"What first attracted people were Tennyson's pictures of women," says Taine. "Each word of them is like a tint, curiously shaded and deepened by the neighboring tint, with all the boldness and results of the happiest refinement." Says Tuckerman, in the language of the criticism of painting: "There is a voluptuous glow in this coloring, warm and rich as that of Titian, yet often subdued by the distinct outline and chastened tone of the Roman school; while the effect of the whole is elevated by the pure expressiveness of Raphael." And last of all, we find in Tennyson a yearning tenderness and mystic suggestiveness. Says Swinburne: "Never since the beginning of all poetry were the twin passions of terror and pity more divinely done into deathless words or set to more perfect and profound magnificence of music." It may be said that many of the greatest poets have been half insane, living in a realm beyond society or out of the world, a law unto themselves. Not such was Tennyson. "His ideal man," says Professor Dowden, "is he whose life is led to sovereign power by self-knowledge resulting in self-control, and self-control growing perfect in self-reverence. . . . Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, the recognition of a divine order and of one's place in that order, faithful adhesion to the law of one's highest life - these are the elements from which is formed the human character." It would be strange if a man under such restraint, who had learned his art so laboriously 99 66 as Tennyson undoubtedly did, were a great original or creative thinker. Tennyson was not. Some one speaks of "In Memoriam with its echoing corridors that lead to nothing." We must be satisfied with Tennyson's music and his pictures, and not expect him to solve the problems of life. BREAK, BREAK, BREAK BREAK, break, break, On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! O well for the fisherman's boy, That he shouts with his sister at play! That he sings in his boat on the bay! And the stately ships go on To their haven under the hill; But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand, Break, break, break, At the foot of thy crags, O Sea! But the tender grace of a day that is dead SONGS FROM "THE PRINCESS" As thro' the land at eve we went, And pluck'd the ripen'd ears, We fell out, my wife and I, And kiss'd again with tears. When we fall out with those we love For when we came where lies the child There above the little grave, O, there above the little grave, SWEET AND LOW SWEET and low, sweet and low, Over the rolling waters go, Come from the dying moon, and blow, Blow him again to me; While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps. Sleep and rest, sleep and rest, Father will come to thee soon; Rest, rest, on mother's breast, Father will come to thee soon; Father will come to his babe in the nest, Silver sails all out of the west Under the silver moon: Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep BUGLE SONG THE splendour falls on castle walls Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, O hark, O hear! how thin and clear, O sweet and far from cliff and scar The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying: Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying O love, they die in yon rich sky, And grow for ever and for ever. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, TEARS, IDLE TEARS TEARS, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns The casement slowly grows a glimmering square; Dear as remember'd kisses after death, ASK ME NO MORE Ask me no more: the moon may draw the sea; But O too fond, when have I answer'd thee? Ask me no more. Ask me no more: what answer should I give? OME they brought her warrior dead: en they praised him, soft and low, le a maiden from her place, N THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON Great Duke I empire's lamentation, y the Great Duke noise of the mourning of a mighty nation, when their leaders fall, carry the warrior's pall, w darkens hamlet and hall. II |