Lord Alfred Tennyson

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Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson 1809-1892

From “The Top 500 Poems”

Tennyson is one of the greatest poets to hold the Laureateship; his tenure in that position continued for forty-two years, from 1850 until his death. He was born in Lincolnshire and educated at Cambridge. A friend there was the brilliant Arthur Hallam, whose death in 1833 stimulated Tennyson to write the noble and eloquent elegy “In Memoriam” (published in 1850). Tennyson excelled in the short musical lyric, the dramatic monologue, the long narrative, and certain boldly mixed forms for which we still lack accurate names, such as in “The Princess” and “Maud.”

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“The Splendor Falls”

The splendor falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story;
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.

Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O, hark, O, hear! How thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going!
O, sweet and far from cliff and scar
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O love, they die in yon rich sky,
They faint on hill or field or river;
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow for ever and for ever.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.

From The Princess

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The subtitle of Tennyson’s “Princess” is “A Medley” –and that is accurate: there are varying narrative levels along with several memorable songs (added in the third edition) that have achieved independent celebrity. This poem, “Tears, Idle Tears” and “Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal”, along with “Sweet and Low,” are known to many who do not know “The Princess” and to some who may not even know Tennyson

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“Break, Break, Break”

Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, o Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.

O, well for the fisherman’s boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play!
O, well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break,
At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.

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Lord Byron, one of Tennyson’s earliest exemplars, had addressed the ocean memorably in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage and we accept the appropriateness of the gesture, although it may seem fruitless to command an inanimate object to do what it can’t help doing anyway. It is probable that Tennyson’s poem refers to the death of his friend Arthur Henry Hallam, also the subject of the great elegy In Memoriam.

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“Crossing the Bar”

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 though from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.

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Tennyson wrote this when he was eighty and, although he wrote other poems afterwards, asked that this one be placed at the end of all collections of his poetry. He showed a fine sense of fitness in writing the poem in the first place, with its noble stoicism and good Britannic sea imagery, and also in dictating it appropriate placement

[Ranazen]

I really like imagery about the sea.

[Falling Like Rain]

"Marriage Morning"

Light, so low upon earth,
You send a flash to the sun.
Here is the golden close of love,
All my wooing is done.
Oh, the woods and the meadows,
Woods where we hid from the wet,
Stiles where we stay'd to be kind,
Meadows in which we met!

Light, so low in the vale
You flash and lighten afar,
For this is the golden morning of love,
And you are his morning start.
Flash, I am coming, I come,
By meadow and stile and wood,
Oh, lighten into my eyes and heart,
Into my heart and my blood!

Heart, are you great enough
For a love that never tires?
O' heart, are you great enough for love?
I have heard of thorns and briers,
Over the meadow and stiles,
Over the world to the end of it
Flash for a million miles.

[Ranazen]

This one gave me a nice little feeling