Published 1832; ‘Juvenilia’. It was considerably rewritten for 1842; T. began such revision very soon after 1832 (Mem. i 141, 145). It was written 1830–31: ‘the idea of this came into my head between Narbonne and Perpignan’ (T.), during his tour of the Pyrenees with Arthur Hallam, summer 1830. Hallam sent it, as The Southern Mariana, the title in H.Lpr 142, to W. B. Donne, 13 Feb. 1831: ‘It is intended, you will perceive, as a kind of pendant to his former poem of Mariana [p. 3], the idea of both being the expression of desolate loneliness, but with this distinctive variety in the second that it paints the forlorn feeling as it would exist under the influence of different impressions of sense. When we were journeying together this summer through the South of France we came upon a range of country just corresponding to his preconceived thought of a barrenness, so as in the South, and the portraiture of the scenery in this poem is most faithful. You will, I think, agree with me that the essential & distinguishing character of the conception requires in the Southern Mariana a greater lingering on the outward circumstances, and a less palpable transition of the poet into Mariana’s feelings, than was the case in the former poem’ (AHH, p. 401; Mem. i 500–1). Hallam wrote to T., 24 Sept. 1832: ‘Mariana in the South seems the right title; I perceive you mean to refer only to the former one, not to republish it’ (AHH, p. 652). In a copy of 1830, T. inserted the titles of additional poems, presumably considering, before 1832, a revised edition of 1830. Before Mariana, he wrote Prologue to the Marianas; this either has not survived or has not been recognized. After Mariana, he wrote A Southern Mariana. (See C. Sturman, TRB iv, 1984, 123–4.)
The reviewer Of 1832 in The True Sun (19 Jan. 1833), probably John Forster, spoke of T.’s heroine as ‘exceedingly lovely in her desertion, with the scenery around in keeping with her heart’ (E. F. Shannon, Tennyson and the Reviewers, 1952, p. 18). The poem was influenced by Sappho’s Fragment 111: ∆έδυκε µὲν ἀ σελάννα / καὶ Πληιάδες, µέσαι δὲ / νύκτες, παρά δ'ἔρχετ' ὢρα, / ἔγω δὲ µόνα κατεύδω. (‘The Moon is gone / And the Pleiads set, / Midnight is nigh; / Time passes on, / And passes; yet / Alone I lie.’) ( J. C. Maxwell noted that the attribution to Sappho now has little support.) Hallam referred to ‘the fragments of Sappho, in which I see much congeniality to Alfred’s peculiar power’, when enclosing the poem.
Revision: In 1832 the first stanza violated the scheme by having twelve lines plus refrain; the last stanza likewise, and with a false rhyme. T.Nbk 23 shows that an earlier stage of the poem consisted of stanzas of sixteen lines plus refrain, i.e. joining two of the final stanzas. J. F. A. Pyre (The Formation of Tennyson’s Style, 1921, pp. 59–60) shows that the 1842 revisions make for regularity of rhythm, which is apt to the persistent monotony.
With one black shadow at its feet,
The house through all the level shines,
Close-latticed to the brooding heat,
And silent in its dusty vines:
A faint-blue ridge upon the right,
An empty river-bed before,
And shallows on a distant shore,
In glaring sand and inlets bright.
But ‘Ave Mary,’ made she moan,
And ‘Ave Mary,’ night and morn,
And ‘Ah,’ she sang, ‘to be all alone,
To live forgotten, and love forlorn.’
She, as her carol sadder grew,
From brow and bosom slowly down
Through rosy taper fingers drew
Her streaming curls of deepest brown
To left and right, and made appear
Still-lighted in a secret shrine,
Her melancholy eyes divine,
The home of woe without a tear.
And ‘Ave Mary,’ was her moan,
‘Madonna, sad is night and morn,’
And ‘Ah,’ she sang, ‘to be all alone,
To live forgotten, and love forlorn.’
Till all the crimson changed, and past
Into deep orange o’er the sea,
Low on her knees herself she cast,
Before Our Lady murmured she;
Complaining, ‘Mother, give me grace
To help me of my weary load.’
And on the liquid mirror glowed
The clear perfection of her face.
‘Is this the form,’ she made her moan,
‘That won his praises night and morn?’
And ‘Ah,’ she said, ‘but I wake alone,
I sleep forgotten, I wake forlorn.’
Nor bird would sing, nor lamb would bleat,
Nor any cloud would cross the vault,
But day increased from heat to heat,
On stony drought and steaming salt;
Till now at noon she slept again,
And seemed knee-deep in mountain grass,
And heard her native breezes pass,
And runlets babbling down the glen.
She breathed in sleep a lower moan,
And murmuring, as at night and morn,
She thought, ‘My spirit is here alone,
Walks forgotten, and is forlorn.’
Dreaming, she knew it was a dream:
She felt he was and was not there.
She woke: the babble of the stream
Fell, and, without, the steady glare
Shrank one sick willow sere and small.
The river-bed was dusty-white;
And all the furnace of the light
Struck up against the blinding wall.
She whispered, with a stifled moan
More inward than at night or morn,
‘Sweet Mother, let me not here alone
Live forgotten and die forlorn.’
And, rising, from her bosom drew
Old letters, breathing of her worth,
For ‘Love,’ they said, ‘must needs be true,
To what is loveliest upon earth.’
An image seemed to pass the door,
To look at her with slight, and say
‘But now thy beauty flows away,
So be alone for evermore.’
‘O cruel heart,’ she changed her tone,
‘And cruel love, whose end is scorn,
Is this the end to be left alone,
To live forgotten, and die forlorn?’
But sometimes in the falling day
An image seemed to pass the door,
To look into her eyes and say,
‘But thou shalt be alone no more.’
And flaming downward over all
From heat to heat the day decreased,
And slowly rounded to the east
The one black shadow from the wall.
‘The day to night,’ she made her moan,
‘The day to night, the night to morn,
And day and night I am left alone
To live forgotten, and love forlorn.’
At eve a dry cicala sung,
There came a sound as of the sea;
Backward the lattice-blind she flung,
And leaned upon the balcony.
There all in spaces rosy-bright
Large Hesper glittered on her tears,
And deepening through the silent spheres
Heaven over Heaven rose the night.
And weeping then she made her moan,
‘The night comes on that knows not morn,
When I shall cease to be all alone,
To live forgotten, and love forlorn.’
¶160. Title: 1832 note: ‘See Poems, chiefly Lyrical’.
1–12] 1842; Behind the barren hill upsprung
With pointed rocks against the light,
The crag sharpshadowed overhung
Each glaring creek and inlet bright.
Far, far, one lightblue ridge [hill AHH] was seen,
Looming like baseless fairyland;
Eastward a slip of burning sand,
Dark-rimmed with sea, and bare of green.
Down in the dry salt-marshes stood
That house darklatticed. Not a breath
Swayed the sick vineyard underneath,
Or moved the dusty southernwood.
‘Madonna,’ with melodious moan
Sang Mariana, night and morn,
‘Madonna! lo! I am all alone,
Love-forgotten and love-forlorn.’ 1832
H.Lpr 141 has an intermediate revision of ll. 1–28, close to 1842 but with e.g. l. 1 ‘The beams on all the level beat’; l. 3 ‘Dark-latticed’; l. 4 ‘the blighted vines’; l. 5 ‘The flats are far to left and right’. About l. 5 of 1832 in MS, Hallam wrote to T., 24 Sept. 1832: ‘Is “looming” rightly used? its precise meaning I know not, but rather think it applies to ships at sea seen through mist or fog’ (AHH, p. 652).
9–11. Cp. Song [I’ the glooming light] 12–17 (I 235): ‘Death standeth by; / She will not die; / With glazèd eye / She looks at her grave: she cannot sleep; / Ever alone / She maketh her moan.’
14] 1842; From her warm brow and bosom down 1832.
15. taper fingers: Keats. I stood tip-toe 59, as in T.’s Madeline 44.
17. To… right] 1842; On either side 1832.
21–4] 1842; 1832 has the refrain as in its first stanza.
25. Till… crimson] 1842; When the dawncrimson 1832. (mooncrimson T. Nbk 23)
28. Before… murmured] 1842; Unto… prayèd 1832.
29–36] 1842; She moved her lips, she prayed alone,
She praying disarrayed and warm
From slumber, deep her wavy form
In the darklustrous mirror shone.
‘Madonna,’ in a low clear tone
Said Mariana, night and morn,
Low she mourned, ‘I am all alone,
Love-forgotten, and love-forlorn.’ 1832
T.MS has the last line without ‘and’.
29 ]‘Madonna Mary lend me grace Lincoln revision of 1832.
31. liquid mirror: as in Shelley, Alastor 462, where it has the more common application to water.
32] Her bounteous form and beauteous face. Lincoln rev., 1st reading.
33. form’; she made her] beauty,’ she made Lincoln rev., 1st reading.
35] Yet mother look I wake alone, Lincoln rev., 1st reading.
37. lamb] herd Lincoln rev., 2nd reading.
37–48 ] 1842; At noon she slumbered. All along
The silvery field, the large leaves talked
With one another, as among
The spikèd maize in dreams she walked.
The lizard leapt: the sunlight played:
She heard the callow nestling lisp,
And brimful meadow-runnels crisp,
In the full-leavèd platan-shade.
In sleep she breathed in a lower tone,
Murmuring as at night and morn,
‘Madonna! lo! I am all alone,
Love-forgotten and love-forlorn.’ 1832
T.MS has the third and fourth lines as: ‘… as she walked / Browhigh the spikèd maize among’. Cp. Claribel 17–19: ‘The callow throstle lispeth… / The babbling runnel crispeth.’ Lincoln rev. of 1832 has an intermediate version of ll. 37–40:
And Day moved on with steps of Death
And Silence added heat to heat
In fields of drought without a breath
That never felt the shadow fleet.
On the 1832 dream, and Mariana’s dream about Wilhelm and the sunshine, in Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, see Ian Kennedy, PQ lvii (1978) 94.
42. knee-deep in] to walk on Lincoln rev., 1st reading.
44. runlets babbling] runnels crisping Lincoln rev., 1st reading.
49–50. dream: / She felt he] 1842; dream / Most false: he 1832.
53. one] 1850; the 1832–48. willow] 1853; olive 1832–51.
55–6] 1842; From the bald rock the blinding light
Beat ever on the sunwhite wall. 1832
59–60] 1842; ‘Madonna, leave me not all alone,
To die forgotten and live forlorn.’ 1832
61–84] 1842; not 1832. Possibly precipitated by the death of Hallam; cp. the ‘letters’ (‘love’, ‘worth’) with In Memoriam xcv; the ‘image’ which speaks makes use of the In Memoriam stanza in ll. 65–8. Ian Kennedy notes Mariana’s dream in Goethe (see ll. 37–48n. above): ‘till I observed your image sinking down, sinking, sinking’; Kennedy (pp. 98–9) also suggests the influence of Lytton’s Falkland (1827) on the poem, for the letters here, the lattice-scenes (ll. 3, 87–92), and for ‘weary load’ (l. 30).
85–6] 1842; One dry cicala’s summer song
At night filled all the gallery, 1832
T.MS has: ‘… song / Filled all the corridor at night… / And leaned into the purple [lacuna]’. T. says that the MS of l. 85 read: ‘At fall of eve a cricket sung’. 89–92. Cp. the opening of Beattie’s Retirement (1758): ‘When in the crimson cloud of even / The lingering light decays, / And Hesper on the front of heaven / His glittering gem displays; / Deep in the silent vale…’ There was a copy of Beattie’s Minstrel at Somersby (Lincoln).
89–96] 1842; Ever the low wave seemed to roll
Up to the coast: far on, alone
In the East, large Hesper overshone
The mourning gulf, and on her soul
Poured divine solace, or the rise
Of moonlight from the margin gleamed,
Volcano-like, afar, and streamed
On her white arm, and heavenward eyes.
Not all alone she made her moan,
Yet ever sang she, night and morn,
‘Madonna, lo! I am all alone,
Love-forgotten and love-forlorn.’ 1832
90. Cp. The Lover’s Tale i 248: ‘I saw the moonlight glitter on their tears’. A reminiscence of Keats, Hyperion ii 5–6: ‘light / Could glimmer on their tears’. Cp. Thomson, Autumn 200–1, where Lavinia’s eyes ‘like the dewy star / Of evening, shone in tears’.
90–2. tears… night: adapted from the third stanza of The Voyage ( II 82), in T.Nbk 21.