Dear as remember'd kisses after death, O death in life, the days that are no more. It has been said that the whole of In Memoriam is in the following; and the expression is not absurd. "Break, break, break, On thy cold gray stones, oh Sea! O well for the fisherman's boy, That he shouts with his sister at play! O well for the sailor lad, That he sings in his boat on the bay. And the stately ships go on To the haven under the hill; But oh for the touch of a vanish'd hand, Break, break, break, At the foot of thy crags, oh Sea! But the tender grace of a day that is dead The two pieces preceding the last are from The Princess. So is the next. The heroine of that poem is represented standing on the roof of her palace, a golden circlet round her hair and a babe in her arms, and uplifting, “like that great dame of Lapidoth," the martial strain. It is uttered in exultation over the defeat of her enemies by her selected champions. I Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n: the seed, A thousand arms, and rushes to the sun. Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n: they came; And would have strewn it, and are fall'n themselves. Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n: they came, Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n: they struck; The glittering axe was broken in their arms, Our enemies have fall'n, but this shall grow A night of Summer from the heat, a breadth I add only that singular, mysterious, yet strangely fascinating lyric, a play of wild fantastic melody, and flashing, foam-like color, which was composed, I believe, to the Killarney bugle music. The descriptive touches in the first verse are superb. “The splendor falls on castle walls And snowy summits old in story; The long light shakes across the lakes, And the wild cataract leaps in glory. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying: O hark! O hear! how thin and clear, The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! O love, they die in yon rich sky, They faint on hill or field or river: Our echoes roll from soul to soul, And grow forever and forever. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying. And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.” Historical parallels are not always or entirely to be relied on; for time never accurately repeats itself, and external resemblances may divert attention from essential though deep-lying differences. The British world of to-day is altogether different from that of the commencement of last century. Yet I cannot but perceive, if not a parallel, at least a correspondence, between the poetry of Tennyson and that of the Pope and Dryden school. Since the Puritan era, there had been in Great Britain no period of excitement so deep and general, as that of the end of last century and the commencement of the present. In the former period, the minds of men were shaken in religious and civil revolutions; in the latter, though religion had receded into the background, the convulsive strugglings of democracy, and the magnificent war-drama with all Europe for a stage, had awakened every energy and every enthusiasm that slumbers in the human breast. These two periods seem to answer each other with their rolling thunders, silencing all intermediate noises. Each had a poetical literature. That of the Puritan age was concentrated in one man, John Milton. He was a literature in himself, an ample, a magnificent literature. The earnestness of that heroic time, of which throbbings may yet be detected both in Britain and America, will burn, through the night of all ages, in his sublimest epic. The poetic literature of the modern period is represented in Great Britain by a multitude of names, Scott, Byron, Wordsworth, and the rest; men endowed with a poetic genius so true and so powerful, that they plainly tower above all who had preceded them since the Puritan era: but whose highest applause it must be, that their united voice wakes an echo worthy to reply to the single harp of Milton. After the Puritan poetry, came the poetry of Dryden and Pope. This was calmer, smoother, smaller. Neatness and elegance succeeded to rugged strength, appropriate thoughts neatly expressed, balanced sentences trimly versified, to great ideas chafing in the harness of diction, and burdened sentences rolling on in stern majestic rhythm. Dryden is a versifier but no poet, said Milton: the Puritan poet would probably have considered inconsistent with the poetic character that power of dexterous manipulation, that capacity of delicate chiselling, by which the poets of the new school set so much store. To the poetry of the modern revolutionary time, succeeded the poetry of Tennyson. It contrasted with that immediately preceding, in the perfection of its finish, and in its deeper, more delicate harmony. It was also, on the whole, more calm and reflective. So far it may correspond to the poetry of Pope and his compeers. But the parallel cannot be carried further. The poetry of Tennyson is pervaded by an intense realism, by a deep unvarying truth, which sets it altogether apart from that of the school of Pope. Here all passion, from the panting ecstacy of first love to the satisfied, smiling happiness of connubial affection, is voiced with pure veracity. Here the deepest thoughts that can occupy the human mind are earnestly grappled with, and every shred of conventionality is flung aside. The very finish, the polish and delicacy, are not the result. of deliberate manipulation, but the natural mode in which a poet, endowed with marvellous powers of expression, and accustomed to wander through all the Muses' walk, clothes his ideas and emotions. Such a poet cannot soon be popular with the million; but as the last and most exquisite culture of educated minds, as the ultimate sublimation of thought and beauty, as the most refined expression of the most refined civilization that ever dawned upon the world, his works must continue to exercise a mighty influence upon the leading intellects of those nations which lead the world. FIRST SERIES. 13 |