Poems by Alfred Lord Tennyson

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The Princess (prologue)

Sir Walter Vivian all a summer's day

Gave his broad lawns until the set of sun

Up to the people: thither flocked at noon

His tenants, wife and child, and thither half

The neighbouring borough with their Institute

Of which he was the patron. I was there

From college, visiting the son,—the son

A Walter too,—with others of our set,

by Alfred Lord Tennyson

The Higher Pantheism

The sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills and the plains,-

Are not these, O Soul, the Vision of Him who reigns?

Is not the Vision He, tho' He be not that which He seems?

Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?

Earth, these solid stars, this weight of body and limb,

Are they not sign and symbol of thy division from Him?

Dark is the world to thee; thyself art the reason why,

For is He not all but thou, that hast power to feel "I am I"?

by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Fatima

O LOVE, Love, Love! O withering might!

O sun, that from thy noonday height

Shudderest when I strain my sight,

Throbbing thro' all thy heat and light,

Lo, falling from my constant mind,

Lo, parch'd and wither'd, deaf and blind,

I whirl like leaves in roaring wind.

by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere

LIKE souls that balance joy and pain,

With tears and smiles from heaven again

The maiden Spring upon the plain

Came in a sun-lit fall of rain.

In crystal vapour everywhere

Blue isles of heaven laugh'd between,

And far, in forest-deeps unseen,

The topmost elm-tree gather'd green

by Alfred Lord Tennyson

CXV: Spring

Now fades the last long streak of snow,

Now burgeons every maze of quick

About the flowering squares, and thick

By ashen roots the violets blow.

Now rings the woodland loud and long,

The distance takes a lovelier hue,

And drowned in yonder living blue

The lark becomes a sightless song.

by Alfred Lord Tennyson

In Memoriam 82: I Wage Not Any Feud With Death

I wage not any feud with Death

For changes wrought on form and face;

No lower life that earth's embrace

May breed with him, can fright my faith.

Eternal process moving on,

From state to state the spirit walks;

And these are but the shatter'd stalks,

Or ruin'd chrysalis of one.

by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Maud II

O that 'twere possible

After long grief and pain

To find the arms of my true love

Round me once again!

When I was wont to meet her

In the silent woody places

By the home that gave me birth,

We stood tranced in long embraces

by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Ring Out, Wild Bells

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,

The flying cloud, the frosty light;

The year is dying in the night;

Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,

Ring, happy bells, across the snow:

The year is going, let him go;

Ring out the false, ring in the true.

by Alfred Lord Tennyson

The Princess (part 4)

'There sinks the nebulous star we call the Sun,

If that hypothesis of theirs be sound'

Said Ida; 'let us down and rest;' and we

Down from the lean and wrinkled precipices,

By every coppice-feathered chasm and cleft,

Dropt through the ambrosial gloom to where below

No bigger than a glow-worm shone the tent

Lamp-lit from the inner. Once she leaned on me,

by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Gareth And Lynette

The last tall son of Lot and Bellicent,

And tallest, Gareth, in a showerful spring

Stared at the spate. A slender-shafted Pine

Lost footing, fell, and so was whirled away.

'How he went down,' said Gareth, 'as a false knight

Or evil king before my lance if lance

Were mine to use—O senseless cataract,

Bearing all down in thy precipitancy—

by Alfred Lord Tennyson

The Princess (part 1)

A prince I was, blue-eyed, and fair in face,

Of temper amorous, as the first of May,

With lengths of yellow ringlet, like a girl,

For on my cradle shone the Northern star.

There lived an ancient legend in our house.

Some sorcerer, whom a far-off grandsire burnt

Because he cast no shadow, had foretold,

Dying, that none of all our blood should know

by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Sweet And Low

Sweet and low, sweet and low,

Wind of the western sea,

Low, low, breathe and blow,

Wind of the western sea!

Over the rolling waters go,

Come from the dying moon, and blow,

Blow him again to me;

While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps.

by Alfred Lord Tennyson