This poem, originally published on the day of the Duke's funeral in 1852, was probably written in some haste. It underwent considerable revision before it was reprinted in 1853, and was further retouched before it appeared with 'Maud' in 1855. The variations of the present text from the first edition are given in the Notes.

Shepherd (Tennysoniana,' 1879), in his chapter on Tennyson's Versification,' remarks: ‘În the "Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington," he has soared to lyric heights to which, perhaps, even Pindar never attained. The tolling of the bell, the solemn and slow funeral march, the quick rush of battle, and the choral chant of the cathedral all succeed one another, and the verse sinks and swells, rises and falls to every alternation with equal power.'

I

BURY the Great Duke

With an empire's lamentation;

19

Mourn, for to us he seems the last,
Remembering all his greatness in the past.
No more in soldier fashion will he greet
With lifted hand the gazer in the street.
O friends, our chief state-oracle is mute!
Mourn for the man of long-enduring blood,
The statesman-warrior, moderate, resolute,
Whole in himself, a common good.
Mourn for the man of amplest influence,
Yet clearest of ambitious crime,
Our greatest yet with least pretence,
Great in council and great in war,
Foremost captain of his time,
Rich in saving common-sense,
And, as the greatest only are,
In his simplicity sublime.

30

O good gray head which all men knew,
O voice from which their omens all men

Thro' the dome of the golden cross;
And the volleying cannon thunder his loss;
He knew their voices of old.
For many a time in many a clime
His captain's-ear has heard them boom
Bellowing victory, bellowing doom.
When he with those deep voices wrought,
Guarding realms and kings from shame,
With those deep voices our dead captain
taught

The tyrant, and asserts his claim

In that dread sound to the great name
Which he has worn so pure of blame,
In praise and in dispraise the same,
A man of well-attemper'd frame.
O civic muse, to such a name,
To such a name for ages long,
To such a name,

Preserve a broad approach of fame,
And ever-echoing avenues of song!

VI

70

O, give him welcome, this is he
Worthy of our gorgeous rites,
And worthy to be laid by thee;
For this is England's greatest son,
He that gain'd a hundred fights,
Nor ever lost an English gun;
This is he that far away
Against the myriads of Assaye
Clash'd with his fiery few and won;
And underneath another sun,
Warring on a later day,
Round affrighted Lisbon drew
The treble works, the vast designs
Of his labor'd rampart-lines,
Where he greatly stood at bay,
Whence he issued forth anew,
And ever great and greater grew,
Beating from the wasted vines
Back to France her banded swarms,
Back to France with countiess blows,
Till o'er the hills her eagles flew
Beyond the Pyrenean pines,
Follow'd up in valley and glen
With blare of bugle, clamor of men,
Roll of cannon and clash of arms,
And England pouring on her foes.
Such a war had such a close.
Again their ravening eagle rose

100

110

In anger, wheel'd on Europe - shadowing

Last, the Prussian trumpet blew;

Thro' the long-tormented air

Heaven flash'd a sudden jubilant ray,

And down we swept and charged and overthrew.

130

So great a soldier taught us there
What long-enduring hearts could do
In that world-earthquake, Waterloo !
Mighty Seaman, tender and true,
And pure as he from taint of craven guile,
O saviour of the silver-coasted isle,
O shaker of the Baltic and the Nile,
If aught of things that here befall
Touch a spirit among things divine,
If love of country move thee there at all,
Be glad, because his bones are laid by

thine !

139

Betwixt a people and their ancient throne, That sober freedom out of which there springs

Our loyal passion for our temperate kings! For, saving that, ye help to save mankind Till public wrong be crumbled into dust, And drill the raw world for the march of mind,

Till crowds at length be sane and crowns be just.

But wink no more in slothful overtrust. 170
Remember him who led your hosts;
He bade you guard the sacred coasts.
Your cannons moulder on the seaward
wall;

His voice is silent in your council-hall
For ever; and whatever tempests lour
For ever silent; even if they broke
In thunder, silent; yet remember all
He spoke among you, and the Man who
spoke;

Who never sold the truth to serve the

story

The path of duty was the way to glory.
He that walks it, only thirsting

For the right, and learns to deaden
Love of self, before his journey closes,
He shall find the stubborn thistle bursting
Into glossy purples, which outredden
All voluptuous garden-roses.
Not once or twice in our fair island-story
The path of duty was the way to glory. 210
He, that ever following her commands,
On with toil of heart and knees and hands,
Thro' the long gorge to the far light has

pure;

ENOCH ARDEN

'Enoch Arden' has been one of the most popular of the poet's works, not only in English-speaking countries, but also on the continent of Europe. Mr. Eugene Parsons, in his pamphlet on Tennyson's Life and Poetry' (2d edition, 1893), enumerates no less than twentyfour translations: nine in German, two in Dutch, one in Danish, one in Bohemian, eight in French, one in Spanish, and two in Italian. There is also a Latin version by Mr. W. Selwyn (London, 1867).

According to the 'British Quarterly Review' for October, 1880, the stories of both Enoch Arden' and 'Aylmer's Field' were 'told by a friend to the poet, who, struck by their aptitude for versification, requested to have them at length in writing. When they were thus supplied, the poetic versions were made as we now have them.' This is confirmed by the 'Memoir' (vol. ii. p. 7), where we learn that the 'friend' was Woolner the sculptor.

LONG lines of cliff breaking have left a

chasm;

And in the chasm are foam and yellow sands;

Beyond, red roofs about a narrow wharf In cluster; then a moulder'd church; and higher

A long street climbs to one tall-tower'd mill;

And high in heaven behind it a gray down
With Danish barrows; and a hazel-wood,
By autumn nutters haunted, flourishes
Green in a cuplike hollow of the down.
Here on this beach a hundred years ago, 10
Three children of three houses, Annie Lee,
The prettiest little damsel in the port,
And Philip Ray, the miller's only son,
And Enoch Arden, a rough sailor's lad
Made orphan by a winter shipwreck, play'd
Among the waste and lumber of the shore,
Hard coils of cordage, swarthy fishing-nets,