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What can it matter, Margaret,

What songs below the waning stars
The lion-heart, Plantagenet,1

Sang looking thro' his prison bars?
Exquisite Margaret, who can tell
The last wild thought of Chatelet,2
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 3

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.

11833- Lion-souled Plantagenet. For songs supposed to have been composed by Richard I. during the time of his captivity see Sismondi, Litttrature an Midi de l'Europe, vol. i., p. 149, and La Tour Ténébreusc (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, Burney's Hist, of Music, vol. ii., p. 238, and Walpole's Royal and Noble Authors, sub.-tit. "Richard I.," and the fourth volume of Reynouard's Choix des Potsies des Troubadours. All these poems are probably spurious.

2 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.

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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.1

THE BLACKBIRD.

Not in 1833.

This is another poem placed among the poems of 1833, but not printed till 1843.

O Blackbird! sing me something well:
While all the neighbours shoot thee round,
I keep smooth plats of fruitful ground,
Where thou may'st marble, 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,2
Thy sole delight is, sitting still,
With that gold dagger of thy bill
To fret the summer jenneting.3

A golden bill! the silver tongue,
Cold February loved, is dry:
Plenty corrupts the melody

That made thee famous once, when young:

11833. Jasmin-leaves.

21842. Yet, though I spared thee kith and kin.

And so till 1853, when it was altered to the present reading.

31843 to 1851. Jennetin, altered in 1853 to present reading.

And in the sultry garden-squares,1

Now thy flute-notes are changed to coarse,
I hear thee not at all,2 or hoarse
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.

THE DEATH OF THE OLD YEAR

First printed in 1833.

Only one alteration has been made in this poem, in line 41, where in 1843 "one was altered to "twelve ".

Full knee-deep lies the winter snow,

And the winter winds are wearily sighing:
Toll ye the church-bell sad and slow,

And tread softly and speak low,

For the old year lies a-dying.

Old year, you must not die;
You came to us so readily,
You lived with us so steadily,
Old year, you shall not die.

He lieth still: he doth not move :
He will not see the dawn of day.

He hath no other life above.

He gave me a friend, and a true, true-love,
And the New-year will take 'em away.

Old year, you must not go;

So long as you have been with us,
Such joy as you have seen with us,

Old year, you shall not go.

11843. I better brook the drawling stares. Altered, 1843.

21842. Not bearing thee at all. Altered, 1843.

He froth'd his bumpers to the brim ;
A jollier year we shall not see.
But tho' his eyes are waxing dim,
And tho' his foes speak ill of him,
He was a friend to me.

Old year, you shall not die;
We did so laugh and cry with you,
I've half a mind to die with you,
Old year, if you must die.

He was full of joke and jest,
But all his merry quips are o'er.
To see him die, across the waste

His son and heir doth ride post-haste,
But he'll be dead before.

Every one for his own.

The night is starry and cold, my friend,

And the New-year blithe and bold, my friend,
Comes up to take his own.

How hard he breathes! over the snow
I heard just now the crowing cock.
The shadows flicker to and fro:

The cricket chirps: the light burns low:
'Tis nearly twelve 1 o'clock.

Shake hands, before you die.
Old year, we'll dearly rue for
What is it we can do for you?
Speak out before you die.

His face is growing sharp and thin.
Alack! our friend is gone.

Close up his

eyes: tie up

his chin:

you:

Step from the corpse, and let him in

That standeth there alone,

And waiteth at the door.

There's a new foot on the floor, my

friend,

And a new face at the door, my friend,
A new face at the door.

11833. One.

TO J. S.

First published in 1833.

This beautiful poem was addressed to James Spedding on the death of his brother Edward.

The wind, that beats the mountain, blows
More softly round the open wold,1
And gently comes the world to those
That are cast in gentle mould.

And me this knowledge bolder made,
Or else I had not dared to flow 2
In these words toward you, and invade
Even with a verse your holy woe.

'Tis strange that those we lean on most,
Those in whose laps our limbs are nursed,
Fall into shadow, soonest lost :

Those we love first are taken first.

God gives us love. Something to love
He lends us; but, when love is grown
To ripeness, that on which it throve
Falls off, and love is left alone.

This is the curse of time. Alas!

In grief I am not all unlearn'd;

Once thro' mine own doors Death did pass; 3
One went, who never hath return'd.

He will not smile—nor speak to me
Once more. Two years his chair is seen
Empty before us. That was he

Without whose life I had not been.

1 Possibly suggested by Tasso, Gents., lib. xx.. St. Iviii. :—

Qual vento a cui s" oppone o selva o colic

Doppia nella cpntesa i soffi e 1' ira;

Ma con fiato piu placido e più molle
Per le compagne libere poi spira.

2 1833. My heart this knowledge bolder made,
Or else it had not dared to flow.

Altered in 1843.

3 Tennyson's father died in March, 1831.

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