126 
NATURE NOTES. 
of nature, and from the fact that in an age which tends to reject 
revelation, and yet craves after a knowledge of the future, it 
gives the best hope of a life to come, which can be attained 
without a revelation. But this is by the way, and only a hint 
for the student of Tennyson that his poems bristle with modern 
science transmuted into poetry, and translated into ordinary 
language. 
I wish here especially to note his view of nature — the sights, 
sounds, scents of the country — believing that he has taught us 
much when we have looked through his eyes and heard -wdth his 
ears. 
No doubt most of us remember the delightful old farmer in 
Cranford to whom Tennyson had taught so much ; and who 
declared that until the poet revealed it, no one had observed 
that ash buds were black — 
More black than ash buds in the front of March ; 
and in the same way he has been the first to draw the attention 
of thousands to minute facts and processes always open to 
notice, but rarely noticed before he wrote. Take the wonder- 
ful lines, easily verified any hot day in summer by the margin 
of a still pool : — 
To-day I saw the dragon fly 
Come from the wells where he did lie. 
An inner impulse rent the veil 
Of his old husk : from head to tail 
Came out clear plates of sapphire mail. 
He dried his wings : like gauze they grew : 
Through crofts and pastures wet with dew 
A living flash of light he flew. 
Let US take our Tennyson, mark each passage referring to 
nature, and ask ourselves whether we knew it all before, or if 
the poet has not given us a new fact, or a new interpretation 
of the fact ? 
But not to dwell too closely on details, which each can ex- 
amine for himself, it may be interesting to get certain broad 
principles to explain how the poet looks on nature. It is often 
said that no sense is more full of memories than the sense of 
smell. Tennyson is much aware of the subtle perfumes of the 
country, and especially of the garden— 
The air is damp and hushed and close 
As a sick man’s room when he taketh repose 
An hour before death. 
My very heart faints and my whole soul grieves 
At the moist rich smell of the rotting leaves, 
And the breath 
Of the fading edges of box beneath 
And the year’s last rose. 
Again : 
The yellow-banded bees 
Through half open lattices 
Coming in the scented breeze ; 
