Poems (Tennyson, 1833)/The Palace of Art

by Alfred Tennyson

For other versions of this work, see The Palace of Art.

THE PALACE OF ART.

---

I.I built my soul a lordly pleasurehouse,Wherein at ease for aye to dwell.I said, "Oh Soul, make merry and carouse,Dear Soul, for all is well.

II.A huge crag-platform, smooth as burnished brass,⁠I chose, whose rangèd ramparts brightFrom great broad meadowbases of deep grass⁠Suddenly scaled the light.

III.Thereon I built it firm. Of ledge or shelf⁠The rock rose clear, or winding stair.My soul would live alone unto herself⁠In her high palace there.

IV."While the world runs round and round," I said,⁠"Reign thou apart, a quiet king;Still as, while Saturn whirls, his steadfast shade⁠Sleeps on his luminous ring.

V."And richly feast within thy palacehall,Like to the dainty bird that sups,Lodged in the lustrous crown-imperial,Draining the honeycups."

VI.To which my soul made answer readily.⁠"Trust me, in bliss I shall abideIn this great mansion that is built for me⁠So royalrich and wide."

VII.Full of long-sounding corridors it was⁠That overvaulted grateful glooms,Roofed with thick plates of green and orange glassEnding in stately rooms.

VIII.Full of great rooms and small the palace stood,⁠All various, all beautiful,Looking all ways, fitted to every mood⁠And change of my still soul.

IX.For some were hung with arras green and blue⁠Showing a gaudy summer morn,Where with puffed cheek the belted hunter blew⁠His wreathèd buglehorn.

X.One showed an English home—gray twilight poured⁠On dewy pastures, dewy trees,Softer than sleep—all things in order stored—⁠A haunt of ancient Peace.

XI.Some were all dark and red, glimmering land⁠Lit with a low large moon,Among brown rocks a man upon the sandWent weeping all alone.

XII.One seemed a foreground black with stones and slags.Below sunsmitten icy spiresRose striped with long white cloud the scornful crags,Deeptrenched with thunderfires.

XIII.Some showed far-off thick woods mounted with towers,Nearer, a flood of mild sunshinePoured on long walks and lawns and beds and bowersTrellised with bunchy vine.

XIV.^[1]Or the maidmother by a crucifix,In yellow pastures sunnywarm,Beneath branchwork of costly sardonyx,Sat smiling, babe in arm.

XV.Or Venus in a snowy shell alone,Deepshadowed in the glassy brine,Moonlike glowed double on the blue, and shoneA naked shape divine.

XVI.Or in a clearwalled city on the sea,Near gilded organpipes (her hairWound with white roses) slept Saint Cecily;An angel looked at her.

XVII.Or that deepwounded child of PendragonMid misty woods on sloping greensDozed in the valley of Avilion,Tended by crownèd queens.

XVIII.Or blue-eyed Kriemhilt from a craggy hold,Athwart the lightgreen rows of vine.Poured blazing hoards of Nibelungen gold,Down to the gulfy Rhine.

XIX.Europa's scarf blew in an arch, unclasped,From her bare shoulder backward borne;From one hand drooped a crocus: one hand graspedThe mild bull's golden horn.

XX.He thro' the streaming crystal swam, and rolledAmbrosial breaths that seemed to floatIn lightwreathed curls. She from the ripple coldUpdrew her sandalled foot.

XXI.Or else flushed Ganymede, his rosy thighHalf-buried in the eagle's down,Sole, as a flying star, shot thro' the skyOver the pillared town.

XXII.Not these alone: but many a legend fair,Which the supreme Caucasian mindCarved out of nature for itself, was thereBroidered in screen and blind.

XXIII.So that my soul beholding in her prideAll these, from room to room did pass;And all things that she saw, she multiplied,A manyfacèd glass;

XXIV.And, being both the sower and the seed,Remaining in herself becameAll that she saw, Madonna, Ganymede,Or the Asiatic dame—

XXV.Still changing, as a lighthouse in the nightChangeth athwart the gleaming main,From red to yellow, yellow to pale white,Then back to red again.

XXVI."From change to change four times within the wombThe brain is moulded," she began,"So thro' all phases of all thought I comeInto the perfect man.

XXVII."All nature widens upward: evermoreThe simpler essence lower lies.More complex is more perfect, owning moreDiscourse, more widely wise.

XXVIII."I take possession of men's minds and deeds.I live in all things great and small.I dwell apart, holding no forms of creeds,But contemplating all."

XXIX.Four ample courts there were, East, West, South, North,In each a squarèd lawn wherefromA golden-gorgèd dragon spouted forthThe fountain's diamond foam.

XXX.All round the cool green courts there ran a rowOf cloisters, branched like mighty woods,Echoing all night to that sonorous flowOf spouted fountain floods.

XXXI.From those four jets four currents in one swellOver the black rock streamed belowIn steamy folds, that, floating as they fell,Lit up a torrentbow;

XXXII.And round the roofs ran gilded galleriesThat gave large view to distant lands,Tall towns and mounds, and close beneath the skiesLong lines of amber sands.

XXXIII.Huge incense-urns along the balustrade,Hollowed of solid amethyst,Each with a different odour fuming, madeThe air a silver mist.

XXXIV.Far-off 'twas wonderful to look uponThose sumptuous towers between the gleamOf that great foambow trembling in the sun,And the argent incense-steam;

XXXV.And round the terraces and round the walls,While day sank lower or rose higher,To see those rails with all their knobs and balls,Burn like a fringe of fire.

XXXVI.Likewise the deepset windows, stained and traced,Burned, like slowflaming crimson fires,From shadowed grots of arches interlaced,And topped with frostlike spires.

XXXVII.Up in the towers I placed great bells that swungMoved of themselves with silver sound:And with choice paintings of wise men I hungThe royal daïs round.

XXXVIII.There deephaired Milton like an angel tallStood limnèd, Shakspeare bland and mild,Grim Dante pressed his lips, and from the wallThe hald blind Homer smiled.

XXXIX.And underneath freshcarved in cedarwood,Somewhat alike in form and face,The Genii of every climate stood,All brothers of one race:

XL.Angels who sway the seasons by their art,And mould all shapes in earth and sea;And with great effort build the human heartFrom earliest infancy.

XLI.And in the sunpierced Oriel's coloured flameImmortal Michael AngeloLooked down, bold Luther, largebrowed Verulam,The king of those who know.^[2]

XLII.Cervantes, the bright face of Calderon,Robed David touching holy strings,The Halicarnasseän, and alone,Alfred the flower of kings,

XLIII.Isaïah with fierce Ezekiel,Swarth Moses by the Coptic sea,Plato, Petrarca, Livy, and Raphaël,And eastern Confutzee:

XLIV.And many more, that in their lifetime wereFullwelling fountainheads of Change,Between the stone shafts glimmered, blazoned fairIn divers raiment strange.

XLV.Thro' which the lights, rose, amber, emerald, blue,Flushed in her temples and her eyes,And from her lips, as morn from Memnon, drewRivers of melodies.

XLVI.No nightingale delighteth to prolongHer low preamble all alone,More than my soul to hear her echoed songThrob thro' the ribbèd stone.

XLVII.Singing and murmuring in her feastful mirthJoying to feel herself alive,Lord over nature, lord o' the visible earth,Lord of the senses five—

XLVIII.As some rich tropic mountain, that infoldsAll change, from flats of scattered palmsSloping thro' five great zones of climate, holdsHis head in snows and calms—

XLIX.Full of her own delight and nothing else,My vainglorious, gorgeous soulSat throned between the shining oriels,In pomp beyond control;

L.With piles of flavorous fruits in basket-twineOf gold, upheapèd, crushing downMuskscented blooms—all taste—grape, gourd or pine—In bunch, or singlegrown—

LI.Our growths, and such as brooding Indian heatsMake out of crimson blossoms deep,Ambrosial pulps and juices, sweets from sweetsSunchanged, when seawinds sleep.

LII.With graceful chalices of curious wine,Wonders of art—and costly jars,And bossèd salvers. Ere young night divineCrowned dying day with stars,

LIII.Making sweet close of his delicious toils,She lit white streams of dazzling gas,And soft and fragrant flames of precious oilsIn moons of purple glass

LIV.Ranged on the fretted woodwork to the ground.Thus her intense untold delight,In deep or vivid colour, smell and sound,Was flattered day and night.^[3]

LV.Sometimes the riddle of the painful earthFlashed thro' her as she sat alone,Yet not the less held she her solemn mirth,And intellectual throne

LVI.Of fullsphered contemplation. So three yearsShe throve, but on the fourth she fell,Like Herod, when the shout was in his ears,Struck thro' with pangs of hell.

LVII.Lest she should fail and perish utterly,God, before whom ever lie bareThe abysmal deeps of Personality,Plagued her with sore despair.

LVIII.When she would think, wheree'er she turned her sightThe airy hand confusion wrought,Wrote "Mene, mene," and divided quiteThe kingdom of her thought.

LIX.Deep dread and loathing of her solitudeFell on her, from which mood was bornScorn of herself; again, from out that moodLaughter at her selfscorn.

LX."Who hath drawn dry the fountains of delight,That from my deep heart everywhereMoved in my blood and dwelt, as power and mightAbode in Sampson's hair?

LXI."What, is not this my place of strength," she said,"My spacious mansion built for me,Whereof the strong foundationstones were laidSince my first memory?"

LXII.But in dark corners of her palace stoodUncertain shapes, and unawaresOn white-eyed phantasms weeping tears of bloodAnd horrible nightmares,

LXIII.And hollow shades enclosing hearts of flame,And, with dim fretted foreheads all,On corpses three-months-old at noon she cameThat stood against the wall.

LXIV.A spot of dull stagnation, without lightOr power of movement, seemed my soul,Mid downward-sloping motions infiniteMaking for one sure goal.

LXV.A still salt pool, locked in with bars of sand,Left on the shore, that hears all nightThe plunging seas draw backward from the landTheir moonled waters white.

LXVI.A star that with the choral starry danceJoined not, but stood, and standing sawThe hollow orb of moving CircumstanceRolled round by one fixed law.

LXVII.Back on herself her serpent pride had curled."No voice," she shrieked in that lone hall,"No voice breaks through the stillness of this world—"One deep, deep silence all."

LXVIII.She, mouldering with the dull earth's mouldering sod,Inwrapt tenfold in slothful shame,Lay there exilèd from eternal God,Lost to her place and name;

LXIX.And death and life she hated equally,And nothing saw, for her despair,But dreadful time, dreadful eternity,No comfort anywhere;

LXX.Remaining utterly confused with fears,And ever worse with growing time,And ever unrelieved by dismal tears,And all alone in crime;

LXXI.Shut up as in a crumbling tomb, girt roundWith blackness as a solid wall,Far off she seemed to hear the dully soundOf human footsteps fall.

LXXII.As in strange lands a traveller walking slow,In doubt and great perplexity,A little before moonrise hears the lowMoan of an unknown sea,

LXXIII.And knows not if it be thunder or the soundOf stones thrown down, or one deep cryOf great wild beasts; then thinketh, "I have foundA new land, but I die."

LXXIV.She howled aloud "I am on fire within.There comes no murmur of reply.What is it that will take away my sinDying the death I die?"

LXXV.So when four years were wholly finishèd,She threw her royal robes away."Make me a cottage in the vale," she said,"Where I may mourn and pray.

LXXVI."Yet pull not down my palace towers, that areSo lightly, beautifully built:Perchance I may return with others thereWhen I have purged my guilt."

---

1. When I first conceived the plan of the Palace of Art, I intended to have Introduced both sculptures and paintings into it; but it is the most difficult of all things to devise a statue in verse. Judge whether I have succeeded in the statues of Elijah and Olympias.
   One was the Tishbite whom the raven fed, As when he stood on Carmel-steeps, With one arm stretched out bare, and mocked and said, "Come cry aloud—be sleeps."
   

   Tall, eager, lean and strong, his cloak windborne Behind, his forehead heavenly-bright From the clear marble pouring glorious scorn, Lit as with inner light.
   

   One was Olympias: the floating snake Rolled round her ancles, round her waist Knotted, and folded once about her neck, Her perfect lips to taste
   

   Round by the shoulder moved; she seeming blythe Declined her head: on every side The dragon's curves melted and mingled with The woman's youthful pride
   

   Of rounded limbs.
   
2. Il maëstro di color chi sanno.-Dante, Inf, iii.
3. If the Poem were not already too long, I should have inserted in the text the following stanzas, expressive of the joy wherewith the soul contemplated the results of astronomical experiment. In the centre of the four quadrangles rose an immense tower.
   Hither, when all the deep unsounded skiesShuddered with silent stars, she clomb,And as with optic glasses her keen eyesPierced thro' the mystic dome,
   

   Regions of lucid matter taking forms,Brushes of fire, hazy gleams,Clusters and beds of worlds, and bee-like swarmsOf suns, and starry streams.
   

   She saw the snowy poles of moonless Mars,That marvellous round of milky lightBelow Orion, and those double starsWhereof the one more bright
   

   Is circled by the other, &c.