Twelve Centuries of English Poetry and Prose

A single murmur in the breast, That these are not the bells I know.

Like strangers' voices here they sound, In lands where not a memory strays, Nor landmark breathes of other days, But all is new unhallow'd ground. . .

CVI

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light: The year is dying in the night; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind, For those that here we see no more; Ring out the feud of rich and poor; Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,

And ancient forms of party strife; Ring in the nobler modes of life, With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,

The faithless coldness of the times; Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes, But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,

The larger heart, the kindlier hand; Ring out the darkness of the land, Ring in the Christ that is to be.

CXV

Now fades the last long streak of snow,
Now burgeons every maze of quick1
About the flowering squares," and thick
By ashen roots the violets blow.

1 hedge (especially hawthorn)

2 fields

Now rings the woodland loud and long,
The distance takes a lovelier hue,
And drown'd in yonder living blue
The lark becomes a sightless song.

Now dance the lights on lawn and lea,
The flocks are whiter down the vale,
And milkier every milky sail
On winding stream or distant sea;

Where now the seamew pipes, or dives

In yonder greening gleam, and fly
The happy birds, that change their sky
To build and brood, that live their lives

From land to land; and in my breast
Spring wakens too, and my regret
Becomes an April violet,

And buds and blossoms like the rest.

CXVI

Is it, then, regret for buried time
That keenlier in sweet April wakes,
And meets the year, and gives and takes
The colours of the crescent prime?3

Not all the songs, the stirring air,
The life re-orient out of dust,
Cry thro' the sense to hearten trust
In that which made the world so fair.

Not all regret: the face will shine
Upon me, while I muse alone,
And that dear voice, I once have known,
Still speak to me of me and mine.

Yet loss of sorrow lives in me

For days of happy commune dead.
Less yearning for the friendship fled
Than some strong bond which is to be.

CXVII

O days and hours, your work is this,
To hold me from my proper place,
A little while from his embrace,
For fuller gain of after bliss;

That out of distance might ensue
Desire of nearness doubly sweet,
And unto meeting, when we meet,
Delight a hundredfold accrue,

For every grain of sand that runs,*
And every span of shade that steals,

3 increasing spring

4 This stanza describes the various means of measuring time.

Who throve and branch'd from clime to clime, In the deep night, that all is well.
The herald of a higher race,
And of himself in higher place,

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,
Some bitter notes my harp would give,
Yea, tho' there often seem'd to live
A contradiction on the tongue.

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)

8 represent, properly

CXXVII

And all is well, tho' faith and form
Be sunder'd in the night of fear;
Well roars the storm to those that hear
A deeper voice across the storm,

Proclaiming social truth shall spread,

And justice, even tho' thrice again
The red fool-fury of the Seine
Should pile her barricades with dead.*

But ill for him that wears a crown,
And him, the lazar, in his rags!
They tremble, the sustaining crags;
The spires of ice are toppled down,

And molten up, and roar in flood;
The fortress crashes from on high,
The brute earth lightens to the sky,
And the great on sinks in blood,

And compass'd by the fires of hell;

While thou, dear spirit, happy star,
O'erlook'st the tumult from afar,
And smilest, knowing all is well.

IN THE VALLEY OF CAUTERETZ+
All along the valley, stream that flashest white,
Deepening thy voice with the deepening of the
night,

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
To the dancers dancing in tune;
Till a silence fell with the waking bird,
And a hush with the setting moon.

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?

And the soul of the rose went into my blood,
As the music clash'd in the Hall;

Still in the house in his coffin the Prince of And long by the garden lake I stood,

courtesy lay.

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Flash'd all their sabres bare, Flash'd as they turn 'd in air Sabring the gunners there, Charging an army, while

All the world wonder 'd.
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;

*This fatal charge, due to a misunderstanding of orders, was made at Balaklava, in the Crimea, in 1854. Less than one-third of the brigade returned alive.

Cossack and Russian

Reel'd from the sabre-stroke Shatter'd and sunder'd. Then they rode back, but not, Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,

Cannon behind them

Volley'd and thunder'd; Storm'd at with shot and shell, While horse and hero fell,

They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder 'd.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!

THE CAPTAIN

A LEGEND OF THE NAVY

He that only rules by terror

Doeth grievous wrong.

Deep as hell I count his error.

Let him hear my song.

Brave the captain was; the seamen Made a gallant crew,

Gallant sons of English freemen,

Sailors bold and true.

But they hated his oppression;

Stern he was and rash,

So for every light transgression
Doom'd them to the lash.

Day by day more harsh and cruel
Seem'd the Captain's mood.

Secret wrath like smother'd fuel

Burnt in each man's blood.
Yet he hoped to purchase glory,
Hoped to make the name
Of his vessel great in story,
Wheresoe 'er he came.

So they past by capes and islands,
Many a harbour-mouth,

Sailing under palmy highlands

Far within the South.

On a day when they were going

O'er the lone expanse,

In the north, her canvas flowing,
Rose a ship of France.

Then the Captain's colour heightened,

Joyful came his speech;

But a cloudy gladness lighten 'd

In the eyes of each.

"Chase," he said; the ship flew forward, And the wind did blow;

Stately, lightly, went she norward,

Till she near'd the foe.

Then they look'd at him they hated,

Had what they desired;

Mute with folded arms they waited

Not a gun was fired.

But they heard the foeman's thunder

Roaring out their doom;

All the air was torn in sunder,

Crashing went the boom,

Spars were splinter 'd. decks were shatter'd,

. Bullets fell like rain;

Over mast and deck were scatter'd

Blood and brains of men.

Spars were splinter 'd; decks were broken; Every mother's son

Down they dropt-no word was spoken

Each beside his gun.

On the decks as they were lying,

Were their faces grim.

In their blood, as they lay dying,
Did they smile on him.

Those in whom he had reliance

For his noble name

With one smile of still defiance

Sold him unto shame.

Shame and wrath his heart confounded,

Pale he turn'd and red,

Till himself was deadly wounded
Falling on the dead.

Dismal error! fearful slaughter!

Years have wandered by;

Side by side beneath the water
Crew and Captain lie;

There the sunlit ocean tosses

O'er them mouldering,

And the lonely seabird crosses
With one waft of. the wing.

THE REVENGE*

A BALLAD OF THE FLEET

At Flores in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay,

And a pinnace, like a flutter'd bird, came flying from far away;

"Spanish ships of war at sea! we have sighted fifty-three!''

See Sir Walter Raleigh's account, p. 208.

And they blest him in their pain, that they were not left to Spain,

To the thumb-screw and the stake, for the

glory of the Lord.

He had only a hundred seamen to work the

ship and to fight

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