Now Sleeps The Crimson Petal
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font:
The fire-fly wakens: waken thou with me.
Now droops the milkwhite peacock like a ghost,
And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.
Now lies the Earth all Danaë to the stars,
And all thy heart lies open unto me.
Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves
A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.
Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,
And slips into the bosom of the lake:
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip
Into my bosom and be lost in me.
Lord Alfred Tennyson was born 1809 in Somersby,
Lincolnshire, England. He was the fourth of twelve children. He
had a troubled youth, conscious that his family was not wealthy
and afraid of mental illness because of the epilepsy that ran
in his family (made worse in his fathers and brothers case by
excessive drinking.)
He studied at cambridge and eventually became the most popular
poets of the Victorian era, becoming Poet Laureate and lived to
a ripe old age of 83.
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