Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Delphi Poets Series
Page 110
And ruling by obeying Nature’s powers,
And gathering all the fruits of peace and crown’d with all her flowers.
A Dedication
DEAR, near and true — no truer Time himself
Can prove you, tho’ he make you evermore
Dearer and nearer, as the rapid of life
Shoots to the fall — take this, and pray that he,
Who wrote it, honoring your sweet faith in him,
May trust himself; and spite of praise and scorn,
As one who feels the immeasurable world,
Attain the wise indifference of the wise;
And after Autumn past — if left to pass
His autumn into seeming-leafless days —
Draw toward the long frost and longest night,
Wearing his wisdom lightly, like the fruit
Which in our winter woodland looks a flower.1
Experiments
Boädicéa
WHILE about the shore of Mona those Neronian legionaries
Burnt and broke the grove and altar of the Druid and Druidess,
Far in the East Boädicéa, standing loftily charioted,
Mad and maddening all that heard her in her fierce volubility,
Girt by half the tribes of Britain, near the colony Cámulodúne,
Yell’d and shriek’d between her daughters o’er a wild confederacy.
‘They that scorn the tribes and call us Britain’s barbarous populaces,
Did they hear me, would they listen, did they pity me supplicating?
Shall I heed them in their anguish? shall I brook to be supplicated?
Hear Icenian, Catieuchlanian, hear Coritanian, Trinobant!
Must their ever-ravening eagle’s beak and talon annihilate us?
Tear the noble heart of Britain, leave it gorily quivering?
Bark an answer, Britain’s raven! bark and blacken innumerable,
Blacken round the Roman carrion, make the carcase a skeleton,
Kite and kestrel, wolf and wolfkin, from the wilderness, wallow in it,
Till the face of Bel be brighten’d, Taranis be propitiated.
Lo their colony half-defended! lo their colony, Cámulodúne!
There the horde of Roman robbers mock at a barbarous adversary.
There the hive of Roman liars worship a gluttonous emperor-idiot.
Such is Rome, and this her deity: hear it, Spirit of Cássivëlaún!
‘Hear it, Gods! the Gods have heard it, O Icenian, O Coritanian!
Doubt not ye the Gods have answer’d, Catieuchlanian, Trinobant.
These have told us all their anger in miraculous utterances,
Thunder, a flying fire in heaven, a murmur heard aërially,
Phantom sound of blows descending, moan of an enemy massacred,
Phantom wail of women and children, multitudinous agonies.
Bloodily flow’d the Tamesa rolling phantom bodies of horses and men;
Then a phantom colony smoulder’d on the refluent estuary;
Lastly yonder yester-even, suddenly giddily tottering —
There was one who watch’d and told me — down their statue of Victory fell.
Lo their precious Roman bantling, lo the colony Cámulodúne,
Shall we teach it a Roman lesson? shall we care to be pitiful?
Shall we deal with it as an infant? shall we dandle it amorously?
‘Hear Icenian, Catieuchlanian, hear Coritanian, Trinobant!
While I roved about the forest, long and bitterly meditating,
There I heard them in the darkness, at the mystical ceremony,
Loosely robed in flying raiment, sang the terrible prophetesses.
“Fear not, isle of blowing woodland, isle of silvery parapets!
Tho’ the Roman eagle shadow thee, tho’ the gathering enemy narrow thee,
Thou shalt wax and he shall dwindle, thou shalt be the mighty one yet!
Thine the liberty, thine the glory, thine the deeds to be celebrated,
Thine the myriad-rolling ocean, light and shadow illimitable,
Thine the lands of lasting summer, many-blossoming Paradises,
Thine the North and thine the South and thine the battle-thunder of God.”
So they chanted: how shall Britain light upon auguries happier?
So they chanted in the darkness, and there cometh a victory now.
Hear Icenian, Catieuchlanian, hear Coritanian, Trinobant!
Me the wife of rich Prasútagus, me the lover of liberty,
Me they seized and me they tortured, me they lash’d and humiliated,
Me the sport of ribald Veterans, mine of ruffian violators!
See they sit, they hide their faces, miserable in ignominy!
Wherefore in me burns an anger, not by blood to be satiated.
Lo the palaces and the temple, lo the colony Cámulodúne!
There they ruled, and thence they wasted all the flourishing territory,
Thither at their will they haled the yellow-ringleted Britoness —
Bloodily, bloodily fall the battle-axe, unexhausted, inexorable.
Shout Icenian, Catieuchlanian, shout Coritanian, Trinobant,
Till the victim hear within and yearn to hurry precipitously
Like the leaf in a roaring whirlwind, like the smoke in a hurricane whirl’d.
Lo the colony, there they rioted in the city of Cúnobelíne!
There they drank in cups of emerald, there at tables of ebony lay,
Rolling on their purple couches in their tender effeminacy.
There they dwelt and there they rioted; there — there — they dwell no more.
Burst the gates, and burn the palaces, break the works of the statuary,
Take the hoary Roman head and shatter it, hold it abominable,
Cut the Roman boy to pieces in his lust and voluptuousness,
Lash the maiden into swooning, me they lash’d and humiliated,
Chop the breasts from off the mother, dash the brains of the little one out,
Up my Britons, on my chariot, on my chargers, trample them under us.’
So the Queen Boädicéa, standing loftily charioted,
Brandishing in her hand a dart and rolling glances lioness-like,
Yell’d and shriek’d between her daughters in her fierce volubility.
Till her people all around the royal chariot agitated,
Madly dash’d the darts together, writhing barbarous lineaments,
Made the noise of frosty woodlands, when they shiver in January,
Roar’d as when the rolling breakers boom and blanch on the precipices,
Yell’d as when the winds of winter tear an oak on a promontory.
So the silent colony hearing her tumultuous adversaries
Clash the darts and on the buckler beat with rapid unanimous hand,
Thought on all her evil tyrannies, all her pitiless avarice,
Till she felt the heart within her fall and flutter tremulously,
Then her pulses at the clamoring of her enemy fainted away.
Out of evil evil flourishes, out of tyranny tyranny buds.
Ran the land with Roman slaughter, multitudinous agonies.
Perish’d many a maid and matron, many a valorous legionary.
Fell the colony, city, and citadel, London, Verulam, Cámulodúne.
Experiments in Quantity
On Translations of Homer
Hexameters acrd Pentameters.
THESE lame hexameters the strong-wing’d music of Homer!
No — but a most burlesque barbarous experiment.
When was a harsher sound ever heard, ye Muses, in England?
When did a frog coarser croak upon our Helicon?
Hexameters no worse than daring Germany gave us,
Barbarous experiment, barbarous hexameters.
Milton: Alcaics.
O MIGHTY-MOUTH’D inventor of harmonies,
O skill’d to sing of Time or Eternity,
God-gifted organ-voice of England,
Milton, a name to resound for ages;
Whose Titan angels, Gabriel, Abdiel,
Starr’d from Jehovah’s gorgeous armouries,
Tower, as the deep-domed empyrëan
Rings to the roar of an angel onset —
Me rather all that bowery loneliness,
The brooks of Eden mazily murmuring,
And bloom profuse and cedar arches
Charm, as a wanderer out in ocean,
Where some refulgent sunset of India
Streams o’er a rich ambrosial ocean isle,
And crimson-hued the stately palmwoods
Whisper in odorous heights of even.
Milton: Hendecasyllabics.
O YOU chorus of indolent reviewers,
Irresponsible, indolent reviewers,
Look, I come to the test, a tiny poem
All composed in a metre of Catullus,
All in quantity, careful of my motion,
Like the skater on ice that hardly bears him,
Lest I fall unawares before the people,
Waking laughter in indolent reviewers.
Should I flounder awhile without a tumble
Thro’ this metrification of Catullus,
They should speak to me not without a welcome,
All that chorus of indolent reviewers.
Hard, hard, hard is it, only not to tumble,
So fantastical is the dainty metre.
Wherefore slight me not wholly, nor believe me
Too presumptuous, indolent reviewers.
O blatant Magazines, regard me rather —
Since I blush to belaud myself a moment —
As some rare little rose, a piece of inmost
Horticultural art, or half coquette-like
Maiden, not to be greeted unbenignly.
On Translations of Homer
Hexameters acrd Pentameters.
THESE lame hexameters the strong-wing’d music of Homer!
No — but a most burlesque barbarous experiment.
When was a harsher sound ever heard, ye Muses, in England?
When did a frog coarser croak upon our Helicon?
Hexameters no worse than daring Germany gave us,
Barbarous experiment, barbarous hexameters.
Specimen of a Translation of the Iliad in Blank Verse.
SO Hector spake; and Trojans roar’d applause;
Then loosed their sweating horses from the yoke,
And each beside his chariot bound his own;
And oxen from the city, and goodly sheep
In haste they drove, and honey-hearted wine
And bread from out the houses brought, and heap’d
Their firewood, and the winds from off the plain
Roll’d the rich vapor far into the heaven.
And these all night upon the bridge1 of war
Sat glorying; many a fire before them blazed:
As when in heaven the stars about the moon
Look beautiful, when all the winds are laid,
And every height comes out, and jutting peak
And valley, and the immeasurable heavens
Break open to their highest, and all the stars
Shine, and the Shepherd gladdens in his heart:
So many a fire between the ships and stream
Of Xanthus blazed before the towers of Troy,
A thousand on the plain; and close by each
Sat fifty in the blaze of burning fire;
And eating hoary grain and pulse the steeds,
Fixt by their cars, waited the golden dawn.
Iliad VIII. 542-561.
BALLADS AND OTHER POEMS
CONTENTS
To Alfred Tennyson, My Grandson
The First Quarrel
Rizpah
The Northern Cobbler
The Revenge. A Ballad of the Fleet
The Sisters
The Village Wife; or,The Entail
In the Children’s Hospital
Dedicatory Poem to the Princess Alice
The Defence of Lucknow
Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham
Columbus
The Voyage of Maeldune
De Profundis
The Human Cry.
SONNETS
Prefatory Sonnet
To the Rev. W.H. Brookfield
Montenegro
To Victor Hugo
TRANSLATIONS
Battle Of Brunanburh
Achilles Over the Trench
To Princess Frederica on Her Marriage
Sir John Franklin
To Dante
To Alfred Tennyson, My Grandson
GOLDEN-HAIR’D Ally whose name is one with mine,
Crazy with laughter and babble and earth’s new wine,
Now that the flower of a year and a half is thine,
O little blossom, O mine, and mine of mine,
Glorious poet who never hast written a line,
Laugh, for the name at the head of my verse is thine.
May’st thou never be wrong’d by the name that is mine!
The First Quarrel
(In the Isle of Wight.)
I.
‘WAIT a little,’ you say, ‘you are sure it ‘ll all come right,’
But the boy was born i’ trouble, an’ looks so wan an’ so white:
Wait! an’ once I ha’ waited — I hadn’t to wait for long.
Now I wait, wait, wait for Harry. — No, no, you are doing me wrong!
Harry and I were married: the boy can hold up his head,
The boy was born in wedlock, but after my man was dead;
I ha’ work’d for him fifteen years, an’ I work an’ I wait to the end.
I am all alone in the world, an’ you are my only friend.
II.
Doctor, if you can wait, I’ll tell you the tale o’ my life.
When Harry an’ I were children, he call’d me his own little wife;
I was happy when I was with him, an’ sorry when he was away.
An’ when we play’d together, I loved him better than play;
He workt me the daisy chain — he made me the cowslip ball,
He fought the boys that were rude, an’ I loved him better than all.
Passionate girl tho’ I was, an’ often at home in disgrace,
I never could quarrel with Harry — I had but to look in his face.
III.
There was a farmer in Dorset of Harry’s kin, that had need
Of a good stout lad at his farm; he sent, an’ the father agreed;
So Harry was bound to the Dorsetshire farm for years an’ for years;
I walked with him down to the quay, poor lad, an’ we parted in tears.
The boat was beginning to move, we heard them a-ringing the bell,
I’ll never love any but you, God bless you, my own little Nell.’
IV.
I was a child, an’ he was a child, an’ he came to harm;
There was a girl, a hussy, that workt with him up at the farm,
One had deceived her an’ left her alone with her sin an’ her shame,
And so she was wicked with Harry; the girl was the most to blame.
V.
And years went over till I that was little had grown so tall,
The men would say of the maids, ‘Our Nelly’s the flower of ‘em all.’
I didn’t take heed o’ them, but I taught myself all I could
To make a good wife for Harry, when Harry came home for good.
VI.
Often I seem’d unhappy, and often as happy too,
For I heard it abroad in the fields ‘I’ll never love any but you;’
‘I’ll never love any but you’ the morning song of the lark,
‘I’11 never love any but you’ the nightin gale’s hymn in the dark.
VII.
And Harry came home at last, but he look’d at me sidelong and shy,
&
nbsp; Vext me a bit, till he told me that so many years had gone by,
I had grown so handsome and tall — that I might ha’ forgot him somehow —
For he thought — there were other lads — he was fear’d to look at me now.
VIII.
Hard was the frost in the field, we were married o’ Christmas day,
Married among the red berries, an’ all as merry as May —
Those were the pleasant times, my house an’ my man were my pride,
We seem’d like ships i’ the Channel a-sailing with wind an’ tide.
IX.
But work was scant in the Isle, tho’ he tried the villages round,
So Harry went over the Solent to see if work could be found;
An’ he wrote ‘I ha’ six weeks’ work, little wife, so far as I know;
I’ll come for an hour to-morrow, an’ kiss you before I go.’
X.
So I set to righting the house, for wasn’t he coming that day?
An’ I hit on an old deal-box that was pasted in a corner away,
It was full of old odds an’ ends, an’ a letter along wi’ the rest,
I had better ha’ put my naked hand in a hornets’ nest.
XI.
‘Sweetheart’ — this was the letter — this was the letter I read —
‘You promised to find me work near you, an’ I wish I was dead —
Didn’t you kiss me an’ promise? you haven’t done it, my lad,
An’ I almost died o’ your going away, an’ I wish that I had.’
XII.
I too wish that I had — in the pleasant times that had past,
Before I quarrell’d with Harry — my quarrel — the first an’ the last.
XIII.
For Harry came in, an’ I flung him the letter that drove me wild,
An’ he told it me all at once, as simple as any child,
‘What can it matter, my lass, what I did wi’ my single life?
I ha’ been as true to you as ever a man to his wife;
An’ she wasn’t one o’ the worst.’ ‘Then,’ I said, ‘I’m none o’ the best.’
An’ he smiled at me, ‘Ain’t you, my love? Come, come, little wife, let it rest!
The man isn’t like the woman, no need to make such a stir.’
But he anger’d me all the more, an’ I said ‘You were keeping with her,
When I was a-loving you all along an’ the same as before.’
An’ he didn’t speak for a while, an’ he anger’d me more and more.
‘Then he patted my hand in his gentle way, ‘Let bygones be!’