The Tennyson Lover in Me

Reading Tennyson has always been an immense pleasure for I often suffer from obession-like bouts where I could go on reading a piece of poetry for weeks altogether. I am suffering from one such spell right now. Here is what has been keeping me immersed in itself.

Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal

Lord Alfred Tennyson

Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;

Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;

Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font:

The fire-fly wakens: waken thou with me.

Now droops the milkwhite peacock like a ghost,

And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.

Now lies the Earth all Danaë to the stars,

And all thy heart lies open unto me.

Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves

A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.

Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,

And slips into the bosom of the lake:

So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip

Into my bosom and be lost in me.

And then there's another one by Yeats that caught my fascination in much the same manner as Cleopatra's Lament by Shakespeare.

No Second Troy

William Butler Yeats

Why should I blame her that she filled my days

With misery, or that she would of late

Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,

Or hurled the little streets upon the great.

Had they but courage equal to desire?

What could have made her peaceful with a mind

That nobleness made simple as a fire,

With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind

That is not natural in an age like this,

Being high and solitary and most stern?

Why, what could she have done, being what she is?

Was there another Troy for her to burn?

How I sometimes wish I could have someone to write such poem for me! And people, do check out the story behind the Yeats' poem.