ELEÄNORE.

BY ALFRED TENNYSON.

THY dark eyes opened not

Nor first revealed themselves to English air,
For there is nothing here,

Which from the outward to the inward brought
Moulded thy baby thought.

Far off from human neighbourhood,

Thou wert born on a summer morn,

A mile beneath the cedarwood.

Thy bounteous forehead was not fanned
With breezes from our oaken glades,
But thou wert nursed in some delicious land
Of lavish lights and floating shades:
And flattering thy childish thought,
The oriental fairy brought,

At the moment of thy birth,

From old wellheads of haunted rills,

And the hearts of purple hills,

And shadowed coves on a sunny shore,

The choicest wealth of all the earth, Jewel or shell, or starry ore,

To deck thy cradle, Eleanore.

How may fullsailed verse express,
How may measured words adore
The fullflowing harmony

Of thy swanlike stateliness,

Eleanore ?