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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


SONNET (5) by ALFRED TENNYSON

Poet Analysis

First Line: THE PALLID THUNDER-STRICKEN SIGH FOR GAIN
Last Line: AND SKINS THE COLOR FROM HER TREMBLING LIPS.
Subject(s): HATE;

THE pallid thunder-stricken sigh for gain,
Down an ideal stream they ever float,
And sailing on Pactolus in a boat,
Drown soul and sense, while wistfully they strain
Weak eyes upon the glistering sands that robe
The understream. The wise, could he behold
Cathedraled caverns of thick-ribbed gold
And branching silvers of the central globe,
Would marvel from so beautiful a sight
How scorn and ruin, pain and hate could flow:
But Hatred in a gold cave sits below;
Pleached with her hair, in mail of argent light
Shot into gold, a snake her forehead clips,
And skins the color from her trembling lips.





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