And draw them all along, and flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

I steal by lawns and grassy plots,
I slide by hazel covers;
I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.
I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows;
I make the netted sunbeam dance
Against my sandy shallows.

I murmur under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses;
I linger by my shingly bars;
I loiter round my cresses;

And out again I curve and flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.

"T

THE DRAGON-FLY

(From The Two Voices ")
By Alfred Tennyson

O-DAY I saw the dragon-fly

Come from the wells where he did lie.

"An inner impulse rent the veil

Of his old husk: from head to tail

Came out clear plates of sapphire mail.

"He dried his wings: like gauze they grew; Thro' crofts and pastures wet with dew A living flash of light he flew."

THE BLACKBIRD

By Alfred Tennyson

BLACKBIRD! sing me some

thing well:

While all the neighbors shoot

thee round,

I keep smooth plats of fruitful ground,

Where thou may'st warble, eat and dwell.

The espaliers and the standards all

Are thine; the range of lawn and park :
The unnetted black-hearts ripen dark,

All thine, against the garden wall.

Yet, tho' I spared thee all the spring,
Thy sole delight is, sitting still,
With that gold dagger of thy bill
To fret the summer jenneting.

A golden bill! the silver tongue,
Cold February loved, is dry:
Plenty corrupts the melody

That made thee famous once, when young:

And in the sultry garden-squares,

Now thy flute-notes are changed to coarse, I hear thee not at all, or hoarse As when a hawker hawks his wares.

Take warning! he that will not sing
While yon sun prospers
in the blue,

Shall sing for want, ere leaves are new,
Caught in the frozen palms of Spring.

A FAREWELL

By Alfred Tennyson

LOW down, cold rivulet, to the

sea,

Thy tribute wave deliver:

No more by thee my steps shall be,

For ever and for ever.

Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea,

A rivulet then a river:

No where by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.

But here will sigh thine alder tree,
And here thine aspen shiver;
And here by thee will hum the bee,
For ever and for ever.

A thousand suns will stream on thee,
A thousand moons will quiver;
But not by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.

THE EAGLE

(Fragment)

By Alfred Tennyson

E clasps the crag with hooked hands;

Close to the sun in lonely lands, Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him
crawls;

He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

BREAK, BREAK, BREAK

B

By Alfred Tennyson

REAK, break, break,

On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.

O well for the fisherman's boy,

That he shouts with his sister at play! O well for the sailor lad,

That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on

To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break,

At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.

AUTUMN

(From "In Memoriam ")

By Alfred Tennyson

ALM is the morn without a

sound,

Calm as to suit a calmer

grief,

And only thro' the faded leaf

The chestnut pattering to the

ground:

Calm and deep peace on this high wold,
And on these dews that drench the furze,
And all the silvery gossamers

That twinkle into green and gold :

Calm and still light on yon great plain

That sweeps with all its autumn bowers,
And crowded farms and lessening towers,

To mingle with the bounding main :