Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font:
The firefly wakens: waken thou with me.
[Now droops the milk-white peacock like a ghost,
And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.
Now lies the Earth all Danaë to the stars,
And all thy heart lies open unto me.
Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves
A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.]
Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,
And slips into the bosom of the lake:
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip
Into my bosom and be lost in me.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–92) came from a large Lincolnshire family. His father, a rector, was emotionally unstable as were many of his siblings. This strain of madness within his family – and his own fear of insanity, drug addiction and alcoholism – is clearly reflected in
his poetry.
He began writing poetry at the age of eight, possibly as a refuge from the excessive behaviour and emotional drama within his home, and then followed his two older brothers to Trinity College Cambridge. In 1827 his first book of poetry: Poems by Two Brothers was published.
For many years success eluded Tennyson. His poetry was not popular at first and in 1832 his first collection Poems, was damned by the critics. Hampered by poverty and growing fears of madness he refused to have any more verse published for ten years, but finally
broke his silence in 1842 with two new volumes of Poems. To his astonishment these were received with wild acclaim and Tennyson’s reputation began to flourish.
He was made Poet Laureate in 1850 and finally received a baronetcy from Queen Victoria in 1884 having previously refused the honour several times.
The first English writer to be raised to the peerage, Tennyson is most popularly known for ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’, ‘The Lady of Shalott’, ‘Maud’ (later set to music in a song cycle by Sir Arthur Somervell), Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal (famously set by Quilter) and ‘In Memoriam’. He died aged 83 and is buried in Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey.
In his setting of the song, Quilter omitted six lines (the central three couplets) from the original text. The full poem, with comes from Part VII of a long narrative poem entitled The Princess, A Medley (1847) shows us a stately garden, with a long walk where a cypress
tree stands. There is a stylish font made of sparkling rock crystal (porphyry), some white peacocks, and a lake. The setting is elegant and rich. Night has fallen, there is no breeze, the flowers are sleeping and the goldfinch (gold fin) has settled on the font for the night. As the firefly wakens so does the poet long to ‘awaken’ his lover. He sees her glimmering in the darkness, ghostly and beautiful like the white peacock.
After the scene setting comes a reference to Danaë, a character in Greek myth who was the daughter of King Akrisios. After a prophecy foretelling the king’s death at the hands of his grandson, Akrisios imprisons his daughter in a tower to avoid the possibility of pregnancy
and the predicted outcome of his own murder. The tower, however, is no barrier to the god Zeus, who enters Danaë’s chamber in a shower of gold and has his way with her. The ensuing child is Perseus, who of course fulfills the prophecy and kills his grandfather.
The view opens out from the garden to the universe. There are stars and meteors, which, like the fireflies draw flaming furrows across the dark sky, an image that suggests union of the minds but is clearly rooted in the idea of sex.
Now we are back at the second verse of the abridged song. This opens with the image of the lily, again both romantic and carnal, and a slipping downwards into passion. The final two lines of the poem are a clear invitation to love.
