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

Trench (afterwards Archbishop of Dublin) said, when we were at Trinity (Cambridge) together, “Tennyson, we cannot live in Art.” This poem is the embodiment of my own belief that the Godlike life is with man and for man.

Beauty, Good and Knowledge are three sisters . . .
That never can be sunder'd without tears.
And he that shuts out Love, in turn shall be
Shut out from Love, and on her threshold lie,
Howling in outer darkness.

When I first conceived the plan of The Palace of Art, I intended to have introduced both sculptures and paintings into it, but I only finished two sculptures.

One was the Tishbite whom the raven red,
As when he stood on Carmel-steeps,
With one arm stretch'd out bare, and mock'd and said,
“Come, cry aloud—he sleeps.”

Tall, eager, lean and strong, his cloak windborne
Behind, his forehead heavenly bright
From the clear marble pouring glorious scorn,
Lit as with inner light.

Olympias was the mother of Alexander the Great, and devoted to the Orphic rites. She was wont in the dances proper to these ceremonies to have great tame serpents about her.

One was Olympias: the floating snake
Roll'd round her ankles, round her waist
Knotted, and folded once about her neck,
Her perfect lips to taste,
Down from the shoulder moved; she seeming blithe
Declined her head: on every side
The dragon's curves melted, and mingled with
The woman's youthful pride
Of rounded limbs.

I built my soul a lordly pleasure-house,
Wherein at ease for aye to dwell.
I said, ‘O Soul, make merry and carouse,
Dear soul, for all is well.’

A huge crag-platform, smooth as burnish'd brass
I chose. The ranged ramparts bright
From level meadow-bases of deep grass
Suddenly scaled the light

Thereon I built it firm. Of ledge or shelf
The rock rose clear, or winding stair.
My soul would live alone unto herself
In her high palace there.

And ‘while the world runs round and round,’ I said,
‘Reign thou apart, a quiet king,
Still as, while Saturn whirls, his stedfast shade
Sleeps on his luminous ring.’

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To which my soul made answer readily:
‘Trust me, in bliss I shall abide
In this great mansion, that is built for me,
So royal-rich and wide.’

Four courts I made, East, West and South and North,
In each a squared lawn, wherefrom
The golden gorge of dragons spouted forth
A flood of fountain-foam.

And round the cool green courts there ran a row
Of cloisters, branch'd like mighty woods,
Echoing all night to that sonorous flow
Of spouted fountain-floods.

And round the roofs a gilded gallery
That lent broad verge

a broad horizon.

to distant lands,
Far as the wild swan wings, to where the sky
Dipt down to sea and sands.

From those four jets four currents in one swell
Across the mountain stream'd below
In misty folds, that floating as they fell
Lit up a torrent-bow.

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And high on every peak a statue seem'd
To hang on tiptoe, tossing up
A cloud of incense of all odour steam'd
From out a golden cup.

So that she thought, ‘And who shall gaze upon
My palace with unblinded eyes,
While this great bow will waver in the sun,
And that sweet incense rise?’

For that sweet incense rose and never fail'd,
And, while day sank or mounted higher,
The light aërial gallery, golden-rail'd,
Burnt like a fringe of fire.

Likewise the deep-set windows, stain'd and traced,
Would seem slow-flaming crimson fires
From shadow'd grots of arches interlaced,
And tipt with frost-like spires.

Full of long-sounding corridors it was,
That over-vaulted grateful gloom,
Thro' which the livelong day my soul did pass,
Well-pleased, from room to room.

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Full of great rooms and small the palace stood,
All various, each a perfect whole
From living Nature, fit for every mood
And change of my still soul.

For some were hung with arras green and blue,
Showing a gaudy summer-morn,
Where with puff'd cheek the belted hunter blew
His wreathed bugle-horn.

One seem'd all dark and red—a tract of sand,
And some one pacing there alone,
Who paced for ever in a glimmering land,
Lit with a low large moon.

One show'd an iron coast and angry waves.
You seem'd to hear them climb and fall
And roar rock-thwarted under bellowing caves
Beneath the windy wall.

And one, a full-fed river winding slow
By herds upon an endless plain,
The ragged rims of thunder brooding low,
With shadow-streaks of rain.

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And one, the reapers at their sultry toil.
In front they bound the sheaves. Behind
Were realms of upland, prodigal in oil,
And hoary

The underside of the olive leaf is white.

to the wind.

And one a foreground black with stones and slags,
Beyond, a line of heights, and higher
All barr'd with long white cloud the scornful crags,
And highest, snow and fire.

And one, an English home—gray twilight pour'd
On dewy pastures, dewy trees,
Softer than sleep—all things in order stored,
A haunt of ancient Peace.

Nor these alone, but every landscape fair,
As fit for every mood of mind,
Or gay, or grave, or sweet, or stern, was there
Not less than truth design'd.

Or the maid-mother by a crucifix,
In tracts of pasture sunny-warm,
Beneath branch-work of costly sardonyx

The Parisian jewellers apply graduated degrees of heat to the sardonyx, by which the original colour is changed to various colours. They imitate thus, among other things, bunches of grapes with green tendrils.

Sat smiling, babe in arm.

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Or in a clear-wall'd city on the sea,
Near gilded organ-pipes, her hair
Wound with white roses, slept St. Cecily;
An angel look'd at her.

Or thronging all one porch of Paradise
A group of Houris bow'd to see
The dying Islamite, with hands and eyes
That said, We wait for thee.

Or mythic Uther's deeply-wounded son

Arthur when he was “smitten thro' the helm” by Modred. Here this verse was omitted:

Or blue-eyed Kriembilt from a craggy hold
Athwart the light-green rows of vine,
Pour'd blazing hoards of Nibelungen gold
Down to the gulfy Rhine.

In some fair space of sloping greens
Lay, dozing in the vale of Avalon,
And watch'd by weeping queens.
Or hollowing one hand against his ear,
To list a foot-fall, ere he saw
The wood-nymph, stay'd the Ausonian king to hear

Egeria, who gave the laws to Numa Pompilius.

Of wisdom and of law.

Or over hills with peaky tops engrail'd,
And many a tract of palm and rice,
The throne of Indian Cama

the Hindu God of young love, son of Brahma.

slowly sail'd
A summer fann'd with spice.

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Or sweet Europa's mantle blew

“Blue,” as it appears in some editions, was a printer's error.

unclasp'd,
From off her shoulder backward borne:
From one hand droop'd a crocus: one hand grasp'd
The mild bull's golden horn.

Or else flush'd Ganymede, his rosy thigh
Half-buried in the Eagle's down,
Sole as a flying star shot thro' the sky
Above the pillar'd town.

Nor these alone: but every legend fair
Which the supreme Caucasian mind
Carved out of Nature for itself, was there,
Not less than life, design'd.

Then in the towers I placed great bells that swung,
Moved of themselves, with silver sound;
And with choice paintings of wise men I hung
The royal dais round.

For there was Milton like a seraph strong,
Beside him Shakespeare bland and mild;
And there the world-worn Dante grasp'd his song,
And somewhat grimly smiled.

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And there the Ionian father

Homer.

of the rest;
A million wrinkles carved his skin;
A hundred winters snow'd upon his breast,
From cheek and throat and chin.

Above, the fair hall-ceiling stately-set
Many an arch high up did lift,
And angels rising and descending met
With interchange of gift.

Below was all mosaic choicely plann'd
With cycles of the human tale
Of this wide world, the times of every land
So wrought, they will not fail.

The people here, a beast of burden slow,
Toil'd onward, prick'd with goads and stings;
Here play'd, a tiger, rolling to and fro
The heads and crowns of kings;

Here rose, an athlete, strong to break or bind
All force in bonds that might endure,
And here once more like some sick man declined,
And trusted any cure.

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But over these she trod: and those great bells
Began to chime. She took her throne:
She sat betwixt the shining Oriels,
To sing her songs alone.

And thro' the topmost Oriels' coloured flame
Two godlike faces gazed below;
Plato the wise, and large-brow'd Verulam,

The bust of Bacon in Trinity College Library. “Livy” is in one of the original verses here, and looks queer. Our classical tutor at Trinity College used to call him such a great poet that I suppose he got into my palace thro' his recommendation.

The first of those who know.

The first of those who know is Bacon.
“Il maestro di color chi sanno,”

as Dante says of Aristotle in Inferno, iii. In the first edition, in the centre of the four quadrangles was a huge tower.

Hither, when all the deep unsounded skies
Shudder'd with silent stars, she clomb,
And as with optic glasses her keen eyes
Pierced thro' the mystic dome,
Regions of lucid matter taking forms,
Brushes of fire, hazy gleams,
Clusters and beds of worlds, and bee-like swarms
Of suns, and starry streams.
She saw the snowy poles and moons of Mars,
That mystic field of drifted light
In mid Orion and the married stars.

“Moons of Mars” is the only modern reading here. All the rest are more than half a century old.

And all those names, that in their motion were
Full-welling fountain-heads of change,
Betwixt the slender shafts were blazon'd fair
In diverse raiment strange:

Thro' which the lights, rose, amber, emerald, blue,
Flush'd in her temples and her eyes,
And from her lips, as morn from Memnon, drew
Rivers of melodies.

No nightingale delighteth to prolong
Her low preamble all alone,
More than my soul to hear her echo'd song
Throb thro' the ribbed stone;

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Singing and murmuring in her feastful mirth,
Joying to feel herself alive,
Lord over Nature, Lord of the visible earth,
Lord of the senses five;

Communing with herself: ‘All these are mine,
And let the world have peace or wars,
'Tis one to me.’ She—when young night divine
Crown'd dying day with stars,

Making sweet close of his delicious toils—
Lit light in wreaths and anadems,
And pure quintessences of precious oils
In hollow'd moons of gems,

To mimic heaven; and clapt her hands and cried,
‘I marvel if my still delight
In this great house so royal-rich, and wide,
Be flatter'd to the height.

‘O all things fair to sate my various eyes!
O shapes and hues that please me well!
O silent faces of the Great and Wise,
My Gods, with whom I dwell!

After line 20 used to come these verses:

“From shape to shape at first within the womb
The brain is moulded,” she began,
“And thro' all phases of all thought I come
Unto the perfect man.

All nature widens upward. Evermore
The simpler essence lower lies,
More complex is more perfect, owning more
Discourse, more widely wise.”

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‘O God-like isolation which art mine,
I can but count thee perfect gain,
What time I watch the darkening droves of swine
That range on yonder plain.

‘In filthy sloughs they roll a prurient skin,
They graze and wallow, breed and sleep;
And oft some brainless devil enters in,
And drives them to the deep.’

Then of the moral instinct would she prate
And of the rising from the dead,
As hers by right of full-accomplish'd Fate;
And at the last she said:

‘I take possession of man's mind and deed.
I care not what the sects may brawl.
I sit as God holding no form of creed,
But contemplating all.’

Full oft the riddle of the painful earth
Flash'd thro' her as she sat alone,
Yet not the less held she her solemn mirth,
And intellectual throne.

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And so she throve and prosper'd: so three years
She prosper'd: on the fourth she fell,
Like Herod, when the shout was in his ears,
Struck thro' with pangs of hell.

Lest she should fail and perish utterly,
God, before whom ever lie bare
The abysmal deeps of Personality,

Arthur Hallam once pointed out to me, or I to him, a quotation in some review from J. P. Richter where he talks of an “abysmal Ich.” “I believe that redemption is universal in so far as it left no obstacle between man and God but man's own will; that indeed is in the power of God's election, with whom alone rest the abysmal secrets of personality” (A. H. Hallam's Remains, p. 132).

Plagued her with sore despair.

When she would think, where'er she turn'd her sight
The airy hand confusion wrought,
Wrote, ‘Mene, mene,’ and divided quite
The kingdom of her thought.

Deep dread and loathing of her solitude
Fell on her, from which mood was born
Scorn of herself, again, from out that mood
Laughter at her self-scorn.

‘What! is not this my place of strength,’ she said,
‘My spacious mansion built for me,
Whereof the strong foundation-stones were laid
Since my first memory?’

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But in dark corners of her palace stood
Uncertain shapes; and unawares
On white-eyed phantasms weeping tears of blood,
And horrible nightmares,

And hollow shades enclosing hearts of flame,
And, with dim fretted foreheads all,

Cf. “moth-fretted garments.” Not wrinkled, but worm-fretted (Old English fretan, to eat).

On corpses three-months-old at noon she came,
That stood against the wall.

A spot of dull stagnation, without light
Or power of movement, seem'd my soul,
'Mid onward-sloping motions infinite
Making for one sure goal.

A still salt pool, lock'd in with bars of sand,
Left on the shore; that hears all night
The plunging seas draw backward from the land
Their moon-led waters white.

A star that with the choral starry dance
Join'd not, but stood, and standing saw
The hollow orb of moving Circumstance

Some old writer calls the Heavens “the Circumstance.” When an undergraduate, a friend said to me, “How fine the word ‘circumstance’ is, used in that sense.” Here it is more or less a play on the word. The Ptolemaic astronomy describes the universe as scooped out of chaos.

Roll'd round by one fix'd law.

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Back on herself her serpent pride had curl'd.
‘No voice,’ she shriek'd in that lone hall,
‘No voice breaks thro’ the stillness of this world:
One deep, deep silence all!’

She, mouldering with the dull earth's mouldering sod,
Inwrapt tenfold in slothful shame,
Lay there exiled from eternal God,
Lost to her place and name;

And death and life she hated equally,
And nothing saw, for her despair,
But dreadful time, dreadful eternity,
No comfort anywhere;

Remaining utterly confused with fears,
And ever worse with growing time,
And ever unrelieved by dismal tears,
And all alone in crime:

Shut up as in a crumbling tomb, girt round
With blackness as a solid wall,
Far off she seem'd to hear the dully sound
Of human footsteps fall.

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As in strange lands a traveller walking slow,
In doubt and great perplexity,
A little before moon-rise hears the low
Moan of an unknown sea;

And knows not if it be thunder, or a sound
Of rocks thrown down, or one deep cry
Of great wild beasts; then thinketh, ‘I have found
A new land, but I die.’

She howl'd aloud, ‘I am on fire within.
There comes no murmur of reply.
What is it that will take away my sin,
And save me lest I die?’

So when four years were wholly finished
She threw her royal robes away.
‘Make me a cottage in the vale,’ she said,
‘Where I may mourn and pray.

‘Yet pull not down my palace towers, that are
So lightly, beautifully built:
Perchance I may return with others there
When I have purged my guilt.’