Alfred Browning Stanley Tennyson

A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems Alfred Browning Stanley Tennyson

book Excerpt: ... The thunder muttering on the hills, The song of birds, the babbling rills, The painted flowers and stars, This pageantry of earth did seemThe parcel of a timeless dream. He lived beyond the bars. It was to him a vague mirageOr memory of a storied pageWith only that appeal; But oftentimes a sound or sightWould bring to him his own delightMore subtle than the real. And with his sense of entityHalf lost, he raised a vacant eyeInto the empyrean. And as he lay upon his backThe pealing centuries rolled back.... He saw the blue Ægean. And thus he dreamt: "My palace homeWith minaret and marble domeUpon the sapphire strait. My garden full of nightingales, One singing as the other failsWhile evening groweth late."And from my watch-tower I beholdBeneath a sky of molten goldMy argosies return. A homeward wind is in their sails, Freighted are they with costly bales, Vast fire...