The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson Part 32

O the Earl was fair to see!

I rose up in the silent night: I made my dagger sharp and bright.

The wind is raving in turret and tree.

As half-asleep his breath he drew, Three times I stabb'd him thro' and thro'.

O the Earl was fair to see!

I curl'd and comb'd his comely head, He look'd so grand when he was dead.

The wind is blowing in turret and tree.

I wrapt his body in the sheet, And laid him at his mother's feet.

O the Earl was fair to see!

TO-----

WITH THE FOLLOWING POEM

I have not been able to ascertain to whom this dedication was addressed.

Sir Franklin Lus.h.i.+ngton tells me that he thinks it was an imaginary person. The dedication explains the allegory intended. The poem appears to have been suggested, as we learn from 'Tennyson's Life' (vol. i., p.

150), by a remark of Trench to Tennyson when they were undergraduates at Trinity: "We cannot live in art". It was the embodiment Tennyson added of his belief "that the G.o.d-like life is with man and for man". 'Cf.'

his own lines in 'Love and Duty':--$

For a man is not as G.o.d, But then most G.o.d-like being most a man.

It is a companion poem to the 'Vision of Sin'; in that poem is traced the effect of indulgence in the grosser pleasures of sense, in this the effect of the indulgence in the more refined pleasures of sense.

I send you here a sort of allegory, (For you will understand it) of a soul, [1]

A sinful soul possess'd of many gifts, A s.p.a.cious garden full of flowering weeds, A glorious Devil, large in heart and brain, That did love Beauty only, (Beauty seen In all varieties of mould and mind) And Knowledge for its beauty; or if Good, Good only for its beauty, seeing not That beauty, Good, and Knowledge, are three sisters That doat upon each other, friends to man, Living together under the same roof, And never can be sunder'd without tears.

And he that shuts Love out, in turn shall be Shut out from Love, and on her threshold lie Howling in outer darkness. Not for this Was common clay ta'en from the common earth, Moulded by G.o.d, and temper'd with the tears Of angels to the perfect shape of man.

[Footnote 1: 1833.

I send you, Friend, a sort of allegory, (You are an artist and will understand Its many lesser meanings) of a soul.]

THE PALACE OF ART

First published in 1833, but altered so extensively on its republication in 1842 as to be practically rewritten. The alterations in it after 1842 were not numerous, consisting chiefly in the deletion of two stanzas after line 192 and the insertion of the three stanzas which follow in the present text, together with other minor verbal corrections, all of which have been noted. No alterations were made in the text after 1853.

The allegory Tennyson explains in the dedicatory verses, but the framework of the poem was evidently suggested by 'Ecclesiastes' ii.

1-17. The position of the hero is precisely that of Solomon. Both began by a.s.suming that man is self-sufficing and the world sufficient; the verdict of the one in consequence being "vanity of vanities, all is vanity," of the other what the poet here records. An admirable commentary on the poem is afforded by Matthew Arnold's picture of the Romans before Christ taught the secret of the only real happiness possible to man. See 'Obermann Once More'. The teaching of the poem has been admirably explained by Spedding. It "represents allegorically the condition of a mind which, in the love of beauty and the triumphant consciousness of knowledge and intellectual supremacy, in the intense enjoyment of its own power and glory, has lost sight of its relation to man and G.o.d". See 'Tennyson's Life', vol. i., p. 226.

I built my soul a lordly pleasure-house Wherein at ease for aye to dwell.

I said, "O Soul, make merry and carouse, Dear soul, for all is well".

A huge crag-platform, smooth as burnish'd bra.s.s, I chose. The ranged ramparts bright From level meadow-bases of deep gra.s.s [1]

Suddenly scaled the light.

Thereon I built it firm. Of ledge or shelf The rock rose clear, or winding stair.

My soul would live alone unto herself In her high palace there.

And "while the world [2] runs round and round,"

I said, "Reign thou apart, a quiet king, Still as, while Saturn [3] whirls, his stedfast [4] shade Sleeps on his luminous [5] ring."

To which my soul made answer readily: "Trust me, in bliss I shall abide In this great mansion, that is built for me, So royal-rich and wide"

Four courts I made, East, West and South and North, In each a squared lawn, wherefrom The golden gorge of dragons spouted forth A flood of fountain-foam. [6]

And round the cool green courts there ran a row Of cloisters, branch'd like mighty woods, Echoing all night to that sonorous flow Of spouted fountain-floods. [6]

And round the roofs a gilded gallery That lent broad verge to distant lands, Far as the wild swan wings, to where the sky Dipt down to sea and sands. [6]

From those four jets four currents in one swell Across the mountain stream'd below In misty folds, that floating as they fell Lit up a torrent-bow. [6]

And high on every peak a statue seem'd To hang on tiptoe, tossing up A cloud of incense of all odour steam'd From out a golden cup. [6]

So that she thought, "And who shall gaze upon My palace with unblinded eyes, While this great bow will waver in the sun, And that sweet incense rise?" [6]

For that sweet incense rose and never fail'd, And, while day sank or mounted higher, The light aerial gallery, golden-rail'd, Burnt like a fringe of fire. [6]

Likewise the deep-set windows, stain'd and traced, Would seem slow-flaming crimson fires From shadow'd grots of arches interlaced, And tipt with frost-like spires. [6]

Full of long-sounding corridors it was, That over-vaulted grateful gloom, [7]

Thro' which the livelong day my soul did pa.s.s, Well-pleased, from room to room.

Full of great rooms and small the palace stood, All various, each a perfect whole From living Nature, fit for every mood [8]

And change of my still soul.

For some were hung with arras green and blue, Showing a gaudy summer-morn, Where with puff'd cheek the belted hunter blew His wreathed bugle-horn. [9]

One seem'd all dark and red--a tract of sand, And some one pacing there alone, Who paced for ever in a glimmering land, Lit with a low large moon. [10]

One show'd an iron coast and angry waves.

You seem'd to hear them climb and fall And roar rock-thwarted under bellowing caves, Beneath the windy wall. [11]

And one, a full-fed river winding slow By herds upon an endless plain, The ragged rims of thunder brooding low, With shadow-streaks of rain. [11]