The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson Part 63

To which the voice did urge reply; "To-day I saw the dragon-fly Come from the wells where he did lie.

"An inner impulse rent the veil Of his old husk: from head to tail Came out clear plates of sapphire mail.

"He dried his wings: like gauze they grew: Thro' crofts and pastures wet with dew A living flash of light he flew."

I said, "When first the world began Young Nature thro' five cycles ran, And in the sixth she moulded man.

"She gave him mind, the lordliest Proportion, and, above the rest, Dominion in the head and breast."

Thereto the silent voice replied; "Self-blinded are you by your pride: Look up thro' night: the world is wide.

"This truth within thy mind rehea.r.s.e, That in a boundless universe Is boundless better, boundless worse.

"Think you this mould of hopes and fears Could find no statelier than his peers In yonder hundred million spheres?"

It spake, moreover, in my mind: "Tho' thou wert scatter'd to the wind, Yet is there plenty of the kind".

Then did my response clearer fall: "No compound of this earthly ball Is like another, all in all".

To which he answer'd scoffingly; "Good soul! suppose I grant it thee, Who'll weep for thy deficiency?

"Or will one beam [1] be less intense, When thy peculiar difference Is cancell'd in the world of sense?"

I would have said, "Thou canst not know,"

But my full heart, that work'd below, Rain'd thro' my sight its overflow.

Again the voice spake unto me: "Thou art so steep'd in misery, Surely 'twere better not to be.

"Thine anguish will not let thee sleep, Nor any train of reason keep: Thou canst not think, but thou wilt weep."

I said, "The years with change advance: If I make dark my countenance, I shut my life from happier chance.

"Some turn this sickness yet might take, Ev'n yet." But he: "What drug can make A wither'd palsy cease to shake?"

I wept, "Tho' I should die, I know That all about the thorn will blow In tufts of rosy-tinted snow;

"And men, thro' novel spheres of thought Still moving after truth long sought, Will learn new things when I am not."

"Yet," said the secret voice, "some time, Sooner or later, will gray prime Make thy gra.s.s h.o.a.r with early rime.

"Not less swift souls that yearn for light, Rapt after heaven's starry flight, Would sweep the tracts of day and night.

"Not less the bee would range her cells, The furzy p.r.i.c.kle fire the dells, The foxglove cl.u.s.ter dappled bells."

I said that "all the years invent; Each month is various to present The world with some development.

"Were this not well, to bide mine hour, Tho' watching from a ruin'd tower How grows the day of human power?"

"The highest-mounted mind," he said, "Still sees the sacred morning spread The silent summit overhead.

"Will thirty seasons render plain Those lonely lights that still remain, Just breaking over land and main?

"Or make that morn, from his cold crown And crystal silence creeping down, Flood with full daylight glebe and town?

"Forerun thy peers, thy time, and let Thy feet, millenniums hence, be set In midst of knowledge, dream'd not yet.

"Thou hast not gain'd a real height, Nor art thou nearer to the light, Because the scale is infinite.

"'Twere better not to breathe or speak, Than cry for strength, remaining weak, And seem to find, but still to seek.

"Moreover, but to seem to find Asks what thou lackest, thought resign'd, A healthy frame, a quiet mind."

I said, "When I am gone away, 'He dared not tarry,' men will say, Doing dishonour to my clay."

"This is more vile," he made reply, "To breathe and loathe, to live and sigh, Than once from dread of pain to die.

"Sick art thou--a divided will Still heaping on the fear of ill The fear of men, a coward still.

"Do men love thee? Art thou so bound To men, that how thy name may sound Will vex thee lying underground?

"The memory of the wither'd leaf In endless time is scarce more brief Than of the garner'd Autumn-sheaf.

"Go, vexed Spirit, sleep in trust; The right ear, that is fill'd with dust, Hears little of the false or just."

"Hard task, to pluck resolve," I cried, "From emptiness and the waste wide Of that abyss, or scornful pride!

"Nay--rather yet that I could raise One hope that warm'd me in the days While still I yearn'd for human praise.

"When, wide in soul, and bold of tongue, Among the tents I paused and sung, The distant battle flash'd and rung.

"I sung the joyful Paean clear, And, sitting, burnish'd without fear The brand, the buckler, and the spear--

"Waiting to strive a happy strife, To war with falsehood to the knife, And not to lose the good of life--

"Some hidden principle to move, To put together, part and prove, And mete the bounds of hate and love--

"As far as might be, to carve out Free s.p.a.ce for every human doubt, That the whole mind might orb about--

"To search thro' all I felt or saw, The springs of life, the depths of awe, And reach the law within the law:

"At least, not rotting like a weed, But, having sown some generous seed, Fruitful of further thought and deed,

"To pa.s.s, when Life her light withdraws, Not void of righteous self-applause, Nor in a merely selfish cause--

"In some good cause, not in mine own, To perish, wept for, honour'd, known, And like a warrior overthrown;

"Whose eyes are dim with glorious tears, When, soil'd with n.o.ble dust, he hears His country's war-song thrill his ears: