Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Delphi Poets Series

by Lord Tennyson Alfred

When after roving in the woods

  (‘Twas April then), I came and sat

  Below the chestnuts, when their buds

  Were glistening to the breezy blue;

  And on the slope, an absent fool,

  I cast me down, nor thought of you,

  But angled in the higher pool.

  A love-song I had somewhere read,

  An echo from a measured strain,

  Beat time to nothing in my head

  From some odd corner of the brain.

  It haunted me, the morning long,

  With weary sameness in the rhymes,

  The phantom of a silent song,

  That went and came a thousand times.

  Then leapt a trout. In lazy mood

  I watch’d the little circles die;

  They past into the level flood,

  And there a vision caught my eye;

  The reflex of a beauteous form,

  A glowing arm, a gleaming neck,

  As when a sunbeam wavers warm

  Within the dark and dimpled beck.

  For you remember, you had set,

  That morning, on the casement’s edge

  A long green box of mignonette,

  And you were leaning from the ledge:

  And when I raised my eyes, above

  They met with two so full and bright

  Such eyes! I swear to you, my love,

  That these have never lost their light.

  I loved, and love dispell’d the fear

  That I should die an early death:

  For love possess’d the atmosphere,

  And filled the breast with purer breath.

  My mother thought, What ails the boy?

  For I was alter’d, and began

  To move about the house with joy,

  And with the certain step of man.

  I loved the brimming wave that swam

  Thro’ quiet meadows round the mill,

  The sleepy pool above the dam,

  The pool beneath it never still,

  The meal-sacks on the whiten’d floor,

  The dark round of the dripping wheel,

  The very air about the door

  Made misty with the floating meal.

  And oft in ramblings on the wold,

  When April nights begin to blow,

  And April’s crescent glimmer’d cold,

  I saw the village lights below;

  I knew your taper far away,

  And full at heart of trembling hope,

  From off the wold I came, and lay

  Upon the freshly-flower’d slope.

  The deep brook groan’d beneath the mill;

  And “by that lamp,” I thought “she sits!”

  The white chalk-quarry from the hill

  Gleam’d to the flying moon by fits.

  “O that I were beside her now!

  O will she answer if I call?

  O would she give me vow for vow,

  Sweet Alice, if I told her all?”

  Sometimes I saw you sit and spin;

  And, in the pauses of the wind,

  Sometimes I heard you sing within;

  Sometimes your shadow cross’d the blind.

  At last you rose and moved the light,

  And the long shadow of the chair

  Flitted across into the night,

  And all the casement darken’d there.

  But when at last I dared to speak,

  The lanes, you know, were white with may,

  Your ripe lips moved not, but your cheek

  Flush’d like the coming of the day;

  And so it was half-sly, half-shy,

  You would, and would not, little one!

  Although I pleaded tenderly,

  And you and I were all alone.

  And slowly was my mother brought

  To yield consent to my desire:

  She wish’d me happy, but she thought

  I might have look’d a little higher;

  And I was young too young to wed:

  “Yet must I love her for your sake;

  Go fetch your Alice here,” she said:

  Her eyelid quiver’d as she spake.

  And down I went to fetch my bride:

  But, Alice, you were ill at ease;

  This dress and that by turns you tried,

  Too fearful that you should not please.

  I loved you better for your fears,

  I knew you could not look but well;

  And dews, that would have fall’n in tears,

  I kiss’d away before they fell.

  I watch’d the little flutterings,

  The doubt my mother would not see;

  She spoke at large of many things,

  And at the last she spoke of me;

  And turning look’d upon your face,

  As near this door you sat apart,

  And rose, and, with a silent grace

  Approaching, press’d you heart to heart.

  Ah, well but sing the foolish song

  I gave you, Alice, on the day

  When, arm in arm, we went along,

  A pensive pair, and you were gay,

  With bridal flowers that I may seem,

  As in the nights of old, to lie

  Beside the mill-wheel in the stream,

  While those full chestnuts whisper by.

  It is the miller’s daughter,

  And she is grown so dear, so dear,

  That I would be the jewel

  That trembles at her ear:

  For hid in ringlets day and night,

  I’d touch her neck so warm and white.

  And I would be the girdle

  About her dainty, dainty waist,

  And her heart would beat against me,

  In sorrow and in rest:

  And I should know if it beat right,

  I’d clasp it round so close and tight.

  And I would be the necklace,

  And all day long to fall and rise

  Upon her balmy bosom,

  With her laughter or her sighs,

  And I would lie so light, so light,

  I scarce should be unclasp’d at night.

  A trifle, sweet! which true love spells

  True love interprets right alone.

  His light upon the letter dwells,

  For all the spirit is his own.

  So, if I waste words now, in truth

  You must blame Love. His early rage

  Had force to make me rhyme in youth

  And makes me talk too much in age.

  And now those vivid hours are gone,

  Like mine own life to me thou art,

  Where Past and Present, wound in one,

  Do make a garland for the heart:

  So sing that other song I made,

  Half anger’d with my happy lot,

  The day, when in the chestnut shade

  I found the blue Forget-me-not.

  Love that hath us in the net,

  Can he pass, and we forget?

  Many suns arise and set.

  Many a chance the years beget.

  Love the gift is Love the debt.

  Even so.

  Love is hurt with jar and fret.

  Love is made a vague regret.

  Eyes with idle tears are wet.

  Idle habit links us yet.

  What is love? for we forget:

  Ah, no! no!

  Look thro’ mine eyes with thine. True wife,

  Round my true heart thine arms entwine;

  My other dearer life in life,

  Look thro’ my very soul with thine!

  Untouch’d with any shade of years,

  May those kind eyes for ever dwell!

  They have not shed a many tears,

  Dear eyes, since first I knew them well.

  Yet tears they shed: they had their part

  Of sorrow: for when time was ripe,

  The still affection of the heart

  Became an outward breathin
g type,

  That into stillness past again,

  And left a want unknown before;

  Although the loss that brought us pain,

  That loss but made us love the more.

  With farther lookings on. The kiss,

  The woven arms, seem but to be

  Weak symbols of the settled bliss,

  The comfort, I have found in thee:

  But that God bless thee, dear who wrought

  Two spirits to one equal mind

  With blessings beyond hope or thought,

  With blessings which no words can find.

  Arise, and let us wander forth,

  To yon old mill across the wolds;

  For look, the sunset, south and north,

  Winds all the vale in rosy folds,

  And fires your narrow casement glass,

  Touching the sullen pool below:

  On the chalk-hill the bearded grass

  Is dry and dewless. Let us go.

  Fatima (O Love, Love, Love!)

  O Love, Love, Love! O withering might!

  O sun, that from thy noonday height

  Shudderest when I strain my sight,

  Throbbing thro’ all thy heat and light,

  Lo, falling from my constant mind,

  Lo, parch’d and wither’d, deaf and blind,

  I whirl like leaves in roaring wind.

  Last night I wasted hateful hours

  Below the city’s eastern towers:

  I thirsted for the brooks, the showers:

  I roll’d among the tender flowers:

  I crush’d them on my breast, my mouth:

  I look’d athwart the burning drouth

  Of that long desert to the south.

  Last night, when some one spoke his name,

  From my swift blood that went and came

  A thousand little shafts of flame.

  Were shiver’d in my narrow frame

  O Love, O fire! once he drew

  With one long kiss, my whole soul thro’

  My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.

  Before he mounts the hill, I know

  He cometh quickly: from below

  Sweet gales, as from deep gardens, blow

  Before him, striking on my brow.

  In my dry brain my spirit soon,

  Down-deepening from swoon to swoon,

  Faints like a dazzled morning moon.

  The wind sounds like a silver wire,

  And from beyond the noon a fire

  Is pour’d upon the hills, and nigher

  The skies stoop down in their desire;

  And, isled in sudden seas of light,

  My heart, pierced thro’ with fierce delight,

  Bursts into blossom in his sight.

  My whole soul waiting silently,

  All naked in a sultry sky,

  Droops blinded with his shining eye:

  I will possess him or will die.

  I will grow round him in his place,

  Grow, live, die looking on his face,

  Die, dying clasp’d in his embrace.

  Œnone, 1833

  First published in 1833. On being republished in 1842 this poem was practically rewritten, the alterations and additions so transforming the poem as to make it almost a new work. Both versions are provided in this works. Œnone is the first of Tennyson’s fine classical studies. The poem is modelled partly on the Alexandrian Idyll, such an Idyll for instance as the second Idyll of Theocritus or the Megara or Europa of Moschus, and partly perhaps on the narratives in the Metamorphoses of Ovid, to which the opening bears a typical resemblance. It is possible that the poem may have been suggested by Beattie’s Judgment of Paris which tells the same story, and tells it on the same lines on which it is told here, though it is not placed in the mouth of Œnone. Beattie’s poem opens with an elaborate description of Ida and of Troy in the distance. Paris, the husband of Œnone, is one afternoon confronted with the three goddesses who are, as in Tennyson’s Idyll, elaborately delineated as symbolising what they here symbolise. Each makes her speech and each offers what she has to offer, worldly dominion, wisdom, sensual pleasure. There is, of course, no comparison in point of merit between the two poems, Beattie’s being in truth perfectly commonplace. In its symbolic aspect the poem may be compared with the temptations to which Christ is submitted in Paradise Regained. See books iii. and iv.

  There is a dale in Ida, lovelier

  Than any in old Ionia, beautiful

  With emerald slopes of sunny sward, that lean

  Above the loud glenriver, which hath worn

  A path thro’ steepdown granite walls below

  Mantled with flowering tendriltwine. In front

  The cedarshadowy valleys open wide.

  Far-seen, high over all the God-built wall

  And many a snowycolumned range divine,

  Mounted with awful sculptures men and Gods,

  The work of Gods bright on the dark-blue sky

  The windy citadel of Ilion

  Shone, like the crown of Troas. Hither came

  Mournful Œnone wandering forlorn

  Of Paris, once her playmate. Round her neck,

  Her neck all marblewhite and marblecold,

  Floated her hair or seemed to float in rest.

  She, leaning on a vine-entwinèd stone,

  Sang to the stillness, till the mountain-shadow

  Sloped downward to her seat from the upper cliff.

  “O mother Ida, manyfountained Ida,

  Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.

  The grasshopper is silent in the grass,

  The lizard with his shadow on the stone

  Sleeps like a shadow, and the scarletwinged

  Cicala in the noonday leapeth not

  Along the water-rounded granite-rock.

  The purple flower droops: the golden bee

  Is lilycradled: I alone awake.

  My eyes are full of tears, my heart of love,

  My heart is breaking and my eyes are dim,

  And I am all aweary of my life.

  “O mother Ida, manyfountained Ida,

  Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.

  Hear me O Earth, hear me O Hills, O Caves

  That house the cold crowned snake! O mountain brooks,

  I am the daughter of a River-God,

  Hear me, for I will speak, and build up all

  My sorrow with my song, as yonder walls

  Rose slowly to a music slowly breathed,

  A cloud that gathered shape: for it may be

  That, while I speak of it, a little while

  My heart may wander from its deeper woe.

  “O mother Ida, manyfountained Ida,

  Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.

  Aloft the mountain lawn was dewydark,

  And dewydark aloft the mountain pine;

  Beautiful Paris, evil-hearted Paris,

  Leading a jetblack goat whitehorned, whitehooved,

  Came up from reedy Simois all alone.

  “O mother Ida, hearken ere I die.

  I sate alone: the goldensandalled morn

  Rosehued the scornful hills: I sate alone

  With downdropt eyes: white-breasted like a star

  Fronting the dawn he came: a leopard skin

  From his white shoulder drooped: his sunny hair

  Clustered about his temples like a God’s:

  And his cheek brightened, as the foambow brightens

  When the wind blows the foam; and I called out,

  ‘Welcome Apollo, welcome home Apollo,

  Apollo, my Apollo, loved Apollo’.

  “Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.

  He, mildly smiling, in his milk-white palm

  Close-held a golden apple, lightningbright

  With changeful flashes, dropt with dew of Heaven

  Ambrosially smelling. From his lip,

  Curved crimson, the full-flowing river of speech

  Came down upon my heart.
/>   “‘ My own Œnone,

  Beautifulbrowed Œnone, mine own soul,

  Behold this fruit, whose gleaming rind ingrav’n

  “For the most fair,” in aftertime may breed

  Deep evilwilledness of heaven and sore

  Heartburning toward hallowed Ilion;

  And all the colour of my afterlife

  Will be the shadow of to-day. To-day

  Herè and Pallas and the floating grace

  Of laughter-loving Aphrodite meet

  In manyfolded Ida to receive

  This meed of beauty, she to whom my hand

  Award the palm. Within the green hillside,

  Under yon whispering tuft of oldest pine,

  Is an ingoing grotto, strown with spar

  And ivymatted at the mouth, wherein

  Thou unbeholden may’st behold, unheard

  Hear all, and see thy Paris judge of Gods.’

  “Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.

  It was the deep midnoon: one silvery cloud

  Had lost his way between the piney hills.

  They came all three the Olympian goddesses.

  Naked they came to the smoothswarded bower,

  Lustrous with lilyflower, violeteyed

  Both white and blue, with lotetree-fruit thickset,

  Shadowed with singing-pine; and all the while,

  Above, the overwandering ivy and vine

  This way and that in many a wild festoon

  Ran riot, garlanding the gnarled boughs

  With bunch and berry and flower thro’ and thro’.

  On the treetops a golden glorious cloud

  Leaned, slowly dropping down ambrosial dew.

  How beautiful they were, too beautiful

  To look upon! but Paris was to me

  More lovelier than all the world beside.

  “O mother Ida, hearken ere I die.

  First spake the imperial Olympian

  With archèd eyebrow smiling sovranly,

  Fulleyèd here. She to Paris made

  Proffer of royal power, ample rule

  Unquestioned, overflowing revenue

  Wherewith to embellish state, ‘from many a vale

  And river-sundered champaign clothed with corn,

  Or upland glebe wealthy in oil and wine

  Honour and homage, tribute, tax and toll,

  From many an inland town and haven large,

  Mast-thronged below her shadowing citadel

  In glassy bays among her tallest towers.’

  “O mother Ida, hearken ere I die.

  Still she spake on and still she spake of power

  ‘Which in all action is the end of all.

  Power fitted to the season, measured by

  The height of the general feeling, wisdomborn

  And throned of wisdom from all neighbour crowns

  Alliance and allegiance evermore. Such boon from me

  Heaven’s Queen to thee kingborn,

  A shepherd all thy life and yet kingborn,