Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Delphi Poets Series

by Lord Tennyson Alfred

  2

  But any man that walks the mead,

  In bud or blade, or bloom, may find,

  According as his humours lead,

  A meaning suited to his mind.

  And liberal applications lie

  In Art like Nature, dearest friend;

  So ‘twere to cramp its use, if I

  Should hook it to some useful end.

  L’Envoi

  1

  You shake your head. A random string

  Your finer female sense offends.

  Well were it not a pleasant thing

  To fall asleep with all one’s friends;

  To pass with all our social ties

  To silence from the paths of men;

  And every hundred years to rise

  And learn the world, and sleep again;

  To sleep thro’ terms of mighty wars,

  And wake on science grown to more,

  On secrets of the brain, the stars,

  As wild as aught of fairy lore;

  And all that else the years will show,

  The Poet-forms of stronger hours,

  The vast Republics that may grow,

  The Federations and the Powers;

  Titanic forces taking birth

  In divers seasons, divers climes;

  For we are Ancients of the earth,

  And in the morning of the times.

  2

  So sleeping, so aroused from sleep

  Thro’ sunny decads new and strange,

  Or gay quinquenniads would we reap

  The flower and quintessence of change.

  3

  Ah, yet would I and would I might!

  So much your eyes my fancy take

  Be still the first to leap to light

  That I might kiss those eyes awake!

  For, am I right or am I wrong,

  To choose your own you did not care;

  You’d have my moral from the song,

  And I will take my pleasure there:

  And, am I right or am I wrong,

  My fancy, ranging thro’ and thro’,

  To search a meaning for the song,

  Perforce will still revert to you;

  Nor finds a closer truth than this

  All-graceful head, so richly curl’d,

  And evermore a costly kiss

  The prelude to some brighter world.

  4

  For since the time when Adam first

  Embraced his Eve in happy hour,

  And every bird of Eden burst

  In carol, every bud to flower,

  What eyes, like thine, have waken’d hopes?

  What lips, like thine, so sweetly join’d?

  Where on the double rosebud droops

  The fullness of the pensive mind;

  Which all too dearly self-involved,

  Yet sleeps a dreamless sleep to me;

  A sleep by kisses undissolved,

  That lets thee neither hear nor see:

  But break it. In the name of wife,

  And in the rights that name may give,

  Are clasp’d the moral of thy life,

  And that for which I care to live.

  Epilogue

  So, Lady Flora, take my lay,

  And, if you find a meaning there,

  O whisper to your glass, and say,

  “What wonder, if he thinks me fair?”

  What wonder I was all unwise,

  To shape the song for your delight

  Like long-tail’d birds of Paradise,

  That float thro’ Heaven, and cannot light?

  Or old-world trains, upheld at court

  By Cupid-boys of blooming hue

  But take it earnest wed with sport,

  And either sacred unto you.

  Amphion

  In this humorous allegory the poet bewails his unhappy lot on having fallen on an age so unpropitious to poetry, contrasting it with the happy times so responsive to his predecessors who piped to a world prepared to dance to their music. However, he must toil and be satisfied if he can make a little garden blossom.

  My father left a park to me,

  But it is wild and barren,

  A garden too with scarce a tree

  And waster than a warren:

  Yet say the neighbours when they call,

  It is not bad but good land,

  And in it is the germ of all

  That grows within the woodland.

  O had I lived when song was great

  In days of old Amphion,

  And ta’en my fiddle to the gate,

  Nor cared for seed or scion!

  And had I lived when song was great,

  And legs of trees were limber,

  And ta’en my fiddle to the gate,

  And fiddled in the timber!

  ‘Tis said he had a tuneful tongue,

  Such happy intonation,

  Wherever he sat down and sung

  He left a small plantation;

  Wherever in a lonely grove

  He set up his forlorn pipes,

  The gouty oak began to move,

  And flounder into hornpipes.

  The mountain stirr’d its bushy crown,

  And, as tradition teaches,

  Young ashes pirouetted down

  Coquetting with young beeches;

  And briony-vine and ivy-wreath

  Ran forward to his rhyming,

  And from the valleys underneath

  Came little copses climbing.

  The linden broke her ranks and rent

  The woodbine wreathes that bind her,

  And down the middle, buzz! she went,

  With all her bees behind her.

  The poplars, in long order due,

  With cypress promenaded,

  The shock-head willows two and two

  By rivers gallopaded.

  The birch-tree swang her fragrant hair,

  The bramble cast her berry,

  The gin within the juniper

  Began to make him merry.

  Came wet-shot alder from the wave,

  Came yews, a dismal coterie;

  Each pluck’d his one foot from the grave,

  Poussetting with a sloe-tree:

  Old elms came breaking from the vine,

  The vine stream’d out to follow,

  And, sweating rosin, plump’d the pine

  From many a cloudy hollow.

  And wasn’t it a sight to see

  When, ere his song was ended,

  Like some great landslip, tree by tree,

  The country-side descended;

  And shepherds from the mountain-caves

  Look’d down, half-pleased, half-frighten’d,

  As dash’d about the drunken leaves

  The random sunshine lighten’d!

  Oh, nature first was fresh to men,

  And wanton without measure;

  So youthful and so flexile then,

  You moved her at your pleasure.

  Twang out, my fiddle! shake the twigs!

  And make her dance attendance;

  Blow, flute, and stir the stiff-set sprigs,

  And scirrhous roots and tendons.

  ‘Tis vain! in such a brassy age

  I could not move a thistle;

  The very sparrows in the hedge

  Scarce answer to my whistle;

  Or at the most, when three-parts-sick

  With strumming and with scraping,

  A jackass heehaws from the rick,

  The passive oxen gaping.

  But what is that I hear? a sound

  Like sleepy counsel pleading:

  O Lord! ‘tis in my neighbour’s ground,

  The modern Muses reading.

  They read Botanic Treatises.

  And works on Gardening thro’ there,

  And Methods of transplanting trees

  To look as if they grew there.

  The wither’d Misses! how they prose

  O’er bo
oks of travell’d seamen,

  And show you slips of all that grows

  From England to Van Diemen.

  They read in arbours clipt and cut,

  And alleys, faded places,

  By squares of tropic summer shut

  And warm’d in crystal cases.

  But these, tho’ fed with careful dirt,

  Are neither green nor sappy;

  Half-conscious of the garden-squirt,

  The spindlings look unhappy,

  Better to me the meanest weed

  That blows upon its mountain,

  The vilest herb that runs to seed

  Beside its native fountain.

  And I must work thro’ months of toil,

  And years of cultivation,

  Upon my proper patch of soil

  To grow my own plantation.

  I’ll take the showers as they fall,

  I will not vex my bosom:

  Enough if at the end of all

  A little garden blossom.

  Sir Galahad

  This poem may be regarded as a prelude to The Holy Grail. The character of Galahad is deduced principally from the seventeenth book of the Morte d’Arthur. In the twenty-second chapter of that book St. Joseph of Arimathea says to him: “Thou hast resembled me in two things in that thou hast seen the marvels of the sangreal, and in that thou has been a clean maiden”.

  My good blade carves the casques of men,

  My tough lance thrusteth sure,

  My strength is as the strength of ten,

  Because my heart is pure.

  The shattering trumpet shrilleth high,

  The hard brands shiver on the steel,

  The splinter’d spear-shafts crack and fly,

  The horse and rider reel:

  They reel, they roll in clanging lists,

  And when the tide of combat stands,

  Perfume and flowers fall in showers,

  That lightly rain from ladies’ hands.

  How sweet are looks that ladies bend

  On whom their favours fall!

  For them I battle till the end,

  To save from shame and thrall:

  But all my heart is drawn above,

  My knees are bow’d in crypt and shrine:

  I never felt the kiss of love,

  Nor maiden’s hand in mine.

  More bounteous aspects on me beam,

  Me mightier transports move and thrill;

  So keep I fair thro’ faith and prayer

  A virgin heart in work and will.

  When down the stormy crescent goes,

  A light before me swims,

  Between dark stems the forest glows,

  I hear a noise of hymns:

  Then by some secret shrine I ride;

  I hear a voice, but none are there;

  The stalls are void, the doors are wide,

  The tapers burning fair.

  Fair gleams the snowy altar-cloth,

  The silver vessels sparkle clean,

  The shrill bell rings, the censer swings,

  And solemn chaunts resound between.

  Sometimes on lonely mountain-meres

  I find a magic bark;

  I leap on board: no helmsman steers:

  I float till all is dark.

  A gentle sound, an awful light!

  Three angels bear the holy Grail:

  With folded feet, in stoles of white,

  On sleeping wings they sail.

  Ah, blessed vision! blood of God!

  My spirit beats her mortal bars,

  As down dark tides the glory slides,

  And star-like mingles with the stars.

  When on my goodly charger borne

  Thro’ dreaming towns I go,

  The cock crows ere the Christmas morn,

  The streets are dumb with snow.

  The tempest crackles on the leads,

  And, ringing, spins from brand and mail;

  But o’er the dark a glory spreads,

  And gilds the driving hail.

  I leave the plain, I climb the height;

  No branchy thicket shelter yields;

  But blessed forms in whistling storms

  Fly o’er waste fens and windy fields.

  A maiden knight to me is given

  Such hope, I know not fear;

  I yearn to breathe the airs of heaven

  That often meet me here.

  I muse on joy that will not cease,

  Pure spaces clothed in living beams,

  Pure lilies of eternal peace,

  Whose odours haunt my dreams;

  And, stricken by an angel’s hand,

  This mortal armour that I wear,

  This weight and size, this heart and eyes,

  Are touch’d, are turn’d to finest air.

  The clouds are broken in the sky,

  And thro’ the mountain-walls

  A rolling organ-harmony

  Swells up, and shakes and falls.

  Then move the trees, the copses nod,

  Wings flutter, voices hover clear:

  “O just and faithful knight of God!

  Ride on! the prize is near”.

  So pass I hostel, hall, and grange;

  By bridge and ford, by park and pale,

  All-arm’d I ride, whate’er betide,

  Until I find the holy Grail.

  Edward Grey

  Sweet Emma Moreland of yonder town

  Met me walking on yonder way,

  “And have you lost your heart?” she said;

  “And are you married yet, Edward Gray?”

  Sweet Emma Moreland spoke to me:

  Bitterly weeping I turn’d away:

  “Sweet Emma Moreland, love no more

  Can touch the heart of Edward Gray.

  “Ellen Adair she loved me well,

  Against her father’s and mother’s will:

  To-day I sat for an hour and wept,

  By Ellen’s grave, on the windy hill.

  “Shy she was, and I thought her cold;

  Thought her proud, and fled over the sea;

  Fill’d I was with folly and spite,

  When Ellen Adair was dying for me.

  “Cruel, cruel the words I said!

  Cruelly came they back to-day:

  ‘You’re too slight and fickle,’ I said,

  ‘To trouble the heart of Edward Gray’.

  “There I put my face in the grass

  Whisper’d, ‘Listen to my despair:

  I repent me of all I did:

  Speak a little, Ellen Adair!’

  “Then I took a pencil, and wrote

  On the mossy stone, as I lay,

  ‘Here lies the body of Ellen Adair;

  And here the heart of Edward Gray!’

  “Love may come, and love may go,

  And fly, like a bird, from tree to tree:

  But I will love no more, no more,

  Till Ellen Adair come back to me.

  “Bitterly wept I over the stone:

  Bitterly weeping I turn’d away;

  There lies the body of Ellen Adair!

  And there the heart of Edward Gray!”

  Will Waterproof’s Lyrical Monologue made at The Cock.

  The Cock Tavern, No. 201 Fleet Street, on the north side of Fleet Street, stood opposite the Temple and was of great antiquity, going back nearly 300 years. Strype, bk. iv., h. 117, describes it as “a noted public-house,” and Pepys’ Diary, 23rd April, 1668, speaks of himself as having been “mighty merry there”. The old carved chimney-piece was of the age of James I., and the gilt bird over the portal was the work of Grinling Gibbons. When Tennyson wrote this poem it was the favourite resort of templars, journalists and literary people generally, as it had long been. But the old place is now a thing of the past. On the evening of 10th April, 1886, it closed its doors for ever after an existence of nearly 300 years.

  O plump head-waiter at The Cock,

  To which I most resort,
/>   How goes the time? ‘Tis five o’clock.

  Go fetch a pint of port:

  But let it not be such as that

  You set before chance-comers,

  But such whose father-grape grew fat

  On Lusitanian summers.

  No vain libation to the Muse,

  But may she still be kind,

  And whisper lovely words, and use

  Her influence on the mind,

  To make me write my random rhymes,

  Ere they be half-forgotten;

  Nor add and alter, many times,

  Till all be ripe and rotten.

  I pledge her, and she comes and dips

  Her laurel in the wine,

  And lays it thrice upon my lips,

  These favour’d lips of mine;

  Until the charm have power to make

  New life-blood warm the bosom,

  And barren commonplaces break

  In full and kindly

  blossom.

  I pledge her silent at the board;

  Her gradual fingers steal

  And touch upon the master-chord

  Of all I felt and feel.

  Old wishes, ghosts of broken plans,

  And phantom hopes assemble;

  And that child’s heart within the man’s

  Begins to move and tremble.

  Thro’ many an hour of summer suns

  By many pleasant ways,

  Against its fountain upward runs

  The current of my days:

  I kiss the lips I once have kiss’d;

  The gas-light wavers dimmer;

  And softly, thro’ a vinous mist,

  My college friendships glimmer.

  I grow in worth, and wit, and sense,

  Unboding critic-pen,

  Or that eternal want of pence,

  Which vexes public men,

  Who hold their hands to all, and cry

  For that which all deny them

  Who sweep the crossings, wet or dry,

  And all the world go by them.

  Ah yet, tho’ all the world forsake,

  Tho’ fortune clip my wings,

  I will not cramp my heart, nor take

  Half-views of men and things.

  Let Whig and Tory stir their blood;

  There must be stormy weather;

  But for some true result of good

  All parties work together.

  Let there be thistles, there are grapes;

  If old things, there are new;

  Ten thousand broken lights and shapes,

  Yet glimpses of the true.

  Let raffs be rife in prose and rhyme,

  We lack not rhymes and reasons,

  As on this whirligig of Time

  We circle with the seasons.

  This earth is rich in man and maid;

  With fair horizons bound:

  This whole wide earth of light and shade

  Comes out, a perfect round.

  High over roaring Temple-bar,

  And, set in Heaven’s third story,