Tennyson: Selected Poems (Penguin Classics)
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Tennyson's Poems


First printed in 1830.


1


Who would be

A merman bold,

Sitting alone,

Singing alone

Under the sea,

With a crown of gold,

On a throne?


2


I would be a merman bold;

I would sit and sing the whole of the day;

I would fill the sea-halls with a voice of power;

But at night I would roam abroad and play

With the mermaids in and out of the rocks,

Dressing their hair with the white sea-flower;

And holding them back by their flowing locks

I would kiss them often under the sea,

And kiss them again till they kiss'd me

Laughingly, laughingly;

And then we would wander away, away

To the pale-green sea-groves straight and high,

Chasing each other merrily.


3


There would be neither moon nor star;

But the wave would make music above us afar--

Low thunder and light in the magic night--

Neither moon nor star.

We would call aloud in the dreamy dells,

Call to each other and whoop and cry

All night, merrily, merrily;

They would pelt me with starry spangles and shells,

Laughing and clapping their hands between,

All night, merrily, merrily:

But I would throw to them back in mine

Turkis and agate and almondine: [1]

Then leaping out upon them unseen

I would kiss them often under the sea,

And kiss them again till they kiss'd me

Laughingly, laughingly.

Oh! what a happy life were mine

Under the hollow-hung ocean green!

Soft are the moss-beds under the sea;

We would live merrily, merrily.


[Foootnote 1: Almondine. This should be "almandine," the word probably] being a corruption of alabandina, a gem so called because found at Alabanda in Caria; it is a garnet of a violet or amethystine tint. 'Cf.' Browning, 'Fefine at the Fair', xv., "that string of mock-turquoise, these 'almandines' of glass".

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