Thro' the long-tormented air
Heaven flash'd a sudden jubilant ray,
And down we swept and charged and
overthrew.

So great a soldier taught us there
What long-enduring hearts could do
In that world-earthquake, Waterloo!
Mighty Seaman, tender and true,
And pure as he from taint of craven
guile,

O saviour of the silver-coasted isle,
O shaker of the Baltic and the Nile,
If aught of things that here befall
Touch a spirit among things divine,
If love of country move thee there at all.
Be glad, because his bones are laid by
thine!

And thro' the centuries let a people's voice

In full acclaim,

A people's voice,

Till public wrong be crumbled into dust And drill the raw world for the march of mind,

Till crowds at length be sane and crowns be just.

But wink no more in slothful overtrust.
Remember him who led your hosts;
He bade you guard the sacred coasts.
Your cannons moulder on the seaward
wall;

His voice is silent in your council-hall
For ever; and whatever tempests lour
For ever silent; even if they broke
In thunder, silent; yet remember all
He spoke among you, and the Man who
spoke;

Who never sold the truth to serve the hour.

Nor palter'd with Eternal God for power; Who let the turbid streams of rumor flow

Thro' either babbling world of high and low;

Whose life was work, whose language

rife

With rugged maxims hewn from life;
Who never spoke against a foe;
Whose eighty winters freeze with one
rebuke

All great self-seekers trampling on the right.

Truth-teller was our England's Alfred named;

Truth-lover was our English Duke!
Whatever record leap to light
He never shall be shamed.

VIII

Lo! the leader in these glorious wars
Now to glorious burial slowly borne,
Follow'd by the brave of other lands,
He, on whom from both her open hands
Lavish Honor shower'd all her stars,
And affluent Fortune emptied all her

horn.

Yea, let all good things await
Him who cares not to be great
But as he saves or serves the state.
Not once or twice in our rough island.
story

The path of duty was the way to glory.
He that walks it, only thirsting
For the right, and learns to deaden
Love of self, before his journey closes,
He shall find the stubborn thistle burst

ing

Into glossy purples, which out-redden All voluptuous garden-roses.

Not once or twice in our fair island-story

Such was he: his work is done.

But while the races of mankind endure
Let his great example stand
Colossal, seen of every land,

And keep the soldier firm, the statesman pure;

Till in all lands and thro' all human story
The path of duty be the way to glory.
And let the land whose hearths he saved
from shame

For many and many an age proclaim
At civic revel and pomp and game,
And when the long-illumined cities
flame,

Their ever-loyal iron leader's fame,
With honor, honor, honor, honor to him,
Eternal honor to his name.

IX

Peace, his triumph will be sung
By some yet unmoulded tongue

Far on in summers that we shall not see.
Peace, it is a day of pain

For one about whose patriarchal knee Late the little children clung.

O peace, it is a day of pain

For one upon whose hand and heart and brain

Once the weight and fate of Europe

hung.

Ours the pain, be his the gain!
More than is of man's degree
Must be with us, watching here
At this, our great solemnity.
Whom we see not we revere;
We revere, and we refrain
From talk of battles loud and vain,
And brawling memories all too free
For such a wise humility

As befits a solemn fane:
We revere, and while we hear
The tides of Music's golden sea
Setting toward eternity,

Uplifted high in heart and hope are we,
Until we doubt not that for one so true
There must be other nobler work to do
Than when he fought at Waterloo,

God the traitor's hopa confound! To this great name of England drink, my friends, [round.

And all her glorious empire, round and

To all our statesmen so they be

True leaders of the land's desire! To both our Houses, may they see Beyond the borough and the shire! We sail'd wherever ship could sail,

We founded many a mighty state; Pray God our greatness may not fail Thro' craven fears of being great! Hands all round!

God the traitor's hope confound! To this great cause of Freedom drink, my friends,

And the great name of England, round and round.

1852.

THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE1

HALF a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,

All in the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.
"Forward the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!" he said.
Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

"Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Some one had blunder'd.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them

Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of hell

Rode the six hundred.

Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air

1" On Dec. 2d he wrote the Charge of the Light Brigade in a few minutes, after reading the description in the Times in which occurred the phrase 'Some one had blundered,' and this was the origin of the metre of his poem." (Life 381.)

Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder'd.
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel'd from the sabre-stroke
Shatter'd and sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not,
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them

Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of hell,
All that was left of them,

Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder'd.
Honor the charge they made!
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!

December 9, 1854.

THE BROOK

I COME from haunts of cost and hern
I make a sudden sally,
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.

By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.

Till last by Philip's farm I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

I chatter over stony ways.
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.

With many a curve my banks I fret
By many a field and fallow,
And many a fairy foreland set

With willow-weed and mallow.

I chatter, chatter, as I flow

To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

I wind about, and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling,

And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me, as I travel
With many a silvery water-break
Above the golden gravel,

And draw them all along, and flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

I steal by lawns and grassy plots,
I slide by hazel covers;
I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows;
I make the netted sunbeam dance
Against my sandy shallows.

I murmur under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses;

I linger by my shingly bars,
I loiter round my cresses;

And out again I curve and flow
To join the brimming river,

For men may come and men may go, But I go on forever. 1855.

LYRICS FROM MAUD1

PART I

V

A VOICE by the cedar tree

In the meadow under the Hall!
She is singing an air that is known to

me,

A passionate ballad gallant and gay,
A martial song like a trumpet's call !
Singing alone in the morning of life,
In the happy morning of life and of May,
Singing of men that in battle array,
Ready in heart and ready in hand,
March with banner and bugle and fife
To the death, for their native land.

1 See the Life of Tennyson, I, 393-406.

I kiss'd her slender hand,

She took the kiss sedately; Maud is not seventeen,

But she is tall and stately.

I to cry out on pride

Who have won her favor! O, Maud were sure of heaven If lowliness could save her!

I know the way she went

Home with her maiden posy,

For her feet have touch'd the meadows And left the daisies rosy.

Birds in the high Hall-garden

Were crying and calling to her, Where is Maud, Maud, Maud? One is come to woo her.

Look, a horse at the door,

And little King Charley snarling! Go back, my lord, across the moor, You are not her darling.

XVII

Go not, happy day,

From the shining fields, Go not, happy day,

Till the maiden yields. Rosy is the West,

Rosy is the South,
Roses are her cheeks,
And a rose her mouth.
When the happy Yes

Falters from her lips,
Pass and blush the news
Over glowing ships;
Over blowing seas,
Over seas at rest,
Pass the happy news,

Blush it thro' the West; Till the red man dance

By his red cedar-tree, And the red man's babe Leap, beyond the sea. Blush from West to East, Blush from East to West, Till the West is East,

Blush it thro' the West. Rosy is the West,

Rosy is the South,

Roses are her cheeks,

And a rose her mouth.