"Mariana in the South" is an early poem by Alfred Tennyson, first printed in 1833 and significantly revised in 1842.
Textual history
This poem had been written as early as 1831, and Hallam Tennyson tells us that it "came to my father as he was travelling between Narbonne and Perpignan".[1] The characteristic features of Southern France are vividly depicted. The poem was very greatly altered when re-published in 1842, that text being practically the final one, there being no important variants afterwards.[2]
In the edition of 1833 the poem opened with the following stanza, which was afterwards excised and the stanza of the present text substituted:
Behind the barren hill upsprung With pointed rocks against the light, The crag sharpshadowed overhung Each glaring creek and inlet bright. Far, far, one light blue ridge was seen, Looming like baseless fairyland; Eastward a slip of burning sand, Dark-rimmed with sea, and bare of green, Down in the dry salt-marshes stood That house dark latticed. Not a breath Swayed the sick vineyard underneath, Or moved the dusty southernwood. "Madonna," with melodious moan Sang Mariana, night and morn, "Madonna! lo! I am all alone, Love-forgotten and love-forlorn."
