Poems by Alfred Lord Tennyson

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Tears, Idle Tears

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,

Tears from the depth of some divine despair

Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,

In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,

And thinking of the days that are no more.

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,

That brings our friends up from the underworld,

Sad as the last which reddens over one

by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Enoch Arden

Long lines of cliff breaking have left a chasm;

And in the chasm are foam and yellow sands;

Beyond, red roofs about a narrow wharf

In cluster; then a moulder'd church; and higher

A long street climbs to one tall-tower'd mill;

And high in heaven behind it a gray down

With Danish barrows; and a hazelwood,

By autumn nutters haunted, flourishes

by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Sir Galahad

MY good blade carves the casques of men,

My tough lance thrusteth sure,

My strength is as the strength of ten,

Because my heart is pure.

The shattering trumpet shrilleth high,

The hard brands shiver on the steel,

The splinter'd spear-shafts crack and fly,

The horse and rider reel:

by Alfred Lord Tennyson

The Princess (part 5)

Now, scarce three paces measured from the mound,

We stumbled on a stationary voice,

And 'Stand, who goes?' 'Two from the palace' I.

'The second two: they wait,' he said, 'pass on;

His Highness wakes:' and one, that clashed in arms,

By glimmering lanes and walls of canvas led

Threading the soldier-city, till we heard

The drowsy folds of our great ensign shake

Alfred Lord Tennyson

The Flower

Once in a golden hour

I cast to earth a seed.

Up there came a flower,

The people said, a weed.

To and fro they went

Thro' my garden bower,

And muttering discontent

Cursed me and my flower.

by Alfred Lord Tennyson

After-Thought

I thought of Thee, my partner and my guide,

As being past away. -Vain sympathies!

For backward, Duddon! as I cast my eyes,

I see what was, and is, and will abide;

Still glides the Stream, and shall not cease to glide;

The Form remains, the Function never dies;

While we, the brave, the mighty, and the wise,

We Men, who in our morn of youth defied

by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Balin and Balan

Pellam the King, who held and lost with Lot

In that first war, and had his realm restored

But rendered tributary, failed of late

To send his tribute; wherefore Arthur called

His treasurer, one of many years, and spake,

'Go thou with him and him and bring it to us,

Lest we should set one truer on his throne.

Man's word is God in man.'

by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Dedication

These to His Memory—since he held them dear,

Perchance as finding there unconsciously

Some image of himself—I dedicate,

I dedicate, I consecrate with tears—

These Idylls.

And indeed He seems to me

Scarce other than my king's ideal knight,

by Alfred Lord Tennyson

The Princess (The Conclusion)

So closed our tale, of which I give you all

The random scheme as wildly as it rose:

The words are mostly mine; for when we ceased

There came a minute's pause, and Walter said,

'I wish she had not yielded!' then to me,

'What, if you drest it up poetically?'

So prayed the men, the women: I gave assent:

Yet how to bind the scattered scheme of seven

by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Demeter and Persephone

Faint as a climate-changing bird that flies

All night across the darkness, and at dawn

Falls on the threshold of her native land,

And can no more, thou camest, O my child,

Led upward by the God of ghosts and dreams,

Who laid thee at Eleusis, dazed and dumb,

With passing thro' at once from state to state,

Until I brought thee hither, that the day,

by Alfred Lord Tennyson

OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII (Entire)

Strong Son of God, immortal Love,

Whom we, that have not seen thy face,

By faith, and faith alone, embrace,

Believing where we cannot prove;

Thine are these orbs of light and shade;

Thou madest Life in man and brute;

Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot

Is on the skull which thou hast made.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

The Death of the Old Year

Full knee-deep lies the winter snow,

And the winter winds are wearily sighing:

Toll ye the church bell sad and slow,

And tread softly and speak low,

For the old year lies a-dying.

Old year you must not die;

You came to us so readily,

You lived with us so steadily,

by Alfred Lord Tennyson