The Poets and the Poetry of the Nineteenth Century (Volume 4) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: DAPHNE. BB-DERICK TENNYSON. I. jESON.?PART II. (si.) When I was left alone upon the earth At last, with not a soul of all I loved To cheer me, when the gulf of second age Had swallowed up my second life, again Thoughts of the first old age that I had borne Mixed with the second, as night speaks to night In silence and in shadows, and in fears; Till the two long perspectives grew to one. The old, far spectres jostled one another Along that moonlit road; and then again They parted, and the ancient ghosts of all Drowned in so far a distance, that I dreamed, Sometimes, that one half of the awful past Of this my double life was not in Time, But sundered by immeasureable years. And, o'er the wailing waters I could hear The voices of those far-off inner days, Like dreams in moonlight. In that gloomy calm Of twofold Eld, I sat, as in a cave; And all the murmurs of the life of man, Its conflicts, and its triumphs, all the mirth And beauty of the morning, as it rose, With songs of birds and children, and unbound The wings of balmy winds, and blew the drops Of sweet dews o'er my forehead, came to me, As unto one o'er whom the waters roll Deeper, and deeper still. And then I heard (Silence and twilight round me) in my heart's Far galleries, as it were the banded tongues Of all my years, uplifted into one Acclaim; as when far down in rayless vales, The torrents fallen from the golden peaks, Are floated on the wind. Methought I heard The accents of old friends, and over clouds Saw their raised heads and outstretched arms; methought They called me: whither ? Could I wish to live Another life ? Ah ! Yes with them, with them, But where were they ? What if this mortal life, Wh...