Poems, Chiefly Lyrical/The Poet's Mind

by Alfred Tennyson

For other versions of this work, see The Poet's Mind.

THE POET'S MIND.

 

I.
Vex not thou the poet's mind
With thy shallow wit:
Vex not thou the poet's mind;
For thou can'st not fathom it.
Clear and bright it should be ever,
Flowing like a crystal river;
Bright as light, and clear as wind:
Clear as summer mountainstreams,
Bright as the inwoven beams,
Which beneath their crisping sapphire
In the midday, floating o'er
The golden sands, make evermore
To a blossomstarréd shore.
Hence away, unhallowed laugher!

II.
Darkbrowed sophist, come not anear;
The poet's mind is holy ground;
Hollow smile and frozen sneer
Come not here.
Holy water will I pour
Into every spicy flower
Of the laurelshrubs that hedge it around.
The flowers would faint at your cruel cheer.
In your eye there is death,
There is frost in your breath
Which would blight the plants.
Where you stand you cannot hear
From the groves within
The wildbird's din.
In the heart of the garden the merry bird chants,
It would fall to the ground if you came in.
In the middle leaps a fountain
Like sheet lightning,
Ever brightening
With a low melodious thunder;
All day and all night it is ever drawn
From the brain of the purple mountain
Which stands in the distance yonder:
It springs on a level of bowery lawn,
And the mountain draws it from Heaven above,
And it sings a song of undying love;
And yet, though its voice be so clear and full
You would never hear it—your ears are so dull;
So keep where you are: you are foul with sin;
It would shrink to the earth if you came in.