O rock upon thy towery top All throats that gurgle sweet! All starry culmination drop Balm-dews to bathe thy feet! All grass of silky feather grow— And while he sinks or swells The full south-breeze around thee blow The sound of minster bells. The fat earth feed thy branchy root, That under deeply strikes! The northern morning o’er thee shoot High up, in silver spikes! Nor ever lightning char thy grain, But, rolling as in sleep, Low thunders bring the mellow rain, That makes thee broad and deep! And hear me swear a solemn oath, That only by thy side Will I to Olive plight my troth, And gain her for my bride. And when my marriage morn may fall, She, Dryad-like, shall wear Alternate leaf and acorn-ball In wreath about her hair. And I will work in prose and rhyme, And praise thee more in both Than bard has honour’d beech or lime, Or that Thessalian growth,[6] In which the swarthy ringdove sat, And mystic sentence spoke; And more than England honours that, Thy famous brother-oak, Wherein the younger Charles abode Till all the paths were dim, And far below the Roundhead rode, And humm’d a surly hymn. [1] Spence is a larder and buttery. In the _Promptorium Parverum_ it is defined as “cellarium promptuarium”. [2] Cf. Burns’ “godly laces,” _To the Unco Righteous_. [3] All editions previous to 1853 have ‘staid’. [4] The phrase is Marvell’s. _Cf. To his Coy Mistress_ (a favourite poem of Tennyson’s), “my vegetable loves should grow”. [5] 1842 to 1850. “For, ah! the Dryad-days were brief. [6] A reference to the oracular oaks of Dodona which was, of course, in Epirus, but the Ancients believed, no doubt erroneously, that there was another Dodona in Thessaly. See the article “Dodona” in Smith’s _Dict. of Greek and Roman Geography_. Love and Duty Published first in 1842. Whether this beautiful poem is autobiographical and has reference to the compulsory separation of Tennyson and Miss Emily Sellwood, afterwards his wife, in 1840, it is impossible for this editor to say, as Lord Tennyson in his _Life_ of his father is silent on the subject.