Communing with herself: "All these are mine, And let the world have peace or wars,

"Tis one to me." She-when young might divine

Crown'd dying day with stars,

Making sweet close of his delicious toils— 185 Lit light in wreaths and anadems, 10

And pure quintessences of precious oils

In hollow'd 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!

190

195

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And meadow, set with slender galingale;2
A land where all things always seem'd the same!
And round about the keel with faces pale,
Dark faces pale against that rosy flame,
The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came.
Branches they bore of that enchanted stem,
Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gave
To each, but whoso did receive of them
And taste, to him the gushing of the wave
Far, far away did seem to mourn and rave
On alien shores; and if his fellow spake,
His voice was thin, as voices from the grave;
And deep-asleep he seem'd, yet all awake,
And music in his ears his beating heart did
make.

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Lo! sweeten'd with the summer light,

The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow,
Drops in a silent autumn night.

All its allotted length of days

The flower ripens in its place,

Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil, Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil.

IV

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40

45

Hateful is the dark-blue sky,
Vaulted o'er the dark-blue sea.
Death is the end of life; ah, why
Should life all labor be?
Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast,
And in a little while our lips are dumb.
Let us alone. What is it that will last?
All things are taken from us, and become
Portions and parcels of the dreadful past.
Let us alone. What pleasure can we have
To war with evil? Is there any peace
In ever climbing up the climbing wave?
All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave
In silence-ripen, fall and cease:
Give us long rest or death, dark death, or
dreamful ease.

V

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Dear is the memory of our wedded lives,
And dear the last embraces of our wives
And their warm tears; but all hath suffer'd
change;

For surely now our household hearths are cold,
Our sons inherit us, our looks are strange,
And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy.
Or else the island princes over-bold

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80

Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings
Before them of the ten years' war in Troy,
And our great deeds, as half-forgotten things.
Is there confusion in the little isle?
Let what is broken so remain.
The Gods are hard to reconcile;
'Tis hard to settle order once again.
There is confusion worse than death,
Trouble on trouble, pain on pain,

YOU ASK ME WHY THOUGH ILL AT EASE1

(Written in 1833, first printed 1842) You ask me, why, tho' ill at ease,

Within this region I subsist, Whose spirits falter in the mist, And languish for the purple seas.

It is the land that freemen till,

That sober-suited Freedom chose, The land, where girt with friends or foes A man may speak the thing he will;

A land of settled government,

A land of just and old renown, Where Freedom slowly broadens down From precedent to precedent;

Where faction seldom gathers head,

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1:

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

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

1 Wrapped up in herself, self-centered.

1 Tennyson says of this poem: "The whole poem represents young life, its good side, its deficiencies, and its yearnings.' He tells us further that "Locksley Hall' is an imaginary place (tho' the coast is Lincolnshire), and the hero is imaginary." (Memoir, by H. Tennyson, I. 195). But the poem represents not merely young life in general, but a young man at a time when youth in England was stirred by great changes, by the marvels of invention and of scientific discovery.

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

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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.

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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 colour and a light,

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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."

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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, pass'd in music out of sight.

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

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And her whisper throng'd my pulses with the fullness 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.