UitirrsiDf Utrratmr s>mcs 
 
 ENOCH AllDEN AND OTHER 
 POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON 
 
 WITH BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH AND 
 EXPLAXA TORY NOTES 
 
 T-9 
 
 HOUGHTOX, MIFKLIN AM) COMPANY 
 
 Boston: t Park Street: New York: 85 Fifth Avenue 
 Chicago : 378-38S Wabash Avenue 
 
 ,<CI)ir UilicisiQc press,
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAOH 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 3 
 
 ENOCH ARDEN ...... 11 
 
 THE DAY-DREAM 42 
 
 DORA 54 
 
 THE TALKING OAK 59 
 
 SEA DREAMS 71 
 
 ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON . 83 
 
 ULYSSES 93 
 
 THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE .... 96 
 
 LADY CLARE 98 
 
 THE DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR 102 
 
 CROSSING THE BAR 104- 
 
 Copyright, 1895, 
 BY HOUGHTOX, MIFFLIN & CO. 
 
 AU rights reserved.
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 ALFRED TENNYSON was the third of twelve chtt- 
 dren of the Rev. George Clayton Tennyson, LL.D., 
 rector of the village of Somersby, in Lincolnshire, 
 and was born on August G, 18(M). So apart from the 
 world was Somersby that even the news of Waterloo 
 did not reach it for some time after the great victory 
 was won. The low fen country of England in which 
 the village lies has indeed such a quiet beauty of its 
 own that it seems the very home of peace. Such sur- 
 roundings were as well adapted as any could have 
 been for the development of a nature like Tennyson's. 
 Thackeray's daughter, Mrs. Ritchie, has given the 
 most suggestive glimpses of the poet's childhood. She 
 tells of him as a sturdy boy of five, opening his arms 
 to the wind, letting himself be blown along by it, and 
 as he went, making his first line of poetry, " I hear 
 a voice that 's speaking in the wind." 
 
 Another story of Mrs. Ritchie's must be told, as 
 showing how a family of young people who nearly all 
 were to do something one day in poetry entertained 
 themselves : t- These handsome children had, beyond 
 most children, that wondrous toy at their command 
 which some people call imagination. The boys played 
 great games like Arthur's knights ; they were cham- 
 pions and warriors defending a stone heap, or again 
 they would set up opposing camps with a king in the 
 midst of each. . . . When dinner-time came, and they 
 all sat round the table, each in turn put a chapter of
 
 4 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 his history underneath the potato bowl, long, end* 
 less histories, chapter after chapter, diffuse, absorbing, 
 unending as are the stories of real life of which each 
 sunrise opens on a new part ; some of these romances 
 were in letters, like ' Clarissa Harlowe.' Alfred used 
 to tell a story which lasted for months, and which was 
 called ' The Old Horse.' " 
 
 There are anecdotes, too, of Tennyson' s earlv 
 attempts at writing, which, under the stimulus of a 
 sympathetic household, were not few. While he and 
 his brother Charles were still mere boys they deter- 
 mined to face the world with a little book of verses. 
 A firm of booksellers in Louth was persuaded to pay 
 ten pounds for the copyright of the small volume 
 which in 1827 appeared under the title " Poems by 
 Two Brothers." As in most juvenile verses it was 
 easy to see how greatly the young poets' minds bore 
 the impress of their studies and reading. 
 
 There was nevertheless no lack of individuality in 
 Alfred's mind, if not yet in his work. The fresh im- 
 pulse of university life was needed to bring forth the 
 best in the young man. A little schooling and his 
 father's instruction had prepared him by 1828 to enter 
 Trinity College. Cambridge. It was in large measure 
 through his friendships that Alfred Tennyson's devel- 
 opment at the University came about. He soon found 
 himself one of a group of undergraduates known as 
 ''The Apostles," a literary society which bound to- 
 gether the choicest young spirits of the University. 
 Of 'ill "The Apostles.'' Arthur Hnllnm, the son of the 
 historian of the Middle Ages, seems to have been en- 
 dowed with the rarest gifts <>f mind and spirit. In 
 Tennyson's enthusiasm for hi-; i'riend lie was said to 
 come " as near perfection as mortal man can be.'"
 
 /,'/ OGliA I'll 1C A L .S'A'A' TCll. 5 
 
 Another of their coterie s;iid : " His was such a lovely 
 nature that life seemed to have nothing more to teach 
 him."' So closely allied were, the two young men by 
 everv sympathy of taste and feeling that theii friend- 
 ship soon gre\\ to he a very part of their lives. 
 
 Upon his father's death iu 1831, Tennyson left the 
 University without taking his degree. Meanwhile, in 
 1880, llallam and he had together made an expedition 
 to Spain not unlike Byron's to Greece -with the 
 purpose of helping the rebellion against the tvrannv 
 of Ferdinand. They carried with them money and 
 letters written in invisible ink, and altogether bore 
 themselves like true conspirators. 
 
 Through the college terms and the vacations spent 
 mainly in llallam's company, Tennyson's chief concern 
 had been poetry. His " Timbnctoo " was honored as 
 the Chancellor's Pri/e Poem in its year, and even at- 
 tracted the notice of the public press. It was in 1830 
 that he brought forth the volume which set up his first 
 public claim to be considered a poet. Its title was 
 *' Poems, chiefly Lyrical," and in its contents are to 
 be found poems which still appear in Tennyson's col- 
 lected works. The critics reviewed the volume with 
 moderate praise, and one of them had the strange fore- 
 sight to write, with special reference to ' The Poet : " 
 ''If our estimate of Mr. Tennyson be correct, he too is 
 a poet, and many years hence may he read his juvenile 
 description of that character with the proud conscious- 
 ness that it has become the description and history ol 
 his own work.'' The faith his friends had in bin 
 is shown bv llallam's prophetic words one d:;y in tlii 
 garden of Somershv rectory : " Fiftv years hence, 
 people will be making pilgrimages t:> this place. 
 
 Towards the end of I8o2 Ti'iinvson brought out hi.}
 
 6 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 next volume, a little larger than the previous book 
 and containing some of the poems which still hold a 
 high place amongst his best of their kind. " The Lady 
 of Shalott," the first pledge of his devotion to the 
 Arthurian legends, was one of them. 
 
 In 1833 came the crushing news of the death of 
 Arthur Hallam, now doubly dear as the betrothed 
 lover of Tennyson's sister. Travelling for his feeble 
 health in Austria with his father, he was seized with 
 an intermittent fever, and died in Vienna. The be- 
 reavement at once drove Tennyson from his earliest 
 days given to solitude and introspection more than 
 ever before into himself. For ueaiiy ten years after 
 Hallam' s death, the poet published practically nothing, 
 and held himself much aloof from men, leading 
 except for sojourns in the country with family and 
 friends a rather lonely, busy life in London. In 
 this period it is said that most of " In Memoriam " 
 was written, though it was not published till 1850. 
 Besides linking inseparably the names of Tennyson 
 and Hallam, this wonderful poem is for all men who 
 mourn the loss of a friend the expression of the com- 
 plete progress of grief, from its first stunning blow, 
 through its gradual stages, to the final mastery of 
 resignation. 
 
 In these outwardly silent years of its production 
 it is believed that Tennyson, busy with much poetic 
 work beside, was consciously perfecting the gifts in 
 which, with the certainty of genius, he had ample con- 
 fidence. The time, however, was not wholly without 
 its friendships and pleasures. To an extract from one 
 of Carlyle'.s letters to Emerson we are indebted for a 
 graphic picture of the Tennyson of this period : ' One 
 of the finest lookiii'-' men in the world. A <rreat shock
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 1 
 
 of rough dusty-dark Imir ; bright, laughing hazel eyes ; 
 massive aquiline face, most massive, yet most delicate ; 
 of sallow-brown complexion, almost Indian-looking ; 
 
 clothes cynically loose, free-and-easy ; smokes infinite 
 tobacco. His voice is musical metallic fit for loud 
 laughter and piercing wail, and all that may lie be- 
 tween ; speech and speculation free and plenteous : I 
 do not meet, in these late decades, such company over 
 a pipe ! 
 
 In 1842 appeared in two volumes the "Poems" 
 which determined Tennyson's position as an English 
 poet of the first rank. Previously lie had been known 
 but to the few. Now his careful matured work of ten 
 years was instantly recogni/ed as individual and high. 
 New editions of the book were speedily called for, and 
 in 1845 Tennyson's name was put upon the pension 
 list for an annuity of 200. From this time forward 
 the poet's fame was secure. In 1847 "The Princess" 
 was given to the world, and met with immediate 
 popularity. But it is the year 1850 which stands 
 forth as the most important in the poet's career. His 
 marriage with Miss Emily Sellwood, a niece of Sir 
 John Franklin, the Arctic explorer, then took place. 
 Twickenham, already associated with poetry through 
 the name of Pope, became their first home. Earlier, 
 in the same year, Tennyson published, at first anony- 
 mously, " In Memoriam.'' Scarcely had it appeared 
 when Wordsworth died, and the laureateship became 
 vacant. The warrant creating Tennyson Poet Laure- 
 ate was dated November 19, 1850; on March 6, 1851. 
 he was formally installed. It is interesting to rea<; 
 that at his first appearance at court, he wore the court- 
 dress of the aged poet, Samuel Rogers, tint AYorti- 
 worth also borrowed the same suit for his installation
 
 8 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH, 
 
 and that each poet arrayed himself in it at Rogers's 
 house before the ceremony. 
 
 It was not long before another of his most charac- 
 teristic works was completed and brought forth, for 
 the book to which " Maud " gave the title appeared 
 in 1855. We have seen how, as early as 1832, the 
 Arthurian legends were occupying the poet's mind, 
 In 1859, he published the first four of the " Idylls 
 of the King." As we have them now they were not 
 completed for some years, several being added in 
 1869, including the ' Morte d'Arthur," incorpo- 
 rated from the volume of 1842, and the last in 1872. 
 
 The Idylls give evidence of one of the most distin- 
 guishing marks of Tennyson's genius, his devotion 
 to his native land. As became the Poet Laureate, 
 he spoke constantly from a strong national feeling. 
 " Maud " was in large measure his outcry against 
 the materialism which he felt as a menace to his 
 nation. " The Charge of the Light Brigade " shows 
 clearly enough how his countrymen's noble deeds 
 could move him. " The War " with its ringing re- 
 frain , 
 
 " Form ! form ! Riflemen form ! " 
 
 gives an instance of his power to awaken others. The 
 volume of 1864, taking its title from ' Enoch Arden, ' 
 and containing such poems as u Sea Dreams," dis- 
 played another side of his English sympathies, 
 
 His own life the while was the ideal life of a 
 poet, touching humanity through its friendships, yet 
 almost always remote from the crowd. Leaving 
 Twickenham, he went to live at Farringford. near 
 Fresh water in the Isle of Wight. The climate of 
 Farringford was not found always congenial with 
 Mrs. Tennyson's health. The poet's home, too, be*
 
 mudll.U'HICAL SKETCH. 9 
 
 came too much 1111 object of curiosity to strangers. It 
 was thought best, therefore, to live, at least for a part 
 of the year, elsewhere, and by I8b'7 the Tennyson 
 family was established at the retired estate of Aid- 
 worth, near Hasleniere in Surrey. Between this place 
 and Farringford the time thenceforth was divided. 
 The oldest son, Ilallam, as years went by, became his 
 father's constant companion. The only other child, a 
 son, Lionel, died in 188G, at the age of thirty-two, 
 having begun a promising diplomatic career. 
 
 After the appearance of the last of the Arthurian 
 poems in 1872, Tennyson entered upon a period of 
 dramatic production, but in spite of the poetic beauty 
 of many passages in Tennyson's plays, it cannot be 
 said that they have given him a rank amongst Eng- 
 lish dramatists at all corresponding with his place 
 amongst the poets. First of the dramas, " Queen 
 Mary " was published in 1875, and a year later Mr. 
 Henry Irving brought it out in a condensed form at 
 the Lyceum Theatre in London. ' Harold," in 1877, 
 was the next play, and has nevei yet been acted. 
 Other plays followed at intervals up to 1884, when 
 "Beckef was published. Since then Mr. Irving has 
 produced it successfully. 
 
 " Ballads and Other Poems," published in 188G, 
 brought together many of the stirring shorter pieces 
 written during the same years with most of the plays. 
 In the year of i% Becket's " publication, Tennyson was 
 gazetted Baron of Aldworth and Farringford. As he 
 had gained popularity in 18<>5 by declining a baro- 
 netcy, so in certain quarters he lost it for a time by 
 the acceptance of a peerage. Ihe elevation caused 
 no abatement of his work", for in 1885 " Tiresius.'' a 
 volume dedicated to Robert Browning, appeared, and
 
 10 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 in the next year, one of the unsuccessful plays, " The 
 Promise of May," gave the title to another new book. 
 In 1889 was published " Demeter and Other Poems." 
 
 Of necessity the end was now drawing near. Yet 
 as late as the spring of 1892, his semi-dramatic pas- 
 toral poem had its first production in New York, and 
 was greatly liked. In the summer of 1892 he was 
 busy with the proofs of a new volume, " Akbar's 
 Dream," but he did not live to see its publication. 
 Early on Thursday morning, October 6, after a short 
 illness, he died at Aldworth. His bed was by the 
 window, through which a flood of moonlight fell upon 
 him. It was a scene for the poet's own pen to describe. 
 
 It is impossible to sum up in the brief space that re- 
 mains a complete estimate of the essence of Tennyson's 
 poetic greatness. In any analysis of it, the purity, 
 elevation, and depth of thought, the pervading quality 
 of imagination, and the constant beauty of structure 
 must primarily be reckoned with. In other words, his 
 mind was amply adequate to supplying him with the 
 most noble and lovely themes, and his mastery over 
 his art enabled him to put them into noble and lovely 
 forms. He gathered up in himself many of the beau- 
 ties of poets who went before him, and has won the 
 tribute of so much imitation often by persons no 
 doubt unconscious of imitating that nearly the 
 whole body of English poetry in our second half cen 
 tury has been different because of him. 
 
 XOTE. It should bo said that most of the biographical material fo: 
 this sketch lias boon drawn from Arthur Waugh's Alfred Lord 
 Tennyson. A Study of his Life and Work.
 
 ENOCH ARDEN. 
 
 LONG lines of cliff breaking have left a chasm ; 
 And in the chasm are foam and yellow sands ; 
 Beyond, red roofs about a narrow w_horf 
 In cluster: then a moulder'd church : and higher 
 5 A long street climbs to one tall-tower'd mill; 
 And high in heaven behind it a gray down 
 "With Danish barrows ; and a hazelwood, 
 .Hv autumn nutters haunted, flourishes 
 Green in a cnplike hollow of the down. 
 
 10 Here on this beach a hundred years ago, 
 Three children of three houses, Annie Lee, 
 The prettiest little damsel in the port, 
 And Philip Kay, the miller's only son. 
 And Enoch Arden, a rough sailor's lad 
 
 i. ! . Made orphan by a winter shipwreck, play'd 
 
 Enoch Ard/'ii appeared as the principal poem of the volume 
 bearing its name in 18(34. It is the main product of a period 
 of reaction from the work which dealt, in the Idylls of the 
 Kiitr/, with tlu> great legends of England. As in other poems 
 of its period, Tennyson attempted to draw near to tin 1 actual 
 life of the English people. The sympathetic reader will feel 
 especially in the poem the fitness of the means to the end in 
 view ; the many metaphors of the sea, the stress that is laid 
 upon the elements of superstition and the supernatural, ele- 
 ments well in keeping with the characters of the story. The 
 beauty of the descriptive passages m/eds no pointing out. 
 
 7. Danish barrows, burial mounds supposed to date from the 
 Danish incursions into England.
 
 12 ENOCH ARDEN. 
 
 Among the waste and lumber of the shore> 
 Hard coils of cordage, swarthy fishing-nets, 
 Anchors of rusty fluke, and boats updrawn ; 
 And built their castles of dissolving sand 
 20 To watch them overflowed, or following up 
 And flying the white breaker, daily left 
 The little footprint daily wash'd away. 
 
 A narrow cave ran in beneath the cliff ; 
 In this the children play'd at keeping house. 
 
 as Enoch was host one day, Philip the next, 
 While Annie still was mistress ; but at times 
 Enoch would hold possession for a week : 
 " This is my house and this my little wife." 
 " Mine too," said Philip, " turn and turn about : " 
 
 so When, if they quarrell'd, Enoch stronger made 
 Was master : then would Philip, his blue eyes 
 All flooded with the helpless wrath of tears, 
 Shriek out, " I hate you, Enoch," and at this 
 The little wife would weep for company, 
 
 35 And pray them not to quarrel for her sake, 
 And say she would be little wife to both. 
 
 But when the dawn of rosy childhood past, 
 And the new warmth of life's ascending sun 
 Was felt by either, either fixt his heart 
 
 to On that one girl ; and Enoch spoke his love, 
 But Philip loved in silence ; and the girl 
 Seem'd kinder unto Philip than to him ; 
 But she loved Enoch : tho' she knew it not, 
 And would if ask'd deny it. Enoch set 
 
 4.3 A purpose evermore before his eyes, 
 
 30. (Y line which skillfully foreshadows the tragedy of the 
 poem-
 
 ENOCH A 11 HEX. 13 
 
 To hoard all savings to the uttermost, 
 To purchase his own boat, and make a home 
 For Annie : and so prosper'd that at last 
 A luckier or a bolder fisherman, 
 
 o A carefuller in peril, did not breathe 
 For leagues along that breaker-beaten coast 
 Than Enoch. Likewise had he served a year 
 On board a merchantman, and made himself 
 Full sailor ; and he thrice had pluek'd a life 
 
 53 From the dread sweep of the down-streaming seas: 
 And all men look'd upon him favorably : 
 And ere he toueh'd his one-and-twentieth May 
 lie purchased his own boat, and made a home 
 For Annie, neat and iiestlike, halfway up 
 
 so The narrow street that clamber'd toward the mill. 
 
 Then, on a golden autumn eventide, 
 The younger people making holiday, 
 With bag and sack and basket, great and small, 
 Went nutting to the ha/els. Philip stay'd 
 
 fw (His father lying sick and needing him) 
 An hour behind , but as he climb'd the hill. 
 Just where the prone edge of the wood began 
 To feather toward the hollow, saw the pair, 
 Enoch and Annie, sitting hand-in-hand, 
 
 70 His large gray eves and weather-beaten face 
 All-kindled by a still and sacred lire, 
 That burn'd as on an altar. Philip look'd, 
 And in their eyes and faces read his doom ; 
 Then, as their faces drew together, groan'd, 
 
 v> And slipt aside, and like a wounded life 
 Crept down into the hollows of the wood : 
 
 5-1. Full sailor maybe hikon as equivalent to " aMe -euman." 
 (57, <>S. \Vlii". 1 *. 1 the \v(HnU t:re\v thinner and lighter.
 
 14 ENOCH AEDEN. 
 
 There, while the rest were loud in merrymaking, 
 Had his dark hour unseen, and rose and past 
 Bearing a lifelong hunger in his heart. 
 
 so So these were wed, and merrily rang the bells, 
 And merrily ran the years, seven happy years, 
 Seven happy years of health and competence, 
 And mutual love and honorable toil ; 
 With children ; first a daughter. In him woke, 
 
 85 With his first babe's first cry, the noble wish 
 To save all earnings to the uttermost, 
 And give his child a better bringing-up 
 Than his had been, or hers ; a wish renew'd, 
 When two years after came a boy to be 
 
 90 The rosy idol of her solitudes, 
 While Enoch was abroad on wrathful seas, 
 Or often journeying landward ; for in truth 
 Enoch's white horse, and Enoch's ocean-spoil 
 In ocean-smelling osier, and his face, 
 
 95 Rough-redden'd with a thousand winter gales, 
 Not only to the market-cross were known, 
 But in the leafy lanes behind the down, 
 Far as the portal-warding lion-whelp 
 And peacock-yewtree of the lonely Hall, 
 
 100 Whose Friday fare was Enoch's ministering. 
 
 Then came a change, as all things human change. 
 Ten miles to northward of the narrow port 
 94. Osier basket, 
 
 9G. Many English villages have an old stone cross in the 
 market-place. 
 
 98. The heraldic device over the portal to the hall, supposed 
 to stand as a guard (warding). 
 
 99. A yew-tree cut, after the fashion of old gardening, into 
 the form of a peacock.
 
 ENOCH A 11 DEN. 15 
 
 Open'd a larger haven : thither used 
 Enoch at times to go by land or sea ; 
 
 iw And onee when there, and clambering on a mast 
 In harbor, by mischance he slipt and fell : 
 A limb was broken when they lifted him ; 
 And while he lay recovering there, his wife 
 Bore him another son, a sickly one : 
 
 no Another hand crept too across his trade 
 
 Taking her bread and theirs : and on him fell, 
 Altho' a grave and staid God-fearing man, 
 Yet lying thus inactive, doubt and gloom. 
 He seem'd, as in a nightmare of the night, 
 
 no To see his children leading evermore 
 Low miserable lives of hand-to-mouth, 
 And her he loved, a beggar : then he pray'd 
 " Save them from this, whatever comes to me." 
 And while he pray'd, the master of that ship 
 
 120 Enoch had served in, hearing his mischance, 
 Came, for he knew the man and valued him, 
 Reporting of his vessel China-bound, 
 And wanting yet a boatswain. Would he go? 
 There yet were many weeks before she sail'd, 
 
 125 Sail'd from this port. Would Enoch have the 
 
 place ? 
 
 And Enoch all at once assented to it, 
 Rejoicing at that answer to his prayer. 
 
 So now that shadow of mischance appear'd 
 Xo graver than as when some little cloud 
 iso Cuts off the fiery highway of the sun, 
 
 And isles a light in the offing : yet the wife 
 When he was gone the children what to do ? 
 
 131. At sea on half cloudy days out 1 often notices a bit of sun- 
 light standing out on the n'ater like an island.
 
 16 ENOCH ARDEN. 
 
 Then Enocli lay long-pondering on his plans ; 
 To sell the boat and yet he loved her well 
 
 iss How many a rough sea had he weather'd in her ! 
 He knew her, as a horseman knows his horse 
 And yet to sell her then with what she brought 
 Buy goods and stores set Annie forth in trade 
 With all that seamen needed or their wives 
 
 wo So might she keep the house while he was gone. 
 Should he not trade himself out yonder? go 
 This voyage more than once ? yea, twice or thrice 
 As oft as needed last, returning rich, 
 Become the master of a larger craft, 
 
 145 With fuller profits lead an easier life, 
 Have all his pretty young ones educated, 
 And pass his days in peace among his own. 
 
 Thus Enoch in his heart determined all : 
 Then moving homeward came on Annie pale, 
 
 i&o Nursing the sickly babe, her latest-born. 
 Forward she started with a happy cry, 
 And laid the feeble infant in his arms ; 
 Whom Enoch took, and handled all his limbs, 
 Appraised his weight and fondled father-like, 
 
 *& But had no heart to break his purposes 
 To Annie, till the morrow, when he spoke. 
 
 Then first since Enoch's golden ring had girt 
 Her finger, Annie fought against his will : 
 Yet not with brawling opposition she, 
 ;so But manifold entreaties, many a tear, 
 Many a sad kiss by day by night renew'd 
 (Sure that all evil would come out of it) 
 
 142. Voyage must be read as a dissyllable, not too pro- 
 nouncedly.
 
 K\(H'II AliltKN. 17 
 
 Besought him, supplicating', if he cured 
 For her or his dear children, not to go. 
 105 He not for his own self caring but her, 
 
 Her and her children, let her plead in vain ; 
 So grieving held his will, and bore it thro'. 
 
 For Enoch parted with his old sea-friend, 
 Bought Annie goods and stores, and set his hand 
 
 Ko To lit their little; streetward sitting-room 
 
 With shelf and corner for the goods and stores. 
 So all day long till Enoch's last at home, 
 Shaking their pretty cabin, hammer and axe, 
 Auger and saw, while Annie seem'cl to hear 
 
 17) Her own death-scaffold raising, shriil'd and rang. 
 Till this was ended, and his careful hand, 
 The space was narrow. having order'd all 
 Almost as neat and close as Nature packs 
 Her blossom or her seedling, paused; and he, 
 
 iso \\ ho needs would work for Annie to the last, 
 Ascending tired, heavily slept till morn. 
 
 And Enoch faced this morning of farewell 
 Brightly and boldly. All his Annie's fears, 
 Save as his Annie s. were a laughter to him. 
 
 IM \ et Enoch as a brave God-fearing 1 man 
 Bow'd himself down, and in that, mystery 
 Y\ here (lod-in-man is one with imm-in-God, 
 Pray'd for a blo^ni; on his wile and babes, 
 Whatever came to him : and then he said 
 
 1*1 " Annie, this vovage by the grace of (iod 
 "U il! bring fair weather vet to all of us. 
 Keep a clean hearth and a clear lire for me. 
 
 !(!."). Xot Mil c;i<v line \ 
 be (hvi'lt Uiiull. :i;iil ;i (<' t
 
 18 ENOCH ARDEN. 
 
 For I '11 be back, my girl, before you know it." 
 Then lightly rocking baby's cradle, " and he, 
 
 lea This pretty, puny, weakly little one, 
 Nay for I love him all the better for it 
 God bless him, he shall sit upon my knees 
 And I will tell him tales of foreign parts, 
 And make him merry, when I come home again. 
 
 2w Come, Annie, come, cheer up before I go." 
 
 PI i m running on thus hopefully she heard, 
 And almost hoped herself ; but when he turn'd 
 The current of his talk to graver things, 
 In sailor fashion roughly sermonizing 
 205 On providence and trust in Heaven, she heard, 
 Heard and not heard him ; as the village girl, 
 Who sets her pitcher underneath the spring, 
 Musing on him that u.sed to fill it for her, 
 Hears and not hears, and lets it overflow. 
 
 210 At length she spoke, " O Enoch, you are wise ; 
 And yet for all your wisdom well know I 
 That I shall look upon your face no more." 
 
 "Well then," said Enoch, " I shall look on yours, 
 Annie, the ship I sail in passes here 
 215 (He named the day), get you a seaman's glass, 
 Spy out my face, and laugh at all your fears." 
 
 But when the last of those last moments came, 
 " Annie, my girl, cheer up, be comforted, 
 Look to the babes, and till I come again, 
 520 Keep everything shipshape, for I must go. 
 And fear no more for me ; or if you fear 
 
 213. Another significant prophecy, as in line 36.
 
 KXO(*H AR DEN. 19 
 
 Cast all your cares on God ; that anchor holds. 
 Is Hi, 1 not yonder in those- uttermost 
 Parts of the morning? if I Hee to these 
 an Can I go from him? and the sea is His, 
 The sea is His: lie made it." 
 
 Enoch rose, 
 
 Cast his strong' arms about his drooping wife, 
 And kiss'd his wonder-stricken little ones ; 
 But for the third, the sickly one, who slept 
 
 230 After a night of feverous wakefulness, 
 
 When Annie would have raised him Enoch said, 
 " Wake him not; let him sleep; how should the 
 
 child 
 
 Remember this ? " and kiss'd him in his cot. 
 But Annie from her baby's forehead dipt 
 
 23o A tiny curl, and gave it : this lie kept 
 
 Thro' all his future ; but now hastily caught 
 His bundle, waved his hand, and went his way. 
 
 She when the day, that Enoch mention'd, came> 
 Borrow'd a glass, but nil in vain : perhaps 
 wo She could not fix the glass to suit her eye ; 
 Perhaps her eye was dim, hand tremulous ; 
 She saw him not : and while he stood on deck 
 Waving, the moment and the vessel past. 
 
 Ev'n to tin' last dip of the vanishing sail 
 M"> She watch'd it, and departed weeping for him : 
 Then, tho' she mourn'd his absence as his grave, 
 Set her sad will no less to chime with his, 
 But throve not in her trade, not being bred 
 
 -2U-12.JG. The use of Bible language at this moment is unite 
 in harmony with Enoch's cli;ir;i<:ter.
 
 20 ENOCH ARDEN. 
 
 To barter, nor compensating the want 
 too By shrewdness, neither capable of lies, 
 Nor asking overmuch and taking- less, 
 And still foreboding " what would Enoch say?'' 
 For more than once, in days of difficulty 
 And pressure, had she sold her wares for less 
 255 Than what she gave in buying what she sold : 
 She fail'd and sadden'd knowing it ; and thus, 
 Expectant of that news which never came, 
 Gain'd for her own a scanty sustenance, 
 And lived a life of silent melancholy. 
 
 sen Xow the third child was sickly-born and grew 
 Yet sicklier, tho' the mother cared for it 
 With all a mother's care : nevertheless, 
 "Whether her business often call'd her from it, 
 Or thro' the want of what it needed most, 
 
 2fe> Or means to pay the voice who best could teP 
 What most it needed howsoe'er it was, 
 After a lingering, ere she was aware, 
 Like the caged bird escaping suddenly, 
 The little innocent soul flitted away. 
 
 370 In that same week when Annie buried it, 
 Philip's true heart, which hunger'd for her peace 
 (Since Enoch left he had not look'd upon her), 
 Smote him, as having kept aloof so long. 
 " Surely," said Philip, " I may see her now, 
 
 275 May be some little comfort;" therefore went, 
 Past thro' the solitary room in front. 
 Paused for a moment at an inner door. 
 Then struck it thrice, and. no one opening, 
 Enter'd : but Annie, seated with her grief, , 
 
 2so Fresh fiom the burial of her little one,,
 
 ENOCH A II DEN. 21 
 
 Cared not to look on any human face, 
 But tnrn'd her own toward the wall and wept. 
 Then Philip standing np said falteringly, 
 " Annie, I came to ask a favor of yon." 
 
 5S5 lie spoke ; the passion in her inoan'd v eply, 
 "Favor from one so sad and so forlorn 
 As I am ! " half abash'd him ; yet nnask'd, 
 His baslifuluess and tenderness at war, 
 lie set himself beside her, saying to her: 
 
 290 "I came to speak to you of what he wish'd, 
 Enoch, your husband : I have ever said 
 Yon chose the best among us a strong man : 
 For where he iixt his heart lie set his hand 
 To do the thing he will'd, and bore it thro'. 
 
 Jos And wherefore did lie go this weary way, 
 
 And leave yon lonely ? not to see the world 
 For pleasure? nay, but for the wherewithal 
 To give his babes a better bringing-up 
 Than his had been, or yours : that was his wish.. 
 
 300 And if lu 1 come again, vext will he lie 
 
 To find the precious morning hours were lost. 
 And it would vex him even in his grave, 
 If he could know his babes were running wild 
 Like colts about the waste. So. Annie, now 
 
 30,5 Have we not known each other all our lives? 
 I do beseech you by the love you bear 
 Him and his children not to say me nay 
 For. if you will, when Enoch comes again, 
 Why then lie shall repay me if you will, 
 
 310 Annie for I am rieh and well-to-do. 
 
 Now let me put the boy and girl to school: 
 This is the iavor that I came to ask
 
 22 ENOCH ARDEN. 
 
 Then Annie with her brows against the wall 
 
 Answer'd, " I cannot look you in the face ; 
 sis I seem so foolish and so broken down. 
 
 When you came in my sorrow broke me down ; 
 
 And now I think your kindness breaks me down ; 
 
 But Enoch lives ; that is borne in on me ; 
 
 He will repay you : money can be repaid ; 
 320 Not kindness such as yours." 
 
 And Philip ask'd 
 " Then you will let me, Annie ? " 
 
 There she turn'd, 
 
 She rose, and fixt her swimming eyes upon him, 
 And dwelt a moment on his kindly face, 
 Then calling down a blessing on his head 
 325 Caught at his hand, and wrung it passionately, 
 And past into the little garth beyond. 
 So lifted up in spirit he moved away. 
 
 Then Philip put the boy and girl to school, 
 And bought them needful books, and every way, 
 
 sac Like one who does his duty by his own. 
 
 Made himself theirs ; and tho' for Annie's sake, 
 Fearing the lazy gossip of the port, 
 He oft denied his heart his dearest wish, 
 And seldom crost her threshold, yet he sent 
 
 sss Gifts by the children, garden-herbs and fruit, 
 The late and early roses from his wall, 
 Or conies from the down, and now and then, 
 "With some pretext of fineness in the meal 
 To save the offence of charitable, flour 
 
 840 From his tall mill that whistled on the waste. 
 339. To make it seem not like a gift of charity.
 
 ENOCH A It DEN. 23 
 
 But Philip did not fathom Annie's mind: 
 Scarce could the woman when he came upon her, 
 Out of full heart and boundless gratitude 
 L,i<''ht on a broken word to thank him with. 
 
 o 
 
 J4.5 But Philip was her children's all-in-all; 
 
 From distant corners of the street they ran 
 
 To greet his hearty welcome heartily ; 
 
 Lords of his house and of his mill were they; 
 
 Worried his passive ear with petty wrongs 
 3.w()r pleasures, hung upon him, play'd with him, 
 
 And call'd him Father Philip. Philip gain'd 
 
 As Enoch lost ; for Eiiocli seern'd to them 
 
 I neertain as a vision or a dream, 
 
 Faint as a figure seen in early dawn 
 3.W Down at the far end of an avenue, 
 
 (ioing we know not where : and so ten years, 
 
 Since Knoch left his hearth and native land, 
 
 Fled forward, and no news of Enoch came. / 
 
 It chanced one evening Annie's children long'd 
 3f.o To go with others nutting to the wood, 
 
 And Annie would go with them ; then they begg'd 
 For Father Philip (as they call'd him) too: 
 Him, like the working bee in blossom-dust, 
 Blanch'd with his mill, they found ; and saying to him, 
 3'>; " Come with us. Father Philip,'' he denied ; 
 Put when the children pluck'd at him to go. 
 He luugh'd, and yielded readily to their wish. 
 For was not Annie with them? and they went. 
 
 But after scaling half the weary down, 
 irruJust where the prone edge of the wood began 
 
 IiTo. Tlu> repetition here of the phrase in line (57 is "iir ;>!' the 
 instances ot the device used in the poem to hind toi'etliri I !;
 
 24 ENOCH ARDEN. 
 
 To feather toward the hollow, all her force 
 Fail'd her ; and sighing, " Let me rest," she said 
 So Philip rested with her well-content ; 
 While all the younger ones with iubilant cries 
 
 v o /'/^A'/ 
 
 375 Broke from their elders, and tumuHudusly 
 Down thro' the whitening hazels made a plunge 
 To the bottom, and dispersed, and bent or broke 
 The lithe reluctant boughs to tear away 
 Their tawny clusters, crying to each other 
 
 jso And calling, here and there, about the wood. 
 
 But Philip sitting at her side forgot 
 Her presence, and remember'd one dark hour 
 Here in this wood, when like a wounded life 
 He crept into the shadow : at last he said, 
 
 385 Lifting his honest forehead, " Listen, Annie, 
 How merry they are down yonder in the wood. 
 Tired, Annie ? " for she did not speak a word. 
 " Tired ? " but her face had fall'n upon her hands ; 
 At which, as with a kind of anger in him, 
 
 390 "The ship was lost," he said, u the ship was lost! 
 No more of that ! why should you kill yourself 
 And make them orphans quite ? " And Annie said 
 u I thought not of it : but I know not why 
 Their voices make me feel so solitary." 
 
 ~~jJ 
 
 395 Then Philip coming somewhat closer spoke. 
 " Annie, there is a thing upon my mind, 
 And it has been upon my mind so long, 
 That tho" I know not when it first came there, 
 I know that it will out at last. Oh, Annie, 
 
 400 It is beyond all hope, against all chance, 
 
 two parts of the tragedy and make it all one. Compare lines 
 80 and 507, for a similar practice ; still others will be found.
 
 EXOCIf ARDKN. 25 
 
 That he who left you ten long years ago 
 Should still be living; well then let me speak : 
 I grieve to set" you poor and wanting help: 
 I cannot help you as I wish to do 
 
 *05 Unless they say that women are so quick 
 Perhaps you know what I would have you know 
 I wish you for my wife. I fain woidd prove 
 A father to your children : I do think 
 They love me as a father : I am sure 
 
 4iu That 1 love them as if they were mine own ; 
 And I believe, if you were fast my wife, 
 That after all these sad uncertain years, 
 ~\Ve might be still as happy as God grants 
 To any of His creatures. Think upon it: 
 
 415 For I am well-to-do no kin, no care, 
 
 No burthen, save my care for you and yours: 
 And \ve have known each other all our lives, 
 And I have loved you longer than you know." 
 
 f 
 
 Then answcr'd Annie; tenderly she spoke: 
 4.'o "You have been as God's good angel in our house. 
 God bless you for it, God reward you for it, 
 Philip, with something happier than myself. 
 Can one love twice ? can you be ever loved 
 As Enoch was? what is it that you ask?" 
 2o u I am content/' he answer'd, " to be loved 
 A little after Enoch." " Oh," she cried, 
 Scared as it were, "dear Philip, wait a while: 
 If Enoch comes but Enoch will not crime 
 Yet wait a year, a year is not so long : 
 o Surely I shall be wiser in a year: 
 Oh, wait a little ! " Philip sadly said, 
 l> Annie, as 1 have waited all my life 
 I well may wait a little." " Nay," she cried,
 
 26 ENOCH ARDEN. 
 
 u I am bound : you have my promise in a year ; 
 5 Will you not bide your year as I bide mine ? " 
 And Philip answer'c] " I will bide my year." 
 
 \ ft- f 
 
 Her& both were mute, till Philip glancing up 
 Beheld the dead flame of the fallen day 
 Pass from the Danish barrow overhead ; 
 
 440 Then, fearing night and chill for Annie, rose, 
 And sent his voice beneath him thro' the wood. 
 Up came the children laden with their spoil ; 
 Then all descended to the port, and there 
 At Annie's door he paused and gave his hand, 
 
 445 Saying gently, " Annie, when I spoke to you, 
 That was your hour of weakness. I was wrong. 
 I am always bound to you, but you are free." 
 Then Annie weeping answered, " I am bound." 
 
 She spoke : and in one moment as it were, 
 
 4w While yet she went about her household ways, 
 Ev'n as she dwelt upon his latest words, 
 That he had loved her longer than she knew, 
 That autumn into autumn flash'd again, 
 And there he stood once more before her face, 
 
 455 Claiming her promise. " Is it a year ? " she ask'd. 
 " Yes, if the nuts,'" he said, " be ripe again : 
 Come out and see." But she she put him off - 
 So much to look to such a change a month 
 Give her a month she knew that she was bound - - 
 
 460 A month no more. Then Philip with his eyes 
 Full of that lifelong hunger, and his voice 
 Shaking a little like a drunkard's hand, 
 " Take your own time, Annie, take your own time.* 
 And Annie could have wept for pity of him ; 
 
 IBS And yet she held him on delayingly
 
 EXUCH Mi 1>KN. 27 
 
 Witli many a scarce-believable excuse, 
 Trying his truth and his long-sufferance, 
 Till half another year had slipt away. 
 
 By this the la/y gossips of the port, 
 
 "o Abhorrent of a calculation crost, 
 
 Began to chafe as at a personal wrong. 
 Some thought that Philip did but trifle with her; 
 Some that she but held off to draw him on ; 
 And others laugh'd at her and Philip too, 
 
 475 As simple folk that knew not their own minds; 
 And one, in whom all evil fancies clung 
 Like serpent eggs together, laughingly 
 Would hint at worse in either. Her own son 
 Was silent, tho' he often look'd his wish ; 
 
 430 But evermore the daughter prest upon her 
 To wed the man so dear to all of them 
 And lift the household out of poverty; 
 And Philip's rosy face contracting grew 
 Careworn and wan ; and all these things fell on li/ 
 
 85 Sharp as reproach. 
 
 At last one night it chanced 
 That Annie could not sleep, but earnestly 
 Pray'd for a sign, ''my Enoch, is he gone?" 
 Then compass'd round by the blind wall of night 
 Brook'd not the expectant terror of her heart, 
 i ;i(l Started from bed. and struck herself a light, 
 Then desperately sei/ed the holy Book, 
 
 170 An^ry that their expectations wore not fulfilled. 
 
 -l ( ,l!. From eari\ times one form of divination has been . 
 :v:i<l a personal iiMv.nii'.^ in passages seleeted liy chanc'.' l iv.i<\. 
 l>ooks. The .'Kiu'iil (if \ ii'i^il was often used, and in Lns^'aii. 
 tin 1 liililo has lieen put to the same siu'vico, by persons \<'..,,
 
 28 ENOCH ARDEN. 
 
 Suddenly set it wide to find a sign, 
 Suddenly put her finger 011 the text, 
 ' Under th palm-tree." That was nothing to her : 
 495 No meaning there : she closed the Book and slept : 
 When lo ! her Enoch sitting on a height, 
 Under a palm-tree, over him the Sun : 
 " He is gone,'' she thought, *' he is happy, he is 
 
 singing 
 Hosanna in the highest : yonder shines 
 
 O t> 
 
 500 The Sun of Righteousness, and these be palms 
 Whereof the happy people strewing cried 
 ' Hosaima in the highest ! ' Here she woke, 
 Resolved, sent for him and said wildly to him, 
 "There is no reason why we should not wed." 
 
 05 " Then for God's sake," he answer'd, " both our 
 
 sakes, 
 So you will wed me, let it be at once." 
 
 r\^ 
 
 So these were wed and merrily rang the bells, 
 Merrily rang the bells and they were wed. 
 But never merrily beat Annie's heart. 
 
 BIO A footstep seem'd to fall beside her path, 
 She knew not whence ; a whisper on her ear, 
 She knew not what : nor loved she to be left 
 Alone at home, nor ventured out alone. 
 What iiil'd her then, that ere she enter'd, often, 
 
 nailer hand dwelt lingeringly on the hitch, 
 Fearing to enter : Philip thought he knew : 
 Such doubts and fears were common to her saite, 
 
 Annie, since the days of the Puritans. In George Eliot's 
 
 Adam Bede, Dinah Morris makes important use of the practice. 
 
 " And when I 've opened the Bible for direction," she savs, 
 
 "I 've always lighted on some clear word to tell me where 
 
 my work lay." 
 
 494. Judges iv. '6.
 
 ENOCH Mi DEN. 29 
 
 Being with child : but when her child was born, 
 Thcii her new child was as herself renew'd, 
 520 Then the new mother came about her heart, 
 Then her good Philip was her ail-itl-all, 
 And that mysterious instinct wholly died. 
 
 And where was Enoch ? prosperously sail'd 
 The ship Good Fortune, tho' at setting forth 
 
 52.-> The Biscay, roughly ridging eastward, shook 
 And almost overwhelmed her, yet unvext 
 She slipt across the summer of the world, 
 Then after a long tumble about the C'ape 
 And frequent interchange of foul and fair, 
 
 530 She passing thro" the summer world again, 
 The breath of heaven came continually 
 And sent her sweetly by the golden isles, 
 Till silent in her orientaHiaven. 
 
 There Enoch traded for himself, and bought 
 .">.> Quaint monsters for the market of those times, 
 A gilded dragon, also, for the babes. 
 
 Less lucky her home-voyage : at first indeed 
 Thro' many a fair sea-circle, dav bv day. 
 Scarce-rocking her full-busted figure-head 
 w Stared o'er the ripple feathering from her bows : 
 Then follow" il calms, and then winds variable. 
 Then baffling, a long course of them : and last 
 Storm, such as drove her under moonless heav-'iis 
 Till hard upon the erv of " breakers 1 ' came 
 
 rtl~ . Tliis (if course refers to the region about the equator. 
 
 5.">7. Voyage here is nmre iioarU
 
 SO ENOCH ARDEN. 
 
 545 The crash of ruin, and the loss of all 
 
 But Enoch and two others. Half the night, 
 Buoy'd upon floating tackle and broken spars, 
 These drifted, stranding on an isle at morn 
 Rich, but the loneliest in a lonely sea. 
 
 55 ]4o want was there of human sustenance, 
 
 Soft fruitage, mighty nuts, and nourishing roots ; 
 Nor save for pity was it hard to take 
 The helpless life so wild that it was tame. 
 There in a seaward-gazing mountain-gorge 
 
 555 They built, and thatch'd with leaves of palm, a hut, 
 Half hut, half native cavern. So the three, 
 Set in this Eden of all plenteousness, 
 Dwelt with eternal summer, ill-content. 
 
 For one, the youngest, hardly more than boy, 
 seo Hurt in that night of sudden ruin and wreck, 
 Lay lingering out a five-years' death-in-life. 
 They could not leave him. After he was gone, 
 The tvv'o remaining found a fallen steins 
 And Enoch's comrade, careless of himself, 
 565 Fire-hollowing this in Indian fashion, fell 
 Sun-stricken, and that other lived alone. 
 In those two deaths he read God's warning, k ' Wait.'' 
 
 The mountain wooded to the peak, the lawns 
 And winding glades high up like ways to Heaven, 
 573 The slender coco's drooping crown of plumes, 
 The lightning flash of insect nnd-ef, bird, 
 The lustre of the long convolvuluses' 
 That coil'd around the stately~stems. and ran 
 Ev'n to the limit of the land, the glows 
 563. Stem, a tree-trunk of which they tried to make a canoe
 
 ENOCH ARDEX. 31 
 
 ITS And glories of the broad belt of the world, 
 All these he saw ; but what he fain had seen 
 He could not see, the kindly human face, 
 Nor ever hear a kindly voice, but heard 
 The myriad shriek of wheeling' ocean-fowl, 
 
 *80 The league-long roller thundering on the reef. 
 The moving whisper of huge trees that braneb'd 
 And blossom'd in the zenith, or the sweep 
 Of some precipitous rivulet to the wave, 
 As down the shore he ranged, or all day long 
 
 &a> Sat often in the seaward-gazing gorge, 
 A shipwreck' d sailor, waiting for a sail : 
 No sail from day to day, but every day 
 The sunrise broken into scarlet shafts 
 Among the palms and ferns and precipices; 
 
 BSO The blaze upon the waters to the east : 
 The blaze upon his island overhead ; 
 The blaze upon the waters to the west ; 
 Then the great stars that globed themselves in 
 
 I leaven, 
 The hollower-bellowing ocean, and again 
 
 ess The scarlet shafts of sunrise but no sail. 
 
 There often as he watch'd or seem'd to watch, 
 So still, the golden lizard on him paused, 
 A phantom made of many phantoms moved 
 Before him, haunting him, or lie himself 
 soo Moved haunting people, tilings and places, known 
 Far in a darker isle beyond the line ; 
 The babes, their babble, Annie, the small house, 
 The climbing street, the mill, the leafy lanes, 
 
 "">. Broad belt of the world, the ocean ; the ancients, in- 
 deed, hail such a conception of it. 
 
 597. So much was he a part of nature
 
 82 ENOCH ARDEN. 
 
 The peacock-yewtree and the lonely Hall, 
 aw The horse he drove, the boat he sold, the chill 
 November dawns and dewy-glooming- downs, 
 The gentle shower, the smell of dying leaves, 
 And the low moan of leaden-color' d seas. 
 
 Once likewise, in the ringing of his ears, 
 8io Tho' faintly, merrily far and far away 
 He heard the pealing of his parish bells ; 
 Then, tho ? he knew not wherefore, started up 
 Shuddering, and when the beauteous hateful isle 
 Return' d upon him, had not his poor heart 
 sis Spoken with That, which being everywhere 
 Lets none who speaks with Him seem all alone, 
 Surely the man had died of solitude. 
 
 Thus over Enoch's early-silvering head 
 The sunny and rainy seasons came and went 
 
 620 Year after year. His hopes to see his own, 
 And pace the sacred old familiar fields, 
 Not yet had perish'd, when his lonely doom 
 Came suddenly to an end. Another ship 
 (She wanted water) blown by baffling winds, 
 
 325 Like the Good Fortune, from her destined course. 
 Stay'd by this isle, not knowing where she lay : 
 For since the mate had seen at early dawn 
 Across a break on the mist-wreathen isle 
 The silent water slipping from the hills, 
 
 330 They sent a crew that landing burst away 
 
 In search of stream or fount, and fill'd the shores 
 With clamor. Downward from his mountain gorge 
 Stept the Ion g-hair'd,- long-bearded solitary, 
 .Brown, looking hardly human, strangely clad, 
 3 Muttering and mumbling, idiot-like it seem'd,
 
 K\(jCH AHUKX. 33 
 
 With inarticulate rage, and making signs 
 They knew not what : and yet he led tin; way 
 To where the rivulets of sweet water ran ; 
 And ever as he mingled with the crew, 
 
 H4o And heard them talking, his long-bounuen tongue 
 Was loosen'd, till lit; made them understand ; 
 Whom, when their casks were fill'd they took 
 
 aboard 
 
 And there the tale he ntter'd brokenly, 
 Scarce-credited at iirst but more and more, 
 
 us Amazed and melted all who listen''.! to it ; 
 
 And clothes they gave him and free passage home; 
 But oft he work'd among the rest and shook 
 His isolation from him. ^s'one of these 
 Came from his county, or could answer him, 
 
 & If questioned, aught of what he cared to know. 
 And dull the voyage; was with long delays, 
 The vessel scarce; sea-worthy ; but evermore 
 His fane-y fled before the lazy wind 
 Ke'turning, till bene>ath a clouded moon 
 
 s.v. I Ie like a lewr down thro' all his blooel 
 Drew in the elewy meadowy morning-breath 
 Of England, blown ae-ross her ghostlv wall: 
 And that same morning officers and men 
 Levied a kindly tax upon themselves, 
 
 >'" Pitying the lone'ly man. ami gave him it: 
 Then moving up the coast thev landed him, 
 '.Ov'n in that harbor whence he' sail'el before. 
 
 There Enoch spoke no word to any one. 
 But homewavel home what hemie ? had ho l. 
 home ? 
 
 fv!S. Sweet water, nut ssilt. 
 
 <'i.">l. Voyage, two -\ ihbir- n^am. 
 
 657. Her ghostly wall, tin- .-hulk el ill'.- <>t' UK- M.uili i-.>ast.
 
 34 ENOCH ARDEN. 
 
 665 His home, he walk'd. Bright was that afternoon, 
 Sunny but chill ; till drawn thro' either chasm, 
 Where either haven open'd on the deeps, 
 Roll'd a sea-haze and whelm'd the world in gray; 
 Cut off the length of highway on before, 
 
 570 And left but narrow breadth to left and right 
 Of withered holt or tilth or pasturage. 
 On the nigh-naked tree the robin piped 
 Disconsolate, and thro' the dripping haze 
 The dead weight of the dead leaf bore it down : 
 
 675 Thicker the drizzle grew, deeper the gloom ; 
 Last, as it seem'd, a great mist-blotted light 
 Flared on him, and he came upon the place. 
 
 X/^ 
 
 Then down the long street having slowly stolen. 
 His heart foreshadowing all calamity, 
 
 eso His eyes upon the stones, he reaclvd the home 
 Where Annie lived and loved him, and his babes 
 In those far-off seven happy years were born ; 
 But finding neither light nor murmur there 
 (A bill of sale gleam'd thro' the drizzle) crept 
 
 sso Still downward thinking, " dead, or dead to me ! " 
 
 Down to the pool and narrow wharf he went, 
 Seeking a tavern which of old he knew, 
 A front of timber-crost antkpiiity, 
 So propt, worm-eaten, ruinously old, 
 63e He thought it must have gone : but he was gone 
 Who kept it ; and his widow, Miriam Lane, 
 With daily-dwindling profits held the house ; 
 
 667. See lino 102. 
 
 688. A house of plaster crossed with timliers, " half-tim- 
 'ered " as it is called ; a style of nrehitectiti/e made familiar by 
 In. 1 pictures of Shakespeare's birthplace.
 
 ENOCH AliDKX. 35 
 
 A liaunt of brawling seamen once, but now 
 Stiller, with yet a bed for wandering men. 
 >5 There Enoch rested silent many days. 
 
 But Miriam Lane was good and 
 Nor let him be. but often breaking in, 
 Told him, with other annals of the port, 
 Not knowing Enoch was so brown, so bow'd, 
 
 raw So broken all the story of his house. 
 His baby's death, her growing poverty, 
 How Philip put her little ones to school, 
 And kept them in it, his long wooing her, 
 Her slow consent, and marriage, and the birth 
 
 705 Of Philip's child : and o'er his countenance 
 No shadow past, nor motion : any one, 
 Regarding, well had deem'd he felt the tale 
 Less than the teller; only when she closed, 
 "Enoch, poor man, was cast away and lost," 
 
 710 lie, shaking his gray head pathetically, 
 Repeated muttering, "cast away and lost ; " 
 Again in deeper inward whispers, ''lost! " 
 
 But Enoch yearned to see her face again ; 
 ' If I might look on her sweet face again 
 
 7 '5 And know that she is happy." So the thought 
 Haunted and harass'd him, and drove him forth, 
 At evening when the dull November day 
 Y\ as growing duller twilight, to the hill. 
 There he sat down gazing on all below ; 
 
 TJO There did a thousand memories roll upon him, 
 Unspeakable for sadness. Bv ami by 
 The ruddy s<|iiaiv of comfortable hghi, 
 Far-blazing from the rear of Philip's house, 
 Allured him, as the heacon-bhue :.llures
 
 36 ENOCH ARDEN. 
 
 725 The bird of passage, till he madly strikes 
 Against it, and beats out his weary life. 
 
 For Philip's dwelling fronted on the street, 
 The latest house to landward ; but behind, 
 With one small gate that open'd on the waste, 
 
 720 Flourish' d a little garden square and wall'd : 
 And in it throve an ancient evergreen, 
 A yewtree, and all round it ran a walk 
 Of shingle, and a walk divided it: 
 But Enoch shunn'd the middle walk and stole 
 
 735 Up by the wall, behind the yew ; and thence 
 That which he better might have shunn'd, if griefs 
 Like his have worse or better, Enoch saw. 
 
 For cups and silver on the burnish'd board 
 Sparkled and shone ; so genial was the hearth : 
 
 740 And on the right hand of the hearth he saw 
 Philip, the slighted suitor of old times, 
 Stout, rosy, with his babe across his knees ; 
 And o'er her second father stoopt a girl, 
 A later but a loftier Annie Lee, 
 
 MS Fair-hair'd and tall, and from her lifted hand 
 Dangled a length of ribbon and a ring 
 To tempt the babe, who rear'd his creasy arms, 
 Caught at. and ever miss'd it, and they laugh'd : 
 And on the left hand of the hearth he saw 
 
 750 The mother glancing often toward her babe, 
 Biit turning now and then to speak with him, 
 Her son, who stood beside her tall and strong, 
 And saying that which pleased him, for he smiled 
 
 728. Latest, last. 
 
 733. SMngle, gravel from the seashore.
 
 ENOCH ARltKX. 37 
 
 Now when tin; dead man conic to lift- beheld 
 fy> His wife his wife no more, and saw the babe 
 Hers, yet not his, upon the father's knee, 
 And all the warmth, the peace, the happiness, 
 And his own children tall and beautiful, 
 And him, that other, reigning in his place, 
 TOO Lord of his rights and of his children's love, 
 Then lie, tho' Miriam Lane had told him all, 
 Because things seen are mightier than things heard, 
 Stagger \l and shook, holding the branch, and fear'd 
 To .send abroad a shrill and terrible cry, 
 "65 Which in one moment, like the blast of doom, 
 Would shatter all the hapj^ness of the hearth. 
 
 He therefore turning softly Hke a thief, 
 Lest the harsh shingle should grate underfoot, 
 And feeling all along the garden wall, 
 "TO Lest he should swoon and tumble and be found, 
 Crept to the gate, and open'd it, and closed, 
 As lightly as a sick man's chamber-door, 
 Behind him, and came out upon the waste. 
 
 And there he would have knelt, but that his knees 
 '" " Were feeble, so that falling pi-one he dug 
 Ilis fingers into the wet earth, and pray'd. 
 
 '' Too hard to bear ! why did they take me thenc; 
 O (iod Almighty, blessed Saviour. Thou 
 That didst uphold me on my lonely isle, 
 TS'i Uphold me. Father, in my loneliness 
 A little longer! aid me. give me strength 
 Not to tell her. never to let her know. 
 Help me not to bve;ik in upon 1-er ]><;!<">. 
 My children too! mus; i in>t sji-.-al; to these?
 
 38 ENOCH ARDEN. 
 
 T85 They know ine not. I should betray myself. 
 Never : no father's kiss for me the girl 
 So like her mother, and the boy, my son." 
 
 There speech and thought and nature f ail'd a little 
 And he lay tranced ; but when he rose and paced 
 790 Back toward his solitary home again. 
 
 All down the long and narrow street he went 
 Beating it in upon his weary brain, 
 As tho' it were the burthen of a song, 
 " Not to tell her, never to let her know." 
 
 m He was not all unhappy. His resolve 
 Upbore him, and firm faith, and evermore 
 Prayer from a living source within the will, 
 And beating up thro' all the bitter world. 
 Like fountains of sweet water in the sea, 
 
 son Kept him a living soul. " This, miller's wife," 
 He said to Miriam, " that you spoke about, 
 Has she no fear that her first husband lives? " 
 "Ay, ay, poor soul," said Miriam, " fear enow ! 
 If you could tell her you had seen him dead, 
 
 805 Why, that would be her comfort ; " and he thought 
 " After the Lord has call'd me she shall know, 
 I wait His time ;" and Enoch set himself. 
 Scorning an alms, to work whereby to live. 
 Almost to all things eould he turn his hand. 
 
 si'- Cooper he was and carpenter, and wrought 
 To make the boatmen fishing-nets, or help'cl 
 At lading and unlading the tall barks. 
 That brought the stinted commerce of those days ; 
 Thus earn'd a sca:,tv living for himself : 
 
 sis Yet since he did but labor for himself, 
 799. See line (i,'->8.
 
 ENOCH A It DEN. 39 
 
 Work without hope, there was not life in it 
 AY hereby the iimii eould live; and as the year 
 Koll'd itself round again to inert the day 
 When Knoch had ivtunfd, a languor eaine 
 
 -20 U])on him, gentle sickness, gradually 
 
 Weakening the man, till he eould do no more, 
 IJut kept the house, his chair, and last, his bed. 
 And Knoch bore his weakness cheerfully. 
 For sure no gladlier docs the stranded wreck 
 
 8i!o See thro' the gray skills of a lifting squall 
 The boat that bears the hope of life approach 
 To save the life despair'd of, than he saw 
 Death dawning on him, and the close of all. 
 
 For thro' that dawning gleam'd a kindlier hope 
 
 BSD On Knoch thinking, "after I am gone. 
 'Then may she learn I lov'd her to the last." 
 He ealld aloud for Miriam Lane and said 
 '* Woman, I have a secret only swear, 
 Before I tell you swear upon the book 
 
 i3 Xot to reveal it, till you see me dead." 
 
 'Dead,'' clamor'd the good woman. " hear him talk; 
 I warrant, man, that we shall bring you round." 
 " Swear," added Enoch sternly, ' on the book." 
 And on the book, half-frighted, Miriam swore. 
 
 "i Then Knoch rolling his gray eyes upon her, 
 ' Did you know Enoch Arden of this town ?" 
 '' Know him?" she sail], '' I knew him far away. 
 Ay. av. T inrid him coming down the street: 
 Held !us head high, and cared for no man, he." 
 
 8i.'Slo\\iy aud sacily Knoch answer'd her: 
 
 " Ills head is lov, and i;o man cares for !n;n. 
 I think I have not three dav< more to live : 
 ?_ am tlu.' man," At which the woman u'ave
 
 40 ENOCH ARDEN. 
 
 A half-incredulous, half-hysterical cry. 
 
 sso " You Ardeii, you ! nay, sure he was a foot 
 Higher than you lie." Enoch said again 
 " My God has bow'd me down to what I am ; 
 My grief and solitude have broken me ; 
 Nevertheless, know ymi that I am he 
 
 sss Who married but that name has twice been 
 
 changed 
 
 I married her who married Philip Ray. 
 Sit, listen." Then he told her of his voyage, 
 His wreck, his lonely life, his coming back, 
 His gazing in on Annie, his resolve, 
 
 860 And how he kept it. As the woman heard, 
 Fast flow'cl the current of her easy tears, 
 While in her heart she yearn'd incessantly 
 To rush abroad all round the little haven, 
 Proclaiming Enoch Arden and his woes ; 
 
 sea But awed and promise-boundeii she forbore, 
 Saying only, u See your bairns before you go! 
 Eh, let me fetch 'em, Arden," and arose 
 Eager to bring them down, for Enoch hung 
 A moment on her words, but then replied. 
 
 87J " "Woman, disturb me not now at the last, 
 But let me hold my purpose till I die. 
 Sit down again ; mark me and understand. 
 While I have power to speak. I charge you now 
 Wnen you shall see her, tell her that I died 
 
 375 Blessing her. praying for her. loving her : 
 Save for the bar between us. loving her 
 As when she lay her head beside my own. 
 And tell my daughter Annie, whom. I saw 
 
 8(J-";. Bounden, an old form of fimo/d, here used, doubtless, 
 in large measure fur MKJ niftre'.s sake.
 
 E.\O('JI A It DEN. 41 
 
 So like her mother, that my latest breath 
 sso Was spent in blessing her and praying for her. 
 
 And tell my sun that I died blessing him. 
 
 And say to Philip that I blest him too ; 
 
 He nevur meant us any thing but good. 
 
 But if mv children care to see me dead, 
 38.5 Who hardly knew me Hying, let them come, 
 
 I am their father : but she must not come, 
 
 For my dead face would vex her after-life. 
 
 And no\y there is but one of all my blood, 
 
 Who will embrace me in the vvorlcl-to-be : 
 890 This hair is his : she cut it off aruT gave it, 
 
 And I haye borne it with me all these years, 
 
 And thought to bear it with me to my grave ; 
 
 But now my mind is changed, for I shall see him, 
 
 My babe in bliss : wherefore when I am gone, 
 695 Take, give her this, for it may comfort her : 
 
 It will moreover be a token to her, 
 
 That I am he." 
 
 He ceased : and Miriam Lane 
 Maae such a voluble answer promising all, 
 That once again he roll'd his eyes upon her 
 sou Repeating all he wish'd, and on<'e again 
 She promised. 
 
 Then the third night after this, 
 While Enoch slumber'd motionless and pale, 
 And Miriam watch'd and dozed at intervals, 
 There came so loud a calling of the sea, 
 KB That all the houses in the haven rang. 
 
 He woke, he ro.--e. he spread Ins .irnis abroad, 
 
 Crying \\ith a loud voin> A sail! a sail ! 
 
 i am saved ;" and so fell back and snokr no more.
 
 42 THE DAY-DREAM. 
 
 So past the strong heroic soul away, 
 wo And when they buried him the little port 
 Had seldom seen a costlier funeral. 
 
 THE DAY-DREAM. 
 
 PEOLOGUE. 
 
 O LADY FLORA, let me speak : 
 
 A pleasant hour has past away 
 While, dreaming on your damask cheek, 
 
 The dewy sister-eyelids lay. 
 5 As by the lattice you reclined, 
 
 I went thro' many wayward moods 
 To see you dreaming and, behind, 
 
 A summer crisp with shining woods. 
 And I too dream'd, until at last 
 10 Across my fancy, brooding warm, 
 The reflex of a legend past, 
 
 And loosely settled into form, 
 
 911. The good taste of calling attention to the costliness of 
 Enoch's funeral has been questioned ; but is not the fact that 
 expense would signify more than any other one thing to the 
 villagers a sufficient explanation, or must we look for some sub- 
 tler additional reference to what the event cost in Annie's life ? 
 
 The Day-Dream. The germ of The Da>/ Drtam is to be found 
 :n The Sleeping Beauty, which first appeared in the volume of 
 1830. In its expanded, complete form the poem became a part 
 r>f the volume of 1842. It is one of the best instances in Enp*- 
 ii>h literature of the giving of new life, through a new form i 
 b:.-auty; to an old tale. The device of making a personal set- 
 ting for his story here by addressing it and its application to 
 " Ladv Khira " '.vns a favorite one with Tennyson. In the firs*, 
 form of the 3 fur!': n' Arthur called The Epic, and in The Princess^. 
 this method may be observed. 
 
 3. Damask cheek. A term from Shakespeare's Twelft*- 
 Niaht.
 
 TIIK DA Y-ltliKAM. 43 
 
 And would you have the thought I had, 
 
 And see the vision that I saw, 
 isThen take the broidery-frame, and add 
 
 A crimson to the quaint macaw, 
 And I will tell it. Turn your face, 
 
 Nor look with that too-earnest eye 
 The rli vines are dazzled from their place, 
 20 And order'd words asunder fly. 
 
 THE SLEEPING PALACE- 
 
 The varying year with blade and sheaf 
 
 Clothes and reclothes the happy plains, 
 Here rests the sap within the leaf, 
 
 Here stays the blood among- the veins. 
 25 Faint shadows, vapors lightly curl'd, 
 
 Faint murmurs from the meadows come, 
 Like hints and echoes of the world 
 
 To spirits folded in the womb. 
 
 II. 
 
 Soft lustre bathes the range of urns 
 30 On every slanting terrace-lawn. 
 The fountain to his place returns 
 
 Deep in the garden lakt withdrawn. 
 lien; droops the banner on the tower., 
 On the hall-hearths the festal fires, 
 35 The peacock in his laurel bower, 
 The parrot in his gilded wires.
 
 44 THE DAY-DREAM. 
 
 III. 
 Roof-haunting martins warm their eggs; 
 
 In these, in those the life is stay'd. 
 The mantles from the golden pegs 
 40 Droop sleepily : no sound is made, 
 Not even of a gnat that sings. 
 
 More like a picture seemeth all 
 Than those old portraits of old kings, 
 That watch the sleepers from the wall. 
 
 IV. 
 
 45 Here sits the butler with a flask 
 
 Between his knees, half-drain'd ; and there 
 The wrinkled steward fit his task. 
 
 The maid-of-honor blooming fair ; 
 The page has caught her hand in his : 
 so Her lips are sever'd as to speak : 
 His own are pouted to a kiss : 
 
 The blush is fix'd upon her cheek. 
 
 v. 
 
 Till all the hundred summers pass. 
 
 The beams, that thro' the oriel shine, 
 55 Make prisms in every carven glass, 
 
 And beaker brimm'd witli noble wine. 
 Each baron at the banquet sleeps, 
 Grave faces gather' d in a ring. 
 His state the king reposing keeps. 
 ee He must have been a jovial king. 
 
 37. Martins. Shakespeare's " temple-haunting martlet " in 
 31u<'l>r-t1i is the same Lird, a swallow. 
 
 ')'.'>. The hundred summers, (lie years through which, in the 
 old story of Tin- Sin j,;:,i/ l'l'<i>it/j, the slumhrr of the castle and 
 all within it was to la^t.
 
 Till': DA Y- It UK AM. 45 
 
 VI. 
 All round a hed<;'e upshoots, and shows 
 
 At distance like a little wood ; 
 Thorns, ivies, woodbine, mistletoes, 
 
 And grapes with bunches red as blood ; 
 65 All creeping plants, a wall of ^reen 
 
 Close-matted, bur and brake; and brier, 
 And glimpsing over these, jnst seen, 
 High up, the topmost palace-spire. 
 
 VII. 
 
 "When will the hundred summers die, 
 
 70 And thought and time be born a^'ain, 
 
 And newer knowledge, drawing ni^h, 
 
 Briii" 1 truth that swavs the soul of men? 
 Here all things in their place remain, 
 
 As all were order'd, a^'es since. 
 75 Come, Care and Pleasure, Hope and Pain, 
 And brintr the fated fairy Prince. 
 
 THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. 
 I. 
 
 Year after year unto her feet, 
 
 She lyiiiL; 1 on her couch alone, 
 Across the purple coverlet, 
 
 The maiden's jet-black hair has grown, 
 On either side her tranced form 
 
 Forth streaming from a braid of pearl: 
 The slumbrous light is rich and warm, 
 
 And moves not on the rounded curl.
 
 46 THE DAY-DREAM. 
 
 II. 
 85 The silk star-broider'd coverlid 
 
 Unto her limbs itself doth mould 
 Languidly ever ; and, amid 
 
 Her full black ringlets downward roll'd, 
 Glows forth each softly-shadow'd arm 
 90 With bracelets of the diamond bright : 
 Her constant beauty cloth inform 
 
 Stillness with love, and day with light. 
 
 ill. 
 
 She sleeps : her breathings are not heard 
 
 In palace chambers far apart. 
 95 The fragrant tresses are not stirr'd 
 That lie upon her charmed heart. 
 She sleeps : on either hand upswells 
 
 The gold-fringed pillow lightly prest : 
 She sleeps, nor dreams, hut ever dwells 
 100 A perfect form in perfect rest. 
 
 THE ARRIVAL. 
 I. 
 
 All precious things, discovered late, 
 
 To those that seek them issue forth ; 
 For love in sequel works with fate. 
 
 And draws the veil from hidden worth, 
 .05 He travels far from other skies 
 
 His mantle glitters on the rocks 
 A fairv Prince, with joyful eyes, 
 
 And liu liter-footed than the fox.
 
 THE DAY-DREAM. 47 
 
 II. 
 
 The bodies and the bones of those 
 
 :io That strove in other days to pass, 
 
 Are wither'd in the thorny close, 
 
 Or scattered blanching on the grass. 
 He ga/es on the silent dead : 
 
 " They perish'd in their daring deeds." 
 -is This proverb flashes thro' his head, 
 " The many fail : the one succeeds." 
 
 III. 
 
 He comes, scarce knowing what he seeks: 
 lie breaks the hedge : he enters there : 
 
 The color flies into his cheeks : 
 .20 lie trusts to light on something fair; 
 
 For all his life the charm did talk 
 About his path, and hover near 
 
 With words of promise in his walk, 
 And whisper'd voices at his ear. 
 
 IV. 
 
 i->5 More close and close his footsteps wind : 
 
 The magic music in his heart 
 Beats quick and quicker, till he find 
 
 The quiet chamber far apart. 
 His spirit flutters like a lark, 
 :2j He stoops to kiss her on his knee. 
 "Love, if thy tresses be so dark. 
 How dark those hidden eves must be ! '' 
 
 ,'.11. The thorny close. Set- lines 01 ('>('>. 
 L_!l, r_!U. The charm and the magic music are what \vel) 
 jtay have K'<1 the Prince oi a fairy tale.
 
 48 THE DAY-DREAM. 
 
 THE REVIVAL. 
 
 I. 
 
 A touch, a kiss ! the charm was snapt. 
 There rose a noise of striking clocks, 
 135 And feet that ran, and doors that clapt, 
 
 And barking dogs, and crowing cocks i 
 A fuller light illumined all, 
 
 A breeze thro' all the garden swept, 
 A sudden hubbub shook the hall, 
 wo And sixty feet the fountain leapt. 
 
 II. 
 
 The hedge broke in, the banner blew, 
 
 The butler drank, the steward scrawl'd, 
 The fire shot up, the martin flew, 
 
 The parrot scream'd, the peacock squall'd, 
 us The maid and page renew'd their strife, 
 
 The palace bang'd and bu/z'd and clackt, 
 And all the long-pent stream of life 
 
 Dash'd downward in a cataract. 
 
 III. 
 
 And last with these the king awoke. 
 i r >o And in his chair himself uprear'd, 
 
 And yawn'd, and rubb'd his face, and spoke, 
 
 " By holy rood, a royal board ! 
 How say you? we; have slept, my lords. 
 
 My beard has grown into my lap." 
 iss The barons swore, with many words, 
 
 'Twas but an after-dinner's nap. 
 152. Rood ;= the cross ; a common oath in ancient England
 
 THE DAY-lillKAM 49 
 
 IV. 
 
 "Pardy, 1 ' return M the king, '"but still 
 My joints are somewhat stiff or so. 
 My lord, and shall \ve pass the hill 
 wo I mention'd half an hour ago?" 
 The chancellor, sedate and vain, 
 
 In courteous words returned reply: 
 But dallied with his golden chain, 
 And, smiling-, put the question by. 
 
 THE DEPARTURE. 
 I. 
 
 165 And on her lover's arm she leant, 
 
 And round her waist she felt it fold, 
 And far across the hills they went 
 
 In that new world which is the old: 
 Across the hills, and far away 
 170 Beyond their utmost purple rim, 
 And deep into the dying day 
 
 The happy princess followed him. 
 
 II. 
 
 " I 'd sleep another hundred years, 
 O love, for such another kiss ;" 
 175 " O wake for ever, love," she hears, 
 
 O love, 't was such as this and this." 
 And o'er them many a sliding star. 
 
 And many a merry wind was borne. 
 And, stream'd thro" many a golden bar, 
 iso The twilight melted into morn. 
 
 L"~>7. Pardy. Another oath an Kuylish version ui //ar Di<ti 
 (by (iod).
 
 50 THE DAY-DREAM. 
 
 " O eyes long laid in happy sleep ! " 
 
 " O happy sleep, that lightly fled ! " 
 " O happy kiss, that woke thy sleep ! " 
 
 ' O love, thy kiss would wake the dead ! " 
 185 And o'er them many a flowing range 
 
 Of vapor buoy'd the crescent-bark, 
 And, rapt thro' many a rosy change, 
 
 The twilight died into the dark. 
 
 IV. 
 
 " A hundred summers ! can it be ? 
 io And whither goest thou, tell me where ? " 
 " O seek my father's court with me, 
 
 For there are greater wonders there." 
 And o'er the hills, and far away 
 
 Beyond their utmost purple rim, 
 195 Beyond the night, across the day, 
 
 Thro' all the world she follow'd him. 
 
 MORAL. 
 
 So, Lady Flora, take my lay, 
 And if you find no moral there, 
 
 Go, look in any glass and say, 
 300 T\ hat moral is in being fair. 
 
 Oh. to what uses shall we put 
 
 The wild weed-flower that simply blows? 
 
 And is there any moral shut 
 Within the bosom of the rose? 
 
 ISO. Crescent-bark : the moon in poetry is frequently likened 
 to a bnt.
 
 THE DAY-DREAM. bl 
 
 II. 
 
 205 But any man that walks the mead, 
 
 In bud or blade, or bloom, may find, 
 According as his humors lead, 
 
 A meaning suited to his mind. 
 And liberal applications lie 
 no In Art like Nature, dearest friend ; 
 So 'twere to cramp its use, if I 
 
 Should hook it to some useful end. 
 
 L ENVOI. 
 
 I. 
 
 You shake your head. A random string 
 
 Your finer female sense offends. 
 215 Well were it not a pleasant thing 
 
 To fall asleep with all one's friends ; 
 To pass with all our social ties 
 
 To silence from the paths of men ; 
 And every hundred years to rise 
 220 And learn the world, raid sleep again : 
 To sleep thro' terms of mighty wars. 
 
 And wake on science grown to more, 
 On secrets of the brain, the stars. 
 
 As wild as aught of fairy lore ; 
 22.') And all that else the years will show, 
 
 The Poet-forms of stronger hours, 
 The vast Republics that may grow. 
 
 The Federations and the Powers ; 
 Titanic forces taking birth 
 
 21!?. A random string : here an oiT-liaml tnlc without ;v 
 moral.
 
 52 THE DAY-DREAM. 
 
 230 In divers seasons, divers climes ? 
 For we are Ancients of the earth, 
 And in the morning of the times. 
 
 II. 
 
 So sleeping, so aroused from sleep 
 
 Thro' sunny decades new and strange, 
 285 Or gay quinquenniads would we reap 
 
 The flower and quintessence of change. 
 
 III. 
 
 Ah, yet would J and would I might ! 
 
 So much your eyes my fancy take 
 Be still the first to leap to light 
 240 That I might kiss those eyes awake ! 
 For, am T right or am I wrong, 
 
 To choose your own you did not care ; 
 You 'd have my moral from the song, 
 
 And I will take my pleasure there ; 
 245 And, am I right or am I wrong, 
 
 My fancy, ranging thro' and thro', 
 To search a meaning for the song, 
 
 Perforce will still revert to you ; 
 Nor finds a closer truth than this 
 250 All-graceful head, so richly curl'd, 
 And evermore a costly kiss 
 
 The prelude to some brighter world. 
 
 IV. 
 
 For since the time when Adam first 
 Embraced his Eve in happy hour, 
 2% And every bird of Eden burst 
 
 235. Quinquenniads = periods of five years. 
 
 2rH3. Quintessence must be accented on tlio first syllable.
 
 THE DAY-DUKAM. 53 
 
 In carol, every hud to flower, 
 What eves, like thine, have wakeiiM hopes? 
 
 What lips, like thine, so sweetly join'd? 
 \\ here on the double rosebud droops 
 KM The fullness of the pensive mind : 
 Which all too dearly self-involved, 
 
 Yet sleeps a dreamless sleep to me ; 
 A sleep by kisses undissolved, 
 
 That lets thee neither hear nor see : 
 :i;.-> Hut break it. In the name of wife, 
 
 And in the rights that name may give, 
 Are clasp'd the moral of thy life, 
 
 And that for which I care to live. 
 
 EPILOGUE. 
 
 So, Lady Flora, take my lay, 
 IT" And, if von find a meaning there, 
 () whisper to your glass, and say. 
 
 " What wonder, if he thinks me fair?" 
 What wonder I was all unwise. 
 
 To shape the song for your delight 
 r,-> Like long-tail'd birds of Paradise, 
 
 That float thro' Heaven, and cannot light? 
 Or old-world trains, upheld at court 
 Hv Cupid-boys of blooming hue 
 Pmt take it earnest wed with sport, 
 '-'so And either sacred unto you. 
 
 'J.">!>. The double rosebud: ot' course the lips of the lii 
 before. 
 
 J77. Old-world trains -- i lie lon^ skin-, of old-world dami
 
 54 DORA. 
 
 DORA. 
 
 "\ViTH farmer Allan at the farm abode 
 William and Dora. William was his son, 
 And she his niece. He often looked at them, 
 And often thought, " I '11 make them man and wife." 
 
 a Now Dora felt her uncle's will in all, 
 And yearn'd towards William ; but the youth, be- 
 cause 
 
 He had been always with her in the house, 
 Thought not of Dora. 
 
 Then there came a day 
 When Allan call'd his son, and said. " My son : 
 
 10 1 married late, but I would wish to see 
 My grandchild on my knees before I die : 
 And I have set my heart upon a match. 
 Now therefore look to Dora : she is well 
 To look to ; thrift}' too beyond her age. 
 
 is She is my brother's daughter : he and I 
 Had once hard words, and parted, and he died 
 In foreign lands ; but for his sake I bred 
 His daughter Dora : take her for your wife : 
 For I have wish'd this marriage, night and day, 
 
 20 For many years.'' But William answer'd short : 
 ' I cannot marry Dora ; by my life, 
 
 Dora, is one of the poems which, according 1 to a plan Tennyson 
 formed and abandoned for the title of one of his books, might 
 well have been called an Id'i/l of the Hearth. It first appeared 
 in the two-volume Edition of LS4-i. Such is the simplicity of 
 the poem in plan and diction that " notes " are more than usually 
 a superfluity. 
 
 To the story of " Dora Cres\veli," in Miss Mitford's Our Vil- 
 lage, Tennyson acknowledged his debt for the origin of the 
 poem. Indeed, tin- poet lias followed the storv verv closely, 
 even in many details. The concluding Knes are perhaps the 
 most important departure fr<'- *
 
 55 
 
 I will not marry Dora." Then the old man 
 Was wroth, and doubled up his hands, and said: 
 " You will not. l)ov ! you dare; to answer thus ! 
 
 25 p>ut in my lime a father's word was l;i\v. 
 And so it shall he now for me. Look to it; 
 Consider, AVilliam: take a month to think, 
 And let me have an answer to my wish : 
 Or, by the Lord that made me, you shall pack, 
 
 so And never more darken my doors again.'' 
 But \Yilliaui answer' tl madly: bit his lips, 
 And broke away. The more he look'd at her 
 The less he liked her ; and his ways were harsh ; 
 But Dora bore them meekly. Then before 
 
 35 The month was out he left his father's house, 
 And hired himself to work within the fields ; 
 And half in love, half spite, he woo'd and wed 
 A laborer's daughter, Marv Morrison. 
 
 Then, when the bells were ringing, Allan call'd 
 
 4ii His niece and said : " My girl, I love you well ; 
 But if you speak with him that was my son, 
 Or change a word with her he calls his wife, 
 My home is none of yours. My will is law.'' 
 And Dora promised, being meek. She thought, 
 
 kt It cannot be : my uncle's mind will change ! " 
 And days went on, and there was born a boy 
 To William : then distresses came on him : 
 And day by day he pass'd his father's gate, 
 Heart-broken, and his father help'd him not. 
 
 so But Dora stored what little she could save, 
 And sent it them by stealth, nor did they know 
 Who sent it : till at last a fever Sv'i/ed 
 On A\ illiam, and in harvest time he died. 
 Then Dora went to Marv. Marv .-.at 
 
 85 And look'd with tears upon her bov. and thought
 
 50 DORA. 
 
 Hard things of Dora, Dora came and said : 
 
 " I have obey'd my uncle until now, 
 And I have sinii'd, for it was all thro' me 
 This evil came on William at the first. 
 
 so Biit, Mary, for the sake of him that 's gone, 
 And for your sake, the woman that he chose, 
 And for this orphan, I am come to you : 
 You know there has not been for these five years 
 So full a harvest : let me take the boy, 
 
 86 And I will set him in my uncle's eye 
 Among the wheat ; that when his heart is glad 
 Of the full harvest, he may see the boy, 
 And bless him for the sake of him that 's gone." 
 And Dora took the child, and went her way 
 
 TO Across the wheat, and sat upon a mound 
 That was unsown, where many poppies grew. 
 Far off the farmer came into the field 
 And spied her not ; for none of all his men 
 Dare tell him Dora waited with the child ; 
 
 75 And Dora would have risen and gone to him, 
 But her heart fail'd her ; and the reapers reap'd, 
 And the sun fell, and all the land was dark. 
 
 But when the morrow came, she rose and took 
 The child once more, and sat upon the mound ; 
 
 so And made a little wreath of all the flowers 
 That grew about, and tied it round his hat 
 To make him pleasing in her uncle's eye. 
 Then when the farmer pass'd into the field 
 He spied her, and lie left his men at work, 
 
 ss And came and said: " Where were you yesterday' 
 Whose child is that? What are you doing here? " 
 So Dora cast her eyes upon the ground, 
 And answer' d softly, "This is William's child!" 
 "And did 1 not," said Allan, "did I not 
 
 9 Forbid you. Dora?'' Dora said asjain :
 
 DOHA. 57 
 
 "Do with me as you will, luit take the child, 
 And bless him for the sake of him that 's gone !" 
 And Allan said, " I s( e it is a trick 
 (iot up betwixt you and the woman there. 
 9. r > I must hi 1 taught my duty, and by you ! 
 You knew my word was law, and yet you dared 
 To slight it. Well for I will take the boy ; 
 But go you hence, and never see me more." 
 80 saying, he took tin; boy, that fried aloud 
 
 loo And struggled hard. The wreath of flowers fell 
 At Dora's feet. She bow'd upon her hands, 
 And the boy's cry came to her from the field, 
 More and more distant. She bow'd down her head, 
 Remembering the day when first she came, 
 
 IDS And all the things that had been. She bow'd down 
 And wept in secret ; and the reapers reap'd, 
 And the sun fell, and all the land was dark. 
 
 Then Dora went to Mary's house, and stood 
 Upon the threshold. Mary saw the boy 
 
 no Was not with Dora. She broke out in praise 
 To God, that help'd her in her widowhood. 
 And Dora said, '"My uncle took the boy; 
 But, Mary, let me live and work with you : 
 lie says that he will never see me more." 
 
 ii5 Then answer'd Mary, " This shall never be, 
 That thou shouldst take my trouble on thyself: 
 And. now I think, he shall not have the boy, 
 For he will teach him hardness, and to slight 
 His mother: therefore thou and I will go, 
 
 i2 And 1 will have mv boy, and bring him home; 
 And I will beg of him to take thee back: 
 But if he will not take thee back again, 
 Then thou and 1 will live within one house, 
 And work for William's child, until lie grows 
 
 125 Of age to help us.''
 
 58 DOR A. 
 
 So the women kiss'd 
 
 Each other, and set out, and reach VI the farm. 
 The door was off the latch : they peep VI, and saw 
 The boy set up betwixt his grandsire's knees, 
 Who thrust him in the hollows of his arm, 
 
 '-3o And clapt him on the hands and on the cheeks, 
 Like one that loved him : and the lad stretch VI out 
 And babbled for the golden seal, that hung 
 From Allan's watch, and sparkled by the lire. 
 Then they came in : Ivit when the boy beheld 
 
 i.io His mother, he cried out to come to her : 
 And Allan set him down, and Mary said : 
 
 " O Father ! if you let me call you so 
 I never came a-begging for myself, 
 Or William, or this child ; but now I come 
 
 o For Dora : take her back ; she loves you well, 
 
 Sir, when William died, he died at peace 
 With all men ; for I ask VI him, and he said, 
 He could not ever rue his marrying me 
 
 1 had been a patient wife : but, Sir, he said 
 145 That he was wrong to cross his father thus : 
 
 ' God bless him ! ' he said, ; and may lie never know 
 
 The troubles I have gone thro' ! ' Then he turn VI 
 
 His face and pass'd unhappy that I am ! 
 
 But now, Sir, let me have my boy, for you 
 iso Will make him hard, and he will learn to slight 
 
 His father's memory ; and take Dora back, 
 
 And let all this be as it was before." 
 So Mary said, and Dora hid her face 
 
 By Mary. There was silence in the room ; 
 155 And all at once the old man burst in sobs: 
 
 148. Pass'd: this old use of pn.^'d for died is the same as in 
 the phrase passing-lM a bell that tolled immediately ?ftei 
 death.
 
 THE TALK1XG OAK. 59 
 
 " I have been to blame to blame. I have kill'd 
 
 my son. 
 
 I liave kill'd him but I loved him my dear son. 
 May (iod forgive mo! I have been to blame. 
 Kiss me, my children."' 
 
 Then they clung about 
 
 leo The old man's neck, ami kiss'd him many times. 
 And all the man was broken with remorse ; 
 And all his love eame back a hundredfold ; 
 And for three hours he sobb'd o'er William's ehild, 
 Thinking- of William. 
 
 So those four abode 
 
 165 Within one house together ; and as years 
 Went forward, Mary took another mate ; 
 But Dora lived unmarried till her death. 
 
 THK TALKING OAK. 
 
 OxCF, more the g'ate behind me falls, 
 
 Once more before my face 
 I see the moulder'd Abbey-walls, 
 
 That stand within the chaee. 
 
 5 Beyond the lodge the city lies, 
 Beneath its drift of smoke ; 
 And ah ! with what delighted eyes 
 I turn to yonder oak. 
 
 In the poems of lS[-_', The Tulkltiij Oak first appeared. The 
 quotation from Mrs. Ritchie in the Jliof/rc/i/iirut Skttcli, concern- 
 ing the peculiarly English charm of Tennyson's writing applies, 
 perhaps, as forcihly to this poem as to anything in his work. 
 Remarkable, too. is the mastery dl>ji!aved in combining accu- 
 rate botanical knowledge with poetic feeling, two elements 
 that are not easily blended. 
 
 4. Chace - imei!cUed parkland.
 
 UO THE TALKING OAK. 
 
 For when my passion first began, 
 10 Ere that, which in me burned, 
 The love, that makes me thrice a man, 
 Could hope itself return'd ; 
 
 To yonder oak within the field 
 
 I spoke without restraint, 
 is And with a larger faith appeal'd 
 Than Papist unto Saint. 
 
 For oft I talk'd with him apart, 
 
 And told him of my choice, 
 Until he plagiarized a heart, 
 20 And answer'd with a voice. 
 
 Tho' what he whisper'd under Heaven 
 None else could understand ; 
 
 I found him garrulously given, 
 A babbler in the land. 
 
 25 But since I heard him make reply 
 
 Is many a weary hour ; 
 'T were well to question him, and try 
 If yet he keeps the power. 
 
 Hail, hidden to the knees in fern, 
 ao Broad Oak of Sumner-chace, 
 Whose topmost branches can discern 
 The roofs of Sumner-place ! 
 
 Say thou, whereon I carved her name, 
 
 If ever maid or spouse, 
 35 As fair as my Olivia, came 
 
 To rest beneath tliv boughs.
 
 777 !: y.I/,A7.Y<; OAK. 61 
 
 "O Walter, I have shelter'd here 
 
 \\ hatever maiden grace 
 The good old Sununers, year by your, 
 to Made ripe in Sunmer-ehaee : 
 
 "Old Summers, when the monk was fat, 
 
 And, issuing shorn and sleek, 
 "Would twist his girdle tight, and pat 
 The girls upon the cheek, 
 
 45 " Ere yet, in scorn of Peter's-ponce, 
 
 And nmnberM bead, and shrift, 
 Bluff Harry broke into the spence 
 And turn' d the cowls adrift : 
 
 " And I liave seen some score of those 
 so Fresh faces, that would thrive 
 When his man-minded offset rose 
 To chase the deer at live ; 
 
 " And all that from the town would stroll, 
 
 Till that wild wind made work 
 6.5 In which the gloomy brewer's soul 
 Went by me, like a stork : 
 
 i."> tcS. Peter's-pence was a tax to tin- Church of Rome, and 
 the \vhnl' 1 stanxii refei's to the easting oil' of Papal authoritv by 
 Henry VIII., ' KlulV Harry." The spence, line 47, was the 
 buttery or larder. 
 
 "il. His man-minded offset, Ileni'y's daughter, Queen 
 Elizabeth. 
 
 ."">!. Tliat wild wind, the storm \vliidi raided on the ni^ht of 
 Cromwell's death : il is said that his father was a brewer, and 
 tradition has it that the stork, a Republican bird, disajipeared 
 from Kuirland when Cromwell died.
 
 62 THE TALKING OAK. 
 
 " The slight she-slips of loyal blood, 
 
 And others, passing praise, 
 Strait-laced, but all-too-full in bud 
 eo For puritanic stays : 
 
 " And I have shadow'd many a group 
 
 Of beauties, that were born 
 In teacup-times of hood and hoop, 
 
 Or while the patch was worn ; 
 
 ss " And, leg and arm with love-knots gay,, 
 
 About me leap'd and laugh'd 
 The modish Cupid of the day, 
 And shrill'd his tinsel shaft. 
 
 " I swear (and else may insects prick 
 TO Each leaf into a gall) 
 This girl, for whom your heart is sick, 
 Is three times worth them all ; 
 
 " For those and theirs, by Nature's law, 
 
 Have faded long ago ; 
 75 But in these latter springs I saw 
 Your own Olivia blow, 
 
 " From when she gamboll'd on the greens 
 A baby-germ, to when 
 
 57. She-slips of loyal blood, daughters of houses faithf il 
 to the Stuarts : in the talk of an oak, they are naturally xiijjs. 
 
 63. In teacup-times of hood and hoop : this line and tin 
 five that follow skillfully suggest the days of Queen An;;f-. 
 and the artificialities of the eighteenth century. 
 
 70. Gall = the lump that grows on the bark or leaves of n 
 tree round the eggs of an insect. 
 
 70. Blow bloom.
 
 77/A' 7'.1/.A7.W; t>AK. Go 
 
 The maiden blossoms of her teens 
 so Could number live from ten. 
 
 " I swear, l>y leaf, and wind, and rain, 
 
 (And hear me with thine ears,) 
 That, tho' i circle in the grain 
 
 Five hundred rings of years 
 
 3* u Yet, since I first could cast a shade, 
 
 Did never creature pass 
 
 So slightly, musically made, 
 
 So light upon the grass: 
 
 " For as to fairies, that will flit 
 30 To make the greensward fresh, 
 I hold them exquisitely knit, 
 But far too spare of flesh." 
 
 Oh, hide thy knotted knees in fern, 
 
 And overlook the chace ; 
 And from thy topmost branch discern 
 The roofs of Simmer-place. 
 
 But thou, whereon I carved her name, 
 
 That oft h:ist heard my vows, 
 Declare when last Olivia came 
 100 To sport beneath thy lioughs. 
 
 '' O yesterday, you know, the fair 
 
 Was holden at the town ; 
 Her father left his good arm-chair, 
 
 And rode his hunter down. 
 
 84. The rinrs \shirli show an oak's age.
 
 64 THE TALKING OAK. 
 
 ioo " And with him Albert came on his. 
 
 I look'd at him with joy: 
 As cowslip unto oxlip is, 
 So seems she to the boy. 
 
 " An hour had past and, sitting straight 
 BO Within the low-wheel'd chaise, 
 Her mother trundled to the gate 
 Behind the dappled grays. 
 
 " But, as for her, she stay'd at home, 
 
 And on the roof she went, 
 us And down the way you use to come 
 She look'd with discontent. 
 
 " She left the novel half-uncut 
 
 Upon the rosewood shelf ; 
 She left the new piano shut : 
 120 She could not please herself. 
 
 " Then ran she, gamesome as the colt, 
 
 And livelier than a lark 
 She sent her voice thro' all the holt 
 
 Before her, and the park. 
 
 i.25 " A light wind chased her on the wing, 
 
 And in the chase grew wild, 
 As close as might be would he cling 
 About the darling child : 
 
 " But light as any wind that blows 
 : ,3o So fleetly did she stir, 
 
 The flower she touch'd on dipt and rose, 
 And turu'd to look at her.
 
 THE TALKING OAK. 65 
 
 "And here she cume, and round me play'd, 
 
 And sang to me the whole 
 155 Of those three stanzas that you made 
 About my * giant bole ; ' 
 
 " And in a fit of frolic mirth 
 
 She strove to span my waist : 
 Alas, I was so broad of girth, 
 140 I could not be embraced. 
 
 " I wish'd myself the fair young beech 
 
 That here beside me stands, 
 That round me, clasping each in each, 
 
 She might have lock'd her hands. 
 
 145 u Yet seem'd the pressure thrice as sweet 
 
 As woodbine's fragile hold, 
 Or when I feel about my feet 
 The berried briony fold." 
 
 O muffle round thy knees w r ith fern 
 i.5o And shadow Sumner-chace ! 
 
 Long may thy topmost branch discern 
 The roofs of Simmer-place ! 
 
 But tell me, did she read the name 
 
 I carved with many vows 
 155 When last with throbbing heart I came 
 To rest beneath thy boughs ? 
 
 "O yes, she wanderM round and round 
 These knotted knees of mine. 
 
 1 IS. Briony. A common plant in Kn-]aml. 'nearm^ red ber- 
 ries. Sec how LonyfVllow IIM'S the won! in Tli." Sicilian's 
 Talc, The Bel! ,.f Am," in the Tuh-t "fa Wapiti, Inn.
 
 66 THE TALKING OAK. 
 
 And found, and kiss'd the name she found, 
 leo And sweetly murmur' d thine. 
 
 " A teardrop trembled from its source, 
 
 And down my surface crept. 
 My sense of touch is something coarse, 
 
 But I believe she wept. 
 
 165 " Then flush'd her cheek with rosy light, 
 
 She glanced across the plain ; 
 But not a creature was in sight : 
 She kiss'd me once again, 
 
 " Her kisses were so close and kind, 
 iw That, trust me on my word, 
 
 Hard wood I am, and wrinkled rind, 
 But yet my sap was stirr'd ; 
 
 " And even into my inmost ring 
 
 A pleasure I discern'd, 
 m Like those blind motions of the Spring, 
 That show the year is turn'd. 
 
 " Thrice-happy he that may caress 
 
 The ringlet's waving balm 
 The cushions of whose touch may press 
 wo The maiden's tender palm. 
 
 " I, rooted here among the groves, 
 
 But languidly adjust 
 My vapid vegetable loves 
 
 With anthers and with dust : 
 
 183. Vegetable loves. Gilbert makes amusing use of this 
 phrase in his opera J'atit'.iict:.
 
 THI-: TM.!<[.\<; OAK. 
 
 isa * For ah ! my friend, the days were brief 
 
 VV hereof the poets talk, 
 
 When that, which breathes within the leaf, 
 Could slip its bark and walk. 
 
 "But could I, as in times foregone, 
 
 190 From spray, and branch, and stem, 
 
 Have suck'd and gather'd into one 
 
 The life that spreads in them, 
 
 " She had not found me so remiss ; 
 
 But lightly issuing thro', 
 lad I would have paid her kiss for kiss, 
 AVith usury thereto." 
 
 O flourish high, with leafy towers, 
 
 And overlook the lea, 
 Pursue thy loves among the bowers 
 wo But leave thou mine to me. 
 
 O flourish, hidden deep in fern, 
 
 Old oak, I love thru well ; 
 A thousand thanks for what I learn. 
 
 And what remains to tell. 
 
 805 " 'T is little more : the dav was warm ; 
 
 At last, tired out with plav, 
 She sank her head upon her arm 
 And at my feet she lay. 
 
 "Her eyelids dropp'd their silken eaves. 
 no I breathed upon her eves 
 
 Thro' all the summer of mv leaves 
 A welcome nii.xM with >i i>i hs.
 
 68 THE TALKING OAK. 
 
 *' I took the swarming sound of life 
 
 The music from the town 
 
 215 The murmurs of the drum and fife, 
 
 And lull'd them in my own. 
 
 " Sometimes I let a sunbeam slip, 
 
 To light her shaded eye ; 
 A second flutter' d round her lip 
 220 Like a golden butterfly ; 
 
 " A third would glimmer on her neck 
 To make the necklace shine ; 
 
 Another slid, a sunny fleck, 
 From head to ankle fine. 
 
 225 " Then close and dark my arms I spread, 
 
 And shadow'd all her rest 
 Dropt dews upon her golden head, 
 An acorn in her breast. 
 
 " But in a pet she started up, 
 230 And pluck'd it out, and drew 
 My little oakling from the cup, 
 And flung him in the dew. 
 
 " And yet it was a graceful gift 
 
 I felt a pang within 
 235 As when I see the woodman lift 
 His axe to slay my kin. 
 
 " I shook him down because he was 
 
 The finest on the tree. 
 He lies beside thee on the grass. 
 240 O kiss hini once for me.
 
 THE TALKING OAK. 69 
 
 " O kiss him twice and thrice for me, 
 
 That have no lips to kiss, 
 For never yet was oak on lea 
 
 Shall grow so fair as this." 
 
 245 Step deeper yet in herb and fern, 
 
 Look further thro' the chace, 
 Spread upward till thy boughs discern 
 The front of Sumner-place. 
 
 This fruit of thine by Love is blest, 
 250 That but a moment lay 
 
 Where fairer fruit of Love may rest 
 Some happy future day. 
 
 I kiss it twice, I kiss it thrice, 
 
 The warmth it thence shall win 
 253 To riper life may magnetize 
 The baby-oak within. 
 
 But thou, while kingdoms overset, 
 
 Or lapse from hand to hand, 
 Thy leaf shall never fail, nor yet 
 260 Thine acorn in the land. 
 
 May never saw dismember thee, 
 
 Nor wielded axe disjoint, 
 That art the fairest-spoken tree 
 
 From here to Lizard-point. 
 
 2C5 O rock upon thy towery top 
 
 All throats that gurgle sweet! 
 
 2G4. Lizard-point, usually called "The Lizard," the southern 
 extremity of England, near Land's End.
 
 70 THE TALKING OAK. 
 
 All starry culmination drop 
 Balm-dews to bathe thy feet ! 
 
 All grass of silky feather grow 
 2"o And while he sinks or swells 
 
 The full south-breeze around thee blow 
 The sound of minster bells. 
 
 The fat earth feed thy branchy root, 
 
 That under deeply strikes ! 
 275 The northern morning 1 o'er thee shoot, 
 High up, in silver spikes ! 
 
 Nor ever lightning char thy grain, 
 
 But, rolling as in sleep, 
 Low thunders bring the mellow rain, 
 280 That makes thee broad and deep ! 
 
 And hear me swear a solemn oath, 
 
 That only by thy side 
 Will I to Olive plight my troth, 
 
 And gain her for my bride. 
 
 285 And when my marriage morn may fall, 
 
 She, Dryad-like, shall wear 
 Alternate leaf and acorn -ball 
 In wreath about her hair. 
 
 And I will work in prose and rhyme, 
 290 And praise thee more in both 
 
 Than bard lias honor' d beech or lime, 
 Or that Thessalian growth, 
 
 27-"). The northern morning = Aurora Bun-alls. 
 
 '29 That Thessalian growth; the o.-ik ar. 1\. dona, from
 
 SEA DUE A MS. 71 
 
 In which the swarthy ringdove sat, 
 
 'And mystic sentence spoke ; 
 ws And more than England honors that, 
 Thy famous brother-oak, 
 
 "Wherein the younger Charles abode 
 
 Till all the paths were dim, 
 And far below the Roundhead rode, 
 sou And humm'd a surly hymn. 
 
 SEA DREAMS. 
 
 A CITY clerk, but gently born and bred; 
 His wife, an unknown artist's orphan child 
 One babe was theirs, a Margaret, three years old: 
 They, thinking that her clear germander eye 
 
 5 Droopt in the giant-factoried city-gloom, 
 Came, with a month's leave given them, to the sea: 
 For which his gains were dock'd, however small : 
 Small were his gains, and hard his work ; besides, 
 Their slender household fortunes (for the man 
 
 10 Had risk'd his little) like the little thrift, 
 Trembled in perilous places o'er a dee}) : 
 And oft, when sitting all alone, his face 
 
 which tin* oracles of Zens were said to he delivered through 
 pigeons ; another method was to interpret tin 1 rustling- of the 
 leaves. 
 
 till' 1 ,. Thy famous brother-oak; the "Royal Onk " at 
 Bost'ohel in which Charles II. hid after his defeat at Worcestel 
 in II ;.">!. 
 
 .Si a [) reruns was produced in the same period with /."/ '> 
 Ar'/i-n. It was printed lirst in Mumiiiitin'it .I/-/'/" "-'"" ! ' 'tin 1 .. 1 ' 
 tiry, 1^1)0. and took it-; phre in the vn!iin !' : ><ii 
 
 4. C-ermaiicler a purple !ln\\e; eme i.iHi i i i ; .,'. . !
 
 72 SEA DREAMS. 
 
 Would darken, as he cursed his credulousness, 
 And that one unctuous mouth which lured him, rogue, 
 
 15 To buy strange shares in some Peruvian mine. 
 Now seaward-bound for health they gain'd a coast. 
 All sand and cliff and deep-inrunning cave, 
 At close of day ; slept, woke, and went the next, 
 The Sabbath, pious variers from the church, 
 
 20 To chapel ; where a heated pulpiteer, 
 Not preaching simple Christ to simple men, 
 Announced the coming doom, and fulminated 
 Against the scarlet woman and her creed : 
 For sideways up he swung his arms, and shriek'd 
 
 25 " Thus, thus with violence," ev'n as if he held 
 The Apocalyptic millstone, and himself 
 Were that great Angel ; " Thus with violence 
 Shall Babylon be cast into the sea ; 
 Then comes the close." The gentle-hearted wife 
 
 *o Sat shuddering at the ruin of a world ; 
 He at his own : but when the wordy storm 
 Had ended, forth they caine and paced the shore, 
 Ran in and out the long sea-framing caves, 
 Drank the large air, and saw, but scarce believed 
 
 35 (The sootflake of so many a summer still 
 Clung to their fancies) that they saw, the sea. 
 So now on sand they walk'd, and new on cliff, 
 Lingering about the thymy promontories, 
 Till all the sails were darken'd in the west, 
 
 19. Variers from the church. Dissenters from the es- 
 tablished church of England ; their places of worship are called 
 chapels, not churches. 
 
 23. The scarlet woman. A favorite term with one class of 
 "pulpiteers " for the Church of Rome. 
 
 26. The Apocalyptic millstone. See Rev. xviii. 21. 
 
 39, 40. To feel the truth of these lines it is only necessary to
 
 SKA DREAMS. 73 
 
 49 And rosed in the east : then homeward and to bed: 
 Where she, who kept a tender Christian hope 
 Haunting a holy text, and still to that 
 Returning, as the bird returns, at night, 
 " Let not the sun go down upon your wrath," 
 
 45 Said, " Love, forgive him : " but he did not speak : 
 And silenced by that silence lay the wife, 
 Remembering her dear Lord who died for all, 
 And musing on the little lives of men, 
 And how they mar this little by their feuds. 
 
 so But while the two were sleeping, a full tide 
 Rose with ground-swell, which, on the foremost rocks 
 Touching, upjetted in spirts of wild sea-smoke, 
 And scaled in sheets of wasteful foam, and fell 
 In vast sea-cataracts ever and anon 
 
 55 Dead claps of thunder from within the cliffs 
 Heard thro' the living roar. At this the babe, 
 Their Margaret cradled near them, wail'd and woke 
 The mother, and the father suddenly cried, 
 " A wreck, a wreck ! " then turii'd, and groaning said, 
 
 so u Forgive ! How many will say, ' forgive,' and find 
 
 A sort of absolution in the sound 
 
 To hate a little longer ! No ; the sin 
 
 That neither God nor man can well forgive, 
 
 Hypocrisy, I saw it in him at once. 
 65 Is it so true that second thoughts are best? 
 
 Not first, and third, which are a riper first? 
 
 Too ripe, too late ! they come too late for use. 
 
 All love, there surely lives in man and beast 
 
 Something divine to warn them of their Iocs: 
 
 remember how dill'ei'ent is tin 1 appearance of objects towards 
 and iiwav tn>m the setting sun.
 
 74 SEA DREAMS. 
 
 TO And such a sense, when first I fronted him, 
 Said, ' Trust him not ; ' but after, when I came 
 To know him more, I lost it, knew him less ; 
 Fought with \vhat seem'd my own uncharity ; 
 Sat at his table ; drank his costly wines ; 
 
 is Made more and more allowance for his talk ; 
 Went further, fool ! and trusted him with all, 
 All my poor scrapings from a dozen years 
 Of dust and deskwork : there is no such mine, 
 None ; but a gulf of ruin, swallowing gold, 
 
 so Not making. Ruin'd ! ruin'd ! the sea roars 
 Ruin : a fearful night ! " 
 
 " Xot fearful ; fair," 
 
 Said the good wife, " if every star in heaven 
 Can make it fair : you do but hear the tide. 
 Had you ill dreams ? " 
 
 " O yes," he said, " I dream'd 
 85 Of such a tide swelling toward the land, 
 And I from out the boundless outer deep 
 Swept with it to the shore, and enter'd one 
 Of those dark caves that run beneath the cliffs. 
 I thought the motion of the boundless deep 
 90 Bore thro' the cave, and I was heaved upon it 
 In darkness : then I saw one lovely star 
 Larger and larger. ' What a world,' I thought. 
 ' To live in ! ' but in moving on I found 
 
 ~ 
 
 Only the landward exit of the cave, 
 93 Bright with the sun upon the stream beyond ; 
 And near the light a giant woman sat, 
 All over earthy, like a piece of earth, 
 A pickaxe in her hand : then out I slipt 
 Into a land all .sun and blossom, trees
 
 SKA DHKAMS. 75 
 
 too As high as heaven, and every bird that sings : 
 And here the night-light flickering in my eyes 
 Awoke me." 
 
 " That was then your dream," she said, 
 " Not sad, but sweet." 
 
 " So sweet, I lay," said he, 
 " And mused upon it, drifting up the stream 
 
 UK. In fancy, till 1 slept again, and pieced 
 The broken vision ; for 1 dream'd that still 
 The motion of the great deep bore me on, 
 And that the woman walk'd upon the brink : 
 I wonder'd at her strength, and ask'd her of it : 
 
 no 4 It came,' she said, k by working in the mines : ' 
 () then to ask her of my shares, I thought ; 
 And ask'd : but not a word ; she shook her head. 
 And then the motion of the current ceased, 
 And there was rolling thunder ; and \ve reach 'd 
 
 ii.') A mountain, like a wall of burs and thorns ; 
 But she with her strong feet up the steep hill 
 Trod out a path : I follow'd : and at top 
 She pointed seaward : there a fleet of glass, 
 That seem'd a fleet of jewels under me, 
 
 i2 Sailing along before a gloomy cloud 
 
 That not one moment ceased to thunder, past 
 In sunshine : right across its track there lay, 
 T)own in the water, a long reef of gold, 
 Or what seem'd gold : and T was glad at first 
 
 1:'. To think that in our often-ransack'd world 
 Still so much gold was left: and then T fear'd 
 "Lest the gav navv there should splinter on if, 
 Ami fearing waved my arm to warn them oil ;. 
 An idle signal, for the brittle fleet
 
 76 SEA DREAMS. 
 
 130 (I thought I could have died to save it) near'd, 
 Touch'd, clink'd, and clash'd, and vanish'd, and I 
 
 woke. 
 
 I heard the clash so clearly. Now I see 
 My dream was Life ; the woman honest Work ; 
 And my poor venture but a fleet of glass 
 
 las Wreck'd on a reef of visionary gold." 
 
 " Nay," said the kindly wife to comfort him, 
 " You raised your arm, you tumbled down and broke 
 The glass with little Margaret's medicine in it ; 
 And, breaking that, you made and broke your dream : 
 wo A trifle makes a dream, a trifle breaks." 
 
 " No trifle," groan'd the husband ; " yesterday 
 I met him suddenly in the street, and ask'd 
 That which I ask'd the woman in my dream. 
 Like her he shook his head. ' Show me the books ! ' 
 
 145 He dodged me with a long and loose account. 
 ' The books, the books ! ' but he, he could not wait. 
 Bound on a matter he of life and death : 
 When the great Books (see Daniel seven and ten) 
 Were open'd, I should find he meant me wall ; 
 
 150 And then began to bloat himself, and ooze 
 All over with the fat affectionate smile 
 That makes the widow lean. ' My dearest friend, 
 Have faith, have faith ! We live by faith,' said lio 
 ' And all things work together for the good 
 148. " The judgment was set, and the books were opened/* 
 
 Dan. vii. 10. As in Enoch Arden the character of Annie i 
 
 kept consistent by her superstitions, so here the familiar use 
 
 of the Scriptures by the city clerk and his wife mark them as 
 
 " pious variers from the church " (line 19). 
 
 154. " All things work together for good to them that love 
 
 God." Rom. viii. 28.
 
 SKA Hit K A MS. ?7 
 
 i5o Of those ' - it makes me sick to quote him lust 
 (iript my luind hard, and with God-bless-you went. 
 1 stood like one that had received a blow : 
 I found a hard friend in his loose accounts, 
 A loose one in the hard grip of his hand, 
 
 leo A curse in his God-bless-you : then my eyes 
 Pursued him down the street, and far away, 
 Among the honest shoulders of the crowd, 
 Kead rascal in the motions of his back, 
 And scoundrel in the supple-sliding knee." 
 
 IBS " Was he so hound, poor soul ? " said the good 
 
 wife ; 
 
 u So are we all : but do not call him, love. 
 Before you prove him, rogue, and proved, forgive. 
 His gain is loss : for he that wrongs his friend 
 Wrongs himself more, and ever bears about 
 
 1:0 A silent court of justice in his breast, 
 Himself the judge and jury, and himself 
 The prisoner at the bar, ever condemn'd : 
 And that drags down his life: then comes what 
 
 comes 
 Hereafter: and he meant, he said he meant, 
 
 ITS Perhaps he meant, or partly meant, you well.'" 
 
 " ' With all his conscience and one eye askew ' 
 Love, let me quote these lines, that you may learn 
 A man is likewise counsel for himself. 
 Too often, in that silent court of yours 
 i-so k With all his conscience and one eve askew, 
 So false, lie partly took himself for true; 
 Whoso pious talk, when most his heart was dry. 
 
 !<!."). Bound. Src line 1 17. 
 
 ISO-lii,",. An t-xri'lk'iit imitation oi' tin 1 satirical style t' i'oju- 
 and hi.-* .-.cliool
 
 78 SEA DREAMS. 
 
 Made wet the crafty crowsfoot round his eye ; 
 
 Who, never naming' God except for gain, 
 185 So never took that useful name in vain ; 
 
 Made Him his eatspaw and the Cross his tool, 
 
 And Christ the bait to trap his dupe and fool ; 
 
 Nor deeds of gift, but gifts of grace he forged, 
 
 And snakelike slimed his victim ere he gorged ; 
 19 And oft at Bible meetings, o'er the rest 
 
 Arising, did bis holy oily best, 
 
 Dropping the too rough II in Hell and Heaven, 
 
 To spread the Word by which himself had thriven.' 
 
 How like you this old satire ? " 
 
 " Nay," she said, 
 195 " I loathe it : he had never kindly heart, 
 
 Nor ever cared to better his own kind, 
 
 Who first wrote satire, with no pity in it. 
 
 But will you hear my dream, for I had one 
 
 That altogether went to music ? Still 
 200 It awed me." 
 
 Then she told it, having clream'd 
 Of that same coast. 
 
 - " But round the North, a light, 
 A belt, it seem'd, of luminous vapor, lay, 
 And ever in it a low musical note 
 S well'd up and died; and, as it swell'd, a ridge 
 205 Of breaker issued from the belt, and still 
 
 Grew with the growing note, and when the note 
 Had reach' d a thunderous fullness, on those cliffs 
 Broke, mixt with awful light (the same as that 
 
 20'2-'241. Various interpretations of the \viiVs dream have 
 been attempted ; but since the meaning of the husband's dream
 
 SKA /;/.'/:. I. v.s 1 . 79 
 
 Living within tlu: belt) whereby she saw 
 
 nu That all those lines of elit't's were clil't's no more, 
 But huge cathedral fronts of every a^e, 
 Grave, tlorid, stern, as far as eye could see, 
 One after one : and then the great ridge drew, 
 Lessening to the lessening music, hack, 
 
 as And past into the licit and swell'd again 
 Slowly to music: ever when it broke 
 The statues, king 1 or saint, or founder, fell ; 
 Then from the gaps and chasms of ruin left 
 Came men and women in dark clusters round, 
 
 220 Some crying ' Set them up ! they shall not fall ! ' 
 And others 4 Let them lie, for they have fall'n.' 
 And still they strove and wrangled : and she grieved 
 In her strange dream, she knew not why, to iind 
 Their wildest wailings never out of tune 
 
 ?i5 With that sweet note : and ever as their shrieks 
 Kan highest up the <ramut, that irreat wave 
 
 O I O i> 
 
 Returning, while none mark'd it, on the crowd 
 Broke, mixt with awful light, and show'd their eyes 
 Glaring, and passionate looks, and swept away 
 wo The men of Mesh and blood, and men of stone, 
 To the waste deeps together. 
 
 " Then I fixt 
 
 My wistful eyes on two fair images, 
 Both crown'd with stars and high among the star>, 
 The; Virgin Mother standing with her child 
 335 High up on one of those dark minster-fronts 
 
 is so clear as to need no explanation, rind -inee the \vife tries ti. 
 slunv, lines _'!>'.) - % J 1 1 , that dreams after all -i^nifv noiliin^, U it 
 uot more reasoiiaMe to take her story merely for \\liat it ajijiears 
 tol)e on tin- Miri'aee. tiie account of \i-ions no mure wonderful 
 than tlio>e which i-onit- in anv dreamer'.'
 
 80 SEA DREAMS. 
 
 Till she began to totter, and the child 
 Clung to the mother, and sent out a cry 
 Which mixt with little Margaret's, and I woke, 
 And my dream awed me : well but what are 
 
 dreams ! 
 
 240 Yours came but from the breaking of a glass, 
 Aud mine but from the crying of a child." 
 
 "Child? No!" said he, "but this tide's roar, 
 
 and his, 
 
 Our Boanerges with his threats of doom, 
 And loud-lung' d ^\ ntibabylonianisms 
 245 (Altho' I grant but little music there) 
 
 Went both to make your dream : but if there 
 
 were 
 
 A music harmonizing our wild cries, 
 Sphere-music such as that you dream' d about, 
 Why, that would make our passions far too like 
 250 The discords dear to the musician. Xo 
 
 One shriek of hate would jar all the hymns of 
 
 heaven : 
 
 True Devils with no ear, they howl in tune 
 With nothing but the Devil ! " 
 
 " ' True ' indeed ! 
 
 One of our town, but later by an hour 
 2&5 Here than ourselves, spoke with me on the shore ; 
 While you were running down the sands, and 
 
 made 
 The dimpled flounce of the sea-furbelow flap, 
 
 243. Boanerges. See line 20. "And he surnamed them 
 Boanerges, which is. the sons of thunder." St. Mark iii. 17. 
 
 '2~)~. The sea-furbelow ; an unfamiliar name for a lar^e 
 sea-weed one of the Laminaria which has a dimpled ilounc^-
 
 .S7i/l DREAMS. 81 
 
 Good man, to please' the child. She brought strange 
 
 news. 
 
 Why were' von silent when I spoke to-nij/ht? 
 ;o) I had set mv heart on your forgiving him 
 
 Before you knew. We inuat forgive the dead." 
 
 " Dead ! who is dead ? " 
 
 " The man your eye pursued. 
 A little after you had parted with him, 
 Tie suddenly dropt dead of heart-disease." 
 
 lib.-. " Dead ? he ? of heart-disease ? what heart had he 
 To die of? Dead!" 
 
 " Ah, dearest, if there be 
 A devil in man, there is an angel too, 
 And if he did that wrong yon charge him with, 
 His angel broke his heart. P>nt your rough voice 
 270 (Yon spoke so loud) has roused the child again. 
 Sleep, little birdie, sleep! will she not sleep 
 Without her 'little birdie'? well then, sleep, 
 And I will sing you * birdie.' ' ; 
 
 Saying this, 
 The woman half turn'd round from him she 
 
 loved. 
 
 2'j Left him one hand, and reaching thro' the night 
 Her other, found (for it was close beside) 
 And half embraced the basket cradle-head 
 T\ ith one soft arm, which, like the pliant bough 
 
 like etljre. For Tennyson's mvn explanation of the line see note 
 in Rolfe's Enoch Ardm un<l (>!lt<r 1'tn-mn, j>. 101.
 
 82 SEA DREAMS. 
 
 That moving moves the nest and nestling, sway'd 
 880 The cradle, while she sang this baby song. 
 
 What does little birdie say 
 In her nest at peep of clay ? 
 Let me fly, says little birdie, 
 Mother, let me fly away. 
 285 Birdie, rest a little longer, 
 
 Till the little wings are stronger. 
 So she rests a little longer, 
 Then she flies away. 
 
 What does little baby say, 
 2 In her bed at peep of day ? 
 
 Baby says, like little birdie, 
 
 Let me rise and fly away. 
 
 Baby, sleep a little longer, 
 
 Till the little limbs are stronger. 
 295 If she sleeps a little longer, 
 
 Baby too shall fly away. 
 
 *' She sleeps : let us too, let all evil, sleep. 
 He also sleeps another sleep than ours. 
 He can do no more wrong : forgive him, dear, 
 sw And I shall sleep the sounder! " 
 
 Then the man, 
 
 " His deeds yet live, the worst is yet to come. 
 Yet let your sleep for this one night be sound : 
 I do forgive him ! " 
 
 " Thanks, my love," she said, 
 " Your own will be the sweeter," and they slept.
 
 ODE 6>A' THE DEATH OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 ODE ON THi-I DEATH OF THE DUKE OF 
 WELLINGTON. 
 
 I. 
 
 .BURY the Groat Duke 
 
 With an empire's lamentation. 
 Let us bury the Great Duke 
 
 To the noise of the mourning of a mighty na- 
 tion, 
 
 Mourning when their leaders fall, 
 Warriors carry the warrior's pall, 
 And sorrow darkens hamlet and hall. 
 
 II. 
 
 Where shall we lay the man whom we deplore ? 
 Here, in streaming London's central roar. 
 Let the sound of those he wrought for, 
 And the feet of those he fought for, 
 Echo round his bones for evermore. 
 
 Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, died September 12. 
 18.">_. The first drut't of the Ode was hastily written, and pub- 
 lished as a sixteen-page pamphlet. In this form it received 
 severe criticism, but when it appeared again a year later, it was 
 much emended. Besides minor alterations lines were added to 
 stanzas i. and ii. and the passage about Lisbon in the sixth 
 uan/.a was included. 
 
 Different as Wellington was from Lincoln in many outward 
 \vays. it is interesting to observe how many lines which the. 
 i.aureato wrote of the one might have been written of the 
 :>ther. It is somewhat less strange that the high patriotism 
 celebrated in stanzas vii. and viii. appeals to citizens of ever\ 
 land. 
 
 K. In -streaming London's central roar ; in St Paul's Ca- 
 tliedral.
 
 84 ODE ON THE DEATH OF WELLINGTON 
 
 III. 
 
 Lead out the pageant : sad and slow, 
 As fits an universal woe, 
 15 Let the long, long procession go, 
 And let the sorrowing crowd about it grow, 
 And let the mournful martial music blow ; 
 The last great Englishman is low. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Mourn, for to us he seems the last, 
 20 Remembering all his greatness in the Past. 
 
 No more in soldier fashion will he greet 
 
 With lifted hand the gazer in the street. 
 
 O friends, our chief state-oracle is mute : 
 
 Mourn for the man of long-enduring blood, 
 25 The statesman-warrior, moderate, resolute, 
 
 Whole in himself, a common good. 
 
 Mourn for the man of amplest influence, 
 
 Yet clearest of ambitious crime, 
 
 Our greatest yet with least pretence, 
 so Great in council and great in war, 
 
 Foremost captain of his time, 
 
 Rich in saving common-sense, 
 
 And, as the greatest only are, 
 
 In his simplicity sublime. 
 & O good gray head which all men knew, 
 
 O voice from which their omens all men drew, 
 
 O iron nerve to true occasion true, 
 
 O fall'n at length that tower of strength 
 
 IS. The last great Englishman is low. Compare this 
 line and the stanza, iv.. following 1 with Lowell's Commemoration 
 CWe, stanza vii., ending with a description of Lincoln as "the 
 tirst American."
 
 ODE ON THE DE^Tll OF WELLINGTON. 8;', 
 
 Which stood four-square to ;dl the winds that blew I 
 40 Such \v;is lie whom we deplore. 
 The long' self-sacrifice of life is o'er. 
 The ji'reat World-victor's victor will be seen no more. 
 
 All is over and done : 
 
 Render thanks to the Giver, 
 i-> England, for thy son. 
 
 Let the bell be toll'd. 
 
 Kender thanks to the Giver, 
 
 And render him to the mould. 
 
 Under the cross of gold 
 so That shines over city and river, 
 
 There he shall rest for ever 
 
 Among the wise and the bold. 
 
 Let the bell be toll'd : 
 
 And a reverent people behold 
 35 The towering car, the sable steeds : 
 
 Bright let it be with its blazon'd deeds, 
 
 Dark in its funeral fold. 
 
 Let the bell be toll'd : 
 
 And a deeper knell in the heart be knoll'd ; 
 eo And the sound of the sorrowing anthem rollM 
 
 Thro' the dome of the golden cross ; 
 
 And the volleying cannon thunder his loss; 
 
 He knew their voices of old. 
 
 For many a time in many a clime 
 
 42. The great World-victor Xapoleon. 
 
 40. Let the bell be toll'd : it may he noticed how the repe- 
 tition of this line and the sound in the passage that follows, of 
 the rhymes with tol'dl, produce the efVect of solemnity that is 
 Bought. 
 
 49. The cross of gold, on the doiue of St. Paul's.
 
 80 ODE ON THE DEATH OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 es His captain's-ear lias heard them boom 
 
 Bellowing victory, bellowing doom : 
 
 When he with those deep voices wrought, 
 
 Guarding realms and kings from shame ; 
 
 With those deep voices our dead captain taught 
 TO The tyrant, and asserts his claim 
 
 In that dread sound to the great name, 
 
 Which he has worn so pure of blame, 
 
 In praise and in dispraise the same, 
 
 A man of well-attemper'd frame. 
 75 O civic muse, to such a name, 
 
 To such a name for ages long, 
 
 To such a name, 
 
 Preserve a broad approach of fame, 
 
 And ever-echoing avenues of song. 
 
 VI. 
 
 so Who is he that cometh, like an honor'd guest, 
 
 With banner and with music, with soldier and with 
 priest, 
 
 With a nation weeping, and breaking on my rest? 
 
 Mighty Seaman, this is he 
 
 Was great by land as thou by sea. 
 85 Thine island loves thee well, thou famous man,, 
 
 The greatest sailor since our world began. 
 
 Now, to the roll of muffled drums, 
 
 To thee the greatest soldier comes : 
 
 For this is he 
 9i Was great by land ;>s thou by sea; 
 
 His foes wore thine ; he kopt us free ; 
 
 O give him welcome, this is he 
 
 Worthy of our gorgeous rites, 
 
 S'5. Mighty Seaman : Xolson. \\\w was already buried in St. 
 Paul's, asks the question, " Who is lit; ? "
 
 ODE OX THE DEATH ()! WKLLlXdTUN. 87 
 
 And worthy to be laid l>v thee; 
 a For this is England's greatest son, 
 
 He that gain'd a hundred fights, 
 
 Nor ever lost an English gun; 
 
 This is he that far away 
 
 Against the myriads of Assaye 
 ino Clush'd with his fiery few and won; 
 
 And underneath another sun, 
 
 Warring on a later d.;y, 
 
 Round affrighted Lisbon drew 
 
 The treble works, the vast designs 
 IK Of his labor'd rampart-lines, 
 
 AN here he greatly stood at bay, 
 
 Whence he issued forth anew, 
 
 And ever great and greater grew, 
 
 Beating from the wasted vines 
 no Back to France her banded swarms, 
 
 Back to France with countless blows, 
 
 Till o'er the hills her eagles flew 
 
 Beyond the Pyrenean pines, 
 
 Follow'cl up in valley and glen 
 n.". With blare* of bugle, clamor of men, 
 
 Roll of cannon and clash of arms, 
 
 And England pouring on her foes. 
 
 Such a w;ir had such a close. 
 
 Again their ravening eagle rose 
 120 In angei 1 , wheel'd on Europe-shadowing wings, 
 
 And barking for the thrones of kings ; 
 
 Till one that sought but Duty's iron crown 
 
 OP, Assaye. Wellington's first great l>;ittlo, in India. Septem- 
 ber '_','$, ISO:;. With P.dOO men he defeated -K),()00. 
 
 lo:{. Affrighted Lisbon ; in tin 1 battle of Viniuii-o. An<ni<t -]. 
 '.SOS. the French lost Lisbon to Wellington I'r.ii.T (ieiienu 
 .''iii'it thev li;id held it nesirlv ;i vein 1 .
 
 88 ODE ON THE DEATH OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 On that loud sabbath shook the spoiler down; 
 
 A day of onsets of despair ! 
 125 Dasb/d on every rocky square 
 
 Their surging charges foam'd themselves away; 
 
 Last, the Prussian trumpet blew ; 
 
 Thro' the long-tormented air 
 
 Heaven flash'd a sudden jubilant ray, 
 iso And down we swept and charged and overthrew. 
 
 So great a soldier taught us there, 
 
 What long-enduring hearts could do 
 
 In that world-earthquake, Waterloo ! 
 
 Mighty Seaman, tender and true, 
 185 And pure as he from taint of craven guile, 
 
 O saviour of the silver-coasted isle, 
 
 O shaker of the Baltic and the Nile, 
 
 If aught of things that here befall 
 
 Touch a spirit among things divine, 
 140 If love of country move thee there at all, 
 
 Be glad, because his bones are laid by thine ! 
 
 And thro' the centuries let a people's voice 
 
 In full acclaim, 
 
 A people's voice, 
 145 The proof and echo of all human fame, 
 
 A people's voice, when they rejoice 
 
 At civic revel and pomp and game, 
 
 Attest their great commander's claim 
 
 With honor, honor, honor, honor to him, 
 150 Eternal honor to his name. 
 
 123. That loud sabbath ; the clay of the battle of Water- 
 loo. 
 
 138. O shaker of the Baltic and the Nile ; in the battle 
 of the Baltic, Xelson, with Admiral Parker, defeated the Danish 
 fleet off Copenhagen, April 2, 1801 ; the Battle of the Nile he 
 won from the French oil' Kosetta, August 1, 1798.
 
 ODE (AY Till-: l)i:ATH UF \VKLLL\UTUX. 8' 
 
 VII. 
 
 A pooplt-'s voice! we arc ;i people yet. 
 Tho' all men else their Holder dreams forget, 
 Confus'd l)y brainless mobs and lawless Powers; 
 Thank Him who isled us here, and roughly set 
 
 i5 r > His Briton in blown seas and storming showers, 
 We ha vi- a voice, with which to pay the debt 
 Of boundless love and reverence and regret 
 To those great men who fought, and kept it ours. 
 And keep it ours, O God, from brute control ; 
 
 itiu() Statesmen, guard us, guard the eye, the soul 
 Of Europe, keep our noble England whole, 
 And save the one true seed of freedom sown 
 Betwixt a people and their ancient throne, 
 That sober freedom out of which there springs 
 
 165 Our loyal passion for our temperate kings ; 
 For. saving that, ye help to save mankind 
 Till public wrong be crumbled into dust, 
 And drill the raw world for the march of mind, 
 Till crowds at length be sane and crowns be just 
 
 i~" But wink no more in slothful overtrust. 
 Remember him who led your hosts ; 
 He bade you guard the sacred coasts. 
 Your cannons moulder on the seaward wall; 
 His voice is silent in your council-hall 
 
 ITS For ever ; and whatever tempests lour 
 For ever silent : even if thev broke 
 In thunder, silent : yet remember all 
 He spoke among you. and the Man who spoke: 
 \\ ho never sold the truth to serve the hour, 
 
 i"0 Xor pultvr'd \vitli Eternal (iod for power: 
 
 lliS. Drill the raw world ; a ^ti-uii^ military ti^iuv likenin 
 the world tn recruits as \ rt untrained for advance. 
 iTO. Wink -- sU-oii.
 
 90 ODE ON THE DEATH OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 Who let the turbid streams of rumor flow 
 Thro' either bubbling world of high and low , 
 AY hose life was work, whose language rife 
 With rugged maxims hewn from life ; 
 
 is* Who never spoke against a foe ; 
 
 Whose eighty winters freeze with one rebuke 
 All great self-seekers trampling on the right : 
 Truth-teller was our England's Alfred named ; 
 Truth-lover was our English Duke ; 
 
 wo Whatever record leap to light 
 He never shall be shamed. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Lo, the leader in these glorious wars 
 Now to glorious burial slowly borne, 
 Follow'd by the brave of other lands, 
 
 IBS He, on whom from both her open hands 
 Lavish Honor shower'd all her stars, 
 And affluent Fortune emptied all her horn. 
 Yea, let all good things await 
 Him who cares not to be great, 
 
 200 But as he saves or serves the state. 
 
 Not once or twice in our rough island-story, 
 The path of duty was the way to glory : 
 He that walks it, only thirsting 
 For the right, and learns to deaden 
 
 205 Love of self, before his journey closes, 
 He shall find the stubborn thistle bursting 
 Into glossy purples, which outredden 
 All voluptuous garden-roses, 
 ^sot once or twice in our fair island-story, 
 
 210 The path of duty was the way to glory : 
 
 18 i. Rugeed maxims hewn from life; another line that 
 might be applied accurately to Lincoln.
 
 Ol)l<: OX THE />/;. 1777 (./' \VKLLIXGTOX. ( .1 
 
 lie, that ever following her commands, 
 On with toil of heart and knees and hands, 
 Thro' the long gorge to the far light lias won 
 His path upward, and prevail'd, 
 
 210 Shall iind the to])j)ling crags of Duty scaled 
 Are elose upon the shining table-lands 
 To which our (iod Himself is moon and sun. 
 Such was he : his work is done. 
 But while the races of mankind endure, 
 
 220 Let his great example stand 
 Colossal, seen of every land, 
 And keep the soldier firm, the statesman pure : 
 Till in all lands and thro' all human story 
 The path of duty l>e the way to glory : 
 
 225 And let the land whose hearths he saved from shame 
 For many and many an age proclaim 
 At civic revel and pomp and game, 
 And when the long-illumined cities flame 
 Their ever-loyal iron leader's fame, 
 
 Sao With honor, honor, honor, honor to him, 
 Eternal honor to his name. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Peace, his triumph will be sung 
 
 Bv some yet unmoulded tongue 
 
 Far on in summers that we shall not see : 
 ?;).-> Peace, it is a day of pain 
 
 For one about whose patriarchal knee 
 
 Late the little children clung : 
 
 O peace, it is a day of pain 
 
 For one, upon whose hand and heart and brain 
 24" Once the weight and fate of Europe hung. 
 
 _!'J9. Iron leader ; Wellington's familiar mune was the Iron
 
 92 ODE ON THE DEATH OF WELLINGTON. 
 
 Ours the pain, be his the gain ! 
 
 More than is of man's degree 
 
 Must be with us, watching here 
 
 At this, our great solemnity. 
 2 Whom we see not we revere ; 
 
 We revere, and we refrain 
 
 From talk of battles loud and vain, 
 
 And brawling memories all too free 
 
 For such a wise humility 
 {so As befits a solemn fane : 
 
 We revere, and while we hear 
 
 The tides of Music's golden sea 
 
 Setting toward eternity, 
 
 Uplifted high in heart and hope are we, 
 255 Until we doubt not that for one so true 
 
 There must be other nobler work to do 
 
 Than when he fought at Waterloo, 
 
 And Victor he must ever be. 
 
 For tho' the Giant Ages heave the hill 
 260 And break the shore, and evermore 
 
 Make and break, and work their will ; 
 
 Tho' world on world in myriad myriads roll 
 
 Round us, each with different powers, 
 
 And other forms of life than ours, 
 2*5 What know we greater than the soul ? 
 
 On God and Godlike men we build our trust. 
 
 Hush, the Dead March wails in the people's ears : 
 
 The dark crowd moves, and there are sobs and tears 
 
 The black earth yawns : the mortal disappears ; 
 r?o Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; 
 
 He is gone who seem'd so great. 
 
 Gone ; but nothing can bereave him 
 
 Of the force he made his own 
 
 Being here, and we believe him
 
 UL YSSES. 
 
 t75 Something fur advanced in State, 
 And that he wears a truer crown 
 Than any wreath that man can weave; him. 
 Speak no more of his renown, 
 Lay your earthly fancies down, 
 
 aso And in the vast cathedral leave him. 
 God accept him, Christ receive him. 
 
 ULYSSES. 
 
 IT little profits '"/hat an idle king, 
 By this still hearth, among- these barren crags, 
 Match'd with an aged wife, I meet and dole 
 Unequal laws unto a savage race, 
 
 5 That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. 
 I cannot rest from travel : I will drink 
 Life to the lees : all times I have en joy VI 
 Greatly, have suffer VI greatly, both with those 
 That loved me, and alone ; on shore, and when 
 
 10 Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Ilyades 
 Vext the dim sea : I am become a name ; 
 For always roaming with a hungry heart 
 
 , O O t> 
 
 Much have I seen and known ; cities of men 
 And manners, climates, councils, governments, 
 
 f Vyy.svx appeared first in the volume of IcS-liJ. An interesting 1 
 
 .'ireiinistiUK'e in connection with it is that when Sir Robert 
 Peel as Prime Minister was urged to put Tennyson's name on 
 the pension list in 1SI,">, lie confessed complete ignorance of the 
 poet's work. The reading of this one poem, however, decided 
 him to grant the annuity. 
 
 10. Hyades = " the rainers," the group of seven stars at the 
 head of Taurus. 
 
 11. Vext. Students of Latin will feel the classii-ism of this 
 word.
 
 94 ULYSSES. 
 
 is Myself not least, but honor'd of them all ; 
 And drunk delight of battle with my peers, 
 Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. 
 I am a part of all that I have met ; 
 Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' 
 
 20 Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades 
 For ever and for ever when I move. 
 How dull it is to pause, to make an end, 
 To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use ! 
 As tho' to breathe were life. Life piled on life 
 
 35 "Were all too little, and of one to me 
 Little remains ; but every hour is saved 
 From that eternal silence, something more, 
 A briu ger of new things ; and vile it were 
 For some three suns to store and hoard myself, 
 
 so And this gray spirit yearning in desire 
 To follow knowledge like a sinking star, 
 Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. 
 
 This is my son, mine own Telemachus, 
 To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle 
 
 as Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil 
 This labor, by slow prudence to make mild 
 A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees 
 Subdue them to the useful and the good. 
 Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere 
 
 40 Of common duties, decent not to fail 
 In offices of tenderness, and pay 
 Meet adoration to my household gods, 
 When I am gone. He works his work, I mine 
 There lies the port ; the vessel puffs her sail : 
 
 (' There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners, 
 Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought 
 
 with me 
 That ever with a frolic welcome took
 
 UL r.s.s'/i.s*. 95 
 
 The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed 
 Free hearts, free forehead* you and I are old; 
 
 so Old age hath yet his honor and his toil ; 
 Death (doses all: but something ere the end, 
 Some work of noble note may yet be done, 
 Not unbecoming men that strove with (Jods. 
 The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks: 
 
 K The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the 
 
 dee]) 
 
 Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, 
 'T is not too late to seek a newer world. 
 Push off, and sitting well in order smite 
 The sounding furrows ; for my purpose holds 
 
 eo To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths 
 Of all the western stars, until I die. 
 It may be that the gulfs will wash us down : 
 It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, 
 And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. 
 
 GO Tho' much is taken, much abides ; and tho' 
 We are not now that strength which in old days 
 Moved earth and heaven ; that which %ve are, \v6 
 
 are ; 
 
 One equal temper of heroic hearts, 
 Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will 
 
 TO To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. 
 
 GO. The baths, etc. Where the western stars sink into the 
 gea.
 
 90 THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE. 
 
 THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE. 
 
 I. 
 
 HALF a league, half a league, 
 Half a league onward, 
 All in the valley of Death 
 
 Rode the six hundred. 
 5 " Forward the Light Brigade ! 
 Charge for the guns ! " he said : 
 Into the valley of Death 
 
 Rode the six hundred. 
 
 n. 
 
 " Forward the Light Brigade ! " 
 10 Was there a man dismay'd ? 
 Not tho' the soldier knew 
 
 The Charge of the Light Brigade was first printed in a London 
 daily newspaper in December, 1854, with a note by the author 
 saying it was prompted by his " reading the first report of the 
 Times' correspondent, where only six hundred and seven sabres 
 are mentioned as having taken part in the charge." Bala- 
 klava, where the charge took place, was the British headquar- 
 ters, in the Crimean War, from September, 1854 to June, 1856; 
 the charge itself was made October 25, 1854. From the mili- 
 tary point of view it was an absurd and hopeless movement. 
 The order which occasioned it was a blunder. Captain Xolan, 
 on whom it fell to deliver the command, was the first man to 
 fall. 
 
 In the volume of 1855, the poem appeared considerably 
 amended, but the changes were so criticised that the poet restored 
 the lines more nearly to their original form. Moreover, he had 
 a thousand copies of them printed in leaflets for distribution 
 among the soldiers before Sebastopol ; for he had heard how 
 they liked the poem, and wanted them, as he said in a note 
 printed with it, "to know that those who sit at home love and 
 honor them."
 
 THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIG ADS. iT 
 
 Some one had blunder'd: 
 Theirs not to make reply 
 Theirs not to reason why, 
 M Theirs but to do and die : 
 Into the valley of Death 
 
 Kode the six hundred. 
 
 in. 
 
 Cannon to right of them, 
 Cannon to left of them, 
 Jo Cannon in front of them 
 
 Volley 'd and thunder'd : 
 Storm 'd at with shot and shell, 
 Boldly they rode and well, 
 Into the jaws of Death, 
 as Into the mouth of Hell 
 Rode the six hundred. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Flash' d all their sabres bare, 
 
 Flash'd as they turn'd in air 
 
 Sabring the gunners there, 
 ao Charging an army, while 
 All the world wonder 'd : 
 
 Plunged in the battery-smoke 
 
 Right thro' the line they broke j 
 
 Cossack and Russian 
 s.') Reel'd from the sabre-stroke 
 
 Shatter' d and sunder'd. 
 
 Then they rode back, but not 
 Not the six hundred. 
 
 v. 
 
 Cannon to right of them, 
 40 Cannon to left of them.
 
 98 LADY CLARE. 
 
 Cannon behind them 
 
 Volley'd and thunder'd ; 
 Storm'd at with shot and shell, 
 While horse and hero fell, 
 45 They that had fought so well 
 Came thro' the jaws of Death 
 Back from the mouth of Hell, 
 All that was left of them, 
 Left of six hundred. 
 
 VI. 
 
 so When can their glory fade ? 
 
 O the wild charge they made ! 
 All the world wonder'd. 
 
 Honor the charge they made ! 
 
 Honor the Light Brigade, 
 85 Noble six hundred ! 
 
 LADY CLARE. 
 
 IT was the time when lilies blow, 
 And clouds are highest up in air, 
 
 Lord Ronald brought a lily-white doe 
 To give his cousin, Lady Clare. 
 
 5 1 trow they did not part in scorn : 
 
 Lovers long-betroth'd were they : 
 They two will wed the morrow morn : 
 God's blessing on the day ! 
 
 Lady Clare appeared in the volume of 1842, and there the poet 
 acknowledged in a note his debt to Miss Terrier's novel The In- 
 heritance for the story. As the substance of the verses is like 
 that of an old English ballad, so is the manner, to a remarkable 
 decree.
 
 LADY L'LAHE. 99 
 
 " He does not love me for my birth, 
 M Nor for my lands so broad and fair ; 
 He loves me for my own true worth, 
 And that is well," said Lady Clare. 
 
 In there came old Alice the nurse, 
 
 Said, " Who was this that went from thee ?" 
 is ' It was my cousin," said Lady Clare, 
 "To-morrow he weds with me." 
 
 " O God be thank'd ! " said Alice the nurse, 
 
 " That all comes round so just and fair : 
 Lord Ronald is heir of all your lands, 
 20 And you are not the Lady Clare." 
 
 " Are ye out of your mind, my nurse, my nurse ? " 
 Said Lady Clare, " that ye speak so wild ? " 
 
 " As God 's above," said Alice the nurse, 
 " I speak the truth : you are my child. 
 
 2s " The old Earl's daughter died at my breast ; 
 
 I speak the truth, as I live by bread ! 
 I buried her like my own sweet child, 
 And put my child in her stead." 
 
 " Falsely, falsely have ye done, 
 v O mother," she said, " if this be true, 
 To keep the best man under the sun 
 So many years from his due." 
 
 " Nay now, my child," said Alice the nurse, 
 
 " But keep the secret for your life, 
 And all you have will be Lord Ronald's, 
 When you arc man and wife."
 
 100 LADY CLARE. 
 
 " If I 'm a beggar born," she said, 
 
 " I will speak out, for I dare not lie. 
 Pull off, pull off, the brooch of gold, 
 40 And fling the diamond necklace by." 
 
 " Nay now, my child," said Alice the nurse, 
 " But keep the secret all ye can." 
 
 She said, " Not so : but I will know 
 If there be any faith in man." 
 
 45 " Nay now, what faith ? " said Alice the nurse, 
 
 " The man will cleave unto his right." 
 " And he shall have it," the lady replied, 
 " Tho' I should die to-night." 
 
 " Yet give one kiss to your mother dear ! 
 so Alas, my child, I sinn'd for thee." 
 " O mother, mother, mother," she said, 
 " So strange it seems to me. 
 
 " Yet here 's a kiss for my mother dear, 
 
 My mother dear, if this be so, 
 And lay your hand upon my head, 
 And bless me, mother, ere I go." 
 
 She clad herself in a russet gown, 
 She was no longer Lady Clare : 
 She went by dale, and she went by down, 
 oo With a single rose in her hair. 
 
 The lily-white doe Lord Ronald had brought 
 
 Leapt up from where she lay, 
 Dropt her head in the maiden's hand, 
 
 And follow'd her all the way.
 
 LADY CLARE. 101 
 
 K Down stept Lord Ronald from his tower : 
 
 " O Lady Clare, you shame your worth ! 
 Why come you drest like a village maid, 
 That are the flower of the earth ? " 
 
 " If I come drest like a village maid, 
 70 I am but as my fortunes are: 
 I am a beggar born,"' she said, 
 " And not the Lady Clare." 
 
 " Play me no tricks," said Lord Ronald, 
 " For I am yours in word and in deed. 
 75 Play me no tricks," said Lord Ronald, . 
 u Your riddle is hard to read." 
 
 O and proudly stood she up ! 
 
 Her heart within her did not fail ; 
 She look'd into Lord Ronald's eyes, 
 so And told him all her nurse's tale. 
 
 He laugh'd a laugh of merry scorn : 
 
 He turn'd and kiss'd her where she stood : 
 
 " If you are not the heiress born, 
 
 And I," said he, " the next in blood 
 
 ss " If you are not the heiress born, 
 
 And I," said he, " the lawful heir, 
 We two will wed to-morrow morn, 
 And you shall still be Lady Clare." 
 
 73. Lord Ronald' ; the necessity of accenting Ronald here, 
 on the second syllable, is one of the marks of the ballad stru'* 
 ture. 
 
 77. O aud proudly, another ballad form.
 
 102 THE DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR. 
 
 THE DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR. 
 
 FULL knee-deep lies the winter snow, 
 And the winter winds are wearily sighing. 
 Toll ye the church-bell sad and slow, 
 And tread softly and speak low, 
 s For the old year lies a-dyiug. 
 
 Old year, you must not die ; 
 You came to us so readily, 
 You lived with us so steadily, 
 Old year, you shall not die. 
 
 10 He lieth still : he doth not move : 
 He will not see the dawn of day. 
 He hath no other life above. 
 He gave me a friend, and a true true-love, 
 And the New-year will take 'em away, 
 is Old year, you must not go ; 
 
 So long as you have been with us, 
 Such joy as you have seen with us, 
 Old year, you shall not go. 
 
 He f roth'd his bumpers to the brim ; 
 20 A jollier year we shall not see. 
 But tho' his eyes are waxing dim, 
 And tho' his foes speak ill of him, 
 He was a friend to me. 
 
 Old year, you shall not die ; 
 a* We did so laugh and cry with you, 
 I Ve half a mind to die with you, 
 Old year, if you must die. 
 
 The Death of the Old Year first appeared in the volume 
 1832.
 
 THE DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR 103 
 
 He was full of joke and jest, 
 Hut all his merry quips are o'er. 
 To see him die, across the waste 
 His son and heir doth ride post-haste, 
 But he '11 be dead before. 
 Every one for his own. 
 The night is starry and cold, my friend, 
 !* And the New-year blithe and bold, my friend, 
 
 Conies up to take his own. 
 
 How hard he breathes ! over the snow 
 I heard just now the crowing cock. 
 The shadows flicker to and fro : 
 40 The cricket chirps : the light burns low : 
 "T is nearly twelve o'clock. 
 
 Shake hands, before you die. 
 Old year, we'll dearly rue for you: 
 What is it we can do for you? 
 45 Speak out before you die. 
 
 His face is growing sharp and thin. 
 Alack ! our friend is gone. 
 Close up his eyes : tie up his chin : 
 Step from the corpse, and let him in 
 50 That standeth there alone, 
 
 And waiteth at the door. 
 
 There 's a new foot 011 the floor, my friend. 
 
 And a new face at the door, my friend, 
 
 A new face at the door.
 
 104 CROSSING THE BAR. 
 
 CROSSING THE BAB. 
 
 SUNSET and evening star, 
 
 And one clear call for me ! 
 And may there be no moaning of the bar, 
 
 When I put out to sea, 
 
 t But such a tide as moving seems asleep, 
 
 Too full for sound and foam, 
 
 When that which drew from out the boundless deep 
 Turns again home. 
 
 Twilight and evening bell, 
 3* And after that the dark ! 
 And may there be no sadness of farewell, 
 W r hen I embark ; 
 
 For though from out our bourne of time and place 
 
 The flood may bear me far, 
 
 is I hope to see my Pilot face to face 
 
 When I have crost the bar. 
 
 Crossing the Bar was contained in the volume of 1889, Ih*- 
 meter and Other Poems. For a singer of eighty years to strike 
 so truly lyrical a note, to show himself as eminently a poet as in 
 his prime, was not the least of Tennyson's achievements. The 
 verses were sung at the poet's funeral in Westminster Abbey. 
 The last poem he wrote, with music by Lady Tennyson, was also 
 a part of the service. 
 
 3. Moaning of the bar. A familiar line in Charles Kings- 
 ley's The Three Fishers comes to mind, " And the harbor bar 
 be moaning."
 
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