Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Delphi Poets Series

by Lord Tennyson Alfred

  And closed by those who mourn a friend in vain,

  Not thankful that his troubles are no more.

  And me, altho’ his fire is on my face

  Blinding, he sees not, nor at all can tell

  Whether I mean this day to end myself.

  Or lend an ear to Plato where he says,

  That men like soldiers may not quit the post

  Allotted by the Gods: but he that holds

  The Gods are careless, wherefore need he care

  Greatly for them, nor rather plunge at once,

  Being troubled, wholly out of sight, and sink

  Past earthquake — ay, and gout and stone, that break

  Body toward death, and palsy, death-in-life,

  And wretched age — and worst disease of all,

  These prodigies of myriad nakednesses,

  And twisted shapes of lust, unspeakable,

  Abominable, strangers at my hearth

  Not welcome, harpies miring every dish,

  The phantom husks of something foully done,

  And fleeting thro’ the boundless universe,

  And blasting the long quiet of my breast

  With animal heat and dire insanity?

  ‘How should the mind, except it loved them, clasp

  These idols to herself? or do they fly

  Now thinner, and now thicker, like the flakes

  In a fall of snow, and so press in, perforce

  Of multitude, as crowds that in an hour

  Of civic tumult jam the doors, and bear

  The keepers down, and throng, their rags and the

  The basest, far into that council-hall

  Where sit the best and stateliest of the land?

  ‘Can I not fling this horror off me again,

  Seeing with how great ease Nature can smile

  Balmier and nobler from her bath of storm,

  At random ravage? and how easily

  The mountain there has cast his cloudy slough,

  Now towering o’er him in serenest air,

  A mountain o’er a mountain, — ay, and within

  All hollow as the hopes and fears of men?

  ‘But who was he that in the garden snared

  Picus and Faunus, rustic Gods? a tale

  To laugh at — more to laugh at in myself —

  For look! what is it? there? yon arbutus

  Totters; a noiseless riot underneath

  Strikes through the wood, sets all the tops quivering —

  The mountain quickens into Nymph and Faun,

  And here an Oread — how the sun delights

  To glance and shift about her slippery sides,

  And rosy knees and supple roundedness,

  And budded bosom-peaks — who this way runs

  Before the rest! — A satyr, a satyr, see,

  Follows; but him I proved impossible;

  Twy-natured is no nature: yet he draws

  Nearer and nearer, and I scan him now

  Beastlier than any phantom of his kind

  That ever butted his rough brother-brute

  For lust or lusty blood or provender:

  I hate, abhor, spit, sicken at him; and she

  Loathes him as well; such a precipitate heel,

  Fledged as it were with Mercury’s ankle-wing,

  Whirls her to me: but will she fling herself

  Shameless upon me? Catch her, goatfoot! nay,

  Hide, hide them, million-myrtled wilderness,

  And cavern-shadowing laurels, hide! do I wish —

  What? — that the bush were leafless? or to whelm

  All of them in one massacre? O ye Gods

  I know you careless, yet, behold, to you

  From childly wont and ancient use I call —

  I thought I lived securely as yourselves —

  No lewdness, narrowing envy, monkey-spite,

  No madness of ambition, avarice, none:

  No larger feast than under plane or pine

  With neighbors laid along the grass, to take

  Only such cups as left us friendly-warm,

  Affirming each his own philosophy —

  Nothing to mar the sober majesties

  Of settled, sweet, Epicurean life.

  But now it seems some unseen monster lays

  His vast and filthy hands upon my will,

  Wrenching it backward into his; and spoils

  My bliss in being; and it was not great;

  For save when shutting reasons up in rhythm,

  Or Heliconian honey in living words,

  To make a truth less harsh, I often grew

  Tired of so much within our little life

  Or of so little in our little life —

  Poor little life that toddles half an hour

  Crown’d with a flower or two, and there an end —

  And since the nobler pleasure seems to fade,

  Why should I, beastlike as I find myself,

  Not manlike end myself? — our privilege — ;

  What beast has heart to do it? And what man

  What Roman would be dragg’d in triumph thus?

  Not I; not he, who bears one name with her

  Whose death-blow struck the dateless doom of kings,

  When, brooking not the Tarquin in her veins,

  She made her blood in sight of Collatine

  And all his peers, flushing the guiltless air,

  Spout from the maiden fountain in her heart.

  And from it sprang the Commonwealth, which breaks

  As I am breaking now!

  ‘And therefore now

  Let her, that is the womb and tomb of all

  Great Nature, take, and forcing far apart

  Those blind beginnings that have made me man,

  Dash them anew together at her will

  Thro’ all her cycles — into man once more,

  Or beast or bird or fish, or opulent flower.

  But till this cosmic order everywhere

  Shatter’d into one earthquake in one day

  Cracks all to pieces, — and that hour perhaps

  Is not so far when momentary man

  Shall seem no more a something to himself,

  But he, his hopes and hates, his homes and fanes

  And even his bones long laid within the grave,

  The very sides of the grave itself shall pass,

  Vanishing, atom and void, atom and void,

  Into the unseen for ever, — till that hour,

  My golden work in which I told a truth

  That stays the rolling Ixionian wheel,

  And numbs the Fury’s ringlet-snake, and plucks

  The mortal soul from out immortal hell

  Shall stand: ay, surely: then it fails at last

  And perishes as I must, for O Thou

  Passionless bride, divine Tranquillity,

  Yearn’d after by the wisest of the wise

  Who fail to find thee, being as thou art

  Without one pleasure and without one pain,

  Howbeit I know thou surely must be mine

  Or soon or late, yet out of season, thus

  I woo thee roughly, for thou carest not

  How roughly men may woo thee so they win —

  Thus — thus: the soul flies out and dies in the air.’

  With that he drove the knife into his side.

  She heard him raging, heard him fall; ran in,

  Beat breast, tore hair, cried out upon herself

  As having fail’d in duty to him, shriek’d

  That she but meant to win him back, fell on him

  Clasp’d, kiss’d him, wail’d: he answer’d, ‘Care not thou!

  Thy duty? What is duty? Fare thee well!’

  The Spiteful Letter

  HERE, it is here, the close of the year,

  And with it a spiteful letter.

  My name in song has done him much wrong,

  For himself has done much better.

  O little bard, is your lot
so hard,

  If men neglect your pages?

  I think not much of yours or of mine,

  I hear the roll of the ages.

  Rhymes and rhymes in the range of the times!

  Are mine for the moment stronger?

  Yet hate me not, but abide your lot;

  I last but a moment longer.

  This faded leaf, our names are as brief;

  What room is left for a hater?

  Yet the yellow leaf hates the greener leaf,

  For it hangs one moment later.

  Greater than I — is that your cry?

  And men will live to see it.

  Well — if it be so — so it is, you know;

  And if it be so, so be it.

  Brief, brief is a summer leaf,

  But this is the time of hollies.

  O hollies and ivies and evergreens,

  How I hate the spites and the follies!

  In the Garden at Swainston

  NIGHTINGALES warbled without,

  Within was weeping for thee:

  Shadows of three dead men

  Walk’d in the walks with me,

  Shadows of three dead men and thou wast one of the three.

  Nightingales sang in his woods:

  The Master was far away:

  Nightingales warbled and sang

  Of a passion that lasts but a day;

  Still in the house in his coffin the Prince of courtesy lay.

  Two dead men have I known

  In courtesy like to thee:

  Two dead men have I loved

  With a love that ever will be:

  Three dead men have I loved and thou art last of the three.

  The Third of February, 1852

  MY LORDS, we heard you speak: you told us all

  That England’s honest censure went too far,

  That our free press should cease to brawl,

  Not sting the fiery Frenchman into war.

  It was our ancient privilege, my Lords,

  To fling whate’er we felt, not fearing, into words.

  We love not this French God, the child of hell,

  Wild War, who breaks the converse of the wise;

  But though we love kind Peace so well,

  We dare not even by silence sanction lies.

  It might be safe our censures to withdraw,

  And yet, my Lords, not well; there is a higher law.

  As long as we remain, we must speak free,

  Tho’ all the storm of Eurpoe on us break.

  No little German state are we,

  But the one voice in Europe; we must speak,

  That if to-night our greatness were struck dead,

  There might be left some record of the things we said.

  If you be fearful, then must we be bold.

  Our Britain cannot salve a tyrant o’er.

  Better the waste Atlantic roll’d

  On her and us and ours for evermore.

  What? have we fought for Freedom from our prime,

  At last to dodge and palter with a public crime?

  Shall we fear him? our own we never fear’d.

  From our first Charles by force we wrung our claims.

  Prick’d by the Papal spur, we rear’d,

  We flung the burthen of the second James.

  I say, we never fear’d! and as for these,

  We broke them on the land, we drove them on the seas.

  And you, my Lords, you make the people muse

  In doubt if you be of our Barons’ breed —

  Were those your sires who fought at Lewes?

  Is this the manly strain of Runnymede?

  O fallen nobility that, overawed,

  Would lisp in honey’d whispers of this monstrous fraud!

  We feel, at least, that silence here were sin,

  Not ours the fault if we have feeble hosts —

  If easy patrons of their kin

  Have left the last free race with naked coasts!

  They knew the precious things they had to guard;

  For us, we will not spare the tyrant one hard word.

  Tho’ niggard throats of Manchester may bawl,

  What England was, shall her true sons forget?

  We are not cotton-spinners all,

  But some love England and her honor yet.

  And these in our Thermopylæ shall stand,

  And hold against the world this honor of the land.

  The Victim

  I.

  A PLAGUE upon the people fell,

  A famine after laid them low;

  Then thorpe and byre arose in fire,

  For on them brake the sudden foe;

  So thick they died the people cried,

  ‘The Gods are moved against the land.’

  The Priest in horror about his altar

  To Thor and Odin lifted a hand:

  ‘Help us from famine

  And plague and strife!

  What would you have of us?

  Human life?

  Were it our nearest,

  Were it our dearest, —

  (Answer, O answer)

  We give you his life.’

  II.

  But still the foeman spoil’d and burn’d,

  And cattle died, and deer in wood,

  And bird in air, and fishes turn’d

  And whiten’d all the rolling flood;

  And dead men lay all over the way,

  Or down in a furrow scathed with flame;

  And ever and aye the Priesthood moan’d,

  Till at last it seem’d that an answer came:

  ‘The King is happy

  In child and wife;

  Take you his dearest,

  Give us a life.’

  III.

  The Priest went out by heath and hill;

  The King was hunting in the wild;

  They found the mother sitting still;

  She cast her arms about the child.

  The child was only eight summers old,

  His beauty still with his years increased,

  His face was ruddy, his hair was gold;

  He seem’d a victim due to the priest.

  The Priest beheld him,

  And cried with joy,

  ‘The Gods have answer’d;

  We give them the boy.’

  IV.

  The King return’d from out the wild,

  He bore but little game in hand;

  The mother said, ‘They have taken the child

  To spill his blood and heal the land.

  The land is sick, the people diseased,

  And blight and famine on all the lea;

  The holy Gods, they must be appeased,

  So I pray you tell the truth to me.

  They have taken our son,

  They will have his life.

  Is he your dearest?

  Or I, the wife?’

  V.

  The King bent low, with hand on brow,

  He stay’d his arms upon his knee:

  ‘O wife, what use to answer now?

  For now the Priest has judged for me.’

  The King was shaken with holy fear;

  ‘The Gods,’ he said, ‘would have chosen well;

  Yet both are near, and both are dear,

  And which the dearest I cannot tell!’

  But the Priest was happy,

  His victim won:

  ‘We have his dearest,

  VI.

  The rites prepared, the victim bared,

  The knife uprising toward the blow,

  To the altar-stone she sprang alone:

  ‘Me, not my darling, no!’

  He caught her away with a sudden cry;

  Suddenly from him brake his wife,

  And shrieking, ‘I am his dearest, I —

  I am his dearest!’ rush’d on the knife.

  And the Priest was happy:

  ‘O Father Odin,

  We give you a life.

  Which was his nearest?
>
  Who was his dearest?

  The Gods have answer’d;

  We give them the wife!’

  The Voice and the Peak

  I.

  THE VOICE and the Peak

  Far over summit and lawn,

  The lone glow and long roar

  Green-rushing from the rosy thrones of dawn!

  II.

  All night have I heard the voice

  Rave over the rocky bar,

  But thou wert silent in heaven,

  Above thee glided the star.

  III.

  Hast thou no voice, O Peak,

  That standest high above all?

  ‘I am the voice of the Peak,

  I roar and rave, for I fall.

  IV.

  ‘A thousand voices go

  To North, South, East, and West;

  They leave the heights and are troubled,

  And moan and sink to their rest.

  V.

  ‘The fields are fair beside them,

  The chestnut towers in his bloom;

  But they — they feel the desire of the deep —

  Fall, and follow their doom.

  VI.

  ‘The deep has power on the height,

  And the height has power on the deep;

  They are raised for ever and ever,

  And sink again into sleep.’

  VII.

  Not raised for ever and ever,

  But when their cycle is o’er,

  The valley, the voice, the peak, the star

  Pass, and are found no more.

  VIII.

  The Peak is high and flush’d

  At his highest with sunrise fire;

  The Peak is high, and the stars are high,

  And the thought of a man is higher.

  IX.

  A deep below the deep,

  And a height beyond the height!

  Our hearing is not hearing,

  And our seeing is not sight.

  X.

  The voice and the Peak

  Far into heaven withdrawn,

  The lone glow and long roar

  Green-rushing from the rosy thrones of dawn!

  Wages

  GLORY of warrior, glory of orator, glory of song,

  Paid with a voice flying by to be lost on an endless sea —

  Glory of Virtue, to fight, to struggle, to right the wrong —

  Nay, but she aim’d not at glory, no lover of glory she;

  Give her the glory of going on, and still to be.

  The wages of sin is death: if the wages of Virtue be dust,

  Would she have heart to endure for the life of the worm and the fly?

  She desires no isles of the blest, no quiet seats of the just,

  To rest in a golden grove, or to bask in a summer sky;

  Give her the wages of going on, and not to die.

  The Window, or, the Song of the Wrens

  FOUR years ago Mr. Sullivan requested me to write a little song-cycle, German fashion, for him to exercise his art upon. He had been very successful in setting such old songs as ‘Orpheus with his lute,’ and I drest up for him, partly in the old style, a puppet, whose almost only merit is, perhaps, that it can dance to Mr. Sullivan’s instrument. I am sorry that my four-year-old puppet should have to dance at all in the dark shadow of these days; but the music is now completed, and I am bound by my promise.