Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Delphi Poets Series

by Lord Tennyson Alfred

  XCIX

  Risest thou thus, dim dawn, again,

  So loud with voices of the birds,

  So thick with lowings of the herds,

  Day, when I lost the flower of men;

  Who tremblest thro’ thy darkling red

  On yon swoll’n brook that bubbles fast

  By meadows breathing of the past,

  And woodlands holy to the dead;

  Who murmurest in the foliaged eaves

  A song that slights the coming care,

  And Autumn laying here and there

  A fiery finger on the leaves;

  Who wakenest with thy balmy breath

  To myriads on the genial earth,

  Memories of bridal, or of birth,

  And unto myriads more, of death.

  O, wheresoever those may be,

  Betwixt the slumber of the poles,

  To-day they count as kindred souls;

  They know me not, but mourn with me.

  C

  I climb the hill: from end to end

  Of all the landscape underneath,

  I find no place that does not breathe

  Some gracious memory of my friend;

  No gray old grange, or lonely fold,

  Or low morass and whispering reed,

  Or simple stile from mead to mead,

  Or sheepwalk up the windy wold;

  Nor hoary knoll of ash and haw

  That hears the latest linnet trill,

  Nor quarry trench’d along the hill

  And haunted by the wrangling daw;

  Nor runlet tinkling from the rock;

  Nor pastoral rivulet that swerves

  To left and right thro’ meadowy curves,

  That feed the mothers of the flock;

  But each has pleased a kindred eye,

  And each reflects a kindlier day;

  And, leaving these, to pass away,

  I think once more he seems to die.

  CI

  Unwatch’d, the garden bough shall sway,

  The tender blossom flutter down,

  Unloved, that beech will gather brown,

  This maple burn itself away;

  Unloved, the sun-flower, shining fair,

  Ray round with flames her disk of seed,

  And many a rose-carnation feed

  With summer spice the humming air;

  Unloved, by many a sandy bar,

  The brook shall babble down the plain,

  At noon or when the lesser wain

  Is twisting round the polar star;

  Uncared for, gird the windy grove,

  And flood the haunts of hern and crake;

  Or into silver arrows break

  The sailing moon in creek and cove;

  Till from the garden and the wild

  A fresh association blow,

  And year by year the landscape grow

  Familiar to the stranger’s child;

  As year by year the labourer tills

  His wonted glebe, or lops the glades;

  And year by year our memory fades

  From all the circle of the hills.

  CII

  We leave the well-beloved place

  Where first we gazed upon the sky;

  The roofs, that heard our earliest cry,

  Will shelter one of stranger race.

  We go, but ere we go from home,

  As down the garden-walks I move,

  Two spirits of a diverse love

  Contend for loving masterdom.

  One whispers, ‘Here thy boyhood sung

  Long since its matin song, and heard

  The low love-language of the bird

  In native hazels tassel-hung.’

  The other answers, ‘Yea, but here

  Thy feet have stray’d in after hours

  With thy lost friend among the bowers,

  And this hath made them trebly dear.’

  These two have striven half the day,

  And each prefers his separate claim,

  Poor rivals in a losing game,

  That will not yield each other way.

  I turn to go: my feet are set

  To leave the pleasant fields and farms;

  They mix in one another’s arms

  To one pure image of regret.

  CIII

  On that last night before we went

  From out the doors where I was bred,

  I dream’d a vision of the dead,

  Which left my after-morn content.

  Methought I dwelt within a hall,

  And maidens with me: distant hills

  From hidden summits fed with rills

  A river sliding by the wall.

  The hall with harp and carol rang.

  They sang of what is wise and good

  And graceful. In the centre stood

  A statue veil’d, to which they sang;

  And which, tho’ veil’d, was known to me,

  The shape of him I loved, and love

  For ever: then flew in a dove

  And brought a summons from the sea:

  And when they learnt that I must go

  They wept and wail’d, but led the way

  To where a little shallop lay

  At anchor in the flood below;

  And on by many a level mead,

  And shadowing bluff that made the banks,

  We glided winding under ranks

  Of iris, and the golden reed;

  And still as vaster grew the shore

  And roll’d the floods in grander space,

  The maidens gather’d strength and grace

  And presence, lordlier than before;

  And I myself, who sat apart

  And watch’d them, wax’d in every limb;

  I felt the thews of Anakim,

  The pulses of a Titan’s heart;

  As one would sing the death of war,

  And one would chant the history

  Of that great race, which is to be,

  And one the shaping of a star;

  Until the forward-creeping tides

  Began to foam, and we to draw

  From deep to deep, to where we saw

  A great ship lift her shining sides.

  The man we loved was there on deck,

  But thrice as large as man he bent

  To greet us. Up the side I went,

  And fell in silence on his neck;

  Whereat those maidens with one mind

  Bewail’d their lot; I did them wrong:

  ‘We served thee here,’ they said, ‘so long,

  And wilt thou leave us now behind?’

  So rapt I was, they could not win

  An answer from my lips, but he

  Replying, ‘Enter likewise ye

  And go with us:’ they enter’d in.

  And while the wind began to sweep

  A music out of sheet and shroud,

  We steer’d her toward a crimson cloud

  That landlike slept along the deep.

  CIV

  The time draws near the birth of Christ;

  The moon is hid, the night is still;

  A single church below the hill

  Is pealing, folded in the mist.

  A single peal of bells below,

  That wakens at this hour of rest

  A single murmur in the breast,

  That these are not the bells I know.

  Like strangers’ voices here they sound,

  In lands where not a memory strays,

  Nor landmark breathes of other days,

  But all is new unhallow’d ground.

  CV

  To-night ungather’d let us leave

  This laurel, let this holly stand:

  We live within the stranger’s land,

  And strangely falls our Christmas-eve.

  Our father’s dust is left alone

  And silent under other snows:

  There in due time the woodbine blows,

  The violet comes, but we a
re gone.

  No more shall wayward grief abuse

  The genial hour with mask and mime,

  For change of place, like growth of time,

  Has broke the bond of dying use.

  Let cares that petty shadows cast,

  By which our lives are chiefly proved,

  A little spare the night I loved,

  And hold it solemn to the past.

  But let no footstep beat the floor,

  Nor bowl of wassail mantle warm;

  For who would keep an ancient form

  Thro’ which the spirit breathes no more?

  Be neither song, nor game, nor feast;

  Nor harp be touch’d, nor flute be blown;

  No dance, no motion, save alone

  What lightens in the lucid east

  Of rising worlds by yonder wood.

  Long sleeps the summer in the seed;

  Run out your measured arcs, and lead

  The closing cycle rich in good.

  CVI

  Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,

  The flying cloud, the frosty light:

  The year is dying in the night;

  Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

  Ring out the old, ring in the new,

  Ring, happy bells, across the snow:

  The year is going, let him go;

  Ring out the false, ring in the true.

  Ring out the grief that saps the mind,

  For those that here we see no more;

  Ring out the feud of rich and poor,

  Ring in redress to all mankind.

  Ring out a slowly dying cause,

  And ancient forms of party strife;

  Ring in the nobler modes of life,

  With sweeter manners, purer laws.

  Ring out the want, the care, the sin,

  The faithless coldness of the times;

  Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,

  But ring the fuller minstrel in.

  Ring out false pride in place and blood,

  The civic slander and the spite;

  Ring in the love of truth and right,

  Ring in the common love of good.

  Ring out old shapes of foul disease;

  Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;

  Ring out the thousand wars of old,

  Ring in the thousand years of peace.

  Ring in the valiant man and free,

  The larger heart, the kindlier hand;

  Ring out the darkness of the land,

  Ring in the Christ that is to be.

  CVII

  It is the day when he was born,

  A bitter day that early sank

  Behind a purple-frosty bank

  Of vapour, leaving night forlorn.

  The time admits not flowers or leaves

  To deck the banquet. Fiercely flies

  The blast of North and East, and ice

  Makes daggers at the sharpen’d eaves,

  And bristles all the brakes and thorns

  To yon hard crescent, as she hangs

  Above the wood which grides and clangs

  Its leafless ribs and iron horns

  Together, in the drifts that pass

  To darken on the rolling brine

  That breaks the coast. But fetch the wine,

  Arrange the board and brim the glass;

  Bring in great logs and let them lie,

  To make a solid core of heat;

  Be cheerful-minded, talk and treat

  Of all things ev’n as he were by;

  We keep the day. With festal cheer,

  With books and music, surely we

  Will drink to him, whate’er he be,

  And sing the songs he loved to hear.

  CVIII

  I will not shut me from my kind,

  And, lest I stiffen into stone,

  I will not eat my heart alone,

  Nor feed with sighs a passing wind:

  What profit lies in barren faith,

  And vacant yearning, tho’ with might

  To scale the heaven’s highest height,

  Or dive below the wells of Death?

  What find I in the highest place,

  But mine own phantom chanting hymns?

  And on the depths of death there swims

  The reflex of a human face.

  I’ll rather take what fruit may be

  Of sorrow under human skies:

  ‘Tis held that sorrow makes us wise,

  Whatever wisdom sleep with thee.

  CIX

  Heart-affluence in discursive talk

  From household fountains never dry;

  The critic clearness of an eye,

  That saw thro’ all the Muses’ walk;

  Seraphic intellect and force

  To seize and throw the doubts of man;

  Impassion’d logic, which outran

  The hearer in its fiery course;

  High nature amorous of the good,

  But touch’d with no ascetic gloom;

  And passion pure in snowy bloom

  Thro’ all the years of April blood;

  A love of freedom rarely felt,

  Of freedom in her regal seat

  Of England; not the schoolboy heat,

  The blind hysterics of the Celt;

  And manhood fused with female grace

  In such a sort, the child would twine

  A trustful hand, unask’d, in thine,

  And find his comfort in thy face;

  All these have been, and thee mine eyes

  Have look’d on: if they look’d in vain,

  My shame is greater who remain,

  Nor let thy wisdom make me wise.

  CX

  Thy converse drew us with delight,

  The men of rathe and riper years:

  The feeble soul, a haunt of fears,

  Forgot his weakness in thy sight.

  On thee the loyal-hearted hung,

  The proud was half disarm’d of pride,

  Nor cared the serpent at thy side

  To flicker with his double tongue.

  The stern were mild when thou wert by,

  The flippant put himself to school

  And heard thee, and the brazen fool

  Was soften’d, and he knew not why;

  While I, thy nearest, sat apart,

  And felt thy triumph was as mine;

  And loved them more, that they were thine,

  The graceful tact, the Christian art;

  Nor mine the sweetness or the skill,

  But mine the love that will not tire,

  And, born of love, the vague desire

  That spurs an imitative will.

  CXI

  The churl in spirit, up or down

  Along the scale of ranks, thro’ all,

  To him who grasps a golden ball,

  By blood a king, at heart a clown;

  The churl in spirit, howe’er he veil

  His want in forms for fashion’s sake,

  Will let his coltish nature break

  At seasons thro’ the gilded pale:

  For who can always act? but he,

  To whom a thousand memories call,

  Not being less but more than all

  The gentleness he seem’d to be,

  Best seem’d the thing he was, and join’d

  Each office of the social hour

  To noble manners, as the flower

  And native growth of noble mind;

  Nor ever narrowness or spite,

  Or villain fancy fleeting by,

  Drew in the expression of an eye,

  Where God and Nature met in light;

  And thus he bore without abuse

  The grand old name of gentleman,

  Defamed by every charlatan,

  And soil’d with all ignoble use.

  CXII

  High wisdom holds my wisdom less,

  That I, who gaze with temperate eyes

  On glorious insufficiencies,<
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  Set light by narrower perfectness.

  But thou, that fillest all the room

  Of all my love, art reason why

  I seem to cast a careless eye

  On souls, the lesser lords of doom.

  For what wert thou? some novel power

  Sprang up for ever at a touch,

  And hope could never hope too much,

  In watching thee from hour to hour,

  Large elements in order brought,

  And tracts of calm from tempest made,

  And world-wide fluctuation sway’d

  In vassal tides that follow’d thought.

  CXIII

  ‘Tis held that sorrow makes us wise;

  Yet how much wisdom sleeps with thee

  Which not alone had guided me,

  But served the seasons that may rise;

  For can I doubt, who knew thee keen

  In intellect, with force and skill

  To strive, to fashion, to fulfil —

  I doubt not what thou wouldst have been:

  A life in civic action warm,

  A soul on highest mission sent,

  A potent voice of Parliament,

  A pillar steadfast in the storm,

  Should licensed boldness gather force,

  Becoming, when the time has birth,

  A lever to uplift the earth

  And roll it in another course,

  With thousand shocks that come and go,

  With agonies, with energies,

  With overthrowings, and with cries

  And undulations to and fro.

  CXIV

  Who loves not Knowledge? Who shall rail

  Against her beauty? May she mix

  With men and prosper! Who shall fix

  Her pillars? Let her work prevail.

  But on her forehead sits a fire:

  She sets her forward countenance

  And leaps into the future chance,

  Submitting all things to desire.

  Half-grown as yet, a child, and vain?

  She cannot fight the fear of death.

  What is she, cut from love and faith,

  But some wild Pallas from the brain

  Of Demons? fiery-hot to burst

  All barriers in her onward race

  For power. Let her know her place;

  She is the second, not the first.

  A higher hand must make her mild,

  If all be not in vain; and guide

  Her footsteps, moving side by side

  With wisdom, like the younger child:

  For she is earthly of the mind,

  But Wisdom heavenly of the soul.

  O, friend, who camest to thy goal

  So early, leaving me behind,

  I would the great world grew like thee,

  Who grewest not alone in power

  And knowledge, but by year and hour

  In reverence and in charity.

  CXV

  Now fades the last long streak of snow,

  Now burgeons every maze of quick

  About the flowering squares, and thick

  By ashen roots the violets blow.

  Now rings the woodland loud and long,

  The distance takes a lovelier hue,