XXXV

=Sonnet=

Written on hearing of the outbreak of the Polish Insurrection.

  Blow ye the trumpet, gather from afar
    The hosts to battle:  be not bought and sold. 
    Arise, brave Poles, the boldest of the bold;
  Break through your iron shackles—­fling them far. 
  O for those days of Piast, ere the Czar
    Grew to this strength among his deserts cold;
    When even to Moscow’s cupolas were rolled
  The growing murmurs of the Polish war! 
  Now must your noble anger blaze out more
    Than when from Sobieski, clan by clan,
  The Moslem myriads fell, and fled before—­
    Than when Zamoysky smote the Tartar Khan,
  Than earlier, when on the Baltic shore
    Boleslas drove the Pomeranian.

XXXVI

=O Darling Room=[D]

  I

  O darling room, my heart’s delight,
  Dear room, the apple of my sight,
  With thy two couches soft and white,
  There is no room so exquisite,
  No little room so warm and bright
  Wherein to read, wherein to write.

  II

  For I the Nonnenwerth have seen,
  And Oberwinter’s vineyards green,
  Musical Lurlei; and between
  The hills to Bingen have I been,
  Bingen in Darmstadt, where the Rhene
  Curves towards Mentz, a woody scene.

  III

  Yet never did there meet my sight,
  In any town, to left or right,
  A little room so exquisite,
  With two such couches soft and white;
  Not any room so warm and bright,
  Wherein to read, wherein to write.

[Footnote D:  ’As soon as this poem was published, I altered the second line to “All books and pictures ranged aright”; yet “Dear room, the apple of my sight” (which was much abused) is not as bad as “Do go, dear rain, do go away."’ [Note initialed ‘A.T.’ in Life, vol.  I, p. 89.] The worthlessness of much of the criticism lavished on Tennyson by his coterie of adulating friends may be judged from the fact that Arthur Hallam wrote to Tennyson that this poem was ’mighty pleasant.’]

XXXVII

=To Christopher North=

  You did late review my lays,
    Crusty Christopher;
  You did mingle blame and praise,
    Rusty Christopher. 
  When I learnt from whom it came,
  I forgave you all the blame,
    Musty Christopher;
  I could not forgive the praise,
    Fusty Christopher.

[This epigram was Tennyson’s reply to an article by Professor Wilson—­’Christopher North’—­in Blackwood’s Magazine for May 1832, dealing in sensible fashion with Tennyson’s 1830 volume, and ridiculing the fulsome praise lavished on him by his inconsiderate friends—­especially referring to Arthur Hallam’s article in the Englishman’s Magazine for August, 1831.]