A Little Tennyson

Like certain pieces of music that stir memories and transport one back to a different time and place, poetry revisited can agitate those thoughts past and nearly put you back in an exact spot and date. As the mess in Vietnam was heading to a less than spotless final page, many of us still holding draft cards breathed a collective sigh of relief along with a world that was simply fatigued by that sad chapter.

During that time by near accident I came across a portion of Tennyson's Locksley Hall that among its trochaic couplets spoke of a hope for the future in the aftermath of a senseles protracted tragedy. It surfaced recently, again by near accident, and I share it with you readers.

Best to all,

Lloyd

from Locksley Hall

(ca. 1840)
by
Alfred Lord Tennyson

. . .

For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;

Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight dropping down with costly bales;

Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain'd a ghastly dew
From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue;

Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm,
With the standards of the peoples plunging thro' the thunder-storm;

Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle-flags were furl'd
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.

There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.

. . .

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