Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Delphi Poets Series

by Lord Tennyson Alfred

  Shall pass thee, and descend in haste

  Amid the sheltering bowers that lie

  Far down beneath the rolling blast.

  Thine awful voice, that swells on high

  Above the rushing of the north,

  Above the thunders of the sky,

  When midnight hurricanes come forth,

  Like some fall’n conqueror’s, who bewails

  His laurels torn, his humbled fame,

  Shall murmur to the passing gales

  At once thy glory and thy shame!

  EXHORTATION TO THE GREEKS.

  “En illa, illa quam sape optastis, libertas! “ — SALLUST.

  AROUSE thee, O Greece! and remember the day,

  When the millions of Xerxes were quell’d on their way!

  Arouse thee, O Greece! let the pride of thy name

  Awake in thy bosom the light of thy fame!

  Why hast thou shone in the temple of glory?

  Why hast thou blazed in those annals of fame?

  For know that the former bright page of thy story

  Proclaims but thy bondage and tells but thy shame:

  Proclaims from how high thou art fallen! — how low

  Thou art plunged in the dark gulf of thraldom and woe!

  Arouse thee, O Greece! from the weight of thy slumbers!

  The chains are upon thee! — arise from thy sleep!

  Remember the time, when nor nations nor numbers

  Could break thy thick phalanx embodied and deep.

  Old Athens and Sparta remember the morning,

  When the swords of the Grecians were red to the hilt:

  And, the bright gem of conquest her chaplet adorning,

  Plataea rejoiced at the blood that ye spilt!

  Remember the night, when, in shrièks of affright,

  The fleets of the East in your ocean were sunk:

  Remember each day, when, in battle array,

  From the fountain of glory how largely ye drunk!

  For there is not aught that a freeman can fear,

  As the fetters of insult, the name of a slave;

  And there is not a voice to a nation so dear,

  As the war-song of freedom that calls on the brave.

  KING CHARLES’S VISION.

  A vision somewhat resembling the following, and prophetic of the Northern Alexander, is said to have been witnessed by Charles XI. of Sweden, the antagonist of Sigismund. The reader will exclaim, “Credat Judaeus Apella!”

  KING CHARLES was sitting all alone,

  In his lonely palace-tower,

  When there came on his ears a heavy groan

  At the silent midnight hour.

  He turn’d him round where he heard the sound,

  But nothing might he see;

  And he only heard the nightly bird

  That shriek’d right fearfully.

  He tam’d him round where he heard the sound,

  To his casement’s arched frame;

  “And he was aware of a light that was there,”

  But he wist not whence it came.

  He looked forth into the night,

  ‘Twas calm as night might be;

  But broad and bright the flashing light

  Stream’d red and radiantly.

  From ivory sheath his trusty brand

  Of stalwart steel he drew;

  And he raised the lamp in his better hand,

  But its flame was dim and blue.

  And he open’d the door of that palace-tower,

  But harsh turn’d the jarring key:

  “By the Virgin’s might,” cried the king that night,

  “All is not as it should be!”

  Slow turn’d the door of the crazy tower,

  And slowly again did it close;

  And within and without, and all about,

  A sound of voices rose.

  The king he stood in dreamy mood,

  For the voices his name did call;

  Then on he past, till he came at last

  To the pillar’d audience-hall.

  Eight-and-forty columns wide,

  Many and carved and tall

  (Four-and-twenty on each side),

  Stand in that lordly hall. —

  The king had been pight in the mortal fight,

  And struck the deadly blow;

  The king he had strode in the red red blood,

  Often, afore, and now:

  Yet his heart had ne’er been so harrow’d with fear

  As it was this fearful hour;

  For his eyes were not dry, and his hair stood on high,

  And his soul had lost its power.

  For a blue livid flame, round the hall where he came,

  In fiery circles ran;

  And sounds of death, and chattering teeth,

  And gibbering tongues began.

  He saw four-and-twenty statesmen old

  Round a lofty table sit;

  And each in his hand did a volume hold,

  Wherein mighty things were writ.

  In burning steel were their limbs all cased;

  On their cheeks was the flush of ire:

  Their armour was braced, and their helmets were laced,

  And their hollow eyes darted fire.

  With sceptre of might, and with gold crown bright,

  And locks like the raven’s wing,

  And in regal state at that board there sat

  The likeness of a king.

  With crimson tinged, and with ermine fringed,

  And with jewels spangled o’er,

  And rich as the beam of the sun on the stream,

  A sparkling robe he wore.

  Yet though fair shone the gem on his proud diadem,

  Though his robe was jewell’d o’er,

  Though brilliant the vest on his mailed breast,

  Yet they all were stain’d with gore!

  And his eye darted ire, and his glance shot fire,

  And his look was high command;

  And each, when he spoke, struck his mighty book,

  And raised his shadowy hand.

  And a headman stood by, with his axe on high,

  And quick was his ceaseless stroke;

  And loud was the shock on the echoing block,

  As the steel shook the solid oak.

  While short and thick came the mingled shriek

  Of the wretches who died by his blow;

  And fast fell each head on the pavement red,

  And warm did the life-blood flow.

  Said the earthly king to the ghostly king,

  “What fearful sights are those?”

  Said the ghostly king to the earthly king,

  “They are signs of future woes!”

  Said the earthly king to the ghostly king,

  “By St. Peter, who art thou?”

  Said the ghostly king to the earthly king,

  “I shall be, but I am not now.”

  Said the earthly king to the ghostly king,

  “But when will thy time draw nigh?”

  “Oh! the sixth after thee will a warrior be,

  And that warrior am I.

  “And the lords of the earth shall be pale at my birth,

  And conquest shall hover o’er me;

  And the kingdoms shall shake, and the nations shall quake,

  And the thrones fall down before me.

  “And Cracow shall bend to my majesty,

  And the haughty Dane shall bow;

  And the Pole shall fly from my piercing eye,

  And the scowl of my clouded brow.

  “And around my way shall the hot balls play,

  And the red-tongued flames arise;

  And my pathway shall be on the midnight sea,

  ‘Neath the frown of the wintry skies.

  “Thro’ narrow pass, over dark morass,

  And the waste of the weary plain,

  Over ice and snow, where the dark streams flow,

  Thro’ the woods of the wild Ukraine.<
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  “And though sad be the close of my life and my woes,

  And the hand that shall slay me unshown;

  Yet in every clime, thro’ the lapse of all time,

  Shall my glorious conquests be known.

  “And blood shall be shed, and the earth shall be red

  With the gore of misery;

  And swift as this flame shall the light of my fame

  O’er the world as brightly fly.”

  As the monarch spoke, crew the morning cock,

  When all that pageant bright,

  And the glitter of gold, and the statesmen old,

  Fled into the gloom of night!

  TIMBUCTOO : A POEM

  In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor’s Gold Medal at Cambridge for Timbuctoo — an impressive feat for a nineteen-year-old to accomplish. Tennyson's father had urged his son to enter, writing "You're doing nothing at the university; you might at least get the English poem prize."

  The assignment was to write a poem on the subject of "Timbuctoo", a topical choice at the beginning of the European colonisation of the interior of Africa. There were legends of a great civilisation in what is modern-day Mali. Timbuctoo had been visited by a modern European for the first time in 1826, namely the Scottish explorer, A.G. Laing, who was murdered soon after.

  Tennyson reworked a poem, titled Armageddon, which he had written at the age of 15 to suit the new subject requirement. Armageddon included a vision of the distant human future, in outer space, followed by a view of a lifeless earth and a final impending battle of good and evil spiritual powers. All entries were expected to be composed in heroic couplets, but Tennyson's entry was formed in Miltonic blank verse. Nevertheless, he won. Personally, Tennyson never thought much of his poem, labelling it as "a wild and unmethodised performance". He was too embarrassed to read it himself at commencement, so the previous year's winner did it for him. For the rest of his life, the poet denied any publication of Timbuctoo.

  Timbuctoo

  Deep in that lion-haunted island lies A mystic city, goal of enterprise. (Chapman.)

  I stood upon the Mountain which o’erlooks

  The narrow seas, whose rapid interval

  Parts Afric from green Europe, when the Sun

  Had fall’n below th’ Atlantick, and above

  The silent Heavens were blench’d with faery light,

  Uncertain whether faery light or cloud,

  Flowing Southward, and the chasms of deep, deep blue

  Slumber’d unfathomable, and the stars

  Were flooded over with clear glory and pale.

  I gaz’d upon the sheeny coast beyond,

  There where the Giant of old Time infixed

  The limits of his prowess, pillars high

  Long time eras’d from Earth: even as the sea

  When weary of wild inroad buildeth up

  Huge mounds whereby to stay his yeasty waves.

  And much I mus’d on legends quaint and old

  Which whilome won the hearts of all on Earth

  Toward their brightness, ev’n as flame draws air;

  But had their being in the heart of Man

  As air is th’ life of flame: and thou wert then

  A center’d glory circled Memory,

  Divinest Atalantis, whom the waves

  Have buried deep, and thou of later name

  Imperial Eldorado roof’d with gold:

  Shadows to which, despite all shocks of Change,

  All on-set of capricious Accident,

  Men clung with yearning Hope which would not die.

  As when in some great City where the walls

  Shake, and the streets with ghastly faces throng’d

  Do utter forth a subterranean voice,

  Among the inner columns far retir’d

  At midnight, in the lone Acropolis.

  Before the awful Genius of the place

  Kneels the pale Priestess in deep faith, the while

  Above her head the weak lamp dips and winks

  Unto the fearful summoning without:

  Nathless she ever clasps the marble knees,

  Bathes the cold hand with tears, and gazeth on

  Those eyes which wear no light but that wherewith

  Her phantasy informs them. Where are ye

  Thrones of the Western wave, fair Islands green?

  Where are your moonlight halls, your cedarn glooms,

  The blossoming abysses of your hills?

  Your flowering Capes and your gold-sanded bays

  Blown round with happy airs of odorous winds?

  Where are the infinite ways which, Seraph-trod,

  Wound thro’ your great Elysian solitudes,

  Whose lowest depths were, as with visible love,

  Fill’d with Divine effulgence, circumfus’d,

  Flowing between the clear and polish’d stems,

  And ever circling round their emerald cones

  In coronals and glories, such as gird

  The unfading foreheads of the Saints in Heaven?

  For nothing visible, they say, had birth

  In that blest ground but it was play’d about

  With its peculiar glory. Then I rais’d

  My voice and cried “Wide Afric, doth thy Sun

  Lighten, thy hills enfold a City as fair

  As those which starr’d the night o’ the Elder World?

  Or is the rumour of thy Timbuctoo

  A dream as frail as those of ancient Time?”

  A curve of whitening, flashing, ebbing light!

  A rustling of white wings! The bright descent

  Of a young Seraph! and he stood beside me

  There on the ridge, and look’d into my face

  With his unutterable, shining orbs,

  So that with hasty motion I did veil

  My vision with both hands, and saw before me

  Such colour’d spots as dance athwart the eyes

  Of those that gaze upon the noonday Sun.

  Girt with a Zone of flashing gold beneath

  His breast, and compass’d round about his brow

  With triple arch of everchanging bows,

  And circled with the glory of living light

  And alternation of all hues, he stood.

  “O child of man, why muse you here alone

  Upon the Mountain, on the dreams of old

  Which fill’d the Earth with passing loveliness,

  Which flung strange music on the howling winds,

  And odours rapt from remote Paradise?

  Thy sense is clogg’d with dull mortality,

  Thy spirit fetter’d with the bond of clay:

  Open thine eye and see.” I look’d, but not

  Upon his face, for it was wonderful

  With its exceeding brightness, and the light

  Of the great angel mind which look’d from out

  The starry glowing of his restless eyes.

  I felt my soul grow mighty, and my spirit

  With supernatural excitation bound

  Within me, and my mental eye grew large

  With such a vast circumference of thought,

  That in my vanity I seem’d to stand

  Upon the outward verge and bound alone

  Of full beautitude. Each failing sense

  As with a momentary flash of light

  Grew thrillingly distinct and keen. I saw

  The smallest grain that dappled the dark Earth,

  The indistinctest atom in deep air,

  The Moon’s white cities, and the opal width

  Of her small glowing lakes, her silver heights

  Unvisited with dew of vagrant cloud,

  And the unsounded, undescended depth

  Of her black hollows. The clear Galaxy

  Shorn of its hoary lustre, wonderful,

  Distinct and vivid with sharp points of light

  Blaze within blaze, an unimagin’d depth

  And harmony of planet-girded Suns

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bsp; And moon-encircled planets, wheel in wheel,

  Arch’d the wan Sapphire. Nay, the hum of men,

  Or other things talking in unknown tongues,

  And notes of busy life in distant worlds

  Beat like a far wave on my anxious ear.

  A maze of piercing, trackless, thrilling thoughts

  Involving and embracing each with each

  Rapid as fire, inextricably link’d,

  Expanding momently with every sight

  And sound which struck the palpitating sense,

  The issue of strong impulse, hurried through

  The riv’n rapt brain: as when in some large lake

  From pressure of descendant crags, which lapse

  Disjointed, crumbling from their parent slope

  At slender interval, the level calm

  Is ridg’d with restless and increasing spheres

  Which break upon each other, each th’ effect

  Of separate impulse, but more fleet and strong

  Than its precursor, till the eye in vain

  Amid the wild unrest of swimming shade

  Dappled with hollow and alternate rise

  Of interpenetrated arc, would scan

  Definite round.

  I know not if I shape

  These things with accurate similitude

  From visible objects, for but dimly now,

  Less vivid than a half-forgotten dream,

  The memory of that mental excellence

  Comes o’er me, and it may be I entwine

  The indecision of my present mind

  With its past clearness, yet it seems to me

  As even then the torrent of quick thought

  Absorbed me from the nature of itself

  With its own fleetness. Where is he that borne

  Adown the sloping of an arrowy stream,

  Could link his shallop to the fleeting edge,

  And muse midway with philosophic calm

  Upon the wondrous laws which regulate

  The fierceness of the bounding element?

  My thoughts which long had grovell’d in the slime

  Of this dull world, like dusky worms which house

  Beneath unshaken waters, but at once

  Upon some earth-awakening day of spring

  Do pass from gloom to glory, and aloft

  Winnow the purple, bearing on both sides

  Double display of starlit wings which burn

  Fanlike and fibred, with intensest bloom:

  E’en so my thoughts, ere while so low, now felt

  Unutterable buoyancy and strength

  To bear them upward through the trackless fields

  Of undefin’d existence far and free.

  Then first within the South methought I saw

  A wilderness of spires, and chrystal pile