With the fairy tales of science, and the long | Many a morning on the moorland did we hear result of time; When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed; the copses ring, And her whisper throng'd my pulses with the fulness of the spring. When I clung to all the present for the promise Many an evening by the waters did we watch that it closed1; When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see, the stately ships, And our spirits rushed together at the touching of the lips. Saw the vision of the world and all the wonder O my cousin, shallow-hearted! that would be. In the spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast; mine no more! O my Amy, In the spring the wanton lapwing gets himself Falser than all fancy fathoms, falser than all another crest; In the spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove; songs have sung, Puppet to a father's threat, and servile to a shrewish tongue! In the spring a young man's fancy lightly Is it well to wish thee happy? having known turns to thoughts of love. 20 me to decline Then her cheek was pale and thinner than On a range of lower feelings and a narrower should be for one so young, And her eyes on all my motions with a mute observance hung. heart than mine! Yet it shall be; thou shalt lower to his level day by day, And I said, "My cousin Amy, speak, and What is fine within thee growing coarse to speak the truth to me, Trust me, cousin, all the current of my being sets to thee."' sympathize with clay. As the husband is, the wife is; thou art mated with a clown, On her pallid cheek and forehead came a colour And the grossness of his nature will have and a light, As I have seen the rosy red flushing in the northern night. weight to drag thee down. He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force, And she turn'd-her bosom shaken with a Something better than his dog, a little dearer Roll'd in one another's arms, and silent in a last embrace. Cursed be the social wants that sin against the strength of youth! Like a dog, he hunts in dreams, and thou art staring at the wall, Where the dying night-lamp flickers, and the shadows rise and fall. 80 Cursed be the social lies that warp us from Then a hand shall pass before thee, pointing the living truth! 60 Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest to his drunken sleep, To thy widow'd marriage-pillows, to the tears that thou wilt weep. Cursed be the gold that gilds the straiten'd Thou shalt hear the "Never, never," whisforehead of the fool! per'd by the phantom years, Well-'t is well that I should bluster!-Hadst thou less unworthy proved And a song from out the distance in the ringing of thine ears; Would to God-for I had loved thee more than And an eye shall vex thee, looking ancient ever wife was loved. Am I mad, that I should cherish that which bears but bitter fruit? kindness on thy pain. Turn thee, turn thee on thy pillow; get thee to thy rest again. I will pluck it from my bosom, tho' my heart Nay, but Nature brings thee solace; for a be at the root. tender voice will cry. Never, tho' my mortal summers to such length of years should come "T is a purer life than thine, a lip to drain thy trouble dry. As the many-winter'd crow that leads the Baby lips will laugh me down; my latest rival clanging rookery home. Where is comfort? in division of the records of the mind? brings thee rest. Baby fingers, waxen touches, press me from the mother's breast. 90 Can I part her from herself, and love her, as 10, the child too clothes the father with a dearknew her, kind? 70 I remember one that perish'd;1 sweetly did she speak and move; ness not his due. Half is thine and half is his; it will be worthy of the two. Such a one do I remember, whom to look at was O, I see thee old and formal, fitted to thy petty to love. Can I think of her as dead, and love her for the love she bore? part, With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter's heart. No-she never loved me truly; love is love for "They were dangerous guides the feelings— evermore. Comfort? comfort scorn'd of devils! this is truth the poet sings, she herself was not exemptTruly, she herself had suffer 'd''3-Perish in thy self-contempt! That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remember- Overlive it-lower yet-be happy! wherefore In the dead unhappy night, and when the rain What is that which I should turn to, lighting is on the roof. 1 I. e., she has lost the personality which I remember. 2 Dante : Inferno, V, 121. The thought may be traced to many writers-to Pindar, among the earliest. upon days like these? Every door is barr'd with gold, and opens but to golden keys. 100 3 Amy is imagined to be talking to her daughter, at some future time, of her own early life. Every gate is throng'd with suitors, all the Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there markets overflow. rain'd a ghastly dew I have but an angry fancy; what is that which From the nations' airy navies grappling in I should do? the central blue; I had been content to perish, falling on the Far along the world-wide whisper of the south foeman's ground, When the ranks are roll'd in vapour, and the winds are laid with sound. Yearning for the large excitement that the And at night along the dusky highway near Sees in heaven the light of London flaring like a dreary dawn; And his spirit leaps within him to be gone before him then, Underneath the light he looks at, in among the throngs of men; Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new; That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do. For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, Saw the Vision of the world, and all the won- Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I der that would be; 120 linger on the shore, Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies And the individual withers, and the world is of magic sails, more and more. Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and he | Summer isles of Eden lying in dark-purple bears a laden breast, Full of sad experience, moving toward the stillness of his rest. spheres of sea. There methinks would be enjoyment more than in this march of mind, Hark, my merry comrades call me, sounding In the steamship, in the railway, in the on the bugle-horn, They to whom my foolish passion were a target for their scorn. thoughts that shake mankind. There the passions cramp'd no longer shall have scope and breathing space; Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a I will take some savage woman, she shall rear moulder'd string? I am shamed thro' all my nature to have loved so slight a thing. my dusky race. Iron-jointed, supple-sinew 'd, they shall diva, and they shall run, Weakness to be wroth with weakness! woman's Catch the wild goat by the hair, and hurl their pleasure, woman's pain Nature made them blinder motions bounded in a shallower brain. 150 lances in the sun; 170 Whistle back the parrot's call, and leap the rainbows of the brooks, Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, Not with blinded eyesight poring over mis match'd with mine, Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine erable books Fool, again the dream, the fancy! but I know my words are wild, Here at least, where nature sickens, nothing.s But I count the gray barbarian lower than the Ah, for some retreat Deep in yonder shining Orient, where my life began to beat, Christian child. I, to herd with narrow foreheads, vacant of our glorious gains, Where in wild Mahratta-battle fell my father Like a beast with lower pleasures, like a beast evil-starred; I was left a trampled orphan, and a selfish uncle's ward. with lower pains! Mated with a squalid savage-what to me were sun or clime! Or to burst all links of habit-there to wander I the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files Slides the bird o'er lustrous woodland, swings Thro' the shadow of the globe we sweep into the trailer from the crag; the younger day; Droops the heavy-blossom'd bower, hangs the Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of heavy-fruited tree 7 beings 8 Implying that the inferiority of woman may be the result of the conventions of a false civilization. Compare The Princess. Cathay.. 9 The British have had Mother-Age,-for mine I knew not,-help me many conflicts with the warlike Mah- 10 See Par. Lost, iv, 242. as when life begun; 11 Joshua, x 13. 12 Tennyson drew this figure from the railway. then new, under the false impression that the car-wheels ran in grooves, Rift the hills, and roll the waters, flash the O, well for the sailor lad, Ancient founts of inspiration well thro' all But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand, my fancy yet. Howsoever these things be, Locksley Hall! And the sound of a voice that is still! long farewell to Break, break, break, Now for me the woods may wither, now for me the roof-tree fall. 190 Comes a vapour from the margin, blackening over heath and holt, Cramming all the blast before it, in its breast a thunderbolt. At the foot of thy crags, O Sea! But the tender grace of a day that is dead Will never come back to me. SONGS FROM THE PRINCESS Sweet and low, sweet and low, Let it fall on Locksley Hall, with rain or hail, Low, low, breathe and blow, or fire or snow; Wind of the western sea! For the mighty wind arises, roaring seaward, Over the rolling waters go, and I go. A FAREWELL Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea, Thy tribute wave deliver; No more by thee my steps shall be, For ever and for ever. Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea, But here will sigh thine alder-tree, A thousand suns will stream on thee, BREAK, BREAK, BREAK* Break, break, break, On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! And I would that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me. O, well for the fisherman's boy, That he shouts with his sister at play! These lines were written in memory of Arthur Hallam, and might well have been included among the poems of In Memoriam had they not been cast in a different metre. Come from the dying moon, and blow, Blow him again to me: While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps. Sleep and rest, sleep and rest, Father will come to thee soon; Father will come to thee soon; Under the silver moon; Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep. THE SPLENDOUR FALLST The splendour falls on castle walls O, hark, O, hear! how thin and clear, The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! O love, they die in yon rich sky, They faint on hill or field or river; This song was inspired by the echoes at the Lakes of Killarney. |