There is no land like England,
Where'er the light of day be;
There are no wives like English wives,
So fair and chaste as they be.
There is no land like England,
Where'er the light of day be;

There are no maids like English maids,
So beautiful as they be.

Chorus. For the French, etc.

DUALISMS

Two bees within a chrystal flowerbell rocked
Hum a lovelay to the westwind at noontide.
Both alike, they buzz together,

Both alike, they hum together

Through and through the flowered heather.

Where in a creeping cove the wave unshocked

Lays itself calm and wide,

Over a stream two birds of glancing feather

Do woo each other, carolling together.

Both alike, they glide together

Side by side;

Both alike, they sing together,

Arching blue-glossed necks beneath the purple weather.

Two children lovelier than Love, adown the lea are singing,

As they gambol, lilygarlands ever stringing:

Both in blosmwhite silk are frocked :

Like, unlike, they roam together

Under a summervault of golden weather;
Like, unlike, they sing together

Side by side,

Mid May's darling goldenlocked,

Summer's tanling diamondeyed.

WE ARE FREE

Reprinted among Juvenilia in 1871 and onward without alteration, except that it is printed as two stanzas.

The winds, as at their hour of birth,
Leaning upon the ridged sea,

Breathed low around the rolling earth

With mellow preludes, "We are Free";

The streams through many a lilied row,
Down-carolling to the crisped sea,
Low-tinkled with a bell-like flow

Atween the blossoms, "We are free ".

oì péovtes

I

All thoughts, all creeds, all dreams are true,
All visions wild and strange;

Man is the measure of all truth

Unto himself. All truth is change:

All men do walk in sleep, and all
Have faith in that they dream:
For all things are as they seem to all,
And all things flow like a stream.

II

There is no rest, no calm, no pause,
Nor good nor ill, nor light nor shade,

Nor essence nor eternal laws:

For nothing is, but all is made.

But if I dream that all these are,

They are to me for that I dream;

For all things are as they seem to all,

And all things flow like a stream.

Argal—This very opinion is only true relatively to the flowing philosophers. (Tennyson's note.)

POEMS OF MDCCCXXXIII

Reprinted without any alteration, except that Power is spelt with a small p, among the Juvenilia in 1871 and onward.

Mine be the strength of spirit, full and free,

Like some broad river rushing down alone,

With the selfsame impulse wherewith he was thrown

From his loud fount upon the echoing lea :—

Which with increasing might doth forward flee

By town, and tower, and hill, and cape, and isle,
And in the middle of the green salt sea
Keeps his blue waters fresh for many a mile.

Mine be the Power which ever to its sway
Will win the wise at once, and by degrees
May into uncongenial spirits flow;
Even as the great gulfstream of Florida
Floats far away into the Northern Seas
The lavish growths of Southern Mexico.

TO

When this poem was republished among the Juvenilia in 1871 several alterations For the first stanza was substituted the following:

were made in it.

My life is full of weary days,

But good things have not kept aloof,
Nor wander'd into other ways:

I have not lack'd thy mild reproof,
Nor golden largess of thy praise.

The second began "And now shake hands". In the fourth stanza for "sudden daughters" of the jay was substituted the felicitous "sudden scritches," and the sixth and seventh stanzas were suppressed.

I

All good things have not kept aloof
Nor wandered into other ways:

I have not lacked thy mild reproof,
Nor golden largess of thy praise.
But life is full of weary days.

II

Shake hands, my friend, across the brink
Of that deep grave to which I go:
Shake hands once more: I cannot sink
So far—far down, but I shall know
Thy voice, and answer from below.

III

When in the darkness over me

The fourhanded mole shall scrape,

Plant thou no dusky cypresstree,

Nor wreathe thy cap with doleful crape,
But pledge me in the flowing grape.

IV

And when the sappy field and wood

Grow green beneath the showery gray,
And rugged barks begin to bud,

And through damp holts newflushed with May,
Ring sudden laughters of the Jay,

V

Then let wise Nature work her will,
And on my clay her darnels grow;
Come only, when the days are still,
And at my headstone whisper low,
And tell me if the woodbines blow.

VI

If thou art blest, my mother's smile
Undimmed, if bees are on the wing:
Then cease, my friend, a little while,
That I may hear the throstle sing
His bridal song, the boast of spring.

VII

Sweet as the noise in parched plains

Of bubbling wells that fret the stones,
(If any sense in me remains)

Thy words will be: thy cheerful tones
As welcome to my crumbling bones.

BUONAPARTE

Reprinted without any alteration among Early Sonnets in 1872, and unaltered

since.

He thought to quell the stubborn hearts of oak,
Madman!—to chain with chains, and bind with bands
That island queen who sways the floods and lands

From Ind to Ind, but in fair daylight woke,

When from her wooden walls, lit by sure hands,

With thunder, and with lightnings and with smoke,

Peal after peal, the British battle broke,
Lulling the brine against the Coptic sands.

We taught him lowlier moods, when Elsinore
Heard the war moan along the distant sea,
Rocking with shatter'd spars, with sudden fires
Flamed over at Trafalgar yet once more

We taught him: late he learned humility

Perforce, like those whom Gideon school'd with briers.

SONNET

I

Oh, Beauty, passing beauty! sweetest Sweet!

How canst thou let me waste my youth in sighs?

I only ask to sit beside thy feet.

Thou knowest I dare not look into thine eyes,
Might I but kiss thy hand! I dare not fold
My arms about thee—scarcely dare to speak.
And nothing seems to me so wild and bold,

As with one kiss to touch thy blessed cheek.
Methinks if I should kiss thee, no control

Within the thrilling brain could keep afloat
The subtle spirit. Even while I spoke,
The bare word Kiss hath made my inner soul
To tremble like a lutestring, ere the note
Hath melted in the silence that it broke.

II

Reprinted in 1872 among Early Sonnets with two alterations, "If I were loved" for "But were I loved," and "tho'" for "though".

But were I loved, as I desire to be,

What is there in the great sphere of the earth,
And range of evil between death and birth,

That I should fear—if I were loved by thee?

All the inner, all the outer world of pain

Clear Love would pierce and cleave, if thou wert mine,
As I have heard that, somewhere in the main,
Fresh water-springs come up through bitter brine.
'Twere joy, not fear, clasped hand in hand with thee,
To wait for death—mute—careless of all ills,

Apart upon a mountain, though the surge
Of some new deluge from a thousand hills
Flung leagues of roaring foam into the gorge
Below us, as far on as eye could see.