fleeting caprices of feminine beauty. He opposes, harmonises them, makes of them, as it were, a gallery. Here is the frolicsome child, the little fluttering fairy, who claps her tiny hands, who, "So innocent-arch, so cunning-simple, From beneath her gather'd wimple Then the pensive fair, who dreams, with large open blue eyes: "Whence that aery bloom of thine, Like a lily which the sun Looks thro' in his sad decline, Looking at the set of day." Anew "the ever varying Madeline," now smiling, then frowning, then joyful again, then angry, then uncertain between the two: "Frowns perfect-sweet along the brow Light-glooming over eyes divine, Like little clouds sun-fringed." The poet returned well pleased to all things, refined and exquisite. He caressed them so carefully, that his verses appeared at times far-fetched, affected, almost euphuistic. He gave them too much adornment and 1 Poems by A. Tennyson, 7th ed. 1851; Lilian, 5. Ibid. Adeline, 33. 3 Ibid. Madeline, 15. polishing; he seemed like an epicurean in style, as well as in beauty. He looked for pretty rustic scenes, touching remembrances, curious or pure sentiments. He made them into elegies, pastorals, and idyls. He wrote in every accent, and delighted in entering into the feelings of all ages. He wrote of St. Agnes, St. Simeon Stylites, Ulysses, Enone, Sir Galahad, Lady Clare, Fatima, the Sleeping Beauty. He imitated alternately Homer and Chaucer, Theocritus and Spenser, the old English poets and the old Arabian poets. He gave life successively to the little real events of English life, and the great fantastic adventures of extinguished chivalry. He was like those musicians who use their bow in the service of all masters. He strayed through nature and history, with no foregone conclusions, without fierce passion, bent on feeling, relishing, culling from all parts, in the flower-stand of the drawing-room and in the rustic hedgerows, the rare or wild flowers whose scent or beauty could charm or amuse him. Men entered into his pleasure; smelt the grateful bouquets which he knew so well how to put together; preferred those which he took from the country; found that his talent was nowhere more at ease. They admired the minute observation and refined sentiment which knew how to grasp and interpret the fleeting aspects of things. In the Dying Swan they forgot that the subject was almost threadbare, and the interest somewhat slight, that they might appreciate such verses as this "Some blue peaks in the distance rose, One willow over the river wept, And shook the wave as the wind did sigh; Chasing itself at its own wild will, And far thro' the marish green and still The tangled water-courses slept, Shot over with purple, and green, and yellow."1 But these melancholy pictures did not display him entirely; men accompanied him to the land of the sun, toward the soft voluptuousness of southern seas; they returned, with an involuntary fascination, to the verses in which he depicts the companions of Ulysses, who, slumbering in the land of the Lotos-eaters, happy dreamers like himself, forgot their country, and renounced action: "A land of streams! some, like a downward smoke, And some thro' wavering lights and shadows broke, They saw the gleaming river seaward flow From the inner land: far off, three mountain-tops, Stood sun-set flush'd: and, dew'd with showery drops, There is sweet music here that softer falls ... Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies. 1 Poems by A. Tennyson, 7th ed. 1851; The Dying Swan, 45. Here are cool mosses deep, And thro' the moss the ivies creep, And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep, And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep. . . Lo! in the middle of the wood, The folded leaf is woo'd from out the bud With winds upon the branch, and there Lo! sweeten'd with the summer light, All its allotted length of days, The flower ripens in its place, Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil, But, propt on beds of amaranth and moly, How sweet (while warm airs lull us, blowing lowly), Beneath a heaven dark and holy. To watch the long bright river drawing slowly His waters from the purple hill— To hear the dewy echoes calling From cave to cave thro' the thick-twined vine To watch the emerald-colour'd water falling Only to hear and see the far-off sparkling brine, Poems by A. Tennyson, 7th ed. 1851; The Lotus-Eaters, 140. III. Was this charming dreamer simply a dilettante? Men liked to consider him so; he seemed too happy to admit violent passions. Fame came to him easily and quickly, at the age of thirty. The Queen had justified the public favour by creating him Poet Laureate. A great writer declared him a more genuine poet than Lord Byron, and maintained that nothing so perfect had been seen since Shakspeare. The student, at Oxford, put Tennyson's works between an annotated Euripides and a handbook of scholastic philosophy. Young ladies found him amongst their marriage presents. He was said to be rich, venerated by his family, admired by his friends, amiable, without affectation, even unsophisticated. He lived in the country, chiefly in the Isle of Wight, amongst books and flowers, free from the annoyances, rivalries, and burdens of society, and his life was easily imagined to be a beautiful dream, as sweet as those which he had pictured. Al Yet the men who looked closer saw that there was a fire of passion under this smooth surface. A genuine poetic temperament never fails in this. It feels too acutely to be at peace. When we quiver at the least touch, we shake and tremble under great shocks. ready here and there, in his pictures of country and love, a brilliant verse broke with its glowing colour through the calm and correct outline. He had felt that strange growth of unknown powers which suddenly arrest a man with fixed gaze before revealed beauty. The specialty of the poet is to be ever young, for ever virgin. For us, the vulgar, things are threadbare; sixty centuries of civilisation have worn out their primitive VOL. IV. 2 F |