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by Alfred Tennyson, Lord (1809 - 1892)

'The fault was mine, the fault was mine'
Language: English 
1.
'The fault was mine, the fault was mine' -- 
Why am I sitting here so stunn'd and still,
Plucking the harmless wild-flower on the hill? -- 
It is this guilty hand! -- 
And there rises ever a passionate cry
From underneath in the darkening land -- 
What is it, that has been done?
O dawn of Eden bright over earth and sky,
The fires of Hell brake out of thy rising sun,
The fires of Hell and of Hate;
For she, sweet soul, had hardly spoken a word,
When her brother ran in his rage to the gate,
He came with the babe-faced lord;
Heap'd on her terms of disgrace,
And while she wept, and I strove to be cool,
He fiercely gave me the lie,
Till I with as fierce an anger spoke,
And he struck me, madman, over the face,
Struck me before the languid fool,
Who was gaping and grinning by:
Struck for himself an evil stroke;
Wrought for his house an irredeemable woe;
For front to front in an hour we stood,
And a million horrible bellowing echoes broke
From the red-ribb'd hollow behind the wood,
And thunder'd up into Heaven the Christless code,
That must have life for a blow.
Ever and ever afresh they seem'd to grow.
Was it he lay there with a fading eye?
'The fault was mine,' he whisper'd, 'fly!'
Then glided out of the joyous wood
The ghastly Wraith of one that I know;
And there rang on a sudden a passionate cry,
A cry for a brother's blood:
It will ring in my heart and my ears, till I die, till I die.

2.
Is it gone? my pulses beat -- 
What was it? a lying trick of the brain?
Yet I thought I saw her stand,
A shadow there at my feet,
High over the shadowy land.
It is gone; and the heavens fall in a gentle rain,
When they should burst and drown with deluging storms
The feeble vassals of wine and anger and lust,
The little hearts that know not how to forgive:
Arise, my God, and strike, for we hold Thee just,
Strike dead the whole weak race of venomous worms,
That sting each other here in the dust;
We are not worthy to live.

Available sung texts:   ← What is this?

•   A. Somervell 

About the headline (FAQ)

View text with all available footnotes

Confirmed with Maud, and Other Poems. By Alfred Tennyson, D.C.L., Poet Laureate. A New Edition, London: Edward Moxon & Co., Dover Street, 1859.


Text Authorship:

  • by Alfred Tennyson, Lord (1809 - 1892), no title, appears in Maud, Part 2, no. 1 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

  • by Arthur Somervell, Sir (1863 - 1937), "The fault was mine", published 1898 [ voice and piano ], from Cycle of Songs from Tennyson's Maud, no. 10, London: Boosey & Hawkes [sung text checked 1 time]

Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 50
Word count: 378

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