With all good things, and war shall be no more.' At this a hundred bells began to peal, That with the sound I woke, and heard indeed The clear church bells ring in the Christmas morn. small ship deportment 1833-38 1842
Locksley Hall1
Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet 'tis early morn; Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle horn.
'Tis the place, and all around it, as of old, the curlews call, Dreary gleams2 about the moorland flying over Locksley Hall;
Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts, And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts.
Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest, Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the west.
Many a night I saw the Pleiads,3 rising through the mellow shade, Glitter like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid.
Here about the beach I wandered, nourishing a youth sublime With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of time;
When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed; When I clung to all the present for the promise that it closed0 enclosed
When I dipped into the future far as human eye could see, 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 burnished dove;4 In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.
1. The situation in this poem?of a young man's speaker (a tone accentuated by the heavily marked being jilted by a woman who chose to marry a trochaic meter), Tennyson said: 'The whole poem wealthy landowner?may have been suggested to represents young life, its good side, its deficiencies, Tennyson by the experience of his brother Fred-and its yearnings.' erick, a hot-tempered man who had fallen in love 2. Tennyson stated that the noun 'gleams' refers with his cousin Julia Tennyson and who was sim-not to 'curlews' flying but to streaks of light. ilarly unsuccessful, [t may also have been inspired 3. Or the Pleiades, seven stars in the constellation by Tennyson's own frustrated courtship of Rosa Taurus. Baring, who rejected the young poet in favor of a 4. The rainbowlike colors of a dove's throat plum- wealthy suitor. Concerning the ranting tone of the age are intensified in the mating season.
.
1 138 / ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
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.' 25 On her pallid cheek and forehead came a color and a light,
As I have seen the rosy red flushing in the northern night. And she turned?her bosom shaken with a sudden storm of sighs?
All the spirit deeply dawning in the dark of hazel eyes? Saying, 'I have hid my feelings, fearing they should do me wrong';
30 Saying, 'Dost thou love me, cousin?' weeping, 'I have loved thee long.' Love took up the glass of Time, and turned 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, passed in music out of sight. 35 Many a morning on the moorland did we hear the copses ring,
And her whisper thronged my pulses with the fullness of the spring. Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately ships,
And our spirits rushed together at the touching of the lips. O my cousin, shallow-hearted! O my Amy, mine no more!
40 O the dreary, dreary moorland! O the barren, barren shore! Falser than all fancy fathoms, falser than all songs have sung,
Puppet to a father's threat, and servile to a shrewish tongue! Is it well to wish thee happy??having known me?to decline
On a range of lower feelings and a narrower heart than mine! 45 Yet it shall be; thou shalt lower to his level day by day,
What is fine within thee growing coarse to sympathize with clay.
As the husband is, the wife is; thou art mated with a clown,0 boor And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down. He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force,
50 Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse. What is this? his eyes are heavy; think not they are glazed with wine.
Go to him, it is thy duty; kiss him, take his hand in thine. It may be my lord is weary, that his brain is overwrought;
Soothe him with thy finer fancies, touch him with thy lighter thought. 55 He will answer to the purpose, easy
