Of all who hail thy presence as the morning— Of all to whom thine absence is the night— The blotting utterly from out high heaven The sacred sun—of all who, weeping, bless thee Hourly for hope—for life—ah, above all, For the resurrection of deep buried faith In truth, in virtue, in humanity— Of all who, on despair’s unhallowed bed Lying down to die, have suddenly arisen At thy soft-murmured words, “Let there be light!” At thy soft-murmured words that were fulfilled In the seraphic glancing of thine eyes— Of all who owe thee most, whose gratitude Nearest resembles worship,—oh, remember The truest, the most fervently devoted, And think that these weak lines are written by him— By him who, as he pens them, thrills to think His spirit is communing with an angel’s.
The VALLEY of UNREST
Once it smiled a silent dell Where the people did not dwell; They had gone unto the wars, Trusting to the mild-eyed stars, Nightly, from their azure towers, To keep watch above the flowers, In the midst of which all day The red sunlight lazily lay. Now each visitor shall confess The sad valley’s restlessness. Nothing there is motionless— Nothing save the airs that brood Over the magic solitude.
Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees That palpitate like the chill seas Around the misty Hebrides! Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven That rustle through the unquiet Heaven Unceasingly, from morn till even, Over the violets there that lie In myriad types of the human eye— Over the lilies there that wave And weep above a nameless grave! They wave:—from out their fragrant tops Eternal dews come down in drops. They weep:—from off their delicate stems Perennial tears descend in gems.
POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH
NOTE (1845)
Private reasons—some of which have reference to the sin of plagiarism, and others to the date of Tennyson’s first poems—have induced me, after some hesitation, to republish these, the crude compositions of my earliest boyhood. They are printed verbatim—without alteration from the original edition—the date of which is too remote to be judiciously acknowledged.—E. A. P.