where part of this poem was written, I saw a

very beautiful species of Cicala, which had scarlet wings spotted with

black. Probably nothing of the kind exists in Mount Ida.

The Sisters

First published in 1833.

The only alterations which have been made in it since have simply

consisted in the alteration of “‘an’” for “and” in the third line of

each stanza, and “through and through” for “thro’ and thro’” in line

29, and “wrapt” for “wrapped” in line 34. It is curious that in 1842

the original “bad” was altered to “bade,” but all subsequent editions

keep to the original. It has been said that this poem was founded on

the old Scotch ballad “The Twa Sisters” (see for that ballad Sharpe’s

_Ballad Book_, No. x., p. 30), but there is no resemblance at all

between the ballad and this poem beyond the fact that in each there are

two sisters who are both loved by a certain squire, the elder in

jealousy pushing the younger into a river and drowning her.

We were two daughters of one race:

She was the fairest in the face:

The wind is blowing in turret and tree.

They were together and she fell;

Therefore revenge became me well.

O the Earl was fair to see!

She died: she went to burning flame:

She mix’d her ancient blood with shame.

The wind is howling in turret and tree.

Whole weeks and months, and early and late,

To win his love I lay in wait:

O the Earl was fair to see!

I made a feast; I bad him come;

I won his love, I brought him home.

The wind is roaring in turret and tree.

And after supper, on a bed,

Upon my lap he laid his head:

O the Earl was fair to see!

I kiss’d his eyelids into rest:

His ruddy cheek upon my breast.

The wind is raging in turret and tree.

I hated him with the hate of hell,

But I loved his beauty passing well.

O the Earl was fair to see!

I rose up in the silent night:

I made my dagger sharp and bright.

The wind is raving in turret and tree.

As half-asleep his breath he drew,

Three times I stabb’d him thro’ and thro’.

O the Earl was fair to see!

I curl’d and comb’d his comely head,

He look’d so grand when he was dead.

The wind is blowing in turret and tree.

I wrapt his body in the sheet,

And laid him at his mother’s feet.

O the Earl was fair to see!

To——

with the following poem.

I have not been able to ascertain to whom this dedication was

addressed. Sir Franklin Lushington tells me that he thinks it was an

imaginary person. The dedication explains the allegory intended. The

poem appears to have been suggested, as we learn from _Tennyson’s Life_

(vol. i., p. 150), by a remark of Trench to Tennyson when they were

undergraduates at Trinity: “We cannot live in art”. It was the

embodiment Tennyson added of his belief “that the God-like life is with

man and for man”. _Cf._ his own lines in _Love and Duty_:—

For a man is not as God,

But then most God-like being most a man.

It is a companion poem to the _Vision of Sin_; in that poem is traced

the effect of indulgence in the grosser pleasures of sense, in this the

effect of the indulgence in the more refined pleasures of sense.

I send you here a sort of allegory,

(For you will understand it) of a soul,[1]

A sinful soul possess’d of many gifts,

A spacious garden full of flowering weeds,

A glorious Devil, large in heart and brain,

That did love Beauty only, (Beauty seen

In all varieties of mould and mind)

And Knowledge for its beauty; or if Good,

Good only for its beauty, seeing not

That beauty, Good, and Knowledge, are three sisters

That doat upon each other, friends to man,

Living together under the same roof,

And never can be sunder’d without tears.

And he that shuts Love out, in turn shall be

Shut out from Love, and on her threshold lie

Howling in outer darkness. Not for this

Was common clay ta’en from the common earth,

Moulded by God, and temper’d with the tears

Of angels to the perfect shape of man.

[1] 1833.

I send you, Friend, a sort of allegory,

(You are an artist and will understand

Its many lesser meanings) of a soul.

The Palace of Art

First published in 1833, but altered so extensively on its

republication in 1842 as to be practically rewritten. The alterations

in it after 1842 were not numerous, consisting chiefly in the deletion

of two stanzas after line 192 and the insertion of the three stanzas

which follow in the present text, together with other minor verbal

corrections, all of which have been noted. No alterations were made in

the text after 1853. The allegory Tennyson explains in the dedicatory

verses, but the framework of the poem was evidently suggested by

_Ecclesiastes_ ii. 1-17. The position of the hero is precisely that of

Solomon. Both began by assuming that man is self-sufficing and the

world sufficient; the verdict of the one in consequence being “vanity

of vanities, all is vanity,” of the other what the poet here records.

An admirable commentary on the poem is afforded by Matthew Arnold’s

picture of the Romans before Christ taught the secret of the only real

happiness possible to man. See _Obermann Once More_. The teaching of

the poem has been admirably explained by Spedding. It “represents

allegorically the condition of a mind which, in the love of beauty and

the triumphant consciousness of knowledge and intellectual supremacy,

in the intense enjoyment of its own power and glory, has lost sight of

its relation to man and God”. See _Tennyson’s Life_, vol. i., p. 226.

I built my soul a lordly pleasure-house

Wherein at ease for aye to dwell.

I said, “O Soul, make merry and carouse,

Dear soul, for all is well”.

A huge crag-platform, smooth as burnish’d brass,

I chose. The ranged ramparts bright

From level meadow-bases of deep grass[1]

Suddenly scaled the light.

Thereon I built it firm. Of ledge or shelf

The rock rose clear, or winding stair.

My soul would live alone unto herself

In her high palace there.

And “while the world[2] runs round and round,” I said,

“Reign thou apart, a quiet king,

Still as, while Saturn[3] whirls, his stedfast[4] shade

Sleeps on his luminous[5] ring.”

To which my soul made answer readily:

“Trust me, in bliss I shall abide

In this great mansion, that is built for me,

So royal-rich and wide”

...

Four courts I made, East, West and South and North,

In each a squared lawn, wherefrom

The golden gorge of dragons spouted forth

A flood of fountain-foam.[6]

And round the cool green courts there ran a row

Of cloisters, branch’d like mighty woods,

Echoing all night to that sonorous flow

Of spouted fountain-floods.[6]

And round the roofs a gilded gallery

That lent broad verge to distant lands,

Far as the wild swan wings, to where the sky

Dipt down to sea and sands.[6]

From those four jets four currents in one swell

Across the mountain stream’d below

In misty folds, that floating as they fell

Lit up a torrent-bow.[6]

And high on every peak a statue seem’d

To hang on tiptoe, tossing up

A cloud of incense of all odour steam’d

From out a golden cup.[6]

So that she thought, “And who shall gaze upon

My palace with unblinded eyes,

While this great bow will waver in the sun,

And that sweet incense rise?”[6]

For that sweet incense rose and never fail’d,

And, while day sank or mounted higher,

The light aerial gallery, golden-rail’d,

Burnt like a fringe of fire.[6]

Likewise the deep-set windows, stain’d and traced,

Would seem slow-flaming crimson fires

From shadow’d grots of arches interlaced,

And tipt with frost-like spires.[6]

...

Full of long-sounding corridors it was,

That over-vaulted grateful gloom,[7]

Thro’ which the livelong day my soul did pass,

Well-pleased, from room to room.

Full of great rooms and small the palace stood,

All various, each a perfect whole

From living Nature, fit for every mood[8]

And change of my still soul.

For some were hung with arras green and blue,

Showing a gaudy summer-morn,

Where with puff’d cheek the belted hunter blew

His wreathed bugle-horn.[9]

One seem’d all dark and red—a tract of sand,

And some one pacing there alone,

Who paced for ever in a glimmering land,

Lit with a low large moon.[10]>

One show’d an iron coast and angry waves.

You seem’d to hear them climb and fall

And roar rock-thwarted under bellowing caves,

Beneath the windy wall.[11]

And one, a full-fed river winding slow

By herds upon an endless plain,

The ragged rims of thunder brooding low,

With shadow-streaks of rain.[11]

And one, the reapers at their sultry toil.

In front they bound the sheaves. Behind

Were realms of upland, prodigal in oil,

And hoary to the wind.[11]

And one, a foreground black with stones and slags,

Beyond, a line of heights, and higher

All barr’d with long white cloud the scornful crags,

And highest, snow and fire.[12]

And one, an English home—gray twilight pour’d

On dewy pastures, dewy trees,

Softer than sleep—all things in order stored,

A haunt of ancient Peace.[13]

Nor these alone, but every landscape fair,

As fit for every mood of mind,

Or gay, or grave, or sweet, or stern, was there,

Not less than truth design’d.[14]

...

Or the maid-mother by a crucifix,

In tracts of pasture sunny-warm,

Beneath branch-work of costly sardonyx

Sat smiling, babe in arm.[15]

Or in a clear-wall’d city on the sea,

Near gilded organ-pipes, her hair

Wound with white roses, slept St. Cecily;

An angel look’d at her.

Or thronging all one porch of Paradise,

A group of Houris bow’d to see

The dying Islamite, with hands and eyes

That said, We wait for thee.[16]

Or mythic Uther’s deeply-wounded son

In some fair space of sloping greens

Lay, dozing in the vale of Avalon,

And watch’d by weeping queens.[17]

Or hollowing one hand against his ear,

To list a foot-fall, ere he saw

The wood-nymph, stay’d the Ausonian king to hear

Of wisdom and of law.[18]

Or over hills with peaky tops engrail’d,

And many a tract of palm and rice,

The throne of Indian Cama[19] slowly sail’d

A summer fann’d with spice.

Or sweet Europa’s[20] mantle blew unclasp’d,

From off her shoulder backward borne:

From one hand droop’d a crocus: one hand grasp’d

The mild bull’s golden horn.[21]

Or else flush’d Ganymede, his rosy thigh

Half-buried in the Eagle’s down,

Sole as a flying star shot thro’ the sky

Above[22] the pillar’d town.

Nor[23] these alone: but every[24] legend fair

Which the supreme Caucasian mind[25]

Carved out of Nature for itself, was there,

Not less than life, design’d.[26]

Then in the towers I placed great bells that swung,

Moved of themselves, with silver sound;

And with choice paintings of wise men I hung

The royal dais round.

For there was Milton like a seraph strong,

Beside him Shakespeare bland and mild;

And there the world-worn Dante grasp’d his song,

And somewhat grimly smiled.[27]

And there the Ionian father of the rest;[28]

A million wrinkles carved his skin;

A hundred winters snow’d upon his breast,

From cheek and throat and chin.[29]

Above, the fair hall-ceiling stately set

Many an arch high up did lift,

And angels rising and descending met

With interchange of gift.[29]

Below was all mosaic choicely plann’d

With cycles of the human tale

Of this wide world, the times of every land

So wrought, they will not fail.[29]

The people here, a beast of burden slow,

Toil’d onward, prick’d with goads and stings;

Here play’d, a tiger, rolling to and fro

The heads and crowns of kings;[29]

Here rose, an athlete, strong to break or bind

All force in bonds that might endure,

And here once more like some sick man declined,

And trusted any cure.[29]

But over these she trod: and those great bells

Began to chime. She took her throne:

She sat betwixt the shining Oriels,

To sing her songs alone.[29]

And thro’ the topmost Oriels’ colour’d flame

Two godlike faces gazed below;

Plato the wise, and large-brow’d Verulam,

The first of those who know.[29]

And all those names, that in their motion were

Full-welling fountain-heads of change,

Betwixt the slender shafts were blazon’d fair

In diverse raiment strange:[30]

Thro’ which the lights, rose, amber, emerald, blue,

Flush’d in her temples and her eyes,

And from her lips, as morn from Memnon,[31] drew

Rivers of melodies.

No nightingale delighteth to prolong

Her low preamble all alone,

More than my soul to hear her echo’d song

Throb thro’ the ribbed stone;

Singing and murmuring in her feastful mirth,

Joying to feel herself alive,

Lord over Nature, Lord of[32] the visible earth,

Lord of the senses five;

Communing with herself: “All these are mine,

And let the world have peace or wars,

’Tis one to me”. She—when young night divine

Crown’d dying day with stars,

Making sweet close of his delicious toils—

Lit light in wreaths and anadems,

And pure quintessences of precious oils

In hollow’d moons of gems,

To mimic heaven; and clapt her hands and cried,

“I marvel if my still delight

In this great house so royal-rich, and wide,

Be flatter’d to the height.[33]

“O all things fair to sate my various eyes!

O shapes and hues that please me well!

O silent faces of the Great and Wise,

My Gods, with whom I dwell![34]

“O God-like isolation which art mine,

I can but count thee perfect gain,

What time I watch the darkening droves of swine

That range on yonder plain.[34]

“In filthy sloughs they roll a prurient skin,

They graze and wallow, breed and sleep;

And oft some brainless devil enters in,

And drives them to the deep.”[34]

Then of the moral instinct would she prate,

And of the rising from the dead,

As hers by right of full-accomplish’d Fate;

And at the last she said:

“I take possession of man’s mind and deed.

I care not what the sects may brawl,

I sit as God holding no form of creed,

But contemplating all.”[35]

Full oft[36] the riddle of the painful earth

Flash’d thro’ her as she sat alone,

Yet not the less held she her solemn mirth,

And intellectual throne.

And so she throve and prosper’d: so three years

She prosper’d: on the fourth she fell,[37]

Like Herod,[38] when the shout was in his ears,

Struck thro’ with pangs of hell.

Lest she should fail and perish utterly,

God, before whom ever lie bare

The abysmal deeps of Personality,[39]

Plagued her with sore despair.

When she would think, where’er she turn’d her sight,

The airy hand confusion wrought,

Wrote “Mene, mene,” and divided quite

The kingdom of her thought.[40]

Deep dread and loathing of her solitude

Fell on her, from which mood was born

Scorn of herself; again, from out that mood

Laughter at her self-scorn.[41]

“What! is not this my place of strength,” she said,

“My spacious mansion built for me,

Whereof the strong foundation-stones were laid

Since my first memory?”

But in dark corners of her palace stood

Uncertain shapes; and unawares

On white-eyed phantasms weeping tears of blood,

And horrible nightmares,

And hollow shades enclosing hearts of flame,

And, with dim fretted foreheads all,

On corpses three-months-old at noon she came,

That stood against the wall.

A spot of dull stagnation, without light

Or power of movement, seem’d my soul,

’Mid onward-sloping[42] motions infinite

Making for one sure goal.

A still salt pool, lock’d in with bars of sand;

Left on the shore; that hears all night

The plunging seas draw backward from the land

Their moon-led waters white.

A star that with the choral starry dance

Join’d not, but stood, and standing saw

The hollow orb of moving Circumstance

Roll’d round by one fix’d law.

Back on herself her serpent pride had curl’d.

“No voice,” she shriek’d in that lone hall,

“No voice breaks thro’ the stillness of this world:

One deep, deep silence all!”

She, mouldering with the dull earth’s mouldering sod,

Inwrapt tenfold in slothful shame,

Lay there exiled from eternal God,

Lost to her place and name;

And death and life she hated equally,

And nothing saw, for her despair,

But dreadful time, dreadful eternity,

No comfort anywhere;

Remaining utterly confused with fears,

And ever worse with growing time,

And ever unrelieved by dismal tears,

And all alone in crime:

Shut up as in a crumbling tomb, girt round

With blackness as a solid wall,

Far off she seem’d to hear the dully sound

Of human footsteps fall.

As in strange lands a traveller walking slow,

In doubt and great perplexity,

A little before moon-rise hears the low

Moan of an unknown sea;

And knows not if it be thunder or a sound

Of rocks[43] thrown down, or one deep cry

Of great wild beasts; then thinketh, “I have found

A new land, but I die”.

She howl’d aloud, “I am on fire within.

There comes no murmur of reply.

What is it that will take away my sin,

And save me lest I die?”

So when four years were wholly finished,

She threw her royal robes away.

“Make me a cottage in the vale,” she said,

“Where I may mourn and pray.[44]

“Yet pull not down my palace towers, that are

So lightly, beautifully built:

Perchance I may return with others there

When I have purged my guilt.”[45]

[1] 1833.

I chose, whose ranged ramparts bright

From great broad meadow bases of deep grass.

[2] 1833. “While the great world.”

[3] “The shadow of Saturn thrown upon the bright ring that surrounds

the planet appears motionless, though the body of the planet revolves.

Saturn rotates on its axis in the short period of ten and a half

hours, but the shadow of this swiftly whirling mass shows no more

motion than is seen in the shadow of a top spinning so rapidly that it

seems to be standing still.” Rowe and Webb’s note, which I gladly

borrow.

[4] 1833 and 1842. Steadfast.

[5] After this stanza in 1833 this, deleted in 1842:—

“And richly feast within thy palace hall,

Like to the dainty bird that sups,

Lodged in the lustrous crown-imperial,

Draining the honey cups.”

[6]

In 1833 these eight stanzas were inserted after the stanza beginning,

“I take possession of men’s minds and deeds”; in 1842 they were

transferred, greatly altered, to their present position. For the

alterations on them see _infra._

[7] 1833.

Gloom,

Roofed with thick plates of green and orange glass

Ending in stately rooms.

[8] 1833.

All various, all beautiful,

Looking all ways, fitted to every mood.

[9] Here in 1833 was inserted the stanza, “One showed an English

home,” afterwards transferred to its present position 85-88.

[10] 1833.

Some were all dark and red, a glimmering land

Lit with a low round moon,

Among brown rocks a man upon the sand

Went weeping all alone.

[11]

These three stanzas were added in 1842.

[12] Thus in 1833:—

One seemed a foreground black with stones and slags,

Below sun-smitten icy spires

Rose striped with long white cloud the scornful crags,

Deep trenched with thunder fires.

[13] Not inserted here in 1833, but the following in its place:—

Some showed far-off thick woods mounted with towers,

Nearer, a flood of mild sunshine

Poured on long walks and lawns and beds and bowers

Trellised with bunchy vine.

[14] Inserted in 1842.

[15] Thus in 1833, followed by the note:—

Or the maid-mother by a crucifix,

In yellow pastures sunny-warm,

Beneath branch-work of costly sardonyx,

Sat smiling, babe in arm.

When I first conceived the plan of the Palace of Art, I intended to

have introduced both sculptures and paintings into it; but it is the

most difficult of all things to _devise_ a statue in verse. Judge

whether I have succeeded in the statues of Elijah and Olympias.

One was the Tishbite whom the raven fed,

As when he stood on Carmel steeps,

With one arm stretched out bare, and mocked and said,

“Come cry aloud-he sleeps”.

Tall, eager, lean and strong, his cloak wind-borne

Behind, his forehead heavenly bright

From the clear marble pouring glorious scorn,

Lit as with inner light.

One, was Olympias: the floating snake

Rolled round her ancles, round her waist

Knotted, and folded once about her neck,

Her perfect lips to taste.

Round by the shoulder moved: she seeming blythe

Declined her head: on every side

The dragon’s curves melted and mingled with

The woman’s youthful pride

Of rounded limbs.

Or Venus in a snowy shell alone,

Deep-shadowed in the glassy brine,

Moonlike glowed double on the blue, and shone

A naked shape divine.

[16] Inserted in 1842.

[17] Thus in 1833:—

Or that deep-wounded child of Pendragon

Mid misty woods on sloping greens

Dozed in the valley of Avilion,

Tended by crowned queens.

The present reading is that of 1842. The reference is, of course, to

King Arthur, the supposed son of Uther Pendragon.

In 1833 the following stanza, excised in 1842, followed:—

Or blue-eyed Kriemhilt from a craggy hold,

Athwart the light-green rows of vine,

Poured blazing hoards of Nibelungen gold,

Down to the gulfy Rhine.

[18] Inserted in 1842 thus:—

Or hollowing one hand against his ear,

To listen for a footfall, ere he saw

The wood-nymph, stay’d the Tuscan king to hear

Of wisdom and of law.

List a footfall, 1843. Ausonian for Tuscan, 1850. The reference is to

Egeria and Numa Pompilius. _Cf._ Juvenal, iii., 11-18:—

Hic ubi nocturnæ

Numa constituebat amicæ

...

In vallem Ægeriæ descendimus et speluneas

Dissimiles veris.

and the beautiful passage in Byron’s _Childe Harold_, iv., st.

cxv.-cxix.

[19] This is Camadev or Camadeo, the Cupid or God of Love of the Hindu

mythology.

[20] This picture of Europa seems to have been suggested by Moschus,

_Idyll_, ii., 121-5:—

ἡ δ’ αρ’ ἐφεζομένη Ζηνὸς βόεοις ἐπὶ νώτόις

τῇ μεν ἔχεν ταύρου δολιχὸν κέρας, ἐν χερὶ δ’ ἄλλῃ

εἴρυε πορφυρεας κόλπου πτύχας.

“Then, seated on the back of the divine bull, with one hand did she

grasp the bull’s long horn and with the other she was catching up the

purple folds of her garment, and the robe on her shoulders was swelled

out.” See, too, the beautiful picture of the same scene in Achilles

Tatius, _Clitophon and Leucippe_, lib. i., _ad init._; and in

Politian’s finely picturesque poem.

[21] In 1833 thus:—

Europa’s scarf blew in an arch, unclasped,

From her bare shoulder backward borne.

Off inserted in 1842. Here in 1833 follows a stanza, excised in 1842:—

He thro’ the streaming crystal swam, and rolled

Ambrosial breaths that seemed to float

In light-wreathed curls. She from the ripple cold

Updrew her sandalled foot.

[22] 1833. Over.

[23] 1833. Not.

[24] 1833. Many a.

[25] The Caucasian range forms the north-west margin of the great

tableland of Western Asia, and as it was the home of those races who

afterwards peopled Europe and Western Asia and so became the fathers

of civilisation and culture, the “Supreme Caucasian mind” is a

historically correct but certainly recondite expression for the

intellectual flower of the human race, for the perfection of human

ability.

[26] 1833. Broidered in screen and blind.

In the edition of 1833 appear the following stanzas, excised in 1842:—

So that my soul beholding in her pride

All these, from room to room did pass;

And all things that she saw, she multiplied,

A many-faced glass.

And, being both the sower and the seed,

Remaining in herself became

All that she saw, Madonna, Ganymede,

Or the Asiatic dame—

Still changing, as a lighthouse in the night

Changeth athwart the gleaming main,

From red to yellow, yellow to pale white,

Then back to red again.

“From change to change four times within the womb

The brain is moulded,” she began,

“So thro’ all phases of all thought I come

Into the perfect man.

“All nature widens upward: evermore

The simpler essence lower lies,

More complex is more perfect, owning more

Discourse, more widely wise.

“I take possession of men’s minds and deeds.

I live in all things great and small.

I dwell apart, holding no forms of creeds,

But contemplating all.”

Four ample courts there were, East, West, South, North,

In each a squarèd lawn where from

A golden-gorged dragon spouted forth

The fountain’s diamond foam.

All round the cool green courts there ran a row

Of cloisters, branched like mighty woods,

Echoing all night to that sonorous flow

Of spouted fountain floods.

From those four jets four currents in one swell

Over the black rock streamed below

In steamy folds, that, floating as they fell,

Lit up a torrent bow.

And round the roofs ran gilded galleries

That gave large view to distant lands,

Tall towns and mounds, and close beneath the skies

Long lines of amber sands.

Huge incense-urns along the balustrade,

Hollowed of solid amethyst,

Each with a different odour fuming, made

The air a silver mist.

Far-off ’twas wonderful to look upon

Those sumptuous towers between the gleam

Of that great foam-bow trembling in the sun,

And the argent incense-steam;

And round the terraces and round the walls,

While day sank lower or rose higher,

To see those rails with all their knobs and balls,

Burn like a fringe of fire.

Likewise the deepset windows, stained and traced.

Burned, like slow-flaming crimson fires,

From shadowed grots of arches interlaced,

And topped with frostlike spires.

[27] 1833.

There deep-haired Milton like an angel tall

Stood limnèd, Shakspeare bland and mild,

Grim Dante pressed his lips, and from the wall

The bald blind Homer smiled.

Recast in its present form in 1842. After this stanza in 1833 appear

the following stanzas, excised in 1842:—

And underneath fresh carved in cedar wood,

Somewhat alike in form and face,

The Genii of every climate stood,

All brothers of one race:

Angels who sway the seasons by their art,

And mould all shapes in earth and sea;

And with great effort build the human heart

From earliest infancy.

And in the sun-pierced Oriels’ coloured flame

Immortal Michæl Angelo

Looked down, bold Luther, large-browed Verulam,

The King of those who know.[A]

Cervantes, the bright face of Calderon,

Robed David touching holy strings,

The Halicarnassean, and alone,

Alfred the flower of kings.

Isaiah with fierce Ezekiel,

Swarth Moses by the Coptic sea,

Plato, Petrarca, Livy, and Raphael,

And eastern Confutzer.

[A] Il maëstro di color chi sanno.—Dante, _Inf._, iii.

[28] Homer. _Cf._ Pope’s _Temple of Fame_, 183-7:—

Father of verse in holy fillets dress’d,

His silver beard wav’d gently o’er his breast,

Though blind a boldness in his looks appears,

In years he seem’d but not impaired by years.

[29]

All these stanzas were added in 1842. In 1833 appear the following

stanzas, excised in 1842:—

As some rich tropic mountain, that infolds

All change, from flats of scattered palms

Sloping thro’ five great zones of climate, holds

His head in snows and calms—

Full of her own delight and nothing else,

My vain-glorious, gorgeous soul

Sat throned between the shining oriels,

In pomp beyond control;

With piles of flavorous fruits in basket-twine

Of gold, upheaped, crushing down

Musk-scented blooms—all taste—grape, gourd or pine—

In bunch, or single grown—

Our growths, and such as brooding Indian heats

Make out of crimson blossoms deep,

Ambrosial pulps and juices, sweets from sweets

Sun-changed, when sea-winds sleep.

With graceful chalices of curious wine,

Wonders of art—and costly jars,

And bossed salvers. Ere young night divine

Crowned dying day with stars,

Making sweet close of his delicious toils,

She lit white streams of dazzling gas,

And soft and fragrant flames of precious oils

In moons of purple glass

Ranged on the fretted woodwork to the ground.

Thus her intense untold delight,

In deep or vivid colour, smell and sound,

Was nattered day and night.[A]

[A] If the poem were not already too long, I should have inserted in

the text the following stanzas, expressive of the joy wherewith the

soul contemplated the results of astronomical experiment. In the

centre of the four quadrangles rose an immense tower.

Hither, when all the deep unsounded skies

Shuddered with silent stars she clomb,

And as with optic glasses her keen eyes

Pierced thro’ the mystic dome,

Regions of lucid matter taking forms,

Brushes of fire, hazy gleams,

Clusters and beds of worlds, and bee-like swarms

Of suns, and starry streams.

She saw the snowy poles of moonless Mars,

That marvellous round of milky light

Below Orion, and those double stars

Whereof the one more bright

Is circled by the other, etc.

[30] Thus in 1833:—

And many more, that in their lifetime were

Full-welling fountain heads of change,

Between the stone shafts glimmered, blazoned fair

In divers raiment strange.

[31] The statue of Memnon near Thebes in Egypt when first struck by

the rays of the rising sun is said to have become vocal, to have

emitted responsive sounds. See for an account of this _Pausanias_, i.,

42; Tacitus, _Annals_, ii., 61; and Juvenal, _Sat._, xv., 5:

“Dimidio magicæ resonant ubi Memnone Chordæ,”

and compare Akenside’s verses, _Plea. of Imag._, i., 109-113:—

Old Memnon’s image, long renown’d

By fabling Nilus: to the quivering touch

Of Titan’s ray, with each repulsive string

Consenting, sounded thro’ the warbling air

Unbidden strains.

[32] 1833. O’.

[33] Here added in 1842 and remaining till 1851 when they were excised

are two stanzas:—

“From shape to shape at first within the womb

The brain is modell’d,” she began,

“And thro’ all phases of all thought I come

Into the perfect man.

“All nature widens upward. Evermore

The simpler essence lower lies:

More complex is more perfect, owning more

Discourse, more widely wise.”

[34]

These stanzas were added in 1851.

[35] Added in 1842, with the following variants which remained till

1851, when the present text was substituted:—

“I take possession of men’s minds and deeds.

I live in all things great and small.

I sit apart holding no forms of creeds,

But contemplating all.”

[36] 1833. Sometimes.

[37] And intellectual throne

Of full-sphered contemplation. So three years

She throve, but on the fourth she fell.

And so the text remained till 1850, when the present reading was

substituted.

[38] For the reference to Herod see _Acts_ xii. 21-23.

[39] Cf. Hallam’s _Remains_, p. 132: “That, _i. e._ Redemption,” is in

the power of God’s election with whom alone rest _the abysmal secrets

of personality_.

[40] See _Daniel_ v. 24-27.

[41] In 1833 the following stanza, excised in 1842:—

“Who hath drawn dry the fountains of delight,

That from my deep heart everywhere

Moved in my blood and dwelt, as power and might

Abode in Sampson’s hair?”

[42] 1833. Downward-sloping.

[43] 1833.

Or the sound

Of stones.

So till 1851, when “a sound of rocks” was substituted.

[44] 1833. “Dying the death I die?” Present reading substituted in

1842.

[45] Because intellectual and æsthetic pleasures are _abused_ and

their purpose and scope mistaken, there is no reason why they should

not be enjoyed. See the allegory in _In Memoriam_, ciii., stanzas

12-13.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere

Though this is placed among the poems published in 1833 it first

appeared in print in 1842. The subsequent alterations were very slight,

and after 1848 none at all were made.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere,

Of me you shall not win renown:

You thought to break a country heart

For pastime, ere you went to town.

At me you smiled, but unbeguiled

I saw the snare, and I retired:

The daughter of a hundred Earls,

You are not one to be desired.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere,

I know you proud to bear your name,

Your pride is yet no mate for mine,

Too proud to care from whence I came.

Nor would I break for your sweet sake

A heart that doats on truer charms.

A simple maiden in her flower

Is worth a hundred coats-of-arms.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere,

Some meeker pupil you must find,

For were you queen of all that is,

I could not stoop to such a mind.

You sought to prove how I could love,

And my disdain is my reply.

The lion on your old stone gates

Is not more cold to you than I.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere,

You put strange memories in my head.

Not thrice your branching limes have blown

Since I beheld young Laurence dead.

Oh your sweet eyes, your low replies:

A great enchantress you may be;

But there was that across his throat

Which you hardly cared to see.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere,

When thus he met his mother’s view,

She had the passions of her kind,

She spake some certain truths of you.

Indeed I heard one bitter word

That scarce is fit for you to hear;

Her manners had not that repose

Which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere.

Lady Clara Vere de Vere,

There stands a spectre in your hall:

The guilt of blood is at your door:

You changed a wholesome heart to gall.

You held your course without remorse,

To make him trust his modest worth,

And, last, you fix’d a vacant stare,

And slew him with your noble birth.

Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere,

From yon blue heavens above us bent

The grand old gardener and his wife[1]

Smile at the claims of long descent.

Howe’er it be, it seems to me,

’Tis only noble to be good.

Kind hearts are more than coronets,

And simple faith than Norman blood.

I know you, Clara Vere de Vere:

You pine among your halls and towers:

The languid light of your proud eyes

Is wearied of the rolling hours.

In glowing health, with boundless wealth,

But sickening of a vague disease,

You know so ill to deal with time,

You needs must play such pranks as these.

Clara, Clara Vere de Vere,

If Time be heavy on your hands,

Are there no beggars at your gate,

Nor any poor about your lands?

Oh! teach the orphan-boy to read,

Or teach the orphan-girl to sew,

Pray Heaven for a human heart,

And let the foolish yoeman go.

[1] 1842 and 1843. “The gardener Adam and his wife.” In 1845 it was

altered to the present text.

The May Queen

The first two parts were first published in 1833.

The scenery is typical of Lincolnshire; in Fitzgerald’s phrase, it is

all Lincolnshire inland, as _Locksley Hall_ is seaboard.

You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear;

To-morrow ’ill be the happiest time of all the glad[1] New-year;

Of all the glad New-year, mother, the maddest merriest day;

For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.

There’s many a black, black eye, they say, but none so bright as mine;

There’s Margaret and Mary, there’s Kate and Caroline:

But none so fair as little Alice in all the land they say,

So I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.

I sleep so sound all night, mother, that I shall never wake,

If you[2] do not call me loud when the day begins to break:

But I must gather knots of flowers, and buds and garlands gay,

For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.

As I came up the valley whom think ye should I see,

But Robin[3] leaning on the bridge beneath the hazel-tree?

He thought of that sharp look, mother, I gave him yesterday,—

But I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.

He thought I was a ghost, mother, for I was all in white,

And I ran by him without speaking, like a flash of light.

They call me cruel-hearted, but I care not what they say,

For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.

They say he’s dying all for love, but that can never be:

They say his heart is breaking, mother—what is that to me?

There’s many a bolder lad ’ill woo me any summer day,

And I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.

Little Effie shall go with me to-morrow to the green,

And you’ll be there, too, mother, to see me made the Queen;

For the shepherd lads on every side ’ill come from far away,

And I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.

The honeysuckle round the porch has wov’n its wavy bowers,

And by the meadow-trenches blow the faint sweet cuckoo-flowers;

And the wild marsh-marigold shines like fire in swamps and hollows

gray,

And I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.

The night-winds come and go, mother, upon the meadow-grass,

And the happy stars above them seem to brighten as they pass;

There will not be a drop of rain the whole of the live-long day,

And I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.

All the valley, mother, ’ill be fresh and green and still,

And the cowslip and the crowfoot are over all the hill,

And the rivulet in the flowery dale ’ill merrily glance and play,

For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.

So you must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear,

To-morrow ’ill be the happiest time of all the glad New-year:

To-morrow ’ill be of all the year the maddest merriest day,

For I’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I’m to be Queen o’ the May.

[1] 1833. “Blythe” for “glad”.

[2] 1883. Ye.

[3] 1842. Robert. This is a curious illustration of Tennyson’s

scrupulousness about trifles: in 1833 it was “Robin,” in 1842

“Robert,” then in 1843 and afterwards he returned to “Robin”.

New Year’s Eve

If you’re waking call me early, call me early, mother dear,

For I would see the sun rise upon the glad New-year.

It is the last New-year that I shall ever see,

Then you may lay me low i’ the mould and think no more of me.

To-night I saw the sun set: he set and left behind

The good old year, the dear old time, and all my peace of mind;

And the New-year’s coming up, mother, but I shall never see

The blossom on[1] the blackthorn, the leaf upon the tree.

Last May we made a crown of flowers: we had a merry day;

Beneath the hawthorn on the green they made me Queen of May;

And we danced about the may-pole and in the hazel copse,

Till Charles’s Wain came out above the tall white chimney-tops.

There’s not a flower on all the hills: the frost is on the pane:

I only wish to live till the snowdrops come again:

I wish the snow would melt and the sun come out on high:

I long to see a flower so before the day I die.

The building rook’ll caw from the windy tall elm-tree,

And the tufted plover pipe along the fallow lea,

And the swallow’ll come back again with summer o’er the wave.

But I shall lie alone, mother, within the mouldering grave.

Upon the chancel-casement, and upon that grave of mine,

In the early, early morning the summer sun’ll shine,

Before the red cock crows from the farm upon the hill,

When you are warm-asleep, mother, and all the world is still.

When the flowers come again, mother, beneath the waning light

You’ll never see me more in the long gray fields at night;

When from the dry dark wold the summer airs blow cool

On the oat-grass and the sword-grass, and the bulrush in the pool.

You’ll bury me,[2] my mother, just beneath the hawthorn shade,

And you’ll come[3] sometimes and see me where I am lowly laid.

I shall not forget you, mother, I shall hear you when you pass,[4]

With your feet above my head in the long and pleasant grass.

I have been wild and wayward, but you’ll forgive[5] me now;

You’ll kiss me, my own mother, and forgive me ere I go;[6]

Nay, nay, you must not weep,[7] nor let your grief be wild,

You should not fret for me, mother, you[8] have another child.

If I can I’ll come again, mother, from out my resting-place;

Tho’ you’ll[9] not see me, mother, I shall look upon your face;

Tho’ I cannot speak a word, 1 shall harken what you[10] say,

And be often, often with you when you think[11] I’m far away.

Good-night, good-night, when I have said good-night for evermore,

And you[12] see me carried out from the threshold of the door;

Don’t let Effie come to see me till my grave be growing green:

She’ll be a better child to you than ever I have been.

She’ll find my garden-tools upon the granary floor:

Let her take ’em: they are hers: I shall never garden more:

But tell her, when I’m gone, to train the rose-bush that I set

About the parlour-window and the box of mignonette.

Good-night, sweet mother: call me before the day is born.[13]>

All night I lie awake, but I fall asleep at morn;

But I would see the sun rise upon the glad New-year,

So, if your waking, call me, call me early, mother dear.

[1] 1833. The may upon.

[2] 1833. Ye’ll bury me.

[3] 1833. And ye’ll come.

[4] 1833. I shall not forget ye, mother, I shall hear ye when ye pass.

[5] 1833. But ye’ll forgive.

[6] 1833. Ye’ll kiss me, my own mother, upon my cheek and brow. 1850.

And foregive me ere I go.

[7] 1833. Ye must not weep.

[8] 1833. Ye ... ye.

[9] 1833. Ye’ll.

[10] 1833. Ye.

[11] 1833. Ye when ye think.

[12] 1833. Ye.

[13] 1833. Call me when it begins to dawn. 1842. Before the day is

born.

Conclusion

Added in 1842.

I thought to pass away before, and yet alive I am;

And in the fields all round I hear the bleating of the lamb.

How sadly, I remember, rose the morning of the year!

To die before the snowdrop came, and now the violet’s here.

O sweet is the new violet, that comes beneath the skies,

And sweeter is the young lamb’s voice to me that cannot rise,

And sweet is all the land about, and all the flowers that blow,

And sweeter far is death than life to me that long to go.

It seem’d so hard at first, mother, to leave the blessed sun,

And now it seems as hard to stay, and yet His will be done!

But still I think it can’t be long before I find release;

And that good man, the clergyman, has told me words of peace.[1]

O blessings on his kindly voice and on his silver hair!

And blessings on his whole life long, until he meet me there!

O blessings on his kindly heart and on his silver head!

A thousand times I blest him, as he knelt beside my bed.

He taught me all the mercy, for he show’d[2] me all the sin.

Now, tho’ my lamp was lighted late, there’s One will let me in:

Nor would I now be well, mother, again, if that could be,

For my desire is but to pass to Him that died for me.

I did not hear the dog howl, mother, or the death-watch beat,

There came a sweeter token when the night and morning meet:

But sit beside my bed, mother, and put your hand in mine,

And Effie on the other side, and I will tell the sign.

All in the wild March-morning I heard the angels call;

It was when the moon was setting, and the dark was over all;

The trees began to whisper, and the wind began to roll,

And in the wild March-morning I heard them call my soul.

For lying broad awake I thought of you and Effie dear;

I saw you sitting in the house, and I no longer here;

With all my strength I pray’d for both, and so I felt resign’d,

And up the valley came a swell of music on the wind.

I thought that it was fancy, and I listen’d in my bed,

And then did something speak to me—I know not what was said;

For great delight and shuddering took hold of all my mind,

And up the valley came again the music on the wind.

But you were sleeping; and I said, “It’s not for them: it’s mine”.

And if it comes[3] three times, I thought, I take it for a sign.

And once again it came, and close beside the window-bars,

Then seem’d to go right up to Heaven and die among the stars.

So now I think my time is near. I trust it is. I know

The blessed music went that way my soul will have to go.

And for myself, indeed, I care not if I go to-day.

But, Effie, you must comfort _her_ when I am past away.

And say to Robin[4] a kind word, and tell him not to fret;

There’s many worthier than I, would make him happy yet.

If I had lived—I cannot tell—I might have been his wife;

But all these things have ceased to be, with my desire of life.

O look! the sun begins to rise, the heavens are in a glow;

He shines upon a hundred fields, and all of them I know.

And there I move no longer now, and there his light may shine—

Wild flowers in the valley for other hands than mine.

O sweet and strange it seems to me, that ere this day is done

The voice, that now is speaking, may be beyond the sun—

For ever and for ever with those just souls and true—

And what is life, that we should moan? why make we such ado?

For ever and for ever, all in a blessed home—

And there to wait a little while till you and Effie come—

To lie within the light of God, as I lie upon your breast—

And the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.

[1] 1842.

But still it can’t be long, mother, before I find release;

And that good man, the clergyman, he preaches words of peace.

Present reading 1843.

[2] 1842-1848.

He show’d me all the mercy, for he taught me all the sin.

Now, though, etc.

1850. For show’d he me all the sin.

[3] 1889. Come.