Then, in the boyhood of the year,
Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere
Rode thro' the coverts of the deer,
With blissful treble ringing clear.

She seemed a part of joyous Spring:
A gown of grass-green silk she wore,
Buckled with golden clasps before;
A light-green tuft of plumes she bore
Closed in a golden ring.

Now on some twisted ivy-net,
Now by some tinkling rivulet,
In mosses mixt1 with violet

Her cream-white mule his pastern set:

And fleeter now 2 she skimm'd the plains
Than she whose elfin prancer springs
By night to eery warblings,

When all the glimmering moorland rings
With jingling bridle-reins.

As she fled fast thro' sun and shade,
The happy winds upon her play'd,
Blowing the ringlet from the braid:
She look'd so lovely, as she sway'd

The rein with dainty finger-tips,
A man had given all other bliss,
And all his worldly worth for this,
To waste his whole heart in one kiss
Upon her perfect lips.

A FAREWELL

First published in 1842. Not altered since 1843.

This poem was dedicated to the brook at Somersby described in the Ode to Memory and referred to so often in In Memoriam. Possibly it may have been written in 1837 when the Tennysons left Somersby. Cf. In Memoriam, sect. ci.

Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea,

Thy tribute wave deliver :

No more by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.

1 All editions up to and including 1850. On mosses thick.
1843 to 1851. And now more fleet.

Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea,

A rivulet then a river:

No where by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.

But here will sigh thine alder tree,
And here thine aspen shiver;
And here by thee will hum the bee
For ever and for ever.

A thousand suns1 will stream on thee,
A thousand moons will quiver;
But not by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.

THE BEGGAR MAID

First published in 1843, not altered since.

Suggested probably by the fine ballad in Percy's Reliques, first series, book ii., ballad vi.

Her arms across her breast she laid;

She was more fair than words can say:
Bare-footed came the beggar maid
Before the king Cophetua.

In robe and crown the king stept down,
To meet and greet her on her way;
"It is no wonder," said the lords,

"She is more beautiful than day".

As shines the moon in clouded skies,
She in her poor attire was seen:
One praised her ancles, one her eyes,
One her dark hair and lovesome mien :
So sweet a face, such angel grace,

In all that land had never been:

Cophetua sware a royal oath :

"This beggar maid shall be my queen!"

11843. A hundred suns.

THE VISION OF SIN

First published in 1842. No alteration made in it after 1851, except in the insertion of a couplet afterwards omitted.

This remarkable poem may be regarded as a sort of companion poem to The Palace of Art; the one traces the effect of callous indulgence in mere intellectual and æsthetic pleasures, the other of profligate indulgence in the grosser forms of sensual enjoyment. At first all is ecstasy and intoxication, then comes satiety, and all that satiety brings in its train, cynicism, pessimism, the drying up of the very springs of life. The body chilled, jaded and ruined, the cup of pleasure drained to the dregs, the senses exhausted of their power to enjoy, the spirit of its wish to aspire, nothing left but loathing, craving and rottenness. See Spedding in Edinburgh Review for April, 1843. The poem concludes by leaving as an answer to the awful question, can there be final salvation for the poor wretch?" a reply undecipherable by man, and dawn breaking in angry splendour. The best commentary on the poem would be Byron's lyric: 'There's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away," and Don Juan; biography and daily life are indeed full of comments on the truth of this fine allegory.

1

I had a vision when the night was late:

A youth came riding toward a palace-gate.

He rode a horse with wings, that would have flown,1
But that his heavy rider kept him down.
And from the palace came a child of sin,
And took him by the curls, and led him in,
Where sat a company with heated eyes,
Expecting when a fountain should arise:
A sleepy light upon their brows and lips—
As when the sun, a crescent of eclipse,

Dreams over lake and lawn, and isles and capes—

Suffused them, sitting, lying, languid shapes,

By heaps of gourds, and skins of wine, and piles of grapes.

2

Then methought I heard a mellow sound,

Gathering up from all the lower ground; 2

1A reference to the famous passage in the Phædrus where Plato compares the

soul to a chariot drawn by the two-winged steeds.

2 Imitated apparently from the dance in Shelley's Triumph of Life :—

The wild dance maddens in the van; and those

Mix with each other in tempestuous measure
To savage music, wilder as it grows.

They, tortur'd by their agonising pleasure,
Convuls'd, and on the rapid whirlwinds spun
Maidens and youths fling their wild arms in air.
As their feet twinkle, etc.

Narrowing in to where they sat assembled
Low voluptuous music winding trembled,
Wov'n in circles: they that heard it sigh'd,
Panted hand in hand with faces pale,
Swung themselves, and in low tones replied;
Till the fountain spouted, showering wide
Sleet of diamond-drift and pearly hail;
Then the music touch'd the gates and died;
Rose again from where it seem'd to fail,
Storm'd in orbs of song, a growing gale;

Till thronging in and in, to where they waited,
As 'twere a hundred-throated nightingale,

The strong tempestuous treble throbb'd and palpitated;
Ran into its giddiest whirl of sound,

Caught the sparkles, and in circles,

Purple gauzes, golden hazes, liquid mazes,
Flung the torrent rainbow round:
Then they started from their places,
Moved with violence, changed in hue,
Caught each other with wild grimaces,
Half-invisible to the view,
Wheeling with precipitate paces
To the melody, till they flew,

Hair, and eyes, and limbs, and faces,
Twisted hard in fierce embraces,

Like to Furies, like to Graces,
Dash'd together in blinding dew:
Till, kill'd with some luxurious agony,
The nerve-dissolving melody

Flutter'd headlong from the sky.

3

And then I looked up toward a mountain-tract,
That girt the region with high cliff and lawn:
I saw that every morning, far withdrawn
Beyond the darkness and the cataract,
God made himself an awful rose of dawn,1
Unheeded and detaching, fold by fold,

From those still heights, and, slowly drawing near,
A vapour heavy, hueless, formless, cold,
Came floating on for many a month and year,

1 See note on last line.

Unheeded and I thought I would have spoken,
And warn'd that madman ere it grew too late:
But, as in dreams, I could not. Mine was broken,
When that cold vapour touch'd the palace-gate,
And link'd again. I saw within my head
A gray and gap-tooth'd man as lean as death,
Who slowly rode across a wither'd heath,
And lighted at a ruin'd inn, and said:

4

"Wrinkled ostler, grim and thin!
Here is custom come your way;
Take my brute, and lead him in,
Stuff his ribs with mouldy hay.

"Bitter barmaid, waning fast!

See that sheets are on my bed;
What! the flower of life is past :
It is long before you wed.
"Slip-shod waiter, lank and sour,
At the Dragon on the heath!
Let us have a quiet hour,

Let us hob-and-nob with Death.

"I am old, but let me drink;
Bring me spices, bring me wine ;
I remember, when I think,

That my youth was half divine.

"Wine is good for shrivell'd lips,
When a blanket wraps the day,
When the rotten woodland drips,

And the leaf is stamp'd in clay.

"Sit thee down, and have no shame,
Cheek by jowl, and knee by knee :

What care I for any name?

What for order or degree?

"Let me screw thee up a peg :

Let me loose thy tongue with wine : Callest thou that thing a leg?

Which is thinnest? thine or mine?