O Love, Love, Love! O withering might!
O sun, that from thy noonday height
Shudderest when I strain my sight,
Throbbing thro’ all thy heat and light,
Lo, falling from my constant mind,
Lo, parch’d and wither’d, deaf and blind,
I whirl like leaves in roaring wind.
Last night I wasted hateful hours
Below the city’s eastern towers:
I thirsted for the brooks, the showers:
I roll’d among the tender flowers:
I crush’d them on my breast, my mouth;
I look’d athwart the burning drouth
Of that long desert to the south.
Last night, when some one spoke his name,
>From my swift blood that went and came
A thousand little shafts of flame
Were shiver’d in my narrow frame.
O Love, O fire! once he drew
With one long kiss my whole soul thro’
My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.
Before he mounts the hill, I know
He cometh quickly: from below
Sweet gales, as from deep gardens, blow
Before him, striking on my brow.
In my dry brain my spirit soon,
Down-deepening from swoon to swoon,
Faints like a daled morning moon.
The wind sounds like a silver wire,
And from beyond the noon a fire
Is pour’d upon the hills, and nigher
The skies stoop down in their desire;
And, isled in sudden seas of light,
My heart, pierced thro’ with fierce delight,
Bursts into blossom in his sight.
My whole soul waiting silently,
All naked in a sultry sky,
Droops blinded with his shining eye:
I will possess him or will die.
I will grow round him in his place,
Grow, live, die looking on his face,
Die, dying clasp’d in his embrace.
(Lord Alfred Tennyson)
More Poetry from Lord Alfred Tennyson:
Lord Alfred Tennyson Poems based on Topics: Light, Love, Death & Dying, Night, Mind, Place, Faces, Flowers, Fire, Name, Sense & Perception- Break, Break, Break (Lord Alfred Tennyson Poems)
- Minnie and Winnie (Lord Alfred Tennyson Poems)
- Princess: A Medley: The splendour falls on castle walls (Lord Alfred Tennyson Poems)
- To Virgil (Lord Alfred Tennyson Poems)
- Idylls of the King: The Passing of Arthur (excerpt) (Lord Alfred Tennyson Poems)
- Hendecasyllabics (Lord Alfred Tennyson Poems)
Readers Who Like This Poem Also Like:
Based on Topics: Love Poems, Night Poems, Light Poems, Mind Poems, Death & Dying Poems, Faces Poems, Sense & Perception Poems, Place Poems, Name Poems, Flowers Poems, Fire PoemsBased on Keywords: nigher, thirsted, isled, drinketh, daled, down-deepening, shudderest