And I, betwixt them both, to please them both, I moved as in a strange diagonal, And maybe neither pleased myself nor them. But Lilia pleased me, for she took no part In our dispute: the sequel of the tale Had touch'd her; and she sat, she pluck'd the grass, She flung it from her, thinking: last, she fixt So I and some went out to these: we climb'd "Look there, a garden!" said my college friend, The Tory member's elder son, "and there! 25 30 35 40 45 50 God bless the narrow sea which keeps her off, And keeps our Britain, whole within herself, A nation yet, the rulers and the ruledSome sense of duty, something of a faith, 55 Some reverence for the laws ourselves have made Some patient force to change them when we will, Some civic manhood firm against the crowdBut yonder, whiff! there comes a sudden heat, The gravest citizen seems to lose his head, 60 The king is scared, the soldier will not fight, The little boys begin to shoot and stab, A kingdom topples over with a shriek Like an old woman, and down rolls the world No graver than a schoolboys' barring out; "Have patience," I replied, "ourselves are full Of social wrong; and maybe wildest dreams Are but the needful preludes of the truth: 75 For me, the genial day, the happy crowd, The sport half-science, fill me with a faith. This fine old world of ours is but a child Yet in the go-cart. Patience! Give it time To learn its limbs: there is a hand that guides." In such discourse we gain'd the garden rails, A great broad-shoulder'd genial Englishman, But we went back to the Abbey, and sat on, 80 85 90 95 100 105 Perchance upon the future man: the walls 110 Blacken'd about us, bats wheel'd, and owls whoop'd, And gradually the powers of the night, That range above the region of the wind, Deepening the courts of twilight broke them up Thro' all the silent spaces of the worlds, 115 Beyond all thought into the Heaven of Heavens. Last little Lilia, rising quietly, Disrobed the glimmering statue of Sir Ralph LIFE OF TENNYSON CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 1809. Born, August 6, at Somersby in Lincolnshire. Arthur Hallam born. 1811. 1816-20. Tennyson at Louth Grammar School. 1827. Published, with his brother Charles, Poems by Two Brothers. 1828. Entered Trinity College, Cambridge. Met Arthur Hallam. 1829. Won the Chancellor's Prize in poetry. 1830. Poems, Chiefly Lyrical. Journey to the Pyrenees, with Arthur Hallam. 1831. Left Cambridge. Tennyson's father died. 1832. Poems. 1833. Death of Arthur Hallam, September 13. 1842. Poems. 1845. Received a pension, £200, from the Crown. 1847. The Princess. 1850. Made Poet Laureate. In Memoriam. Married Emily Sellwood. Went to live at Twickenham. 1852. Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington. Hallam Tennyson born. 1853. Settled at Farringford, Isle of Wight. 1854. Charge of the Light Brigade. Lionel Tennyson born. 1855. Maud, and other Poems. D.C.L., Oxford. 1859. [Four] Idylls of the King. Journey to Portugal. 1861. Second journey to the Pyrenees. 1864. Enoch Arden. 1865. Refused a baronetcy. |