The Poetry Corner

Happy

By Alfred Lord Tennyson

I. Why wail you, pretty plover? and what is it that you fear? Is he sick your mate like mine? have you lost him, is he fled? And therethe heron rises from his watch beside the mere, And flies above the lepers hut, where lives the living-dead. II. Come back, nor let me know it! would he live and die alone? And has he not forgiven me yet, his over-jealous bride, Who am, and was, and will be his, his own and only own, To share his living death with him, die with him side by side? III. Is that the lepers hut on the solitary moor, Where noble Ulric dwells forlorn, and wears the lepers weed? The door is open. He! is he standing at the door, My soldier of the Cross? it is he and he indeed! IV. My roseswill he take them nowmine, hisfrom off the tree We planted both together, happy in our marriage morn? O God, I could blaspheme, for he fought Thy fight for Thee, And Thou hast made him leper to compass him with scorn V. Hast spared the flesh of thousands, the coward and the base, And set a crueller mark than Cains on him, the good and brave! He sees me, waves me from him. I will front him face to face. You need not wave me from you. I would leap into your grave. . . . . . VI. My warrior of the Holy Cross and of the conquering sword, The roses that you cast asideonce more I bring you these. No nearer? do you scorn me when you tell me, O my lord, You would not mar the beauty of your bride with your disease. VII. You say your body is so foulthen here I stand apart, Who yearn to lay my loving head upon your leprous breast. The leper plague may scale my skin but never taint my heart; Your body is not foul to me, and body is foul at best. VIII. I loved you first when young and fair, but now I love you most; The fairest flesh at last is filth on which the worm will feast; This poor rib-grated dungeon of the holy human ghost, This house with all its hateful needs no cleaner than the beast, IX. This coarse diseaseful creature which in Eden was divine, This Satan-haunted ruin, this little city of sewers, This wall of solid flesh that comes between your soul and mine, Will vanish and give place to the beauty that endures, X. The beauty that endures on the Spiritual height, When we shall stand transfigured, like Christ on Hermon hill, And moving each to music, soul in soul and light in light, Shall flash thro one another in a moment as we will. XI. Foul! foul! the word was yours not mine, I worship that right hand Which felld the foes before you as the woodman fells the wood, And swayd the sword that lightend back the sun of Holy land, And clove the Moslem crescent moon, and changed it into blood. XII. And once I worshipt all too well this creature of decay, For Age will chink the face, and Death will freeze the supplest limbs Yet you in your mid manhoodO the grief when yesterday They bore the Cross before you to the chant of funeral hymns. XIII. Libera me, Domine! you sang the Psalm, and when The Priest pronounced you dead, and flung the mould upon your feet, A beauty came upon your face, not that of living men, But seen upon the silent brow when life has ceased to beat. XIV. Libera nos, Dominoyou knew not one was there Who saw you kneel beside your bier, and weeping scarce could see; May I come a little nearer, I that heard, and changed the prayer And sang the married nos for the solitary me. XV. My beauty marred by you? by you! so be it. All is well If I lose it and myself in the higher beauty, yours. My beauty lured that falcon from his eyry on the fell, Who never caught one gleam of the beauty which endures XVI. The Count who sought to snap the bond that linkd us life to life, Who whisperd me your Ulric lovesa little nearer still He hissd, Let us revenge ourselves, your Ulric woos my wife A lie by which he thought he could subdue me to his will. XVII. I knew that you were near me when I let him kiss my brow; Did he touch me on the lips? I was jealous, angerd, vain, And I meant to make you jealous. Are you jealous of me now? Your pardon, O my love, if I ever gave you pain. XVIII. You never once accused me, but I wept alone, and sighd In the winter of the Present for the summer of the Past; That icy winter silencehow it froze you from your bride, Tho I made one barren effort to break it at the last. XIX. I brought you, you remember, these roses, when I knew You were parting for the war, and you took them tho you frownd; You frownd and yet you kissd them. All at once the trumpet blew, And you spurrd your fiery horse, and you hurld them to the ground. XX. You parted for the Holy War without a word to me, And clear myself unaskdnot I. My nature was too proud. And him I saw but once again, and far away was he, When I was praying in a stormthe crash was long and loud XXI. That God would ever slant His bolt from falling on your head Then I lifted up my eyes, he was coming down the fell I clapt my hands. The sudden fire from Heaven had dashd him dead, And sent him charrd and blasted to the deathless fire of Hell. XXII. See, I sinnd but for a moment. I repented and repent, And trust myself forgiven by the God to whom I kneel. A little nearer? Yes. I shall hardly be content Till I be leper like yourself, my love, from head to heel. XXIII. O foolish dreams, that you, that I, would slight our marriage oath I held you at that moment even dearer than before; Now God has made you leper in His loving care for both, That we might cling together, never doubt each other more. XXIV. The Priest, who joind you to the dead, has joind our hands of old; If man and wife be but one flesh, let mine be leprous too, As dead from all the human race as if beneath the mould; If you be dead, then I am dead, who only live for you. XXV. Would Earth tho hid in cloud not be followd by the Moon? The leech forsake the dying bed for terror of his life? The shadow leave the Substance in the brooding light of noon? Or if I had been the leper would you have left the wife? XXVI. Not take them? Still you wave me offpoor rosesmust I go I have worn them year by yearfrom the bush we both had set What? fling them to you?wellthat were hardly gracious. No! Your plague but passes by the touch. A little nearer yet! XXVII. There, there! he buried you, the Priest; the Priest is not to blame, He joins us once again, to his either office true: I thank him. I am happy, happy. Kiss me. In the name Of the everlasting God, I will live and die with You.