SELECTIONS FROM WORDSWORTH AND TENNYSON

Edited, with Introduction and Notes

by

PELHAM EDGAR, Ph. D. 

Professor of English, Victoria Coll. , Univ. Of Toronto

TorontoThe Macmillan Company of Canada, Limited

1917

PREFACE

The poems contained in this volume are those required for JuniorMatriculation, Ontario 1918. 

CONTENTS

Wordsworth

 Michael To the Daisy To the Cuckoo Nutting Influence of Natural Objects To the Rev. Dr. Wordsworth Elegiac Stanzas "It is Not to be Thought of" Written in London, September, 1802 London, 1802 "Dark and More Dark the Shades of Evening Fell" "Surprised by Joy--Impatient as the Wind" "Hail, Twilight, Sovereign of One Peaceful Hour" "I Thought of Thee, My Partner and My Guide" "Such Age, How Beautiful!"

Tennyson

 Oenone The Epic Morte d'Arthur The Brook In Memoriam

Wordsworth

 Biographical Sketch Chronological Table Appreciations References on Life and Works Notes

Tennyson

 Biographical Sketch Chronological Table Appreciations References on Life and Works Notes

 WORDSWORTH

 MICHAEL

 A PASTORAL POEM

 If from the public way you turn your steps Up the tumultuous brook of Green-head Ghyll, You will suppose that with an upright path Your feet must struggle; in such bold ascent The pastoral mountains front you, face to face. But, courage! for around that boisterous brook The mountains have all opened out themselves, And made a hidden valley of their own. No habitation can be seen; but they Who journey thither find themselves alone 10 With a few sheep, with rocks and stones, and kites That overhead are sailing in the sky. It is in truth an utter solitude; Nor should I have made mention of this Dell But for one object which you might pass by, 15 Might see and notice not. Beside the brook Appears a straggling heap of unhewn stones, And to that simple object appertains A story, --unenriched with strange events, Yet not unfit, I deem, for the fireside, 20 Or for the summer shade. It was the first Of those domestic tales that spake to me Of Shepherds, dwellers in the valleys, men Whom I already loved:--not verily For their own sakes, but for the fields and hills 25 Where was their occupation and abode. And hence this Tale, while I was yet a Boy Careless of books, yet having felt the power Of Nature, by the gentle agency Of natural objects, led me on to feel 30 For passions that were not my own, and think (At random and imperfectly indeed) On man, the heart of man, and human life. Therefore, although it be a history Homely and rude, I will relate the same 35 For the delight of a few natural hearts; And, with yet fonder feeling, for the sake Of youthful Poets, who among these hills Will be my second self when I am gone. 

 Upon the forest-side in Grasmere Vale 40 There dwelt a Shepherd, Michael was his name; An old man, stout of heart, and strong of limb. His bodily frame had been from youth to age Of an unusual strength: his mind was keen, Intense, and frugal, apt for all affairs, 45 And in his shepherd's calling he was prompt And watchful more than ordinary men. Hence had he learned the meaning of all winds, Of blasts of every tone; and oftentimes, When others heeded not, he heard the South 50 Make subterraneous music, like the noise Of bagpipers on distant Highland hills. The Shepherd, at such warning, of his flock Bethought him, and he to himself would say, "The winds are now devising work for me!" 55 And, truly, at all times, the storm, that drives The traveller to a shelter, summoned him Up to the mountains: he had been alone Amid the heart of many thousand mists, That came to him, and left him, on the heights. 60 So lived he till his eightieth year was past. And grossly that man errs, who should suppose That the green valleys, and the streams and rocks, Were things indifferent to the Shepherd's thoughts. Fields, where with cheerful spirits he had breathed 65 The common air; hills, which with vigorous step He had so often climbed; which had impressed So many incidents upon his mind Of hardship, skill or courage, joy or fear; Which, like a book, preserved the memory 70 Of the dumb animals whom he had saved, Had fed or sheltered, linking to such acts The certainty of honorable gain; Those fields, those hills--what could they less?--had laid Strong hold on his affections, were to him 75 A pleasurable feeling of blind love, The pleasure which there is in life itself. 

 His days had not been passed in singleness. His Helpmate was a comely matron, old-- Though younger than himself full twenty years. 80 She was a woman of a stirring life, Whose heart was in her house: two wheels she had Of antique form; this large, for spinning wool; That small, for flax; and if one wheel had rest, It was because the other was at work. 85 The Pair had but one inmate in their house, An only Child, who had been born to them When Michael, telling o'er his years, began To deem that he was old, --in shepherd's phrase, With one foot in the grave. This only Son, 90 With two brave sheep-dogs tried in many a storm, The one of an inestimable worth, Made all their household. I may truly say That they were as a proverb in the vale For endless industry. When day was gone, 95 And from their occupations out of doors The Son and Father were come home, even then Their labor did not cease; unless when all Turned to the cleanly supper board, and there, Each with a mess of pottage and skimmed milk, 100 Sat round the basket piled with oaten cakes, And their plain home-made cheese. Yet when the meal Was ended, Luke (for so the Son was named) And his old Father both betook themselves To such convenient work as might employ 105 Their hands by the fireside; perhaps to card Wool for the Housewife's spindle, or repair Some injury done to sickle, flail, or scythe, Or other implement of house or field. 

 Down from the ceiling, by the chimney's edge, 110 That in our ancient uncouth country style With huge and black projection overbrowed Large space beneath, as duly as the light Of day grew dim the Housewife hung a lamp; An agèd utensil, which had performed 115 Service beyond all others of its kind. Early at evening did it burn, --and late, Surviving comrade of uncounted hours, Which, going by from year to year, had found, And left the couple neither gay perhaps 120 Nor cheerful, yet with objects and with hopes, Living a life of eager industry. And now, when Luke had reached his eighteenth year, There by the light of this old lamp they sate, Father and Son, while far into the night 125 The Housewife plied her own peculiar work, Making the cottage through the silent hours Murmur as with the sound of summer flies. This light was famous in its neighborhood, And was a public symbol of the life 130 That thrifty Pair had lived. For, as it chanced; Their cottage on a plot of rising ground Stood single, with large prospect, north and south, High into Easedale, up to Dunmail-Raise, And westward to the village near the lake; 135 And from this constant light, so regular, And so far seen, the House itself, by all Who dwelt within the limits of the vale, Both old and young, was named the EVENING STAR. 

 Thus living on through such a length of years, 140 The Shepherd, if he loved himself, must needs Have loved his Helpmate; but to Michael's heart This son of his old age was yet more dear-- Less from instinctive tenderness, the same Fond spirit that blindly works in the blood of all-- 145 Than that a child, more than all other gifts That earth can offer to declining man, Brings hope with it, and forward-looking thoughts, And stirrings of inquietude, when they By tendency of nature needs must fail. 150 Exceeding was the love he bare to him, His heart and his heart's joy! For oftentimes Old Michael, while he was a babe in arms, Had done him female service, not alone For pastime and delight, as is the use 155 Of fathers, but with patient mind enforced To acts of tenderness; and he had rocked His cradle, as with a woman's gentle hand. And in a later time, ere yet the Boy Had put on boy's attire, did Michael love, 160 Albeit of a stern, unbending mind, To have the Young-one in his sight, when he Wrought in the field, or on his shepherd's stool Sat with a fettered sheep before him stretched Under the large old oak, that near his door 165 Stood single, and, from matchless depth of shade, Chosen for the shearer's covert from the sun, Thence in our rustic dialect was called The CLIPPING TREE, a name which yet it bears. There, while they two were sitting in the shade, 170 With others round them, earnest all and blithe, Would Michael exercise his heart with looks Of fond correction and reproof bestowed Upon the Child, if he disturbed the sheep By catching at their legs, or with his shouts 175 Scared them while they lay still beneath the shears. 

 And when by Heaven's good grace the Boy grew up A healthy Lad, and carried in his cheek Two steady roses that were five years old; Then Michael from a winter coppice cut 180 With his own hand a sapling, which he hooped With iron, making it throughout in all Due requisites a perfect shepherd's staff, And gave it to the Boy; wherewith equipped He as a watchman oftentimes was placed 185 At gate or gap, to stem or turn the flock; And, to his office prematurely called, There stood the urchin, as you will divine, Something between a hindrance and a help; And for this cause not always, I believe, 190 Receiving from his Father hire of praise; Though naught was left undone which staff, or voice, Or looks, or threatening gestures, could perform, But soon as Luke, full ten years old, could stand Against the mountain blasts; and to the heights, 195 Not fearing toil, nor length of weary ways, He with his Father daily went, and they Were as companions, why should I relate That objects which the Shepherd loved before Were dearer now? that from the Boy there came 200 Feelings and emanations, --things which were Light to the sun and music to the wind; And that the old Man's heart seemed born again?

 Thus in his Father's sight the boy grew up: And now, when he had reached his eighteenth year, 205 He was his comfort and his daily hope. 

 While in this sort the simple household lived From day to day, to Michael's ear there came Distressful tidings. Long before the time Of which I speak, the Shepherd had been bound 210 In surety for his brother's son, a man Of an industrious life, and ample means; But unforeseen misfortunes suddenly Had pressed upon him; and old Michael now Was summoned to discharge the forfeiture, 215 A grievous penalty, but little less Than half his substance. This unlooked-for claim, At the first hearing, for a moment took More hope out of his life than he supposed That any old man ever could have lost. 220 As soon as he had armed himself with strength To look his trouble in the face, it seemed The Shepherd's sole resource to sell at once A portion of his patrimonial fields. Such was his first resolve; he thought again, 225 And his heart failed him. "Isabel, " said he, Two evenings after he had heard the news, "I have been toiling more than seventy years, And in the open sunshine of God's love Have we all lived; yet if these fields of ours 230 Should pass into a stranger's hand, I think That I could not lie quiet in my grave. Our lot is a hard lot; the sun himself Has scarcely been more diligent than I; And I have lived to be a fool at last 235 To my own family. An evil man That was, and made an evil choice, if he Were false to us; and if he were not false, There are ten thousand to whom loss like this Had been no sorrow. I forgive him;--but 240 'Twere better to be dumb than to talk thus. 

 "When I began, my purpose was to speak Of remedies and of a cheerful hope. Our Luke shall leave us, Isabel; the land Shall not go from us, and it shall be free; 245 He shall possess it, free as is the wind That passes over it. We have, thou know'st, Another kinsman; he will be our friend In this distress. He is a prosperous man, Thriving in trade; and Luke to him shall go, 250 And with his kinsman's help and his own thrift He quickly will repair this loss, and then He may return to us. If here he stay, What can be done? Where every one is poor, What can be gained?"

 At this the old Man paused, 255 And Isabel sat silent, for her mind Was busy, looking back into past times. There's Richard Bateman, thought she to herself, He was a parish-boy, --at the church-door They made a gathering for him, shillings, pence, 260 And half-pennies, wherewith the neighbors bought A basket, which they filled with pedlar's wares; And, with his basket on his arm, the lad Went up to London, found a master there, Who, out of many, chose the trusty boy 265 To go and overlook his merchandise Beyond the seas; where he grew wondrous rich, And left estates and moneys to the poor, And at his birthplace built a chapel, floored With marble, which he sent from foreign lands. 270 These thoughts, and many others of like sort, Passed quickly through the mind of Isabel And her face brightened. The old Man was glad, And thus resumed: "Well, Isabel, this scheme, These two days, has been meat and drink to me. 275 Far more than we have lost is left us yet. --We have enough--I wish indeed that I Were younger;--but this hope is a good hope. Make ready Luke's best garments, of the best Buy for him more, and let us send him forth 280 To-morrow, or the next day, or to-night: --If he _could_ go, the Boy should go to-night. "

 Here Michael ceased, and to the fields went forth With a light heart. The Housewife for five days Was restless morn and night, and all day long 285 Wrought on with her best fingers to prepare Things needful for the journey of her son. But Isabel was glad when Sunday came To stop her in her work; for, when she lay By Michael's side, she through the last two nights 290 Heard him, how he was troubled in his sleep: And when they rose at morning she could see That all his hopes were gone. That day at noon She said to Luke, while they two by themselves Were sitting at the door, "Thou must not go: 295 We have no other Child but thee to lose, None to remember--do not go away, For if thou leave thy Father he will die. " The Youth made answer with a jocund voice; And Isabel, when she had told her fears, 300 Recovered heart. That evening her best fare Did she bring forth, and all together sat Like happy people round a Christmas fire. 

 With daylight Isabel resumed her work; And all the ensuing week the house appeared 305 As cheerful as a grove in Spring: at length The expected letter from their kinsman came, With kind assurances that he would do His utmost for the welfare of the Boy; To which requests were added, that forthwith 310 He might be sent to him. Ten times or more The letter was read over; Isabel Went forth to show it to the neighbors round; Nor was there at that time on English land A prouder heart than Luke's. When Isabel 315 Had to her house returned, the old Man said, "He shall depart to-morrow. " To this word The Housewife answered, talking much of things Which, if at such short notice he should go, Would surely be forgotten. But at length 320 She gave consent, and Michael was at ease. Near the tumultuous brook of Green-head Ghyll, In that deep valley, Michael had designed To build a Sheep-fold; and, before he heard The tidings of his melancholy loss, 325 For this same purpose he had gathered up A heap of stones, which by the streamlet's edge Lay thrown together, ready for the work. With Luke that evening thitherward he walked; And soon as they had reached the place he stopped, 330 And thus the old man spake to him:--"My Son, To-morrow thou wilt leave me; with full heart I look upon thee, for thou art the same That wert a promise to me ere thy birth And all thy life hast been my daily joy. 335 I will relate to thee some little part Of our two histories; 'twill do thee good When thou art from me, even if I should touch On things thou canst not know of. ------After thou First cam'st into the world--as oft befalls 340 To newborn infants--thou didst sleep away Two days, and blessings from thy Father's tongue Then fell upon thee. Day by day passed on, And still I loved thee with increasing love. Never to living ear came sweeter sounds 345 Than when I heard thee by our own fireside First uttering, without words, a natural tune; While thou, a feeding babe, didst in thy joy Sing at thy Mother's breast. Month followed month, And in the open fields my life was passed, 350 And on the mountains; else I think that thou Hadst been brought up upon thy Father's knees. But we were playmates, Luke; among these hills, As well thou knowest, in us the old and young Have played together, nor with me didst thou 355 Lack any pleasure which a boy can know. " Luke had a manly heart; but at these words He sobbed aloud. The old Man grasped his hand, And said, "Nay, do not take it so--I see That these are things of which I need not speak. 360 --Even to the utmost I have been to thee A kind and a good Father; and herein I but repay a gift which I myself Received at others' hands; for, though now old Beyond the common life of man, I still 365 Remember them who loved me in my youth. Both of them sleep together; here they lived, As all their Forefathers had done; and, when At length their time was come, they were not loath To give their bodies to the family mould. 370 I wished that thou should'st live the life they lived; But 'tis a long time to look back, my Son, And see so little gain from threescore years. These fields were burthened when they came to me; Till I was forty years of age, not more 375 Than half of my inheritance was mine. I toiled and toiled; God blessed me in my work, And till the three weeks past the land was free. --It looks as if it never could endure Another Master. Heaven forgive me, Luke, 380 If I judge ill for thee, but it seems good That thou shouldst go. "

 At this the old Man paused; Then, pointing to the stones near which they stood, Thus, after a short silence, he resumed: "This was a work for us; and now, my Son, 385 It is a work for me. But, lay one stone, -- Here, lay it for me, Luke, with thine own hands. Nay, Boy, be of good hope; we both may live To see a better day. At eighty-four I still am strong and hale;--do thou thy part; 390 I will do mine. --I will begin again With many tasks that were resigned to thee; Up to the heights, and in among the storms, Will I without thee go again, and do All works which I was wont to do alone, 395 Before I knew thy face. Heaven bless thee, Boy! Thy heart these two weeks has been beating fast With many hopes; it should be so--yes, yes, -- I knew that thou couldst never have a wish To leave me, Luke; thou hast been bound to me 400 Only by links of love: when thou art gone What will be left to us!--But I forget My purposes. Lay now the corner-stone, As I requested; and hereafter, Luke, When thou art gone away, should evil men 405 Be thy companions, think of me, my Son, And of this moment; hither turn thy thoughts, And God will strengthen thee: amid all fear And all temptation, Luke, I pray that thou May'st bear in mind the life thy Fathers lived, 410 Who, being innocent, did for that cause Bestir them in good deeds. Now, fare thee well-- When thou return'st, thou in this place wilt see A work which is not here: a covenant 'Twill be between us; but, whatever fate 415 Befall thee, I shall love thee to the last, And bear thy memory with me to the grave. "

 The Shepherd ended here; and Luke stooped down, And, as his Father had requested, laid The first stone of the Sheep-fold. At the sight 420 The old Man's grief broke from him; to his heart He pressed his Son, he kissed him and wept; And to the house together they returned. --Hushed was that House in peace, or seeming peace, Ere the night fell:--with morrow's dawn the Boy 425 Began his journey, and when he had reached The public way, he put on a bold face; And all the neighbors, as he passed their doors, Came forth with wishes and with farewell prayers, That followed him till he was out of sight. 430

 A good report did from their Kinsman come, Of Luke and his well doing: and the Boy Wrote loving letters, full of wondrous news, Which, as the Housewife phrased it, were throughout "The prettiest letters that were ever seen. " 435 Both parents read them with rejoicing hearts. So, many months passed on; and once again The Shepherd went about his daily work With confident and cheerful thoughts; and now Sometimes when he could find a leisure hour 440 He to that valley took his way, and there Wrought at the Sheep-fold. Meantime Luke began To slacken in his duty; and, at length, He in the dissolute city gave himself To evil courses: ignominy and shame 445 Fell on him, so that he was driven at last To seek a hiding place beyond the seas. 

 There is a comfort in the strength of love; 'Twill make a thing endurable, which else Would overset the brain, or break the heart: 450 I have conversed with more than one who well Remember the old Man, and what he was Years after he had heard this heavy news. His bodily frame had been from youth to age Of an unusual strength. Among the rocks 455 He went, and still looked up to sun and cloud, And listened to the wind; and, as before, Performed all kinds of labor for his sheep, And for the land, his small inheritance. And to that hollow dell from time to time 460 Did he repair, to build the Fold of which His flock had need. 'Tis not forgotten yet The pity which was then in every heart For the old Man--and 'tis believed by all That many and many a day he thither went, 465 And never lifted up a single stone. 

 There by the Sheep-fold, sometimes was he seen Sitting alone, or with his faithful Dog, Then old, beside him, lying at his feet. The length of full seven years, from time to time 570 He at the building of this Sheep-fold wrought, And left the work unfinished when he died. Three years, or little more, did Isabel Survive her Husband; at her death the estate Was sold, and went into a stranger's hand. 475 The Cottage which was named the EVENING STAR Is gone, --the ploughshare has been through the ground On which it stood; great changes have been wrought In all the neighborhood:--yet the oak is left, That grew beside their door; and the remains 480 Of the unfinished Sheep-fold may be seen Beside the boisterous brook of Green-head Ghyll. 2. GREEN-HEAD GHYLL. Near Dove Cottage, Wordsworth's home at Grasmere. 

GHYLL. A short, steep, and narrow valley with a stream running throughit. 

5. THE PASTORAL MOUNTAINS. In Professor Knight's _Life of Wordsworth_are found fragments which the poet intended for _Michael_ and whichwere recovered from Dorothy Wordsworth's manuscript book. Among theseare the following lines, which as Professor Dowden suggests, are givenas Wordsworth's answer to the question, "What feeling for externalnature had such a man as Michael?" The lines, which correspond tolines 62-77 of the poem, are as follows;

 "No doubt if you in terms direct had asked Whether beloved the mountains, true it is That with blunt repetition of your words He might have stared at you, and said that they Were frightful to behold, but had you then Discoursed with him . . . . . . . . Of his own business and the goings on Of earth and sky, then truly had you seen That in his thoughts there were obscurities, Wonder and admiration, things that wrought Not less than a religion of his heart. "

17. In Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal for October 11, 1800, we read:"After dinner, we walked up Greenhead Gill in search of asheepfold. . . The sheepfold is falling away. It is built in the formof a heart unequally divided. "

48. THE MEANING OF ALL WINDS. This is not a figurative Statement. Michael knows by experience whether the sound and direction of the windforebode storm or fair weather, --precisely the practical kind ofknowledge which a herdsman should possess. 

51. SUBTERRANEOUS. The meaning of this word has given rise todiscussion. "Subterraneous" cannot here be literally employed, unlessit refer to the sound of the wind in hollow places, and beneathoverhanging crags. 

51-52. LIKE THE NOISE, etc. Is there a special appropriateness in theuse of a Scottish simile? What is the general character of the similesthroughout the poem?

56-77. Wordsworth never attributes to Michael the subtler and morephilosophical sensations which he himself derived from nature. Suchpoems as _The Prelude_ or _The Excursion_ contain many elevatedpassages on the influence of nature, which would have been exceedinglyinappropriate here. 

115. Scan this line. 

121. NOR CHEERFUL. The epithet seems not well chosen in view of thefact that all the circumstances of their life breathe a spirit of quietcheerfulness. Surely the light (129-131) was a symbol of cheer. 

126. PECULIAR WORK. Bring out the force of the epithet. 

134. EASEDALE. Near Grasmere. DUNMAIL-RAISE. The pass leading fromGrasmere to Keswick. RAISE. A provincial word meaning "an ascent. "

139. THE EVENING STAR. This name was actually given to a neighboringhouse. 

143-152. The love of Michael for Luke is inwrought with his love forhis home and for the land which surrounds it. These he desires at hisdeath to hand down unencumbered to his son. "I have attempted, "Wordsworth wrote to Poole, "to give a picture of a man of strong mindand lively sensibility, agitated by two of the most powerful affectionsof the human heart--the parental affection and the love of property, _landed_ property, including the feelings of inheritance, home andpersonal and family independence. "

145. Scan this line. 

169. THE CLIPPING TREE. Clipping is the word used in the North ofEngland for shearing. (Wordsworth's note, 1800). 

182. Notice the entire absence of pause at the end of the line. Pointout other instances of run-on lines (_enjambement_). 

259. PARISH-BOY. Depending on charity. 

268-270. Wordsworth added the following note on these lines: "The storyalluded to here is well known in the country. The chapel is calledIng's Chapel; and is on the right hand side of the road leading fromKendal to Ambleside. "

283. AND TO THE FIELDS WENT FORTH Observe the inconsistency. Theconversation took place in the evening. See l. 327. 

284f. WITH A LIGHT HEART. Michael's growing misgivings are subtlyrepresented in the following lines, and the renewal of his hopes. 

367-368. These lines forcibly show how tenaciously Michael's feelingswere rooted in the soil of his home. Hence the extreme pathos of thesituation. 

388. Observe the dramatic force of this line. 

393-396. What unconscious poetry there is in the old man's words!

420. Scan this line. 

445. Scan this line. 

466. Matthew Arnold commenting on this line says; "The right sort ofverse to choose from Wordsworth, if we are to seize his true and mostcharacteristic form of expression, is a line like this from Michael:'And never lifted up a single stone. ' There is nothing subtle in it, no heightening, no study of poetic style strictly so called, at all;yet it is an expression of the highest and most truly expressive kind. "

467f. Note the noble simplicity and pathos of these closing lines. There is a reserved force of pent-up pathos here, which without effortreaches the height of dramatic effectiveness. 

 TO THE DAISY

 Bright Flower! whose home is everywhere, Bold in maternal Nature's care, And all the long year through the heir Of joy and sorrow, Methinks that there abides in thee 5 Some concord with humanity, Given to no other flower I see The forest thorough!

 Is it that Man is soon deprest? A thoughtless Thing! who, once unblest, 10 Does little on his memory rest, Or on his reason, And Thou would'st teach him how to find A shelter under every wind, A hope for times that are unkind, 15 And every season?

 Thou wander'st the wide world about, Uncheck'd by pride or scrupulous doubt, With friends to greet thee, or without, Yet pleased and wilting; 20 Meek, yielding to the occasion's call, And all things suffering from all, Thy function apostolical In peace fulfilling. 

8. THOROUGH. This is by derivation the correct form of the modern word"through. " A. S. _thurh_, M. E. _thuruh_. The use of "thorough" is nowpurely adjectival, except in archaic or poetic speech. 

24. APOSTOLICAL. The stanza in which this word occurs was omitted in1827 and 1832, because the expression was censured as almost profane. Wordsworth in his dictated note to Miss Fenwick has the following: "Theword [apostolical] is adopted with reference to its derivation, implyingsomething sent out on a mission; and assuredly this little flower, especially when the subject of verse, may be regarded, in its humbledegree, as administering both to moral and spiritual purposes. "

 TO THE CUCKOO

 O blithe New-comer! I have heard, I hear thee and rejoice. O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird, Or but a wandering Voice?

 While I am lying on the grass, 5 Thy twofold shout I hear; From hill to hill it seems to pass, At once far off, and near. 

 Though babbling only to the Vale Of sunshine and of flowers, 10 Thou bringest unto me a tale Of visionary hours. 

 Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring! Even yet thou art to me No bird, but an invisible thing, 15 A voice, a mystery;

 The same whom in my schoolboy days I listened to; that Cry Which made me look a thousand ways In bush, and tree, and sky. 20

 To seek thee did I often rove Through woods and on the green; And thou wert still a hope, a love; Still longed for, never seen. 

 And I can listen to thee yet; 25 Can lie upon the plain And listen, till I do beget That golden time again. 

 O blessèd Bird! the earth we pace Again appears to be 30 An unsubstantial, faery place; That is fit home for Thee!

1. O BLITHE NEW-COMER. The Cuckoo is migratory, and appears in Englandin the early spring. Compare _Solitary Reaper_, l. 16. 

I HAV HEARD. I. E. , in my youth. 

3. SHALL I CALL THEE BIRD? Compare Shelley. 

 Hail to thee, blithe spirit! Bird thou never wert. _To a Skylark_. 

4. A WANDERING VOICE? Lacking substantial existence. 

6. TWOFOLD SHOUT. Twofold, because consisting of a double note. CompareWordsworth's sonnet, _To the Cuckoo_, l. 4:

 "With its twin notes inseparably paired. "

Wordsworth employs the word "shout" in several of his Cuckoodescriptions. See _The Excursion_, ii. L. 346-348 and vii. L. 408; alsothe following from _Yes! it was the Mountain Echo_:

 Yes! it was the mountain echo, Solitary, clear, profound, Answering to the shouting Cuckoo; Giving to her sound for sound. 

 NUTTING

 ------It seems a day (I speak of one from many singled out), One of those heavenly days that cannot die; When, in the eagerness of boyish hope, I left our cottage threshold, sallying forth 5 With a huge wallet o'er my shoulders slung, A nutting-crook in hand, and turned my steps Toward some far-distant wood, a Figure quaint, Tricked out in proud disguise of cast-off weeds, Which for that service had been husbanded, 10 By exhortation of my frugal Dame, -- Motley accoutrement, of power to smile At thorns, and brakes, and brambles, and, in truth, More ragged than need was! O'er pathless rocks, Through beds of matted fern and tangled thickets, 15 Forcing my way, I came to one dear nook Unvisited, where not a broken bough Drooped with its withered leaves, ungracious sign Of devastation; but the hazels rose Tall and erect, with tempting clusters hung, 20 A virgin scene! A little while I stood, Breathing with such suppression of the heart As joy delights in; and with wise restraint Voluptuous, fearless of a rival, eyed The banquet; or beneath the trees I sate 25 Among the flowers, and with the flowers I played; A temper known to those, who, after long And weary expectation, have been blest With sudden happiness beyond all hope. Perhaps it was a bower beneath whose leaves 30 The violets of five seasons reappear And fade, unseen by any human eye; Where fairy water-breaks do murmur on Forever; and I saw the sparkling foam, And, with my cheek on one of those green stones 35 That, fleeced with moss, under the shady trees, Lay round me, scattered like a flock of sheep, I heard the murmur and the murmuring sound, In that sweet mood when pleasure loves to pay Tribute to ease; and of its joy secure, 40 The heart luxuriates with indifferent things, Wasting its kindliness on stocks and stones, And on the vacant air. Then up I rose, And dragged to earth both branch and bough, with crash And merciless ravage: and the shady nook 45 Of hazels, and the green and mossy bower, Deformed and sullied, patiently gave up Their quiet being: and unless I now Confound my present feelings with the past, Ere from the mutilated bower I turned 50 Exulting, rich beyond the wealth of kings, I felt a sense of pain when I beheld The silent trees, and saw the intruding sky. -- Then, dearest Maiden, move along these shades In gentleness of heart; with gentle hand 55 Touch, --for there is a spirit in the woods. 

5. OUR COTTAGE THRESHOLD. "The house at which I was boarded during thetime I was at school. " (Wordsworth's note, 1800). The school was theHawkshead School. 

9. TRICKED OUT=_dressed_. The verb "to trick"="to dress" is derivedprobably from the noun, "trick" in the sense of 'a dexterous artifice, ''a touch. ' See "Century Dictionary. "

CAST-OFF WEEDS=_cast-off clothes_. Wordsworth originally wrote 'ofBeggar's weeds. ' What prompted him to change the expression?

10. FOR THAT SERVICE. I. E. , for nutting. 

12-13. OF POWER TO SMILE AT THORNS=_able to defy_, etc. Not because oftheir strength, but because so ragged that additional rents were of smallaccount. 

21. VIRGIN=_unmarred, undevastated_. 

31. Explain the line. Notice the poetical way in which the poet conveysthe idea of solitude, (l. 30-32). 

33. FAIRY WATER-BREAKS=_wavelets, ripples_. _Cf_. :--

 Many a silvery _water-break_ Above the golden gravel. Tennyson, _The Brook_. 

36. FLEECED WITH MOSS. Suggest a reason why the term "fleeced" haspeculiar appropriateness here. 

39-40. Paraphrase these lines to bring out their meaning. 

43-48. THEN UP I ROSE. Contrast this active exuberant pleasure notunmixed with pain with the passive meditative joy that the precedinglines express. 

47-48. PATIENTLY GAVE UP THEIR QUIET BEING. Notice the attribution oflife to inanimate nature. Wordsworth constantly held that there was amind and all the attributes of mind in nature. _Cf_. L. 56, "for thereis a spirit in the woods. "

53. AND SAW THE INTRUDING SKY. Bring out the force of this passage. 

54. THEN, DEAREST MAIDEN. This is a reference to the poet's Sister, Dorothy Wordsworth. 

56. FOR THERE IS A SPIRIT IN THE WOODS. _Cf. Tintern Abbey_, 101 f. 

 A motion and a spirit that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things. 

 INFLUENCE OF NATURAL OBJECTS

 Wisdom and Spirit of the universe! Thou Soul, that art the Eternity of thought! And giv'st to forms and images a breath And everlasting motion! not in vain, By day or starlight, thus from my first dawn 5 Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me The passions that build up our human soul; Not with the mean and vulgar works of Man: But with high objects, with enduring things, With life and nature: purifying thus 10 The elements of feeling and of thought, And sanctifying by such discipline Both pain and fear, --until we recognize A grandeur in the beatings of the heart. 

 Nor was this fellowship vouchsafed to me 15 With stinted kindness. In November days, When vapors rolling down the valleys made A lonely scene more lonesome; among woods At noon; and 'mid the calm of summer nights, When, by the margin of the trembling lake, 20 Beneath the gloomy hills, homeward I went In solitude, such intercourse was mine: Mine was it in the fields both day and night, And by the waters, all the summer long. And in the frosty season, when the sun 25 Was set, and, visible for many a mile, The cottage windows through the twilight blazed, I heeded not the summons: happy time It was indeed for all of us; for me It was a time of rapture! Clear and loud 30 The village clock tolled six--I wheeled about, Proud and exulting like an untired horse, That cares not for his home, --All shod with steel We hissed along the polished ice, in games Confederate, imitative of the chase 35 And woodland pleasures, --the resounding horn, The pack loud-chiming, and the hunted hare. So through the darkness and the cold we flew, And not a voice was idle; with the din Smitten, the precipices rang aloud; 40 The leafless trees and every icy crag Tinkled like iron; while far-distant hills Into the tumult sent an alien sound Of melancholy, not unnoticed, while the stars, Eastward, were sparkling clear, and in the west 45 The orange sky of evening died away. 

 Not seldom from the uproar I retired Into a silent bay, or sportively Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng, To cut across the reflex of a star; 50 Image, that, flying still before me, gleamed Upon the glassy plain; and oftentimes, When we had given our bodies to the wind, And all the shadowy banks on either side Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still 55 The rapid line of motion, then at once Have I, reclining back upon my heels, Stopped short, yet still the solitary cliffs Wheeled by me--even as if the earth had rolled With visible motion her diurnal round! 60 Behind me did they stretch in solemn train, Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watched Till all was tranquil as a summer sea. 

1-14. In what other poems does Wordsworth describe "the education ofnature?"

8. Nature's teaching is never sordid nor mercenary, but always purifyingand ennobling. 

10. PURIFYING, also SANCTIFYING (l. 12), refer to "Soul" (l. 2). 

12-14. Human cares are lightened in proportion to our power ofsympathising with nature. The very beatings of our heart acquire acertain grandeur from the fact that they are a process of nature andlinked thus to the general life of things. It is possible that "beatingsof the heart" may figuratively represent the mere play of the emotions, and thus have a bearing upon the words "pain and fear" in line 13. 

15. FELLOWSHIP. Communion with nature in her varying aspects asdescribed in the following lines. 

31. VILLAGE CLOCK. The village was Hawkshead. 

35. CONFEDERATE. Qualifies "we, " or "games. " Point out the differentshades of meaning for each agreement. 

42. TINKLED LIKE IRON. "When very many are skating together, the soundsand the noises give an impulse to the icy trees, and the woods all roundthe lake _tinkle_. " S. T. Coleridge in _The Friend_, ii, 325 (1818). 

42-44. The keenness of Wordsworth's sense perceptions was veryremarkable. His susceptibility to impressions of sound is wellillustrated in this passage, which closes (l. 43-46) with a color pictureof striking beauty and appropriateness. 

50. REFLEX=_reflection_. _Cf_. :

 Like the _reflex_ of the moon Seen in a wave under green leaves. Shelley, _Prometheus Unbound_, iii, 4. 

In later editions Wordsworth altered these lines as follows:

To cut across the image. 1809. To cross the bright reflection. 1820. 

54-60. The effect of rapid motion is admirably described. The spinningeffect which Wordsworth evidently has in mind we have all noticed in thefields which seem to revolve when viewed from a swiftly moving: train. However, a skater from the low level of a stream would see only thefringe of trees sweep past him. The darkness and the height of the bankswould not permit him to see the relatively motionless objects in thedistance in either hand. 

57-58. This method of stopping short upon one's heels might provedisastrous. 

58-60. The effect of motion persists after the motion has ceased. 

62 63. The apparent motion of the cliffs grows feebler by degrees until"all was tranquil as a summer sea. " In _The_ [Transcriber's note: therest of this footnote is missing from the original book because of aprinting error. ]

 TO THE REV. DR. WORDSWORTH

 (WITH THE SONNETS TO THE RIVER DUDDON, AND OTHER POEMS IN THIS COLLECTION, 1820). 

 The minstrels played their Christmas tune To-night beneath my cottage-eaves; While, smitten by a lofty moon, The encircling laurels, thick with leaves, Gave back a rich and dazzling sheen, 5 That overpowered their natural green. 

 Through hill and valley every breeze Had sunk to rest with folded wings; Keen was the air, but could not freeze, Nor check, the music of the strings; 10 So stout and hardy were the band That scraped the chords with strenuous hand:

 And who but listened?--till was paid Respect to every Inmate's claim: The greeting given, the music played, 15 In honor of each household name, Duly pronounced with lusty call, And "Merry Christmas" wished to all!

 O Brother! I revere the choice That took thee from thy native hills; 20 And it is given thee to rejoice: Though public care full often tills (Heaven only witness of the toil) A barren and ungrateful soil. 

 Yet, would that Thou, with me and mine, 25 Hadst heard this never-failing rite; And seen on other faces shine A true revival of the light Which Nature and these rustic Powers, In simple childhood, spread through ours! 30

 For pleasure hath not ceased to wait On these expected annual rounds; Whether the rich man's sumptuous gate Call forth the unelaborate sounds, Or they are offered at the door 35 That guards the lowliest of the poor. 

 How touching, when, at midnight, sweep Snow-muffled winds, and all is dark To hear--and sink again-to sleep Or, at an earlier call, to mark, 40 By blazing fire, the still suspense Of self-complacent innocence;

 The mutual nod, --the grave disguise Of hearts with gladness brimming o'er; And some unbidden tears that rise 45 For names once heard, and heard no more; Tears brightened by the serenade For infant in the cradle laid. 

 Ah! not for emerald fields alone, With ambient streams more pure and bright 50 Than fabled Cytherea's zone Glittering before the Thunderer's sight, Is to my heart of hearts endeared The ground where we were born and reared!

 Hail, ancient Manners! sure defence, 55 Where they survive, of wholesome laws; Remnants of love whose modest sense Thus into narrow room withdraws; Hail, Usages of pristine mould, And ye that guard them, Mountains old! 60

 Bear with me, Brother! quench the thought That slights this passion, or condemns; If thee fond Fancy ever brought From the proud margin of the Thames, And Lambeth's venerable towers, 65 To humbler streams, and greener bowers. 

 Yes, they can make, who fail to fill Short leisure even in busiest days; Moments, to cast a look behind, And profit by those kindly rays 70 That through the clouds do sometimes steal, And all the far-off past reveal. 

 Hence, while the imperial City's din Beats frequent on thy satiate ear, A pleased attention I may win 75 To agitations less severe, That neither overwhelm nor cloy, But fill the hollow vale with joy!

Christopher Wordsworth was born at Cockermouth in Cumberland on June 9th, 1774. He received his early education at Hawkshead Grammar School and in1792 entered Trinity College, Cambridge, as a pensioner. He graduated in1796 with high honours in mathematics, and in 1798 was elected a fellowof his college. He took his M. A. Degree in 1799 and was awarded thedegree of Doctor of Divinity in 1810. While at Cambridge Christopher hadbeen tutor to Viscount Canterbury, who introduced him to his father, atthat time Bishop of Norwich. Through the good offices of the Bishop hewas appointed to the rectory of Ashby, Norfolk, and thus, with prospectssettled, he was enabled to marry. On the appointment of the Bishop ofNorwich to the Archbishopric of Canterbury he was appointed domesticchaplain to the Archbishop. Subsequently in 1816 he was appointed rectorof St. Mary's, Lambeth, the living he held at the time the poem in thetext was written. 

In 1820 Christopher was made Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, aposition he held until his resignation in 1841. He died at Buxted onFebruary 2nd, 1846. "He was an earnest and deeply religious man; in somerespects a high churchman of the old school, but with sympathy forwhatever was good and noble in others. In politics he was a staunchConservative. "

15. THE GREETING GIVEN, THE MUSIC PLAYED. Till the greeting had beengiven and the music played. 

17. Attributive to "name" (l. 16. )

18. Explain the construction of "wished. "

50. AMBIENT=_winding_. 

51. CYTHEREA'S ZONE. The goddess Venus was named Cytherea because shewas supposed to have been born of the foam of the sea near Cythera, anisland off the coast of the Peloponnesus. Venus was the goddess of love, and her power over the heart was strengthened by the marvellous zone orgirdle she wore. 

52. THE THUNDERER. The reference is to Jupiter, who is generallyrepresented as seated upon a golden or ivory throne holding in one handthe thunderbolts, and in the other a sceptre of cypress. 

55-60. Suggest how this stanza is characteristic of Wordsworth. 

65. LAMBETH'S VENERABLE TOWERS. Lambeth Palace, the official residenceof the Archbishop of Canterbury, is on the Thames. Wordsworth's brotherChristopher, afterwards Master of Trinity College, was then (1820) Rectorof Lambeth. 

 ELEGIAC STANZAS

 SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF PEELE CASTLE, IN A STORM, PAINTED BY SIR GEORGE BEAUMONT. 

 I was thy neighbor once, thou rugged Pile! Four summer weeks I dwelt in sight of thee: I saw thee every day; and all the while Thy Form was sleeping on a glassy sea. 

 So pure the sky, so quiet was the air! 5 So like, so very like, was day to day! Whene'er I looked, thy Image still was there; It trembled, but it never passed away. 

 How perfect was the calm! it seemed no sleep; No mood, which season takes away, or brings: 10 I could have fancied that the mighty Deep Was even the gentlest, of all gentle Things. 

 Ah! THEN, if mine had been the Painter's hand, To express what then I saw; and add the gleam, The light that never was. On sea or land, 15 The consecration, and the Poet's dream;

 I would have planted thee, thou hoary Pile, Amid a world how different from this! Beside a sea that could not cease to smile; On tranquil land, beneath a sky of bliss. 20

 Thou shouldst have seemed a treasure-house divine Of peaceful years; a chronicle of heaven;-- Of all the sunbeams that did ever shine The very sweetest had to thee been given. 

 A Picture had it been of lasting ease, 25 Elysian quiet, without toil or strife; No motion but the moving tide, a breeze, Or merely silent Nature's breathing life. 

 Such, in the fond illusion of my heart, Such Picture would I at that time have made: 30 And seen the soul of truth in every part, A steadfast peace that might not be betrayed. 

 So once it would have been, --'tis so no more; I have submitted to a new control: A power is gone, which nothing can restore; 35 A deep distress hath humanized my Soul. 

 Not for a moment could I now behold A smiling sea, and be what I have been: The feeling of my loss will ne'er be old; This, which I know, I speak with mind serene. 40

 Then, Beaumont, Friend! who would have been the Friend, If he had lived, of Him whom I deplore, This work of thine I blame not, but commend; This sea in anger, and that dismal shore. 

 O 'tis a passionate Work!--yet wise and well, 45 Well chosen is the spirit that is here; That Hulk which labors in the deadly swell, This rueful sky, this pageantry of fear!

 And this huge Castle, standing here sublime, I love to see the look with which it braves, 50 Cased in the unfeeling armor of old time, The lightning, the fierce wind, and trampling waves. 

 Farewell, farewell the heart that lives alone, Housed in a dream, at distance from the Kind! Such happiness, wherever it be known, 55 Is to be pitied: for 'tis surely blind. 

 But welcome fortitude, and patient cheer, And frequent sights of what is to be borne! Such sights, or worse, as are before me here. -- Not without hope we suffer and we mourn. 60

2. FOUR SUMMER WEEKS. In 1794 Wordsworth spent part of a summer vacationat the house of his cousin, Mr. Barker, at Rampside, a village near PeeleCastle. 

6-7. Shelley has twice imitated these lines. Compare:--

 Within the surface of Time's fleeting river Its wrinkled Image lies, as then it lay Immovably unquiet, and for ever It trembles, but it cannot pass away. _Ode to Liberty_, vi. 

also the following:

 Within the surface of the fleeting river The wrinkled image of the city lay, Immovably unquiet, and for ever It trembles, but it never fades away. _Evening_. 

9-10. The calm was so complete that it did not seem a transient mood ofthe sea, a passing sleep. 

13-16. Compare with the above original reading of 1807 (restored after1827) the lines which Wordsworth substituted in 1820 and 1827. 

 Ah! THEN, if mine had been the Painter's hand, To express what then I saw; and add a gleam, The lustre, known to neither sea nor land, But borrowed from the youthful Poet's dream. 

35-36. A POWER IS GONE--SOUL. The reference is to the death at sea ofhis brother Captain John Wordsworth. The poet can no longer see thingswholly idealized. His brother's death has revealed to him, however, theennobling virtue of grief. Thus a personal loss is converted into humangain. Note especially in this connection l. 35 and ll. 53-60. 

54. FROM THE KIND. From our fellow-beings. 

 "IT IS NOT TO BE THOUGHT OF"

 It is not to be thought of that the Flood Of British freedom, which to the open sea Of the world's praise from dark antiquity Hath flowed, 'with pomp of waters, unwithstood, ' Roused though it be full often to a mood 5 Which spurns the check of salutary bands, That this most famous Stream in bogs and sands Should perish, and to evil and to good Be lost forever. In our halls is hung Armoury of the invincible Knights of old: 10 We must be free or die, who speak the tongue That Shakespeare spake; the faith and morals hold Which Milton held. --In everything we are sprung Of Earth's first blood, have titles manifold. 

4. 'WITH POMP OF WATERS, UNWITHSTOOD. ' This is quoted from Daniel's_Civil War_, Bk. Ii, stanza 7. 

 WRITTEN IN LONDON, SEPTEMBER, 1802

 O Friend! I know not which way I must look For comfort, being, as I am, oppressed, To think that now our life is only dressed For show; mean handiwork of craftsman, cook, Or groom!--We must run glittering like a brook 5 In the open sunshine, or we are unblessed: The wealthiest man among us is the best: No grandeur now in nature or in book Delights us. Rapine, avarice, expense, This is idolatry; and these we adore: 10 Plain living and high thinking are no more: The homely beauty of the good old cause Is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence, And pure religion breathing household laws. 

 LONDON, 1802

 Milton! thou should'st be living at this hour: England hath need of thee: she is a fen Of stagnant waters; altar, sword, and pen, Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, Have forfeited their ancient English dower 5 Of inward happiness. We are selfish men; Oh! raise us up, return to us again; And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart: Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea: 10 Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, So didst thou travel on life's common way, In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart The lowliest duties on herself did lay. 

 "DARK AND MORE DARK THE SHADES OF EVENING FELL"

 Dark and more dark the shades of evening fell; The wished-for point was reached--but at an hour When little could be gained from that rich dower Of Prospect, whereof many thousands tell. Yet did the glowing west with marvellous power 5 Salute us; there stood Indian citadel, Temple of Greece, and minster with its tower Substantially expressed--a place for bell Or clock to toll from! Many a tempting isle, With groves that never were imagined, lay 10 'Mid seas how steadfast! objects all for the eye Of silent rapture, but we felt the while We should forget them; they are of the sky And from our earthly memory fade away. 

 "SURPRISED BY JOY--IMPATIENT AS THE WIND"

 Surprised by joy--impatient as the wind I turned to share the transport--Oh! with whom But Thee, deep buried in the silent tomb, That spot which no vicissitude can find? Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind-- 5 But how could I forget thee? Through what power, Even for the least division of an hour, Have I been so beguiled as to be blind To my most grievous loss?--That thought's return Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore, 10 Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn, Knowing my heart's best treasure was no more; That neither present time, nor years unborn Could to my sight that heavenly face restore. 

 "HAIL, TWILIGHT, SOVEREIGN OF ONE PEACEFUL HOUR"

 Hail, Twilight, sovereign of one peaceful hour! Not dull art Thou as undiscerning Night; But studious only to remove from sight Day's mutable distinctions. --Ancient Power! Thus did the waters gleam, the mountains lower, 5 To the rude Briton, when, in wolf-skin vest Here roving wild, he laid him down to rest On the bare rock, or through a leafy bower Looked ere his eyes were closed. By him was seen The self-same Vision which we now behold, 10 At thy meek bidding, shadowy Power! brought forth These mighty barriers, and the gulf between; The flood, the stars, --a spectacle as old As the beginning of the heavens and earth!

 "I THOUGHT OF THEE, MY PARTNER AND MY GUIDE"

 I thought of Thee, my partner and my guide, As being past away. --Vain sympathies! For, backward, Duddon, as I cast my eyes, I see what was, and is, and will abide; Still glides the Stream, and shall for ever glide; 5 The Form remains, the Function never dies, While we, the brave, the mighty, and the wise, We Men, who in our morn of youth defied The elements, must vanish;--be it so! Enough, if something from our hands have power 10 To live, and act, and serve the future hour; And if, as toward the silent tomb we go, Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower, We feel that we are greater than we know. 

 "SUCH AGE, HOW BEAUTIFUL!"

 Such age, how beautiful! O Lady bright, Whose mortal lineaments seem all refined By favouring Nature and a saintly Mind To something purer and more exquisite Than flesh and blood; whene'er thou meet'est my sight, 5 When I behold thy blanched unwithered cheek, Thy temples fringed with locks of gleaming white, And head that droops because the soul is meek, Thee with the welcome Snowdrop I compare; That child of winter, prompting thoughts that climb 10 From desolation toward the genial prime; Or with the Moon conquering earth's misty air, And filling more and more with crystal light As pensive Evening deepens into night. 

 TENNYSON

 OENONE

 There lies a vale in Ida, lovelier Than all the valleys of Ionian hills. The swimming vapour slopes athwart the glen, Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine And loiters, slowly drawn. On either hand 5 The lawns and meadow-ledges midway down Hang rich in flowers, and far below them roars The long brook falling thro' the clov'n ravine In cataract after cataract to the sea. Behind the valley topmost Gargarus 10 Stands up and takes the morning: but in front The gorges, opening wide apart, reveal Troas and Ilion's column'd citadel, The crown of Troas. 

 Hither came at noon Mournful Oenone, wandering forlorn 15 Of Paris, once her playmate on the hills. Her cheek had lost the rose, and round her neck Floated her hair or seem'd to float in rest. She, leaning on a fragment twined with vine, Sang to the stillness, till the mountain-shade 20 Sloped downward to her seat from the upper cliff

 "O mother Ida, many-fountain'd Ida, Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. For now the noonday quiet holds the hill: The grasshopper is silent in the grass: 25 The lizard, with his shadow on the stone, Rests like a shadow, and the winds are dead The purple flower droops: the golden bee Is lily-cradled: I alone awake. My eyes are full of tears, my heart of love, 30 My heart is breaking, and my eyes are dim, And I am all aweary of my life. 

 "O mother Ida, many-fountain'd Ida, Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. Hear me, O Earth; hear me, O Hills, O Caves 35 That house the cold crowned snake! O mountain brooks, I am the daughter of a River-God, Hear me, for I will speak, and build up all My sorrow with my song, as yonder walls Rose slowly to a music slowly breathed, 40 A cloud that gather'd shape: for it may be That, while I speak of it, a little while My heart may wander from its deeper woe. 

 "O mother Ida, many-fountain'd Ida, Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. 45 I waited underneath the dawning hills, Aloft the mountain lawn was dewy-dark, And dewy-dark aloft the mountain pine: Beautiful Paris, evil-hearted Paris, Leading a jet-black goat white-horn'd, white-hooved, 50 Came up from reedy Simols all alone. 

 "O mother Ida, harken ere I die. Far-off the torrent call'd me from the cleft: Far up the solitary morning smote The streaks of virgin snow. With down-dropt eyes 55 I sat alone: white-breasted like a star Fronting the dawn he moved; a leopard skin Droop'd from his shoulder, but his sunny hair Cluster'd about his temples like a God's; And his cheek brighten'd as the foam-bow brightens 60 When the wind blows the foam, and all my heart Went forth to embrace him coming ere he came. 

 "Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. He smiled, and opening out his milk-white palm Disclosed a fruit of pure Hesperian gold, 65 That smelt ambrosially, and while I look'd And listen'd, the full-flowing river of speech Came down upon my heart. "'My own Oenone, Beautiful-brow'd Oenone, my own soul, Behold this fruit, whose gleaming rind ingrav'n 70 "For the most fair, " would seem to award it thine As lovelier than whatever Oread haunt The knolls of Ida, loveliest in all grace Of movement, and the charm of married brows. 

 "Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. 75 He prest the blossom of his lips to mine, And added 'This was cast upon the board, When all the full-faced presence of the Gods Ranged in the halls of Peleus; whereupon Rose feud, with question unto whom 'twere due: 80 But light-foot Iris brought it yester-eve, Delivering that to me, by common voice Elected umpire, Herè comes to-day, Pallas and Aphroditè, claiming each This meed of fairest. Thou, within the cave 85 Behind yon whispering tuft of oldest pine, Mayst well behold them unbeheld, unheard Hear all, and see thy Paris judge of Gods. '

 "Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. It was the deep mid-noon: one silvery cloud 90 Had lost his way between the piney sides Of this long glen. Then to the bower they came, Naked they came to that smooth-swarded bower, And at their feet the crocus brake like fire, Violet, amaracus, and asphodel, 95 Lotos and lilies: and a wind arose, And overhead the wandering ivy and vine, This way and that, in many a wild festoon Ran riot, garlanding the gnarled boughs With bunch and berry and flower thro' and thro'. 100

 "O mother Ida, harken ere I die. On the tree-tops a crested peacock lit, And o'er him flow'd a golden cloud, and lean'd Upon him, slowly dropping fragrant dew. Then first I heard the voice other, to whom 105 Coming thro' Heaven, like a light that grows Larger and clearer, with one mind the Gods Rise up for reverence. She to Paris made Proffer of royal power, ample rule Unquestion'd, overflowing revenue 110 Wherewith to embellish state, 'from many a vale And river-sunder'd champaign cloth'd with corn, Or labour'd mines undrainable of ore. Honour, ' she said, 'and homage, tax and toll, From many an inland town and haven large, 115 Mast-throng'd beneath her shadowing citadel In glassy bays among her tallest towers. '

 "O mother Ida, harken ere I die. Still she spake on and still she spake of power, 'Which in all action is the end of all; 120 Power fitted to the season; wisdom-bred And throned of wisdom--from all neighbour crowns Alliance and allegiance, till thy hand Fail from the sceptre-staff. Such boon from me, From me, Heaven's Queen, Paris, to thee king-born, 125 A shepherd all thy life but yet king-born, Should come most welcome, seeing men, in power Only, are likest gods, who have attain'd Rest in a happy place and quiet seats Above the thunder, with undying bliss 130 In knowledge of their own supremacy. '

 "Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. She ceased, and Paris held the costly fruit Out at arm's-length, so much the thought of power Flatter'd his spirit; but Pallas where she stood 135 Somewhat apart, her clear and bared limbs O'erthwarted with the brazen-headed spear Upon her pearly shoulder leaning cold, The while, above, her full and earnest eye Over her snow-cold breast and angry cheek 140 Kept watch, waiting decision, made reply. 

 "'Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control; These three alone lead life to sovereign power. Yet not for power, (power of herself Would come uncall'd for) but to live by law, 145 Acting the law we live by without fear; And, because right is right, to follow right Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence. '

 "Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. Again she said: 'I woo thee not with gifts. 150 Sequel of guerdon could not alter me To fairer. Judge thou me by what I am, So shalt thou find me fairest. Yet, indeed, If gazing on divinity disrobed Thy mortal eyes are frail to judge of fair, 155 Unbias'd by self-profit, oh! rest thee sure That I shall love thee well and cleave to thee, So that my vigour, wedded to thy blood, Shall strike within thy pulses, like a God's, To push thee forward thro' a life of shocks, 160 Dangers, and deeds, until endurance grow Sinew'd with action, and the full-grown will, Circled thro' all experiences, pure law, Commeasure perfect freedom. '

 "Here she ceas'd, And Paris ponder'd, and I cried, 'O Paris, 165 Give it to Pallas!' but he heard me not, Or hearing would not hear me, woe is me!

 "O mother Ida, many-fountain'd Ida, Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. Idalian Aphroditè beautiful, 170 Fresh as the foam, new-bathed in Paphian wells, With rosy slender fingers backward drew From her warm brows and bosom her deep hair Ambrosial, golden round her lucid throat And shoulder: from the violets her light foot 175 Shone rosy-white, and o'er her rounded form Between the shadows of the vine-bunches Floated the glowing sunlights, as she moved. 

 "Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. She with a subtle smile in her mild eyes, 180 The herald of her triumph, drawing nigh Half-whisper'd in his ear, 'I promise thee The fairest and most loving wife in Greece. ' She spoke and laugh'd: I shut my sight for fear: But when I look'd, Paris had raised his arm, 185 And I beheld great Herè's angry eyes, As she withdrew into the golden cloud, And I was left alone within the bower; And from that time to this I am alone, And I shall be alone until I die. 190

 "Yet, mother Ida, harken ere I die. Fairest---why fairest wife? am I not fair? My love hath told me so a thousand times; Methinks I must be fair, for yesterday, When I past by, a wild and wanton pard, 195 Eyed like the evening star, with playful tail Crouch'd fawning in the weed. Most loving is she? Ah me, my mountain shepherd, that my arms Were wound about thee, and my hot lips prest Close, close to thine in that quick-falling dew 200 Of fruitful kisses, thick as Autumn rains Flash in the pools of whirling Simois. 

 "O mother, hear me yet before I die. They came, they cut away my tallest pines, My dark tall pines, that plumed the craggy ledge 205 High over the blue gorge, and all between The snowy peak and snow-white cataract Foster'd the callow eaglet--from beneath Whose thick mysterious boughs in the dark morn The panther's roar came muffled, while I sat 210 Low in the valley. Never, never more Shall lone Oenone see the morning mist Sweep thro' them; never see them overlaid With narrow moon-lit slips of silver cloud, Between the loud stream and the trembling stars. 215

 "O mother, hear me yet before I die. I wish that somewhere in the ruin'd folds, Among the fragments tumbled from the glens, Or the dry thickets, I could meet with her, The Abominable, that uninvited came 220 Into the fair Peleian banquet-hall, And cast the golden fruit upon the board, And bred this change; that I might speak my mind, And tell her to her face how much I hate Her presence, hated both of Gods and men. 225

 "O mother, hear me yet before I die. Hath he not sworn his love a thousand times, In this green valley, under this green hill, Ev'n on this hand, and sitting on this stone? Seal'd it with kisses? water'd it with tears? 230 O happy tears, and how unlike to these! O happy Heaven, how canst thou see my face? O happy earth, how canst thou bear my weight? O death, death, death, thou ever-floating cloud, There are enough unhappy on this earth, 235 Pass by the happy souls, that love to live: I pray thee, pass before my light of life, And shadow all my soul, that I may die. Thou weighest heavy on the heart within, Weigh heavy on my eyelids: let me die. 240

 "O mother, hear me yet before I die. I will not die alone, for fiery thoughts Do shape themselves within me, more and more, Whereof I catch the issue, as I hear Dead sounds at night come from the inmost hills, 245 Like footsteps upon wool. I dimly see My far-off doubtful purpose, as a mother Conjectures of the features of her child Ere it is born: her child!--a shudder comes Across me: never child be born of me, 250 Unblest, to vex me with his father's eyes!

 "O mother, hear me yet before I die. Hear me, O earth. I will not die alone, Lest their shrill happy laughter come to me Walking the cold and starless road of Death 255 Uncomforted, leaving my ancient love With the Greek woman. I will rise and go Down into Troy, and ere the stars come forth Talk with the wild Cassandra, for she says A fire dances before her, and a sound 260 Rings ever in her ears of armed men. What this may be I know not, but I know That, wheresoe'er I am by night and day, All earth and air seem only burning fire. "

 THE EPIC

 At Francis Allen's on the Christmas-eve, -- The game of forfeits done--the girls all kiss'd Beneath the sacred bush and past away-- The parson Holmes, the poet Everard Hall, The host, and I sat round the wassail-bowl, 5 Then half-way ebb'd: and there we held a talk, How all the old honour had from Christmas gone, Or gone, or dwindled down to some odd games In some odd nooks like this; till I, tired out With cutting eights that day upon the pond, 10 Where, three times slipping from the outer edge, I bump'd the ice into three several stars, Fell in a doze; and half-awake I heard The parson taking wide and wider sweeps, New harping on the church-commissioners, 15 Now hawking at Geology and schism, Until I woke, and found him settled down Upon the general decay of faith Right thro' the world, 'at home was little left, And none abroad: there was no anchor, none; 20 To hold by. ' Francis, laughing, clapt his hand On Everard's shoulder, with 'I hold by him. ' 'And I, ' quoth Everard, 'by the wassail-bowl. ' 'Why yes, ' I said, 'we knew your gift that way At college: but another which you had, 25 I mean of verse (for so we held it then), What came of that?' 'You know, ' said Frank, 'he burnt His epic, his King Arthur, some twelve books'-- And then to me demanding why? 'Oh, sir, He thought that nothing new was said, or else 30 Something so said 'twas nothing---that a truth Looks freshest in the fashion of the day: God knows: he has a mint of reasons: ask. It pleased _me_ well enough, ' 'Nay, nay, ' said Hall, 'Why take the style of those heroic times? 35 For nature brings not back the Mastodon, Nor we those times; and why should any man Remodel models? these twelve books of mine Were faint Homeric echoes, nothing-worth, Mere chaff and draff, much better burnt. ' 'But I, ' 40 Said Francis, 'pick'd the eleventh from this hearth' And have it: keep a thing, its use will come. I hoard it as a sugar-plum for Holmes. ' He laugh'd, and I, tho' sleepy, like a horse That hears the corn-bin open, prick'd my ears; 45 For I remember'd Everard's college fame When we were Freshmen: then at my request He brought it; and the poet little urged, But with some prelude of disparagement, Read, mouthing out his hollow oes and aes, 50 Deep-chested music, and to this result. 

 MORTE D'ARTHUR

 So all day long the noise of battle roll'd Among the mountains by the winter sea; Until King Arthur's table, man by man, Had fallen in Lyonnesse about their Lord, King Arthur: then, because his wound was deep, 5 The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him, Sir Bedivere, the last of all his knights, And bore him to a chapel nigh the field, A broken chancel with a broken cross, That stood on a dark strait of barren land. 10 On one side lay the Ocean, and on one Lay a great water, and the moon was full. 

 Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere: The sequel of to-day unsolders all The goodliest fellowship of famous knights 15 Whereof this world holds record. Such a sleep They sleep--the men I loved. I think that we Shall never more, at any future time, Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds, Walking about the gardens and the halls 20 Of Camelot, as in the days that were. I perish by this people which I made, -- Tho' Merlin sware that I should come again To rule once more--but let what will be, be, I am so deeply smitten thro' the helm 25 That without help I cannot last till morn. Thou therefore take my brand Excalibur, Which was my pride: for thou rememberest how In those old days, one summer noon, an arm Rose up from out the bosom of the lake, 30 Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, Holding the sword--and how I row'd across And took it, and have worn it, like a king: And, wheresoever I am sung or told In aftertime, this also shall be known: 35 But now delay not: take Excalibur, And fling him far into the middle mere: Watch what thou seest, and lightly being me word. '

 To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere: 'It is not meet, Sir King, to leave thee thus, 40 Aidless, alone, and smitten thro' the helm. A little thing may harm a wounded man. Yet I thy hest will all perform at full, Watch what I see, and lightly bring thee word. '

 So saying, from the ruin'd shrine he stept 45 And in the moon athwart the place of tombs, Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men, Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam. He, stepping down By zig-zag paths and juts of pointed rock, 50 Came on the shining levels of the lake. 

 There drew he forth the brand Excalibur, And o'er him, drawing it, the winter moon, Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt: 55 For all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks, Myriads of topaz-lights and jacinth-work Of subtlest jewellery. He gazed so long That both his eyes were dazzled, as he stood, This way and that dividing the swift mind, 60 In act to throw: but at the last it seem'd Better to leave Excalibur conceal'd There in the many-knotted waterflags, That whistled stiff and dry about the marge. So strode he back slow to the wounded King 65

 Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere: 'Hast thou performed my mission which I gave? What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard?'

 And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere: 'I heard the ripple washing in the reeds, 70 And the wild water lapping on the crag. '

 To whom replied King Arthur, faint and pale: 'Thou hast betray'd thy nature and thy name, Not rendering true answer, as beseem'd Thy fealty, nor like a noble knight: 75 For surer sign had follow'd, either hand, Or voice, or else a motion of the mere. This is a shameful thing for men to lie. Yet now, I charge thee, quickly go again As thou art lief and dear, and do the thing 80 I bad thee, watch, and lightly bring me word. '

 Then went Sir Bedivere the second time Across the ridge, and paced beside the mere, Counting the dewy pebbles, fix'd in thought; But when he saw the wonder of the hilt, 85 How curiously and strangely chased, he smote His palms together, and he cried aloud, 'And if indeed I cast the brand away, Surely a precious thing, one worthy note, Should thus be lost for ever from the earth, 90 Which might have pleased the eyes of many men. What good should follow this, if this were done? What harm, undone? deep harm to disobey, Seeing obedience is the bond of rule. Were it well to obey then, if a king demand 95 An act unprofitable, against himself? The King is sick, and knows not what he does. What record, or what relic of my lord Should be to aftertime, but empty breath And rumours of a doubt? but were this kept, 100 Stored in some treasure-house of mighty kings, Some one might show it at a joust of arms, Saying, "King Arthur's sword, Excalibur, Wrought by the lonely maiden of the Lake. Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps 105 Upon the hidden bases of the hills. " So might some old man speak in the after-time To all the people, winning reverence. But now much honour and much fame were lost. '

 So spake he, clouded with his own conceit, 110 And hid Excalibur the second time, And so strode back slow to the wounded King. 

 Then spoke King Arthur, breathing heavily: 'What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard?'

 And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere: 115 'I heard the water lapping on the crag, And the long ripple washing in the reeds. '

 To whom replied King Arthur, much in wrath: 'Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue, Unknightly, traitor-hearted! Woe is me! 120 Authority forgets a dying king, Laid widow'd of the power in his eye That bow'd the will. I see thee what thou art, For thou, the latest-left of all my knights, In whom should meet the offices of all, 125 Thou wouldst betray me for the precious hilt; Either from lust of gold, or like a girl Valuing the giddy pleasure of the eyes. Yet, for a man may fail in duty twice, And the third time may prosper, get thee hence: 130 But, if thou spare to fling Excalibur, I will arise and slay thee with my hands. '

 Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran, And, leaping down the ridges lightly, plunged Among the bulrush-beds, and clutch'd the sword, 135 And strongly wheel'd and threw it. The great brand Made lightnings in the splendour of the moon, And flashing round and round, and whirl'd in an arch, Shot like a streamer of the northern morn, Seen where the moving isles of winter shock 140 By night, with noises of the northern sea. So flash'd and fell the brand Excalibur: But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, And caught him by the hilt, and brandish'd him 145 Three times, and drew him under in the mere. And lightly went the other to the King. 

 Then spoke King-Arthur, drawing thicker breath: 'Now see I by thine eyes that this is done. Speak out: what is it thou has heard, or seen?' 150

 And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere: 'Sir King, I closed mine eyelids, lest the gems Should blind my purpose, for I never saw, Nor shall see, here or elsewhere, till I die, Not tho' I live three lives of mortal men, 155 So great a miracle as yonder hilt. Then with both hands I flung him, wheeling him; But when I look'd again, behold an arm, Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, That caught him by the hilt, and brandish'd him 160 Three times, and drew him under in the mere. '

 And answer made King Arthur, breathing hard: 'My end draws nigh; 'tis time that I were gone. Make broad thy shoulders to receive my weight, And bear me to the margin; yet I fear 165 My wound hath taken cold, and I shall die. '

 So saying, from the pavement he half rose, Slowly, with pain, reclining on his arm, And looking wistfully with wide blue eyes As in a picture. Him Sir Bedivere 170 Remorsefully regarded thro' his tears, And would have spoken, but he found not words, Then took with care, and kneeling on one knee, O'er both his shoulders drew the languid hands, And rising bore him thro' the place of tombs. 175

 But, as he walk'd, King Arthur panted hard, Like one that feels a nightmare on his bed When all the house is mute. So sigh'd the King, Muttering and murmuring at his ear, 'Quick, quick! I fear it is too late, and I shall die. ' 180

 But the other swiftly strode from ridge to ridge, Clothed with his breath, and looking, as he walk'd, Larger than human on the frozen hills. He heard the deep behind him, and a cry Before. His own thought drove him like a goad. 185 Dry clash'd his harness in the icy caves And barren chasms, and all to left and right The bare black cliff clang'd round him, as he based His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels-- 190 And on a sudden, lo! the level lake, And the long glories of the winter moon. 

 Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge, Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern, Beneath them; and descending they were ware 195 That all the decks were dense with stately forms Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream--by these Three Queens with crowns of gold--and from them rose A cry that shiver'd to the tingling stars, And, as it were one voice an agony 200 Of lamentation, like a wind, that shrills All night in a waste land, where no one comes, Or hath come, since the making of the world, Then murmur'd Arthur, 'Place me in the barge. ' And to the barge they came. There those three Queens 205 Put forth their hands, and took the King, and wept. But she, that rose the tallest of them all And fairest, laid his head upon her lap, And loosed the shatter'd casque, and chafed his hands, And call'd him by his name, complaining loud, 210 And dropping bitter tears against his brow Striped with dark blood: for all his face was white And colourless, and like the wither'd moon Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east; And all his greaves and cuisses dash'd with drops 215 Of onset; and the light and lustrous curls-- That made his forehead like a rising sun High from the daïs-throne--were parch'd with dust; Or, clotted into points and hanging loose, Mix'd with the knightly growth that fringed his lips. 220 So like a shatter'd column lay the King; Not like that Arthur who, with lance in rest, From spur to plume a star of tournament, Shot thro' the lists at Camelot, and charged Before the eyes of ladies and of kings. 225

 Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere, 'Ah! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go? Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes? For now I see the true old times are dead, When every morning brought a noble chance, 230 And every chance brought out a noble knight. Such times have been not since the light that led The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh. But now the whole ROUND TABLE is dissolved Which was an image of the mighty world; 235 And I, the last, go forth companionless, And the days darken round me, and the years, Among new men, strange faces, other minds. '

 And slowly answered Arthur from the barge: 'The old order changeth, yielding place to new, 240 And God fulfils Himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me? I have lived my life, and that which I have done May He within Himself make pure! but thou, 245 If thou shouldst never see my face again, Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice Rise like a fountain for me night and day. For what are men better than sheep or goats 250 That nourish a blind life within the brain, If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer Both for themselves and those who call them friend? For so the whole round earth is every way Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. 255 But now farewell. I am going a long way With these thou seest--if indeed I go-- (For all my mind is clouded with a doubt) To the island-valley of Avilion; Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, 260 Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard-lawns And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea, Where I will heal me of my grievous wound. '

 So said he, and the barge with oar and sail 265 Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan That, fluting a wild carol ere her death, Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere Revolving many memories, till the hull 270 Look'd one black dot against the verge of dawn, And on the mere the wailing died away. 

 * * * * * *

 Here ended Hall, and our last light, that long Had wink'd and threatened darkness, flared and fell: At which the Parson, sent to sleep with sound, And waked with silence, grunted 'Good!' but we 55 Sat rapt: it was the tone with which he read-- Perhaps some modern touches here and there Redeem'd it from the charge of nothingness-- Or else we loved the man, and prized his work; I know not: but we sitting, as I said, 60 The cock crew loud; as at that time of year The lusty bird takes every hour for dawn: Then Francis, muttering, like a man ill-used, 'There now--that's nothing!' drew a little back, And drove his heel into the smoulder'd log, 65 That sent a blast of sparkles up the flue: And so to bed; where yet in sleep I seem'd To sail with Arthur under looming shores, Point after point; till on to dawn, when dreams Begin to feel the truth and stir of day, 70 To me, methought, who waited with a crowd, There came a bark that, blowing forward, bore King Arthur, like a modern gentleman Of stateliest port; and all the people cried, 'Arthur is come again: he cannot die. ' 75 Then those that stood upon the hills behind Repeated--'Come again, and thrice as fair;' And, further inland, voices echo'd--'Come With all good things, and war shall be no more. ' At this a hundred bells began to peal, 80 That with the sound I woke, and heard indeed The clear church-bells ring in the Christmas-morn. 

 THE BROOK

 Here, by this brook, we parted; I to the East And he for Italy--too late--too late; One whom the strong sons of the world despise; For lucky rhymes to him were scrip and share, And mellow metres more than cent for cent; 5 Nor could he understand how money breeds; Thought it a dead thing; yet himself could make The thing that is not as the thing that is. O had he lived! In our schoolbooks we say, Of those that held their heads above the crowd, 10 They flourish'd then or then; but life in him Could scarce be said to flourish, only touch'd On such a time as goes before the leaf, When all the wood stands in a mist of green, And nothing perfect: yet the brook he loved, 15 For which, in branding summers of Bengal, Or ev'n the sweet half-English Neilgherry air I panted, seems; as I re-listen to it, Prattling the primrose fancies of the boy, To me that loved him; for 'O brook, ' he says, 20 'O babbling brook, ' says Edmund in his rhyme, 'Whence come you?' and the brook, why not? replies:

 I come from haunts of coot and hern, I make a sudden sally, And sparkle out among the fern, 25 To bicker down a valley. 

 By thirty hills I hurry down, Or slip between the ridges, By twenty thorps, a little town, And half a hundred bridges. 30

 Till last by Philip's farm I flow To join the brimming river, For men may come and men may go, But I go on for ever. 

 'Poor lad, he died at Florence, quite worn out, 35 Travelling to Naples. There is Darnley bridge, It has more ivy; there the river; and there Stands Philip's farm where brook and river meet. 

 I chatter over stony ways, In little sharps and trebles, 40 I bubble into eddying bays, I babble on the pebbles. 

 With many a curve my banks I fret By many a field and fallow, And many a fairy foreland set 45 With willow-weed and mallow. 

 I chatter, chatter, as I flow To join the brimming river, For men may come and men may go, But I go on for ever. 50

 'But Philip chattered more than brook or bird; Old Philip; all about the fields you caught His weary daylong chirping, like the dry High-elbow'd grigs that leap in summer grass. 

 I wind about, and in and out, 55 With here a blossom sailing, And here and there a lusty trout, And here and there a grayling, And here and there a foamy flake Upon me, as I travel 60 With many a silvery waterbreak Above the golden gravel, And draw them all along, and flow To join the brimming river, For men may come and men may go, But I go on for ever. 

 'O darling Katie Willows, his one child! A maiden of our century, yet most meek; A daughter of our meadows, yet not coarse; Straight, but as lissome as a hazel wand; 70 Her eyes a bashful azure, and her hair In gloss and hue the chestnut, when the shell Divides threefold to show the fruit within. 

 Sweet Katie, once I did her a good turn, Her and her far-off cousin and betrothed, 75 James Willows, of one name and heart with her. For here I came, twenty years back--the week Before I parted with poor Edmund; crost By that old bridge which, half in ruins then, Still makes a hoary eyebrow for the gleam 80 Beyond it, where the waters marry--crost, Whistling a random bar of Bonny Doon, And push'd at Philip's garden-gate. The gate, Half-parted from a weak and scolding hinge, Stuck; and he clamour'd from a casement, "Run" 85 To Katie somewhere in the walks below, "Run, Katie!" Katie never ran: she moved To meet me, winding under woodbine bowers, A little flutter'd, with her eyelids down, Fresh apple-blossom, blushing for a boon. 90

 'What was it? less of sentiment than sense Had Katie; not illiterate; nor of those Who dabbling in the fount of fictive tears, And nursed by mealy-mouth'd philanthropies, Divorce the Feeling from her mate the Deed. 95 'She told me. She and James had quarrell'd. Why? What cause of quarrel? None, she said, no cause; James had no cause: but when I prest the cause, I learnt that James had flickering jealousies Which anger'd her. Who anger'd James? I said. 100 But Katie snatch'd her eyes at once from mine, And sketching with her slender pointed foot Some figure like a wizard pentagram On garden gravel, let my query pass Unclaimed, in flushing silence, till I ask'd 105 If James were coming. "Coming every day, " She answer'd, "ever longing to explain, But evermore her father came across With some long-winded tale, and broke him short; And James departed vext with him and her. " 110 How could I help her? "Would I--was it wrong?" (Claspt hands and that petitionary grace Of sweet seventeen subdued me ere she spoke) "O would I take her father for one hour, For one half-hour, and let him talk to me!" 115 And even while she spoke, I saw where James Made toward us, like a wader in the surf, Beyond the brook, waist-deep in meadow-sweet. 

 'O Katie, what I suffer'd for your sake! For in I went, and call'd old Philip out 120 To show the farm: full willingly he rose: He led me thro' the short sweet-smelling lanes Of his wheat-suburb, babbling as he went, He praised his land, his horses, his machines; He praised his ploughs, his cows, his hogs, his dogs; 125 He praised his hens, his geese, his guinea-hens, His pigeons, who in session on their roofs Approved him, bowing at their own deserts: Then from the plaintive mother's teat he took Her blind and shuddering puppies, naming each, 130 And naming those, his friends, for whom they were: Then crost the common into Darnley chase To show Sir Arthur's deer. In copse and fern Twinkled the innumerable ear and tail. Then, seated on a serpent-rooted beech, 135 He pointed out a pasturing colt, and said: "That was the four-year-old I sold the Squire. " And there he told a long long-winded tale Of how the Squire had seen the colt at grass, And how it was the thing his daughter wish'd, 140 And how he sent the bailiff to the farm To learn the price, and what the price he ask'd, And how the bailiff swore that he was mad, But he stood firm; and so the matter hung; He gave them line; and five days after that 145 He met the bailiff at the Golden Fleece, Who then and there had offer'd something more, But he stood firm; and so the matter hung; He knew the man; the colt would fetch its price; He gave them line: and how by chance at last 150 (It might be May or April, he forgot, The last of April or the first of May) He found the bailiff riding by the farm, And, talking from the point, he drew him in, And there he mellow'd all his heart with ale, 155 Until they closed a bargain, hand in hand. 

 'Then, while I breathed in sight of haven, he, Poor fellow, could he help it? recommenced, And ran thro' all the coltish chronicle, Wild Will, Black Bess, Tantivy, Tallyho, 160 Reform, White Rose, Bellerophon, the Jilt, Arbaces, and Phenomenon, and the rest, Tilt, not to die a listener, I arose, And with me Philip, talking still; and so We turn'd our foreheads from the falling sun, 165 And following our own shadows thrice as long As when they follow'd us from Philip's door, Arrived, and found the sun of sweet content Re-risen in Katie's eyes, and all thing's well. 

 I steal by lawns and grassy plots, 170 I slide by hazel covers; I move the sweet forget-me-nots That grow for happy lovers. 

 I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance, Among my skimming swallows; 175 I make the netted sunbeam dance Against my sandy shallows. 

 I murmur under moon and stars In brambly wildernesses; I linger by my shingly bars; 180 I loiter round my cresses;

 And out again I curve and flow To join the brimming river, For men may come and men may go, But I go on for ever. 185

 Yes, men may come and go; and these are gone, All gone. My dearest brother, Edmund, sleeps, Not by the well-known stream and rustic spire, But unfamiliar Arno, and the dome Of Brunelleschi; sleeps in peace: and he, 190 Poor Philip, of all his lavish waste of words Remains the lean P. W. On his tomb: I scraped the lichen from it: Katie walks By the long wash of Australasian seas Far off, and holds her head to other stars, 195 And breathes in April autumns. All are gone. '

 So Lawrence Aylmer, seated on a stile In the long hedge, and rolling in his mind Old waifs of rhyme, and bowing o'er the brook A tonsured head in middle age forlorn, 200 Mused and was mute. On a sudden a low breath Offender air made tremble in the hedge The fragile bindweed-bells and briony rings; And he look'd up. There stood a maiden near, Waiting to pass. In much amaze he stared 205 On eyes a bashful azure, and on hair In gloss and hue the chestnut, when the shell Divides threefold to show the fruit within: Then, wondering, ask'd her 'Are you from the farm?' 'Yes' answer'd she. 'Pray stay a little: pardon me; 210 What do they call you?' 'Katie. ' 'That were strange. What surname?' 'Willows. ' 'No!' 'That is my name. ' 'Indeed!' and here he look'd so self-perplext, That Katie laugh'd, and laughing blush'd, till he Laugh'd also, but as one before he wakes, 215 Who feels a glimmering strangeness in his dream; Then looking at her; 'Too happy, fresh and fair, Too fresh and fair in our sad world's best bloom, To be the ghost of one who bore your name About these meadows, twenty years ago. 220

 'Have you not heard?' said Katie, 'we came back. We bought the farm we tenanted before. Am I so like her? so they said on board. Sir, if you knew her in her English days, My mother, as it seems you did, the days 225 That most she loves to talk of, come with me. My brother James is in the harvest-field: But she--you will be welcome--O, come in!'

 IN MEMORIAM

 XXVII

 I envy not in any moods The captive void of noble rage, The linnet born within the cage, That never knew the summer woods:

 I envy not the beast that takes 5 His license in the field of time, Unfetter'd by the sense of crime, To whom a conscience never wakes;

 Nor, what may count itself as blest, The heart that never plighted troth 10 But stagnates in the weeds of sloth; Nor any want-begotten rest. 

 I hold it true, whate'er befall; I feel it, when I sorrow most; 'Tis better to have loved and lost 15 Than never to have lov'd at all. 

 LXIV

 Dost thou look back on what hath been, As some divinely gifted man, Whose life in low estate began And on a simple village green;

 Who breaks his birth's invidious bar, 5 And grasps the skirts of happy chance, And breasts the blows of circumstance, And grapples with his evil star;

 Who makes by force his merit known And lives to clutch the golden keys, 10 To mould a mighty state's decrees, And shape the whisper of the throne;

 And moving up from high to higher, Becomes on Fortune's crowning slope The pillar of a people's hope, 15 The centre of a world's desire;

 Yet feels, as in a pensive dream, When all his active powers are still, A distant dearness in the hill, A secret sweetness in the stream, 20

 The limit of his narrower fate, While yet beside its vocal springs He play'd at counsellors and kings, With one that was his earliest mate;

 Who ploughs with pain his native lea 25 And reaps the labour of his hands, Or in the furrow musing stands; "Does my old friend remember me?"

 LXXXIII

 Dip down upon the northern shore, O sweet new-year delaying long; Thou doest expectant nature wrong; Delaying long, delay no more. 

 What stays thee from the clouded noons, 5 Thy sweetness from its proper place? Can trouble live with April days, Or sadness in the summer moons?

 Bring orchis, bring the foxglove spire, The little speedwell's darling blue, 10 Deep tulips dash'd with fiery dew, Laburnums, dropping-wells of fire. 

 O thou, new-year, delaying long, Delayest the sorrow in my blood, That longs to burst a frozen bud 15 And flood a fresher throat with song. 

 LXXXVI

 Sweet after showers, ambrosial air, That rollest from the gorgeous gloom Of evening over brake and bloom And meadow, slowly breathing bare

 The round of space, and rapt below 5 Thro' all the dewy-tassell'd wood, And shadowing down the horned flood In ripples, fan my brows and blow

 The fever from my cheek, and sigh The full new life that feeds thy breath 10 Throughout my frame, till Doubt and Death, Ill brethren, let the fancy fly

 From belt to belt of crimson seas On leagues of odour streaming far, To where in yonder orient star 15 A hundred spirits whisper "Peace. "

 CI

 Unwatch'd, the garden bough shall sway, The tender blossom flutter down, Unloved, that beech will gather brown, This maple burn itself away;

 Unloved, the sun-flower, shining fair, 5 Ray round with flames her disk of seed, And many a rose-carnation feed With summer spice the humming air;

 Unloved, by many a sandy bar, The brook shall babble down the plain, 10 At noon or when the lesser wain Is twisting round the polar star;

 Uncared for, gird the windy grove, And flood the haunts of hern and crake; Or into silver arrows break 15 The sailing moon in creek and cove;

 Till from the garden and the wild A fresh association blow, And year by year the landscape grow Familiar to the stranger's child; 20

 As year by year the labourer tills His wonted glebe, or lops the glades; And year by year our memory fades From all the circle of the hills. 

 CXIV

 Who loves not Knowledge? Who shall rail Against her beauty? May she mix With men and prosper! Who shall fix Her pillars? Let her work prevail. 

 But on her forehead sits a fire: 5 She sets her forward countenance And leaps into the future chance, Submitting all things to desire. 

 Half-grown as yet, a child, and vain-- She cannot fight the fear of death. 10 What is she, cut from love and faith, But some wild Pallas from the brain

 Of Demons? fiery-hot to burst All barriers in her onward race For power. Let her know her place; 15 She is the second, not the first. 

 A higher hand must make her mild, If all be not in vain; and guide Her footsteps, moving side by side With wisdom, like the younger child: 20

 For she is earthly of the mind, But Wisdom heavenly of the soul. O friend, who earnest to thy goal So early, leaving me behind

 I would the great world grew like thee, 25 Who grewest not alone in power And knowledge, but by year and hour In reverence and in charity. 

 CXV

 Now fades the last long streak of snow, Now burgeons every maze of quick About the flowering squares, and thick By ashen roots the violets blow, Now rings the woodland loud and long, 5 The distance takes a lovelier hue, And drown'd in yonder living blue The lark becomes a sightless song. 

 Now dance the lights on lawn and lea, The flocks are whiter down the vale, 10 And milkier every milky sail On winding stream or distant sea;

 Where now the seamew pipes, or dives In yonder greening gleam, and fly The happy birds, that change their sky 15 To build and brood, that live their lives

 From land to land; and in my breast Spring wakens too; and my regret Becomes an April violet, And buds and blossoms like the rest. 20

 CXVIII

 Contemplate all this work of Time, The giant labouring in his youth; Nor dream of human love and truth, As dying Nature's earth and lime;

 But trust that those we call the dead 5 Are breathers of an ampler day For ever nobler ends. They say, The solid earth whereon we tread

 In tracts of fluent heat began, And grew to seeming-random forms, 10 The seeming prey of cyclic storms, Till at the last arose the man;

 Who throve and branch'd from clime to clime, The herald of a higher race, And of himself in higher place, 15 If so he type this work of time

 Within himself, from more to more; Or, crown'd with attributes of woe Like glories, move his course, and show That life is not as idle ore, 20

 But iron dug from central gloom, And heated hot with burning fears, And dipt in baths of hissing tears, And batter'd with the shocks of doom

 To shape and use. Arise and fly 25 The reeling Faun, the sensual feast; Move upward, working out the beast And let the ape and tiger die. 

 CXXIII

 There rolls the deep where grew the tree. O earth, what changes hast thou seen! There where the long street roars hath been The stillness of the central sea. 

 The hills are shadows, and they flow 5 From form to form, and nothing stands; They melt like mist, the solid lands, Like clouds they shape themselves and go. 

 But in my spirit will I dwell, And dream my dream, and hold it true; 10 For tho' my lips may breathe adieu, I cannot think the thine farewell. 

WORDSWORTH

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

William Wordsworth was born at Cockermouth, Cumberland, on April 7th, 1770. His father, John Wordsworth, was the agent of Sir J. Lowther, who later became the first Earl of Lonsdale. At the age of eight theboy was sent to school at Hawkshead. The impressions of his boyhoodperiod are related in the autobiographical poem, _The Prelude_, (written 1805, published 1850), and from this poetical record wediscern how strong the influences of Nature were to shape and develophis imagination. Wordsworth's father died in 1783, leaving the familypoorly provided for. The main asset was a considerable claim upon theEarl of Lonsdale, which that individual refused to pay. On his death, in 1802, the successor to the title and estates paid the amount of theclaim in full with accumulated interest. In the interval, however, theWordsworth family remained in very straitened circumstances. Enoughmoney was provided by Wordsworth's guardians to send him to CambridgeUniversity In 1787. He entered St. John's College, and after anundistinguished course graduated without honors in January, 1791. Hisvacations were spent chiefly in Hawkshead and Wales, but one memorablevacation was marked by a walking excursion with a friend through Franceand Switzerland, the former country then being on the verge ofrevolution. 

Shortly after leaving the University, in November, 1791, Wordsworthreturned to France, remaining there until December of the followingyear. During this period he was completely won over to the principlesof the revolution. The later reaction from these principlesconstituted the one moral struggle of his life. 

In 1793 his first work appeared before the public--two poems, entitled_The Evening Walk_ and _Descriptive Sketches_. Coleridge, who readthese pieces at Cambridge, divined that they announced the emergence ofan original poetical genius above the horizon. Readers of the poemsto-day, who are wise after the event, could scarcely divine as much. At about this period Wordsworth received a bequest of 900 pounds fromRaisley Calvert, which enabled him and his sister Dorothy to take asmall cottage at Racedown in Dorsetshire. Here he wrote a number ofpoems in which he worked off the ferment of his revolutionary ideas. These ideas can scarcely be said to have troubled him much in lateryears. 

An important incident in his life, hardly second in importance to thestimulating companionship of his sister, was his meeting withColeridge, which occurred probably towards the close of 1795. Coleridge, who was but little younger than Wordsworth, had the morerichly equipped, if not the more richly endowed, mind. He was livingat Nether Stowey, and in order to benefit by the stimulus which such afriendship offered, the Wordsworth's moved to Alfoxden, three milesaway from Stowey (July, 1797). It was during a walking expedition tothe Quantock Hills in November of that year that the poem of _TheAncient Mariner_ was planned. It was intended that the poem should bea joint production, but Wordsworth's contribution was confined to thesuggestion of a few details merely, and some scattered lines which areindicated in the notes to that poem. Their poetic theories were soonto take definite shape in the publication of the famous _LyricalBallads_ (September, 1798), to which Coleridge contributed _The AncientMariner_, and Wordsworth some characteristic lyrical, reflective, andnarrative poems. The excessive simplicity and alleged triviality ofsome of these poems long continued to give offence to the conservativelovers of poetry. Even to-day we feel that Wordsworth was sometimesthe victim of his own theories. 

In June of this same year (1798) Wordsworth and his sister accompaniedColeridge to Germany. They soon parted company, the Wordsworthssettling at Goslar, while Coleridge, intent upon study, went in searchof German metaphysics at Gottingen. Wordsworth did not come into anycontract with German life or thought, but sat through the winter by astove writing poems for a second edition of the _Lyrical Ballads_. April, 1799, found the brother and sister again in England. InDecember they settled down at Dove Cottage, Town End, Grasmere, andnever, save for brief intervals, abandoned the Lake Country. In 1802, as has been said, a slight accession of fortune fell to Wordsworth bythe settlement of the Lonsdale claim. The share of each of the familywas 1, 800 pounds. On the strength of this wind-fall the poet felt thathe might marry, and accordingly brought home Mary Hutchinson as hiswife. 

The subsequent career of Wordsworth belongs to the history of poetry. Of events in the ordinary sense there are few to record. Hesuccessively occupies three houses in the Lake Country after abandoningDove Cottage. We find him at Allan Bank in 1808, in the Parsonage atGrasmere in 1810, and at Rydal Mount from 1813 to his death in 1850. He makes occasional excursions to Scotland or the Continent, and atlong intervals visits London, where Carlyle sees him and records hisvivid impressions. For many years Wordsworth enjoys the sinecure ofDistributor of Stamps for Westmoreland (400 pounds a year), and on hisresignation of that office in his son's favor, he is placed on theCivil List for a well deserved pension of 300 pounds. On Southey'sdeath, in 1843, he is appointed Poet Laureate. He died at Grasmere onApril 23rd, 1850. 

Wordsworth's principal long poems are: _The Prelude_ (1805 published1850); _The Excursion_ (1814); _The White Doe of Rylstone_ (1815) and_Peter Bell The Waggoner_ (1819). His fame rests principally on hisshorter narrative poems, his meditative lyrics, including his two greatodes, _To Duty_ and _On the Intimations of Immortality_, and on thesonnets, which rank with the finest in the language. The longer poemshave many fine passages exhibiting his powers of graphic description, and illustrating his mystical philosophy of nature. 

Thomas Carlyle's description of Wordsworth is of interest: "For therest, he talked well in his way; with veracity, easy brevity, andforce, as a wise tradesman would of his tools and workshop, and as nounwise one could. His voice was good, frank, and sonorous, thoughpractically clear, distinct, and forcible, rather than melodious; thetone of him, businesslike, sedately confident; no discourtesy, yet noanxiety about being courteous. A fine wholesome rusticity, fresh ashis mountain breezes, sat well on the stalwart veteran, and on all hesaid and did. You would have said that he was a usually taciturn man, glad to unlock himself to audience sympathetic and intelligent, whensuch offered itself. His face bore marks of much, not always peaceful, meditation; the look of it not bland or benevolent so much as close, impregnable, and hard; a man _multa tacere loquive paratus_, in a worldwhere he had experienced no lack of contradictions as he strode along. The eyes were not very brilliant, but they had a quiet clearness; therewas enough of brow, and well-shaped; rather too much cheek ('horseface' I have heard satirists say); face of squarish shape, anddecidedly longish, as I think the head itself was (its length goinghorizontal); he was large-boned, lean, but still firm-knit, tall, andstrong-looking when he stood, a right good old steel-gray figure, withrustic simplicity and dignity about him, and a vivacious strengthlooking through him, which might have suited one of those oldsteel-gray markgrafs whom Henry the Fowler set up towards the 'marches'and do battle with the intrusive heathen in a stalwart and judiciousmanner. "

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE

Born, April 7, 1770, at Cockermouth, Cumberland. 

Goes to Hawkshead Grammar School, 1778. 

Sent by guardians to St. John's College, Cambridge, October, 1787. 

Foreign tour with Jones, 1790. 

Graduates as B. A. Without honors, January, 1791. 

Residence in France, November, 1791, to December, 1792. 

Publication of _The Evening Walk_, and _Descriptive Sketches_, 1793. 

Legacy from Raisley Calvert of 900 pounds, 1794. 

Lives at Racedown, Dorsetshire, autumn of 1795 to summer of 1797. 

Composes _The Borderers_, a tragedy, 1795-1796. 

Close friendship with Coleridge begins in 1797. 

Rents a house at Alfoxden, 1797. 

Genesis of the _Lyrical Ballads_, 1797. 

_Lyrical Ballads_ published September, 1798. 

German visit, September, 1798, to April, 1799. 

Lives at Dove Cottage, Grasmere, December 21, 1799 to 1806, 1807-1808. 

The Lonsdale debt of 8, 500 pounds repaid, 1802. 

Marries Mary Hutchinson, October, 1802. 

Death by drowning of his brother, Captain John Wordsworth, 1805. 

Lives at Coleorton, Leicestershire, 1806 to 1807. 

Collected Edition of poems, 1807. 

Lives at Allan Bank, Easedale, 1808 to 1810. 

Lives at the Parsonage, Grasmere, 1810 to 1812. 

Loss of two children and removal to Rydal Mount, Grasmere, 1813 to 1850. 

Appointed distributor of stamps for Westmoreland (400 pounds a year), 1813. 

_The Excursion_ appears, July, 1814. 

Honorary degree of D. C. L. From Oxford, 1839. 

Resigns his office as distributor of stamps, 1842. 

Receives a pension from Sir R. Peel of 300 pounds, 1842. 

Appointed Poet Laureate, 1843. 

Dies at Grasmere, April 23, 1850. 

APPRECIATIONS

Coleridge, with rare insight, summarized Wordsworth's characteristicdefects and merits as follows;

"The first characteristic, though only occasional defect, which Iappear to myself to find in these poems is the inconstancy of thestyle. Under this name I refer to the sudden and unpreparedtransitions from lines or sentences of peculiar felicity (at all eventsstriking and original) to a style, not only unimpassioned butundistinguished. 

"The second defect I can generalize with tolerable accuracy, if thereader will pardon an uncouth and newly-coined word. There is, Ishould say, not seldom a _matter-of-factness_ in certain poems. Thismay be divided into, first, a laborious minuteness and fidelity in therepresentation of objects, and there positions, as they appeared to thepoet himself; secondly, the insertion of accidental circumstances, inorder to the full explanation of his living characters, theirdispositions and actions; which circumstances might be necessary toestablish the probability of a statement in real life, when nothing istaken for granted by the hearer; but appear superfluous in poetry, where the reader is willing to believe for his own sake. . . 

"Third; an undue predilection for the _dramatic_ form in certain poems, from which one or other of two evils result. Either the thoughts anddiction are different from that of the poet, and then there arises anincongruity of style; or they are the same and indistinguishable, wheretwo are represented as talking, while in truth one man only speaks. . . 

"The fourth class of defects is closely connected with the former; butyet are such as arise likewise from an intensity of feelingdisproportionate to such knowledge and value of the objects described, as can be fairly anticipated of men in general, even of the mostcultivated classes; and with which therefore few only, and those fewparticularly circumstanced, can be supposed to sympathize: in thisclass, I comprise occasional prolixity, repetition, and an eddying, instead of progression, of thought. . . 

"Fifth and last; thoughts and images too great for the subject. Thisis an approximation to what might be called mental bombast, asdistinguished from verbal: for, as in the latter there is adisproportion of the expressions to the thoughts, so in this there is adisproportion of thought to the circumstance and occasion. . . 

"To these defects, which . . . Are only occasional, I may oppose . . . The following (for the most part correspondent) excellencies:

"First; an austere purity of language both grammatically and logically;in short a perfect appropriateness of the words to the meaning. . . 

"The second characteristic excellence of Mr. Wordsworth's works is--acorrespondent weight and sanity of the thoughts and sentiments, won notfrom books, but from the poet's own meditative observations. They arefresh and have the dew upon them. . . 

"Third; . . . The sinewy strength and originality of single lines andparagraphs; the frequent _curiosa felicitas_ of his diction. . . 

"Fourth; the perfect truth of nature in his images and descriptions astaken immediately from nature, and proving a long and genial intimacywith the very spirit which gives the physiognomic expressions to allthe works of nature. Like a green field reflected in a calm andperfectly transparent lake, the image is distinguished from the realityonly by its greater softness and lustre. Like the moisture or thepolish on a pebble, genius neither distorts nor false-colors itsobjects; but on the contrary, brings out many a vein and many a tint, which escape the eye of common observation, thus raising to the rank ofgems what had been often kicked away by the hurrying foot of thetraveller on the dusty high-road of custom. . . 

"Fifth; a meditative pathos, a union of deep and subtle thought withsensibility; a sympathy with man as man; the sympathy indeed of acontemplator, rather than a fellow-sufferer or co-mate, but of acontemplator, from whose view no difference of rank conceals thesameness of the nature; no injuries of wind or weather, of toil, oreven of ignorance, wholly disguise the human face divine. Thesuperscription and the image of the Creator still remains legible to_him_ under the dark lines, with which guilt or calamity had cancelledor cross-barred it. Here the Man and the Poet lose and find themselvesin each other, the one as glorified, the latter as substantiated. Inthis mild and philosophic pathos, Wordsworth appears to me without acompeer. Such as he is; so he writes. 

"Last and pre-eminently, I challenge for this poet the gift ofimagination in the highest and strictest sense of the word. In theplay of fancy, Wordsworth, to my feelings, is not always graceful, andsometimes recondite. . . But in imaginative power, he stands nearest ofall writers to Shakespeare and Milton; and yet in a kind perfectlyunborrowed and his own. "

These are the grounds upon which Coleridge bases the poetic claims ofWordsworth. 

Matthew Arnold, in the preface to his well-known collection ofWordsworth's poems, accords to the poet a rank no less exalted. "Ifirmly believe that the poetical performance of Wordsworth is, afterthat of Shakespeare and Milton, of which all the world now recognizesthe worth, undoubtedly the most considerable in our language from theElizabethan age to the present time. " His essential greatness is to befound in his shorter pieces, despite the frequent intrusion of muchthat is very inferior. Still it is "by the great body of powerful andsignificant work which remains to him after every reduction anddeduction has been made, that Wordsworth's superiority is proved. "

Coleridge had not dwelt sufficiently, perhaps, upon the joyousnesswhich results from Wordsworth's philosophy of human life and externalnature. This Matthew Arnold considers to be the prime source of hisgreatness. "Wordsworth's poetry is great because of the extraordinarypower with which Wordsworth feels the joy offered to us in the simpleprimary affections and duties; and because of the extraordinary powerwith which, in case after case, he shows us this joy, and renders it soas to make us share it. " Goethe's poetry, as Wordsworth once said, isnot inevitable enough, is too consciously moulded by the supreme willof the artist. "But Wordsworth's poetry, " writes Arnold, "when he isat his best, is inevitable, as inevitable as Nature herself. It mightseem that Nature not only gave him the matter for his poem, but wrotehis poem for him. " The set poetic style of _The Excursion_ is afailure, but there is something unique and unmatchable in the simplegrace of his narrative poems and lyrics. "Nature herself seems, I say, to take the pen out of his hand, and to write for him with her ownbare, sheer, penetrating power. This arises from two causes: from theprofound sincereness with which Wordsworth feels his subject, and alsofrom the profoundly sincere and natural character of his subjectitself. He can and will treat such a subject with nothing but the mostplain, first hand, almost austere naturalness. His expression mayoften be called bald, as, for instance, in the poem of _Resolution andIndependence_; but it is bald as the bare mountain tops are bald, witha baldness which is full of grandeur. . . Wherever we meet with thesuccessful balance, in Wordsworth, of profound truth of subject withprofound truth of execution, he is unique. "

Professor Dowden has also laid stress upon the harmonious balance ofWordsworth's nature, his different faculties seeming to interpenetrateone another, and yield mutual support. He has likewise calledattention to the austere naturalism of which Arnold speaks. "Wordsworth was a great naturalist in literature, but he was also agreat Idealist; and between the naturalist and the idealist inWordsworth no opposition existed: each worked with the other, eachserved the other. While Scott, by allying romance with reality, savedromantic fiction from the extravagances and follies into which it hadfallen, Wordsworth's special work was to open a higher way fornaturalism in art by its union with ideal truth. "

Criticism has long since ceased to ridicule his _Betty Foy_, and his_Harry Gill_, whose "teeth, they chatter, chatter still. " Suchmalicious sport proved only too easy for Wordsworth's contemporaries, and still the essential value of his poetry was unimpaired. 

The range of poetry is indeed inexhaustible, and even the greatestpoets must suffer some subtraction from universal pre-eminence. Therefore we may frankly admit the deficiencies of Wordsworth, --that hewas lacking in dramatic force and in the power of characterization;that he was singularly deficient in humor, and therefore in the savinggrace of self-criticism in the capacity to see himself occasionally ina ridiculous light; that he has little of the romantic glamor and noneof the narrative energy of Scott; that Shelley's lyrical flights leavehim plodding along the dusty highway; and that Byron's preternaturalforce makes his passion seen by contrast pale and ineffectual. Allthis and more may freely be granted, and yet for his influence uponEnglish thought, and especially upon the poetic thought of his country, he must be named after Shakespeare and Milton. The intellectual valueof his work will endure; for leaving aside much valuable doctrine, which from didactic excess fails as poetry, he has brought into theworld a new philosophy of Nature and has emphasised in a mannerdistinctively his own the dignity of simple manhood. --_Pelham Edgar_. 

REFERENCES ON WORDSWORTH'S LIFE AND WORKS

_Wordsworth_ by F. W. H. Myers, in _English Men of Letters_ series. Toronto: The Macmillan Company of Canada, Limited. 

_Wordsworth_ by Walter Raleigh, London: Edward Arnold. 

_Wordsworth_ by Rosaline Masson, in _The People's Books_ series. London: T. C. & E. C. Jack, _Wordsworthiana_ edited by William Knight. Toronto: The MacmillanCompany of Canada, Limited. 

_Essays Chiefly on Poetry_ by Aubrey de Vere, 2 volumes. Toronto: TheMacmillan Company of Canada, Limited. 

_Literary Essays_ by Richard Holt Hutton. Toronto: The MacmillanCompany of Canada, Limited. 

_Studies in Literature_ by Edward Dowden. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. , Ltd. 

_Aspects of Poetry_ by J. S. C. Shairp. Boston: Houghton Mifflin andCompany. 

_Lives of Great English Writers from Chaucer to Browning_ by Walter S. Hinchman and Francis B. Gummere. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company. 

_Great English Poets_ by Julian Hill. Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs &Co. 

_The Greater English Poets of the Nineteenth Century_ by William MortonPayne. New York: Henry Holt and Company. 

_The Religious Spirit in the Poets_ by W. Boyd Carpenter, New York:Thomas Y. Crowell & Co, _Landscape in Poetry from Homer to Tennyson_ by Francis T. Palgrave. Toronto: The Macmillan Company of Canada, Limited. 

_A History of Nineteenth Century Literature_ by George Saintsbury. Toronto: The Macmillan Company of Canada, Limited. 

_Personal Traits of British Authors_ by E. T. Mason. New York: CharlesScribner's Sons. 

_The English Poets_ edited by T. Humphrey Ward, Vol. Iv. Toronto: TheMacmillan Company of Canada, Limited. 

_Selections from Wordsworth_ edited by Matthew Arnold in _The GoldenTreasury Series_. Toronto: The Macmillan Company of Canada, Limited. 

_Literary Studies_ by Walter Bagehot, Vol. Ii. London: Longmans, Green and Co. 

_A Study of English and American Poets_ by J. Scott Clark. New York:Charles Scribner's Sons. 

_Prophets of the Century_ edited by Arthur Rickett. London: Ward Lockand Co. , Limited. 

_History of English Literature_ by A. S. Mackenzie. Toronto: TheMacmillan Company of Canada, Limited. 

_A Student's History of English Literature_ by William Edward Simonds. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company. 

_Poems of William Wordsworth_ edited by Edward Dowden. Boston: Ginn &Company. 

_Home Life of Great Authors_ by Hattie Tyng Griswold. Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co. 

NOTES

MICHAEL

The poem was composed in 1800, and published in the second volume of the_Lyrical Ballads_ in the same year. "Written at the Town-end, Grasmere, about the same time as _The Brothers_. The Sheep-fold, on which so muchof the poem turns, remains, or rather the ruins of it. The character andcircumstances of Luke were taken from a family to whom had belonged, manyyears before, the house we lived in at Town-end, along with some fieldsand woodlands on the eastern shore of Grasmere. The name of the EveningStar was not in fact given to this house, but to another on the same sideof the valley, more to the north. "

In a letter to Charles James Fox the poet says: "In the two poems, _TheBrothers_ and _Michael_, I have attempted to draw a picture of thedomestic affections, as I know they exist among a class of men who arenow almost confined to the north of England. They are small independent_proprietors_ of land, here called 'statesmen' [i. E. , estates-men], menof respectable education, who daily labor on their little properties. . . Their little tract of land serves as a kind of rallying point for theirdomestic feelings, as a tablet upon which they are written, which makesthem objects of memory in a thousand instances, when they would otherwisebe forgotten. The two poems that I have mentioned were written to showthat men who do not wear fine clothes can feel deeply. "

Edward Fulton in a _A Selection of the Shorter Poems of Wordsworth_(Macmillan) says: "The reason Wordsworth succeeds best in describing thetype of character portrayed in _Michael_ and _The Brothers_ is, ofcourse, chiefly because he knew that type best; but the fact that it wasthe type for which he himself might have stood as the representative wasnot without its effect upon him. His ideal man is but a variation ofhimself. As Dean Church puts it: 'The ideal man with Wordsworth is thehard-headed, frugal, unambitious dalesman of his own hills, with hisstrong affections, his simple tastes, and his quiet and beautiful home;and this dalesman, built up by communion with nature and by meditationinto the poet-philosopher, with his serious faith and his never-failingspring of enjoyment, is himself. ' Types of character wholly alien to hisown have little attraction for him. He is content to look into thedepths of his own heart and to represent what he sees there. His fieldof vision, therefore, is a very limited one: it takes in only a fewtypes. It is _man_, in fact, rather than men, that interests him. "

The poem _Michael_ is well adapted to show Wordsworth's powers ofrealism. He describes the poem as "a pastoral, " which at once induces acomparison, greatly to Wordsworth's advantage, with the pseudo-pastoralsof the age of Pope. There the shepherds and shepherdesses were scarcelythe pale shadows of reality, while Wordsworth's poem never swerves fromthe line of truth. "The poet, " as Sir Henry Taylor says with referenceto _Michael_, "writes in his confidence to impart interest to therealities of life, deriving both the confidence and the power from thedeep interest which he feels in them. It is an attribute of unusualsusceptibility of imagination to need no extraordinary provocatives; andwhen this is combined with intensity of observation and peculiarity oflanguage, it is the high privilege of the poet so endowed to rest uponthe common realities of life and to dispense with its anomalies. " Thestudent should therefore be careful to observe (1) the truth ofdescription, and the appropriateness of the description to thecharacters; (2) the strong and accurate delineation of the charactersthemselves. Not only is this to be noted in the passages where the poethas taken pains openly to portray their various characteristics, butthere are many passages, or single lines perhaps, which serve more subtlyto delineate them. What proud reserve, what sorrow painfully restrained, the following line, for example, contains: "Two evenings after he hadheard the news. "

TO THE DAISY

COMPOSED 1802: PUBLISHED 1807

"This and the other poems addressed to the same flower were composed atTown-end, Grasmere, during the earlier part of my residence there. " Thethree poems on the Daisy were the outpourings of one mood, and wereprompted by the same spirit which moved him to write his poems of humblelife. The sheltered garden flowers have less attraction for him than thecommon blossoms by the wayside. In their unobtrusive humility these"unassuming Common-places of Nature" might be regarded, as the poet says, "as administering both to moral and spiritual purposes. " The "LesserCelandine, " buffeted by the storm, affords him, on another occasion, asymbol of meek endurance. 

Shelley and Keats have many beautiful references to flowers in theirpoetry. Keats has merely a sensuous delight in their beauty, whileShelley both revels in their hues and fragrance, and sees in them asymbol of transitory loveliness. His _Sensitive Plant_ shows hisexquisite sympathy for flower life. 

TO THE CUCKOO

COMPOSED IN THE ORCHARD AT TOWN-END 1802: PUBLISHED 1807

Wordsworth, in his Preface to the 1815 edition, has the following note onll. 3, 4 of the poem:--"This concise interrogation characterises theseeming ubiquity of the cuckoo, and dispossesses the creature almost ofcorporeal existence; the Imagination being tempted to this exertion ofher power, by a consciousness in the memory that the cuckoo is almostperpetually heard throughout the season of spring, but seldom becomes anobject of sight. " The cuckoo is the bird we associate with the name ofthe vale of sunshine and of flowers, and yet its wandering voice bringsback to him the thought of his vanished childhood. We have alreadynoticed the almost sacred value which Wordsworth attaches to theimpressions of his youth, and even to the memory of these impressionswhich remains with him to console his maturer life. The bird is a linkwhich binds him to his childhood:

 "And I can listen to thee yet; Can lie upon the plain And listen, till I do beget That golden time again. "

In other poems, especially in the _Intimaticns of Immortality_, he speaksof "the glory and the freshness of a dream, " which hallowed nature forhim as a child, and which grew fainter as the "shades of the prison-housebegan to close upon the growing Boy". 

NUTTING

COMPOSED 1799; PUBLISHED 1800. 

"Written in Germany; intended as a part of a poem on my own life, butstruck out as not being wanted there. Like most of my schoolfellows, Iwas an impassioned Nutter. For this pleasure, the Vale of Esthwaite, abounding in coppice wood, furnished a very wide range. These versesarose out of the remembrance of feelings I had often had when a boy, andparticularly in the extensive woods that still stretch from the side ofEsthwaite Lake towards Graythwaite. "

Wordsworth possessed in an unusual degree the power of reviving theimpressions of his youth. Few autobiographical records are so vivid inthis respect as his _Prelude_. In his famous ode on the _Intimations ofImmortality from Recollections of Early Childhood_, he dwells upon theunreflective exultation which in the child responds to the joyousness ofnature, and with a profound intuition that may not be justified in thefacts, he sees in this heedless delight a mystical intimation ofimmortality. 

In the poem _Nutting_ the animal exhilaration of boyhood is finelyblended with this deeper feeling of mystery. The boy exultinglypenetrates into one of those woodland retreats where nature seems to beholding communion with herself. For some moments he is subdued by thebeauty of the place, and lying among the flowers he hears with ecstasythe murmur of the stream. Then the spirit of ravage peculiar to boyhoodcomes over him, and he rudely mars the beauty of the spot:

 "And the shady nook Of hazels, and the green and mossy bower, Deformed and sullied, patiently gave up Their quiet being:"

Such wantonness seems to his maturer reflection a sacrilege, and even theboy was not insensible to the silent reproach of the "intruding sky. "

TOUCH, --FOR THERE IS A SPIRIT IN THE WOODS. Many lines might be quotedfrom Wordsworth to illustrate his theory of the personal attributes ofnature. In some of his more elevated passages nature in all herprocesses is regarded as the intimate revelation of the Godhead, theradiant garment in which the Deity clothes Himself that our senses mayapprehend Him. Thus, when we touch a tree or a flower we may be said totouch God himself. In this way the beauty and power of nature becomesacred for Wordsworth, and inspired his verse at times with a solemndignity to which other poets have rarely attained. 

The immanence of God in nature, and yet His superiority to His ownrevelation of Himself is beautifully expressed in some of the laterverses of _Hart Leap Well_:

 "The Being, that is in the clouds and air, That is in the green leaves among the groves, Maintains a deep and reverential care For the unoffending creatures whom he loves. "

Yet the life in nature is capable of multiplying itself infinitely, andeach of her manifold divisions possesses a distinctive mood; one mightalmost say a separate life of its own. It is, in his ability to capturethe true emotional mood which clings to some beautiful object or scene innature, and which that object or scene may truly be said to inspire, thatWordsworth's power lies. 

Wordsworth possessed every attribute necessary to the descriptivepoet, --subtle powers of observation, ears delicately tuned to seize thevery shadow of sound, and a diction of copious strength suggestive beyondthe limits of ordinary expression. Yet purely descriptive poetry hescorned. "He expatiated much to me one day, " writes Mr. Aubrey de Vere, "as we walked among the hills above Grasmere, on the mode in which Naturehad been described by one of the most justly popular of England's modernpoets--one for whom he preserved a high and affectionate respect[evidently Sir Walter Scott]. 'He took pains, ' Wordsworth said; 'he wentout with his pencil and note-book, and jotted down whatever struck himmost--a river rippling over the sands, a ruined tower on a rock above it, a promontory, and a mountain-ash waving its red berries. He went homeand wove the whole together into a poetical description. ' After a pause, Wordsworth resumed, with a flashing eye and impassioned voice; 'ButNature does not permit an inventory to be made of her charms! He shouldhave left his pencil and note-book at home, fixed his eye as he walkedwith a reverent attention on all that surrounded him, and taken all intoa heart that could understand and enjoy. Then, after several days hadpassed by, he should have interrogated his memory as to the scene. Hewould have discovered that while much of what he had admired waspreserved to him, much was also most wisely obliterated; that whichremained--the picture surviving in his mind--would have presented theideal and essential truth of the scene, and done so in a large part bydiscarding much which, though in itself striking, was not characteristic. In every scene many of the most brilliant details are but accidental; atrue eye for Nature does not note them, or at least does not dwell onthem. '"

The student should learn to compare the descriptive methods of Coleridgeand Wordsworth. See especially Lowell's note quoted on pp. 197-198; alsosee pp. 47 f. 

INFLUENCE OF NATURAL OBJECTS

This poem was composed at Goslar in 1799 as part of the first book of_The Prelude_ (published in 1850). It was first printed in Coleridge'speriodical _The Friend_, in December, 1809, with the instructive thoughpedantic title, "Growth of Genius from the Influences of Natural Objectson the Imagination, in Boyhood and Early Youth. " It appeared inWordsworth's poems of 1815 with the following title:--"Influence ofNatural Objects in calling forth and strengthening the Imagination inBoyhood and Early Youth. "

The opening verses of this poem are still another instance of theidentification of God with nature. As Mr. Stopford Brooke writes, "weare here in contact with a Person, not with a thought. But who is thisperson? Is she only the creation of imagination, having no substantivereality beyond the mind of Wordsworth? No, she is the poeticimpersonation of an actual Being, the form which the poet gives to theliving Spirit of God in the outward world, in order that he may possess ametaphysical thought as a subject for his work as an artist. "

_The Lines Composed above Tintern Abbey_ contain the highest expressionwhich Wordsworth has given to this thought, To the heedless animaldelight in nature had succeeded a season in his youth when the beauty andpower of nature "haunted him like a passion, " though he knew not why. The "dizzy rapture" of those moods he can no longer feel. Yet, "Not for this Faint I nor murmur; other gifts Have followed, for such loss, I would believe Abundant recompense. For I have learned To look on nature, not as in the hour Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes The still sad music of humanity, Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power To chasten and subdue. _And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts: a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man: A motion and a spirit, that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things_. "

In ll. 42-46, of _The Influence of Natural Objects_, we have aninimitable Wordsworthian effect. Into the midst of his wild sport thevoice of Nature steals, and subdues his mind to receive the impulses ofpeace and beauty from without. We involuntarily think of the boy he hascelebrated, his playmate upon Windermere, who loved to rouse the owlswith mimic hootings, but

 "When a lengthened pause Of silence came and baffled his best skill, Then sometimes, in that silence while he hung Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise Has carried far into his heart the voice Of mountain torrents; or the visible scene Would enter unawares into his mind, With all its solemn imagery, its rocks, Its woods, and that uncertain heaven, received Into the bosom of the steady lake. " _The Prelude_, v. 379 f. 

ELEGIAC STANZAS

COMPOSED 1805: PUBLISHED 1807. 

Further references to John Wordsworth will be found in the followingpoems:--_To the Daisy_ ("Sweet Flower"), _Elegiac Verses in Memory of MyBrother_, _When to the Attractions of the Busy World_, _The Brothers_, and _The Happy Warrior_. 

With lines 33-40, and 57-60, compare the _Intimations of Immortality_, ll. 176-187:--

 "What though the radiance which was once so bright Be now for ever taken from my sight, Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower; We will grieve not, rather find Strength in what remains behind; In the primal sympathy Which having been must ever be; In the soothing thoughts that spring Out of human suffering; In the faith that looks through death, In years that bring the philosophic mind. "

A BRIEF HISTORY AND DESCRIPTION OF THE SONNET

The sonnet form was introduced into English poetry by Sir Thomas Wyattand the Earl of Surrey. Their experiments in the sonnet were publishedin _Tottel's Miscellany_ in 1557, and were prompted by an admiration ofPetrarch and other Italian models. Italy was almost certainly theoriginal home of the sonnet (sonnet=Ital. _sonetto_, _a little sound_, or_short strain_, from _suono_, _sound_), and there it has been assiduouslycultivated since the thirteenth century. In the fourteenth century Danteand Petrarch gave the form a European celebrity. 

The Structure of the Sonnet. 

Before saying anything of its development in English poetry, it isadvisable to examine an admittedly perfect sonnet, so that we may gain anidea of the nature of this type of poem, both as to form and substance. Wordsworth's sonnet upon Milton (_London_, 1802) will serve our purpose(see page 187). By reference to it you will observe:--

(1) That the sonnet is written in iambic pentameter, and consists offourteen lines--that number by repeated experimentation having been foundthe most appropriate for the expression of a single emotional mood. 

(2) As an examination of the rimes will show (a b b a a b b a: c d d e ce), there is a natural metrical division at the end of the eighth line. The first eight lines in technical language are called the "octave, " thelast six lines are called the "sestet. " The octave is sometimes said toconsist of two quatrains, and the sestet of two tercets. 

(3) There is not only a metrical division between the octave and thesestet, but the character of the thought also undergoes a subtle changeat that point. It is to be understood, of course, that in the whole poemthere must be both unity of thought and mood. Yet, at the ninth line, the thought which is introduced in the octave is elaborated, andpresented as it were under another aspect. As Mr. Mark Pattison hasadmirably expressed it: "This thought or mood should be led up to, andopened in the early lines of the sonnet; strictly, in the first quatrain;in the second quatrain the hearer should be placed in full possession ofit. After the second quatrain there should be a pause--not full, norproducing the effect of a break--as of one who had finished what he hadgot to say, and not preparing a transition to a new subject, but as ofone who is turning over what has been said in the mind to enforce itfurther. The opening of the second system, strictly the first tercet, should turn back upon the thought or sentiment, take it up and carry itforward to the conclusion. The conclusion should be a resultant summingthe total of the suggestion in the preceding lines. . . . While theconclusion should leave a sense of finish and completeness, it isnecessary to avoid anything like epigrammatic point. "

(4) An examination of the rimes again will show that greater strictnessprevails in the octave than in the sestet. The most regular type of theoctave may be represented by a b b a a b b a, turning therefore upon tworimes only. The sestet, though it contains but six lines, is moreliberal in the disposition of its rimes. In the sonnet which we areexamining, the rime system of the sestet in c d d e c e--containing, aswe see, three separate rimes. In the sestet this is permissible, provided that there is not a riming couplet at the close. 

(5) Again, with reference to the rime, it will be observed that the vowelterminals of the octave and the sestet are differentiated. Anythingapproaching assonance between the two divisions is to be counted as adefect. 

(6) It is evident that there is unity both of thought and mood in thissonnet, the sestet being differentiated from the octave, only as abovedescribed. 

(7) It is almost unnecessary to add that there is no slovenly diction, that the language is dignified in proportion to the theme, and that thereis no obscurity or repetition in thought or phraseology. 

These rules will appear to the young reader of poetry as almostunnecessarily severe. But it must be remembered that the sonnet isavowedly a conventional form (though in it much of the finest poetry inour language is contained), and as such the conventional laws attachingto all prescribed forms must be observed to win complete success. 

Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton have lent the authority of their greatnames to certain distinct variations from the rigid Petrarchan type. Thepeculiarity of Spenser's sonnets is that the rime of the octave overflowsinto the sestet, thus marring the exquisite balance which should subsistbetween the two parts, and yielding an effect of cloying sweetness. Although the famous stanza-form which he invented in his "Faerie Queene"has found many imitators, his sonnet innovations are practicallyunimportant. 

The Shakespearean sonnet, on the contrary, must be regarded as awell-established variant from the stricter Italian form. ThoughShakespeare's name has made it famous, it did not originate with him. Surrey and Daniel had habitually employed it, and in fact it had come tobe recognized as the accepted English form. Its characteristic feature, as the following sonnet from Shakespeare will show, was a division intothree distinct quatrains, each with alternating rimes, and closed by acouplet. The transition of thought at the ninth line is usuallyobserved:--

 "When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself, and curse my fate, Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd, Desiring this man's art and that man's scope, With what I most enjoy contented least; Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee--and then my state, Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate; For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings, That then I scorn to change my state with kings. "

It is Milton's merit that he rescued the sonnet from the snare of verbalwit in which the Elizabethans had involved it, and made it respond toother passions than that of love. His sonnets, as imitations of theItalian form, are more successful than the scattered efforts in thatdirection of Wyatt and Surrey. They are indeed regular in all respects, save that he is not always careful to observe the pause in the thought, and the subtle change which should divide the octave from the sestet. 

After Milton there is a pause in sonnet-writing for a hundred years. William Lisles Bowles (1762-1850), memorable for his influence uponColeridge, was among the first again to cultivate the form. Coleridgeand Shelley gave the sonnet scant attention, and were careless as to itsstructural qualities. Keats, apart from Wordsworth, was the only poet ofthe early years of the century who realized its capabilities. He haswritten a few of our memorable sonnets, but he was not entirely satisfiedwith the accepted form, and experimented upon variations that cannot beregarded as successful. 

There is no doubt that the stimulus to sonnet-writing in the nineteenthcentury came from Wordsworth, and he, as all his recent biographersadmit, received his inspiration from Milton. Wordsworth's sonnets, lessremarkable certainly than a supreme few of Shakespeare's, have stillimposed themselves as models upon all later writers, while theShakespearean form has fallen into disuse. A word here, therefore, as totheir form. 

The strict rime movement of the octave a b b a a b b a is observed inseven only of the present collection of twelve, namely, in the firstsonnet, the second, the third, the fifth, the sixth, the seventh, and theeighth. The rime formula of the octave with which Wordsworth's name ischiefly associated is a b b a a c c a. The sonnets in which thisadditional rime is introduced are the fourth, the ninth, the tenth, theeleventh and the twelfth. 

As regards the transition from octave to sestet the following sonnetsobserve the prescribed law, namely, the second, third, sixth, seventh, and ninth. The seven remaining sonnets all show some irregularity inthis respect. The first sonnet (_Fair Star_) with its abrupt_enjambement_ at the close of the octave, and the thought pause in thebody of the first line of the sestet, is a form much employed by Mrs. Browning, but rigorously avoided by Dante Gabriel Rossetti with his morescrupulous ideal of sonnet construction. This imperfect transition isseen again in the fourth, fifth, eighth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfthsonnets. Its boldness certainly amounts to a technical fault in the twosonnets on _King's College Chapel_. 

In the sestet we naturally expect and find much variety in thedisposition of the rimes. The conclusion of the last sonnet by a coupletis most unusual in Wordsworth. 

"IT IS NOT TO BE THOUGHT OF"

This sonnet was composed in September, 1802, first published in theMorning Post in 1803, and subsequently in 1807. 

WRITTEN IN LONDON, SEPTEMBER, 1802:

PUBLISHED 1807

"This was written immediately after my return from France to London, whenI could not but be struck, as here described, with the vanity and paradeof our own country, especially in great towns and cities, as contrastedwith the quiet, I may say the desolation, that the Revolution hadproduced in France. This must be borne in mind, or else the Reader maythink that in this and the succeeding Sonnets I have exaggerated themischief engendered and fostered among us by undisturbed wealth. "

LONDON, 1802

This sonnet was written in 1803 and published in 1807. 

"DARK AND MORE DARK THE SHADES OF EVENING FELL"

This sonnet was written after a journey across the Hambleton Hills, Yorkshire. Wordsworth says: "It was composed October 4th, 1802, after ajourney on a day memorable to me--the day of my marriage. The horizoncommanded by those hills is most magnificent. " Dorothy Wordsworth, describing the sky-prospect, says: "Far off from us in the western sky wesaw the shapes of castles, ruins among groves, a great spreading wood, rocks and single trees, a minster with its tower unusually distinct, minarets in another quarter, and a round Grecian temple also; the coloursof the shy of a bright gray, and the forms of a sober gray, with dome. "

"SURPRISED BY JOY--IMPATIENT AS THE WIND"

This sonnet was suggested by the poet's daughter Catherine long after herdeath. She died in her fourth year, on June 4, 1812. Wordsworth wasabsent from home at the time of her death. The sonnet was published in1815. 

"HAIL, TWILIGHT SOVEREIGN OF A PEACEFUL HOUR"

This sonnet was published in 1815. 

"I THOUGHT OF THEE, MY PARTNER AND MY GUIDE"

This sonnet, which concludes "The River Duddon" series, is usuallyentitled "After-Thought". The series was written at intervals, and wasfinally published in 1820. "The Duddon rises on Wrynose Fell, near to'Three Shire Stone, ' where Westmoreland, Cumberland, and Lancashire meet. "

"SUCH AGE, HOW BEAUTIFUL!"

This sonnet, published in 1827, was inscribed to Lady Fitzgerald at thetime in her seventieth year. 

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Alfred Tennyson was born at Somersby, a small hamlet among theLincolnshire wolds, on August 6th, 1809. His father, the Rev. GeorgeClayton Tennyson, the vicar of Somersby, was a man of large andcultivated intellect, interested in poetry, mathematics, painting, music, and architecture, but somewhat harsh and austere in manner, and subjectto fits of gloomy depression, during which his presence was avoided byhis family; he was sincerely devoted to them, however, and himselfsupervised their education. His mother, Elizabeth Fytche, the daughterof the Rev Stephen Fytche of Louth, was a kind-hearted, gentle, refinedwoman, beloved by her family and friends. Her influence over her sonsand daughters was unbounded, and over none more so than Alfred, who inafter life recognized to the full what he owed to his mother. 

The family was large, consisting of twelve sons and daughters, of whomthe eldest died in infancy. Alfred was the fourth child, his brothersFrederick and Charles being older than he. The home life was a veryhappy one. The boys and girls were all fond of books, and their gamespartook of the nature of the books they had been reading. They weregiven to writing, and in this they were encouraged by their father, whoproved himself a wise and discriminating critic. Alfred early showedsigns of his poetic bent; at the age of twelve he had written an epic offour thousand lines, and even before this a tragedy and innumerable poemsin blank verse. He was not encouraged, however, to preserve thesespecimens of his early powers, and they are now lost. 

Alfred attended for a time a small school near his home, but at the ageof seven he was sent to the Grammar School at Louth. While at Louth helived with his grandmother, but his days at school were not happy, and heafterwards looked back over them with almost a shudder. Before he wastwelve he returned home, and began his preparation for the universityunder his father's care. His time was not all devoted to serious study, but was spent in roaming through his father's library, devouring thegreat classics of ancient and modern times, and in writing his own poems. The family each summer removed to Mablethorpe on the Lincolnshire coast. Here Alfred learned to love the sea in all its moods, a love which lastedthrough his life. 

In 1827, after Frederick had entered Cambridge, the two brothers, Charlesand Alfred, being in want of pocket money, resolved to publish a volumeof poems. They made a selection from their numerous poems, and offeredthe book to a bookseller in Louth, For some unknown reason he acceptedthe book, and soon after, it was published under the title, _Poems by TwoBrothers_. There were in reality three brothers, as some of Frederick'spoems were included in the volume. The brothers were promised 20 pounds, but more than one half of this sum they had to take out in books. Withthe balance they went on a triumphal expedition to the sea, rejoicing inthe successful launching of their first literary effort. 

In 1828 Charles and Alfred Tennyson matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where their elder brother Frederick had already been for sometime. Alfred was a somewhat shy lad, and did not at once take kindly tothe life of his college. He soon, however, found himself one of a famoussociety known as "The Apostles, " to which belonged some of the best menin the University. Not one member of the "Apostles" at this time, butafterwards made a name for himself, and made his influence felt in theworld of politics or letters. The society met at regular intervals, butAlfred did not take much part in the debates, preferring to sit silentand listen to what was said. All his friends had unbounded admirationfor his poetry and unlimited faith in his poetic powers. This faith wasstrengthened by the award of the University Prize for English Verse toAlfred in June, 1829. He did not wish to compete, but on being pressed, polished up an old poem that he had written some years before, andpresented it for competition, the subject being _Timbuctoo_. The poemwas in blank verse and really showed considerable power; in fact it was aremarkable poem for one so young. 

Perhaps the most powerful influence on the life of Tennyson was thefriendship he formed while at Cambridge with Arthur Henry Hallam, the sonof the historian, Henry Hallam. The two became inseparable friends, afriendship strengthened by the engagement of Hallam to the poet's sister. The two friends agreed to publish a volume of poems as ajoint-production, but Henry Hallam, the elder, did not encourage theproject, and it was dropped. The result was that in 1830, _Poems, Chiefly Lyrical_, was published with the name of Alfred Tennyson alone onthe title page. The volume was reviewed enthusiastically by Hallam, butwas more or less slated by Christopher North in the columns of_Blackwoods' Magazine_. Tennyson was very angry about the latter reviewand replied to the reviewer in some caustic, but entirely unnecessary, verses. 

In the same year Hallam and Tennyson made an expedition into Spain tocarry aid to the rebel leader against the king of Spain. The expeditionwas not by any means a success. In 1831 Tennyson left Cambridge, withouttaking his degree, and shortly after his return home his father died. The family, however, did not remove from Somersby, but remained thereuntil 1837. Late in 1832 appeared another volume entitled _Poems byAlfred Tennyson_. This drew upon the unfortunate author a bitterlysarcastic article in the _Quarterly_, written probably by its brillianteditor, John Gibson Lockhart. The result of this article was thatTennyson was silent for almost ten years, a period spent in riddinghimself of the weaknesses so brutally pointed out by the reviewer. 

In 1833, Arthur Henry Hallam died, and for a time the light of lifeseemed to have gone out for Alfred Tennyson. The effect of the death ofHallam upon the poet was extraordinary. It seemed to have changed thewhole current of his life; indeed he is said, under the strain of theawful suddeness and unexpectedness of the event, to have contemplatedsuicide. But saner thoughts intervened, and he again took up the burdenof life, with the determination to do what he could in helping others. From this time of storm and stress came _In Memoriam_. 

From 1832 to 1842 Tennyson spent a roving life. Now at home, now inLondon, now with his friends in various parts of England. He wasspending his time in finishing his poems, so that when he again camebefore the world with a volume, he would be a master. The circle of hisfriends was widening, and now included the greater number of themaster-minds of England. He was poor, so poor in fact that he wasreduced to the necessity of borrowing the books he wished to read fromhis friends. But during all this time he never wavered in his allegianceto poetry; he had determined to be a poet, and to devote his life topoetry. At last in 1842 he published his _Poems_ in two volumes, and theworld was conquered. From this time onwards he was recognized as theleading poet of his century. 

In 1845, Tennyson, poor still, was granted a pension of 200 pounds, chiefly through the influence of his friend Richard Monckton Milnes, andThomas Carlyle. There was a great deal of criticism regarding thispension from sources that should have been favorable, but the generalverdict approved the grant. In 1847 appeared _The Princess_, a poem, which, at that time, did not materially add to his fame; but the poet wasnow hailed as one of the great ones of his time, and much was expected ofhim. 

In 1850 three most important events in the life of Tennyson happened. Hepublished _In Memoriam_, in memory of his friend, Arthur Henry Hallam; hewas appointed Poet Laureate, in succession to Wordsworth; and he marriedEmily Selwood, a lady to whom he had been engaged for seventeen years, but whom his poverty had prevented him from leading to the altar. Fromthis time onwards the life of the poet flowed smoothly. He was happilymarried, his fame was established, his books brought him sufficientincome on which to live comfortable and well. From this point there islittle to relate in his career, except the publication of his variousvolumes. 

After his marriage Tennyson lived for some time at Twickenham, where in1852 Hallam Tennyson was born. In 1851 he and his wife visited Italy, avisit commemorated in _The Daisy_. In 1853 they removed to Farringfordat Freshwater in the Isle of Wight, a residence subsequently purchasedwith the proceeds of _Maud_, published in 1855. The poem had a somewhatmixed reception, being received in some quarters with unstinted abuse andin others with the warmest praise. In the year that _Maud_ was publishedTennyson received the honorary degree of D. C. L. , from Oxford. In 1859was published the first four of the _Idylls of the King_, followed in1864 by _Enoch Arden and Other Poems_. In 1865 his mother died. In 1869he occupied Aldworth, an almost inaccessible residence in Surrey, nearLondon, in order to escape the annoyance of summer visitors to the Isleof Wight, who insisted on invading his privacy, which, perhaps, more thanany other he especially valued. 

From 1870 to 1880 Tennyson was engaged principally on his dramas--_QueenMary_, _Harold_, and _Becket_, --but, with the exception of the last, these did not prove particularly successful on the stage. In 1880_Ballads and Poems_ was published, an astonishing volume from one soadvanced in years. In 1882 the _Promise of May_ was produced in public, but was soon withdrawn. In 1884 Tennyson was raised to the peerage asBaron Tennyson of Aldworth and Farringford, after having on two previousoccasions refused a baronetcy. In 1885 _Tiresias and Other Poems_ waspublished. In this volume was published _Balin and Balan_, thuscompleting the _Idylls of the King_, which now assumed their permanentorder and form. _Demeter and Other Poems_ followed in 1889, including_Crossing the Bar_. In 1892, on October 6th, the poet died at Aldworth, "with the moonlight upon his bed and an open Shakespeare by his side. " Afew days later he was buried in Westminster Abbey, by the side of RobertBrowning, his friend and contemporary, who had preceded him by only a fewyears. 

Carlyle has left us a graphic description of Tennyson as he was in middlelife: "One of the finest--looking men in the world. A great shock ofrough, dusky dark hair; bright, laughing hazel eyes; massive aquilineface--most massive yet most delicate; of sallow brown complexion, almostIndian-looking; clothes cynically loose, free-and-easy; smokes infinitetobacco. His voice is musically metallic--fit for loud laughter andpiercing wail, and all that may lie between; speech and speculation freeand plenteous; I do not meet in these late decades such company over apipe! We shall see what he will grow to. " To this may be added aparagraph from Caroline Fox: "Tennyson is a grand specimen of a man, witha magnificent head set on his shoulders like the capital of a mightypillar. His hair is long and wavy and covers a massive head. He wears abeard and mustache, which one begrudges as hiding so much of that firm, powerful, but finely-chiselled mouth. His eyes are large and gray, andopen wide when a subject interests him; they are well shaded by the noblebrow, with its strong lines of thought and suffering. I can quiteunderstand Samuel Lawrence calling it the best balance of head he hadever seen. "

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE

Born, August 6, 1809, at Somersby, Lincolnshire. 

Goes to Louth Grammar School, 1816. 

Publishes, along with his brother Charles, _Poems by Two Brothers_, 1827. 

Goes to Trinity College, Cambridge, 1828. 

Forms friendship with Arthur Henry Hallam, 1828. 

Wins Vice-Chancellor's Gold Medal for his poem _Timbuctoo_, 1829. 

Publishes _Poems, Chiefly Lyrical_, 1830. 

Makes an expedition to the Pyrenees with Arthur Henry Hallam, 1830. 

Leaves Cambridge, owing to the illness of his father, 1831. 

Visits the Rhine with Arthur Henry Hallam, 1832. 

Publishes _Poems by Alfred Tennyson_, 1832. 

Arthur Henry Hallam dies, 1833. 

Removes from Somersby to High Beech in Epping Forest, 1837. 

Publishes _Poems_ in two volumes, 1842. 

Granted a pension of 200 pounds from the Civil List, 1845. 

Publishes _The Princess_, 1847. 

Publishes _In Memoriam_, 1850. 

Appointed Poet Laureate, 1850. 

Marries Miss Emily Selwood, 1850. 

Tours southern Europe with his wife, 1851. 

Hallam Tennyson born, 1852. 

Writes _Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington_, 1852. 

Takes up his residence at Farringford in the Isle of Wight, 1853. 

Lionel Tennyson born, 1854. 

Writes _The Charge of the Light Brigade_, 1855. 

The University of Oxford confers on him the degree of D. C. L. , 1855. 

Publishes _Maud and Other Poems_, 1855. 

Purchases Farringford, 1856. 

Publishes _Idylls of the King_, 1859. 

Writes his _Welcome to Alexandra_, 1863. 

Publishes _Enoch Arden_, 1864; _The Holy Grail_, 1869. 

His mother dies, 1865. 

Purchases land at Haslemere, Surrey, 1868, and begins erection ofAldworth. 

Publishes _Queen Mary_, 1875; the drama successfully performed by HenryIrving, 1876. 

Publishes _Harold_, 1876. 

His drama _The Falcon_ produced, 1869. 

Seeks better health by a tour on the Continent with his son Hallam, 1880. 

Publishes _Ballads and Other Poems_, 1880. 

His drama _The Cup_ successfully performed, 1881. 

His drama _The Promise of May_ proves a failure, 1882. 

Raised to the peerage as Baron Tennyson of Aldworth and Farringford, 1884. 

Publishes _Becket_, 1884. 

His son Lionel dies, 1885. 

Publishes _Tiresias and Other Poems_, 1885. This volume contains _Balinand Balan_, thus completing his _Idylls of the King_. 

Publishes _Demeter and Other Poems_, 1889. 

Dies at Aldworth, October 6, 1892, and is buried in Westminster Abbey. 

The _Death of Oenone_ is published, 1892. 

APPRECIATIONS

"Since the days when Dryden held office no Laureate has been appointed sodistinctly pre-eminent above all his contemporaries, so truly the king ofthe poets, as he upon whose brows now rests the Laureate crown. Dryden'sgrandeur was sullied, his muse was venal, and his life was vicious; stillin his keeping the office acquired a certain dignity; after his death itdeclined into the depths of depredation, and each succeeding dullarddimmed its failing lustre. The first ray of hope for its revival spranginto life with the appointment of Southey, to whom succeeded Wordsworth, a poet of worth and genius, whose name certainly assisted inresuscitating the ancient dignity of the appointment. Alfred Tennysonderives less honor from the title than he confers upon it; to him we owea debt of gratitude that he has redeemed the laurels with his poetry, noble, pure, and undefiled as ever poet sung. "--_Walter Hamilton_. 

"Tennyson is many sided; he has a great variety of subjects. He hastreated of the classical and the romantic life of the world; he has beenkeenly alive to the beauties of nature; and he has tried to sympathizewith the social problems that confront mankind. In this respect he is arepresentative poet of the age, for this very diversity of natural giftshas made him popular with all classes. Perhaps he has not been perfectlycosmopolitan, and sometimes the theme in his poetry has received a slighttreatment compared to what might have been given it by deeper thinkingand more philosophical poets, but he has caught the spirit of the age andhas expressed its thought, if not always forcibly, at least morebeautifully than any other poet, "--_Charles Read Nutter_. 

"In technical elegance, as an artist in verse, Tennyson is the greatestof modern poets. Other masters, old and new, have surpassed him inspecial instances; but he is the only one who rarely nods, and who alwaysfinishes his verse to the extreme. Here is the absolute sway of metre, compelling every rhyme and measure needful to the thought; here aresinuous alliterations, unique and varying breaks and pauses, wingedflights and falls, the glory of sound and color everywhere present, or, if missing, absent of the poet's free will. The fullness of his artevades the charm of spontaneity. His original and fastidious art is ofitself a theme for an essay. The poet who studies it may well despair, he can never excel it; its strength is that of perfection; its weakness, the ever-perfection which marks a still-life painter. "--_Edmund ClarenceStedman_. 

"A striking quality of Tennyson's poetry is its simplicity, both inthought and expression. This trait was characteristic of his life, andso we naturally expect to find it in his verse. Tennyson was too sincereby nature, and too strongly averse to experimenting in new fields ofpoetry, to attempt the affected or unique. He purposely avoided allsubjects which he feared he could not treat with simplicity andclearness. So, in his shorter poems, there are few obscure or ambiguouspassages, little that is not easy of comprehension. His subjectsthemselves tend to prevent ambiguity or obscurity. For he wrote of menand women as he saw them about him, of their joys and sorrows, theirtrials, their ideals, --and in this was nothing complex. Thus there is ahomely quality to his poems, but they are kept from the commonplace bythe great tenderness of his feeling. Had Tennyson been primarily of ametaphysical or philosophical mind all this might have been different. True, he was somewhat of a student of philosophy and religion, and someof his poems are of these subjects, but his thought even here is alwayssimple and plain, and he never attempted the deep study that was notcharacteristic of his nature. No less successful is he in avoidingobscurity in expression. There are few passages that need muchexplanation. In this he offers a striking contrast to Browning, whooften painfully hid his meaning under complex phraseology. Hisvocabulary is remarkably large, and when we study his use of words, wefind that in many cases they are from the two-syllabled class. Thismatter of choice of clear, simple words and phrases is very important. For, just so much as our attention is drawn from what a poet says to themedium, the language in which he says it, so much is its clearnessinjured. Vividly to see pictures in our imagination or to be affected byour emotions, we must not, as we read, experience any jar. In Tennysonwe never have to think of his expressions--except to admire their simplebeauty. Simplicity and beauty, then, are two noticeable qualities of hispoetry. "--_Charles Read Nutter_. 

"An idyllic or picturesque mode of conveying his sentiments is the onenatural to Tennyson, if not the only one permitted by his limitations. He is a born observer of physical nature, and, whenever he applies anadjective to some object or passingly alludes to some phenomenon whichothers have but noted, is almost infallibly correct. He has the unerringfirst touch which in a single line proves the artist; and it justly hasbeen remarked that there is more true English landscape in many anisolated stanza of _In Memoriam_ than in the whole of _The Seasons_, thatvaunted descriptive poem of a former century. "--_Edmund Clarence Stedman_. 

"In describing scenery, his microscopic eye and marvellously delicate earare exercised to the utmost in detecting the minutest relations and mostevanescent melodies of the objects before him, in order that hisrepresentation shall include everything which is important to their fullperfection. His pictures of rural English scenery give the inner spiritas well as the outward form of the objects, and represent them, also, intheir relation to the mind which is gazing on them. The picture in hismind is spread out before his detecting and dissecting intellect, to betransformed to words only when it can be done with the most refinedexactness, both as regards color and form and melody. "--_E. P. Whipple_. 

"For the most part he wrote of the every day loves and duties of men andwomen; of the primal pains and joys of humanity; of the aspirations andtrials which are common to all ages and all classes and independent evenof the diseases of civilization, but he made them new and surprising bythe art which he added to them, by beauty of thought, tenderness offeeling, and exquisiteness of shaping. "--_Stopford A. Brooke_. 

"The tenderness of Tennyson is one of his remarkable qualities--not somuch in itself, for other poets have been more tender--but in combinationwith his rough powers. We are not surprised that his rugged strength iscapable of the mighty and tragic tenderness of Rispah, but we could notthink at first that he could feel and realize the exquisite tenderness of_Elaine_. It is a wonderful thing to have so wide a tenderness, and onlya great poet can possess it and use it well. "--_Stopford A. Brooke_. 

"Tennyson is a great master of pathos; knows the very tones that go tothe heart; can arrest every one of these looks of upbraiding or appeal bywhich human woe brings the tear into the human eye. The pathos is deep;but it is the majesty not the prostration of grief. "--_Peter Bayne_. 

"Indeed the truth must be strongly borne in upon even the warmestadmirers of Tennyson that his recluse manner of life closed to him manyavenues of communication with the men and women of his day, and that, whether as a result or cause of his exclusiveness, he had but little ofthat restless, intellectual curiosity which constantly whets itself uponnew experiences, finds significance where others see confusion, andbeneath the apparently commonplace in human character reaches someharmonizing truth. _Rizpah_ and _The Grandmother_ show what a richharvest he would have reaped had he cared more frequently to walk thethoroughfares of life. His finely wrought character studies are very fewin number, and even the range of his types is disappointinglynarrow. "--_Pelham Edgar_. 

"No reader of Tennyson can miss the note of patriotism which heperpetually sounds. He has a deep and genuine love of country, a pridein the achievements of the past, a confidence in the greatness of thefuture. And this sense of patriotism almost reaches insularity of view. He looks out upon the larger world with a gentle commiseration, andsurveys its un-English habits and constitution with sympathetic contempt. The patriotism of Tennyson is sober rather than glowing; it is meditativerather than enthusiastic. Occasionally indeed, his words catch fire, andthe verse leaps onward with a sound of triumph, as in such a poem as _TheCharge of the Light Brigade_ or in such a glorious ballad as _TheRevenge_. Neither of these poems is likely to perish until the glory ofthe nation perishes, and her deeds of a splendid chivalrous past sinkinto oblivion, which only shameful cowardice can bring upon her. But asa rule Tennyson's patriotism is not a contagious and inspiringpatriotism. It is meditative, philosophic, self-complacent. It rejoicesin the infallibility of the English judgment, the eternal security ofEnglish institutions, the perfection of English forms ofgovernment. "--_W. J. Dawson_. 

"Tennyson always speaks from the side of virtue; and not of that new andstrange virtue which some of our later poets have exalted, and which, when it is stripped of its fine garments, turns out to be nothing elsethan the unrestrained indulgence of every natural impulse; but rather ofthat old fashioned virtue whose laws are 'self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, ' and which finds its highest embodiment in the morality ofthe _New Testament_. There is a spiritual courage in his work, a forceof fate which conquers doubt and darkness, a light of inward hope whichburns dauntless under the shadow of death. Tennyson is the poet offaith; faith as distinguished from cold dogmatism and the acceptance oftraditional creeds; faith which does not ignore doubt and mystery, buttriumphs over them and faces the unknown with fearless heart. The effectof Christianity upon the poetry of Tennyson may be felt in its generalmoral quality. By this it is not meant that he is always preaching. Butat the same time the poet can hardly help revealing, more by tone andaccent than by definite words, his moral sympathies. He is essentiallyand characteristically a poet with a message. His poetry does not existmerely for the sake of its own perfection of form. It is something morethan the sound of one who has a lovely voice and can play skilfully uponan instrument. It is a poetry with a meaning and a purpose. It is avoice that has something to say to us about life. When we read his poemswe feel our hearts uplifted, we feel that, after all it is worth while tostruggle towards the light, it is worth while to try to be upright andgenerous and true and loyal and pure, for virtue is victory and goodnessis the only fadeless and immortal crown. The secret of the poet'sinfluence must lie in his spontaneous witness to the reality andsupremacy of the moral life. His music must thrill us with theconviction that the humblest child of man has a duty, an ideal, adestiny. He must sing of justice and of love as a sure reward, asteadfast law, the safe port and haven of the soul. "--_Henry Van Dyke_. 

REFERENCES ON TENNYSON'S LIFE AND WORKS

_Alfred, Lord Tennyson: A Memoir_ by Hallam Tennyson. Toronto: TheMacmillan Company of Canada, Limited. Price $2. 00. 

_Tennyson and his Friends_ edited by Hallam, Lord Tennyson. Toronto: TheMacmillan Company of Canada, Limited. 

_Alfred, Lord Tennyson: A Study of his Life and Works_ by Arthur Waugh. London: William Heinemann. 

_Tennyson_ by Sir Alfred Lyall in _English Men of Letters_ series. Toronto: The Macmillan Company of Canada, Limited. 

_Alfred Tennyson_ by Arthur Christopher Benson in _Little Biographies_. London: Methuen & Co. 

_Alfred Tennyson: A Saintly Life_ by Robert F. Horton. London: J. M. Dent & Co. 

_Alfred Tennyson_ by Andrew Lang. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company. 

_Tennyson: His Art and Relation to Modern Life_ by Stopford A. Brooke. London: William Heinemann. 

_A Study of the Works of Alfred, Lord Tennyson_ by Edward CampbellTainsh. Toronto: The Macmillan Company of Canada, Limited. 

_The Poetry of Tennyson_ by Henry Van Dyke. New York: Charles Scribner'sSons. 

_A Tennyson Primer_ by William Macneile Dixon. New York: Dodd, Mead &Company. 

_A Handbook to the Works of Alfred, Lord Tennyson_ by Morton Luce. Toronto: The Macmillan Company of Canada, Limited. 

_Tennyson: A Critical Study_ by Stephen Gwynn in the _Victorian EraSeries_. London: Blackie & Sons, Limited. 

_Tennyson, Ruskin, Mill, and Other Literary Estimates_ by FredericHarrison. Toronto: The Macmillan Company of Canada, Limited. 

_Lives of Great English Writers from Chaucer to Browning_ by Walter S. Hinchman and Francis B. Gummere. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company. 

_Personal Sketches of Recent Authors_ by Hattie Tyng Griswold. Chicago:A. C. McClurg and Company. 

_Records of Tennyson, Ruskin, Browning_ by Anne Ritchie. New York:Harper & Brothers. 

_Memories of the Tennysons_ by Rev. H. D. Rawnsley. Glasgow: JamesMaclehose and Sons. 

_The Teaching of Tennyson_ by John Oats. London: James Bowden. 

_Tennyson as a Religious Teacher_ by Charles F. G. Masterman. London:Methuen & Co. 

_The Social Ideals of Alfred Tennyson as Related to His Time_ by WilliamClark Gordon. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 

_The Religious Spirit in the Poets_ by W. Boyd Carpenter. New York:Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. 

_Literary Essays_ by R. H. Hutton. Toronto: The Macmillan Company ofCanada, Limited. 

_Victorian Poets_ by Edmund Clarence Stedman. Boston: Houghton, Mifflinand Company. 

_The Greater English Poets of the Nineteenth Century_ by William MortonPayne. New York: Henry Holt and Company. 

_The Masters of English Literature_ by Stephen Gwynn. Toronto: TheMacmillan Company of Canada, Limited. 

_A Study of English and American Poets_ by J. Scott Clark. New York:Charles Scribner's Sons. 

_The Works of Tennyson with Notes by the Author_ edited with Memoir byHallam, Lord Tennyson. Toronto: The Macmillan Company of Canada, Limited. 

NOTES

OENONE

"The poem of _Oenone_ is the first of Tennyson's elaborate essays in ametre over which be afterwards obtained an eminent command. It is alsothe first of his idylls and of his classical studies, with theirmelodious rendering of the Homeric epithets and the composite words, which Tennyson had the art of coining after the Greek manner('lily-cradled, ' 'river-sundered, ' 'dewy-dashed') for compact descriptionor ornament. Several additions were made in a later edition; and thecorrections then made show with what sedulous care the poet diversifiedthe structure of his lines, changing the pauses that break the monotonousrun of blank verse, and avoiding the use of weak terminals when the lineends in the middle of a sentence. The opening of the poem was in thismanner decidedly improved; yet one may judge that the finest passages arestill to be found almost as they stood in the original version; and theconcluding lines, in which the note of anguish culminates, are leftuntouched. "

"Nevertheless the blank verse of _Oenone_ lacks the even flow andharmonious balance of entire sections in the _Morte d'Arthur_ or_Ulysses_, where the lines are swift or slow, rise to a point and fallgradually, in cadences arranged to correspond with the dramatic movement, showing that the poet has extended and perfected his metrical resources. The later style is simplified; he has rejected cumbrous metaphor; he isless sententious; he has pruned away the flowery exuberance and lightenedthe sensuous colour of his earlier composition. "--_Sir Alfred Lyall_. 

First published in 1832-3. It received its present improved form in theedition of 1842. The story of Paris and Oenone may be read in Lempriere, or in any good classical dictionary. Briefly it is as follows:--Pariswas the son of Priam, King of Troy, and Hecuba. It was foretold that hewould bring great ruin on Troy, so his father ordered him to be slain atbirth. The slave, however, did not destroy him, but exposed him uponMount Ida, where shepherds found him and, brought him up as one ofthemselves. "He gained the esteem of all the shepherds, and his gracefulcountenance and manly development recommended him to the favour ofOenone, a nymph of Ida, whom he married, and with whom he lived in themost perfect tenderness. Their conjugal bliss was soon disturbed. Atthe marriage of Peleus and Thetis, Eris, the goddess of discord, who hadnot been invited to partake of the entertainment, showed her displeasureby throwing into the assembly of gods, who were at the celebration of thenuptials, a golden apple on which were written the words _Deturpulchriori_. All the goddesses claimed it as their own: the contentionat first became general, but at last only three, Juno (Herè), Venus(Aphrodite), and Minerva (Pallas), wished to dispute their respectiveright to beauty. The gods, unwilling to become arbiters in an affair ofso tender and delicate a nature, appointed Paris to adjudge the prize ofbeauty to the fairest of the goddesses, and indeed the shepherd seemedproperly qualified to decide so great a contest, as his wisdom was sowell established, and his prudence and sagacity so well known. Thegoddesses appeared before their judge without any covering or ornament, and each tried by promises and entreaties to gain the attention of Paris, and to influence his judgment. Juno promised him a kingdom; Minerva, military glory; and Venus, the fairest woman in the world for his wife. "(Lempriere. ) Paris accorded the apple to Aphrodite, abandoned Oenone, and after he had been acknowledged the son of Priam went to Sparta, wherehe persuaded Helen, the wife of Menelaus, to flee with him to Troy. Theten years' siege, and the destruction of Troy, resulted from this rashact. Oenone's significant words at the close of the poem foreshadow thisdisaster. Tennyson, in his old age concluded the narrative in the poemcalled _The Death of Oenone_. According to the legend Paris, mortallywounded by one of the arrows of Philoctetes, sought out the abandonedOenone that she might heal him of his wound. But he died before hereached her, "and the nymph, still mindful of their former loves, threwherself upon his body, and stabbed herself to the heart, after she hadplentifully bathed it with her tears. " Tennyson follows anothertradition in which Paris reaches Oenone, who scornfully repels him. Hepassed onward through the mist, and dropped dead upon the mountain side. His old shepherd playmates built his funeral pyre. Oenone follows theyearning in her heart to where her husband lies, and dies in the flamesthat consume him. 

In Chapter IV of Mr. Stopford Brooke's _Tennyson_, there is a valuablecommentary upon _Oenone_. He deals first with the imaginative treatmentof the landscape, which is characteristic of all Tennyson's classicalpoems, and instances the remarkable improvement effected in thedescriptive passages in the volume of 1842. "But fine landscape and finefigure re-drawing are not enough to make a fine poem. Human interest, human passion, must be greater than Nature, and dominate the subject. Indeed, all this lovely scenery is nothing in comparison with the sorrowand love of Oenone, recalling her lost love in the places where once shelived in joy. This is the main humanity of the poem. But there is more. Her common sorrow is lifted almost into the proportions of Greek tragedyby its cause and by its results. It is caused by a quarrel in Olympus, and the mountain nymph is sacrificed without a thought to the vanity ofthe careless gods. That is an ever-recurring tragedy in human history. Moreover, the personal tragedy deepens when we see the fateful dread inOenone's heart that she will, far away, in time hold her lover's life inher hands, and refuse to give it back to him--a fatality that Tennysontreated before he died. And, secondly, Oenone's sorrow is lifted intodignity by the vast results which flowed from its cause. Behind it werethe mighty fates of Troy, the ten years' battle, the anger of Achilles, the wanderings of Ulysses, the tragedy of Agamemnon, the founding ofRome, and the three great epics of the ancient world. "

Another point of general interest is to be noted in the poem. Despitethe classical theme the tone is consistently modern, as may be gatheredfrom the philosophy of the speech of Pallas, and from the tender yieldingnature of Oenone. There is no hint here of the vindictive resentmentwhich the old classical writers, would have associated with her grief. Similarly Tennyson has systematically modernised the Arthurian legend inthe _Idylls of the King_, giving us nineteenth century thoughts in aconventional mediaeval setting. 

A passage from Bayne, puts this question clearly: "Oenone wailsmelodiously for Paris without the remotest suggestion of fierceness orrevengeful wrath. She does not upbraid him for having preferred to herthe fairest and most loving wife in Greece, but wonders how any one couldlove him better than she does. A Greek poet would have used his wholepower of expression to instil bitterness into her resentful words. Theclassic legend, instead of representing Oenone as forgiving Paris, makesher nurse her wrath throughout all the anguish and terror of the TrojanWar. At its end, her Paris comes back to her. Deprived of Helen, abroken and baffled man, he returns from the ruins of his native Troy, andentreats Oenone to heal him of a wound, which, unless she lends her aid, must be mortal. Oenone gnashes her teeth at him, refuses him the remedy, and lets him die. In the end, no doubt, she falls into remorse, andkills herself--this is quite in the spirit of classic legend; implacablevengeance, soul-sickened with its own victory, dies in despair. Thatforgiveness of injuries could be anything but weakness--that it could behonourable, beautiful, brave--is an entirely Christian idea; and it isbecause this idea, although it has not yet practically conquered theworld, although it has indeed but slightly modified the conduct ofnations, has nevertheless secured recognition as ethically and sociallyright, that Tennyson could not hope to enlist the sympathy and admirationof his readers for his Oenone, if he had cast her image in the tearlessbronze of Pagan obduracy. "

1. IDA. A mountain range in Mysia, near Troy. The scenery is, in part, idealised, and partly inspired by the valley of Cauteretz. See_Introduction_, p. Xvi. 

2. IONIAN. Ionia was the district adjacent to Mysia. 'Ionian, 'therefore, is equivalent to 'neighbouring. '

10. TOPMOST GARGARUS. A Latinism, cf. _summus mons_. 

12. TROAS. The Troad (Troas) was the district surrounding Troy. 

ILION=Ilium, another name for Troy. 

14. CROWN=chief ornament. 

22-23. O MOTHER IDA--DIE. Mr. Stedman, in his _Victorian Poets_, devotesa valuable chapter to the discussion of Tennyson's relation toTheocritus, both in sentiment and form. "It is in the _Oenone_ that wediscover Tennyson's earliest adaptation of that refrain, which was astriking beauty of the pastoral elegiac verse;

 "'O mother Ida, hearken ere I die, '

"is the analogue of (Theocr. II). 

 "'See thou; whence came my love, O lady Moon, ' etc. 

"Throughout the poem the Syracusan manner and feeling are strictly andnobly maintained. " Note, however, the modernisation already referred to. 

MOTHER IDA. The Greeks constantly personified Nature, and attributed aseparate individual life to rivers, mountains, etc. Wordsworth's_Excursion_, Book IV. , might be read in illustration, especially from theline beginning--

 "Once more to distant ages of the world. "

MANY-FOUNTAIN'D IDA. Many streams took their source in Ida. Homerapplies the same epithet to this mountain. 

24-32. These lines are in imitation of certain passages from Theocritus. See Stedman, _Victorian Poets_, pp. 213 f. They illustrate Tennyson'sskill in mosaic work. 

30. MY EYES--LOVE. Cf. Shakespeare, 2 Henry VI. Ii. 3. 17:

 "Mine eyes are full of tears, my heart of grief. "

36. COLD CROWN'D SNAKE. "Cold crown'd" is not a compound epithet, meaning "with a cold head. " Each adjective marks a particular quality. _Crown'd_ has reference to the semblance of a coronet that the hoods ofcertain snakes, such as cobras, possess. 

37. THE DAUGHTER OF A RIVER-GOD. Oenone was the daughter of the riverCebrenus in Phrygia. 

39-40. AS YONDER WALLS--BREATHED. The walls of Troy were built byPoseidon (Neptune) and Apollo, whom Jupiter had condemned to serve KingLaomedon of Troas for a year. The stones were charmed into their placesby the breathing of Apollo's flute, as the walls of Thebes are said tohave risen to the strain of Amphion's lyre. Compare _Tithonus_, 62-63:

 "Like that strange song I heard Apollo sing, When Ilion, like a mist, rose into towers. "

And cf. Also _The Princess_, iii. 326. 

42-43. THAT--WOE. Compare _In Memoriam_, V. 

50. WHITE HOOVED. Cf. "hooves" for hoofs, in the _Lady of Shalott_, l. 101. 

51. SIMOIS. One of the many streams flowing from Mount Ida. 

65. HESPERIAN GOLD. The fruit was in colour like the golden apples inthe garden of the Hesperides. The Hesperides were three (or four)nymphs, the daughters of Hesperus. They dwelt in the remotest west, nearMount Atlas in Africa, and were appointed to guard the golden appleswhich Herè gave to Zeus on the day of their marriage. One of Hercules'twelve labours was to procure some of these apples. See the articles_Hesperides_ and _Hercules_ in Lempriere. 

66. SMELT AMBROSIALLY. Ambrosia was the food of the gods. Their drinkwas nectar. The food was sweeter than honey, and of most fragrant odour. 

72. WHATEVER OREAD. A classical construction. The Oreads were mountainnymphs. 

78. FULL-FACED--GODS. This means either that not a face was missing, orrefers to the impressive countenances of the gods. Another possibleinterpretation is that all their faces were turned full towards the boardon which the apple was cast. Compare for this epithet _Lotos Eaters_, 7;and _Princess_, ii. 166. 

79. PELEUS. All the gods, save Eris, were present at the marriagebetween Peleus and Thetis, a sea-deity. In her anger Eris threw upon thebanquet-table the apple which Paris now holds in his hand. Peleus andThetis were the parents of the famous Achilles. 

81. IRIS. The messenger of the gods. The rainbow is her symbol. 

83. DELIVERING=announcing. 

89-100. These lines, and the opening lines of the poem are among the bestof Tennyson's blank verse lines, and therefore among the best thatEnglish poetry contains. The description owes some of its beauty toHomer. In its earlier form, in the volume of 1832-3, it is much lessperfect. 

132. A CRESTED PEACOCK. The peacock was sacred to Herè (Juno). 

103. A GOLDEN CLOUD. The gods were wont to recline upon Olympus beneatha canopy of golden clouds. 

104. DROPPING FRAGRANT DEW. Drops of glittering dew fell from the goldencloud which shrouded Herè and Zeus. See _Iliad_, XIV, 341 f. 

105 f. Herè was the queen of Heaven. Power was therefore the gift whichshe naturally proffered. 

114. Supply the ellipsis. 

121-122. POWER FITTED--WISDOM. Power that adapts itself to every crisis;power which is born of wisdom and enthroned by wisdom (i. E. Does not oweits supremacy to brute strength). 

121-122. FROM ALL-ALLEGIANCE. Note the ellipsis and the inversion. 

128-131. WHO HAVE ATTAINED--SUPREMACY. Cf. _Lotos Eaters_, l. 155 f, and_Lucretius_, 104-108. 

 The gods, who haunt The lucid interspace of world and world Where never creeps a cloud, or moves a wind, Nor ever falls the least white star of snow, Nor ever lowest roll of thunder moans. 

137. O'ERTHWARTED WITH=crossed by. 

142 f. Compare the tone of Pallas' speech with what has been said in theintroduction, p. Liv f. , concerning Tennyson's love of moderation andrestraint, and his belief in the efficacy of law. 

Compare also the general temper of the _Ode on the Death of the Duke ofWellington_, and especially ll. 201-205. 

144--148. Yet these qualities are not bestowed with power as the end inview. Power will come without seeking when these great principles ofconduct are observed. The main thing is to live and act by the law ofthe higher Life, --and it is the part of wisdom to follow right for itsown sake, whatever the consequences may be. 

151. SEQUEL OF GUERDON. To follow up my words with rewards (such as Herèproffers) would not make me fairer. 

153-164. Pallas reads the weakness of Paris's character, but disdains tooffer him a more worldly reward. An access of moral courage will be hersole gift to him, so that he shall front danger and disaster until hispowers of endurance grow strong with action, and his full-grown willhaving passed through all experiences, and having become a pure law untoitself, shall be commensurate with perfect freedom, i. E. , shall not knowthat it is circumscribed by law. 

This is the philosophy that we find in Wordsworth's _Ode to Duty_. 

 Stern Lawgiver! Yet thou dost wear The Godhead's most benignant grace; Nor know we anything so fair As is the smile upon thy face: Flowers laugh before thee on their beds, And fragrance in thy footing treads; Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong, And the most ancient heavens, through thee, are fresh and strong. 

165-167. Note how dramatic this interruption is. 

170. IDALIAN APHRODITE. Idalium was a town in Cyprus; an island wherethe goddess was especially worshipped. She was frequently called Cypriaor the Cyprian. 

171. FRESH AS THE FOAM. Aphrodite was born from the waves of the sea, near the Island of Cyprus. 

NEW-BATHED IN PAPHIAN WELLS. Paphos was a town in Cyprus. Aphrodite wassaid to have landed at Paphos after her birth from the sea-foam. She issometimes called the Paphian or Paphia on this account. 

184. SHE SPOKE AND LAUGH'D. Homer calls her "the laughter-lovingAphrodite. "

195-l97. A WILD--WEED. The influence of beauty upon the beasts is acommon theme with poets. Cf. Una and the lion in Spenser's _Faery Queen_. 

204. THEY CUT AWAY MY TALLEST PINES. Evidently to make ships for Paris'sexpedition to Greece. 

235-240. THERE ARE--DIE. Lamartine in _Le Lac_ (written before 1820)has a very similar passage. 

250. CASSANDRA. The daughter of King Priam, and therefore the sister ofParis. She had the gift of prophecy. 

260. A FIRE DANCES. Signifying the burning of Troy. 

THE EPIC AND MORTE D'ARTHUR

First published, with the epilogue as here printed, in 1842. The _Morted'Arthur_ was subsequently taken out of the present setting, and withsubstantial expansion appeared as the final poem of the _Idylls of theKing_, with the new title, _The Passing of Arthur_. 

Walter Savage Landor doubtless refers to the _Morte d'Arthur_ as early as1837, when writing to a friend, as follows:--"Yesterday a Mr. Moreton, ayoung man of rare judgment, read to me a manuscript by Mr. Tennyson, being different in style from his printed poems. The subject is theDeath of Arthur. It is more Homeric than any poem of our time, andrivals some of the noblest parts of the Odyssea. " A still earliercomposition is assured by the correspondence of Edward Fitzgerald whowrites that, in 1835, while staying at the Speddings in the Lake Country, he met Tennyson and heard the poet read the _Morte d'Arthur_ and otherpoems of the 1842 volume. They were read out of a MS. , "in a little redbook to him and Spedding of a night 'when all the house was mute. '"

In _The Epic_ we have specific reference to the Homeric influence inthese lines:

 "Nay, nay, " said Hall, "Why take the style of those heroic times? For nature brings not back the Mastodon, Nor we those times; and why should any man Remodel models? these twelve books of mine Were faint Homeric echoes, nothing-worth, " . . . 

Critics have agreed for the most part in considering the _Morte d'Arthur_as the most Homeric of Tennyson's poems. Bayne writes: "Not only in thelanguage is it Homeric, but in the design and manner of treatment. Theconcentration of interest on the hero, the absence of all modernism inthe way of love, story or passion painting, the martial clearness, terseness, brevity of the narrative, with definite specification, at thesame time, are exquisitely true to the Homeric pattern. " Brimley notes, with probably greater precision, that: "They are rather Virgilian thanHomeric echoes; elaborate and stately, not naive and eager to tell theirstory; rich in pictorial detail; carefully studied; conscious of theirown art; more anxious for beauty of workmanship than interest of action. "

It has frequently been pointed out in this book how prone Tennyson is toregard all his subjects from the modern point of view:

 a truth Looks freshest in the fashion of the day. 

The Epic and the epilogue strongly emphasize this modernity in the variedmodern types of character which they represent, with their diverseopinions upon contemporary topics. "As to the epilogue, " writes Mr. Brooke (p. 130), "it illustrates all I have been saying about Tennyson'smethod with subjects drawn from Greek or romantic times. He filled andsustained those subjects with thoughts which were as modern as they wereancient. While he placed his readers in Camelot, Ithaca, or Ida, he madethem feel also that they were standing in London, Oxford, or an Englishwoodland. When the _Morte d'Arthur_ is finished, the hearer of it sitsrapt. There were 'modern touches here and there, ' he says, and when hesleeps he dreams of

 "King Arthur, like a modern gentleman Of stateliest port; and all the people cried, 'Arthur is come again, he cannot die. ' Then those that stood upon the hills behind Repeated--'Come again, and thrice as fair:' And, further inland, voices echoed--'Come With all good things and war shall be no more. 

"The old tale, thus modernised in an epilogue, does not lose its dignity, for now the recoming of Arthur is the recoming of Christ in a wider andfairer Christianity. We feel here how the new movement of religion andtheology had sent its full and exciting wave into Tennyson. Arthur'sdeath in the battle and the mist is the death of a form of Christianitywhich, exhausted, died in doubt and darkness. His advent as a moderngentleman is the coming of a brighter and more loving Christ into thehearts of men. For so ends the epilogue. When the voices cry, 'Comeagain, with all good things, '

 "At this a hundred bells began to peal, That with the sound I woke, and heard indeed, The clear church-bells ring in the Christmas-morn. "

THE ALLEGORICAL ELEMENT. --The statement is made on p. Xxxv of this bookthat in _The Idylls of the King_ "the effort is made to reconcile thehuman story with the allegory, and in consequence the issues areconfusedly presented to our mind. " It is characteristic of the _Morted'Arthur_ fragment that it is apparently free from all allegoricalintention. It is merely a moving human story with a fascinating elementof mystery inspired by the original Celtic legend. An element ofallegory lies in the epilogue, and _The Passing of Arthur_ still furtherenforces the allegorical purpose. But here, as Mr. Brooke again writes(p. 371), "we are close throughout to the ancient tale. No allegory, noethics, no rational soul, no preaching symbolism, enter here, to dim, confuse, or spoil the story. Nothing is added which does not justlyexalt the tale, and what is added is chiefly a greater fulness andbreadth of humanity, a more lovely and supreme Nature, arranged at everypoint to enhance into keener life the human feelings of Arthur and hisknight, to lift the ultimate hour of sorrow and of death into nobility. Arthur is borne to a chapel nigh the field--

 "A broken chancel with a broken cross, That stood on a dark strait of barren land; On one side lay the Ocean, and on one Lay a great water, and the moon was full. 

"What a noble framework--and with what noble consciousness it is drawn! . . . . All the landscape--than which nothing better has been invented byany English poet--lives from point to point as if Nature herself hadcreated it; but even more alive than the landscape are the two humanfigures in it--Sir Bedivere standing by the great water, and Arthur lyingwounded near the chapel, waiting for his knight. Take one passage, whichto hear is to see the thing:

 "So saying, from the ruin'd shrine he stept, And in the moon athwart the place of tombs, Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men, Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang Shrill, chill with flakes of foam. He, stepping down By zigzag paths, and juts of pointed rock, Came on the shining levels of the lake. 

"Twice he hides the sword, and when Arthur asks: 'What hast thou seen, what heard?' Bedivere answers:

 "'I heard the ripple washing in the reeds, And the wild water lapping on the crag, '

"--lines so steeped in the loneliness of mountain tarns that I never standin solitude beside their waters but I hear the verses in my heart. Atthe last he throws it. 

 "The great brand Made lightnings in the splendour of the moon, And flashing round and round, and whirl'd in an arch, Shot like a streamer of the northern morn, Seen where the moving isles of winter shock By night, with noises of the northern sea. 

"'So flashed and fell the brand Excalibur, ' and never yet in poetry didany sword, flung in the air, flash so superbly. 

"The rest of the natural description is equally alive, and the passagewhere the sound echoes the sense, and Bedivere, carrying Arthur, clangsas he moves among the icy rocks, is as clear a piece of ringing, smiting, clashing sound as any to be found in Tennyson:

 "Dry clashed his harness in the icy caves And barren chasms, and all to left and right The bare black cliff clang'd round him, as he based His feet on juts of slippery crag that rung Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels. 

"We hear all the changes on the vowel _a_--every sound of it used to givethe impression--and then, in a moment, the verse runs into breadth, smoothness and vastness: for Bedivere comes to the shore and sees thegreat water;

 "And on a sudden lo! the level lake, And the long glories of the winter moon, "in which the vowel _o_, in its changes is used, as the vowel _a_ has beenused before. 

"The questions and replies of Arthur and Bedivere, the reproaches of theKing, the excuses of the Knight, the sorrow and the final wrath ofArthur, are worthy of the landscape, as they ought to be; and thedominance of the human element in the scene is a piece of nobleartist-work. Arthur is royal to the close, and when he passes away withthe weeping Queens across the mere, unlike the star of the tournament hewas of old, he is still the King. Sir Bedivere, left alone on thefreezing shore, hears the King give his last message to the world. It isa modern Christian who speaks, but the phrases do not sound out ofharmony with that which might be in Romance. Moreover, the end of thesaying is of Avilion or Avalon--of the old heathen Celtic place where thewounded are healed and the old made young. "

In the final analysis, therefore, the significance of the _Morted'Arthur_ is a significance of beauty rather than moralistic purpose. Ithas been said that the reading of Milton's _Lycidas_ is the surest testof one's powers of poetical appreciation. I fear that the test is toosevere for many readers who can still enjoy a simpler style of poetry. But any person who can read the _Morte d'Arthur_, and fail to beimpressed by its splendid pictures, and subdued to admiration by thedignity of its language, need scarcely hope for pleasure from any poetry. 

THE EPIC

3. SACRED BUSH. The mistletoe. This plant was sacred to the Celtictribes, and was an object of particular veneration with the Druids, especially when associated with the oak-tree. 

8. OR GONE=either gone. 

18. THE GENERAL DECAY OF FAITH. The story of Arthur is intended to showhow faith survives, although the form be changed. See esp. _Morted'Arthur_, ll. 240-242. 

27-28. 'HE BURNT--SOME TWELVE BOOKS. ' This must not be taken literally. See, however, p. Xxxiii. Of the Biographical Sketch, as to Tennyson'shesitation in treating the subject. 

48-51. This is self-portraiture. Lord Tennyson's method of reading wasimpressive though peculiar. 

MORTE D'ARTHUR

THE ARTHURIAN LEGEND. Throughout the mediaeval period three great cyclesof stories commanded the imagination of the poets. Of these cycles one, the tale of Troy in its curious mediaeval guise, attested the potentspell of antique legend. [1] The two other great cycles were of laterorigin, and centred around the commanding historical figures ofCharlemagne, and the phantom glory of the legendary Arthur. 

[1]The extraordinary interest in the half legendary career of Alexanderthe Great must be noticed here, as also the profound respect amounting toveneration for the Roman poet, Vergil. 

The origin of the Arthurian story is involved in obscurity. The crudestform of the myth has doubtless a core of historic truth, and representshim as a mighty Celtic warrior, who works havoc among the heathen Saxoninvaders. Accretions naturally are added, and a miraculous origin and amysterious death throw a superstitious halo around the hero. When thebrilliant personality of Lancelot breaks into the tale, and the legend ofthe Holy Grail is superadded, the theme exercised an irresistiblefascination upon the imagination of mediaeval Europe. 

The vicissitudes of the Celtic inhabitants of Britain are as romantic asany of which history holds record. After the departure of the Romaninvaders from the island, the native population swiftly reasserteditself. The Picts of Caledonia and the Scots of Ireland were theirnatural foes, but conflict with these enemies served only to stimulatethe national life. But actual disaster threatened them when in the fifthand sixth centuries the heathen Angles and Saxons bore down indevastating hordes upon the land. It is at this critical period in thenational history that Arthur must have lived. How long or how valiantthe resistance was we cannot know. That it was vain is certain. A largebody of Britons fled from annihilation across the channel, and founded inthe region of Armurica in France, a new Brittany. Meanwhile, in theolder Britain, the foe pressed hard upon their fellow-countrymen, anddrove them into the western limits of the island, into the fastnesses ofWales, and the rocky parts of Cornwall. Here, and in Northern France, proud in their defeat and tenacious of the instincts of their race, theylived and still live, in the imaginative memories of the past. For themthe future held little store of earthly gain, and yet they made the wholeworld their debtor. 

Even in the courts of the conqueror Saxon their strange and beautifulpoetry won favour, and in a later century the Norman kings and baronswelcomed eagerly the wandering minstrels from Brittany and Wales. But itwas not from these scattered sources that Celtic traditions became aEuropean possession, as a brief statement of literary history willclearly show. 

The first recorded mention of Arthur's name occurs in a brief andanonymous _History of the Britons_, written in Latin in the tenthcentury, and attributed to Nennius. This history is curiously amplifiedin the twelfth century by Geoffrey of Monmouth, first in a story dealingwith the prophecies of Merlin, and later in a _History of the Kings ofBritain_. This book, with its brilliant description of the court ofArthur, gave the legend a widespread popularity. It was four timeswithin the same century translated into French verse, the most famous ofthese renderings being the version of Wace, called _Le Brut_, which makessome addition to Geoffrey's original, gathered from Breton sources. Inthe same century, too, Chrétien de Troyes, the foremost of Arthurianpoets, composed his famous cycle of poems. 

Of all these manifold sources Tennyson was confessedly ignorant. Wherethe details are not of his own invention, his _Idylls of the King_ restentirely upon Malory's _Morte d'Arthur_, which Caxton printed in 1485, supplemented in the case of _Enid and Geraint_, and _The Marriage ofGeraint_ by a translation of the Welsh _Mabinogion_ by Lady CharlotteGuest. 

THE STORY OF THE IDYLLS. --It is well to remember the events that led upto Arthur's death. Guinevere's guilty love for Lancelot had beendiscovered and revealed by Arthur's nephew, the traitor Modred. TheQueen fled the court and sought refuge with the nuns of Almesbury. Lancelot fled to his castle in the north, where the King in vain besiegedhim. Meanwhile Modred had stirred up a revolt, and leaguing himself withthe Saxon invaders, had usurped Arthur's throne. On his march southwardto resist his nephew, Arthur halts at the nunnery of Almesbury, and inthe Guinevere idyll the moving story of their last farewell is told. Then the King advanced to meet Modred. The description of that "lastweird battle in the west" is given in _The Passing of Arthur_, and leadsup to the impressive line with which our present poem opens. Towards theclose of that fateful day, there came--

 A bitter wind, clear from the North, and blew The mist aside, and with that wind the tide Rose, and the pale King glanced across the field Of battle: but no man was moving there; Nor any cry of Christian heard thereon, Nor yet of heathen; only the wan wave Broke in among dead faces, to and fro Swaying the helpless hands, and up and down Tumbling the hollow helmets of the fallen, And shiver'd brands that once had fought with Rome, And rolling far along the gloomy shores The voice of days of old and days to be. 

The King speaks despairingly to Bedivere, who answering, swears to himundying allegiance, and points to the traitor, Modred, who still standsunharmed:

Thereupon:--

 the King Made at the man: then Modred smote his liege Hard on the helm which many a heathen sword Had beaten thin; while Arthur at one blow, Striking the last stroke with Excalibur, Slew him, and all but slain himself, he fell. 

4. LYONNESSE. The geography of the _Idylls of the King_ is designedlyvague. The region of Lyonnesse was supposed to be adjacent to Cornwall, and the sea now covers it. The Scilly Islands are held to have been thewestern limit of this fabulous country. 

6. THE BOLD SIR BEDIVERE. The epithet "bold" is used repeatedly in thisvaguely descriptive fashion with Sir Bedivere's name. Cf. Lines 39, 69, 115, 151, 226. The use of "permanent epithets" in narrative poetry hasbeen consecrated by the example of Homer, who constantly employs suchexpressions as "the swift-footed Achilles, " "wide-ruling Agamemnon, " etc. 

Bedivere is described in _The Coming of Arthur_ as follows:--

 For bold in heart and act and word was he Whenever slander breathed against the King. 

12. A GREAT WATER. This expression has occasioned much unnecessarycomment on the score of its alleged artificiality. There might be a gainin definiteness in substituting "lake, " or "river, " as the case might be, but there would be a corresponding loss in poetry and in meaning at thisparticular place. "Had 'a great lake' been substituted for it, thephrase would have needed to be translated by the mind into water of acertain shape and size, before the picture was realized by theimagination. " (Brimley. ) It would have, consequently, been more precise, but "less poetic and pictorial. "

If further justification for the expression were needed it might bestated that "water" stands for lake in certain parts of England, e. G. "Dewentwater, " etc. ; and, what is of more importance, that Malory uses"water" in the same sense: "The king . . . . Saw afore him in a greatwater a little ship. " _Morte d'Arthur_ iv. 6. 

21. OF CAMELOT. Arthur's capital, as noted in _The Lady of Shalott_. Inspeaking of the allegorical meaning of _The Idylls of the King_, Tennysonstates that "Camelot, for instance, a city of shadowy palaces, iseverywhere symbolical of the gradual growth of human beliefs andinstitutions, and of the spiritual development of man. " Always bear inmind that Tennyson has also said: "There is no single fact or incident inthe Idylls, however seemingly mystical, which cannot be explained withoutany mystery or allegory whatever. "

22. I PERISH--MADE. In _The Coming of Arthur_ this thought is amplified:

 For first Aurelius lived and fought and died, And after him King Uther fought and died, But either failed to make the kingdom one. And after these King Arthur for a space, _And thro the puissance of his Table Round Drew all their petty princedoms under him, Their king and head, and made a realm, and reigned_. 

And in _The Passing of Arthur_ we read:

 Ill doom is mine To war against my people and my knights. The king who fights his people fights himself. 

23. THO' MERLINE SWARE--AGAIN. Merlin was the great wizard of Arthur'scourt. In the allegorical view of the poem he typifies the intellect, or, in Tennyson's words: "the sceptical understanding. "

This prophecy concerning Arthur is again referred to in _The Coming ofArthur_:

 And Merlin in our time Hath spoken also, not in jest, and sworn, Though men may wound him, that he will not die, But pass and come again. 

This belief is common to all the Arthurian sources. Compare, forexample, Wace's _Brut_: "Arthur, if the story lies not, was mortallywounded in the body: he had himself borne to Avalon to heal his wounds. There he is still; the Britons await him, as they say andunderstand . . . The prophet spoke truth, and one can doubt, and alwayswill doubt whether he is dead or living. " Dr. Sykes writes that, "Thesleep of Arthur associates the British story with the similar stories ofCharlemagne and Frederick Barbarossa of Germany, Brian in Ireland, Boabdil el Chico in Spain, etc. "

27. EXCALIBUR. Arthur's magical sword. It is described in _The Comingof Arthur_, ll. 295 f. , as:

 the sword That rose from out the bosom of the lake, And Arthur rowed across and took it--rich With jewels, elfin Urim, on the hilt, Bewildering heart and eye--the blade so bright That men are blinded by it--on one side, Graven in the oldest tongue of all this world, "Take me, " but turn the blade and ye shall see, And written in the speech ye speak yourself, "Cast me away. "

It has been variously held that Excalibur typifies temporal authority, orspiritual power. The casting away of the sword, therefore, representsthe inevitable change in which human things are involved, and even faithitself. Compare _Morte d'Arthur_, ll. 240-241. 

Magical weapons and enchanted armour are a portion of the equipment ofalmost all the great legendary heroes. Their swords and their horsesusually bear distinctive names. Roland's sword was _Durandal_, andCharlemagne's was _Joyeuse_. 

37. FLING HIM. The sword is viewed as possessing life. 

THE MIDDLE MERE. Compare a similar classical construction in Oenone, l. 10, topmost Gargarus. 

53-55. THE WINTER MOON--HILT. The frosty air made the moonlight morethan usually brilliant. 

60. THIS WAY--MIND. An echo of Vergil's line, Aeneid, VIII. 20. _Atqueanimum nunc huc celerem, nunc dividit illuc_. "And he divides his swiftmind now this way, now that. "

63. MANY-KNOTTED WATER FLAGS. Dr. Sykes has a careful note on thisexpression (_Select Poems of Tennyson_; Gage & Co. ). "The epithetmany-knotted is difficult to explain. The possible explanations wouldrefer the description to (1) the root-stock of the flag, which showsadditional bulbs from year to year; (2) the joints in the flower stalks, of which some half-dozen may be found on each stalk; (3) the largeseed-pods that terminate in stalks, a very noticeable feature when theplant is sere; (4) the various bunches or knots of iris in a bed of theplants, so that the whole phrase suggests a thickly matted bed of flags. I favour the last interpretation, though Tennyson's fondness of technicalaccuracy in his references makes the second more than possible. "

70-71. I HEARD--CRAG. It is interesting to read Chapter V. , Book XXI. OfMalory in connection with Tennyson's version of the story. He isthroughout true to the spirit of the original. _A propos_ of lines70-71, we find in Malory: "What saw thou, there?" said the King. "Sir, "he said, "I saw nothing but the waters wap and the waves wan. " Tennyson, in these two lines, gives us a consummate example of creative imitation. 

84. COUNTING THE DEWY PEBBLES. This aptly describes the absorption ofhis mind. 

85 f. And 56-58 supra. Compare the description of Excalibur, and ofBedivere's hesitancy, in Malory's book. "So Sir Bedivere departed, andby the way he beheld that noble sword, that the pommel and haft were allof precious stones, and then he said to himself, 'If I throw this richsword in the water, thereof shall never come good, but harm and loss. 'And then Sir Bedivere hid Excalibur under a tree. "

104. THE LONELY MAIDEN OF THE LAKE. The "Lady of the Lake" was presentat the crowning of Arthur. In the _Coming of Arthur_ she is described asdwelling--

 Down in a deep; calm, whatsoever storms May shake the world, and when the surface rolls Hath power to walk the waters like our Lord. 

Arthur's first meeting with her is described in Malory:-- "So they rodetill they came to a lake, the which was a fair water and broad, and inthe midst of the lake Arthur was ware of an arm clothed in white samite, that held a fair sword in that hand. 'Lo, ' said Merlin, 'yonder is thatsword that I spake of. ' With that they saw a damsel going upon the lake;'What damsel is that?' said Arthur. 'That is the Lady of the Lake, ' saidMerlin; 'and within that lake is a rock, and therein is as fair a placeas any upon earth, and richly beseen. '"

In _Gareth and Lynette_ the Lady of the Lake is mystically figured forthupon the great gate of Camelot. 

105-106. NINE YEARS--HILLS. Hallam, Lord Tennyson, in the Memoir, quotesFitzgerald's short account of a row on Lake Windermere with the poet;"'Resting on our oars one calm day on Windermere, whither we had gone fora week from dear Spedding's (Mirehouse), at the end of May, 1835; restingon our oars, and looking into the lake quite unruffled and clear, Alfredquoted from the lines he had lately read us from the MS. Of _Morted'Arthur_ about the lonely lady of the lake and Excalibur:

 "Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps, Under the hidden bases of the hills. 

"--Not bad, that. Fitz, is it?

"This kind of remark he would make when rendering his own or others'poetry when he came to lines that he particularly admired from no vanitybut from a pure feeling of artistic pleasure. " (Vol. I. Pp. 152-153). 

112. Note the slowness of the movement expressed in the rhythm of thisline, and compare with it line 168. Contrast the swiftness and energyexpressed in ll. 133-136. 

121. AUTHORITY--KING. This line has been described as Shakespearian. Its strength is derived from the force of the metaphoricalpersonification. The boldness of the poetical construction is carriedinto the metaphor in the next line. 

129. FOR A MAN. Because a man. 

132. AND SLAY THEE WITH MY HANDS. Compare Malory: "And but if thou donow as I bid thee, if ever I may see thee, I shall slay thee with mineown hands, for thou wouldest for my rich sword see me dead. " In Rowe andWebb's edition it is suggested that 'with my hands' is added for one oftwo reasons, --either "because he had now no sword; or more probably, these words are introduced in imitation of Homer's habit of mentioningspecific details: cf. 'he went taking long steps with his feet. '" Thisexplanation is ingenious, but unnecessary in view of the quotation fromMalory. The note proceeds: "Notice the touch of human personality in theking's sharp anger; otherwise Arthur is generally represented by Tennysonas a rather colourless being, and as almost 'too good for human nature'sdaily food. '"

133-142. Brimley in his valuable essay on Tennyson, analyses this poemin some detail. Of this passage he writes: "A series of brillianteffects is hit off in these two words, 'made lightnings. ' 'Whirl'd in anarch, ' is a splendid instance of sound answering to sense, which theolder critics made so much of; the additional syllable which breaks themeasure, and necessitates an increased rapidity of utterance, seeming toexpress to the ear the rush of the sword up its parabolic curve. Andwith what lavish richness of presentative power is the boreal aurora, thecollision, the crash, and the thunder of the meeting icebergs, broughtbefore the eye. An inferior artist would have shouted through a page, and emptied a whole pallet of colour, without any result but interruptinghis narrative, where Tennyson in three lines strikingly illustrates thefact he has to tell, --associates it impressively with one of Nature'sgrandest phenomena, and gives a complete picture of this phenomenonbesides. " The whole essay deserves to be carefully read. 

143. DIPT THE SURFACE. A poetical construction. 

157. Note the personification of the sword. 

182-183. CLOTHED--HILLS. His breath made a vapour in the frosty airthrough which his figure loomed of more than human size. Tennyson givesus the same effect in _Guinevere_, 597:

 The moving vapour rolling round the King, Who seem'd the phantom of a Giant in it, Enwound him fold by fold. 

But the classical example is found in Wordsworth's description of themountain shepherd in _The Prelude_, Book VIII. 

 When up the lonely brooks on rainy days Angling I went, or trod the trackless hills By mists bewildered, suddenly mine eyes Have glanced upon him distant a few steps, In size a giant, stalking through thick fog, His sheep like Greenland bears, or as he stepped Beyond the boundary line of some hill-shadow, His form hath flashed upon me, glorified By the deep radiance of the setting sun, 191-192. AND ON A SUDDEN--MOON. "Do we not, " writes Brimley, "seem toburst from the narrow steep path down the ravine, whose tall precipitoussides hide the sky and the broad landscape from sight, and come out in amoment upon--

 "the level lake, And the long glories of the winter moon!"

193. HOVE=hove in sight. 

The closing scene in this drama is impressively described by Malory. "SoSir Bedivere came again to the King, and told him what he saw. 'Alas, 'said the King, 'help me hence, for I dread me I have tarried over long. 'Then Sir Bedivere took the King upon his back, and so went with him tothat water side. And when they were at the water side, even fast by thebank hoved a little barge, with many fair ladies in it, and among themall was a queen, and all they had black hoods, and all they wept andshrieked when they saw King Arthur. 'Now, put me into the barge, ' saidthe King: and so they did softly. And there received him three queenswith great mourning, and so they set him down, and in one of their lapsKing Arthur laid his head; and then that queen said; 'Ah, dear brother, why have ye tarried so long from me? Alas, this wound on your head hathcaught overmuch cold. ' And so then they rowed from the land; and SirBedivere beheld ail those ladies go from him. Then Sir Bedivere cried;'Ah, my Lord Arthur, what shall become of me now ye so from me, and leaveme here alone among mine enemies?' 'Comfort thyself, ' said the King:, 'and do as well as thou mayest, for in me is no trust for to trust in. For I will into the vale of Avilion, to heal me of my grievous wound. And if thou hear never more of me, pray for my soul. ' But ever thequeens and the ladies wept and shrieked, that it was pity to hear. And, as soon as Sir Bedivere had lost the sight of the barge, he wept andwailed, and so took the forest, and so he went all that night. . . . . . "

It is interesting to note how the poet suggests here and there thephrasing of his original, but even more interesting to note hisamplifications. It may be doubted whether Tennyson has here surpassedhis original. For its touching simplicity he has substituted a dignifiedgrandeur, and has involved plain statements in gorgeous rhetoric, as inhis passage upon the efficacy of prayer. The unadorned original had saidonly "pray for my soul. "

198. THREE QUEENS WITH CROWNS OF GOLD. "That one was King Arthur'ssister, Morgan le Fay; the other was the Queen of Northgales (Wales); thethird was the Lady of the lake. " _Malory_. 

215-216. DASH'D WITH DROPS--OF ONSET. Words are sometimes poetical fromtheir precision, and sometimes, as here, they suggest without definitereference. The meaning is "dashed with drops of blood" from the onset orencounter. 

2t6-220. Arthur is again described in _The Last Tournament_. 

 That victor of the Pagan throned in hall, His hair, a sun that rayed from off a brow Like hillsnow high in heaven, the steel-blue eyes, The golden beard that cloth'd his lips with light. 

228. MY FOREHEAD AND MY EYES. Compare the note to line 132. Here thespecific terms are used according to the epical manner instead of thegeneral term "face. "

232-233. Compare the Gospel of _Matthew_ ii. 11. 

240-242. These often-quoted lines have been already referred to above. Their very intellectuality is alien to the spirit of the original. InTennyson's conception they afford the central meaning of the poem, andalso of the completed _Idylls_. We must bow to the will of God whobrings all things in their due season. Good customs too deeply rootedare like clear waters grown stagnant. 

254-255. FOR SO--GOD. The idea that the earth is bound by a gold chainto heaven is comparatively common in literature from Homer downwards. Archdeacon Hare has a passage in his sermon on _Self-Sacrifice_ whichdoubtless was familiar to Tennyson: "This is the golden chain of love, whereby the whole creation is bound to the throne of the Creator. "

257-258. IF INDEED I GO--DOUBT. There is no reason to suppose that theselines indicate Tennyson's personal misgivings on the subject ofimmortality. 

259. THE ISLAND VALLEY OF AVILION. Mr. Rhys in his _Studies in theArthurian Legend_ combats the old idea that Avalon (Avilion) meant the"Island of Apples" (Welsh aval, apple). The name implies the Island ofKing Avalon, a Celtic divinity, who presided among the dead. 

The valley of Avalon was supposed to be near Glastonbury, inSomersetshire, where Joseph of Arimathea first landed with the Holy Grail. 

67 ff. There is an evident symbolical meaning in this dream. IndeedTennyson always appears to use dreams for purposes of symbol. The linesare an application of the expression; "The old order changeth, " etc. Theparson's lamentation expressed in line 18, "Upon the general decay offaith, " is also directly answered by the assertion that the modern Arthurwill arise in modern times. There is a certain grotesqueness in thelikening of King Arthur to "a modern gentleman of stateliest port. " ButTennyson never wanders far from conditions of his own time. As Mr. Stopford Brooke writes; "Arthur, as the modern gentleman, as the modernruler of men, such a ruler as one of our Indian heroes on the frontier, is the main thing in Tennyson's mind, and his conception of such a mancontains his ethical lesson to his countrymen. "

THE BROOK

Published in 1855 in the volume, _Maud and other Poems_. _The Brook_ isone of the most successful of Tennyson's idylls, and is in no degree, asthe earlier poem _Dora_ was, a Wordsworthian imitation. The brookitself, which bickers in and out of the story as in its native valley, was not the Somersby brook, which does not now "to join the brimmingriver, " but pours into the sea. The graylings and other details areimaginary. A literary source has been suggested (see Dr. Sykes' note) inGoethe's poem, _Das Bächlein_, which begins:

 klar, and clear, sinn; and think; du hin? goest thou?Du Bachlein, silberhell und Thou little brook, silver bright Du eilstvorüber immerdar, Thou hastenest ever onward, Am Ufer steh' ich, sinn' und I stand on the brink, think Wo kommst du her? Wo gehstWhence comest thou? Where

The Brook replies:

 Schoss, dark rocks, Moss'. And moss. Ich komm' aus dunkler Felsen I come from the bosom of the Mein Laufgeht über Blum' und My course goes over flowers

The charm of the poem lies in its delicate characterization, in its toneof pensive memory suffused with cheerfulness, and especially in the songof the brook, about which the action revolves. Twenty years have wroughtmany changes in the human lives of the story, but the brook flows onforever, and Darnley bridge still spans the brimming river, and shows foronly change a richer growth of ivy. 

6. HOW MONEY BREEDS, i. E. By producing interest at loan. 

8. THE THING THAT--IS. The poet's function is thus described byShakespeare:

 As imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name. --_Midsummer Night's Dream_, V. , 1. 

17. HALF-ENGLISH NEILGHERRY AIR. The Neilgherry Hills are in Madras. The climate resembles somewhat that of England. 

37. MORE IVY, i. E. Than twenty years ago. 

46. WILLOW WEED AND MALLOW. These are marsh plants. 

93-95. NOT ILLITERATE--DEED. Katie was not without reading; but she wasnot of those who dabble in sentimental novels (the source of imaginarytears), and saturate themselves with unctuous charities; and whose powersto act are sapped by their excess of feeling. 

105. UNCLAIM'D. As having nothing to do with her. Katie resented theimplication in the question of line 100. She therefore disdained toanswer it. Messrs. Rowe and Webb hold that line 100 is a hint that thespeaker, Lawrence Aylmer, was responsible for James's fit of jealousy. 

l25f. Note the art with which the old man's garrulousness is expressed. The cautious precision of lines 151-152 is particularly apt. 

176. NETTED SUNBEAM. The sunlight reflected like a net-work on thebottom. The ripples on the surface would have this effect. 

189. ARNO. A river in Italy which flows past Florence. 

189-190. DOME OF BRUNELLESCHI. Brunelleschi (Broo-nei-les'-ké) was anItalian architect (1377-1444), who completed the cathedral of Santa Mariain Florence. Its dome is of great size and impressiveness. 

194. BY--SEAS. Tennyson was fond of quoting this line as one of hisroost successful individual lines. Its rhythm is indeed sonorous. 

195-196. AND HOLD--APRIL AUTUMNS. Objection has been taken to thesomewhat pedantic precision of these lines. See, however, the referenceon pp. Lxxii. -lxxvii. To Tennyson's employment of science in poetry. 

The fact is familiar, of course, that in the Antipodes the seasons arethe reverse of ours. 

203. BRIONY RINGS. Formed by the tendrils of the plant. 

IN MEMORIAM

The poem, _In Memoriam_, in memory of Arthur Henry Hallam, was publishedin 1850, at first anonymously, but the authorship was not long in doubt. 

Arthur Henry Hallam, the son of Henry Hallam, the historian, was born in1811. He entered Eton in 1822, and remained there until 1827, when hewent to Cambridge. There he met Alfred Tennyson, and the two young menformed a friendship for one another, broken only by Hallam's early death. In 1832, he graduated from Cambridge, became engaged to Emily Tennyson, the sister of Alfred, and entered on the study of law. In 1833, he had asevere illness and after his recovery was taken by his father for a touron the Continent, in the hope of restoring his health. Sir FrancisHastings Doyle tells the story of his death: "A severe bout of influenzaweakened him, and whilst he was travelling abroad for change of air, andto recover his strength, one of his usual attacks apparently returnedupon him without warning, whilst he was still unfitted to resist it; sothat when his poor father came back from a walk through the streets ofVienna, he was lying dead on the sofa where he had been left to take ashort rest. Mr. Hallam sat down to write his letters, and it was only byslow and imperceptible degrees that a certain anxiety, in consequence ofArthur's stillness and silence, dawned upon his mind; he drew near toascertain why he had not moved nor spoken, and found that all was over. "The body was brought back to England and buried in Clevedon Church, onthe banks of the Severn. 

The effect upon Tennyson of the death of Arthur Hallam was overwhelming. For a time it "blotted out all joy from his life and made him long fordeath, in spite of his feeling that he was in some measure a help andcomfort to his sister. " Under the influence of this great sorrow hewrote _The Two Voices_, _Ulysses_, "_Break, Break, Break_, " and beganthat exquisite series of lyric poems, afterwards joined together in the_In Memoriam_. His friendship for Hallam remained throughout life withhim as one of his most precious possessions. 

The poems in the text are selected from the _In Memoriam_, and have amore or less close connection with each other. It is better, however, toregard each poem as a separate poem, without any attempt to place it inits relation to the _In Memoriam_ as a whole. 

The best annotated edition of _In Memoriam_ is that by A. C. Bradley(Macmillan). Other useful editions are edited by Wallace (Macmillan), and by Robinson (Cambridge Press). Elizabeth B. Chapman's _Companion toIn Memoriam_ (Macmillan), contains the best analysis of the poem. 

XXVII

"The very memory of such an affection as he had cherished for Hallam isan inspiration. Keen and acute as the sense of loss may be, it purifiesrather than destroys the influence of a hallowed love--its effect is toidealize and sanctify. This general truth is enforced by severalillustrations. "--_Henry E. Shepherd_. 

2. NOBLE RAGE. Fierce love of freedom. 

6. HIS LICENSE. "Lives without law, because untroubled by the promptingsof a higher nature. "

6. FIELD OF TIME. The term of his natural life. 

12. WANT-BEGOTTEN REST. Hallam, Lord Tennyson interprets: "Rest--theresult of some deficiency or narrowness. "

16. NEVER TO HAVE LOVED. Life is enriched by the mere act of havingloved. 

LXIV

"Still brooding on all the possible relations of his old friend to thelife and the love that he has left, the poet now compares him to somegenius of lowly birth, who should leave his obscure home to rise to thehighest office of state, and should sometimes in the midst of hisgreatness, remember, as in a dream, the dear scenes of old, and it maybe, the humble villager who was his chosen playmate. "--Elizabeth R. Chapman. 

1. DOST THOU, ETC. This section was composed by Tennyson when he waswalking up and down the Strand and Fleet Street in London. 

5. INVIDIOUS BAR. Obstacle to success. Invidious is used in the senseof "offensive. "

7. CIRCUMSTANCE. Adverse circumstances. 

9. BY FORCE. Strength of character and will. 

10. GOLDEN KEYS. Keys of office of state. 

11. MOULD. As a minister of the Crown. 

14. CROWNING SLOPE. A felicitous phrase. If it were a precipice itcould not be climbed. 

15. PILLAR. That on which they build, and which supports them. 

21. NARROWER. When he was still in his "low estate. "

28. REMEMBER ME. Bradley notes that "the pathetic effect is increased bythe fact that in the two preceding stanzas we are not told that his oldfriend does remember him. "

LXXXIII

"With the dawning of the New Year, fresh hope quickens in the poet'sbreast. He would fain hasten its laggard footsteps, longing for theflowers of spring and for the glory of summer. Can trouble live in thespring--the season of life and love and music? Let the spring come, andhe will sing 'for Arthur a sweeter, richer requiem. '"--_Elizabeth R. Chapman_. 

1. NORTHERN SHORE. Robertson explains: "The north being the last to beincluded in the widening circle of lengthening daylight as it readiesfurther and further down from the equator. "

2. NEW-YEAR. The natural, not the calendar year. The re-awakening oflife in nature. 

5. CLOUDED NOONS. From the noons, which are still clouded. 

6. PROPER. Own. 

9. SPIRE. Flowering spikes. 

10. SPEEDWELL. "The Germander Speedwell is a slender, wiry plant, whosestem sometimes creeps along the surface of the ground before it growsupwards. The flowers have four small petals of the brightest blue, andwithin the flower at the foot of the petals is a small white circle, witha little white eye looking up. Two stamens with crimson heads rise fromthis white circle, and in the very centre of the flower there is a tinygreen seed-vessel, with a spike coming out of the top. "--_C. B. Smith_. 

12. LABURNUMS. 

 "And all the gold from each laburnum chain Drops to the grass. " --_To Mary Boyle_. 

LXXXVI

"I can open my being also to the reviving influences of Nature--as on acertain evening, balmy and glorious after the rain, when the breezeseemed as if it might breathe new life, and waft me across the seas awayfrom the land of doubt and death to some far off sphere of more thanearthly peace, "--_Arthur W. Robinson_. 

1. SWEET AFTER SHOWERS, ETC. This poem was written at Barmouth. 

1. AMBROSIAL. Ambrosia was the food of the immortal gods. The wind wasfrom the west and was "divinely reviving. "

4. BREATHING BARE. Making the horizon bare of clouds. 

5. RAPT. Violent motion is not implied. 

6. DEWY-TASSEL'D. From the showers. 

7. HORNED FLOOD. Between two promontaries. 

9. SIGH. "Impart as by a breath or sigh. "

10. NEW LIFE. Due to the new friendship. 

11. DOUBT AND DEATH. These have up to this time haunted him. 

13. FROM BELT, ETC. Tennyson explains: "The west wind rolling to theEastern seas till it meets the evening star. "

16. WHISPER "PEACE. " Stopford Brooke says of this poem: "Each verse islinked like bell to bell in a chime to the verse before it, swelling asthey go from thought to thought, and finally rising from the landscape ofearth to the landscape of infinite space. Can anything be moreimpassioned and yet more solemn? It has the swiftness of youth and thenobleness of manhood's sacred joy. "

CI

"In the garden, looking round on tree and shrub and flower and brook--allthe friends of many years--a fresh pang comes with the sight of each. All these will be unwatched, unloved, uncared for; till, perhaps, theyfind a home in a stranger's heart, growing dear to him and his, while thememory fades of those who love them now. "--_Elizabeth R. Chapman_. 

10. THE BROOK. The brook at Somersby flowed past the bottom of theparsonage grounds. It is constantly mentioned in Tennyson's poems. Hallam Tennyson says that the charm and beauty of the brook haunted hisfather through life. 

11. LESSER WAIN. Ursa Minor, or the Little Bear; a small constellationcontaining the pole star. Wain means "wagon, " another name for theconstellation. 

14. HERN AND CRAKE. Heron and corn-crake. 

21. LABOURER. He does not move away, but stays always there. 

22. GLEBE. Soil. 

CXIV

"The world now is all for the spread of knowledge: and I should be thelast to demur. But knowledge has an ardent impetuosity, which in itspresent immature condition may be fraught with many perils. Knowledge byitself, so far from being of necessity heavenly, may even become devilishin its selfish violence. Everything depends upon its being held in duesubordination to those higher elements in our nature which go to makewisdom. Would that the ideal aim of our education were to produce suchas he was, in whom every increase in intellectual ability was accompaniedby the growth of some finer grace of the spirit. "--_Arthur W. Robinson_. 

4. HER PILLARS. "Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out herseven pillars. "--_Proverbs_ 9: 1. 

5. A FIRE. The fire of inspiration. 

6. SETS. Hard, like a flint. 

6. FORWARD. Bold, without reverence. 

7. CHANCE. Of success. 

8. TO DESIRE. Governed by passion, without restraint or self-control. 

10. FEAR OF DEATH. Knowledge does not know what is beyond the grave andtherefore fears death. 

11. CUT FROM LOVE, ETC. Wallace says: "Knowledge, in its own nature, canhave no love, for love is not of the intellect, and knowledge is all ofthe intellect: so, too, she can have no faith, for faith in its nature isa confession of ignorance, since she believes what she cannot know. "

12. PALLAS. Pallas Athene, the goddess of wisdom among the Greeks, wasfabled to have sprung, fully grown and fully armed, from the brain ofZeus. Wild Pallas means "false wisdom. "

17. A HIGHER HAND. Wisdom. 

23. THY GOAL. The goal of wisdom. 

28. REVERENCE, ETC. In faith and love. 

CXV

"Another spring has come, and all its lovely sights and sounds wakeanswering chords in the poet's breast. The life within him stirs andquickens in responsive harmony with the world without. But his regret, too, blossoms like a flower, "--_Elizabeth R. Chapman_. 

2. BURGEONS. Buds. 

2. MAZE OF QUICK. Quick-set tangle. 

3. SQUARES. Fields. 

8. SIGHTLESS. Invisible. 

14. GREENING. Shining out on the sea. 

CXVIII

"Do not believe that man's soul is like mere matter, or has beenproduced, like lower forms in the earlier ages of the earth, only toperish. Believe that he is destined both to advance to something higheron the earth, and also to develop in some higher place elsewhere, if herepeats the process of evolution by subduing the lower within him to theuses of the higher, whether in peaceful growth or through painfulstruggle. "--_A. C. Bradley_. 

2. HIS YOUTH. "Limited time, however old or long, must be always young, compared with the hoary age of eternity. "

4. EARTH AND LIME. Flesh and bone. 

10. SEEMING-RANDOM. But in reality shaped and guided. 

11. CYCLIC STORMS. "Periodic cataclysms, " or "storms lasting for wholeages. "

16. TYPE. Exemplify. 

18. ATTRIBUTES OF WOE. Trial and suffering are the crown of man in thisworld. 

20. IDLE. Useless. 

22. HEATED HOT. A reference to the tempering of steel. 

26. REELING FAUN. Human beings with horns, a tail, and goats' feet. They were more than half-brutish in their nature. 

28. THE APE AND THE TIGER. A reference to the theory of evolution, although Darwin's _Origin of Species_ did not appear until 1859. 

CXXIII

"Again the mysterious play of mighty cosmic forces arrests his thought. Everything in the material universe is changing, transient; all is in astate of flux, of motion, of perpetual disintegration or re-integration. But there is one thing fixed and abiding--that which we call spirit--andamid all uncertainty, one truth is certain--that to a loving human soul aparting which shall be eternal is unthinkable. "--_Elizabeth R. Chapman_. 

4. STILLNESS. Hallam Tennyson remarks that balloonists say that even ina storm the middle sea is noiseless. It is the ship that is the cause ofthe howling of the wind and the lashing of the storm. 

4. CENTRAL SEA. Far from land. 

8. LIKE CLOUDS, ETC. A reference to geological changes.