No More Learning

III

Fair year, with brows of royal love
Thou comest, as a King.
All in the bloomed May.
Thy golden largess fling,
And longer hear us sing;
Though thou art fleet of wing,
Yet stay.
Alas! that eyes so full of light
Should be so wandering!

IV

Thy locks are full of sunny sheen
In rings of gold yronne,[C]
All in the bloomed May,
We pri' thee pass not on;
If thou dost leave the sun,
Delight is with thee gone,
Oh! stay.
Thou art the fairest of thy feres,
We pri' thee pass not on.

[Footnote C: His crispe hair in ringis was yronne. --Chaucer, _Knight's
Tale_. (Tennyson's note. )]




=Contributions to Periodicals 1831-32=


XXV

=A Fragment=

[Published in _The Gem: a Literary Annual_. London: W. Marshall,
Holborn Bars, mdcccxxxi. ]

Where is the Giant of the Sun, which stood
In the midnoon the glory of old Rhodes,
A perfect Idol, with profulgent brows
Far sheening down the purple seas to those
Who sailed from Mizraim underneath the star
Named of the Dragon--and between whose limbs
Of brassy vastness broad-blown Argosies
Drave into haven?
Yet endure unscathed
Of changeful cycles the great Pyramids
Broad-based amid the fleeting sands, and sloped
Into the slumberous summer noon; but where,
Mysterious Egypt, are thine obelisks
Graven with gorgeous emblems undiscerned?
Thy placid Sphinxes brooding o'er the Nile?
Thy shadowy Idols in the solitudes,
Awful Memnonian countenances calm
Looking athwart the burning flats, far off
Seen by the high-necked camel on the verge
Journeying southward? Where are thy monuments
Piled by the strong and sunborn Anakim
Over their crowned brethren [Greek: ON] and [Greek: ORE]?
Thy Memnon, when his peaceful lips are kissed
With earliest rays, that from his mother's eyes
Flow over the Arabian bay, no more
Breathes low into the charmed ears of morn
Clear melody flattering the crisped Nile
By columned Thebes. Old Memphis hath gone down:
The Pharaohs are no more: somewhere in death
They sleep with staring eyes and gilded lips,
Wrapped round with spiced cerements in old grots
Rock-hewn and sealed for ever.




XXVI

=Anacreontics=

[Published in _The Gem: a Literary Annual_. London: W. Marshall,
Holborn Bars, mdcccxxxi. ]

With roses musky breathed,
And drooping daffodilly,
And silverleaved lily,
And ivy darkly-wreathed,
I wove a crown before her,
For her I love so dearly,
A garland for Lenora.
With a silken cord I bound it.
Lenora, laughing clearly
A light and thrilling laughter,
About her forehead wound it,
And loved me ever after.




XXVII

[Published in _The Gem: a Literary Annual_. London: W. Marshall,
Holborn Bars, mdcccxxxi. ]

O sad _No more!