Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Delphi Poets Series

by Lord Tennyson Alfred

  XIII.

  National hatreds of whole generations, and pigmy spites of the village spire;

  Vows that will last to the last death-ruckle, and vows that are snapt in a moment of fire;

  XIV.

  He that has lived for the lust of the minute, and died in the doing it, flesh without mind;

  He that has nail’d all flesh to the Cross, till Self died out in the love of his kind;

  XV.

  Spring and Summer and Autumn and Winter, and all these old revolutions of earth;

  All new-old revolutions of Empire — change of the tide — what is all of it worth?

  XVI.

  What the philosophies, all the sciences, poesy, varying voices of prayer?

  All that is noblest, all that is basest, all that is filthy with all that is fair?

  XVII.

  What is it all, if we all of us end but in being our own corpse-coffins at last,

  Swallow’d in Vastness, lost in Silence, drown’d in the deeps of a meaningless Past?

  XVIII.

  What but a murmur of gnats in the gloom, or a moment’s anger of bees in their hive? —

  . . . . .

  Peace, let it be! for I loved him, and love him for ever: the dead are not dead but alive.

  The Ring

  MIRIAM AND HER FATHER.

  Miriam (singing).

  MELLOW moon of heaven.

  Bright in blue,

  Moon of married hearts,

  Hear me, you!

  Twelve times in the year

  Bring me bliss,

  Globing Honey Moons

  Bright as this.

  Moon, you fade at times

  From the night.

  Young again you grow

  Out of sight.

  Silver crescent-curve,

  Coining soon,

  Globe again, and make

  Honey Moon.

  Shall not my love last,

  Moon, with you,

  For ten thousand years

  Old and new?

  Father. And who was he with such love-drunken eyes

  They made a thousand honey moons of one?

  Miriam. The prophet of his own, my Hubert — his

  The words, and mine the setting. ‘Air and Words,’

  Said Hubert, when I sang the song, ‘are bride

  And bridegroom.’ Does it please you?

  Father. Mainly, child,

  Because I hear your Mother’s voice in yours.

  She —— , why, you shiver tho’ the wind is west

  With all the warmth of summer.

  Miriam. Well, I felt

  On a sudden I know not what, a breath that past

  With all the cold of winter.

  Father (muttering to himself). Even so.

  The Ghost in Man, the Ghost that once was Man,

  But cannot wholly free itself from Man,

  Are calling to each other thro’ a dawn

  Stranger than earth has ever seen; the veil

  Is rending, and the Voices of the day

  Are heard across the Voices of the dark.

  No sudden heaven, nor sudden hell, for man,

  But thro’ the Will of One who knows and rules —

  And utter knowledge is but utter love — ,

  Æonian Evolution, swift or slow,

  Thro’ all the Spheres — an ever opening height,

  An ever lessening earth — and she perhaps,

  My Miriam, breaks her latest earthly link

  With me to-day.

  Miriam. You speak so low, what is it?

  Your ‘Miriam breaks’ — is making a new link

  Breaking an old one?

  Father. No, for we, my child,

  Have been till now each other’s all-in-all.

  Miriam. And you the lifelong guardian of the child.

  Father. I, and one other whom you have not known.

  Miriam. And who? what other?

  Father. Whither are you bound?

  For Naples which we only left in May?

  Miriam. No! father, Spain, but Hubert brings me home

  With April and the swallow. Wish me joy!

  Father. What need to wish when Hubert weds in you

  The heart of Love, and you the soul of Truth

  In Hubert?

  Miriam. Tho’ you used to call me once

  The lonely maiden-Princess of the wool,

  Who meant to sleep her hundred summers out

  Before a kiss should wake her.

  Father. Ay, but now

  Your fairy Prince has found you, take this ring.

  Miriam. ‘Io t’amo’ — and these diamonds — beautiful!

  ‘From Walter,’ and for me from you then?

  Father. Well,

  One Way for Miriam.

  Miriam. Miriam am I not?

  Father. This ring bequeath’d you by your mother, child,

  Was to be given you — such her dying wish —

  Given on the morning when you came of age

  Or on the day you married. Both the days

  Now close in one. The ring is doubly yours.

  Why do you look so gravely at the tower?

  Miriam. I never saw it yet so all ablaze

  With creepers crimsoning to the pinnacles,

  As if perpetual sunset linger’d there,

  And all ablaze too in the lake below!

  And how the birds that circle round the tower

  Are cheeping to each other of their flight

  To summer lands!

  Father. And that has made you grave?

  Fly — care not. Birds and brides must leave the nest.

  Child, I am happier in your happiness

  Than in mine own.

  Miriam. It is not that!

  Father. What else?

  Miriam. That chamber in the tower.

  Father. What chamber, child?

  Your nurse is here?

  Miriam. My Mother’s nurse and mine.

  She comes to dress me in my bridal veil.

  Father. What did she say?

  Miriam. She said, that you and I

  Had been abroad for my poor health so long

  She fear’d I had forgotten her, and I ask’d

  About my Mother, and she said, ‘Thy hair

  Is golden like thy Mother’s, not so fine.’

  Father. What then? what more?

  Miriam. She said — perhaps indeed

  She wander’d, having wander’d now so far

  Beyond the common date of death — that you,

  When I was smaller than the statuette

  Of my dear Mother on your bracket here —

  You took me to that chamber in the tower,

  The topmost — a chest there, by which you knelt —

  And there were books and dresses — left to me,

  A ring too which you kiss’d, and I, she said,

  I babbled, Mother, Mother — as I used

  To prattle to her picture — stretcht’d my hands

  As if I saw her; then a woman came

  And caught me from my nurse. I hear her yet —

  A sound of anger like a distant storm.

  Father. Garrulous old crone.

  Miriam. Poor nurse!

  Father. I bad her keep,

  Like a seal’d book, all mention of the ring,

  For I myself would tell you all to-day.

  Miriam. ‘She too might speak to-day,’ she mumbled. Still,

  I scarce have learnt the title of your book,

  But you will turn the pages.

  Father. Ay, to-day!

  I brought you to that chamber on your third

  September birthday with your nurse, and felt

  An icy breath play on me, while I stoopt

  To take and kiss the ring.

  Miriam. This very ring

  Io t’amo?

  Father. Yes, for some wild hope was mine

  That, in the misery of my married life, />
  Miriam your Mother might appear to me.

  She came to you, not me. The storm, you hear

  Far-off, is Muriel — your stepmother’s voice.

  Miriam. Vext, that you thought my Mother came to me?

  Or at my crying ‘Mother?’ or to find

  My Mother’s diamonds hidden from her there,

  Like worldly beauties in the Cell, not shown

  To dazzle all that see them?

  Father. Wait a while.

  Your Mother and step-mother — Miriam Erne

  And Muriel Erne — the two were cousins — lived

  With Muriel’s mother on the down, that sees

  A thousand squares of corn and meadow, far

  As the gray deep, a landscape which your eyes

  Have many a time ranged over when a babe.

  Miriam. I climb’d the hill with Hubert yesterday,

  And from the thousand squares, one silent voice

  Came on the wind, and seem’d to say ‘Again.’

  We saw far off an old forsaken house,

  Then home, and past the ruin’d mill.

  Father. And there

  I found these cousins often by the brook,

  For Miriam sketch’d and Muriel threw the fly;

  The girls of equal age, but one was fair,

  And one was dark, and both were beautiful.

  No voice for either spoke within my heart

  Then, for the surface eye, that only doats

  On outward beauty, glancing from the one

  To the other, knew not that which pleased it most,

  The raven ringlet or the gold; but both

  Were dowerless, and myself, I used to walk

  This Terrace — morbid, melancholy; mine

  And yet not mine the hall, the farm, the field;

  For all that ample woodland whisper’d ‘debt,’

  The brook that feeds this lakelet murmur’d ‘debt,’

  And in yon arching avenue of old elms,

  Tho’ mine, not mine, I heard the sober rook

  And carrion crow cry ‘ Mortgage.’

  Miriam. Father’s fault

  Visited on the children!

  Father. Ay, but then

  A kinsman, dying, stummon’d me to Rome —

  He left me wealth — and while I journey’d hence,

  And saw the world fly by me like a dream,

  And while I communed with my truest self,

  I woke to all of truest in myself,

  Till, in the gleam of those mid-summer dawns,

  The form of Muriel faded, and the face

  Of Miriam grew upon me, till I knew;

  And past and future mix’d in Heaven and made

  The rosy twilight of a perfect day.

  Miriam. So glad? no tear for him, who left you wealth,

  Your kinsman?

  Father. I had seen the man but once;

  He loved my name not me; and then I pass’d

  Home, and thro’ Venice, where a jeweller,

  So far gone down, or so far up in life,

  That he was nearing his own hundred, sold

  This ring to me, then laugh’d ‘the ring is weird.’

  And weird and worn and wizard-like was he.

  ‘Why weird?’ I ask’d him; and he said ‘The souls

  Of two repentant Lovers guard the ring;’

  Then with a ribald twinkle in his bleak eyes —

  ‘And if you give the ring to any maid,

  They still remember what it cost them here,

  And bind the maid to love you by the ring;

  And if the ring were stolen from the maid,

  The theft were death or madness to the thief,

  So sacred those Ghost Lovers hold the gift.’

  And then he told their legend:

  ‘Long ago

  Two lovers parted by a scurrilous tale

  Had quarrell’d, till the man repenting sent

  This ring “Io t’amo” to his best beloved,

  And sent it on her birthday. She in wrath

  Return’d it on her birthday, and that day

  His death-day, when, half-frenzied by the ring,

  He wildly fought a rival suitor, him

  The causer of that scandal, fought and fell;

  And she that came to part them all too late,

  And found a corpse and silence, drew the ring

  From his dead finger, wore it till her death,

  Shrined him within the temple of her heart,

  Made every moment of her after life

  A virgin victim to his memory,

  And dying rose, and rear’d her arms, and cried

  “I see him, Io t’amo, Io t’amo.”’

  Miriam. Legend or true? So tender should be true!

  Did he believe it? did you ask him?

  Father. Ay!

  But that half skeleton, like a barren ghost

  From out the fleshless world of spirits, laugh’d:

  A hollow laughter!

  Miriam. Vile, so near the ghost

  Himself, to laugh at love in death! But you?

  Father. Well, as the bygone lover thro’ this ring

  Had sent his cry for her forgiveness, I

  Would call thro’ this ‘Io t’amo’ to the heart

  Of Miriam; then I bad the man en grave

  ‘From Walter’ on the ring, and send it — wrote

  name, surname, all as clear as noon, but he —

  Some younger hand must have engraven the ring —

  His fingers were so stiffen’d by the frost

  Of seven and ninety winters, that he scrawl’d

  A ‘Miriam’ that might seem a ‘ Muriel’;

  And Muriel claim’d and open’d what I meant

  For Miriam, took the ring, and flaunted it

  Before that other whom I loved and love.

  A mountain stay’d me here, a minster there,

  A galleried palace, or a battlefield,

  Where stood the sheaf of Peace: but — coming home —

  And on your Mother’s birthday — all but yours ——

  A week betwixt — and when the tower as now

  Was all ablaze with crimson to the roof,

  And all ablaze too plunging in the lake

  Head-foremost — who were those that stood between

  The tower and that rich phantom of the tower?

  Muriel and Miriam, each in white, and like

  May-blossoms in mid autumn — was it they?

  A light shot upward on them from the lake.

  What sparkled there? whose hand was that? they stood

  So close together. I am not keen of sight,

  But coming nearer — Muriel had the ring —

  ‘O Miriam! have you given your ring to her?

  O Miriam!’ Miriam redden’d, Muriel clench’d

  The hand that wore it, till I cried again:

  ‘O Miriam, if you love me take the ring!’

  She glanced at me, at Muriel, and was mute.

  ‘Nay, if you cannot love me, let it be.

  Then — Muriel standing ever statue-like —

  She turn’d, and in her soft imperial way

  And saying gently: ‘Muriel, by your leave,’

  Unclosed the hand, and from it drew the ring,

  And gave it me, who pass’d it down her own,

  ‘Io t’amo, all is well then.’ Muriel fled.

  Miriam. Poor Muriel!

  Father. Ay, poor Muriel when you hear

  What follows! Miriam loved me from the first,

  Not thro’ the ring; but on her marriage morn

  This birthday, death-day, and betrothal ring,

  Laid on her table overnight, was gone;

  And after hours of search and doubt and threats,

  And hubbub, Muriel enter’d with it, ‘See! —

  Found in a chink of that old moulder’d floor!’

  My Miriam nodded with a pitying smile,

  A
s who should say ‘that those who lose can find.’

  Then I and she were married for a year,

  One year without a storm, or even a cloud;

  And you my Miriam born within the year;

  And she my Miriam dead within the year.

  I sat beside her dying, and she gaspt:

  ‘The books, the miniature, the lace are hers,

  My ring too when she comes of age, or when

  She marries; you — you loved me, kept your word.

  You love me still “Io t’amo.” — Muriel — no —

  She cannot love; she loves her own hard self,

  Her firm will, her fix’d purpose. Promise me,

  Miriam not Muriel — she shall have the ring.’

  And there the light of other life, which lives

  Beyond our burial and our buried eyes,

  Gleam’d for a moment in her own on earth.

  I swore the vow, then with my latest kiss

  Upon them, closed her eyes, which would not close,

  But kept their watch upon the ring and you.

  Your birthday was her death-day.

  Miriam. O poor Mother!

  And you, poor desolate Father, and poor me,

  The little senseless, worthless, wordless babe,

  Saved when your life was wreck’d!

  Father. Desolate? yes!

  Desolate as that sailor, whom the storm

  Had parted from his comrade in the boat,

  And dash’d half dead on barren sands, was I.

  Nay, you were my one solace; only — you

  Were always ailing. Muriel’s mother sent,

  And sure am I, by Muriel, one day came

  And saw you, shook her head, and patted yours,

  And smiled, and making with a kindly pinch

  Each poor pale cheek a momentary rose —

  ‘That should be fix’d,’ she said; ‘your pretty bud,

  So blighted here, would flower into full health

  Among our heath and bracken. Let her come!

  And we will feed her with our mountain air.

  And send her home to you rejoicing.’ No —

  We could not part. And once, when you my girl

  Rode on my shoulder home — the tiny fist

  Had graspt a daisy from your Mother’s grave —

  By the lych-gate was Muriel. ‘Ay,’ she said,

  ‘Among the tombs in this damp vale of yours!

  You scorn my Mother’s warning, but the child

  Is paler than before. We often walk

  In open sun, and see beneath our feet

  The mist of autumn gather from your lake,

  And shroud the tower; and once we only saw

  Your gilded vane, a light above the mist’ —

  (Our old bright bird that still is veering there

  Above his four gold letters) ‘and the light,’

  She said, ‘was like that light’ — and there she paused,

  And long; till I believing that the girl’s