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I Know her by her angry air,

Her brightblack eyes, her brightblack hair, Her rapid laughters wild and shrill,

As laughter of the woodpecker

From the bosom of a hill.

'Tis Kate—she sayeth what she will; For Kate hath an unbridled tongue, Clear as the twanging of a harp.

Her heart is like a throbbing star.
Kate hath a spirit ever strung

Like a new bow, and bright and sharp
As edges of the scymetar.
Whence shall she take a fitting mate?
For Kate no common love will feel;

My woman-soldier, gallant Kate,

As pure and true as blades of steel.

Kate saith "the world is void of might".
Kate saith "the men are gilded flies".
Kate snaps her fingers at my vows;
Kate will not hear of lover's sighs.
I would I were an armed knight,
Far famed for wellwon enterprise,
And wearing on my swarthy brows
The garland of new-wreathed emprise :

For in a moment I would pierce
The blackest files of clanging fight,
And strongly strike to left and right,

In dreaming of my lady's eyes.

Oh! Kate loves well the bold and fierce ;
But none are bold enough for Kate,

She cannot find a fitting mate.

SONNET

Written on hearing of the outbreak of the Polish Insurrection.

Blow ye the trumpet, gather from afar

The hosts to battle: be not bought and sold.
Arise, brave Poles, the boldest of the bold;
Break through your iron shackles—fling them far.
O for those days of Piast, ere the Czar
Grew to this strength among his deserts cold;
When even to Moscow's cupolas were rolled
The growing murmurs of the Polish war!
Now must your noble anger blaze out more
Than when from Sobieski, clan by clan,
The Moslem myriads fell, and fled before-
Than when Zamoysky smote the Tartar Khan,
Than earlier, when on the Baltic shore

Boleslas drove the Pomeranian.

POLAND

Reprinted without alteration in 1872, except the removal of italics in "now," among the Early Sonnets.

How long, O God, shall men be ridden down,
And trampled under by the last and least
Of men? The heart of Poland hath not ceased
To quiver, tho' her sacred blood doth drown
The fields; and out of every smouldering town
Cries to Thee, lest brute Power be increased,
Till that o'ergrown Barbarian in the East
Transgress his ample bound to some new crown :—
Cries to thee, "Lord, how long shall these things be?
How long this icyhearted Muscovite

Oppress the region ?"

Us, O Just and Good,

Forgive, who smiled when she was torn in three ;

Us, who stand now, when we should aid the right

A matter to be wept with tears of blood!

TO

Reprinted without alteration as first of the Early Sonnets in 1872; subsequently in the twelfth line "That tho' " was substituted for "Altho'," and the last line was altered to—

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'And either lived in cither's heart and speech,"

and "hath was not italicised.

As when with downcast eyes we muse and brood,
And ebb into a former life, or seem

To lapse far back in some confused dream
To states of mystical similitude;

If one but speaks or hems or stirs his chair,
Ever the wonder waxeth more and more,
"All this hath been before,

So that we say,

All this hath been, I know not when or where ".
So, friend, when first I look'd upon your face,
Our thought gave answer each to each, so true—
Opposed mirrors each reflecting each—

Altho' I knew not in what time or place,

Methought that I had often met with you,

And each had lived in the other's mind and speech.

O DARLING ROOM

I

O Darling room, my heart's delight,
Dear room, the apple of my sight,
With thy two couches soft and white,
There is no room so exquisite,

No little room so warm and bright,
Wherein to read, wherein to write.

II

For I the Nonnenwerth have seen,
And Oberwinter's vineyards green,
Musical Lurlei; and between
The hills to Bingen have I been,
Bingen in Darmstadt, where the Rhene
Curves towards Mentz, a woody scene.

III

Yet never did there meet my sight,
In any town, to left or right,

A little room so exquisite,

With two such couches soft and white;
Not any room so warm and bright,
Wherein to read, wherein to write.

TO CHRISTOPHER NORTH

You did late review my lays,
Crusty Christopher;

You did mingle blame and praise,
Rusty Christopher.

When I learnt from whom it came,

I forgave you all the blame,
Musty Christopher;

I could not forgive the praise,
Fusty Christopher.

THE SKIPPING ROPE

This silly poem was first published in the edition of 1843, and was retained unaltered till 1851, when it was finally suppressed.

Sure never yet was Antelope

Could skip so lightly by,

Stand nit, or else my skipping-rope

Will hit you in the eye.

How lightly whirls the skipping-rope!

How fairy-like you fly!

Go, get you gone, you muse and mope—
I hate that silly sigh.

Nay, dearest, teach me how to hope,

Or tell me how to die.

There, take it, take my skipping-rope,

And hang yourself thereby.

TIMBUCTOO

A POEM

which obtained

THE CHANCELLOR'S MEDAL

at the

Cambridge Commencement

M.DCCCXXIX

by

A. Tennyson

Of Trinity College.

Printed in the Cambridge Chronicle and Journal for Friday, loth July, 1829. and at the University Press by James Smith, among the Prolusiones Academicæ Pramiis annuls dignatæ, et in Curia Cantabrigiensi Recitatæ Comitiis Maximis A.D. M.DCCC.XX1X. Reprinted in an edition of the Cambridge Prize Poems from 1813 to 1858 inclusive, by Messrs. Macmillan in 1859, but without any alteration, except in punctuation and the substitution of small letters for capitals where the change was appropriate; and again in 1893 in the appendix to the reprint of the Poems by Two Brothers.

Deep in that lion-haunted island lies
A mystic city, goal of enterprise.

I STOOD upon the Mountain which o'erlooks
The narrow seas, whose rapid interval

Parts Afric from green Europe, when the Sun

Had fill'd below th' Atlantick, and above

The silent Heavens were blench'd with faery light,
Uncertain whether faery light or cloud,

-CHAPMAN.

Flowing Southward, and the chasms of deep, deep blue

Slumber'd unfathomable, and the stars

Were flooded over with clear glory and pale.

I gaz'd upon the sheeny coast beyond,

There where the Giant of old Time infixed

The limits of his prowess, pillars high

Long time eras'd from Earth: even as the sea
When weary of wild inroad buildeth up
Huge mounds whereby to stay his yeasty waves.
And much I mus'd on legends quaint and old
Which whilome won the hearts of all on Earth
Toward their brightness, ev'n as flame draws air;
But had their being in the heart of Man

As air is th' life of flame: and thou wert then

A center'd glory-circled Memory,

Divinest Atalantis, whom the waves

Have buried deep, and thou of later name
Imperial Eldorado roof'd with gold:

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