Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Alfred Tennyson Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with
me -
Ulysses That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
It little profits that an idle king, Free hearts, free foreheads - you and I are old;
By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Match'd with an agèd wife, I mete and dole Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Unequal laws unto a savage race, Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades Push off, and sitting well in order smite
Vexed the dim sea: I am become a name; The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
For always roaming with a hungry heart To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Much have I seen and known; cities of men Of all the western stars, until I die.
And manners, climates, councils, governments, It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all; It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And drunk delight of battle with my peers, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
I am a part of all that I have met; We are not now that strength which in old days
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades One equal temper of heroic hearts,
For ever and forever when I move. Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved Alfred Tennyson
From that eternal silence, something more, The Lotos-Eaters
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself, “COURAGE!” he said, and pointed toward the land,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire “This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon.”
To follow knowledge like a sinking star, In the afternoon they came unto a land
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. In which it seemed always afternoon.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus, All round the coast the languid air did swoon,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle, - Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil Full-faced above the valley stood the moon;
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild And, like a downward smoke, the slender stream
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere A land of streams! some, like a downward smoke,
Of common duties, decent not to fail Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go;
In offices of tenderness, and pay And some thro’ wavering lights and shadows broke,
Meet adoration to my household gods, Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below.
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine. They saw the gleaming river seaward flow
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail: From the inner land; far off, three mountain-tops,
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners, Three silent pinnacles of aged snow,
Stood sunset-flush’d; and, dew’d with showery drops, And make perpetual moan,
Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse. Still from one sorrow to another thrown;
Nor ever fold our wings,
The charmed sunset linger’d low adown And cease from wanderings,
In the red West; thro’ mountain clefts the dale Nor steep our brows in slumber’s holy balm;
Was seen far inland, and the yellow down Nor harken what the inner spirit sings,
Border’d with palm, and many a winding vale “There is no joy but calm!”—
And meadow, set with slender galingale; Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of
A land where all things always seem’d the same! things?
And round about the keel with faces pale,
Dark faces pale against that rosy flame, III
The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came. Lo! in the middle of the wood,
The folded leaf is woo’d from out the bud
Branches they bore of that enchanted stem, With winds upon the branch, and there
Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gave Grows green and broad, and takes no care,
To each, but whoso did receive of them Sun-steep’d at noon, and in the moon
And taste, to him the gushing of the wave Nightly dew-fed; and turning yellow
Far far away did seem to mourn and rave Falls, and floats adown the air.
On alien shores; and if his fellow spake, Lo! sweeten’d with the summer light,
His voice was thin, as voices from the grave; The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow,
And deep-asleep he seem’d, yet all awake, Drops in a silent autumn night.
And music in his ears his beating heart did make. All its allotted length of days
The flower ripens in its place,
They sat them down upon the yellow sand, Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil,
Between the sun and moon upon the shore; Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil.
And sweet it was to dream of Fatherland,
Of child, and wife, and slave; but evermore IV
Most weary seem’d the sea, weary the oar, Hateful is the dark-blue sky,
Weary the wandering fields of barren foam. Vaulted o’er the dark-blue sea.
Then some one said, “We will return no more;” Death is the end of life; ah, why
And all at once they sang, “Our island home Should life all labour be?
Is far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam.” Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast,
And in a little while our lips are dumb.
Let us alone. What is it that will last?
(CHORIC SONG) All things are taken from us, and become
I Portions and parcels of the dreadful past.
Let us alone. What pleasure can we have
There is sweet music here that softer falls To war with evil? Is there any peace
Than petals from blown roses on the grass, In ever climbing up the climbing wave?
Or night-dews on still waters between walls All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave
Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass; In silence—ripen, fall, and cease:
Music that gentlier on the spirit lies, Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful
Than tir’d eyelids upon tir’d eyes; ease.
Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful
skies. V
Here are cool mosses deep, How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream,
And thro’ the moss the ivies creep, With half-shut eyes ever to seem
And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep, Falling asleep in a half-dream!
And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep. To dream and dream, like yonder amber light,
Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height;
II To hear each other’s whisper’d speech;
Why are we weigh’d upon with heaviness, Eating the Lotos day by day,
And utterly consumed with sharp distress, To watch the crisping ripples on the beach,
While all things else have rest from weariness? And tender curving lines of creamy spray;
All things have rest: why should we toil alone, To lend our hearts and spirits wholly
We only toil, who are the first of things, To the influence of mild-minded melancholy;
To muse and brood and live again in memory, On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind.
With those old faces of our infancy For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are
Heap’d over with a mound of grass, hurl’d
Two handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn of brass! Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are
lightly curl’d
VI Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming
Dear is the memory of our wedded lives, world;
And dear the last embraces of our wives Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted
And their warm tears; but all hath suffer’d change; lands,
For surely now our household hearths are cold, Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring
Our sons inherit us, our looks are strange, deeps and fiery sands,
And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy. Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking
Or else the island princes over-bold ships, and praying hands.
Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful
Before them of the ten years’ war in Troy, song
And our great deeds, as half-forgotten things. Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of
Is there confusion in the little isle? wrong,
Let what is broken so remain. Like a tale of little meaning tho’ the words are strong;
The Gods are hard to reconcile; Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the
’Tis hard to settle order once again. soil,
There is confusion worse than death, Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil,
Trouble on trouble, pain on pain, Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil;
Long labour unto aged breath, Till they perish and they suffer—some, ’tis
Sore task to hearts worn out by many wars whisper’d—down in hell
And eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot-stars. Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys
dwell,
VII Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel.
But, propped on beds of amaranth and moly, Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the
How sweet—while warm airs lull us, blowing shore
lowly— Than labour in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave
With half-dropped eyelids still, and oar;
Beneath a heaven dark and holy, O, rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander
To watch the long bright river drawing slowly more.
His waters from the purple hill—
To hear the dewy echoes calling Alfred Tennyson
From cave to cave thro’ the thick-twined vine—
To watch the emerald-colour’d water falling The Charge Of The Light Brigade
Thro’ many a woven acanthus-wreath divine!
Only to hear and see the far-off sparkling brine, Half a league half a league,
Only to hear were sweet, stretch’d out beneath the Half a league onward,
pine. All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred:
VIII 'Forward, the Light Brigade!
The Lotos blooms below the barren peak, Charge for the guns' he said:
The Lotos blows by every winding creek; Into the valley of Death
All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone; Rode the six hundred.
Thro’ every hollow cave and alley lone
Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos- 'Forward, the Light Brigade!'
dust is blown. Was there a man dismay'd ?
We have had enough of action, and of motion we, Not tho' the soldier knew
Roll’d to starboard, roll’d to larboard, when the surge Some one had blunder'd:
was seething free, Theirs not to make reply,
Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam- Theirs not to reason why,
fountains in the sea. Theirs but to do & die,
Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind, Into the valley of Death
In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined Rode the six hundred.
blood,
Cannon to right of them, And Echo there, whatever is ask’d her, answers
Cannon to left of them, ‘Death.’
Cannon in front of them II.
Volley'd & thunder'd; For there in the ghastly pit long since a body was
Storm'd at with shot and shell, found,
Boldly they rode and well, His who had given me life—O father! O God! was it
Into the jaws of Death, well?—
Into the mouth of Hell Mangled, and flatten’d, and crush’d, and dinted into
Rode the six hundred. the ground:
There yet lies the rock that fell with him when he fell.
Flash'd all their sabres bare, III.
Flash'd as they turn'd in air Did he fling himself down? who knows? for a vast
Sabring the gunners there, speculation had fail’d,
Charging an army while And ever he mutter’d and madden’d, and ever wann’d
All the world wonder'd: with despair,
Plunged in the battery-smoke And out he walk’d when the wind like a broken
Right thro' the line they broke; worlding wail’d,
Cossack & Russian And the flying gold of the ruin’d woodlands drove
Reel'd from the sabre-stroke, thro’ the air.
Shatter'd & sunder'd. IV.
Then they rode back, but not I remember the time, for the roots of my hair were
Not the six hundred. stirr’d
By a shuffled step, by a dead weight trail’d, by a
Cannon to right of them, whisper’d fright,
Cannon to left of them, And my pulses closed their gates with a shock on my
Cannon behind them heart as I heard
Volley'd and thunder'd; The shrill-edged shriek of a mother divide the
Storm'd at with shot and shell, shuddering night.
While horse & hero fell, V.
They that had fought so well Villainy somewhere! whose? One says, we are
Came thro' the jaws of Death, villains all.
Back from the mouth of Hell, Not he: his honest fame should at least by me be
All that was left of them, maintained:
Left of six hundred. But that old man, now lord of the broad estate and the
Hall,
When can their glory fade? Dropt off gorged from a scheme that had left us
O the wild charge they made! flaccid and drain’d.
All the world wonder'd. VI.
Honour the charge they made! Why do they prate of the blessings of Peace? we have
Honour the Light Brigade, made them a curse,
Noble six hundred! Pickpockets, each hand lusting for all that is not its
own;
And lust of gain, in the spirit of Cain, is it better or
Alfred Tennyson worse
Than the heart of the citizen hissing in war on his
Maud; A Monodrama own hearthstone?
VII.
But these are the days of advance, the works of the
PART I men of mind,
I. When who but a fool would have faith in a
I. tradesman’s ware or his word?
I hate the dreadful hollow behind the little wood, Is it peace or war? Civil war, as I think, and that of a
Its lips in the field above are dabbled with blood-red kind
heath, The viler, as underhand, not openly bearing the
The red-ribb’d ledges drip with a silent horror of sword.
VIII. and die
Sooner or later I too may passively take the print Rather than hold by the law that I made, nevermore to
Of the golden age—why not? I have neither hope nor brood
trust; On a horror of shatter’d limbs and a wretched
May make my heart as a millstone, set my face as a swindler’s lie?
flint, XV.
Cheat and be cheated, and die: who knows? we are Would there be sorrow for me? there was love in the
ashes and dust. passionate shriek,
IX. Love for the silent thing that had made false haste to
Peace sitting under her olive, and slurring the days the grave—
gone by, Wrapt in a cloak, as I saw him, and thought he would
When the poor are hovell’d and hustled together, each rise and speak
sex, like swine, And rave at the lie and the liar, ah God, as he used to
When only the ledger lives, and when only not all rave.
men lie; XVI.
Peace in her vineyard—yes!—but a company forges I am sick of the Hall and the hill, I am sick of the
the wine. moor and the main.
X. Why should I stay? can a sweeter chance ever come
And the vitriol madness flushes up in the ruffian’s to me here?
head, O, having the nerves of motion as well as the nerves
Till the filthy by-lane rings to the yell of the trampled of pain,
wife, Were it not wise if I fled from the place and the pit
And chalk and alum and plaster are sold to the poor and the fear?
for bread, XVII.
And the spirit of murder works in the very means of Workmen up at the Hall!—they are coming back
life, from abroad;
XI. The dark old place will be gilt by the touch of a
And Sleep must lie down arm’d, for the villainous millionaire:
centre-bits I have heard, I know not whence, of the singular
Grind on the wakeful ear in the hush of the moonless beauty of Maud;
nights, I play’d with the girl when a child; she promised then
While another is cheating the sick of a few last gasps, to be fair.
as he sits XVIII.
To pestle a poison’d poison behind his crimson lights. Maud with her venturous climbings and tumbles and
XII. childish escapes,
When a Mammonite mother kills her babe for a burial Maud the delight of the village, the ringing joy of the
fee, Hall,
And Timour-Mammon grins on a pile of children’s Maud with her sweet purse-mouth when my father
bones, dangled the grapes,
Is it peace or war? better, war! loud war by land and Maud the beloved of my mother, the moon-faced
by sea, darling of all,—
War with a thousand battles, and shaking a hundred XIX.
thrones. What is she now? My dreams are bad. She may
XIII. bring me a curse.
For I trust if an enemy’s fleet came yonder round by No, there is fatter game on the moor; she will let
the hill, me alone.
And the rushing battle-bolt sang from the three-
Thanks, for the fiend best knows whether woman
decker out of the foam,
That the smooth-faced snubnosed rogue would leap
or man be the worse.
from his counter and till, I will bury myself in myself, and the Devil may
And strike, if he could, were it but with his cheating pipe to his own.
yardwand, home.—
XIV.
What! am I raging alone as my father raged in his
mood?
Must I too creep to the hollow and dash myself down
II IV
"When round his head the aureole clings, "Herself shall bring us, hand in hand,
And he is cloth'd in white, To Him round whom all souls
I'll take his hand and go with him Kneel, the clear-rang'd unnumber'd heads
To the deep wells of light; Bow'd with their aureoles:
As unto a stream we will step down, And angels meeting us shall sing
And bathe there in God's sight. To their citherns and citoles.
"We two will stand beside that shrine, "There will I ask of Christ the Lord
Occult, withheld, untrod, Thus much for him and me: --
Whose lamps are stirr'd continually Only to live as once on earth
With prayer sent up to God; With Love, -- only to be,
And see our old prayers, granted, melt As then awhile, for ever now
Each like a little cloud. Together, I and he."
"We two will lie i' the shadow of She gaz'd and listen'd and then said,
That living mystic tree Less sad of speech than mild, --
Within whose secret growth the Dove "All this is when he comes." She ceas'd.
Is sometimes felt to be, The light thrill'd towards her, fill'd
While every leaf that His plumes touch With angels in strong level flight.
Saith His Name audibly. Her eyes pray'd, and she smil'd.
"And I myself will teach to him, (I saw her smile.) But soon their path
I myself, lying so, Was vague in distant spheres:
The songs I sing here; which his voice And then she cast her arms along
Shall pause in, hush'd and slow, The golden barriers,
And find some knowledge at each pause, And laid her face between her hands,
Or some new thing to know." And wept. (I heard her tears.)