The Talking OakFirst published in 1842, and republished in all subsequent editions with only two slight alterations: in line 113 a mere variant in spelling, and in line 185, where in place of the present reading the editions between 1842 and 1848 read, “For, ah! the Dryad-days were brief”.Tennyson told Mr. Aubrey de Vere that the poem was an experiment meant to test the degree in which it is in the power of poetry to humanise external nature. Tennyson might have remembered that Ovid had made the same experiment nearly two thousand years ago, while Goethe had immediately anticipated him in his charmingDer Junggesett und der Mühlbach. There was certainly no novelty in such an attempt. The poem is in parts charmingly written, but the oak is certainly “garrulously given,” and comes perilously near to tediousness.Once more the gate behind me falls;Once more before my faceI see the moulder’d Abbey-walls,That stand within the chace.Beyond the lodge the city lies,Beneath its drift of smoke;And ah! with what delighted eyesI turn to yonder oak.For when my passion first began,Ere that, which in me burn’d,The love, that makes me thrice a man,Could hope itself return’d;To yonder oak within the fieldI spoke without restraint,And with a larger faith appeal’dThan Papist unto Saint.For oft I talk’d with him apart,And told him of my choice,Until he plagiarised a heart,And answer’d with a voice.Tho’ what he whisper’d, under HeavenNone else could understand;I found him garrulously given,A babbler in the land.But since I heard him make replyIs many a weary hour;’Twere well to question him, and tryIf yet he keeps the power.Hail, hidden to the knees in fern,Broad Oak of Sumner-chace,Whose topmost branches can discernThe roofs of Sumner-place!Say thou, whereon I carved her name,If ever maid or spouse,As fair as my Olivia, cameTo rest beneath thy boughs.—“O Walter, I have shelter’d hereWhatever maiden graceThe good old Summers, year by year,Made ripe in Sumner-chace:“Old Summers, when the monk was fat,And, issuing shorn and sleek,Would twist his girdle tight, and patThe girls upon the cheek.“Ere yet, in scorn of Peter’s-pence,And number’d bead, and shrift,Bluff Harry broke into the spence,[1]And turn’d the cowls adrift:“And I have seen some score of thoseFresh faces, that would thriveWhen his man-minded offset roseTo chase the deer at five;“And all that from the town would stroll,Till that wild wind made workIn which the gloomy brewer’s soulWent by me, like a stork:“The slight she-slips of loyal blood,And others, passing praise,Strait-laced, but all too full in budFor puritanic stays:[2]>“And I have shadow’d many a groupOf beauties, that were bornIn teacup-times of hood and hoop,Or while the patch was worn;“And, leg and arm with love-knots gay,About me leap’d and laugh’dThe Modish Cupid of the day,And shrill’d his tinsel shaft.“I swear (and else may insects prickEach leaf into a gall)This girl, for whom your heart is sick,Is three times worth them all;“For those and theirs, by Nature’s law,Have faded long ago;But in these latter springs I sawYour own Olivia blow,“From when she gamboll’d on the greens,A baby-germ, to whenThe maiden blossoms of her teensCould number five from ten.“I swear, by leaf, and wind, and rain(And hear me with thine ears),That, tho’ I circle in the grainFive hundred rings of years—“Yet, since I first could cast a shade,Did never creature passSo slightly, musically made,So light upon the grass:“For as to fairies, that will flitTo make the greensward fresh,I hold them exquisitely knit,But far too spare of flesh.”Oh, hide thy knotted knees in fern,And overlook the chace;And from thy topmost branch discernThe roofs of Sumner-place.But thou, whereon I carved her name,That oft hast heard my vows,Declare when last Olivia cameTo sport beneath thy boughs.“O yesterday, you know, the fairWas holden at the town;Her father left his good arm-chair,And rode his hunter down.“And with him Albert came on his.I look’d at him with joy:As cowslip unto oxlip is,So seems she to the boy.“An hour had past—and, sitting straightWithin the low-wheel’d chaise,Her mother trundled to the gateBehind the dappled grays.“But, as for her, she stay’d[3]at home,And on the roof she went,And down the way you use to come,She look’d with discontent.“She left the novel half-uncutUpon the rosewood shelf;She left the new piano shut:She could not please herself.“Then ran she, gamesome as the colt,And livelier than a larkShe sent her voice thro’ all the holtBefore her, and the park.“A light wind chased her on the wing,And in the chase grew wild,As close as might be would he clingAbout the darling child:“But light as any wind that blowsSo fleetly did she stir,The flower she touch’d on dipt and rose,And turn’d to look at her.“And here she came, and round me play’d,And sang to me the wholeOf those three stanzas that you madeAbout my ‘giant bole’;“And in a fit of frolic mirthShe strove to span my waist:Alas, I was so broad of girth,I could not be embraced.“I wish’d myself the fair young beechThat here beside me stands,That round me, clasping each in each,She might have lock’d her hands.“Yet seem’d the pressure thrice as sweetAs woodbine’s fragile hold,Or when I feel about my feetThe berried briony fold.”O muffle round thy knees with fern,And shadow Sumner-chace!Long may thy topmost branch discernThe roofs of Sumner-place!But tell me, did she read the nameI carved with many vowsWhen last with throbbing heart I cameTo rest beneath thy boughs?“O yes, she wander’d round and roundThese knotted knees of mine,And found, and kiss’d the name she found,And sweetly murmur’d thine.“A teardrop trembled from its source,And down my surface crept.My sense of touch is something coarse,But I believe she wept.“Then flush’d her cheek with rosy light,She glanced across the plain;But not a creature was in sight:She kiss’d me once again.“Her kisses were so close and kind,That, trust me on my word,Hard wood I am, and wrinkled rind,But yet my sap was stirr’d:“And even into my inmost ringA pleasure I discern’dLike those blind motions of the Spring,That show the year is turn’d.“Thrice-happy he that may caressThe ringlet’s waving balmThe cushions of whose touch may pressThe maiden’s tender palm.“I, rooted here among the groves,But languidly adjustMy vapid vegetable loves[4]With anthers and with dust:“For, ah! my friend, the days were brief[5]Whereof the poets talk,When that, which breathes within the leaf,Could slip its bark and walk.“But could I, as in times foregone,From spray, and branch, and stem,Have suck’d and gather’d into oneThe life that spreads in them,“She had not found me so remiss;But lightly issuing thro’,I would have paid her kiss for kissWith usury thereto.”O flourish high, with leafy towers,And overlook the lea,Pursue thy loves among the bowers,But leave thou mine to me.O flourish, hidden deep in fern,Old oak, I love thee well;A thousand thanks for what I learnAnd what remains to tell.“’Tis little more: the day was warm;At last, tired out with play,She sank her head upon her arm,And at my feet she lay.“Her eyelids dropp’d their silken eaves.I breathed upon her eyesThro’ all the summer of my leavesA welcome mix’d with sighs.“I took the swarming sound of life—The music from the town—The murmurs of the drum and fifeAnd lull’d them in my own.“Sometimes I let a sunbeam slip,To light her shaded eye;A second flutter’d round her lipLike a golden butterfly;“A third would glimmer on her neckTo make the necklace shine;Another slid, a sunny fleck,From head to ancle fine.“Then close and dark my arms I spread,And shadow’d all her rest—Dropt dews upon her golden head,An acorn in her breast.“But in a pet she started up,And pluck’d it out, and drewMy little oakling from the cup,And flung him in the dew.“And yet it was a graceful gift—I felt a pang withinAs when I see the woodman liftHis axe to slay my kin.“I shook him down because he wasThe finest on the tree.He lies beside thee on the grass.O kiss him once for me.“O kiss him twice and thrice for me,That have no lips to kiss,For never yet was oak on leaShall grow so fair as this.”Step deeper yet in herb and fern,Look further thro’ the chace,Spread upward till thy boughs discernThe front of Sumner-place.This fruit of thine by Love is blest,That but a moment layWhere fairer fruit of Love may restSome happy future day.I kiss it twice, I kiss it thrice,The warmth it thence shall winTo riper life may magnetiseThe baby-oak within.But thou, while kingdoms overset,Or lapse from hand to hand,Thy leaf shall never fail, nor yetThine acorn in the land.May never saw dismember thee,Nor wielded axe disjoint,That art the fairest-spoken treeFrom here to Lizard-point.O rock upon thy towery topAll throats that gurgle sweet!All starry culmination dropBalm-dews to bathe thy feet!All grass of silky feather grow—And while he sinks or swellsThe full south-breeze around thee blowThe sound of minster bells.The fat earth feed thy branchy root,That under deeply strikes!The northern morning o’er thee shootHigh up, in silver spikes!Nor ever lightning char thy grain,But, rolling as in sleep,Low thunders bring the mellow rain,That makes thee broad and deep!And hear me swear a solemn oath,That only by thy sideWill I to Olive plight my troth,And gain her for my bride.And when my marriage morn may fall,She, Dryad-like, shall wearAlternate leaf and acorn-ballIn wreath about her hair.And I will work in prose and rhyme,And praise thee more in bothThan bard has honour’d beech or lime,Or that Thessalian growth,[6]In which the swarthy ringdove sat,And mystic sentence spoke;And more than England honours that,Thy famous brother-oak,Wherein the younger Charles abodeTill all the paths were dim,And far below the Roundhead rode,And humm’d a surly hymn.[1]Spence is a larder and buttery. In thePromptorium Parverumit is defined as “cellarium promptuarium”.[2]Cf. Burns’ “godly laces,”To the Unco Righteous.[3]All editions previous to 1853 have ‘staid’.[4]The phrase is Marvell’s.Cf. To his Coy Mistress(a favourite poem of Tennyson’s), “my vegetable loves should grow”.[5]1842 to 1850. “For, ah! the Dryad-days were brief.[6]A reference to the oracular oaks of Dodona which was, of course, in Epirus, but the Ancients believed, no doubt erroneously, that there was another Dodona in Thessaly. See the article “Dodona” in Smith’sDict. of Greek and Roman Geography.
First published in 1842, and republished in all subsequent editions with only two slight alterations: in line 113 a mere variant in spelling, and in line 185, where in place of the present reading the editions between 1842 and 1848 read, “For, ah! the Dryad-days were brief”.
Tennyson told Mr. Aubrey de Vere that the poem was an experiment meant to test the degree in which it is in the power of poetry to humanise external nature. Tennyson might have remembered that Ovid had made the same experiment nearly two thousand years ago, while Goethe had immediately anticipated him in his charmingDer Junggesett und der Mühlbach. There was certainly no novelty in such an attempt. The poem is in parts charmingly written, but the oak is certainly “garrulously given,” and comes perilously near to tediousness.
Once more the gate behind me falls;Once more before my faceI see the moulder’d Abbey-walls,That stand within the chace.Beyond the lodge the city lies,Beneath its drift of smoke;And ah! with what delighted eyesI turn to yonder oak.For when my passion first began,Ere that, which in me burn’d,The love, that makes me thrice a man,Could hope itself return’d;To yonder oak within the fieldI spoke without restraint,And with a larger faith appeal’dThan Papist unto Saint.For oft I talk’d with him apart,And told him of my choice,Until he plagiarised a heart,And answer’d with a voice.Tho’ what he whisper’d, under HeavenNone else could understand;I found him garrulously given,A babbler in the land.But since I heard him make replyIs many a weary hour;’Twere well to question him, and tryIf yet he keeps the power.Hail, hidden to the knees in fern,Broad Oak of Sumner-chace,Whose topmost branches can discernThe roofs of Sumner-place!Say thou, whereon I carved her name,If ever maid or spouse,As fair as my Olivia, cameTo rest beneath thy boughs.—“O Walter, I have shelter’d hereWhatever maiden graceThe good old Summers, year by year,Made ripe in Sumner-chace:“Old Summers, when the monk was fat,And, issuing shorn and sleek,Would twist his girdle tight, and patThe girls upon the cheek.“Ere yet, in scorn of Peter’s-pence,And number’d bead, and shrift,Bluff Harry broke into the spence,[1]And turn’d the cowls adrift:“And I have seen some score of thoseFresh faces, that would thriveWhen his man-minded offset roseTo chase the deer at five;“And all that from the town would stroll,Till that wild wind made workIn which the gloomy brewer’s soulWent by me, like a stork:“The slight she-slips of loyal blood,And others, passing praise,Strait-laced, but all too full in budFor puritanic stays:[2]>“And I have shadow’d many a groupOf beauties, that were bornIn teacup-times of hood and hoop,Or while the patch was worn;“And, leg and arm with love-knots gay,About me leap’d and laugh’dThe Modish Cupid of the day,And shrill’d his tinsel shaft.“I swear (and else may insects prickEach leaf into a gall)This girl, for whom your heart is sick,Is three times worth them all;“For those and theirs, by Nature’s law,Have faded long ago;But in these latter springs I sawYour own Olivia blow,“From when she gamboll’d on the greens,A baby-germ, to whenThe maiden blossoms of her teensCould number five from ten.“I swear, by leaf, and wind, and rain(And hear me with thine ears),That, tho’ I circle in the grainFive hundred rings of years—“Yet, since I first could cast a shade,Did never creature passSo slightly, musically made,So light upon the grass:“For as to fairies, that will flitTo make the greensward fresh,I hold them exquisitely knit,But far too spare of flesh.”Oh, hide thy knotted knees in fern,And overlook the chace;And from thy topmost branch discernThe roofs of Sumner-place.But thou, whereon I carved her name,That oft hast heard my vows,Declare when last Olivia cameTo sport beneath thy boughs.“O yesterday, you know, the fairWas holden at the town;Her father left his good arm-chair,And rode his hunter down.“And with him Albert came on his.I look’d at him with joy:As cowslip unto oxlip is,So seems she to the boy.“An hour had past—and, sitting straightWithin the low-wheel’d chaise,Her mother trundled to the gateBehind the dappled grays.“But, as for her, she stay’d[3]at home,And on the roof she went,And down the way you use to come,She look’d with discontent.“She left the novel half-uncutUpon the rosewood shelf;She left the new piano shut:She could not please herself.“Then ran she, gamesome as the colt,And livelier than a larkShe sent her voice thro’ all the holtBefore her, and the park.“A light wind chased her on the wing,And in the chase grew wild,As close as might be would he clingAbout the darling child:“But light as any wind that blowsSo fleetly did she stir,The flower she touch’d on dipt and rose,And turn’d to look at her.“And here she came, and round me play’d,And sang to me the wholeOf those three stanzas that you madeAbout my ‘giant bole’;“And in a fit of frolic mirthShe strove to span my waist:Alas, I was so broad of girth,I could not be embraced.“I wish’d myself the fair young beechThat here beside me stands,That round me, clasping each in each,She might have lock’d her hands.“Yet seem’d the pressure thrice as sweetAs woodbine’s fragile hold,Or when I feel about my feetThe berried briony fold.”O muffle round thy knees with fern,And shadow Sumner-chace!Long may thy topmost branch discernThe roofs of Sumner-place!But tell me, did she read the nameI carved with many vowsWhen last with throbbing heart I cameTo rest beneath thy boughs?“O yes, she wander’d round and roundThese knotted knees of mine,And found, and kiss’d the name she found,And sweetly murmur’d thine.“A teardrop trembled from its source,And down my surface crept.My sense of touch is something coarse,But I believe she wept.“Then flush’d her cheek with rosy light,She glanced across the plain;But not a creature was in sight:She kiss’d me once again.“Her kisses were so close and kind,That, trust me on my word,Hard wood I am, and wrinkled rind,But yet my sap was stirr’d:“And even into my inmost ringA pleasure I discern’dLike those blind motions of the Spring,That show the year is turn’d.“Thrice-happy he that may caressThe ringlet’s waving balmThe cushions of whose touch may pressThe maiden’s tender palm.“I, rooted here among the groves,But languidly adjustMy vapid vegetable loves[4]With anthers and with dust:“For, ah! my friend, the days were brief[5]Whereof the poets talk,When that, which breathes within the leaf,Could slip its bark and walk.“But could I, as in times foregone,From spray, and branch, and stem,Have suck’d and gather’d into oneThe life that spreads in them,“She had not found me so remiss;But lightly issuing thro’,I would have paid her kiss for kissWith usury thereto.”O flourish high, with leafy towers,And overlook the lea,Pursue thy loves among the bowers,But leave thou mine to me.O flourish, hidden deep in fern,Old oak, I love thee well;A thousand thanks for what I learnAnd what remains to tell.“’Tis little more: the day was warm;At last, tired out with play,She sank her head upon her arm,And at my feet she lay.“Her eyelids dropp’d their silken eaves.I breathed upon her eyesThro’ all the summer of my leavesA welcome mix’d with sighs.“I took the swarming sound of life—The music from the town—The murmurs of the drum and fifeAnd lull’d them in my own.“Sometimes I let a sunbeam slip,To light her shaded eye;A second flutter’d round her lipLike a golden butterfly;“A third would glimmer on her neckTo make the necklace shine;Another slid, a sunny fleck,From head to ancle fine.“Then close and dark my arms I spread,And shadow’d all her rest—Dropt dews upon her golden head,An acorn in her breast.“But in a pet she started up,And pluck’d it out, and drewMy little oakling from the cup,And flung him in the dew.“And yet it was a graceful gift—I felt a pang withinAs when I see the woodman liftHis axe to slay my kin.“I shook him down because he wasThe finest on the tree.He lies beside thee on the grass.O kiss him once for me.“O kiss him twice and thrice for me,That have no lips to kiss,For never yet was oak on leaShall grow so fair as this.”Step deeper yet in herb and fern,Look further thro’ the chace,Spread upward till thy boughs discernThe front of Sumner-place.This fruit of thine by Love is blest,That but a moment layWhere fairer fruit of Love may restSome happy future day.I kiss it twice, I kiss it thrice,The warmth it thence shall winTo riper life may magnetiseThe baby-oak within.But thou, while kingdoms overset,Or lapse from hand to hand,Thy leaf shall never fail, nor yetThine acorn in the land.May never saw dismember thee,Nor wielded axe disjoint,That art the fairest-spoken treeFrom here to Lizard-point.O rock upon thy towery topAll throats that gurgle sweet!All starry culmination dropBalm-dews to bathe thy feet!All grass of silky feather grow—And while he sinks or swellsThe full south-breeze around thee blowThe sound of minster bells.The fat earth feed thy branchy root,That under deeply strikes!The northern morning o’er thee shootHigh up, in silver spikes!Nor ever lightning char thy grain,But, rolling as in sleep,Low thunders bring the mellow rain,That makes thee broad and deep!And hear me swear a solemn oath,That only by thy sideWill I to Olive plight my troth,And gain her for my bride.And when my marriage morn may fall,She, Dryad-like, shall wearAlternate leaf and acorn-ballIn wreath about her hair.And I will work in prose and rhyme,And praise thee more in bothThan bard has honour’d beech or lime,Or that Thessalian growth,[6]In which the swarthy ringdove sat,And mystic sentence spoke;And more than England honours that,Thy famous brother-oak,Wherein the younger Charles abodeTill all the paths were dim,And far below the Roundhead rode,And humm’d a surly hymn.
[1]Spence is a larder and buttery. In thePromptorium Parverumit is defined as “cellarium promptuarium”.
[2]Cf. Burns’ “godly laces,”To the Unco Righteous.
[3]All editions previous to 1853 have ‘staid’.
[4]The phrase is Marvell’s.Cf. To his Coy Mistress(a favourite poem of Tennyson’s), “my vegetable loves should grow”.
[5]1842 to 1850. “For, ah! the Dryad-days were brief.
[6]A reference to the oracular oaks of Dodona which was, of course, in Epirus, but the Ancients believed, no doubt erroneously, that there was another Dodona in Thessaly. See the article “Dodona” in Smith’sDict. of Greek and Roman Geography.