Poésies de Alfred Lord TennysonFlow down, cold rivulet, to the sea,
Thy tribute wave deliver:
No more by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.
I thought of Thee, my partner and my guide,
As being past away. -Vain sympathies!
For backward, Duddon! as I cast my eyes,
All Things will Die
Clearly the blue river chimes in its flowing
Under my eye;
Warmly and broadly the south winds are blowing
MY father left a park to me,
But it is wild and barren,
A garden too with scarce a tree,
And waster than a warren:
Ask me no more: the moon may draw the sea;
The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape,
Audley Court
?The Bull, the Fleece are cramm?d, and not a room
For love or money. Let us picnic there
At Audley Court.?
'And ask ye why these sad tears stream?'
?Te somnia nostra reducunt.?
OVID.
And ask ye why these sad tears stream?
Pellam the King, who held and lost with Lot
In that first war, and had his realm restored
Athelstan King,
Lord among Earls,
Bracelet-bestower and
Baron of Barons,
He with his brother,
Edmund Atheling,
Beautiful city
Beautiful city, the centre and crater of European confusion,
THE splendour falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story:
The long light shakes across the lakes,
While about the shore of Mona those Neronian legionaries
Burnt and broke the grove and altar of the Druid and Druidess,
By an Evolutionist
The Lord let the house of a brute to the soul of a man,
And the man said, ?Am I your debtor??
I.
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
Where Claribel low-lieth
The breezes pause and die,
Letting the rose-leaves fall:
But the solemn oak-tree sigheth,
Where Claribel low-lieth
The breezes pause and die,
Letting the rose-leaves fall:
But the solemn oak-tree sigheth,
COME down, O maid, from yonder mountain height:
What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang),
Come into the garden, Maud,
For the black bat, Night, has flown,
Come into the garden, Maud,
I am here at the gate alone;
Come not, when I am dead,
To drop thy foolish tears upon my grave,
To trample round my fallen head,
What does little birdie say
In her nest at peep of day?
Let me fly, says little birdie,
Mother, let me fly away.
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
Dedication
These to His Memory--since he held them dear,
Perchance as finding there unconsciously
Faint as a climate-changing bird that flies
All night across the darkness, and at dawn
1. Is it the wind of the dawn that I hear
in the pine overhead?
2. No; but the voice of the deep as it hollows
Long lines of cliff breaking have left a chasm;
And in the chasm are foam and yellow sands;
O LOVE, Love, Love! O withering might!
O sun, that from thy noonday height
Shudderest when I strain my sight,
The last tall son of Lot and Bellicent,
And tallest, Gareth, in a showerful spring
Stared at the spate.A slender-shafted Pine
O purblind race of miserable men,
How many among us at this very hour
Do forge a life-long trouble for ourselves,
Queen Guinevere had fled the court, and sat
There in the holy house at Almesbury
Weeping, none with her save a little maid,
O you chorus of indolent reviewers,
Irresponsible, indolent reviewers,
Look, I come to the test, a tiny poem
Home they brought her warrior dead:
She nor swooned, nor uttered cry:
All her maidens, watching, said,
How thought you that this thing could captivate?
What are those graces that could make her dear,
Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel, and lower the proud;
Turn thy wild wheel thro' sunshine, storm, and cloud;
Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel, and lower the proud;
Turn thy wild wheel thro' sunshine, storm, and cloud;
That story which the bold Sir Bedivere,
First made and latest left of all the knights,
O living will that shalt endure
When all that seems shall suffer shock,
Rise in the spiritual rock,
I envy not in any moods
The captive void of noble rage,
The linnet born within the cage,
That never knew the summer woods:
O Sorrow, cruel fellowship,
O Priestess in the vaults of Death,
O sweet and bitter in a breath,
I wage not any feud with Death
For changes wrought on form and face;
No lower life that earth's embrace
O Sorrow, cruel fellowship,
O Priestess in the vaults of Death,
O sweet and bitter in a breath,
That which we dare invoke to bless;
Our dearest faith; our ghastliest doubt;
He, They, One, All; within, without;
To-night ungather'd let us leave
This laurel, let this holly stand:
We live within the stranger's land,
IT was the time when lilies blow,
And clouds are highest up in air,
Lord Ronald brought a lily-white doe
Elaine the fair, Elaine the loveable,
Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat,
High in her chamber up a tower to the east
Late, late, so late! and dark the night and chill!
Late, late, so late! but we can enter still.
I
Airy, Fairy Lilian,
Flitting, fairy Lilian,
When I ask her if she love me,
Claps her tiny hands above me,
Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet 't is early morn:
Lucilla, wedded to Lucretius, found
Her master cold; for when the morning flush
Of passion and the first embrace had died
WITH BLACKEST moss the flower-plots
Were thickly crusted, one and all:
The rusted nails fell from the knots
With one black shadow at its feet,
The house thro' all the level shines,
Close-latticed to the brooding heat,
.
O that 'twere possible
.
After long grief and pain
.
To find the arms of my true love
.
Round me once again!2.
A storm was coming, but the winds were still,
And in the wild woods of Broceliande,
Before an oak, so hollow, huge and old
O mighty-mouth'd inventor of harmonies,
O skill'd to sing of Time or Eternity,
God-gifted organ-voice of England,
Minnie and Winnie
Slept in a shell.
Sleep, little ladies!
And they slept well.
Pink was the shell within,
Silver without;
So all day long the noise of battle roll'd
Among the mountains by the winter sea;
Until King Arthur's table, man by man,
Move eastward, happy earth, and leave
Yon orange sunset waning slow:
From fringes of the faded eve,
Wheer 'asta beän saw long and meä liggin' 'ere aloän?
Noorse? thoort nowt o' a noorse: whoy, Doctor's abeän an' agoän;
Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;
O beauty, passing beauty! Sweetest sweet!
How can thou let me waste my youth in sighs?
I only ask to sit beside thy feet.
O, were I loved as I desire to be!
What is there in the great sphere of the earth,
Or range of evil between death and birth,
Of old sat Freedom on the heights,
The thunders breaking at her feet:
Above her shook the starry lights:
Of old sat Freedom on the heights,
The thunders breaking at her feet:
Above her shook the starry lights:
King Arthur made new knights to fill the gap
Left by the Holy Quest; and as he sat
In hall at old Caerleon, the high doors
The splendour falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story:
The long light shakes across the lakes,
When the breeze of a joyful dawn blew free
In the silken sail of infancy,
The tide of time flow'd back with me,
Fair is her cottage in its place,
Where yon broad water sweetly slowly glides.
It sees itself from thatch to base
A city clerk, but gently born and bred;
His wife, an unknown artist's orphan child--
MY good blade carves the casques of men,
My tough lance thrusteth sure,
My strength is as the strength of ten,
LIKE souls that balance joy and pain,
With tears and smiles from heaven again
The maiden Spring upon the plain
Birds' love and birds' song
Flying here and there,
Birds' songand birds' love
And you with gold for hair!
Deep on the convent-roof the snows
Are sparkling to the moon:
My breath to heaven like vapour goes;
May my soul follow soon!
Sweet and low, sweet and low,
Wind of the western sea,
Low, low, breathe and blow,
Wind of the western sea!
Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
I come from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.
HALF a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
Leodogran, the King of Cameliard,
Had one fair daughter, and none other child;
And she was the fairest of all flesh on earth,
Life and Thought have gone away
Side by side,
Leaving door and windows wide.
Careless tenants they!
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.
Once in a golden hour
I cast to earth a seed.
Up there came a flower,
The people said, a weed.
To and fro they went
Excerpt from "Maud"
She is coming, my own, my sweet;
Were it ever so airy a tread,
My heart would hear her and beat,
I.
And Willy, my eldest-born, is gone, you say, little Anne?
Ruddy and white, and strong on his legs, he looks like a man.
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
You ask me, why, tho' ill at ease,
Within this region I subsist,
Whose spirits falter in the mist,
