" Dora" 153 



But " happy " in any sense, save in the idea of ener- 

 getic rustic effort, the profitable results of toil, and the 

 prospects of a hearty harvest-home, we confess we 

 cannot regard the autumn fields. It may be in this 

 sense that the late poet-laureate regarded it, though 

 that is hardly a very imaginative or poetic sense. They 

 suggest no distinct horizon of hope and promise, like 

 the fields of spring and summer. All the purpose of 

 what from one point of view may be picturesque in 

 human effort has vanished, or is on the point of 

 vanishing, and what is suggested for nature is bare- 

 ness, bleak winds, the earth robbed of one of her 

 sweetest burdens of music and message to man. It is 

 as bread that man now too exclusively looks on the 

 produce of the fields, and true it is, for poetry as lor 

 faith, that man lives not by bread alone. 



Lord Tennyson himself in " Dora " makes the heroine 

 take this view of it. She fancies that the gladness of 

 the old farmer's heart in t/te full harvest will make 

 him tender towards poor William's child. This hope 

 has a kind of pathos in it ; but Dora's idea of asso- 

 ciating the possibility of tenderness with the joy of 

 success has also its truth. 



" Then Dora went to Mary. Mary sat 

 And looked with tears upon her boy, and thought 

 Hard things of Dora. Dora came, and said, 

 ' I have obeyed my uncle until now, 

 And I have sinned, for it was all through me 

 This evil came on William at the first. 

 But, Mary, for the sake of him that's gone, 

 And for your sake, the woman that he chose, 

 And for this orphan, I am come to you ; 

 You know there has not been for these five years 

 So full a han>cst. Let me take the boy : 



