Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry.
Volume III. Sorrow and Consolation. 1904. | | | | II. Parting and Absence | | “Tears, idle tears” | | Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) |
| | From “The Princess”
TEARS, idle tears, I know not what they mean, | |
| Tears from the depth of some divine despair | |
| Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, | |
| In looking on the happy autumn fields, | |
| And thinking of the days that are no more. | 5 |
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| Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, | |
| That brings our friends up from the under world; | |
| Sad as the last which reddens over one | |
| That sinks with all we love below the verge,— | |
| So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. | 10 |
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| Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns | |
| The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds | |
| To dying ears, when unto dying eyes | |
| The casement slowly grows a glimmering square; | |
| So sad, so strange, the days that are no more. | 15 |
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| Dear as remembered kisses after death, | |
| And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned | |
| On lips that are for others; deep as love, | |
| Deep as first love and wild with all regret,— | |
| O Death in Life, the days that are no more. | 20 | | | |
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