' Live-Poets Society ' – A Corner For Poetry

[AC Benus]

21.

I sing to him that rests below,

   And, since the grasses round me wave,

   I take the grasses of the grave,

And make them pipes whereon to blow.

 

The traveller hears me now and then,

   And sometimes harshly will he speak:

   `This fellow would make weakness weak,

And melt the waxen hearts of men.'

 

Another answers, `Let him be,

   He loves to make parade of pain

   That with his piping he may gain

The praise that comes to constancy.'

 

A third is wroth: `Is this an hour

   For private sorrow's barren song,

   When more and more the people throng

The chairs and thrones of civil power?

 

'A time to sicken and to swoon,

   When Science reaches forth her arms

   To feel from world to world, and charms

Her secret from the latest moon?'

 

Behold, ye speak an idle thing:

   Ye never knew the sacred dust:

   I do but sing because I must,

And pipe but as the linnets sing:

 

And one is glad; her note is gay,

   For now her little ones have ranged;

   And one is sad; her note is changed,

Because her brood is stol'n away.

 

 

22.

The path by which we twain did go,

   Which led by tracts that pleased us well,

   Through four sweet years arose and fell,

From flower to flower, from snow to snow:

 

And we with singing cheered the way,

   And, crowned with all the season lent,

   From April on to April went,

And glad at heart from May to May:

 

But where the path we walked began

   To slant the fifth autumnal slope,

   As we descended following Hope,

There sat the Shadow feared of man;

 

Who broke our fair companionship,

   And spread his mantle dark and cold,

   And wrapt thee formless in the fold,

And dulled the murmur on thy lip,

 

And bore thee where I could not see

   Nor follow, though I walk in haste,

   And think, that somewhere in the waste

The Shadow sits and waits for me.

Tennyson

 

 

 

[AC Benus]

 

23.

Now, sometimes in my sorrow shut,

   Or breaking into song by fits,

   Alone, alone, to where he sits,

The Shadow cloaked from head to foot,

 

Who keeps the keys of all the creeds,

   I wander, often falling lame,

   And looking back to whence I came,

Or on to where the pathway leads;

 

And crying, How changed from where it ran

   Through lands where not a leaf was dumb;

   But all the lavish hills would hum

The murmur of a happy Pan:

 

When each by turns was guide to each,

   And Fancy light from Fancy caught,

   And Thought leapt out to wed with Thought

Ere Thought could wed itself with Speech;

 

And all we met was fair and good,

   And all was good that Time could bring,

   And all the secret of the Spring

Moved in the chambers of the blood;

 

And many an old philosophy

   On Argive heights divinely sang,

   And round us all the thicket rang

To many a flute of Arcady.

 

24.

And was the day of my delight

   As pure and perfect as I say?

   The very source and fount of Day

Is dashed with wandering isles of night.

 

If all was good and fair we met,

   This earth had been the Paradise

   It never looked to human eyes

Since our first Sun arose and set.

 

And is it that the haze of grief

   Makes former gladness loom so great?

   The lowness of the present state,

That sets the past in this relief?

 

Or that the past will always win

   A glory from its being far;

   And orb into the perfect star

We saw not, when we moved therein?

Tennyson

 

 

[Mikiesboy]

19 hours ago, AC Benus said:

Or that the past will always win

   A glory from its being far;

   And orb into the perfect star

We saw not, when we moved therein?

A good observation ... and a reason many of us look back often. 

[AC Benus]

 

25.

I know that this was Life -- the track

   Whereon with equal feet we fared;

   And then, as now, the day prepared

The daily burden for the back.

 

But this it was that made me move

   As light as carrier-birds in air;

   I loved the weight I had to bear,

Because it needed help of Love:

 

Nor could I weary, heart or limb,

   When mighty Love would cleave in twain

   The lading of a single pain,

And part it, giving half to him.

 

26.

Still onward winds the dreary way;

   I with it; for I long to prove

   No lapse of moons can canker Love,

Whatever fickle tongues may say.

 

And if that eye which watches guilt

   And goodness, and hath power to see

   Within the green the mouldered tree,

And towers fall'n as soon as built—

 

Oh, if indeed that eye foresee

   Or see (in Him is no before)

   In more of life true life no more

And Love the indifference to be,

 

Then might I find, ere yet the morn

   Breaks hither over Indian seas,

   That Shadow waiting with the keys,

To shroud me from my proper scorn.

Tennyson

 

 

[AC Benus]

 

27.

I envy not in any moods

   The captive void of noble rage,

   The linnet born within the cage,

That never knew the summer woods:

 

I envy not the beast that takes

   His license in the field of time,

   Unfettered by the sense of crime,

To whom a conscience never wakes;

 

Nor, what may count itself as blest,

   The heart that never plighted troth

   But stagnates in the weeds of sloth;

Nor any want-begotten rest.

 

I hold it true, whate'er befall;

   I feel it, when I sorrow most;

   'Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all.

Tennyson

 

Edited April 29, 2020 by AC Benus

[Mikiesboy]

2 minutes ago, AC Benus said:

 

26.

I envy not in any moods

   The captive void of noble rage,

   The linnet born within the cage,

That never knew the summer woods:

 

I envy not the beast that takes

   His license in the field of time,

   Unfettered by the sense of crime,

To whom a conscience never wakes;

 

Nor, what may count itself as blest,

   The heart that never plighted troth

   But stagnates in the weeds of sloth;

Nor any want-begotten rest.

 

I hold it true, whate'er befall;

   I feel it, when I sorrow most;

   'Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all.

Tennyson

 

What can you say about this?  It's beautiful? Poignant? Knowing the reason for it, makes it even more so.

[Brayon]

9 minutes ago, AC Benus said:

 'Tis better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all.

Tennyson

No, Lord Tennyson, you are wrong. It is blessed to be blissfully ignorant of what you can never have.

[MichaelS36]

Thanks AC, I look forward to these each day. 

[AC Benus]

 

28.

The time draws near the birth of Christ:

  The moon is hid; the night is still;

  The Christmas bells from hill to hill

Answer each other in the mist.

 

Four voices of four hamlets round,

  From far and near, on mead and moor,

  Swell out and fail, as if a door

Were shut between me and the sound:

 

Each voice four changes on the wind,

  That now dilate, and now decrease,

  Peace and goodwill, goodwill and peace,

Peace and goodwill, to all mankind.

 

This year I slept and woke with pain,

  I almost wished no more to wake,

  And that my hold on life would break

Before I heard those bells again:

 

But they my troubled spirit rule,

  For they controlled me when a boy;

  They bring me sorrow touched with joy,

The merry merry bells of Yule.

Tennyson

 

 

 

 

Edited April 29, 2020 by AC Benus

[Black Paper]

Plans II

 

These plans are in your hands.

You hold the ability to mold,

Your own future into one that is silver & gold.

You may, at any day, even today display,

Your work that you have done,

And, show off how you have won.

You are the one.

You do not have none.

You have many.

You have plenty.

You are a star.

You are able and capable and can go far.

Do not look back at what was black.

Hold onto your plans.

Laugh how it all expands.

Forget the dark.

Look at the light.

Get delighted and excited for what can go right

Why do you think it is that I write?

I know what it feels like,

To be crowded & surrounded by what you dislike.

I was there, too.

But, now this book has been given to you.

It is yours.

It is ours.

At all hours, it has powers to help grow others' flowers.

May this binder be a reminder that you can succeed.

Faith is all that it is you need.

Don't stop going.

Don't stop growing.

Your hard work will be showing.

As this book is rhyming,

In perfect timing.

While it is knowing...

Edited April 29, 2020 by Black Paper

[AC Benus]

 

29.

With such compelling cause to grieve

    As daily vexes household peace,

    And chains regret to his decease,

How dare we keep our Christmas-eve;

 

Which brings no more a welcome guest

    To enrich the threshold of the night

    With showered largess of delight

In dance and song and game and jest?

 

Yet go, and while the holly boughs

    Entwine the cold baptismal font,

    Make one wreath more for Use and Wont,

That guard the portals of the house;

 

Old sisters of a day gone by,

    Gray nurses, loving nothing new;

    Why should they miss their yearly due

Before their time? They too will die.

Tennyson

 

[AC Benus]

 

30.

With trembling fingers did we weave

    The holly round the Christmas hearth;

    A rainy cloud possessed the earth,

And sadly fell our Christmas-eve.

 

At our old pastimes in the hall

    We gamboled, making vain pretence

    Of gladness, with an awful sense

Of one mute Shadow watching all.

 

We paused: the winds were in the beech:

    We heard them sweep the winter land;

    And in a circle hand-in-hand

Sat silent, looking each at each.

 

Then echo-like our voices rang;

    We sung, though every eye was dim,

    A merry song we sang with him

Last year: impetuously we sang:

 

We ceased: a gentler feeling crept

    Upon us: surely rest is meet:

    "They rest," we said, "their sleep is sweet,"

And silence followed, and we wept.

 

Our voices took a higher range;

    Once more we sang: "They do not die

    Nor lose their mortal sympathy,

Nor change to us, although they change;

 

"Rapt from the fickle and the frail

    With gathered power, yet the same,

    Pierces the keen seraphic flame

From orb to orb, from veil to veil."

 

Rise, happy morn, rise, holy morn,

    Draw forth the cheerful day from night:

    O Father, touch the east, and light

The light that shone when Hope was born.

Tennyson

 

 

 

[AC Benus]

 

31.

When Lazarus left his charnel-cave,

    And home to Mary's house returned,

    Was this demanded -- if he yearned

To hear her weeping by his grave?

 

"Where wert thou, brother, those four days?"

    There lives no record of reply,

    Which telling what it is to die

Had surely added praise to praise.

 

From every house the neighbours met,

    The streets were filled with joyful sound,

    A solemn gladness even crowned

The purple brows of Olivet.

 

Behold a man raised up by Christ!

    The rest remaineth unrevealed;

    He told it not; or something sealed

The lips of that Evangelist.

 

 

32.

Her eyes are homes of silent prayer,

    Nor other thought her mind admits

    But, he was dead, and there he sits,

And he that brought him back is there.

 

Then one deep love doth supersede

    All other, when her ardent gaze

    Roves from the living brother's face,

And rests upon the Life indeed.

 

All subtle thought, all curious fears,

    Borne down by gladness so complete,

    She bows, she bathes the Saviour's feet

With costly spikenard and with tears.

 

Thrice blest whose lives are faithful prayers,

    Whose loves in higher love endure;

    What souls possess themselves so pure,

Or is there blessedness like theirs?

Tennyson

 

 

 

[AC Benus]

 

33.

O thou that after toil and storm

    Mayst seem to have reached a purer air,

    Whose faith has centre everywhere,

Nor cares to fix itself to form,

 

Leave thou thy sister when she prays,

    Her early Heaven, her happy views;

    Nor thou with shadowed hint confuse

A life that leads melodious days.

 

Her faith thro' form is pure as thine,

    Her hands are quicker unto good:

    Oh, sacred be the flesh and blood

To which she links a truth divine!

 

See thou, that countess reason ripe

    In holding by the law within,

    Thou fail not in a world of sin,

And ev'n for want of such a type.

 

 

34.

My own dim life should teach me this,

    That life shall live for evermore,

    Else earth is darkness at the core,

And dust and ashes all that is;

 

This round of green, this orb of flame,

    Fantastic beauty; such as lurks

    In some wild Poet, when he works

Without a conscience or an aim.

 

What then were God to such as I?

    'Twere hardly worth my while to choose

    Of things all mortal, or to use

A tattle patience ere I die;

 

‘Twere best at once to sink to peace,

    Like birds the charming serpent draws,

    To drop head-foremost in the jaws

Of vacant darkness and to cease.

Tennyson

 

 

 

[Lyssa]

3 hours ago, AC Benus said:

 

33.

 

O thou that after toil and storm

 

    Mayst seem to have reached a purer air,

 

    Whose faith has centre everywhere,

 

Nor cares to fix itself to form,

 

 

 

Leave thou thy sister when she prays,

 

    Her early Heaven, her happy views;

 

    Nor thou with shadowed hint confuse

 

A life that leads melodious days.

 

 

 

Her faith thro' form is pure as thine,

 

    Her hands are quicker unto good:

 

    Oh, sacred be the flesh and blood

 

To which she links a truth divine!

 

 

 

See thou, that countess reason ripe

 

    In holding by the law within,

 

    Thou fail not in a world of sin,

 

And ev'n for want of such a type.

 

 

 

34.

 

My own dim life should teach me this,

 

    That life shall live for evermore,

 

    Else earth is darkness at the core,

 

And dust and ashes all that is;

 

 

 

This round of green, this orb of flame,

 

    Fantastic beauty; such as lurks

 

    In some wild Poet, when he works

 

Without a conscience or an aim.

 

 

 

What then were God to such as I?

 

    'Twere hardly worth my while to choose

 

    Of things all mortal, or to use

 

A tattle patience ere I die;

 

 

 

‘Twere best at once to sink to peace,

 

    Like birds the charming serpent draws,

 

    To drop head-foremost in the jaws

 

Of vacant darkness and to cease.

 

Tennyson

 

 

 

I really love the No 34. It is very intense and somehow incredible intimate.

[AC Benus]

18 hours ago, Lyssa said:

I really love the No 34. It is very intense and somehow incredible intimate.

Yes, I agree. A very personal poem, and the type in this work that can make us see why Tennyson was unsure how In Memoriam would be received. But these doubts at the core of the human experience speak to and for everyone. A poet may not know why he says what he does (as mentioned in No. 34), but there is a cosmic reason

[AC Benus]

35.

Yet if some voice that man could trust

    Should murmur from the narrow house,

   'The cheeks drop in; the body bows;

Man dies: nor is there hope in dust:'

 

Might I not say? "Yet even here,

    But for one hour, O Love, I strive

    To keep so sweet a thing alive."

But I should turn mine ears and hear

 

The moanings of the homeless sea,

    The sound of streams that swift or slow

    Draw down Aeonian hills, and sow

The dust of continents to be;

 

And Love would answer with a sigh,

    "The sound of that forgetful shore

    Will change my sweetness more and more,

Half-dead to know that I shall die."

 

O me, what profits it to put

    An idle case? If Death were seen

    At first as Death, Love had not been,

Or been in narrowest working shut,

 

Mere fellowship of sluggish moods,

    Or in his coarsest Satyr-shape

    Had bruised the herb and crushed the grape,

And basked and battened in the woods.

Tennyson

 

 

[Parker Owens]

18 minutes ago, AC Benus said:

35.

Yet if some voice that man could trust

    Should murmur from the narrow house,

   'The cheeks drop in; the body bows;

Man dies: nor is there hope in dust:'

 

Might I not say? "Yet even here,

    But for one hour, O Love, I strive

    To keep so sweet a thing alive."

But I should turn mine ears and hear

 

The moanings of the homeless sea,

    The sound of streams that swift or slow

    Draw down Aeonian hills, and sow

The dust of continents to be;

 

And Love would answer with a sigh,

    "The sound of that forgetful shore

    Will change my sweetness more and more,

Half-dead to know that I shall die."

 

O me, what profits it to put

    An idle case? If Death were seen

    At first as Death, Love had not been,

Or been in narrowest working shut,

 

Mere fellowship of sluggish moods,

    Or in his coarsest Satyr-shape

    Had bruised the herb and crushed the grape,

And basked and battened in the woods.

Tennyson

 

 

Each successive segment makes me feel heavier and more shrouded in his grief. Even so, it is most masterful writing. There’s a reason my father and grandfather memorized Tennyson. 

[AC Benus]

5 hours ago, Parker Owens said:

Each successive segment makes me feel heavier and more shrouded in his grief. Even so, it is most masterful writing. There’s a reason my father and grandfather memorized Tennyson. 

In Memoriam is Tennyson's greatest work, perhaps the greatest love poem of all times

Edited May 4, 2020 by AC Benus

[Lyssa]

6 hours ago, AC Benus said:

35.

Yet if some voice that man could trust

    Should murmur from the narrow house,

   'The cheeks drop in; the body bows;

Man dies: nor is there hope in dust:'

 

Might I not say? "Yet even here,

    But for one hour, O Love, I strive

    To keep so sweet a thing alive."

But I should turn mine ears and hear

 

The moanings of the homeless sea,

    The sound of streams that swift or slow

    Draw down Aeonian hills, and sow

The dust of continents to be;

 

And Love would answer with a sigh,

    "The sound of that forgetful shore

    Will change my sweetness more and more,

Half-dead to know that I shall die."

 

O me, what profits it to put

    An idle case? If Death were seen

    At first as Death, Love had not been,

Or been in narrowest working shut,

 

Mere fellowship of sluggish moods,

    Or in his coarsest Satyr-shape

    Had bruised the herb and crushed the grape,

And basked and battened in the woods.

Tennyson

 

 

 Those motives of nature Tennyson uses, draw me in. There is such a lonliness in this process of passing away and neverless the thought of everlasting rivers, woods and gras are still comforting at least for me.

[AC Benus]

 

36.

Though truths in manhood darkly join,

    Deep-seated in our mystic frame,

    We yield all blessing to the name

Of Him that made them current coin;

 

For Wisdom dealt with mortal powers,

     Where truth in closest words shall fail,

    When truth embodied in a tale

Shall enter in at lowly doors.

 

And so the Word had breath, and wrought

    With human hands the creed of creeds

    In loveliness of perfect deeds,

More strong than all poetic thought;

 

Which he may read that binds the sheaf,

    Or builds the house, or digs the grave,

    And those wild eyes that watch the wave

In roarings round the coral reef.

Tennyson

 

 

[AC Benus]

No. 36 of In Memoriam has thoughts and images that later show up in the work of another English poet of the day. Lord Lytton (under his pen name Owen Meredith) published a very challenging collection of his verse in 1859 called The Wanderer. Here are the two excerpts Tennyson's No. 36 made me recall from Lytton this morning.

 

from  "Dedication to J.F.S. [James Fitzjames Stephens]"

(Florence, Sept 24, 1857)

 

For all youth seeks, all manhood needs,

    All youth and manhood rarely find:

A strength more strong than codes or creeds,

In lofty thoughts and lovely deeds

    Revealed to heart and mind; 

 

A staff to stay, a star to guide;

    A spell to soothe, a power to raise;

A faith by fortune firmly tried;

A judgment resolute to preside

    O’er days at strife with days.

 

O large in lore, in nature sound!

     O man to me, of all men, dear!

All these in thine my life hath found,

And force to tread the rugged ground

    Of daily toil, with cheer.

 

 

from  "Euthansia"

 

And touch me ere I feel him. He must come

    To me (I cannot join Him in the cloud)

Stand at the dim doors of my mortal home;

    Lift the low latch of life; and enter, bow’d

Unto this earthly roof; and sit within

    The circle of the senses;  at the hearth

    Of the affections; be my guest on earth,

Loving my love, and sorrowing in my sin.

 

 

Edited May 5, 2020 by AC Benus

[AC Benus]

 

37.

Urania speaks with darkened brow:

    "Thou pratest here where thou art least;

    This faith has many a purer priest,

And many an abler voice than thou.

 

"Go down beside thy native rill,

    On thy Parnassus set thy feet,

    And hear thy laurel whisper sweet

About the ledges of the hill."

 

And my Melpomene replies,

    A touch of shame upon her cheek:

    "I am not worthy ev'n to speak

Of thy prevailing mysteries;

 

"For I am but an earthly Muse,

    And owning but a little art

    To lull with song an aching heart,

And render human love his dues;

 

"But brooding on the dear one dead,

    And all he said of things divine,

    (And dear to me as sacred wine

To dying lips is all he said),

 

"I murmured, as I came along,

    Of comfort clasped in truth revealed;

    And loitered in the master's field,

And darkened sanctities with song."

Tennyson

 

 

Edited May 6, 2020 by AC Benus

[Lyssa]

1 hour ago, AC Benus said:

 

37.

Urania speaks with darkened brow:

    "Thou pratest here where thou art least;

    This faith has many a purer priest,

And many an abler voice than thou.

 

"Go down beside thy native rill,

    On thy Parnassus set thy feet,

    And hear thy laurel whisper sweet

About the ledges of the hill."

 

And my Melpomene replies,

    A touch of shame upon her cheek:

    "I am not worthy ev'n to speak

Of thy prevailing mysteries;

 

"For I am but an earthly Muse,

    And owning but a little art

    To lull with song an aching heart,

And render human love his dues;

 

"But brooding on the dear one dead,

    And all he said of things divine,

    (And dear to me as sacred wine

To dying lips is all he said),

 

"I murmured, as I came along,

    Of comfort clasped in truth revealed;

    And loitered in the master's field,

And darkened sanctities with song."

Tennyson

 

 

I think Melpomene found a way through Tennyson to do her work. Thank you for sharing. 🙂

[AC Benus]

I have to do my homework on Urania... What struck me about it this morning is how many early Gay Rights pioneers in the 19th century referred to themselves as Uranians. Would this be something Tennyson knew in the 1830-40s when writing this? IDK, but it is interesting