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Than this, this-but I waste no words To make, to make

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What then?
I wish'd, I hoped

Dora. What did you hope to make? Harold. 'T were best to make an end of my lost life.

O Dora, Dora!

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CROSSING THE BAR

This poem first appeared in the 'Demeter' volume of 1889, but is placed here in accordance with Lord Tennyson's request that it might be put at the end of all editions of his poems. See the Memoir,' vol. ii. p. 367.

SUNSET and evening star,

And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,

When that which drew from out the bound. less deep Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,

And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell, When I embark;

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and
Place

The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.

APPENDIX

1. SELECTIONS FROM 'POEMS BY TWO BROTHERS'

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In 1893 the present Lord Tennyson published a facsimile reprint of the Poems by Two Brothers,' in which his uncle, Mr. Frederick Tennyson, had appended the initials of the authors to their contributions to the volume, so far as he remembered them. He was not certain of the authorship of every poem. Some he signs 'A. T. (?)' or 'C. T. (?),' and some 'A. T. or C. T.' I give here all that are probably Alfred's, with some about which (see prefatory notes) I have my doubts. I follow the spelling and pointing of the reprint except in the few instances mentioned in the Notes.

MEMORY

It is interesting to compare this poem with the Ode to Memory' published in 1830. Like several others of Alfred's it is longer than any of Charles's.

The memory is perpetually looking back when we have nothing present to entertain us: it is like those repositories in animals that are filled with stores of food, on which they may ruminate when their present pasture fails.' - ADDISON.

MEMORY! dear enchanter!
Why bring back to view
Dreams of youth, which banter
All that c'er was true?

Why present before me
Thoughts of years gone by,
Which, like shadows o'er me,
Dim in distance fly?

Days of youth, now shaded

By twilight of long years, Flowers of youth, now faded,

Though bathed in sorrow's tears:

Thoughts of youth, which waken
Mournful feelings now,
Fruits which time hath shaken
From off their parent bough:

Memory! why, oh why,

This fond heart consuming, Shew me years gone by,

When those hopes were blooming?

Hopes which now are parted,
Hopes which then I priz'd,
Which this world, cold-hearted,
Ne'er has realiz'd?

I knew not then its strife,
I knew not then its rancour;
In every rose of life,

Alas! there lurks a canker.

Round every palm-tree, springing With bright fruit in the waste, A mournful asp is clinging, Which sours it to our taste.

O'er every fountain, pouring
Its waters thro' the wild,
Which man imbibes, adoring,
And deems it undefil'd,

The poison-shrubs are dropping
Their dark dews day by day;
And Care is hourly lopping

Our greenest boughs away!

Ah! these are thoughts that grieve me
Then, when others rest.
Memory! why deceive me
By thy visions blest?

Why lift the veil, dividing
The brilliant courts of spring-
Where gilded shapes are gliding
In fairy colouring -

From age's frosty mansion,

So cheerless and so chill?
Why bid the bleak expansion
Of past life meet us still?

Where 's now that peace of mind
O'er youth's pure bosom stealing,
So sweet and so refin'd,

So exquisite a feeling?

Where 's now the heart exulting
In pleasure's buoyant sense,

And gaiety, resulting

From conscious innocence?

All, all have past and fled,
And left me lorn and lonely;
All those dear hopes are dead,
Remembrance wakes them only!

I stand like some lone tower
Of former days remaining,
Within whose place of power
The midnight owl is plaining;

Like oak-tree old and grey,

Whose trunk with age is failing, Thro' whose dark boughs for aye The winter winds are wailing.

Thus, Memory, thus thy light O'er this worn soul is gleaming, Like some far fire at night

Along the dun deep streaming.

THE EXILE'S HARP

I WILL hang thee, my Harp, by the side of the fountain,

On the whispering branch of the lone-waving willow:

Above thee shall rush the hoarse gale of the mountain,

Below thee shall tumble the dark breaking billow.

The winds shall blow by thee, abandon'd, forsaken,

The wild gales alone shall arouse thy sad strain;

For where is the heart or the hand to awaken The sounds of thy soul-soothing sweetness again?

Oh! Harp of my fathers!
Thy chords shall decay,
One by one with the strings
Shall thy notes fade away;
Till the fiercest of tempests
Around thee may yell,
And not waken one sound
Of thy desolate shell!

Yet, oh yet, ere I go, will I fling a wreath

round thee,

With the richest of flowers in the green valley springing;

Those that see shall remember the hand that hath crown'd thee,

When, wither'd and dead, to thee still they are clinging.

There! now I have wreath'd thee

are twining

the roses

Thy chords with their bright blossoms glowing and red:

Though the lapse of one day see their freshness declining,

Yet bloom for one day when thy ninstrel has fied!

Oh! Harp of my fathers!
No more in the hall,
The souls of the chieftains
Thy strains shall enthral :
One sweep will I give thee,
And wake thy bold swell;
Then, thou friend of my bosom,
For ever farewell!

'WHY SHOULD WE WEEP FOR THOSE WHO DIE?'

I doubt whether this poem is rightly attributed to Alfred.

'Quamobrem, si dolorum finem mors affert, si securioris et melioris initium vitæ: si futura mala avertit -cur eam tantopere accusare, ex qua potius consolationem et lætitiam haurire fas esset?'- CICERO.

WHY should we weep for those who die?
They fall-their dust returns to dust;
Their souls shall live eternally

Within the mansions of the just.

They die to live-they sink to rise,
They leave this wretched mortal shore;
But brighter suns and bluer skies

Shall smile on them for evermore.

Why should we sorrow for the dead?
Our life on earth is but a span;
They tread the path that all must tread,
They die the common death of man.

The noblest songster of the gale
Must cease, when Winter's frowns appear;
The reddest rose is wan and pale,

When Autumn tints the changing year.

The fairest flower on earth must fade,
The brightest hopes on earth must die:
Why should we mourn that man was made
To droop on earth, but dwell on high?

The soul, th' eternal soul, must reign
In worlds devoid of pain and strife;
Then why should mortal man complain
Of death, which leads to happier life?

REMORSE

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The complex interlacing of the rhymes is peculiar to Alfred. Compare Persia,' Fall of Jerusalem,' 'Time,' etc.

'— sudant tacita præcordia culpa, ' — JUVENAL
OH! 't is a fearful thing to glance
Back on the gloom of mis-spent years:
What shadowy forms of guilt advance,
And fill me with a thousand fears!
The vices of my life arise,

Pourtray'd in shapes, alas! too true;
And not one beam of hope breaks through,
To cheer my old and aching eyes.

T' illume my night of wretchedness,
My age of anguish and distress.
If I am damn'd, why find I not
Some comfort in this earthly spot?
But no! this world and that to come
Are both to me one scene of gloom!
Lest ought of solace I should see,

Or lose the thoughts of what I do,
Remorse, with soul-felt agony,

Holds up the mirror to my view.
And I was cursed from my birth,
A reptile made to creep on earth,
An hopeless outcast, born to die
A living death eternally!

With too much conscience to have rest,

Too little to be ever blest,

To yon vast world of endless woe,
Unlighted by the cheerful day,

My soul shall wing her weary way;

To those dread depths where aye the same, Throughout the waste of darkness, glow

The glimmerings of the boundless flame. And yet I cannot here below

Take

my full cup of guilt, as some,
And laugh away my doom to come.
I would I'd been all-heartless! then
I might have sinn'd like other men;
But all this side the grave is fear,
A wilderness so dank and drear,

That never wholesome plant would spring;
And all behind - I dare not think?

I would not risk th' imagining

From the full view my spirits shrink;
And starting backwards, yet I cling
To life, whose every hour to me
Hath been increase of misery.
But yet I cling to it, for well

I know the pangs that rack me now
Are trifles, to the endless hell

That waits me, when my burning brow And my wrung eyes shall hope in vain For one small drop to cool the pain, The fury of that madd'ning flame That then shall scorch my writhing frame ! Fiends! who have goaded me to ill! Distracting fiends, who goad me still! If e'er I work'd a sinful deed,

Ye know how bitter was the draught;
Ye know my inmost soul would bleed,

And ye have look'd at me and laugh'd,
Triumphing that I could not free
My spirit from your slavery!
Yet is there that in me which says,

Should these old feet their course retread From out the portal of my days,

That I should lead the life I 've led:

My agony, my torturing shame,
My guilt, my errors all the same!

Oh, God! that thou wouldst grant that ne'er
My soul its clay-cold bed forsake,
That I might sleep, and never wake
Unto the thrill of conscious fear;

For when the trumpet's piercing cry
Shall burst upon my slumb'ring ear,

And countless seraphs throng the sky,
How shall I cast my shroud away,
And come into the blaze of day?

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How pleasant was the ever-varying light

Beneath that emerald coverture of boughs! How often, at th' approach of dewy night, Have those tall pine-trees heard the lover's Vows!

How many a name was carv'd upon the trunk Of each old hollow willow-tree, that stoop'd To lave its branches in the brook, and drunk Its freshening dew! How many a cypress droop'd

From those fair banks, where bloom'd the earliest flowers,

Which the young year from her abounding horn

Scatters profuse within her secret bowers! What rapturous gales from that wild dell were borne!

And, floating on the rich spring breezes, flung Their incense o'er that wave on whose bright banks they sprung!

Long years had past, and there again I came, But man's rude hand had sorely scath'd the dell;

And though the cloud-capped mountains, still the same,

Uprear'd each heaven-invading pinnacle; Yet were the charms of that lone valley fled, And the grey-winding of the stream was

gone;

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