Happy Birthday, Alfred

Born today in 1809 in Somersby in Lincolnshire, England, Alfred Tennyson, later (at 75 and for his poetry!!!) Baron Tennyson. The most popular and best-selling poet of his day (or any, probably), he outsold even Dickens.

The Oak

Love thy Life,
  Young and old,
Like yon oak,
Bright in spring,
    Living gold;

Summer-rich
    Then; and then
Autumn-changed,
Soberer-hued
    Gold again.

All his leaves
    Fallen at length,
Look, he stands,
Trunk and bough,
    Naked strength.


Break, break, break

Break, break, break,
  On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
  The thoughts that arise in me.

O well for the fisherman’s boy,
  That he shouts with his sister at play!
O well for the sailor lad,
  That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on
  To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanish’d hand,
  And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break
  At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
  Will never come back to me.

The Roses on the Terrace

Rose, on this terrace fifty years ago,
    When I was in my June, you in your May,
Two words, ‘My Rose,’ set all your face aglow,
    And now that I am white and you are gray,
That blush of fifty years ago, my dear,
    Blooms in the past, but close to me to-day,
As this red rose, which on our terrace here
    Glows in the blue of fifty miles away.