Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Delphi Poets Series

by Lord Tennyson Alfred

And my consistency of conduct rate

  By inequalities upon my pate

  And make an inharmonious bump the test

  Of my delight in concord—’tis at best

  An awkward system, and not over-wise,

  And badly built on incoherencies.

  Another lustrum will behold our youth,

  With eager souls all panting after truth,

  Shrewd Spurzheim’s visionary pages turn.

  And, with Napoleon’s bust before them, learn

  Without the agency of what small bone

  Quicklime had ne’er upon a host been thrown:

  In what rough rise a trivial sink had saved

  The towns he burnt, the nations he enslaved.

  E’en now, when Harold’s minstrel left the scene,

  Where such a brilliant meteor he had been,

  Thus with the same officiousness of pains,

  Gazettes announced the volume of his brains.

  Rise, sons of Science and Invention, rise!

  Make some new inroad on the starry skies;

  Draw from the main some truths unknown before,

  Rummage the strata, every nook explore,

  To lead mankind from this fantastic lore;

  Solve the long-doubted problems pending still,

  And these few blanks in nature’s annals fill:

  Tell us why Saturn rolls begirt with flame?

  Whence the red depth of Mars’s aspect came?

  Are the dark tracts the silver moon displays

  Dusk with the gloom of caverns or of seas?

  Think ye, with Olbers, that her glow intense,

  Erst deem’d volcanic, is reflected hence?

  Are the black spots, which in yon sun appear

  Long vistas thro’ his flaming atmosphere,

  Rents in his fiery robe, thro’ which the eye

  Gains access to his secret sanctuary?

  Or may we that hypothesis explode,

  Led by your science nearer to our God?

  Shall we, with Glasgow’s learned Watt, maintain

  That yon bright bow is not produced by rain?

  Or deem the theory but ill surmised,

  And call it light (as Brewster) polarized?

  Tell when the clouds their fleecy load resign,

  How the frail nitre-moulded points combine;

  What secret cause, when heaven and ocean greet,

  Commands their close, or dictates their retreat.

  On you we rest, to check th’ encroaching sway

  This outré science gains from day to day;

  Investigation’s blood-hound scent employ

  On themes more worthy of our scrutiny;

  Rob this attractive magnet of its force,

  And check this torrent’s inundating course.

  LOVE.

  I.

  ALMIGHTY Love! whose nameless pow’r

  This glowing heart defines too well,

  Whose presence cheers each fleeting hour,

  Whose silken bonds our souls compel,

  Diffusing such a sainted spell,

  As gilds our being with the light

  Of transport and of rapturous bliss,

  And almost seeming to unite

  The joys of other worlds to this,

  The heavenly smile, the rosy kiss; —

  Before whose blaze my spirits shrink,

  My senses all are wrapt in thee,

  Thy force I own too much, to think

  (So full, so great thine ecstasy)

  That thou art less than deity!

  Thy golden chains embrace the land,

  The starry sky, the dark blue main;

  And at the voice of thy command

  (So vast, so boundless is thy reign)

  All nature springs to life again!

  II.

  The glittering fly, the wondrous things

  That microscopic art descries;

  The lion of the waste, which springs.

  Bounding upon his enemies;

  The mighty sea-snake of the storm,

  The vorticella’s viewless form,

  The vast leviathan, which takes

  His pastime in the sounding floods;

  The crafty elephant, which makes

  His haunts in Ceylon’s spicy woods —

  Alike confess thy magic sway,

  Thy soul-enchanting voice obey!

  Oh! whether thou, as bards have said,

  Of bliss or pain the partial giver,

  Wingest thy shaft of pleasing dread

  From out thy well-stored golden quiver,

  O’er earth thy cherub wings extending,

  Thy sea-born mother’s side attending; —

  Or else, as Indian fables say,

  Upon thine emerald lory riding,

  Through gardens, ‘mid the restless play

  Of fountains, in the moonbeam gliding,

  ‘Mid sylph-like shapes of maidens dancing,

  Thy scarlet standard high advancing; —

  Thy fragrant bow of cane thou bendest,

  Twanging the string of honey’d bees,

  And thence the flower-tipp’d arrow sendest,

  Which gives or robs the heart of ease;

  Camdeo, or Cupid, oh be near

  To listen, and to grant my prayer!

  TO —— —

  THE dew that sits upon the rose

  The brilliant hue beneath it shows;

  Nor can it hide the velvet dye

  O’er which it glitters tremblingly.

  The fine-wove veil thrown o’er thy face,

  Betrays its bloom — thro’ it we trace

  A loveliness, tho’ veil’d, reveal’d,

  Too bright to be by aught conceal’d.

  SONG: TO SIT BESIDE A CRYSTAL SPRING

  To sit beside a crystal spring,

  Cool’d by the passing zephyr’s wing,

  And bend my every thought to thee,

  Is life, is bliss, is ecstasy!

  And as within that spring I trace

  Each line, each feature of my face;

  The faithful mirror tells me true —

  It tells me that I think of you!

  IMAGINATION.

  PERENNIAL source of rapturous pleasure, hail!

  Whose inexhaustive stores can never fail;

  Thou ardent inmate of the poet’s brain,

  Bright as the sun and restless as the main,

  From all material Nature’s stores at will

  Creating, blending, and arranging still;

  Things in themselves both beautiful and grand,

  Receive fresh lustre from thy kindling hand;

  And even those whose abstract charms are few,

  Thy spell-like touch arrays in colours bright and new.

  Oh! thou art Poetry’s informing soul,

  Detach’d from thee she stagnates and is dull;

  She has no sweets without thee, and from thee

  Derives her magic and her majesty;

  Thou art th’ essential adjunct of her charms,

  ‘Tis by thy aid that she transports and warms:

  Nor will I e’er with that weak sect concur,

  Who on obscurity alone confer

  Thy misapplied and prostituted name —

  A false and spurious and ungrounded claim! —

  Construct a mass of thoughts uncouth and wild,

  Their words involved, and meaning quite exiled;

  A mazy labyrinth without a clue,

  Wherein they lose themselves and readers too;

  The crude abortions of a heated brain,

  Where sense and symmetry are sought in vain!

  But images both bright and sorted well,

  And perspicuity, that crowning spell,

  Fervour chastised by judgment and by taste,

  And language vivid, elegant, and chaste —

  These form the poet; in such garb array’d,

  Then, Fancy, all thy beauties are display’d;

 
; We feel thy loveliness and own thy sway,

  Confess thy magic pow’r, and praise the glowing lay!

  THE OAK OF THE NORTH.

  “Quae quantum vertice ad auras

  Æthereas, tantum radice in Tartara tendit,

  Ergo non hyemes illam, non flabra, neque imbres

  Convellunt; immota manet, multosque nepotes

  Multa virum volens durando sæcula vincit.” — VIRGIL.

  THOU forest lord! whose deathless arms

  Full many an age of rolling time

  Have mock’d the madness of the storms,

  Unfaded in thy shadowy prime

  Thou livest still — and still shalt stay,

  Tho’ the destroying tyrant bow

  The temple, and the tower, and lay

  The pomp and pride of empires low.

  And if thy stately form be riven

  And blasted by the fiery levin,

  Still dost thou give that giant front,

  Undaunted, to the pitiless brunt

  Of angry winds, that vainly rave;

  And, like the scars by battle graven

  Upon the bosoms of the brave,

  The tokens of resistless heaven

  Deep in thy rugged breast are seen,

  The marks of frays that once have been;

  The lightning’s stroke, the whirlwind’s force,

  Have marr’d thee in their furious course,

  But they have left thee unsubdued;

  And if they bend thy crest awhile.

  Thou dost arise in might renew’d,

  Tameless in undiminish’d toil,

  Singly against an hostile host

  Contending, like th’ immortal king,

  Who quell’d the Titans’ impious boast

  With thunder, tho’ he stood alone

  Defender of his starry throne,

  Dashing th’ aspiring mountains down.

  Dark Ossa, like a powerless thing,

  And Pelion with his nodding pines;

  Then bound with adamantine chains,

  Where the glad sunlight never shines,

  The earth-born in eternal pains.

  Of many who were born with thee,

  Scarce now a thought survives to tell;

  War hath ta’en some — their memory

  But faintly lives of those who fell:

  Even the conqueror’s glorious name,

  That boasts a life beyond the tomb,

  Borne on the wings of rushing fame,

  May bow before the common doom,

  Before the measure of its praise

  Hath filled thy multitude of days.

  And ere the poet’s hallow’d star,

  Refulgent o’er his voicelesss urn,

  Glance thro’ the gloom of years so far,

  Its living fires may cease to burn.

  Thy mere existence shall be more

  Than others’ immortality;

  The spirits of the great, who bore

  A sway on earth, and still would be

  Remember’d when they are not seen,

  Shall die like echoes on the wind,

  Nor leave of all that they have been

  In living hearts one thrill behind;

  Their very names shall be forgot,

  Ancient of days! ere thou art not.

  The druid’s mystic harp, that hung

  So long upon thy stormy boughs,

  Mute as its master’s magic tongue,

  Who slumbereth in that deep repose,

  No earthly sound shall wake again,

  Nor glare of sacrificial fire,

  Nor howl of victims in their pain,

  Or the weird priestess in her ire,

  Hath mingled with th’ oblivious dust

  Of him who called its spirit forth,

  In those prophetic tones which hush’d

  The enraptured children of the north

  Binding them with a holy fear,

  And smiting each enchanted ear

  With such a sound as seem’d to raise

  The hidden forms of future days:

  Sleep on! — no Roman foe alarms

  Your rest; and over ye shall wave

  A guardian God’s protecting arms,

  And flowers shall deck your grassy grave

  And he who gazeth on thee now,

  Ere long shall lie as low as they;

  The daring heart, the intrepid brow,

  Not long can feel youth’s joyous glow,

  The strength of life must soon decay

  A few short years fleet swiftly by,

  And rayless is the sparkling eye,

  Mute the stern voice of high command,

  And still oppression’s iron hand;

  The lords of earth shall waste away

  Beneath the worm, and many a day

  Of wintry frost and summer sun,

  Ere yet thy number’d hours be done;

  For thou art green and flourishing,

  The mountain-forest’s stately king,

  Unshaken as the granite stone

  That stands thine everlasting throne.

  There was a tower, whose haughty head

  Erewhile rose darkly by thy side,

  But they are number’d with the dead,

  Who ruled within its place of pride;

  For time and overwhelming war

  Have crumbled it, and overthrown

  Bulwark, and battlement, and bar,

  Column, and arch, and sculptured stone

  Around thy base are rudely strewn

  The tokens of departed power,

  The wrecks of unrecorded fame

  Lie mouldering in the frequent shower:

  But thou art there, the very same

  As when those hearts, which now are cold,

  First beat in triumph to behold

  The shadow of its form, which fell

  At distance o’er the darken’d dell,

  No more the battle’s black array

  Shall sternly meet the rising day;

  No beacon-fire’s disastrous light

  Flame fiercely in the perilous night.

  Forgotten is that fortress now,

  Deserted is the feudal hall,

  But here and there the red flowers blow

  Upon its bare and broken wall.

  And ye may hear the night-wind moan

  Thro’ shatter’d hearths with moss o’ergrown,

  Wild grasses wave above the gate;

  And where the trumpets sung at morn,

  The tuneless night-bird dwells forlorn,

  And the unanswer’d ravens prate,

  Till silence is more desolate.

  For thou hast heard the clarion’s breath

  Pour from thy heights its blast of death,

  While gathering multitudes replied

  Defiance with a shout that hurl’d

  Back on their foes the curse of pride,

  And bended bows, and flags unfurl’d;

  And swiftly from the hollow vale

  Their arrowy vengeance glanced, like hail,

  What time some fearless son of war,

  Emerging to the upper air,

  Gain’d the arm’d steep’s embattled brows,

  Thro’ angry swords around him waving,

  ‘Mid the leagued thousands of his foes,

  Their fury like a lion braving:

  And faster than the summer rain

  Stream’d forth the life-blood of the slain,

  Whom civil hate and feudal power

  Mingled in that tempestuous hour,

  Steeping thy sinewy roots, that drew

  Fresh vigour from that deadly dew,

  And still shall live — tho’ monarchs fail;

  And those who waged the battle then

  Are made the marvel of a tale,

  To warm the hearts of future men.

  On such a heart did Cambria gaze,

  When Freedom on that dismal day

  Saw Edward’s haughty banners blaz
e

  Triumphant, and the dread array

  In the deep vales beneath her gleam,

  Then started from her ancient throne,

  That mighty song could not redeem

  From ruthless hands and hearts of stone.

  While ages yield their fleeting breath,

  Art thou the only living thing

  On earth, which all-consuming death

  Blasts not with his destroying wing?

  No! thou shalt die! — tho’ gloriously

  Those proud arms beat the azure air.

  Some hour in Time’s dark womb shall see

  The strength they boast no longer there.

  Tho’ to thy life, as to thy God’s,

  Unnumber’d years are as a day,

  When He, who is eternal, nods,

  Thy mortal strength must pass away.

  Unconquer’d Fate, with viewless hand,

  Hath mark’d the moment of thy doom,

  For He, who could create, hath spann’d

  Thy being, and its hour shall come:

  Some thunderbolt more dread than all

  That ever scathed thee with their fire,

  Arm’d with the force of heaven, shall fall

  Upon thee, and thou shalt expire!

  Or age, that curbs a giant’s might,

  Shall bow thee down and fade thy bloom,

  The last of all, the bitterest blight

  That chills our hearts, except the tomb.

  And then thou canst but faintly strive

  Against the foes thou hast defied,

  Returning spring shall not revive

  The beauty of thy summer pride;

  And the green earth no more shall sleep

  Beneath thy dark and stilly shade,

  Where silvery dews were wont to weep,

  And the red day-beam never stray’d,

  But flow’rets of the tenderest hue,

  That live not in the garish noon,

  Pale violets of a heavenly blue,

  Unfaded by the sultry sun,

  Unwearied by the blasts that shook

  Thy lofty head, securely throve,

  Nor heeded in that grassy nook

  The ceaseless wars that raged above.

  The revelling elves at noon of night

  Shall throng no more beneath thy boughs,

  When moonbeams shed a solemn light,

  And every star intensely glows;

  No verdant canopy shall screen

  From view the orgies of their race,

  But the blue heaven’s unclouded sheen

  Shall pierce their secret dwelling-place.

  Tho’ now the lavrock pours at morn,

  Shrined in thy leaves, his rapturous lay,

  Then shall the meanest songster scorn

  To hail thee, as he wings his way.

  The troubled eagle, when he flies

  Before the lightnings, and the wrath

  Of gathering winds and stormy skies,

  That darken o’er his cloudy path,

  With ruffled breast and angry eye