Our echoes roll from soul to soul, TEARS, IDLE TEARS Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, That brings our friends up from the underworld, Sad as the last which reddens over one That sinks with all we love below the verge; Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds square; So sad, so strange, the days that are no more. Dear as remember'd kisses after death, FROM IN MEMORIAM* I I held it truth, with him who sings But who shall so forecast the years And find in loss a gain to match? Or reach a hand thro' time to catch The far-off interest of tears? Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown'd, 1 Goethe, says Tennyson. Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss, Than that the victor Hours should scorn XXVII I envy not in any moods The captive void of noble rage, I envy not the beast that takes Nor, what may count itself as blest, The heart that never plighted troth I hold it true, whate 'er befall; LIV O, yet we trust that somehow good To pangs of nature, sins of will, That nothing walks with aimless feet; That not one life shall be destroy'd, That not a worm is cloven in vain; Behold, we know not anything; I can but trust that good shall fall So runs my dream; but what am I? Tennyson's friend, Arthur Henry Hallam, died at Vienna in 1833. The short poems written in his memory at various times and in various moods, Tennyson arranged and published in the year 1850. See Eng. Lit., p. 294. The earlier poems are chiefly personal in nature; the later treat some of the larger problems of human life and destiny growing out of both personal bereavement and the unrest produced 3 Used poetically for "ultimate." Cp. Locksley by the changes that were then taking place in the realm of religious and scientific thought. 4 Content due to mere want of higher faculties. 2 Cp. Milton's Comus, 251. Who throve and branch'd from clime to clime, In the deep night, that all is well. If so he types this work of time Within himself, from more to more; Or, crown'd with attributes of woe Like glories, move his course, and show That life is not as idle ore, But iron dug from central gloom, And heated hot with burning fears, And dipped in baths of hissing tears, And batter'd with the shocks of doom To shape and use. Arise and fly The reeling Faun, the sensual feast; Move upward, working out the beast, And let the ape and tiger die. CXXV What ever I have said or sung, Yet Hope had never lost her youth, She did but look through dimmer eyes; Or Love but play'd with gracious lies, Because he felt so fix'd in truth; And if the song were full of care, He breathed the spirit of the song; And if the words were sweet and strong He set his royal signet there; 5 periodic (in a large sense) 6 represent, properly CXXVII And all is well, tho' faith and form Proclaiming social truth shall spread, And justice, even tho' thrice again But ill for him that wears a crown, And molten up, and roar in flood; The fortress crashes from on high, And compass'd by the fires of hell; While thou, dear spirit, happy star, IN THE VALLEY OF CAUTERETZ† All along the valley, where thy waters flow, * There was a violent revolution in France in 1830, resulting in the overthrow of Charles X. In 1861, Tennyson revisited this valley in the French Pyrenees which he had visited with Hallam in 1830. I walk'd with one I loved two and thirty years All night have the roses heard Walk'd in the garden with me, The flute, violin, bassoon; All night has the casement jessamine stirr'd I said to the lily, "There is but one, With whom she has heart to be gay. When will the dancers leave her alone? She is weary of dance and play." Now half to the setting moon are gone, And half to the rising day; Low on the sand and loud on the stone The last wheel echoes away. I said to the rose, "The brief night goes In babble and revel and wine. Shadows of three dead men, and thou wast O young lord-lover, what sighs are those, one of the three. Nightingales sang in his woods, The Master was far away; Nightingales warbled and sang Of a passion that lasts but a day; For one that will never be thine? 18 26 And the soul of the rose went into my blood, Still in the house in his coffin the Prince of And long by the garden lake I stood, courtesy lay. For a breeze of morning moves, And the planet of love is on high, For I heard your rivulet fall From the lake to the meadow and on to the But the rose was awake all night for your sake, Beginning to faint in the light that she loves The lilies and roses were all awake, On a bed of daffodil sky, To faint in the light of the sun she loves, To faint in his light, and to die. 12 The home of Sir John Simeon in the Isle of Wight, where Tennyson also lived in the latter part of his life. Sir John died in 1870. The other two friends referred to were Arthur Hallam (see preceding poems) and Henry Lushington (d. 1855), to whom Tennyson had dedicated The Princess. All three, by a cu rious coincidence, died abroad. There is a distinct echo in this song of The Song of Solomon; ep. chapters v and vi. |