732 



TENNYSON, ALFRED. 



To lend our hearts and spirits wholly 



To the influence of mild-minded melancholy ; 



To muse and brood and live again in memory, 



With those old faces of our infancy 



Heap'd over with a mound of grass, 



Two handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn of brass ! 



We have had enough of action, and of motion we, 

 RolPd to starboard, roll'd to larboard, when the 



surge was seething free, 



Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam- 

 fountains in the sea. 



Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted 

 lands, 



Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring 

 deeps and fiery sands, 



Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking 

 ships, and praying hands. 



But they smile, they find a music centred in a dole- 

 ful song 



Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale 

 of wrong, 



Like a tale of little meaning tho' the words are 

 strong ; 



Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal 

 mind, 



In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined 



On the hills like Gods together, careless of man- 

 kind. 



For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are 

 hurl'd 



Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are 

 lightly curl'cl 



Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleam- 

 ing world : 



Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave 

 the soil, 



Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring 

 toil, 



Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and 

 oil ; 



Till they perish and they suffer some, 'tis whis- 

 pered down in hell 



Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys 

 dwell, 



Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel. 



