Full merrily;

Yet all things must die.
The stream will cease to flow;
The wind will cease to blow;
The clouds will cease to fleet;
The heart will cease to beat;
For all things must die.
All things must die.

Spring, vanity!

will come never more.

Death waits at the door.

See our friends are all forsaking
The wine and the merrymaking.
We are call'd - - we must go.
Laid low, very low,
In the dark we must lie.
The merry glees are still;
The voice of the bird
Shall no more be heard,
Nor the wind on the hill.

LEONINE ELEGIACS

Low-FLOWING breezes are roaming the broad valley dimm'd in the gloaming;

Thoro' the black-stemm'd pines only the far river shines.

Creeping thro' blossomy rushes and bowers of rose-blowing bushes,

Down by the poplar tall rivulets babble and fall.

Barketh the shepherd-dog cheerly; the grasshopper carolleth clearly; Deeply the wood-dove coos; shrilly the owlet halloos;

Winds creep; dews fall chilly: in her first sleep earth breathes stilly:

Over the pools in the burn water-gnats murmur and mourn.

Sadly the far kine loweth; the glimmering water outfloweth;

Twin peaks shadow'd with pine slope to the dark hyaline.

Low-throned Hesper is stayed between the two peaks; but the Naiad

Throbbing in mild unrest holds him beneath in her breast.

The ancient poetess singeth that Hesperus all things bringeth,

Smoothing the wearied mind: bring me my love, Rosalind.

Thou comest morning or even; she cometh not morning or even.

False-eyed Hesper, unkind, where is my sweet Rosalind ?

SUPPOSED CONFESSIONS

OF A SECOND-RATE SENSITIVE MIND

This poem, published in 1830, was suppressed for more than fifty years. In 1879 the Christian Signal,' an English journal, announced that its issue for September 6th would contain 'an early unpublished poem of over two hundred lines by Alfred Tennyson (P. L.), entitled 66 Confessions of a Sensitive Mind; " but the publication was prevented by a legal injunction. In 1884 the poem was included in the complete edition of the Laureate's works.

O GOD! my God! have mercy_now. I faint, I fall. Men say that Thou Didst die for me, for such as me,

Patient of ill, and death, and scorn,
And that my sin was as a thorn
Among the thorns that girt Thy brow,
Wounding Thy soul. That even now,
In this extremest misery

Of ignorance, I should require
A sign! and if a bolt of fire

Would rive the slumbrous summer noon
While I do pray to Thee alone,
Think my belief would stronger grow!
Is not my human pride brought low?
The boastings of my spirit still ?
The joy I had in my free-will

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All cold, and dead, and corpse-like grown?
And what is left to me but Thou,
And faith in Thee? Men pass me by;
Christians with happy countenances
And children all seem full of Thee!
And women smile with saint-like glances
Like Thine own mother's when she bow'd
Above Thee, on that happy morn
When angels spake to men aloud,
And Thou and peace to earth were born.
Good-will to me as well as all-

I one of them; my brothers they;
Brothers in Christ—a world of peace
And confidence, day after day;

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And trust and hope till things should cease, And then one Heaven receive us all.

How sweet to have a common faith!
To hold a common scorn of death!
And at a burial to hear

The creaking cords which wound and eat
Into my human heart, whene'er

Earth goes to earth, with grief, not fear,
With hopeful grief, were passing sweet!

Thrice happy state again to be
The trustful infant on the knee,
Who lets his rosy fingers play
About his mother's neck, and knows
Nothing beyond his mother's eyes!
They comfort him by night and day;
They light his little life alway;
He hath no thought of coming woes;
He hath no care of life or death;
Scarce outward signs of joy arise,
Because the Spirit of happiness
And perfect rest so inward is;
And loveth so his innocent heart,
Her temple and her place of birth,
Where she would ever wish to dwell,
Life of the fountain there, beneath
Its salient springs, and far apart,

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To one who heeds not, who can save
But will not? Great in faith, and strong
Against the grief of circumstance
Wert thou, and yet unheard. What if
Thou pleadest still, and seest me drive
Thro' utter dark a full-sail'd skiff,
Unpiloted i' the echoing dance
Of reboant whirlwinds, stooping low
Unto the death, not sunk! I know
At matins and at evensong,

That thou, if thou wert yet alive,
In deep and daily prayers wouldst strive
To reconcile me with thy God.
Albeit, my hope is gray, and cold
At heart, thou wouldest murmur still
'Bring this lamb back into Thy fold,
My Lord, if so it be Thy will.'

Wouldst tell me I must brook the rod
And chastisement of human pride;

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'Yet,' said I, in my morn of youth,
The unsunn'd freshness of my strength, 140
When I went forth in quest of truth,
'It is man's privilege to doubt,
If so be that from doubt at length
Truth may stand forth unmoved of change,
An image with profulgent brows
And perfect limbs, as from the storm
Of running fires and fluid range
Of lawless airs, at last stood out
This excellence and solid form
Of constant beauty. For the ox
Feeds in the herb, and sleeps, or fills
The horned valleys all about,
And hollows of the fringed hills
In summer heats, with placid lows
Unfearing, till his own blood flows
About his hoof. And in the flocks
The lamb rejoiceth in the year,
And raceth freely with his fere,
And answers to his mother's calls
From the flower'd furrow. In a time
Of which he wots not, run short pains

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Thro' his warm heart; and then, from whence

He knows not, on his light there falls
A shadow; and his native slope,
Where he was wont to leap and climb,
Floats from his sick and filmed eyes,
And something in the darkness draws
His forehead earthward, and he dies.
Shall man live thus, in joy and hope
As a young lamb, who cannot dream,
Living, but that he shall live on ?
Shall we not look into the laws
Of life and death, and things that seem,
And things that be, and analyze
Our double nature, and compare
All creeds till we have found the one,
If one there be?' Ay me! I fear
All may not doubt, but everywhere
Some must clasp idols. Yet, my God,
Whom call I idol? Let Thy dove
Shadow me over, and my sins
Be unremember'd, and Thy love
Enlighten me. O, teach me yet
Somewhat before the heavy clod
Weighs on me, and the busy fret
Of that sharp-headed worm begins
In the gross blackness underneath.

O weary life! O weary death!
O spirit and heart made desolate !
O damned vacillating state!

THE KRAKEN

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