From “The Day Dream”
YEAR after year unto her feet,
She lying on her couch alone,
Across the purple coverlet,
The maiden’s jet-black hair has grown;
On either side her trancèd form
Forth streaming from a braid of pearl;
The slumberous light is rich and warm,
And moves not on the rounded curl.
The silk star-...
From “The Princess”
TEARS, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy autumn fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.
Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the under world;...
You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear;
To-morrow ’ll be the happiest time of all the glad new-year,—
Of all the glad new-year, mother, the maddest, merriest day;
For I ’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I ’m to be Queen o’ the May.
There ’s many a black, black eye, they say, but none so bright as mine;
There ’s Margaret and Mary,...
From “Maud”
OH that ’t were possible,
After long grief and pain,
To find the arms of my true love
Round me once again!
When I was wont to meet her
In the silent woody places
Of the land that gave me birth,
We stood tranced in long embraces
Mixt with kisses sweeter, sweeter
Than anything on earth.
From “The Princess”
HOME they brought her warrior dead:
She nor swooned, nor uttered cry;
All her maidens, watching, said,
“She must weep or she will die.”
Then they praised him, soft and low,
Called him worthy to be loved,
Truest friend and noblest foe;
Yet she neither spoke nor moved.
Stole a maiden from her...
[Arthur Henry Hallam, Ob. 1833]
Grief Unspeakable
V.
I SOMETIMES hold it half a sin
To put in words the grief I feel:
For words, like Nature, half reveal
And half conceal the Soul within.
But, for the unquiet heart and brain,
A use in measured language lies;
The sad mechanic exercise,
Like dull narcotics,...
Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.
O well for the fisherman’s boy
That he shouts with his sister at play!
O well for the sailor lad
That he sings in his boat on the bay!
And the stately ships go on,
To the haven under the...
From “In Memoriam”: Introduction
STRONG Son of God, immortal Love,
Whom we, that have not seen thy face,
By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove;
Thine are these orbs of light and shade;
Thou madest Life in man and brute;
Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot
Is on the skull which thou hast made...
From “In Memoriam,” XCV.
YOU say, but with no touch of scorn,
Sweet-hearted, you, whose light-blue eyes
Are tender over drowning flies,
You tell me, doubt is Devil-born.
I know not: one indeed I knew
In many a subtle question versed,
Who touched a jarring lyre at first,
But ever strove to make it true:
Perplext...
My good blade carves the casques of men,
My tough lance thrusteth sure,
My strength is as the strength of ten,
Because my heart is pure.
The shattering trumpet shrilleth high,
The hard brands shiver on the steel,
The splintered spear-shafts crack and fly,
The horse and rider reel:
They reel, they roll in clanging lists,...
