Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Delphi Poets Series

by Lord Tennyson Alfred

  I look at all things as they are,

  But thro’ a kind of glory.

  Head-waiter, honour’d by the guest

  Half-mused, or reeling-ripe,

  The pint, you brought me, was the best

  That ever came from pipe.

  But tho’ the port surpasses praise,

  My nerves have dealt with stiffer.

  Is there some magic in the place?

  Or do my peptics differ?

  For since I came to live and learn,

  No pint of white or red

  Had ever half the power to turn

  This wheel within my head,

  Which bears a season’d brain about,

  Unsubject to confusion,

  Tho’ soak’d and saturate, out and out,

  Thro’ every convolution.

  For I am of a numerous house,

  With many kinsmen gay,

  Where long and largely we carouse

  As who shall say me nay:

  Each month, a birthday coming on,

  We drink defying trouble,

  Or sometimes two would meet in one,

  And then we drank it double;

  Whether the vintage, yet unkept,

  Had relish, fiery-new,

  Or, elbow-deep in sawdust, slept,

  As old as Waterloo;

  Or stow’d (when classic Canning died)

  In musty bins and chambers,

  Had cast upon its crusty side

  The gloom of ten Decembers.

  The Muse, the jolly Muse, it is!

  She answer’d to my call,

  She changes with that mood or this,

  Is all-in-all to all:

  She lit the spark within my throat,

  To make my blood run quicker,

  Used all her fiery will, and smote

  Her life into the liquor.

  And hence this halo lives about

  The waiter’s hands, that reach

  To each his perfect pint of stout,

  His proper chop to each.

  He looks not like the common breed

  That with the napkin dally;

  I think he came like Ganymede,

  From some delightful valley.

  The Cock was of a larger egg

  Than modern poultry drop,

  Stept forward on a firmer leg,

  And cramm’d a plumper crop;

  Upon an ampler dunghill trod,

  Crow’d lustier late and early,

  Sipt wine from silver, praising God,

  And raked in golden barley.

  A private life was all his joy,

  Till in a court he saw

  A something-pottle-bodied boy,

  That knuckled at the taw:

  He stoop’d and clutch’d him, fair and good,

  Flew over roof and casement:

  His brothers of the weather stood

  Stock-still for sheer amazement.

  But he, by farmstead, thorpe and spire,

  And follow’d with acclaims,

  A sign to many a staring shire,

  Came crowing over Thames.

  Right down by smoky Paul’s they bore,

  Till, where the street grows straiter,

  One fix’d for ever at the door,

  And one became head-waiter.

  But whither would my fancy go?

  How out of place she makes

  The violet of a legend blow

  Among the chops and steaks!

  ‘Tis but a steward of the can,

  One shade more plump than common;

  As just and mere a serving-man

  As any born of woman.

  I ranged too high: what draws me down

  Into the common day?

  Is it the weight of that half-crown,

  Which I shall have to pay?

  For, something duller than at first,

  Nor wholly comfortable,

  I sit (my empty glass reversed),

  And thrumming on the table:

  Half-fearful that, with self at strife

  I take myself to task;

  Lest of the fullness of my life

  I leave an empty flask:

  For I had hope, by something rare,

  To prove myself a poet;

  But, while I plan and plan, my hair

  Is gray before I know it.

  So fares it since the years began,

  Till they be gather’d up;

  The truth, that flies the flowing can,

  Will haunt the vacant cup:

  And others’ follies teach us not,

  Nor much their wisdom teaches;

  And most, of sterling worth, is what

  Our own experience preaches.

  Ah, let the rusty theme alone!

  We know not what we know.

  But for my pleasant hour, ‘tis gone,

  ‘Tis gone, and let it go.

  ‘Tis gone: a thousand such have slipt

  Away from my embraces,

  And fall’n into the dusty crypt

  Of darken’d forms and faces.

  Go, therefore, thou! thy betters went

  Long since, and came no more;

  With peals of genial clamour sent

  From many a tavern-door,

  With twisted quirks and happy hits,

  From misty men of letters;

  The tavern-hours of mighty wits

  Thine elders and thy betters.

  Hours, when the Poet’s words and looks

  Had yet their native glow:

  Not yet the fear of little books

  Had made him talk for show:

  But, all his vast heart sherris-warm’d,

  He flash’d his random speeches;

  Ere days, that deal in ana, swarm’d

  His literary leeches.

  So mix for ever with the past,

  Like all good things on earth!

  For should I prize thee, couldst thou last,

  At half thy real worth?

  I hold it good, good things should pass:

  With time I will not quarrel:

  It is but yonder empty glass

  That makes me maudlin-moral.

  Head-waiter of the chop-house here,

  To which I most resort,

  I too must part: I hold thee dear

  For this good pint of port.

  For this, thou shalt from all things suck

  Marrow of mirth and laughter;

  And, wheresoe’er thou move, good luck

  Shall fling her old shoe after.

  But thou wilt never move from hence,

  The sphere thy fate allots:

  Thy latter days increased with pence

  Go down among the pots:

  Thou battenest by the greasy gleam

  In haunts of hungry sinners,

  Old boxes, larded with the steam

  Of thirty thousand dinners.

  We fret, we fume, would shift our skins,

  Would quarrel with our lot;

  Thy care is, under polish’d tins,

  To serve the hot-and-hot;

  To come and go, and come again,

  Returning like the pewit,

  And watch’d by silent gentlemen,

  That trifle with the cruet.

  Live long, ere from thy topmost head

  The thick-set hazel dies;

  Long, ere the hateful crow shall tread

  The corners of thine eyes:

  Live long, nor feel in head or chest

  Our changeful equinoxes,

  Till mellow Death, like some late guest,

  Shall call thee from the boxes.

  But when he calls, and thou shalt cease

  To pace the gritted floor,

  And, laying down an unctuous lease

  Of life, shalt earn no more;

  No carved cross-bones, the types of Death,

  Shall show thee past to Heaven:

  But carved cross-pipes, and, underneath,

  A pint-pot neatly
graven.

  Lady Clare

  This poem was suggested by Miss Ferrier’s powerful novel The Inheritance. A comparison with the plot of Miss Ferrier’s novel will show with what tact and skill Tennyson has adapted the tale to his ballad. Thomas St. Clair, youngest son of the Earl of Rossville, marries a Miss Sarah Black, a girl of humble and obscure birth. He dies, leaving a widow and as is supposed a daughter, Gertrude, who claim the protection of Lord Rossville, as the child is heiress presumptive to the earldom. On Lord Rossville’s death she accordingly becomes Countess of Rossville. She has two lovers, both distant connections, Colonel Delmour and Edward Lyndsay. At last it is discovered that she was not the daughter of Thomas St. Clair and her supposed mother, but of one Marion La Motte and Jacob Leviston, and that Mrs. St. Clair had adopted her when a baby and passed her off as her own child, that she might succeed to the title. Meanwhile Delmour by the death of his elder brother succeeds to the title and estates forfeited by the detected foundling, but instead of acting as Tennyson’s Lord Ronald does, he repudiates her and marries a duchess. But her other lover Lyndsay is true to her and marries her. Delmour not long afterwards dies without issue, and Lyndsay succeeds to the title, Gertrude then becoming after all Countess of Rossville. In details Tennyson follows the novel sometimes very closely. Thus the “single rose,” the poor dress, the bitter exclamation about her being a beggar born, are from the novel.

  Lord Ronald courted Lady Clare,

  I trow they did not part in scorn;

  Lord Ronald, her cousin, courted her

  And they will wed the morrow morn.

  It was the time when lilies blow,

  And clouds are highest up in air,

  Lord Ronald brought a lily-white doe

  To give his cousin Lady Clare.

  I trow they did not part in scorn:

  Lovers long-betroth’d were they:

  They two will wed the morrow morn!

  God’s blessing on the day!

  “He does not love me for my birth,

  Nor for my lands so broad and fair;

  He loves me for my own true worth,

  And that is well,” said Lady Clare.

  In there came old Alice the nurse,

  Said, “Who was this that went from thee?”

  “It was my cousin,” said Lady Clare,

  “To-morrow he weds with me.”

  “O God be thank’d!” said Alice the nurse,

  “That all comes round so just and fair:

  Lord Ronald is heir of all your lands,

  And you are not the Lady Clare.”

  “Are ye out of your mind, my nurse, my nurse?”

  Said Lady Clare, “that ye speak so wild”;

  “As God’s above,” said Alice the nurse,

  “I speak the truth: you are my child.

  “The old Earl’s daughter died at my breast;

  I speak the truth, as I live by bread!

  I buried her like my own sweet child,

  And put my child in her stead.”

  “Falsely, falsely have ye done,

  O mother,” she said, “if this be true,

  To keep the best man under the sun

  So many years from his due.”

  “Nay now, my child,” said Alice the nurse,

  “But keep the secret for your life,

  And all you have will be Lord Ronald’s,

  When you are man and wife.”

  “If I’m a beggar born,” she said,

  “I will speak out, for I dare not lie.

  Pull off, pull off, the broach of gold,

  And fling the diamond necklace by.”

  “Nay now, my child,” said Alice the nurse,

  “But keep the secret all ye can.”

  She said, “Not so: but I will know

  If there be any faith in man”.

  “Nay now, what faith?” said Alice the nurse,

  “The man will cleave unto his right.”

  “And he shall have it,” the lady replied,

  “Tho’ I should die to-night.”

  “Yet give one kiss to your mother dear!

  Alas, my child, I sinn’d for thee.”

  “O mother, mother, mother,” she said,

  “So strange it seems to me.

  “Yet here’s a kiss for my mother dear,

  My mother dear, if this be so,

  And lay your hand upon my head,

  And bless me, mother, ere I go.”

  She clad herself in a russet gown,

  She was no longer Lady Clare:

  She went by dale, and she went by down,

  With a single rose in her hair.

  The lily-white doe Lord Ronald had brought

  Leapt up from where she lay,

  Dropt her head in the maiden’s hand,

  And follow’d her all the way.

  Down stept Lord Ronald from his tower:

  “O Lady Clare, you shame your worth!

  Why come you drest like a village maid,

  That are the flower of the earth?”

  “If I come drest like a village maid,

  I am but as my fortunes are:

  I am a beggar born,” she said,

  “And not the Lady Clare.”

  “Play me no tricks,” said Lord Ronald,

  “For I am yours in word and in deed.

  Play me no tricks,” said Lord Ronald,

  “Your riddle is hard to read.”

  O and proudly stood she up!

  Her heart within her did not fail:

  She look’d into Lord Ronald’s eyes,

  And told him all her nurse’s tale.

  He laugh’d a laugh of merry scorn:

  He turn’d, and kiss’d her where she stood:

  “If you are not the heiress born,

  And I,” said he, “the next in blood

  “If you are not the heiress born,

  And I,” said he, “the lawful heir,

  We two will wed to-morrow morn,

  And you shall still be Lady Clare.”

  The Lord of Burleigh

  This poem tells the well-known story of Sarah Hoggins who married under the circumstances related in the poem. She died in January, 1797, sinking, so it was said, but without any authority for such a statement, under the burden of an honour “unto which she was not born”. The story is that Henry Cecil, heir presumptive to his uncle, the ninth Earl of Exeter, was staying at Bolas, a rural village in Shropshire, where he met Sarah Hoggins and married her. They lived together at Bolas, where the two eldest of his children were born, for two years before he came into the title. She bore him two other children after she was Countess of Exeter, dying at Burleigh House near Stamford at the early age of twenty-four. The obituary notice runs thus: “January, 1797. At Burleigh House near Stamford, aged twenty-four, to the inexpressible surprise and concern of all acquainted with her, the Right Honbl. Countess of Exeter.”

  In her ear he whispers gaily,

  “If my heart by signs can tell,

  Maiden, I have watch’d thee daily,

  And I think thou lov’st me well”.

  She replies, in accents fainter,

  “There is none I love like thee”.

  He is but a landscape-painter,

  And a village maiden she.

  He to lips, that fondly falter,

  Presses his without reproof:

  Leads her to the village altar,

  And they leave her father’s roof.

  “I can make no marriage present;

  Little can I give my wife.

  Love will make our cottage pleasant,

  And I love thee more than life.”

  They by parks and lodges going

  See the lordly castles stand:

  Summer woods, about them blowing,

  Made a murmur in the land.

  From deep thought himself he rouses,

  Says to her that loves him well,

  “Let us see these handsome houses

  Wh
ere the wealthy nobles dwell”.

  So she goes by him attended,

  Hears him lovingly converse,

  Sees whatever fair and splendid

  Lay betwixt his home and hers;

  Parks with oak and chestnut shady,

  Parks and order’d gardens great,

  Ancient homes of lord and lady,

  Built for pleasure and for state.

  All he shows her makes him dearer:

  Evermore she seems to gaze

  On that cottage growing nearer,

  Where they twain will spend their days.

  O but she will love him truly!

  He shall have a cheerful home;

  She will order all things duly,

  When beneath his roof they come.

  Thus her heart rejoices greatly,

  Till a gateway she discerns

  With armorial bearings stately,

  And beneath the gate she turns;

  Sees a mansion more majestic

  Than all those she saw before:

  Many a gallant gay domestic

  Bows before him at the door.

  And they speak in gentle murmur,

  When they answer to his call,

  While he treads with footstep firmer,

  Leading on from hall to hall.

  And, while now she wonders blindly,

  Nor the meaning can divine,

  Proudly turns he round and kindly,

  “All of this is mine and thine”.

  Here he lives in state and bounty,

  Lord of Burleigh, fair and free,

  Not a lord in all the county

  Is so great a lord as he.

  All at once the colour flushes

  Her sweet face from brow to chin:

  As it were with shame she blushes,

  And her spirit changed within.

  Then her countenance all over

  Pale again as death did prove:

  But he clasp’d her like a lover,

  And he cheer’d her soul with love.

  So she strove against her weakness,

  Tho’ at times her spirits sank:

  Shaped her heart with woman’s meekness

  To all duties of her rank:

  And a gentle consort made he,

  And her gentle mind was such

  That she grew a noble lady,

  And the people loved her much.

  But a trouble weigh’d upon her,

  And perplex’d her, night and morn,

  With the burthen of an honour

  Unto which she was not born.

  Faint she grew, and ever fainter,

  As she murmur’d “Oh, that he

  Were once more that landscape-painter

  Which did win my heart from me!”

  So she droop’d and droop’d before him,

  Fading slowly from his side:

  Three fair children first she bore him,

  Then before her time she died.

  Weeping, weeping late and early,

  Walking up and pacing down,