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The Works of Tennyson

The Eversley Edition: Annotated by Alfred, Lord Tennyson: Edited by Hallam, Lord Tennyson
Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)

expand sectionI. 
POEMS
expand sectionII. 
POEMS
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ENOCH ARDEN AND IN MEMORIAM
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THE PRINCESS AND MAUD
 V. 
IDYLLS OF THE KING
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BALLADS AND OTHER POEMS
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THE LOVER'S TALE.
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BALLADS AND OTHER POEMS
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[section]
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TRANSLATIONS, ETC.
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TIRESIAS AND OTHER POEMS
  
[dedication]
  
TO E. FITZGERALD.
  
TIRESIAS.
  
THE WRECK.
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DESPAIR.
  
[preface]
 I. 
I.
 II. 
II.
 III. 
III.
 IV. 
IV.
 V. 
V.
 VI. 
VI.
 VII. 
VII.
 VIII. 
VIII.
 IX. 
IX.
 X. 
X.
 XI. 
XI.
 XII. 
XII.
 XIII. 
XIII.
 XIV. 
XIV.
 XV. 
XV.
 XVI. 
XVI.
 XVII. 
XVII.
 XVIII. 
XVIII.
 XIX. 
XIX.
 XX. 
XX.
 XXI. 
XXI.
  
THE ANCIENT SAGE.
  
THE FLIGHT.
  
TOMORROW.
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THE SPINSTER'S SWEET-ARTS.
  
LOCKSLEY HALL SIXTY YEARS AFTER.
  
PROLOGUE TO GENERAL HAMLEY.
  
THE CHARGE OF THE HEAVY BRIGADE AT BALACLAVA.
  
EPILOGUE.
  
TO VIRGIL.
  
THE DEAD PROPHET
  
EARLY SPRING.
  
PREFATORY POEM TO MY BROTHER'S SONNETS.
  
‘FRATER AVE ATQUE VALE.’
  
HELEN'S TOWER.
  
EPITAPH ON LORD STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE.
  
EPITAPH ON GENERAL GORDON.
  
EPITAPH ON CAXTON.
  
TO THE DUKE OF ARGYLL.
  
HANDS ALL ROUND.
  
FREEDOM.
  
TO H.R.H. PRINCESS BEATRICE.
  
THE FLEET.
  
OPENING OF THE INDIAN AND COLONIAL EXHIBITION BY THE QUEEN.
  
POETS AND THEIR BIBLIOGRAPHIES.
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Additional lines and fragments of verse extracted from notes.
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DEMETER AND OTHER POEMS
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QUEEN MARY AND HAROLD
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BECKET AND OTHER PLAYS

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IV.

See, we were nursed in the drear night-fold of your fatalist creed,

In my boyhood I came across this Calvinist creed—and assuredly, however unfathomable the mystery, if one cannot believe in the freedom of the human will as of the divine, life is hardly worth the living.


And we turn'd to the growing dawn, we had hoped for a dawn indeed,
When the light of a Sun that was coming would scatter the ghosts of the Past,
And the cramping creeds that had madden'd the peoples would vanish at last,
And we broke away from the Christ, our human brother and friend,
For He spoke, or it seem'd that He spoke, of a Hell without help, without end.
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