Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Delphi Poets Series

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by Lord Tennyson Alfred


  Through some august cathedral, where, from high,

  The cold, clear moon on the mosaic stone

  Comes glancing in gay colours gloriously,

  Through windows rich with gorgeous blazonry,

  Gilding the niches dim, where, side by side,

  Stand antique mitred prelates, whose bones lie

  Beneath the pavement, where their deeds of pride

  Were graven, but long since are worn away

  By constant feet of ages day by day.

  Then, as Imagination aids, I hear

  Wild heavenly voices sounding from the choir,

  And more than mortal music meets mine ear,

  Whose long, long notes among the tombs expire,

  With solemn rustling of cherubic wings,

  Round those vast columns which the roof upbear;

  While sad and undistinguishable things

  Do flit athwart the moonlit windows there;

  And my blood curdles at the chilling sound

  Of lone, unearthly steps, that pace the hallow’d ground!

  I love the starry spangled heav’n, resembling

  A canopy with fiery gems o’erspread,

  When the wide loch with silvery sheen is trembling,

  Far stretch’d beneath the mountain’s hoary head.

  But most I love that sky, when, dark with storms,

  It frowns terrific o’er this wilder’d earth,

  While the black clouds, in strange and uncouth forms,

  Come hurrying onward in their ruinous wrath;

  And shrouding in their deep and gloomy robe

  The burning eyes of heav’n and Dian’s lucid globe!

  love your voice, ye echoing winds, that sweep

  Thro’ the wide womb of midnight, when the veil

  Of darkness rests upon the mighty deep,

  The labouring vessel, and the shatter’d sail —

  Save when the forked bolts of lightning leap

  On flashing pinions, and the mariner pale

  Raises his eyes to heav’n. Oh! who would sleep

  What time the rushing of the angry gale

  Is loud upon the waters? — Hail, all hail!

  Tempest and clouds and night and thunder’s rending peal!

  All hail, Sublimity! thou lofty one,

  For thou dost walk upon the blast, and gird

  Thy majesty with terrors, and thy throne

  Is on the whirlwind, and thy voice is heard

  In thunders and in shakings: thy delight

  Is in the secret wood, the blasted heath,

  The ruin’d fortress, and the dizzy height,

  The grave, the ghastly charnel-house of death,

  In vaults, in cloisters, and in gloomy piles,

  Long corridors and towers and solitary aisles!

  Thy joy is in obscurity, and plain

  Is naught with thee; and on thy steps attend

  Shadows but half distinguish’d; the thin train

  Of hovering spirits round thy pathway bend,

  With their low tremulous voice and airy tread,

  What time the tomb above them yawns and gapes:

  For thou dost hold communion with the dead

  Phantoms and phantasies and grisly shapes;

  And shades and headless spectres of St. Mark,

  Seen by a lurid light, formless and still and dark!

  What joy to view the varied rainbow smile

  On Niagara’s flood of matchless might,

  Where all around the melancholy isle

  The billows sparkle with their hues of light!

  While, as the restless surges roar and rave,

  The arrowy stream descends with awful sound,

  Wheeling and whirling with each breathless wave.

  Immense, sublime, magnificent, profound!

  If thou hast seen all this, and could’st not feel,

  Then know, thine heart is framed of marble or of steel.

  The hurricane fair earth to darkness changing,

  Kentucky’s chambers of eternal gloom,

  The swift-paced columns of the desert ranging

  Th’ uneven waste, the violent Simoom,

  Thy snow-clad peaks, stupendous Gungotree!

  Whence springs the hallow’d Jumna’s echoing tide,

  Hoar Cotopaxi’s cloud-capt majesty,

  Enormous Chimborazo’s naked pride,

  The dizzy cape of winds that cleaves the sky,

  Whence we look down into eternity,

  The pillar’d cave of Morven’s giant king,

  The Yanar, and the Geyser’s boiling fountain,

  The deep volcano’s inward murmuring,

  The shadowy Colossus of the mountain;

  Antiparos, where sunbeams never enter;

  Loud Stromboli, amid the quaking isles;

  The terrible Maelstrom, around his centre

  Wheeling his circuit of unnumber’d miles:

  These, these are sights and sounds that freeze the blood,

  Yet charm the awe-struck soul which doats on solitude.

  Blest be the bard, whose willing feet rejoice

  To tread the emerald green of Fancy’s vales,

  Who hears the music of her heavenly voice,

  And breathes the rapture of her nectar’d gales!

  Blest be the bard, whom golden Fancy loves,

  He strays for ever thro’ her blooming bowers,

  Amid the rich profusion of her groves,

  And wreathes his forehead with her spicy flowers

  Of sunny radiance; but how blest is he

  Who feels the genuine force of high Sublimity!

  THE DEITY.

  “Immutable — immortal — infinite!” — Milton.

  WHERE is the wonderful abode,

  The holy, secret, searchless shrine,

  Where dwells the immaterial God,

  The all-pervading and benign?

  Oh that he were reveal’d to me,

  Fully and palpably display’d

  In all the awful majesty

  Of Heaven’s consummate pomp array’d ——

  How would the overwhelming light

  Of his tremendous presence beam!

  And how insufferably bright

  Would the broad glow of glory stream!

  What tho’ this flesh would fade like grass,

  Before th’ intensity of day?

  One glance at him who always was,

  The fiercest pangs would well repay.

  When Moses on the mountain’s brow

  Had met th’ Eternal face to face,

  While anxious Israel stood below,

  Wond’ring and trembling at its base;

  His visage, as he downward trod,

  Shone starlike on the shrinking crowd,

  With lustre borrow’d from his God:

  They could not brook it, and they bow’d.

  The mere reflection of the blaze

  That lighten’d round creation’s Lord,

  Was too puissant for their gaze;

  And he that caught it was adored.

  Then how ineffably august,

  How passing wond’rous must He be,

  Whose presence lent to earthly dust

  Such permanence of brilliancy!

  Throned in sequester’d sanctity,

  And with transcendent glories crown’d;

  With all His works beneath His eye,

  And suns and systems burning round, —

  How shall I hymn Him? How aspire

  His holy Name with song to blend,

  And bid my rash and feeble lyre

  To such an awless flight ascend?

  THE REIGN OF LOVE.

  “In freta dum fluvii current,” etc. — VIRGIL.

  WHILE roses boast a purple dye,

  While seas obey the blast,

  Or glowing rainbows span the sky —

  The reign of love shall last.

  While man exults o’er present joy,

  Or mour
ns o’er joy that’s past,

  Feels virtue soothe, or vice alloy —

  The reign of love shall last.

  While female charms attract the mind,

  In moulds of beauty cast;

  While man is warm, or woman kind —

  The reign of love shall last.

  TIS THE VOICE OF THE DEAD.

  “Non omnis moriar.” — HORACE.

  ‘TIS the voice of the dead

  From the depth of their glooms:

  Hark! they call me away

  To the world of the tombs!

  I come, lo! I come

  To your lonely abodes,

  For my dust is the earth’s

  But this soul is my God’s!

  Thine is not the triumph,

  O invincible Death!

  Thou hast not prevail’d,

  Tho’ I yield thee my breath;

  Thy sceptre shall wave

  O’er a fragment of clay,

  But my spirit, thou tyrant,

  Is bounding away!

  fear not, I feel not

  The pang that destroys,

  In the bliss of that thought —

  That the blest shall rejoice:

  For why should I shrink?

  One moment shall sever

  My soul from its chain,

  Then it liveth for ever!

  Then weep not for me,

  Tho’ I sink, I shall rise;

  I shall live, tho’ I sleep —

  ‘Tis the guilty who dies.

  E’en now in mine ear

  ‘Tis a seraph who sings:

  Farewell! — for I go

  On the speed of his wings!

  TIME: AN ODE.

  I SEE the chariot, where,

  Throughout the purple air,

  The forelock’d monarch rides:

  Arm’d like some antique vehicle for war,

  Time, hoary Time! I see thy scythéd car,

  In voiceless majesty,

  Cleaving the clouds of ages that float by,

  And change their many-colour’d sides,

  Now dark, now dun, now richly bright,

  In an ever-varying light.

  The great, the lowly, and the brave

  Bow down before the rushing force

  Of thine unconquerable course;

  Thy wheels are noiseless as the grave,

  Yet fleet as Heaven’s red bolt they hurry on,

  They pass above us, and are gone!

  Clear is the track which thou hast past;

  Strew’d with the wrecks of frail renown,

  Robe, sceptre, banner, wreath, and crown,

  The pathway that before thee lies,

  An undistinguishable waste,

  Invisible to human eyes,

  Which fain would scan the various shapes which glide

  In dusky cavalcade,

  Imperfectly descried,

  Through that intense, impenetrable shade.

  Four gray steeds thy chariot draw;

  In th’ obdurate, tameless jaw

  Their rusted iron bits they sternly champ;

  Ye may not hear the echoing tramp

  Of their light-bounding, windy feet,

  Upon that cloudy pavement beat.

  Four wings have each, which, far outspread,

  Receive the many blasts of heav’n,

  As with unwearied speed,

  Throughout the long extent of ether driv’n,

  Onward they rush for ever and for aye:

  Thy voice, thou mighty Charioteer!

  Always sounding in their ear,

  Throughout the gloom of night and heat of day.

  Fast behind thee follows Death,

  Thro’ the ranks of wan and weeping,

  That yield their miserable breath,

  On with his pallid courser proudly sweeping.

  Arm’d is he in full mail

  Bright breastplate and high crest,

  Nor is the trenchant falchion wanting:

  So fiercely does he ride the gale,

  On Time’s dark car, before him, rest

  The dew-drops of the charger’s panting,

  On, on they go along the boundless skies,

  All human grandeur fades away

  Before their flashing, fiery, hollow eyes;

  Beneath the terrible control

  Of those vast arméd orbs, which roll

  Oblivion on the creatures of a day.

  Those splendid monuments alone he spares

  Which, to her deathless votaries,

  Bright Fame, with glowing hand, uprears

  Amid the waste of countless years.

  “Live ye!” to these he crieth; “live!

  To ye eternity I give —

  Ye, upon whose blessed birth

  The noblest star of heaven hath shone;

  Live, when the ponderous pyramids of earth

  Are crumbling in oblivion!

  Live, when, wrapt in sullen shade,

  The golden hosts of heaven shall fade;

  Live, when yon gorgeous sun on high

  Shall veil the sparkling of his eye!

  Live, when imperial Time and Death himself shall die!”

  GOD’S DENUNCIATIONS AGAINST PHARAOH-HOPHRA, OR APRIES.

  THOU beast of the flood, who hast said in thy soul,

  “I have made me a stream that for ever shall roll!”

  Thy strength is the flower that shall last but a day,

  And thy might is the snow in the sun’s burning ray.

  Arm, arm from the east, Babylonia’s son!

  Arm, arm for the battle — the Lord leads thee on!

  With the shield of thy fame, and the power of thy pride,

  Arm, arm in thy glory — the Lord is thy guide.

  Thou shalt come like a storm when the moonlight is dim,

  And the lake’s gloomy bosom is full to the brim;

  Thou shalt come like the flash in the darkness of night,

  When the wolves of the forest shall howl for affright.

  Woe, woe to thee, Tanis! thy babes shall be thrown —

  By the barbarous hands on the cold marble-stone:

  Woe, woe to thee, Nile! for thy stream shall be red

  With the blood that shall gush o’er thy billowy bed!

  Woe, woe to thee, Memphis! the war-cry is near,

  And the child shall be toss’d on the murderer’s spear;

  For fiercely he comes in the day of his ire,

  With wheels like a whirlwind, and chariots of fire!

  ALL JOYOUS IN THE REALMS OF DAY.

  “Hominum divomque pater.” — VIRGIL.

  ALL joyous in the realms of day,

  The radiant angels sing,

  In incorruptible array,

  Before the Eternal King:

  Who, hymn’d by archangelic tongues,

  In majesty and might,

  The subject of ten thousand songs,

  Sits veil’d in circling light.

  Benignly great, serenely dread,

  Amid th’ immortal choir,

  How glory plays around his head

  In rays of heavenly fire!

  Before the blaze of Deity

  The deathless legions bend,

  And to the grand co-equal Three

  Their choral homage lend.

  They laud that God, who has no peers,

  High — holy — searchless — pure;

  Who has endured for countless years,

  And ever will endure:

  Who spoke, and fish, fowl, beast, in pairs,

  Or swam, or flew, or trod;

  Space glitter’d with unnumber’d stars,

  And heaving oceans flow’d.

  Then let us join our feeble praise

  To that which angels give;

  And hymns to that great Parent raise,

  In whom we breathe and live!

  THE BATTLE-FIELD.

  “When all is o’er, it is humbling to tread

  O’er the welte
ring field of the tombless dead!”

  BYRON.

  THE heat and the chaos of contest are o’er,

  To mingle no longer — to madden no more:

  And the cold forms of heroes are stretch’d on the plain;

  Those lips cannot breathe thro’ the trumpet again!

  For the globes of destruction have shatter’d their might,

  The swift and the burning — and wrapt them in night:

  Like lightning, electric and sudden they came;

  They took but their life, and they left them their fame!

  I — heard, oh! I heard, when, with barbarous bray,

  They leapt from the mouth of the cannon away;

  And the loud-rushing sound of their passage in air

  Seem’d to speak in a terrible language—” Beware!”

  Farewell to ye, chieftains; to one and to all,

  Who this day have perish’d by sabre or ball;

  Ye cannot awake from your desolate sleep —

  Unbroken and silent and dreamless and deep!

  THE THUNDER-STORM.

  “Non imitabile fulmen.” — VIRGIL.

  THE storm is brooding! — I would see it pass,

  Observe its tenor, and its progress trace.

  How dark and dun the gathering clouds appear,

  Their rolling thunders seem to rend the ear!

  But faint at first, they slowly, sternly rise,

  From mutt’rings low to peals which rock the skies,

  As if at first their fury they forbore,

  And nursed their terrors for a closing roar.

  And hark! they rise into a loftier sound,

  Creation’s trembling objects quake around;

  In silent awe the subject-nations hear

  Th’ appalling crash of elemental war:

  The lightning too each eye in dimness shrouds,

  The fiery progeny of clashing clouds,

  That carries death upon its blazing wing,

  And the keen tortures of th’ electric sting:

  Not like the harmless flash on summer’s eve

  (When no rude blasts their silent slumbers leave),

  Which, like a radiant vision to the eye,

  Expands serenely in the placid sky;

  It rushes fleeter than the swiftest wind,

  And bids attendant thunders wait behind:

  Quick — forked — livid, thro’ the air it flies,

  A moment blazes — dazzles — bursts — and dies:

  Another, and another yet, and still

  To each replies its own allotted peal.

  But see, at last, Us force and fury spent,

  The tempest slackens, and the clouds are rent:

  How sweetly opens on th’ enchanted view

  The deep-blue sky, more fresh and bright in hue!

  A finer fragrance breathes in every vale,

  A fuller luxury in every gale;

  My ravish’d senses catch the rich perfume,

 

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