The Poetry Corner

The Ring

By Alfred Lord Tennyson

Miriam (singing). Mellow moon of heaven. Bright in blue, Moon of married hearts, Hear me, you! Twelve times in the year Bring me bliss, Globing Honey Moons Bright as this. Moon, you fade at times From the night. Young again you grow Out of sight. Silver crescent-curve, Coining soon, Globe again, and make Honey Moon. Shall not my love last, Moon, with you, For ten thousand years Old and new? Father. And who was he with such love-drunken eyes They made a thousand honey moons of one? Miriam. The prophet of his own, my Huberthis The words, and mine the setting. Air and Words, Said Hubert, when I sang the song, are bride And bridegroom. Does it please you? Father. Mainly, child, Because I hear your Mothers voice in yours. She, why, you shiver tho the wind is west With all the warmth of summer. Miriam. Well, I felt On a sudden I know not what, a breath that past With all the cold of winter. Father (muttering to himself). Even so. The Ghost in Man, the Ghost that once was Man, But cannot wholly free itself from Man, Are calling to each other thro a dawn Stranger than earth has ever seen; the veil Is rending, and the Voices of the day Are heard across the Voices of the dark. No sudden heaven, nor sudden hell, for man, But thro the Will of One who knows and rules And utter knowledge is but utter love, onian Evolution, swift or slow, Thro all the Spheresan ever opening height, An ever lessening earthand she perhaps, My Miriam, breaks her latest earthly link With me to-day. Miriam. You speak so low, what is it? Your Miriam breaksis making a new link Breaking an old one? Father. No, for we, my child, Have been till now each others all-in-all. Miriam. And you the lifelong guardian of the child. Father. I, and one other whom you have not known. Miriam. And who? what other? Father. Whither are you bound? For Naples which we only left in May? Miriam. No! father, Spain, but Hubert brings me home With April and the swallow. Wish me joy! Father. What need to wish when Hubert weds in you The heart of Love, and you the soul of Truth In Hubert? Miriam. Tho you used to call me once The lonely maiden-Princess of the wool, Who meant to sleep her hundred summers out Before a kiss should wake her. Father. Ay, but now Your fairy Prince has found you, take this ring. Miriam. Io tamoand these diamondsbeautiful! From Walter, and for me from you then? Father. Well, One Way for Miriam. Miriam. Miriam am I not? Father. This ring bequeathd you by your mother, child, Was to be given yousuch her dying wish Given on the morning when you came of age Or on the day you married. Both the days Now close in one. The ring is doubly yours. Why do you look so gravely at the tower? Miriam. I never saw it yet so all ablaze With creepers crimsoning to the pinnacles, As if perpetual sunset lingerd there, And all ablaze too in the lake below! And how the birds that circle round the tower Are cheeping to each other of their flight To summer lands! Father. And that has made you grave? Flycare not. Birds and brides must leave the nest. Child, I am happier in your happiness Than in mine own. Miriam. It is not that! Father. What else? Miriam. That chamber in the tower. Father. What chamber, child? Your nurse is here? Miriam. My Mothers nurse and mine. She comes to dress me in my bridal veil. Father. What did she say? Miriam. She said, that you and I Had been abroad for my poor health so long She feard I had forgotten her, and I askd About my Mother, and she said, Thy hair Is golden like thy Mothers, not so fine. Father. What then? what more? Miriam. She saidperhaps indeed She wanderd, having wanderd now so far Beyond the common date of deaththat you, When I was smaller than the statuette Of my dear Mother on your bracket here You took me to that chamber in the tower, The topmosta chest there, by which you knelt And there were books and dressesleft to me, A ring too which you kissd, and I, she said, I babbled, Mother, Motheras I used To prattle to her picturestretchtd my hands As if I saw her; then a woman came And caught me from my nurse. I hear her yet A sound of anger like a distant storm. Father. Garrulous old crone. Miriam. Poor nurse! Father. I bad her keep, Like a seald book, all mention of the ring, For I myself would tell you all to-day. Miriam. She too might speak to-day, she mumbled. Still, I scarce have learnt the title of your book, But you will turn the pages. Father. Ay, to-day! I brought you to that chamber on your third September birthday with your nurse, and felt An icy breath play on me, while I stoopt To take and kiss the ring. Miriam. This very ring Io tamo? Father. Yes, for some wild hope was mine That, in the misery of my married life, Miriam your Mother might appear to me. She came to you, not me. The storm, you hear Far-off, is Murielyour stepmothers voice. Miriam. Vext, that you thought my Mother came to me? Or at my crying Mother? or to find My Mothers diamonds hidden from her there, Like worldly beauties in the Cell, not shown To dazzle all that see them? Father. Wait a while. Your Mother and step-motherMiriam Erne And Muriel Ernethe two were cousinslived With Muriels mother on the down, that sees A thousand squares of corn and meadow, far As the gray deep, a landscape which your eyes Have many a time ranged over when a babe. Miriam. I climbd the hill with Hubert yesterday, And from the thousand squares, one silent voice Came on the wind, and seemd to say Again. We saw far off an old forsaken house, Then home, and past the ruind mill. Father. And there I found these cousins often by the brook, For Miriam sketchd and Muriel threw the fly; The girls of equal age, but one was fair, And one was dark, and both were beautiful. No voice for either spoke within my heart Then, for the surface eye, that only doats On outward beauty, glancing from the one To the other, knew not that which pleased it most, The raven ringlet or the gold; but both Were dowerless, and myself, I used to walk This Terracemorbid, melancholy; mine And yet not mine the hall, the farm, the field; For all that ample woodland whisperd debt, The brook that feeds this lakelet murmurd debt, And in yon arching avenue of old elms, Tho mine, not mine, I heard the sober rook And carrion crow cry Mortgage. Miriam. Fathers fault Visited on the children! Father. Ay, but then A kinsman, dying, stummond me to Rome He left me wealthand while I journeyd hence, And saw the world fly by me like a dream, And while I communed with my truest self, I woke to all of truest in myself, Till, in the gleam of those mid-summer dawns, The form of Muriel faded, and the face Of Miriam grew upon me, till I knew; And past and future mixd in Heaven and made The rosy twilight of a perfect day. Miriam. So glad? no tear for him, who left you wealth, Your kinsman? Father. I had seen the man but once; He loved my name not me; and then I passd Home, and thro Venice, where a jeweller, So far gone down, or so far up in life, That he was nearing his own hundred, sold This ring to me, then laughd the ring is weird. And weird and worn and wizard-like was he. Why weird? I askd him; and he said The souls Of two repentant Lovers guard the ring; Then with a ribald twinkle in his bleak eyes And if you give the ring to any maid, They still remember what it cost them here, And bind the maid to love you by the ring; And if the ring were stolen from the maid, The theft were death or madness to the thief, So sacred those Ghost Lovers hold the gift. And then he told their legend: Long ago Two lovers parted by a scurrilous tale Had quarrelld, till the man repenting sent This ring Io tamo to his best beloved, And sent it on her birthday. She in wrath Returnd it on her birthday, and that day His death-day, when, half-frenzied by the ring, He wildly fought a rival suitor, him The causer of that scandal, fought and fell; And she that came to part them all too late, And found a corpse and silence, drew the ring From his dead finger, wore it till her death, Shrined him within the temple of her heart, Made every moment of her after life A virgin victim to his memory, And dying rose, and reard her arms, and cried I see him, Io tamo, Io tamo. Miriam. Legend or true? So tender should be true! Did he believe it? did you ask him? Father. Ay! But that half skeleton, like a barren ghost From out the fleshless world of spirits, laughd: A hollow laughter! Miriam. Vile, so near the ghost Himself, to laugh at love in death! But you? Father. Well, as the bygone lover thro this ring Had sent his cry for her forgiveness, I Would call thro this Io tamo to the heart Of Miriam; then I bad the man en grave From Walter on the ring, and send itwrote name, surname, all as clear as noon, but he Some younger hand must have engraven the ring His fingers were so stiffend by the frost Of seven and ninety winters, that he scrawId A Miriam that might seem a Muriel; And Muriel claimd and opend what I meant For Miriam, took the ring, and flaunted it Before that other whom I loved and love. A mountain stayd me here, a minster there, A galleried palace, or a battlefield, Where stood the sheaf of Peace: butcoming home And on your Mothers birthdayall but yours A week betwixtand when the tower as now Was all ablaze with crimson to the roof, And all ablaze too plunging in the lake Head-foremostwho were those that stood between The tower and that rich phantom of the tower? Muriel and Miriam, each in white, and like May-blossoms in mid autumnwas it they? A light shot upward on them from the lake. What sparkled there? whose hand was that? they stood So close together. I am not keen of sight, But coming nearerMuriel had the ring O Miriam! have you given your ring to her? O Miriam! Miriam reddend, Muriel clenchd The hand that wore it, till I cried again: O Miriam, if you love me take the ring! She glanced at me, at Muriel, and was mute. Nay, if you cannot love me, let it be. ThenMuriel standing ever statue-like She turnd, and in her soft imperial way And saying gently: Muriel, by your leave, Unclosed the hand, and from it drew the ring, And gave it me, who passd it down her own, Io tamo, all is well then. Muriel fled. Miriam. Poor Muriel! Father. Ay, poor Muriel when you hear What follows! Miriam loved me from the first, Not thro the ring; but on her marriage morn This birthday, death-day, and betrothal ring, Laid on her table overnight, was gone; And after hours of search and doubt and threats, And hubbub, Muriel enterd with it, See! Found in a chink of that old moulderd floor! My Miriam nodded with a pitying smile, As who should say that those who lose can find. Then I and she were married for a year, One year without a storm, or even a cloud; And you my Miriam born within the year; And she my Miriam dead within the year. I sat beside her dying, and she gaspt: The books, the miniature, the lace are hers, My ring too when she comes of age, or when She marries; youyou loved me, kept your word. You love me still Io tamo.Murielno She cannot love; she loves her own hard self, Her firm will, her fixd purpose. Promise me, Miriam not Murielshe shall have the ring. And there the light of other life, which lives Beyond our burial and our buried eyes, Gleamd for a moment in her own on earth. I swore the vow, then with my latest kiss Upon them, closed her eyes, which would not close, But kept their watch upon the ring and you. Your birthday was her death-day. Miriam.O poor Mother! And you, poor desolate Father, and poor me, The little senseless, worthless, wordless babe, Saved when your life was wreckd! Father.Desolate? yes! Desolate as that sailor, whom the storm Had parted from his comrade in the boat, And dashd half dead on barren sands, was I. Nay, you were my one solace; onlyyou Were always ailing. Muriels mother sent, And sure am I, by Muriel, one day came And saw you, shook her head, and patted yours, And smiled, and making with a kindly pinch Each poor pale cheek a momentary rose That should be fixd, she said; your pretty bud, So blighted here, would flower into full health Among our heath and bracken. Let her come! And we will feed her with our mountain air. And send her home to you rejoicing. No We could not part. And once, when you my girl Rode on my shoulder homethe tiny fist Had graspt a daisy from your Mothers grave By the lych-gate was Muriel. Ay, she said, Among the tombs in this damp vale of yours! You scorn my Mothers warning, but the child Is paler than before. We often walk In open sun, and see beneath our feet The mist of autumn gather from your lake, And shroud the tower; and once we only saw Your gilded vane, a light above the mist (Our old bright bird that still is veering there Above his four gold letters) and the light, She said, was like that lightand there she paused, And long; till I believing that the girls Lean fancy, groping for it, could not find One likeness, laughd a little and found her two A warriors crest above the cloud of war A fiery phoenix rising from the smoke, The pyre he burnt in.Nay, she said, the light That glimmers on the marsh and on the grave. And spoke no more, but turnd and passd away. Miriam, I am not surely one of those Caught by the flower that closes on the fly, But after ten slow weeks her fixd intent, In aiming at an all but hopeless mark To strike it, struck; I took, I left you there; I came, I went, was happier day by day; For Muriel nursed you with a mothers care; Till on that clear and heather-scented height The rounder cheek had brightend into bloom. She always came to meet me carrying you, And all her talk was of the babe she loved; So, following her old pastime of the brook, She threw the fly for me; but oftener left That angling to the mother. Muriels health Had weakend, nursing little Miriam. Strange! She used to shun the wailing babe, and doats On this of yours. But when the matron saw That hinted love was only wasted bait, Not risen to, she was bolder. Ever since You sent the fatal ringI told her sent To Miriam, Doubtlessay, but ever since In all the world my dear one sees but you In your sweet babe she finds but youshe makes Her heart a mirror that reflects but you. And then the tear fell, the voice broke. Her heart! I gazed into the mirror, as a man Who sees his face in water, and a stone, That glances from the bottom of the pool, Strike upward thro the shadow; yet at last, Gratitudelonelinessdesire to keep So skilled a nurse about you alwaysnay! Some half remorseful kind of pity too Well! well, you know I married Muriel Erne. I take thee Muriel for my wedded wife I had forgotten it was your birthday, child When all at once with some electric thrill A cold air passd between us, and the hands Fell from each other, and were joind again. No second cloudless honeymoon was mine. For by and by she sickend of the farce, She dropt the gracious mask of mother-hood, She came no more to meet me, carrying you, Nor ever cared to set you on her knee, Nor ever let you gambol in her sight, Nor ever cheerd you with a kindly smile, Nor ever ceased to clamour for the ring; Why had I sent the ring at first to her? Why had I made her love me thro the ring, And then had changed? so fickle are menthe best! Not shebut now my love was hers again, The ring by right, she said, was hers again. At times too shrilling in her angrier moods, That weak and watery nature love you? No! Io tamo, Io tamo! flung herself Against my heart, but often while her lips Were warm upon my check, an icy breath, As from the grating of a sepulchre, Past over both. I told her of my vow, No pliable idiot I to break my vow; But still she made her outcry for the ring; For one monotonous fancy maddend her, Till I myself was maddend with her cry, And even that Io tamo, those three sweet Italian words, became a weariness. My people too were scared with eerie sounds, A footstep, a low throbbing in the walls, A noise of falling weights that never fell, Weird whispers, bells that rang without a hand, Door-handles turnd when none was at the door, And bolted doors that opend of themselves: And one betwixt the dark and light had seen Her, bending by the cradle of her babe. Miriam. And I remember once that being waked By noises in the houseand no one near I cried for nurse, and felt a gentle hand Fall on my forehead, and a sudden face Lookd in upon me like a gleam and passd, And I was quieted, and slept again. Or is it some half memory of a dream? Father. Your fifth September birth day. Miriam. And the face, The hand,my Mother. Father. Miriam, on that day Two lovers parted by no scurrilous tale Mere want of goldand still for twenty years Bound by the golden cord of their first love Had askd us to their marriage, and to share Their marriage-banquet. Muriel, paler then Than ever you were in your cradle, moand, I am fitter for my bed, or for my grave, I cannot go, go you. And then she rose, She clung to me with such a hard embrace, So lingeringly long, that half-amazed I parted from her, and I went alone. And when the bridegroom murmurd, With this ring, I felt for what I could not find, the key, The guardian of her relics, of her ring. I kept it as a sacred amulet About me,gone! and gone in that embrace! Then, hurrying home, I found her not in house Or gardenup the toweran icy air Fled by me.There, the chest was openall The sacred relics tost about the floor Among them Muriel lying on her face I raised her, calld her Muriel. Muriel wake! The fatal ring lay near her; the glazed eye Glared at me as in horror. Dead! I took And chafed the freezing hand. A red mark ran All round one finger pointed straight, the rest Were crumpled inwards. Dead!and maybe stung With some remorse, had stolen, worn the ring Then torn it from her finger, or as if For never had I seen her show remorse As if Miriam. those two Ghost lovers Father. Lovers yet Miriam. Yes, yes! Father. but dead so long, gone up so far, That now their ever-rising life has dwarfd Or lost the moment of their past on earth, As we forget our wail at being born. As if Miriam. a dearer ghost had Father. wrenchd it away. Miriam. Had floated in with sad reproachful eyes, Till from her own hand she had torn the ring In fright, and fallen dead. And I myself Am half afraid to wear it. Father. Well, no more! No bridal music this! but fear not you! You have the ring she guarded; that poor link With earth is broken, and has left her free, Except that, still drawn downward for an hour, Her spirit hovering by the church, where she Was married too, may linger, till she sees Her maiden coming like a Queen, who leaves Some colder province in the North to gain Her capital city, where the loyal bells Clash welcomelinger, till her own, the babe She leand to from her Spiritual sphere, Her lonely maiden-Princess, crownd with flowers, Has enterd on the larger woman-world Of wives and mothers. But the bridal veil Your nurse is waiting. Kiss me child and go.