Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Delphi Poets Series

by Lord Tennyson Alfred

  There Enoch spoke no word to any one,

  But homeward — home — what home? had he a home?

  His home, he walk’d. Bright was that afternoon,

  Sunny but chill; till drawn thro’ either chasm,

  Where either haven open’d on the deeps,

  Roll’d a sea-haze and whelm’d the world in gray;

  Cut off the length of highway on before,

  And left but narrow breadth to left and right

  Of wither’d holt or tilth or pasturage.

  On the nigh-naked tree the robin piped

  Disconsolate, and thro’ the dripping haze

  The dead weight of the dead leaf bore it down:

  Thicker the drizzle grew, deeper the gloom;

  Last, as it seem’d, a great mist-blotted light

  Flared on him, and he came upon the place.

  Then down the long street having slowly stolen,

  His heart foreshadowing all calamity,

  His eyes upon the stones, he reach’d the home

  Where Annie lived and loved him, and his babes

  In those far-off seven happy years were born;

  But finding neither light nor murmur there

  (A bill of sale gleam’d thro’ the drizzle) crept

  Still downward thinking ‘dead or dead to me!’

  Down to the pool and narrow wharf he went,

  Seeking a tavern which of old he knew,

  A front of timber-crost antiquity,

  So propt, worm-eaten, ruinously old,

  He thought it must have gone; but he was gone

  Who kept it; and his widow Miriam Lane,

  With daily-dwindling profits held the house;

  A haunt of brawling sea men once, but now

  Stiller, with yet a bed for wandering men.

  There Enoch rested silent many days.

  But Miriam Lane was good and garrulous,

  Nor let him be, but often breaking in,

  Told him, with other annals of the port,

  Not knowing — Enoch was so brown, so bow’d,

  So broken — all the story of his house.

  His baby’s death, her growing poverty,

  How Philip put her little ones to school,

  And kept them in it, his long wooing her,

  Her slow consent, and marriage, and the birth

  Of Philip’s child: and o’er his countenance

  No shadow past, nor motion: any one,

  Regarding, well had deem’d he felt the tale

  Less than the teller: only when she closed

  ‘Enoch, poor man, was cast away and lost’

  He, shaking his gray head pathetically,

  Repeated muttering ‘cast away and lost;’

  Again in deeper inward whispers ‘lost!’

  But Enoch yearn’d to see her face again;

  ‘If I might look on her sweet face again

  And know that she is happy.’ So the thought

  Haunted and harass’d him, and drove him forth,

  At evening when the dull November day

  Was growing duller twilight, to the hill.

  There he sat down gazing on all below;

  There did a thousand memories roll upon him,

  Unspeakable for sadness. By and by

  The ruddy square of comfortable light,

  Far-blazing from the rear of Philip’s house,

  Allured him, as the beacon-blaze allures

  The bird of passage, till he madly strikes

  Against it, and beats out his weary life.

  For Philip’s dwelling fronted on the street,

  The latest house to landward; but behind,

  With one small gate that open’d on the waste,

  Flourish’d a little garden square and wall’d:

  And in it throve an ancient evergreen,

  A yewtree, and all round it ran a walk

  Of shingle, and a walk divided it:

  But Enoch shunn’d the middle walk and stole

  Up by the wall, behind the yew; and thence

  That which he better might have shunn’d, if griefs

  Like his have worse or better, Enoch saw.

  For cups and silver on the burnish’d board

  Sparkled and shone; so genial was the hearth:

  And on the right hand of the hearth he saw

  Philip, the slighted suitor of old times,

  Stout, rosy, with his babe across his knees;

  And o’er her second father stoopt a girl,

  A later but a loftier Annie Lee,

  Fair-hair’d and tall, and from her lifted hand

  Dangled a length of ribbon and a ring

  To tempt the babe, who rear’d his creasy arms,

  Caught at and ever miss’d it, and they laugh’d;

  And on the left hand of the hearth he saw

  The mother glancing often toward her babe,

  But turning now and then to speak with him,

  Her son, who stood beside her tall and strong,

  And saying that which pleased him, for he smiled.

  Now when the dead man come to life beheld

  His wife his wife no more, and saw the babe

  Hers, yet not his, upon the father’s knee,

  And all the warmth, the peace, the happiness,

  And his own children tall and beautiful,

  And him, that other, reigning in his place,

  Lord of his rights and of his children’s love, —

  Then he, tho’ Miriam Lane had told him all,

  Because things seen are mightier than things heard,

  Stagger’d and shook, holding the branch, and fear’d

  To send abroad a shrill and terrible cry,

  Which in one moment, like the blast of doom,

  Would shatter all the happiness of the hearth.

  He therefore turning softly like a thief,

  Lest the harsh shingle should grate underfoot,

  And feeling all along the garden-wall,

  Lest he should swoon and tumble and be found,

  Crept to the gate, and open’d it, and closed,

  As lightly as a sick man’s chamber-door,

  Behind him, and came out upon the waste.

  And there he would have knelt, but that his knees

  Were feeble, so that falling prone he dug

  His fingers into the wet earth, and pray’d.

  ‘Too hard to bear! why did they take me thence?

  O God Almighty, blessed Saviour, Thou

  That didst uphold me on my lonely isle,

  Uphold me, Father, in my loneliness

  A little longer! aid me, give me strength

  Not to tell her, never to let her know.

  Help me not to break in upon her peace.

  My children too! must I not speak to these?

  They know me not. I should betray myself.

  Never: No father’s kiss for me — the girl

  So like her mother, and the boy, my son.’

  There speech and thought and nature fail’d a little,

  And he lay tranced; but when he rose and paced

  Back toward his solitary home again,

  All down the long and narrow street he went

  Beating it in upon his weary brain,

  As tho’ it were the burthen of a song,

  ‘Not to tell her, never to let her know.’

  He was not all unhappy. His resolve

  Upbore him, and firm faith, and evermore

  Prayer from a living source within the will,

  And beating up thro’ all the bitter world,

  Like fountains of sweet water in the sea,

  Kept him a living soul. ‘This miller’s wife’

  He said to Miriam ‘that you spoke about,

  Has she no fear that her first husband lives?’

  ‘Ay, ay, poor soul’ said Miriam, ‘fear enow!

  If you could tell her you had seen him dead,

  Why, that would be her comfort;’ and he
thought

  ‘After the Lord has call’d me she shall know,

  I wait His time,’ and Enoch set himself,

  Scorning an alms, to work whereby to live.

  Almost to all things could he turn his hand.

  Cooper he was and carpenter, and wrought

  To make the boatmen fishing-nets, or help’d

  At lading and unlading the tall barks,

  That brought the stinted commerce of those days;

  Thus earn’d a scanty living for himself:

  Yet since he did but labour for himself,

  Work without hope, there was not life in it

  Whereby the man could live; and as the year

  Roll’d itself round again to meet the day

  When Enoch had return’d, a languor came

  Upon him, gentle sickness, gradually

  Weakening the man, till he could do no more,

  But kept the house, his chair, and last his bed.

  And Enoch bore his weakness cheerfully.

  For sure no gladlier does the stranded wreck

  See thro’ the gray skirts of a lifting squall

  The boat that bears the hope of life approach

  To save the life despair’d of, than he saw

  Death dawning on him, and the close of all.

  For thro’ that dawning gleam’d a kindlier hope

  On Enoch thinking ‘after I am gone,

  Then may she learn I lov’d her to the last.’

  He call’d aloud for Miriam Lane and said

  ‘Woman, I have a secret — only swear,

  Before I tell you — swear upon the book

  Not to reveal it, till you see me dead.’

  ‘Dead,’ clamour’d the good woman, ‘hear him talk!

  I warrant, man, that we shall bring you round.’

  ‘Swear’ added Enoch sternly ‘on the book.’

  And on the book, half-frighted, Miriam swore.

  Then Enoch rolling his gray eyes upon her,

  ‘Did you know Enoch Arden of this town?’

  ‘Know him?’ she said ‘I knew him far away.

  Ay, ay, I mind him coming down the street;

  Held his head high, and cared for no man, he.’

  Slowly and sadly Enoch answer’d her;

  ‘His head is low, and no man cares for him.

  I think I have not three days more to live;

  I am the man.’ At which the woman gave

  A half-incredulous, half-hysterical cry.

  ‘You Arden, you! nay, — sure he was a foot

  Higher than you be.’ Enoch said again

  ‘My God has bow’d me down to what I am;

  My grief and solitude have broken me;

  Nevertheless, know you that I am he

  Who married — but that name has twice been changed —

  I married her who married Philip Ray.

  Sit, listen.’ Then he told her of his voyage,

  His wreck, his lonely life, his coming back,

  His gazing in on Annie, his resolve,

  And how he kept it. As the woman heard,

  Fast flow’d the current of her easy tears,

  While in her heart she yearn’d incessantly

  To rush abroad all round the little haven,

  Proclaiming Enoch Arden and his woes;

  But awed and promise-bounden she forbore,

  Saying only ‘See your bairns before you go!

  Eh, let me fetch’em, Arden,’ and arose

  Eager to bring them down, for Enoch hung

  A moment on her words, but then replied:

  ‘Woman, disturb me not now at the last,

  But let me hold my purpose till I die.

  Sit down again; mark me and understand,

  While I have power to speak. I charge you now,

  When you shall see her, tell her that I died

  Blessing her, praying for her, loving her;

  Save for the bar between us, loving her

  As when she laid her head beside my own.

  And tell my daughter Annie, whom I saw

  So like her mother, that my latest breath

  Was spent in blessing her and praying for her.

  And tell my son that I died blessing him.

  And say to Philip that I blest him too;

  He never meant us any thing but good.

  But if my children care to see me dead,

  Who hardly knew me living, let them come,

  I am their father; but she must not come,

  For my dead face would vex her after-life.

  And now there is but one of all my blood

  Who will embrace me in the world-to-be:

  This hair is his: she cut it off and gave it,

  And I have borne it with me all these years,

  And thought to bear it with me to my grave;

  But now my mind is changed, for I shall see him,

  My babe in bliss: wherefore when I am gone,

  Take, give her this, for it may comfort her:

  It will moreover be a token to her,

  That I am he.’

  He ceased; and Miriam Lane

  Made such a voluble answer promising all,

  That once again he roll’d his eyes upon her

  Repeating all he wish’d, and once again

  She promised.

  Then the third night after this,

  While Enoch slumber’d motionless and pale,

  And Miriam watch’d and dozed at intervals,

  There came so loud a calling of the sea,

  That all the houses in the haven rang.

  He woke, he rose, he spread his arms abroad

  Crying with a loud voice ‘A sail! a sail!

  I am saved;’ and so fell back and spoke no more.

  So past the strong heroic soul away.

  And when they buried him the little port

  Had seldom seen a costlier funeral.

  Aylmer’s Field

  1793

  DUST are our frames; and gilded dust, our pride

  Looks only for a moment whole and sound;

  Like that long-buried body of the king,

  Found lying with his urns and ornaments,

  Which at a touch of light, an air of heaven,

  Slipt into ashes and was found no more.

  Here is a story which in rougher shape

  Came from a grizzled cripple, whom I saw

  Sunning himself in a waste field alone —

  Old, and a mine of memories — who had served,

  Long since, a bygone Rector of the place,

  And been himself a part of what he told.

  SIR AYLMER AYLMER that almighty man,

  The county God — in whose capacious hall,

  Hung with a hundred shields, the family tree

  Sprang from the midriff of a prostrate king —

  Whose blazing wyvern weathercock’d the spire,

  Stood from his walls and wing’d his entry-gates

  And swang besides on many a windy sign —

  Whose eyes from under a pyramidal head

  Saw from his windows nothing save his own —

  What lovelier of his own had he than her,

  His only child, his Edith, whom he loved

  As heiress and not heir regretfully?

  But ‘he that marries her marries her name’

  This fiat somewhat soothed himself and wife,

  His wife a faded beauty of the Baths,

  Insipid as the Queen upon a card;

  Her all of thought and bearing hardly more

  Than his own shadow in a sickly sun.

  A land of hops and poppy-mingled corn,

  Little about it stirring save a brook!

  A sleepy land where under the same wheel

  The same old rut would deepen year by year;

  Where almost all the village had one name;

  Where Aylmer follow’d Aylmer at the Hall

  And Averill Averill at the Rectory

&
nbsp; Thrice over; so that Rectory and Hall,

  Bound in an immemorial intimacy,

  Were open to each other; tho’ to dream

  That Love could bind them closer well had made

  The hoar hair of the Baronet bristle up

  With horror, worse than had he heard his priest

  Preach an inverted scripture, sons of men

  Daughters of God; so sleepy was the land.

  And might not Averill, had he will’d it so,

  Somewhere beneath his own low range of roofs,

  Have also set his many-shielded tree?

  There was an Aylmer-Averill marriage once,

  When the red rose was redder than itself,

  And York’s white rose as red as Lancaster’s,

  With wounded peace which each had prick’d to death.

  ‘Not proven’ Averill said, or laughingly

  ‘Some other race of Averills’ — prov’n or no,

  What cared he? what, if other or the same?

  He lean’d not on his fathers but himself.

  But Leolin, his brother, living oft

  With Averill, and a year or two before

  Call’d to the bar, but ever call’d away

  By one low voice to one dear neighborhood,

  Would often, in his walks with Edith, claim

  A distant kinship to the gracious blood

  That shook the heart of Edith hearing him.

  Sanguine he was: a but less vivid hue

  Than of that islet in the chestnut-bloom

  Flamed his cheek; and eager eyes, that still

  Took joyful note of all things joyful, beam’d,

  Beneath a manelike mass of rolling gold,

  Their best and brightest, when they dwelt on hers.

  Edith, whose pensive beauty, perfect else,

  But subject to the season or the mood,

  Shone like a mystic star between the less

  And greater glory varying to and fro,

  We know not wherefore; bounteously made,

  And yet so finely, that a troublous touch

  Thinn’d, or would seem to thin her in a day,

  A joyous to dilate, as toward the light.

  And these had been together from the first.

  Leolin’s first nurse was, five years after, hers:

  So much the boy foreran; but when his date

  Doubled her own, for want of playmates, he

  (Since Averill was a decad and a half

  His elder, and their parents underground)

  Had tost his ball and flown his kite, and roll’d

  His hoop to pleasure Edith, with her dipt

  Against the rush of the air in the prone swing,

  Made blossom-ball or daisy-chain, arranged

  Her garden, sow’d her name and kept it green

  In living letters, told her fairy-tales,

  Show’d here the fairy footings on the grass,

  The little dells of cowslip, fairy palms,