Alfred, Lord Tennyson

“ Be mine a philosopher’s life in the quiet woodland ways, 150
Where if I cannot be gay let a passionless peace be my lot,
Far-off from the clamour of liars belied in the hubbub of lies;
From the long-neck’d geese of the world that are ever hissing dispraise
Because their natures are little, and, whether he heed it or not,
Where each man walks with his head in a cloud of poisonous flies. ”

“ Peace in her vineyard—yes!—but a company forges the wine.
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And the vitriol madness flushes up in the ruffian’s head,
Till the filthy by-lane rings to the yell of the trampled wife,
And chalk and alum and plaster are sold to the poor for bread,
And the spirit of murder works in the very means of life. 40
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And Sleep must lie down arm’d, for the villainous center-bits
Grind on the wakeful ear in the hush of the moonless nights,
While another is cheating the sick of a few last gasps, as he sits
To pestle a poison’d poison behind his crimson lights. ”

“ Walk’d in a wintry wind by a ghastly glimmer, and found 100
The shining daffodil dead, and Orion low in his grave.
IV
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A MILLION emeralds break from the ruby-budded lime
In the little grove where I sit—ah, wherefore cannot I be
Like things of the season gay, like the bountiful season bland,
When the far-off sail is blown by the breeze of a softer clime, 105
Half-lost in the liquid azure bloom of a crescent of sea,
The silent sapphire-spangled marriage ring of the land?
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Below me, there, is the village, and looks how quiet and small! ”

“ 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. 395
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Let it flame or fade, and the war roll down like a wind,
We have proved we have hearts in a cause, we are noble still
And myself have awaked, as it seems, to the better mind
It is better to fight for the good, than to rail at the ill ”

“ And love of a peace that was full of wrongs and shames,
Horrible, hateful, monstrous, not to be told;
And hail once more to the banner of battle unroll’d!
Tho’ many a light shall darken, and many shall weep 385
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 ”

“ Why do they prate of the blessings of Peace? we have made them a curse,
Pickpockets, each hand lusting for all that is not its own;
And lust of gain, in the spirit of Cain, is it better or worse
Than the heart of the citizen hissing in war on his own hearthstone? ”

“ The man of science himself is fonder of glory, and vain,
An eye well-practised in nature, a spirit bounded and poor;
The passionate heart of the poet is whirl’d into folly and vice. 140
I would not marvel at either, but keep a temperate brain;
For not to desire or admire, if a man could learn it, were more
Than to walk all day like the sultan of old in a garden of spice.
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For the drift of the Maker is dark, an Isis hid by the veil. ”

“ Ready in heart and ready in hand, 170
March with banner and bugle and fife
To the death, for their native land.
2
Maud with her exquisite face,
And wild voice pealing up to the sunny sky,
And feet like sunny gems on an English green, 175
Maud in the light of her youth and her grace,
Singing of Death, and of Honour that cannot die,
Till I well could weep for a time so sordid and mean,
And myself so languid and base.
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Silence, beautiful voice! ”

“ Not let any man think for the public good,
But babble, merely for babble.
For I never whisper’d a private affair 285
Within the hearing of cat or mouse,
No, not to myself in the closet alone,
But I heard it shouted at once from the top of the house;
Everything came to be known:
Who told him we were there? 290
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Not that gray old wolf, for he came not back
From the wilderness, full of wolves, where he used to lie;
He has gather’d the bones for his o’ergrown whelp to crack;
Crack them now for yourself, and howl, and die. ”

“ Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls,
Come hither, the dances are done,
In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls,
Queen lily and rose in one; 905
Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls,
To the flowers, and be their sun. ”

“ She is coming, my own, my sweet,
Were it ever so airy a tread,
My heart would hear her and beat,
Were it earth in an earthy bed;
My dust would hear her and beat, 920
Had I lain for a century dead;
Would start and tremble under her feet,
And blossom in purple and red. ”

“ COME into the garden, Maud, 850
For the black bat, night, has flown,
Come into the garden, Maud,
I am here at the gate alone;
And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad,
And the musk of the roses blown. ”

“ A shadow flits before me,
Not thou, but like to thee;
Ah Christ, that it were possible
For one short hour to see
The souls we loved, that they might tell us 155
What and where they be. ”

“ A wiser epicurean, and let the world have its way:
For nature is one with rapine, a harm no preacher can heal;
The Mayfly is torn by the swallow, the sparrow spear’d by the shrike,
And the whole little wood where I sit is a world of plunder and prey. 125
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We are puppets, Man in his pride, and Beauty fair in her flower ”

“ And ah for a man to rise in me,
That the man I am may cease to be! ”

“ Who shall call me ungentle, unfair,
I long’d so heartily then and there
To give him the grasp of fellowship;
But while I past he was humming an air, 460
Stopt, and then with a riding whip
Leisurely tapping a glossy boot,
And curving a contumelious lip,
Gorgonised me from head to foot
With a stony British stare. ”

“ When a Mammonite mother kills her babe for a burial fee, 45
And Timour-Mammon grins on a pile of children’s bones,
Is it peace or war? better, war! loud war by land and by sea,
War with a thousand battles, and shaking a hundred thrones.
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For I trust if an enemy’s fleet came yonder round by the hill,
And the rushing battle-bolt sang from the three-decker out of the foam, 50
That the smoothfaced snubnosed rogue would leap from his counter and till,
And strike, if he could, were it but with his cheating yard-wand, home.—
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What! ”

“ And ye meanwhile far over moor and fell
Beat to the noiseless music of the night! 675
Has our whole earth gone nearer to the glow
Of your soft splendours that you look so bright?
I have climb’d nearer out of lonely Hell.
Beat, happy stars, timing with things below,
Beat with my heart more blest than heart can tell, 680
Blest, but for some dark undercurrent woe
That seems to draw—but it shall not be so:
Let all be well, be well.
XIX
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HER brother is coming back to-night,
Breaking up my dream of delight. 685
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My dream? ”