Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Delphi Poets Series

by Lord Tennyson Alfred

  And now it seems as hard to stay; and yet, His will be done!

  But still I think it can’t be long before I find release;

  And that good man, the clergyman, has told me words of peace.

  O, blessings on his kindly voice, and on his silver hair,

  And blessings on his whole life long, until he meet me there!

  O, blessings on his kindly heart and on his silver head!

  A thousand times I blest him, as he knelt beside my bed.

  He taught me all the mercy, for he showed me all the sin;

  Now, though my lamp was lighted late, there ‘s One will let me in.

  Nor would I now be well, mother, again, if that could be;

  For my desire is but to pass to Him that died for me.

  I did not hear the dog howl, mother, or the death-watch beat, —

  There came a sweeter token when the night and morning meet;

  But sit beside my bed, mother, and put your hand in mine,

  And Effie on the other side, and I will tell the sign.

  All in the wild March-morning I heard the angels call, —

  It was when the moon was setting, and the dark was over all;

  The trees began to whisper, and the wind began to roll,

  And in the wild March-morning I heard them call my soul.

  For, lying broad awake, I thought of you and Effie dear;

  I saw you sitting in the house, and I no longer here;

  With all my strength I prayed for both, — and so I felt resigned,

  And up the valley came a swell of music on the wind.

  I thought that it was fancy, and I listened in my bed;

  And then did something speak to me, — I know not what was said;

  For great delight and shuddering took hold of all my mind,

  And up the valley came again the music on the wind.

  But you were sleeping; and I said, “It ‘s not for them, — it ‘s mine;”

  And if it comes three times, I thought, I take it for a sign.

  And once again it came, and close beside the window-bars;

  Then seemed to go right up to heaven and die among the stars.

  So now I think my time is near; I trust it is. I know

  The blessèd music went that way my soul will have to go.

  And for myself, indeed, I care not if I go to-day;

  But Effie, you must comfort her when I am past away.

  And say to Robin a kind word, and tell him not to fret;

  There ‘s many a worthier than I, would make him happy yet.

  If I had lived — I cannot tell — I might have been his wife;

  But all these things have ceased to be, with my desire of life.

  O, look! the sun begins to rise! the heavens are in a glow;

  He shines upon a hundred fields, and all of them I know.

  And there I move no longer now, and there his light may shine, —

  Wild flowers in the valley for other hands than mine.

  O, sweet and strange it seems to me, that ere this day is done

  The voice that now is speaking may be beyond the sun, —

  Forever and forever with those just souls and true, —

  And what is life, that we should moan? why make we such ado?

  Forever and forever, all in a blessèd home, —

  And there to wait a little while till you and Effie come, —

  To lie within the light of God, as I lie upon your breast, —

  And the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.

  Lady Clara Vere de Vere

  Lady Clara Vere de Vere,

  Of me you shall not win renown:

  You thought to break a country heart

  For pastime, ere you went to town.

  At me you smiled, but unbeguiled

  I saw the snare, and I retired:

  The daughter of a hundred Earls,

  You are not one to be desired.

  Lady Clara Vere de Vere,

  I know you proud to bear your name,

  Your pride is yet no mate for mine,

  Too proud to care from whence I came.

  Nor would I break for your sweet sake

  A heart that doats on truer charms.

  A simple maiden in her flower

  Is worth a hundred coats-of-arms.

  Lady Clara Vere de Vere,

  Some meeker pupil you must find,

  For were you queen of all that is,

  I could not stoop to such a mind.

  You sought to prove how I could love,

  And my disdain is my reply.

  The lion on your old stone gates

  Is not more cold to you than I.

  Lady Clara Vere de Vere,

  You put strange memories in my head.

  Not thrice your branching limes have blown

  Since I beheld young Laurence dead.

  Oh your sweet eyes, your low replies:

  A great enchantress you may be;

  But there was that across his throat

  Which you hardly cared to see.

  Lady Clara Vere de Vere,

  When thus he met his mother’s view,

  She had the passions of her kind,

  She spake some certain truths of you.

  Indeed I heard one bitter word

  That scarce is fit for you to hear;

  Her manners had not that repose

  Which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere.

  Lady Clara Vere de Vere,

  There stands a spectre in your hall:

  The guilt of blood is at your door:

  You changed a wholesome heart to gall.

  You held your course without remorse,

  To make him trust his modest worth,

  And, last, you fix’d a vacant stare,

  And slew him with your noble birth.

  Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere,

  From yon blue heavens above us bent

  The grand old gardener and his wife

  Smile at the claims of long descent.

  Howe’er it be, it seems to me,

  ‘Tis only noble to be good.

  Kind hearts are more than coronets,

  And simple faith than Norman blood.

  I know you, Clara Vere de Vere:

  You pine among your halls and towers:

  The languid light of your proud eyes

  Is wearied of the rolling hours.

  In glowing health, with boundless wealth,

  But sickening of a vague disease,

  You know so ill to deal with time,

  You needs must play such pranks as these.

  Clara, Clara Vere de Vere,

  If Time be heavy on your hands,

  Are there no beggars at your gate,

  Nor any poor about your lands?

  Oh! teach the orphan-boy to read,

  Or teach the orphan-girl to sew,

  Pray Heaven for a human heart,

  And let the foolish yoeman go.

  You ask me, why, tho’ ill at ease

  You ask me, why, tho’ ill at ease,

  Within this region I subsist,

  Whose spirits falter in the mist,

  And languish for the purple seas?

  It is the land that freemen till,

  That sober-suited Freedom chose,

  The land, where girt with friends or foes

  A man may speak the thing he will;

  A land of settled government,

  A land of just and old renown,

  Where Freedom broadens slowly down

  From precedent to precedent:

  Where faction seldom gathers head,

  But by degrees to fulness wrought,

  The strength of some diffusive thought

  Hath time and space to work and spread.

  Should banded unions persecute

  Opinion, and induce a time

  When single thought is civil crime,

  And individual freedom mute;

  Tho’ Po
wer should make from land to land

  The name of Britain trebly great

  Tho’ every channel of the State

  Should almost choke with golden sand

  Yet waft me from the harbour-mouth,

  Wild wind! I seek a warmer sky,

  And I will see before I die

  The palms and temples of the South.

  Of old sat Freedom on the heights

  Of old sat Freedom on the heights,

  The thunders breaking at her feet:

  Above her shook the starry lights:

  She heard the torrents meet.

  There in her place she did rejoice,

  Self-gather’d in her prophet-mind,

  But fragments of her mighty voice

  Came rolling on the wind.

  Then stept she down thro’ town and field

  To mingle with the human race,

  And part by part to men reveal’d

  The fullness of her face

  Grave mother of majestic works,

  From her isle-altar gazing down,

  Who, God-like, grasps the triple forks,

  And, King-like, wears the crown:

  Her open eyes desire the truth.

  The wisdom of a thousand years

  Is in them. May perpetual youth

  Keep dry their light from tears;

  That her fair form may stand and shine,

  Make bright our days and light our dreams,

  Turning to scorn with lips divine

  The falsehood of extremes!

  Love thou thy land, with love far-brought

  Love thou thy land, with love far-brought

  From out the storied Past, and used

  Within the Present, but transfused

  Thro’ future time by power of thought.

  True love turn’d round on fixed poles,

  Love, that endures not sordid ends,

  For English natures, freemen, friends,

  Thy brothers and immortal souls.

  But pamper not a hasty time,

  Nor feed with crude imaginings

  The herd, wild hearts and feeble wings,

  That every sophister can lime.

  Deliver not the tasks of might

  To weakness, neither hide the ray

  From those, not blind, who wait for day,

  Tho’ sitting girt with doubtful light.

  Make knowledge circle with the winds;

  But let her herald, Reverence, fly

  Before her to whatever sky

  Bear seed of men and growth of minds.

  Watch what main-currents draw the years:

  Cut Prejudice against the grain:

  But gentle words are always gain:

  Regard the weakness of thy peers:

  Nor toil for title, place, or touch

  Of pension, neither count on praise:

  It grows to guerdon after-days:

  Nor deal in watch-words overmuch;

  Not clinging to some ancient saw;

  Not master’d by some modern term;

  Not swift nor slow to change, but firm:

  And in its season bring the law;

  That from Discussion’s lip may fall

  With Life, that, working strongly, binds

  Set in all lights by many minds,

  To close the interests of all.

  For Nature also, cold and warm,

  And moist and dry, devising long,

  Thro’ many agents making strong,

  Matures the individual form.

  Meet is it changes should control

  Our being, lest we rust in ease.

  We all are changed by still degrees,

  All but the basis of the soul.

  So let the change which comes be free

  To ingroove itself with that, which flies,

  And work, a joint of state, that plies

  Its office, moved with sympathy.

  A saying, hard to shape an act;

  For all the past of Time reveals

  A bridal dawn of thunder-peals,

  Wherever Thought hath wedded Fact.

  Ev’n now we hear with inward strife

  A motion toiling in the gloom

  The Spirit of the years to come

  Yearning to mix himself with Life.

  A slow-develop’d strength awaits

  Completion in a painful school;

  Phantoms of other forms of rule,

  New Majesties of mighty States

  The warders of the growing hour,

  But vague in vapour, hard to mark;

  And round them sea and air are dark

  With great contrivances of Power.

  Of many changes, aptly join’d,

  Is bodied forth the second whole,

  Regard gradation, lest the soul

  Of Discord race the rising wind;

  A wind to puff your idol-fires,

  And heap their ashes on the head;

  To shame the boast so often made,

  That we are wiser than our sires.

  Oh, yet, if Nature’s evil star

  Drive men in manhood, as in youth,

  To follow flying steps of Truth

  Across the brazen bridge of war

  If New and Old, disastrous feud,

  Must ever shock, like armed foes,

  And this be true, till Time shall close,

  That Principles are rain’d in blood;

  Not yet the wise of heart would cease

  To hold his hope thro’ shame and guilt,

  But with his hand against the hilt,

  Would pace the troubled land, like Peace;

  Not less, tho’ dogs of Faction bay,

  Would serve his kind in deed and word,

  Certain, if knowledge bring the sword,

  That knowledge takes the sword away

  Would love the gleams of good that broke

  From either side, nor veil his eyes;

  And if some dreadful need should rise

  Would strike, and firmly, and one stroke:

  To-morrow yet would reap to-day,

  As we bear blossom of the dead;

  Earn well the thrifty months, nor wed

  Raw haste, half-sister to Delay.

  The Goose

  This poem, which was written at the time of the Reform Bill agitation, is a political allegory showing how illusory were the supposed advantages held out by the Radicals to the poor and labouring classes. The old woman typifies these classes, the stranger the Radicals, the goose the Radical programme, Free Trade and the like, the eggs such advantages as the proposed Radical measures might for a time seem to confer, the cluttering goose, the storm and whirlwind the heavy price which would have to be paid for them in the social anarchy resulting from triumphant Radicalism. The allegory may be narrowed to the Free Trade question.

  I knew an old wife lean and poor,

  Her rags scarce held together;

  There strode a stranger to the door,

  And it was windy weather.

  He held a goose upon his arm,

  He utter’d rhyme and reason,

  “Here, take the goose, and keep you warm,

  It is a stormy season”.

  She caught the white goose by the leg,

  A goose ‘twas no great matter.

  The goose let fall a golden egg

  With cackle and with clatter.

  She dropt the goose, and caught the pelf,

  And ran to tell her neighbours;

  And bless’d herself, and cursed herself,

  And rested from her labours.

  And feeding high, and living soft,

  Grew plump and able-bodied;

  Until the grave churchwarden doff’d,

  The parson smirk’d and nodded.

  So sitting, served by man and maid,

  She felt her heart grow prouder:

  But, ah! the more the white goose laid

  It clack’d and cackled louder.

  It clutter’d here, it chuckl
ed there;

  It stirr’d the old wife’s mettle:

  She shifted in her elbow-chair,

  And hurl’d the pan and kettle.

  “A quinsy choke thy cursed note!”

  Then wax’d her anger stronger:

  “Go, take the goose, and wring her throat,

  I will not bear it longer”.

  Then yelp’d the cur, and yawl’d the cat;

  Ran Gaffer, stumbled Gammer.

  The goose flew this way and flew that,

  And fill’d the house with clamour.

  As head and heels upon the floor

  They flounder’d all together,

  There strode a stranger to the door,

  And it was windy weather:

  He took the goose upon his arm,

  He utter’d words of scorning;

  “So keep you cold, or keep you warm,

  It is a stormy morning”.

  The wild wind rang from park and plain,

  And round the attics rumbled,

  Till all the tables danced again,

  And half the chimneys tumbled.

  The glass blew in, the fire blew out,

  The blast was hard and harder.

  Her cap blew off, her gown blew up,

  And a whirlwind clear’d the larder;

  And while on all sides breaking loose

  Her household fled the danger,

  Quoth she, “The Devil take the goose,

  And God forget the stranger!”

  The Epic

  This Prologue was written, like the Epilogue, after “The Epic” had been composed, being added, Fitzgerald says, to anticipate or excuse “the faint Homeric echoes,” to give a reason for telling an old-world tale. The poet “mouthing out his hollow oes and aes” is, we are told, a good description of Tennyson’s tone and manner of reading.

  At Francis Allen’s on the Christmas-eve,

  The game of forfeits done the girls all kiss’d

  Beneath the sacred bush and past away

  The parson Holmes, the poet Everard Hall,

  The host, and I sat round the wassail-bowl,

  Then half-way ebb’d: and there we held a talk,

  How all the old honour had from Christmas gone,

  Or gone, or dwindled down to some odd games

  In some odd nooks like this; till I, tired out

  With cutting eights that day upon the pond,

  Where, three times slipping from the outer edge,

  I bump’d the ice into three several stars,

  Fell in a doze; and half-awake I heard

  The parson taking wide and wider sweeps,

  Now harping on the church-commissioners,

  Now hawking at Geology and schism;

  Until I woke, and found him settled down

  Upon the general decay of faith

  Right thro’ the world, “at home was little left,

  And none abroad: there was no anchor, none,