There is no living poet who more justly demands of the critic a calm and accurate estimate of his claims than Alfred Tennyson; neither is there one whom it is more difficult accurately and dispassionately to estimate. Other living and poetical reputations seem tolerably well settled. The older bards belong already to the past. Wordsworth all the world consents to honour. Living, he already ranks with the greatest of our ancestors. His faults even are no longer canvassed; they are frankly admitted, and have ceased to disturb us. Every man of original genius has his mannerism more or less disagreeable; once thoroughly understood, it becomes our only care to forget it. No one now thinks of discovering that Wordsworth is occasionally, and especially when ecclesiastical themes overtake him, sadly prosaic; no one is now more annoyed by this than he is at the school divinity of Milton, or the tangled, elliptical, helter-skelter sentences into which the impetuous imagination of Shakspeare sometimes hurries him. Moore, another survivor of the magnates of the last generation, has judgment passed upon him with equal certainty and universality. He, with a somewhat different fate, has seen his fame collapse. He no longer stalks a giant in the land, but he has dwindled down to the most delightful of minstrel-pages that ever brought song and music into a lady's chamber. So exquisite are his songs, men willingly forget he ever attempted anything higher. We have no other remembrance of hisLalla Rookhthan that he has embedded in it some of those gems of song—some of those charming lyrics which scarcely needed to be set to music; they are melody and verse in one. They sing themselves. If his fame has diminished, it has not tarnished. It has shrunk to a little point, but that little point is bright as the diamond, and as imperishable. Of the poets more decidedly of our own age and generation, there are but few whom it would be thought worth while to estimate according to a high standard of excellence. The crowd we in general consent to praise with indulgence, because we do not look upon them as candidates for immortality, but merely for the honours of the day—a social renown, the applause of their contemporaries, the palm won in the race with living rivals.
Poetry of the very highest order, coupled with much affectation, much defective writing, many wilful blunders, renders Alfred Tennyson a very worthy and a very difficult subject for the critic. The extreme diversity and unequal merit of his compositions, make it a very perplexing business to form any general estimate of his writings. The conclusion the critic comes to at one moment he discards the next. He finds it impossible to satisfy himself, nor can ever quite determine in what measure praise and censure should be mixed. At one time he is so thoroughly charmed, so completely delighted with the poet's verse, that he is disposed to extol his author to the skies; he is as little inclined to any captious and disparaging criticism as lovers are, when they look, however closely, into the fair face which has enchanted them. At other times, the page before him will call up nothing but vexation and annoyance. Even the gleams of genuine poetry, amongst the confusion and elaborate triviality that afflict him, will only add to his displeasure. A heap of rubbish never looks so vile, or so disagreeable, as when a fresh flower is seen thrown upon it. Were Tennyson to be estimated by some half-dozen of his best pieces, he would be the compeer of Coleridge and of Wordsworth—if by a like number of hisworst performances, he would be raised very little above that nameless and unnumbered crowd of dilettanti versifiers, whose utmost ambition seems to be to see themselves in print, and then, as quickly as possible, to disappear—
"One momentblack, then gone for ever."
"One momentblack, then gone for ever."
"One momentblack, then gone for ever."
This diversity of merit is not to be accounted for by the diverse nature of the subject-matter which the poet has at different times treated; for Mr Tennyson has given us the happiest specimens of the most different styles of composition, employed on a singular variety of topics. He has been grave and graceful, playful and even broadly comic, with complete success. As a finished portraiture of a peculiar state of mind—conceived with philosophic truth, and embellished with all the fascinating associations which it is the province of poetry to call around us—nothing could surpass the poem of theLotos Eaters. For playfulness, and tender, amorous fancy—warm, but not too warm—spiritual, but not too spiritual—we shall go far before we find a rival to theTalking Oak, or to theDay Dream: what better ballad can heart desire than theLord of Burleigh? And how well does a natural indignation speak out in the clear ringing verse ofLady Clara Vere de Vere! Specimens of the richly comic, as we have hinted, may here and there be found: we have one in our eye which we shall seek an opportunity for quoting. In harmonising metaphysic thought with poetic imagery and expression, he does not always succeed; on the contrary, some of his saddest failures arise from the abortive attempt; yet there are some admirable passages even of this description of writing.
It is not, therefore, the difference of style aimed at, or subject-matter adopted, which determines whether Tennyson shall be successful or not. Perhaps it will be said that the marked inequality in his compositions is sufficiently accounted for by the simple fact, that some were written at an earlier age than others; that some are the productions of his youth, and others of his maturity—that, in short, it is a mere question of dates. There is indeed a very striking difference between those poems which commence the volume, and bear the date of 1830, and the other and greater number, which bear the date of 1832: the difference is so great, that we question whether, upon the whole, the fame of Mr Tennyson would not have been advanced by the omission altogether from his collected works of this first portion of his poems; for though much beauty would be lost, far more blemish would be got rid of. Still, however, as the same inequality pursues us in his later writings, and is evident even in his last production—The Princess—there remains something more to be explained than can be quite accounted for by the mere comparison of dates. This something more we find explained ina bad school of taste, under the influence of which Mr Tennyson commenced his poetic authorship. Above this influence he often rises, but he has never quite liberated himself from it. To this source we trace the affectations of many kinds which deface his writings—affectation of a super-refinement of meaning, ending in mere obscurity, or in sheer nonsense; affectation of antique simplicity ending in the most jejune triviality; experimental metres putting the ear to torture; or an utter disregard of all metre, of all the harmonies of verse, together with an incessant toil after originality of phrase; as if no new idea could be expressed unless each separate word bore also an aspect of novelty.
At the time when Tennyson commenced his career, poetry and poets were in a somewhat singular position. Never had there been so great a thirst for poetry—never had there existed so large a reading public with so decided a predilection for this species of literature; and rarely, if ever, has there arisen—at once the cause and effect of this public taste—so noble a band of contemporary poets as those who were just then retiring from the stage. The success which attended metrical composition was quite intoxicating. Poems, now gradually waning from the sight of all mankind, were rapturously welcomed as masterpieces. It seemed that the poet might dare anything. Meanwhile,the novelty to which he was emboldened was rendered urgent and necessary; for, in addition to the old rivals of times long past, there was this band of poets, whose echoes were still ringing in the theatre, to be competed with. Was it any wonder that at such an epoch we should have Keats writing hisEndymion, or Tennyson elaborating his incomprehensible odeTo Memory, or inditing his foolish songsTo the Owl, or torturing himself to unite oldballadrywith modern sentiment in hisLady of Shalott, for ever rhyming with that detested town ofCamelot; or that he should have been stringing together fulsome, self-adulatory nonsense aboutThe Poet and the Poet's Mind—or, in short, committing any conceivable extravagance in violation of sense, metre, and the English language? The young poet of this time was evidently carried off his feet. He had drank so deep of those springs about Parnassus, that he had lost his footing on the solid ground. It did not follow that he and his compeers always soared above us because they could no longer walk on a level with us. Men, in a dream, think they are flying when they are only falling. They reeled much, these intellectual revellers. It is true that sober men discountenanced them, rebuked them, reminded them that liberty was not license, nor imagination another name for insanity; but there was still a considerable crowd of indiscriminate admirers to cheer and encourage them in their wildest freaks.
One tendency, gathered from these times, seems, all along and throughout his whole progress, to have beset our author—the reluctance to subside for a moment to the easy natural level of cultivated minds. He has a morbid horror of commonplace. He will be grotesque, if you will; absurd, infantine—anything but truly simple: when he girds himself for serious effort, he would give you the very essence of poetry, and nothing else. This wish to have it all blossoms, no stem or leaves, has perhaps been one cause why he has written no long work. It is a tendency which is, in some measure, honourable to him. Though it has assisted in betraying him into the errors we have already noticed, it must be allowed that we are never in danger of being wearied with the monotony of commonplace.
It may be worth while to consider for a moment this characteristic—the wish to seize upon the essence, and the essence only, of poetry.
In our high intellectual industry, there goes on a certain division and subdivision of labour analogous to that which marks the progress of our commercial and manufacturing industry. The first men of genius were historians, poets, philosophers, all in one. If they wrote verse, they found a place in it for whatever could in any manner interest their contemporaries, whether it was matter of knowledge, or matter of passion. The theology of a people, and the agriculture of a people—chaos and night, and how to sow the fields—the progeny of gods, and the breeding of bulls—were alike materials for the poem. A Hesiod or a Gower chant all they know—science, or religion, or morality. The first epic is the first history. But the narrative here becomes too engrossing to admit of large admixtures of didactic matter. This is relegated to some other form of composition, and handed over to some other master of the art. The dramatic form carries on this division still further. The representation of the narrative relieves the poem of its historic character, and a dialogue which is to accompany action becomes necessarily devoted to the passions of life, or such strains of reflection as result from, and harmonise with, those passions. The lyric minstrel seizes upon these eliminated elements of passion and reflection, and adds thereto a greater liberty of imagination. At length comes that mere intellectual luxury Of imaginative thought—that gathering in of beauty and emotion from all sources—that subtle blending of a thousand pleasing allusions and flitting images—exquisite for their own sake, and constituting what is considered as pre-eminently the poetical description of natural scenery, or the poetical delineation of human feeling.
But it is possible that this intellectual division of labour may be carried too far. This luxury of imaginative thought may be found supporting itself on the slenderest base imaginableof either incident or reflection, may be almost divorced from those first natural sources of interest which affect all mankind. Now, although this may be the most poetical element of the poem—though this subtle play of imagination may constitute, more than anything else, the difference between poetry and prose, it does not follow that a good poem can be constructed wholly of such materials. It does not even follow that, in a good poem, this is really the most essential part; for that which constitutes the specific distinction between prose and poetry may not be an ingredient so important as others which both prose and poetry have in common. It is thehilt, and its peculiar formation, which more particularly distinguishes the sword from any other cutting instrument; but the blade—the faculty of cutting which it shares in common with the most domestic knife—is, after all, the most important part, the most requisite property of the sword. A peculiar play of imagination is pre-eminently poetic, but thought, reflection, the genuine passions of man—these must still constitute the greater elements of the composition, whether it be prose or poem.
If, therefore, we carry this division of labour too far, we shall be in danger of carving elegant and elaborate hilts that have no blades, or but a sham one. We ask no one to write didactic or philosophic poems—we should entreat of them to abstain; we call on no man to describe again the culture of the sugarcane, (though it bids fair to become amongst us one of the lost arts,) or the breeding of sheep, in numerous verse; we hope no one will again fall into that singular error of imagining that the "art of poetry" must be a peculiarly appropriate subject for a poem, and the very topic that the spirit of a poetic reader was thirsting for. Art of poetry! what poetic nutriment will you extract from that? As well think to dine a man upon the art of cookery! It is quite right that what is best said in prose should be confined to prose; but neither must we divorce substantial thought, the broad passions of mankind, or a deep reflection, from the poetic form. This would be to build nothing but steeples, and minarets, and all the filigree of architecture. We should have pillars and porticoes enough, but not a temple of any kind to enter into.
We often hear it asserted, on the one hand, that the taste for poetry has declined. We hear this, on the other hand, vigorously contested and denied. No, says the indignant champion of the muse,versemay have sunk much in estimation, and the ingenious labours of the rhymist may be put on a par, if you will, with the tricks of the juggler or the caprices of art. Difficulties conquered! Nonsense. We want good things executed. It is your folly if you do not choose the best means. The man who plays on his fiddle with one string only, shall have thanks if he plays well, but not because he plays on one string; if he could have played better, using the four, his thanks shall be diminished by so much. Yes, verse may be depreciated, butpoetry—which grows perennial from the very heart of humanity—you may plough over the soil deep as you please, you will only make it grow the faster, and strike the deeper root. The answer is well, and yet there may be something left unexplained. If poetry has been deserting the highroads of human thought—if it has grown more limited as it has grown more subtle—there may be some ground for suspecting that the public will desert it. Without wishing to detract anything from the high merit of his best performances, we should refer to a great portion of the poetry ofShelleyas an illustration of these remarks, and also to a considerable part of the poetry ofKeats.
It is especially in the class of descriptive poetry, that we moderns have carried the over-refinement we are speaking of, to so remarkable an extent. The poets of Greece and Rome, it has been often observed, rarely, if ever, described natural scenery simply for its own sake. It was with their verse as with their paintings—the landscape was always a mere accessory, the main interest lying with the human or superhuman beings who inhabited it. The truth seems to be, that the pagan imagination was so full of its goddesses and nymphs, that these obscured the genuine impression, which the scene itself would have produced.Not but that the ancient poet must have felt the charm of a beautiful or sublime scene; but instead of dwelling upon this natural charm, he turned immediately to what seemed a more worthy subject—to the supernatural beings with which superstition had peopled the scene. Scarcely could he see the wood for the dryads, or the river for those smooth naiads that were surely living in its lucid depths. And even if we suppose that these pagan faiths had lost their hold both of writer and of reader, it is still very easy to understand that simple nature—trees, and hills, and water—however pleasing to the beholder, might not be thought an appropriate subject, or one sufficiently important for an exclusive description. What is open to every one's eye, and familiar to every man's thought, is not the first, but the last topic to which literature resorts. Not till all others are exhausted does it betake itself to this. Just as the heroic in human existence would be sung and resung, long before a Fielding portrays the common life that is lying about him; so portents and prodigies, gods and satyrs, and Ovidian fables of metamorphosed damsels, would precede the description of groves and bays, verdure and water, and the light of heaven seen shining every day upon them.
Even the sacred poets and prophets amongst the Hebrews, who gave such sublime views of nature, always associated her with the presence of God. This, indeed, was the secret of their sublimity. With them nature was never seen alone. The clouds rolled about His else invisible path; the thunder was His, the hills were His; nature was the perpetual vesture of the Deity.
It is only in modern times that the scenery of nature has been allowed to speak for itself, to make its own impression, as the great representative of the Beautiful here below. But now, as this scenery is to be described, not by admeasurements, or the items of a catalogue, as so much land, so much water, so much timber, but by the deep, and varied, and often shadowy sentiments it calls forth, it is manifest that it must become a theme inexhaustible to the poet, and a theme also somewhat dangerous to him, as tempting him more and more towards those refined, and vague, and evanescent feelings which are not found on the highways of human thought, and are known only to the experience of a few.
But to return more immediately to Mr Tennyson. We have said that, at the time when he commenced writing, poetry was in a certain feverish condition. The young poet had been spoilt—had grown over-confident. He was like Spencer's Knight in the Palace of Love, who sees written over every door, "Be bold! Be bold!" Only over one door does he read the salutary caution, "Be not too bold!" Public opinion, or the opinion of a large and powerful coterie, favoured his wildest excesses. That language was strained and distorted, was a sure sign of the original power of thought that was struggling through the imperfect medium. Obscurity was always honoured. People strained their eyes to watch their favourite as he careered amongst the clouds: if they lost sight of him, the fault was presumed to be in their own vision; they were not likely, therefore, to confess any inability to follow him. The young aspirants of the day even learnt to despise the trammels of their own art. The measure and melody of their verse was sacrificed to the irresistible afflatus which bore them onward. Metre was put to the torture,—at least our ears were tortured—in order that no iota of the heaven-breathed strain should be lost. They still wrote in verse, because verse alone could disguise the empty, meaningless phraseology they had enlisted in their service; but it was often a jingling rhythm, harsher to the ear than the most crabbed prose, which was retained as an excuse or concealment for that resplendent gibberish they had imported so largely into the English language. From a super-refinement of thought, altogether transcendental, they delighted to descend to an imitation of childish or antique simplicity. The natural level of cultivated thought was by all means to be avoided. If you were not in the clouds, you must be seen sitting amongst the buttercups.
Turn now to the opening and earlier poems in Mr Tennyson's volume;they are considerably altered from the state in which they made their first appearance, but they still leave traces enough of the unfortunate influence we have attempted to describe. The best amongst them is a sort of gallery of portraits of fair ladies—Claribel, and Lilian, and Isabel, and Adeline, and Madeline, and others. From these might be extracted some few very beautiful lines, but none of them pleases as a whole. There is an air of effort and elaboration, coupled with much studied negligence, which prevents us from surrendering ourselves to the charms of any of these portraitures. TheClaribel, with which the volume commences, might be a woman or a child for anything that the poem tells us; we only gather from the expression "low lieth," that she is dead, and over her grave there rings a chime of words, which leave as little impression on the living ear as they would on the sleeper beneath. It was a pity—since alterations have been permitted—that the volume was still allowed to open with this mere monotonous chant. And why were these two absurd songsTo the Owlstill preserved? Was it to display a sort of moral courage, and as they were first written out of bravado to common sense, was it held a point of honour to persist in their republication? I, Tennyson, have written good things; therefore this, my nonsense, shall hold its ground in spite of the murmurs of gentle reader, or the anger of malignant critic! But we must not commence an inquisition of this kind, nor ask why this or that has been permitted to remain, for we should carry on such an inquiry to no little extent. We should make wide clearance in this first part of his volume. Here is a longOde to Memory, which craves to be extinguished, which ought in charity to be forgotten. An utter failure throughout. We cannot read it again, to enable us to speak quite positively, but we do not think there is a single redeeming line in the whole of it. A dreary, shapeless, metaphysical mist lies over it; there is no object seen, and not a ray of beauty even colours the cloud. Then comes an odious piece of pedantry in the shape of "A Song." What metre, Greek or Roman, Russian or Chinese, it was intended to imitate, we have no care to inquire: the man was writing English, and had no justifiable pretence for torturing our ear with verse like this:—
"A spirit haunts the year's last hours,Dwelling amid these yellowing bowers:To himself he talks;For at eventide, listening earnestly,At his work you may hear him sob and sigh,In the walks.Earthward he boweth the heavy stalksOf the mouldering flowers."
"A spirit haunts the year's last hours,Dwelling amid these yellowing bowers:To himself he talks;For at eventide, listening earnestly,At his work you may hear him sob and sigh,In the walks.Earthward he boweth the heavy stalksOf the mouldering flowers."
"A spirit haunts the year's last hours,Dwelling amid these yellowing bowers:To himself he talks;For at eventide, listening earnestly,At his work you may hear him sob and sigh,In the walks.Earthward he boweth the heavy stalksOf the mouldering flowers."
Of theLady of Shalottwe have already hinted our opinion. They must be far gone in dilettantism who can make an especial favourite of such a caprice as this—with its intolerable vagueness, and its irritating repetition, every verse ending with the "Lady of Shalott," which must always rhyme with "Camelot." We cannot conceive what charm Mr Tennyson could find in this species of odious iteration, which he nevertheless repeatedly inflicts upon us. It matters not what precedent he may insist upon—whether he quotes the authority of Theocritus, or the worthy example of old English ballad-makers—the annoyance is none the less. In a poem calledThe Sisters, we have the verse framed after this fashion:—"We were two daughters of one race;She was the fairest in the face:The wind is blowing in turret and tree.They were together, and she fell;Therefore revenge became me well.O the earl was fair to see!"And so we go on to the end of the chapter, with "The wind is blowing in turret and tree," and "The earl was fair to see," brought in, no matter how, but always in the same place. The rest of the verse is not so abundantly clear as to be well able to afford this intervenient jingle, which is indeed no better than thefal lal la!ortol de rol!of facetious drinking-songs. These have their purpose, being framed expressly for people in that condition when they want noise, and noise only, when the absence of all sense is rather a merit; but what earthly use, or beauty, or purpose there can be in the melancholy iterations of Mr Tennyson, we cannot understand. Certainly we agree here with Hotspur—we would rather hear "a kitten cryMew, than one of these same metre ballad-mongers."
Orianais fashioned on the same plan:—"My heart is wasted with my woe,Oriana.There is no rest for me below,Oriana."As if some miserable dog were baying the moon with the name ofOriana.
Mariana in the Moated Grangeis not by any means improved by this habit of repetition, every stanza ending with the same lines, and those not too skilfully constructed:—"She onlysaid, 'My life is dreary;He cometh not,' shesaid!Shesaid, 'I am aweary, aweary;I would that I were dead!'"This piece ofMarianahas been very much extolled; the praise we should allot to it would seem cold after the applause it has frequently received. The descriptive powers of Tennyson are, in his happiest moments, unrivalled; on these occasions there is no one of whom it may be said more accurately, that his words paint the scene; but the description here and in the subsequent piece,Mariana in the South, has always appeared to us too studied to be entirely pleasing. We have tried tofeelit, but we could not.
For instances of graver faults of style, and in productions of higher aim, we should point, amongst others, toThe Palace of Art,The Vision of Sin,The Dream of Fair Women. In all of these, verses of great merit may be found, but the larger part is very faulty. An obscurity, the result sometimes of too great condensation of style, and a jerking spasmodic movement, constantly mar the effect. FromThe Palace of Artwe quote, almost at haphazard, the following lines. The soul has built her palace, has hung it with pictures, and placed therein certain great bells, (a sort of music we do not envy her,) that swing of themselves. It is then finely said of her—
"She took her throne,She sat betwixt the shining orielsTo sing her songs alone."
"She took her throne,She sat betwixt the shining orielsTo sing her songs alone."
"She took her throne,She sat betwixt the shining orielsTo sing her songs alone."
After this the strain thus proceeds:—
"No nightingale delighteth to prolongHer low preamble all alone,More than my soul to hear her echoed songThrob through the ribbed stone;"Singing and murmuring in her feastful mirth,Trying to feel herself alive;Lord over nature, lord of the visible earth,Lord of the senses five."Communing with herself: 'All these are mine;And let the world have peace or wars,'Tis one to me.' She—when young night divineCrown'd dying day with stars,"Making sweet close of his delicious toils—Lit light in wreaths and anadems,And pure quintessences of precious oilsIn hallow'd moons of gems,"To mimic heaven; and clapt her hands, and cried,'I marvel if my still delightIn this great house, so royal, rich, and wide,Be flattered to the height."'From shape to shape at first within the womb,The brain is modell'd,' she began,'And through all phases of all thought I comeInto the perfect man."'All nature widens upward, evermoreThe simpler essence lower lies;More complex is more perfect, owning moreDiscourse, more widely wise.'"Then of the moral instinct would she prate,And of the rising from the dead,As hers by right of full-accomplish'd Fate;And at the last she said—"
"No nightingale delighteth to prolongHer low preamble all alone,More than my soul to hear her echoed songThrob through the ribbed stone;"Singing and murmuring in her feastful mirth,Trying to feel herself alive;Lord over nature, lord of the visible earth,Lord of the senses five."Communing with herself: 'All these are mine;And let the world have peace or wars,'Tis one to me.' She—when young night divineCrown'd dying day with stars,"Making sweet close of his delicious toils—Lit light in wreaths and anadems,And pure quintessences of precious oilsIn hallow'd moons of gems,"To mimic heaven; and clapt her hands, and cried,'I marvel if my still delightIn this great house, so royal, rich, and wide,Be flattered to the height."'From shape to shape at first within the womb,The brain is modell'd,' she began,'And through all phases of all thought I comeInto the perfect man."'All nature widens upward, evermoreThe simpler essence lower lies;More complex is more perfect, owning moreDiscourse, more widely wise.'"Then of the moral instinct would she prate,And of the rising from the dead,As hers by right of full-accomplish'd Fate;And at the last she said—"
"No nightingale delighteth to prolongHer low preamble all alone,More than my soul to hear her echoed songThrob through the ribbed stone;
"Singing and murmuring in her feastful mirth,Trying to feel herself alive;Lord over nature, lord of the visible earth,Lord of the senses five.
"Communing with herself: 'All these are mine;And let the world have peace or wars,'Tis one to me.' She—when young night divineCrown'd dying day with stars,
"Making sweet close of his delicious toils—Lit light in wreaths and anadems,And pure quintessences of precious oilsIn hallow'd moons of gems,
"To mimic heaven; and clapt her hands, and cried,'I marvel if my still delightIn this great house, so royal, rich, and wide,Be flattered to the height.
"'From shape to shape at first within the womb,The brain is modell'd,' she began,'And through all phases of all thought I comeInto the perfect man.
"'All nature widens upward, evermoreThe simpler essence lower lies;More complex is more perfect, owning moreDiscourse, more widely wise.'
"Then of the moral instinct would she prate,And of the rising from the dead,As hers by right of full-accomplish'd Fate;And at the last she said—"
Now this surely is not writing which can commend itself to the judgment of any impartial critic. One cannot possibly admire this medley of topics, moral and physiological, thrown pell-mell together, and mingled with descriptions which are themselves a puzzle to understand. To hear one's own voice "throbbing through the ribbed stone," is a startling novelty in acoustics, and the lighting up of the apartment is far from being a lucid affair. We can understand "the wreaths and anadems;" our experience of an illumination-night in the streets of London, where little lamps or jets of gas, assume these festive shapes, comes to our aid, but "moons of gems" would form such globes as even the purest quintessence of the most precious oil must fail to render very luminous.
The Vision of Sincommences after this fashion:—
"I had a vision when the night was late:A youth came riding toward a palace-gate;He rode a horse with wings, that would have flown,But that his heavy rider kept him down.And from the palace came a child of sin,And took him by the curls, and led him in,Where sat a company with heated eyes,Expecting when a fountain should arise."
"I had a vision when the night was late:A youth came riding toward a palace-gate;He rode a horse with wings, that would have flown,But that his heavy rider kept him down.And from the palace came a child of sin,And took him by the curls, and led him in,Where sat a company with heated eyes,Expecting when a fountain should arise."
"I had a vision when the night was late:A youth came riding toward a palace-gate;He rode a horse with wings, that would have flown,But that his heavy rider kept him down.
And from the palace came a child of sin,And took him by the curls, and led him in,Where sat a company with heated eyes,Expecting when a fountain should arise."
Thus it commences, and thus it proceeds for some time, in the same very intelligible strain. It is our fault, perhaps, that we cannot interpret the vision; but we confess that we can make nothing of it till the measure suddenly changes, and we have a bitter, mocking, sardonic song, a sort of devil's drinking-song, through which some species of meaning becomes evident enough.
In a vision of sin we may count upon a little mystery; but we should expect to find all clear and beautiful inA Dream of Fair Women. But here, too, everything is singularly misty. Those who have witnessed that ingenious exhibition called The Dissolving Views, will recollect that gay and gaudy obscurity which intervenes at the change of each picture; they will remember that they passed half their time looking upon a canvass covered with indistinct forms, and strangely mingled colours. Just for a few minutes the picture stands out bright and well defined as need be, then it breaks up, and confuses its dim fragments with the colours of some other picture, which is now struggling to make itself visible. Half our time is spent amongst mingled shadows of the two, the eye in vain attempting to trace any perfect outline. Precisely such a sensation the perusal of this, and some other of the poems of Tennyson, produces on the reader. For a moment the scene brightens out into the most palpable distinctness, but for the greater part we are gazing on a glittering mist, where there is more colour than form, and where the colours themselves are flung one upon the other in lawless profusion. In theDream of Fair Women, the form of Cleopatra stands forth magnificently; it is almost the only portion of the poem that has the great charm of distinctness, or which fixes itself permanently on the memory.
We cannot bring ourselves to quote line after line, and verse after verse, of what we hold to be bad and unreadable: we have given some examples, and mentioned a considerable number of the pieces, on which we should found a certain vote of censure; the intelligent reader can easily check our judgment by his own,—confirm or dispute it. We turn to what is a more grateful task. Well known as these poems are, we must be permitted to give a few specimens of those happy efforts which have secured, we believe, to Tennyson, in spite of the defects we have pointed out, an enduring place amongst the poets of England. We shall make our selection so as to illustrate his success in very different styles, and on different topics. We shall make this selection from the volume ofThe Poems, and then dwell separately, and somewhat more at large, uponThe Princess, which is comparatively a late publication.
We cannot pass by our especial favourite,The Lotos-Eaters. This is poetry of the very highest order—in every way charming—subject and treatment both. The state of mind described, is one which every cultivated mind will understand and enter into, and which a poet, in particular, must thoroughly sympathise with—that lassitude which is content to look upon the swift-flowing current of life, and let it flow, refusing to embark thereon—a lassitude which is not wholly torpor, which has mental energy enough to cull a justification for itself from all its stores of philosophy—a lassitude charming as the last thought, before sleep quite folds us in its safe and tried oblivion. No need to eat of the Lotos, or to be cast upon the enchanted island, to feel this gentle despondency, this resignation made up of resistless indolence and well-reasoned despair. Yet these are circumstances which add greatly to the poetry of our picture. To the band of weary navigators who had disembarked upon this land—
"Where all things always seemed the same—The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came.
"Where all things always seemed the same—The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came.
"Where all things always seemed the same—The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came.
"Branches they bore of that enchanted stem,Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gaveTo each; but whoso did receive of them,And taste, to him the gushing of the wave,Far, far away, did seem to mourn and raveOn alien shores; and if his fellow spake,His voice was thin, as voices from the grave;And deep asleep he seemed, yet all awake,And music in his ears his beating heart did make.
"Branches they bore of that enchanted stem,Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gaveTo each; but whoso did receive of them,And taste, to him the gushing of the wave,Far, far away, did seem to mourn and raveOn alien shores; and if his fellow spake,His voice was thin, as voices from the grave;And deep asleep he seemed, yet all awake,And music in his ears his beating heart did make.
"Branches they bore of that enchanted stem,Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gaveTo each; but whoso did receive of them,And taste, to him the gushing of the wave,Far, far away, did seem to mourn and raveOn alien shores; and if his fellow spake,His voice was thin, as voices from the grave;And deep asleep he seemed, yet all awake,And music in his ears his beating heart did make.
"They sat them down upon the yellow sand,Between the sun and moon, upon the shore;And sweet it was to dream of Fatherland,Of child, and wife, and slave; but evermoreMost weary seemed the sea, weary the oar,Weary the wandering fields of barren foam.Then some one said, 'We will return no more;'And all at once they sang, 'Our island homeIs far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam.'"
"They sat them down upon the yellow sand,Between the sun and moon, upon the shore;And sweet it was to dream of Fatherland,Of child, and wife, and slave; but evermoreMost weary seemed the sea, weary the oar,Weary the wandering fields of barren foam.Then some one said, 'We will return no more;'And all at once they sang, 'Our island homeIs far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam.'"
"They sat them down upon the yellow sand,Between the sun and moon, upon the shore;And sweet it was to dream of Fatherland,Of child, and wife, and slave; but evermoreMost weary seemed the sea, weary the oar,Weary the wandering fields of barren foam.Then some one said, 'We will return no more;'And all at once they sang, 'Our island homeIs far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam.'"
"There is sweet music here, that softer fallsThan petals from blown roses on the grass,Or night-dews on still waters between wallsOf shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass;Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes;Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies.Here are cool mosses deep,And through the moss the ivies creep,And in the stream the long-leav'd flowers weep,And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.
"There is sweet music here, that softer fallsThan petals from blown roses on the grass,Or night-dews on still waters between wallsOf shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass;Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes;Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies.Here are cool mosses deep,And through the moss the ivies creep,And in the stream the long-leav'd flowers weep,And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.
"There is sweet music here, that softer fallsThan petals from blown roses on the grass,Or night-dews on still waters between wallsOf shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass;Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes;Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies.Here are cool mosses deep,And through the moss the ivies creep,And in the stream the long-leav'd flowers weep,And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.
"Why are we weighed upon with heaviness,And utterly consumed with sharp distress,While all things else have rest from weariness?All things have rest: why should we toil alone?We only toil, who are the first of things,And make perpetual moan,Still from one sorrow to another thrown:Nor ever fold our wings,And cease from wanderings,Nor steep our brows in slumber's holy balm;Nor hearken what the inner spirit sings,—'There is no joy but calm!'Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things?
"Why are we weighed upon with heaviness,And utterly consumed with sharp distress,While all things else have rest from weariness?All things have rest: why should we toil alone?We only toil, who are the first of things,And make perpetual moan,Still from one sorrow to another thrown:Nor ever fold our wings,And cease from wanderings,Nor steep our brows in slumber's holy balm;Nor hearken what the inner spirit sings,—'There is no joy but calm!'Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things?
"Why are we weighed upon with heaviness,And utterly consumed with sharp distress,While all things else have rest from weariness?All things have rest: why should we toil alone?We only toil, who are the first of things,And make perpetual moan,Still from one sorrow to another thrown:Nor ever fold our wings,And cease from wanderings,Nor steep our brows in slumber's holy balm;Nor hearken what the inner spirit sings,—'There is no joy but calm!'Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things?
"Hateful is the dark-blue sky,Vaulted o'er the dark-blue sea.Death is the end of life: ah! whyShould life all labour be?Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast,And in a little while our lips are dumb.Let us alone. What is it that will last?All things are taken from us, and becomePortions and parcels of the dreadful past.Let us alone. What pleasure can we haveTo war with evil? Is there any peaceIn ever climbing up the climbing wave?All things have rest, and ripen toward the graveIn silence,—ripen, fall, and cease:Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease!"
"Hateful is the dark-blue sky,Vaulted o'er the dark-blue sea.Death is the end of life: ah! whyShould life all labour be?Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast,And in a little while our lips are dumb.Let us alone. What is it that will last?All things are taken from us, and becomePortions and parcels of the dreadful past.Let us alone. What pleasure can we haveTo war with evil? Is there any peaceIn ever climbing up the climbing wave?All things have rest, and ripen toward the graveIn silence,—ripen, fall, and cease:Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease!"
"Hateful is the dark-blue sky,Vaulted o'er the dark-blue sea.Death is the end of life: ah! whyShould life all labour be?Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast,And in a little while our lips are dumb.Let us alone. What is it that will last?All things are taken from us, and becomePortions and parcels of the dreadful past.Let us alone. What pleasure can we haveTo war with evil? Is there any peaceIn ever climbing up the climbing wave?All things have rest, and ripen toward the graveIn silence,—ripen, fall, and cease:Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease!"
"Dear is the memory of our wedded lives,And dear the last embraces of our wives,And their warm tears: but all hath suffer'd change;For surely now our household hearths are cold:Our sons inherit us: our looks are strange:And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy.Or else the island princes over-boldHave eat our substance, and the minstrel singsBefore them of the ten years' war in Troy,And our great deeds, as half-forgotten things.Is there confusion in the little isle?Let what is broken so remain.The gods are hard to reconcile:'Tis hard to settle order once again.Thereisconfusion worse than death,Trouble on trouble, pain on pain,Long labour unto aged breath." . . .
"Dear is the memory of our wedded lives,And dear the last embraces of our wives,And their warm tears: but all hath suffer'd change;For surely now our household hearths are cold:Our sons inherit us: our looks are strange:And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy.Or else the island princes over-boldHave eat our substance, and the minstrel singsBefore them of the ten years' war in Troy,And our great deeds, as half-forgotten things.Is there confusion in the little isle?Let what is broken so remain.The gods are hard to reconcile:'Tis hard to settle order once again.Thereisconfusion worse than death,Trouble on trouble, pain on pain,Long labour unto aged breath." . . .
"Dear is the memory of our wedded lives,And dear the last embraces of our wives,And their warm tears: but all hath suffer'd change;For surely now our household hearths are cold:Our sons inherit us: our looks are strange:And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy.Or else the island princes over-boldHave eat our substance, and the minstrel singsBefore them of the ten years' war in Troy,And our great deeds, as half-forgotten things.Is there confusion in the little isle?Let what is broken so remain.The gods are hard to reconcile:'Tis hard to settle order once again.Thereisconfusion worse than death,Trouble on trouble, pain on pain,Long labour unto aged breath." . . .
"We have had enough of action; and of motion, we,Roll'd to starboard, roll'd to larboard, when the surge was seething free,Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea.Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind,In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclinedOn the hills like gods together, careless of mankind."
"We have had enough of action; and of motion, we,Roll'd to starboard, roll'd to larboard, when the surge was seething free,Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea.Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind,In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclinedOn the hills like gods together, careless of mankind."
"We have had enough of action; and of motion, we,Roll'd to starboard, roll'd to larboard, when the surge was seething free,Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea.Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind,In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclinedOn the hills like gods together, careless of mankind."
As at once a companion and counterpart to this picture, we have a noble strain fromUlysses, who, having reached his island-home and kingdom, pants again for enterprise—for wider fields of thought and action.
"It little profits that an idle king,By this still hearth, among these barren crags,Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and doleUnequal laws unto a savage race,That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.I cannot rest from travel: I will drinkLife to the lees: all times I have enjoyedGreatly, have suffered greatly.I am become a name;For, always roaming with a hungry heart,Much have I seen and known; cities of men,And manners, climates, councils, governments;And drunk delight of battle with my peers,Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.I am a part of all that I have met;Yet all experience is an arch wherethroughGleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fadesFor ever and for ever when I move.
"It little profits that an idle king,By this still hearth, among these barren crags,Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and doleUnequal laws unto a savage race,That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.I cannot rest from travel: I will drinkLife to the lees: all times I have enjoyedGreatly, have suffered greatly.I am become a name;For, always roaming with a hungry heart,Much have I seen and known; cities of men,And manners, climates, councils, governments;And drunk delight of battle with my peers,Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.I am a part of all that I have met;Yet all experience is an arch wherethroughGleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fadesFor ever and for ever when I move.
"It little profits that an idle king,By this still hearth, among these barren crags,Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and doleUnequal laws unto a savage race,That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.I cannot rest from travel: I will drinkLife to the lees: all times I have enjoyedGreatly, have suffered greatly.
I am become a name;For, always roaming with a hungry heart,Much have I seen and known; cities of men,And manners, climates, councils, governments;And drunk delight of battle with my peers,Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.I am a part of all that I have met;Yet all experience is an arch wherethroughGleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fadesFor ever and for ever when I move.
"This is my son, mine own Telemachus,To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle—Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfilThis labour, by slow prudence to make mildA rugged people, and through soft degreesSubdue them to the useful and the good.Most blameless is he, centred in the sphereOf common duties, decent not to failIn offices of tenderness, and payMeet adoration to my household godsWhen I am gone. He works his work, I mine.There lies the port: the vessel puffs his sail:There gloom the dark-blue seas. My mariners,Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me—That ever with a frolic welcome tookThe thunder and the sunshine, and opposedFree hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;Death closes all: but something ere the end,Some work of noble note, may yet be done,Not unbecoming men that strove with gods.The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deepMoans round with many voices. Come, my friends,'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.Push off, and, sitting well in order, smiteThe sounding furrows; for my purpose holdsTo sail beyond the sunset, and the bathsOf all the western stars, until I die."
"This is my son, mine own Telemachus,To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle—Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfilThis labour, by slow prudence to make mildA rugged people, and through soft degreesSubdue them to the useful and the good.Most blameless is he, centred in the sphereOf common duties, decent not to failIn offices of tenderness, and payMeet adoration to my household godsWhen I am gone. He works his work, I mine.There lies the port: the vessel puffs his sail:There gloom the dark-blue seas. My mariners,Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me—That ever with a frolic welcome tookThe thunder and the sunshine, and opposedFree hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;Death closes all: but something ere the end,Some work of noble note, may yet be done,Not unbecoming men that strove with gods.The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deepMoans round with many voices. Come, my friends,'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.Push off, and, sitting well in order, smiteThe sounding furrows; for my purpose holdsTo sail beyond the sunset, and the bathsOf all the western stars, until I die."
"This is my son, mine own Telemachus,To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle—Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfilThis labour, by slow prudence to make mildA rugged people, and through soft degreesSubdue them to the useful and the good.Most blameless is he, centred in the sphereOf common duties, decent not to failIn offices of tenderness, and payMeet adoration to my household godsWhen I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port: the vessel puffs his sail:There gloom the dark-blue seas. My mariners,Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me—That ever with a frolic welcome tookThe thunder and the sunshine, and opposedFree hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;Death closes all: but something ere the end,Some work of noble note, may yet be done,Not unbecoming men that strove with gods.The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deepMoans round with many voices. Come, my friends,'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.Push off, and, sitting well in order, smiteThe sounding furrows; for my purpose holdsTo sail beyond the sunset, and the bathsOf all the western stars, until I die."
St Simeon Stylitesis a poem strongly and justly conceived, and written throughout with sustained and equable power. Those who have objected to it, that it is not the portrait of anyChristianeven of that distant age and that Eastern clime, have perhaps not sufficiently consulted their ecclesiastical history, or sufficiently reflected how almost inevitably the practice of penances and self-inflictions leads to the idea that these are, in fact, a sort of present payment for the future joys of heaven. Such an idea most assuredly prevailed amongst the Eastern eremites, of whom our Simeon was a most noted example. But we cannot quote from this, or fromThe Two Voices, or fromLocksley Hall, or fromClara Vere de Vere; for we wish now to select some specimen of the lighter, more playful, and graceful manner of our poet. We pause betwixtThe Day-DreamandThe Talking Oak; they are both admirable: we choose the latter—we rest under its friendly, sociable shade, and its most musical of boughs. The lover holds communion with the good old oak-tree, and finds him the most amiable as well as the most discreet of confidants. May every lover find his oak-tree talk as well, and as agreeably, and give a report as welcome of his absent fair one! On being questioned—