Note 14 — Early Poems (continued 2)

In 1833 we have the following, which in 1842 was excised and the present text substituted:— We have had enough of motion, Weariness and wild alarm, Tossing on the tossing ocean, Where the tusked sea-horse walloweth In a stripe of grass-green calm, At noontide beneath the lee; And the monstrous narwhale swalloweth His foam-fountains in the sea. Long enough the wine-dark wave our weary bark did carry. This is lovelier and sweeter, Men of Ithaca, this is meeter, In the hollow rosy vale to tarry, Like a dreamy Lotos-eater, a delirious Lotos-eater! We will eat the Lotos, sweet As the yellow honeycomb, In the valley some, and some On the ancient heights divine; And no more roam, On the loud hoar foam, To the melancholy home At the limit of the brine, The little isle of Ithaca, beneath the day’s decline. We’ll lift no more the shattered oar, No more unfurl the straining sail; With the blissful Lotos-eaters pale We will abide in the golden vale Of the Lotos-land till the Lotos fail; We will not wander more. Hark! how sweet the horned ewes bleat On the solitary steeps, And the merry lizard leaps, And the foam-white waters pour; And the dark pine weeps, And the lithe vine creeps, And the heavy melon sleeps On the level of the shore: Oh! islanders of Ithaca, we will not wander more, Surely, surely slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore Than labour in the ocean, and rowing with the oar, Oh! islanders of Ithaca, we will return no more. The fine picture in the text of the gods of Epicurus was no doubt immediately suggested by Lucretius, iii., 15 seq., while the Icaromenippus of Lucian furnishes an excellent commentary on Tennyson’s picture of those gods and what they see. Cf. too the Song of the Parcae in Goethe’s Iphigenie auf Tauris, iv., 5.