I wish I were the girdle Buckled about her dainty waist, That her heart might beat against me, In sorrow and in rest. I should know well if it beat right, I’d clasp it round so close and tight. This stanza bears so close a resemblance to a stanza in Joshua Sylvester’s _Woodman’s Bear_ (see Sylvester’s _Works_, ed. 1641, p. 616) that a correspondent asked Tennyson whether Sylvester had suggested it. Tennyson replied that he had never seen Sylvester’s lines (_Life of Tennyson_, iii., 51). The lines are:— But her slender virgin waste Made mee beare her girdle spight Which the same by day imbrac’t Though it were cast off by night That I wisht, I dare not say, To be girdle night and day. For other parallels see the present Editor’s _Illustrations of Tennyson_, p. 39. [26] 1833. I wish I were her necklace, So might I ever fall and rise. [27] 1833. So warm and light. [28] 1833. I would not be. [29] 1833. For o’er each letter broods and dwells, (Like light from running waters thrown On flowery swaths) the blissful flame Of his sweet eyes, that, day and night, With pulses thrilling thro’ his frame Do inly tremble, starry bright. [30] Thus in 1833:— How I waste language—yet in truth You must blame love, whose early rage Made me a rhymster in my youth, And over-garrulous in age. [31] 1833. Sing me. [32] 1833. When in the breezy limewood-shade. I found the blue forget-me-not. [33] In 1833 the following song took the place of the song in the text:— All yesternight you met me not, My ladylove, forget me not. When I am gone, regret me not. But, here or there, forget me not. With your arched eyebrow threat me not, And tremulous eyes, like April skies, That seem to say, “forget me not,” I pray you, love, forget me not. In idle sorrow set me not; Regret me not; forget me not; Oh! leave me not: oh, let me not Wear quite away;—forget me not. With roguish laughter fret me not. From dewy eyes, like April skies, That ever _look_, “forget me not”. Blue as the blue forget-me-not. [34] These two stanzas were added in 1842. [35] 1833. I’ve half a mind to walk, my love, To the old mill across the wolds For look! the sunset from above, Fatima First printed in 1833. The 1833 edition has no title but this quotation from Sappho prefixed:— φαίνεταί μοι κῆνος ἴσος θεοῖσιν Ἔμμεν ἀνήρ.—SAPPHO. The title was prefixed in 1842; it is a name taken from _The Arabian Nights_ or from the Moallâkat. The poem was evidently inspired by Sappho’s great ode. _Cf._ also Fragment I. of Ibycus. In the intensity of the passion it stands alone among Tennyson’s poems. O Love, Love, Love! O withering might! O sun, that from[1] thy noonday height Shudderest when I strain my sight, Throbbing thro’ all thy heat and light, Lo, falling from my constant mind, Lo, parch’d and wither’d, deaf and blind, I whirl like leaves in roaring wind.