sorrow was not less, but it was purer. Her shame was not less deep and self-condemning, but it was holier. She fixed her thoughts, now, on "that world where all are pure," and on the day when she herself should stand "cleansed and forgiven before high God." In such a spirit does she humbly ask to join the sisterhood of nuns,-to fast and grieve and pray and labor with them, hoping not for joy, on earth, but only to

66 wear out in almsdeed and in prayer

The sombre close of that voluptuous day,

Which wrought the ruin of my lord the king."

It is impossible to convey, by any analysis or by mere quotations, a just impression of the beauty and the power of this great poem. There is a sublimity and a tenderness in it that can be felt, but not described nor wholly explained. The value of the truths which it enforces is not easily to be overestimated. There are few poets who have set forth more impressively the beauty of a true repentance, and the splendor of a true forgiveness. We need only add that in this Idyl, more than in the others, Mr. Tennyson's own genius has supplied the incidents and details of the story. In all the volume there is nothing fresher and more picturesque and vivid than the episode in which the little novice tells the story of her father's ride from Lyonness, when the round table was founded, and of the joy and the exultant hope which lived among "spirits and men

Before the coming of the sinful queen."

And the introduction of this episode is only one instance of how much we owe to Mr. Tennyson, beyond what the old legends would have furnished.

We have left ourselves but little space to speak of the volume as a whole, and of some peculiar characteristics of the poetry. It will be enough to say, in general, that most of the great excellencies of style, by which the author's former poems are distinguished, are found here also, and some of them in a greater degree than heretofore. There is something of the same terseness of expression and condensation of thought that we find in "Locksley Hall," for instance. The verse seems cram

med with meaning and although unrhymed, is, nevertheless, more musical and easy than the rhymes of almost any other poet would be. The English language will owe much to Mr. Tennyson for what his poetry has done to restore to it something of the strength and beauty which it had lost or was losing. It is most noticeable that in this volume, even more than in his former ones, he uses an uncommon number of old Saxon words, such words as give to Milton's verse much of its strength and of its simple grandeur,-and that, on the other hand, he excludes many of the more fashionable and polysyllabic words of Latin origin. To this peculiarity is to be attributed much of the majestic simplicity which is so observable throughout the Idyls; and also the force of such a verse as the following, in which Geraint imposes on the prostrate Edyrn the conditions of his liberty:

These two things shalt thou do or thou shalt die."

These, now, are little, stubbed, common, monosyllabic words, but, for that very reason, they are wonderfully strong and most appropriate to such a use. And in his preference for this sort of diction, Mr. Tennyson has rescued from oblivion some valuable words and made them new again. We cannot instance them, nor can we stop to point out others which he himself has coined for special uses, and which have passed already to a permanent place in the language. It is evident enough that, in his study of the "English undefiled" in which the romances of Arthur are preserved, he has acquired the style and the vocabulary, as well as the spirit of them.

Those critics who object to the formation and use of compound words, of such a sort as those which give such vast advantage to the German writers, will find enough to condemn in this new volume. For our own part, we cannot help believing that this copious source of strength has been too little made available, and that Mr. Tennyson is doing a good work in showing the resources of the English language in this direction,-resources not equal to those of the German, but yet not insignificant.

But what we chiefly wish to call attention to, in this review of

the whole volume, is the exquisite adaptation of the sound and rythm of the verse to the sentiment which it expresses,—an adaptation frequently apparent in Mr. Tennyson's former poetry, and some admirable instances of which were quoted in a former volume of this journal.* How distinctly, for instance, is the voice of many waters vocal in these verses:

"as one,

That listens near a torrent mountain-brook,

All through the crash of the near cataract hears

The drumming thunder of the huger fall

At distance."

And so, again, how apt the movement is, when Enid hears

"The sound of many a heavily-gallopping hoof."

So in "Vivien," when the wileful witch was

"dazzled by the livid-flickering fork,

And deafened with the stammering cracks and claps

That followed."

"and ever overhead

Bellowed the tempest, and the rotten branch

Snapt in the rushing of the river-rain

Above them."

Almost perfect, in its way, and illustrative of the same beauty of rythm and sound is the description of the hermit's cave in the third Idyl:

"A hermit, who had prayed, labored and prayed,
And ever laboring had scooped himself

In the white rock a chapel and a hall

On massive columns, like a shorecliff cave,

And cells and chambers: all were fair and dry;
The green light from the meadows underneath
Struck up and lived along the milky roofs;
And in the meadows tremulous aspen-trees
And poplars made a noise of falling showers."

How vivid is the description of the tournament at Camelot :

* New Englander, Vol. VII, p. 212-3.

"The trumpets blew; and then did either side,
They that assailed, and they that held the lists,
Set lance in rest, strike spur, suddenly move,
Meet in the midst, and there so furiously
Shock, that a man far-off might well perceive,
If any man that day were left afield,

The hard earth shake, and a low thunder of arms."

In "Guinevere," perhaps the measure is more perfectly managed than in any of the other Idyls, but we cannot do more than merely call attention to such passages as this:

"A murmuring whisper through the nunnery ran,

or this, in which the slow, incessant lapse of weary time is represented:

"The days will grow to weeks, the weeks to months,
The months will add themselves and make the years,
The years will roll into the centuries,

And mine will ever be a name of scorn."

But we must not multiply quotations. The extracts we have given are enough to show the exquisite care and labor with which the verse has been perfected.

We would be glad to call attention to the wonderful picturesqueness of some of the scenes and incidents; to the peculiar beauty of the images drawn from the sea-shore and the ocean,-images which show how carefully the Laureate has studied nature, in his sea-side home on the Isle of Wight; to the startling vividness with which his dreams are told, such dreams as Enid's, when she thought herself a dull and faded

creature

"Among her burnished sisters of the pool,"—

or such as Guinevere's, who

"dreamed

An awful dream; for then she seemed to stand

On some vast plain before a setting sun,
And from the sun there swiftly made at her
A ghastly something, and its shadow flew
Before it, till it touched her, and she turned-
When lo! her own, that broadening from her feet,
And blackening, swallowed all the land, and in it
Far cities burnt, and with a cry she woke."

We can scarcely forbear, also, to show some specimens of the very quiet and subtle, but exqisitely pleasant humor which, now and then, flashes out upon the surface of the poems, such as sparkles in the sudden anger of Geraint, when all the town seemed mad about "the sparrow-hawk,"or such as manifests itself in the description of the same knight's conduct when he ate the "mowers' victual" up and left them "laboring dinnerless." More willingly we shall refrain from searching through the pages which are filled with so much truth and beauty, to find some petty imperfections or some trifling faults. Some such, there doubtless are, but it shall be the privilege of other critics to exhibit them. We are content to love the beauty of the poems and to admire their power. We are grateful for the truth they teach,―for all the pictures of the true and false, the beautiful and hateful, the good and bad, which they contain. And we rejoice to look continually, as they do, beyond the present, and away from this unstable world,-away from wars and tournaments, from witcheries and jealousies, from pride and passion, and from every sin and sorrow,-far away

"To where beyond these voices there is peace!"