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Alfred Lord Tennyson - To E. Fitzgerald: Tiresias
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.   OLD FITZ, who from your suburb grange,
     Where once I tarried for a while,
     Glance at the wheeling orb of change,
     And greet it with a kindly smile;
     Whom yet I see as there you sit
     Beneath your sheltering garden-tree,
     And watch your doves about you flit,
     And plant on shoulder, hand, and knee,
     Or on your head their rosy feet,
     As if they knew your diet spares
     Whatever moved in that full sheet
     Let down to Peter at his prayers;
     Who live on milk and meal and grass;
     And once for ten long weeks I tried
     Your table of Pythagoras,
     - And seem`d at first "a thing enskied,"
     As Shakespeare has it, airy-light
     To float above the ways of men,
     Then fell from that half-spiritual height
     Chill`d, till I tasted flesh again
     One night when earth was winter-black,
     And all the heavens flash`d in frost;
     And on me, half-asleep, came back
     That wholesome heat the blood had lost,
     And set me climbing icy capes
     And glaciers, over which there roll`d
     To meet me long-arm`d vines with grapes
     Of Eshcol hugeness- for the cold
     Without, and warmth within me, wrought
     To mould the dream; but none can say
     That Lenten fare makes Lenten thought
     Who reads your golden Eastern lay,
     Than which I know no version done
     In English more divinely well;
     A planet equal to the sun
     Which cast it, that large infidel
     Your Omar, and your Omar drew
     Full-handed plaudits from our best
     In modern letters, and from two,
     Old friends outvaluing all the rest,
     Two voices heard on earth no more;
     But we old friends are still alive,
     And I am nearing seventy-four,
     While you have touch`d at seventy-five,
     And so I send a birthday line
     Of greeting; and my son, who dipt
     In some forgotten book of mine
     With sallow scraps of manuscript,
     And dating many a year ago,
     Has hit on this, which you will take,
     My Fitz, and welcome, as I know,
     Less for its own than for the sake
     Of one recalling gracious times,
     When, in our younger London days,
     You found some merit in my rhymes,
     And I more pleasure in your praise.

                      TIRESIAS

          I WISH I were as in the years of old
          While yet the blessed daylight made itself
          Ruddy thro` both the roofs of sight, and woke 
          These eyes, now dull, but then so keen to seek 
          The meanings ambush`d under all they saw, 
          The flight of birds, the flame of sacrifice, 
          What omens may foreshadow fate to man 
          And woman, and the secret of the Gods.
          My son, the Gods, despite of human prayer,
          Are slower to forgive than human kings.
          The great God Ares burns in anger still 

          Against the guiltless heirs of him from Tyre
          Our Cadmus, out of whom thou art, who found
          Beside the springs of Dirce, smote, and still`d
          Thro` all its folds the multitudinous beast
          The dragon, which our trembling fathers call`d
          The God`s own son.
               A tale, that told to me,
          When but thine age, by age as winter-white
          As mine is now, amazed, but made me yearn
          For larger glimpses of that more than man
          Which rolls the heavens, and lifts and lays the deep,
          Yet loves and hates with mortal hates and loves,
          And moves unseen among the ways of men.
          Then, in my wanderings all the lands that lie
          Subjected to the Heliconian ridge
          Have heard this footstep fall, altho` my wont
          Was more to scale the highest of the heights
          With some strange hope to see the nearer God.
          One naked peak‹the sister of the Sun
          Would climb from out the dark, and linger there 


          To silver all the valleys with her shafts‹
          There once, but long ago, five-fold thy term
          Of years, I lay; the winds were dead for heat-
          The noonday crag made the hand burn; and sick
          For shadow‹not one bush was near‹I rose
          Following a torrent till its myriad falls
          Found silence in the hollows underneath.
          There in a secret olive-glade I saw
          Pallas Athene climbing from the bath
          In anger; yet one glittering foot disturb`d
          The lucid well; one snowy knee was prest
          Against the margin flowers; a dreadful light
          Came from her golden hair, her golden helm
          And all her golden armor on the grass,
          And from her virgin breast, and virgin eyes
          Remaining fixt on mine, till mine grew dark
          For ever, and I heard a voice that said
          "Henceforth be blind, for thou hast seen too much,
          And speak the truth that no man may believe."
          Son, in the hidden world of sight that lives
          Behind this darkness, I behold her still
          Beyond all work of those who carve the stone
          Beyond all dreams of Godlike womanhood,
          Ineffable beauty, out of whom, at a glance
          And as it were, perforce, upon me flash`d
          The power of prophesying‹but to me
          No power so chain`d and coupled with the curse
          Of blindness and their unbelief who heard
          And heard not, when I spake of famine, plague
          Shrine-shattering earthquake, fire, flood, thunderbolt,
          And angers of the Gods for evil done
          And expiation lack`d‹no power on Fate
          Theirs, or mine own! for when the crowd would roar
          For blood, for war, whose issue was their doom,
          To cast wise words among the multitude
          Was flinging fruit to lions; nor, in hours
          Of civil outbreak, when I knew the twain
          Would each waste each, and bring on both the yoke
          Of stronger states, was mine the voice to curb
          The madness of our cities and their kings. 
          Who ever turn`d upon his heel to hear
          My warning that the tyranny of one
          Was prelude to the tyranny of all?
          My counsel that the tyranny of all
          Led backward to the tyranny of one?
          This power hath work`d no good to aught that lives
          And these blind hands were useless in their wars.
          O. therefore, that the unfulfill`d desire,
          The grief for ever born from griefs to be
          The boundless yearning of the prophet`s heart‹
          Could that stand forth, and like a statue, rear`d
          To some great citizen, whim all praise from all
          Who past it, saying, "That was he!"
               In vain!
          Virtue must shape itself in deed, and those
          Whom weakness or necessity have cramp`d
          Within themselves, immerging, each, his urn
          In his own well, draws solace as he may.
          Menceceus, thou hast eyes, and I can hear
          Too plainly what full tides of onset sap
          Our seven high gates, and what a weight of war
          Rides on those ringing axles jingle of bits,
          Shouts, arrows, tramp of the horn-footed horse
          That grind the glebe to powder! Stony showers
          Of that ear-stunning hail of Ares crash
          Along the sounding walls. Above, below
          Shock after shock, the song-built towers and gates
          Reel, bruised and butted with the shuddering
          War-thunder of iron rams; and from within
          The city comes a murmur void of joy,
          Lest she be taken captive‹maidens, wives,
          And mothers with their babblers of the dawn, 
          And oldest age in shadow from the night, 
          Falling about their shrines before their Gods, 
          And wailing, "Save us."

          And they wail to thee!
          These eyeless eyes, that cannot see thine own,
          See this, that only in thy virtue lies
          The saving of our Thebes; for, yesternight,
          To me, the great God Ares, whose one bliss
          Is war and human sacrifice‹himself
          Blood-red from battle, spear and helmet tipt
          With stormy light as on a mast at sea,
          Stood out before a darkness, crying, "Thebes,
          Thy Thebes shall fall and perish, for I loathe
          The seed of Cadmus‹yet if one of these
          By his own hand‹if one of these‹"
          My son, No sound is breathed so potent to coerce, 
          And to conciliate, as their names who dare 
          For that sweet mother land which gave them birth 
          Nobly to do, nobly to die. Their names, 
          Graven on memorial columns, are a song 
          Heard in the future; few, but more than wall 
          And rampart, their examples reach a hand 
          Far thro` all years, and everywhere they meet 
          And kindle generous purpose, and the strength 
          To mould it into action pure as theirs.
          Fairer thy fate than mine, if life`s best end 
          Be to end well! and thou refusing this, 
          Unvenerable will thy memory be 
          While men shall move the lips; but if thou dare‹ 
          Thou, one of these, the race of Cadmus‹then 
          No stone is fitted in yon marble girth 
          Whose echo shall not tongue thy glorious doom, 
          Nor in this pavement but shall ring thy name 
          To every hoof that clangs it, and the springs 
          Of Dirce laving yonder battle-plain, 
          Heard from the roofs by night, will murmur thee 
          To thine own Thebes, while Thebes thro` thee shall stand 
          Firm-based with all her Gods.
               The Dragon`s cave
          Half hid, they tell me, now in flowing vines‹
          Where once he dwelt and whence he roll`d himself
          At dead of night‹thou knowest, and that smooth rock
          Before it, altar-fashion`d, where of late 
          The woman-breasted Sphinx, with wings drawn back 
          Folded her lion paws, and look`d to Thebes. 
          There blanch the bones of whom she slew, and these
          Mixt with her own, because the fierce beast found 
          A wiser than herself, and dash`d herself
          Dead in her rage; but thou art wise enough 
          Tho` young, to love thy wiser, blunt the curse 
          Of Pallas, bear, and tho` I speak the truth
          Believe I speak it, let thine own hand strike 
          Thy youthful pulses into rest and quench 
          The red God`s anger, fearing not to plunge 
          Thy torch of life in darkness, rather thou 
          Rejoicing that the sun, the moon, the stars 
          Send no such light upon the ways of men 
          As one great deed.
               Thither, my son, and there 
          Thou, that hast never known the embrace of love 
          Offer thy maiden life.
               This useless hand! 
          I felt one warm tear fall upon it. Gone! 
          He will achieve his greatness.
          But for me I would that I were gather`d to my rest, 
          And mingled with the famous kings of old 
          On whom about their ocean-islets flash 
          The faces of the Gods‹the wise man`s word 
          Here trampled by the populace underfoot 
          There crown`d with worship and these eyes will find
          The men I knew, and watch the chariot whirl 
          About the goal again, and hunters race 
          The shadowy lion, and the warrior-kings 
          In height and prowess more than human, strive 
          Again for glory, while the golden lyre 
          Is ever sounding in heroic ears 
          Heroic hymns, and every way the vales 
          Wind, clouded with the grateful incense-fume 
          Of those who mix all odor to the Gods
          On one far height in one far-shining fire.

          ————————————-

          "One height and one far-shining fire!"
          And while I fancied that my friend
          For this brief idyll would require
          A less diffuse and opulent end,
          And would defend his judgment well,
          If I should deem it over nice‹
          The tolling of his funeral bell
          Broke on my Pagan Paradise,
          And mixt the dream of classic times,
          And all the phantoms of the dream,
          With present grief, and made the rhymes,
          That miss`d his living welcome, seem
          Like would-be guests an hour too late,
          Who down the highway moving on
          With easy laughter find the gate
          Is bolted, and the master gone.
          Gone onto darkness, that full light
          Of friendship! past, in sleep, away
          By night, into the deeper night!
          The deeper night? A clearer day
          Than our poor twilight dawn on earth‹
          If night, what barren toil to be!
          What life, so maim`d by night, were worth
          Our living out? Not mine to me
          Remembering all the golden hours
          Now silent, and so many dead,
          And him the last; and laying flowers,
          This wreath, above his honor`d head,
          And praying that, when I from hence
          Shall fade with him into the unknown,
          My close of earth`s experience
          May prove as peaceful as his own.
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