Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson | Page 6

and Duty' may have reference to this sorrow; it is certain that 'The Two
Voices' is autobiographical.
Such was his education between 1832 and 1842, and such the
influences which were moulding him, while he was slowly evolving 'In
Memoriam' and the poems first published in the latter year. To the
revision of the old poems he brought tastes and instincts cultivated by
the critical study of all that was best in the poetry of the world, and
more particularly by a familiarity singularly intimate and affectionate
with the masterpieces of the ancient classics; he brought also the skill
of a practised workman, for his diligence in production was literally
that of Sir Joshua Reynolds in the sister art--'nulla dies sine lineâ'. Into
the composition of the new poems all this entered. He was no longer a
trifler and a Hedonist. As Spedding has said, his former poems
betrayed "an over-indulgence in the luxuries of the senses, a profusion
of splendours, harmonies, perfumes, gorgeous apparel, luscious meals
and drinks, and creature comforts which rather pall upon the sense, and
make the glories of the outward world to obscure a little the world
within". Like his own 'Lady of Shalott', he had communed too much
with shadows. But the serious poet now speaks. He appeals less to the
ear and the eye, and more to the heart. The sensuous is subordinated to
the spiritual and the moral. He deals immediately with the dearest
concerns of man and of society. He has ceased to trifle. The the [Greek:
spondai_otaes,] the high seriousness of the true poet, occasional before,
now pervades and enters essentially into his work. It is interesting to
note how many of these poems have direct didactic purpose. How
solemn is the message delivered in such poems as 'The Palace of Art'
and 'The Vision of Sin', how noble the teaching in 'Love and Duty', in

'Oenone', in 'Godiva', in 'Ulysses'; to how many must such a poem as
'The Two Voices' have brought solace and light; how full of salutary
lessons are the political poems 'You ask me, why, though ill at ease'
and 'Love thou thy Land', and how noble is their expression! And, even
where the poems are less directly didactic, it is such refreshment as
busy life needs to converse with them, so pure, so wholesome, so
graciously human is their tone, so tranquilly beautiful is their world.
Who could lay down 'The Miller's Daughter, Dora, The Golden Year,
The Gardener's Daughter, The Talking Oak, Audley Court, The Day
Dream' without something of the feeling which Goethe felt when he
first laid down 'The Vicar of Wakefield?' In the best lyrics in these
volumes, such as 'Break, Break', and 'Move Eastward', 'Happy Earth',
the most fastidious of critics must recognise flawless gems. In the two
volumes of 1842 Tennyson carried to perfection all that was best in his
earlier poems, and displayed powers of which he may have given some
indication in his cruder efforts, but which must certainly have exceeded
the expectation of the most sanguine of his rational admirers. These
volumes justly gave him the first place among the poets of his time, and
that supremacy he maintained--in the opinion of most--till the day of
his death. It would be absurd to contend that Tennyson's subsequent
publications added nothing to the fame which will be secured to him by
these poems. But this at least is certain, that, taken with 'In Memorium',
they represent the crown and flower of his achievement. What is best in
them he never excelled and perhaps never equalled. We should be the
poorer, and much the poorer, for the loss of anything which he
produced subsequently, it is true; but would we exchange half a dozen
of the best of these poems or a score of the best sections of 'In
Memoriam' for all that he produced between 1850 and his death?
[Footnote 1: In 'The Keepsake', "St. Agnes' Eve"; in 'The Tribute',
"Stanzas": "Oh! that 'twere possible". Between 1831 and 1832 he had
contributed to 'The Gem' three, "No more," "Anacreontics," and "A
Fragment"; in 'The Englishman's Magazine', a Sonnet; in 'The
Yorkshire Literary Annual', lines, "There are three things that fill my
heart with sighs"; in 'Friendship's Offering', lines, "Me my own fate".]
III

The poems of 1842 naturally divide themselves into seven groups:--
0. STUDIES IN FANCY.
'Claribel'.
'Lilian'.
'Isabel'.
'Madeline'.
'A Spirit Haunts'.

'Recollections of the Arabian Nights'.
'Adeline'.
'The Dying Swan'.

'A Dream of Fair Women'.
'The Sea-Fairies'.
'The Deserted
House'.
'Love and Death'.
'The Merman'.
'The Mermaid'.
'The
Lady of Shalott'.
'Eleanore'.
'Margaret'.
'The Death of the Old
Year'.
'St. Agnes.'
'Sir Galahad'.
'The Day Dream'.
'Will
Waterproof's Monologue'.
'Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere'.

'The Talking Oak'.
'The Poet's Song'.
2. STUDIES OF PASSION
'Mariana'.
'Mariana in the South.'
'Oriana'.
'Fatima'.
'The Sisters'.

'Locksley Hall'.
'Edward Gray'.
3. PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDIES
'A Character'.
'The Poet'.
'The Poet's Mind'.
'The Two Voices'.

'The Palace of Art'.
'The Vision of Sin'.
'St. Simeon Stylites'.