THE WINDOW; OR, THE SONG OF THE WRENS. 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. December, 1870. A. TENNYSON. THE WINDOW. ON THE HILL. THE lights and shadows fly! A jewel, a jewel dear to a lover's Oh is it the brook, or a pool, or her When the winds are up in the Clouds that are racing above, All running on one way to the home of my love, You are all running on, and I stand on And the winds are up in the morn- Follow, follow the chase! And my thoughts are as quick and as quick, ever on, on, on. O lights, are you flying over her sweet little face? And my heart is there before you are When the winds are up in the Follow them down the slope! And it brightens and darkens and brightens like my hope, And it darkens and brightens and darkens And the winds are up in the Bite, frost, bite! You roll up away from the light The blue wood-louse, and the plump dormouse, And the bees are still'd, and the flies are kill'd, And you bite far into the heart of the house, But not into mine. Bite, frost, bite! The woods are all the searer, The fuel is all the dearer, My spring is all the nearer, You have bitten into the heart of the earth, But not into mine. SPRING. Birds' love and birds' song Passing with the weather, To love once and for ever. Men's love and birds' love, And women's love and men's! And you my wren with a crown of gold, You my queen of the wrens! You the queen of the wrens We'll be birds of a feather, I'll be King of the Queen of the wrens, And all in a nest together. THE LETTER. Where is another sweet as my sweet, Fine of the fine, and shy of the shy? Fine little hands, fine little feet Dewy blue eye. Shall I write to her? shall I go? Ask her to marry me by and by? Somebody said that she'd say no; Somebody knows that she'll say ay! Ay or no, if ask'd to her face? Ay or no, from shy of the shy? Go, little letter, apace, apace, Fly; Fly to the light in the valley below Tell my wish to her dewy blue eye: Somebody said that she'd say no; Somebody knows that she'll say ay! NO ANSWER. The mist and the rain, the mist and the rain! Is it ay or no? is it ay or no? Ay is the song of the wedded spheres, Ay is life for a hundred years, No will push me down to the worm, And when I am there and dead and gone, The wet west wind and the world will go on. And shall I take a thing so blind, Embrace her as my natural good; Or crush her, like a vice of blood, Upon the threshold of the mind? IV. To Sleep I give my powers away; O heart, how fares it with thee now, That thou should'st fail from thy desire, Who scarcely darest to inquire, 'What is it makes me beat so low?' Something it is which thou hast lost, Some pleasure from thine early years. Break, thou deep vase of chilling tears, That grief hath shaken into frost! Such clouds of nameless trouble cross All night below the darken'd eyes; With morning wakes the will, and cries, 'Thou shalt not be the fool of loss.' v. I sometimes hold it half a sin To put in words the grief I feel; For words, like Nature, half reveal And half conceal the Soul within. But, for the unquiet heart and brain, A use in measured language lies; The sad mechanic exercise, Like dull narcotics, numbing pain. In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er, Like coarsest clothes against the cold: But that large grief which these enfold Is given in outline and no more. VI. One writes, that 'Other friends remain,' That Loss is common to the race'And common is the commonplace, And vacant chaff well meant for grain. That loss is common would not make O father, wheresoe'er thou be, Who pledgest now thy gallant son; A shot, ere half thy draught be done, Hath still'd the life that beat from thee. O mother, praying God will save Thy sailor,while thy head is bow'd, His heavy-shotted hammock-shroud Drops in his yast and wandering grave. change of rythm. Ye know no more than I who wrought At that last hour to please him well; Who mused on all I had to tell, And something written, something thought; Expecting still his advent home; And ever met him on his way With wishes, thinking, ' here to-day,' Or 'here to-morrow will he come.' O somewhere, meek, unconscious dove, That sittest ranging golden hair; And glad to find thyself so fair, Poor child, that waitest for thy love! For now her father's chimney glows And thinking, 'this will please him She takes a riband or a rose; For he will see them on to-night; And with the thought her colour burns; And, having left the glass, she turns Once more to set a ringlet right; And, even when she turn'd, the curse Had fallen, and her future Lord Was drown'd in passing thro' the ford, Or kill'd in falling from his horse. O what to her shall be the end? And what to me remains of good? To her, perpetual maidenhood, And unto me no second friend. |