The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson Part 28

[Footnote 27: 1833. So warm and light.]

[Footnote 28: 1833. I would not be.]

[Footnote 29: 1833.

For o'er each letter broods and dwells, (Like light from running waters thrown On flowery swaths) the blissful flame Of his sweet eyes, that, day and night, With pulses thrilling thro' his frame Do inly tremble, starry bright.]

[Footnote 30: Thus in 1833:--

How I waste language--yet in truth You must blame love, whose early rage Made me a rhymster in my youth, And over-garrulous in age.]

[Footnote 31: 1833. Sing me.]

[Footnote 32: 1833.

When in the breezy limewood-shade.

I found the blue forget-me-not.]

[Footnote 33: In 1833 the following song took the place of the song in the text:--

All yesternight you met me not, My ladylove, forget me not.

When I am gone, regret me not.

But, here or there, forget me not.

With your arched eyebrow threat me not, And tremulous eyes, like April skies, That seem to say, "forget me not,"

I pray you, love, forget me not.

In idle sorrow set me not; Regret me not; forget me not; Oh! leave me not: oh, let me not Wear quite away;--forget me not.

With roguish laughter fret me not.

From dewy eyes, like April skies, That ever _look_, "forget me not".

Blue as the blue forget-me-not.]

[Footnote 34: These two stanzas were added in 1842.]

[Footnote 35: 1833.

I've half a mind to walk, my love, To the old mill across the wolds For look! the sunset from above,]

FATIMA

First printed in 1833.

The 1833 edition has no t.i.tle but this quotation from Sappho prefixed:--

'Phainetai moi kaenos isos theoisin Emmen anaer'--SAPPHO.

The t.i.tle was prefixed in 1842; it is a name taken from 'The Arabian Nights' or from the Moallakat. The poem was evidently inspired by Sappho's great ode. 'Cf.' also Fragment I. of Ibycus. In the intensity of the pa.s.sion it stands alone among Tennyson's poems.

O Love, Love, Love! O withering might!

O sun, that from [1] thy noonday height Shudderest when I strain my sight, Throbbing thro' all thy heat and light, Lo, falling from my constant mind, Lo, parch'd and wither'd, deaf and blind, I whirl like leaves in roaring wind.

Last night I wasted hateful hours Below the city's eastern towers: I thirsted for the brooks, the showers: I roll'd among the tender flowers: I crush'd them on my breast, my mouth: I look'd athwart the burning drouth Of that long desert to the south. [2]

Last night, when some one spoke his name, [3]

From my swift blood that went and came A thousand little shafts of flame.

Were shiver'd in my narrow frame O Love, O fire! once he drew With one long kiss, my whole soul thro'

My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew. [4]

Before he mounts the hill, I know He cometh quickly: from below Sweet gales, as from deep gardens, blow Before him, striking on my brow.

In my dry brain my spirit soon, Down-deepening from swoon to swoon, Faints like a dazzled morning moon.

The wind sounds like a silver wire, And from beyond the noon a fire Is pour'd upon the hills, and nigher The skies stoop down in their desire; And, isled in sudden seas of light, My heart, pierced thro' with fierce delight, Bursts into blossom in his sight.

My whole soul waiting silently, All naked in a sultry sky, Droops blinded with his shining eye: I 'will' possess him or will die.

I will grow round him in his place, Grow, live, die looking on his face, Die, dying clasp'd in his embrace.

[Footnote 1: 1833. At.]

[Footnote 2: This stanza was added in 1842.]

[Footnote 3: 'Cf.' Byron, 'Occasional Pieces':--

They name thee before me A knell to mine ear, A shudder comes o'er me, Why wert thou so dear?]

[Footnote 4: 'Cf,' Achilles Tatius, 'c.l.i.tophon and Leucippe', bk. i., I:

[Greek: 'aede (psyche) tarachtheisa tps philaemati palletai, ei de mae tois splagchnois in dedemenae aekolouthaesen an elkaetheisa ano tois philaemasin.']

(Her soul, distracted by the kiss, throbs, and had it not been close bound by the flesh would have followed, drawn upward by the kisses.)]

?NONE

First published in 1833, On being republished in 1842 this poem was practically rewritten, the alterations and additions so transforming the poem as to make it almost a new work. I have therefore printed a complete transcript of the edition of 1833, which the reader can compare. The final text is, with the exception of one alteration which will be noticed, precisely that of 1842, so there is no trouble with variants. '?none' is the first of Tennyson's fine cla.s.sical studies. The poem is modelled partly on the Alexandrian Idyll, such an Idyll for instance as the second Idyll of Theocritus or the 'Megara' or 'Europa'

of Moschus, and partly perhaps on the narratives in the 'Metamorphoses'

of Ovid, to which the opening bears a typical resemblance. It is possible that the poem may have been suggested by Beattie's 'Judgment of Paris' which tells the same story, and tells it on the same lines on which it is told here, though it is not placed in the mouth of ?none.