Alfred Tennyson

“ And made themselves as Gods against the fear
Of Death and Hell; and thou that hast from men,
As Queen of Death, that worship which is Fear,
Henceforth, as having risen from out the dead,
Shalt ever send thy life along with mine
From buried grain thro' springing blade, and bless
Their garner'd Autumn also, reap with me,
Earth-mother, in the harvest hymns of Earth
The worship which is Love, and see no more
The Stone, the Wheel, the dimly-glimmering lawns
Of that Elysium, all the hateful fires
Of torment, and the shadowy warrior glide
Along the silent field of Asphodel. ”

“ ROMNEY'S REMORSE.
'I read Hayley's Life of Romney the other day—Romney wanted but education and reading to make him a very fine painter; but his ideal was not high nor fixed. How touching is the close of his life! He married at nineteen, and because Sir Joshua and others had said that "marriage spoilt an artist" almost immediately left his wife in the North and scarce saw her till the end of his life; when old, nearly mad and quite desolate, he went back to her and she received him and nursed him till he died. This quiet act of hers is worth all Romney's pictures! ”

“ The sacred relics tost about the floor—
Among them Muriel lying on her face—
I raised her, call'd her 'Muriel. Muriel wake!'
The fatal ring lay near her; the glazed eye
Glared at me as in horror. Dead! I took
And chafed the freezing hand. A red mark ran
All round one finger pointed straight, the rest
Were crumpled inwards. Dead!—and maybe stung
With some remorse, had stolen, worn the ring—
Then torn it from her finger, or as if—
For never had I seen her show remorse—
As if—
Miriam.
—those two Ghost lovers—
Father. ”

“ Nor ever ceased to clamour for the ring;
Why had I sent the ring at first to her?
Why had I made her love me thro' the ring,
And then had changed? so fickle are men—the best!
Not she—but now my love was hers again,
The ring by right, she said, was hers again.
At times too shrilling in her angrier moods,
'That weak and watery nature love you? No! ”

“ Pain, that has crawl’d from the corpse of Pleasure, a worm which writhes all day, and at night
Stirs up again in the heart of the sleeper, and stings him back to the curse of the light;
x.
Wealth with his wines and his wedded harlots; honest Poverty, bare to the bone;
Opulent Avarice, lean as Poverty; Flattery gilding the rift in a throne;
xi.
Fame blowing out from her golden trumpet a jubilant challenge to Time and to Fate ”

“ No, but if the rebel subject seek to drag me from the throne,
⁠Hold the sceptre, Human Soul, and rule thy province of the brute.
II.
I have climb'd to the snows of Age, and I gaze at a field in the Past.
⁠Where I sank with the body at times in the sloughs of a low desire,
But I hear no yelp of the beast, and the Man is quiet at last,
⁠As he stands on the heights of his life with a glimpse of a height that is higher. ”

“ What is it all, if we all of us end but in being our own corpse-coffins at last,
Swallow’d in Vastness, lost in Silence, drown’d in the deeps of a meaningless Past?
xviii.
What but a murmur of gnats in the gloom, or a moment’s anger of bees in their hive?—
*⁠*⁠*⁠*
Peace, let it be! for I loved him, and love him for ever: the dead are not dead but alive. ”

“ Grafted on half a truth, and tho’ you say
‘Take comfort, you have won the Painter’s fame;
The best in me that sees the worst in me,
And groans to see it, finds no comfort there.
What fame? I am not Raphaël, Titian—no
Nor even a Sir Joshua, some will cry.
Wrong there! The painter’s fame? ”

“ Now God has made you leper in His loving care for both,
That we might cling together, never doubt each other more.
xxiv.
The Priest, who join’d you to the dead, has join’d our hands of old;
If man and wife be but one flesh, let mine be leprous too,
As dead from all the human race as if beneath the mould;
If you be dead, then I am dead, who only live for you. ”

“ Yet I, Earth-Goddess, am but ill-content
With them, who still are highest. Those gray heads,
What meant they by their 'Fate beyond the Fates'
But younger kindlier Gods to bear us down,
As we bore down the Gods before us? ”

“ Fair Spring slides hither o'er the Southern sea,
Wavers on her thin stem the snowdrop cold
That trembles not to kisses of the bee:
Come Spring, for now from all the dripping eaves
The spear of ice has wept itself away,
And hour by hour unfolding woodbine leaves
O'er his uncertain shadow droops the day.
She comes! The loosen'd rivulets run;
The frost-bead melts upon her golden hair;
Her mantle, slowly greening in the Sun,
Now wraps her close, now arching leaves her bare
To breaths of balmier air ”

“ That icy winter silence—how it froze you from your bride,
Tho’ I made one barren effort to break it at the last.
xix.
I brought you, you remember, these roses, when I knew
You were parting for the war, and you took them tho’ you frown’d;
You frown’d and yet you kiss’d them. All at once the trumpet blew,
And you spurr’d your fiery horse, and you hurl’d them to the ground.
xx.
You parted for the Holy War without a word to me,
And clear myself unask’d—not I. My nature was too proud. ”

“ I would not mingle with their feasts; to me
Their nectar smack'd of hemlock on the lips,
Their rich ambrosia tasted aconite.
The man, that only lives and loves an hour,
Seem'd nobler than their hard Eternities.
My quick tears kill'd the flower, my ravings hush'd
The bird, and lost in utter grief I fail'd
To send my life thro' olive-yard and vine
And golden grain, my gift to helpless man.
Rain-rotten died the wheat, the barley-spears
Were hollow-husk'd, the leaf fell, and the sun,
Pale at my grief, drew down before his time
Sickening, and Ætna kept her winter snow. ”

“ Far, far, how far? from o'er the gates of Birth,
The faint horizons, all the bounds of earth,
⁠Far—far—away?
What charm in words, a charm no words could give?
O dying words, can Music make you live
⁠Far—far—away? ”

“ For your rich gift, your tale of lands
I know not,2 your Arabian sands;
Your cane, your palm, tree-fern, bamboo,
x.
The wealth of tropic bower and brake;
Your Oriental Eden-isles,3
Where man, nor only Nature smiles ”

“ 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 boundless deep
⁠Turns again home. ”

“ The Lord let the house of a brute to the soul of a man,
⁠And the man said, 'Am I your debtor?'
And the Lord–'Not yet; but make it as clean as you can,
⁠And then I will let you a better.'
I. ”

“ You are not to be indignant at being thus separated from others, and as to your little wants, good people will provide for you, and God will not desert you.’ Then in this old ritual follow these sad words: ‘When it shall come to pass that the leper shall pass out of this world, he shall be buried in his hut, and not in the churchyard.’ At first there was a doubt whether wives should follow their husbands who had been leprous, or remain in the world and marry again. ”

“ Bards, that the mighty Muses have raised to the heights of the mountain,
And over the flight of the Ages! O Goddesses, help me up thither!
Lightning may shrivel the laurel of Cæsar, but mine would not wither. ”

“ Sleeping, and woke me
And learn’d me Magic!
Great the Master,
And sweet the Magic,
When over the valley,
In early summers,
Over the mountain,
On human faces,
And all around me,
Moving to melody,
Floated The Gleam. ”

“ And hardly a daisy as yet, little friend,
⁠See, there is hardly a daisy.
'Here again, here, here, here, happy year'!
⁠O warble unchidden, unbidden!
Summer is coming, is coming, my dear,
⁠And all the winters are hidden. ”

“ Are there spectres moving in the darkness?
Trust the Hand of Light will lead her people,
Till the thunders pass, the spectres vanish,
And the Light is Victor, and the darkness
Dawns into the Jubilee of the Ages. ”

“ Who am, and was, and will be his, his own and only own,
To share his living death with him, die with him side by side?
iii.
Is that the leper’s hut on the solitary moor,
Where noble Ulric dwells forlorn, and wears the leper’s weed?
The door is open. He! is he standing at the door,
My soldier of the Cross? it is he and he indeed!
iv.
My roses—will he take them now—mine, his—from off the tree
We planted both together, happy in our marriage morn?
O God, I could blaspheme, for he fought Thy fight for Thee,
And Thou hast made him leper to compass him with scorn—
v. ”

“ Old Empires, dwellings of the kings of men;
Or should those fail, that hold the helm,
While the long day of knowledge grows and warms,
And in the heart of this most ancient realm
A hateful voice be utter'd, and alarms
Sounding 'To arms! ”

“ O the deathwatch beating!
v.
There will come a witness soon
Hard to be confuted,
All the world will hear a voice
Scream you are polluted . . .
In the night! O the night,
When the owls are wailing! ”

“ My people too were scared with eerie sounds,
A footstep, a low throbbing in the walls,
A noise of falling weights that never fell,
Weird whispers, bells that rang without a hand,
Door-handles turn'd when none was at the door,
And bolted doors that open'd of themselves:
And one betwixt the dark and light had seen
Her, bending by the cradle of her babe. ”

“ ‘Beat upon mine, little heart! beat, beat!
Beat upon mine! you are mine, my sweet!
All mine from your pretty blue eyes to your feet,
⁠My sweet.’
Less profile! ”

“ Then, in the loud world’s bastard judgment-day,
One truth will damn me with the mindless mob,
Who feel no touch of my temptation, more
Than [errata 1] all the myriad lies, that blacken round
The corpse of every man that gains a name ”

“ The brook that feeds this lakelet murmur'd 'debt,'
And in yon arching avenue of old elms,
Tho' mine, not mine, I heard the sober rook
And carrion crow cry 'Mortgage.'
Miriam.
Father's fault
Visited on the children!
Father. ”

“ The leprosy of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was supposed to be a legacy of the crusades, but was in all probability the offspring of meagre and unwholesome diet, miserable lodging and clothing, physical and moral degradation. ”

“ Theere, when the ’ouse wur a house, one night I wur sittin’ aloän,
Wi’ Roäver athurt my feeät, an’ sleeäpin still as a stoän,
Of a Christmas Eäve, an’ as cowd as this, an’ the midders12 as white,
An the fences all on ’em bolster ’d oop wi’ the windle13 that night;
An’ the cat wur a-sleeäpin alongside Roäver, but I wur awaäke,
An’ smoäkin’ an’ thinkin’ o’ things—Doänt maäke thysen sick wi’ the caäke.
Fur the men ater supper ’ed sung their songs an’ ’ed ’ed their beer,
An’ ’ed goän their waäys; ther was nobbut three, an’ noän on ’em theere. ”

“ Without the one.
xv.
The silver year should cease to mourn and sigh—
Not long to wait—
So close are we, dear Mary, you and I
To that dim gate.
xvi.
Take, read! and be the faults your Poet makes
Or many or few,
He rests content, if his young music wakes
A wish in you
xvii.
To change our dark Queen-city, all her realm
Of sound and smoke,
For his clear heaven, and these few lanes of elm
And whispering oak.
Cite error: tags exist for a group named "errata", but no corresponding tag was found
Errata ”

“ An’ I thowt it was Roäver a-tuggin’ an’ tearin’ me wuss nor afoor,
An’ I thowt ’at I kick’d ’im ageän, but I kick’d thy Moother istead.
‘What arta snorin’ theere fur? the house is afire,’ she said.
Thy Moother ’ed beän a-naggin’ about the gell o’ the farm,
She offens ’ud spy summut wrong when there warn’t not a mossel o’ harm ”

“ Not swift or rash, when late she lent
⁠The sceptres of her West, her East,
⁠To one, that ruling has increased
Her greatness and her self-content.
III.
Your rule has made the people love
⁠Their ruler. ”

“ By the lych-gate was Muriel. 'Ay,' she said,
'Among the tombs in this damp vale of yours!
You scorn my Mother's warning, but the child
Is paler than before. We often walk
In open sun, and see beneath our feet
The mist of autumn gather from your lake,
And shroud the tower; and once we only saw
Your gilded vane, a light above the mist'—
(Our old bright bird that still is veering there
Above his four gold letters) 'and the light,'
She said, 'was like that light'—and there she paused,
And long ”

“ Certain obscure markings on a rock in Siam, which express the image of Buddha to the Buddhist more or less distinctly according to his faith and his moral worth.
6.⁠The footstep of the Lord on another rock. ”

“ Fur I wants to tell tha o’ Roä when we lived i’ Howlaby Daäle,
Ten year sin—Naäy—naäy! tha mun nobbut hev’ one glass of aäle.
Straänge an’ owd-farran’d6 the ’ouse, an’ belt7 long afoor my daäy
Wi’ haäfe o’ the chimleys a-twizzen’d8 an’ twined like a band o’ haäy.
The fellers as maäkes them picturs, ’ud coom at the fall o’ the year,
An’ cattle their ends upo stools to pictur the door-poorch theere,
An’ the Heagle ’as hed two heäds stannin’ theere o’ the brokken stick;9
An’ they niver ’ed seed sich ivin’10 as graw’d hall ower the brick ”