The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson

Excerpt

Timbuctoo

A POEM
WHICH OBTAINED
THE CHANCELLOR'S MEDAL
AT THE
Cambridge Commencement

MDCCCXXIX

BY
A. TENNYSON

Of Trinity College

[Printed in Cambridge Chronicle and Journal of Friday, July 10, 1829, and at the University Press by James Smith, among the Prolusiones Academicæ Præmiis annuis dignatæ et in Curia Cantabrigiensi Recitatæ Comitiis Maximis, MDCCCXXIX. Republished in Cambridge Prize Poems, 1813 to 1858, by Messrs. Macmillan in 1859, without alteration; and in 1893 in the appendix to a reprint of Poems by Two Brothers].

TimbuctooDeep in that lion-haunted inland liesA mystic city, goal of high Emprize.—CHAPMAN.I stood upon the Mountain which o'erlooksThe narrow seas, whose rapid intervalParts Afric from green Europe, when the SunHad fall'n below th' Atlantick, and aboveThe silent Heavens were blench'd with faery light,Uncertain whether faery light or cloud,Flowing Southward, and the chasms of deep, deep blueSlumber'd unfathomable, and the starsWere flooded over with clear glory and pale.I gaz'd upon the sheeny coast beyond,There where the Giant of old Time infixedThe limits of his prowess, pillars highLong time eras'd from Earth: even as the seaWhen weary of wild inroad buildeth upHuge mounds whereby to stay his yeasty waves.And much I mus'd on legends quaint and oldWhich whilome won the hearts of all on EarthToward their brightness, ev'n as flame draws air;But had their being in the heart of ManAs air is th' life of flame: and thou wert thenA center'd glory-circled Memory,Divinest Atalantis, whom the wavesHave buried deep, and thou of later nameImperial Eldorado root'd with gold:Shadows to which, despite all shocks of Change,All on-set of capricious Accident,Men clung with yearning Hope which would not die.As when in some great City where the wallsShake, and the streets with ghastly faces throng'dDo utter forth a subterranean voice,Among the inner columns far retir'dAt midnight, in the lone Acropolis.Before the awful Genius of the placeKneels the pale Priestess in deep faith, the whileAbove her head the weak lamp dips and winksUnto the fearful summoning without:Nathless she ever clasps the marble knees,Bathes the cold hand with tears, and gazeth onThose eyes which wear no light but that wherewithHer phantasy informs them.Where are yeThrones of the Western wave, fair Islands green?Where are your moonlight halls, your cedarn glooms,The blossoming abysses of your hills?Your flowering Capes and your gold-sanded baysBlown round with happy airs of odorous winds?Where are the infinite ways which, Seraphtrod,Wound thro' your great Elysian solitudes,Whose lowest depths were, as with visible love,Fill'd with Divine effulgence, circumfus'd,Flowing between the clear and polish'd stems,And ever circling round their emerald conesIn coronals and glories, such as girdThe unfading foreheads of the Saints in Heaven?For nothing visible, they say, had birthIn that blest ground but it was play'd aboutWith its peculiar glory....