I hate the dreadful hollow behind the little wood;
Its lips in the field above are dabbled with blood-red heath,
The red-ribb’d ledges drip with a silent horror of blood,
An Echo there, whatever is ask’d her, answers ‘Death.’

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

A voice by the cedar tree
In the meadow under the Hall!
She is singing an air that is known to me,
A passionate ballad gallant and gay,
A martial song like a trumpet’s call!
Singing alone in the morning of life,
In the happy morning of life and of May.

Singing of men that in battle array,
Ready in heart and ready in hand,
March with banner and bugle and fife
To the death, for their native land.

Maud with her exquisite face,
And wild voice pealing up to the sunny sky,
And feet like sunny gems on an English green,
Maud in the light of her youth and her grace,
Singing of Death, and of Honor that cannot die,
Till I well could weep for a time so sordid and mean,
And myself so languid and base.

Silence, beautiful voice!
Be still, for you only trouble the mind
With a joy in which I cannot rejoice,
A glory I shall not find.
Still! I will hear you no more,
For your sweetness hardly leaves me a choice
But to move to the meadow and fall before
Her feet on the meadow grass, and adore,
Not her, who is neither courtly nor kind,
Not her, not her, but a voice.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

She came to the village church,
And sat by a pillar alone;
An angel watching an urn
Wept over her, carved in stone;
And once, but once, she lifted her eyes,
And suddenly, sweetly, strangely blush’d
To find they were met by my own.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

O, let the solid ground
Not fail beneath my feet
Before my life has found
What some have found so sweet!
Then let come what come may,
What matter if I go mad,
I shall have had my day.

Let the sweet heavens endure,
Not close and darken above me
Before I am quite quite sure
That there is one to love me!
Then let come what come may
To a life that has been so sad,
I shall have had my day.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

Birds in the high Hall garden
When twilight was falling,
Maud, Maud, Maud, Maud,
They were crying and calling.

Where was Maud? in our wood;
And who else was with her,
Gathering woodland lilies,
Myriads blow together.

Birds in our wood sang,
Ringing thro’ the valleys,
Maud is here, here, here
In among the lilies.

I kiss’d her slender hand,
She took the kiss sedately;
Maud is not seventeen,
But she is tall and stately.

I know the way she went
Home with her maiden posy,
For her feet have touch’d the meadows
And left the daisies rosy.

Maud has a garden of roses
And lilies fair on a lawn;
There she walks in her state
And tends upon bed and bower,
And thither I climb’d at dawn
And stood by her garden-gate.

I heard no sound where I stood
But the rivulet on from the lawn
Running down to my own dark wood,
Or the voice of the long sea-wave as it swell’d
Now and then in the dim-gray dawn;
But I look’d, and round, all round the house I beheld
The death-white curtain drawn,
Felt a horror over me creep,
Prickle my skin and catch my breath,
Knew that the death-white curtain meant but sleep,
Yet I shudder’d and thought like a fool of the sleep of death.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

Go not, happy day,
From the shining fields,
Go not happy day,
Till the maiden yields.
Rosy is the West,
Rosy is the South,
Roses are her cheeks,
And a rose her mouth.
When a happy Yes
Falters from her lips,
Pass and blush the news
Over glowing ships;
Over blowing seas,
Over seas at rest,
Pass the happy news,
Blush it thro’ the West;
Till the red man dance
By his red cedar-tree,
And the red man’s babe
Leap, beyond the sea.
Blush from West to East,
Blush from East to West,
Till the West is East,
Blush it thro’ the West.
Rosy is the West,
Rosy is the South,
Roses are her cheeks,
And a rose her mouth.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

I have led her home, my love, my only friend.
There is none like her, none.
And never yet so warmly ran my blood
And sweetly, on and on
Calming itself to the long-wish’d-for end,
Full to the banks, close on the promised good.

None like her, none,
Just now the dry-tongued laurels’ pattering talk
Seem’d her light foot along the garden walk,
And shook my heart to think she comes once more.
But even then I heard her close the door;
The gates of heaven are closed, and she is gone.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

Come into the garden, Maud,
For the black bat, night, has flown,
Come into the garden, Maud,
I am here at the gate alone;
And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad,
And the musk of the rose is blown.

For a breeze of morning moves,
And the planet of Love is on high,
Beginning to faint in the light that she loves
On a bed of daffodil sky,
To faint in the light of the sun she loves,
To faint in his light, and to die.

All night have the roses heard
The flute, violin, bassoon;
All night has the casement jessamine stirr’d
To the dancers dancing in tune;
Till a silence fell with the waking bird,
And a hush with the setting moon.

Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls,
Come hither, the dancers are done,
In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls,
Queen lily and rose in one;
Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls,
To the flowers, and be their sun.

There has fallen a splendid tear
From a passion-flower at the gate.
She is coming, my dove, my dear;
She is coming, my life, my fate.
The red rose cries, ‘She is near, she is near;’
And the white rose weeps, ‘She is late;’
The larkspur listens, ‘I hear, I hear;’
And the lily whispers, ‘I wait.’

She is coming, my own, my sweet;
Were it ever so airy a tread,
My heart would hear her and beat,
Were it earth in an earthy bed;
My dust would hear her and beat,
Had I lain for a century dead,
Would start and tremble under her feet,
And blossom in purple and red.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

‘The fault was mine, the fault was mine’
Why am I sitting here so stunn’d and still,
Plucking the harmless wild-flower on the hill?
It is this guilty hand!
And there arises ever a passionate cry
A cry for a brother’s blood;
It will ring in my heart and my ears, till I die, till I die.

Dead, long dead,
Long dead!
And my heart is a handful of dust,
And the wheels go over my head,
And my bones are shaken with pain,
For into a shallow grave they are thrust,
Only a yard beneath the street,
And the hoofs of the horses beat, beat,
The hoofs of the horses beat,
Beat into my scalp and my brain,
With never an end to the stream of passing feet,
Driving, hurrying, marrying, burying,
Clamor and rumble, and ringing and clatter;
And here beneath it is all as bad,
For I thought the dead had peace, but it is not so.
To have no peace in the grave, is that not sad?
But up and down and to and fro,
Ever about me the dead men go;
And then to hear a dead man chatter
Is enough to drive one mad.
O me, why have they not buried me deep enough?
Is it kind to have made me a grave so rough,
Me, that was never a quiet sleeper?
Maybe still I am but half-dead;
Then I cannot be wholly dumb.
I will cry to the steps above my head
And somebody, surely, some kind heart will come
To bury me, bury me
Deeper, ever so little deeper.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

O that ’twere possible
After long grief and pain
To find the arms of my true love
Round me once again!

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

My life has crept so long on a broken wing
Thro’ cells of madness, haunts of horror and fear,
That I come to be grateful at last for a little thing.
My mood is changed, for it fell at a time of year
When the face of night is fair on the dewy downs,
That like a silent lightning under the stars
She seem’d to divide in a dream from a band of the blest,
And spoke of a hope for the world in the coming wars
And it was but a dream yet it yielded a dear delight
To have look’d, tho but in a dream, upon eyes so fair,
That had been in a weary world my one thing bright;
And I stood on a giant deck and mixt my breath
With a loyal people shouting a battle-cry,
Till I saw the dreary phantom arise and fly
Far into the North, and battle, and seas of death.
The blood-red blossom of war with a heart of fire.
Let it flame or fade, and the war roll down like a wind,
We have proved we have hearts in a cause, we are noble still.
I have felt with my native land, I am one with my kind,
I embrace the purpose of God, and the doom assign’d.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)