The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson Part 6

The _wrinkled_ sea beneath him _crawls_.

--'The Eagle'.

Or here of a s.h.i.+p at sea, in the distance:--

And on through zones of light and shadow _Glimmer away to the lonely deep_.

--'To the Rev. F. D. Maurice'.

Or here of waters falling high up on mountains:--

Their thousand _wreaths of dangling water-smoke_.

--'The Princess'.

Or of a water-fall seen at a distance:--

And _like a downward smoke_ the slender stream Along the cliff _to fall and pause and fall_ did seem.

Or here again:--

We left the dying ebb that _faintly lipp'd The flat red granite_.

Or here of a wave:--

Like a wave in the wild North Sea _Green glimmering toward the summit_ bears with all _Its stormy crests that smoke_ against the skies Down on a bark.

--'Elaine'.

That beech will _gather brown_, This _maple burn itself away_.

--'In Memoriam'.

The _wide-wing'd sunset_ of the misty marsh.

--'Last Tournament'.

But ill.u.s.trations would be endless. Nothing seems to escape him in Nature. Take the following:--

Like _a purple beech among the greens Looks out of place_.

--'Edwin Morris'.

Or

Delays _as the tender ash delays To clothe herself, when all the woods are green_.

--'The Princess'.

As _black as ash-buds in the front of March_.

--'The Gardener's Daughter'.

A gusty April morn That _puff'd_ the swaying _branches into smoke_.

--'Holy Grail'.

So with flowers, trees, birds and insects:--

The fox-glove _cl.u.s.ters dappled bells_.

--'The Two Voices'.

The sunflower:--

_Rays round with flame its disk of seed_.

--'In Memoriam'.

The dog-rose:--

_Tufts of rosy-tinted snow_.

--'Two Voices'.