I'll rather take what fruit may be

Of sorrow under human skies: "T is held that sorrow makes us wise, Whatever wisdom sleep with thee.

CXI

The churl in spirit, up or down

Along the scale of ranks, thro' all, To him who grasps a golden ball, By blood a king, at heart a clown,-

The churl in spirit, howe'er he veil
His want in forms for fashion's sake,
Will let his coltish nature break
At seasons thro' the gilded pale;

For who can always act? but he,

To whom a thousand memories call, Not being less but more than all The gentleness he seem'd to be,

Best seem'd the thing he was, and join'd
Each office of the social hour
To noble manners, as the flower
And native growth of noble mind;

Nor ever narrowness or spite,

Or villain fancy fleeting by,
Drew in the expression of an eye
Where God and Nature met in light;

And thus he bore without abuse
The grand old name of gentleman,
Defamed by every charlatan,
And soil'd with all ignoble use.

CXIII

'Tis held that sorrow makes us wise; Yet how much wisdom sleeps with thee

Which not alone had guided me, But served the seasons that may rise;

For can I doubt, who knew thee keen
In intellect, with force and skill
To strive, to fashion, to fulfil-

I doubt not what thou wouldst have been:

A life in civic action warm,

A soul on highest mission sent,
A potent voice of Parliament,
A pillar steadfast in the storm,

Should licensed boldness gather force,
Becoming, when the time has birth,
A lever to uplift the earth
And roll it in another course,

Who loves not Knowledge? Who shall rail

Against her beauty? May she mix With men and prosper! Who shall fix

Her pillars? Let her work prevail.
But on her forehead sits a fire;

She sets her forward countenance
And leaps into the future chance,
Submitting all things to desire.
Half-grown as yet, a child, and vain—
She cannot fight the fear of death.
What is she, cut from love and faith,
But some wild Pallas from the brain
Of demons? fiery-hot to burst

All barriers in her onward race
For power. Let her know her place;
She is the second, not the first.

A higher hand must make her mild,
If all be not in vain, and guide
Her footsteps, moving side by side
With Wisdom, like the younger child;

For she is earthly of the mind,

But Wisdom heavenly of the soul.
O friend, who camest to thy goal
So early, leaving me behind,

I would the great world grew like thee,
Who grewest not alone in power
And knowledge, but by year and hour
In reverence and in charity.

CXV

Now fades the last long streak of snow, Now burgeons every maze of quick About the flowering squares, and thick

By ashen roots the violets blow.

Now rings the woodland loud and long,
The distance takes a lovelier hue,
And drown'd in yonder living blue
The lark becomes a sightless song.
Now dance the lights on lawn and lea,
The flocks are whiter down the vale,
And milkier every milky sail
On winding stream or distant sea.

Where now the seamew pipes, or dives
In yonder greening gleam, and fly
The happy birds, that change their
sky

To build and brood, that live their lives

From land to land; and in my breast
Spring wakens too, and my regret
Becomes an April violet,

And buds and blossoms like the rest.

CXVIII

Contemplate all this work of Time,
The giant laboring in his youth;
Nor dream of human love and truth,
As dying Nature's earth and lime;
But trust that those we call the dead
Are breathers of an ampler day
For ever nobler ends. They say,
The solid earth whereon we tread

In tracts of fluent heat began,

And grew to seeming-random forms. The seeming prey of cyclic storms, Till at the last arose the man;

Who throve and branch'd from clime to clime,

The herald of a higher race, And of himself in higher place, If so he type this work of time

Within himself, from more to more;

Or, crown'd with attributes of woe Like glories, move his course, and show

That life is not as idle ore,

But iron dug from central gloom,

And heated hot with burning fears, And dipped in baths of hissing tears, And batter'd with the shocks of doom

To shape and use. Arise and fly

The reeling Faun, the sensual feast; Move upward, working out the beast, And let the ape and tiger die.

CXXIII

There rolls the deep where grew the

tree.

O earth, what changes hast thou seen! There where the long street roars hath been

The stillness of the central sea.

The hills are shadows, and they flow From form to form, and nothing stands;

They melt like mist, the solid lands, Like clouds they shape themselves and go.

But in my spirit will I dwell,

And dream my dream, and hold it true; For tho' my lips may breathe adieu, I cannot think the thing farewell.

CXXIV

That which we dare invoke to bless; Our dearest faith; our ghastliest doubt;

He, They, One, All; within, without; The Power in darkness whom we guess,

I found Him not in world or sun,
Or eagle's wing, or insect's eye,
Nor thro' the questions men may try,
The petty cobwebs we have spun.

If e'er when faith had fallen asleep,
I heard a voice," believe no more,"
And heard an ever-breaking shore
That tumbled in the Godless deep,

A warmth within the breast would melt
The freezing reason's colder part,
And like a man in wrath the heart
Stood up and answer'd, "I have felt."

No, like a child in doubt and fear:

But that blind clamor made me wise; Then was I as a child that cries, But, crying, knows his father near;

And what I am beheld again

What is, and no man understands; And out of darkness came the hands That reach thro' nature, moulding men.

CXXV

What ever I have said or sung,

Some bitter notes my harp would give, Yea, tho' there often seem'd to live A contradiction on the tongue,

Yet hope had never lost her youth,

She did but look through dimmer eyes, Or Love but play'd with gracious lies, Because he felt so fix'd in truth;

And if the song were full of care,
He breathed the spirit of the song ;
And if the words were sweet and

strong

He set his royal signet there;

Proclaiming social truth shall spread,

And justice, even tho' thrice again The red fool-fury of the Seine Should pile her barricades with dead.

But ill for him that wears a crown, And him, the lazar, in his rags! They tremble, the sustaining crags; The spires of ice are toppled down,

And molten up, and roar in flood;

The fortress crashes from on high, The brute earth lightens to the sky, And the great on sinks in blood,

And compass'd by the fires of hell ; While thou, dear spirit, happy star, O'erlook'st the tumult from afar, And smilest, knowing all is well.

CXXIX

Dear friend, far off, my lost desire,
So far, so near in woe and weal,
O loved the most, when most I feel
There is a lower and a higher;

Known and unknown, human, divine;

Sweet human hand and lips and eye; Dear heavenly friend that canst not die,

Mine, mine, for ever, ever mine;

Strange friend, past, present, and to be: Loved deeplier, darklier understood; Behold, I dream a dream of good, And mingle all the world with thee.

CXXX

Thy voice is on the rolling air;

I hear thee where the waters run;
Thou standest in the rising sun,
And in the setting thou art fair.
What art thou then? I cannot guess;
But tho' I seem in star and flower
To feel thee some diffusive power,
I do not therefore love thee less.

My love involves the love before;
My love is vaster passion now;
Tho' mix'd with God and Nature thou
I seem to love thee more and more.

Far off thou art, but ever nigh;

I have thee still, and I rejoice;
I prosper, circled with thy voice;

I shall not lose thee tho' I die.

CXXXI

O living will that shalt endure

When all that seems shall suffer shock, Rise in the spiritual rock,

Flow thro' our deeds and make them pure,

That we may lift from out of dust

A voice as unto him that hears, A cry above the conquer'd years To one that with us works, and trust,

With faith that comes of self-control, The truths that never can be proved Until we close with all we loved, And all we flow from, soul in soul. 1833-49. 1850.

TO THE QUEEN1

REVERED, beloved-O you that hold
A nobler office upon earth

Than arms, or power of brain, or birth Could give the warrior kings of old,

Victoria, since your Royal grace
To one of less desert allows

This laurel greener from the brows
Of him that utter'd nothing base;

1 Prefixed to the first edition of Tennyson's Poems published after he became Poet Laureate

And should your greatness, and the care
That yokes with empire, yield you time
To make demand of modern rhyme
If aught of ancient worth be there;

Then-while a sweeter music wakes,

And thro' wild March the throstle calls, Where all about your palace-walls The sun-lit almond-blossom shakes-

Take, Madam, this poor book of song;
For tho' the faults were thick as dust
In vacant chambers, I could trust
Your kindness. May you rule us long,

And leave us rulers of your blood
As noble till the latest day!
May children of our children say,
"She wrought her people lasting good;

"Her court was pure; her life serene;
God gave her peace; her land reposed;
A thousand claims to reverence closed
In her as Mother, Wife, and Queen;

"And statesmen at her council met
Who knew the seasons when to take
Occasion by the hand, and make
The bounds of freedom wider yet

"By shaping some august decree
Which kept her throne unshaken still,
Broad-based upon her people's will,
And compass'd by the inviolate sea."
1851.

THE EAGLE

FRAGMENT

Lead out the pageant: sad and slow,
As fits an universal woe,
Let the long, long procession go,
And let the sorrowing crowd about it
grow,

And let the mournful martial music blow:

The last great Englishman is low.

IV

Mourn, for to us he seems the last, Remembering all his greatness in the past,

No more in soldier fashion will he greet With lifted hand the gazer in the street. O friends, our chief state-oracle is mute! Mourn for the man of long-enduring blood,

The statesman-warrior, moderate, reso

lute,

Whole in himself, a common good.
Mourn for the man of amplest influence,
Yet clearest of ambitious crime,
Our greatest yet with least pretence,
Great in council and great in war.

foremost captain of his time, Rich in saving common-sense, And, as the greatest only are, In his simplicity sublime.

O good gray head which all men knew, O voice from which their omens all men drew,

O iron nerve to true occasion true,

O fallen at length that tower of strength Which stood four-square to all the winds that blew !

Such was he whom we deplore.
The long self-sacrifice of life is o'er.
The great World-victor's victor will be

seen no more.

All is over and done,

Render thanks to the Giver,
England, for thy son.
Let the bell be toll'd.
Render thanks to the Giver,
And render him to the mould.
Under the cross of gold

That shines over city and river,
There he shall rest for ever
Among the wise and the bold.
Let the bell be toll'd,

And a reverent people behold

The towering car, the sable steeds. Bright let it be with its blazon'd deeds, Dark in its funeral fold.

Let the bell be toll'd,

And a deeper knell in the heart be knoll'd;

And the sound of the sorrowing anthem roll'd

Thro' the dome of the golden cross;
And the volleying cannon thunder his

loss;

He knew their voices of old.

For many a time in many a clime
His captain's-ear has heard them boom
Bellowing victory, bellowing doom.
When he with those deep voices
wrought,

Guarding realms and kings from shame, With those deep voices our dead captain taught

The tyrant, and asserts his claim

In that dread sound to the great name
Which he has worn so pure of blame,
In praise and in dispraise the same,
A man of well-attemper'd frame.
O civic muse, to such a name,
To such a name for ages long,
To such a name,

Preserve a broad approach of fame,
And ever-echoing avenues of song!

VI

"Who is he that cometh, like an hon or'd guest,

With banner and with music, with sol dier and with priest,

With a nation weeping, and breaking on my rest?"Mighty Seaman, this is he

Was great by land as thou by sea. Thine island loves thee well, thou famous man,

The greatest sailor since our world be gan.

Now, to the roll of muffled drums,
To thee the greatest soldier comes;
For this is he

Was great by land as thou by sea.
His foes were thine; he kept us free;
O, give him welcome, this is he
Worthy of our gorgeous rites,
And worthy to be laid by thee;
For this is England's greatest son,
He that gain'd a hundred fights,
Nor ever lost an English gun;
This is he that far away
Against the myriads of Assaye
Clash'd with his fiery few and won;
And underneath another sun,
Warring on a later day,
Round affrighted Lisbon drew
The treble works, the vast designs
Of his labor'd rampart-lines,
Where he greatly stood at bay,
Whence he issued forth anew,
And ever great and greater grew,
Beating from the wasted vines
Back to France her banded swarms,
Back to France with countless blows,
Till o'er the hills her eagles flew
Beyond the Pyrenean pines,
Follow'd up in valley and glen
With blare of bugle, clamor of men,
Roll of cannon and clash of arms,
And England pouring on her foes,
Such a war had such a close.
Again their ravening eagle rose
In anger, wheel'd on Europe-shadowing
wings,

And barking for the thrones of kings;
Till one that sought but Duty's iron

crown

On that loud Sabbath shook the spoiler down;

A day of onsets of despair!
Dash'd on every rocky square,
Their surging charges foam'd them.
selves away;

Last, the Prussian trumpet blew;