Alfred Tennyson – Ulysses

51 Pages·2008·0.27 MB·English

e-texts Letteratura inglese III – 2008-2009 – Modulo II
The Nineteenth Century II: The Victorian Age
CL1-2 – Prof. J.M.Ivo Klaver

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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
Alfred Tennyson
Little remains: but every hour is saved
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—
The Charge Of The Light Brigade
To watch the emerald-colour’d water falling

Thro’ many a woven acanthus-wreath divine!
Half a league half a league,
Only to hear and see the far-off sparkling brine,
Half a league onward,
Only to hear were sweet, stretch’d out beneath the
All in the valley of Death
pine.
Rode the six hundred:

'Forward, the Light Brigade!
VIII
Charge for the guns' he said:
The Lotos blooms below the barren peak,
Into the valley of Death
The Lotos blows by every winding creek;
Rode the six hundred.
All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone;

Thro’ every hollow cave and alley lone
'Forward, the Light Brigade!'
Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos-
Was there a man dismay'd ?
dust is blown.
Not tho' the soldier knew
We have had enough of action, and of motion we,
Some one had blunder'd:
Roll’d to starboard, roll’d to larboard, when the surge
Theirs not to make reply,
was seething free,
Theirs not to reason why,
Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-
Theirs but to do & die,
fountains in the sea.
Into the valley of Death
Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind,
Rode the six hundred.
In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined
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,
or man be the worse.
That the smooth-faced snubnosed rogue would leap
I will bury myself in myself, and the Devil may
from his counter and till,
pipe to his own.
And strike, if he could, were it but with his cheating

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
Long have I sigh’d for a calm: God grant I may find it I.
at last! A million emeralds break from the ruby-budded lime
It will never be broken by Maud, she has neither In the little grove where I sit—ah, wherefore cannot I
savour nor salt, be
But a cold and clear-cut face, as I found when her Like things of the season gay, like the bountiful
carriage past, season bland,
Perfectly beautiful: let it be granted her: where is the When the far-off sail is blown by the breeze of a
fault? softer clime,
All that I saw (for her eyes were downcast, not to be Half-lost in the liquid azure bloom of a crescent of
seen) sea,
Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null, The silent sapphire-spangled marriage ring of the
Dead perfection, no more; nothing more, if it had not land?
been II.
For a chance of travel, a paleness, an hour’s defect of Below me, there, is the village, and looks how quiet
the rose, and small!
Or an underlip, you may call it a little too ripe, too And yet bubbles o’er like a city, with gossip, scandal,
full, and spite;
Or the least little delicate aquiline curve in a sensitive And Jack on his ale-house bench has as many lies as a
nose, Czar;
From which I escaped heart-free, with the least little And here on the landward side, by a red rock,
touch of spleen. glimmers the Hall
And up in the high Hall-garden I see her pass like a
III light;
But sorrow seize me if ever that light be my leading
Cold and clear-cut face, why come you so cruelly star!
meek, III.
Breaking a slumber in which all spleenful folly was When have I bow’d to her father, the wrinkled head
drown’d, of the race?
Pale with the golden beam of an eyelash dead on the I met her to-day with her brother, but not to her
cheek, brother I bow’d:
Passionless, pale, cold face, star-sweet on a gloom I bow’d to his lady-sister as she rode by on the moor;
profound; But the fire of a foolish pride flash’d over her
Womanlike, taking revenge too deep for a transient beautiful face.
wrong O child, you wrong your beauty, believe it, in being
Done but in thought to your beauty, and ever as pale so proud;
as before Your father has wealth well-gotten, and I am
Growing and fading and growing upon me without a nameless and poor.
sound, IV.
Luminous, gemlike, ghostlike, deathlike, half the I keep but a man and a maid, ever ready to slander
night long and steal;
Growing and fading and growing, till I could bear it I know it, and smile a hard-set smile, like a stoic, or
no more, like
But arose, and all by myself in my own dark garden A wiser epicurean, and let the world have its way:
ground, For nature is one with rapine, a harm no preacher can
Listening now to the tide in its broad-flung heal;
shipwrecking roar, The Mayfly is torn by the swallow, the sparrow
Now to the scream of a madden’d beach dragg’d spear’d by the shrike,
down by the wave, And the whole little wood where I sit is a world of
Walk’d in a wintry wind by a ghastly glimmer, and plunder and prey.
found V.
The shining daffodil dead, and Orion low in his We are puppets, Man in his pride, and Beauty fair in
grave. her flower;
Do we move ourselves, or are moved by an unseen
hand at a game
That pushes us off from the board, and others ever Where each man walks with his head in a cloud of
succeed? poisonous flies.
Ah yet, we cannot be kind to each other here for an X.
hour; And most of all would I flee from the cruel
We whisper, and hint, and chuckle, and grin at a madness of love,
brother’s shame; The honey of poison-flowers and all the
However we brave it out, we men are a little breed.
measureless ill.
VI.
Ah Maud, you milkwhite fawn, you are all
A monstrous eft was of old the Lord and Master of
unmeet for a wife.
Earth,
Your mother is mute in her grave as her image in
For him did his high sun flame, and his river
marble above;
billowing ran,
Your father is ever in London, you wander about
And he felt himself in his force to be Nature’s
crowning race. at your will;
As nine months go to the shaping an infant ripe for You have but fed on the roses and lain in the
his birth, lilies of life.
So many a million of ages have gone to the making of
man:
He now is first, but is he the last? is he not too base?
V
VII.
I.
The man of science himself is fonder of glory, and
A voice by the cedar tree
vain,
In the meadow under the Hall!
An eye well-practised in nature, a spirit bounded and
She is singing an air that is known to me,
poor;
A passionate ballad gallant and gay,
The passionate heart of the poet is whirl’d into folly
A martial song like a trumpet’s call!
and vice.
Singing alone in the morning of life,
I would not marvel at either, but keep a temperate
In the happy morning of life and of May,
brain;
Singing of men that in battle array,
For not to desire or admire, if a man could learn it,
Ready in heart and ready in hand,
were more
March with banner and bugle and fife
Than to walk all day like the sultan of old in a garden
To the death, for their native land.
of spice.
II.
VIII.
Maud with her exquisite face,
For the drift of the Maker is dark, an Isis hid by the
And wild voice pealing up to the sunny sky,
veil.
And feet like sunny gems on an English green,
Who knows the ways of the world, how God will
Maud in the light of her youth and her grace,
bring them about?
Singing of Death, and of Honour that cannot die,
Our planet is one, the suns are many, the world is
Till I well could weep for a time so sordid and mean,
wide.
And myself so languid and base.
Shall I weep if a Poland fall? shall I shriek if a
III.
Hungary fail?
Silence, beautiful voice!
Or an infant civilisation be ruled with rod or with
Be still, for you only trouble the mind
knout?
With a joy in which I cannot rejoice,
I have not made the world, and He that made it will
A glory I shall not find.
guide.
Still! I will hear you no more,
IX.
For your sweetness hardly leaves me a choice
Be mine a philosopher’s life in the quiet woodland
ways, But to move to the meadow and fall before
Where if I cannot be gay let a passionless peace be Her feet on the meadow grass, and adore,
my lot, Not her, who is neither courtly nor kind,
Far-off from the clamour of liars belied in the hubbub Not her, not her, but a voice.
of lies;
From the long-neck’d geese of the world that are ever

hissing dispraise

Because their natures are little, and, whether he heed

it or not,
With a glassy smile his brutal scorn—
VI What if he had told her yestermorn
I. How prettily for his own sweet sake
Morning arises stormy and pale, A face of tenderness might be feign’d,
No sun, but a wannish glare And a moist mirage in desert eyes,
In fold upon fold of hueless cloud, That so, when the rotten hustings shake
And the budded peaks of the wood are bow’d In another month to his brazen lies,
Caught and cuff’d by the gale: A wretched vote may be gain’d.
I had fancied it would be fair. VII.
II. For a raven ever croaks, at my side,
Whom but Maud should I meet Keep watch and ward, keep watch and ward,
Last night, when the sunset burn’d Or thou wilt prove their tool.
On the blossom’d gable-ends Yea, too, myself from myself I guard,
At the head of the village street, For often a man’s own angry pride
Whom but Maud should I meet? Is cap and bells for a fool.
And she touch’d my hand with a smile so sweet, VIII.
She made me divine amends Perhaps the smile and tender tone
For a courtesy not return’d. Came out of her pitying womanhood,
III. For am I not, am I not, here alone
And thus a delicate spark So many a summer since she died,
Of glowing and growing light My mother, who was so gentle and good?
Thro’ the livelong hours of the dark Living alone in an empty house,
Kept itself warm in the heart of my dreams, Here half-hid in the gleaming wood,
Ready to burst in a colour’d flame; Where I hear the dead at midday moan,
Till at last when the morning came And the shrieking rush of the wainscot mouse,
In a cloud, it faded, and seems And my own sad name in corners cried,
But an ashen-gray delight. When the shiver of dancing leaves is thrown
IV. About its echoing chambers wide,
What if with her sunny hair, Till a morbid hate and horror have grown
And smile as sunny as cold, Of a world in which I have hardly mixt,
She meant to weave me a snare And a morbid eating lichen fixt
Of some coquettish deceit, On a heart half-turn’d to stone.
Cleopatra-like as of old IX.
To entangle me when we met, O heart of stone, are you flesh, and caught
To have her lion roll in a silken net By that you swore to withstand?
And fawn at a victor’s feet. For what was it else within me wrought
V. But, I fear, the new strong wine of love,
Ah, what shall I be at fifty That made my tongue so stammer and trip
Should Nature keep me alive, When I saw the treasured splendour, her hand,
If I find the world so bitter Come sliding out of her sacred glove,
When I am but twenty-five? And the sunlight broke from her lip?
Yet, if she were not a cheat, X.
If Maud were all that she seem’d, I have play’d with her when a child;
And her smile were all that I dream’d, She remembers it now we meet.
Then the world were not so bitter Ah well, well, well, I may be beguiled
But a smile could make it sweet. By some coquettish deceit.
VI.
Yet, if she were not a cheat,
What if tho’ her eye seem’d full
If Maud were all that she seem’d,
Of a kind intent to me,
And her smile had all that I dream’d,
What if that dandy-despot, he,
Then the world were not so bitter
That jewell’d mass of millinery,
But a smile could make it sweet.
That oil’d and curl’d Assyrian Bull

Smelling of musk and of insolence,
Her brother, from whom I keep aloof,
Who wants the finer politic sense
To mask, tho’ but in his own behoof,
VII Then returns the dark
I. With no more hope of light.
Did I hear it half in a doze
Long since, I know not where? X
Did I dream it an hour ago, I.
When asleep in this arm-chair? Sick, am I sick of a jealous dread?
II. Was not one of the two at her side
Men were drinking together, This new-made lord, whose splendour plucks
Drinking and talking of me; The slavish hat from the villager’s head?
‘Well, if it prove a girl, the boy Whose old grandfather has lately died,
Will have plenty: so let it be.’ Gone to a blacker pit, for whom
III. Grimy nakedness dragging his trucks
Is it an echo of something And laying his trams in a poison’d gloom
Read with a boy’s delight, Wrought, till he crept from a gutted mine
Viziers nodding together Master of half a servile shire,
In some Arabian night? And left his coal all turn’d into gold
IV. To a grandson, first of his noble line,
Strange, that I hear two men, Rich in the grace all women desire,
Somewhere, talking of me; Strong in the power that all men adore,
‘Well, if it prove a girl, my boy And simper and set their voices lower,
Will have plenty: so let it be.’ And soften as if to a girl, and hold
Awe-stricken breaths at a work divine,

Seeing his gewgaw castle shine,

New as his title, built last year,
VIII
There amid perky larches and pine,
And over the sullen-purple moor
She came to the village church,
(Look at it) pricking a cockney ear.
And sat by a pillar alone;
II.
An angel watching an urn
What, has he found my jewel out?
Wept over her, carved in stone;
For one of the two that rode at her side
And once, but once, she lifted her eyes,
Bound for the Hall, I am sure was he:
And suddenly, sweetly, strangely blush’d
Bound for the Hall, and I think for a bride.
To find they were met by my own;
Blithe would her brother’s acceptance be.
And suddenly, sweetly, my heart beat stronger
Maud could be gracious too, no doubt
And thicker, until I heard no longer
To a lord, a captain, a padded shape,
The snowy-banded, dilettante,
A bought commission, a waxen face,
Delicate-handed priest intone;
A rabbit mouth that is ever agape—
And thought, is it pride, and mused and sigh’d
Bought? what is it he cannot buy?
‘No surely, now it cannot be pride.’
And therefore splenetic, personal, base,
A wounded thing with a rancorous cry,
IX
At war with myself and a wretched race,
Sick, sick to the heart of life, am I.
I was walking a mile,
III.
More than a mile from the shore, Last week came one to the county town,
The sun look’d out with a smile
To preach our poor little army down,
Betwixt the cloud and the moor,
And play the game of the despot kings,
And riding at set of day
Tho’ the state has done it and thrice as well:
Over the dark moor land,
This broad-brimm’d hawker of holy things,
Rapidly riding far away, Whose ear is cramm’d with his cotton, and rings
She waved to me with her hand. Even in dreams to the chink of his pence,
There were two at her side,
This huckster put down war! can he tell
Something flash’d in the sun,
Whether war be a cause or a consequence?
Down by the hill I saw them ride,
Put down the passions that make earth Hell!
In a moment they were gone:
Down with ambition, avarice, pride,
Like a sudden spark Jealousy, down! cut off from the mind
Struck vainly in the night,
The bitter springs of anger and fear;
Down too, down at your own fireside, III.
With the evil tongue and the evil ear, Birds in our wood sang
For each is at war with mankind. Ringing thro’ the valleys,
IV. Maud is here, here, here
I wish I could hear again In among the lilies.
The chivalrous battle-song IV.
That she warbled alone in her joy! I kiss’d her slender hand,
I might persuade myself then She took the kiss sedately;
She would not do herself this great wrong, Maud is not seventeen,
To take a wanton dissolute boy But she is tall and stately.
For a man and leader of men. V.
V. I to cry out on pride
Ah God, for a man with heart, head, hand, Who have won her favour!
Like some of the simple great ones gone O Maud were sure of Heaven
For ever and ever by, If lowliness could save her.
One still strong man in a blatant land, VI.
Whatever they call him, what care I, I know the way she went
Aristocrat, democrat, autocrat—one Home with her maiden posy,
Who can rule and dare not lie. For her feet have touch’d the meadows
VI. And left the daisies rosy.
And ah for a man to arise in me, VII.
That the man I am may cease to be! Birds in the high Hall-garden
Were crying and calling to her,
Where is Maud, Maud, Maud?

One is come to woo her.
XI
VIII.
I.
Look, a horse at the door,
O let the solid ground
And little King Charley snarling,
Not fail beneath my feet
Before my life has found Go back, my lord, across the moor,
What some have found so sweet; You are not her darling.
Then let come what come may,
What matter if I go mad,
I shall have had my day. XIII
II. I.
Let the sweet heavens endure, Scorn’d, to be scorn’d by one that I scorn,
Not close and darken above me Is that a matter to make me fret?
Before I am quite quite sure That a calamity hard to be borne?
That there is one to love me; Well, he may live to hate me yet.
Then let come what come may Fool that I am to be vext with his pride!
I past him, I was crossing his lands;
To a life that has been so sad,
He stood on the path a little aside;
I shall have had my day.
His face, as I grant, in spite of spite,

Has a broad-blown comeliness, red and white,

And six feet two, as I think, he stands;
XII
But his essences turn’d the live air sick,
I.
And barbarous opulence jewel-thick
Birds in the high Hall-garden
Sunn’d itself on his breast and his hands.
When twilight was falling,
II.
Maud, Maud, Maud, Maud,
Who shall call me ungentle, unfair,
They were crying and calling.
I long’d so heartily then and there
II.
To give him the grasp of fellowship;
Where was Maud? in our wood;
But while I past he was humming an air,
And I, who else, was with her,
Stopt, and then with a riding whip
Gathering woodland lilies,
Leisurely tapping a glossy boot,
Myriads blow together.
And curving a contumelious lip,