Poems (Tennyson, 1833)/Margaret

For other versions of this work, see Margaret (Tennyson).
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MARGARET.

O sweet pale Margaret,O rare pale Margaret,What lit your eyes with tearful power,Like moonlight on a falling shower?Who lent you, love, your mortal dowerOf pensive thought and aspect pale,Your melancholy sweet and frailAs perfume of the cuckooflower?From the westward-winding flood,From the eveninglighted wood,From all things outward you have wonA tearful grace, as tho’ you stoodBetween the rainbow and the sun.
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The very smile before you speak,That dimples your transparent cheek,Encircles all the heart, and feedethThe senses with a still delightOf dainty sorrow without sound,Like the tender amber round,Which the moon about her spreadeth,Moving thro' a fleecy night.
Yon love, remaining peacefully,To hear the murmur of the strife,But enter not the toil of life.Your spirit is the calmèd sea,Laid by the tumult of the fight.You are the eveningstar, alwayRemaining betwixt dark and bright:Lulled echoes of laborious dayCome to you, gleams of mellow lightFloat by you on the verge of night.
What can it matter, Margaret,What songs below the waning stars, ​The lionsouled PlantagenetSang looking thro' his prison bars?Exquisite Margaret, who can tellThe last wild thought of Chatelet,Just ere the falling axe did partThe burning brain from the true heart,Even in her sight he loved so well?
A fairy shield your Genius madeAnd gave you on your natal day.Your sorrow, only sorrow's shade,Keeps real sorrow far away.You move not in such solitudes,You are not less divine,But more human in your moods,Than your twinsister, Adeline.[1]Your hair is darker, and your eyesTouched with a somewhat darker hue,And more aërially blue, ​And ever trembling thro' the dewOf dainty-woeful sympathies.
O sweet pale Margaret,O rare pale Margaret,Come down, come down, and hear me speak:Tie up the ringlets on your cheek:The sun is just about to set.The arching limes are tall and shady,And faint, rainy lights are seen,Moving in the leavy beech.Rise from the feast of sorrow, lady,Where all day long you sit betweenJoy and woe, and whisper each,Or only look across the lawn,Look out below your bower-eaves,Look down, and let your blue eyes dawnUpon me thro' the jasmin-leaves.
  1. ↑ Poems chiefly Lyrical.
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