Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson | Page 6

was literally that of Sir Joshua Reynolds in the sister art--'nulla dies sine linea'. 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:--
1. 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'.
4. IDYLLS
(a) Classical.
'‘none'.?'The Lotos Eaters'.?'Ulysses'.
(b) English
'The Miller's Daughter'.?'The May Queen'.?'Morte d'Arthur'.?'The Gardener's Daughter'.?'Dora'.?'Audley Court'.?'Walking to the Mail'.?'Edwin Morris'.?'The Golden Year'.
5. BALLADS
'Oriana'.?'Lady Clara Vere de Vere'.?'Edward Gray'.?'Lady Clare'.?'The Lord of Burleigh'.?'The Beggar Maid'.
6. AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL
'Ode to Memory'.?'Sonnet to J. M. K'.?'To---------with the Palace of Art'.?'To J.S.'?'Amphion'.?'To E. L. on his Travels in Greece'.?'To--------after reading a Life and Letters'.?'"Come not when I am Dead'."?'A Farewell'.?"'Move Eastward, Happy Earth'."?"'Break, Break, Break'."
7. POLITICAL GROUP
'"You ask me."'?'"Of old sat Freedom."'?'"Love thou thy Land."'?'The Goose.'
In surveying these poems two things must strike every one--their very wide range and their very fragmentary character. There is scarcely any side of life on which they do not touch, scarcely any phase of passion and emotion to which