The Poetic and Dramatic Works of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Volume 1

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Houghton Mifflin, 1898 - 887 pages

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Page 447 - That nourish a blind life within the brain, If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer Both for themselves and those who call them friend ? For so the whole round earth is every way Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. But now farewell. I am going a long way With these thou see'st — if indeed I go (For all my mind is clouded with a doubt) — To the island-valley of Avilion ; Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, Nor ever wind blows loudly ; but it lies Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair...
Page 446 - Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge, Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern, Beneath them; and descending they were ware That all the decks were dense with stately forms Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream - by these Three Queens with crowns of gold - and from them rose A cry that...
Page 161 - I HELD it truth, with him who sings To one clear harp in divers tones, That men may rise on steppingstones Of their dead selves to higher things.
Page 28 - The first house by the water-side, Singing in her song she died, The Lady of Shalott. Under tower and balcony, By garden-wall and gallery, A gleaming shape she floated by, Dead-pale between the houses high, Silent into Camelot. Out upon the wharfs they came, Knight and burgher, lord and dame, And round the prow they read her name, The Lady of Shalott.
Page 88 - In offices of tenderness, and pay Meet adoration to my household gods, When I am gone. He works his work, I mine. There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail: There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners, Souls that have...
Page 446 - And answer made King Arthur, breathing hard: "My end draws nigh; 'tis time that I were gone. Make broad thy shoulder-s to receive my weight, And bear me to the margin ; yet I fear My wound hath taken cold, and I shall die.
Page 156 - Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white ; Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk ; Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font : The fire-fly wakens : waken thou with me. Now droops the milkwhite peacock like a ghost, And like a ghost she glimmers on to me. Now lies the Earth all Danae to the stars, And all thy heart lies open unto me. Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me. Now folds the lily all her sweetness up, And slips into the bosom of the...
Page 751 - ... SUNSET and evening star, And one clear call for me ! And may there be no moaning of the bar, When I put out to sea, But such a tide as moving seems asleep, Too full for sound and foam, When that which drew from out the boundless deep Turns again home. Twilight and evening bell, And after that the dark ! And may there be no sadness of farewell, When I embark ; For tho...
Page 438 - I made them lay their hands in mine and swear •To reverence the King, as if he were Their conscience, and their conscience as their King, To break the heathen and uphold the Christ, To ride abroad redressing human wrongs, To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it, To honor his own word as if his God's, To lead sweet lives in purest chastity, To love one maiden only, cleave to her, And worship her by years of noble deeds, Until they won her...
Page 60 - You ask me, why, tho' ill at ease, Within this region I subsist, Whose spirits falter in the mist, And languish for the purple seas. It is the land that freemen till, That sober-suited Freedom chose, The land, where girt with friends or foes A man may speak the thing he will ; A land of settled government, A land of just and old renown, Where Freedom...

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