The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson Part 73

Live long, ere from thy topmost head The thick-set hazel dies; Long, ere the hateful crow shall tread The corners of thine eyes: Live long, nor feel in head or chest Our changeful equinoxes, Till mellow Death, like some late guest, Shall call thee from the boxes.

But when he calls, and thou shalt cease To pace the gritted floor, And, laying down an unctuous lease Of life, shalt earn no more; No carved cross-bones, the types of Death, Shall show thee past to Heaven: But carved cross-pipes, and, underneath, A pint-pot neatly graven.

[Footnote 1: 1842 and all previous to 1853. To full and kindly.]

[Footnote 2: All previous to 1853:--

Like Hezekiah's, backward runs The shadow of my days.]

[Footnote 3: All previous to 1853. Though.]

[Footnote 4: The expression is Shakespeare's, 'Twelfth Night', v., i.,

"and thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges".]

[Footnote 5: 1842 to 1843. With motion less or greater.]

TO----

AFTER READING A LIFE AND LETTERS

Originally published in the 'Examiner' for 24th March, 1849; then in the sixth edition of the poems, 1850, with the second part of the t.i.tle and the alterations noted. When reprinted in 1851 one more slight alteration was made. It has not been altered since. The work referred to was Moncton Milne's (afterwards Lord Houghton) 'Letters and Literary Remains of Keats' published in 1848, and the person to whom the poem may have been addressed was Tennyson's brother Charles, afterwards Charles Tennyson Turner, to the facts of whose life and to whose character it would exactly apply. See Napier,'Homes and Haunts of Tennyson', 48-50.

But Sir Franklin Lus.h.i.+ngton tells me that it was most probably addressed to some imaginary person, as neither he nor such of Tennyson's surviving friends as he kindly consulted for me are able to identify the person.

You might have won the Poet's name If such be worth the winning now, And gain'd a laurel for your brow Of sounder leaf than I can claim; But you have made the wiser choice, A life that moves to gracious ends Thro' troops of unrecording friends, A deedful life, a silent voice:

And you have miss'd the irreverent doom Of those that wear the Poet's crown: Hereafter, neither knave nor clown Shall hold their orgies at your tomb.

For now the Poet cannot die Nor leave his music as of old, But round him ere he scarce be cold Begins the scandal and the cry:

"Proclaim the faults he would not show: Break lock and seal: betray the trust: Keep nothing sacred: 'tis but just The many-headed beast should know".

Ah, shameless! for he did but sing.

A song that pleased us from its worth; No public life was his on earth, No blazon'd statesman he, nor king.

He gave the people of his best: His worst he kept, his best he gave.

My Shakespeare's curse on [1] clown and knave Who will not let his ashes rest!

Who make it seem more sweet [2] to be The little life of bank and brier, The bird that pipes his lone desire And dies unheard within his tree,

Than he that warbles long and loud And drops at Glory's temple-gates, For whom the carrion vulture waits To tear his heart before the crowd!

[Footnote 1: In Examiner and in 1850. My curse upon the.]

[Footnote 2: In Examiner. Sweeter seem. For the sentiment 'cf'. Goethe:--

Ich singe, wie der Vogel singt Der in den Zweigen wohnet; Das Lied das aus dem Seele dringt Ist Lohn, der reichlich lohnet.

--'Der Sanger'.]

TO E. L.,

ON HIS TRAVELS IN GREECE

This was first printed in 1853. It has not been altered since. The poem was addressed to Edward Lear, the landscape painter, and refers to his travels.

Illyrian woodlands, echoing falls Of water, sheets of summer gla.s.s, The long divine Peneian pa.s.s, [1]

The vast Akrokeraunian walls, [2]

Tomohrit, [3] Athos, all things fair, With such a pencil, such a pen, You shadow forth to distant men, I read and felt that I was there:

And trust me, while I turn'd the page, And track'd you still on cla.s.sic ground, I grew in gladness till I found My spirits in the golden age.

For me the torrent ever pour'd And glisten'd--here and there alone The broad-limb'd G.o.ds at random thrown By fountain-urns;-and Naiads oar'd

A glimmering shoulder under gloom Of cavern pillars; on the swell The silver lily heaved and fell; And many a slope was rich in bloom

From him that on the mountain lea By dancing rivulets fed his flocks, To him who sat upon the rocks, And fluted to the morning sea.

[Footnote 1: 'Cf'. Lear's description of Tempe:

"It is not a vale, it is a narrow pa.s.s, and although extremely beautiful on account of the precipitous rocks on each side, the Peneus flowing deep in the midst between the richest overhanging plane woods, still its character is distinctly that of a ravine."

--'Journal', 409.]

[Footnote 2: The Akrokeraunian walls: the promontory now called Glossa.]

[Footnote 3: Tomohr, Tomorit, or Tomohritt is a lofty mountain in Albania not far from Elba.s.san. Lear's account of it is very graphic:

"That calm blue plain with Tomohr in the midst like an azure island in a boundless sea haunts my mind's eye and varies the present with the past".]