The Works of Alfred Lord Tennyson, Poet Laureate

That ever butted his rough brother-brute
For lust or lusty blood or provender :

Why should I, beastlike as I find myself,
Not manlike end myself?—our privilege-
What beast has heart to do it? And what
man,

I hate, abhor, spit, sicken at him; and she Loathes him as well; such a precipitate | What Roman would be dragg'd in triumph heel, thus? Fledged as it were with Mercury's ankle- Not I; not he, who bears one name with wing, her Whirls her to me: but will she fling Whose death-blow struck the dateless herself, doom of kings, Shameless upon me? Catch her, goat- When, brooking not the Tarquin in her

foot: nay,

Hide, hide them, million-myrtled wilder

ness,

And cavern-shadowing laurels, hide! do
I wish-

What? that the bush were leafless? or
to whelm

All of them in one massacre? O ye Gods,
I know you careless, yet, behold, to you
From childly wont and ancient use I

call

I thought I lived securely as yourselves
No lewdness, narrowing envy, monkey-
spite,

No madness of ambition, avarice, none:
No larger feast than under plane or pine
With neighbours laid along the grass, to

take

Only such cups as left us friendly-warm,
Affirming each his own philosophy—
Nothing to mar the sober majesties
Of settled, sweet, Epicurean life.

But now it seems some unseen monster

lays

His vast and filthy hands upon my will, Wrenching it backward into his; and spoils

My bliss in being; and it was not great;
For save when shutting reasons up in
rhythm,

Or Heliconian honey in living words,
To make a truth less harsh, I often grew
Tired of so much within our little life,
Or of so little in our little life-

Poor little life that toddles half an hour
Crown'd with a flower or two, and there
an end-

And since the nobler pleasure seems to fade,

veins,

And me that morning Walter show'd And that was old Sir Ralph's at As

Her own fair head, and sallying thro' the gate,

Had beat her foes with slaughter from her walls.

'O miracle of women,' said the book, "O noble heart who, being strait-besieged

Danced like a wisp: and somewhat lower down

A man with knobs and wires and vials fired

A cannon Echo answer'd in her sleep From hollow fields: and here were telescopes

By this wild king to force her to his wish, For azure views; and there a group of Nor bent, nor broke, nor shunn'd a

soldier's death,

But now when all was lost or seem'd as lost

Her stature more than mortal in the burst Of sunrise, her arm lifted, eyes on fireBrake with a blast of trumpets from the gate,

And, falling on them like a thunderbolt, She trampled some beneath her horses' heels,

And some were whelm'd with missiles of the wall,

And some were push'd with lances from the rock,

And part were drown'd within the whirling brook :

O miracle of noble womanhood!'

So sang the gallant glorious chronicle ;

girls

In circle waited, whom the electric shock Dislink'd with shrieks and laughter: round the lake

A little clock-work steamer paddling plied And shook the lilies: perch'd about the knolls

A dozen angry models jetted steam :
A petty railway ran: a fire-balloon
Rose gem-like up before the dusky groves
And dropt a fairy parachute and past:
And there thro' twenty posts of telegraph
They flash'd a saucy message to and fro
Between the mimic stations; so that sport
Went hand in hand with Science; other-
where

Pure sport a herd of boys with clamour bowl'd

And stump'd the wicket; babies roll'd about

And, I all rapt in this, 'Come out,' he Like tumbled fruit in grass; and men

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Took this fair day for text, and from it❘ We are twice as quick!' And here she

But honeying at the whisper of a lord;
And one the Master, as a rogue in grain
Veneer'd with sanctimonious theory.

But while they talk'd, above their heads

I saw

The feudal warrior lady-clad ; which brought

My book to mind and opening this I

read

Of old Sir Ralph a page or two that rang With tilt and tourney; then the tale of her

shook aside

The hand that play'd the patron with her curls.

And one said smiling Pretty were the

sight

If our old halls could change their sex, and flaunt

With prudes for proctors, dowagers for deans,

And sweet girl-graduates in their golden hair.

I think they should not wear our rusty

gowns,

But move as rich as Emperor-moths, or
Ralph

Who shines so in the corner; yet I fear,
If there were many Lilias in the brood,
However deep you might embower the
nest,

Some boy would spy it.'

At this upon the sward She tapt her tiny silken-sandal'd foot : 'That's your light way; but I would make it death

That drove her foes with slaughter from For any male thing but to peep at us.'

her walls,

And much I praised her nobleness, and

'Where,'

Ask'd Walter, patting Lilia's head (she lay Beside him) 'lives there such a woman now?'

Petulant she spoke, and at herself she
laugh'd;

A rosebud set with little wilful thorns,
And sweet as English air could make her,

she:

But Walter hail'd a score of names upon

her,

And what's my thought and when and where and how,

And petty Ogress,' and " ' ungrateful And often told a tale from mouth to mouth As here at Christmas.'

Puss,'

And swore he long'd at college, only

long'd,

All else was well, for she-society.

She remember'd that:

A pleasant game, she thought: she liked it more

They boated and they cricketed; they Than magic music, forfeits, all the rest. But these what kind of tales did men tell men,

talk'd

At wine, in clubs, of art, of politics; They lost their weeks; they vext the souls of deans;

They rode; they betted; made a hundred friends,.

She wonder'd, by themselves?

A half-disdain Perch'd on the pouted blossom of her lips : And Walter nodded at me; 'He began,

And caught the blossom of the flying The rest would follow, each in turn; and so

She held it out; and as a parrot turns Up thro' gilt wires a crafty loving eye, And takes a lady's finger with all care, And bites it for true heart and not for harm,

So he with Lilia's. Daintily she shriek'd And wrung it. Doubt my word again!' he said.

'Come, listen! here is proof that you were miss'd:

We seven stay'd at Christmas up to read;
And there we took one tutor as to read:
The hard-grain'd Muses of the cube and
square

Were out of season: never man, I think,
So moulder'd in a sinecure as he :
For while our cloisters echo'd frosty feet,
And our long walks were stript as bare
as brooms,

all

We did but talk you over, pledge you
In wassail; often, like as many girls-
Sick for the hollies and the yews of home-
As many little trifling Lilias-play'd
Charades and riddles as at Christmas here,

We forged a sevenfold story. Kind?

what kind?

Chimeras, crotchets, Christmas solecisms,
Seven-headed monsters only made to kill
Time by the fire in winter.'
'Kill him now,
The tyrant! kill him in the summer too,'
Said Lilia; 'Why not now?' the maiden
Aunt.

'Why not a summer's as a winter's tale?
A tale for summer as befits the time,
And something it should be to suit the
place,

Heroic, for a hero lies beneath,
Grave, solemn !'

Walter warp'd his mouth at this To something so mock-solemn, that I laugh'd

And Lilia woke with sudden-shrilling mirth

An echo like a ghostly woodpecker, Hid in the ruins; till the maiden Aunt (A little sense of wrong had touch'd her face

With colour) turn'd to me with 'As you will;

Heroic if you will, or what you will,
Or be yourself your hero if you will.'

'Take Lilia, then, for heroine' clamour'd he, 'And make her some great Princess, six feet high,

Grand, epic, homicidal; and be you
The Prince to win her !'

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The Works of Alfred Lord Tennyson, Poet Laureate, 1. köide