'Tis the World's Winter / Alfred Tennyson

'Tis the World's Winter

from Nothing Will Die (1830)

'Tis the world's winter;
    Autumn and summer
        Are gone long ago.
Earth is dry to the centre,
    But spring, a new comer,
A spring rich and strange,
        Shall make the winds blow
        Round and round.
        Through and through,
            Here and there,
            Till the air
        And the ground
        Shall be filled with life anew.

~~
Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)
from Through the Year with the Poets: February 

(edited by Oscar Fay Adams), 1886

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Alfred Tennyson biography

Fernweh, "Late Winter - Small's Copse", 2014. CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

With trembling fingers did we weave / Alfred Tennyson

XXX

With trembling fingers did we weave
    The holly round the Chrismas hearth;
    A rainy cloud possess'd the earth,
And sadly fell our Christmas eve.

At our old pastimes in the hall
    We gambol'd, making vain pretence
    Of gladness, with an awful sense
Of one mute Shadow watching all.

We paused: the winds were in the beech
    We heard them sweep the winter land
    And in a circle hand-in-hand
Sat silent, looking each at each.

Then echo-like our voices rang;
    We sung, tho' every eye was dim,
    A merry song we sang with him
Last year: impetuously we sang:

We ceased: a gentler feeling crept
    Upon us: surely rest is meet:
    "They rest," we said, "their sleep is sweet,"
And silence follow'd, and we wept.

Our voices took a higher range;
    Once more we sang: “They do not die
    Nor lose their mortal sympathy,
Nor change to us, although they change;

"Rapt from the fickle and the frail
    With gather'd power, yet the same,
    Pierces the keen seraphic flame
From orb to orb, from veil to veil."

Rise, happy morn, rise, holy morn,
    Draw forth the cheerful day from night:
    O Father, touch the east, and light
The light that shone when Hope was born.

~~
Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)
from In Memoriam A.H.H., 1850

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Alfred Tennyson biography

The time draws near the birth of Christ / Alfred Tennyson

XXVIII

The time draws near the birth of Christ:
     The moon is hid; the night is still;
     The Christmas bells from hill to hill
Answer each other in the mist.

Four voices of four hamlets round,
     From far and near, on mead and moor,
     Swell out and fail, as if a door
Were shut between me and the sound:

Each voice four changes on the wind,
     That now dilate, and now decrease,
     Peace and goodwill, goodwill and peace,
Peace and goodwill, to all mankind.

This year I slept and woke with pain,
     I almost wish'd no more to wake,
     And that my hold on life would break
Before I heard those bells again:

But they my troubled spirit rule,
     For they controll'd me when a boy;
     They bring me sorrow touch'd with joy,
The merry merry bells of Yule,

~~
Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)
from In Memoriam A.H.H., 1850

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Alfred Tennyson biography

To-night ungather'd let us leave / Alfred Tennyson

CIV

To-night ungather'd let us leave
     This laurel, let this holly stand:
     We live within the stranger's land,
And strangely falls our Christmas eve.

Our father's dust is left alone
     And silent under other snows:
     There in due time the woodbine blows,
The violet comes, but we are gone.

No more shall wayward grief abuse
     The genial hour with mask and mime;
     For change of place, like growth of time,
Has' broke the bond of dying use.

Let cares that petty shadows cast,
     By which our lives are chiefly proved,
     A little spare the night I loved,
And hold it solemn to the past.

But let no footstep beat the floor,
     Nor bowl of wassail mantle warm;
     For who would keep an ancient form
Thro' which the spirit breathes no more?

Be neither song, nor game, nor feast;
     Nor harp be touch'd, nor flute be blown;
     No dance, no motion, save alone
What lightens in the lucid east

Of rising worlds by yonder wood.
     Long sleeps the summer in the seed;
     Run out your measured arcs, and lead
The closing cycle rich in good.

~~
Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)
from In Memoriam A.H.H., 1850

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Alfred Tennyson biography

Break, Break, Break / Alfred Tennyson

Break, Break, Break

Break, break, break,
         On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
         The thoughts that arise in me.

O, well for the fisherman's boy,
         That he shouts with his sister at play!
O, well for the sailor lad,
         That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on
         To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand,
         And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break
         At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
         Will never come back to me.

~~
Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892), 1835
from Poems, 1842

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

"Break, Break, Break" read by Moses Shobet.

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About "Break, Break, Break"

The Death of the Old Year / Alfred Tennyson

The Death of the Old Year

Full knee-deep lies the winter snow,
And the winter winds are wearily sighing:
Toll ye the church bell sad and slow,
And tread softly and speak low,
For the old year lies a-dying.
       Old year you must not die;
       You came to us so readily,
       You lived with us so steadily,
       Old year you shall not die.

He lieth still: he doth not move:
He will not see the dawn of day.
He hath no other life above.
He gave me a friend and a true truelove
And the New-year will take 'em away.
       Old year you must not go;
       So long you have been with us,
       Such joy as you have seen with us,
       Old year, you shall not go.

He froth'd his bumpers to the brim;
A jollier year we shall not see.
But tho' his eyes are waxing dim,
And tho' his foes speak ill of him,
He was a friend to me.
       Old year, you shall not die;
       We did so laugh and cry with you,
       I've half a mind to die with you,
       Old year, if you must die.

He was full of joke and jest,
But all his merry quips are o'er.
To see him die across the waste
His son and heir doth ride post-haste,
But he'll be dead before.
       Every one for his own.
       The night is starry and cold, my friend,
       And the New-year blithe and bold, my friend,
       Comes up to take his own.

How hard he breathes! over the snow
I heard just now the crowing cock.
The shadows flicker to and fro:
The cricket chirps: the light burns low:
'Tis nearly twelve o'clock.
       Shake hands, before you die.
       Old year, we'll dearly rue for you:
       What is it we can do for you?
       Speak out before you die.

His face is growing sharp and thin.
Alack! our friend is gone,
Close up his eyes: tie up his chin:
Step from the corpse, and let him in
That standeth there alone,
       And waiteth at the door.
       There's a new foot on the floor, my friend,
       And a new face at the door, my friend,
       A new face at the door.

~~
Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)
from Poems, 1842

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Alfred Tennyson biography

"The Death of the Old Year" read by Brad Craft. Courtesy usedbuyer.

See also: Midnight Mass for the Dying Year / Henry Wadssworth Longfellow

Again at Christmas did we weave / Alfred Tennyson

LXXVIII

Again at Christmas did we weave
      The holly round the Christmas hearth;
The silent snow possess'd the earth,
      And calmly fell our Christmas-eve:

The yule-log sparkled keen with frost,
     No wing of wind the region swept,
     But over all things brooding slept
The quiet sense of something lost.

As in the winters left behind,
     Again our ancient games had place,
     The mimic picture's breathing grace,
And dance and song and hoodman-blind.

Who show'd a token of distress?
     No single tear, no mark of pain:
     O sorrow, then can sorrow wane?
O grief, can grief be changed to less?

O last regret, regret can die!
     No – mixt with all this mystic frame,
     Her deep relations are the same,
But with long use her tears are dry.

~~
Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)
from In Memoriam A.H.H., 1850

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Alfred Tennyson biography

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky / Alfred Tennyson

        
CV

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
     The flying cloud, the frosty light:
     The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
     Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
     The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
     For those that here we see no more;
     Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
     And ancient forms of party strife;
     Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
     The faithless coldness of the times;
     Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
     The civic slander and the spite;
     Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
     Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
     Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
     The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
     Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

~~
Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)
from In Memoriam A.H.H., 1850

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Alfred Tennyson biography

It is the day when he was born / Alfred Tennyson

     
CVI

It is the day when he was born,
     A bitter day that early sank
     Behind a purple-frosty bank
Of vapour, leaving night forlorn.

The time admits not flowers or leaves
     To deck the banquet. Fiercely flies
     The blast of North and East, and ice
Makes daggers at the sharpen'd eaves,

And bristles all the brakes and thorns
     To yon hard crescent, as she hangs
     Above the wood which grides and clangs
Its leafless ribs and iron horns

Together, in the drifts that pass
     To darken on the rolling brine
     That breaks the coast. But fetch the wine,
Arrange the board and brim the glass;

Bring in great logs and let them lie,
     To make a solid core of heat;
     Be cheerful-minded, talk and treat
Of all things ev'n as he were by;

We keep the day. With festal cheer,
     With books and music, surely we
     Will drink to him, whate'er he be,
And sing the songs he loved to hear.

~~
Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)
from In Memoriam A.H.H., 1850

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Alfred Tennyson biography