Mellifluous Mondays: More Tennyson

Some nice cheery Victorian verse to start off the week.

The Splendour Falls

The splendour falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story;
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going!
O sweet and far from cliff and scar
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O love, they die in yon rich sky,
They faint on hill or field or river,
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow for ever and for ever.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.

Tennyson was such a jolly optimistic fellow.

In the mind of these melancholy Victorian poets, splendour always belonged to the past, when peace and beauty and religious faith were realities. Now in the cynical modern age, the splendour is dying. It is giving place to agnosticism, industrial filth, and social upheaval. Nobody believes in "Elfland" anymore. I think that in this case, you can use Elfland as a code name for just about anything, from class structure to Christianity . . . anything that depends on faith.