Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Alfred Tennyson, Lord Tennyson. 18091892702. Song of the Lotos-Eaters
THERE is sweet music here that softer falls | |
Than petals from blown roses on the grass, | |
Or night-dews on still waters between walls | |
Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass; | |
Music that gentlier on the spirit lies, | 5 |
Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes; | |
Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies. | |
Here are cool mosses deep, | |
And thro’ the moss the ivies creep, | |
And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep, | 10 |
And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep. | |
Why are we weigh’d upon with heaviness, | |
And utterly consumed with sharp distress, | |
While all things else have rest from weariness? | |
All things have rest: why should we toil alone, | 15 |
We only toil, who are the first of things, | |
And make perpetual moan, | |
Still from one sorrow to another thrown: | |
Nor ever fold our wings, | |
And cease from wanderings, | 20 |
Nor steep our brows in slumber’s holy balm; | |
Nor harken what the inner spirit sings, | |
‘There is no joy but calm!’— | |
Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things? | |
Lo! in the middle of the wood, | 25 |
The folded leaf is woo’d from out the bud | |
With winds upon the branch, and there | |
Grows green and broad, and takes no care, | |
Sun-steep’d at noon, and in the moon | |
Nightly dew-fed; and turning yellow | 30 |
Falls, and floats adown the air. | |
Lo! sweeten’d with the summer light, | |
The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow, | |
Drops in a silent autumn night. | |
All its allotted length of days, | 35 |
The flower ripens in its place, | |
Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil, | |
Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil. | |
Hateful is the dark-blue sky, | |
Vaulted o’er the dark-blue sea. | 40 |
Death is the end of life; ah, why | |
Should life all labour be? | |
Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast, | |
And in a little while our lips are dumb. | |
Let us alone. What is it that will last? | 45 |
All things are taken from us, and become | |
Portions and parcels of the dreadful Past. | |
Let us alone. What pleasure can we have | |
To war with evil? Is there any peace | |
In ever climbing up the climbing wave? | 50 |
All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave | |
In silence; ripen, fall and cease: | |
Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease. | |
How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream, | |
With half-shut eyes ever to seem | 55 |
Falling asleep in a half-dream! | |
To dream and dream, like yonder amber light, | |
Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height; | |
To hear each other’s whisper’d speech; | |
Eating the Lotos day by day, | 60 |
To watch the crisping ripples on the beach, | |
And tender curving lines of creamy spray; | |
To lend our hearts and spirits wholly | |
To the influence of mild-minded melancholy; | |
To muse and brood and live again in memory, | 65 |
With those old faces of our infancy | |
Heap’d over with a mound of grass, | |
Two handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn of brass! | |
Dear is the memory of our wedded lives, | |
And dear the last embraces of our wives | 70 |
And their warm tears: but all hath suffer’d change; | |
For surely now our household hearts are cold: | |
Our sons inherit us: our looks are strange: | |
And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy. | |
Or else the island princes over-bold | 75 |
Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings | |
Before them of the ten years’ war in Troy, | |
And our great deeds, as half-forgotten things. | |
Is there confusion in the little isle? | |
Let what is broken so remain. | 80 |
The Gods are hard to reconcile: | |
‘Tis hard to settle order once again. | |
There is confusion worse than death, | |
Trouble on trouble, pain on pain, | |
Long labour unto agèd breath, | 85 |
Sore task to hearts worn out with many wars | |
And eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot-stars. | |
But, propt on beds of amaranth and moly, | |
How sweet (while warm airs lull us, blowing lowly) | |
With half-dropt eyelids still, | 90 |
Beneath a heaven dark and holy, | |
To watch the long bright river drawing slowly | |
His waters from the purple hill— | |
To hear the dewy echoes calling | |
From cave to cave thro’ the thick-twinèd vine— | 95 |
To watch the emerald-colour’d water falling | |
Thro’ many a wov’n acanthus-wreath divine! | |
Only to hear and see the far-off sparkling brine, | |
Only to hear were sweet, stretch’d out beneath the pine. | |
The Lotos blooms below the barren peak: | 100 |
The Lotos blows by every winding creek: | |
All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone: | |
Thro’ every hollow cave and alley lone | |
Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos-dust is blown. | |
We have had enough of action, and of motion we, | 105 |
Roll’d to starboard, roll’d to larboard, when the surge was seething free, | |
Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea. | |
Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind, | |
In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie relined | |
On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind. | 110 |
For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl’d | |
Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl’d | |
Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world: | |
Where the smile in secret, looking over wasted lands, | |
Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands, | 115 |
Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands. | |
But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song | |
Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong, | |
Like a tale of little meaning tho’ the words are strong; | |
Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil, | 120 |
Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil, | |
Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil; | |
Till they perish and they suffer—some, ’tis whisper’d—down in hell | |
Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell, | |
Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel. | 125 |
Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore | |
Than labour in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar; | |
O rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more. |