What is that to him that reaps not harvest of his youthful joys, Tho' the deep heart of existence beat for ever like a boy's? Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I linger on the shore, And the individual withers, and the world is more and more. Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and he bears a laden breast, 140 Full of sad experience, moving toward the stillness of his rest. Hark, my merry comrades call me, sounding on the bugle-horn, 144 They to whom my foolish passion were a target for their scorn: Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a moulder'd string? I am shamed thro' all my nature to have loved so slight a thing. 148 Weakness to be wroth with weakness! woman's pleasure, woman's pain Nature made them blinder motions bounded in a shallower brain: Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, match'd with mine, Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine 152 Here at least, where nature sickens, nothing. Ah, for some retreat Deep in yonder shining Orient, where my life began to beat, Where in wild Mahratta-battle fell my father evil-starr'd; I was left a trampled orphan, and a selfish uncle's ward. 156 Or to burst all links of habit-there to wander far away, On from island unto island at the gateways of the day. Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies, Breadths of tropic shade and palms in cluster, knots of Paradise. Never comes the trader, never floats an European flag, 160 Slides the bird o'er lustrous woodland, swings the trailer from the crag; Droops the heavy-blossom'd bower, hangs the heavy-fruited tree Summer isles of Eden lying in dark-purpled spheres of sea. 164 There methinks would be enjoyment more than in this march of mind, In the steamship, in the railway, in the thoughts that shake mankind. There the passions cramp'd no longer shall have scope and breathing space; I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my dusky race. Iron-jointed, supple-sinew'd, they shall dive, and they shall run, 168 Catch the wild goat by the hair, and hurl their lances in the sun; Whistle back the parrot's call, and leap the rainbows of the brooks, Not with blinded eyesight poring over miserable books Fool, again the dream, the fancy! but I know my words are wild, 172 But I count the gray barbarian lower than the Christian child. I, to herd with narrow foreheads, vacant of our glorious gains, Like a beast with lower pleasures, like a beast with lower pains! 176 Mated with a squalid savage-what to me were sun or clime? I the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time I that rather held it better men should perish one by one, Than that earth should stand at gaze like Joshua's moon in Ajalon! Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us range, Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change. Thro' the shadow of the globe we sweep into the younger day: Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay. Mother-Age,-for mine I knew not,-help me as when life begun : Rift the hills, and roll the waters, flash the lightnings, weigh the Sun. 180 184 O, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath not set. Ancient founts of inspiration well thro' all my fancy yet. 188 Howsoever these things be, a long farewell to Locksley Hall! Now for me the woods may wither, now for me the roof-tree fall. Comes a vapour from the margin, blackening over heath and holt, Cramming all the blast before it, in its breast a thunderbolt. Let it fall on Locksley Hall, with rain or hail, or fire or snow; For the mighty wind arises, roaring seaward, and I go. 1842. Lord Tennyson. 192 ANTONY TO CLEOPATRA I AM dying, Egypt, dying! Let thine arms, oh Queen, support me, Thou, and thou alone, must hear. Though my scarred and veteran legions 16 8 |