Bulchevy's Book of English Verse Part 130

Alfred Tennyson, Lord Tennyson. 1809-1892

706. Come down, O Maid

COME down, O maid, from yonder mountain height: What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang), In height and cold, the splendour of the hills?

But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease To glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine, To sit a star upon the sparkling spire; And come, for Love is of the valley, come, For Love is of the valley, come thou down And find him; by the happy threshold, he, Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize, Or red with spirted purple of the vats, Or foxlike in the vine; nor cares to walk With Death and Morning on the silver horns, Nor wilt thou snare him in the white ravine, Nor find him dropt upon the firths of ice, That huddling slant in furrow-cloven falls To roll the torrent out of dusky doors: But follow; let the torrent dance thee down To find him in the valley; let the wild Lean-headed Eagles yelp alone, and leave The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke, That like a broken purpose waste in air: So waste not thou; but come; for all the vales Await thee; azure pillars of the hearth Arise to thee; the children call, and I Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound, Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet; Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn, The moan of doves in immemorial elms, And murmuring of innumerable bees.

Alfred Tennyson, Lord Tennyson. 1809-1892

707. From 'In Memoriam'

(ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM, MDCCCx.x.xIII)

I

FAIR s.h.i.+p, that from the Italian sh.o.r.e Sailest the placid ocean-plains With my lost Arthur's loved remains, Spread thy full wings, and waft him o'er.

So draw him home to those that mourn In vain; a favourable speed Ruffle thy mirror'd mast, and lead Thro' prosperous floods his holy urn.

All night no ruder air perplex Thy sliding keel, till Phosphor, bright As our pure love, thro' early light Shall glimmer on the dewy decks.

Sphere all your lights around, above; Sleep, gentle heavens, before the prow; Sleep, gentle winds, as he sleeps now, My friend, the brother of my love;

My Arthur, whom I shall not see Till all my widow'd race be run; Dear as the mother to the son, More than my brothers are to me.

II

I hear the noise about thy keel; I hear the bell struck in the night; I see the cabin-window bright; I see the sailor at the wheel.

Thou bring'st the sailor to his wife, And travell'd men from foreign lands; And letters unto trembling hands; And, thy dark freight, a vanish'd life.

So bring him: we have idle dreams: This look of quiet flatters thus Our home-bred fancies: O to us, The fools of habit, sweeter seems

To rest beneath the clover sod, That takes the suns.h.i.+ne and the rains, Or where the kneeling hamlet drains The chalice of the grapes of G.o.d;

Than if with thee the roaring wells Should gulf him fathom-deep in brine; And hands so often clasp'd in mine, Should toss with tangle and with sh.e.l.ls.

III

Calm is the morn without a sound, Calm as to suit a calmer grief, And only thro' the faded leaf The chestnut pattering to the ground:

Calm and deep peace on this high wold, And on these dews that drench the furze, And all the silvery gossamers That twinkle into green and gold:

Calm and still light on yon great plain That sweeps with all its autumn bowers, And crowded farms and lessening towers, To mingle with the bounding main:

Calm and deep peace in this wide air, These leaves that redden to the fall; And in my heart, if calm at all, If any calm, a calm despair:

Calm on the seas, and silver sleep, And waves that sway themselves in rest, And dead calm in that n.o.ble breast Which heaves but with the heaving deep.

IV

To-night the winds begin to rise And roar from yonder dropping day: The last red leaf is whirl'd away, The rooks are blown about the skies;

The forest crack'd, the waters curl'd, The cattle huddled on the lea; And wildly dash'd on tower and tree The sunbeam strikes along the world:

And but for fancies, which aver That all thy motions gently pa.s.s Athwart a plane of molten gla.s.s, I scarce could brook the strain and stir

That makes the barren branches loud; And but for fear it is not so, The wild unrest that lives in woe Would dote and pore on yonder cloud

That rises upward always higher, And onward drags a labouring breast, And topples round the dreary west, A looming bastion fringed with fire.

V

Thou comest, much wept for: such a breeze Compell'd thy canvas, and my prayer Was as the whisper of an air To breathe thee over lonely seas.

For I in spirit saw thee move Thro' circles of the bounding sky, Week after week: the days go by: Come quick, thou bringest all I love.

Henceforth, wherever thou mayst roam My blessing, like a line of light, Is on the waters day and night, And like a beacon guards thee home.

So may whatever tempest mars Mid-ocean, spare thee, sacred bark; And balmy drops in summer dark Slide from the bosom of the stars.

So kind an office hath been done, Such precious relics brought by thee; The dust of him I shall not see Till all my widow'd race be run.

VI

Now, sometimes in my sorrow shut, Or breaking into song by fits, Alone, alone, to where he sits, The Shadow cloak'd from head to foot,

Who keeps the keys of all the creeds, I wander, often falling lame, And looking back to whence I came, Or on to where the pathway leads;

And crying, How changed from where it ran Thro' lands where not a leaf was dumb; But all the lavish hills would hum The murmur of a happy Pan:

When each by turns was guide to each, And Fancy light from Fancy caught, And Thought leapt out to wed with Thought Ere Thought could wed itself with Speech;

And all we met was fair and good, And all was good that Time could bring, And all the secret of the Spring Moved in the chambers of the blood;

And many an old philosophy On Argive heights divinely sang, And round us all the thicket rang To many a flute of Arcady.

VII

How fares it with the happy dead?

For here the man is more and more; But he forgets the days before G.o.d shut the doorways of his head.

The days have vanish'd, tone and tint, And yet perhaps the h.o.a.rding sense Gives out at times (he knows not whence) A little flash, a mystic hint;

And in the long harmonious years (If Death so taste Lethean springs) May some dim touch of earthly things Surprise thee ranging with thy peers.

If such a dreamy touch should fall, O turn thee round, resolve the doubt; My guardian angel will speak out In that high place, and tell thee all.