The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson Part 87

My falconhearted Rosalind, Fullsailed before a vigorous wind, Is one of those who cannot weep For others' woes, but overleap All the petty shocks and fears That trouble life in early years, With a flash of frolic scorn And keen delight, that never falls Away from freshness, self-upborne With such gladness, as, whenever The freshflushing springtime calls To the flooding waters cool, Young fishes, on an April morn, Up and down a rapid river, Leap the little waterfalls That sing into the pebbled pool.

My happy falcon, Rosalind; Hath daring fancies of her own, Fresh as the dawn before the day, Fresh as the early seasmell blown Through vineyards from an inland bay.

My Rosalind, my Rosalind, Because no shadow on you falls Think you hearts are tennis b.a.l.l.s To play with, wanton Rosalind?]

SONG

Who can say Why To-day To-morrow will be yesterday?

Who can tell Why to smell The violet, recalls the dewy prime Of youth and buried time?

The cause is nowhere found in rhyme.

KATE

Reprinted without alteration among the 'Juvenilia' in 1895.

I know her by her angry air, Her brightblack eyes, her brightblack hair, Her rapid laughters wild and shrill, As laughter of the woodp.e.c.k.e.r From the bosom of a hill.

'Tis Kate--she sayeth what she will; For Kate hath an unbridled tongue, Clear as the tw.a.n.ging of a harp.

Her heart is like a throbbing star.

Kate hath a spirit ever strung Like a new bow, and bright and sharp As edges of the scymetar.

Whence shall she take a fitting mate?

For Kate no common love will feel; My woman-soldier, gallant Kate, As pure and true as blades of steel.

Kate saith "the world is void of might".

Kate saith "the men are gilded flies".

Kate snaps her fingers at my vows; Kate will not hear of lover's sighs.

I would I were an armed knight, Far famed for wellwon enterprise, And wearing on my swarthy brows The garland of new-wreathed emprise: For in a moment I would pierce The blackest files of clanging fight, And strongly strike to left and right, In dreaming of my lady's eyes.

Oh! Kate loves well the bold and fierce; But none are bold enough for Kate, She cannot find a fitting mate.

SONNET

Written, on hearing of the outbreak of the Polish Insurrection.

Blow ye the trumpet, gather from afar The hosts to battle: be not bought and sold.

Arise, brave Poles, the boldest of the bold; Break through your iron shackles--fling them far.

O for those days of Piast, ere the Czar Grew to this strength among his deserts cold; When even to Moscow's cupolas were rolled The growing murmurs of the Polish war!

Now must your n.o.ble anger blaze out more Than when from Sobieski, clan by clan, The Moslem myriads fell, and fled before-- Than when Zamoysky smote the Tartar Khan, Than earlier, when on the Baltic sh.o.r.e Boleslas drove the Pomeranian.

POLAND

Reprinted without alteration in 1872, except the removal of italics in "now" among the 'Early Sonnets'.

How long, O G.o.d, shall men be ridden down, And trampled under by the last and least Of men? The heart of Poland hath not ceased To quiver, tho' her sacred blood doth drown The fields; and out of every smouldering town Cries to Thee, lest brute Power be increased, Till that o'ergrown Barbarian in the East Transgress his ample bound to some new crown:-- Cries to thee, "Lord, how long shall these things be?

How long this icyhearted Muscovite Oppress the region?" Us, O Just and Good, Forgive, who smiled when she was torn in three; Us, who stand now, when we should aid the right-- A matter to be wept with tears of blood!

TO--

Reprinted without alteration as first of the 'Early Sonnets' in 1872; subsequently in the twelfth line "That tho'" was subst.i.tuted for "Altho'," and the last line was altered to--

"And either lived in either's heart and speech,"

and "hath" was not italicised.

As when with downcast eyes we muse and brood, And ebb into a former life, or seem To lapse far back in some confused dream To states of mystical similitude; If one but speaks or hems or stirs his chair, Ever the wonder waxeth more and more, So that we say, "All this hath been before, All this _hath_ been, I know not when or where".

So, friend, when first I look'd upon your face, Our thought gave answer each to each, so true-- Opposed mirrors each reflecting each-- Altho' I knew not in what time or place, Methought that I had often met with you, And each had lived in the other's mind and speech.

O DARLING ROOM

I

O darling room, my heart's delight, Dear room, the apple of my sight, With thy two couches soft and white, There is no room so exquisite, No little room so warm and bright, Wherein to read, wherein to write.

II

For I the Nonnenwerth have seen, And Oberwinter's vineyards green, Musical Lurlei; and between The hills to Bingen have I been, Bingen in Darmstadt, where the Rhene Curves towards Mentz, a woody scene.

III