Alfred Tennyson

“ Some diviner force to guide us thro’ the days I shall not see?
When the schemes and all the systems, Kingdoms and Republics fall,
Something kindlier, higher, holier—all for each and each for all?
All the full-brain, half-brain races, led by Justice, Love, and Truth;
All the millions one at length with all the visions of my youth?
All diseases quench’d by Science, no man halt, or deaf or blind;
Stronger ever born of weaker, lustier body, larger mind?
Earth at last a warless world, a single race, a single tongue—
I have seen her far away—for is not Earth as yet so young? ”

“ Amy loved me, Amy fail’d me, Amy was a timid child;
But your Judith—but your worldling—she had never driven me wild.
She that holds the diamond necklace dearer than the golden ring,
She that finds a winter sunset fairer than a morn of Spring.
She that in her heart is brooding on his briefer lease of life,
While she vows ‘till death shall part us,’ she the would-be-widow wife.
She the worldling born of worldlings—father, mother—be content,
Ev’n the homely farm can teach us there is something in descent. ”

“ Earth may reach her earthly-worst, or if she gain her earthly-best,
Would she find her human offspring this ideal man at rest?
Forward then, but still remember how the course of Time will swerve,
Crook and turn upon itself in many a backward streaming curve.
Not the Hall to-night, my grandson! Death and Silence hold their own.
Leave the Master in the first dark hour of his last sleep alone.
Worthier soul was he than I am, sound and honest, rustic Squire,
Kindly landlord, boon companion—youthful jealousy is a liar.
Cast the poison from your bosom, oust the madness from your brain. ”

“ I myself so close on death, and death itself in Locksley Hall.
So—your happy suit was blasted—she the faultless, the divine;
And you liken—boyish babble—this boy-love of yours with mine.
I myself have often babbled doubtless of a foolish past;
Babble, babble; our old England may go down in babble at last.
‘Curse him!’ curse your fellow-victim? call him dotard in your rage?
Eyes that lured a doting boyhood well might fool a dotard’s age.
Jilted for a wealthier! wealthier? ”

“ Poor old voice of eighty crying after voices that have fled!
All I loved are vanish’d voices, all my steps are on the dead.
All the world is ghost to me, and as the phantom disappears,
Forward far and far from here is all the hope of eighty years. ”

“ Is there evil but on earth? or pain in every peopled sphere?
Well be grateful for the sounding watchword ‘Evolution’ here,
Evolution ever climbing after some ideal good, ”

“ Universal ocean softly washing all her warless Isles.
Warless? when her tens are thousands, and her thousands millions, then—
All her harvest all too narrow—who can fancy warless men?
Warless? war will die out late then. Will it ever? late or soon?
Can it, till this outworn earth be dead as yon dead world the moon?
Dead the new astronomy calls her. . . . On this day and at this hour,
In this gap between the sandhills, whence you see the Locksley tower,
Here we met, our latest meeting—Amy—sixty years ago—
She and I—the moon was falling greenish thro’ a rosy glow ”

“ Here and there a cotter’s babe is royal-born by right divine;
Here and there my lord is lower than his oxen or his swine. ”

“ Step by step we rose to greatness,—thro’ the tonguesters we may fall.
You that woo the Voices—tell them ‘old experience is a fool,’
Teach your flatter’d kings that only those who cannot read can rule. ”

“ Till the Cat thro’ that mirage of overheated language loom
Larger than the Lion,—Demos end in working its own doom.
Russia bursts our Indian barrier, shall we fight her? shall we yield?
Pause! before you sound the trumpet, hear the voices from the field. ”

“ Fires that shook me once, but now to silent ashes fall’n away.
Cold upon the dead volcano sleeps the gleam of dying day. ”