Baron Alfred Tennyson Tennyson

“ For front to front in an hour we stood, And a million horrible bellowing echoes broke From the red-ribb'd hollow behind the wood, And thunder'd up into Heaven the Christless code, That must have life for a blow. Ever and ever afresh they seem'd to grow. Was it he lay there with a fading eye? 'The fault was mine,' he whisper'd, 'fly!' Then glided out of the joyous wood The ghastly Wraith of one that I know; And there rang on a sudden a passionate cry, A cry for a brother's blood: It will ring in my heart and my ears, till I die, till I die. ”

“ Love took up the glass of Time, and turn'd it in his glowing hands;
Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands.
Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might;
Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of sight.
Many a morning on the moorland did we hear the copses ring,
And her whisper throng'd my pulses with the fulness of the Spring.
Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately ships,
And our spirits rush'd together at the touching of the lips. ”

“ In blood-red armor sallying, howl'd to the King,
"The teeth of Hell flay bare and gnash thee flat!—
Lo! art thou not that eunuch-hearted King
Who fain had clipt free manhood from the world—
The woman-worshipper? Yea, God's curse, and I!
Slain was the brother of my paramour
By a knight of thine, and I that heard her whine
And snivel, being eunuch-hearted too,
Sware by the scorpion-worm that twists in hell,
And stings itself to everlasting death,
To hang whatever knight of thine I fought
And tumbled. Art thou King?—Look to thy life!" ”

“ Dear, Look up, and let thy nature strike on mine, Like yonder morning on the blind half-world; Approach and fear not; breathe upon my brows; In that fine air I tremble, all the past Melts mist-like into this bright hour, and this Is morn to more, and all the rich to-come Reels, as the golden Autumn woodland reels Athwart the smoke of burning weeds. Forgive me, I waste my heart in signs: let be. My bride, My wife, my life. O we will walk this world, Yoked in all exercise of noble end, And so through those dark gates across the wild That no man knows. ”

“ Fainted at intervals, and grew again
To utterance of passion. Ye cannot shape
Fancy so fair as is this memory.
Methought all excellence that ever was
Had drawn herself from many thousand years,
And all the separate Edens of this earth,
To centre in this place and time. I listen'd,
And her words stole with most prevailing sweetness
Into my heart, as thronged fancies come,
All unawares, into the poet's brain;
Or as the dew-drops on the petal hung,
When summer winds break their soft sleep with sighs,
Creep down into the bottom of the flower. ”

“ Last, some low fever ranging round to spy The weakness of a people or a house, Like flies that haunt a wound, or deer, or men, Or almost all that is, hurting the hurt— Save Christ as we believe him—found the girl And flung her down upon a couch of fire, Where careless of the household faces near, And crying upon the name of Leolin, She, and with her the race of Aylmer, past. Star to star vibrates light: may soul to soul Strike thro' a finer element of her own? ”

“ O imperial-moulded form, And beauty such as never woman wore, Until it became a kingdom’s curse with thee— I cannot touch thy lips, they are not mine, But Lancelot’s: nay, they never were the King’s. I cannot take thy hand: that too is flesh, And in the flesh thou hast sinned; and mine own flesh, Here looking down on thine polluted, cries ‘I loathe thee:’ yet not less, O Guinevere, For I was ever virgin save for thee, My love through flesh hath wrought into my life So far, that my doom is, I love thee still. Let no man dream but that I love thee still. ”

“ GUY. Art thou not Earl of Wessex? HAROLD. In mine earldom A man may hang gold bracelets on a bush, And leave them for a year, and coming back Find them again. GUY. Thou art a mighty man In thine own earldom! HAROLD. Were such murderous liars In Wessex—if I caught them, they should hang Cliff-gibbeted for sea-marks; our sea-mew Winging their only wail! GUY. Ay, but my men Hold that the shipwreckt are accursed of God;— What hinders me to hold with mine own men? HAROLD. The Christian manhood of the man who reigns! GUY. Ay, rave thy worst, but in our oubliettes Thou shalt or rot or ransom. ”

“ SYNORIX. No, nor Sinnatus. ANTONIUS. Hot-blooded! I have heard them say in Rome. That your own people cast you from their bounds, For some unprincely violence to a woman, As Rome did Tarquin. SYNORIX. Well, if this were so, I here return like Tarquin—for a crown. ANTONIUS. And may be foil'd like Tarquin, if you follow Not the dry light of Rome's straight-going policy, But the fool-fire of love or lust, which well May make you lose yourself, may even drown you In the good regard of Rome. SYNORIX. Tut—fear me not; I ever had my victories among women. I am most true to Rome. ”

“ Alas! for this gray shadow, once a man— So glorious in his beauty and thy choice, Who madest him thy chosen, that he seem'd To his great heart none other than a God! I ask'd thee, 'Give me immortality.' Then didst thou grant mine asking with a smile, Like wealthy men who care not how they give. But thy strong Hours indignant work'd their wills, And beat me down and marr'd and wasted me, And tho' they could not end me, left me maim'd To dwell in presence of immortal youth, Immortal age beside immortal youth, And all I was, in ashes. ”

“ That old man never comes to his place: Shall I believe him ashamed to be seen? For only once, in the village street, Last year, I caught a glimpse of his face, A gray old wolf and a lean. Scarcely, now, would I call him a cheat; For then, perhaps, as a child of deceit, She might by a true descent be untrue; And Maud is as true as Maud is sweet: Tho' I fancy her sweetness only due To the sweeter blood by the other side; Her mother has been a thing complete, However she came to be so allied. ”

“ I am Harry's daughter: Gardiner would have my head. They are not sweet, The violence and the craft that do divide The world of nature; what is weak must lie; The lion needs but roar to guard his young; The lapwing lies, says 'here' when they are there. Threaten the child; 'I'll scourge you if you did it:' What weapon hath the child, save his soft tongue, To say 'I did not?' and my rod's the block. I never lay my head upon the pillow But that I think, 'Wilt thou lie there to-morrow?' How oft the falling axe, that never fell, Hath shock'd me back into the daylight truth That it may fall to-day! ”

“ And all in shadow from the counter door Sir Lancelot as to meet her, then at once, As if he saw not, glanced aside, and paced The long white walk of lilies toward the bower. Followed the Queen; Sir Balin heard her “Prince, Art thou so little loyal to thy Queen, As pass without good morrow to thy Queen?” To whom Sir Lancelot with his eyes on earth, “Fain would I still be loyal to the Queen.” “Yea so” she said “but so to pass me by— So loyal scarce is loyal to thyself, Whom all men rate the king of courtesy. Let be: ye stand, fair lord, as in a dream.” ”

“ ELEANOR (seeing chart on table) . This chart with the red line! her bower! whose bower? HENRY. The chart is not mine, but Becket's: take it, Thomas. ELEANOR. Becket! O—ay—and these chessmen on the floor—the king's crown broken! Becket hath beaten thee again—and thou hast kicked down the board. I know thee of old. HENRY. True enough, my mind was set upon other matters. ELEANOR. What matters? State matters? love matters? HENRY. My love for thee, and thine for me. ELEANOR. Over! the sweet summer closes, The reign of the roses is done; Over and gone with the roses, And over and gone with the sun. ”

“ Perhaps the smile and tender tone Came out of her pitying womanhood, For am I not, am I not, here alone So many a summer since she died, My mother, who was so gentle and good? Living alone in an empty house, Here half-hid in the gleaming wood, Where I hear the dead at midday moan, And the shrieking rush of the wainscot mouse, And my own sad name in corners cried, When the shiver of dancing leaves is thrown About its echoing chambers wide, Till a morbid hate and horror have grown Of a world in which I have hardly mixt, And a morbid eating lichen fixt On a heart half-turn'd to stone. ”

“ II. Warm broke the breeze against the brow, Dry sang the tackle, sang the sail: The Lady's-head upon the prow Caught the shrill salt, and sheer'd the gale. The broad seas swell'd to meet the keel, And swept behind: so quick the run, We felt the good ship shake and reel, We seem'd to sail into the Sun! III. How oft we saw the Sun retire, And burn the threshold of the night, Fall from his Ocean-lane of fire, And sleep beneath his pillar'd light! How oft the purple-skirted robe Of twilight slowly downward drawn, As thro' the slumber of the globe Again we dash'd into the dawn! ”

“ I am heir Of England by the promise of her king. MALET. But there the great Assembly choose their king, The choice of England is the voice of England. WILLIAM. I will be king of England by the laws, The choice, and voice of England. MALET. Can that be? WILLIAM. The voice of any people is the sword That guards them, or the sword that beats them down. Here comes the would-be what I will be ... king-like ... Tho' scarce at ease; for, save our meshes break, More kinglike he than like to prove a king. Enter HAROLD, musing, with his eyes on the ground. He sees me not—and yet he dreams of me. ”

“ For Merlin once had told her of a charm, The which if any wrought on anyone With woven paces and with waving arms, The man so wrought on ever seemed to lie Closed in the four walls of a hollow tower, From which was no escape for evermore; And none could find that man for evermore, Nor could he see but him who wrought the charm Coming and going, and he lay as dead And lost to life and use and name and fame. And Vivien ever sought to work the charm Upon the great Enchanter of the Time, As fancying that her glory would be great According to his greatness whom she quenched. ”

“ PHOEBE. Great Artemis! O Camma, can it be well, Or good, or wise, that you should clasp a hand Red with the sacred blood of Sinnatus? CAMMA. Good! mine own dagger driven by Synorix found All good in the true heart of Sinnatus, And quench'd it there for ever. Wise! Life yields to death and wisdom bows to Fate, Is wisest, doing so. Did not this man Speak well? We cannot fight imperial Rome, But he and I are both Galatian-born, And tributary sovereigns, he and I Might teach this Rome—from knowledge of our people— Where to lay on her tribute—heavily here And lightly there. ”

“ Tho' many a light shall darken, and many shall weep For those that are crush'd in the clash of jarring claims, Yet God's just wrath shall be wreak'd on a giant liar; And many a darkness into the light shall leap, And shine in the sudden making of splendid names, And noble thought be freer under the sun, And the heart of a people beat with one desire; For the peace, that I deem'd no peace, is over and done, And now by the side of the Black and the Baltic deep, And deathful-grinning mouths of the fortress, flames The blood-red blossom of war with a heart of fire. ”

“ Now when the dead man come to life beheld His wife his wife no more, and saw the babe Hers, yet not his, upon the father's knee, And all the warmth, the peace, the happiness, And his own children tall and beautiful, And him, that other, reigning in his place, Lord of his rights and of his children's love,— Then he, tho' Miriam Lane had told him all, Because things seen are mightier than things heard, Stagger'd and shook, holding the branch, and fear'd To send abroad a shrill and terrible cry, Which in one moment, like the blast of doom, Would shatter all the happiness of the hearth. ”

“ WHITE. Courage, sir, That makes or man or woman look their goodliest. Die like the torn fox dumb, but never whine Like that poor heart, Northumberland, at the block. BAGENHALL. The man had children, and he whined for those. Methinks most men are but poor-hearted, else Should we so doat on courage, were it commoner? The Queen stands up, and speaks for her own self; And all men cry, She is queenly, she is goodly. Yet she's no goodlier; tho' my Lord Mayor here, By his own rule, he hath been so bold to-day, Should look more goodly than the rest of us. ”

“ Then when he came before Ettarre, the sight Of her rich beauty made him at one glance More bondsman in his heart than in his bonds. Yet with good cheer he spake, “Behold me, Lady, A prisoner, and the vassal of thy will; And if thou keep me in thy donjon here, Content am I so that I see thy face But once a day: for I have sworn my vows, And thou hast given thy promise, and I know That all these pains are trials of my faith, And that thyself, when thou hast seen me strained And sifted to the utmost, wilt at length Yield me thy love and know me for thy knight.” ”

“ The State will die, the Church can never die. The King's not like to die for that which dies; But I must die for that which never dies. It will be so—my visions in the Lord: It must be so, my friend! the wolves of England Must murder her one shepherd, that the sheep May feed in peace. False figure, Map would say. Earth's falses are heaven's truths. And when my voice Is martyr'd mute, and this man disappears, That perfect trust may come again between us, And there, there, there, not here I shall rejoice To find my stray sheep back within the fold. ”

“ Then from his height and loneliness of grief Bore down in flood, and dash'd his angry heart Against the desolations of the world. Never since our bad earth became one sea, Which rolling o'er the palaces of the proud, And all but those who knew the living God— Eight that were left to make a purer world— When since had flood, fire, earthquake, thunder wrought Such waste and havoc as the idolatries, Which from the low light of mortality Shot up their shadows to the Heaven of Heavens, And worshipt their own darkness as the Highest? ”

“ Think I may hold dominion sweet, Lord of the pulse that is lord of her breast, And dream of her beauty with tender dread, From the delicate Arab arch of her feet To the grace that, bright and light as the crest Of a peacock, sits on her shining head, And she knows it not: O, if she knew it, To know her beauty might half undo it. I know it the one bright thing to save My yet young life in the wilds of Time, Perhaps from madness, perhaps from crime, Perhaps from a selfish grave. ”

“ Rising. Tell him the saints are nobler than he dreams, Tell him that God is nobler than the Saints, And tell him we stand arm'd on Senlac Hill, And bide the doom of God. MARGOT. Hear it thro' me. The realm for which thou art forsworn is cursed, The babe enwomb'd and at the breast is cursed, The corpse thou whelmest with thine earth is cursed, The soul who fighteth on thy side is cursed, The seed thou sowest in thy field is cursed, The steer wherewith thou plowest thy field is cursed, The fowl that fleeth o'er thy field is cursed, And thou, usurper, liar— HAROLD. Out, beast monk! ”

“ No sooner gone than suddenly she began: “To blame, my lord Sir Lancelot, much to blame! Why go ye not to these fair jousts? the knights Are half of them our enemies, and the crowd Will murmur, ‘Lo the shameless ones, who take Their pastime now the trustful King is gone!’” Then Lancelot vext at having lied in vain: “Are ye so wise? ye were not once so wise, My Queen, that summer, when ye loved me first. Then of the crowd ye took no more account Than of the myriad cricket of the mead, When its own voice clings to each blade of grass, And every voice is nothing. ”

“ BECKET. Cursed be John of Oxford, Roger of York, And Gilbert Foliot! cursed those De Brocs That hold our Saltwood Castle from our see! Cursed Fitzurse, and all the rest of them That sow this hate between my lord and me! Voices from the Crowd. Blessed be the Lord Archbishop, who hath withstood two Kings to their faces for the honour of God. BECKET. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, praise! I thank you, sons; when kings but hold by crowns, The crowd that hungers for a crown in Heaven Is my true king. HERBERT. Thy true King bad thee be A fisher of men; thou hast them in thy net. ”