Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Delphi Poets Series Read online

  By thy visions blest?

  Why lift the veil, dividing

  The brilliant courts of spring —

  Where gilded shapes are gliding

  In fairy colouring —

  From age’s frosty mansion,

  So cheerless and so chill?

  Why bid the bleak expansion

  Of past life meet us still?

  Where’s now that peace of mind

  O’er youth’s pure bosom stealing,

  So sweet and so refined,

  So exquisite a feeling?

  Where’s now the heart exulting

  In pleasure’s buoyant sense,

  And gaiety, resulting

  From conscious innocence?

  All, all have past and fled,

  And left me lorn and lonely;

  All those dear hopes are dead,

  Remembrance wakes them only I

  I stand like some lone tower

  Of former days remaining,

  Within whose place of power

  The midnight owl is plaining; —

  Like oak-tree old and gray,

  Whose trunk with age is failing,

  Thro’ whose dark boughs for aye

  The winter winds are wailing.

  Thus, Memory, thus thy light

  O’er this worn soul is gleaming,

  Like some far fire at night

  Along the dun deep streaming.

  YES — THERE BE SOME GAY SOULS WHO NEVER WEEP.

  “O Lachrymarum fons, tenero sacros

  Ducentium ortus ex animo.”

  Gray’s Poemata.

  YES — there be some gay souls who never weep,

  And some who, weeping, hate the tear they shed;

  But sure in them the heart’s fine feelings sleep,

  And all its loveliest attributes are dead.

  For oh! to feel it swelling to the eye,

  When melancholy thoughts have sent it there,

  Is something so akin to ecstasy,

  So true a balm to misery and care,

  That those are cold, I ween, who cannot feel

  The soft, the sweet, the exquisite control,

  Which tears, as down the moisten’d cheek they steal,

  Hold o’er the yielding empire of the soul.

  They soothe, they ease, and they refine the breast,

  And blunt the agonizing stings of grief,

  And lend the tortured mind a healing rest,

  A welcome opiate, and a kind relief.

  Then, if the pow’r of woe thou wouldst disarm,

  The tear thy burning wounds will gently close

  The rage of grief will sink into a calm,

  And her wild frenzy find the wish’d repose.

  HAVE YE NOT SEEN THE BUOYANT ORB?

  “A bubble...

  That in the act of seizing shrinks to naught.”

  CLARE.

  HAVE ye not seen the buoyant orb, which oft

  The tube and childhood’s playful breath produce.’

  Fair, but impalpable — it mounts aloft,

  While o’er its surface rove the restless hues;

  And sun-born tints their gliding bloom diffuse:

  But ‘twill not brook the touch — the vision bright,

  Dissolved with instantaneous burst, we lose;

  Breaks the thin globe with its array of light

  And shrinks at once to naught, at contact e’er so slight.

  So the gay hopes we chase with ardent zeal —

  Which view’d at distance to our gaze appear

  Sweetly embodied, tangible, and real —

  Elude our grasp, and melt away to air:

  The test of touch too delicate to bear,

  In unsubstantial loveliness thy glow

  Before our wistful eyes, too passing fair

  For earth to realize or man to know,

  Whose life is but a scene of fallacy and woe.

  THE EXILE’S HARP.

  I WILL hang thee, my harp, by the side of the fountain,

  On the whispering branch of the lone-waving willow:

  Above thee shall rush the hoarse gale of the mountain,

  Below thee shall tumble the dark breaking billow.

  The winds shall blow by thee, abandon’d, forsaken,

  The wild gales alone shall arouse thy sad strain;

  For where is the heart or the hand to awaken

  The sounds of thy soul-soothing sweetness again?

  Oh! harp of my fathers!

  Thy chords shall decay,

  One by one with the strings

  Shall thy notes fade away;

  Till the fiercest of tempests

  Around thee may yell,

  And not waken one sound

  Of thy desolate shell!

  Yet, oh! yet, ere I go, will I fling a wreath round thee,

  With the richest of flowers in the green valley springing;

  Those that see shall remember the hand that hath crown’d thee, —

  When, wither’d and dead, to thee still they are clinging.

  There! now I have wreathed thee — the roses are twining

  Thy chords with their bright blossoms glowing and red:

  Though the lapse of one day see their freshness declining,

  Yet bloom for one day when thy minstrel has fled!

  Oh! harp of my fathers!

  No more in the hall,

  The souls of the chieftains

  Thy strains shall enthral:

  One sweep will I give thee,

  And wake thy bold swell;

  Then, thou friend of my bosom,

  For ever farewell!

  WHY SHOULD WE WEEP FOR THOSE WHO DIE?

  “Quamobrem, si dolorum finem mors affert, si securioris et melioris initium vitæ: si futura mala avertit — cur eam tantopere accusare, ex qua potius consolationem et laetitiam haurire fas esset?” —

  Cicero.

  WHY should we weep for those who die?

  They fall — their dust returns to dust;

  Their souls shall live eternally

  Within the mansions of the just.

  They die to live — they sink to rise,

  They leave this wretched mortal shore;

  But brighter suns and bluer skies

  Shall smile on them for evermore.

  Why should we sorrow for the dead?

  Our life on earth is but a span;

  They tread the path that all must tread,

  They die the common death of man.

  The noblest songster of the gale

  Must cease, when Winter’s frowns appear;

  The reddest rose is wan and pale,

  When autumn tints the changing year.

  The fairest flower on earth must fade,

  The brightest hopes on earth must die:

  Why should we mourn that man was made

  To droop on earth, but dwell on high?

  The soul, th’ eternal soul, must reign

  In worlds devoid of pain and strife;

  Then why should mortal man complain

  Of death, which leads to happier life?

  RELIGION! THO’ WE SEEM TO SPURN.

  “Sublatam ex oculis quærimus.” — Horace.

  RELIGION! tho’ we seem to spurn

  Thy hallow’d joys, their loss we mourn,

  With many a secret tear;

  Tho’ we have long dissolved the tie,

  The hour we broke it claims a sigh,

  And Virtue still is dear.

  Our hearts forget not she was fair,

  And her pure feelings, ling’ring there,

  Half win us back from ill;

  And — tho’ so long to Vice resign’d

  ‘Twould seem we’ve left her far behind —

  Pursue and haunt us still.

  Thus light’s all-penetrating glow

  Attends us to the deeps below,

  With wav’ring, rosy gleam:

  To the bold inmates of the bell

  Faint
rays of distant sunlight steal,

  And thro’ the waters beam.

  By the rude blasts of passion tost,

  We sigh for bliss we ne’er had lost,

  Had Conscience been our guide;

  She burns a lamp we need not trim,

  Whose steady flame is never dim,

  But throws its lustre wide.

  REMORSE.

  “... Sudant tacita prascordia culpa.”

  JUVENAL.

  OH! ‘tis a fearful thing to glance

  Back on the gloom of misspent years:

  What shadowy forms of guilt advance,

  And fill me with a thousand fears!

  The vices of my life arise,

  Portray’d in shapes, alas! too true;

  And not one beam of hope breaks through,

  To cheer my old and aching eyes,

  T’ illume my night of wretchedness

  My age of anguish and distress.

  If I am damn’d, why find I not

  Some comfort in this earthly spot?

  But no! this world and that to come

  Are both to me one scene of gloom!

  Lest aught of solace I should see,

  Or lose the thoughts of what I do,

  Remorse, with soul-felt agony,

  Holds up the mirror to my view.

  And I was curséd from my birth,

  A reptile made to creep on earth,

  An hopeless outcast, born to die

  A living death eternally!

  With too much conscience to have rest,

  Too little to be ever blest,

  To yon vast world of endless woe,

  Unlighted by the cheerful day,

  My soul shall wing her weary way;

  To those dread depths where aye the same

  Throughout the waste of darkness, glow

  The glimmerings of the boundless flame.

  And yet I cannot here below

  Take my full cup of guilt, as some,

  And laugh away my doom to come.

  I would I’d been all-heartless! then

  I might have sinn’d like other men;

  But all this side the grave is fear,

  A wilderness so dank and drear,

  That never wholesome plant would spring;

  And all behind — I dare not think!

  I would not risk th’ imagining —

  From the full view my spirits shrink;

  And starting backwards, yet I cling

  To life, whose every hour to me

  Hath been increase of misery.

  But yet I cling to it, for well

  I know the pangs that rack me now

  Are trifles, to the endless hell

  That waits me, when my burning brow

  And my wrung eyes shall hope in vain

  For one small drop to cool the pain,

  The fury of that madd’ning flame

  That then shall scorch my writhing frame!

  Fiends! who have goaded me to ill!

  Distracting fiends, who goad me still!

  If e’er I work’d a sinful deed,

  Ye know how bitter was the draught;

  Ye know my inmost soul would bleed

  And ye have look’d at me and laugh’d

  Triumphing that I could not free

  My spirit from your slavery!

  Yet is there that in me which says,

  Should these old feet their course retread

  From out the portal of my days,

  That I should lead the life I’ve led:

  My agony, my torturing shame,

  My guilt, my errors all the same!

  O — God! that thou wouldst grant that ne’er

  My soul its clay-cold bed forsake,

  That I might sleep, and never wake

  Unto the thrill of conscious fear;

  For when the trumpet’s piercing cry

  Shall burst upon my slumb’ring ear,

  And countless seraphs throng the sky,

  How shall I cast my shroud away,

  And come into the blaze of day?

  How shall I brook to hear each crime,

  Here veil’d by secrecy and time,

  Read out from thine eternal book?

  How shall I stand before thy throne,

  While earth shall like a furnace burn?

  How shall I bear the with’ring look

  Of men and angels, who will turn

  Their dreadful gaze on me alone?

  ON GOLDEN EVENINGS, WHEN THE SUN.

  “The bliss to meet,

  And the pain to part!” — MOORE.

  ON golden evenings, when the sun

  In splendour sinks to rest,

  How we regret, when they are gone,

  Those glories of the west,

  That o’er the crimson-mantled sky

  Threw their broad flush of deepest dye!

  But when the wheeling orb again

  Breaks gorgeous on the view,

  And tints the earth and fires the main

  With rich and ruddy hue,

  We soon forget the eve of sorrow,

  For joy at that more brilliant morrow.

  E’en so when much-loved friends depart,

  Their farewell rends the swelling heart;

  But when those friends again we see,

  We glow with soul-felt ecstasy,

  That far exceeds the tearful feeling

  That o’er our bosoms then was stealing.

  The rapture of that joyous day

  Bids former sorrows fade away;

  And Memory dwells no more on sadness

  When breaks that sudden morn of gladness!

  THE DELL OF E —— — .

  “Tantum ævi longinqua valet mutare vetustas! “ — VIRGIL.

  THERE was a long, low, rushy dell, emboss’d

  With knolls of grass and clumps of copsewood green;

  Midway a wandering burn the valley cross’d,

  And streak’d with silvery line the woodland scene;

  High hills on either side to heaven upsprung,

  Y-clad with groves of undulating pine,

  Upon whose heads the hoary vapours hung,

  And far — far off the heights were seen to shine

  In clear relief against the sapphire sky,

  And many a blue stream wander’d thro’ the shade

  Of those dark groves that clomb the mountains high,

  And glistening ‘neath each lone entangled glade,

  At length with brawling accent loudly fell

  Within the limpid brook that wound along the dell.

  How pleasant was the ever-varying light

  Beneath that emerald coverture of boughs!

  How often, at th’ approach of dewy night,

  Have those tall pine-trees heard the lover’s vows!

  How many a name was carved upon the trunk

  Of each old hollow willow-tree, that stoop’d

  To lave its branches in the brook, and drunk

  Its freshening dew! How many a cypress droop’d

  From those fair banks, where bloom’d the earliest flowers,

  Which the young year from her abounding horn

  Scatters profuse within her secret bowers!

  What rapturous gales from that wild dell were borne!

  And, floating on the rich spring breezes, flung

  Their incense o’er that wave on whose bright banks they sprung!

  Long years had past, and there again I came,

  But man’s rude hand had sorely scathed the dell;

  And though the cloud-capt mountains, still the same,

  Uprear’d each heaven-invading pinnacle;

  Yet were the charms of that lone valley fled,

  And the gray winding of the stream was gone;

  The brook once murmuring o’er its pebbly bed,

  Now deeply — straightly — noiselessly went on.

  Slow turn’d the sluggish wheel beneath its force,

  Where cla
ttering mills disturb’d the solitude:

  Where was the prattling of its former course?

  Its shelving, sedgy sides y-crown’d with wood?

  The willow trunks were fell’d, the names erased

  From one broad shatter’d pine which still its station graced.

  Remnant of all its brethren, there it stood,

  Braving the storms that swept the cliffs above,

  Where once, throughout th’ impenetrable wood,

  Were heard the plainings of the pensive dove.

  But man had bid th’ eternal forests bow

  That bloom’d upon the earth-imbedded base

  Of the strong mountain, and perchance they now

  Upon the billows were the dwelling-place

  Of their destroyers, and bore terror round

  The trembling earth: — ah! lovelier had they still

  Whisper’d unto the breezes with low sound,

  And greenly flourish’d on their native hill,

  And flinging their proud arms in state on high,

  Spread out beneath the sun their glorious canopy!

  MY BROTHER.

  “Meorum prime sodalium.” — HORACE. —

  WITH falt’ring step I came to see,

  In Death’s unheeding apathy,

  That friend so dear in life to me,

  My brother!

  ‘Mid flowers of loveliest scent and hue

  That strew’d thy form, ‘twas sad to view

  Thy lifeless face peep wanly through,

  My brother!

  Why did they (there they did not feel!)

  With studious care all else conceal,

  But thy cold face alone reveal,

  My brother!

  They might have known, what used to glow

  With smiles, and oft dispell’d my woe,

  Would chill me most, when faded so,

  My brother!

  The tolling of thy funeral bell,

  The nine low notes that spoke thy knell,

  I know not how I bore so well,

  My brother!

  But oh! the chill, dank mould that slid,

  Dull-sounding, on thy coffin-lid,

  That drew more tears than all beside,

  My brother!

  And then I hurried fast away;

  How could I e’er have borne to stay

  Where careless hand inhumed thy clay,

  My brother!

  ANTONY TO CLEOPATRA.

  O CLEOPATRA! fare thee well,

  We two can meet no more;

  This breaking heart alone can tell

  The love to thee I bore.

  But wear not thou the conqueror’s chain

  Upon thy race and thee;

  And though we ne’er can meet again,

  Yet still be true to me:

  For I for thee have lost a throne,

  To wear the crown of love alone.

  Fair daughter of a regal line!