No More Learning

When I learnt from whom it came,
I forgave you all the blame,
Musty Christopher;
I could _not_ forgive the praise,
Fusty Christopher.






THE SKIPPING ROPE

This silly poem was first published in the edition of 1842, and was
retained unaltered till 1851, when it was finally suppressed.


Sure never yet was Antelope
Could skip so lightly by,
Stand off, or else my skipping-rope
Will hit you in the eye.
How lightly whirls the skipping-rope!
How fairy-like you fly!
Go, get you gone, you muse and mope--
I hate that silly sigh.
Nay, dearest, teach me how to hope,
Or tell me how to die.
There, take it, take my skipping-rope,
And hang yourself thereby.





TIMBUCTOO

A POEM WHICH OBTAINED THE CHANCELLOR'S MEDAL AT THE 'Cambridge
Commencement' M. DCCCXXIX BY A. TENNYSON Of Trinity College.

Printed in the Cambridge 'Chronicle and Journal' for Friday, 10th July,
1839, and at the University Press by James Smith, among the 'Profusiones
Academicae Praemiis annuis dignatae, et in Curia Cantabrigiensi
Recitatae Comitiis Maximis' A. D. M. DCCCXXIX.
Reprinted in an edition of
the 'Cambridge Prize Poems' from 1813 to 1858 inclusive, by Messrs.
Macmillan in 1859, but without any alteration, except in punctuation and
the substitution of small letters for capitals where the change was
appropriate; and again in 1893 in the appendix to the reprint of the
'Poems by Two Brothers'.

Deep in that lion-haunted island lies
A mystic city, goal of enterprise.

(Chapman. )


I stood upon the Mountain which o'erlooks
The narrow seas, whose rapid interval
Parts Afric from green Europe, when the Sun
Had fall'n below th' Atlantick, and above
The silent Heavens were blench'd with faery light,
Uncertain whether faery light or cloud,
Flowing Southward, and the chasms of deep, deep blue
Slumber'd unfathomable, and the stars
Were flooded over with clear glory and pale.
I gaz'd upon the sheeny coast beyond,
There where the Giant of old Time infixed
The limits of his prowess, pillars high
Long time eras'd from Earth: even as the sea
When weary of wild inroad buildeth up
Huge mounds whereby to stay his yeasty waves.
And much I mus'd on legends quaint and old
Which whilome won the hearts of all on Earth
Toward their brightness, ev'n as flame draws air;
But had their being in the heart of Man
As air is th' life of flame: and thou wert then
A center'd glory--circled Memory,
Divinest Atalantis, whom the waves
Have buried deep, and thou of later name
Imperial Eldorado roof'd with gold:
Shadows to which, despite all shocks of Change,
All on-set of capricious Accident,
Men clung with yearning Hope which would not die.
As when in some great City where the walls
Shake, and the streets with ghastly faces throng'd
Do utter forth a subterranean voice,
Among the inner columns far retir'd
At midnight, in the lone Acropolis.
Before the awful Genius of the place
Kneels the pale Priestess in deep faith, the while
Above her head the weak lamp dips and winks
Unto the fearful summoning without:
Nathless she ever clasps the marble knees,
Bathes the cold hand with tears, and gazeth on
Those eyes which wear no light but that wherewith
Her phantasy informs them. Where are ye
Thrones of the Western wave, fair Islands green?
Where are your moonlight halls, your cedarn glooms,
The blossoming abysses of your hills?
Your flowering Capes and your gold-sanded bays
Blown round with happy airs of odorous winds?
Where are the infinite ways which, Seraph-trod,
Wound thro' your great Elysian solitudes,
Whose lowest depths were, as with visible love,
Fill'd with Divine effulgence, circumfus'd,
Flowing between the clear and polish'd stems,
And ever circling round their emerald cones
In coronals and glories, such as gird
The unfading foreheads of the Saints in Heaven?
For nothing visible, they say, had birth
In that blest ground but it was play'd about
With its peculiar glory. Then I rais'd
My voice and cried "Wide Afric, doth thy Sun
Lighten, thy hills enfold a City as fair
As those which starr'd the night o' the Elder World?
Or is the rumour of thy Timbuctoo
A dream as frail as those of ancient Time?