ENOCH ARDEN, &c.
by ALFRED TENNYSON.
CONTENTS
Enoch Arden
Aylmer's Field
Sea Dreams
The Grandmother
Northern Farmer
Miscellaneous.
Tithonus
The Voyage
In the Valley of Cauteretz
The Flower
Requiescat
The Sailor-Boy
The Islet
The Ringlet
A Welcome to Alexandra
Ode sung at the Opening of the
International Exhibition
A Dedication
Experiments.
Boadicea
In Quantity
Specimen of a Translation of
the Iliad in Blank Verse
ENOCH ARDEN.
Long lines of cliff breaking have left a chasm;
And in the chasm are foam and yellow sands;
Beyond, red roofs about a narrow wharf
In cluster; then a moulder'd church; and higher
A long street climbs to one tall-tower'd mill;
And high in heaven behind it a gray down
With Danish barrows; and a hazelwood,
By autumn nutters haunted, flourishes
Green in a cuplike hollow of the down.
Here on this beach a hundred years ago,
Three children of three houses, Annie Lee,
The prettiest little damsel in the port,
And Philip Ray the miller's only son,
And Enoch Arden, a rough sailor's lad
Made orphan by a winter shipwreck, play'd
Among the waste and lumber of the shore,
Hard coils of cordage, swarthy fishing-nets,
Anchors of rusty fluke, and boats updrawn,
And built their castles of dissolving sand
To watch them overflow'd, or following up
And flying the white breaker, daily left
The little footprint daily wash'd away.
A narrow cave ran in beneath the cliff:
In this the children play'd at keeping house.
Enoch was host one day, Philip the next,
While Annie still was mistress; but at times
Enoch would hold possession for a week:
'This is my house and this my little wife.'
'Mine too' said Philip 'turn and turn about:'
When, if they quarrell'd, Enoch stronger-made
Was master: then would Philip, his blue eyes
All flooded with the helpless wrath of tears,
Shriek out 'I hate you, Enoch,' and at this
The little wife would weep for company,
And pray them not to quarrel for her sake,
And say she would be little wife to both.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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