Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Delphi Poets Series

by Lord Tennyson Alfred

  And so much wealth as God had charged her with,

  Loathing to put it from herself for ever,

  Crown’d with her highest act the placid face

  And breathless body of her good deeds past.

  So we were born, so orphan’d. She was motherless,

  And I without a father. So from each

  Of those two pillars which from earth uphold

  Our childhood, one had fall’n away, and all

  The careful burthen of our tender years

  Trembled upon the other. He that gave

  Her life, to me delightedly fulfill’d

  All loving-kindnesses, all offices

  Of watchful care and trembling tenderness.

  He worked for both: he pray’d for both: he slept

  Dreaming of both; nor was his love the less

  Because it was divided, and shot forth

  Boughs on each side, laden with wholesome shade,

  Wherein we rested sleeping or awake,

  And sung aloud the matin-song of life.

  She was my foster-sister: on one arm

  The flaxen ringlets of our infancies

  Wander’d, the while we rested: one soft lap

  Pillow’d us both: one common light of eyes

  Was on us as we lay: our baby lips,

  Kissing one bosom, ever drew from thence

  The stream of life, one stream, one life, one blood,

  One sustenance, which, still as thought grew large,

  Still larger moulding all the house of thought,

  Perchance assimilated all our tastes

  And future fancies. ‘Tis a beautiful

  And pleasant meditation, what whate’er

  Our general mother meant for me alone,

  Our mutual mother dealt to both of us:

  So what was earliest mine in earliest life,

  I shared with her in whom myself remains.

  As was our childhood, so our infancy,

  They tell me, was a very miracle

  Of fellow-feeling and communion.

  They tell me that we would not be alone, —

  We cried when we were parted; when I wept,

  Her smile lit up the rainbow on my tears,

  Stay’d on the clouds of sorrow; that we loved

  The sound of one another’s voices more

  Than the grey cuckoo loves his name, and learn’d

  To lisp in tune together; that we slept

  In the same cradle always, face to face,

  Heart beating time to heart, lip pressing lip,

  Folding each other, breathing on each other,

  Dreaming together (dreaming of each other

  They should have added) till the morning light

  Sloped thro’ the pines, upon the dewy pane

  Falling, unseal’d our eyelids, and we woke

  To gaze upon each other. If this be true,

  At thought of which my whole soul languishes

  And faints, and hath no pulse, no breath, as tho’

  A man in some still garden should infuse

  Rich attar in the bosom of the rose,

  Till, drunk with its own wine and overfull

  Of sweetness, and in smelling of itself,

  It fall on its own thorns — if this be true —

  And that way my wish leaneth evermore

  Still to believe it—’tis so sweet a thought,

  Why in the utter stillness of the soul

  Doth question’d memory answer not, nor tell,

  Of this our earliest, our closest drawn,

  Most loveliest, most delicious union?

  Oh, happy, happy outset of my days!

  Green springtide, April promise, glad new year

  Of Being, which with earliest violets,

  And lavish carol of clear-throated larks,

  Fill’d all the march of life. — I will not speak of thee;

  These have not seen thee, these can never know thee,

  They cannot understand me. Pass on then

  A term of eighteen years. Ye would but laugh

  If I should tell ye how I heard in thought

  Those rhymes, ‘The Lion and the Unicorn’

  ‘The Four-and-twenty Blackbirds’ ‘Banbury Cross,’

  ‘The Gander’ and ‘The man of Mitylene,’

  And all the quaint old scraps of ancient crones,

  Which are as gems set in my memory,

  Because she learn’d them with me. Or what profits it

  To tell ye that her father died, just ere

  The daffodil was blown; or how we found

  The drowned seaman on the shore? These things

  Unto the quiet daylight of your minds

  Are cloud and smoke, but in the dark of mine

  Show traced with flame. Move with me to that hour,

  Which was the hinge on which the door of Hope,

  Once turning, open’d far into the outward,

  And never closed again.

  I well remember,

  It was a glorious morning, such a one

  As dawns but once a season. Mercury

  On such a morning would have flung himself

  From cloud to cloud, and swum with balanced wings

  To some tall mountain. On that day the year

  First felt his youth and strength, and from his spring

  Moved smiling toward his summer. On that day,

  Love working shook his wings (that charged the winds

  With spiced May-sweets from bound to bound) and blew

  Fresh fire into the sun, and from within

  Burst thro’ the heated buds, and sent his soul

  Into the songs of birds, and touch’d far-off

  His mountain-altars, his high hills, with flame

  Milder and purer. Up the rocks we wound;

  The great pine shook with lovely sounds of joy,

  That came on the sea-wind. As mountain brooks

  Our blood ran free: the sunshine seem’d to brood

  More warmly on the heart than on the brow.

  We often paused, and looking back, we saw

  The clefts and openings in the hills all fill’d

  With the blue valley and the glistening brooks,

  And with the low dark groves — a land of Love;

  Where Love was worshipp’d upon every height,

  Where Love was worshipp’d under every tree —

  A land of promise, flowing with the milk

  And honey of delicious memories

  Down to the sea, as far as eye could ken,

  From verge to verge it was a holy land,

  Still growing holier as you near’d the bay,

  For where the temple stood. When we had reach’d

  The grassy platform on some hill, I stoop’d,

  I gather’d the wild herbs, and for her brows

  And mine wove chaplets of the self-same flower,

  Which she took smiling, and with my work there

  Crown’d her clear forehead. Once or twice she told me

  (For I remember all things), to let grow

  The flowers that run poison in their veins.

  She said, ‘The evil flourish in the world’;

  Then playfully she gave herself the lie:

  ‘Nothing in nature is unbeautiful,

  So, brother, pluck and spare not.’ So I wove

  Even the dull-blooded poppy, ‘whose red flower

  Hued with the scarlet of a fierce sunrise,

  Like to the wild youth of an evil king,

  Is without sweetness, but who crowns himself

  Above the secret poisons of his heart

  In his old age’ — a graceful thought of hers

  Graven on my fancy! As I said, with these

  She crown’d her forehead. O how like a nymph,

  A stately mountain-nymph, she look’d! how native

  Unto the hills she trod on! What an angel!

  How clothed with beams! My eyes, fix’d upon her
s,

  Almost forgot even to move again.

  My spirit leap’d as with those thrills of bliss

  That shoot across the soul in prayer, and show us

  That we are surely heard. Methought a light

  Burst from the garland I had woven, and stood

  A solid glory on her bright black hair:

  A light, methought, broke from her dark, dark eyes,

  And shot itself into the singing winds;

  A light, methought, flash’d even from her white robe,

  As from a glass in the sun, and fell about

  My footsteps on the mountains.

  About sunset

  We came unto the hill of woe, so call’d

  Because the legend ran that, long time since,

  One rainy night, when every wind blew loud,

  A woful man had thrust his wife and child

  With shouts from off the bridge, and following, plunged

  Into the dizzy chasm below. Below,

  Sheer thro’ the black-wall’d cliff the rapid brook

  Shot down his inner thunders, built above

  With matted bramble and the shining gloss

  Of ivy-leaves, whose low-hung tresses, dipp’d

  In the fierce stream, bore downward with the wave.

  The path was steep and loosely strewn with crags

  We mounted slowly: yet to both of us

  It was delight, not hindrance: unto both

  Delight from hardship to be overcome,

  And scorn of perilous seeming: unto me

  Intense delight and rapture that I breathed,

  As with a sense of nigher Deity,

  With her to whom all outward fairest things

  Were by the busy mind referr’d, compared,

  As bearing no essential fruits of excellence.

  Save as they were the types and shadowings

  Of hers — and then that I became to her

  A tutelary angel as she rose,

  And with a fearful self-impelling joy

  Saw round her feet the country far away,

  Beyond the nearest mountain’s bosky brows,

  Burst into open prospect — heath and hill,

  And hollow lined and wooded to the lips —

  And steep down walls of battlemented rock

  Girded with broom or shiver’d into peaks —

  And glory of broad waters interfused,

  Whence rose as it were breath and steam of gold;

  And over all the great wood rioting

  And climbing, starr’d at slender intervals

  With blossom tufts of purest white; and last,

  Framing the mighty landskip to the West,

  A purple range of purple cones, between

  Whose interspaces gush’d, in blinding bursts,

  The incorporate light of sun and sea.

  At length,

  Upon the tremulous bridge, that from beneath

  Seemed with a cobweb firmament to link

  The earthquake-shattered chasm, hung with shrubs,

  We passed with tears of rapture. All the West,

  And even unto the middle South, was ribb’d

  And barr’d with bloom on bloom. The sun beneath,

  Held for a space ‘twixt cloud and wave, shower’d down

  Rays of a mighty circle, weaving over

  That varied wilderness a tissue of light

  Unparallel’d. On the other side the moon,

  Half-melted into thin blue air, stood still

  And pale and fibrous as a wither’d leaf,

  Nor yet endured in presence of his eyes

  To imbue his lustre; most unloverlike;

  Since in his absence full of light and joy

  And giving light to others. But this chiefest,

  Next to her presence whom I loved so well,

  Spoke loudly, even into my inmost heart,

  As to my outward hearing: the loud stream,

  Forth issuing from his portals in the crag

  (A visible link unto the home of my heart),

  Ran amber toward the West, and nigh the sea,

  Parting my own loved mountains, was received

  Shorn of its strength, into the sympathy

  Of that small bay, which into open main

  Glow’d intermingling close beneath the sun

  Spirit of Love! That little hour was bound,

  Shut in from Time, and dedicate to thee;

  Thy fires from heav’n had touch’d it, and the earth

  They fell on became hallow’d evermore.

  We turn’d: our eyes met: her’s were bright, and mine

  Were dim with floating tears, that shot the sunset,

  In light rings round me; and my name was borne

  Upon her breath. Henceforth my name has been

  A hallow’d memory, like the names of old;

  A center’d, glory-circled memory,

  And a peculiar treasure, brooking not

  Exchange or currency; and in that hour

  A hope flow’d round me, like a golden mist

  Charm’d amid eddies of melodious airs,

  A moment, ere the onward whirlwind shatter it,

  Waver’d and floated — which was less than Hope,

  Because it lack’d the power of perfect Hope;

  But which was more and higher than all Hope,

  Because all other Hope hath lower aim;

  Even that this name to which her seraph lips

  Did lend such gentle utterance, this one name

  In some obscure hereafter, might inwreathe

  (How lovelier, nobler then!) her life, her love,

  With my life, love, soul, spirit and heart and strength.

  ‘Brother,’ she said, ‘let this be call’d henceforth

  The Hill of Hope’; and I replied: ‘O sister,

  My will is one with thine; the Hill of Hope.’

  Nevertheless, we did not change the name.

  Love lieth deep; Love dwells not in lip-depths:

  Love wraps her wings on either side the heart,

  Constraining it with kisses close and warm,

  Absorbing all the incense of sweet thoughts

  So that they pass not to the shrine of sound.

  Else had the life of that delighted hour

  Drunk in the largeness of the utterance

  Of Love; but how should earthly measure mete

  The heavenly unmeasured or unlimited Love,

  Which scarce can tune his high majestic sense

  Unto the thunder-song that wheels the spheres;

  Scarce living in the Aeolian harmony,

  And flowing odour of the spacious air;

  Scarce housed in the circle of this earth:

  Be cabin’d up in words and syllables,

  Which waste with the breath that made ‘em.

  Sooner earth

  Might go round heaven, and the straight girth of Time

  Inswathe the fullness of Eternity,

  Than language grasp the infinite of Love.

  O day, which did enwomb that happy hour,

  Thou art blest in the years, divinest day!

  O Genius of that hour which dost uphold

  Thy coronal of glory like a God,

  Amid thy melancholy mates far-seen,

  Who walk before thee, and whose eyes are dim

  With gazing on the light and depth of thine

  Thy name is ever worshipp’d among hours!

  Had I died then, I had not seem’d to die

  For bliss stood round me like the lights of heaven,

  That cannot fade, they are so burning bright.

  Had I died then, I had not known the death;

  Planting my feet against this mound of time

  I had thrown me on the vast, and from this impulse

  Continuing and gathering ever, ever,

  Agglomerated swiftness, I had lived

  That intense moment thro’ eternity.

  Oh, had the Power fr
om whose right hand the light

  Of Life issueth, and from whose left hand floweth

  The shadow of Death, perennial effluences,

  Whereof to all that draw the wholesome air,

  Somewhile the one must overflow the other;

  Then had he stemm’d my day with night and driven

  My current to the fountain whence it sprang —

  Even his own abiding excellence —

  On me, methinks, that shock of gloom had fall’n

  Unfelt, and like the sun I gazed upon,

  Which, lapt in seeming dissolution,

  And dipping his head low beneath the verge,

  Yet bearing round about him his own day,

  In confidence of unabated strength,

  Steppeth from heaven to heaven, from light to light,

  And holding his undimmed forehead far

  Into a clearer zenith, pure of cloud;

  So bearing on thro’ Being limitless

  The triumph of this foretaste, I had merged

  Glory in glory, without sense of change.

  We trod the shadow of the downward hill;

  We pass’d from light to dark. On the other side

  Is scooped a cavern and a mountain-hall,

  Which none have fathom’d. If you go far in

  (The country people rumour) you may hear

  The moaning of the woman and the child,

  Shut in the secret chambers of the rock.

  I too have heard a sound — perchance of streams

  Running far-off within its inmost halls,

  The home of darkness, but the cavern mouth,

  Half overtrailed with a wanton weed

  Gives birth to a brawling stream, that stepping lightly

  Adown a natural stair of tangled roots,

  Is presently received in a sweet grove

  Of eglantine, a place of burial

  Far lovelier than its cradle; for unseen

  But taken with the sweetness of the place,

  It giveth out a constant melody

  That drowns the nearer echoes. Lower down

  Spreads out a little lake, that, flooding, makes

  Cushions of yellow sand; and from the woods

  That belt it rise three dark tall cypresses;

  Three cypresses, symbols of mortal woe,

  That men plant over graves.

  Hither we came,

  And sitting down upon the golden moss

  Held converse sweet and low — low converse sweet,

  In which our voices bore least part. The wind

  Told a love-tale beside us, how he woo’d

  The waters, and the crisp’d waters lisp’d

  The kisses of the wind, that, sick with love,

  Fainted at intervals, and grew again

  To utterance of passion. Ye cannot shape

  Fancy so fair as is this memory.

  Methought all excellence that ever was

  Had drawn herself from many thousand years,