Song: Who Can Say

Who can say
Why To-day
To-morrow will be yesterday?
Who can tell
Why to smell
The violet recalls the dewy prime
Of youth and buried time?
The cause is nowhere found in rhyme.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Alfred Lord Tennyson was a renowned British poet of the Victorian era, born on August 6, 1809, in Somersby, Lincolnshire. He is best known for his works like 'In Memoriam A.H.H.', 'The Charge of the Light Brigade', and 'Ulysses'. As one of the most popular poets of his time, he was appointed Poet Laureate of Great Britain and Ireland in 1850. Tennyson's poetry is characterized by its rich imagery, deep emotion, and classical themes. He passed away on October 6, 1892.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

A Voice Spake Out Of The Skies

Alfred Lord Tennyson, Simple Poetry

A Welcome To Alexandra

Alfred Lord Tennyson, Simple Poetry

A Dirge

Alfred Lord Tennyson, Simple Poetry

Kapiolani

Alfred Lord Tennyson, Simple Poetry

English

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The How And The Why

?

I am any mans suitor,
If any will be my tutor:
Some say this life is pleasant,
Some think it speedeth fast,
In time there is no present,
In eternity no future,
In eternity no past.
We laugh, we cry, we are born, we die,
Who will riddle me the how and the why?

The bulrush nods unto its brother,
The wheatears whisper to each other:
What is it they say? what do they there?
Why two and two make four? why round is not square?
Why the rock stands still, and the light clouds fly?
Why the heavy oak groans, and the white willows sigh?
Why deep is not high, and high is not deep?
Whether we wake, or whether we sleep?
Whether we sleep, or whether we die?
How you are you? why I am I?
Who will riddle me the how and the why?

The ...

Alfred Lord Tennyson

The Poets Song

The rain had fallen, the Poet arose,
He passd by the town and out of the street;
A light wind blew from the gates of the sun,
And waves of shadow went over the wheat;
And he sat him down in a lonely place,
And chanted a melody loud and sweet,
That made the wild-swan pause in her cloud,
And the lark drop down at his feet.


The swallow stopt as he hunted the fly,
The snake slipt under a spray,
The wild hawk stood with the down on his beak,
And stared, with his foot on the prey;
And the nightingale thought, I have sung many songs,
But never a one so gay,
For he sings of what the world will be
When the years have died away.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Circumstance

Two children in two neighbor villages
Playing mad pranks along the heathy leas;
Two strangers meeting at a festival;
Two lovers whispering by an orchard wall:
Two lives bound fast in one with golden ease;
Two graves grass-green beside a gray church-tower,
Washd with still rains and daisy-blossomed;
Two children in one hamlet born and bred:
So runs the round of life from hour to hour.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Duet

1. Is it the wind of the dawn that I hear
in the pine overhead?
2. No; but the voice of the deep as it hollows
the cliffs of the land.
1. Is there a voice coming up with the
voice of the deep from the strand,
Once coming up with a Song in the
flush of the glimmering red?
2. Love that is born of the deep coming
up with the sun from the sea.
1. Love that can shape or can shatter a
life till the life shall have fled?
2. Nay, let us welcome him, Love that
can lift up a life from the dead.
1. Keep him away from the lone little isle.
Let us be, let us be.
2. Nay, let him make it his own, let him
reign in it - he, it is he,
Love that is born of the deep coming
up with the sun from the sea.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Farfaraway

What sight so lured him thro the fields he knew
As where earths green stole into heavens own hue,

Farfaraway?

What sound was dearest in his native dells?
The mellow lin-lan-lone of evening bells

Farfaraway.

What vague world-whisper, mystic pain or joy,
Thro those three words would haunt him when a boy,

Farfaraway?

A whisper from his dawn of life? a breath
From some fair dawn beyond the doors of death

Farfaraway?

Far, far, how far? from oer the gates of Birth,
The faint horizons, all the bounds of earth,

Farfaraway?

What charm in words, a charm no words could give?
O dying words, can Music make you live

Farfaraway?

Alfred Lord Tennyson

And Ask Ye Why These Sad Tears Stream?

Te somnia nostra reducunt.
OVID.

And ask ye why these sad tears stream?
Why these wan eyes are dim with weeping?
I had a dreama lovely dream,
Of her that in the grave is sleeping.

I saw her as twas yesterday,
The bloom upon her cheek still glowing;
And round her playd a golden ray,
And on her brows were gay flowers blowing.

With angel-hand she swept a lyre,
A garland red with roses bound it;
Its strings were wreathd with lambent fire
And amaranth was woven round it.

I saw her mid the realms of light,
In everlasting radiance gleaming;
Co-equal with the seraphs bright,
Mid thousand thousand angels beaming.

I strove to reach her, when, behold,
Those fairy forms of bliss Elysian,
And all that rich scene wrapt...

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Song: Who Can Say

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Song: Who Can Say