While I roved about the forest, long | There they dwelt and there they rioted; and bitterly meditating, There I heard them in the darkness, at the mystical ceremony, Loosely robed in flying raiment, sang the terrible prophetesses. Fear not, isle of blowing woodland, isle of silvery parapets! Tho' the Roman eagle shadow thee, tho' the gathering enemy narrow thee, Thou shalt wax and he shall dwindle, thou shalt be the mighty one yet! Thine the liberty, thine the glory, thine the deeds to be celebrated, Thine the myriad-rolling ocean, light and shadow illimitable, Thine the lands of lasting summer, manyblossoming Paradises, Thine the North and thine the South and thine the battle-thunder of God.' So they chanted: how shall Britain light upon auguries happier? So they chanted in the darkness, and there cometh a victory now. blood to be satiated. Lo the palaces and the temple, lo the colony Cámulodúne ! There they ruled, and thence they wasted all the flourishing territory, Thither at their will they haled the yellow-ringleted Britoness Bloodily, bloodily fall the battle-axe, unexhausted, inexorable. Shout Icenian, Catieuchlanian, shout Coritanian, Trinobant, Till the victim hear within and yearn to hurry precipitously Like the leaf in a roaring whirlwind, like the smoke in a hurricane whirl'd. Lo the colony, there they rioted in the city of Cúnobelíne! There they drank in cups of emerald, there at tables of ebony lay, Rolling on their purple couches in their tender effeminacy. there there they dwell no more. Burst the gates, and burn the palaces, break the works of the statuary. Take the hoary Roman head and shatter it, hold it abominable, Cut the Roman boy to pieces in his lust and voluptuousness, Up Lash the maiden into swooning, me they lash'd and humiliated, Chop the breasts from off the mother, dash the brains of the little one out, my Britons, on my chariot, on my chargers, trample them under us.' So the Queen Boadicéa, standing loftily Brandishing in her hand a dart and rollcharioted, Yell'd and shriek'd between her daughters ing glances lioness-like, Till her people all around the royal in her fierce volubility. Madly dash'd the darts together, writhing chariot agitated, barbarous lineäments, Made the noise of frosty woodlands, when they shiver in January, Roar'd as when the rolling breakers boom and blanch on the precipices, Yell'd as when the winds of winter tear an oak on a promontory. So the silent colony hearing her tumul tuous adversaries Clash the darts and on the buckler beat with rapid unanimous hand, Thought on all her evil tyrannies, all her pitiless avarice, Till she felt the heart within her fall and flutter tremulously, Then her pulses at the clamoring of her enemy fainted away. Out of evil evil flourishes, out of tyranny tyranny buds. Ran the land with Roman slaughter, multitudinous agonies. Perish'd many a maid and matron, many a valorous legionary. Fell the colony, city, and citadel, London, Verulam, Camulodúne. IN QUANTITY. MILTON. Alcaics. O MIGHTY-MOUTH'D inventor of harmo nies, O skill'd to sing of Time or Eternity, God-gifted organ-voice of England, Milton, a name to resound for ages; Whose Titan angels, Gabriel, Abdiel, Starr'd from Jehovah's gorgeous armories, Tower, as the deep-domed empyrean Rings to the roar of an angel on set Me rather all that bowery loneliness, The brooks of Eden mazily murmuring, And bloom profuse and cedar arches Charm, as a wanderer out in ocean, Where some refulgent sunset of India Streams o'er a rich ambrosial ocean isle, And crimson-hued the stately palmwoods Whisper in odorous heights of even. Hendecasyllabics. O YOU chorus of indolent reviewers, Lest I fall unawares before the people, Thro' this metrification of Catullus, They should speak to me not without a welcome, All that chorus of indolent reviewers. Hard, hard, hard is it, only not to tumble, So fantastical is the dainty metre. Wherefore slight me not wholly, nor believe me Too presumptuous, indolent reviewers. most Horticultural art, or half coquette-like Maiden not to be greeted unbenignly. ADDITIONAL POEMS. NOTE. The Poems which follow include all those which have been omitted by the author from his latest revised editions, or never acknowledged by him. They are here printed, because, although unsanctioned by Mr. Tennyson, they have recently been collected from various sources, and printed in America. would not die. For nothing visible, they say, had birth A Poem which obtained the Chancellor's Medal at In that blest ground, but it was played the Cambridge Commencement, MDCCCXXIX. A. TENNYSON, of Trinity College. By about With its peculiar glory. Then I raised My voice and cried, "Wide Afric, doth thy Sun Lighten, thy hills enfold a city as fair As those which starred the night o' the elder world? Or is the rumor of thy Timbuctoo A rustling of white wings! the bright descent Of a young Seraph! and he stood beside me There on the ridge, and looked into my face With his unutterable, shining orbs, Such colored spots as dance athwart the eyes Of those that gaze upon the noonday Sun. Girt with a zone of flashing gold beneath His breast, and compassed round about his brow With triple arch of everchanging bows, And circled with the glory of living light And alternation of all hues, he stood. “O child of man, why muse you here alone Upon the Mountain, on the dreams of old Which filled the earth with passing loveliness, Which flung strange music on the howl ing winds, And odors rapt from remote Paradise? Thy sense is clogged with dull mortality: Open thine eyes and see.” I looked, but not Upon his face, for it was wonderful With its exceeding brightness, and the light Of the great Angel Mind which looked from out The starry glowing of his restless eyes. thought, That in my vanity I seemed to stand The indistinctest atom in deep air, The Moon's white cities, and the opal width Of her small glowing lakes, her silver heights Unvisited with dew of vagrant cloud, Blaze within blaze, an unimagined depth Arched the wan sapphire. Nay- the hum of men, Or other things talking in unknown tongues, And notes of busy life in distant worlds Beat like a far wave on my anxious ear. A maze of piercing, trackless, thrilling thoughts, Involving and embracing each with each, Rapid as fire, inextricably linked, Expanding momently with every sight And sound which struck the palpitating sense, The issue of strong impulse, hurried through The riven rapt brain; as when in some large lake From pressure of descendent crags, which lapse Disjointed, crumbling from their parent slope At slender interval, the level calm Is ridged with restless and increasing spheres Which break upon each other, each th' effect Of separate impulse, but more fleet and strong Than its precursor, till the eye in vain Amid the wild unrest of swimming shade Dappled with hollow and alternate rise Of interpenetrated are, would scan Definite round. I know not if I shape These things with accurate similitude From visible objects, for but dimly now, Less vivid than a half-forgotten dream, The memory of that mental excellence Comes o'er me, and it may be I entwine The indecision of my present mind With its past clearness, yet it seems to me As even then the torrent of quick thought Absorbed me from the nature of itself With its own fleetness. Where is he, that borne Adown the sloping of an arrowy stream, Could link his shallop to the fleeting edge, And muse midway with philosophic calm Upon the wondrous laws which regulate The fierceness of the bounding element? My thoughts which long had grovelled in the slime Of this dull world, like dusky worms which house Beneath unshaken waters, but at once Upon some earth-awakening day of Spring Do pass from gloom to glory, and aloft Winnow the purple, bearing on both sides Double display of star-lit wings, which burn Fan-like and fibred with intensest bloom; Even so my thoughts erewhile so low, now felt Unutterable buoyancy and strength To bear them upward through the trackless fields Of undefined existence far and free. Then first within the South methought |