FOUR years ago Mr. Sullivan requested me to write a little song-cycle, German fashion, for him to exercise his art upon. He had been very successful in setting such old songs as ‘Orpheus with his lute,’ and I drest up for him, partly in the old style, a puppet, whose almost only merit is, perhaps, that it can dance to Mr. Sullivan’s instrument. I am sorry that my four-year-old puppet should have to dance at all in the dark shadow of these days; but the music is now completed, and I am bound by my promise.
December, 187O. A. TENNYSON |
ON THE HILL.
THE LIGHTS and shadows fly!Yonder it brightens and darkens down on the plain. A jewel, a jewel dear to a lover’s eye! Oh is it the brook, or a pool, or her window pane, When the winds are up in the morning?
Clouds that are racing above,
Follow, follow the chase!
Follow them down the slope |
AT THE WINDOW.
Vine, vine and eglantine,Clasp her window, trail and twine! Rose, rose and clematis, Trail and twine and clasp and kiss, Kiss, kiss; and make her a bower All of flowers, and drop me a flower, Drop me a flower.
Vine, vine and eglantine,
GONE.
Gone!Gone, till the end of the year, Gone, and the light gone with her, and left me in shadow here! Gone-flitted away, Taken the stars from the night and the sun from the day! Gone, and a cloud in my heart, and a storm in the air! Flown to the east or the west, flitted I know not where! Down in the south is a flash and a groan: she is there! she is there! |
WINTER.
The frost is here,And fuel is clear, And woods are sear, And fires burn clear, And frost is here And has bitten the heel of the going year.
Bite, frost, bite!
Bite, frost, bite! |
SPRING.
Birds’ love and birds’ songFlying here and there, Birds’ song and birds’ love, And you with gold for hair! Birds’ song and birds’ love. Passing with the weather, Men’s song and men’s love, To love once and for ever.
Men’s love and birds’ love,
THE LETTER.
Where is another sweet as my sweet,Fine of the fine, and shy of the shy? Fine little hands, fine little feet— Dewy blue eye. Shall I write to her? shall I go? Ask her to marry me by and by? Somebody said that she’d say no; Somebody knows that she’ll say ay!
Ay or no, if ask’d to her face? |
NO ANSWER.
The mist and the rain, the mist and the rain!Is it ay or no? is it ay or no? And never a glimpse of her window pane! And I may die but the grass will grow, And the grass will grow when I am gone, And the wet west wind and the world will go on.
Ay is the song of the wedded spheres,
The wind and the wet, the wind and the wet! |
NO ANSWER.
Winds are loud and you are dumb,Take my love, for love will come, Love will come but once a life. Winds are loud and winds will pass! Spring is here with leaf and grass: Take my love and be my wife. After-loves of maids and men Are but dainties drest again: Love me now, you’ll love me then: Love can love but once a life, |
THE ANSWER.
Two little hands that meet,Claspt on her seal, my sweet! Must I take you and break you, Two little hands that meet? I must take you, and break you, And loving hands must part— Take, take—break, break— Break—you may break my heart. Faint heart never won— Break, break, and all’s done. |
AY.
Be merry, all birds, to-day,Be merry on earth as you never were merry before, Be merry in heaven, O larks, and far away, And merry for ever and ever, and one day more. Why? For it’s easy to find a rhyme. Look, look, how he flits, The fire-crown’d king of the wrens, from out of the pine! Look how they tumble the blossom, the mad little tits! ‘Cuck-oo! Cuck-oo!’ was ever a May so fine? Why? For it’s easy to find a rhyme. O merry the linnet and dove, And swallow and sparrow and throstle, and have your desire! O merry my heart, you have gotten the wings of love, And flit like the king of the wrens with a crown of fire. Why? For it’s ay ay, ay ay. |
WHEN.
Sun comes, moon comes,Time slips away. Sun sets, moon sets, Love, fix a day.
‘A year hence, a year hence.’
‘A week hence, a week hence.’
‘To-morrow, love, to-morrow, |
MARRIAGE MORNING.
Light, so low upon earth,You send a flash to the sun. Here is the golden close of love, All my wooing is done. Oh, the woods and the meadows, Woods where we hid from the wet, Stiles where we stay’d to be kind, Meadows in which we met!
Light, so low in the vale
Heart, are you great enough |