With many a silvery waterbreak
Above the golden gravel,

And draw them all along, and flow
To join the brimming river;

For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

I steal by lawns and grassy plots,
I slide by hazel covers;
I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows;
I make the netted sunbeam dance
Against my sandy shallows.

I murmur under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses;
I linger by my shingly bars;
I loiter round my cresses;

And out again I curve and flow
To join the brimming river;
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

1855.

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52

Lord Tennyson.

I

FEBRUARY

NOON-and the north-west sweeps the empty road,

The rain-washed fields from hedge to hedge are bare;

Beneath the leafless elms some hind's abode Looks small and void, and no smoke meets the air

From its poor hearth: one lonely rook doth dare

The gale, and beats above the unseen corn, Then turns, and whirling down the wind is borne.

Shall it not hap that on some dawn of May
Thou shalt awake, and, thinking of days dead,
See nothing clear but this same dreary day,
Of all the days that have passed o'er thine
head?

7

Shalt thou not wonder, looking from thy bed, Through green leaves on the windless east a-fire, That this day too thine heart doth still desire?

Shalt thou not wonder that it liveth yet,
The useless hope, the useless craving pain,

14

That made thy face, that lonely noontide wet
With more than beating of the chilly rain?

Shalt thou not hope for joy new born again,
Since no grief ever born can ever die
Through changeless change of seasons passing
by?

2

21

MARCH

SLAYER of the winter, art thou here again? O welcome, thou that bring'st the summer nigh!

The bitter wind makes not thy victory vain, Now will we mock thee for thy faint blue sky.

Welcome, O March! whose kindly days
and dry

Make April ready for the throstle's song,
Thou first redresser of the winter's wrong! 7

Yea, welcome, March! and though I die ere
June,

Yet for the hope of life I give thee praise, Striving to swell the burden of the tune

That even now I hear thy brown birds raise, Unmindful of the past or coming days; Who sing: "O joy! a new year is begun: What happiness to look upon the sun!"

14

Ah, what begetteth all this storm of bliss
But Death himself, who, crying solemnly,
E'en from the heart of sweet Forgetfulness,
Bids us "Rejoice! lest pleasureless ye die.
Within a little time must ye go by.

Stretch forth your open hands, and, while ye live,

Take all the gifts that Death and Life may give"?

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3

MAY

O LOVE, this morn when the sweet nightingale
Had so long finished all he had to say,
That thou hadst slept, and sleep had told his tale;
And midst a peaceful dream had stolen away
In fragrant dawning of the first of May,
Didst thou see aught? didst thou hear voices
sing

Ere to the risen sun the bells 'gan ring?

For then methought the Lord of Love went by To take possession of his flowery throne, Ringed round with maids, and youths, and minstrelsy;

A little while I sighed to find him gone,

A little while the dawning was alone,

7

And the light gathered; then I held my breath, And shuddered at the sight of Eld and Death. 14

Alas! Love passed me in the twilight dun,

His music hushed the wakening ousel's song; But on these twain shone out the golden sun, And o'er their heads the brown bird's tune

was strong,

As shivering, twixt the trees they stole along; None noted aught their noiseless passing by, The world had quite forgotten it must die.

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4

OCTOBER

O LOVE, turn from the unchanging sea, and gaze Down these grey slopes upon the year grown old,

A-dying mid the autumn-scented haze,

That hangeth o'er the hollow in the wold,

Where the wind-bitten ancient elms infold Grey church, long barn, orchard, and red-roofed stead,

Wrought in dead days for men a long while

dead.

Come down, O love; may not our hands still meet.

Since still we live to-day, forgetting June, Forgetting May, deeming October sweet

-O hearken, hearken! through the afternoon,

7