2

And it was but a dream, yet it yielded a dear delight

To have look'd, tho' but in a dream, upon eyes so fair,

That had been in a weary world my one thing

bright;

And it was but a dream, yet it lighten'd my despair When I thought that a war would arise in defence of the right,

That an iron tyranny now should bend or cease,
The glory of manhood stand on his ancient height,
Nor Britain's one sole God be the millionnaire:
No more shall commerce be all in all, and Peace
Pipe on her pastoral hillock a languid note,
And watch her harvest ripen, her herd increase,
Nor the cannon-bullet rust on a slothful shore,
And the cobweb woven across the cannon's throat
Shall shake its threaded tears in the wind no more.

3

And as months ran on and rumour of battle grew, "It is time, it is time, O passionate heart," said I (For I cleaved to a cause that I felt to be pure and true),

"It is time, O passionate heart and morbid eye,
That old hysterical mock-disease should die."
And I stood on a giant deck and mix'd my breath
With a loyal people shouting a battle cry,
Till I saw the dreary phantom 1 arise and fly
Far into the North, and battle, and seas of death.

[ Dreary phantom.] That of the (supposed) murdered man.

4

Let it go or stay, so I wake to the higher aims Of a land that has lost for a little her lust of gold, And love of a peace that was full of wrongs

shames,

and

Horrible, hateful, monstrous, not to be told; And hail once more to the banner of battle unroll'd!

Tho' many a light shall darken, and many shall weep For those that are crush'd in the clash of jarring claims,

Yet God's just wrath 1 shall be wreak'd on a giant

liar;

And many a darkness into the light shall leap, And shine in the sudden making of splendid names, And noble thought be freer under the sun,

And the heart of a people beat with one desire; For the peace, that I deem'd no peace,1 is over and done,

And now by the side of the Black and the Baltic deep,

And deathful grinning mouths of the fortress, flames

The blood-red blossom of war with a heart of fire.

5

Let it flame 2 or fade, and the war roll down like a

wind,

We have proved we have hearts in a cause, we are noble still,

1 Wrath.] 1st edition reads "doom," and five lines lower down, for "peace, that I deem'd no peace," reads "long, long canker of peace.

2 This stanza not in 1st edition, which closes poem with end of 4, "heart of fire."

And myself have awaked, as it seems, to the better mind;

It is better to fight for the good, than to rail at the ill;

I have felt with my native land, I am one with my kind,

I embrace the purpose of God, and the doom assign'd.

THE BROOK

AN IDYL 1

"HERE, by this brook, we parted; I to the East And he for Italy-too late-too late:

One whom the strong sons of the world despise ;
For lucky rhymes to him were scrip and share,
And mellow metres more than cent for cent;
Nor could he understand how money breeds,
Thought it a dead thing; yet himself could make
The thing that is not as the thing that is.
O had he lived! In our schoolbooks we say,
Of those that held their heads above the crowd,
They flourish'd then or then; but life in him
Could scarce be said to flourish, only touch'd
On such a time as goes before the leaf,
When all the wood stands in a mist of
green,
And nothing perfect: yet the brook he loved,
For which, in branding summers of Bengal,
Or ev❜n the sweet half-English Neilgherry 2 air,
I panted, seems, as I re-listen to it,
Prattling the primrose fancies of the boy,

1 This charming idyl comes as a delightful refreshment after the tragic passion of Maud. It seems to suggest the scenery of Lincolnshire as that of Maud does of the Isle of Wight. The original "brook" of Tennyson's boyhood may be seen at Somersby, his native place.

2 Neilgherry.] The Neilgherry Hills are the great health resorts of British residents in Madras, being about 8500 feet high.

To me that loved him; for O brook,' he says, 'O babbling brook,' says Edmund in his rhyme, 'Whence come you?' and the brook, why not? replies.

I come from haunts of coot and hern,1
I make a sudden sally

And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.

By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorps,2 a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.

Till last by Philip's farm I flow
To join the brimming river,

For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

"Poor lad, he died at Florence, quite worn out, Travelling to Naples. There is Darnley bridge, It has more ivy; there the river; and there Stands Philip's farm where brook and river meet.

I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,3
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.

1 Coot.] A water-fowl (Fulica atra). Hern.] Ardea cinerea, usually spelt heron, but pronounced with the o very short. Both these birds love solitary places.

2 Thorps.] A word suggestive of Lincolnshire.

3 Trebles.] Notice the reiteration of sound trebles, bubble, bays, babble, pebbles.