And leave us rulers of your blood
As noble till the latest day!
May children of our children say,
"She wrought her people lasting good;1

"Her court was pure; her life serene;

God gave her peace; her land reposed;
A thousand claims to reverence closed
In her as Mother, Wife and Queen;

"And statesmen at her council met

Who knew the seasons, when to take
Occasion by the hand, and make
The bounds of freedom wider yet?

"By shaping some august decree,
Which kept her throne unshaken still,
Broad-based upon her people's will,'
And compass'd by the inviolate sea."

March, 1851.

CLARIBEL

A MELODY

First published in 1830.

In 1830 and in 1842 edd. the poem is in one long stanza, with a full stop in 1830 ed. after line 8; 1842 ed. omits the full stop. The name Claribel" may have been suggested by Spenser (F. Q., ii., iv.. or Shakespeare, Tempest).

1

Where Claribel low-lieth

The breezes pause and die,

Letting the rose-leaves fall:

1 In 1851 the following stanza referring to the first Crystal Palace, opened 1st May, 1851, was inserted here:—

She brought a vast design to pass,
When Europe and the scatter'd ends

Of our fierce world were mixt as friends
And brethren, in her halls of glass.

2 1851. Broader yet.

3 With this cf. Shelley, Ode to Liberty:—

Athens diviner yet

Gleam'd with its crest of columns on the will
Of man,

But the solemn oak-tree sigheth,
Thick-leaved, ambrosial,
With an ancient melody
Of an inward agony,
Where Claribel low-lieth.

2

At eve the beetle boometh
Athwart the thicket lone :
At noon the wild bee1 hummeth
About the moss'd headstone :
At midnight the moon cometh,
And looketh down alone.
Her song the lintwhite swelleth,
The clear-voiced mavis dwelleth,
The callow throstle 2 lispeth,
The slumbrous wave outwelleth,
The babbling runnel crispeth,
The hollow grot replieth
Where Claribel low-lieth.

1 1830.

"hummeth".

LILIAN

First printed in 1830.

1

Airy, fairy Lilian,
Flitting, fairy Lilian,

When I ask her if she love me,
Claps her tiny hands above me,
Laughing all she can ;

She'll not tell me if she love me,

Cruel little Lilian.

"Wild" omitted, and "low" inserted with a hyphen before

2 1851 and all previous editions, "fledgling" for " callow".

1 1830. Through and through me.

With "crimson-threaded" cf. Cleveland's Sing-song on Clarinda's Wedding, "Her life those threads of scarlet dye"; but the original is Solomon's Song i. 3, "Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet".

1830. Silver treble-laughter.

ISABEL

First printed in 1830.

Lord Tennyson tells us (Life of Tennyson, i., 43) that in this poem his father more or less described his own mother, who was a "remarkable and saintly woman". In this as in the other poems elaborately painting women we may perhaps suspect the influence of Wordsworth's Triad, which should be compared with them.

1

Eyes not down-dropt nor over-bright, but fed
With the clear-pointed flame of chastity,
Clear, without heat, undying, tended by

Pure vestal thoughts in the translucent fane
Of her still spirit1; locks not wide-dispread,
Madonna-wise on either side her head;
Sweet lips whereon perpetually did reign
The summer calm of golden charity,
Were fixed shadows of thy fixed mood,
Revered Isabel, the crown and head,
The stately flower of female fortitude,
Of perfect wifehood and

2

pure lowlihead.2

The intuitive decision of a bright
And thorough-edged intellect to part

Error from crime; a prudence to withhold;
The laws of marriage3 character'd in gold
Upon the blanched tablets of her heart;
A love still burning upward, giving light
To read those laws; an accent very low
In blandishment, but a most silver flow

Of subtle-paced counsel in distress,
Right to the heart and brain, tho' 5 undescried,
Winning its way with extreme gentleness
Thro' all the outworks of suspicious pride;

1 With these lines may be compared Shelley, Dedication to the Revolt of Islam:—

And through thine eyes, e'en in thy soul, I see

A lamp of vestal fire burning eternally.

Lowlihead a favourite word with Chaucer and Spenser.

3

1830. Wifehood.

5 1830 and all before 1853. Through.

4

1830. Blenched.

A courage to endure and to obey;
A hate of gossip parlance, and of sway,
Crown'd Isabel, thro'1 all her placid life,
The queen of marriage, a most perfect wife.

3

The mellow'd reflex of a winter moon;
A clear stream flowing with a muddy one,
Till in its onward current it absorbs
With swifter movement and in purer light

The vexed eddies of its wayward brother:
A leaning and upbearing parasite,
Clothing the stem, which else had fallen quite,
With cluster'd flower-bells and ambrosial orbs

Of rich fruit-hunches leaning on each other—
Shadow forth thee :—the world hath not
another

(Though all her fairest forms are types of thee,
And thou of God in thy great charity)

Of such a finish'd chasten'd purity.

MARIANA

"Mariana in the moated grange."—Measure for Measure.

First printed in 1830.

This poem as we know from the motto prefixed to it was suggested by Shakespeare (Measure for Measure, iii., i, "at the moated grange resides this dejected Mariana," but the poet may have had in his mind the exquisite fragment of Sappho :

δέδυκε μὲν ἁ σελάννα
καὶ Πληϊάδες, μέσαι δὲ
νύκτες, παρὰ δ ̓ ἔρχετ ̓ ὥρα,

ἔγω δὲ μόνα κατεύδω.

"The moon has set and the Pleiades, and it is midnight: the hour too is going by, but I sleep alone." It was long popularly supposed that the scene of the poem was a farm near Somersby known as Baumber's farm, but Tennyson denied this and said it was a purely "imaginary house in the fen," and that he "never so much as dreamed of Baumber's farm". See Life, i., 28.

With blackest moss the flower-plots
Were thickly crusted, one and all:
The rusted nails fell from the knots
That held the peach 2 to the garden-wall.3

1 1830. Through.

21863. Pear.

3 1872. Gable-wall.