Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson — The Lover's Tale, part 1

=The Lover's Tale= 1833 [It was originally intended by Tennyson that this poem should form part of his 1833 volume.

It was put in type and, according to custom, copies were distributed among his friends, when, on the eve of publication, he decided to omit it.

Again, in 1869, it was sent to press with a new third part added, and was again withdrawn, the third part only--'The Golden Supper,' founded on a story in Boccaccio's _Decameron_--being published in the volume, 'The Holy Grail.'

In 1866, 1870 and 1875, attempts had been made by Mr Herne Shepherd to publish editions of 'The Lover's Tale,' reprinted from stray proof copies of the 1833 printing.

Each of these attempts was repressed by Tennyson, and at last in 1879 the complete poem, as now included in the collected Works, was issued, with an apologetic reference to the necessity of reprinting the poem to prevent its circulation in an unauthorised form.

But the 1879 issue is considerably altered from the original issue of 1833, as written by Tennyson in his nineteenth year.

Since only as a product of Tennyson's youth does the poem merit any attention, it has seemed good to reprint it here as originally written.

] A FRAGMENT

The Poem of the Lover's Tale (the lover is supposed to be himself a poet) was written in my nineteenth year, and consequently contains nearly as many faults as words.

That I deemed it not wholly unoriginal is my only apology for its publication--an apology lame and poor, and somewhat impertinent to boot: so that if its infirmities meet with more laughter than charity in the world, I shall not raise my voice in its defence.

I am aware how deficient the Poem is in point of art, and it is not without considerable misgivings that I have ventured to publish even this fragment of it.

'Enough,' says the old proverb, 'is as good as a feast.'

--(Tennyson's original introductory note.

) Here far away, seen from the topmost cliff, Filling with purple gloom the vacancies Between the tufted hills the sloping seas Hung in mid-heaven, and half-way down rare sails, White as white clouds, floated from sky to sky.

Oh!

pleasant breast of waters, quiet bay, Like to a quiet mind in the loud world, Where the chafed breakers of the outer sea Sunk powerless, even as anger falls aside, And withers on the breast of peaceful love, Thou didst receive that belt of pines, that fledged The hills that watch'd thee, as Love watcheth Love,-- In thine own essence, and delight thyself To make it wholly thine on sunny days.

Keep thou thy name of 'Lover's bay': See, Sirs, Even now the Goddess of the Past, that takes The heart, and sometimes toucheth but one string, That quivers, and is silent, and sometimes Sweeps suddenly all its half-moulder'd chords To an old melody, begins to play On those first-moved fibres of the brain.

I come, Great mistress of the ear and eye: Oh!

lead me tenderly, for fear the mind Rain thro' my sight, and strangling sorrow weigh Mine utterance with lameness.

Tho' long years Have hallowed out a valley and a gulf Betwixt the native land of Love and me, Breathe but a little on me, and the sail Will draw me to the rising of the sun, The lucid chambers of the morning star, And East of life.

Permit me, friend, I prithee, To pass my hand across my brows, and muse On those dear hills, that nevermore will meet The sight that throbs and aches beneath my touch, As tho' there beat a heart in either eye;

For when the outer lights are darken'd thus, The memory's vision hath a keener edge.

It grows upon me now--the semicircle Of dark blue waters and the narrow fringe Of curving beach--its wreaths of dripping green-- Its pale pink shells--the summer-house aloft That open'd on the pines with doors of glass, A mountain nest the pleasure boat that rock'd Light-green with its own shadow, keel to keel, Upon the crispings of the dappled waves That blanched upon its side.

O Love, O Hope, They come, they crowd upon me all at once, Moved from the cloud of unforgotten things, That sometimes on the horizon of the mind Lies folded--often sweeps athwart in storm-- They flash across the darkness of my brain, The many pleasant days, the moolit nights, The dewy dawnings and the amber eyes, When thou and I, Camilla, thou and I Were borne about the bay, or safely moor'd Beneath some low brow'd cavern, where the wave Plash'd sapping its worn ribs (the while without, And close above us, sang the wind-tost pine, And shook its earthly socket, for we heard, In rising and in falling with the tide, Close by our ears, the huge roots strain and creak), Eye feeding upon eye with deep intent;

And mine, with love too high to be express'd Arrested in its sphere, and ceasing from All contemplation of all forms, did pause To worship mine own image, laved in light, The centre of the splendours, all unworthy Of such a shrine--mine image in her eyes, By diminution made most glorious, Moved with their motions, as those eyes were moved With motions of the soul, as my heart beat Twice to the melody of hers.

Her face Was starry-fair, not pale, tenderly flush'd As 'twere with dawn.

She was dark-hair'd, dark-eyed;

Oh, such dark eyes!

A single glance of them Will govern a whole life from birth to death, Careless of all things else, led on with light In trances and in visions: look at them, You lose yourself in utter ignorance, You cannot find their depth; for they go back, And farther back, and still withdraw themselves Quite into the deep soul, that evermore, Fresh springing from her fountains in the brain, Still pouring thro', floods with redundant light Her narrow portals.

Trust me, long ago I should have died, if it were possible To die in gazing on that perfectness Which I do bear within me; I had died But from my farthest lapse, my latest ebb, Thine image, like a charm of light and strength Upon the waters, pushed me back again On these deserted sands of barren life.

Tho' from the deep vault, where the heart of hope Fell into dust, and crumbled in the dark-- Forgetting who to render beautiful Her countenance with quick and healthful blood-- Thou didst not sway me upward, could I perish With such a costly casket in the grasp Of memory?

He, that saith it, hath o'erstepp'd The slippery footing of his narrow wit, And fall'n away from judgment.

Thou art light, To which my spirit leaneth all her flowers, And length of days, and immortality Of thought, and freshness ever self-renew'd. For Time and Grief abode too long with Life, And like all other friends i' the world, at last They grew aweary of her fellowship: So Time and Grief did beckon unto Death, And Death drew nigh and beat the doors of Life;

But thou didst sit alone in the inner house, A wakeful port'ress and didst parle with Death, 'This is a charmed dwelling which I hold';

So Death gave back, and would no further come.

Yet is my life nor in the present time, Nor in the present place.

To me alone, Pushed from his chair of regal heritage, The Present is the vassal of the Past: So that, in that I _have_ lived, do I live, And cannot die, and am, in having been, A portion of the pleasant yesterday, Thrust forward on to-day and out of place;

A body journeying onward, sick with toil, The lithe limbs bow'd as with a heavy weight And all the senses weaken'd in all save that Which, long ago, they had glean'd and garner'd up Into the granaries of memory-- The clear brow, bulwark of the precious brain, Now seam'd and chink'd with years--and all the while The light soul twines and mingles with the growths Of vigorous early days, attracted, won, Married, made one with, molten into all The beautiful in Past of act or place.

Even as the all-enduring camel, driven Far from the diamond fountain by the palms, Toils onward thro' the middle moonlight nights, Shadow'd and crimson'd with the drifting dust, Or when the white heats of the blinding noons Beat from the concave sand; yet in him keeps A draught of that sweet fountain that he loves, To stay his feet from falling, and his spirit From bitterness of death.

Ye ask me, friends, When I began to love.

How should I tell ye?

Or from the after fulness of my heart, Flow back again unto my slender spring And first of love, tho' every turn and depth Between is clearer in my life than all Its present flow.

Ye know not what ye ask.

How should the broad and open flower tell What sort of bud it was, when press'd together In its green sheath, close lapt in silken folds?

It seemed to keep its sweetness to itself, Yet was not the less sweet for that it seem'd. For young Life knows not when young Life was born, But takes it all for granted: neither Love, Warm in the heart, his cradle can remember Love in the womb, but resteth satisfied, Looking on her that brought him to the light: Or as men know not when they fall asleep Into delicious dreams, our other life, So know I not when I began to love.

This is my sum of knowledge--that my love Grew with myself--and say rather, was my growth, My inward sap, the hold I have on earth, My outward circling air wherein I breathe, Which yet upholds my life, and evermore Was to me daily life and daily death: For how should I have lived and not have loved?

Can ye take off the sweetness from the flower, The colour and the sweetness from the rose, And place them by themselves?

or set apart Their motions and their brightness from the stars, And then point out the flower or the star?

Or build a wall betwixt my life and love, And tell me where I am?

'Tis even thus: In that I live I love; because I love I live: whate'er is fountain to the one Is fountain to the other; and whene'er Our God unknits the riddle of the one, There is no shade or fold of mystery Swathing the other.

Many, many years, For they seem many and my most of life, And well I could have linger'd in that porch, So unproportioned to the dwelling place, In the maydews of childhood, opposite The flush and dawn of youth, we lived together, Apart, alone together on those hills.

Before he saw my day my father died, And he was happy that he saw it not: But I and the first daisy on his grave From the same clay came into light at once.

As Love and I do number equal years So she, my love, is of an age with me.

How like each other was the birth of each!

The sister of my mother--she that bore Camilla close beneath her beating heart, Which to the imprisoned spirit of the child, With its true touched pulses in the flow And hourly visitation of the blood, Sent notes of preparation manifold, And mellow'd echoes of the outer world-- My mother's sister, mother of my love, Who had a twofold claim upon my heart, One twofold mightier than the other was, In giving so much beauty to the world, And so much wealth as God had charged her with, Loathing to put it from herself for ever, Crown'd with her highest act the placid face And breathless body of her good deeds past.

So we were born, so orphan'd. She was motherless, And I without a father.

So from each Of those two pillars which from earth uphold Our childhood, one had fall'n away, and all The careful burthen of our tender years Trembled upon the other.

He that gave Her life, to me delightedly fulfill'd All loving-kindnesses, all offices Of watchful care and trembling tenderness.

He worked for both: he pray'd for both: he slept Dreaming of both; nor was his love the less Because it was divided, and shot forth Boughs on each side, laden with wholesome shade, Wherein we rested sleeping or awake, And sung aloud the matin-song of life.

She was my foster-sister: on one arm The flaxen ringlets of our infancies Wander'd, the while we rested: one soft lap Pillow'd us both: one common light of eyes Was on us as we lay: our baby lips, Kissing one bosom, ever drew from thence The stream of life, one stream, one life, one blood, One sustenance, which, still as thought grew large, Still larger moulding all the house of thought, Perchance assimilated all our tastes And future fancies.

'Tis a beautiful And pleasant meditation, what whate'er Our general mother meant for me alone, Our mutual mother dealt to both of us: So what was earliest mine in earliest life, I shared with her in whom myself remains.

As was our childhood, so our infancy, They tell me, was a very miracle Of fellow-feeling and communion.

They tell me that we would not be alone,-- We cried when we were parted; when I wept, Her smile lit up the rainbow on my tears, Stay'd on the clouds of sorrow; that we loved The sound of one another's voices more Than the grey cuckoo loves his name, and learn'd To lisp in tune together; that we slept In the same cradle always, face to face, Heart beating time to heart, lip pressing lip, Folding each other, breathing on each other, Dreaming together (dreaming of each other They should have added) till the morning light Sloped thro' the pines, upon the dewy pane Falling, unseal'd our eyelids, and we woke To gaze upon each other.

If this be true, At thought of which my whole soul languishes And faints, and hath no pulse, no breath, as tho' A man in some still garden should infuse Rich attar in the bosom of the rose, Till, drunk with its own wine and overfull Of sweetness, and in smelling of itself, It fall on its own thorns--if this be true-- And that way my wish leaneth evermore Still to believe it--'tis so sweet a thought, Why in the utter stillness of the soul Doth question'd memory answer not, nor tell, Of this our earliest, our closest drawn, Most loveliest, most delicious union?

Oh, happy, happy outset of my days!

Green springtide, April promise, glad new year Of Being, which with earliest violets, And lavish carol of clear-throated larks, Fill'd all the march of life.

--I will not speak of thee;

These have not seen thee, these can never know thee, They cannot understand me.

Pass on then A term of eighteen years.

Ye would but laugh If I should tell ye how I heard in thought Those rhymes, 'The Lion and the Unicorn' 'The Four-and-twenty Blackbirds' 'Banbury Cross,' 'The Gander' and 'The man of Mitylene,' And all the quaint old scraps of ancient crones, Which are as gems set in my memory, Because she learn'd them with me.

Or what profits it To tell ye that her father died, just ere The daffodil was blown; or how we found The drowned seaman on the shore?

These things Unto the quiet daylight of your minds Are cloud and smoke, but in the dark of mine Show traced with flame.

Move with me to that hour, Which was the hinge on which the door of Hope, Once turning, open'd far into the outward, And never closed again.

I well remember, It was a glorious morning, such a one As dawns but once a season.

Mercury On such a morning would have flung himself From cloud to cloud, and swum with balanced wings To some tall mountain.

On that day the year First felt his youth and strength, and from his spring Moved smiling toward his summer.

On that day, Love working shook his wings (that charged the winds With spiced May-sweets from bound to bound) and blew Fresh fire into the sun, and from within Burst thro' the heated buds, and sent his soul Into the songs of birds, and touch'd far-off His mountain-altars, his high hills, with flame Milder and purer.

Up the rocks we wound;

The great pine shook with lovely sounds of joy, That came on the sea-wind.

As mountain brooks Our blood ran free: the sunshine seem'd to brood More warmly on the heart than on the brow.

We often paused, and looking back, we saw The clefts and openings in the hills all fill'd With the blue valley and the glistening brooks, And with the low dark groves--a land of Love;

Where Love was worshipp'd upon every height, Where Love was worshipp'd under every tree-- A land of promise, flowing with the milk And honey of delicious memories Down to the sea, as far as eye could ken, From verge to verge it was a holy land, Still growing holier as you near'd the bay, For where the temple stood.

When we had reach'd The grassy platform on some hill, I stoop'd, I gather'd the wild herbs, and for her brows And mine wove chaplets of the self-same flower, Which she took smiling, and with my work there Crown'd her clear forehead.

Once or twice she told me (For I remember all things), to let grow The flowers that run poison in their veins.

She said, 'The evil flourish in the world';

Then playfully she gave herself the lie: 'Nothing in nature is unbeautiful, So, brother, pluck and spare not.'

So I wove Even the dull-blooded poppy, 'whose red flower Hued with the scarlet of a fierce sunrise, Like to the wild youth of an evil king, Is without sweetness, but who crowns himself Above the secret poisons of his heart In his old age'--a graceful thought of hers Graven on my fancy!

As I said, with these She crown'd her forehead.

O how like a nymph, A stately mountain-nymph, she look'd!

how native Unto the hills she trod on!

What an angel!

How clothed with beams!

My eyes, fix'd upon hers, Almost forgot even to move again.

My spirit leap'd as with those thrills of bliss That shoot across the soul in prayer, and show us That we are surely heard.

Methought a light Burst from the garland I had woven, and stood A solid glory on her bright black hair: A light, methought, broke from her dark, dark eyes, And shot itself into the singing winds;

A light, methought, flash'd even from her white robe, As from a glass in the sun, and fell about My footsteps on the mountains.

About sunset We came unto the hill of woe, so call'd Because the legend ran that, long time since, One rainy night, when every wind blew loud, A woful man had thrust his wife and child With shouts from off the bridge, and following, plunged Into the dizzy chasm below.

Below, Sheer thro' the black-wall'd cliff the rapid brook Shot down his inner thunders, built above With matted bramble and the shining gloss Of ivy-leaves, whose low-hung tresses, dipp'd In the fierce stream, bore downward with the wave.

The path was steep and loosely strewn with crags We mounted slowly: yet to both of us It was delight, not hindrance: unto both Delight from hardship to be overcome, And scorn of perilous seeming: unto me Intense delight and rapture that I breathed, As with a sense of nigher Deity, With her to whom all outward fairest things Were by the busy mind referr'd, compared, As bearing no essential fruits of excellence.

Save as they were the types and shadowings Of hers--and then that I became to her A tutelary angel as she rose, And with a fearful self-impelling joy Saw round her feet the country far away, Beyond the nearest mountain's bosky brows, Burst into open prospect--heath and hill, And hollow lined and wooded to the lips-- And steep down walls of battlemented rock Girded with broom or shiver'd into peaks-- And glory of broad waters interfused, Whence rose as it were breath and steam of gold;

And over all the great wood rioting And climbing, starr'd at slender intervals With blossom tufts of purest white; and last, Framing the mighty landskip to the West, A purple range of purple cones, between Whose interspaces gush'd, in blinding bursts, The incorporate light of sun and sea.

At length, Upon the tremulous bridge, that from beneath Seemed with a cobweb firmament to link The earthquake-shattered chasm, hung with shrubs, We passed with tears of rapture.

All the West, And even unto the middle South, was ribb'd And barr'd with bloom on bloom.

The sun beneath, Held for a space 'twixt cloud and wave, shower'd down Rays of a mighty circle, weaving over That varied wilderness a tissue of light Unparallel'd. On the other side the moon, Half-melted into thin blue air, stood still And pale and fibrous as a wither'd leaf, Nor yet endured in presence of his eyes To imbue his lustre; most unloverlike;

Since in his absence full of light and joy And giving light to others.

But this chiefest, Next to her presence whom I loved so well, Spoke loudly, even into my inmost heart, As to my outward hearing: the loud stream, Forth issuing from his portals in the crag (A visible link unto the home of my heart), Ran amber toward the West, and nigh the sea, Parting my own loved mountains, was received Shorn of its strength, into the sympathy Of that small bay, which into open main Glow'd intermingling close beneath the sun Spirit of Love!

That little hour was bound, Shut in from Time, and dedicate to thee;

Thy fires from heav'n had touch'd it, and the earth They fell on became hallow'd evermore.

We turn'd: our eyes met: her's were bright, and mine Were dim with floating tears, that shot the sunset, In light rings round me; and my name was borne Upon her breath.

Henceforth my name has been A hallow'd memory, like the names of old;

A center'd, glory-circled memory, And a peculiar treasure, brooking not Exchange or currency; and in that hour A hope flow'd round me, like a golden mist Charm'd amid eddies of melodious airs, A moment, ere the onward whirlwind shatter it, Waver'd and floated--which was less than Hope, Because it lack'd the power of perfect Hope;

But which was more and higher than all Hope, Because all other Hope hath lower aim;

Even that this name to which her seraph lips Did lend such gentle utterance, this one name In some obscure hereafter, might inwreathe (How lovelier, nobler then!

) her life, her love, With my life, love, soul, spirit and heart and strength.

'Brother,' she said, 'let this be call'd henceforth The Hill of Hope'; and I replied: 'O sister, My will is one with thine; the Hill of Hope.'

Nevertheless, we did not change the name.

Love lieth deep; Love dwells not in lip-depths: Love wraps her wings on either side the heart, Constraining it with kisses close and warm, Absorbing all the incense of sweet thoughts So that they pass not to the shrine of sound.

Else had the life of that delighted hour Drunk in the largeness of the utterance Of Love; but how should earthly measure mete The heavenly unmeasured or unlimited Love, Which scarce can tune his high majestic sense Unto the thunder-song that wheels the spheres;

Scarce living in the Aeolian harmony, And flowing odour of the spacious air;

Scarce housed in the circle of this earth: Be cabin'd up in words and syllables, Which waste with the breath that made 'em.

Sooner earth Might go round heaven, and the straight girth of Time Inswathe the fullness of Eternity, Than language grasp the infinite of Love.

O day, which did enwomb that happy hour, Thou art blest in the years, divinest day!

O Genius of that hour which dost uphold Thy coronal of glory like a God, Amid thy melancholy mates far-seen, Who walk before thee, and whose eyes are dim With gazing on the light and depth of thine Thy name is ever worshipp'd among hours!

Had I died then, I had not seem'd to die For bliss stood round me like the lights of heaven, That cannot fade, they are so burning bright.

Had I died then, I had not known the death;

Planting my feet against this mound of time I had thrown me on the vast, and from this impulse Continuing and gathering ever, ever, Agglomerated swiftness, I had lived That intense moment thro' eternity.

Oh, had the Power from whose right hand the light Of Life issueth, and from whose left hand floweth The shadow of Death, perennial effluences, Whereof to all that draw the wholesome air, Somewhile the one must overflow the other;

Then had he stemm'd my day with night and driven My current to the fountain whence it sprang-- Even his own abiding excellence-- On me, methinks, that shock of gloom had fall'n Unfelt, and like the sun I gazed upon, Which, lapt in seeming dissolution, And dipping his head low beneath the verge, Yet bearing round about him his own day, In confidence of unabated strength, Steppeth from heaven to heaven, from light to light, And holding his undimmed forehead far Into a clearer zenith, pure of cloud;

So bearing on thro' Being limitless The triumph of this foretaste, I had merged Glory in glory, without sense of change.

We trod the shadow of the downward hill;

We pass'd from light to dark.

On the other side Is scooped a cavern and a mountain-hall, Which none have fathom'd. If you go far in (The country people rumour) you may hear The moaning of the woman and the child, Shut in the secret chambers of the rock.

I too have heard a sound--perchance of streams Running far-off within its inmost halls, The home of darkness, but the cavern mouth, Half overtrailed with a wanton weed Gives birth to a brawling stream, that stepping lightly Adown a natural stair of tangled roots, Is presently received in a sweet grove Of eglantine, a place of burial Far lovelier than its cradle; for unseen But taken with the sweetness of the place, It giveth out a constant melody That drowns the nearer echoes.

Lower down Spreads out a little lake, that, flooding, makes Cushions of yellow sand; and from the woods That belt it rise three dark tall cypresses;

Three cypresses, symbols of mortal woe, That men plant over graves.