No More Learning

]

[Footnote 17: Thus in 1833:--

The white chalk quarry from the hill
Upon the broken ripple gleamed,
I murmured lowly, sitting still,
While round my feet the eddy streamed:
"Oh! that I were the wreath she wreathes,
The mirror where her sight she feeds,
The song she sings, the air she breathes,
The letters of the books she reads". ]


[Footnote 18: 1833.

I loved, but when I dared to speak
My love, the lanes were white with May
Your ripe lips moved not, but your cheek
Flushed like the coming of the day. ]


[Footnote 19: 1833. Rosecheekt, roselipt, half-sly, half-shy. ]

[Footnote 20: Cf. Milton, 'Paradise Lost';--

Two other precious drops that ready stood
He, ere they fell, kiss'd. ]


[Footnote 21: These three stanzas were added in 1842, the following
being excised:--

Remember you the clear moonlight,
That whitened all the eastern ridge,
When o'er the water, dancing white,
I stepped upon the old mill-bridge.
I heard you whisper from above
A lute-toned whisper, "I am here";
I murmured, "Speak again, my love,
The stream is loud: I cannot hear ".

I heard, as I have seemed to hear,
When all the under-air was still,
The low voice of the glad new year
Call to the freshly-flowered hill.
I heard, as I have often heard
The nightingale in leavy woods
Call to its mate, when nothing stirred
To left or right but falling floods. ]


[Footnote 22: 1842. I gave you on the joyful day. ]

[Footnote 23: In 1833 the following stanza took the place of the one
here substituted in 1842:--

Come, Alice, sing to me the song
I made you on our marriage day,
When, arm in arm, we went along
Half-tearfully, and you were gay
With brooch and ring: for I shall seem,
The while you sing that song, to hear
The mill-wheel turning in the stream,
And the green chestnut whisper near.
In 1833 the song began thus, the present stanza taking its place in
1842:--

I wish I were her earring,
Ambushed in auburn ringlets sleek,
(So might my shadow tremble
Over her downy cheek),
Hid in her hair, all day and night,
Touching her neck so warm and white. ]


[Footnote 24: 1872. In. ]

[Footnote 25: 1833.

I wish I were the girdle
Buckled about her dainty waist,
That her heart might beat against me,
In sorrow and in rest.
I should know well if it beat right,
I'd clasp it round so close and tight.

This stanza bears so close a resemblance to a stanza in Joshua
Sylvester's 'Woodman's Bear' (see Sylvester's 'Works', ed. 1641, p. 616)
that a correspondent asked Tennyson whether Sylvester had suggested it.
Tennyson replied that he had never seen Sylvester's lines ('Life of
Tennyson', iii. , 51). The lines are:--

But her slender virgin waste
Made mee beare her girdle spight
Which the same by day imbrac't
Though it were cast off by night
That I wisht, I dare not say,
To be girdle night and day.

For other parallels see the present Editor's 'Illustrations of
Tennyson', p. 39. ]


[Footnote 26: 1833.

I wish I were her necklace,
So might I ever fall and rise.