Christ!

I know thy glittering face. I waited long;
My brows are ready. What! deny it now?
Nay, draw, draw, draw nigh. So I clutch it.
'Tis gone 'tis here again; the crown! the crown! 1
So now 'tis fitted on and grows to me,
And from it melt the dews of Paradise,

Sweet! sweet! spikenard, and balm, and frankincense.
Ah! let me not be fool'd, sweet saints: I trust
That I am whole, and clean, and meet for Heaven.
Speak, if there be a priest, a man of God,
Among you there, and let him presently
Approach, and lean a ladder on the shaft,
And climbing up into my airy home,
Deliver me the blessed sacrament;
For by the warning of the Holy Ghost,
I prophesy that I shall die to-night,
A quarter before twelve.2

But thou, O Lord,

Aid all this foolish people; let them take
Example, pattern: lead them to thy light.

THE TALKING OAK

First published in 1842, and republished in all subsequent editions with only two slight alterations: in line 113 a mere variant in spelling, and in line 185, where in place of the present reading the editions between 1842 and 1848 read, "For, ah! the Dryad-days were brief".

Tennyson told Mr. Aubrey de Vere that the poem was an experiment meant to test the degree in which it is in the power of poetry to humanise external nature. Tennyson might have remembered that Ovid had made the same experiment nearly two thousand years ago, while Goethe had immediately anticipated him in his charming Der Junggesell und der Mühlbach. There was certainly no novelty in such an attempt. The poem is in parts charmingly written, but the oak is certainly garrulously given," and comes perilously near to tediousness.

ONCE more the gate behind me falls;
Once more before my face

I see the moulder'd Abbey-walls,
That stand within the chace.

Beyond the lodge the city lies,
Beneath its drift of smoke;
And ah! with what delighted eyes

I turn to yonder oak.

1 The Acta say nothing about the crown, but dwell on the supernatural fragrance which exhaled from the saint.

2 Tennyson has given a very poor substitute for the beautifully pathetic account given of the death of St. Simeon in Acta, i., 168, and again in the ninth chapter of the second Life, Ibid., 273. But this is to be explained perhaps by the moral purpose of the poem.

For when my passion first began,

Ere that, which in me burn'd,

The love, that makes me thrice a man,
Could hope itself return'd;

To yonder oak within the field
I spoke without restraint,
And with a larger faith appeal'd
Than Papist unto Saint.

For oft I talk'd with him apart,
And told him of my choice,
Until he plagiarised a heart,
And answer'd with a voice.

Tho' what he whisper'd, under Heaven
None else could understand;

I found him garrulously given,
A babbler in the land.

Hail, hidden to the knees in fern,
Broad Oak of Sumner-chace,
Whose topmost branches can discern
The roofs of Sumner-place!

Say thou, whereon I carved her name,
If ever maid or spouse,

As fair as my Olivia, came

To rest beneath thy boughs.—

"O Walter, I have shelter'd here Whatever maiden grace

The good old Summers, year by year,

Made ripe in Sumner-chace :

"Old Summers, when the monk was fat,

And, issuing shorn and sleek,

Would twist his girdle tight, and pat

The girls upon the cheek.

"Ere yet, in scorn of Peter's-pence,
And number'd bead, and shrift,
Bluff Harry broke into the spence,1
And turn'd the cowls adrift:

"And I have seen some score of those
Fresh faces, that would thrive
When his man-minded offset rose
To chase the deer at five;

"And all that from the town would stroll,
Till that wild wind made work
In which the gloomy brewer's soul
Went by me, like a stork :

"The slight she-slips of loyal blood,
And others, passing praise,
Strait-laced, but all too full in bud
For puritanic stays: 2

"And I have shadow'd many a group
Of beauties, that were born
In teacup-times of hood and hoop,
Or while the patch was worn ;

"And, leg and arm with love-knots gay,
About me leap'd and laugh'd

The Modish Cupid of the day,

And shrill'd his tinsel shaft.

"I swear (and else may insects prick
Each leaf into a gall)

This girl, for whom your heart is sick,
Is three times worth them all;

"For those and theirs, by Nature's law,

Have faded long ago;

But in these latter springs I saw

Your own Olivia blow,

1 Spence is a larder and buttery. In the Promptorium Parverum it is defined

as "cellarium promptuarium".

2 Cf. Burns' "godly laces," To the Unco Righteous.

"From when she gamboll'd on the greens, A baby-germ, to when

The maiden blossoms of her teens

Could number five from ten.

"I swear, by leaf, and wind, and rain
(And hear me with thine ears),
That, tho' I circle in the grain
Five hundred rings of years—

"Yet, since I first could cast a shade,
Did never creature pass
So slightly, musically made,
So light upon the grass:

"For as to fairies, that will flit
To make the greensward fresh,
I hold them exquisitely knit,
But far too spare of flesh.'

Oh, hide thy knotted knees in fern,
And overlook the chace;

And from thy topmost branch discern
The roofs of Sumner-place.

But thou, whereon I carved her name,
That oft hast heard my vows,
Declare when last Olivia came
To sport beneath thy boughs.

"O yesterday, you know, the fair
Was holden at the town;
Her father left his good arm-chair,
And rode his hunter down.

"And with him Albert came on his.

I look'd at him with joy :

As cowslip unto oxlip is,

So seems she to the boy.

"An hour had past-and, sitting straight Within the low-wheel'd chaise,

Her mother trundled to the gate

Behind the dappled grays.

"But, as for her, she stay'd1 at home,
And on the roof she went,

And down the way you use to come,
She look'd with discontent.

"She left the novel half-uncut
Upon the rosewood shelf;
She left the new piano shut :

She could not please herself.

"Then ran she, gamesome as the colt,
And livelier than a lark

She sent her voice thro' all the holt
Before her, and the park.

"A light wind chased her on the wing,
And in the chase grew wild,

As close as might be would he cling
About the darling child:

"But light as any wind that blows

So fleetly did she stir,

The flower she touch'd on dipt and rose,

And turn'd to look at her.

"And here she came, and round me play'd,

And sang to me the whole Of those three stanzas that About my 'giant bole';

you

"And in a fit of frolic mirth
She strove to span my waist :
Alas, I was so broad of girth,
I could not be embraced.

made

"I wish'd myself the fair young beech
That here beside me stands,

That round me, clasping each in each,
She might have lock'd her hands.

"Yet seem'd the pressure thrice as sweet As woodbine's fragile hold,

Or when I feel about my feet
The berried briony fold."

1 All editions previous to 1853 have staid.