"I have been to blame to blame. I have kill'd but I loved him I have kill'd him my dear son. I have been to blame. Then they clung about 160 The old man's neck, and kiss'd him many times. And all the man was broken with remorse; And all his love came back a hundredfold; And for three hours he sobb'd o'er William's child, Thinking of William. So those four abode 165 Within one house together; and as years Went forward, Mary took another mate; But Dora lived unmarried till her death. THE TALKING OAK. ONCE more the gate behind me falls, 5 Beyond the lodge the city lies, In the poems of 1842, The Talking Oak first appeared. The quotation from Mrs. Ritchie in the Biographical Sketch, concerning the peculiarly English charm of Tennyson's writing applies, perhaps, as forcibly to this poem as to anything in his work. Remarkable, too, is the mastery displayed in combining accurate botanical knowledge with poetic feeling, two elements that are not easily blended. 4. Chace unenclosed park land. 10 For when my passion first began, Ere that, which in me burned, To yonder oak within the field Tho' what he whisper'd under Heaven I found him garrulously given, 25 But since I heard him make reply Is many a weary hour; 30 'T were well to question him, and try If yet he keeps the power. Hail, hidden to the knees in fern, Broad Oak of Sumner-chace, Whose topmost branches can discern The roofs of Sumner-place! Say thou, whereon I carved her name, If ever maid or spouse, 35 As fair as my Olivia, came To rest beneath thy boughs. 40 "O Walter, I have shelter'd here The good old Summers, year by year, "Old Summers, when the monk was fat, And, issuing shorn and sleek, Would twist his girdle tight, and pat 66 45" Ere yet, in scorn of Peter's-pence, 50 "And I have seen some score of those Fresh faces, that would thrive When his man-minded offset rose To chase the deer at five; "And all that from the town would stroll, Till that wild wind made work 55 In which the gloomy brewer's soul Went by me, like a stork: 45-48. Peter's-pence was a tax to the Church of Rome, and the whole stanza refers to the casting off of Papal authority by Henry VIII., "Bluff Harry.” The spence, line 47, was the buttery or larder. 51. His man-minded offset, Henry's daughter, Queen Elizabeth. : 54. That wild wind, the storm which raged on the night of Cromwell's death it is said that his father was a brewer, and tradition has it that the stork, a Republican bird, disappeared from England when Cromwell died. “The slight she-slips of loyal blood, Strait-laced, but all-too-full in bud "And I have shadow'd many a group 66 65 And, leg and arm with love-knots gay, 70 The modest Cupid of the day, And shrill'd his tinsel shaft. "I swear (and else may insects prick This girl, for whom your heart is sick, Is three times worth them all; "For those and theirs, by Nature's law, Have faded long ago; 75 But in these latter springs I saw Your own Olivia blow, "From when she gamboll'd on the greens 57. She-slips of loyal blood, daughters of houses faithful to the Stuarts: in the talk of an oak, they are naturally slips. 63. In teacup-times of hood and hoop: this line and the five that follow skillfully suggest the days of Queen Anne, and the artificialities of the eighteenth century. 70. Gall the lump that grows on the bark or leaves of a tree round the eggs of an insect. 76. Blow= bloom. 80 The maiden blossoms of her teens "I swear, by leaf, and wind, and rain, (And hear me with thine ears,) That, tho' I circle in the grain 85" Yet, since I first could cast a shade, "For as to fairies, that will flit 90 To make the greensward fresh, I hold them exquisitely knit, But far too spare of flesh." Oh, hide thy knotted knees in fern, 95 And from thy topmost branch discern The roofs of Sumner-place. 100 But thou, whereon I carved her name, That oft hast heard my vows, Declare when last Olivia came "O yesterday, you know, the fair 84. The rings which show an oak's age. |
