Sweet maid, when thou art wed, the deuce avoid,
And thou shalt ne'er at least deserve a beating."
She laugh'd; he frown'd; I turn'd, and went my way.
Notwithstanding the care Tennyson has usually bestowed upon his writings, he has occasionally of late years, published poems in the magazines, remarkable for their inferiority—even as compared with ordinary magazine poetry—by no means a very high standard. Perhaps he never wrote a weaker set of lines than those printed in "Good Words" for March, 1868, they were headed—
1865-1866.
I stood on a tower in the wet,
And New Year and Old Year met,
And winds were roaring and blowing;
And I said, "O years! that meet in tears,