A reading of "Tears, Idle Tears" by Lord Alfred Tennyson — a poem about memory, loss, and the peculiar ache of realizing that some of the most beautiful parts of life survive only because they are gone.

Recorded live. I read the romantic canon out loud — the works I felt I should read before I die — and you're welcome to come sit for the next one. Subscribe and ring the bell to catch the next live reading.

THE POEM

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more.

LISTEN

Full episodes, wherever you get podcasts:
https://open.spotify.com/show/5Lk6a6N...

The reading room — letters, and the before-I-die list:
ravynreads.substack.com

RavynReads is poetry read aloud, plus Shelf Lives: hour-long conversations about the books that changed people's lives.

Everywhere: @RavynReads

#Tennyson #TearsIdleTears #poetry #victorianpoetry #darkacademia #poetryreading #booktok