25 And meadow, set with slender galingale;2 30 35 Lo! sweeten'd with the summer light, The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow, The flower ripens in its place, Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil, Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil. IV Hateful is the dark-blue sky, Vaulted o'er the dark-blue sea. Death is the end of life; ah, why Should life all labor be? 35 40 45 Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast, V 50 To hear each other's whispered speech; To watch the crisping ripples on the beach, 60 To the influence of mild-minded melancholy; Two handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn of brass! VI 70 Dear is the memory of our wedded lives, For surely now our household hearths are cold, 75 80 Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings wave and oar; Lo, rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more. 7 isait the coxsin after defeak YOU ASK ME WHY THOUGH ILL AT (Written in 1833, first printed 1842) It is the land that freemen till, That sober-suited Freedom chose, A land of settled government, A land of just and old renown, Where Freedom slowly broadens down From precedent to precedent; Where faction seldom gathers head, 5 10 But, by degrees to fullness wrought, The strength of some diffusive thought 15 Hath time and space to work and spread. Here about the beach I wander'd, nourishing a youth sublime With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of Time; 1 Wrapped up in herself, self-centered. 1 Tennyson says of this poem: "The whole poem represents young life, its good side, its deficiencies, and its yearnings." He tells us further that "Locksley Hall' is an imaginary place (tho' the coast is Lincolnshire), and the hero is imaginary." (Memoir, by H. Tennyson, I. 195). But the poem represents not merely young life in general, but a young man at a time when youth in England was stirred by great changes, by the marvels of invention and of scientific discovery. When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see; 15 Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be. In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast; In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest; In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove; In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. 20 Then her cheek was pale and thinner than should be for one so young, And her eyes on all my motions with a mute observance hung. And I said, "My Cousin Amy, speak, and speak the truth to me, Trust me, cousin, all the current of my being sets to thee." On her pallid cheek and forehead came a colour and a light, 25 As I have seen the rosy red flushing in the northern night. And she turn'd-her bosom shaken with a sudden storm of sighs-7 All the spirit deeply dawning in the dark of hazel eyes Saying, "I have hid my feelings, fearing they should do me wrong;" Saying, "Dost thou love me, cousin?" weeping, "I have loved thee long." 30 Love took up the glass of Time, and turn'd it in his glowing hands, Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands. Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might; Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of sight. Many a morning on the moorland did we hear the copses ring, 35 And her whisper throng'd my pulses with the fullness of the Spring. Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately ships, And our spirits rush'd together at the touching of the lips. |