The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson Part 44

MARGARET

First printed in 1833.

Another of Tennyson's delicious fancy portraits, the twin sister to Adeline.

1

O sweet pale Margaret, O rare pale Margaret, What lit your eyes with tearful power, Like moonlight on a falling shower?

Who lent you, love, your mortal dower Of pensive thought and aspect pale, Your melancholy sweet and frail As perfume of the cuckoo-flower?

From the westward-winding flood, From the evening-lighted wood, From all things outward you have won A tearful grace, as tho' [1] you stood Between the rainbow and the sun.

The very smile before you speak, That dimples your transparent cheek, Encircles all the heart, and feedeth The senses with a still delight Of dainty sorrow without sound, Like the tender amber round, Which the moon about her spreadeth, Moving thro' a fleecy night.

2

You love, remaining peacefully, To hear the murmur of the strife, But enter not the toil of life.

Your spirit is the calmed sea, Laid by the tumult of the fight.

You are the evening star, alway Remaining betwixt dark and bright: Lull'd echoes of laborious day Come to you, gleams of mellow light Float by you on the verge of night.

3

What can it matter, Margaret, What songs below the waning stars The lion-heart, Plantagenet, [2]

Sang looking thro' his prison bars?

Exquisite Margaret, who can tell The last wild thought of Chatelet, [3]

Just ere the falling axe did part The burning brain from the true heart, Even in her sight he loved so well?

4

A fairy shield your Genius made And gave you on your natal day.

Your sorrow, only sorrow's shade, Keeps real sorrow far away.

You move not in such solitudes, You are not less divine, But more human in your moods, Than your twin-sister, Adeline.

Your hair is darker, and your eyes Touch'd with a somewhat darker hue, And less aerially blue, But ever trembling thro' the dew [4]

Of dainty-woeful sympathies.

5

O sweet pale Margaret, O rare pale Margaret, Come down, come down, and hear me speak: Tie up the ringlets on your cheek: The sun is just about to set.

The arching lines are tall and shady, And faint, rainy lights are seen, Moving in the leavy beech.

Rise from the feast of sorrow, lady, Where all day long you sit between Joy and woe, and whisper each.

Or only look across the lawn, Look out below your bower-eaves, Look down, and let your blue eyes dawn Upon me thro' the jasmine-leaves. [5]

[Footnote 1: All editions except 1833 and 1853. Though.]

[Footnote 2: 1833. Lion-souled Plantagenet. For songs supposed to have been composed by Richard I. during the time of his captivity see Sismondi, 'Litterature du Midi de l'Europe', vol. i., p. 149, and 'La Tour Tenebreuse' (1705), which contains a poem said to have been written by Richard and Blondel in mixed Romance and Provencal, and a love-song in Norman French, which have frequently been reprinted. See, too, Barney's 'Hist. of Music', vol. ii., p. 238, and Walpole's 'Royal and n.o.ble Authors', sub.-t.i.t. "Richard I.," and the fourth volume of Reynouard's 'Choix des Poesies des Troubadours'. All these poems are probably spurious.]

[Footnote 3: Chatelet was a poet-squire in the suite of the Marshal Damville, who was executed for a supposed intrigue with Mary Queen of Scots. See Tytler, 'History of Scotland', vi., p. 319, and Mr.

Swinburne's tragedy.]

[Footnote 4: 1833.

And more aerially blue, And ever trembling thro' the dew.]

[Footnote 5: 1833. Jasmin-leaves.]

THE BLACKBIRD.

Not in 1833.

This is another poem placed among the poems of 1833, but not printed till 1842.

O blackbird! sing me something well: While all the neighbours shoot thee round, I keep smooth plats of fruitful ground, Where thou may'st warble, eat and dwell.

The espaliers and the standards all Are thine; the range of lawn and park: The unnetted black-hearts ripen dark, All thine, against the garden wall.

Yet, tho' I spared thee all the spring, [1]

Thy sole delight is, sitting still, With that gold dagger of thy bill To fret the summer jenneting. [2]

A golden bill! the silver tongue, Cold February loved, is dry: Plenty corrupts the melody That made thee famous once, when young:

And in the sultry garden-squares, [3]

Now thy flute-notes are changed to coa.r.s.e, I hear thee not at all, [4] or hoa.r.s.e As when a hawker hawks his wares.

Take warning! he that will not sing While yon sun prospers in the blue, Shall sing for want, ere leaves are new, Caught in the frozen palms of Spring.

[Footnote 1: 1842. Yet, though I spared thee kith and kin. And so till 1853, when it was altered to the present reading.]

[Footnote 2: 1842 to 1851. Jennetin, altered in 1853 to present reading.]

[Footnote 3: 1842. I better brook the drawling stares. Altered, 1843.]