Alfred was born in the parsonage at Somersby (near Spilsby) in 1810. In 1829, he gained the Chancellor's medal for the English prize poem, his subject being Timbuctoo.' Previous to this, in conjunction with his brother Charles, he published anonymously a small volume entitled Poems by Two Brothers.' In 1850 appeared Poems, chiefly Lyrical, by Alfred Tennyson.' This volume contained poems since altered and incorporated in later collections. These early productions had the faults of youthful genius-irregularity, indistinctness of conception, florid puerilities, and occasional affectation. In such poems, however, as Mariana,' 'Recollections of the Arabian Nights,' and 'Claribel,' it was obvious that a true original poet had arisen. In 1833, Mr. Tennyson issued another volume, shewing an advance in · poetical power and in variety of style, though the collection met with severe treatment from the critics. For nine years the poet continued silent. In 1842, he reappeared with Poems,' in two volumes-this third series being a reprint of some of the pieces in the former volumes, considerably altered, with many new poems, including the most striking and popular of all his productions. These were of various classes-fragments of legendary and chivalrous story, as • Morte d'Arthur,' 'Godiva,' &c.; or pathetic and beautiful, as The May Queen' and Dora'; or impassioned love-poems, as The Gardener's Daughter,' The Miller's Daughter,' 'The Talking Oak,' and 'Locksley Hall.' The last is the most finished of Tennyson's works, full of passionate grandeur and intensity of feeling and imagination. It partly combines the energy and impetuosity of Byron with the pictorial beauty and melody of Coleridge. The lover of 'Locksley Hall' is ardent, generous, and noble-minded, nourishing a youth sublime' with lofty aspirations and dreams of felicity. His passion is at first returned: Extracts from Locksley Hall.' Love took up the glass of Time, and turned it in his glowing hands; Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might; Many a morning on the moorland did we hear the copses ring. The fair one proves faithless, and after a tumult of conflicting passions-indignaHon. grief, self-reproach, and despair-the sufferer finds relief in glowing visions of future enterprise and the world's progress. For I dipt into th· future. far as human eye could see. Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle flags were furled There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, There is a marvellous brilliancy of colouring and force of sentiment and expression in this poem, while the versification is perfect. The ballad strains of Tennyson, and particularly his musical'Oriana,' also evince consummate art; and when he is purely descriptive, nothing can exceed the minute fidelity with which he paints the English landscape. The poet having shifted his residence from Lincolnshire to the Isle of Wight, his scene-painting partook of the change.* The following is from his Gardener's Daughter:' Not wholly in the busy world, nor quite A league of grass, washed by a slow broad stream, Barge laden, to three arches of a bridge 1 he fields between Are dewy-fresh, browsed by deep-uddered kine, The lime a summer home of murmurous wings. The poet, while a dweller amidst the fens of Lincolnshire, painted morasses, quiet meres, and sighing reeds. The exquisitely modulated poem of The Dying Swan' affords a picture drawn, we think, with wonderful delicacy: Some bine peaks in the distance rose, One willow over the river wept. And shook the wave as the wind did sigh; The route from Alum Bay to Carisbrooke takes you past Farringford, where resided Alfred Tennyson. The house stands so far back as to be invisible from the road, but the grounds A careless ordered garden. Close to the ridge of a noble down looked very pretty, and thoroughly English. In another verse of the poem from which I have quoted-the invitation to the Rev. F. D. Maurice-he exactly describes the situa tion of Farringford: For groves of pine on either hand. Every one well acquainted with Tennyson's writings will have noticed how the spirit of the scenery which he has depicted has changed from the glooming flats.' the level waste' were stretched wide and wild the waste enormous marsh.' which were the reflex of his Lincolnshire observation, to the beautiful meadow and orchard, thoroughly English ruralities of The Gardener's Daughter and The Brook Many glimpses in the neighbourhood of Farringford will call to mind descriptive passages in these last named poems.-Letter in the Daily News. The laureate has also an estate in Surrey (Aldworth, Haslemere) to which he retreats when the tourists and admirers become oppressive in the Isle of Wight. Above in the wind was the swallow, Shot over with purple, and green, and yellow. The ballad of The May Queen' introduces similar scenery: When from the dry dark wold the summer airs Plow cool On the out-grass and the sword-grass, and the bulrush in the pool. "The Talking Oak' is the title of a fanciful and beautiful poem of seventy-five stanzas, in which a lover and an oak-tree converse upon the charms of a certain fair Olivia. The oak-tree thus describes to the lover her visit to the park in which it grew: 'I wished myself the fair young beech O muffle round thy knees with fern, But tell me, did she read the name 'O yes; she wandered round and round These knotted knees of mine, And found, and kissed the name she four.d. And sweetly murmured thine. 'A tear-drop trembled from its scurce, And down my surface crept My sense of touch is something coarse, But I believe she wept. The Talking Oak.' But not a creature was in sight: 'Her kisses were so close and kind, 'And even into my inmost ring A pleasure I discerned, Like those blind motions of the Spring, ... I. rooted here among the groves, My vapid vegetable loves With anthers and with dust: For ah! my friend, the days were brief Whereof the poets talk, When that, which breathes within, the leaf, Could slip its bark and walk. 'But could I, as in times foregone. From spray, and branch, and stem, 'She had not found me so remiss; O flourish high, with leafy towers, Pursue thy loves among the bowers, O flourish, hidden deep in fern, Old oak. I love thee well; "Then flushed her cheek with rosy light; A thousand thanks for what I learn, She glanced across the plain; And what remains to tell. And the poet, in conclusion, promises to praise the mystic tree even more than England honours his brother-oak, Wherein the younger Charles abode Till all the paths were dim, And far below the Roundhead rode, The last two lines furnish a finished little picture. Still more dramatic in effect is the portrait of the heroine of Coventry. Godica. She sought her lord, and found him, where he strode She told him of their tears, And prayed him, If they pay this tax, they starve.' You would not let your little finger ache For such as these ? But I would die,' said she. O ay, ay, ay, you talk !'-'Alas!' she said, He parted, wit great strides among his dogs. So left alone, the passions of her mind- Then she rode forth, clothed on with chastity: And one low churl, compact of thankless earth, Peeped-but his eyes, before they had their will, And dropt before him. So the Powers, who wait And she, that knew not, passed: and all at once, With twelve great shocks of sound, the shameless noon Her bower; whence reissuing, robed and crowned, And built herself an everlasting name. An extract from The Lotos-eaters' will give a specimen of our poet's modulations of rhythm. This poem represents the luxurious lazy sleepiness said to be produced in those who feed upon the lotos, and contains passages not surpassed by the finest descriptions in the Castle of Indolence.' It is rich in striking and appropriate imagery, and is sung to a rhythm which is music itself. The Lotos-enters. Why are we weighed upon with heaviness, Still from one sorrow to another thrown.... Lo! in the middle of the wood. The folded leaf is wooed from out the bud Lo sweetened with the summer light. The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow, All its allotted length of days, The flower ripens in its place, Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil, Let us alone. ... Time driveth onward fast, In ever climbing up the climbing wave? All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave In silence: ripen. fall and cease: Give us long rest or death, dark death. or dreamful ease. How swoot it worn, hearing the downward stream, With half-shut eves ever to seem Falling asleep in a half-dream!... |