“With that she tore her robe apart,”
etc.]
[Footnote l8: This stanza was added in 1843.]
[Footnote 19: 1845-1848. Lybian.]
[Footnote 20: Added in 1845 as a substitute for
“What nights we had in Egypt! I could hit
His humours while I crossed them:
O the life I led him, and the dalliance and the wit,
The flattery and the strife,
which is the reading of 1843. Canopus is a star
in Argo, not visible in the West, but a conspicuous
feature in the sky when seen from Egypt, as Pliny
notices, ‘Hist. Nat.’, vi., xxiv.
“Fatentes Canopum noctibus sidus ingens et clarum”.
‘Cf.’ Manilius, ‘Astron.’,
i., 216-17, “Nusquam invenies fulgere Canopum
donec Niliacas per pontum veneris oras,” and
Lucan, ‘Pharsal.’, viii., 181-3.]
[Footnote 21: Substituted in 1843 for the reading
of 1833 and 1842.]
[Footnote 22: Substituted in 1845 for the reading
of 1833, 1842, 1843, which ran as recorded ‘supra’.
1845 to 1848. Lybian. And for the reading
of 1843
Sigh’d forth with life I had no
further fear,
O what a little worm stole Caesar’s
fame!]
[Footnote 23: A splendid transfusion of Horace’s
lines about her, Ode I., xxxvii.
Invidens Privata deduci superto
Non humilis mulier triumpho.]
[Footnote 24: 1833 and 1842. Touched.]
[Footnote 25: For the story of Jephtha’s
daughter see Judges, chap. xi.]
[Footnote 26: All editions up to and including
1851. In his den.]
[Footnote 27: For reference see Judges xi, 33.]
[Footnote 28: 1833.
Ere I saw her, that in her latest trance
Clasped her dead father’s heart, or Joan of
Arc.
The reference is, of course, to the well-known story
of Margaret Roper, the daughter of Sir Thomas More,
who is said to have taken his head when he was executed
and preserved it till her death.]
[Footnote 29: Eleanor, the wife of Edward I.,
is said to have thus saved his life when he was stabbed
at Acre with a poisoned dagger.]
[Footnote 30: The earliest and latest editions,
‘i.e.’, 1833 and 1853, have “tho’,”
and all the editions between “though”.
“Though culled,” etc.]
First printed in 1833.
Another of Tennyson’s delicious fancy portraits,
the twin sister to Adeline.
1
O sweet pale Margaret,
O rare pale Margaret,
What lit your eyes with tearful power,
Like moonlight on a falling shower?
Who lent you, love, your mortal dower
Of pensive thought and aspect pale,
Your melancholy sweet and frail
As perfume of the cuckoo-flower?
From the westward-winding flood,
From the evening-lighted wood,
From all things outward you have won
A tearful grace, as tho’ [1] you
stood
Between the rainbow and the sun.
The very smile before you speak,
That dimples your transparent cheek,
Encircles all the heart, and feedeth
The senses with a still delight
Of dainty sorrow without sound,
Like the tender amber round,
Which the moon about her spreadeth,
Moving thro’ a fleecy night.
