Friday, February 29, 2008
Ahhhhh the poetry i've been looking for. Heard it over in the movie, "A Cinderella story."
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)
'Oh! that 'twere possible'
Oh! that 'twere possible,After long grief and pain,To find the arms of my true-loveRound me once again!When I was wont to meet herIn the silent woody placesOf the land that gave me birth,We stood tranced in long embraces,Mixt with kisses sweeter, sweeter,Than any thing on earth.A shadow flits before me —Not thou, but like to thee.Ah God! that it were possibleFor one short hour to seeThe souls we loved, that they might tell usWhat and where they be.It leads me forth at Evening,It lightly winds and stealsIn a cold white robe before me,When all my spirit reelsAt the shouts, the leagues of lights,And the roaring of the wheels.
Half the night I waste in sighs,In a wakeful doze I sorrow. For the hand, the lips, the eyes —For the meeting of tomorrow,The delight of happy laughter,The delight of low replies.Do I hear the pleasant ditty,That I heard her chant of old?But I wake — my dream is fled.Without knowledge, without pity —In the shuddering dawn behold,By the curtains of my bed,That abiding phantom cold.Then I rise: the eave-drops fallAnd the yellow-vapours chokeThe great city sounding wide;The day comes — a dull red ball,Wrapt in drifts of lurid smoke,On the misty river-tide.Through the hubbub of the marketI steal, a wasted frame;It crosseth here, it crosseth there —Through all that crowd, confused and loud,The shadow still the same;And on my heavy eyelidsMy anguish hangs like shame.Alas for her that met me,That heard me softly call —Came glimmering through the laurelsAt the quiet even-fall,In the garden by the turretsOf the old Manorial Hall.Then the broad light glares and beats,And the sunk eye flits and fleets,And will not let me be.I loathe the squares and streets,And the faces that one meets,Hearts with no love for me;Always I long to creepTo some still cavern deep,And to weep, and weep and weepMy whole soul out to thee.Get thee hence, nor come again,Pass and cease to move about —Pass, thou death-like type of pain,Mix not memory with doubt.'Tis the blot upon the brainThat will show itself without.Would the happy Spirit descendIn the chamber or the streetAs she looks among the blest;Should I fear to greet my friend,Or to ask her, "Take me, sweet,To the region of thy rest."But she tarries in her place,And I paint the beauteous faceOf the maiden, that I lost,In my inner eyes again,Lest my heart be overborneBy the thing I hold in scorn,By a dull mechanic ghostAnd a juggle of the brain.I can shadow forth my brideAs I knew her fair and kind,As I wooed her for my wife;She is lovely by my sideIn the silence of my life —'Tis a phantom of the mind.'Tis a phantom fair and good;I can call it to my side,So to guard my life from ill,Though its ghastly sister glideAnd be moved around me stillWith the moving of the blood,That is moved not of the will.Let it pass, the dreary brow,Let the dismal face go by.Will it lead me to the grave?Then I lose it: it will fly:Can it overlast the nerves?Can it overlive the eye?But the other, like a star,Through the channel windeth farTill it fade and fail and die,To its Archetype that waits,Clad in light by golden gates —Clad in light the Spirit waitsTo embrace me in the sky.
