Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

Nothing could be more happy than such an adaptation as the following—

Ever fail’d to draw The quiet night into her blood,

from Virgil, _Æn_., iv., 530:—

Neque unquam Solvitur in somnos _oculisve aut pectore noctem Accipit._ (And she never relaxes into sleep, or receives the night in eyes or bosom),

or than the following (in _Enid_) from Theocritus:—

Arms on which the standing muscle sloped, As slopes a wild brook o’er a little stone, Running too vehemently to break upon it.

ἐν δὲ μύες στερεοῖσι βραχίοσιν ἄκρον ὑπ’ ὦμον ἔστασαν, ἠύτε πέτροι ὀλοίτροχοι οὕς τε κυλίνδον χειμάῤῥους ποταμὸς μεγάλαις περιέξεσε δίναις.

—_Idyll_, xxii., 48 _seq._ (And the muscles on his brawny arms close under the shoulder stood out like boulders which the wintry torrent has rolled and worn smooth with the mighty eddies.)

But there was another use to which Tennyson applied his accurate and intimate acquaintance with the classics. It lay in developing what was suggested by them, in unfolding, so to speak, what was furled in their imagery. Nothing is more striking in ancient classical poetry than its pregnant condensation. It often expresses in an epithet what might be expanded into a detailed picture, or calls up in a single phrase a whole scene or a whole position. Where in _Merlin and Vivian_ Tennyson described

The _blind wave feeling round his long sea hall In silence_,

he was merely unfolding to its full Homer’s κῦμα κωφόν—“dumb wave”; just as the best of all comments on Horace’s expression, “Vultus nimium lubricus aspici,” _Odes_, _I._, xix., 8, is given us in Tennyson’s picture of the Oread in Lucretius:—

How the sun delights To _glance and shift about her slippery sides_.

Or take again this passage in the _Agamemnon_, 404-5, describing Menelaus pining in his desolate palace for the lost Helen:—

πόθῳ δ’ ὑπερποντίας φάσμα δόξει δόμων ἀνάσσειν

(And in his yearning love for her who is over the sea a phantom will seem to reign over his palace.)

What are the lines in _Guinevere_ but an expansion of what is latent but unfolded in the pregnant suggestiveness of the Greek poet:—

And in thy bowers of Camelot or of Usk Thy shadow still would glide from room to room, And I should evermore be vex’d with thee In hanging robe or vacant ornament, Or ghostly foot-fall echoing on the stair—

with a reminiscence also perhaps of Constance’s speech in _King John_, III., iv.

It need hardly be said that these particular passages, and possibly some of the others, may be mere coincidences, but they illustrate what numberless other passages which could be cited prove that Tennyson’s careful and meditative study of the Greek and Roman poets enabled him to enrich his work by these felicitous adaptations.

He used those poets as his master Virgil used his Greek predecessors, and what the elder Seneca said of Ovid, who had appropriated a line from Virgil, might exactly be applied to Tennyson: “Fecisse quod in multis aliis versibus Virgilius fecerat, non surripiendi caus, sed palam imitandi, hoc animo ut vellet agnosci”.[5]

He had plainly studied with equal attention the chief Italian poets, especially Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto and Tasso. On a passage in Dante he founded his _Ulysses_, and imitations of that master are frequent throughout his poems. _In Memoriam_, both in its general scheme as well as in numberless particular passages, closely recalls Petrarch; and Ariosto and Tasso have each influenced his work. In the poetry of his own country nothing seems to have escaped him, either in the masters or the minor poets.[6] To apply the term plagiarism to Tennyson’s use of his predecessors would be as absurd as to resolve some noble fabric into its stones and bricks, and confounding the one with the other to taunt the architect with appropriating an honour which belongs to the quarry and the potter. Tennyson’s method was exactly the method of two of the greatest poets in the world, Virgil and Milton, of the poet who stands second to Virgil in Roman poetry, Horace, of one of the most illustrious of our own minor poets, Gray.

An artist more fastidious than Tennyson never existed. As scrupulous a purist in language as Cicero, Chesterfield and Macaulay in prose, as Virgil, Milton, and Leopardi in verse, his care extended to the nicest minutiæ of word-forms. Thus “ancle” is always spelt with a “c” when it stands alone, with a “k” when used in compounds; thus he spelt “Idylls” with one “l” in the short poems, with two “l’s” in the epic poems; thus the employment of “through” or “thro’,” of “bad” or “bade,” and the retention or suppression of “e” in past participles are always carefully studied. He took immense pains to avoid the clash of “s” with “s,” and to secure the predominance of open vowels when rhythm rendered them appropriate. Like the Greek painter with his partridge, he thought nothing of sacrificing good things if, in any way, they interfered with unity and symmetry, and thus, his son tells us, many stanzas, in themselves of exquisite beauty, have been lost to us.

[2] _De Sublimitate,_ xvii.

[3] Tennyson’s blank verse in the _Idylls of the King_ (excepting in the _Morte d’Arthur_ and in the grander passages), is obviously modelled in rhythm on that of Shakespeare’s earlier style seen to perfection in _King John_. Compare the following lines with the rhythm say of _Elaine_ or _Guinevere_;—

But now will canker sorrow eat my bud,
And chase the native beauty from his cheek,
And he will look as hollow as a ghost;
As dim and meagre as an ague’s fit:
And so he’ll die; and, rising so again,
When I shall meet him in the court of heaven
I shall not know him: therefore never, never
Must I behold my pretty Arthur more.

—_King John_, III., iv.

[4] _Illustrations of Tennyson_.

[5] Seneca, third _Suasoria_.

[6] For fuller illustrations of all this, and for the influence of the ancient classics on Tennyson, I may perhaps venture to refer the reader to my _Illustrations of Tennyson_. And may I here take the opportunity of pointing out that nothing could have been farther from my intention in that book than what has so often been most unfairly attributed to it, namely, an attempt to show that a charge of plagiarism might be justly urged against Tennyson. No honest critic, who had even cursorily inspected the book, could so utterly misrepresent its purpose.

IV

Tennyson’s place is not among the “lords of the visionary eye,” among seers, among prophets, but not the least part of the debt which his countrymen owe to him is his dedication of his art to the noblest purposes. At a time when poetry was beginning to degenerate into what it has now almost universally become—a mere sense-pampering siren, and when critics were telling us, as they are still telling us, that we are to understand by it “all literary production which attains the power of giving pleasure by its form as distinct from its matter,” he remained true to the creed of his great predecessors. “L’art pour art,” he would say, quoting Georges Sand, “est un vain mot: l’art pour le vrai, l’art pour le beau et le bon, voila la religion que je cherche.” When he succeeded to the laureateship he was proud to remember that the wreath which had descended to him was

greener from the brows Of him that utter’d nothing base,

and he was a loyal disciple of that poet whose aim had been, in his own words, “to console the afflicted, to add sunshine to daylight by making the happy happier, to teach the young and the gracious of every age to see, to think, to feel, and therefore to become more actively and securely virtuous”.[7] Wordsworth had said that he wished to be regarded as a teacher or as nothing, but unhappily he did not always distinguish between the way in which a poet and a philosopher should teach. He forgot that the didactic element in a poem should be, to employ a homely illustration, what garlic should be in a salad, “scarce suspected, animate the whole,” that the poet teaches not as the moralist and the preacher teach, but as nature and life teach us. He taught us when he wrote _The Fountain_ and _The Highland Reaper, The Leach-gatherer_ and _Michael_, he merely wearied us when he sermonised in _The Excursion_ and in _The Prelude_. Tennyson never makes this mistake. He is seldom directly didactic. Would he inculcate subjugation to the law of duty—he gives us the funeral ode on Wellington, _The Charge of the Light Brigade_, and _Love and Duty_. Would he inculcate resignationto the will of God, and the moral efficacy of conventional Christianity—he gives us _Enoch Arden_. Would he picture the endless struggle between the sensual and the spiritual, and the relation of ideals to life—he gives us the _Idylls of the King_. Would he point to what atheism may lead—he gives us _Lucretius_. Poems which are masterpieces of sensuous art, such as mere æsthetes, like Rosetti and his school, must contemplate with admiring despair, he makes vehicles of the most serious moral and spiritual teaching. _The Vision of Sin_ is worth a hundred sermons on the disastrous effects of unbridled profligacy. In _The Palace of Art_ we have the quintessence of _The Book of Ecclesiastes_ and much more besides. Even in _The Lotos Eaters_ we have the mirror held up to Hedonism. On the education of the affections and on the purity of domestic life must depend very largely, not merely the happiness of individuals, but the well-being of society, and how wide a space is filled by poems in Tennyson’s works bearing influentially on these subjects is obvious. And they admit us into a pleasaunce with which it is good to be familiar, so pure and wholesome is their atmosphere, so tranquilly beautiful the world in which the characters move and the little dramas unfold themselves. They preach nothing, but deep into every heart must sink their silent lessons. “Upon the sacredness of home life,” writes his son, “he would maintain that the stability and greatness of a nation largely depend; and one of the secrets of his power over mankind was his true joy in the family duties and affections.” What sermons have we in _The Miller’s Daughter_, in _Dora_, in _The Gardener’s Daughter_ and in _Love and Duty_. _The Princess_ was a direct contribution to a social question of momentous importance to our time. _Maud_ had an immediate political purpose, while in _In Memoriam_ he became the interpreter and teacher of his generation in a still higher sense.

Since Shakespeare no English poet has been so essentially patriotic, or appealed so directly to the political conscience of the nation. In his noble eulogies of the English constitution and of the virtue and wisdom of its architects, in his spirit-stirring pictures of the heroic actions of our forefathers and contemporaries both by land and sea, in his passionate denunciations of all that he believed would detract from England’s greatness and be prejudicial to her real interests, in his hearty sympathy with every movement and with every measure which he believed would contribute to her honour and her power, in all this he stands alone among modern poets. But if he loved England as Shakespeare loved her, he had other lessons than Shakespeare’s to teach her. The responsibilities imposed on the England of our time—and no poet knew this better—are very different from those imposed on the England of Elizabeth. An empire vaster and more populous than that of the Cæsars has since then been added to our dominion. Millions, indeed, who are of the same blood as ourselves and who speak our language have, by the folly of common ancestors, become aliens. But how immense are the realms peopled by the colonies which are still loyal to us, and by the three hundred millions who in India own us as their rulers: of this vast empire England is now the capital and centre. That she should fulfil completely and honourably the duties to which destiny has called her will be the prayer of every patriot, that he should by his own efforts contribute all in his power to further such fulfilment must be his earnest desire. It would be no exaggeration to say that Tennyson contributed more than any man who has ever lived to what may be called the higher political education of the English-speaking races. Of imperial federation he was at once the apostle and the pioneer. In poetry which appealed as probably no other poetry has appealed to every class, wherever our language is spoken, he dwelt fondly on all that constitutes the greatness and glory of England, on her grandeur in the past, on the magnificent promise of the part she will play in the future, if her sons are true to her. There should be no distinction, for she recognises no distinction between her children at home and her children in her colonies. She is the common mother of a common race: one flag, one sceptre, the same proud ancestry, the same splendid inheritance. “How strange England cannot see,” he once wrote, “that her true policy lies in a close union with her colonies.”

Sharers of our glorious past, Shall we not thro’ good and ill Cleave to one another still? Britain’s myriad voices call, Sons be welded all and all Into one imperial whole, One with Britain, heart and soul! One life, one flag, one fleet, one Throne!

Thus did the poetry of Tennyson draw closer, and thus will it continue to draw closer those sentimental ties—ties, in Burke’s phrase, “light as air, but strong as links of iron,” which bind the colonies to the mother country; and in so doing, if he did not actually initiate, he furthered, as no other single man has furthered, the most important movement of our time. Nor has any man of genius in the present century—not Dickens, not Ruskin—been moved by a purer spirit of philanthropy, or done more to show how little the qualities and actions which dignify humanity depend, or need depend, on the accidents of fortune. He brought poetry into touch with the discoveries of science, and with the speculations of theology and metaphysics, and though, in treating such subjects, his power is not, perhaps, equal to his charm, the debt which his countrymen owe him, even intellectually, is incalculable.

[7] See Wordsworth’s letter to Lady Beaumont, _Prose Works_, vol. ii., p. 176.

Early Poems

To the Queen

This dedication was first prefixed to the seventh edition of these poems in 1851, Tennyson having succeeded Wordsworth as Poet Laureate, 19th Nov., 1850.

Revered, beloved[1]—O you that hold A nobler office upon earth Than arms, or power of brain, or birth Could give the warrior kings of old,

Victoria,[2]—since your Royal grace To one of less desert allows This laurel greener from the brows Of him that utter’d nothing base;

And should your greatness, and the care That yokes with empire, yield you time To make demand of modern rhyme If aught of ancient worth be there;

Then—while[3] a sweeter music wakes, And thro’ wild March the throstle calls, Where all about your palace-walls The sun-lit almond-blossom shakes—

Take, Madam, this poor book of song; For tho’ the faults were thick as dust In vacant chambers, I could trust Your kindness.[4] May you rule us long.

And leave us rulers of your blood As noble till the latest day! May children of our children say, “She wrought her people lasting good;[5]

“Her court was pure; her life serene; God gave her peace; her land reposed; A thousand claims to reverence closed In her as Mother, Wife and Queen;

“And statesmen at her council met Who knew the seasons, when to take Occasion by the hand, and make The bounds of freedom wider yet[6]

“By shaping some august decree, Which kept her throne unshaken still, Broad-based upon her people’s will,[7] And compass’d by the inviolate sea.”

MARCH, 1851.

[1] 1851. Revered Victoria, you that hold.

[2] 1851. I thank you that your Royal grace.

[3] This stanza added in 1853.

[4] 1851. Your sweetness.

[5] In 1851 the following stanza referring to the first Crystal Palace, opened 1st May, 1851, was inserted here:—

She brought a vast design to pass, When Europe and the scatter’d ends Of our fierce world were mixt as friends And brethren, in her halls of glass.

[6] 1851. Broader yet.

[7] With this cf. Shelley, _Ode to Liberty_:—

Athens diviner yet Gleam’d with its crest of columns _on the will_ Of man.

Claribel

a melody

First published in 1830.

In 1830 and in 1842 edd. the poem is in one long stanza, with a full stop in 1830 ed. after line 8; 1842 ed. omits the full stop. The name “Claribel” may have been suggested by Spenser (_F. Q._, ii., iv., or Shakespeare, _Tempest_).

1

Where Claribel low-lieth The breezes pause and die, Letting the rose-leaves fall: But the solemn oak-tree sigheth, Thick-leaved, ambrosial, With an ancient melody Of an inward agony, Where Claribel low-lieth.

2

At eve the beetle boometh Athwart the thicket lone: At noon the wild bee[1] hummeth About the moss’d headstone: At midnight the moon cometh, And looketh down alone. Her song the lintwhite swelleth, The clear-voiced mavis dwelleth, The callow throstle[2] lispeth, The slumbrous wave outwelleth, The babbling runnel crispeth, The hollow grot replieth Where Claribel low-lieth.

[1] 1830. “Wild” omitted, and “low” inserted with a hyphen before “hummeth”.

[2] 1851 and all previous editions, “fledgling” for “callow”.

Lilian

First printed in 1830.

1

Airy, fairy Lilian, Flitting, fairy Lilian, When I ask her if she love me, Claps her tiny hands above me, Laughing all she can; She’ll not tell me if she love me, Cruel little Lilian.

2

When my passion seeks Pleasance in love-sighs She, looking thro’ and thro’[1] me Thoroughly to undo me, Smiling, never speaks: So innocent-arch, so cunning-simple, From beneath her gather’d wimple[2] Glancing with black-beaded eyes, Till the lightning laughters dimple The baby-roses in her cheeks; Then away she flies.

3

Prythee weep, May Lilian! Gaiety without eclipse Wearieth me, May Lilian: Thro’[3] my very heart it thrilleth When from crimson-threaded[4] lips Silver-treble laughter[5] trilleth: Prythee weep, May Lilian.

4

Praying all I can, If prayers will not hush thee, Airy Lilian, Like a rose-leaf I will crush thee, Fairy Lilian.

[1] 1830. Through and through me.

[2] 1830. Purfled.

[3] 1830. Through.

[4] With “crimson-threaded” _cf._ Cleveland’s _Sing-song on Clarinda’s Wedding_, “Her _lips those threads of scarlet dye_”; but the original is _Solomons Song_ iv. 3, “Thy lips are _like a thread of scarlet_”.

[5] 1830. Silver treble-laughter.

Isabel

First printed in 1830. Lord Tennyson tells us (_Life of Tennyson_, i., 43) that in this poem his father more or less described his own mother, who was a “remarkable and saintly woman”. In this as in the other poems elaborately painting women we may perhaps suspect the influence of Wordsworth’s _Triad_, which should be compared with them.

1

Eyes not down-dropt nor over-bright, but fed With the clear-pointed flame of chastity, Clear, without heat, undying, tended by Pure vestal thoughts in the translucent fane Of her still spirit[1]; locks not wide-dispread, Madonna-wise on either side her head; Sweet lips whereon perpetually did reign The summer calm of golden charity, Were fixed shadows of thy fixed mood, Revered Isabel, the crown and head, The stately flower of female fortitude, Of perfect wifehood and pure lowlihead.[2]

2

The intuitive decision of a bright And thorough-edged intellect to part Error from crime; a prudence to withhold; The laws of marriage[3] character’d in gold Upon the blanched[4] tablets of her heart; A love still burning upward, giving light To read those laws; an accent very low In blandishment, but a most silver flow Of subtle-paced counsel in distress, Right to the heart and brain, tho’ undescried, Winning its way with extreme gentleness Thro’[5] all the outworks of suspicious pride; A courage to endure and to obey; A hate of gossip parlance, and of sway, Crown’d Isabel, thro’[6] all her placid life, The queen of marriage, a most perfect wife.

3

The mellow’d reflex of a winter moon; A clear stream flowing with a muddy one, Till in its onward current it absorbs With swifter movement and in purer light The vexed eddies of its wayward brother: A leaning and upbearing parasite, Clothing the stem, which else had fallen quite, With cluster’d flower-bells and ambrosial orbs Of rich fruit-bunches leaning on each other— Shadow forth thee:—the world hath not another (Though all her fairest forms are types of thee, And thou of God in thy great charity) Of such a finish’d chasten’d purity,

[1] With these lines may be compared Shelley, _Dedication to the Revolt of Islam_:—

And through thine eyes, e’en in thy soul, I see A lamp of vestal fire burning eternally.

[2] Lowlihead a favourite word with Chaucer and Spenser.

[3] 1830. Wifehood.

[4] 1830. Blenched.

[5] 1830 and all before 1853. Through.

[6] 1830. Through.

Mariana

“Mariana in the moated grange.”—_Measure for Measure_.

First printed in 1830.

This poem as we know from the motto prefixed to it was suggested by Shakespeare (_Measure for Measure_, iii., 1, “at the moated grange resides this dejected Mariana,”) but the poet may have had in his mind the exquisite fragment of Sappho:—

δέδυκε μὲν ἁ σελάννα καὶ Πληϊαδες, μέδαι δὲ νύκτες, παρὰ δ’ ἔρχετ’ ὥρα, ἔγω δὲ μόνα κατεύδω.

“The moon has set and the Pleiades, and it is midnight: the hour too is going by, but I sleep alone.” It was long popularly supposed that the scene of the poem was a farm near Somersby known as Baumber’s farm, but Tennyson denied this and said it was a purely “imaginary house in the fen,” and that he “never so much as dreamed of Baumbers farm”. See _Life_, i., 28.

With blackest moss the flower-plots Were thickly crusted, one and all: The rusted nails fell from the knots That held the peach[1] to the garden-wall.[2] The broken sheds look’d sad and strange: Unlifted was the clinking latch; Weeded and worn the ancient thatch Upon the lonely moated grange. She only said, “My life is dreary, He cometh not,” she said; She said, “I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead!”

Her tears fell with the dews at even; Her tears fell ere the dews were dried;[3] She could not look on the sweet heaven, Either at morn or eventide. After the flitting of the bats, When thickest dark did trance the sky, She drew her casement-curtain by, And glanced athwart the glooming flats. She only said, “The night is dreary, He cometh not,” she said; She said, “I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead!”

Upon the middle of the night, Waking she heard the night-fowl crow: The cock sung out an hour ere light: From the dark fen the oxen’s low Came to her: without hope of change, In sleep she seem’d to walk forlorn, Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed[4] morn About the lonely moated grange. She only said, “The day is dreary, He cometh not,” she said; She said, “I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead!”

About a stone-cast from the wall A sluice with blacken’d waters slept, And o’er it many, round and small, The cluster’d marish-mosses crept. Hard by a poplar shook alway, All silver-green with gnarled bark: For leagues no other tree did mark[5] The level waste, the rounding gray.[6] She only said, “My life is dreary, He cometh not,” she said; She said, “I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead!”

And ever when the moon was low, And the shrill winds were up and away,[7] In the white curtain, to and fro, She saw the gusty shadow sway. But when the moon was very low, And wild winds bound within their cell, The shadow of the poplar fell Upon her bed, across her brow. She only said, “The night is dreary, He cometh not,” she said; She said, “I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead!”

All day within the dreamy house, The doors upon their hinges creak’d; The blue fly sung in the pane;[8] the mouse Behind the mouldering wainscot shriek’d, Or from the crevice peer’d about. Old faces glimmer’d thro’ the doors, Old footsteps trod the upper floors, Old voices called her from without. She only said, “My life is dreary, He cometh not,” she said; She said, “I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead!”

The sparrow’s chirrup on the roof, The slow clock ticking, and the sound, Which to the wooing wind aloof The poplar made, did all confound Her sense; but most she loathed the hour When the thick-moted sunbeam lay Athwart the chambers, and the day Was sloping[9] toward his western bower. Then, said she, “I am very dreary, He will not come,” she said; She wept, “I am aweary, aweary, O God, that I were dead!”

[1] 1863. Pear.

[2] 1872. Gable-wall.

[3] With this beautiful couplet may be compared a couplet of Helvius Cinna:—

Te matutinus flentem conspexit Eous, Te flentem paullo vidit post Hesperus idem.

(_Cinnae Reliq._ Ed. Mueller, p. 83.)

[4] 1830. _Grey_-eyed. _Cf. Romeo and Juliet_, ii., 3,

“The _grey morn_ smiles on the frowning night”.

[5] 1830, 1842, 1843. Dark.

[6] 1830. Grey.

[7] 1830. An’ away.

[8] All editions before 1851. I’ the pane. With this line _cf. Maud_, I., vi., 8, “and the shrieking rush of the wainscot mouse”.

[9] 1830. Downsloped was westering in his bower.

To——

First printed in 1830.

The friend to whom these verses were addressed was Joseph William Blakesley, third Classic and Senior Chancellor’s Medallist in 1831, and afterwards Dean of Lincoln. Tennyson said of him: “He ought to be Lord Chancellor, for he is a subtle and powerful reasoner, and an honest man”.—_Life_, i., 65. He was a contributor to the _Edinburgh_ and _Quarterly Reviews_, and died in April, 1885. See memoir of him in the _Dictionary of National Biography_.

1

Clear-headed friend, whose joyful scorn, Edged with sharp laughter, cuts atwain The knots that tangle human creeds,[1] The wounding cords that[2] bind and strain The heart until it bleeds, Ray-fringed eyelids of the morn Roof not a glance so keen as thine: If aught of prophecy be mine, Thou wilt not live in vain.

2

Low-cowering shall the Sophist sit; Falsehood shall bear her plaited brow: Fair-fronted Truth shall droop not now With shrilling shafts of subtle wit. Nor martyr-flames, nor trenchant swords Can do away that ancient lie; A gentler death shall Falsehood die, Shot thro’ and thro’[3] with cunning words.

3

Weak Truth a-leaning on her crutch, Wan, wasted Truth in her utmost need, Thy kingly intellect shall feed, Until she be an athlete bold, And weary with a finger’s touch Those writhed limbs of lightning speed; Like that strange angel[4] which of old, Until the breaking of the light, Wrestled with wandering Israel, Past Yabbok brook the livelong night, And heaven’s mazed signs stood still In the dim tract of Penuel.

[1] 1830. The knotted lies of human creeds.

[2] 1830. “Which” for “that”.

[3] 1830. Through and through.

[4] The reference is to Genesis xxxii. 24-32.

Madeline

First published in 1830.

1

Thou art not steep’d in golden languors, No tranced summer calm is thine, Ever varying Madeline. Thro’[1] light and shadow thou dost range, Sudden glances, sweet and strange, Delicious spites and darling angers, And airy[2] forms of flitting change.

2

Smiling, frowning, evermore, Thou art perfect in love-lore. Revealings deep and clear are thine Of wealthy smiles: but who may know Whether smile or frown be fleeter? Whether smile or frown be sweeter, Who may know? Frowns perfect-sweet along the brow Light-glooming over eyes divine, Like little clouds sun-fringed, are thine, Ever varying Madeline. Thy smile and frown are not aloof From one another, Each to each is dearest brother; Hues of the silken sheeny woof Momently shot into each other. All the mystery is thine; Smiling, frowning, evermore, Thou art perfect in love-lore, Ever varying Madeline.

3

A subtle, sudden flame, By veering passion fann’d, About thee breaks and dances When I would kiss thy hand, The flush of anger’d shame O’erflows thy calmer glances, And o’er black brows drops down A sudden curved frown: But when I turn away, Thou, willing me to stay, Wooest not, nor vainly wranglest; But, looking fixedly the while, All my bounding heart entanglest In a golden-netted smile; Then in madness and in bliss, If my lips should dare to kiss Thy taper fingers amorously,[3] Again thou blushest angerly; And o’er black brows drops down A sudden-curved frown.

[1] 1830. Through.

[2] 1830. Aery.

[3] 1830. Three-times-three; though noted as an _erratum_ for amorously.

Song—The Owl

First printed in 1830.

1

When cats run home and light is come, And dew is cold upon the ground, And the far-off stream is dumb, And the whirring sail goes round, And the whirring sail goes round; Alone and warming his five wits, The white owl in the belfry sits.

2

When merry milkmaids click the latch, And rarely smells the new-mown hay, And the cock hath sung beneath the thatch Twice or thrice his roundelay, Twice or thrice his roundelay; Alone and warming his five wits, The white owl in the belfry sits.

Second Song—To the Same

First printed in 1830.

1

Thy tuwhits are lull’d I wot, Thy tuwhoos of yesternight, Which upon the dark afloat, So took echo with delight, So took echo with delight, That her voice untuneful grown, Wears all day a fainter tone.

2

I would mock thy chaunt anew; But I cannot mimick it; Not a whit of thy tuwhoo, Thee to woo to thy tuwhit, Thee to woo to thy tuwhit, With a lengthen’d loud halloo, Tuwhoo, tuwhit, tuwhit, tuwhoo-o-o.

Recollections of the Arabian Nights

First printed in 1830.

With this poem should be compared the description of Harun al Rashid’s Garden of Gladness in the story of Nur-al-din Ali and the damsel Anis al Talis in the Thirty-Sixth Night. The style appears to have been modelled on Coleridge’s _Kubla Khan_ and _Lewti_, and the influence of Coleridge is very perceptible throughout the poem.

When the breeze of a joyful dawn blew free In the silken sail of infancy, The tide of time flow’d back with me, The forward-flowing tide of time; And many a sheeny summer-morn, Adown the Tigris I was borne, By Bagdat’s shrines of fretted gold, High-walled gardens green and old; True Mussulman was I and sworn, For it was in the golden prime[1] Of good Haroun Alraschid.

Anight my shallop, rustling thro’[2] The low and bloomed foliage, drove The fragrant, glistening deeps, and clove The citron-shadows in the blue: By garden porches on the brim, The costly doors flung open wide, Gold glittering thro’[3] lamplight dim, And broider’d sofas[4] on each side: In sooth it was a goodly time, For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid.

Often, where clear-stemm’d platans guard The outlet, did I turn away The boat-head down a broad canal From the main river sluiced, where all The sloping of the moon-lit sward Was damask-work, and deep inlay Of braided blooms[5] unmown, which crept Adown to where the waters slept. A goodly place, a goodly time, For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid.

A motion from the river won Ridged the smooth level, bearing on My shallop thro’ the star-strown calm, Until another night in night I enter’d, from the clearer light, Imbower’d vaults of pillar’d palm, Imprisoning sweets, which, as they clomb Heavenward, were stay’d beneath the dome Of hollow boughs.—A goodly time, For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid.

Still onward; and the clear canal Is rounded to as clear a lake. From the green rivage many a fall Of diamond rillets musical, Thro’ little crystal[6] arches low Down from the central fountain’s flow Fall’n silver-chiming, seem’d to shake The sparkling flints beneath the prow. A goodly place, a goodly time, For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid.

Above thro’[7] many a bowery turn A walk with vary-colour’d shells Wander’d engrain’d. On either side All round about the fragrant marge From fluted vase, and brazen urn In order, eastern flowers large, Some dropping low their crimson bells Half-closed, and others studded wide With disks and tiars, fed the time With odour in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid.

Far off, and where the lemon-grove In closest coverture upsprung, The living airs of middle night Died round the bulbul[8] as he sung; Not he: but something which possess’d The darkness of the world, delight, Life, anguish, death, immortal love, Ceasing not, mingled, unrepress’d. Apart from place, withholding[9] time, But flattering the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid.

Black the[10] garden-bowers and grots Slumber’d: the solemn palms were ranged Above, unwoo’d of summer wind: A sudden splendour from behind Flush’d all the leaves with rich gold-green, And, flowing rapidly between Their interspaces, counterchanged The level lake with diamond-plots Of dark and bright.[11] A lovely time, For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid.

Dark-blue the deep sphere overhead, Distinct with vivid stars inlaid,[12] Grew darker from that under-flame: So, leaping lightly from the boat, With silver anchor left afloat, In marvel whence that glory came Upon me, as in sleep I sank In cool soft turf upon the bank, Entranced with that place and time, So worthy of the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid.

Thence thro’ the garden I was drawn—[13] A realm of pleasance, many a mound, And many a shadow-chequer’d lawn Full of the city’s stilly sound,[14] And deep myrrh-thickets blowing round The stately cedar, tamarisks, Thick rosaries[15] of scented thorn, Tall orient shrubs, and obelisks Graven with emblems of the time, In honour of the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid.

With dazed vision unawares From the long alley’s latticed shade Emerged, I came upon the great Pavilion of the Caliphat. Right to the carven cedarn doors, Flung inward over spangled floors, Broad-based flights of marble stairs Ran up with golden balustrade, After the fashion of the time, And humour of the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid.

The fourscore windows all alight As with the quintessence of flame, A million tapers flaring bright From twisted silvers look’d[16] to shame The hollow-vaulted dark, and stream’d Upon the mooned domes aloof In inmost Bagdat, till there seem’d Hundreds of crescents on the roof Of night new-risen, that marvellous time, To celebrate the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid.

Then stole I up, and trancedly Gazed on the Persian girl alone, Serene with argent-lidded eyes Amorous, and lashes like to rays Of darkness, and a brow of pearl Tressed with redolent ebony, In many a dark delicious curl, Flowing beneath[17] her rose-hued zone; The sweetest lady of the time, Well worthy of the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid.

Six columns, three on either side, Pure silver, underpropt[18] a rich Throne of the[19] massive ore, from which Down-droop’d, in many a floating fold, Engarlanded and diaper’d With inwrought flowers, a cloth of gold. Thereon, his deep eye laughter-stirr’d With merriment of kingly pride, Sole star of all that place and time, I saw him—in his golden prime, THE GOOD HAROUN ALRASCHID!

[1] “Golden prime” from Shakespeare. “That cropp’d the _golden prime_ of this sweet prince.” (_Rich. III._, i., sc. ii., 248.)

[2] 1830. Through.

[3] 1830. Through.

[4] 1830 and 1842. Sophas.

[5] 1830. Breaded blosms.

[6] 1830. Through crystal.

[7] 1830. Through.

[8] “Bulbul” is the Persian for nightingale. _Cf. Princes_, iv., 104:—

“O Bulbul, any rose of Gulistan
Shall brush her veil”.

[9] 1830. Witholding. So 1842, 1843, 1845.

[10] 1830. Blackgreen.

[11] 1830. Of saffron light.

[12] 1830. Unrayed.

[13] 1830. Through ... borne.

[14] Shakespeare has the same expression: “The hum of either army _stilly sounds_”. (_Henry V._, act iv., prol.)

[15] 1842. Roseries.

[16] 1830. Wreathed.

[17] 1830. Below.

[18] 1830. Underpropped. 1842. Underpropp’d.

[19] 1830. O’ the.

Ode to Memory

First printed in 1830.

After the title in 1830 ed. is “Written very early in life”. The influence most perceptible in this poem is plainly Coleridge, on whose _Songs of the Pixies_ it seems to have been modelled. Tennyson considered it, and no wonder, as one of the very best of “his early and peculiarly concentrated Nature-poems”. See _Life_, i., 27. It is full of vivid and accurate pictures of his Lincolnshire home and haunts. See _Life_, i., 25-48, _passim_.

1

Thou who stealest fire, From the fountains of the past, To glorify the present; oh, haste, Visit my low desire! Strengthen me, enlighten me! I faint in this obscurity, Thou dewy dawn of memory.

2

Come not as thou camest[1] of late, Flinging the gloom of yesternight On the white day; but robed in soften’d light Of orient state. Whilome thou camest with the morning mist, Even as a maid, whose stately brow The dew-impearled winds of dawn have kiss’d,[2] When she, as thou, Stays on her floating locks the lovely freight Of overflowing blooms, and earliest shoots Of orient green, giving safe pledge of fruits, Which in wintertide shall star The black earth with brilliance rare.

3

Whilome thou camest with the morning mist. And with the evening cloud, Showering thy gleaned wealth into my open breast, (Those peerless flowers which in the rudest wind Never grow sere, When rooted in the garden of the mind, Because they are the earliest of the year). Nor was the night thy shroud. In sweet dreams softer than unbroken rest Thou leddest by the hand thine infant Hope. The eddying of her garments caught from thee The light of thy great presence; and the cope Of the half-attain’d futurity, Though deep not fathomless, Was cloven with the million stars which tremble O’er the deep mind of dauntless infancy. Small thought was there of life’s distress; For sure she deem’d no mist of earth could dull Those spirit-thrilling eyes so keen and beautiful: Sure she was nigher to heaven’s spheres, Listening the lordly music flowing from The illimitable years.[3] O strengthen me, enlighten me! I faint in this obscurity, Thou dewy dawn of memory.

4

Come forth I charge thee, arise, Thou of the many tongues, the myriad eyes! Thou comest not with shows of flaunting vines Unto mine inner eye, Divinest Memory! Thou wert not nursed by the waterfall Which ever sounds and shines A pillar of white light upon the wall Of purple cliffs, aloof descried: Come from the woods that belt the grey hill-side, The seven elms, the poplars[4] four That stand beside my father’s door, And chiefly from the brook[5] that loves To purl o’er matted cress and ribbed sand, Or dimple in the dark of rushy coves, Drawing into his narrow earthen urn, In every elbow and turn, The filter’d tribute of the rough woodland. O! hither lead thy feet! Pour round mine ears the livelong bleat Of the thick-fleeced sheep from wattled folds, Upon the ridged wolds, When the first matin-song hath waken’d[6] loud Over the dark dewy earth forlorn, What time the amber morn Forth gushes from beneath a low-hung cloud.

5

Large dowries doth the raptured eye To the young spirit present When first she is wed; And like a bride of old In triumph led, With music and sweet showers Of festal flowers, Unto the dwelling she must sway. Well hast thou done, great artist Memory, In setting round thy first experiment With royal frame-work of wrought gold; Needs must thou dearly love thy first essay, And foremost in thy various gallery Place it, where sweetest sunlight falls Upon the storied walls; For the discovery And newness of thine art so pleased thee, That all which thou hast drawn of fairest Or boldest since, but lightly weighs With thee unto the love thou bearest The first-born of thy genius. Artist-like, Ever retiring thou dost gaze On the prime labour of thine early days: No matter what the sketch might be; Whether the high field on the bushless Pike, Or even a sand-built ridge Of heaped hills that mound the sea, Overblown with murmurs harsh, Or even a lowly cottage[7] whence we see Stretch’d wide and wild the waste enormous marsh, Where from the frequent bridge, Like emblems of infinity,[8] The trenched waters run from sky to sky; Or a garden bower’d close With plaited[9] alleys of the trailing rose, Long alleys falling down to twilight grots, Or opening upon level plots Of crowned lilies, standing near Purple-spiked lavender: Whither in after life retired From brawling storms, From weary wind, With youthful fancy reinspired, We may hold converse with all forms Of the many-sided mind, And those[10] whom passion hath not blinded, Subtle-thoughted, myriad-minded. My friend, with you[11] to live alone, Were how much[12] better than to own A crown, a sceptre, and a throne! O strengthen, enlighten me! I faint in this obscurity, Thou dewy dawn of memory.

[1] 1830. Cam’st.

[2] 1830. Kist.

[3] Transferred from _Timbuctoo_.

And these with lavish’d sense
Listenist the lordly music flowing from
The illimitable years.

[4] The poplars have now disappeared but the seven elms are still to be seen in the garden behind the house. See Napier, _The Laureate’s County_, pp. 22, 40-41.

[5] This is the Somersby brook which so often reappears in Tennyson’s poetry, cf. _Millers Daughter, A Farewell_, and _In Memoriam_, 1 xxix. and c.

[6] 1830. Waked. For the epithet “dew-impearled” _cf._ Drayton, _Ideas_, sonnet liii., “amongst the dainty _dew-impearled flowers_,” where the epithet is more appropriate and intelligible.

[7] 1830. The few.

[8] 1830 and 1842. Thee.

[9] 1830. Methinks were, so till 1850, when it was altered to the present reading.

[10] The cottage at Maplethorpe where the Tennysons used to spend the summer holidays. (See _Life_, i., 46.)

[11] 1830. Emblems or Glimpses of Eternity.

[12] 1830. Pleached. The whole of this passage is an exact description of the Parsonage garden at Somersby. See _Life_, i., 27.

Song

First printed in 1830.

The poem was written in the garden at the Old Rectory, Somersby; an autumn scene there which it faithfully describes. This poem seems to have haunted Poe, a fervent admirer of Tennyson’s early poems.

1

A Spirit haunts the year’s last hours Dwelling amid these yellowing bowers: To himself he talks; For at eventide, listening earnestly, At his work you may hear him sob and sigh In the walks; Earthward he boweth the heavy stalks Of the mouldering flowers: Heavily hangs the broad sunflower Over its grave i’ the earth so chilly; Heavily hangs the hollyhock, Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.

2

The air is damp, and hush’d, and close, As a sick man’s room when he taketh repose An hour before death; My very heart faints and my whole soul grieves At the moist rich smell of the rotting leaves, And the breath Of the fading edges of box beneath, And the year’s last rose. Heavily hangs the broad sunflower Over its grave i’ the earth so chilly; Heavily hangs the hollyhock, Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.

Adeline

First printed in 1830.

1

Mystery of mysteries, Faintly smiling Adeline, Scarce of earth nor all divine, Nor unhappy, nor at rest, But beyond expression fair With thy floating flaxen hair; Thy rose-lips and full blue eyes Take the heart from out my breast. Wherefore those dim looks of thine, Shadowy, dreaming Adeline?

2

Whence that aery bloom of thine, Like a lily which the sun Looks thro’ in his sad decline, And a rose-bush leans upon, Thou that faintly smilest still, As a Naïad in a well, Looking at the set of day, Or a phantom two hours old Of a maiden passed away, Ere the placid lips be cold? Wherefore those faint smiles of thine, Spiritual Adeline?

3

What hope or fear or joy is thine? Who talketh with thee, Adeline? For sure thou art not all alone: Do beating hearts of salient springs Keep measure with thine own? Hast thou heard the butterflies What they say betwixt their wings? Or in stillest evenings With what voice the violet woos To his heart the silver dews? Or when little airs arise, How the merry bluebell rings[1] To the mosses underneath? Hast thou look’d upon the breath Of the lilies at sunrise? Wherefore that faint smile of thine, Shadowy, dreaming Adeline?

4

Some honey-converse feeds thy mind, Some spirit of a crimson rose In love with thee forgets to close His curtains, wasting odorous sighs All night long on darkness blind. What aileth thee? whom waitest thou With thy soften’d, shadow’d brow, And those dew-lit eyes of thine,[2] Thou faint smiler, Adeline?

5

Lovest thou the doleful wind When thou gazest at the skies? Doth the low-tongued Orient[3] Wander from the side of[4] the morn, Dripping with Sabæan spice On thy pillow, lowly bent With melodious airs lovelorn, Breathing Light against thy face, While his locks a-dropping[5] twined Round thy neck in subtle ring Make a _carcanet of rays_,[6] And ye talk together still, In the language wherewith Spring Letters cowslips on the hill? Hence that look and smile of thine, Spiritual Adeline.

[1] This conceit seems to have been borrowed from Shelley, _Sensitive Plant_, i.:—

And the hyacinth, purple and white and blue,
Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew
Of music.

[2] _Cf._ Collins, _Ode to Pity_, “and _eyes of dewy light_”.

[3] What “the low-tongued Orient” may mean I cannot explain.

[4] 1830 and all editions till 1853. O’.

[5] 1863. A-drooping.

[6] A carcanet is a necklace, diminutive from old French “Carcan”. Cf. _Comedy of Errors_, in., i, “To see the making of her Carcanet”.

A Character

First printed in 1830.

The only authoritative light thrown on the person here described is what the present Lord Tennyson gives, who tells us that “the then well-known Cambridge orator S—was partly described”. He was “a very plausible, parliament-like, self-satisfied speaker at the Union Debating Society”. The character reminds us of Wordsworth’s Moralist. See _Poet’s Epitaph_;—

One to whose smooth-rubbed soul can cling,
Nor form nor feeling, great nor small;
A reasoning, self-sufficient thing,
An intellectual all in all.

Shakespeare’s fop, too (Hotspur’s speech, _Henry IV._, i., i., 2), seems to have suggested a touch or two.

With a half-glance upon the sky At night he said, “The wanderings Of this most intricate Universe Teach me the nothingness of things”. Yet could not all creation pierce Beyond the bottom of his eye.

He spake of beauty: that the dull Saw no divinity in grass, Life in dead stones, or spirit in air; Then looking as ’twere in a glass, He smooth’d his chin and sleek’d his hair, And said the earth was beautiful.

He spake of virtue: not the gods More purely, when they wish to charm Pallas and Juno sitting by: And with a sweeping of the arm, And a lack-lustre dead-blue eye, Devolved his rounded periods.

Most delicately hour by hour He canvass’d human mysteries, And trod on silk, as if the winds Blew his own praises in his eyes, And stood aloof from other minds In impotence of fancied power.

With lips depress’d as he were meek, Himself unto himself he sold: Upon himself himself did feed: Quiet, dispassionate, and cold, And other than his form of creed, With chisell’d features clear and sleek.

The Poet

First printed in 1830.

In this poem we have the first grand note struck by Tennyson, the first poem exhibiting the σπουδαιότης of the true poet.

The poet in a golden clime was born, With golden stars above; Dower’d with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn,[1] The love of love.

He saw thro’[2] life and death, thro’[3] good and ill, He saw thro’[4] his own soul. The marvel of the everlasting will, An open scroll,

Before him lay: with echoing feet he threaded The secretest walks of fame: The viewless arrows of his thoughts were headed And wing’d with flame,—

Like Indian reeds blown from his silver tongue, And of so fierce a flight, From Calpe unto Caucasus they sung, Filling with light

And vagrant melodies the winds which bore Them earthward till they lit; Then, like the arrow-seeds of the field flower, The fruitful wit

Cleaving, took root, and springing forth anew Where’er they fell, behold, Like to the mother plant in semblance, grew A flower all gold,

And bravely furnish’d all abroad to fling The winged shafts of truth, To throng with stately blooms the breathing spring Of Hope and Youth.

So many minds did gird their orbs with beams, Tho’[5] one did fling the fire. Heaven flow’d upon the soul in many dreams Of high desire.

Thus truth was multiplied on truth, the world Like one[6] great garden show’d, And thro’ the wreaths of floating dark upcurl’d, Rare sunrise flow’d.

And Freedom rear’d in that august sunrise Her beautiful bold brow, When rites and forms before his burning eyes Melted like snow.

There was no blood upon her maiden robes Sunn’d by those orient skies; But round about the circles of the globes Of her keen eyes

And in her raiment’s hem was traced in flame WISDOM, a name to shake All evil dreams of power—a sacred name.[7] And when she spake,

Her words did gather thunder as they ran, And as the lightning to the thunder Which follows it, riving the spirit of man, Making earth wonder,

So was their meaning to her words. No sword Of wrath her right arm whirl’d,[8] But one poor poet’s scroll, and with _his_ word She shook the world.

[1] The expression, as is not uncommon with Tennyson, is extremely ambiguous; it may mean that he hated hatred, scorned scorn, and loved love, or that he had hatred, scorn and love as it were in quintessence, like Dante, and that is no doubt the meaning

[2] 1830. Through.

[3] 1830. Through.

[4] 1830. Through.

[5] 1830 till 1851. Though.

[6] 1830. A.

[7] 1830.

And in the bordure of her robe was writ Wisdom, a name to shake Hoar anarchies, as with a thunderfit.

[8] 1830. Hurled.

The Poet’s Mind

First published in 1830. A companion poem to the preceding.

After line 7 in 1830 appears this stanza, afterwards omitted:—

Clear as summer mountain streams, Bright as the inwoven beams, Which beneath their crisping sapphire In the midday, floating o’er The golden sands, make evermore To a blossom-starrèd shore. Hence away, unhallowed laughter!

1

Vex not thou the poet’s mind With thy shallow wit: Vex not thou the poet’s mind; For thou canst not fathom it. Clear and bright it should be ever, Flowing like a crystal river; Bright as light, and clear as wind.

2

Dark-brow’d sophist, come not anear; All the place[1] is holy ground; Hollow smile and frozen sneer Come not here. Holy water will I pour Into every spicy flower Of the laurel-shrubs that hedge it around. The flowers would faint at your cruel cheer. In your eye there is death, There is frost in your breath Which would blight the plants. Where you stand you cannot hear From the groves within The wild-bird’s din. In the heart of the garden the merry bird chants, It would fall to the ground if you came in. In the middle leaps a fountain Like sheet lightning, Ever brightening With a low melodious thunder; All day and all night it is ever drawn From the brain of the purple mountain Which stands in the distance yonder: It springs on a level of bowery lawn, And the mountain draws it from Heaven above, And it sings a song of undying love; And yet, tho’[2] its voice be so clear and full, You never would hear it; your ears are so dull; So keep where you are: you are foul with sin; It would shrink to the earth if you came in.

[1] 1830. The poet’s mind. With this may be compared the opening stanza of Gray’s _Installation Ode_: “Hence! avaunt! ’tis holy ground,” and for the sentiments _cf_. Wordsworth’s _Poet’s Epitaph._

[2] 1830 to 1851. Though.

The Sea Fairies

First published in 1830 but excluded from all editions till its restoration, when it was greatly altered, in 1853. I here give the text as it appeared in 1830; where the present text is the same as that of 1830 asterisks indicate it.

This poem is a sort of prelude to the _Lotos-Eaters_, the burthen being the same, a siren song: “Why work, why toil, when all must be over so soon, and when at best there is so little to reward?”

Slow sailed the weary mariners, and saw Between the green brink and the running foam White limbs unrobed in a chrystal air, Sweet faces, etc. ... middle sea.

SONG