XXX Sonnet
[Published in the Yorkshire Literary Annual for 1832. Edited by C.F. Edgar, London: Longman and Co. Reprinted in the Athenæum, 4 May, 1867.]
There are three things that fill my heart with sighs
And steep my soul in laughter (when I view
Fair maiden forms moving like melodies),
Dimples, roselips, and eyes of any hue.
There are three things beneath the blessed skies
For which I live—black eyes, and brown and blue;
I hold them all most dear; but oh! black eyes,
I live and die, and only die for you.
Of late such eyes looked at me—while I mused
At sunset, underneath a shadowy plane
In old Bayona, nigh the Southern Sea—
From an half-open lattice looked at me.
I saw no more only those eyes—confused
And dazzled to the heart with glorious pain.
Poems, 1833
[The poems numbered XXXI-XXXIX were published in the 1832 volume (Poems by Alfred Tennyson. London: Edward Moxon, 94 New Bond Street. MDCCCXXXIII; published December, 1832), and were thereafter suppressed.]