There is no rest, no calm, no pause, Nor good nor ill, nor light nor shade, Nor essence nor eternal laws: For nothing is, but all is made. But if I dream that all these are, They are to me for that I dream; For all things are as they seem to all, And all things flow like a stream. Argal—This very opinion is only true relatively to the flowing philosophers. (Tennyson’s note.) Poems of MDCCCXXXIII “Mine be the strength of spirit...” Reprinted without any alteration, except that Power is spelt with a small p, among the _Juvenilia_ in 1871 and onward. Mine be the strength of spirit, full and free, Like some broad river rushing down alone, With the selfsame impulse wherewith he was thrown From his loud fount upon the echoing lea:— Which with increasing might doth forward flee By town, and tower, and hill, and cape, and isle, And in the middle of the green salt sea Keeps his blue waters fresh for many a mile. Mine be the Power which ever to its sway Will win the wise at once, and by degrees May into uncongenial spirits flow; Even as the great gulfstream of Florida Floats far away into the Northern Seas The lavish growths of Southern Mexico. To—— (“My life is full...”) When this poem was republished among the _Juvenilia_ in 1871 several alterations were made in it. For the first stanza was substituted the following:— My life is full of weary days, But good things have not kept aloof, Nor wander’d into other ways: I have not lack’d thy mild reproof, Nor golden largess of thy praise. The second began “And now shake hands”. In the fourth stanza for “sudden laughters” of the jay was substituted the felicitous “sudden scritches,” and the sixth and seventh stanzas were suppressed. I All good things have not kept aloof Nor wandered into other ways: I have not lacked thy mild reproof, Nor golden largess of thy praise. But life is full of weary days. II Shake hands, my friend, across the brink Of that deep grave to which I go: Shake hands once more: I cannot sink So far—far down, but I shall know Thy voice, and answer from below. III When in the darkness over me The fourhanded mole shall scrape, Plant thou no dusky cypresstree, Nor wreathe thy cap with doleful crape, But pledge me in the flowing grape. IV And when the sappy field and wood Grow green beneath the showery gray, And rugged barks begin to bud, And through damp holts newflushed with May, Ring sudden laughters of the Jay, V Then let wise Nature work her will, And on my clay her darnels grow; Come only, when the days are still, And at my headstone whisper low, And tell me if the woodbines blow. VI If thou art blest, my mother’s smile Undimmed, if bees are on the wing: Then cease, my friend, a little while, That I may hear the throstle sing His bridal song, the boast of spring. VII Sweet as the noise in parchèd plains Of bubbling wells that fret the stones, (If any sense in me remains) Thy words will be: thy cheerful tones As welcome to my crumbling bones.