The woods decay, the woods decay and fall, |
The vapours weep their burthen to the
ground, |
Man comes and tills the field and lies
beneath, |
And after many a summer dies the swan. |
Me only cruel immortality |
Consumes : I wither slowly in thine arms, |
Here at the quiet limit of the world, |
A white-haired shadow roaming like a dream |
The ever-silent spaces of the East, |
Far-folded mists, and gleaming halls of
morn.
|
Alas! for this
gray shadow, once a man— |
So glorious in his beauty and thy choice, |
Who madest him thy chosen, that he seemed |
To his great heart none other than a God! |
I asked thee, ‘Give me immortality.’ |
Then didst thou grant mine asking with a
smile, |
Like wealthy men who care not how they
give. |
But thy strong Hours indignant worked their
wills, |
And beat me down and marred and wasted me, |
And though they could not end me, left me
maimed |
To dwell in presence of immortal youth, |
Immortal age beside immortal youth, |
And all I was, in ashes. Can thy love, |
Thy beauty, make amends, though even now, |
Close over us, the silver star, thy guide, |
Shines in those tremulous eyes that fill
with tears |
To hear me ? let me go : take back thy gift
: |
Why should a man desire in any way |
To vary from the kindly race of men, |
Or pass beyond the goal of ordinance |
Where all should pause, as is most meet for
all ?
|
A soft air fans
the cloud apart ; there comes |
A glimpse of that dark world where I was
born. |
Once more the old mysterious glimmer steals |
From thy pure brows, and from thy shoulders
pure, |
And bosom beating with a heart renewed. |
Thy cheek begins to redden through the
gloom, |
Thy sweet eyes brighten slowly close to
mine, |
Ere yet they blind the stars, and the wild
team |
Which love thee, yearning for thy yoke,
arise, |
And shake the darkness from their loosened
manes, |
And beat the twilight into flakes of fire.
|
Lo ! ever thus
thou growest beautiful |
In silence, then before thine answer given |
Departest, and thy tears are on my cheek.
|
Why wilt thou ever
scare me with thy tears, |
And make me tremble lest a saying learnt, |
In days far-off, on that dark earth, be
true ? |
‘The Gods themselves cannot recall their
gifts.’
|
Ay me ! ay me !
with what another heart |
In days far-off, and with what other eyes |
I used to watch—if I be he that watched— |
The lucid outline forming round thee ; saw |
The dim curls kindle into sunny rings ; |
Changed with thy mystic change, and felt my
blood |
Glow with the glow that slowly crimsoned
all |
Thy presence and thy portals, while I lay, |
Mouth, forehead, eyelids, growing dewy-warm |
With kisses balmier than half-opening buds |
Of April, and could hear the lips that
kissed |
Whispering I knew not what of wild and
sweet, |
Like that strange song I heard Apollo sing, |
While Ilion like a mist rose into towers.
|
Yet hold me not
for ever in thine East : |
How can my nature longer mix with thine ? |
Coldly thy rosy shadows bathe me, cold |
Are all thy lights, and cold my wrinkled
feet |
Upon thy glimmering thresholds, when the
steam |
Floats up from those dim fields about the
homes |
Of happy men that have the power to die, |
And grassy barrows of the happier dead. |
Release me, and restore me to the ground ; |
Thou seëst all things, thou wilt see my
grave : |
Thou wilt renew thy beauty morn by morn ; |
I earth in earth forget these empty courts, |
And thee returning on thy silver wheels.
|
Alfred, Lord
Tennyson | Classic
Poems |
|
[ The Brook ] [ Blow, Bugle, Blow ] [ Come into the garden Maud ] [ Tithonus ] [ Ulysses ] [ Tears, Idle Tears ] [ The Lady of Shalott ] [ Song of the Lotus-Eaters ] [ The Charge of the Light Brigade ] [ In the Valley of Cauteretz ] [ In Memoriam ] [ The Eagle ] |