With arched eyebrow smiling sovranly,
Pulleyed here. She to Paris made
Proffer of royal power, ample rule
Unquestioned, overflowing revenue

Wherewith to embellish state, 'from many a vale
And river-sundered champaign clothed with corn,
Or upland glebe wealthy in oil and wine—
Honour and homage, tribute, tax and toll,
From many an inland town and haven large,
Mast-thronged below her shadowing citadel
In glassy bays among her tallest towers.'

"O mother Ida, hearken ere I die.

Still she spake on and still she spake of power 'Which in all action is the end of all.

Power fitted to the season, measured by

The height of the general feeling, wisdomborn

And throned of wisdom—from all neighbour crowns

Alliance and allegiance evermore.

Such boon from me Heaven's Queen to thee kingborn,

A shepherd all thy life and yet kingborn,

Should come most welcome, seeing men, in this
Only are likest gods, who have attained
Rest in a happy place and quiet seats
Above the thunder, with undying bliss
In knowledge of their own supremacy;
The changeless calm of undisputed right.

The highest height and topmost strength of power.'

"Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.

She ceased, and Paris held the costly fruit
Out at arm's length, so much the thought of power
Flattered his heart but Pallas where she stood
Somewhat apart, her clear and bared limbs
O'erthwarted with the brazen-headed spear
Upon her pearly shoulder leaning cold;
The while, above, her full and earnest eye
Over her snowcold breast and angry cheek
Kept watch, waiting decision, made reply.

"Selfreverence, selfknowledge, selfcontrol
Are the three hinges of the gates of Life,
That open into power, everyway
Without horizon, bound or shadow or cloud.
Yet not for power (power of herself

Will come uncalled-for) but to live by law
Acting the law we live by without fear,
And, because right is right, to follow right
Were wisdom, in the scorn of consequence.
(Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.)
Not as men value gold because it tricks
And blazons outward Life with ornament,

But rather as the miser, for itself.

Good for selfgood doth half destroy selfgood.

The means and end, like two coiled snakes, infect

Each other, bound in one with hateful love.

So both into the fountain and the stream

A drop of poison falls. Come hearken to me,

And Paris pondered. I cried out, 'Oh, Paris,
Give it to Pallas!' but he heard me not,

Or hearing would not hear me, woe is me!

"O mother Ida, manyfountained Ida, Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die. Idalian Aphrodite oceanborn,

Fresh as the foam, newbatbed in Paphian wells,
With rosy slender fingers upward drew
From her warm brow and bosom her dark hair
Fragrant and thick, and on her head upbound
In a purple band: below her lucid neck
Shone ivorylike, and from the ground her foot
Gleamed rosywhite, and o'er her rounded form
Between the shadows of the vine-bunches
Floated the glowing sunlights, as she moved.

"Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
She with a subtle smile in her mild eyes,
The herald of her triumph, drawing nigh
Half-whispered in his ear, 'I promise thee
The fairest and most loving wife in Greece'.
I only saw my Paris raise his arm :
I only saw great Here's angry eyes,
As she withdrew into the golden cloud,
And I was left alone within the bower;
And from that time to this I am alone.
And I shall be alone until I die.

"Yet, mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
Fairest—why fairest wife? am I not fair?
My love hath told me so a thousand times.
Methinks I must be fair, for yesterday,
When I passed by, a wild and wanton pard.
Eyed like the evening star, with playful tail

Crouched fawning in the weed. Most loving is she?
Ah me, my mountain shepherd, that my arms
Were wound about thee, and my hot lips prest
Close—close to thine in that quickfalling dew
Of fruitful kisses, thick as Autumn rains
Flash in the pools of whirling Simois.

"Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.

They came, they cut away my tallest pines—
My dark tall pines, that plumed the craggy ledge
High over the blue gorge, or lower down

Filling greengulphed Ida, all between

The snowy peak and snowwhite cataract
Fostered the callow eaglet—from beneath

Whose thick mysterious boughs in the dark morn

The panther's roar came muffled, while I sat
Low in the valley. Never, nevermore

Shall lone Enone see the morning mist
Sweep thro' them—never see them overlaid
With narrow moon-lit slips of silver cloud,

Between the loud stream and the trembling stars.

"Oh! mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
Hath he not sworn his love a thousand times,
In this green valley, under this green hill,
Ev'n on this hand, and sitting on this stone?
Sealed it with kisses? watered it with tears?
Oh happy tears, and how unlike to these!

Oh happy Heaven, how can st thou see my face?
Oh happy earth, how can'st thou bear my weight?
0 death, death, death, thou ever-floating cloud,
There are enough unhappy on this earth,
Pass by the happy souls, that love to live:
I pray thee, pass before my light of life,
And shadow all my soul, that I may die.
Thou weighest heavy on the heart within,
Weigh heavy on my eyelids—let me die.

"Yet, mother Ida, hear me ere I die.
I will not die alone, for fiery thoughts
Do shape themselves within me, more and more,
Whereof I catch the issue, as I hear

Dead sounds at night come from the inmost hills,
Like footsteps upon wool. I dimly see
My far-off doubtful purpose, as a mother
Conjectures of the features of her child
Ere it is born. I will not die alone.

"Dear mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
Hear me, O earth. I will not die alone,
Lest their shrill, happy laughter, etc.
Same as last stanza of subsequent editions.

THE SISTERS

First published in 1833.

"

The only alterations which have been made in it since have simply consisted in the
alteration of "an'" for "and" in the third line of each stanza, and "through
and through" for "thro' and thro'" in line 29, and " wrapt" for "wrapped"
in line 34.
It is curious that in 1843 the original bad" was altered to
"bade," but all subsequent editions keep to the original. It has been said that
this poem was founded on the old Scotch ballad "The Twa Sisters" (see
for that ballad Sharpe's Ballad Book, No. x., p. 30), but there is no resem-
blance at all between the ballad and this poem beyond the fact that in each
there are two sisters who are both loved by a certain squire, the elder in
jealousy pushing the younger into a river and drowning her.

We were two daughters of one race:
She was the fairest in the face:

The wind is blowing in turret and tree.

They were together and she fell;
Therefore revenge became me well.
O the Earl was fair to see!

She died she went to burning flame:
She mix'd her ancient blood with shame.
The wind is howling in turret and tree.
Whole weeks and months, and early and late,
To win his love I lay in wait:

O the Earl was fair to see!

I made a feast; I bad him come;

I won his love, I brought him home.

The wind is roaring in turret and tree.
And after supper, on a bed,

Upon my lap he laid his head:
O the Earl was fair to see!

I kiss'd his eyelids into rest:
His ruddy cheek upon my breast.
The wind is raging in turret and tree.
I hated him with the hate of hell,
But I loved his beauty passing well.
O the Earl was fair to see!

I

rose up in the silent night:

I made my dagger sharp and bright.

The wind is raving in turret and tree.

As half-asleep his breath he drew,

Three times I stabb'd him thro' and thro'.
O the Earl was fair to see!

I curl'd and comb'd his comely head,
He look'd so grand when he was dead.
The wind is blowing in turret and tree.

I wrapt his body in the sheet,
And laid him at his mother's feet.
O the Earl was fair to see!

ΤΟ

WITH THE FOLLOWING POEM

I have not been able to ascertain to whom this dedication was addressed. Sir Franklin Lushington tells me that he thinks it was an imaginary person. The dedication explains the allegory intended. The poem appears to have been suggested, as we learn from Tennyson's Life (vol. i., p. 150), by a remark of Trench to Tennyson when they were undergraduates at Trinity: "We cannot live in art". It was the embodiment Tennyson added of his belief "that the God-like life is with man and for man". Cf. his own lines in Lave and Duty;— For a man is not as God,

But then most God-like being most a man.

It is a companion poem to the Vision of Sin; in that poem is traced the effect of indulgence in the grosser pleasures of sense, in this the effect of the indulgence in the more refined pleasures of sense.

I Send you here a sort of allegory,
(For you will understand it) of a soul,1
A sinful soul possess'd of many gifts,
A spacious garden full of flowering weeds,
A glorious Devil, large in heart and brain,
That did love Beauty only, (Beauty seen
In all varieties of mould and mind)

And Knowledge for its beauty; or if Good,
Good only for its beauty, seeing not

That beauty, Good, and Knowledge, are three sisters
That doat upon each other, friends to man,
Living together under the same roof,

And never can be sunder'd without tears.
And he that shuts Love out, in turn shall be
Shut out from Love, and on her threshold lie
Howling in outer darkness. Not for this
Was common clay ta'en from the common earth,
Moulded by God, and temper'd with the tears
Of angels to the perfect shape of man.

1 1833. I send you, Friend, a sort of allegory,
(You are an artist and will understand

Its many lesser meanings) of a soul.