'But who was he that in the garden snared Picus and Faunus, rustic Gods? a tale To laugh at-more to laugh at in my self For look! what is it? there? yon arbutus Totters; a noiseless riot underneath Strikes through the wood, sets all the tops quivering The mountain quickens into Nymph and Faun; And here an Oread-how the sun delights Not welcome, harpies miring every To glance and shift about her slippery dish, sides, And rosy knees and supple rounded ness, 190 And budded bosom-peaks-who this way runs Before the rest! A satyr, a satyr, see, Follows; but him I proved impossible; Twy-natured is no nature. Yet he draws My bliss in being; and it was not great, For save when shutting reasons up in rhythm, Or Heliconian honey in living words, To make a truth less harsh, I often grew Tired of so much within our little life, Nearer and nearer, and I scan him Or of so little in our little life Fledged as it were with Mercury's ankle-wing, Whirls her to me- but will she fling herself Shameless upon me? Catch her, goatfoot! nay, Hide, hide them, million-myrtled wilderness, And cavern-shadowing laurels, hide! do I wish What?-that the bush were leafiess? or to whelm All of them in one massacre? O ye Gods, I know you careless, yet, behold, to you From childly wont and ancient use I call. I thought I lived securely as yourselvesNo lewdness, narrowing envy, mon key-spite, 210 No madness of ambition, avarice, none; No larger feast than under plane or pine With neighbors laid along the grass, to take Only such cups as left us friendly Poor little life that toddles half an hour Crown'd with a flower or two, and there an end And since the nobler pleasure seems to fade, 230 Why should I, beastlike as I find my. self, Not manlike end myself?- our privilege What beast has heart to do it? And what man, What Roman would be dragg'd in triumph thus ? Not I; not he, who bears one name with her Whose death-blow struck the dateless doom of kings, When, brooking not the Tarquin in her veins, She made her blood in sight of Collatine And all his peers, flushing the guiltless air, Spout from the maiden fountain in her heart. 240 Four years ago Mr. Sullivan requested me to write a little song-cycle, German fashion, for him to exercise his art upon. He had been very successful in setting such old songs as 'Orpheus with his lute,' and I drest up for him, partly in the old style, a puppet whose almost only merit is, perhaps, that it can dance to Mr. Sullivan's instrument. I am sorry that my four-year-old puppet should have to dance at all in the dark shadow of these days; but the music is now completed, and I am bound by my promise. A. TENNYSON. December, 1870. ON THE HILL THE lights and shadows fly! Yonder it brightens and darkens down on the plain. A jewel, a jewel dear to a lover's eye! O, is it the brook, or a pool, or her window-pane, When the winds are up in the morning? Vine, vine and eglantine, Clasp her window, trail and twine! Rose, rose and clematis, Trail and twine and clasp and kiss, Kiss, kiss; and make her a bower 20 All of flowers, and drop me a But not into mine. flower, Drop me a flower. Vine, vine and eglantine, SPRING 60 Cannot a flower, a flower, be mine? Rose, rose and clematis, 30 Drop me a flower, a flower to kiss, Kiss, kiss- and out of her bower All of flowers, a flower, a flower, Dropt, a flower. Gone! GONE Gone, till the end of the year, Gone, and the light gone with her, and left me in shadow here! Gone flitted away, |
