The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson Part 25

Droops both his wings, regarding thee, And so would languish evermore, Serene, imperial Eleanore.

8

But when I see thee roam, with tresses unconfined, While the amorous, odorous wind Breathes low between the sunset and the moon; Or, in a shadowy saloon, On silken cushions half reclined; I watch thy grace; and in its place My heart a charmed slumber keeps, [12]

While I muse upon thy face; And a languid fire creeps Thro' my veins to all my frame, Dissolvingly and slowly: soon From thy rose-red lips MY name Floweth; and then, as in a swoon, [13]

With dinning sound my ears are rife, My tremulous tongue faltereth, I lose my colour, I lose my breath, I drink the cup of a costly death, Brimm'd with delirious draughts of warmest life.

I die with my delight, before I hear what I would hear from thee; Yet tell my name again to me, I _would_ [14] be dying evermore, So dying ever, Eleanore.

[Footnote 1: With the picture of Eleanore may be compared the description which Ibycus gives of Euryalus. See Bergk's 'Anthologia Lyrica' (Ibycus), p. 396.]

[Footnote 2: With yellow banded bees 'cf'. Keats's "yellow girted bees,"

'Endymion', i. With this may be compared Pindar's beautiful picture of lamus, who was also fed on honey, 'Olympian', vi., 50-80.]

[Footnote 3: 1833 and 1842. Through.]

[Footnote 4: Till 1857. Island.]

[Footnote 5: 1833. Meer.]

[Footnote 6: 1842 and 1843. Though.]

[Footnote 7: Ambrosial, the Greek sense of [Greek: ambrosios], divine.]

[Footnote 8: 1833 to 1851. Though.]

[Footnote 9: 1833. Did roof noonday with doubt and fear.]

[Footnote 10: 1833.

As waves that from the outer deep Roll into a quiet cove, There fall away, and lying still, Having glorious dreams in sleep, Shadow forth the banks at will.]

[Footnote 11: 'Cf.' Horace, 'Odes', iii., xxvii., 66-8:

Aderat querenti Perfidum ridens Venus, et _remisso_ Filius _arcu_.]

[Footnote 12: 1833.

I gaze on thee the cloudless noon Of mortal beauty.]

[Footnote 13: 1833. Then I faint, I swoon. The latter part of the eighth stanza is little more than an adaptation of Sappho's famous Ode, filtered perhaps through the version of Catullus.]

[Footnote 14: It is curious that a poet so scrupulous as Tennyson should have retained to the last the italics.]

THE MILLER'S DAUGHTER

First published in 1833. It was greatly altered when republished in 1842, and in some respects, so Fitzgerald thought, not for the better.

No alterations of much importance were made in it after 1842. The characters as well as the scenery were, it seems, purely imaginary.

Tennyson said that if he thought of any mill it was that of Trumpington, near Cambridge, which bears a general resemblance to the picture here given.

In the first edition the poem opened with the following stanza, which the 'Quarterly' ridiculed, and which was afterwards excised. Its omission is surely not to be regretted, whatever Fitzgerald may have thought.

I met in all the close green ways, While walking with my line and rod, The wealthy miller's mealy face, Like the moon in an ivy-tod.

He looked so jolly and so good-- While fishing in the milldam-water, I laughed to see him as he stood, And dreamt not of the miller's daughter.

I see the wealthy miller yet, His double chin, his portly size, And who that knew him could forget The busy wrinkles round his eyes?

The slow wise smile that, round about His dusty forehead drily curl'd, Seem'd half-within and half-without, And full of dealings with the world?

In yonder chair I see him sit, Three fingers round the old silver cup-- I see his gray eyes twinkle yet At his own jest--gray eyes lit up With summer lightnings of a soul So full of summer warmth, so glad, So healthy, sound, and clear and whole, His memory scarce can make me [1] sad.

Yet fill my gla.s.s: give me one kiss: My own sweet [2] Alice, we must die.

There's somewhat in this world amiss Shall be unriddled by and by.

There's somewhat flows to us in life, But more is taken quite away.

Pray, Alice, pray, my darling wife, [3]

That we may die the self-same day.

Have I not found a happy earth?

I least should breathe a thought of pain.

Would G.o.d renew me from my birth I'd almost live my life again.

So sweet it seems with thee to walk, And once again to woo thee mine-- It seems in after-dinner talk Across the walnuts and the wine--[4]

To be the long and listless boy Late-left an orphan of the squire, Where this old mansion mounted high Looks down upon the village spire: [5]

For even here, [6] where I and you Have lived and loved alone so long, Each morn my sleep was broken thro'

By some wild skylark's matin song.

And oft I heard the tender dove In firry woodlands making moan; [7]

But ere I saw your eyes, my love, I had no motion of my own.

For scarce my life with fancy play'd Before I dream'd that pleasant dream-- Still hither thither idly sway'd Like those long mosses [8] in the stream.

Or from the bridge I lean'd to hear The milldam rushing down with noise, And see the minnows everywhere In crystal eddies glance and poise, The tall flag-flowers when [9] they sprung Below the range of stepping-stones, Or those three chestnuts near, that hung In ma.s.ses thick with milky cones. [10]

But, Alice, what an hour was that, When after roving in the woods ('Twas April then), I came and sat Below the chestnuts, when their buds Were glistening to the breezy blue; And on the slope, an absent fool, I cast me down, nor thought of you, But angled in the higher pool. [11]

A love-song I had somewhere read, An echo from a measured strain, Beat time to nothing in my head From some odd corner of the brain.

It haunted me, the morning long, With weary sameness in the rhymes, The phantom of a silent song, That went and came a thousand times.

Then leapt a trout. In lazy mood I watch'd the little circles die; They past into the level flood, And there a vision caught my eye; The reflex of a beauteous form, A glowing arm, a gleaming neck, As when a sunbeam wavers warm Within the dark and dimpled beck. [12]