The Works of Tennyson :: :: University of Virginia Library

Clear-Headed friend, whose joyful scorn,
Edged with sharp laughter, cuts atwain
The knots that tangle human creeds,
The wounding cords that bind and strain.
The heart until it bleeds,
Ray-fringed eyelids

Cf.

“Under the opening eyelids of the morn.”
Lycidas.

of the morn
Roof not a glance so keen as thine:
If aught of prophecy be mine,
Thou wilt not live in vain.

II.

Low-cowering shall the Sophist sit;
Falsehood shall bare her plaited brow:
Fair-fronted Truth shall droop not now
With shrilling shafts of subtle wit.
Nor martyr-flames, nor trenchant swords
Can do away that ancient lie;
A gentler death shall Falsehood die,
Shot thro' and thro' with cunning words.

III.

Weak Truth a-leaning on her crutch,
Wan, wasted Truth in her utmost need,
Thy kingly intellect shall feed,
Until she be an athlete bold,
And weary with a finger's touch
Those writhed limbs of lightning speed;
Like that strange angel which of old,
Until the breaking of the light,
Wrestled with wandering Israel,
Past Yabbok

Jabbok not so sweet as Yabbok. Cf. Gen. xxxii. 22-32. The Hebrew J is Y.

brook the livelong night,
And heaven's mazed signs stood still

The stars stood still in their courses to watch.

In the dim tract of Penuel.

University of Virginia Library

TO ------. The first lines were addressed to Blakesley (afterwards Dean of Lincoln), but the poem wandered off to describe an imaginary man.

I.

II.

III.

TO ------.

The first lines were addressed to Blakesley (afterwards Dean of Lincoln), but the poem wandered off to describe an imaginary man.