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- Herausgeber: Strelbytskyy Multimedia Publishing
- Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
- Sprache: Englisch
Alfred Tennyson was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one of the most popular British poets. Number of phrases from Tennyson's work have become commonplace in the English language. As source material for his poetry, Tennyson used a wide range of subject matter ranging from medieval legends to classical myths and from domestic situations to observations of nature. Tennyson was a craftsman who polished and revised his manuscripts extensively, to the point where his efforts at self-editing were described by his contemporary Robert Browning as "insane", symptomatic of "mental infirmity". Contents: 1. The Poetry POEMS, BY TWO BROTHERS TIMBUCTOO: A POEM POEMS, CHIEFLY LYRICAL POEMS, 1832 THE LOVER'S TALE. A FRAGMENT. POEMS, 1842 MISCELLANEOUS CONTRIBUTIONS TO PERIODICALS, 1831-1868 THE PRINCESS: A MEDLEY IN MEMORIAM A. H. H. MAUD, AND OTHER POEMS IDYLLS OF THE KING ENOCH ARDEN AND OTHER POEMS BALLADS AND OTHER POEMS TIRESIAS AND OTHER POEMS LOCKSLEY HALL SIXTY YEARS AFTER, ETC. DEMETER AND OTHER POEMS THE DEATH OF ŒNONE, AND OTHER POEMS 2. The Plays QUEEN MARY: A DRAMA HAROLD: A DRAMA BECKET THE CUP: A TRAGEDY THE FALCON THE PROMISE OF MAY THE FORESTERS: ROBIN HOOD AND MAID MARIAN
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Alfred Tennyson
The Poetry Collections
Alfred Tennyson was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one of the most popular British poets.
Number of phrases from Tennyson's work have become commonplace in the English language.
As source material for his poetry, Tennyson used a wide range of subject matter ranging from medieval legends to classical myths and from domestic situations to observations of nature.
Tennyson was a craftsman who polished and revised his manuscripts extensively, to the point where his efforts at self-editing were described by his contemporary Robert Browning as „insane“, symptomatic of „mental infirmity“.
1. The Poetry Collections
POEMS, BY TWO BROTHERS
TIMBUCTOO: A POEM
POEMS, CHIEFLY LYRICAL
POEMS, 1832
THE LOVER’S TALE. A FRAGMENT.
POEMS, 1842
MISCELLANEOUS CONTRIBUTIONS TO PERIODICALS, 1831-1868
THE PRINCESS: A MEDLEY
IN MEMORIAM A. H. H.
MAUD, AND OTHER POEMS
IDYLLS OF THE KING
ENOCH ARDEN AND OTHER POEMS
BALLADS AND OTHER POEMS
TIRESIAS AND OTHER POEMS
LOCKSLEY HALL SIXTY YEARS AFTER, ETC.
DEMETER AND OTHER POEMS
THE DEATH OF ŒNONE, AND OTHER POEMS
2. The Plays
QUEEN MARY: A DRAMA
HAROLD: A DRAMA
BECKET
THE CUP: A TRAGEDY
THE FALCON
THE PROMISE OF MAY
THE FORESTERS: ROBIN HOOD AND MAID MARIAN
The Poetry Collections
Tennyson was born in Somersby, Lincolnshire, being the fourth of twelve children. His father, George Clayton Tennyson (1778–1831), was rector of Somersby (1807–1831), as well as vicar of Grimsby. His mother, Elizabeth Fytche (1781–1865), was the daughter of Stephen Fytche (1734–1799), vicar of St. James Church, Louth (1764) and rector of Withcall (1780), a small village between Horncastle and Louth. Rev. George Clayton Tennyson was an accomplished man, successful in studies of architecture, painting, music and, more importantly, able to infuse a like-minded passion for poetry in his son. The father, who supervised his children’s education himself, was financially well-off for a country clergyman, due to his shrewd money management, providing young Alfred with a stable and happy home in his childhood.
Tennyson and two of his elder brothers began writing poetry in their early teenage years, and a collection of poems by all three were published locally when Alfred was only 17 years old. One of those brothers, Charles Tennyson Turner later married Louisa Sellwood, the younger sister of Alfred’s future wife; the other was Frederick Tennyson.
Tennyson entered Trinity College, Cambridge in 1827, where he met Arthur Henry Hallam, a fellow poet, who became his closest friend and had a great influence on his early poetic works. In that same year, Tennyson published his first collection of poems, which he later referred to as “ boyish rhymes”, accompanied with poems by his elder brother Charles. Poems by Two Brothers was published in 1827, with verses, mostly imitative in the fashionable style of the day, with Alfred contributing to more than half the volume.
Louth marketplace, eleven miles from Somersby. The tall building in the center of the picture is the bookshop and printing-office of the Jackson brothers, who in 1827 printed and published the Tennyson boys’ ‘Poems by Two Brothers’.
POEMS, BY TWO BROTHERS
“Haec nos novimus esse nihil.”
MARTIAL.
ADVERTISEMENT
A sketch of Tennyson made close to the time of publication, aged 18
THE following Poems were written from the ages of fifteen to eighteen, not conjointly, but individually; which may account for their difference of style and matter. To light upon any novel combination of images, or to open any vein of sparkling thought untouched before, were no easy task; indeed, the remark itself is as old as the truth is clear; and, no doubt, if submitted to the microscopic eye of periodical criticism, a long list of inaccuracies and imitations would result from the investigation. But so it is: we have passed the Rubicon, and we leave the rest to fate; though its edict may create a fruitless regret that we ever emerged from “ the shade,” and courted notoriety.
March, 1827.
‘Tis sweet to lead from stage to stage,
Like infancy to a maturer age,
The fleeting thoughts that crowd quick Fancy’s view,
And the coy image into form to woo;
Till all its charms to life and shape awake,
Wrought to the finest polish they can take:
Now out of sight the crafty Proteus steals,
The mind’s quick emissaries at his heels,
Its nature now a partial light reveals.
Each moment’s labour, easier than before,
Embodies the illusive image more;
Brings it more closely underneath the eye,
And lends it form and palpability.
What late in shadowy vision fleeted by,
Receives at each essay a deepening dye;
Till diction gives us, modell’d into song,
The fairy phantoms of the motley throng;
Detaining and elucidating well
Her airy embryos with binding spell;
For when the mind reflects its image true —
Sees its own aim — expression must ensue;
If all but language is supplied before,
She quickly follows, and the task is o’er.
Thus when the hand of pyrotechnic skill
Has stored the spokes of the fantastic wheel,
Apply the flame — it spreads as is design’d,
And glides and lightens o’er the track defined — ,
Unerring on its faithful pathway burns,
Searches each nook, and tracks its thousand turns;
The well-fill’d tubes in flexile flame arrays,
And fires each winding of the pregnant maze;
Feeding on prompt materials, spurns delay,
Till o’er the whole the lambent glories play.
I know no joy so well deserves the name,
None that more justly may that title claim,
Than that of which the poet is possess’d
When warm imagination fires his breast,
And countless images like claimants throng,
Prompting the ardent ecstasy of song.
He walks his study in a dreaming mood,
Like Pythia’s priestess panting with the god;
His varying brow, betraying what he feels,
The labour of his plastic mind reveals:
Now roughly furrow’d into anxious storms,
If with much toil his lab’ring lines he forms;
Now brightening into triumph as, the skein
Unravelling, he cons them o’er again,
As each correction of his favourite piece
Confers more smoothness, elegance, or ease.
Such are the sweets of song — and in this age,
Perchance too many in its lists engage;
And they who now would fain awake the lyre,
May swell this supernumerary choir:
But ye, who deign to read, forget t’ apply
The searching microscope of scrutiny:
Few from too near inspection fail to lose,
Distance on all a mellowing haze bestows;
And who is not indebted to that aid
Which throws his failures into welcome shade?
STANZAS
YON star of eve, so soft and clear,
Beams mildly from the realms of rest:
And, sure, some deathless angel there
Lives in its light supremely blest:
Yet if it be a spirit’s shrine,
I think, my love, it must be thine.
Oh! if in happier worlds than this
The just rejoice — to thee is giv’n
To taste the calm, undying bliss
Eternally in that blue heav’n,
Whither, thine earnest soul would flow,
While yet it linger’d here below.
If Beauty, Wit, and Virtue find
In heav’n a more exalted throne,
To thee such glory is assign’d,
And thou art matchless and alone:
Who lived on earth so pure — may grace
In heav’n the brightest seraph’s place.
For tho’ on earth thy beauty’s bloom
Blush’d in its spring, and faded then,
And, mourning o’er thine early tomb,
I weep thee still, but weep in vain;
Bright was the transitory gleam
That cheer’d thy life’s short wav’ring dream.
Each youthful rival may confess
Thy look, thy smile, beyond compare,
Nor ask the palm of loveliness,
When thou wert more than doubly fair:
Yet ev’n the magic of that form
Drew from thy mind its loveliest charm.
Be thou as the immortal are,
Who dwell beneath their God’s own wing
A spirit of light, a living star,
A holy and a searchless thing:
But oh! forget not those who mourn,
Because thou canst no more return.
IN EARLY YOUTH I LOST MY SIRE
“Hinc mihi prima mali labes.”
VIRGIL.
IN early youth I lost my sire,
That fost’ring guide, which all require,
But chief in youth, when passion glows,
And, if uncheck’d, to frenzy grows,
The fountain of a thousand woes.
To flowers it is an hurtful thing
To lose the sunshine in the spring;
Without the sun they cannot bloom,
And seldom to perfection come.
E’en so my soul, that might have borne
The fruits of virtue, left forlorn,
By every blast of vice was torn.
Why lowers my brow, dost thou enquire?
Why burns mine eye with feverish fire?
I With hatred now, and now with ire?
In early youth I lost my sire.
From this I date whatever vice
Has numb’d my feelings into ice;
From this — the frown upon my brow;
From this — the pangs that rack me now.
My wealth, I can with safety say,
Ne’er bought me one unruffled day,
But only wore my life away.
The pruning-knife ne’er lopp’d a bough;
My passions spread, and strengthen’d too.
The chief of these was vast ambition,
That long’d with eagle-wing to soar;
Nor ever soften’d in contrition,
Tho’ that wild wing were drench’d in gore.
And other passions play’d their part
On stage most fit — a youthful heart;
Till far beyond all hope I fell,
A play-thing for the fiends of hell —
A vessel, tost upon a deep
Whose stormy waves would never sleep.
Alas! when virtue once has flown,
We need not ask why peace is gone:
If she at times a moment play’d
With bright beam on my mind’s dark shade,
I knew the rainbow soon would fade!
Why thus it is, dost thou enquire?
Why bleeds my breast with tortures dire?
Loathes the rank earth, yet soars not higher?
In early youth I lost my sire.
MEMORY
“The memory is perpetually looking back when we have nothing present to entertain us: it is like those repositories in animals that are filled with stores of food on which they may ruminate when their present pasture fails.”
Addison.
MEMORY! dear enchanter!
Why bring back to view
Dreams of youth, which banter
All that e’er was true?
Why present before me
Thoughts of years gone by,
Which, like shadows o’er me,
Dim in distance fly?
Days of youth, now shaded
By twilight of long years,
Flowers of youth, now faded
Though bathed in sorrow’s tears:
Thoughts of youth, which waken
Mournful feelings now,
Fruits which time hath shaken
From off their parent bough:
Memory! why, oh why,
This fond heart consuming,
Show me years gone by,
When those hopes were blooming?
Hopes which now are parted,
Hopes which then I prized,
Which this world, cold-hearted,
Ne’er has realized?
I knew not then its strife,
I knew not then its rancour;
In every rose of life,
Alas! there lurks a canker.
Round every palm-tree, springing
With bright fruit in the waste,
A mournful asp is clinging,
Which sours it to our taste.
O’er every fountain, pouring
Its waters thro’ the wild,
Which man imbibes, adoring,
And deems it undefiled,
The poison-shrubs are dropping
Their dark dews day by day;
And Care is hourly lopping
Our greenest boughs away!
Ah! these are thoughts that grieve me
Then, when others rest.
Memory! why deceive me
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 vit?: 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 qu?rimus.”
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.
Tennyson was born in the Rectory at Somersby, Lincolnshire.
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 cursed 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?vi 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 clattering 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!
To thraldom bow not tamed;
My every wish on earth was thine,
My every hope the same.
And I have moved within thy sphere,
And lived within thy light;
And oh! thou wert to me so dear,
I breathed but in thy sight!
A subject world I lost for thee,
For thou wert all my world to me!
Then when the shriekings of the dying
Were heard along the wave,
Soul of my soul! I saw thee flying;
I follow’d thee, to save.
The thunder of the brazen prows
O’er Actium’s ocean rung;
Fame’s garland faded from my brows,
Her wreath away I flung.
I sought, I saw, I heard but thee:
For what to love was victory?
Thine on the earth, and on the throne,
And in the grave, am I;
And, dying, still I am thine own,
Thy bleeding Antony.
How shall my spirit joy to hear
That thou art ever true!
Nay — weep not — dry that burning tear,
That bathes thine eyes’ dark hue.
Shades of my fathers! lo! I come;
I hear your voices from the tomb!
I WANDER IN DARKNESS AND SORROW
I WANDER in darkness and sorrow,
Unfriended, and cold, and alone,
As dismally gurgles beside me
The bleak river’s desolate moan.
The rise of the volleying thunder
The mountain’s lone echoes repeat:
The roar of the wind is around me,
The leaves of the year at my feet.
I wander in darkness and sorrow,
Uncheer’d by the moon’s placid ray;
Not a friend that I lov’d but is dead,
Not a hope but has faded away!
Oh! when shall I rest in the tomb,
Wrapt about with the chill winding-sheet?
For the roar of the wind is around me,
The leaves of the year at my feet.
I heed not the blasts that sweep o’er me,
I blame not the tempests of night;
They are not the foes who have banish’d
The visions of youthful delight:
I hail the wild sound of their raving,
Their merciless presence I greet,
Though the roar of the wind be around me,
The leaves of the year at my feet.
In this waste of existence, for solace,
On whom shall my lone spirit call?
Shall I fly to the friends of my bosom?
My God! I have buried them all!
They are dead, they are gone, they are cold,
My embraces no longer they meet;
Let the roar of the wind be around me,
The leaves of the year at my feet!
Those eyes that glanced love unto mine,
With motionless slumbers are prest;
Those hearts which once throbb’d but for me,
Are chill as the earth where they rest.
Then around on my wan wither’d form
Let the pitiless hurricanes beat;
Let the roar of the wind be around me,
The leaves of the year at my feet!
Like the voice of the owl in the hall,
Where the song and the banquet have ceased,
Where the green leaves have mantled the hearth
Whence arose the proud flame of the feast;
So I cry to the storm, whose dark wing
Scatters on me the wild-driving sleet —
“Let the roar of the wind be around me,
The fall of the leaves at my feet!”
TO ONE WHOSE HOPE REPOSED ON THEE
“She’s gone…
She’s sunk, with her my joys entombing!“
Byron.
To one whose hope reposed on thee,
Whose very life was in thine own,
How deep a wound thy death must be,
And the wild thought that thou art gone!
Oh! must the earth-born reptiles prey
Upon that cheek of late so blooming?
Alas! this heart must wear away
Long ere that cheek they’ve done consuming!
For hire the sexton toll’d thy bell —
But why should he receive a meed
Who work’d at least no mortal’s weal,
And made one lonely bosom bleed?
For hire with ready mould he stood —
But why should gain his care repay
Who told, as harshly as he could,
That all I loved was past away?
For, sure, it was too rude a blow
For Misery’s ever-wakeful ear,
To cast the earth with sudden throw
Upon the grave of one so dear:
For aye these bitter tears must swell,
Tho’ the sad scene is past and gone;
And still I hear the tolling bell,
For Memory makes each sense her own.
But stay, my soul! thy plaint forbear,
And be thy murmuring song forgiven!
Tread but the path of Virtue here,
And thou shalt meet with her in heaven!
THE OLD SWORD
OLD Sword! tho’ dim and rusted
Be now thy sheeny blade,
Thy glitt’ring edge encrusted
With cankers Time hath made;
Yet once around thee swell’d the cry
Of triumph’s fierce delight,
The shoutings of the victory,
The thunders of the fight!
Tho’ age hath past upon thee
With still corroding breath,
Yet once stream’d redly on thee
The purpling tide of death:
What time amid the war of foes
The dastard’s cheek grew pale,
As through the feudal field arose
The ringing of the mail.
Old Sword! what arm hath wielded
Thy richly gleaming brand,
‘Mid lordly forms who shielded
The maidens of their land?
And who hath clov’n his foes in wrath
With thy puissant fire,
And scatter’d in his perilous path
The victims of his ire?
Old Sword! whose fingers clasp’d thee
Around thy carved hilt?
And with that hand which grasp’d thee
What heroes’ blood was spilt;
When fearlessly, with open hearts,
And lance to lance opposed,
Beneath the shade of barbed darts
The dark-eyed warriors closed?
Old Sword! I would not burnish
Thy venerable rust, —
Nor sweep away the tarnish
Of darkness and of dust!
Lie there, in slow and still decay,
Unfamed in olden rhyme,
The relic of a former day,
A wreck of ancient time!
THE GONDOLA
“‘Tis sweet to hear
At midnight, o’er the blue and moonlit deep,
The song and oar of Adria’s gondolier.”
Don Juan.
O’ER ocean’s curling surges borne along,
Arion sung — the dolphin caught the strain,
As soft the mellow’d accents of his tongue
Stole o’er the surface of the watery plain.
And do those silver sounds, so deep, so clear,
Possess less magic than Arion’s lay?
Swell they less boldly on the ravish’d ear,
Or with less cadence do they die away?
Yon gondola, that skims the moonlight sea,
Yields me those notes more wild than Houri’s lyre,
That, as they rise, exalt to ecstasy,
And draw the tear as, length’ning, they expire.
An arch of purest azure beams above,
A sea, as blue, as beauteous, spreads below;
In this voluptuous clime of song and love
What room for sorrow? who shall cherish woe?
False thought! tho’ pleasure wing the careless hours,
Their stores tho’ Cyprus and Arabia send,
Tho’ for the ear their fascinating power
Divine Timotheus and Cecilia blend; —
All without Virtue’s relish fail to please,
Venetian charms the cares of Vice alloy,
Joy’s swiftest, brightest current they can freeze,
And all the genuine sweets of life destroy!
WE MEET NO MORE
WE meet no more — the die is cast,
The chain is broke that tied us,
Our every hope on earth is past,
And there’s no helm to guide us:
We meet no more — the roaring blast
And angry seas divide us!
And I stand on a distant shore,
The breakers round me swelling;
And lonely thoughts of days gone o’er
Have made this breast their dwelling:
We meet no more — We meet no more:
Farewell for ever, Ellen!
BY AN EXILE OF BASSORAH
WRITTEN WHILE SAILING DOWN THE EUPHRATES
THOU land of the lily! thy gay flowers are blooming
In joy on thine hills, but they bloom not for me;
For a dark gulf of woe, all my fond hopes entombing,
Has roll’d its black waves ‘twixt this lone heart and thee.
The far-distant hills, and the groves of my childhood,
Now stream in the light of the sun’s setting ray:
And the tail-waving palms of my own native wildwood
In the blue haze of distance are melting away.
I see thee, Bassorah! in splendour retiring,
Where thy waves and thy walls in their majesty meet;
I see the bright glory thy pinnacles firing,
And the broad vassal river that rolls at thy feet.
see thee but faintly — thy tall towers are beaming
On the dusky horizon so far and so blue;
And minaret and mosque in the distance are gleaming,
While the coast of the stranger expands on my view.
I see thee no more: for the deep waves have parted
The land of my birth from her desolate son;
And I am gone from thee, though half brokenhearted,
To wander thro’ climes where thy name is unknown.
Farewell to my harp, which I hung in my anguish
On the lonely palmetto that nods to the gale;
For its sweet-breathing tones in forgetfulness languish,
And around it the ivy shall weave a green veil.
Farewell to the days which so smoothly have glided
With the maiden whose look was like Cama’s young glance,
And the sheen of whose eyes was the load-star which guided
My course on this earth thro’ the storms of mischance!
MARIA TO HER LUTE, THE GIFT OF HER DYING LOVER
“O laborum
Dulce lenimen!”
Horace.
I LOVE thee, Lute! my soul is link’d to thee
As by some tie-’tis not a groundless love;
I cannot rouse thy plaintive melody,
And fail its magic influence to prove.
I think I found thee more than ever dear
(If thought can work within this fever’d brain)
Since Edward’s lifeless form was buried here,
And I deplored his hapless fate in vain.
‘Twas then to thee my strange affection grew,
For thou wert his — I’ve heard him wake thy strain:
Oh! if in heaven each other we shall view,
I’ll bid him sweep thy mournful chords again.
would not change thee for the noblest lyre
That ever lent its music to the breeze:
How could Maria taste its note of fire?
How wake a harmony that could not please?
Then, till mine eye shall glaze, and cheek shall fade,
I’ll keep thee, prize thee as my dearest friend;
And oft I’ll hasten to the green-wood shade,
My hours in sweet, tho’ fruitless grief to spend.
For in the tear there is a nameless joy;
The full warm gush relieves the aching soul:
So still, to ease my hopeless agony,
My lute shall warble and my tears shall roll.
THE VALE OF BONES
“Albis informem — ossibus agrum.”
HORACE.
ALONG yon vapour-mantled sky
The dark-red moon is riding high;
At times her beams in beauty break
Upon the broad and silv’ry lake;
At times more bright they clearly fall
On some white castle’s ruin’d wall;
At times her partial splendour shines
Upon the grove of deep-black pines,
Through which the dreary night-breeze moans,
Above this Vale of scatter’d bones.
The low, dull gale can scarcely stir
The branches of that black’ning fir,
Which betwixt me and heav’n flings wide
Its shadowy boughs on either side,
And o’er yon granite rock uprears
Its giant form of many years.
And the shrill owlet’s desolate wail
Comes to mine ear along the gale,
As, list’ning to its lengthen’d tones,
I dimly pace the Vale of Bones.
Dark Valley I still the same art thou,
Unchanged thy mountain’s cloudy brow;
Still from yon cliffs, that part asunder,
Falls down the torrent’s echoing thunder;
Still from this mound of reeds and rushes
With bubbling sound the fountain gushes;
Thence, winding thro’ the whisp’ring ranks
Of sedges on the willowy banks,
Still brawling, chafes the rugged stones
That strew this dismal Vale of Bones.
Unchanged art thou! no storm hath rent
Thy rude and rocky battlement;
Thy rioting mountains sternly piled,
The screen of nature, wide and wild:
But who were they whose bones bestrew
The heather, cold with midnight dew,
Upon whose slowly-rotting clay
The raven long hath ceased to prey,
But, mould’ring in the moonlight air,
Their wan, white sculls show bleak and bare?
And, aye, the dreary night-breeze moans
Above them in this Vale of Bones!
I knew them all — a gallant band,
The glory of their native land,
And on each lordly brow elate
Sat valour and contempt of fate,
Fierceness of youth, and scorn of foe,
And pride to render blow for blow.
In the strong war’s tumultuous crash
How darkly did their keen eyes flash!
How fearlessly each arm was raised!
How dazzlingly each broad-sword blazed!
Though now the dreary night-breeze moans
Above them in this Vale of Bones.
What lapse of time shall sweep away
The memory of that gallant day,
When on to battle proudly going,
Your plumage to the wild winds blowing,
Your tartans far behind ye flowing,
Your pennons raised, your clarions sounding,
Fiercely your steeds beneath ye bounding,
Ye mix’d the strife of warring foes
In fiery shock and deadly close?
What stampings in the madd’ning strife,
What thrusts, what stabs, with brand and knife,
What desp’rate strokes for death or life,
Were there! What cries, what thrilling groans,
Re-echoed thro’ the Vale of Bones!
Thou peaceful Vale, whose mountains lonely
Sound to the torrent’s chiding only,
Or wild goat’s cry from rocky ledge,
Or bull-frog from the rustling sedge,
Or eagle from her airy cairn,
Or screaming of the startled hern —
How did thy million echoes waken
Amid thy caverns deeply shaken!
How with the red dew o’er thee rain’d
Thine emerald turf was darkly stain’d!
How did each innocent flower, that sprung
Thy greenly-tangled glades among,
Blush with the big and purple drops
That dribbled from the leafy copse!
I paced the valley, when the yell
Of triumph’s voice had ceased to swell;
When battle’s brazen throat no more
Raised its annihilating roar.
There lay ye on each other piled,
Your brows with noble dust defiled;
There, by the loudly-gushing water,
Lay man and horse in mingled slaughter.
Then wept I not, thrice gallant band;
For though no more each dauntless hand
The thunder of the combat hurl’d,
Yet still with pride your lips were curl’d;
And e’en in death’s o’erwhelming shade
Your fingers linger’d round the blade!
I deem’d, when gazing proudly there
Upon the fix’d and haughty air
That mark’d each warrior’s bloodless face,
Ye would not change the narrow space
Which each cold form of breathless clay
Then cover’d, as on earth ye lay,
For realms, for sceptres, or for thrones —
I dream’d not on this Vale of Bones!
But years have thrown their veil between,
And alter’d is that lonely scene;
And dreadful emblems of thy might,
Stern dissolution! meet my sight:
The eyeless socket, dark and dull,
The hideous grinning of the skull,
Are sights which Memory disowns,
Thou melancholy Vale of Bones!
TO FANCY
BRIGHT angel of heavenliest birth!
Who dwellest among us unseen,
O’er the gloomiest spot on the earth
There’s a charm where thy footsteps have been.
We feel thy soft sunshine in youth,
While our joys like young blossoms are new;
For oh! thou art sweeter than Truth,
And fairer and lovelier too!
The exile, who mourneth alone,
Is glad in the glow of thy smile,
Tho’ far from the land of his own,
In the ocean’s most desolate isle:
And the captive, who pines in his chain,
Sees the banners of glory unroll’d,
As he dreams of his own native plain,
And the forms of the heroes of old.
In the earliest ray of the morn,
In the last rosy splendour of even,
We view thee — thy spirit is borne
On the murmuring zephyrs of heaven:
Thou art in the sunbeam of noon,
Thou art in the azure of air,
If I pore on the sheen of the moon,
If I search the bright stars, thou art there!
Thou art in the rapturous eye
Of the bard, when his visions rush o’er him;
And like the fresh iris on high
Are the wonders that sparkle before him.
Thou stirrest the thunders of song,
Those transports that brook not control;
Thy voice is the charm of his tongue,
Thy magic the light of his soul!
Like the day-star that heralds the sun,
Thou seem’st, when our young hopes are dawning;
But ah! when the day is begun,
Thou art gone like the star of the morning!
Like a beam in the winter of years,
When the joys of existence are cold,
Thine image can dry up our tears,
And brighten the eyes of the old!
Tho’ dreary and dark be the night
Of affliction that gathers around,
There is something of heaven in thy light,
Glad spirit! where’er thou art found:
As calmly the sea-maid may lie
In her pearly pavilion at rest,
The heart-broken and friendless may fly
To the shade of thy bower, and be blest!
BOYHOOD
“Ah, happy years! once more who would not be a boy?”
Childe Harold.
BOYHOOD’S blest hours! when yet unfledged and callow,
We prove those joys we never can retain,
In riper years with fond regret we hallow,
Like some sweet scene we never see again.
For youth — whate’er may be its petty woes,
Its trivial sorrows — disappointments — fears,
As on in haste life’s wintry current flows —
Still claims, and still receives, its debt of tears.
Yes! when, in grim alliance, grief and time
Silver our heads and rob our hearts of ease,
We gaze along the deeps of care and crime
To the far, fading shore of youth and peace;
Each object that we meet the more endears
That rosy morn before a troubled day;
That blooming dawn — that sunrise of our years —
That sweet voluptuous vision past away!
For by the welcome, tho’ embittering power
Of wakeful memory, we too well behold
That lightsome — careless — unreturning hour,
Beyond the reach of wishes or of gold.
And ye, whom blighted hopes or passion’s heat
Have taught the pangs that careworn hearts dure,
Ye will not deem the vernal rose so sweet!
Ye will not call the driven snow so pure!
DID NOT THY ROSEATE LIPS OUTVIE
“Ulla si juris tibi pejerati
P?na, Barine, nocuisset unquam;
Denti si nigro fieres, vel uno
Turpior ungui
Crederem.”
Horace.
Did not thy roseate lips outvie
The gay anana’s spicy bloom;
Had not thy breath the luxury,
The richness of its deep perfume —
Were not the pearls it fans more clear
That those which grace the valved shell;
Thy foot more airy than the deer,
When startled from his lonely dell —
Were not thy bosom’s stainless whiteness,
Where angel loves their vigils keep,
More heavenly than the dazzling brightness
Of the cold crescent on the deep —
Were not thine eye a star might grace
Yon sapphire concave beaming clear,
Or fill the vanish’d Pleiad’s place,
And shine for aye as brightly there —
Had not thy locks the golden glow
That robes the gay and early east,
Thus falling in luxuriant flow
Around thy fair but faithless breast:
I might have deem’d that thou wert she
Of the Cum?an cave, who wrote
Each fate-involving mystery
Upon the feathery leaves that float,
Borne thro’ the boundless waste of air,
Wherever chance might drive along.
But she was wrinkled — thou art fair:
And she was old — but thou art young.
Her years were as the sands that strew
The fretted ocean-beach; but thou —
Triumphant in that eye of blue,
Beneath thy smoothly-marbled brow;
Exulting in thy form thus moulded,
By nature’s tenderest touch design’d;
Proud of the fetters thou hast folded
Around this fond deluded mind —
Deceivest still with practised look,
With fickle vow, and well-feign’d sigh.
I — tell thee, that I will not brook
Reiterated perjury!
Alas! I feel thy deep control,
E’en now when I would break thy chain:
But while I seek to gain thy soul,
Ah! say — hast thou a soul to gain?
HUNTSMAN’S SONG
“Who the melodies of morn can tell?”
BEATTIE.
OH! what is so sweet as a morning in spring,
When the gale is all freshness, and larks, on the wing,
In clear liquid carols their gratitude sing?
I — rove o’er the hill as it sparkles with dew,
And the red flush of Phoebus with ecstasy view,
As he breaks thro’ the east o’er thy crags, Benvenue!
And boldly I bound o’er the mountainous scene,
Like the roe which I hunt thro’ the woodlands so green,
Or the torrent which leaps from the height to the plain.
The life of the hunter is chainless and gay,
As the wing of the falcon that wins him his prey:
No song is so glad as his blithe roundelay.
His eyes in soft arbours the Moslem may close,
And Fayoum’s rich odours may breathe from the rose,
To scent his bright harem and lull his repose:
Th’ Italian may vaunt of his sweet harmony,
And mingle soft sound of voluptuous glee;
But the lark’s airy music is sweeter to me.
Then happy the man who upsprings with the morn,
But not from a couch of effeminate lawn,
And slings o’er his shoulder his loud bugle-horn!
PERSIA
“The flower and choice
Of many provinces from bound to bound.”
Milton.
LAND of bright eye and lofty brow!
Whose every gale is balmy breath
Of incense from some sunny flower,
Which on tall hill or valley low,
In clustering maze or circling wreath,
Sheds perfume; or in blooming bower
Of Schiraz or of Ispahan,
In bower untrod by foot of man,
Clasps round the green and fragrant stem
Of lotos, fair and fresh and blue,
And crowns it with a diadem
Of blossoms, ever young and new;
