POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH.*

SONNET-TO SCIENCE.

SCIENCE! true daughter of Old Time thou art!
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,
Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,
Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,

Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?
And driven the Hamadryad from the wood
To seek a shelter in some happier star?

Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood, The Elfin from the green grass, and from me The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?

1829.

* Private reasons-some of which have reference to the sin of plagiarism, and others to the date of Tennyson's first poemst—have induced me, after some hesitation, to re-publish these, the crude compositions of my earliest boyhood. They are printed verbatim-without alteration from the original edition—the date of which is too remote to be judiciously acknowledged.

E. A. P. (1845).

This refers to the accusation brought against Edgar Poe that he was a copyist of Tennyson.-ED.

AL AARAAF.*

PART I.

OH! nothing earthly save the ray
(Thrown back from flowers) of Beauty's eye,
As in those gardens where the day
Springs from the gems of Circassy-
Oh! nothing earthly save the thrill
Of melody in woodland rill-
Or (music of the passion-hearted)
Joy's voice so peacefully departed
That like the murmur in the shell,
Its echo dwelleth and will dwell-
Oh, nothing of the dross of ours-
Yet all the beauty-all the flowers
That list our Love, and deck our bowers-
Adorn you world afar, afar—

The wandering star.

'Twas a sweet time for Nesace-for there
Her world lay lolling on the golden air,
Near four bright suns- -a temporary rest—
An oasis in desert of the blest.

Away-away-'mid seas of rays that roll
Empyrean splendour o'er th' unchained soul—

* A star was discovered by Tycho Brahe which appeared suddenly in the heavens attained, in a few days, a brilliancy surpassing that of Jupiter-then as suddenly disappeared, and has never been seen since.

The soul that scarce (the billows are so dense)
Can struggle to its destin'd eminence—
To distant spheres, from time to time, she rode,
And late to ours, the favour'd one of God-
But, now, the ruler of an anchor'd realm,
She throws aside the sceptre-leaves the helm,
And, amid incense and high spiritual hymns,
Laves in quadruple light her angel limbs.

Now happiest, loveliest in yon lovely Earth, Whence sprang the "Idea of Beauty" into birth, (Falling in wreaths thro' many a startled star, Like woman's hair 'mid pearls, until, afar, It lit on hills Achaian, and there dwelt) She look'd into Infinity-and knelt. Rich clouds, for canopies, about her curled— Fit emblems of the model of her world— Seen but in beauty-not impeding sight Of other beauty glittering thro' the light— A wreath that twined each starry form around, And all the opal'd air in colour bound.

All hurriedly she knelt upon a bed
Of flowers of lilies such as rear'd the head
*On the fair Capo Deucato, and sprang
So eagerly around about to hang

Upon the flying footsteps of deep pride—
† Of her who lov'd a mortal-and so died.
The Sephalica, budding with young bees,
Uprear'd its purple stem around her knees:
And gemmy flower, of Trebizond misnam'd-
Inmate of highest stars, where erst it sham'd

* On Santa Maura-olim Deucadia.

+ Sappho.

This flower is much noticed by Lewenhoeck and Tournefort. The bee, feeding upon its blossom, becomes intoxicated.

All other loveliness: its honied dew

(The fabled nectar that the heathen knew)
Deliriously sweet, was dropp'd from Heaven,
And fell on gardens of the unforgiven
In Trebizond-and on a sunny flower
So like its own above that, to this hour,
It still remaineth, torturing the bee
With madness, and unwonted reverie :
In Heaven, and all its environs, the leaf
And blossom of the fairy plant, in grief
Disconsolate linger-grief that hangs her head,
Repenting follies that full long have fled,
Heaving her white breast to the balmy air,
Like guilty beauty, chasten'd, and more fair:
Nyctanthes too, as sacred as the light
She fears to perfume, perfuming the night:
* And Clytia pondering between many a sun,
While pettish tears adown her petals run:

† And that aspiring flower that sprang on Earth—
And died, ere scarce exalted into birth,

Bursting its odorous heart in spirit to wing
Its way to Heaven, from garden of a king:
And Valisnerian lotus thither flown

From struggling with the waters of the Rhone:

* Clytia-The Chrysanthemum Peruvianum, or, to employ a better-known term, the turnsol-which turns continually towards the sun, covers itself, like Peru, the country from which it comes, with dewy clouds which cool and refresh its flowers during the most violent heat of the day.-B. de St. Pierre.

+ There is cultivated in the king's garden at Paris, a species of snpertine aloes without prickles, whose large and beautiful flower exhales a strong odour of the vanilla, during the time of its expansion, which is very short. It does not blow till towards the month of July -you then perceive it gradually open its petals-expand them-fade and die.-St. Pierre,

There is found, in the Rhone, a beautiful lily of the Valisnerian kind. Its stem will stretch to the length of three or four feet—thus preserving its head above water in the swellings of the river.

* And thy most lovely purple perfume, Zante! Isola d'oro-Fior di Levante !

† And the Nelumbo bud that floats for ever With Indian Cupid down the holy river— Fair flowers, and fairy! to whose care is given

To bear the Goddess' song, in odours, up to Heaven:

Spirit that dwellest where,

In the deep sky,

The terrible and fair,

In beauty vie!

Beyond the line of blue

The boundary of the star
Which turneth at the view

Of thy barrier and thy bar

Of the barrier overgone

By the comets who were cast

From their pride, and from their throne
To be drudges till the last-

To be carriers of fire

(The red fire of their heart)

With speed that may not tire

And with pain that shall not part—

Who livest-that we know

In Eternity-we feel

But the shadow of whose brow

What spirit shall reveal?

Tho' the beings whom thy Nesace,
Thy messenger hath known

* The Hyacinth.

It is a fiction of the Indians, that Cupid was first seen floating in one of these down the river Ganges-and that he still loves the cradle of his childhood.

And golden vials full of odours which are the prayers of the saints. -Rev. St. John.

VOL. IV.

T