'The Gods! and if I go my work is left Unfinish'd if I go. The Gods, who haunt The lucid interspace of world and world, Where never creeps a cloud, or moves a wind, Nor ever falls the least white star of snow, III No madness of ambition, avarice, none; Only such cups as left us friendly-warm, But now it seems some unseen monster lays His vast and filthy hands upon my will, 220 Or Heliconian honey in living words, 229 Vanishing, atom and void, atom and void, 260 The mortal soul from out immortal hell, And perishes as I must; for O Thou, Howbeit I know thou surely must be mine THE WINDOW; OR, THE SONG OF THE WRENS First printed in 1867 at the private press of Sir Ivor Bertie Guest, at Canford Manor, near Wimborne. Only a few copies were printed, and one is rarely found in the market. Reprinted, with variations in the text, and with music by Sir Arthur Sullivan, in December, 1870. edition had the following preface, which was retained in the edition of 1884, when the poems next appeared: This Four years ago Mr. Sullivan requested me to write a little song-cycle, German fashion, for him to exercise his art upon. He had been very successful in setting such old songs, as 'Orpheus with his lute,' and I drest up for him, partly in the old style, a puppet, whose almost only merit is, perhaps, that it can dance to Mr. Sullivan's instrument. I am sorry that my four-year-old puppet should have to dance at all in the dark shadow of these days; but the music is now completed, and I am bound by my promise. December, 1870. A. TENNYSON. |