A Treasury of Favorite Poems

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

The Kraken

Below the thunders of the upper deep,
Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee

About his shadowy sides; above him swell

Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;

And far away into the sickly light,

From many a wondrous grot and secret cell

I’nnumber’d and enormous polypi

Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.

There hath he lain for ages, and will lie

Battening upon huge sea-worms in his sleep,

Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;

Then once by man and angels to be seen,

In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.

Mariana

Mariana in the moated grange.

Measure for Measure

With blackest moss the flower-plots

Were thickly crusted, one and all;

The rusted nails fell from the knots

That held the pear to the gable-wall.

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;

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 morn
About the lonely moated grange.

She only said, “The night 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
The level waste, the rounding gray.
She only said, “The night 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,

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; 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, “The night 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 toward his western bower.

She only said, “The night is dreary,

            He cometh not,” she said;
            She said, “I am aweary, aweary,
                  I would that I were dead!”

The Lady of Shalott

Part I

On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
Aud thro’ the field the road runs by

To many-tower’d Camelot;
And up and down the people go,
Gazing where the lilies blow
Round an island there below,

The island of Shalott.

Willows whiten, aspens quiver,

Little breezes dusk and shiver
Thro’ the wave that runs for ever
By the island in the river

Flowing down to Camelot.
Four gray walls, and four gray towers,
Overlook a space of flowers,
And the silent isle imbowers

The Lady of Shalott.

By the margin, willow-veil’d,

Slide the heavy barges trail’d

By slow horses; and unhail’d

The shallop flitteth silken-sail’d

Skimming down to Camelot:
But who hath seen her wave her hand?
Or at the casement seen her stand?
Or is she known in all the land,

The Lady of Shalott?

Only reapers, reaping early

In among the bearded barley,

Hear a song that echoes cheerly

From the river winding clearly,

Down to tower’d Camelot;

And by the moon the reaper weary,

Piling sheaves in uplands airy,

Listening, whispers “ ‘’Tis the fairy

Lady of Shalott.”

Part II

There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colors gay.
She has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on her if she stay

To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the curse may be,
And so she weaveth steadily,
And little other care hath she,

The Lady of Shalott.

And moving thro’ a mirror clear
That hangs before her all the year,
Shadows of the world appear.
There she sees the highway near

Winding down to Camelot;
There the river eddy whirls,
And there the surly village-churls,
And the red cloaks of market girls,

Pass onward from Shalott.

Sometimes a troop of damsels glad,
An abbot on an ambling pad,
Sometimes a curly shepherd-lad,
Or long-hair’d page in crimson clad,

Goes by to tower’d Camelot;

And sometimes thro’ the mirror blue

The knights come riding two and two:

She hath no loyal knight and true,

The Lady of Shalott.

But in her web she still delights
To weave the mirror’s magic sights,
For often thro’ the silent nights
A funeral, with plumes and lights

And music, went to Camelot;
Or when the moon was overhead,
Came two young lovers lately wed:
“I am half sick of shadows,” said

The Lady of Shalott.

Part III

A bow-shot from her bower-eaves,

He rode between the barley-sheaves.

The sun came dazzling thro’ the leaves,
And flamed upon the brazen greaves

Of bold Sir Lancelot.
A red-cross knight for ever kneel’d
To a lady in his shield,
That sparkled on the yellow field,

Beside remote Shalott.

The gemmy bridle glitter’d free,
Like to some branch of stars we see
Hung in the golden Galaxy.
The bridle bells rang merrily

As he rode down to Camelot;
And from his blazon’d baldric slung
A mighty silver bugle hung,
And as he rode his armor rung,

Beside remote Shalott.

All in the blue unclouded weather
Thick-jewell’d shone the saddle-leather,
The helmet and the helmet-feather
Burn’d like one burning flame together,

As he rode down to Camelot;
As often thro’ the purple night,
Below the starry clusters bright,
Some bearded meteor, trailing light,

Moves over still Shalott.

His broad clear brow in sunlight glow’d;
On burnish’d hooves his war-horse trode;
From underneath his helmet flow’d
His coal-black curls as on he rode,

As he rode down to Camelot.
From the bank and from the river
He flash’d into the crystal mirror,
“Tirra lirra,” by the river

Sang Sir Lancelot.

She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces thro’ the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,

She look’d down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack’d from side to side;
“The curse is come upon me,” cried

The Lady of Shalott.

Part IV

In the stormy east-wind straining,
The pale yellow woods were waning,
The broad stream in his banks complaining,
Heavily the low sky raining

Over tower’d Camelot;

Down she came and found a boat
Beneath a willow left afloat,
And round about the prow she wrote
The Lady of Shalott.

And down the river’s dim expanse

Like some bold seer in a trance,

Seeing all his own mischance—

With a glassy countenance

Did she look to Camelot.
And at the closing of the day
She loosed the chain, and down she lay|
The broad stream bore her far away,

The Lady of Shalott.

Lying, robed in snowy white
That loosely flew to left and right—
The leaves upon her falling light—
Thro’ the noises of the night

She floated down to Camelot;
And as the boat-head wound along
The willowy hills and fields among,
They heard her singing her last song,

The Lady of Shalott.

Heard a carol, mournful, holy,
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her blood was frozen slowly,
And her eyes were darken’d wholly,

Turn’d to tower’d Camelot.
For ere she reach’d upon the tide

The first house by the water-side,
Singing in her song she died,

The Lady of Shalott.

Under tower and balcony,

By garden-wall and gallery,

A gleaming shape she floated by,

Dead-pale between the houses high,

Silent into Camelot.

Out upon the wharfs they came,

Knight and burgher, lord and dame,

And round the prow they read her name,

The Lady of Shalott.

Who is this? and what is here?
And in the lighted palace near
Died the sound of royal cheer;
And they cross’d themselves for fear,

All the knights at Camelot:
But Lancelot mused a little space;
He said, “She has a lovely face;
God in his mercy lend her grace,

The Lady of Shalott.”

Morte d’Arthur

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,

Had fallen in Lyonness about their lord,

King Arthur; then, because his wound was deep,

The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him,

Sir Bedivere, the last of all his knights,

And bore him to a chapel nigh the fleld,

A broken chancel with a broken cross,

That stood on a dark strait of barren land.

On one side lay the ocean, and on one

Lay a great water, and the moon was full.

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere:

“The sequel of to-day unsolders all

The goodliest fellowship of famous knights

Whereof this world holds record. Such a sleep

They sleep—the men I loved. I think that we

Shall never more, at any future time,

Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds,

Walking about the gardens and the halls
Of Camelot, as in the days that were.
I perish by this people which I made,—
Tho’ Merlin sware that I should come again

To rule once more—but let what will be be,

I am so deeply smitten thro’ the helm

That without help I cannot la t till morn.

Thou therefore take my brand Excalibur,

Which was my pride; for thou rememberest how

In those old days, one summer noon, an arm

Rose up from out the bosom of the lake,

Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,

Holding the sword—and how I row’d across

And took it, and have worn it, like a king;

And, wheresoever I am sung or told

In aftertime, this also shall be known.

But now delay not; take Excalibur,

And fling him far into the middle mere;

Watch what thou seest, and lightly bring me word.”

To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere:

“It is not meet, Sir King, to leave thee thus,

Aidless, alone, and smitten thro’ the helm.

A little thing may harm a wounded man.

Yet I thy best will all perform at full,

Watch what I see, and lightly bring thee word.”

So saying, from the ruin’d shrine he stept

And in the moon athwart the place of tombs,

Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men,

Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang

Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam. He, stepping down

By zigzag paths and juts of pointed rock,

Came on the shining levels of the lake.

There drew he forth the brand Excalibur,

And o’er him, drawing it, the winter moon,

Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth

And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt;

For all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks,

Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth-work

Of subtlest jewellery. He gazed so long

That both his eyes were dazzled, as he stood,

This way and that dividing the swift mind,
In act to throw; but at the last it seem’d
Better to leave Excalibur conceal’d
There in the many-knotted water-flags,
That whistled stiff and dry about marge.

So strode he kick slow to the wounded king.

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere:

“Hast tliun perform’d my mission which I gave?

What is it thou hast seen, or what hast heard?”

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere:

“I heard the ripple washing in the reeds,

And the wild water lapping on the crag.”

To whom replied King Arthur, faint and pale:

“Thou hast betray’d thy nature and thy name,

Not rendering true answer, as heseem’d
Thy fealty, nor like a noble knight;
For surer sign had followed, either hand,
Or voice, or else a motion of the mere.
This is a shameful thing for men to lie.
Yet now. I charge thee, quieklv go again
As thou art lief and dear, and do the thing
I bade thee, watch, and lightly bring me word.”

Then went Sir Bedivere the second time

Across the ridge, and paced beside the mere,

Counting the dewy pebbles, fix’d in thought;

But when lie saw the wonder of the hilt,

How curiously and strangely chased, he smote

His palms together, and lie cried aloud:
“And if indeed I cast the brand away,
Surely a precious thing, one worthy note,
Should thus be lost forever from the earth,
Which might have pleased the eyes of many men.

What good should follow this, if this were done?

What harm, undone? deep harm to disobey,

Seeing obedience is the bond of rule.
Were it well to obey then, if a king demand

An act unprofitable, against himself?
The king is sick, and knows not what he does.

What record, or what relic of my lord

Should be to aftertime but empty breath

And rumors of a doubt? but were this kept,

Stored in some treasure-house of mighty kings,

Some one might show it at a joust of arms,

Saying, “King Arthur’s sword, Excalibur.

Wrought by the lonely maiden of the lake;

Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps

Upon the hidden bases of the hills.”

So might some old man speak in the aftertime

To all the people, winning reverence;

But now much honor and much fame were lost.”

So spake he, clouded with his own conceit,

And hid Excalibur the second time,
And so strode back slow to the wounded king.

Then spoke King Arthur, breathing heavily:

“What is it thou hast seen, or what hast heard?”

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere:

“I heard the water lapping on the crag,

And the long ripple washing in the reeds.”

To whom replied King Arthur, much in wrath:

“Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue,

Unknightly, traitor-hearted! Woe is me!
Authority forgets a dying king,
Laid widow’d of the power in his eye
That bow’d the will. I see thee what thou art,

For thou, the latest-left of all my knights,

In whom should meet the offices of all,

Thou wouldst betray me for the precious hilt;

Either from lust of gold, or like a girl

Valuing the giddy pleasure of the eyes.

Yet, for a man may fail in duty twice,

And the third time may prosper, get thee hence;

But, if thou spare to fling Excalibur,
I will arise and slay thee with my hands.”

Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran,

And, leaping down the ridges lightly, plunged

Among the bulrush-beds, and elutch’d the sword,

And strongly wheel’d and threw it. The great brand

Made lightnings in the splendor of the moon,

And flashing round and round, and whirl’d in an arch,

Shot like a streamer of the northern morn,

Seen where the moving isles of winter shock

By night, with noises of the northern sea.

So flash’d and fell the brand Excalibur;

But ere be dipt the surface, rose an arm

Cloth’d in white samite, mystic, wonderful,

And caught him by the hilt, and brandisu’d him

Three times, and drew him under in the mere.

And lightly went the other to the king.

Then spoke King Arthur, drawing thicker breath:

“Now see I by thine eyes that this is done.

Speak out; what is it thou hast heard, or seen?”

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere:

“Sir King, I closed mine eyelids, lest the gems

Should blind my purpose, for I never saw,

Nor shall see, here or elsewhere, till I die,

Not tho’ I live three lives of mortal men,

So great a miracle as yonder hilt.

Then with both hands I flung him, wheeling him;

But when I look’d again, behold an arm,

Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,

That caught him by the hilt, and brandish’d him

Three times, and drew him under in the mere.”

And answer made King Arthur, breathing hard:

“My end draws nigh; ’tis time that I were gone.

Make broad thy shoulders to receive my weight,

And bear me to the margin; yet I fear

My wound hath taken coid, and I shall die.”

So saying, from the pavement he half rose,

Slowly, with pain, reclining on his arm,

And looking wistfully with wide blue eyes

As in a picture. Him Sir Bedivere
Remorsefully regarded thro’ his tears,
And would have spoken, but he found not words,

Then took with care, and kneeling on one knee,

O’er both his shoulders drew the languid hands,

And rising bore him thro’ the place of tombs.

But, as he walk’d, King Arthur panted hard,

Like one that feels a nightmare on his bed

When all the house is mute. So sigh’d the king,

Muttering and murmuring at his ear, “Quick, quick!

I fear it is too late, and I shall die.”
But the other swiftly strode from ridge to ridge,

Clothed with his breath, and looking, as he walk’d,

Larger than human on the frozen hills.

He heard the deep behind him, and a cry

Before. His own thought drove him like a goad.

Dry clash’d his harness in the icy caves

And barren chasms, and all to left and right

The bare black cliff clang’d round him, as he based

His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang

Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels—

And on a sudden, lo! the level lake,

And the long glories of the winter moon.

Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge,

Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern,

Beneath them; and descending they were ware

That all the decks were dense with stately forms

Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream—by these

Three queens with crowns of gold—and from them rose

A cry that shiver’d to the tingling stars,

And, as it were one voice, an agony

Of lamentation, like a wind that shrills

All night in a waste land, where no one comes,

Or hath come, since the making of the world.

Then murmur’d Arthur, “Place me in the barge,”

And to the barge they came. There those three queens

Put forth their hands, and took the king, and wept.

But she that rose the tallest of them all

And fairest laid his head upon her lap,

And loosed the shatter’d casque, and chafed his hands,

And call’d him by his name, complaining loud,

And dropping bitter tears against his brow

Striped with dark blood; for all his face was white

And colorless, and like the wither’d moon

Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east;

And all his greaves and cuisses dash’d with drops

Of onset; and the light and lustrous curls—

That made his forehead like a rising sun

High from the dais-throne—were parch’d with dust;

Or, clotted into points and hanging loose,

Mix’d with the knightly growth that fringed his lips.

So like a shatter’d column lay the king;

Not like that Arthur who, with lance in rest,

From spur to plume a star of tournament,

Shot thro’ the lists at Camelot, and charged

Before the eyes of ladies and of kings.

Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere:

“Ah! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go?

Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes?

For now I see the true old times are dead,

When every morning brought a noble chance,

And every chance brought out a noble knight.

Such times have been not since the light that led

The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh.

But now the whole round table is dissolved

Which was an image of the mighty world;

And I, the last, go forth companionless,

And the days darken round me, and the years,

Among new men, strange faces, other minds.”

And slowly answer’d Arthur from the barge:

“The old order changeth, yielding place to new,

And God fulfils himself in many ways,

Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.

Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me?

I have lived my life, and that which I have done

May He within himself make pure! But thou,

If thou shouldst never see my face again,

Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer

Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice

Rise like a fountain for me night and day.

For what are men better than sheep or goats

That nourish a blind life within the brain,

If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer

Both for themselves and those who call them friend?

For so the whole round earth is every way

Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.

But now farewell. I am going a long way

With these thou seest—if indeed I go—

For all my mind is clouded with a doubt—

To the island-valley of Avilion;

Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,

Nor ever wind blows loudly, but it lies

Deep-meadow’d, happy, fair with orchard lawns

And bowery hollows crown’d with summer sea,

Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.”

So said he, and the barge with oar and sail

Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan

That, fluting a wild carol ere her death,

Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood

With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere

Revolving many memories, till the hull

Look’d one black dot against the verge of dawn,

And on the mere the wailing died away.

Here ended Hall, and our last light, that long

Had wink’d and threaten’d darkness, flare and fell;

At which the parson, sent to sleep with sound,

And waked with silence, grunted “Good!” but we

Sat rapt: it was the tone with which he read—

Perhaps some modern touches here and there

Redeem’d it from the charge of nothingness—

Or else we loved the man, and prized his work;

I know not; but we sitting, as I said,

The cock crew loud, as at that time of year

The lusty bird takes every hour for dawn.

Then Francis, muttering, like a man ill-used,

“There now—that’s nothing!” drew a little back,

And drove his heel into the smoulder’d log,

That sent a blast of sparkles up the flue.

And so to bed, where yet in sleep I seem’d

To sail with Arthur under looming shores,

Point after point; till on to dawn, when dreams

Begin to feel the truth and stir of day,
To me, methought, who waited with the crowd,

There came a bark that, blowing forward, bore

King Arthur, like a modern gentleman

Of stateliest port; and all the people cried,

“Arthur is come again: he cannot die.”

Then those that stood upon the hills behind

Repeated—“Come again, and thrice as fair”;

And, further inland, voices echoed—“Come

With all good things, and war shall be no more.”

At this a hundred bells began to peal,

That with the sound I woke, and heard indeed

The clear church-bells ring in the Christmas morn.

Locksley Hall

Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet ’tis early morn;

Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle-horn.

’T is the place, and all around it, as of old, the curlews call,

Dreary gleams about the moorland flying over Locksley Hall;

Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts,

And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts.

Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest,

Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the west.

Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro’ the mellow shade,

Glitter like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid.

Here about the beach I wander’d, nourishing a youth sublime

With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of time;

When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed;

When I clung to all the present for the promise that it closed;

When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see,

Saw the vision of the world and all the wonder that would be.—

In the spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin’s breast;

In the spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest;

In the spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish’d dove;

In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.

Then her cheek was pale and thinner than should be for one so young,

And her eyes on all my motions with a mute observance hung.

And I said, “My cousin Amy, speak, and speak the truth to me,

Trust me, cousin, all the current of my being sets to thee.”

On her pallid cheek and forehead came a color and a light,

As I have seen the rosy red flushing in the northern night.

And she turn’d—her bosom shaken with a sudden storm of sighs—

All the spirit deeply dawning in the dark of hazel eyes—

Saying, “I have hid my feelings, fearing they should do me wrong”;

Saying, “Dost thou love me, cousin?” weeping, “I have loved thee long.”

Love took up the glass of Time, and turn’d it in his glowing hands;

Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands.

Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might;

Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, past in music out of sight.

Many a morning on the moorland did we hear the copses ring,

And her whisper throng’d my pulses with the fulness of the spring.

Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately ships,

And our spirits rush’d together at the touching of the lips.

O my cousin, shallow-hearted! O my Amy, mine no more!

O the dreary, dreary moorland! O the barren, barren shore!

Falser than all fancy fathoms, falser than all songs have sung,

Puppet to a father’s threat, and servile to a shrewish tongue!

Is it well to wish thee happy ?—having known me—to decline

On a range of lower feelings and a narrower heart than mine!

Yet it shall be; thou shalt lower to his level day by day,

What is fine within thee growing coarse to sympathize with clay.

As the husband is, the wife is; thou art mated with a clown,

And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down.

He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force,

Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse.

What is this? his eyes are heavy; think not they are glazed with wine.

Go to him, it is thy duty; kiss him, take his hand in thine.

It may be my lord is weary, that his brain is overwrought;

Soothe him with thy finer fancies, touch him with thy lighter thought.

He will answer to the purpose, easy things to understand—

Better thou wert dead before me, tho’ I slew thee with my hand!

Better thou and I were lying, hidden from the heart’s disgrace,

Roll’d in one another’s arms, and silent in a last embrace.

Cursed be the social wants that sin against the strength of youth!

Cursed be the social lies that warp us from the living truth!

Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest Nature’s rule!

Cursed be the gold that gilds the straiten’d forehead of the fool!

Well—’tis well that I should bluster!—Hadst thou less unworthy proved —

Would to God—for I had loved thee more than ever wife was loved.

Am I mad, that I should cherish that which hears but bitter fruit?

I will pluck it from my bosom, tho’ my heart be at the root.

Never, tho’ my mortal summers to such length of years should come

As the many-winter’d crow that leads the clanging rookery home.

Where is comfort? in division of the records of the mind?

Can I part hor from hersplf, and love her, as I knew her, kind?

I remember one that perish’d; sweetly did she speak and move;

Such a one do I remember, whom to look at was to love.

Can I think of her as dead, and love her for the love she bore?

No—she never loved me truly; love is love for evermore.

Comfort? comfort scorn’d of devils ! this is truth the poet sings,

That a sorrow’s crown of sorrow is remembering happier things.

Drug thy memories, lest thou learn it, lest tny heart be put to proof,

In the dead unhappy night, and when the rain is on the roof.

Like a dug, he hunts in dreams, and thou art staring at the wall,

Where the dying night-lamp flickers, and the shadows rise and fall.

Then a hand shall pass before thee, pointing to his drunken sleep,

To thy widow’d marriage-pillows, to the tears that thou wilt weep.

Thou shalt bear the ‘Never, never,’ whispei-’d by the phantom years,

And a song from out the distance in the ringing of thine ears;

And an eye shall vex thee, looking ancient kindness on thy pain.

Turn thee, turn thee on thy pillow; get thee to thy rest again.

Nay, but Nature brings thee solace; for a tender voice will cry.

’T is a purer life than thine, a lip to drain thy trouble dry.

Baby lips will laugh me down; my latest rival brings thee rest.

Baby fingers, waxen touches, press me from the mother’s breast.

O, the child too clothes the father with a dearness not his due.

Half is thine and half is his; it will be worthy of the two.

O, I see thee old and formal, fitted to thy petty part,

With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter’s heart.

“They were dangerous guides the feelings—she herself was not exempt—

Truly, she herself had suffer’d”—Perish in thy self-contempt!

Overlive it—lower yet—be happy! wherefore should I care?

I myself must mix with action, lest I wither by despair.

What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon days like these?

Every door is barr’d with gold, and opens but to golden keys. too

Every gate is throng’d with suitors, all the markets overflow.

I have but an angry fancy; what is that which I should do?

I had been content to perish, falling on the foeman’s ground,

When the ranks are roll’d in vapor, and the winds are laid with sound.

But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that Honor feels,

And the nations do but murmur, snarling at each other’s heels.

Can I but relive in sadness? I will turn that earlier page.

Hide me from my deep emotion, O thou Wondrous Mother-Age!

Make me feel the wild pulsation that I felt before the strife,

When I heard my days before me, and the tumult of my life;

Yearning for the large excitement that the coming years would yield,

Eager-hearted as a boy when first he leaves his father’s field,

And at night along the dusky highway near and nearer drawn,

Sees in heaven the light of London flaring like a dreary dawn;

And his spirit leaps within him to be gone before him then,

Underneath the light he looks at, in among the throngs of men;

Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new;

That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do.

For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,

Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;

Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,

Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales;

Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain’d a ghastly dew

From the nations’ airy navies grappling in the central blue;

Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm,

With the standards of the peoples plunging thro’ the thunder-storm;

Till the war-drum throbb’d no longer, and the battle-flags were furl’d

In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.

There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe.

And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.

So I triumph’d ere my passion sweeping thro’ me left me dry,

Left me with the palsied heart, and left me with the jaundiced eye;

Eye, to which all order festers, all things here are out of joint.

Science moves, but slowly, slowly, creepingon from point to point;

Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lion, creeping nigher,

Glares at one that nods and winks behind slowly-dying fire.

Yet I doubt not thro’ the ages one increasing purpose runs,

And the thoughts of men are widen’d with the process of the suns.

What is that to him that reaps not harvest of his youthful joys,

Tho’ the deep heart of existence beat for ever like a boy’s?

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I linger on the shore,

And the individual withers, and the world is more and more.

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and he bears a laden breast,

Full of sad experience, moving toward the stillness of his rest.

Hark, my merry comrades call n10, sounding on the bugle-horn,

They to whom my foolish passion were a target for their scorn.

Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a moulder’d string?

I am shamed thro’ all my nature to have loved so slight a thing.

Weakness to be wroth with weakness! woman’s pleasure, woman’s pain—

Nature made them blinder motions bounded in a shallower brain.

Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, match’d with mine,

Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine —

Here at least, where nature sickens, nothing.

Ah, for some retreat Deep in yonder shining Orient, where my life began to beat,

Where in wild Mahratta-battle fell my father evil-starr’d;—

I was left a trampled orphan, and a selfish uncle’s ward.

Or to burst all links of habit—there to wander far away,

On from island unto island at the gateways of the day.

Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies,

Breadths of tropic shade and palms in cluster, knots of Paradise.

Never come? the trader, never floats an European flag,

Slides the bird o’er lustrous woodland, swings the trailer from the crag;

Droops the heavy-blossom’d bower, hangs the heavy-fruited tree—

Summer isles of Eden lying in dark-purple spheres of sea.

There methinks would be enjoyment more than in this march of mind,

In the steamship, in the railway, in the thoughts that shake mankind.

There the passions cramp’d no longer shall have scope and breathing space;

I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my dusky race.

Iron-jointed, supple-sinew’d, they shall dive, and they shall run,

Catch the wild goat by the hair, and hurl their lances in the sun;

Whistle back the parrot’s call, and leap the rainbows of the brooks,

Not with blinded eyesight poring over miserable books—

Fool, again the dream, the fancy! but I know my words are wild,

But I count the gray barbarian lower than the Christian child.

I, to herd with narrow foreheads, vacant of our glorious gains,

Like a beast with lower pleasures, like a beast with lower pains!

Mated with a squalid savage—what to me were sun or clime?

I the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time—

I that rather held it better men should perish one by one,

Than that earth should stand at gaze like Joshua’s moon in Ajalon!

Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us range,

Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change.

Thro’ the shadow of the globe we sweep into the younger day;

Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.

Mother-Age,—for mine I knew not,—help me as when life begun;

Rift the hills, and roll the waters, flash the lightnings, weigh the sun.

O, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath not set.

Ancient founts of inspiration well thro’ all my fancy yet.

Howsoever these things be, a long farewell to Locksley Hall!

Now for me the woods may wither, now for me the roof-tree fall.

Comes a vapor from the margin, blackening over heath and holt,

Cramming all the blast before it, in its breast a thunderbolt.

Let it fall on Locksley Hall, with rain or hail, or fire or snow;

For the mighty wind arises, roaring seaward, and I go.

The Charge of the Light Brigade

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.
“Forward the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!” he said.
Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

“Forward, the Light Brigade!”

Was there a man dismay’d?

Not tho’ the soldier knew

Some one had blunder’d.

Theirs not to make reply,

Theirs not to reason why,

Theirs but to do and die.

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

III

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them

Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of hell

Rode the six hundred.

Flash’d all their sabers bare,

Flash’d as they turn’d in air

Sabring the gunners there,

Charging an army, while

All the world wonder’d.

Plung’d in the battery-smoke

Right thro’ the line they broke;

Cossack and Russian

Reel’d from the sabre-stroke

Shatter’d and sunder’d.

Then they rode back, but not,

Not the six hundred.

Cannon to the right of them,

Cannon to the left of them,

Cannon behind them

Volley’d and thunder’d;

Storm’d at with shot and shell,

While horse and hero fell,

They that had fought so well

Came thro’ the jaws of Death,

Back from the mouth of hell,

All that was left of them,

Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?

O the wild charge they made!

All the world wonder’d.

Honor the charge they made!

Honor the Light Brigade,

Noble six hundred!

“Frater Ave Atque Vale”

Row us out from Desenzano, to your Sirmione row!

So they row’d, and there we landed—“O venusta Sirmio!”

There to me thro’ all the groves of olive in the summer glow,

There beneath the Roman ruin where the purple flowers grow,

Came that “Ave atque Vale” of the Poet’? hopeless woe,

Tenderest of Roman poets nineteen hundred years ago,

“Frater Ave atque Vale”— as we wander’d to and fro

Gazing at the Lydian laughter of the Garda Lake below

Sweet Catullus’s all-but-island, olive-silvery Sirmio!

Crossing the Bar

Sunset and evening star,

And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar,

When J. put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam.

When that which drew from out the boundless deep

Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,

And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell,

When I embark;

For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place

The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face

When I have crost the bar,