Alfred Lord Tennyson

I
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death

Part I
On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;

So closed our tale, of which I give you
The random scheme as wildly as it rose:
The words are mostly mine; for when we
There came a minute's pause, and Walter said,'I wish she had not yielded!' then to me,'What, if you drest it up…

Now, scarce three paces measured from the mound,
We stumbled on a stationary voice,
And 'Stand, who goes?'  'Two from the palace' I.'The second two:  they wait,' he said, 'pass on;
His Highness wakes:' and one, that clashed in arms

There is a sound of thunder afar,
Storm in the south that darkens the day,
Storm of battle and thunder of war,
Well, if it do not roll our way.   Form! form!

O that 'twere possible After long grief and pain To find the arms of my true love Round me once again!
When I was wont to meet her In the silent woody places By the home that gave me birth, We stood tranced in long embraces Mixt with kisses…

Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet 't is early morn:
Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle-horn.
'T is the place, and all around it, as of old, the curlews call,
Dreary gleams about the moorland…

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea

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.

The sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills and the plains,-Are not these,
O Soul, the Vision of Him who reigns?
Is not the Vision He, tho' He be not that which He seems?
Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in…

'There sinks the nebulous star we call the Sun,
If that hypothesis of theirs be sound'Said Ida; 'let us down and rest;' and
Down from the lean and wrinkled precipices,
By every coppice-feathered chasm and cleft,

Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea,
Thy tribute wave deliver:
No more by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.

KE souls that balance joy and pain,
With tears and smiles from heaven again The maiden Spring upon the plain Came in a sun-lit fall of rain.
In crystal vapour everywhere Blue isles of heaven laugh'd between,
And far, in forest-deeps…

I wage not any feud with
For changes wrought on form and face;
No lower life that earth's
May breed with him, can fright my faith.

Once more the Heavenly
Makes all things new,
And domes the red-plowed
With loving blue;

I envy not in any
The captive void of noble rage,
The linnet born within the cage,
That never knew the summer woods:

These to His Memory—since he held them dear,
Perchance as finding there
Some image of himself—I dedicate,
I dedicate,

Tears, idle tears,
I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;

O
VE,
Love,
Love!

So was their sanctuary violated,
So their fair college turned to hospital;
At first with all confusion:  by and
Sweet order lived again with other laws:

I.
OU who stealest fire,
From the fountains of the past,
To glorify the present, oh, haste

Once in a golden hour
I cast to earth a seed.
Up there came a flower,
The people said, a weed.

Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones,
O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter