TENNYSON, ALFRED. 



737 



'I'lir -lender acacia would not shake 



Mir long milk-bloom on the tree ; 

 Tin- while lukr M..--UIM fell into the lake, 



As the pimpernel dozed on the lea; 

 Mm the rose wan awake all ni-hi for your sake, 



Knowinir your promise to nn- : 

 Tin 1 lilies and roses were all awake, 



They sigh'd for the dawn and thee. 



Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls, 



( Mine hither, the dances are done, 

 In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls, 



Queen lily and rose in i.ne ; 

 Shine out, little head. Minninir over with curls, 



To the flowers, and be their sun. 



There has fallen a splendid tear 



From the passion-flower at the gate. 

 She is coming, my dove, my dear ; 



She is coming, my life, my fate; 

 The red rose cries, " She is near, she is near " ; 



And the white rose weeps, " She is late " ; 

 The larkspur listens, " I hear, I hear " ; 



And the lily whispers, " I wait." 



She is coming, my own, my sweet; 



Were it ever so airy a tread, 

 M \ heart, would hear her and beat, 



Were it earth in an earthly bed ; 

 My dust would hear her and beat, 



Had I lain for a century dead ; 

 Would start and tremble under her feet, 



And blossom in purple and red. 



But the soul of the poem is in the 18th section, 

 which contains these lines : 



There is none like her, none. 



Nor will be when our summers have deceased. 



O, art thou sighing for Lebanon 



In the long breeze that streams to thy delicious 



East. 



Sighing for Lebanon, 



l>ark cedar, tho' thy limbs have here increased, 

 I I ioi i a pastoral slope as fair, 

 And looking to the South, and fed 

 With honey'd rain and delicate air, 

 And haunted by the starry head 

 Of her whose gentle will has changed my fate, 

 And made my life a perfumed altar-flame ; 

 And over whom thy darkness must have spread 

 With such delight as theirs of old, thy great 

 Forefathers of the thornless garden, there 

 Shadowing the snow-limb'd Eve from whom she 



came. 



Here will I lie, while these long branches sway, 



And you fair stars that crown a happy day 



(i<> in and out as if at merry play, 



Who am no more so all forlorn, 



As when it seem'd far better to be born 



To labor and the mattock-harden'd hand, 



Than nursed its ease and brought to understand 



A sad astrology, the boundless plan 



That makes you tyrants in your iron skies, 



Innumerable, pitiless, passionless eyes, 



Cold tires, yet with power to burn and brand 



His nothingness into man. 



But now shine on, and what care I, 



Who in this stormy gulf have found a pearl 



The rountercharm 01 space and hollow .-ky, 



And do accept my madness and would die 



To -;ive from some slight shame one simple girl. 



Among the other poems in this volume were 

 "The Brook," a fine specimen of onomatopoetic 

 verse, and the strong ''Ode on the Death of the 

 Duke of Wellington." which had been published 

 separately on the morning of the funeral. 



In 1859 Mr. Tennyson published four "Idyls 

 VOL. xxxn. 47 A 



of the King" " Enid," "Vivien," "Elaine." and 

 " Guinevere " a rendering into graceful, and in 

 many passages powerful, English blank verse, of 

 four stories from the Arthur myth. Afterward 

 he wrote many more of these idyls, apparently 

 with the purpose of exhausting the material, but 

 none that can compare with the first four. 



Next appeared, in 1864, ' Enoch Arden," 

 which attained considerable popularity because 

 of its quality as a story, but added nothing to 

 Tennyson's poetical fame. In the same volume, 

 however, were some notable poems. The 

 " Northern Farmer " (Yorkshire) was the Laure- 

 ate's first attempt at dialect, a vivid and original 

 picture. " Sea Dreams " is remarkable only for 

 the high price paid by an English magazine for 

 its first publication (said to have been 10 a line). 

 " Tithonus" is a monologue to be placed beside 

 " Ulysses." 



" The Window; or. Songs of the Wrens," which 

 appeared in 1870, is a little song-cycle, written 

 to be set to music by Arthur Sullivan. His re- 

 maining volumes of poetry include " Ballads, and 

 Other Poems" (1880); " Tiresias, and Other 

 Poems" (1885); " De meter, and Other Poems" 

 (1889); and " Akbar's Dream, and Other Poems" 

 (1892), In 1875 he published his first attempt at 

 drama, "Queen Mary"; and this was followed 

 by the plays " Harokf," " The Cup," " The Fal- 

 con," " Becket," " Promise of May," and " The 

 Foresters," several of which were put upon the 

 stage. But Mr. Tennyson was not a dramatic 

 poet, and none of these plays can be considered 

 successful in any sense. 



As he approached the end of his long life, the 

 Laureate seemed to sing his own elegy. His 

 " Crossing the Bar," written about a year before 

 his death, is one of the best of his short poems, 

 and has been universally admired : 



Sunset and evening star, 



And one clear call for me ! 

 And may there be no moaning of the bar 



When I put out to sea, 



But such a tide as moving seems asleep, 



Too full for sound and foam, 

 When that which drew from out the boundless deep 



Turns again home. 



Twilight and evening bell, 



And after that the dark ! 

 And may there be no sadness of farewell 



When I embark ; 



For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place 



The flood may bear me far, 

 I hope to see my Pilot face to face 



When I have crossed the bar. 



And when he was still nearer to the close of 

 his career he wrote, in immediate anticipation of 

 his departure, the little poem, " Silent Voices " : 



When the dumb hour clothed in black 



Brings the dreams about my bed, 

 Call me not so often back, 



Silent voices of the dead, 

 Toward the lowland ways behind me, 



And the sunlight that is gone. 

 Call me rather, silent voices, 

 Forward to the starry traek, 

 (il'iimm-miLr up the heights beyond me, 



On and always on. 



Both of these were sung at his funeral, the 

 later one being set to music by his widow. 



