For other remarkable illustrations of this see the
present writer’s ‘Illustrations of Tennyson’,
p. 38.]
[Footnote 13: ‘Cf’. Coleridge,
’Ancient Mariner, iv’.:—
“O happy living things ...
I blessed them
The self-same moment I could pray.”
There is a close parallel between the former and the
latter state described here and in Coleridge’s
mystic allegory; in both cases the sufferers “wake
to love,” the curse falling off them when they
can “bless".]
[Footnote 14: 1884. And all so variously
wrought (with semi-colon instead of full stop at the
end of the preceding line).]
First published in 1842, but written in 1835.
In it is incorporated, though with several alterations,
‘The Sleeping Beauty’, published among
the poems of 1830, but excised in subsequent editions.
Half extravaganza and half apologue, like the ‘Midsummer
Night’s Dream’, this delightful poem may
be safely left to deliver its own message and convey
its own meaning. It is an excellent illustration
of the truth of Tennyson’s own remark:
“Poetry is like shot silk with many glancing
colours. Every reader must find his own interpretation
according to his ability, and according to his sympathy
with the poet.”
(No alteration has been made in the Prologue
since 1842.)
O, Lady Flora, let me speak:
A pleasant hour has past away
While, dreaming on your damask
cheek,
The dewy sister-eyelids lay.
As by the lattice you reclined,
I went thro’ many wayward
moods
To see you dreaming—and,
behind,
A summer crisp with shining
woods.
And I too dream’d, until
at last
Across my fancy, brooding
warm,
The reflex of a legend past,
And loosely settled into form.
And would you have the thought
I had,
And see the vision that I
saw,
Then take the broidery-frame,
and add
A crimson to the quaint Macaw,
And I will tell it. Turn
your face,
Nor look with that too-earnest
eye—
The rhymes are dazzled from
their place,
And order’d words asunder
fly.
THE SLEEPING PALACE
(No alteration since 1851.)
1
The varying year with blade
and sheaf
Clothes and reclothes the
happy plains;
Here rests the sap within
the leaf,
Here stays the blood along
the veins.
Faint shadows, vapours lightly
curl’d,
Faint murmurs from the meadows
come,
Like hints and echoes of the
world
To spirits folded in the womb.
2
Soft lustre bathes the range
of urns
On every slanting terrace-lawn.
The fountain to his place
returns
Deep in the garden lake withdrawn.
Here droops the banner on
the tower,
On the hall-hearths the festal
fires,
The peacock in his laurel
bower,
The parrot in his gilded wires.
