And once you tried the Muses too;
You fail'd, Sir: therefore now you turn,
You fall on those who are to you

As Captain is to Subaltern.

But men of long-enduring hopes,

And careless what this hour may bring,
Can pardon little would-be Popes

And Brummels, when they try to sting.

An artist, Sir, should rest in Art,
And waive a little of his claim ;
To have the deep Poetic heart
Is more than all poetic fame.

But you, Sir, you are hard to please;
You never look but half content :
Nor like a gentleman at ease,

With moral breadth of temperament.

And what with spites and what with fears,
You cannot let a body be:
It's always ringing in your ears,

"They call this man as good as me.”

What profits now to understand
The merits of a spotless shirt—

A dapper boot-a little hand-
If half the little soul is dirt?

You talk of tinsel ! Why we see

The old mark of rouge upon your cheeks.

You prate of Nature! you are he

That spilt his life about the cliques.

A Timon you! Nay, nay, for shame:
It looks too arrogant a jest―
The fierce old man-to take his name
Off, and let him rest.

You bandbox.

(Punch, February 28, 1846)

ind

(Th

VI

BUT SHE TARRIES IN HER PLACE.

The last four of sixteen stanzas, the first twelve of which are incorporated in sect. xxvi of "Maud.”

BUT she tarries in her place,
And I paint the beauteous face
Of the maiden, that I lost,
In my inner eyes again,
Lest my heart be overborne
By the thing I hold in scorn,
By a dull mechanic ghost
And a juggle of the brain.

I can shadow forth my bride
As I knew her fair and kind,
As I woo'd her for my wife ;
She is lovely by my side

In the silence of my life-
'Tis a phantom of the mind.

"Tis a phantom fair and good;
I can call it to my side,
So to guard my life from ill,
Tho' its ghastly sister glide

And be moved around me still

With the moving of the blood,

That is moved not of the will.

Let it pass, the dreary brow,
Let the dismal face go by.
Will it lead me to the grave?
Then I lose it: it will fly:
Can it overlast the nerves?
Can it overlive the eye?
But the other, like a star,
Thro' the channel windeth far
Till it fade and fail and die,
To its Archetype that waits,
Clad in light by golden gates—
Clad in light the Spirit waits
To embrace me in the sky.

(The Tribute, 1837)

VII

THE LADY OF SHALOTT

VERSES FROM THE ORIGINAL VERSION OF 1833, PART IV

A CLOUD-WHITE crown of pearl she dight,
All raimented in snowy white

That loosely flew, (her zone in sight,
Clasped with one blinding diamond bright,)
Her wide eyes fixed on Camelot,

Though the squally eastwind keenly
Blew, with folded arms serenely
By the water stood the queenly
Lady of Shalott.

With a steady, stony glance-
Like some bold seer in a trance,
Beholding all his own mischance,
Mute, with a glassy countenance-

She looked down to Camelot.
It was the closing of the day,
She loosed the chain, and down she
The broad stream bore her far away,
The Lady of Shalott.

lay,

As when to sailors while they roam,
By creeks and outfalls far from home,
Rising and dropping with the foam,
From dying swans wild warblings come,
Blown shoreward; so to Camelot
Still as the boat-head wound along
The willowy hills and fields among,
They heard her chanting her death song,
The Lady of Shalott.

CONCLUDING STANZA

They crossed themselves, their stars they blest,
Knight, minstrel, abbot, squire and guest.
There lay a parchment on her breast,
That puzzled more than all the rest,

The well-fed wits at Camelot.

"The web was woven curiously,
The charm is broken utterly,

Draw near and fear not-this is I,

The Lady of Shalott."

VIII

THE LOTOS-EATERS

CONCLUDING PASSAGE TO THE ORIGINAL VERSION OF 1833

WE have had enough of motion,

Weariness and wild alarm,

Tossing on the tossing ocean,

Where the tuskèd sea-horse walloweth

In a stripe of grass-green calm,

At noon tide beneath the lee;

And the monstrous narwhale swalloweth

His foam-fountains in the sea.

Long enough the wine-dark wave our weary bark did carry.
This is lovelier and sweeter,
Men of Ithaca, this is meeter,

In the hollow rosy vale to tarry,

Like a dreamy Lotos-eater, a delirious Lotos-eater!

We will eat the Lotos, sweet

As the yellow honeycomb,

In the valley some, and some
On the ancient heights divine;
And no more roam,

On the loud hoar foam,
To the melancholy home

At the limit of the brine,

The little isle of Ithaca, beneath the day's decline.
We'll lift no more the shattered oar,

No more unfurl the straining sail;
With the blissful Lotos-eaters pale
We will abide in the golden vale
Of the Lotos-land till the Lotos fail;
We will not wander more.

Hark! how sweet the horned ewes bleat

On the solitary steeps,

And the merry lizard leaps,

And the foam-white waters pour ;

And the dark pine weeps,

And the lithe vine creeps,

And the heavy melon sleeps

On the level of the shore:

Oh! islanders of Ithaca, we will not wander more.

Surely, surely slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore
Than labour in the ocean, and rowing with the oar,
Oh! islanders of Ithaca, we will return no more.

RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED,

BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND

BUNGAY, SUFFOLK