The Mute Lovers On the Railway Journey
The Mute Lovers On the Railway Journey
Original Text
The Collected Sonnets of Charles (Tennyson) Turner. Ed. F. B. Pinion and M. Pinion (London: MacMillan Press, 1988) : 189.
1They bade farwell; but neither spoke of love.
2The railway bore him off with rapid pace,
3He gazed awhile on Edith's garden grove,
4Till alien woodlands overlapp'd the place --
5Alas! he cried, how mutely did we part!
6I fear'd to test the truth I seemed to see.
7Oh! that the love dream in her timid heart
8Had sigh'd itself awake, and called for me!
9I could have answer'd with a ready mouth,
10And told a sweeter dream; but each forebore.
11He saw the hedgegrows fleeting to the north
12On either side, whilst he look'd sadly forth:
13Then set himself to face the vacant south,
14While fields and woods ran back to Edith More.
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2004
Rhyme
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