Tennyson day-by-day online

TENNYSON
DAY -BY -DAY



EDITED-BY

ANNA H SMITH




NEW -YORK
T Y- CROWELL &, CO

PUBLISHERS




COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.
PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER, 1907



JANUARY


JANUARY FIRST

THE niglit is starry and cold, my friend,
And the New-year blithe and bold, my
friend,
Comes up to take his own.

There 's a new foot on the floor, my friend,
A new face at the door, my friend,

A new face at the door.

Death of the Old Tear

JANUARY SECOND

The old order changeth, yielding place to new,

And God fulfils himself in many ways,

Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.

Morte D 'Arthur

JANUARY THIRD

Fly, happy happy sails and bear the Press;
Fly happy with the mission of the Cross;
Knit land to land, and blowing havenward
With silks, and fruits, and spices, clear of toll,
Enrich the markets of the golden year.

The Golden Year



JANUARY FOURTH

Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping

something new:
That which they hav^ done but earnest of the

things that they shall do.

Locksley Hall

JANUARY FIFTH

He heeded not reviling tones,

Nor sold his heart to idle moans,

Tho' cursed and scorn'd, and bruised with stones :

But looking upward, full of grace,
He pray'd, and from a happy place

God's glory smote him on the face.

The T<wo Voices

JANUARY SIXTH

For tho' the Giant Ages heave the hill
And break the shore, and evermore
Make and break, and work their will ;
Tho' world on world in myriad myriads roll
Round us, each with different powers,
And other forms of life than ours,
What know we greater than the soul ?
On God and Godlike men we build our trust.

Ode on the Death of Wellington

JANUARY SEVENTH

Bring in great logs and let them lie,
To make a solid core of heat ;



Be cheerful-minded, talk and treat
Of all things ev'n as he were by.



In Memoriam



JANUARY EIGHTH

I will not shut me from my kind,
And, lest I stiffen into stone,
I will not eat my heart alone,

Nor feed with sighs a passing wind.



In Memoriam



JANUARY NINTH

O purblind race of miserable men,
How many among us at this very hour
Do forge a life-long trouble for ourselves;
By taking true for false, or false for true ;
Here, thro' the feeble twilight of this world
Groping, how many, until we pass and reach

That other, where we see as we are seen !

Enid

JANUARY TENTH

Make knowledge circle with the winds;
But let her herald, Reverence, fly
Before her to whatever sky
Bear seed of men and growth of minds.

"Lo<ve Thou Thy Land"
JANUARY ELEVENTH

I said, "The years with change advance:

If I make dark my countenance,

I shut my life from happier chance."

The Tnuo f^oicet
[3]



JANUARY TWELFTH

Reign thou above the storms of sorrow and ruth
That roar beneath ; unshaken peace hath won

thee:

So shalt thou pierce the woven glooms of truth ;
So shall the blessing of the meek be on thee ;
So in thine hour of dawn, the body's youth,

An honourable eld shall come upon thee.

Sonnet

JANUARY THIRTEENTH

Let there be thistles, there are grapes ;

If old things, there are new;
Ten thousand broken lights and shapes,

Yet glimpses of the true.
Let raffs be rife in prose and rhyme,

We lack not rhymes and reasons,
As on this whirligig of Time

We circle with the seasons.

Will Waterproof** Monologue

JANUARY FOURTEENTH

Late, late, so late ! and dark the night and chill !
Late, late, so late ! but we can enter still.
Too late, too late ! ye cannot enter now.

No light had we: for that we do repent;
And learning this, the bridegroom will relent.
Too late, too late ! ye cannot enter now.

Gtattewerg

[4]



JANUARY FIFTEENTH

Watch what main-currents draw the years :
Cut Prejudice against the grain :
But gentle words are always gain :

Regard the weakness of thy peers.

"Love Thou Thy Land"

JANUARY SIXTEENTH

Is this enough to say
That my desire, like all strongest hopes,
By its own energy fulfilled itself,

Merged in completion ?

The Gardeners Daughter

JANUARY SEVENTEENTH

Two children in two neighbour villages
Playing mad pranks along the heathy leas;
Two strangers meeting at a festival ;
Two lovers whispering by an orchard wall;
Two lives bound fast in one with golden ease;
Two graves grass-green beside a gray church-
tower,

Wash'd with still rains and daisy-blossomed ;
Two children in one hamlet born and bred;
So runs the round of life from hour to hour.

Circumstance

JANUARY EIGHTEENTH

Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel and lower the
proud ;

[5]



Turn thy wild wheel thro' sunshine, storm, and

cloud ;
Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate.

Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or

frown ;

With that wild wheel we go not up or down ;
Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great.

Smile and we smile, the lords of many lands;
Frown and we smile, the lords of our own hands ;

For man is man and master of his fate.

Enid

JANUARY NINETEENTH

Oh ! who would fight and march and counter-
march,

Be shot for sixpence in a battle-field,
And shovell'd up into a bloody trench

Where no one knows?

Audley Court

JANUARY TWENTIETH

He,

Vex'd with a morbid devil in his blood
That veiPd the world with jaundice, hid his face
From all men, and commercing with himself,
He lost the sense that handles daily life
That keeps us all in order more or less
And sick of home went overseas for change.

Walking to the Mail

[6]



JANUARY TWENTY-FIRST

For Love himself took part against himself
To warn us off, and Duty loved of Love

this world's curse, beloved but hated came
Like Death betwixt thy dear embrace and mine,
And crying, "Who is this? behold thy bride,"

She push'd me from thee.

Lo<ve and Duty

JANUARY TWENTY-SECOND

For me, I thank the saints, I am not great.
For if there ever come a grief to me

1 cry my cry in silence, and have done :

None knows it, and my tears have brought me

good :

But even were the griefs of little ones
As great as those of great ones, yet this grief
Is added to the griefs the great must bear,
That howsoever much they may desire
Silence, they cannot weep behind a cloud.

Guinevere

JANUARY TWENTY-THIRD

Shy she was, and I thought her cold ;

Thought her proud, and fled over the sea;
Fill'd I was with folly and spite,

When Ellen Adair was dying for me.

Bitterly wept I over the stone : .
Bitterly weeping I turn'd away :

[7]



There lies the body of Ellen Adair !
And there the heart of Edward Gray !

Edward Gray

JANUARY TWENTY-FOURTH

Love that hath us in the net,
Can he pass, and we forget?
Many suns arise and set.
Many a chance the years beget.
Love the gift is Love the debt.

Even so.

The Miller s Daughter

JANUARY TWENTY-FIFTH

Love is hurt with jar and fret.
Love is made a vague regret.
Eyes with idle tears are wet.
Idle habit links us yet.
What is love ? for we forget :

Ah, no ! no !

The Miller's Daughter

JANUARY TWENTY-SIXTH

Forgive! How many will say, "forgive," and

find

A sort of absolution in the sound
To hate a little longer ! No ; the sin
That neither God nor man can well forgive,

Hypocrisy, I saw it in him at once.

Sea Dreams

[8]



JANUARY TWENTY-SEVENTH

Overquick art thou

To catch a loathly plume fall'n from the wing
Of that foul bird of rapine whose whole prey

Is man's good name.

Vinrien

JANUARY TWENTY-EIGHTH

The world will not believe a man repents :
And this wise world of ours is mainly right.
Full seldom does a man repent, or use
Both grace and will to pick the vicious quitch
Of blood and custom wholly out of him,
And make all clean, and plant himself afresh.

Enid

JANUARY TWENTY-NINTH

Ah yet, tho' all the world forsake,

Tho' fortune clip my wings,
I will not cramp my heart, nor take

Half-views of men and things.

Will Waterproof^s Monologue

JANUARY THIRTIETH

O we will walk this world,
Yoked in all exercise of noble end,
And so thro' those dark gates across the wild

That no man knows.

The Princess



[9]



JANUARY THIRTY-FIRST

In vain shalt thou, or any, call

The spirits from their golden day,
Except, like them, thou too canst say

My spirit is at peace with all.

They haunt the silence of the breast,
Imaginations calm and fair,
The memory like a cloudless air,

The conscience as a sea at rest :

But when the heart is full of din,

And doubt beside the portal waits,
They can but listen at the gates,

And hear the household jar within.



In Mcmoriam



I I0 ]



FEBRUARY



FEBRUARY FIRST

WHEN cats run home and light is come,
And dew is cold upon the ground,
And the far-off stream is dumb,
And the whirring sail goes round,
And the whirring sail goes round ;
Alone and warming his five wits,
The white owl in the belfry sits.

The White Owl

FEBRUARY SECOND

Every day hath its night:
Every night its morn :
Thorough dark and bright
Winged hours are borne;

Ah ! welaway !
Seasons flower and fade;
Golden calm and storm

Mingle day by day.
There is no bright form
Doth not cast a shade
Ah ! welaway !



FEBRUARY THIRD

God gives us love. Something to love

He lends us ; but, when love is grown
To ripeness, that on which it throve

Falls off, and love is left alone.

To J. S.

FEBRUARY FOURTH

Love thou thy land, with love far-brought
From out the storied Past, and used
Within the Present, but transfused
Thro' future time by power of thought.

"Love Thou 'Thy Land"

FEBRUARY FIFTH

Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control,
These three alone lead life to sovereign power.
Yet not for power, (power of herself
Would come uncall'd for,) but to live by law,
A6ling the law we live by without fear;
And, because right is right, to follow right

Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence.

(Enone

FEBRUARY SIXTH

What good should follow this, if this were done?
What harm, undone? deep harm to disobey,
Seeing obedience is the bond of rule.
Were it well to obey then, if a king demand
An al unprofitable, against himself?

Morte D" Arthur



FEBRUARY SEVENTH

Deliver not the tasks of might *

To weakness, neither hide the ray
From those, not blind, who wait for day,

Tho' sitting girt with doubtful light.

"Love Thou Thy Land"
FEBRUARY EIGHTH

Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, for-
ward let us range.

Let the great world spin for ever down the ring-
ing grooves of change.

Locksley Hall

FEBRUARY NINTH

Nothing will die;
All things will change
Through eternity.

'Tis the world's winter;
Autumn and summer

Are gone long ago.

Nothing Will Die

FEBRUARY TENTH

All thoughts, all creeds, all dreams are true,

All visions wild and strange ;
Man is the measure of all truth

Unto himself. All truth is change:

All men do walk in sleep, and all
Have faith in that they dream :

[ 13]



For all things are as they seem to all,
f And all things flow like a stream.

01 ptoires

FEBRUARY ELEVENTH

My name, once mine, now thine, is closelier

mine,
For fame, could fame be mine, that fame were

thine,

And shame, could shame be thine, that shame
were mine.

So trust me not at all or all in all.

Fvuien

FEBRUARY TWELFTH

In Love, if Love be Love, if Love be ours.
Faith and unfaith can ne'er be equal powers:
Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all.

It is the little rift within the lute,
That by and by will make the music mute,
And ever widening slowly silence all.



Vivien



FEBRUARY THIRTEENTH
"Thro' slander, meanest spawn of Hell

(And women's slander is the worst),
And you, whom once I loved so well,
Thro' you, my life will be accurst."



I spoke with heart, and heat and force,

I shook her breast with vague alarms
Like torrents from a mountain source

We rush'd into each other's arms.

The Letter*

FEBRUARY FOURTEENTH

We parted : sweetly gleam'd the stars,
And sweet the vapour-braided blue,
Low breezes fann'd the belfry bars,

As homeward by the church I drew.
The very graves appear'd to smile,

So fresh they rose in shadow'd swells;
"Dark porch,"! said, "and silent aisle,

There comes a sound of marriage bells."

The Letters

FEBRUARY FIFTEENTH

Love took up the glass of Time, and turn'd it in

his glowing hands ;
Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden

sands.

Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all

the chords with might;
Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in

music out of sight.

Lockiley Hall



I '5 j



FEBRUARY SIXTEENTH

All precious things, discover'd late,
To those that seek them issue forth ;

For love in sequel works with fate,

And draws the veil from hidden worth.

The Day Dream

FEBRUARY SEVENTEENTH

What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon

days like these?
Every door is barr'd with gold, and opens but to

golden keys.

Locksley Hall

FEBRUARY EIGHTEENTH

Cursed be the social wants that sin against the

strength of youth !
Cursed be the social lies that warp us from the

living truth !

Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest
Nature's rule !

Cursed be the gold that gilds the straiten'd fore-
head of the fool !

Locksley Hall

FEBRUARY NINETEENTH

A still small voice spake unto me,
"Thou art so full of misery,
Were it not better not to be?"

[ '6 j



Then to the still small voice I said,
"Let me not cast in endless shade

What is so wonderfully made."

The Two Voices

FEBRUARY TWENTIETH

"If all be dark, vague voice," I said,
"These things are wrapt in doubt and dread,
Nor canst thou show the dead are dead.

"The sap dries up: the plant declines.
A deeper tale my heart divines."

The T<uuo Pokes

FEBRUARY TWENTY-FIRST

Thou wilt not leave us in the dust :

Thou madest man, he knows not why ;
He thinks he was not made to die;
And thou hast made him : thou art just.

In Memoriam

FEBRUARY TWENTY-SECOND

And me this knowledge bolder made,

Or else I had not dared to flow
In these words toward you, and invade

Even with a verse your holy woe.

'T is strange that those we lean on most,

Those in whose laps our limbs are nursed,
Fall into shadow, soonest lost:

Those we love first are taken first.

To J. S.

[ '7]



FEBRUARY TWENTY-THIRD

Behold, we know not anything;

I can but trust that good shall fall
At last far off at last, to all,

And every winter change to spring.

So runs my dream : but what am I ?
An infant crying in the night :
An infant crying for the light :

And with no language but a cry.

In Memoriam

FEBRUARY TWENTY-FOURTH

They never learned to love who never knew to

weep.

Love and Sorrow

FEBRUARY TWENTY-FIFTH

" Forward, the Light Brigade ! "
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew

Some one had blunder'd :
Their's not to make reply,
Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die,
Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

'The Charge of the Light Brigade



[ 18]



FEBRUARY TWENTY-SIXTH

FcTr once, when I was up so high in pride
That I was halfway down the slope to Hell,
By overthrowing me you threw me higher.



FEBRUARY TWENTY-SEVENTH

" Not war, if possible,

king," I said, "lest from the abuse of war,
The desecrated shrine, the trampled year, [flower
The smouldering homestead, and the household
Torn from the lintel all the common wrong
A smoke go up thro' which I loom to her

Three times a monster."

The Princes*

FEBRUARY TWENTY-EIGHTH

But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that

Honour feels,
And the nations do but murmur, snarling at each

other's heels.

Locksley Hall

FEBRUARY TWENTY-NINTH

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,

1 shall have had my day.

Maud



MARCH




MARCH FIRST

HE spoke among you, and the Man who
spoke ;

Who never sold the truth to serve the hour,
Nor palter'd with Eternal God for power;
Who let the turbid streams of rumour flow
Thro' either babbling world of high and low;
Whose life was work, whose language rife
With rugged maxims hewn from life ;
Who never spoke against a foe

Ode on the Death of Wellington

MARCH SECOND

The path of duty was the way to glory:

He, that ever following her commands,

On with toil of heart and knees and hands,

Thro' the long gorge to the far light has won

His path upward, and prevail'd,

Shall find the toppling crags of Duty scaled

Are close upon the shining table-lands

To which our God Himself is moon and sun.

Ode on the Death of Wellington



['



MARCH THIRD

O lift your natures up :

Embrace our aims : work out your freedom. Girls.
Knowledge is now no more a fountain seal'd :
Drink deep, until the habits of the slave,
The sins of emptiness, gossip and spite
And slander, die. Better not be at all

Than not be noble.

The Princess

MARCH FOURTH

Like men, like manners : like breeds like, they say.
Kind nature is the best : those manners next
That fit us like a nature second-hand ;
Which are indeed the manners of the great.

Walking to the Mail

MARCH FIFTH

Will some one say, then why not ill for good ?
Why took ye not your pastime? To that man
My work shall answer, since I knew the right
And did it ; for a man is not as God,
But then most Godlike being most a man.

Love and Duty

MARCH SIXTH

Henceforth thou hast a helper, me, that know
The woman's cause is man's : they rise or sink
Together, dwarf d or godlike, bond or free :
For she that out of Lethe scales with man



The shining steps of Nature, shares with man
His nights, his days, moves with him to one goal,
Stays all the fair young planet in her hands
If she be small, slight-natured, miserable,
How shall men grow ?



The Princess



MARCH SEVENTH

Sometimes on lonely mountain-meres

I find a magic bark ;
I leap on board : no helmsman steers:

I float till all is dark.
A gentle sound, an awful light !

Three angels bear the holy Grail:
With folded feet, in stoles of white,

On sleeping wings they sail.
Ah, blessed vision ! blood of God !

My spirit beats her mortal bars,
As down dark tides the glory slides,

And star-like mingles with the stars.

Sir Galahad

MARCH EIGHTH

Thro' the shadow of the globe we sweep into the

younger day :

Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.

Locksley Hall

MARCH NINTH

For the drift of the Maker is dark, an Isis hid by
the veil.



Who knows the ways of the world, how God will

bring them about ?
Our planet is one, the suns are many, the world

is wide.
Shall I weep if a Poland fall? shall I shriek if a

Hungary fail?
Or an infant civilization be ruled with rod or with

knout ?
I have not made the world, and He that made it

will guide.

Maud

MARCH TENTH

Heaven weeps above the earth all night till morn,
In darkness weeps, as all ashamed to weep,
Because the earth hath made her state forlorn
With self-wrought evils of unnumbered years,
And doth the fruit of her dishonour reap.
And all the day heaven gathers back her tears
Into her own blue eyes so clear and deep,
And showering down the glory of lightsome day,
Smiles on the earth's worn brow to win her if she

may.

The Tears of Heaven

MARCH ELEVENTH

O thou, new-year, delaying long,

Delayest the sorrow in my blood,
That longs to burst a frozen bud,

And flood a fresher throat with song.

In Memoriam



MARCH TWELFTH
, Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers and he

bears a laden breast,
Full of sad experience, moving toward the stillness

of his rest.

Locksley Hall

MARCH THIRTEENTH

Yet I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing pur-
pose runs,
And the thoughts of men are widen'd with the

process of the suns.

Locksley Hall

MARCH FOURTEENTH

Think you this mould of hopes and fears
Could find no statelier than his peers

In yonder hundred million spheres ?

The Tnvo Voice*

MARCH FIFTEENTH

Would that my gloomed fancy were

'As thine, my mother, when with brows

Propped on thy knees, my hands upheld

In thine, I listened to thy vows,

For me outpoured in holiest prayer

For me unworthy! and beheld

Thy mild deep eyes upraised, that knew

The beauty and repose of faith,

And the clear spirit shining through.

Oh ! wherefore do we grow awry

From toots which strike so deep?

[25] Supposed Confessions



MARCH SIXTEENTH

But help me, heaven, for surely I repent.
For what is true repentance but in thought
Not ev'n in inmost thought to think again
The sins that made the past so pleasant to us :
And I have sworn never to see him more,

To see him more.

Guinevere

MARCH SEVENTEENTH

The little rift within the lover's lute,
Or little pitted speck in garner'd fruit,

That rotting inward slowly moulders all.

Vivien

MARCH EIGHTEENTH

Comfort ? comfort scorn'd of devils ! this is truth

the poet sings,
That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering

happier things.

Drug thy memories, lest thou learn it, lest thy

heart be put to proof,
In the dead unhappy night, and when the rain is

on the roof.

Locksley Hall

MARCH NINETEENTH

I remember one that perish'd : sweetly did she

speak and move :
Such a one do I remember, whom to look at was

to love.

[26]



Can I think of her as dead, and love her for the

love she bore ?
No she never loved me truly : love is love for

evermore.

Locksley Hall

MARCH TWENTIETH

What words are these have fall'n from me?

Can calm despair and wild unrest

Be tenants of a single breast,
Or sorrow such a changeling be?

Or doth she only seem to take

The touch of change in calm or storm ;

But knows no more of transient form
In her deep self, than some dead lake



That holds the shadow of a lark

Hung in the shadow of a heaven ?



In Memoriam



MARCH TWENTY-FIRST

'Twere better not to breathe or speak,
Than cry for strength, remaining weak,
And seem to find, but still to seek.

Moreover, but to seem to find

Asks what thou lackest, thought resign'd,

A healthy frame, a quiet mind.



The Two Voices



MARCH TWENTY-SECOND

Deep on the convent-roof the snows

Are sparkling to the moon :
My breath to heaven like vapour goes:

May my soul follow soon !
The shadows of the convent-towers

Slant down the snowy sward,
Still creeping with the creeping hours

That lead me to my Lord :
Make Thou my spirit pure and clear

As are the frosty skies,
Or this first snowdrop of the year

That in my bosom lies.

St. Agnes' Eve

MARCH TWENTY-THIRD

I dream'd there would be Spring no more,
That Nature's ancient power was lost :
The streets were black with smoke and frost,

They chatter'd trifles at the door.

In Memoriam

MARCH TWENTY-FOURTH

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;

[28]



Thou madest Death ; and lo, thy foot
Is on the skull which thou hast made.

In Memoriam

MARCH TWENTY-FIFTH

Night slid down one long stream of sighing wind,
And in her bosom bore the baby, Sleep.

The Gardener's Daughter

MARCH TWENTY-SIXTH

Shall we not look into the laws

Of life and death, and things that seem,

And things that be, and analyze

Our double nature, and compare

All creeds till we have found the one,

If one there be?

Supposed Confessions

MARCH TWENTY-SEVENTH
It is man's privilege to doubt,
If so be that from doubt at length,
Truth may stand forth unmoved of change,
An image with profulgent brows,
And perfect limbs, as from the storm
Of running fires and fluid range
Of lawless airs, at last stood out
This excellence and solid form

Of constant beauty.

Supposed Confessions



09]



MARCH TWENTY-EIGHTH

He fought his doubts and gather'd strength,
He would not make his judgement blind,
He faced the speclres of the mind

And laid them : thus he came at length

To find a stronger faith his own ;

And Power was with him in the night,
Which makes the darkness and the light,

And dwells not in the light alone.

In Memoriam

MARCH TWENTY-NINTH

Altho' I be the basest of mankind,

From scalp to sole one slough and crust of sin,

Unfit for earth, unfit for heaven, scarce meet

For troops of devils, mad with blasphemy,

I will not cease to grasp the hope I hold

Of saintdom, and to clamour, mourn and sob,

Battering the gates of heaven with storms of prayer,

Have mercy, Lord, and take away my sin.

St. Simeon Stylites

MARCH THIRTIETH

And all is well, tho' faith and form
Be sunder'd in the night of fear;
Well roars the storm to those that hear

A deeper voice across the storm.



In Memoriam



[30]



MARCH THIRTY-FIRST

When rosy plumelets tuft the larch,

And rarely pipes the mounted thrush ;

Or underneath the barren bush