And draw them all along, and flow
To join the brimming river,

For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

I steal by lawns and grassy plots,
I slide by hazel covers;

I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.
I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows;
I make the netted sunbeam dance
Against my sandy shallows.

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I murmur under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses;

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I linger by my shingly bars ;
I loiter round my cresses;

And out again I curve and flow
To join the brimming river,

For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

327

LORD TENNYSON.

As thro' the land at eve we went,
And pluck'd the ripen'd ears,

We fell out, my wife and I,
We fell out, I know not why,
And kiss'd again with tears.
And blessings on the falling out
That all the more endears,

When we fall out with those we love

And kiss again with tears!

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For when we came where lies the child
We lost in other years,

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There above the little grave,
O there above the little grave,
We kiss'd again with tears.

LORD TENNYSON.

328

The splendour falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story :
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going!
O sweet and far from cliff and scar

The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying: Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O love, they die in yon rich sky,
They faint on hill or field or river :
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow for ever and for ever.

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Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.
LORD TENNYSON.

329

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy Autumn-fields, And thinking of the days that are no more.

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, That brings our friends up from the underworld, Sad as the last which reddens over one That sinks with all we love below the verge ; So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds

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To dying ears, when unto dying eyes

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The casement slowly grows a glimmering square ; So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

Dear as remember'd kisses after death, And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd On lips that are for others; deep as love, Deep as first love, and wild with all regret ; O Death in Life, the days that are no more. LORD TENNYSON.

330

O Swallow, Swallow, flying, flying South, Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves, And tell her, tell her what I tell to thee.

O tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest each, That bright and fierce and fickle is the South, And dark and true and tender is the North.

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O Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow, and light Upon her lattice, I would pipe and trill, And cheep and twitter twenty million loves.

O were I thou that she might take me in, And lay me on her bosom, and her heart Would rock the snowy cradle till I died.

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Why lingereth she to clothe her heart with love, Delaying as the tender ash delays To clothe herself, when all the woods are green ?

O tell her, Swallow, that thy brood is flown : Say to her, I do but wanton in the South, But in the North long since my nest is made.

O tell her, brief is life but love is long, And brief the sun of summer in the North, And brief the moon of beauty in the South.

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O Swallow, flying from the golden woods, Fly to her, and pipe and woo her, and make her mine, And tell her, tell her, that I follow thee. LORD TENNYSON.

331

Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white ; Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk; Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font: The fire-fly wakens: waken thou with me.

Now droops the milkwhite peacock like a ghost, And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.

Now lies the Earth all Danae to the stars, And all thy heart lies open unto me.

Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves
A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.

Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,
And slips into the bosom of the lake :
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip
Into my bosom and be lost in me.

LORD TENNYSON.

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332

Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height:
What pleasure lives in height (the Shepherd sang),
In height and cold, the splendour of the hills?
But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease
To glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine,
To sit a star upon the sparkling spire;
And come, for Love is of the valley, come,
For Love is of the valley, come thou down
And find him; by the happy threshold, he,
Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize,
Or red with spirted purple of the vats,
Or foxlike in the vine; nor cares to walk
With Death and Morning on the silver horns,
Nor wilt thou snare him in the white ravine,
Nor find him dropt upon the firths of ice,
That huddling slant in furrow-cloven falls
To roll the torrent out of dusky doors:

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But follow; let the torrent dance thee down
To find him in the valley; let the wild
Lean-headed Eagles yelp alone, and leave
The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill
Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke,
That like a broken purpose waste in air :
So waste not thou; but come; for all the vales
Await thee; azure pillars of the hearth
Arise to thee; the children call, and I
Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound,
Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet;
Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn,
The moan of doves in immemorial elms,
And murmuring of innumerable bees.

LORD TENNYSON.

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333

FROM IN MEMORIAM'

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,

Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go ;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,

For those that here we see no more ;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,

And ancient forms of party strife ;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

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