Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea, Thy tribute wave deliver: No more by thee my steps shall be, For ever and for ever. Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea, A rivulet then a river: Nowhere by thee my steps shall be For ever and for ever. But here will sigh thine alder tree And here thine aspen shiver; And here by thee will hum the bee, For ever and for ever. A thousand suns will stream on thee, A...
She is coming, my own, my sweet;Were it ever so airy a tread,My heart would hear her and beat,Were it earth in an earthy bed;My dust would hear her and beat,Had I lain for a century dead,Would start and tremble under her feet,And blossom in purple and red.
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Excerpt from “Maud”
Alfred Lord Tennyson (England 1809 – 1892) I come from haunts of coot and hern,I make a sudden sallyAnd sparkle out among the fern,To bicker down a valley. By thirty hills I hurry down,Or slip between the ridges,By twenty thorpes, a little town,And half a hundred bridges. Till last by Philip’s farm I flowTo join the brimming river,For men may come and men may go,But I go on for ever. I chatter...
‘Te somnia nostra reducunt.’ OVID. And ask ye why these sad tears stream?Why these wan eyes are dim with weeping?I had a dream-a lovely dream,Of her that in the grave is sleeping. I saw her as ’twas yesterday,The bloom upon her cheek still glowing;And round her play’d a golden ray,And on her brows were gay flowers blowing. With angel-hand she swept a lyre,A garland red with roses bound it;Its...
Come not, when I am dead,To drop thy foolish tears upon my grave,To trample round my fallen head,And vex the unhappy dust thou wouldst not save.There let the wind sweep and the plover cry;But thou, go by. Child, if it were thine error or thy crimeI care no longer, being all unblest:Wed whom thou wilt, but I am sick of Time,And I desire to rest.Pass on, weak heart, and leave to where I lie:Go by...