Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Delphi Poets Series

by Lord Tennyson Alfred

  Sweet love on pranks of saucy boyhood: now,

  Given back to life, to life indeed, through thee,

  Indeed I love: the new day comes, the light

  Dearer for night, as dearer thou for faults

  Lived over: lift thine eyes; my doubts are dead,

  My haunting sense of hollow shows: the change,

  This truthful change in thee has killed it. Dear,

  Look up, and let thy nature strike on mine,

  Like yonder morning on the blind half-world;

  Approach and fear not; breathe upon my brows;

  In that fine air I tremble, all the past

  Melts mist-like into this bright hour, and this

  Is morn to more, and all the rich to-come

  Reels, as the golden Autumn woodland reels

  Athwart the smoke of burning weeds. Forgive me,

  I waste my heart in signs: let be. My bride,

  My wife, my life. O we will walk this world,

  Yoked in all exercise of noble end,

  And so through those dark gates across the wild

  That no man knows. Indeed I love thee: come,

  Yield thyself up: my hopes and thine are one:

  Accomplish thou my manhood and thyself;

  Lay thy sweet hands in mine and trust to me.’

  Princess: Conclusion

  So closed our tale, of which I give you all

  The random scheme as wildly as it rose:

  The words are mostly mine; for when we ceased

  There came a minute’s pause, and Walter said,

  ‘I wish she had not yielded!’ then to me,

  ‘What, if you drest it up poetically?’

  So prayed the men, the women: I gave assent:

  Yet how to bind the scattered scheme of seven

  Together in one sheaf? What style could suit?

  The men required that I should give throughout

  The sort of mock-heroic gigantesque,

  With which we bantered little Lilia first:

  The women — and perhaps they felt their power,

  For something in the ballads which they sang,

  Or in their silent influence as they sat,

  Had ever seemed to wrestle with burlesque,

  And drove us, last, to quite a solemn close —

  They hated banter, wished for something real,

  A gallant fight, a noble princess — why

  Not make her true-heroic — true-sublime?

  Or all, they said, as earnest as the close?

  Which yet with such a framework scarce could be.

  Then rose a little feud betwixt the two,

  Betwixt the mockers and the realists:

  And I, betwixt them both, to please them both,

  And yet to give the story as it rose,

  I moved as in a strange diagonal,

  And maybe neither pleased myself nor them.

  But Lilia pleased me, for she took no part

  In our dispute: the sequel of the tale

  Had touched her; and she sat, she plucked the grass,

  She flung it from her, thinking: last, she fixt

  A showery glance upon her aunt, and said,

  ‘You — tell us what we are’ who might have told,

  For she was crammed with theories out of books,

  But that there rose a shout: the gates were closed

  At sunset, and the crowd were swarming now,

  To take their leave, about the garden rails.

  So I and some went out to these: we climbed

  The slope to Vivian-place, and turning saw

  The happy valleys, half in light, and half

  Far-shadowing from the west, a land of peace;

  Gray halls alone among their massive groves;

  Trim hamlets; here and there a rustic tower

  Half-lost in belts of hop and breadths of wheat;

  The shimmering glimpses of a stream; the seas;

  A red sail, or a white; and far beyond,

  Imagined more than seen, the skirts of France.

  ‘Look there, a garden!’ said my college friend,

  The Tory member’s elder son, ‘and there!

  God bless the narrow sea which keeps her off,

  And keeps our Britain, whole within herself,

  A nation yet, the rulers and the ruled —

  Some sense of duty, something of a faith,

  Some reverence for the laws ourselves have made,

  Some patient force to change them when we will,

  Some civic manhood firm against the crowd —

  But yonder, whiff! there comes a sudden heat,

  The gravest citizen seems to lose his head,

  The king is scared, the soldier will not fight,

  The little boys begin to shoot and stab,

  A kingdom topples over with a shriek

  Like an old woman, and down rolls the world

  In mock heroics stranger than our own;

  Revolts, republics, revolutions, most

  No graver than a schoolboys’ barring out;

  Too comic for the serious things they are,

  Too solemn for the comic touches in them,

  Like our wild Princess with as wise a dream

  As some of theirs — God bless the narrow seas!

  I wish they were a whole Atlantic broad.’

  ‘Have patience,’ I replied, ‘ourselves are full

  Of social wrong; and maybe wildest dreams

  Are but the needful preludes of the truth:

  For me, the genial day, the happy crowd,

  The sport half-science, fill me with a faith.

  This fine old world of ours is but a child

  Yet in the go-cart. Patience! Give it time

  To learn its limbs: there is a hand that guides.’

  In such discourse we gained the garden rails,

  And there we saw Sir Walter where he stood,

  Before a tower of crimson holly-hoaks,

  Among six boys, head under head, and looked

  No little lily-handed Baronet he,

  A great broad-shouldered genial Englishman,

  A lord of fat prize-oxen and of sheep,

  A raiser of huge melons and of pine,

  A patron of some thirty charities,

  A pamphleteer on guano and on grain,

  A quarter-sessions chairman, abler none;

  Fair-haired and redder than a windy morn;

  Now shaking hands with him, now him, of those

  That stood the nearest — now addressed to speech —

  Who spoke few words and pithy, such as closed

  Welcome, farewell, and welcome for the year

  To follow: a shout rose again, and made

  The long line of the approaching rookery swerve

  From the elms, and shook the branches of the deer

  From slope to slope through distant ferns, and rang

  Beyond the bourn of sunset; O, a shout

  More joyful than the city-roar that hails

  Premier or king! Why should not these great Sirs

  Give up their parks some dozen times a year

  To let the people breathe? So thrice they cried,

  I likewise, and in groups they streamed away.

  But we went back to the Abbey, and sat on,

  So much the gathering darkness charmed: we sat

  But spoke not, rapt in nameless reverie,

  Perchance upon the future man: the walls

  Blackened about us, bats wheeled, and owls whooped,

  And gradually the powers of the night,

  That range above the region of the wind,

  Deepening the courts of twilight broke them up

  Through all the silent spaces of the worlds,

  Beyond all thought into the Heaven of Heavens.

  Last little Lilia, rising quietly,

  Disrobed the glimmering statue of Sir Ralph

  From those rich silks, and home well-pleased we went.


  IN MEMORIAM A. H. H.

  In 1850, the same year that he was appointed Poet Laureate, Tennyson reached the pinnacle of his career, finally publishing his masterpiece, In Memoriam. A. H. H., dedicated to his close friend Arthur Hallam, who had died suddenly of a cerebral haemorrhage in Vienna in 1833, aged 22. As the ‘requiem’ was written over a period of seventeen years, its meditation on the search for hope after great loss has established the poem as one of the greatest works to convey the experience of grief. It contains some of Tennyson’s most accomplished lyrical work and is an unusually sustained exercise in lyric verse. The poem was a great favourite of Queen Victoria, who found solace in reading it after the death of Prince Albert in 1861: In 1862, Victoria actually requested a meeting with Tennyson because she was so impressed by the poem.

  Composed in four-line ABBA stanzas of iambic tetrameter, the poem is metrically irregular, noted for its mourning, almost monotonous tone. In Memoriam. A. H. H. is divided into 133 cantos, including the Prologue and Epilogue, and in contrast to its constant and regulated metrical form, encompasses many different subjects: profound spiritual experiences, nostalgic reminiscence and philosophical speculation. Nevertheless, the death of Hallam and Tennyson’s attempts to cope with his loss, remain the strand that ties all these together.

  Arthur Henry Hallam (1811–1833) is now best known as the subject of Tennyson’s major work, In Memoriam A.H.H..

  CONTENTS

  In Memoriam A. H. H.: Preface

  In Memoriam A. H. H.:

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  X

  XI

  XII

  XIII

  XIV

  XV

  XVI

  XVII

  XVIII

  XIX

  XX

  XXI

  XXII

  XXIII

  XXIV

  XXV

  XXVI

  XXVII

  XXVIII

  XXIX

  XXX

  XXXI

  XXXII

  XXXIII

  XXXIV

  XXXV

  XXXVI

  XXXVII

  XXXVIII

  XXXIX

  XL

  XLI

  XLII

  XLIII

  XLIV

  XLV

  XLVI

  XLVII

  XLVIII

  XLIX

  L

  LI

  LII

  LIII

  LIV

  LV

  LVI

  LVII

  LVIII

  LIX

  LX

  LXI

  LXII

  LXIII

  LXIV

  LXV

  LXVI

  LXVII

  LXVIII

  LXIX

  LXX

  LXXI

  LXXII

  LXXIII

  LXXIV

  LXXV

  LXXVI

  LXXVII

  LXXVIII

  LXXIX

  LXXX

  LXXXI

  LXXXII

  LXXXIII

  LXXXIV

  LXXXV

  LXXXVI

  LXXXVII

  LXXXVIII

  LXXXIX

  XC

  XCI

  XCII

  XCIII

  XCIV

  XCV

  XCVI

  XCVII

  XCVIII

  XCIX

  C

  CI

  CII

  CIII

  CIV

  CV

  CVI

  CVII

  CVIII

  CIX

  CX

  CXI

  CXII

  CXIII

  CXIV

  CXV

  CXVI

  CXVII

  CXVIII

  CXIX

  CXX

  CXXI

  CXXII

  CXXIII

  CXXIV

  CXXV

  CXXVI

  CXXVII

  CXXVIII

  CXXIX

  CXXX

  CXXXI

  In Memoriam A. H. H.: Epilogue

  Tennyson, close to the time of publication

  In Memoriam A. H. H.: Preface

  Strong Son of God, immortal Love,

  Whom we, that have not seen thy face,

  By faith, and faith alone, embrace,

  Believing where we cannot prove;

  Thine are these orbs of light and shade;

  Thou madest Life in man and brute;

  Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot

  Is on the skull which thou hast made.

  Thou wilt not leave us in the dust:

  Thou madest man, he knows not why,

  He thinks he was not made to die;

  And thou hast made him: thou art just.

  Thou seemest human and divine,

  The highest, holiest manhood, thou.

  Our wills are ours, we know not how;

  Our wills are ours, to make them thine.

  Our little systems have their day;

  They have their day and cease to be:

  They are but broken lights of thee,

  And thou, O Lord, art more than they.

  We have but faith: we cannot know;

  For knowledge is of things we see

  And yet we trust it comes from thee,

  A beam in darkness: let it grow.

  Let knowledge grow from more to more,

  But more of reverence in us dwell;

  That mind and soul, according well,

  May make one music as before,

  But vaster. We are fools and slight;

  We mock thee when we do not fear:

  But help thy foolish ones to bear;

  Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light.

  Forgive what seem’d my sin in me;

  What seem’d my worth since I began;

  For merit lives from man to man,

  And not from man, O Lord, to thee.

  Forgive my grief for one removed,

  Thy creature, whom I found so fair.

  I trust he lives in thee, and there

  I find him worthier to be loved.

  Forgive these wild and wandering cries,

  Confusions of a wasted youth;

  Forgive them where they fail in truth,

  And in thy wisdom make me wise.

  1849.

  In Memoriam A. H. H.:

  I

  I held it truth, with him who sings

  To one clear harp in divers tones,

  That men may rise on stepping-stones

  Of their dead selves to higher things.

  But who shall so forecast the years

  And find in loss a gain to match?

  Or reach a hand thro’ time to catch

  The far-off interest of tears?

  Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown’d,

  Let darkness keep her raven gloss:

  Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss,

  To dance with death, to beat the ground,

  Than that the victor Hours should scorn

  The long result of love, and boast,

  ‘Behold the man that loved and lost,

  But all he was is overworn.’

  II

  Old Yew, which graspest at the stones

  That name the under-lying dead,

  Thy fibres net the dreamless head,

  Thy roots are wrapt about the bones.

  The seasons bring the flower again,

  And bring the firstling to the flock;

  And in the dusk of thee, the clock

  Beats out the little lives of men.

  O, not for thee the glow, the bloom,

  Who changest not in any gale,

  Nor branding summer
suns avail

  To touch thy thousand years of gloom:

  And gazing on thee, sullen tree,

  Sick for thy stubborn hardihood,

  I seem to fail from out my blood

  And grow incorporate into thee.

  III

  O Sorrow, cruel fellowship,

  O Priestess in the vaults of Death,

  O sweet and bitter in a breath,

  What whispers from thy lying lip?

  ‘The stars,’ she whispers, ‘blindly run;

  A web is wov’n across the sky;

  From out waste places comes a cry,

  And murmurs from the dying sun:

  ‘And all the phantom, Nature, stands?

  With all the music in her tone,

  A hollow echo of my own,?

  A hollow form with empty hands.’

  And shall I take a thing so blind,

  Embrace her as my natural good;

  Or crush her, like a vice of blood,

  Upon the threshold of the mind?

  IV

  To Sleep I give my powers away;

  My will is bondsman to the dark;

  I sit within a helmless bark,

  And with my heart I muse and say:

  O heart, how fares it with thee now,

  That thou should’st fail from thy desire,

  Who scarcely darest to inquire,

  ‘What is it makes me beat so low?’

  Something it is which thou hast lost,

  Some pleasure from thine early years.

  Break, thou deep vase of chilling tears,

  That grief hath shaken into frost!

  Such clouds of nameless trouble cross

  All night below the darken’d eyes;

  With morning wakes the will, and cries,

  ‘Thou shalt not be the fool of loss.’

  V

  I sometimes hold it half a sin

  To put in words the grief I feel;

  For words, like Nature, half reveal

  And half conceal the Soul within.

  But, for the unquiet heart and brain,

  A use in measured language lies;

  The sad mechanic exercise,

  Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.

  In words, like weeds, I’ll wrap me o’er,

  Like coarsest clothes against the cold:

  But that large grief which these enfold

  Is given in outline and no more.

  VI

  One writes, that ‘Other friends remain,’

  That ‘Loss is common to the race’?

  And common is the commonplace,

  And vacant chaff well meant for grain.

  That loss is common would not make

  My own less bitter, rather more:

  Too common! Never morning wore

  To evening, but some heart did break.

  O father, wheresoe’er thou be,

  Who pledgest now thy gallant son;

  A shot, ere half thy draught be done,

  Hath still’d the life that beat from thee.

  O mother, praying God will save