Published 1851, Poems, 7th edn; among ‘English Idyls’. Written 1839 (Mem. i 174), which is the date of the FitzGerald MS at Trinity. The FitzGerald MS begins (at the top of a page) with the closing lines of Edwin’s speech (ll. 62–70), in this version adapting further lines from The Gardener’s Daughter; see ll. 26–40n. The poem was inspired by T.’s disillusionment with Rosa Baring; on this love affair, see Thy rosy lips ( II 59). She married Robert Duncombe Shafto. The complaint, here treated more lightly (‘the rentroll Cupid’), is treated tragically as ‘marriage-hindering Mammon’ in Aylmer’s Field, Locksley Hall, and Maud. T. criticizes his earlier manner in the poet Edwin Morris, most of whose lines are from the MS version (e.g. T.Nbk 17) of The Gardener’s Daughter, another poem inspired by Rosa, of which the speaker is again a landscape painter. Edward Bull’s views on women were to be more fully presented by the King in The Princess. There are three drafts in T.Nbk 26; in the first, there is no character Edward Bull; and Morris tells of an episode, suggesting Maud, in which his lover’s cousin jealously lies in wait for him with a cudgel, unsuccessfully. One important revision is that which eliminates too harsh a resentment against Rosa, cutting out ‘O facile nose of wax!’, and ‘the doll’ (ll. 122–5n). All variants are below.
O me, my pleasant rambles by the lake,
My sweet, wild, fresh three quarters of a year,
My one Oasis in the dust and drouth
Of city life! I was a sketcher then:
See here, my doing: curves of mountain, bridge,
Boat, island, ruins of a castle, built
When men knew how to build, upon a rock
With turrets lichen-gilded like a rock:
And here, new-comers in an ancient hold,
New-comers from the Mersey, millionaires,
Here lived the Hills – a Tudor-chimnied bulk
Of mellow brickwork on an isle of bowers.
O me, my pleasant rambles by the lake
With Edwin Morris and with Edward Bull
The curate; he was fatter than his cure.
But Edwin Morris, he that knew the names,
Long learnèd names of agaric, moss and fern,
Who forged a thousand theories of the rocks,
Who taught me how to skate, to row, to swim,
Who read me rhymes elaborately good,
His own – I called him Crichton, for he seemed
All-perfect, finished to the finger nail.
And once I asked him of his early life,
And his first passion; and he answered me;
And well his words became him: was he not
A full-celled honeycomb of eloquence
Stored from all flowers? Poet-like he spoke.
‘My love for Nature is as old as I;
But thirty moons, one honeymoon to that,
And three rich sennights more, my love for her.
My love for Nature and my love for her,
Of different ages, like twin-sisters grew,
Twin-sisters differently beautiful.
To some full music rose and sank the sun,
And some full music seemed to move and change
With all the varied changes of the dark,
And either twilight and the day between;
For daily hope fulfilled, to rise again
Revolving toward fulfilment, made it sweet
To walk, to sit, to sleep, to wake, to breathe.’
Or this or something like to this he spoke.
Then said the fat-faced curate Edward Bull,
‘I take it, God made the woman for the man,
And for the good and increase of the world.
A pretty face is well, and this is well,
To have a dame indoors, that trims us up,
And keeps us tight; but these unreal ways
Seem but the theme of writers, and indeed
Worn threadbare. Man is made of solid stuff.
I say, God made the woman for the man,
And for the good and increase of the world.’
‘Parson,’ said I, ‘you pitch the pipe too low:
But I have sudden touches, and can run
My faith beyond my practice into his:
Though if, in dancing after Letty Hill,
I do not hear the bells upon my cap,
I scarce have other music: yet say on.
What should one give to light on such a dream?’
I asked him half-sardonically.
‘Give?
Give all thou art,’ he answered, and a light
Of laughter dimpled in his swarthy cheek;
‘I would have hid her needle in my heart,
To save her little finger from a scratch
No deeper than the skin: my ears could hear
Her lightest breath; her least remark was worth
The experience of the wise. I went and came;
Her voice fled always through the summer land;
I spoke her name alone. Thrice-happy days!
The flower of each, those moments when we met,
The crown of all, we met to part no more.’
Were not his words delicious, I a beast
To take them as I did? but something jarred;
Whether he spoke too largely; that there seemed
A touch of something false, some self-conceit,
Or over-smoothness: howsoe’er it was,
He scarcely hit my humour, and I said:
‘Friend Edwin, do not think yourself alone
Of all men happy. Shall not Love to me,
As in the Latin song I learnt at school,
Sneeze out a full God-bless-you right and left?
But you can talk: yours is a kindly vein:
I have, I think, – Heaven knows – as much within;
Have, or should have, but for a thought or two,
That like a purple beech among the greens
Looks out of place: ’tis from no want in her:
It is my shyness, or my self-distrust,
Or something of a wayward modern mind
Dissecting passion. Time will set me right.’
So spoke I knowing not the things that were.
then said the fat-faced curate, Edward Bull:
‘God made the woman for the use of man,
And for the good and increase of the world.’
And I and Edwin laughed; and now we paused
About the windings of the marge to hear
The soft wind blowing over meadowy holms
And alders, garden-isles; and now we left
The clerk behind us, I and he, and ran
By ripply shallows of the lisping lake,
Delighted with the freshness and the sound.
But, when the bracken rusted on their crags,
My suit had withered, nipt to death by him
That was a God, and is a lawyer’s clerk,
The rentroll Cupid of our rainy isles.
’Tis true, we met; one hour I had, no more:
She sent a note, the seal an Elle vous suit,
The close, ‘Your Letty, only yours;’ and this
Thrice underscored. The friendly mist of morn
Clung to the lake. I boated over, ran
My craft aground, and heard with beating heart
The Sweet-Gale rustle round the shelving keel;
And out I stept, and up I crept: she moved,
Like Proserpine in Enna, gathering flowers:
Then low and sweet I whistled thrice; and she,
She turned, we closed, we kissed, swore faith, I breathed
In some new planet: a silent cousin stole
Upon us and departed: ‘Leave,’ she cried,
‘O leave me!’ ‘Never, dearest, never: here
I brave the worst:’ and while we stood like fools
Embracing, all at once a score of pugs
And poodles yelled within, and out they came
Trustees and Aunts and Uncles. ‘What, with him!
Go’ (shrilled the cotton-spinning chorus); ‘him!’
I choked. Again they shrieked the burthen – ‘Him!’
Again with hands of wild rejection ‘Go! –
Girl, get you in!’ She went – and in one month
They wedded her to sixty thousand pounds,
To lands in Kent and messuages in York,
And slight Sir Robert with his watery smile
And educated whisker. But for me,
They set an ancient creditor to work:
It seems I broke a close with force and arms:
There came a mystic token from the king
To greet the sheriff, needless courtesy!
I read, and fled by night, and flying turned:
Her taper glimmered in the lake below:
I turned once more, close-buttoned to the storm;
So left the place, left Edwin, nor have seen
Him since, nor heard of her, nor cared to hear.
Nor cared to hear? perhaps: yet long ago
I have pardoned little Letty; not indeed,
It may be, for her own dear sake but this,
She seems a part of those fresh days to me;
For in the dust and drouth of London life
She moves among my visions of the lake,
While the prime swallow dips his wing, or then
While the gold-lily blows, and overhead
The light cloud smoulders on the summer crag.
¶275. 1–12 ] Not T.MS.
2–4 ] A dilettante sketcher I was then: H.MS.
5. doing] drawings H.MS.
14. Edwin] Edward T.MS B. Edward Bull] Edwin Ray T.MS B 1st reading; William Bull T.MS B.
14–18 ] With Walter Murray. What a man he was.
He taught me how to dub the fly for trout: T.MS A;
With Edward Morris: that all-perfect man. [What a man he was.
1st reading] T.MS B
17. agaric: a fungus.
18] Added in H.MS.
19. Who] He T.MSS. skate … swim] to sketch, to skate, to row, T.MS A, B, H.MS; to sketch, to row, to skate, T.MS C.
20–2] He taught me how to touch the flageolet: T.MS A, B; To touch the flute. He taught me all I know. T.MS C.
21. James (the Admirable) Crichton was a sixteenth-century Scottish prodigy; P. F. Tytler’s life of him was published 1819.
22. Horace, Satires I v 32–3: ad unguem factus homo.
23] I was a lover and I questioned him T.MS A; I askt him of his life and of his love T.MS B; And once I askt him of his life, his love, T.MS C.
24. And] Of T.MS A.
25. was he not] for he was T.MS A 1st reading.
26–40. These lines were incorporated, with only minor modifications, from MSS of The Gardener’s Daughter (see headnote); some are in Heath MS version, others in T.MS drafts. T. apparently added ll. 28–30, 33.
27. Poet-like] like to this T.MS, H.MS. spoke] spake T.MSS.
28–30] Not T.MS A.
28. for] of T.MS A 1st reading, H.MS 1st reading.
32. grew] T.MS, 1853; throve 1851.
40. to wake, to breathe] 1853; transposed 1851–3.
41] Not T.MSS, H.MS.
42–57 ] ‘A happy dream’ I said ‘which cannot last,
Yet something to remember. You are one
That look on all things through a coloured glass. T.MS A
42. Edward Bull] Edwin Ray T.MS B 1st reading; William Bull T.MS B.
45. this] it T.MS B, C.
45–7 ] I see my boys and prosper and I have
A dame indoors that trims them up and keeps
A sharp look out: but these unreal ways T.MS B 1st reading
47. tight: neat.
48. writers] poets T.MS B, C.
52. Parson] My God T.MS B, C; O sir H.MS 1st reading. said I] I said T.MS B 1st reading.
55. Letty] Emma T.MS B, C, H.MS.
57. have] 1869; hear 1851–68. yet] but T.MS B, C.
59] Not T.MSS, H.MS.
60. he … light] he said: ‘for me I think T.MS A. light] gleam T.MS B, C.
61] Not T.MS A.
62. would] could T.MS A.
62–70. Adapted from MSS of The Gardener’s Daughter; see headnote and ll. 26–40n.
65. breath] 1872; breaths 1851–70.
66. wise ^ I]:her daily life / Like noble instance – and T.MS A.
68. alone ^ Thrice-] : to speak her name
Was like a violation of reserve
Where foreign sweetness in familiar sound
Made the voice precious: or I sketcht for her
A glimpse of [The summer 1st reading] landskip crisp
with shining woods,
And giving parted paid beyond all hope
By some stray-riband balmy with her curls,
A locket or a glove of primrose kid
Fit for the hands of spring – its worth to me
That it was airy-modelled with her own’.
So far he flowed and with a staff he struck
The wayside flowers: and I laught aloud.
My laugh a little froze him but he said
‘It is a trick I have: one twines a thread,
One plucks a rose: I flourish with my staff.
But there is hidden virtue in the wood
And hereby hangs a tale: for Ellen had
A cousin with a cheek of spongy dough [blowzy grain 1st reading],
A head so white he lookt old age in youth,
Nicknamed white Peter: and a grosser clown
Than slouching Peter never crost between
Lintel and threshold: this thing fell in love,
Grew jealous and laid watch for me one night
With this same cudgel: but I waited long.
The lout was overwatcht and when I past
As lies a sheep within a furrow lay
Rolled on his back and snoring to the moon.
And stooping, from his hand I pluckt the staff
To thwack his ribs: but spared him for her sake
And kept it as a relic of those times!’
He left his episode and on he went
Like one that cuts an eight upon the ice
Returning on himself T.MS A
T.MS B has here the first few lines (‘to speak … precious’); T.MS C ends with l. 68 (foot of page; pages missing). Cp. ‘But there is hidden virtue in the wood’ with The Princess vi 34: ‘There dwelt an iron nature in the grain’; and the relating of talking to skating with The Epic 6–13 (‘cutting eights’).
68. Thrice-] Three times T.MS B 1st reading.
69–70 ] The crown of all, those moments when I watcht
The pure and maiden spirit fold by fold
Open before me, till she read and knew
The meaning of my glances: even until
Silent, with eyelids drooping, she resigned
Her bosom to the transport of mine arms –
With drooping eyelids silent, when the storm
Of my first welcome pouring kiss on kiss
Incessantly like flashes of soft light
Melted from lip to lip and from my heart
Sank fused in hers, then growing one with mine’. T.MS A;
The crown of each, those moments, when the storm
Of my full welcome pouring kiss on kiss
Melted from lip to lip and from my heart
Sank fused in hers then growing one with mine’. T.MS B
Cp. The Gardener’s Daughter 185–208, MS, which has a version of this long passage (I 564).
71–5 ] All this and more he said: but something jarred. T.MS A. Implicit criticism by T. of his earlier poetic manner, see ll. 62–70n. The name ‘Edwin’ for such a poet may have been suggested by the hero of Beattie’s Minstrel (ii 524–6), which provided an epigraph for 1827 (p. 61), of which there was a copy at Somersby (Lincoln) and of which T.’s mother was fond (H. D. Rawnsley, Memories of the Tennysons, 1900, pp. 225–6): ‘Of late, with cumbersome, though pompous show, / Edwin would oft his flowery rhyme deface, / Through ardour to adorn.’ Cp. l. 27 above.
74. some] or FitzGerald MS.
75–6 ] I know not what: a screw was loose: I said: T.MS B, H.MS, FitzGerald MS.
77. Friend] O T.MS A. Edwin] Walter T.MS A; Edward T.MS B.
78. Shall … me,] I am happy too. T.MS A.
79] Not T.MS A, B, H.MS, FitzGerald MS.
80. H.T. compares Catullus xlv 8–9: hoc ut dixit, Amor, sinistra, ut ante /dextra, sternuit approbationem. ( ‘As he said this, Love on the left, as before on the right, sneezed goodwill.’)
80] Not T.MS A.
81] ’Tis true, I have not such a kindly vein: T.MS A. yours is] you have T.MS B, FitzGerald MS. kindly vein: Horace, Odes II xviii 10: benigna vena.
82–3 ] I have, I think, as much within – I have / Or I should … T.MS A, B, H.MS, FitzGerald MS. Cp. Hamlet I ii 85: ‘But I have that within which passes show.’
84. purple] 1853; copper 1851. greens] green T.MS A.
85. from] for T.MS B, FitzGerald MS. want] fault T.MS A.
87. Or] ’Tis T.MS A.
87–8. Or … passion: originally in the MS of The Gardener’s Daughter (T.Nbk 17); see ll. 62–70n.
90. Edward Bull] Edwin Ray T.MS B 1st reading; William Bull T.MS B.
90–3 ] And in such talk we wore the random day. T.MS A.
93. Edwin] T.MS B 1st reading; Edward T.MS B.
94. About … of] And now we paused about T.MS A.
95. over … holms] in the osiered aits T.MS A, B, H.MS, FitzGerald MS. (As in To the Vicar of Shiplake 30.)
96. left] 1853; ran 1851.
97] 1853; Hot 1851.
100] But ere November [December T.MS A, B, FitzGerald MS] came, my own suit failed [my suit had failed T.MS A], T.MS B, H.MS.
101–2] Nipt by the true magician of the ring, T.MS B, FitzGerald MS.
101–3] Not T.MS A; Nipt by the rentroll Cupid of the realms. H.MS.
103. our] 1853; the 1851.
104–14] ’Tis true, we met: we kisst: swore faith: I breathed T.MS B, FitzGerald MS.
104–15 ] ’Tis true: we met: we kist: we broke a ring.
Not those two Heavens in air and water touch
And kiss each other to a perfect sphere
So sweetly. Was I happy? for an hour.
A brother came upon us unawares. T.MS A
105–8 ] She sent a note: I boated over, ran H.MS.
105. Byron, Don Juan I cxcviii: ‘The seal a sunflower: “Elle vous suit partout”’, a moment in Don Juan’s ‘earliest scrape’.
111] And out I leapt and hid myself. She walked H.MS.
112. Eve in Paradise, Paradise Lost iv 269, with suggestions of precariousness. T. had praised Rosa with the allusion in The Gardener’s Daughter 187.
114. we closed] she came H.MS.
115. cousin] brother T.MS B, FitzGerald MS, H.MS 1st reading. An interesting parallel with the situation in Maud, where the brother steals upon the lovers.
115–20 ] … silent brother came
Upon us: ere a man could clap his hands,
The cat was in the creampot. Out they came, T.MS B,
FitzGerald MS
116–25 ] The cat was in the creampot. All was blown.
I might as well have tried to filch the comb
From some full hive. A palsy shake [The Devil take 1st reading] them all.
A bib-and-tucker love, a doll of wax! T.MS A
116–18. ‘Leave … worst:’] ‘O’, she said,
‘O leave me, leave me.’ ‘Never, let us brave
The worst at once’ H.MS
122 ] 1853; not 1851. cotton-spinning: possibly this refers to one of Rosa’s uncles (Rader, p. 135); ‘cotton’ is used with contempt in Maud i 370, and ‘cotton-spinners’ in The Third of February, 1852, but there in dislike of the peace-loving politics of Manchester. Rader also remarks that ‘trustees’ ( l. 121) is unexplained in Letty’s case, but that Rosa’s rich father had died.
122–5 ] ‘Go, Sir!’ and ‘collar him’ and ‘let him go’
And ‘get you in’ [‘hit him down’ 1st reading] O facile [O doll!
o 1st reading] nose of wax! T.MS B;
‘Go, Sir’ and ‘collar him’ and ‘get you in’
And ‘let him go.’ O facile nose of wax! FitzGerald MS;
They clamoured, and again in chorus, ‘him!’,
‘Go, Sir’ and ‘collar him’ and ‘let him go’
And ‘get you in’ – the doll – and in one month H.MS
‘nose of wax’: OED under nose 4, ‘a thing easily turned or moulded in any way desired; a person easily influenced, one of a weak character’.
123. I choked.] 1853; ‘Go Sir!’ 1851.
125. She went] 1853; to her 1851.
127] Not T.MS A, B, FitzGerald MS. Cp. Byron, Don Juan I xxxvii 1–2: ‘sole heir / To a chancery suit and messuages and lands’.
128. And … watery] To … sickly T.MS A; To … vapid T.MS B, FitzGerald MS. H.MS ends with l. 128 at the bottom of a page, so a page is probably missing).
130] Not T.MS A.
131–6 ] Not T.MS A, B, FitzGerald MS.
132. ‘Writ from the old Court of Common Pleas’ (T.).
134 ] 1853; I read and wished to crush the race of man,
And fled by night; turned once upon the hills; 1851
135. below] 1853; and then 1851.
136] 1853; not 1851.
137. So] 1853; I 1851., left] and T.MS A. Edwin] Walter T.MS A; Edward T.MS B.
138. cared to hear.] care to hear T.MS A.
139–43] Not T.MS A, B, FitzGerald MS.
144] Nor evermore shall pace beside the lake T.MS A; Yet comes at times a vision of the lake, T.MS B, FitzGerald MS.
145. While] When T.MS A, B, FitzGerald MS. or] nor T.MS A.
146. While] When T.MS A, B.