The Princess: O Swallow

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

O Swallow, Swallow, flying, flying South,

Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves,

And tell her, tell her, what I tell to thee.

O tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest each,

That bright and fierce and fickle is the South,

And dark and true and tender is the North.

O Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow, and light

Upon her lattice, I would pipe and trill,

And cheep and twitter twenty million loves.

O were I thou that she might take me in,

And lay me on her bosom, and her heart

Would rock the snowy cradle till I died.

Why lingereth she to clothe her heart with love,

Delaying as the tender ash delays

To clothe herself, when all the woods are green?

O tell her, Swallow, that thy brood is flown:

Say to her, I do but wanton in the South,

But in the North long since my nest is made.

O tell her, brief is life but love is long,

And brief the sun of summer in the North,

And brief the moon of beauty in the South.

O Swallow, flying from the golden woods,

Fly to her, and pipe and woo her, and make her mine,

And tell her, tell her, that I follow thee.

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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