TEARS, IDLE TEARS
by: Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)
- 'EARS,
idle tears, I know not what they mean,
- Tears from the depth of some divine despair
- Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
- In looking on the happy autumn-fields,
- And thinking of the days that are no more.
-
- 'Fresh as the first beam glittering on the sail,
- That brings our friends up from the underworld,
- Sad as the last which reddens over one
- That sinks with all we love below the verge;
- So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.
-
- 'Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
- The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds
- To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
- The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
- So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.
-
- 'Dear as remember'd kisses after death,
- And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd
- On lips that are for others; deep as love,
- Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
- O Death in Life, the days that are no more.'
'Tears, Idle Tears' is reprinted
from English Poems. Ed. Edward Chauncey Baldwin. New York:
American Book Company, 1908. |
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POEMS BY ALFRED TENNYSON |
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