Tennyson

I built my soul a lordly pleasure-house,

Wherein at ease for aye to dwell.

I said, ‘O Soul, make merry and carouse,

Dear soul, for all is well.’

A huge crag-platform, smooth as burnished brass

I chose. The rangèd ramparts bright

From level meadow-bases of deep grass

Suddenly scaled the light.

Thereon I built it firm. Of ledge or shelf

The rock rose clear, or winding stair.

My soul would live alone unto herself

In her high palace there.

And ‘while the world runs round and round,’ I said,

‘Reign thou apart, a quiet king,

Still as, while Saturn whirls, his stedfast shade

Sleeps on his luminous ring.’

To which my soul made answer readily:

‘Trust me, in bliss I shall abide

In this great mansion, that is built for me,

So royal-rich and wide.’

* * * *

Four courts I made, East, West and South and North,

In each a squarèd lawn, wherefrom

The golden gorge of dragons spouted forth

A flood of fountain-foam.

And round the cool green courts there ran a row

Of cloisters, branched like mighty woods,

Echoing all night to that sonorous flow

Of spouted fountain-floods.

And round the roofs a gilded gallery

That lent broad verge to distant lands,

Far as the wild swan wings, to where the sky

Dipt down to sea and sands.

From those four jets four currents in one swell

Across the mountain streamed below

In misty folds, that floating as they fell

Lit up a torrent-bow.

And high on every peak a statue seemed

To hang on tiptoe, tossing up

A cloud of incense of all odour steamed

From out a golden cup.

So that she thought, ‘And who shall gaze upon

My palace with unblinded eyes,

While this great bow will waver in the sun,

And that sweet incense rise?’

For that sweet incense rose and never failed,

And, while day sank or mounted higher,

The light aërial gallery, golden-railed,

Burnt like a fringe of fire.

Likewise the deep-set windows, stained and traced,

Would seem slow-flaming crimson fires

From shadowed grots of arches interlaced,

And tipt with frost-like spires.

* * * *

Full of long-sounding corridors it was,

That over-vaulted grateful gloom,

Through which the livelong day my soul did pass,

Well-pleased, from room to room.

Full of great rooms and small the palace stood,

All various, each a perfect whole

From living Nature, fit for every mood

And change of my still soul.

For some were hung with arras green and blue,

Showing a gaudy summer-morn,

Where with puffed cheek the belted hunter blew

His wreathèd bugle-horn.

One seemed all dark and red – a tract of sand,

And some one pacing there alone,

Who paced for ever in a glimmering land,

Lit with a low large moon.

One showed an iron coast and angry waves.

You seemed to hear them climb and fall

And roar rock-thwarted under bellowing caves,

Beneath the windy wall.

And one, a full-fed river winding slow

By herds upon an endless plain,

The ragged rims of thunder brooding low,

With shadow-streaks of rain.

And one, the reapers at their sultry toil.

In front they bound the sheaves. Behind

Were realms of upland, prodigal in oil,

And hoary to the wind.

And one a foreground black with stones and slags,

Beyond, a line of heights, and higher

All barred with long white cloud the scornful crags,

And highest, snow and fire.

And one, an English home – gray twilight poured

On dewy pastures, dewy trees,

Softer than sleep – all things in order stored,

A haunt of ancient Peace.

Nor these alone, but every landscape fair,

As fit for every mood of mind,

Or gay, or grave, or sweet, or stern, was there

Not less than truth designed.

* * * *

Or the maid-mother by a crucifix,

In tracts of pasture sunny-warm,

Beneath branch-work of costly sardonyx

Sat smiling, babe in arm.

Or in a clear-walled city on the sea,

Near gilded organ-pipes, her hair

Wound with white roses, slept St Cecily;

An angel looked at her.

Or thronging all one porch of Paradise

A group of Houris bowed to see

The dying Islamite, with hands and eyes

That said, We wait for thee.

Or mythic Uther’s deeply-wounded son

In some fair space of sloping greens

Lay, dozing in the vale of Avalon,

And watched by weeping queens.

Or hollowing one hand against his ear,

To list a foot-fall, ere he saw

The wood-nymph, stayed the Ausonian king to hear

Of wisdom and of law.

Or over hills with peaky tops engrailed,

And many a tract of palm and rice.

The throne of Indian Cama slowly sailed

A summer fanned with spice.

Or sweet Europa’s mantle blew unclasped,

From off her shoulder backward borne:

From one hand drooped a crocus: one hand grasped

The mild bull’s golden horn.

Or else flushed Ganymede, his rosy thigh

Half-buried in the Eagle’s down,

Sole as a flying star shot through the sky

Above the pillared town.

Nor these alone: but every legend fair

Which the supreme Caucasian mind

Carved out of Nature for itself, was there,

Not less than life, designed.

* * * *

Then in the towers I placed great bells that swung,

Moved of themselves, with silver sound;

And with choice paintings of wise men I hung

The royal dais round.

For there was Milton like a seraph strong,

Beside him Shakespeare bland and mild;

And there the world-worn Dante grasped his song,

And somewhat grimly smiled.

And there the Ionian father of the rest;

A million wrinkles carved his skin;

A hundred winters snowed upon his breast,

From cheek and throat and chin.

Above, the fair hall-ceiling stately-set

Many an arch high up did lift,

And angels rising and descending met

With interchange of gift.

Below was all mosaic choicely planned

With cycles of the human tale

Of this wide world, the times of every land

So wrought, they will not fail.

The people here, a beast of burden slow,

Toiled onward, pricked with goads and stings;

Here played, a tiger, rolling to and fro

The heads and crowns of kings;

Here rose, an athlete, strong to break or bind

All force in bonds that might endure,

And here once more like some sick man declined,

And trusted any cure.

But over these she trod: and those great bells

Began to chime. She took her throne:

She sat betwixt the shining Oriels,

To sing her songs alone.

And through the topmost Oriels’ coloured flame

Two godlike faces gazed below;

Plato the wise, and large-browed Verulam,

The first of those who know.

And all those names, that in their motion were

Full-welling fountain-heads of change,

Betwixt the slender shafts were blazoned fair

In diverse raiment strange:

Through which the lights, rose, amber, emerald, blue,

Flushed in her temples and her eyes,

And from her lips, as morn from Memnon, drew

Rivers of melodies.

No nightingale delighteth to prolong

Her low preamble all alone,

More than my soul to hear her echoed song

Throb through the ribbèd stone;

Singing and murmuring in her feastful mirth,

Joying to feel herself alive,

Lord over Nature, Lord of the visible earth,

Lord of the senses five;

Communing with herself: ‘All these are mine,

And let the world have peace or wars,

’Tis one to me.’ She – when young night divine

Crowned dying day with stars,

Making sweet close of his delicious toils –

Lit light in wreaths and anadems,

And pure quintessences of precious oils

In hollowed moons of gems,

To mimic heaven; and clapt her hands and cried,

‘I marvel if my still delight

In this great house so royal-rich, and wide,

Be flattered to the height.

‘O all things fair to sate my various eyes!

O shapes and hues that please me well!

O silent faces of the Great and Wise,

My Gods, with whom I dwell!

‘O God-like isolation which art mine,

I can but count thee perfect gain,

What time I watch the darkening droves of swine

That range on yonder plain.

‘In filthy sloughs they roll a prurient skin,

They graze and wallow, breed and sleep;

And oft some brainless devil enters in,

And drives them to the deep.’

Then of the moral instinct would she prate

And of the rising from the dead,

As hers by right of full-accomplished Fate;

And at the last she said:

‘I take possession of man’s mind and deed.

I care not what the sects may brawl.

I sit as God holding no form of creed,

But contemplating all.’

* * * *

Full oft the riddle of the painful earth

Flashed through her as she sat alone,

Yet not the less held she her solemn mirth,

And intellectual throne.

And so she throve and prospered: so three years

She prospered: on the fourth she fell,

Like Herod, when the shout was in his ears,

Struck through with pangs of hell.

Lest she should fail and perish utterly,

God, before whom ever lie bare

The abysmal deeps of Personality,

Plagued her with sore despair.

When she would think, where’er she turned her sight

The airy hand confusion wrought,

Wrote, ‘Mene, mene,’ and divided quite

The kingdom of her thought.

Deep dread and loathing of her solitude

Fell on her, from which mood was born

Scorn of herself; again, from out that mood

Laughter at her self-scorn.

‘What! is not this my place of strength,’ she said,

‘My spacious mansion built for me,

Whereof the strong foundation-stones were laid

Since my first memory?’

But in dark corners of her palace stood

Uncertain shapes; and unawares

On white-eyed phantasms weeping tears of blood,

And horrible nightmares,

And hollow shades enclosing hearts of flame,

And, with dim fretted foreheads all,

On corpses three-months-old at noon she came,

That stood against the wall.

A spot of dull stagnation, without light

Or power of movement, seemed my soul,

’Mid onward-sloping motions infinite

Making for one sure goal.

A still salt pool, locked in with bars of sand,

Left on the shore; that hears all night

The plunging seas draw backward from the land

Their moon-led waters white.

A star that with the choral starry dance

Joined not, but stood, and standing saw

The hollow orb of moving Circumstance

Rolled round by one fixed law.

Back on herself her serpent pride had curled.

‘No voice,’ she shrieked in that lone hall,

‘No voice breaks through the stillness of this world:

One deep, deep silence all!’

She, mouldering with the dull earth’s mouldering sod,

Inwrapt tenfold in slothful shame,

Lay there exilèd from eternal God,

Lost to her place and name;

And death and life she hated equally,

And nothing saw, for her despair,

But dreadful time, dreadful eternity,

No comfort anywhere;

Remaining utterly confused with fears,

And ever worse with growing time,

And ever unrelieved by dismal tears,

And all alone in crime:

Shut up as in a crumbling tomb, girt round

With blackness as a solid wall,

Far off she seemed to hear the dully sound

Of human footsteps fall.

As in strange lands a traveller walking slow,

In doubt and great perplexity,

A little before moon-rise hears the low

Moan of an unknown sea;

And knows not if it be thunder, or a sound

Of rocks thrown down, or one deep cry

Of great wild beasts; then thinketh, ‘I have found

A new land, but I die.’

She howled aloud, ‘I am on fire within.

There comes no murmur of reply.

What is it that will take away my sin,

And save me lest I die?’

So when four years were wholly finishèd,

She threw her royal robes away.

‘Make me a cottage in the vale,’ she said,

‘Where I may mourn and pray.

‘Yet pull not down my palace towers, that are

So lightly, beautifully built:

Perchance I may return with others there

When I have purged my guilt.’

167 The Palace of Art