Claribel

By Alfred, Lord Tennyson 1809–1892 Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Where Claribel low-lieth

The breezes pause and die,

Letting the rose-leaves fall:

But the solemn oak-tree sigheth,

Thick-leaved, ambrosial,

With an ancient melody

Of an inward agony,

Where Claribel low-lieth.

At eve the beetle boometh

Athwart the thicket lone:

At noon the wild bee hummeth

About the moss'd headstone:

At midnight the moon cometh,

And looketh down alone.

Her song the lintwhite swelleth,

The clear-voiced mavis dwelleth,

The callow throstle lispeth,

The slumbrous wave outwelleth,

The babbling runnel crispeth,

The hollow grot replieth

Where Claribel low-lieth.

Biography

More than any other Victorian writer, Tennyson has seemed the embodiment of his age, both to his contemporaries and to modern readers. In his own day he was said to be—with Queen Victoria and Gladstone—one of the three most famous living persons, a reputation no other poet writing in English has ever had. As official poetic spokesman for the reign of Victoria, he felt called upon to celebrate a quickly changing industrial and . . .

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