Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Delphi Poets Series

by Lord Tennyson Alfred

  Lest thy kiss should be the last.

  Oh kiss me ere we part;

  Grow closer to my heart.

  My heart is warmer surely than the bosom of the main.

  Oh joy! 0 bliss of blisses!

  My heart of hearts art thou.

  Come bathe me with thy kisses,

  My eyelids and my brow.

  Hark how the wild rain hisses,

  And the loud sea roars below.

  Thy heart beats through thy rosy limbs

  So gladly doth it stir;

  Thine eye in drops of gladness swims.

  I have bathed thee with the pleasant myrrh;

  Thy locks are dripping balm;

  Thou shalt not wander hence to-night,

  I’ll stay thee with my kisses.

  To-night the roaring brine

  Will rend thy golden tresses;

  The ocean with the morrow light

  Will be both blue and calm;

  And the billow will embrace thee with a kiss as soft as mine.

  No western odours wander

  On the black and moaning sea,

  And when thou art dead, Leander,

  My soul must follow thee!

  Oh go not yet, my love

  Thy voice is sweet and low;

  The deep salt wave breaks in above

  Those marble steps below.

  The turretstairs are wet

  That lead into the sea.

  Leander! go not yet.

  The pleasant stars have set:

  Oh! go not, go not yet,

  Or I will follow thee.

  The Mystic

  Angels have talked with him, and showed him thrones:

  Ye knew him not: he was not one of ye,

  Ye scorned him with an undiscerning scorn;

  Ye could not read the marvel in his eye,

  The still serene abstraction; he hath felt

  The vanities of after and before;

  Albeit, his spirit and his secret heart

  The stern experiences of converse lives,

  The linked woes of many a fiery change

  Had purified, and chastened, and made free.

  Always there stood before him, night and day,

  Of wayward vary colored circumstance,

  The imperishable presences serene

  Colossal, without form, or sense, or sound,

  Dim shadows but unwaning presences

  Fourfaced to four corners of the sky;

  And yet again, three shadows, fronting one,

  One forward, one respectant, three but one;

  And yet again, again and evermore,

  For the two first were not, but only seemed,

  One shadow in the midst of a great light,

  One reflex from eternity on time,

  One mighty countenance of perfect calm,

  Awful with most invariable eyes.

  For him the silent congregated hours,

  Daughters of time, divinely tall, beneath

  Severe and youthful brows, with shining eyes

  Smiling a godlike smile (the innocent light

  Of earliest youth pierced through and through with all

  Keen knowledges of low-embowed eld)

  Upheld, and ever hold aloft the cloud

  Which droops low hung on either gate of life,

  Both birth and death; he in the centre fixt,

  Saw far on each side through the grated gates

  Most pale and clear and lovely distances.

  He often lying broad awake, and yet

  Remaining from the body, and apart

  In intellect and power and will, hath heard

  Time flowing in the middle of the night,

  And all things creeping to a day of doom.

  How could ye know him? Ye were yet within

  The narrower circle; he had wellnigh reached

  The last, with which a region of white flame,

  Pure without heat, into a larger air

  Upburning, and an ether of black blue,

  Investeth and ingirds all other lives.

  The Dying Swan

  First printed in 1830.

  The superstition here assumed is so familiar from the Classics as well as from modern tradition that it scarcely needs illustration or commentary. But see Plato, Phaedrus, xxxi., and Shakespeare, King John, v., 7.

  I

  The plain was grassy, wild and bare,

  Wide, wild, and open to the air,

  Which had built up everywhere

  An under-roof of doleful gray.

  With an inner voice the river ran,

  Adown it floated a dying swan,

  And loudly did lament.

  It was the middle of the day.

  Ever the weary wind went on,

  And took the reed-tops as it went.

  II

  Some blue peaks in the distance rose,

  And white against the cold-white sky,

  Shone out their crowning snows.

  One willow over the water wept,

  And shook the wave as the wind did sigh;

  Above in the wind was the swallow,

  Chasing itself at its own wild will,

  And far thro’ the marish green and still

  The tangled water-courses slept,

  Shot over with purple, and green, and yellow.

  III

  The wild swan’s death-hymn took the soul

  Of that waste place with joy

  Hidden in sorrow: at first to the ear

  The warble was low, and full and clear;

  And floating about the under-sky,

  Prevailing in weakness, the coronach stole

  Sometimes afar, and sometimes anear;

  But anon her awful jubilant voice,

  With a music strange and manifold,

  Flow’d forth on a carol free and bold;

  As when a mighty people rejoice

  With shawms, and with cymbals, and harps of gold,

  And the tumult of their acclaim is roll’d

  Thro’ the open gates of the city afar,

  To the shepherd who watcheth the evening star.

  And the creeping mosses and clambering weeds,

  And the willow-branches hoar and dank,

  And the wavy swell of the soughing reeds,

  And the wave-worn horns of the echoing bank,

  And the silvery marish-flowers that throng

  The desolate creeks and pools among,

  Were flooded over with eddying song.

  A Dirge

  First printed in 1830.

  I

  Now is done thy long day’s work;

  Fold thy palms across thy breast,

  Fold thine arms, turn to thy rest.

  Let them rave.

  Shadows of the silver birk

  Sweep the green that folds thy grave.

  Let them rave.

  II

  Thee nor carketh care nor slander;

  Nothing but the small cold worm

  Fretteth thine enshrouded form.

  Let them rave.

  Light and shadow ever wander

  O’er the green that folds thy grave.

  Let them rave.

  III

  Thou wilt not turn upon thy bed;

  Chaunteth not the brooding bee

  Sweeter tones than calumny?

  Let them rave.

  Thou wilt never raise thine head

  From the green that folds thy grave.

  Let them rave.

  IV

  Crocodiles wept tears for thee;

  The woodbine and eglatere

  Drip sweeter dews than traitor’s tear.

  Let them rave.

  Rain makes music in the tree

  O’er the green that folds thy grave.

  Let them rave.

  V

  Round thee blow, self-pleached deep,

  Bramble-roses, faint and pale,

  And long purples of the dale.

  Let
them rave.

  These in every shower creep.

  Thro’ the green that folds thy grave.

  Let them rave.

  VI

  The gold-eyed kingcups fine:

  The frail bluebell peereth over

  Rare broidry of the purple clover.

  Let them rave.

  Kings have no such couch as thine,

  As the green that folds thy grave.

  Let them rave.

  VII

  Wild words wander here and there;

  God’s great gift of speech abused

  Makes thy memory confused:

  But let them rave.

  The balm-cricket carols clear

  In the green that folds thy grave.

  Let them rave.

  The Grasshopper

  I

  Voice of the summerwind,

  Joy of the summerplain,

  Life of the summerhours,

  Carol clearly, bound along.

  No Tithon thou as poets feign

  (Shame fall ‘em they are deaf and blind)

  But an insect lithe and strong,

  Bowing the seeded summerflowers.

  Prove their falsehood and thy quarrel,

  Vaulting on thine airy feet.

  Clap thy shielded sides and carol,

  Carol clearly, chirrup sweet.

  Thou art a mailed warrior in youth and strength complete;

  Armed cap-a-pie,

  Full fair to see;

  Unknowing fear,

  Undreading loss,

  A gallant cavalier

  Sans peur et sans reproche,

  In sunlight and in shadow,

  The Bayard of the meadow.

  II

  I would dwell with thee,

  Merry grasshopper,

  Thou art so glad and free,

  And as light as air;

  Thou hast no sorrow or tears,

  Thou hast no compt of years,

  No withered immortality,

  But a short youth sunny and free.

  Carol clearly, bound along,

  Soon thy joy is over,

  A summer of loud song,

  And slumbers in the clover.

  What hast thou to do with evil

  In thine hour of love and revel,

  In thy heat of summerpride,

  Pushing the thick roots aside

  Of the singing flowered grasses,

  That brush thee with their silken tresses?

  What hast thou to do with evil,

  Shooting, singing, ever springing

  In and out the emerald glooms,

  Ever leaping, ever singing,

  Lighting on the golden blooms?

  Love, Pride and Forgetfulness

  Ere yet my heart was sweet Love’s tomb,

  Love laboured honey busily.

  I was the hive and Love the bee,

  My heart the honey-comb.

  One very dark and chilly night

  Pride came beneath and held a light.

  The cruel vapours went through all,

  Sweet Love was withered in his cell;

  Pride took Love’s sweets, and by a spell,

  Did change them into gall;

  And Memory tho’ fed by Pride

  Did wax so thin on gall,

  Awhile she scarcely lived at all,

  What marvel that she died?

  Chorus: “The varied earth...”

  In an unpublished drama written very early.

  The varied earth, the moving heaven,

  The rapid waste of roving sea,

  The fountainpregnant mountains riven

  To shapes of wildest anarchy,

  By secret fire and midnight storms

  That wander round their windy cones,

  The subtle life, the countless forms

  Of living things, the wondrous tones

  Of man and beast are full of strange

  Astonishment and boundless change.

  The day, the diamonded light,

  The echo, feeble child of sound,

  The heavy thunder’s griding might,

  The herald lightning’s starry bound,

  The vocal spring of bursting bloom,

  The naked summer’s glowing birth,

  The troublous autumn’s sallow gloom,

  The hoarhead winter paving earth

  With sheeny white, are full of strange

  Astonishment and boundless change.

  Each sun which from the centre flings

  Grand music and redundant fire,

  The burning belts, the mighty rings,

  The murmurous planets’ rolling choir,

  The globefilled arch that, cleaving air,

  Lost in its effulgence sleeps,

  The lawless comets as they glare,

  And thunder thro’ the sapphire deeps

  In wayward strength, are full of strange

  Astonishment and boundless change.

  Lost Hope

  You cast to ground the hope which once was mine,

  But did the while your harsh decree deplore,

  Embalming with sweet tears the vacant shrine,

  My heart, where Hope had been and was no more.

  So on an oaken sprout

  A goodly acorn grew;

  But winds from heaven shook the acorn out,

  And filled the cup with dew.

  The Deserted House

  First printed in 1830, omitted in all the editions till 1848 when it was restored. The poem is of course allegorical, and is very much in the vein of many poems in Anglo-Saxon poetry.

  I

  Life and Thought have gone away

  Side by side,

  Leaving door and windows wide:

  Careless tenants they!

  II

  All within is dark as night:

  In the windows is no light;

  And no murmur at the door,

  So frequent on its hinge before.

  III

  Close the door, the shutters close,

  Or thro’ the windows we shall see

  The nakedness and vacancy

  Of the dark deserted house.

  IV

  Come away: no more of mirth

  Is here or merry-making sound.

  The house was builded of the earth,

  And shall fall again to ground.

  V

  Come away: for Life and Thought

  Here no longer dwell;

  But in a city glorious ¬

  A great and distant city have bought

  A mansion incorruptible.

  Would they could have stayed with us!

  The Tears of Heaven

  Heaven weeps above the earth all night till morn,

  In darkness weeps, as all ashamed to weep,

  Because the earth hath made her state forlorn

  With selfwrought evils of unnumbered years,

  And doth the fruit of her dishonour reap.

  And all the day heaven gathers back her tears

  Into her own blue eyes so clear and deep,

  And showering down the glory of lightsome day,

  Smiles on the earth’s worn brow to win her if she may.

  Love and Sorrow

  O Maiden, fresher than the first green leaf

  With which the fearful springtide flecks the lea,

  Weep not, Almeida, that I said to thee

  That thou hast half my heart, for bitter grief

  Doth hold the other half in sovranty.

  Thou art my heart’s sun in love’s crystalline:

  Yet on both sides at once thou canst not shine:

  Thine is the bright side of my heart, and thine

  My heart’s day, but the shadow of my heart,

  Issue of its own substance, my heart’s night

  Thou canst not lighten even with thy light,

  All powerful in beauty as thou art.

  Almeida, it my heart were substanceless,

  Then might thy rays pas
s thro’ to the other side,

  So swiftly, that they nowhere would abide,

  But lose themselves in utter emptiness.

  Half-light, half-shadow, let my spirit sleep;

  They never learnt to love who never knew to weep.

  To a Lady Sleeping

  O Thou whose fringed lids I gaze upon,

  Through whose dim brain the winged dreams are borne,

  Unroof the shrines of clearest vision,

  In honour of the silverflecked morn:

  Long hath the white wave of the virgin light

  Driven back the billow of the dreamful dark.

  Thou all unwittingly prolongest night,

  Though long ago listening the poised lark,

  With eyes dropt downward through the blue serene,

  Over heaven’s parapets the angels lean.

  Sonnet “Could I outwear my present state of woe...”

  Could I outwear my present state of woe

  With one brief winter, and indue i’ the spring

  Hues of fresh youth, and mightily outgrow

  The wan dark coil of faded suffering ¬

  Forth in the pride of beauty issuing

  A sheeny snake, the light of vernal bowers,

  Moving his crest to all sweet plots of flowers

  And watered vallies where the young birds sing;

  Could I thus hope my lost delights renewing,

  I straightly would commend the tears to creep

  From my charged lids; but inwardly I weep:

  Some vital heat as yet my heart is wooing:

  This to itself hath drawn the frozen rain

  From my cold eyes and melted it again.

  Sonnet “Though Night hath climbed her peak of highest noon...”

  Though Night hath climbed her peak of highest noon,

  And bitter blasts the screaming autumn whirl,

  All night through archways of the bridged pearl

  And portals of pure silver walks the moon.

  Wake on, my soul, nor crouch to agony,

  Turn cloud to light, and bitterness to joy,

  And dross to gold with glorious alchemy,

  Basing thy throne above the world’s annoy.

  Reign thou above the storms of sorrow and ruth

  That roar beneath; unshaken peace hath won thee:

  So shalt thou pierce the woven glooms of truth;

  So shall the blessing of the meek be on thee;

  So in thine hour of dawn, the body’s youth,

  An honourable old shall come upon thee.

  Sonnet “Shall the hag Evil die with child of Good...”

  Shall the hag Evil die with child of Good,

  Or propagate again her loathed kind,

  Thronging the cells of the diseased mind,

  Hateful with hanging cheeks, a withered brood,

  Though hourly pastured on the salient blood?

  Oh! that the wind which bloweth cold or heat

  Would shatter and o’erbear the brazen beat