254 ROUND THE YEAR 



" And her hair 



In gloss and hue the chestnut, when the shell 

 Divides threefold to show the fruit within." 



(The Brook) 



" Bring orchis, bring the foxglove spire, 

 The little speedwell's darling blue, 

 Deep tulips dashed with fiery dew, 

 Laburnums, dropping wells of fire." 



(In Mentoriam.) 



" I wept, 'tho' I should die, I know 

 That all about the thorns will blow 

 In tufts of rosy-tinted snow. 



# * * * 



Not less the bee would range her cells, 

 The furzy prickle fire the dells, 

 The foxglove cluster dappled bells." 



(The Two Voices.) 



It is not only flowers that Tennyson can use to 

 enrich his verse. I remember one morning after 

 heavy rain climbing the old St. Gothard road as the 

 mists clung to the peaks, and it seemed to me as if 

 one poet only had seen what I then saw. 



" The summit's slope 

 Beyond the furthest flights of hope, 

 Wrapt in dense cloud from base to cope. 



" Sometimes a little corner shines, 

 As over rainy mist inclines 

 A gleaming crag with belts of pines." 



(The Two Voices.} 



" Leave 



The monstrous ledges there to slope and spill 

 Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke, 

 That like a broken purpose waste in air." 



(The Princess.) 



