Six Centuries of English Poetry Part 4

Or else the island-princes over-bold Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings Before them of the ten-years' war in Troy, And our great deeds, as half-forgotten things.

Is there confusion in the little isle?

Let what is broken so remain.

The G.o.ds are hard to reconcile: 'Tis hard to settle order once again.

There _is_ confusion worse than death, Trouble on trouble, pain on pain, Long labour unto aged breath, Sore task to hearts worn out by many wars, And eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot-stars.

VII.

But, propped on beds of amaranth and moly, How sweet (while warm airs lull us, blowing lowly) With half-dropped eyelids still, Beneath a heaven dark and holy, To watch the long bright river drawing slowly His waters from the purple hill-- To hear the dewy echoes calling From cave to cave thro' the thick-twined vine-- To watch the emerald-coloured water falling Thro' many a wov'n acanthus-wreath divine!

Only to hear and see the far-off sparkling brine, Only to hear were sweet, stretched out beneath the pine.

VIII.

The Lotos blooms below the barren peak: The Lotos blows by every winding creek: All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone: Thro' every hollow cave and alley lone Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos-dust is blown.

We have had enough of action, and of motion we, Rolled to starboard, rolled to larboard, when the surge was seething free, Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea.

Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind, In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined On the hills like G.o.ds together, careless of mankind.

For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurled Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curled Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world: Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands, Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands, Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking s.h.i.+ps, and praying hands.

But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong, Like a tale of little meaning tho' the words are strong; Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil, Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil, Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil; Till they perish and they suffer--some, 'tis whispered, down in h.e.l.l Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell, Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel.

Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the sh.o.r.e Than labour in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar; Oh, rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more.

NOTE.

"Thence for nine whole days was I borne by ruinous winds over the teeming deep; but on the tenth day we set foot on the land of the lotus-eaters, who eat a flowery food. So we stepped ash.o.r.e and drew water, and straightway my company took their mid-day meal by the swift s.h.i.+ps. Now when we had tasted meat and drink, I sent forth certain of my company to go and make search of what manner of men they were who here live upon the earth by bread, and I chose out two of my fellows, and sent a third with them as herald. Then straightway they went and mixed with the men of the lotus-eaters, and so it was that the lotus-eaters devised not death for our fellows, but gave them of the lotus to taste.

Now whosoever of them did eat the honey-sweet fruit of the lotus, had no more wish to bring tidings nor to come back, but there he chose to abide with the lotus-eating men, ever feeding on the lotus, and forgetful of his homeward way. Therefore I led them back to the s.h.i.+ps weeping, and sore against their will, and dragged them beneath the benches, and bound them in the hollow barques. But I commanded the rest of my well-loved company to make speed and go on board the swift s.h.i.+ps, lest haply any should eat of the lotus and be forgetful of returning."--_Homer's Odyssey_, ix, 80.

"In this poem, 'The Lotos-Eaters,' the artistic ideal of the young poet (it was written in 1830) found its most finished expression and its culminating point. Here he seems to have attained a consciousness that beyond the ideal which he had adopted there is another, larger, grander, and more satisfying. Nowhere else, perhaps, in the range of poetry, is the trance of a listless life so harmoniously married to appropriate melodies and appropriate accompaniments."--_North British Review._

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.

ALFRED TENNYSON was born at Somersby, Lincolns.h.i.+re, England, in 1809.

His early education was received at home from his father, who was rector of Somersby and vicar of Bennington and Grimsby. He was afterwards sent to Trinity College, Cambridge, where, at the age of twenty, he received the chancellor's medal for a poem in blank verse, ent.i.tled "Timbuctoo."

In 1830 he published a small volume of "Poems chiefly Lyrical." A revised edition of this volume, published in 1833, contained "The Lady of Shalott," "The Lotos-Eaters," and others of his best-known short poems. In 1850, upon the death of Wordsworth, he was appointed poet-laureate. In the same year he was married to Emily, daughter of Henry Sellwood, Esq., and niece of Sir John Franklin. Since 1851, Tennyson has resided for the greater part of the time at Farringford, Freshwater, Isle of Wight. In December, 1883, he was made Baron Tennyson of Aldworth and Freshwater.

"Mr. Tennyson," says R. H. Hutton, "was an artist even before he was a poet; in other words, the eye for beauty, grace, and harmony of effect was even more emphatically one of his original gifts than the voice for poetic utterance itself. This, probably, it is which makes his very earliest pieces appear so full of effort, and sometimes even so full of affectation. They were elaborate attempts to embody what he saw, before the natural voice of the poet had come to him. I think it possible to trace not only a pre-poetic period in his art, but to date the period at which the soul was 'infused' into his poetry, and the brilliant external figures became the dwelling-places of germinating poetic thoughts creating their own music. Curiously enough, the first poem where there is any trace of those musings of the Round Table to which he has directed so much of his maturest genius, is also a confession that the poet was sick of the magic mirror of fancy and its picture-shadows, and was turning away from them to the poetry of human life. Whenever Mr.

Tennyson's pictorial fancy has had it in any degree in its power to run away with the guiding and controlling mind, the richness and the workmans.h.i.+p have to some extent overgrown the spiritual principle of his poems. It is obvious, for instance, that even in relation to natural scenery, what his poetical faculty delights in most are rich, luxuriant landscapes, in which either nature or man has acc.u.mulated a lavish variety of effects. It is in the scenery of the mill, the garden, the chase, the down, the rich pastures, the harvest-field, the palace pleasure-grounds, the Lord of Burleigh's fair domains, the luxuriant sylvan beauty, bearing testimony to the careful hand of man, 'the summer crisp with s.h.i.+ning woods,' that Mr. Tennyson most delights. If he strays to rarer scenes, it is almost in search of richer and more luxuriant loveliness, like the tropical splendors of 'Enoch Arden' and the enervating skies which cheated the Lotos-Eaters of their longing for home."

"Mr. Tennyson," says a writer in the _North British Review_, "deserves an especial study, not only as a poet, but as a leader and a landmark of popular thought and feeling. As a poet, he belongs to the highest category of English writers; for poetry is the strongest and most vigorous branch of English literature. In this literature his works are evidently destined to secure a permanent place; for they express in language refined and artistic, but not unfamiliar, a large segment of the popular thought of the period over which they range. He has, moreover, a clearly marked if not strongly individualized style, which has served as a model for imitators, and as a starting-point for poets who have sought to improve upon it."

=Princ.i.p.al Poems of Tennyson:= Charge of the Light Brigade, written in 1854; Dora, 1842; The Dying Swan, 1830; Enoch Arden, 1864; Idylls of the King, 1859-1873,--to be read in the following order: The Coming of Arthur; Gareth and Lynette; Geraint and Enid; Merlin and Vivien; Lancelot and Elaine; The Holy Grail; Pelleas and Ettarre; The Last Tournament; Guinevere; The Pa.s.sing of Arthur;--In Memoriam, 1850 (131 parts); Locksley Hall, 1842; Locksley Hall Sixty Years Afterwards, 1886; Maud, 1855 (3 parts); The Princess, 1847 (7 parts); Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington, 1852.

DRAMATIC PIECES: Queen Mary, 1875; Harold, 1876; The Cup, 1881; The Falcon, 1882; Becket, 1884; The Foresters: Robin Hood and Maid Marian, 1892.

REFERENCES: Stedman's _Victorian Poets_; Van d.y.k.e's _The Poetry of Tennyson_; Taine's _History of English Literature_, vol. IV; Kingsley's _Miscellanies_; Elsdale's _Studies in the Idylls_; Buchanan's _Master Spirits_; Tainsh's _Studies in Tennyson_; Hutton's _Essays_; Chapman's _Companion to In Memoriam_; Walters's _In Tennyson Land_.

William Wordsworth.

ODE.

INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD.

The Child is father{1} of the Man; And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety.

I.

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The earth, and every common sight, To me did seem Apparelled{2} in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream.

It is not now as it hath been of yore;-- Turn wheresoe'er I may, By night or day, The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

II.

The rainbow comes and goes, And lovely is the rose; The moon doth with delight Look round her when the heavens are bare; Waters on a starry night Are beautiful and fair; The suns.h.i.+ne is a glorious birth; But yet I know, where'er I go, That there hath pa.s.sed away a glory from the earth.

III.

Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song, And while the young lambs bound As to the tabor's{3} sound, To me alone there came a thought of grief: A timely utterance gave that thought relief, And I again am strong.

The cataracts{4} blow their trumpets from the steep; No more shall grief of mine the season wrong; I hear the echoes{5} through the mountains throng; The winds come to me from the fields of sleep,{6} And all the earth is gay; Land and sea Give themselves up to jollity,{7} And with the heart of May{8} Doth every beast keep holiday.

Thou child of joy, Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy shepherd-boy!

IV.

Ye blessed creatures, I have heard the call Ye to each other make; I see The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee; My heart is at your festival.

My head hath its coronal,{9} The fulness of your bliss, I feel--I feel it all.

Oh evil day if I were sullen While Earth herself is adorning This sweet May morning, And the children are culling On every side, In a thousand valleys far and wide, Fresh flowers, while the sun s.h.i.+nes warm, And the babe leaps up{10} on his mother's arm: I hear, I hear, with joy I hear!

--But there's a tree,{11} of many, one, A single field which I have looked upon, Both of them speak of something that is gone: The pansy{12} at my feet Doth the same tale repeat.

Whither is fled the visionary gleam?

Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

V.

Our birth is but a sleep{13} and a forgetting: The soul that rises with us, our life's star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar; Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From G.o.d, who is our home.

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing boy, But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, He sees it in his joy; The youth, who daily farther from the East Must travel, still is nature's priest, And by the vision splendid Is on his way attended; At length the man perceives it die away, And fade into the light of common day.