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THE POEMS OF 
 
 ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 '?■ 
 
 I 
 
 ) 
 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
THE POEMS OF 
 
 ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM 
 
 TOGETHER WITH HIS ESSAY 
 ON THE LYRICAL POEMS OF 
 
 ALFRED TENNYSON 
 
 EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
 BY RICHARD LE GALLIENNE 
 
 { » 
 
 LONDON : ELKIN 
 MATHEWS JOHN 
 LANE, VIGO ST. 
 
 NEW YORK : MAC¬ 
 MILLAN COMPY 
 
 MDCCCXCIII 
 

J^eeearcii.^iJiHglish.J *"> 1 *i6ekert, 7 S' 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 By Richard Le Gallienne . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 . xiii 
 
 POEMS 
 
 ^ MEDITATIVE FRAGMENTS 
 
 i. My bosom friend, ’tis long since we have 
 
 looked.3 
 
 II. A valley—and a stream of purest white . 5 
 
 in. Deep firmament, which art a voice of God 6 
 IV. I lay within a little bowered nook . . 7 
 v. Mountain austere, and full of kinglihood . 10 
 
 vi. It is a thing of trial to the heart . . n 
 
 n/ timbu ctoo 
 
 There was a land, which, far from human sight 17 
 
 SONETTO 
 
 v 1 Deh, chi se’ tu, ch’ in si superba pietra . . 28 
 
 SONETTO 
 
 1 P 
 
 ^Genova bella, a cui 1 ’ altiera voce . . .29 
 
 TO AN ENGLISH LADY 
 
 *7 ~V 
 
 Ahi vera donna ! or dal tessuto inganno . . 30 
 
 v 
 
 106484 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 SONETTO 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ^ Soave venticel ch’ intorno spiri . . . 31 
 
 SONETTO 
 
 Pieta ! Pieta ! gran Dio ! deh, volgi omai . 32 
 
 SONETTO 
 
 Donna di gran poter, ch’ il colle adorno . . 33 
 
 N 
 
 SONNET 
 
 nJ None but a Tuscan hand could fix ye here . 34 
 
 TO MALEK 
 
 Malek, the counsel of thine amity . . -35 
 
 SONNET 
 
 J Oh blessing and delight of my young heart . 36 
 
 SONNET 
 
 >4 Even thus, methinks, a city reared should be . 37 
 
 TO AN ADMIRED LADY 
 
 Ni When thou art dreaming, at the time of night 38 
 STANZAS 
 
 I lived an hour in fair Melrose. . . >39 
 
 STANZAS 
 
 J When life is crazy in my limbs . .42 
 
 A FAREWELL TO GLENARBACH 
 
 When grief is felt along the blood . . -44 
 
 STANZAS 
 
 M I saw a child upon a Highland moor . . 47 
 
 
 VI 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 S° 
 
 V 
 
 N/ 
 
 s/ 
 
 vr^ 
 
 STANZAS 
 
 \J Fair fall the day ! ’Tis thirteen years 
 FROM SCHILLER 
 
 To yonder vale where shepherds dwell . . 54 
 
 LINES SPOKEN IN THE CHARACTER OF PYGMALION 
 ’Tis done, the work is finished—that last touch 56 
 TO TWO SISTERS 
 
 Well do your names express ye, sisters dear . 58 
 
 TO THE LOVED ONE 
 
 My heart is happy now, beloved . . . 63 
 
 TO MY MOTHER 
 
 n/ 
 
 When barren doubt like a late coming snow . 67 
 
 A LOVER’S REPROOF 
 
 V 
 
 When two complaining spirits mingle , , 68 
 
 SONNET 
 
 J A melancholy thought had laid me low . . 69 
 
 A SCENE IN SUMMER 
 
 Alfred, I would that you beheld me now . . 70 
 
 SONNET 
 
 v Oh Poetry, oh rarest spirit of all . . . 71 
 
 SONNET 
 
 Alas ! that sometimes even a duteous life . 72 
 
 SONNET 
 
 / Why throbbest thou, my heart, why thickly 
 
 breathest ....... 73 
 
 vii 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 SONNET 
 
 PAGE 
 
 j Still here—thou hast not faded from my sight. 74 
 
 SONNET 
 
 , Lady, I bid thee to a sunny dome . . .75 
 
 SONNET 
 
 Speed ye, warm hours, along th’ appointed 
 
 path.76 
 
 SONNET 
 
 When gentle fingers cease to touch the string . 77 
 
 SONNET 
 
 , The garden trees are busy with the shower . 78 
 
 SCENE AT ROME 
 
 J 
 
 Dearest, I wished for thee a moment gone . 79 
 
 On some of the Characteristics of 
 Modern Poetry, and on the Lyrical 
 Poems of Alfred Tennyson . . . .87 
 
 Vlll 
 
NOTE 
 
 There have been two editions of Hallam’s 
 ‘ Remains ’ previous to the present one. The fol¬ 
 lowing are the collations of each :— 
 
 (1) Remains, | in Verse and Prose, | of Arthur 
 
 Henry Hallam. | Vattene in pace, alma beata 
 e bella. | Ariosto. | Printed by W. Nicol, 51, 
 Pall Mall. | mdcccxxxiv. \ pp. xl, 363. 
 
 This, printed for private circulation, contains a 
 prefatory memoir by the poet’s father. 
 
 (2) Remains in Verse and Prose | of | Arthur 
 
 Henry Hallam. | With a Preface and 
 Memoir | Vattene in pace, alma beata e 
 bella. ; Ariosto. \ With Portrait. | London : | 
 John Murray, Albemarle Street. | 1862. j 
 pp. lx, 305. 
 
 In addition to the Memoir of Arthur Hallam, the 
 prefatory matter also included a memoir of Henry 
 Fitzmaurice Hallam, signed ‘ H. S. M.’ and 4 F. L. 
 (Henry Sumner Maine, and Franklin Lushington), 
 and an ‘ advertisement ’ by the editor, as before, the 
 poet’s father. In this edition a few of the poems 
 given in the first are not reprinted. 
 
 The present reprint, save in the correction of actual 
 errors, follows the first edition. 
 
 The editor and publishers desire to express their 
 acknowledgments to Mr. John Murray for his courtesy 
 in a copyright difficulty of some delicacy ; as also to 
 Mr. Maggs, the bookseller, for his kindness in lending 
 them a copy of the very rare first edition for their 
 purpose. 
 
 IX 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 

ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM 
 
 The following first-fruits of a singularly 
 promising young life are not, of course, 
 recalled here as achievement in any way 
 commensurate with, though sufficiently in¬ 
 dicative of, the high powers of Arthur Hallam. 
 Though they have, indeed, real literary value, 
 it is not, perhaps, mainly for that that we 
 cherish them, but rather for the means they 
 afford us of realising the writer’s beautiful 
 personality. His friend has told us that 
 
 ‘ The world which credits what is done 
 Is blind to all that might have been.’ 
 
 The world, indeed, must of necessity lay 
 disproportionate stress on achievement, and 
 all too little on character. It has less oppor¬ 
 tunity of seeing what a man is than what 
 he does. Unless we be lifted up, we have 
 
 xm 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 little chance with the world. Hence the 
 eclat which follows certain forms of greatness, 
 and neglects others. The gift of friendship 
 is in itself a greater thing than the gift of 
 poetry in itself, but unless that friendship 
 becomes dramatic it wears no earthly laurel. 
 Arthur Hallam had both gifts : but whereas 
 the one had scarcely time to bud, the other 
 blossomed richly ; for youth, though but the 
 spring of poetry, is the very midsummer of 
 friendship— 
 
 ‘ The affinities have strongest part 
 In youth, and draw men heart to heart.’ 
 
 History blesses us with many legends of 
 great friendships, but none more beautiful 
 and moving than that of the friendship of 
 Arthur Hallam and Alfred Tennyson. I 
 write their names in the order the poet of 
 their love would have them go, for there are 
 many passages of In Memoriam which show 
 that in their £ marriage of true minds 7 the 
 poet regarded himself as the weaker vessel. 
 His friend, not he, the £ master-bowman 3 
 
 xiv 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 who in those rapt circles of college talk 
 ‘would cleave the mark.’ That this was 
 no friendly exaggeration we have abundant 
 testimony, and we have but to realise what 
 it means to have a close friend of dominant 
 intellect and magnetic personality in the 
 most plastic period of our lives to conjecture 
 how great an influence had Arthur Hallam 
 on the development of Alfred Tennyson. 
 
 The son of the famous historian, Arthur 
 Hallam had, of course, exceptional advan¬ 
 tages for culture to start with. Still, the sons 
 of eminent men are not invariably marked 
 by precocity, and Arthur’s precocity was 
 certainly remarkable. He could not, indeed, 
 like Sir John Suckling, speak Latin at the 
 age of five, but in his father’s memoir of him 
 we are told that he could read it with ‘ toler¬ 
 able facility ’ at the age of nine, and that at 
 the age of seven ‘ he had already learned to 
 read French with facility.’ At the age of 
 ten he had already written ‘ several tragedies, 
 dramatic poetry being an early passion with 
 him. Indeed, his precocity somewhat 
 
 xv 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 alarmed his father, by whom it was con¬ 
 trolled rather than encouraged. 
 
 Born in 1811 (in Bedford Place, London), 
 he had in 1818 spent some months with his 
 parents in Germany and Switzerland, and 
 had thus early been subjected to the broad¬ 
 ening influences of travel. In 1820 he was 
 sent to a preparatory school at Putney, and 
 remained there two years. Then followed 
 some months’ further travel abroad, and in 
 October 1822 he went to Eton, where he 
 remained till 1827. 
 
 His father pronounces him at the end of 
 his Eton period ‘a good, though not per¬ 
 haps a first-rate scholar, in the Greek and 
 Latin languages,’ and refers to his ‘ remark¬ 
 able facility in mastering the modern lan¬ 
 guages.’ The study of English literature, 
 especially that of the old dramatists, had 
 somewhat withdrawn him from classical 
 studies. Fletcher was a favourite of his, 
 but Shakespeare was his ruling passion. 
 Among modern poets Byron was long one 
 of his preferences, but later on he gave 
 
 1 
 
 xvi 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 place to Wordsworth and Shelley. Of 
 classical writers, says his father, ‘ he loved 
 yEschylus and Sophocles (to Euripides he 
 hardly did justice), Lucretius and Virgil; 
 if he did not seem so much drawn to Homer 
 as might at first be expected, this may 
 probably be accounted for by his increasing 
 taste for philosophical poetry.’ Very soon 
 in a debating society at Eton he gave 
 evidence of the argumentative powers of his 
 mind, and in 1827 his first poem, on a story 
 connected with the Lake of Killarney, 
 appeared in the Eton Miscellany. This 
 poem, however, his father did not think well 
 to reprint among his ‘ Remains.’ 
 
 On leaving Eton in 1827 came an eight 
 months’ visit to Italy, the most formative 
 experience of his life. Thus Dante and the 
 other ‘Tuscan poets’ became a passion with 
 him, and he speedily mastered Italian, with 
 what success his own sonnets in that lan¬ 
 guage may well be left to testify. Italian art 
 too, as also German, had at this time a great 
 influence upon him. One of the last days 
 b 
 
 xvi 1 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 of his life was spent lingering among the 
 Venetian pictures of the Imperial Gallery of 
 Vienna. 
 
 In October 1828 he was entered at Trinity 
 College, Cambridge, as the pupil of the Rev. 
 William Whewell. Charles and Alfred Ten¬ 
 nyson had also entered the same college in 
 the same term, and soon the three became 
 the centre of that ‘ band of youthful friends,’ 
 including such other men as Richard Monck- 
 ton Milnes, R. C. Trench, F. D. Maurice, 
 James Spedding, Henry Alford, and Charles 
 Merivale. Hallam soon attained eminence 
 in this little coterie of 1 The Apostles,’ as it 
 called itself, and soon too had Tennyson 
 and he struck up that deeper friendship, the 
 memory of which was to re-echo through the 
 whole of Tennyson’s life and inspire his 
 highest song. 
 
 Early in 1829 they competed together for 
 the Chancellor’s Prize Poem, the subject, as 
 the reader well knows, being ‘Timbuctoo.’ 
 The result is, of course, a commonplace of 
 literary history. To Hallam’s poem, doubly 
 
 xvm 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 interesting in the connection of his friend’s 
 success, it will be necessary to refer again. 
 
 Next year (1830) we find the friends to¬ 
 gether at Somersby Rectory, planning a joint 
 volume of poems, a project, however, nipped 
 in the bud by Hallam’s father. The latter 
 also enjoined silence in another matter,—the 
 attachment which during this Somersby visit 
 had been ripening between Arthur and 
 Tennyson’s sister. As early as 4 Jan. 1831,’ 
 we find Hallarn, in one of the most beautiful 
 of the poems that follow—that 4 To the 
 Loved One ’—thus writing of their love : 
 
 4 Even now begins that holy life, 
 
 For when I kneel in Christian prayer, 
 
 Thy name, my own, my promised wife, 
 
 Is blent with mine in fondest care. 
 
 Oh pray for me that both may know 
 That inward bridal’s high delight, 
 
 And both beyond the grave may go 
 Together in the Father’s sight.’ 
 
 Hallarn is probably referring here to a 
 troth known only to themselves, for at the 
 time of writing he was away from Somersby, 
 and it was not till his next visit, later in the 
 
 xix 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 year, that a private engagement between him 
 and Emily Tennyson became known in the 
 family, an.engagement to be kept secret till 
 Arthur’s-majority, in deference to his father. 
 In the summer of 1832, however, silence 
 was no longer necessary. He was of age, 
 had taken his degree and left Cambridge, 
 and his next step was to be law at the Inner 
 Temple. Meanwhile, he spent the summer 
 weeks at Somersby, whence he wrote thus to 
 his friend Trench : ‘ I am now at Somersby, 
 not only as the friend of Alfred Tennyson, 
 but as the lover of his sister. An attach¬ 
 ment on my part of near two years’ standing, 
 and an engagement of one year’s, are, I hope, 
 only the commencement of an union which 
 circumstances may not impair, and the grave 
 itself not conclude.’ 
 
 To return, however, to 1830 : the friends 
 had also during that year made a wild visit 
 to the Pyrenees. The war of Spanish In¬ 
 dependence was to young men of that day 
 what the fight for Italian Independence was 
 to those born later. Hallam and Tennyson 
 
 xx 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 ardently watched the struggle, and even went 
 so far as to actually play at conspiracy, carry¬ 
 ing messages and money to certain of the 
 insurgents. ‘And a wild bustling time we 
 had of it,’ said Hallam. ‘ I played my part 
 as conspirator in a small way, and made 
 friends with two or three gallant men who 
 have since been trying their luck with Valdes.’ 
 Mrs. Ritchie tells an amusing anecdote worth 
 recalling in reference to this expedition. 
 Tennyson, having crossed over from the 
 Continent, was walking home through Wales. 
 ‘ He went one day into a little wayside inn, 
 where an old man sat by the fire, who looked 
 up and asked many questions. “ Are you 
 from the army? Not from the army ? Then 
 where do you come from ? ” said the old 
 man. “ I am just come from the Pyrenees,” 
 said Alfred. “Ah, I knew there was a 
 something,” said the wise old man.’ 
 
 Another still more important event in this 
 year was the publication of Poems , chiefly 
 Lyrical. Hallam’s famous review of it in 
 The Englishman's Magazine for August 1831 
 
 xxi 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 is reprinted in the present volume, and will 
 be dealt with later on. In the same year, 
 his last at Cambridge, he obtained the first 
 College prize for English declamation, his 
 subject being the conduct of the Independent 
 party during the Civil War. This he followed 
 up by an oration on the congenial theme of 
 ‘The Influence of Italian upon English 
 Literature.’ We see here in his choice of 
 subjects the bent of his mind, his partiality 
 for philosophical, literary, and historical 
 studies, asserting itself. It was a bent 
 which, together with his indifference to 
 mathematics, made against his achieving 
 great academical reputation. A somewhat 
 defective memory was another drawback; 
 but really such ambition was little to his 
 taste, and more and more he was develop¬ 
 ing the more sympathetic gifts of poet and 
 critic. 
 
 In October 1832 Arthur Hallam went up 
 to London, working with a Mr. Walters, a 
 conveyancer in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and 
 living at 67 Wimpole St. ‘You will always 
 
 xxii 
 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 find me at sixes and sevens,’ was, according 
 to Mr. Waugh, his little joke upon his 
 address. Earlier in the year he had written 
 his vigorous criticism on Professor Rossetti’s 
 Disquisizioni sullo Spirito Antipapale , he 
 had also cherished a design to translate the 
 Vita Nuova , and had written memoirs of Pe¬ 
 trarch, Voltaire, and Burke for ‘the Gallery 
 of Portraits; ’ but, for the time, literary 
 studies were exchanged for some hard law 
 reading—into which, according to his father, 
 he entered ‘not only with great acuteness 
 but considerable interest’—with his favourite 
 metaphysical researches for recreation. 
 
 Alas, there is little more to record. 
 Arthur’s health at Cambridge had given 
 grave anxiety to his friends. ‘ A too rapid 
 determination of blood towards the brain 1 
 was one of the alarming symptoms, of an 
 irregular circulation. But during his last 
 year at Cambridge he had seemed stronger. 
 However, an attack of intermittent fever, or 
 influenza, during the spring of 1833, weakened 
 him • and, travelling in Germany with his 
 
 XXlll 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 father during the autumn of the same year, 
 a wet day brought on a return of the fever. 
 But that, writes his father, was apparently 
 subsiding, ‘when a sudden rush of blood to 
 the head put an instantaneous end to his 
 life on the 15th of September 1833.’ Sir 
 Francis Doyle, in his Reminiscences , adds 
 the touching detail that his father had been 
 out for a walk through the streets of Vienna, 
 and came back to find Arthur apparently 
 asleep on the sofa. ‘Mr. Hallam sat down 
 to write his letters,’ he continues, ‘and it was 
 only by slow and imperceptible degrees that 
 a certain anxiety, in consequence of Arthur’s 
 stillness and silence, dawned upon his mind: 
 he drew near to ascertain why he had not 
 moved or spoken, and found that all was 
 over.’ 
 
 Medical examination proved that he could 
 not, at the most, have lived for many more 
 years. ‘Those whose eyes must long be 
 dim with tears,’ writes the stricken father, 
 ‘ and whose hopes on this side the tomb are 
 broken down for ever, may cling, as well as 
 
 xxiv 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 they can, to the poor consolation of believing 
 that a few more years would, in the usual 
 chances of humanity, have severed the frail 
 union of his graceful and manly form with 
 the pure spirit that it enshrined.’ 
 
 Arthur Hallam’s remains were interred, as 
 all lovers of English poetry know, in the 
 chancel of Clevedon Church, in Somerset¬ 
 shire, on January 3, 1834.* 
 
 Many were the tributes from his friends 
 s (Mr. Gladstone and Monckton Milnes 
 among others) to his high powers, thus 
 suddenly laid waste, but fullest of all was 
 their testimony to the manly beauty of his 
 
 * Mr. Jacobs, in liis careful notes on In Memoriam , 
 points out that the poet refers to his friend as being 
 buried outside the church 
 
 ‘ I sing to him that rests below, 
 
 And, since the grasses round me wave, 
 
 I take the grasses of the grave, 
 
 And make them pipes whereon to blow ; ’ 
 
 but surely it is hypercritical to insist on the literalness 
 of a reference which one may well regard as made, and 
 would expect to be made, in conventional poetic terms. 
 Mr. Jacobs reads section lxvii. of the poem as though 
 it referred merely to a tablet on the walls of Clevedon 
 Church, but I cannot see how he contrives to limit the 
 
 XXV 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 nature. ‘ Happily,’ wrote one of them to 
 Mr. Hallam, 4 his reputation is not left to 
 depend upon the scanty reminiscences of 
 one or two youthful friends : the memorials 
 which he has bequeathed to us of his 
 mental powers, together with the unanimous 
 consent of all who had an opportunity of 
 knowing and appreciating him as he de¬ 
 served, are amply sufficient to secure to him 
 that to which he is entitled—the sincere and 
 lasting regret of all good men that such a 
 
 passage to that meaning. The poet distinctly speaks 
 of the church as Arthur's ' place of rest ’: 
 
 ‘When on my bed the moonlight falls, 
 
 I know that in thy place of rest 
 By that broad water of the west, 
 
 There comes a glory on the walls : 
 
 Thy marble bright in dark appears, 
 
 As slowly steals a silver flame 
 Along the letters of thy name, 
 
 And o’er the number of thy years.’ 
 
 No one reading this without any previous knowledge 
 could read it otherwise than as a reference to the poet’s 
 actual tomb. The disparity between it and the reference 
 to the grass-grown grave obviously arises from the fact, 
 that in the latter case the poet is making use of conven¬ 
 tional imagery, and in the former is making use of actual 
 detail. 
 
 xxvi 
 
 i 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 mind should have been removed from among 
 us at a time when the light of his matured 
 genius, and the excellence of his moral 
 nature, might have exercised so great and 
 so beneficial an influence upon the happi¬ 
 ness of mankind.’ 
 
 In restricting the following selection from 
 Hallam’s writings to his poems and his 
 Tennyson criticism, the intention has been 
 the illustration of the more intimately per¬ 
 sonal qualities of his nature rather than 
 that of his merely intellectual powers. 
 These latter were very remarkable. The 
 extent of his reading alone is astonishing in 
 so young a man, but still more so is his 
 mature employment of that reading, his 
 philosophical breadth, his power of historical 
 generalisation. It is inevitable that in his 
 display of authorities one sometimes, so to 
 say, smells the newness of a young man’s 
 learning. The older scholar is not so fault- 
 lessly cap-a-pie , his learning has lost its glitter 
 in many a field. He moves with less clank 
 of accoutrements. But, however that be, 
 
 xxvii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 no one can deny that the young man’s 
 weapons were of the right temper, and that 
 he used them with singular vigour and 
 address. 
 
 His best essay is, I think, that on the 
 elder Rossetti’s Disquisizioni sullo Spirito 
 Antipapale. The lofty judicial tone, never 
 relaxed in the essays on Cicero and the 
 Italian influence in English literature, oc¬ 
 casionally gives way to a more familiar style. 
 There is a twinkle in certain passages, the 
 critic even banters the professor—the 
 Ignatius Donnelly of Dante criticism. 1 A 
 man must be careful indeed,’ he says, ‘ in 
 whose words or actions Signor Rossetti 
 would not discover something to help out 
 his argument. If two persons at opposite 
 ends of the world do but chance to light on 
 the same mode of expression, our learned 
 professor calls out,like honest Verges, “ ’Fore 
 God, they are both of a tale ! ” " For him 
 there is mystery in the most trivial incident. 
 He would think, with Sir Thomas Browne, 
 “ it was not for nothing David picked up 
 
 xxviii 
 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 five stones in the brook.” 5 There is quite a 
 Lamb-like turn about the last reference. 
 
 Dealing with Rossetti’s cryptographic 
 account of the Vita Nuova , his stately style 
 grows finely impassioned. * Certainly,’ he 
 says, ‘until Signor Rossetti suggested the 
 idea, we never dreamed of looking for 
 Ghibelline enigmas in a narrative apparently 
 so remote from politics. Nor did it occur 
 to us to seek even for moral meanings, that 
 might throw a forced and doubtful light on 
 these obscurities. Whatever uncertain shape 
 might, for a few moments, *be assumed by 
 the Beatrice of the Commedia , imparadised 
 in overpowering effluences of light and 
 music, and enjoying the immediate vision of 
 the Most High, here at least, in the mild 
 humility and modest nobleness of the 
 living and the loving creature, to whom the 
 sonnets and canzones are addressed, we did 
 believe we were safe from allegory. Some¬ 
 thing indeed there was of vagueness and 
 unreality in the picture we beheld : but it 
 never disturbed our faith ; .for we believed 
 
 XXIX 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 it to arise from the reverential feeling which 
 seemed to possess the poet’s imagination, 
 and led him to concentrate all his loftiest 
 sentiments and pure ideas of perfection in 
 the object of his youthful passion, conse¬ 
 crated long since and idealised to his heart, 
 by the sanctities of the overshadowing tomb. 
 It was a noble thing, we thought, to see the 
 stern politician, the embittered exile, the 
 man worn by the world’s severest realities, 
 who knew how sharp it was to mount 
 another’s stairs, and eat another’s bread, in 
 his old age; yet, amidst these sufferings and 
 wounded feelings, recurring with undaunted 
 memory to the days of his happy boyhood; 
 not for purposes of vain regret; not for 
 complaints of deceived expectation ; not to 
 colour the past time with the sombre tints 
 of the present: but to honour human nature; 
 to glorify disinterested affection; to celebrate 
 that solemn, primeval, indissoluble alliance 
 between the imagination and the heart.’ 
 There is somewhat too much of youthful de¬ 
 clamation about the concluding sentences, 
 
 XXX 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 but the passage remains, for all that, a 
 moving piece of prose. 
 
 One striking feature of Hallam’s criticism 
 is his adherence to the first law of 
 aesthetics—which, doubtless, his German 
 reading had taught him—the law of Beauty. 
 
 ‘ To every man, worthy the name of poet,’ 
 he instructs the singularly unpoetic father 
 of a great poet, ‘ the first object is always 
 the Beautiful.’ No allegory, however wise 
 and profound, can distract him from it. 
 He may study such meanings as a diver¬ 
 sion, a piece of by-play; but they never 
 interfere with the grand purpose to which 
 his ‘spiritual agents are bent up.’ They 
 are limited then, not by speculations about 
 the prospects of any party, Guelf or 
 Ghibelline, but by the poet’s own sense of 
 harmonious fitness, that inward testimony, 
 which affords to creative intellects a support 
 during their work of thought, not very dis¬ 
 similar from that which conscience supplies 
 to all men in their work of life.’ 
 
 Elsewhere he speaks of c the worship of 
 
 XXXI 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 Beauty’ as ‘a vocation of high and myste¬ 
 rious import, not to be relegated into the 
 round of daily amusements, or confined by 
 the superstitious canons of temporary 
 opinion.’ 
 
 Indeed, it seems to me that his great 
 promise as a critic was in his union of two 
 instincts that seldom go together, the 
 aesthetic and historic. It was his rich en¬ 
 dowment of the former that made him so 
 sympathetic an interpreter of the poetic 
 genius of his friend: for, if one poet more 
 than another needs to be judged by the 
 artistic temperament, it is Tennyson. Un¬ 
 fortunately, nothing is rarer among critics, 
 who are able to apply every test, philosophic, 
 ethic, historic, save the one which is alone 
 to the purpose. Hence so much wrong¬ 
 headed injustice done to Tennyson’s reputa¬ 
 tion from time to time, and so much 
 (artistically) mistaken exaltation of Brown¬ 
 ing. 
 
 It is really remarkable with what precision 
 he, ‘ the master-bowman,’ clove the mark in 
 
 xxxn 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 the essay on Tennyson, which the reader 
 may study for himself in the present volume. 
 His ‘ five distinctive excellences ’ make a 
 singularly accurate and complete analysis of 
 a genius which, it must be remembered too, 
 he was only given to see in the bud. To 
 these must be added the ‘ fairy fineness ’ of 
 the poet’s ear, and ‘ the strange earnestness 
 in his worship of beauty.’ Especially acute, 
 and how prophetic of Tennyson’s dramatic 
 career, is his differentiation in speaking of 
 the poet’s ‘ power of embodying himself in 
 ideal characters, or rather moods of character.’ 
 If Tennyson had but accepted that limita¬ 
 tion of his dramatic talent, how much richer 
 still would we have been, rich as we are in 
 that lyric wealth which was his best gift. The 
 essay has faults of immaturity : its introduc¬ 
 tion is a little top-heavy, and there is just a 
 touch of that 1 pomposity ’ about it at which 
 Christopher North made his somewhat 
 heavy-footed sallies. The young critic 
 seems over-conscious that he is writing his 
 first review, and feels it all the more necessary 
 c xxxiii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 to assume occasional airs of experience. 
 But, when all is said, it remains a singularly 
 penetrative piece of criticism; interesting 
 too as one of the early examples in England 
 of that aesthetic criticism which is now so 
 generally accepted amongst us. 
 
 In turning to Hallam’s poetry, and re¬ 
 membering this aesthetic instinct of his, one 
 is struck by the absence of the sensuous 
 j element, so marked in his friend’s poetry. 
 One feels at once that Wordsworth is getiius 
 loci. All is grave in tone, subdued in 
 colour, reflective in mood. And of this 
 influence the reader will notice several 
 casual indications : the motto to Timbuctoo , 
 the quotation towards the end of that poem 
 from Tintern Abbey, the explicit reference in 
 the sixth of the Meditative Fragments : 
 
 4 I spake of Wordsworth, of that lofty mind, 
 Enthronised in a little monarchy 
 Of hills and waters . . .’ 
 
 It was, we learn from this naively charm¬ 
 ing poem, one of the disappointments of 
 friendship that a lady of his acquaintance 
 
 xxxiv 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 could not see that poet with the same ad¬ 
 miring eyes as he. 
 
 ‘ It is a thing of trial to the heart, 
 
 Of trial and of painful wonderment, 
 
 To walk within a dear companion’s voice, 
 
 And hear him speak light words of one we hold 
 In the same compass of undoubting love. ’ 
 
 Notice the beautiful phrase, ‘within a dear 
 companion’s voice.’ 
 
 The reader will also mark one or two 
 respectful references to £ Mr. Coleridge ’: 
 notably that in which he tells us that in the 
 composition of a certain description in 
 Timbuctoo £ my thoughts dwelt almost in¬ 
 voluntarily on those few conversations which 
 it is my delight to have held with that ££ good 
 old man, most eloquent,” Samuel Coleridge.’ 
 It will be interesting to recall the lines here : 
 
 ‘ Methought I saw a face whose every line 
 
 Wore the pale cast of Thought; a good, old man, 
 Most eloquent, who spake of things divine. 
 
 Around him youths were gathered, who did scan 
 His countenance so grand and mild ; and drank 
 The sweet, sad tones of Wisdom, which outran 
 
 The life-blood, coursing to the heart, and sank 
 Inward from thought to thought. . . .’ 
 
 XXXV 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 Another characteristic picture, in these 
 quaint lines from the poem on Melrose 
 Abbey, is that of Sir Walter Scott with his 
 dogs about him : 
 
 ‘ It was a comfort, too, to see 
 
 Those clogs that from him ne’er would rove, 
 
 And always eyed him rev’rently, 
 
 With glances of depending love. 
 
 They know not of that eminence 
 
 Which marks him to my reasoning sense ; 
 
 They know but that he is a man, 
 
 And still to them is kind, and glads them all he 
 can.’ 
 
 The influence of Dante is less apparent 
 than one would have expected, though the 
 reader will have noticed it in the choice of 
 metre for Timbuctoo , and be reminded of it 
 in such lines as 
 
 ‘ That winsome Lady sitting by my side, 
 
 Whom still these eyes in every place desire.' 
 
 In regard to Timbuctoo one may agree 
 with Arthur’s father that ‘ notwithstanding 
 its too great obscurity, the subject itself 
 being hardly indicated, and the extreme 
 hyperbolical importance which the author’s 
 
 XXXVi 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 brilliant fancy has attached to a nest of 
 barbarians, no one can avoid admiring the 
 grandeur of his conceptions, and the deep 
 philosophy upon which he has built the 
 scheme of his poem.’ But the poem lacks 
 at once that concreteness of description and 
 that magic of fantasy so necessary for the 
 treatment of such a dream : qualities start¬ 
 lingly present in the more successful poem 
 of Hallam’s friend—who, by the way, none 
 the less attached an ‘ extreme hyperbolical 
 importance ... to a nest of barbarians,’ his 
 conception of his theme, indeed, being very 
 similar to Hallam’s. 
 
 I have noted two or three lines up and 
 down the poems the build of which, perhaps 
 fancifully, suggest Tennyson to one to-day: 
 
 4 The garden trees are busy with the shower ’— 
 
 and a description of noon-day wind dallying 
 among the trees : 
 
 ‘ Like an old playmate, whose soft welcomings 
 
 Have less of ardour, because more of custom.’ 
 
 But these are matters of mere incidental 
 
 XXXVll 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 interest. More pertinent is it to refer to the 
 fine sonnets on Edinburgh— £ Even thus, 
 methinks, a city reared should be; ’ on 
 Poetry; and those, now of such touching 
 association, beginning, £ Lady, I bid thee to 
 a sunny dome,’ and ‘Speed ye, warm hours.’ 
 All Hallam’s sonnets are good—he was 
 evidently one of the few poets born to the 
 form. They remind me, in their blending 
 of chaste reserve and tenderness, of the 
 sonnets of William Caldwell Roscoe. The 
 blank-verse fragments not only promise but 
 mark the achievement of a considerable 
 power over that difficult metre, which so 
 many now-a-days think they can write, and 
 so few can. They are particularly interest¬ 
 ing to us from their references to friendship. 
 There seems a sad fitness in the fact that the 
 very first lines in the book should run : 
 
 ‘ My bosom friend, ’tis long since we have looked 
 Upon'each other’s face ; and God may will 
 It shall be longer, ere we meet again.’ 
 
 Mrs. Ritchie’s Records have made us 
 familiar with a portion of that letter in 
 
 XXXVlll 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 verse, written out of a summer day in the 
 garden, to 1 Alfred ’: 
 
 ‘ Alfred, I would that you beheld me now, 
 
 Sitting beneath a mossy ivied wall 
 On a quaint bench, which to that structure old 
 Winds an accordant curve. Above my head 
 Dilates immeasurable a wild of leaves.’ 
 
 ^Indeed, few poetical * remains ’ are so rich 
 in such characteristic allusions as the gleaner 
 loves to find. The books and places and 
 hours he loved; his gentle, sensitive spirit; 
 his high ideals : we gain intimate glimpses of 
 all in these poems, often so beautiful for their 
 own sake, and, happiest fortune of all, intimate 
 glimpses of that ‘ lovely and pleasant ’ friend¬ 
 ship which was the crowning sanctity of two 
 noble lives. Alfred Tennyson was given 
 years to build and beautify the immortal 
 monument of their love. Arthur Hallam was 
 given such a little time. But he has left his 
 witness behind him, for all that, in the 
 precious little sheaf of those poems that 
 here make sweeter his sweet memory. 
 
 RICHARD LE GALLIENNE. 
 
POEMS 
 
MEDITATIVE FRAGMENTS 
 
 IN BLANK VERSE 
 
 I 
 
 My bosom friend, ’tis long since we have looked 
 Upon each other’s face ; and God may will 
 It shall be longer, ere we meet again. 
 
 Awhile it seemed most strange unto my heart 
 That I should mourn, arid thou not nigh to 
 cheer; 
 
 That I should shrink ’mid perils, and thy 
 spirit 
 
 Far away, far, powerless to brave them with 
 me. 
 
 Now am I used to wear a lonesome heart 
 About me ; now the agencies of ill 
 Have so oppressed my inward, absolute self, 
 That feelings shared, and fully answered, scarce 
 Would seem my own. Like a bright, singular 
 dream 
 
 Is parted from me that strong sense of love, 
 Which, as one indivisible glory, lay 
 
 3 
 
POEMS 
 
 On both our souls, and dwelt in us, so far K 
 As we did dwell in it. A mighty presence ! 
 Almighty, had our wills but been confirmed 
 In consciousness of their immortal strength 
 Given by that inconceivable will eterne 
 For a pure birthright, when the blank of things 
 First owned a motive power that was not God. 
 But thou—thy brow has ta’en no brand of 
 grief: 
 
 Thine eyes look .cheerful, even as when we 
 stood 
 
 By Arno, talking of the maid we loved. 
 
 In sooth I envy thee ; thou seemest pure : 
 
 But I am seared : He in whom lies the world 
 Is coiled around the fibres of my heart, 
 
 And with his serpentine, thought-withering gaze 
 Doth fascinate the sovran rational eye. 
 
 There is another world: and some have deemed 
 It is a world of music, and of light, 
 
 And human voices, and delightful forms, 
 
 Where the material shall no more be cursed 
 By dominance of evil, but become 
 A beauteous evolution of pure spirit. 
 
 Opposite, but not warring, rather yielding 
 New grace, and evidence of liberty. 
 
 Oh, may we recognise each other there, 
 
 My bosom friend ! May we cleave to each 
 other 
 
 And love once more together ! Pray for me, 
 That such may be the glory of our end. 
 
 4 
 
MEDITATIVE F R A G M E N T S 
 
 ii 
 
 A VALLEY —and a stream of purest white 
 Trailing its serpent form within the breast 
 Of that embracing dale—three sinuous hills 
 Imminent in calm beauty, and trees thereon, 
 Crest above crest, uprising to the noon, 
 
 Which dallies with their topmost tracery, 
 
 Like an old playmate, whose soft welcomings 
 Have less of ardour, because more of custom. 
 
 It is an English scene : and yet, methinks, 
 
 Did not yon cottage dim with azure curls 
 Of vapour the bright air, and that neat fence 
 Gird in the comfort of its quiet walls, 
 
 Or did not yon gay troop of carollers 
 Press on the passing breeze a native rhyme, 
 
 I might have deemed me in a foreign land. 
 
 For, as I gaze, old visions of delight 
 That died with th’ hour their parent, are re¬ 
 flected 
 
 From the mysterious mirror of the mind, 
 Mingling their forms with these, which I behold. 
 Nay, the old feelings in their several states 
 Come up before me, and entwine with these 
 Of younger birth in strangest unity. 
 
 And yet who bade them forth ? Who spake to 
 Time, 
 
 That he should strike the fetters from his slaves ? 
 Or hath he none ? Is the drear prison-house 
 To which, ’twould seem, our spiritual acts 
 
 5 
 
 \ 
 
POEMS 
 
 Pass one by one, a phantom—a dim mist 
 Enveloping our sphere of agency? 
 
 A guess, which we do hold for certainty ? 
 
 I do but mock me with these questionings. 
 Dark, dark, yea, ‘ irrecoverably dark , 5 
 Is the soul’s eye : yet how it strives and battles 
 Through th 5 impenetrable gloom to fix 
 That master light, the secret truth of things, 
 Which is the body of the infinite God. 
 
 ill 
 
 Deep firmament, which art a voice of God, 
 Speak in thy mystic accents, speak yet once : 
 For thou hast spoken, and in such clear tone, 
 That still the sweetness murmurs thro’ my soul. 
 Speak once again : with ardent orisons 
 Oft have I worshipped thee, and still I bow, 
 With reverence, and a feeling, like to hope, 
 Though something worn in th’ heart, by which 
 we pray. 
 
 Oh, since I last beheld thee in thy pomp 
 Right o’er the Siren city of the south, 
 
 Rude grief and harsher sin have dealt on me 
 The malice of their terrible impulses ; 
 
 And in a withering dream my soul has lived, 
 Far from the love that lieth on thy front, 
 
 As native there ; far from the poesies 
 Which are the effluence of thy holy calm. 
 
 Thou too art changed ; and that perennial light 
 
 6 
 
MEDITATIVE FRAGMENTS 
 
 Which there a limitless dominion held, 
 
 In fitful breaks doth shoot along yon mist, 
 
 And trembles at its^own dissimilar pureness. 
 
 Yet is thy bondage beautiful; the clouds 
 Drink beauty from the spirit of thy forms, 
 
 Yea, from the sacred orbits borrow grace, 
 
 To modulate their wayward phantasies. 
 
 But they are trifles : in thyself alone, 
 
 And the suffusion of thy starry light, 
 
 Firmly abide in their concordant joy, 
 
 Beauty, and music, and primeval love : 
 
 And thence may man learn an imperial truth, 
 That duty is the being of the soul, 
 
 And in that form alone can freedom move. 
 
 Such is your mighty language, lights of Heaven : 
 Oh, thrill me with its plenitude of sound, 
 
 Make me to feel, not talk of, sovranty, 
 
 And harmonise my spirit with my God ! 
 
 IV 
 
 I LAY within a little bowered nook, 
 
 With all green leaves, nothing but green around 
 me, 
 
 And through their delicate comminglings flashed 
 The broken light of a sunned waterfall— 
 
 Ah, water of such freshness, that it was 
 A marvel and an envy ! There I lay, 
 
 And felt the joy of life for many an hour. 
 
 But when the revel of sensations 
 
 7 
 
POEMS 
 
 Gave place to meditation and discourse, 
 
 I waywardly began to moralise 
 
 That little theatre with its watery scene 
 
 Into quaint semblances of higher things. 
 
 And first methought that twined foliage 
 Each leaf from each how different, yet all 
 stamped 
 
 With common hue of green, and similar form, 
 Pictured in little the great human world. 
 
 Sure we are leaves of one harmonious bower, 
 Fed by a sap, that never will be scant, 
 All-permeating, all-producing mind ; 
 
 And in our several parcellings of doom 
 We but fulfil the beauty of the whole. 
 
 Oh madness ! if a leaf should dare complain 
 Of its dark verdure, and aspire to be 
 The gayer, brighter thing that wantons near. 
 Then as I looked 
 
 On the pure presence of that tumbling stream, 
 Pure amid thwarting stones and staining earth, 
 Oh Heaven ! methought how hard it were to find 
 A human bosom of such stubborn truth, 
 
 Yet tempered so with yielding courtesy. 
 
 Then something rose within my heart to say— 
 
 ‘ Maidenly virtue is the beauteous face 
 Which this clear glass gives out so prettily : 
 Maidenly virtue, born of privacy, 
 
 Lapt in a still conclusion and reserve ; 
 
 Yet, when the envious winter-time is come 
 That kills the flaunting blossoms all arow, 
 
 8 
 
 t 
 
MEDITATIVE FRAGMENTS 
 
 If that perforce her steps must be abroad, 
 Keeps, like that stream, a queenly haviour, 
 
 Free from all taint of that she treads upon ; 
 
 And like those hurrying atoms in their fall, 
 
 A maiden’s thoughts may dare the eye of day 
 To look upon their sweet sincerity.’ 
 
 With that I struck into a different strain :— 
 
 ‘ Oh ye wild atomies, whose headlong life 
 Is but an impulse and coaction, 
 
 Whose course hath no beginning, no, nor end ; 
 Are ye not weary of your mazed whirls, 
 
 Your tortuous deviations, and the strife 
 Of your opposed bubblings ? Are there not 
 In you, as in all creatures, quiet moods, 
 
 Deep longings for a slumber and a calm ? 
 
 I never saw a bird was on the wing 
 But with a homeward joy he seem’d to fly 
 As knowing all his toils’ o’er-paid reward 
 Was with his chirpers in their little nest. 
 
 Pines have I seen on Jura’s misty height, 
 Swinging amid the whirl-blasts of the North, 
 And shaking their old heads with laugh pro¬ 
 longed, 
 
 As if they joyed to share the mighty life 
 Of elements—the freedom, and the stir. 
 
 But when the gale was past, and the rent air 
 Returned, and the piled clouds rolled out of view, 
 How still th’ interminable forest then ! 
 Soundless, but for the myriad forest flies, 
 
 That hum a busy little life away 
 
 9 
 
POEMS 
 
 P th’ amplitude of those unstartled glades. 
 
 Why what a rest was there !’ But ye, oh ye ! 
 Poor aliens from the fixed vicissitudes, 
 
 That alternate throughout created things, 
 Mocked with incessantness of motion, 
 
 Where shall ye find or changement or repose ? 5 
 So spake I in the fondness of my mood. 
 
 But thereat Fancy sounded me a voice 
 Borne upward from that sparkling company : 
 
 ‘ Repinement dwells not with the duteous free. 
 We do th’ Eternal Will; and in that doing, 
 Subject to no seducement or oppose, 
 
 We owe a privilege, that reasoning man 
 Hath no true touch of.’ At that reproof the 
 tears 
 
 Flushed to mine eyes ; and I arose, and walked 
 With a more earnest and reverent heart 
 Forth to the world, which God had made so 
 fair, 
 
 Mired now with trails of error and of sin. 
 
 v 
 
 ( Written in view of Ben Lomotid) 
 
 Mountain austere, and full of kinglihood ! 
 
 Forgive me if, a child of later earth, 
 
 I come to bid thee hail. My days are brief, 
 And like the mould that crumbles on thy verge, 
 A minute’s blast may shake me into dust 
 
 io 
 
MEDITATIVE FRAGMENTS 
 
 But thou art of the things that never fail. 
 
 Before the mystic garden, and the fruit 
 Sung by that Shepherd-Ruler vision-blest, 
 
 Thou wert; and from thy speculative height 
 Beheld’st the forms of other living souls. 
 
 Oh, if thy dread original were not sunk 
 I’ th’ mystery of universal birth, 
 
 What joy to know thy tale of mammoths huge, 
 And formings rare of the material prime, 
 
 And terrible craters, cold a cycle since ! 
 
 To know if then, as now, thy base was laved 
 With moss-dark waters of a placid lake ; 
 
 If then, as now, 
 
 In the dear sunlight of thy verdant sides 
 Spare islets of uncertain shadow lay. 
 
 VI 
 
 It is a thing of trial to the heart, 
 
 Of trial and of painful wonderment, 
 
 To walk within a dear companion’s voice 
 And hear him speak light words of one we hold 
 In the same compass of undoubting love. 
 
 ‘ How is it that his presence being one, 
 
 His language one, his customs uniform, 
 
 He bears not the like honour in the thought 
 Of this my friend, which he hath borne in mine. 
 It minds me of that famous Arab tale 
 (First to expand the struggling notions 
 Of my child-brain) in which the bold poor man 
 
 11 
 
POEMS 
 
 Was checked for lack of “ Open sesame.” 
 Seems it my comrade standeth at the door 
 Of that rich treasure-house, my lover’s heart, 
 Trying with keys untrue the rebel wards, 
 
 And all for lack of one unsounded word 
 To open out the sympathetic mind . 5 
 Thus might a thoughtful man be eloquent, 
 
 To whom that cross had chanced : yet not such 
 The colour, though the nature was the same, 
 
 Of the plain fact which won me to this muse. 
 One morn, while in * * * I sojourned, 
 
 That winsome lady sitting by my side, 
 
 Whom still these eyes in every place desire, 
 
 We looked in quiet unison of joy 
 
 On a bright summer scene. Aspiring trees 
 
 Circled us, each in several dignity, 
 
 Yet taking, like a band of senators, 
 
 Most grandeur from their congregated calm. 
 Afar between two leafy willow stems 
 Visibly flowed the sun-lit Clyde : more near 
 An infant sister frolicked on the lawn, 
 
 And in sweet accents of a far-off land, 
 
 Native to th’ utterer, called upon her nurse 
 To help her steps unto us : nor delayed 
 Those tones to rouse within our inmost hearts 
 Clear images of a delightful past. 
 
 Capri’s blue distance, Procida, and the light 
 Pillowed on Bairn’s wave : nor less the range 
 Of proud Albano, backed by Puglian snows, 
 And the green tract beside the Lateran 
 
 I 2 
 
MEDITATIVE FRAGMENTS 
 
 Rose in me, and a mist came o’er my eyes : 
 
 But I spoke freely of these things to her, 
 
 And for awhile we walked ’mid phantom shapes 
 In a fair universe of other days. 
 
 That converse passed away, and careless talk, 
 As is its use, brought divers fancies up, 
 
 Like bubbles dancing down their rivulet 
 A moment, then dilating into froth. 
 
 At last, a chance-direction being given, 
 
 I spake of Wordsworth, of that lofty mind, 
 Enthronised in a little monarchy 
 Of hills and waters, where no one thing is, 
 Lifeless, or pulsing fresh with mountain 
 strength, 
 
 But pays a tribute to his shaping spirit ! 
 Thereat the lady laughed—a gentle laugh ; 
 
 For all her moods were gentle : passing sweet 
 Are the rebukes of woman’s gentleness ! 
 
 But still she laughed, and asked me how long 
 since 
 
 I grew a dreamer, heretofore not wont 
 To conjure nothings to a mighty size, 
 
 Or see in Nature more than Nature owns. 
 
 Then taking up the volume, where it lay 
 Upon her table, of those hallowed songs, 
 
 I answered not but by their utterance. 
 
 And first the tales of quiet tenderness 
 (Sweet votive offerings of a loving life) 
 
 In which the feeling dignifies the fact, 
 
 I read ; then gradual rising as that sprite 
 
 13 
 
POEMS 
 
 Indian, by recent fabler sung so well,* 
 
 Clomb the slow column up to Seva’s throne, 
 
 I opened to her view his lofty thought 
 
 More and more struggling with its walls of clay, 
 
 And on all objects of our double nature, 
 
 Inward, and outward, shedding holier light, 
 
 Till disenthralled at length it soared amain 
 In the pure regions of th’ Eternal Same, 
 
 Where nothing meets the eye but only God. 
 Then spoke I of that intimate belief 
 In which he nursed his spirit aquiline, 
 
 How all the moving phantasies of things, 
 
 And all our visual notions, shadow-like, 
 
 Half hide, half show, that All-sustaining One, 
 Whose Bibles are the leaves of lowly flowers, 
 And the calm strength of mountains ; rippling 
 lakes, 
 
 And the irregular howl of stormful seas ; 
 
 Soft slumbering lights of even and of morn, 
 And the unfolding of the star-lit gloom ; 
 
 But whose chief presence, whose imparted self 
 Is in the silent virtues of the heart, 
 
 The deep, the human heart, which with the high 
 Still glorifies the humble, and delights 
 To seek in every show a soul of good. 
 
 Pausing from that high strain I looked to her 
 For sympathy, for my full heart was up 
 And I would fain have felt another’s breast 
 
 * See Southey’s Kehama. 
 
MEDITATIVE FRAGMENTS 
 
 Mix its quick heavings with my own : indeed 
 The lady laughed not now, nor breathed re¬ 
 proach, 
 
 Yet there was chillness in her calm approve, 
 Which with my kindled temper suited not. 
 
 Oh ! there is union, and a tie of blood 
 With those who speak unto the general mind, 
 Poets and sages ! Their high privilege 
 Bids them eschew succession’s changefulness, 
 And, like eternals, equal influence 
 Shed on all times and places. I would be 
 A poet, were’t but for this linked delight, 
 
 This consciousness of noble brotherhood, 
 Whose joy no heaps of earth can bury up, 
 
 No worldly venture minish or destroy, 
 
 For it is higher, than to be personal! 
 
 Some minutes passed me by in dubious maze 
 Of meditation lingering painfully, 
 
 But then a calm grew on me, and clear faith 
 (So clear that I did marvel how before 
 I came not to the level of that truth) 
 
 That different halts, in Life’s sad pilgrimage, 
 With different minstrels charm the journeying 
 soul. 
 
 Not in our early love’s idolatry, 
 
 Not in our first ambition’s flush of hope, 
 
 Not while the pulse beats high within our veins, 
 Fix we our soul on beautiful regrets, 
 
 Or strive to build the philosophic mind. 
 
 But when our feelings coil upon themselves 
 
 15 
 
y > 
 
 POEMS 
 
 At time’s rude pressure ; when the heart grows 
 dry, 
 
 And burning with immedicable thirst, 
 
 As though a plague-spot seared it, while the 
 brain 
 
 Fevers with cogitations void of love, 
 
 When this change comes, as come it will to 
 most, 
 
 It is a blessed Gocl-given aid to list 
 Some master’s voice, speaking fiom out those 
 depths 
 
 Of reason that do border on the source 
 Of pure emotion and of generous act. 
 
 It may be that this motive swayed in me, 
 
 And thinking so that day I prayed that she 
 Whose face, like an unruffled mountain tarn, 
 Smiled on me till its innocent joy grew mine, 
 Might ne’er experience any change of mood 
 So dearly bought by griefs habitual ; 
 
 Much rather, if no softer path be found 
 To bring our steps together happily, 
 
 Serve the bright Muses at a separate shrine. 
 
 1829. 
 
 f 
 
 16 
 
TIMBUCTOO 
 
 Be Yarrow stream unseen, unknown ! 
 
 It must, or we shall rue it: 
 
 We have a vision of our own ; 
 
 Ah ! why should we undo it? 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 There was a land, which, far from human sight, 
 Old Ocean compassed with his numerous 
 waves, 
 
 In the lone West. Tenacious of her right, 
 Imagination decked those unknown caves, 
 
 And vacant forests, and clear peaks of ice 
 With a transcendent beauty ; that which saves 
 From the world’s blight our primal sympathies, 
 Still in man’s heart, as some familiar shrine, 
 Feeding the tremulous lamp of love that never 
 dies. 
 
 Poets have loved that land, and dared to twine 
 Round its existence memories of old time, 
 When the good reigned ; and none in grief 
 did pine. 
 
 Sages, and all who owned the might sublime 
 To impress their thought upon the face of 
 things, 
 
 And teach a nation’s spirit how to climb, 
 
 B 17 
 
POEMS 
 
 Spake of long-lost Atlantis,* when the springs 
 Of clear Ilissus or the Tusculan bower 
 Were welcoming the pure rest which Wisdom 
 brings 
 
 To her elect, the marvellous calm of power. 
 
 Oft, too, some maiden, garlanding her brow 
 With Baian roses, at eve’s mystic hour, 
 
 Has gazed on the sun’s path, as he sank low, 
 
 I’ th’ awful main, behind Inarime ; t 
 And with clasped hands, and gleaming eye, 
 1 Shalt thou, 
 
 First-born of light, endure in the flat sea 
 Such intermission of thy life intense ? 
 
 Thou lordly one, is there no home for thee ? ’ 
 A youth took up the voice : ‘ Thou speedest 
 hence, 
 
 Beautiful orb, but not to death or sleep, 
 
 That feel we ; worlds invisible to sense, 
 Whose course is pure, where eyes forget to 
 weep, 
 
 And th’ earthly sisterhood of sorrow and love 
 Some god putteth asunder, these shall keep 
 
 * The legend of the lost continent Atlantis is so well known, 
 and its derivation from an early knowledge of America seems 
 so natural and probable, that, had not this poem been pretty 
 generally censured for its obscurity, I should have thought a 
 note on the subject superfluous. In the beautiful opening of 
 the Timaeus , Plato has alluded to a form of this legend highly 
 creditable to the Athenians, which will serve to show the notions 
 entertained of the extent and relative importance of Atlantis, 
 f Inarime, now the island of Ischia. 
 
 j8 
 
TIMBUCTOO 
 
 Thy state imperial now: there shalt thou move 
 Fresh hearts with warmth and joyance to 
 rebound, 
 
 By many a musical stream and solemn 
 grove.’ 
 
 Years lapsed in silence, and that holy ground 
 Was still an Eden, shut from sight, and few 
 Brave souls in its idea solace found. 
 
 In the last days a man arose, who knew* 
 
 That ancient legend from his infancy. 
 
 Yea, visions on that child’s emmarvailed view 
 Had flashed intuitive science ; and his glee 
 Was lofty as his pensiveness, for both 
 Wore the bright colours of the thing to be ! 
 But when his prime of life was come, the wrath 
 Of the cold world fell on him ; it did thrill 
 His inmost self, but never quenched his faith. 
 
 * These lines were suggested to me by the following passage 
 in Mr. Coleridge’s Friend: 1 It cannot be deemed alien from 
 the purposes of this disquisition, if we are anxious to attract 
 the attention of our readers to the importance of this speculative 
 meditation, even for the worldly interests of mankind ; and to 
 that concurrence of nature and historic event with the great 
 revolutionary movements of individual genius, of which so many 
 instances occur in the study of history, how nature (why should 
 we hesitate in saying, that which in nature itself is more than 
 nature ?) seems to come forward in order to meet, to aid, and 
 to reward every idea excited by a contemplation of her methods 
 in the spirit of a filial care, and with the humility of love.’— 
 Friend, vol. iii. p. 190. Mr. Coleridge proceeds to illustrate 
 this by the very example of Columbus, and quotes some highly 
 beautiful and applicable verses of Chiabrera. 
 
 l 9 
 
POEMS 
 
 Still to that faith he added search, and still, 
 
 As fevering with fond love of th’ unknown 
 shore, 
 
 From learning’s fount he strove his thirst to 
 fill. 
 
 But always Nature seemed to meet the power 
 Of his high mind, to aid, and to reward 
 His reverent hope with her sublimest lore. 
 
 Each sentiment that burned ; each falsehood 
 warred 
 
 Against and slain ; each novel truth in- 
 wrought— 
 
 What were they, but the living lamps that 
 starred 
 
 His transit o’er the tremulous gloom of Thought ? 
 More, and now more, their gathered brilliancy 
 On the one master Notion sending out, 
 
 Which brooded ever o’er the passionate sea 
 Of his deep soul; but ah ! too dimly seen, 
 And formless in its own immensity ! 
 
 Last came the joy, when that phantasmal scene 
 Lay in full glory round his outward sense ; 
 And who had scorned before in hatred keen 
 
 Refuged their baseness now : for no pretence 
 Could wean their souls from awe ; they dared 
 not doubt 
 
 That with them walked on earth a spirit in¬ 
 tense. 
 
 So others trod his path : and much was wrought 
 In the new land, that made the angels weep. 
 
 20 
 
TIMBUCTOO 
 
 That innocent blood—it was not shed for 
 nought! 
 
 My God ! it is an hour of dread, when leap 
 Like a fire-fountain forth the energies 
 Of Guilt, and desolate the poor man’s sleep. 
 
 Yet not alone for torturing agonies, 
 
 Though meriting most, nor all that storm of 
 Woe 
 
 Which did entempest their pure fulgent skies, 
 
 Shall the deep curse of ages cling, and grow 
 To the foul names of those who did the 
 deed, 
 
 The lusters for the gold of Mexico ! 
 
 Mute are th’ ancestral voices we did heed, 
 
 The tones of superhuman melody : 
 
 And the 1 veiled maid ; * is vanished, who did 
 feed 
 
 * These lines contain an allusion to that magnificent passage 
 in Mr. Shelley’s A lastor , where he describes ‘ the spirit of sweet 
 Human Love’ descending in vision on the slumbers of the 
 wandering poet. How far I have a right to transfer the ‘ veiled 
 maid ’ to my own Poem, where she must stand for the embodi¬ 
 ment of that love for the unseen, that voluntary concentration 
 of our vague ideas of the Beauty that ottght to be, on some one 
 spot, or country yet undiscovered, as in the instances I have 
 chosen, on America or the African city, this the critics, if I 
 have any, may determine. I shall, however, be content to 
 have trespassed against the commandments of Art, if I should 
 have called any one’s attention to that wonderful Poem, which 
 cannot long remain in its present condition of neglect, but which, 
 when it shall have emerged into the light, its inheritance, will 
 produce wonder and enthusiastic delight in thousands, who will 
 
 21 
 
POEMS 
 
 By converse high the faith of liberty 
 
 In young unwithered hearts, and Virtue, and 
 Truth, 
 
 And every thing that makes us joy to Be ! 
 
 Lo ! there hath past away a glory of Youth 
 From this our world ; and all is common now, 
 And sense doth tyrannise o’er Love and Ruth. 
 What, is Hope dead ? and gaze we her pale brow, 
 Like the cold statues round a Roman’s bier, 
 Then tearless travel on through tracts of 
 human woe ? 
 
 No ! there is one, one ray that lingers here, 
 
 To battle with the world’s o’ershadowing form, 
 Like the last firefly of a Tuscan year, 
 
 learn, as the work, like every perfect one, grows upon them, 
 that the deep harmonies and glorious imaginations in which 
 it is clothed, are not more true than the great moral idea which 
 is its permeating life. The lines alluded to are these :— 
 
 ‘The poet wandering on, through Arabie 
 And Persia, and the wild Carmanian waste, 
 
 And o’er the aerial mountains which pour down 
 Indus and Oxus from their icy caves, 
 
 In joy and exultation held his way ; 
 
 Till in the vale of Cachmire, far within 
 
 Its loneliest dell, where odorous plants entwine 
 
 Beneath the hollow rocks a natural bower, 
 
 Beside a sparkling rivulet he stretched 
 His languid limbs. A vision on his sleep 
 There came, a dream of hopes that never yet 
 Had flushed his cheek. He dreamed a veiled maid 
 Sate near him, talking in low solemn tones. 
 
 Her voice was like the voice of his own soul, 
 
 Heard in the calm of thought: its music long, 
 
 22 
 
TIMBUCTOO 
 
 Or dying flashes of a noble storm. 
 
 Beyond the clime of Tripoly, and beyond 
 Bahr Abiad, where the lone peaks, unconform 
 To other hills, and with rare foliage crowned, 
 Hold converse with the Moon, a City stands 
 Which yet no mortal guest hath ever found. 
 Around it stretch away the level sands 
 Into the silence : pausing in his course, 
 
 The ostrich kens it from his subject lands. 
 Here with faint longings and a subdued force, 
 Once more was sought th’ ideal aliment 
 Of Man’s most subtle being, the prime source 
 Of all his blessings : here might still be blent 
 Whate’er of heavenly beauty in form or sound, 
 Illumes the Poet’s heart with ravishment. 
 
 Like woven sounds of streams and breezes, held 
 His inmost sense suspended in its web 
 Of many-coloured woof and shifting hues. 
 Knowledge and Truth and Virtue were her theme, 
 And lofty hopes of divine liberty, 
 
 Thoughts the most dear to him, and poesy, 
 
 Herself a poet. Soon the solemn mood 
 Of her pure mind kindled through all her frame 
 A permeating fire : wild numbers then 
 She raised with voice stifled with tremulous sobs 
 Subdued by its own pathos: her fair hands 
 Were bare alone, sweeping from some strange harp 
 Strange symphony, and in her branching veins 
 The eloquent blood told an ineffable tale : 
 
 The beating of her heart was heard to fill 
 The pauses of her music, and her breath 
 Tumultuously accorded with those fits 
 Of intermitted song.’ 
 
 2 3 
 
I 
 
 POEMS 
 
 Thou fairy City, which the desert mound 
 Encompasseth, thou alien from the mass 
 Of human guilt, I would not wish thee found ! 
 Perchance thou art too pure, and dost surpass 
 Too far amid th’ Ideas ranged high 
 In the Eternal Reason’s perfectness, 
 
 To our deject, and most imbased eye 
 To look unharmed on thine integrity, 
 
 Symbol of Love, and Truth, and all that can¬ 
 not die. 
 
 Thy palaces and pleasure-domes to me 
 
 Are matter of strange thought: for sure thou 
 art 
 
 A splendour in the wild : and aye to thee 
 Did visible guardians of the Earth’s great heart 
 Bring their choice tributes, culled from many 
 a mine, 
 
 Diamond, and jasper, porphyry, and the art 
 Of figured chrysolite : nor silver shine 
 
 There wanted, nor the mightier power of gold: 
 So wert thou reared of yore, City divine. 
 
 And who are they of blisses manifold, 
 
 That dwell within thee ? Spirits of delight, 
 
 It may be spirits whose pure thoughts enfold, 
 In eminence of Being, all the light 
 That interpenetrates this mighty All, 
 
 And doth endure in its own beauty’s right. 
 And oh ! the vision were majestical 
 
 To them, indeed, of column, and of spire, 
 
 And hanging garden, and hoar waterfall ! 
 
 24 
 
TIMBUCTOO 
 
 For we, poor prisoners of this earthy mire, 
 
 See little ; they the essence and the law 
 Robing each thing in its peculiar tire. 
 
 Yet moments have been, when in thought I saw 
 That city rise upon me from the void, 
 Populous with men : and phantasy would 
 draw 
 
 Such portraiture of life, that I have joyed 
 In over-measure to behold her work, 
 
 Rich with the myriad charms, by evil un¬ 
 alloyed. 
 
 Methought I saw a nation, which did hark 
 To Justice, and to Truth: their ways were 
 strait, 
 
 And the dread shadow, Tyranny, did lurk 
 Nowhere about them : not to scorn, or hate 
 A living thing was their sweet nature’s bond: 
 So every soul moved free in kingly state. 
 Suffering they had (nor else were virtue found 
 In these our pilgrim spirits): gently still 
 And as from cause external came the wound, 
 Not like a gangrene of soul-festering ill, 
 
 To taint the springs of life, and undermine 
 The holy strength of their majestic Will. 
 Methought I saw a face whose every line 
 Wore the pale cast of Thought; * a good, old 
 man, 
 
 * These characters are of course purely ideal, and meant to 
 show, by way of particular diagram, that right temperament 
 
 25 
 
POEMS 
 
 Most eloquent, who spake of things divine. 
 Around him youths were gathered, who did scan 
 His countenance so grand and mild; and 
 drank 
 
 The sweet, sad tones of Wisdom, which outran 
 The life-blood, coursing to the heart, and sank 
 Inward from thought to thought, till they 
 abode 
 
 ’Mid Being’s dim foundations, rank by rank 
 With those transcendent truths, arrayed by God 
 In linked armour for untiring fight, 
 
 Whose victory is, where time hath never 
 trod. 
 
 Methought I saw a maiden in the light 
 
 Of beauty musing near an amaranth bower, 
 Herself a lordly blossom. Past delight 
 Was fused in actual sorrow by the power 
 Of mightiest Love upon her delicate cheek ; 
 And magical was her wailing at that hour. 
 
 For aye with passionate sobs she mingled meek 
 Smiles of severe content: as though she 
 raised 
 
 To Him her inmost heart, who shields the 
 weak. 
 
 of the intellect and the heart which I have assigned to this 
 favoured nation. I cannot, however, resist the pleasure of 
 declaring that, in the composition of the lines, ‘ Methought I 
 saw,’ etc., my thoughts dwelt almost involuntarily on those 
 few conversations which it is my delight to have held with that 
 ‘ good old man, most eloquent,’ Samuel Coleridge. 
 
 26 
 
TIMBUCTOO 
 
 She wept not long in solitude : I gazed, 
 
 Till women, and sweet children came, and 
 took 
 
 Her hand, and uttered meaning words, and 
 praised 
 
 The absent one with eyes, which as a book 
 
 Revealed the workings of the heart sincere. 
 
 In sooth it was a glorious thing to look 
 Upon that interchange of smile and tear ! 
 
 But when the mourner turned, in innocent 
 grace 
 
 Lifting that earnest eye and forehead clear, 
 Oh then, methought, God triumphed in her face ! 
 
 But these are dreams : though ministrant on 
 good, 
 
 Dreams are they ; and the Night of things 
 their place. 
 
 So be it ever ! Ever may the mood 
 
 £ In which the affections gently lead us on 5 * 
 
 Be as thy sphere of visible life. The crowd, 
 The turmoil, and the countenances wan 
 
 Of slaves, the Power-inchanted, thou shalt 
 flee, 
 
 And by the gentle heart be seen, and loved 
 alone. 
 
 June, 1829. 
 
 * Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey. 
 
 2 7 
 
S O N E T T O 
 
 Alla Statua , CJi e a Firenze di Lorenzo 
 Duca D' Urhino, Scolta da Michaelangiolo. 
 
 Deh, chi se’ tu, ch’ in si superba pietra 
 Guardi, e t’ accigli, piu che creatura ? 
 
 La maesta della fronte alta, e pura, 
 
 L’occhio, ch’ appena il duro marmo arretra 
 L’agevol man, da cui bel velo impetra 
 La mossa de pensier profonda, e scura, 
 
 Dicon : ‘ Questi e Lorenzo, e se pur dura 
 Suo nome ancor, questo il Destino spetra’ 
 Tosca magion—ahi vituperio ed onta 
 Della nobil citta, che l’Arno infiora, 
 
 Qual danno fe de vostre palle il suono ! 
 
 Pure innanzi a beltade ira tramonta : 
 
 E Fiorenza, ch’ 1 giogo ange, e scolora, 
 
 Dice ammirando, c Oime! quas’ io perclono !’ 
 
 Rome, December, 1827. 
 
 28 
 
S O N E T T O 
 
 Genova bella, a cui 1’ altiera voce* 
 
 Di costanza e virtu feo grande onore, 
 Allorche rossegio quel tristo albore, 
 
 Pien di spaventi, e gridi, e guasto atroce 
 E’l fiume ostil, che mai non mise foce 
 Nel dolce suol, che della terra e fiore, 
 Piagava si, ma non vincea quel core. 
 
 Or che ti resta ? Or dov’ e la feroce 
 Antica rnente ? E Lei—tra pene, e guai 
 Ldnvitta Liberta—qual rupe or serba ? 
 Forse (oh pensier !) qui volge il passo omai, 
 E freme, e tace ; o con dolcezza acerba 
 Dice, oscurando del bel viso i rai, 
 
 1 Com’ e caduta la citta superba ! 5 
 
 December, 1827. 
 
 *Alluding to the Sonnet of Passerini, beginning ‘ Genova mia.’ 
 It is in the Componimen to Lirici of Mathias. 
 
 A 
 
 2 9 
 
TO AN ENGLISH LADY 
 
 (‘ Tra bella e buona non so qual fosse piu’) 
 
 Who not having fulfilled her promise to meet 
 me at a Roman festival, sent me a 
 note requesting pardon. 
 
 Ahi vera donna ! or dal tessuto inganno 
 Riconosco, chi sei: la gran vaghezza 
 Ch’ angelica mi parve, or fugge, e spezza 
 Quel caro laccio di soave affanno. 
 
 Collo, ch’ i neri anelli un marmo fanno, 
 
 Trecce, che piu di se l’anima apprezza, 
 
 E voi, begli occhi di fatal dolcezza, 
 
 Che feci io mai per meritar tal danno ? 
 
 Tu pur, notte spietata, or vieni, e dille 
 (Che senza testimon nol crederia) 
 
 Com’ io guardava a mille visi, e mille, 
 
 E dicea, sospirando, in fioco suono, 
 
 4 Mille non sono, quel ch’ una saria ’— 
 
 Va, traditrice, e non sperar perdono. 
 
 Rome, Jan. 1828. 
 
 3 ° 
 
SONETTO 
 
 (,Scritto sul Lago d’Albano) 
 
 SOAVE venticel ch’ intorno spiri, 
 
 Or cogli elci scherzando, or sulle sponde 
 Destando il mormorar di lucid 5 onde, 
 Deh non tardar, non piu frenar tuoi giri. 
 
 Vattene innanzi, e la 5 ve giuso ammiri 
 Un fiorellin, che dall 5 amena fronde 
 Gioia, e dolcezza in ogni seno infonde, 
 China le piume, e dille i miei sospiri. 
 
 Quanta invidia ti porto ! In sul bel volto 
 Lente isvolazzi, e bad quel natio 
 Aureo sorriso, cui veder nde tolto ! 
 
 Fossi pur teco ! Ahi quale tremolio 
 A1 cor darebbe il trastullarmi avvolto 
 Ne 5 cari lacci, e il susurrar ‘ Sonio ! 5 
 
 March, 1828. 
 
 3 1 
 
S O N E T T O 
 
 ON A LADY SUFFERING SEVERE ILLNESS 
 (,Imitated from the English ) 
 
 Pi ETA ! Pieth ! gran Dio ! deh, volgi omai 
 L’impietosito sguardo : il bel sembiante 
 Le luci giovanette, e vaghe, e sante, 
 
 Non mertan, no, soffrir dell’ ernpio i guai. 
 
 ‘ Mortal, mortal, che delirando vai,’ 
 
 Ripose quel del trono sfolgorante, 
 
 £ Ve’ com’ ogni dolor par che si schiante 
 £ A’ puri di gran Fede augusti rai.’ 
 
 £ Alma beata e questa ! E se pur l’ange 
 £ Nel fior degli anni suoi cotanta pena, 
 
 To la sostengo ; e questa man la mena ! ’ 
 
 Cosi lo spirto umil, cui nulla frange, 
 
 (O speme di virtu salda, e serena !) 
 
 Beve l’amaro nappo, e mai non piange. 
 
 Rome, April , 1828. 
 
 32 
 
SONETTO 
 
 ALLA SIRENA, NUME AVITO DI NAPOLI 
 (Scritto in Tirolo ) 
 
 Donna di gran poter, ch J il colle adorno 
 Molci regina, u’ sospirar non lice, 
 
 Fuori ch’ ai clolci lai, che d’ogni intorno 
 S’ odon nell’ ombra de’ gran vati altrice, 
 Deh vieni, oh tu si bella—e senza scorno 
 (Pieta per fermo a niuna dea disdice) 
 Favellami di lei, ch’il tuo soggiorno 
 Par faccia piu ridente, e piu felice. 
 Misero, che ragiono ? il suon risponde 
 D’Euro ululando tra l’Alpina foglia ; 
 
 Tu pur ti stai lontana—e fai gran senno 
 Che se’l tuo vol piegassi ad ogni cenno 
 Ch’ ad or, ad or, manda l’atroce doglia, 
 Lungi da lei verresti a torbid’ onde ! 
 
 .May, 1828. 
 
 C 
 
 33 
 
SONNET 
 
 ON THE PICTURE OF THE THREE FATES IN 
 THE PALAZZO PITTI AT FLORENCE, USU¬ 
 ALLY ASCRIBED TO MICHELANGIOLO 
 
 None but a Tuscan hand could fix ye here 
 In rigidness of sober colouring. 
 
 Pale are ye, mighty Triad, not with fear, 
 
 But the most awful knowledge, that the spring 
 Is in you of all birth, and act, and sense. 
 
 I sorrow to behold ye : pain is blent 
 With your aloof and loveless permanence, 
 And your high princedom seems a punish¬ 
 ment. 
 
 The cunning limner could not personate 
 
 Your blind control, save in th 5 aspect of grief; 
 So does the thought repugn of sovran Fate. 
 Let him gaze here who trusts not in the love 
 Toward which all being solemnly doth move : 
 More this grand sadness tells, than forms of 
 fairest life. 
 
 34 
 
TO MALEK 
 
 Malek, the counsel of thine amity 
 
 I slight not, kindly tendered, but rejoice 
 To hear or praise or censure from thy voice, 
 Both for thy sake, and hers, whose spirit in 
 thee 
 
 Indwelleth ever, starlike Poesy ! 
 
 Woe, if I pass the temple of her choice 
 With reckless step, or th’ unexpressive joys 
 Disdain of Fancy, pure to song, and free ! 
 
 Yet deem not thou thy friend of early days 
 So lost to high emprize : trust me his soul 
 Sleeps not the dreamless sleep, which thou 
 art fearing. 
 
 No ! still on lights the love of noble praise 
 His pilgrim bark, like a clear star appearing: 
 And oh, how bright that beam, where storm- 
 waves roll ! 
 
 June , 1828. 
 
 35 
 
SONNET 
 
 Oh blessing and delight of my young heart, 
 Maiden, who was so lovely and so pure, 
 
 I know not in what region now thou art, 
 
 Or whom thy gentle eyes in joy assure. 
 
 Not the old hills on which we gazed together, 
 Not the old faces which we both did love, 
 Not the old books, whence knowledge we did 
 gather, 
 
 Not these, but others now thy fancies move. 
 
 I would I knew thy present hopes and fears, 
 
 All thy companions, with their pleasant talk, 
 And the clear aspect which thy dwelling 
 wears : 
 
 So, though in body absent, I might walk 
 
 With thee in thought and feeling, till thy 
 mood 
 
 Did sanctify mine own to peerless good. 
 
 April, 1829. 
 
 3 6 
 
SONNET 
 
 (Written in Edinburgh ) 
 
 Even thus, methinks, a city reared should be ! 
 Yea, an imperial city, that might hold 
 Five times a hundred noble towns in fee, 
 
 And either with their might of Babel old, 
 
 Or the rich Roman pomp of empery 
 
 Might stand compare, highest in arts en¬ 
 roll’d, 
 
 Highest in arms; brave tenement for the free, 
 Who never crouch to thrones, or sin for gold. 
 Thus should her towers be raised—with vicinage 
 Of clear bold hills, that curve her very streets, 
 As if to vindicate ’mid choicest seats 
 Of art, abiding Nature’s majesty, 
 
 And the broad sea beyond, in calm or rage 
 Chainless alike, and teaching Liberty. 
 
 July , 1829. 
 
 37 
 
TO AN ADMIRED LADY 
 
 When thou art dreaming, at the time of night 
 That dreams have deepest truth, comes not the 
 form 
 
 Of th 5 ancient poet near thee ? Streams not light 
 From his immortal presence, chasing harm 
 From thy pure pillow, and each nocturnal sprite 
 Freighting with happy fancies to thy soul ? 
 
 Says he not, ‘ Surely, maiden, my control 
 Shall be upon thee, for thy soul is dight 
 In a most clear majestic tenderness, 
 
 And natural art springs freshly from its deeps. 5 
 Then as he clasps his reverend palms to bless 
 Out from the dark a gentle family leaps, 
 
 Juliet and Imogen, with many a fere, 
 Acclaiming all, ‘ Welcome, our sister dear ! 5 
 
 38 
 
STANZAS 
 
 (Written after visiting Melrose Abbey in 
 company of Sir Walter Scott) 
 
 I 
 
 I lived an hour in fair Melrose ; 
 
 It was not when ‘ the pale moonlight 5 
 Its magnifying charm bestows ; 
 
 Yet deem I that I ‘viewed it right. 5 
 The wind-swept shadows fast careered, 
 
 Like living things that joyed or feared, 
 Adown the sunny Eildon Hill, 
 
 And the sweet winding Tweed the distance 
 crowned well. 
 
 II 
 
 I inly laughed to see that scene 
 Wear such a countenance of youth, 
 
 Though many an age those hills were green, 
 And yonder river glided smooth, 
 
 Ere in these now disjointed walls, 
 
 The Mother Church held festivals, 
 
 And full-voiced anthemings the while 
 Swelled from the choir, and lingered down the 
 echoing aisle. 
 
 39 
 
POEMS 
 
 hi 
 
 I coveted that Abbey’s doom ; 
 
 For if I thought the early flowers 
 Of our affection may not bloom, 
 
 Like those green hills, through countless 
 hours, 
 
 Grant me at least a tardy waning, 
 
 Some pleasure still in age’s paining ; 
 
 Though lines and forms must fade away, 
 
 Still may old Beauty share the empire of Decay ! 
 
 u IV 
 
 But looking toward the grassy mound 
 Where calm the Douglas chieftains lie, 
 
 Who, living, quiet never found, 
 
 I straightway learnt a lesson high : 
 
 For there an old man sat serene, 
 
 And well I knew that thoughtful mien 
 Of him whose early lyre had thrown 
 Over these mould’ring walls the magic of its 
 tone. 
 
 V 
 
 Then ceased I from my envying state, 
 
 And knew that aweless intellect 
 Hath power upon the ways of fate, 
 
 And works through time and space uncheckt. 
 That minstrel of old chivalry 
 In the cold grave must come to be, 
 
 40 
 
 
STANZAS 
 
 But his transmitted thoughts have part 
 In the collective mind, and never shall depart. 
 
 VI 
 
 It was a comfort, too, to see 
 Those dogs that from him ne’er would rove, 
 And always eyed him rev’rently, 
 
 With glances of depending love. 
 
 They know not of that eminence 
 Which marks him to my reasoning sense ; 
 
 They know but that he is a man, 
 
 And still to them is kind, and glads them all he 
 can. 
 
 VII 
 
 And hence their quiet looks confiding, 
 
 Hence grateful instincts seated deep, 
 
 By whose strong bond, were ill betiding, 
 
 They’d risk their own his life to keep. 
 
 What joy to watch in lower creature 
 Such dawning of a moral nature, 
 
 And how (the rule all things obey) 
 
 They look to a higher mind to be their law and 
 stay ! 
 
 August , 1829. 
 
 41 
 
STANZAS 
 
 ( Written at Caudebcc in Normandy ) 
 
 I 
 
 WHEN life is crazy in my limbs, 
 
 And hope is gone astray, 
 
 And in my soul’s December fade 
 The love-thoughts of its May, 
 
 One spot of earth is left to me 
 Will warm my heart again ; 
 
 ’Tis Caudebec and Mailleraie 
 On the pleasant banks of Seine. 
 
 II 
 
 The dark wood’s crownal on the hill, 
 The river curving bright, 
 
 The graceful barks that rest, or play, 
 Pure creatures of delight— 
 
 Oh, these are shows by nature given 
 To warm old hearts again, 
 
 At Caudebec and Mailleraie 
 On the pleasant banks of Seine. 
 
 42 
 
STANZAS 
 
 hi 
 
 The Tuscan’s land, I loved it well, 
 And the Switzer’s clime of snow, 
 And many a bliss me there befell 
 I never more can know; 
 
 But for quiet joy of nature’s own 
 To warm the heart again, 
 
 Give me Caudebec and Mailleraie 
 On the pleasant banks of Seine. 
 
 June, 1829. 
 
 43 
 
A FAREWELL TO GLENARBACH * 
 
 i 
 
 When grief is felt along the blood, 
 
 And checks the breath with sighs unsought, 
 
 ’Tis then that Memory’s power is wooed 
 To sooth by ancient forms of thought. 
 
 It is not much, yet in that day 
 Will seem a gladsome wakening ; 
 
 And such to me, in joy’s decay, 
 
 The memory of the Roebuck Glen. 
 
 II 
 
 Nor less, when fancies have their bent, 
 
 And eager passion sweeps the mind ; 
 
 ’Twill bless to catch a calm content 
 From happy moment far behind. 
 
 Oh, it is of a heavenly brood 
 That chast’ning recollection ! 
 
 And such to me, in joyous mood. 
 
 The memory of the Roebuck Glen. 
 
 * The Glen of the Roebuck. 
 
 44 
 
A FAREWELL TO GLENARBACH 
 
 hi 
 
 I grieve to quit this lime-tree walk, 
 
 The Clyde, the Leven’s milder blue 
 To lose ; yon craigs that nest the hawk 
 Will soar no longer in my view. 
 
 Yet of themselves small power to move 
 Have they : their light’s a borrowed thing 
 Won from her eyes, for whom I love 
 The memory of the Roebuck Glen. 
 
 IV 
 
 Oh, dear to nature, not in vain 
 
 The mountain winds have breathed on thee ! 
 Mild virtues of a noble strain, 
 
 And beauty making pure and free, 
 
 Pass to thee from the silent hills : 
 
 And hence, where’er thy sojourning, 
 
 Thine eye with gentle weeping fills 
 At memory of the Roebuck Glen. 
 
 % -N 
 
 V 
 
 Thou speedest to the sunny shore, 
 
 Where first thy presence on me shone ; 
 
 Alas ! I know not whether more 
 
 These eyes shall claim thee as their own : 
 But should a kindly star prevail, 
 
 And should we meet far hence again, 
 
 How sweet in other lands to hail 
 The memory of the Roebuck Glen. 
 
 45 
 
POEMS 
 
 VI 
 
 Oh, when the thought comes o’er my heart 
 Of happy meetings yet to be, 
 
 The very feeling that thou art 
 Is deep as that of life to me ; 
 
 Yet should sad instinct in my breast 
 Speak true, and darker chance obtain, 
 Bless with one tear my final rest, 
 
 One memory from the Roebuck Glen. 
 
 July , 1829. 
 
 46 
 
 I 
 
STANZAS 
 
 (Written on the Banks of the Tay) 
 
 I 
 
 I SAW a child upon a Highland moor, 
 
 Playing with heath-flowers in her gamesome 
 mood, 
 
 And singing snatches wild of Gaelic lore, 
 
 That thrilled like witch-notes my susceptive 
 blood. 
 
 I spake a Southern word, but not the more 
 Did she regard or move from where she stood. 
 
 It seemed the business of her life to play 
 
 With euphrasies and bluebells day by day. 
 
 II 
 
 Then my first thought was of the joy to grow 
 With her, and like her, as a mountain plant, 
 
 That to one spot attached doth bud and blow, 
 Then, in the rains of autumn, leaves to vaunt 
 
 Its fragrance to the air, and sinks, till low 
 Winter consign it, like a satiate want, 
 
 To the earth’s endearment, who will fondly 
 nourish 
 
 The loosed substance, until spring reflourish 
 
 47 
 
POEMS 
 
 hi 
 
 ‘To be thy comrade, and thy brother, maiden, 
 To chaunt with thee the antique song I 
 hear, 
 
 Joying the joy that looks not toward its fading, 
 The sweet philosophy of young life’s cheer ! 
 We should be like two bees with honey laden, 
 Or two blithe butterflies a rose-tree near ! ’— 
 So I went dreaming how to play a child 
 Once more with her who ’side me sang and 
 smiled. 
 
 IV 
 
 Then a stern knowledge woke along my soul, 
 And sudden I was sadly made aware 
 That childish joy is now a folded scroll, 
 
 And new ordainments have their several fair : 
 When evening lights press the ripe greening 
 knoll, 
 
 True heart will never wish the morning there : 
 Where arched boughs enlace the golden light, 
 Did ever poet pray for franchised sight. 
 
 V 
 
 When we were children, we did sigh to reach 
 The eminence of a man ; yet in our thought, 
 And in the prattled fancies of our speech, 
 
 It was a baby-man we fashioned out ; 
 
 48 
 
 t 
 
STANZAS 
 
 And now that childhood seems the only leech 
 For all the heartaches of a rough world 
 caught, 
 
 Sooth is, we wish to be a twofold thing, 
 
 And keep our present self to watch within. 
 
 Jtily, 1829. 
 
 
 D 
 
 49 
 
STANZAS 
 
 ON MY SISTER’S BIRTHDAY 
 ( Written at Callander, ?iear Loch Katrine ) 
 
 I 
 
 Fair fall the day ! ’Tis thirteen years 
 Since on this day was Ellen born, 
 
 And shed the dark world’s herald tears 
 On such another summer’s morn. 
 
 I may not hear her laughter’s flow, 
 
 Nor watch the smile upon her face, 
 
 But in my heart I surely know 
 
 There’s joy within her dwelling-place. 
 
 II 
 
 Oh, at the age of fair thirteen 
 A birthday is a thing of power : 
 
 The meadows wear a livelier green, 
 
 Be it a time of sun, or shower ; 
 
 We scarce believe the robin’s note 
 Unborrowed from the nightingale, 
 
 And when the sweet long day is out, 
 
 Our dreams take up the merry tale. 
 
 50 
 
ON MY SISTER’S BIRTHDAY 
 
 hi 
 
 That pleasure being innocent, 
 
 With innocence alone accords : 
 
 The souls that Passion’s strife has rent 
 Have other thoughts and other words ; 
 
 They cannot bear that meadow’s green ; 
 Strange grief is in the robin’s song ; 
 
 And when they hope to shift the scene, 
 
 Their dreams the anguish but prolong. 
 
 IV 
 
 Oh, pray for them, thou happy child, 
 
 Whose souls are in that silent woe ; 
 
 For once like thee, they gaily smiled, 
 
 And hoped, and feared and trusted so ! 
 
 Pray for them in thy birthday mood, 
 
 They may not pass that awful bar, 
 
 Which separates the early good 
 
 From spirits with themselves at war. 
 
 V 
 
 Their mind is now on loves grown cold, 
 
 On friendships falling slow away, 
 
 On life lived fast, and heart made old 
 Before a single hair was grey. 
 
 Or should they be one thought less sad, 
 Their dream is still of things foregone, 
 
 Sweet scenes that once had made them glad, 
 Dim faces seen, and never known. 
 
 5 1 
 
POEMS 
 
 VI 
 
 My own dear sister, thy career 
 
 Is all before thee, thorn and flower ; 
 Scarce hast thou known by joy or fear 
 The still heart-pride of Friendship’s hour 
 And for that awful thing beyond, 
 
 The first affection’s going forth, 
 
 In books alone thy sighs have owned 
 The heaven, and then the hell, on earth 
 
 VII 
 
 But time is rolling onward, love, 
 
 And birthdays one another chace ; 
 
 Ah, when so much few years remove, 
 
 May thy sweet nature hold its place— 
 Who would not hope, who would not pray, 
 That looks on thy demeanour now ? 
 
 Yet have I seen the slow decay 
 Of many souls as pure as thou. 
 
 VIII 
 
 But there are some whose light endures— 
 A sign of wonder, and of joy, 
 
 Which never custom’s mist obscures, 
 
 Or passion’s treacherous gust destroy. 
 God make with them a rest for thee ! 
 
 For thou art turned toward stormy seas, 
 And when they call thee like to me, 
 
 Some terrors on my bosom seize. 
 
 5 2 
 
ON MY SISTER’S BIRTHDAY 
 
 IX 
 
 Yet why to-day this mournful tone, 
 
 When thou on gladness hast a claim ? 
 How ill befits a boding moan 
 
 From one who bears a brother’s name ! 
 Here fortune, fancifully kind, 
 
 Has led me to a lovely spot, 
 
 Where not a tree or rock I find, 
 
 My sister, that recalls thee not ! 
 
 x 
 
 Benan is worth a poet’s praise ; 
 
 Bold are the cairns of Benvenue ; 
 
 Most beautiful the winding ways 
 Where Trossachs open on the view : 
 
 But other grace Loch Katrine wears, 
 
 When viewed by me from Ellen’s Isle ; 
 A magic tint on all appears ; 
 
 It comes from thy remembered smile ! 
 
 XI 
 
 ’Twas there that Lady of the Lake 
 Moored to yon gnarled tree her boat, 
 And where Fitzjames’s horn bade wake 
 Each mountain echo’s lengthened note ; 
 ’Twas from that slope the maiden heard : 
 
 Sweet tale ! but sweeter far to me, 
 
 From dreamy blendings of that word, 
 
 With all my thoughts and hopes of thee. 
 
 3 rd August, 1829. 
 
 53 
 
FROM SCHILLER 
 
 ( Written at Malvern ) 
 
 I 
 
 To yonder vale where shepherds dwell, 
 
 There came with every dawning year, 
 
 Ere earliest larks their notes did trill, 
 
 A lady wonderful and fair. 
 
 II 
 
 She was not born within that vale, 
 
 And none from whence she came might know, 
 
 But soon all trace of her did fail, 
 
 Whene’er she turned her, far to go. 
 
 III 
 
 But blessing was when she was seen : 
 
 All hearts that day were beating high : 
 
 A holy calm was in her mien, 
 
 And queenly glanced her maiden eye. 
 
 IV 
 
 She brought with her both fruits and flowers 
 Were gathered in another clime, 
 
 Beneath a different sun from ours, 
 
 And in a nature more sublime. 
 
 54 
 
FROM SCHILLER 
 
 v 
 
 To each and all a gift she gave, 
 
 And one had fruit, and one had flower 
 Nor youth, nor old man with his stave, 
 Did homeward go without his dower. 
 
 VI 
 
 So all her welcome guests were glad— 
 But most rejoiced one loving pair, 
 Who took of her the best she had, 
 
 The brightest blooms that ever were ! 
 
 Sept. 1829. 
 
LINES SPOKEN IN THE CHARACTER 
 OF PYGMALION 
 
 ( Written on the occasion of a represented 
 Charade) 
 
 ’Tis done, the work is finished—that last touch 
 Was as a God’s ! Lo ! now it stands before me, 
 Even as long years ago I dreamed of it, 
 Consummate offspring of consummate art; 
 Ideal form itself! Ye Gods, I thank you, 
 
 That I have lived to this : for this thrown off 
 The pleasure of my kind ; for this have toiled 
 Days, nights, months, years ;—am not I recom¬ 
 pensed ? 
 
 Who says an artist’s life is not a king’s ? 
 
 I am a king, alone among the crowd 
 Of busy hearts and looks—apart with nature 
 I sit, a God upon the earth, creating 
 More lovely forms than flesh and blood can 
 equal. 
 
 Jove’s workmanship is perishable clay, 
 
 But mine immortal marble ; when the proudest 
 Of our fair city dames is laid i’ the dust 
 This creature of my soul will still be lovely. 
 
 Let me contemplate thee again. That lip— 
 How near it wears the crimson ! and that eye— 
 
PYGMALION 
 
 How strives it with the marble’s vacancy ! 
 Methinks if thou wert human, I could love thee ; 
 But that thou art not, nor wilt ever be— 
 
 Ne’er know and feel how beautiful thou art. 
 
 Oh God, I am alone then—she hears not— 
 
 And yet how like to life ! Ha ! blessed thought, 
 Gods have heard prayers ere now. Hear me, 
 bright Venus, 
 
 Queen of my dreams, hear from thy throne of 
 light, 
 
 Forgive the pride that made my human heart 
 Forget its nature. Let her live and love ! 
 
 I dare not look again—my brain swims round— 
 I dream—I dream—even now methought she 
 moved— 
 
 If’tis a dream, how will I curse the dawn 
 That wakes me from it ! There—that bend 
 again— 
 
 It is no dream—Oh, speak to me and bless me. 
 
 1832. 
 
 57 
 
TO TWO SISTERS 
 
 * Love-thoughts be rich when canopied with flowers.’ 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 [In Leigh Hunt’s Indicator it is stated that the name ‘ Mary’ 
 has its origin in a Hebrew word, signifying ‘ Exalted ’; and a 
 suggestion occurs in the same hook, that ‘ Emily’ may possibly 
 come from some element akin to ‘ Amo.’] 
 
 Well do your names express ye, sisters dear, 
 In small clear sounds awaking mournful 
 thoughts, 
 
 Mournful, as with the refluence of a joy 
 Too pure for these sad coasts of human life. 
 Methinks, had not your happy vernal dawn 
 Ever arisen on my tranced view, 
 
 Those flowing sounds would syllable yourselves 
 To my delighted soul, or if not so, 
 
 Yet when I traced their deeper meaning out, 
 And fathomed his intent, who in some hour, 
 Sweet from the world’s young dawn, with breath 
 of life 
 
 Endowed them, then your certain forms would 
 come, 
 
 Pale but true visions of my musing eye. 
 
 For thee, Oh! eldest flower, whose precious name 
 Would to inspired ears by Chebar once, 
 
 Or the lone cavern hid from Jezebel, 
 
 53 
 
TO TWO SISTERS 
 
 Sound as ‘ Exalted ’—fitliest, therefore, borne 
 By that mysterious Lady who reposed 
 In Egypt far, beyond the impious reach 
 Of fell Herodes, or the unquiet looks 
 Of men, who knew not Peace to earth was 
 born,— 
 
 There happily reposed, waiting the time 
 When from that dark interminable day 
 Should by God’s might emerge, and Love sit 
 throned, 
 
 And Meekness kiss away the looks of Scorn ; 
 Oh ! Mary, deem that Virgin looks on thee 
 With an especial care ; lean thou on her, 
 
 As the ideal of thy woman’s heart; 
 
 Pray that thy heart be strengthened from above 
 To lasting hope, and sovran kindliness ; 
 
 That conquering smiles and more than con¬ 
 quering tears 
 
 May be thy portion through the ways of life : 
 So walk thou on in thy simplicity, 
 
 Following the Virgin Queen for evermore ! 
 Thou other name, I turn with deepest awe 
 To think of all thou utterest unto me. 
 
 Oh, Emily ! how frail must be my speech, 
 Weighed with the thought that in my spirit 
 burns, 
 
 To find no rest until ’tis known by thee, 
 
 Till our souls see each other face to face. 
 
 Thou hearest not, alas ! thou art afar, 
 
 And I am lone as ever, sick and lone, 
 
 59 
 
POEMS 
 
 Roaming the weary desert of my doom 
 Where thou art not, altho’ all speaks of thee, 
 
 All yearns for thee, my love : each barren wold 
 Would teem with fruitful glory at thy smile. 
 
 But so—’twas of thy name that I would speak, 
 And thus I will not lend me to that lie, 
 
 That from the old and proud yRmilian clan 
 Thy name was brought, the famous Roman 
 dames 
 
 Who, in a sweeping stole, broad-zoned and full, 
 With solemn brows and settled eyes severe, 
 Tended the household glory of their lords. 
 
 Ah, no ! a sweeter birth, fair name, is thine ! 
 Surely some soul bom in the tender light 
 Of golden suns and deep-starred night divine, 
 Feeling the want of some far gentler word 
 Than any speech doth own, to slake the thirst 
 Of his impetuous heart, and be at once 
 The symbol and relief of that high love 
 Which made him weary and faint even unto 
 death, 
 
 He gathering up the wasted energies 
 For a last work, and breathing all his life 
 Into a word of love, said ‘Amelie,’ 
 
 Meaning ‘Beloved’; and then methinks he 
 died, 
 
 And the melodious magic of his voice 
 Shrank in its fulness ; but the amorous air, 
 
 And the blue sea close murmuring to the shore 
 With a sweet regular moan, the orange grove 
 
 60 
 
TO TWO SISTERS 
 
 Rising' from that slope shore in richest shade, 
 Blent with the spiked aloe, and cactus wild, 
 And rarer growth of the luxuriant palm, 
 
 Lived in that word, and echoed ‘ Emily,’ 
 Tempering the tone with variation sweet. 
 
 Thou seest it, maiden : if the fairest things 
 Of this fair world, and breathing deepest love, 
 Sang welcome to the name then framed for thee, 
 And such as thee, the gentlest of the earth, 
 Should I, to whom this tale was whispered 
 By some kind Muse in hours of silent thought, 
 Look on thy face and call thee not ‘ Beloved,’ 
 
 It were in me unmeasured blasphemy. 
 
 Oh ! envy not thyself thy station high : 
 
 Consent to be ‘ Beloved ’; I ask no more 
 Than to fulfil for thee thy warning name, 
 
 And in a perfect loving live and die. 
 
 Nov. 1830. 
 
 This was my lay in sad nocturnal hour, 
 What time the silence felt a growing sound 
 Awful, and winds began among the trees, 
 Nor was there starlight in the vaulted sky. 
 Now is the eyelid of the jocund sun 
 Uplifted on the region of this air, 
 
 And in the substance of his living light 
 I walk enclosed, therefore to matin chaunts 
 Of all delighted birds I marry a note 
 Of human voice rejoicing unto thee, 
 
 61 
 
POEMS 
 
 Ever beloved, warbling my rapture now, 
 
 As erst to thee I made melodious moan. 
 
 Then I believed thee distant from my heart ; 
 Thou hadst not spoken then, I had not heard : 
 And I was faint, because I breathed not 
 Breath of thy love, wherein alone is life. 
 
 But at this hour my heart is seen, my prayer 
 Answered and crowned with blessing ; I have 
 looked 
 
 Into thine eyes which have not turned away, 
 But rested all their lavish light upon me, 
 Unutterably sweet, till I became 
 Angelic in the strength of tenderness, 
 
 And met thy soul down-looking into mine 
 With a responsive power ; thy word hath passed 
 Upon my spirit, and is a light for ever, 
 
 High o’er the drifting spray of circumstance. 
 Thy word, the plighted word, the word of pro¬ 
 mise, 
 
 And of all comfort ! In its mighty strength 
 I bid thee hail, not as in former days, 
 
 Not as my chosen only, but my bride, 
 
 My very bride, coming to make my house 
 A glorious temple ! Be the seal of God 
 Upon that word until the hour be full ! 
 
 Feb. 1831. 
 
 62 
 
TO THE LOVED ONE 
 
 My heart is happy now, beloved, 
 
 Albeit thy form is far away ; 
 
 A joy that will not be removed 
 
 Broods on me like a summer’s day. 
 
 Whatever evil Fate may do, 
 
 It cannot change what has been thine ; 
 
 It cannot cast those words anew, 
 
 The gentle words I think divine. 
 
 No touch of time can blight the glance 
 That blest with early hope my love ; 
 
 New years are dark with fearful chance, 
 That moment is with God above : 
 
 And never more from me departs 
 Of that sweet time the influence rare, 
 
 When first we looked into our hearts 
 And told each other what was there. 
 
 Yes, I am happy, love; and yet 
 
 Lone cherished pain will keep a strife ; 
 
 Something half fear and half regref 
 Is lingering at the seat of life. 
 
 6 3 
 
But now in seasons of dismay 
 What chteering hope from thoughts of thee 
 And how will earnest fancy stray 
 
 To find its home where thou mayst be ! 
 
 Sometimes I dream thee leaning o’er 
 The harp I used to love so well; 
 
 Again I tremble and adore 
 The soul of its delicious swell ; 
 
 Again the very air is dim 
 
 With eddies of harmonious might, 
 
 And all my brain and senses swim 
 In a keen madness of delight. 
 
 Sometimes thy pensive form is seen 
 On the dear seat beside the fire ; 
 
 There plainest thou with Madeline 
 Or Isabella’s lone desire. 
 
 He knows thee not, who does not know 
 The tender flashing of thine eye 
 At some melodious tale of woe, 
 
 And the sweet smile and sweeter sigh. 
 
 How oft in silent moonlight air, 
 
 When the wide earth is full of rest, 
 
 And all things outward seem more fair 
 For the inward spirit less opprest, 
 
 I look for thee, I think thee near, 
 
 Thy tones are thrilling through my soul, 
 Thy dark eyes close to mine appear, 
 
 And I am blest beyond control ! 
 
 64 
 
TO THE LOVED ONE 
 
 Yet deem not thou my absent state 
 Is measured all by amorous moan ; 
 Clear-voiced Love hath learned of Fate 
 New harmonies of deeper tone. 
 
 All thoughts that in me live dnd burn, 
 
 The thirst for truth, the sense of power ; 
 Freedom’s high hope—to thee they turn ; 
 
 I bring them as a precious dower ! 
 
 The beauty which those thoughts adore 
 Diffused through this perennial frame 
 Centres in thee ; I feel it more 
 
 Since thy delivering presence came : 
 And with a clearer affluence now 
 That mystic spirit fills my heart, 
 
 Wafts me on hope’s enthusiast flow, 
 
 And heals with prayer the guilty smart. 
 
 Oh ! best beloved, it were a bliss 
 As pure as aught the angels feel, 
 
 To think in after days of this, 
 
 Should time a strength in me reveal 
 To fill with worthy thoughts and deed 
 The measure of my high desire ; 
 
 To thee were due the glorious meed, 
 
 Thy smile had kindled first the fire. 
 
 But if the starry courses give 
 No eminence of light to me, 
 
 At least together we may live, 
 
 Together loved and loving be ; 
 
 65 
 
 E 
 
POEMS 
 
 At least what good my spirit knows 
 Shall seek in thee a second birth, 
 
 And in thy gentle soul’s repose 
 
 I ’ll wean me from the things of earth. 
 
 Even now begins that holy life, 
 
 For when I kneel in Christian prayer, 
 Thy name, my own, my promised wife, 
 Is blent with mine in fondest care. 
 
 Oh pray for me that both may know 
 That inward bridal’s high delight, 
 
 And both beyond the grave may go 
 Together in the Father’s sight. 
 
 Jan. 1831. 
 
 66 
 
TO MY MOTHER 
 
 When barren doubt like a late coming snow 
 Made an unkind December of my spring, 
 That all the pretty flowers did droop for woe, 
 And the sweet birds their love no more would 
 sing : 
 
 Then the remembrance of thy gentle faith, 
 Mother beloved, would steal upon my heart ; 
 Fond feeling saved me from that utter scathe, 
 And from thy hope I could not live apart. 
 Now that my mind hath passed from wintry 
 gloom, 
 
 And on the calmed waters once again 
 Ascendant Faith circles with silver plume, 
 That casts a charmed shade, not now in pain, 
 Thou child of Christ, in joy I think of thee. 
 And mingle prayers for what we both may be. 
 
 Jan. 1831. 
 
 67 
 
/ 
 
 A LOVER’S REPROOF 
 
 When two complaining spirits mingle, 
 Saintly and calm their woes become : 
 
 Alas the grief that bideth single, 
 
 Whose heart is drear, whose lips are dumb 
 My drooping lily, when the tears 
 Of morning bow thy tender head, 
 
 Oh scatter them, and have no fears : 
 
 They kill sometimes if cherished, 
 
 Dear girl, the precious gift you gave 
 Was of yourself entire and free. 
 
 Why front alone Life’s gloomy wave, 
 
 Why fling the brilliant foam to me ? 
 
 Am I the lover of thy mirth, 
 
 A trifling thing of sunny days,— 
 
 A soul forbid for want of worth, 
 
 To tread with thee th’ unpleasant ways ? 
 No—trust me, love ; if I delight 
 To mark thy brighter hour of pleasure, 
 
 To deep-eyed Passion’s watchful sight 
 Thy sadness is a costlier treasure. 
 
 July, 1831. 
 
 68 
 
r 
 
 SONNET 
 
 A MELANCHOLY thought had laid me low ; 
 
 A thought of self-desertion, and the death 
 Of feelings wont with my heart’s blood to 
 flow, 
 
 And feed the inner soul with purest breath. 
 The idle busy star of daily life, 
 
 Base passions, haughty doubts, and selfish 
 fears, 
 
 Have withered up my being in a strife 
 Unkind, and dried the source of human tears. 
 One evening I went forth, and stood alone 
 With Nature : moon there was not, nor the 
 light 
 
 Of any star in heaven : yet front the sight 
 Of that dim nightfall better hope hath grown 
 Upon my spirit, and from those cedars high 
 Solemnly changeless, as the very sky. 
 
 Sept. 1830. 
 
 69 
 
\ 
 
 •f 
 
 A SCENE IN SUMMER 
 
 Alfred, I would that you beheld me now, 
 Sitting beneath a mossy ivied wall 
 On a quaint bench, which to that structure old 
 Winds an accordant curve. Above my head 
 Dilates immeasurable a wild of leaves, 
 
 Seeming received into the blue expanse 
 That vaults this summer noon : before me lies 
 A lawn of English verdure, smooth and bright, 
 Mottled with fainter hues of early hay, 
 
 Whose fragrance, blended with the rose perfume 
 From that .white flowering bush, invites my 
 sense 
 
 To a delicious madness—and faint thoughts 
 Of childish years are borne into my brain 
 By unforgotten ardours waking now. 
 
 Beyond, a gentle slope leads into shade 
 Of mighty trees, to bend whose eminent crown 
 Is the prime labour of the pettish winds, 
 
 That now in lighter mood are twirling leaves 
 Over my feet, or hurrying butterflies, 
 
 And the gay humming things that summer 
 loves, 
 
 Thro’ the warm air, or altering the bound 
 Where yon elm shadows in majestic line 
 Divide dominion with the abundant light. 
 
 June, 1831. 
 
 70 
 
SONNET 
 
 Oh Poetry, oh rarest spirit of all 
 
 That dwell within the compass of the mind, 
 Forsake not him, whom thou of old didst 
 call : 
 
 Still let me seek thy face, and seeking find. 
 Some years have gone about since I and thou 
 Became acquainted first : we met in woe ; 
 Sad was my cry for help as it is now ; 
 
 Sad too thy breathed response of music slow ; 
 But in that sadness was such essence fine, 
 
 So keen a sense of Life’s mysterious name, 
 And high conceit of Natures more divine, 
 That breath and sorrow seemed no more the 
 same. 
 
 Oh let me hear again that sweet reply ! 
 
 More than by loss of thee I cannot die. 
 
 June , 1831. 
 
 71 
 

 
 V .v • , 
 
 SONNET 
 
 Alas ! that sometimes even a duteous life, 
 
 If uninspired by love, and love-born joy, 
 Grows fevered in the world’s unholy strife, 
 And sinks destroyed by that it would destroy 
 Beloved, from the boisterous deeds that fill 
 The measure up of this unquiet time, 
 
 The dull monotonies of Faction’s chime, 
 And irrepressible thoughts foreboding ill, 
 
 I turn to thee as to a heaven apart— 
 
 Oh ! not apart, not distant, near me ever, 
 
 So near my soul that nothing can thee sever 
 How shall I fear, knowing there is for me 
 ( A City of refuge, budded pleasantly 
 Within the silent places of the heart ? 
 
 May , 183 1. 
 
 t 
 
 72 
 
SONNET 
 
 Why throbbest thou, my heart, why thickly 
 breathest ? 
 
 I ask no rich and splendid eloquence : 
 
 A few words of the warmest and the sweetest 
 Sure thou mayst yield without such coy 
 pretence : 
 
 Open the chamber where affection’s voice, 
 
 For rare occasions is kept close and fine : 
 
 Bid it but say, ‘ Sweet Emily, be mine,’' 
 
 So for one boldness thou shalt aye rejoice. 
 
 Fain would I speak when the full music-streams 
 Rise from her lips to linger on her face, 
 
 Or like a form floating through Raffaelle’s 
 dreams, 
 
 Then fixed by him in ever living grace, 
 
 She sits i’ the silent worship of mine eyes. 
 Courage, my heart : change thou for words 
 thy sighs. 
 
 73 
 
SONNET 
 
 Still here-^-thou hast not faded from my sight, 
 Nor all the music round thee from mine ear : 
 Still grace flows from thee to the brightening 
 year, 
 
 And all the birds laugh out in wealthier light. 
 Still am I free to close my happy eyes, 
 
 And paint upon the gloom thy mimic form, 
 That soft white neck, that cheek in beauty 
 warm, 
 
 And brow half hidden where yon ringlet lies ; 
 With, oh ! the blissful knowledge all the while 
 That I can lift at will each curved lid, 
 
 And my fair dream most highly realise. 
 
 The time will come, 5 tis ushered by my sighs, 
 When I may shape the dark, but vainly bid 
 True light restore that form, those looks, that 
 smile. 
 
 
 74 
 
SONNET 
 
 Lady, I bid thee to a sunny dome 
 Ringing with echoes of Italian song ; 
 Henceforth to thee these magic halls belong, 
 And all the pleasant place is like a home. 
 
 Hark, on the right with full piano tone, 
 
 Old Dante’s voice encircles all the air ; 
 
 Hark yet again, like flute-tones mingling 
 rare, 
 
 Comes the keen sweetness of Petrarca’s 
 moan. 
 
 Pass thou the lintel freely : without fear 
 
 Feast on the music : I do better know thee, 
 Than to suspect this pleasure thou dost owe 
 me 
 
 Will wrong thy gentle spirit, or make less dear 
 That element whence thou must draw thy 
 life ;— 
 
 An English maiden and an English wife. 
 
 75 
 
SONNET 
 
 Speed ye, warm hours, along th 5 appointed path, 
 Speed, though ye bring but pain, slow pain 
 to me ; 
 
 I will not much bemoan your heavy wrath, 
 
 So ye will make my lady glad and free. 
 
 What is’t that I must here confined be, 
 
 If she may roam the summer’s sweets among, 
 See the full-cupped flower, the laden tree, 
 Hear from deep groves the thousand-voiced 
 song ? 
 
 .Sometimes in that still chamber will she sit 
 Trim ranged with books, and cool with dusky 
 blinds, • 
 
 That keep the moon out, there, as seemed fit, 
 
 To sing, or play, or read—what sweet hope 
 finds 
 
 Way to my heart ? perchance some verse of 
 mine— 
 
 Oh happy I ! speed on, ye hours divine ! 
 
 » 
 
 76 
 
i 
 
 SONNET 
 
 When gentle fingers cease to touch the string, 
 Dear Charles, no music lingers on the lyre ; 
 But the sea-shells from everlasting ring 
 With the deep murmurs of their home desire : 
 Lean o’er the shell, and ’twill be heard to plain, 
 Now low, now high, till all thy sense is gone 
 Into the sweetness ; then depart again, 
 
 Still though unheard, flows on that inner 
 moan ; 
 
 Full oft like one of these our human heart 
 Secretly murmurs on a loving lay, 
 
 Though not a tone finds any outward way. 
 Then trust me, Charles, nor let it cause thee 
 smart, 
 
 That seldom in my songs thy name is seen— 
 When most I loved, I most have silent been. 
 
 1831. 
 
 77 
 
SONNET 
 
 ' ;The garden trees are busy with the shower 
 That fell ere sunset; now methinks they talk, 
 Lowly and sweetly as befits the hour, 
 
 One to another down the grassy walk. 
 
 Hark the laburnum from his opening flower 
 This cherry-creeper greets in whisper light, 
 While the grim fir, rejoicing in the night, 
 Hoarse mutters to the murmuring sycamore. 
 What shall I deem their converse ? would they 
 hail 
 
 The wild grey light that fronts yon massive 
 cloud, 
 
 Or the half bow, rising like pillared fire ? 
 
 Or are they sighing faintly for desire 
 That with May dawn their leaves may be 
 o’erflowed, 
 
 And dews about their feet may never fail ? 
 
 1831. 
 
 78 
 
SCENE AT ROME 
 
 RAFAEL sitting in his Studio ; FlAMMETTA 
 
 enters. 
 
 R. Dearest, I wished for thee a moment 
 gone, 
 
 And lo, upon the wish thou art here. 
 
 F. Perhaps 
 
 It was thy wish that even now as I entered, 
 Gleamed through the citron shadow, like a star- 
 beam, 
 
 One starbeam of some high predominant star. 
 
 R. Why, little trifler, whither hast thou been 
 That thou return’st so fair fantastical ? 
 
 F. Down by the fountain, where the dark 
 cool alley 
 
 Yields into sudden light of cooler spray. 
 
 It is a noble evening—one to shame thee— 
 
 For the least hue of that all-coloured heaven 
 Bears a more full and rich divinity 
 Than the best touch thy pencil ever gave,— 
 Thou smilest at me. 
 
 79 
 
POEMS 
 
 R. Rather should I sigh 
 
 To think that while I learn to love thee better, 
 And better prize all that belongs to thee, 
 
 In the fair company I live with always, 
 
 The tempting faces, and warm loving shapes 
 That make my little room a paradise, 
 
 Thou wandering about, from lighted fountains, 
 From groves at twilight full of changing magic, 
 Or yon great gallery picture hung with stars, 
 Gatherest contempt for that poor mimic thing, 
 An artist. 
 
 F. Thou believest not thy words, 
 
 Else could I call a thousand witnesses 
 
 • • • * 
 
 To swear me into innocence again. 
 
 R. Where are they ? 
 
 F. Out alas ! I had forgot— 
 
 I have them not—I know not where they dwell; 
 They roam in a dim field I may not come to, 
 Nor ever see them more ; yet were they once 
 Familiar beings, inward to my soul 
 As is the lifeblood to the life. 
 
 R. The answer— 
 
 We have the riddle. Who are these unkind 
 ones 
 
 Who knew the thing it is to be beside thee, 
 Looked on thy face, yet had the hearts to leave 
 thee ? 
 
 F. Oh there you are mistaken—you are too 
 quick— 
 
 They had no eyes and could not see my face— 
 
 80 
 
SCENE AT ROME 
 
 They had no power to stay—they must have 
 left me— 
 
 Each in his turn stood on the downcleft edge 
 Of a most mighty river, stood and fell, 
 
 Borne to the silent things that are no more. 
 
 R. Are they then dead ? 
 
 F. Ay, dead ; entombed within 
 
 A glorious sepulchre, to whose broad space 
 The world of present things is but an atom. 
 There they lie dead, and here I’d weep for 
 them, 
 
 But that I have a fairy mirror by me 
 Shows me their spirits, pale and beautiful 
 With a sweet mournful beauty. 
 
 R. Thou art mocking me ; 
 
 These are but fancies thou art speaking of, 
 
 The incorporeal children of the brain. 
 
 F. Aha, brave (Edipus ! my lady Sphinx 
 Had stood in danger with thee. Hast thou 
 guessed it ? 
 
 These friends once harboured with me, now 
 departed, 
 
 These witnesses to my clear faith and fondness, 
 They are all Thoughts, all glorious thoughts of 
 thee, 
 
 Infinite in their number, bright as rainbows, 
 And in pervading presence visitant 
 Whenever I am forced to be alone, 
 
 And losing thee to talk with stars and streams. 
 R. And, by our Lady, ’tis a good exchange. 
 
 81 
 
 F 
 
POEMS 
 
 The stars and streams are silent—cannot chide 
 thee— 
 
 Will let a foolish woman talk by the hour 
 Her gentle nonsense, and reprove her never, 
 Nor with one frown dim their ambrosial smiles ; 
 Thou find’st not me so easy. 
 
 F. Still suspicious ! 
 
 What, must I tell thee all this day’s employ¬ 
 ment ; 
 
 Tell how I read the heavens with curious 
 glances, 
 
 And by a sort of wild astrology 
 
 Taught me by a young god, whose name is Love, 
 
 But who before all things resembles thee, 
 
 I tried to shape in those high starry eyes 
 The very looks of thine ? 
 
 R. Nay, own Fiammetta, 
 
 If we must needs have such usurping spirits, 
 And turn the bright heavens from the things 
 they are 
 
 Into poor semblances of earthly creatures, 
 
 They shall be all thine own—take them and 
 wear them ; 
 
 Be thou the moon, the sunset, that thou wilt 
 So I behold thee. 
 
 F. I will be the sky ! 
 
 No narrower bound than its far unknown limit 
 Shall keep me prisoner. Thou hast called me 
 fair— 
 
 Often and often on my lips thou hast sworn it— 
 
 82 
 
SCENE AT ROME 
 
 What wilt thou say when thou shalt see me 
 come 
 
 To press thee in those blue celestial folds, 
 
 To gaze upon thee with a million eyes, 
 
 Each eye like these, and each a fire of love ? 
 ft. I would not have thee other than thou 
 art, 
 
 Even in the least complexion of a dimple, 
 
 For all the pictures Pietro Perugin, 
 
 My master, ever painted. And pardon me, 
 
 I would not have the heavens anything 
 But what they are and were and still shall be, 
 Despite thy wish, Fiammetta. 5 Tis not well 
 To make the eternal Beauty ministrant 
 To our frail lives and frailer human loves. 
 
 Three thousand years perhaps before we lived, 
 Some Eastern maiden framed thy very wish, 
 And loved and died, and in the passionless void 
 Vanished for ever. Yet this glorious Nature 
 Took not a thought of her, but shone above 
 The blank she left, as on the place she filled. 
 
 So will it be with us—a dark night waits us— 
 Another moment, we must plunge within it— 
 Let us not mar the glimpses of pure Beauty, 
 Now streaming in like moonlight, with the fears, 
 The joys, the hurried thoughts, that rise and 
 fall 
 
 To the hot pulses of a mortal heart. 
 
 F. How now? Thy voice was wont to speak 
 of Love : 
 
 83 
 
POEMS 
 
 I shall not know it, if its language change : 
 
 The clear, low utterance, and angelic tone 
 Will lose their music, if they praise not love. 
 
 R. And when I praise it not, or cease to fold 
 thee 
 
 Thus in my arms, Fiammetta, may I die 
 Unwept, unhonoured, barred without the gate 
 Of that high temple, where I minister 
 With daily ritual of coloured lights 
 For candelabras, and pure saintly forms 
 To image forth the loveliness I serve. 
 
 I did but chide thee that thou minglest ever 
 Beauty with beauty, as with perfume perfume : 
 Thou canst not love a rosebud for itself, 
 
 But thinkest straight who gave that rose to thee ; 
 The leaping fountain minds thee of the music 
 We heard together ; and the very heaven, 
 
 The illimitable firmament of God, 
 
 Must steal a likeness to a Roman studio 
 Ere it can please thee. 
 
 F. I am a poor woman, Sir ; 
 
 A woman, poor in all things but her heart, 
 
 And when I cease to love I cease to live. 
 
 You will not cure me of this heresy ; 
 
 Flames would not burn it out, nor sharp rocks 
 tear it. 
 
 R. I am a merciful Inquisitor ; 
 
 I shall enjoin thee but a gentle penance. 
 
 F. The culprit trusts the judge, and feels no 
 fear 
 
 84 
 
SCENE AT ROME 
 
 In his immediate presence ; a rare thing 
 In Italy !—Proceed. 
 
 R. There was a thing 
 
 Thou askedst me this morning. 
 
 F. I remember— 
 
 To see the picture thou hast kept from me. 
 
 I prithee, let me. 
 
 R. It shall be thy penance 
 
 To find it full of faults, and not one beauty. 
 
 F. Where stands it ? 
 
 R. There, behind the canopy. 
 
 A great Venetian nobleman, esteemed 
 For a good judge, they say, by Lionardo, 
 
 Paid me a princely sum but yesterday 
 For this poor portrait. 
 
 F. Portrait ? and of whom ? 
 
 Is it a lady ? 
 
 R. Yes—a Roman lady— 
 
 About your stature ; and her hair is bound 
 With a pearl fillet, even as your own. 
 
 Her eyes are just Fiammetta’s ; they are turned 
 On a fair youth, who sits beside her, gazing 
 As he would drink up all their light in his. 
 Upon her arm a bracelet; and thereon 
 Is graven— 
 
 F. Name it! 
 
 R. Raphael Urp.inensis. 
 
 F. This kiss—and this—reward thee. Let 
 me see it. 
 
 1832. 
 
 85 
 

 f 
 
 * 
 
 I 
 
ON SOME OF THE CHARACTER¬ 
 ISTICS OF MODERN POETRY, 
 AND ON THE LYRICAL POEMS 
 OF ALFRED TENNYSON. 
 
 CO Mr. Montgomery’s Oxford, by the help 
 of some pretty illustrations, has con¬ 
 trived to prolong its miserable existence to 
 a second edition ! But this is slow work, 
 compared jto that triumphant progress of 
 the Omnipresence , which, we concede to ihe 
 author’s friends, was ‘ truly astonishing.’ We 
 understand, moreover, that a new light has 
 broken upon this ‘ desolator desolate • ’ and 
 since the ‘ columns ’ have begun to follow 
 the example of ‘men and gods,’ by whom 
 our poetaster has long been condemned, ‘ it 
 is the fate of genius,’ he begins to discover, 
 ‘to be unpopular.’ Now, strongly as we 
 
 87 
 
ON THE LYRICAL POEMS 
 
 protest against Mr. Montgomery’s applica¬ 
 tion of this maxim to his own case, we are 
 much disposed to agree with him as to its 
 abstract correctness. Indeed, the truth 
 which it involves seems to afford the only 
 solution of so curious a phenomenon as the 
 success, partial and transient though it be, 
 of himself, and others of his calibre. When 
 Mr. Wordsworth, in his celebrated Preface to 
 the Lyrical Ballads , asserted that immediate 
 or rapid popularity was not the test of poetry, 
 great was the consternation and clamour 
 among those farmers of public favour, the 
 established critics. Never had so audacious 
 an attack been made upon their undoubted 
 privileges and hereditary charter of oppres¬ 
 sion. ‘What! The Edinburgh Review not 
 infallible! ’ shrieked the amiable petulance 
 of Mr. Jeffrey. ‘ The Gentleman's Magazine 
 incapable of decision ! ’ faltered the feeble 
 garrulity of Silvanus Urban. And straight¬ 
 way the whole sciolist herd, men of rank, 
 men of letters, men of wealth, men of busi¬ 
 ness, all the ‘ mob of gentlemen who think 
 
 88 
 
 t 
 
OF ALFRED TENNYSON 
 
 with ease,’ and a terrible number of old 
 ladies and boarding-school misses began to 
 scream in chorus, and prolonged the notes of 
 execration with which they overwhelmed the 
 new doctrine, until their wits and their voices 
 fairly gave in from exhaustion. Much, no 
 doubt, they did, for much persons will do 
 when they fight for their dear selves : but 
 there was one thing they could not do, and 
 unfortunately it was the only one of any 
 importance. They could not put down 
 Mr. Wordsworth by clamour, or prevent his 
 doctrine, once uttered, and enforced by his 
 example, from awakening the minds of men, 
 and giving a fresh impulse to art. It was 
 the truth, and it prevailed; not only against 
 the exasperation of that hydra, the Reading / 
 Public, whose vanity was hurt, and the 
 blustering of its keepers, whose delusion 
 was exposed, but even against the false 
 glosses and narrow apprehensions of the 
 Wordsworthians themselves. It is the mad¬ 
 ness of all who loosen some great principle, 
 long buried under a snow-heap of custom 
 
 89 
 
V 
 
 ON THE LYRICAL POEMS 
 
 and superstition, to imagine that they can 
 restrain its operation, or circumscribe it by 
 their purposes. But the right of private 
 judgment was stronger than the will of 
 Luther; and even the genius of Wordsworth 
 cannot expand itself to the full periphery of 
 poetic art. 
 
 It is not true, as his exclusive admirers 
 would have it, that the highest species of 
 poetry is the reflective: it is a gross fallacy, 
 that, because certain opinions are acute or 
 profound, the expression of them by the 
 imagination must be eminently beautiful. 
 Whenever the mind of the artist suffers itself 
 to be occupied, during its periods of creation, 
 by any other predominant motive than the 
 desire of beauty, the result is false in art. 
 Now there is undoubtedly no reason, why he 
 may not find beauty in those moods of 
 emotion, which arise from the combinations 
 of reflective thought, and it is possible that 
 he may delineate these with fidelity, and not 
 be led astray by any suggestions of an un- 
 poetical mood. But, though possible, it is 
 
 90 
 
 i 
 
OF ALFRED TENNYSON 
 
 hardly probable : for a man, whose reveries 
 take a reasoning turn, and who is accustomed 
 to measure his ideas by their logical relations 
 rather than the congruity of the sentiments 
 to which they refer, will be apt to mistake 
 the pleasure he has in knowing a thing to 
 be true, for the pleasure he would have in 
 knowing it to be beautiful, and so will pile 
 his thoughts in a rhetorical battery, that they 
 may convince, instead of letting them glow 
 in the natural course of contemplation, that 
 they may enrapture. It would not be difficult 
 to show, by reference to the most admired 
 poems of Wordsworth, that he is frequently 
 chargeable with this error, and that much 
 has been said by him which is good as 
 philosophy, powerful as rhetoric, but false / 
 as poetry. Perhaps this very distortion of 
 the truth did more in the peculiar juncture 
 of our literary affairs to enlarge and liberalise 
 the genius of our age, than could have been 
 effected by a less sectarian temper. How¬ 
 ever this may be, a new school of reformers 
 soon began to attract attention, who, pro- 
 
 9 1 
 
ON THE LYRICAL POEMS 
 
 fessing the same independence of immediate 
 favour, took their stand on a different region 
 of Parnassus from that occupied by the 
 Lakers,* and one, in our opinion, much less 
 liable to perturbing currents of air from 
 ungenial climates. We shall not hesitate to 
 express our conviction, that the Cockney 
 school (as it was termed in derision, from a 
 cursory view of its accidental circumstances) 
 contained more genuine inspiration, and 
 adhered more speedily to that portion of 
 truth which it embraced, than any form of 
 art that has existed in this country since the 
 day of Milton. Their caposetta was Mr. 
 Leigh Hunt, who did little more than point 
 the way, and was diverted from his aim by a 
 thousand personal predilections and political 
 habits of thought. But he was followed by 
 
 * This cant term was justly ridiculed by Mr. Words¬ 
 worth’s supporters ; but it was not so easy to substitute 
 an inoffensive denomination. We are not at all events 
 the first who have used it without a contemptuous 
 intention, for we remember to have heard a disciple 
 quote Aristophanes in its behalf. OSros ov tuiv ijddduv 
 Tuvb’ &v opaO' vfieis del, dWa AIMNAIOS. 1 This is 
 no common, no barn-door fowl: No, but a Lakist ! ’ 
 
 92 
 
OF ALFRED TENNYSON 
 
 two men of a very superior make ; men who 
 were born poets, lived poets, and went poets 
 to their untimely graves. Shelley and Keats 
 were, indeed, of opposite genius; that of the 
 one was vast, impetuous, and sublime: the 
 other seemed to be ‘ fed with honey-dew,’ 
 and to have ‘drunk the milk of Paradise.’ 
 Even the softness of Shelley comes out in 
 bold, rapid, comprehensive strokes; he has 
 no patience for minute beauties, unless they 
 can be massed into a general effect of 
 grandeur. On the other hand, the tender¬ 
 ness of Keats cannot sustain a lofty flight; 
 he does not generalise or allegorise Nature ; 
 his imagination works with few symbols, and 
 reposes willingly on what is given freely. 
 Yet in this formal opposition of character 
 there is, it seems to us, a ground-work of 
 similarity sufficient for the purposes of classi¬ 
 fication, and constituting a remarkable point 
 in the progress of literature. They are both 
 poets of sensation rather than reflection. 
 Susceptible of the slightest impulse from 
 external nature, their fine organs trembled 
 
 93 
 
ON THE LYRICAL POEMS 
 
 
 into emotion at colours, and sounds, and 
 movements, unperceived or unregarded by 
 duller temperaments. Rich and clear were 
 their perceptions of visible forms; full and 
 deep their feelings of music. So vivid was 
 the delight attending the simple exertions of 
 eye and ear, that it became mingled more 
 and more with their trains of active thought, 
 and tended to absorb their whole being into 
 the energy of sense. Other poets seek for 
 images to illustrate their conceptions; these 
 men had no need to seek; they lived in a 
 world of images ; for the most important and 
 extensive portion of their life consisted in 
 those emotions, which are immediately con¬ 
 versant with sensation. Like the hero of 
 jitGoethe’s novel, they would hardly have been 
 affected by what are called the pathetic parts 
 of a book; but the merely beautiful passages, 
 ‘ those from which the spirit of the author 
 looks clearly and mildly forth,’ would have 
 melted them to tears. Hence they are not 
 descriptive ; they are. picturesque. They are 
 not smooth and negatively harmonious; they 
 
OF ALFRED TENNYSON 
 
 are full of deep and varied melodies. This 
 powerful tendency of imagination to a life of 
 immediate sympathy with the external uni¬ 
 verse, is not nearly so liable to false views of 
 art as the opposite disposition of purely in¬ 
 tellectual contemplation. For where beauty 
 is constantly passing before ‘ that inward 
 eye, which is the bliss of solitude ; ’ where the 
 soul seeks it as a perpetual and necessary 
 refreshment to the sources of activity and 
 intuition; where all the other sacred ideas of 
 our nature, the idea of good, the idea of 
 perfection, the idea of truth, are habitually 
 contemplated through the medium of this 
 predominant mood, so that they assume its 
 colour, and are subject to its peculiar laws— 
 there is little danger that the ruling passion 
 of the whole mind will cease to direct its 
 creative operations, or the energetic principle 
 of love for the beautiful sink, even for a brief 
 period, to the level of a mere notion in the 
 understanding. We do not deny that it is, 
 on other accounts, dangerous for frail 
 humanity to linger with fond attachment 
 
 95 
 
ON THE LYRICAL POEMS 
 
 in the vicinity of sense. Minds of this 
 description are especially liable to moral 
 temptations, and upon them, more than any, 
 it is incumbent to remember that their 
 mission as men, which they share with all 
 their fellow-beings, is of infinitely higher 
 interest than their mission as artists, which 
 they possess by rare and exclusive privilege. 
 But it is obvious that, critically speaking, 
 such temptations are of slight moment. Not 
 the gross and evident passions of our nature, 
 but the elevated and less separable desires 
 are the dangerous enemies which misguide 
 the poetic spirit in its attempts at self- 
 cultivation. That delicate sense of fitness, 
 which grows with the growth of artist feelings, 
 and strengthens with their strength, until it 
 acquires a celerity and weight of decision 
 hardly inferior to the correspondent judg¬ 
 ments of conscience, is weakened by every 
 indulgence of heterogeneous aspirations, how¬ 
 ever pure they may be, however lofty, how¬ 
 ever suitable to human nature. We are 
 therefore decidedly of opinion that the 
 
 96 
 
 i 
 
OF ALFRED TENNYSON 
 
 heights and depths of art are most within 
 the reach of those who have received from 
 Nature the ‘ fearful and wonderful ’ constitu¬ 
 tion we have described, whose poetry is a 
 sort of magic, producing a number of impres- / 
 sions too multiplied, too minute, and too 
 diversified to allow of our tracing them to 
 their causes, because just such was the effect, 
 even so boundless, and so bewildering, pro¬ 
 duced on their imaginations by the real 
 appearance of Nature. These things being 
 so, our friends of the new school had 
 evidently much reason to recur to the 
 maxim laid down by Mr. Wordsworth, and 
 to appeal from the immediate judgments of 
 lettered or unlettered contemporaries to the 
 decision of a more equitable posterity. How 
 should they be popular, whose senses told 
 them a richer and ampler tale than most men 
 could understand, and who constantly ex¬ 
 pressed, because they constantly felt, senti¬ 
 ments of exquisite pleasure or pain, which 
 most men were not permitted to experience ? 
 The public very naturally derided them as 
 
 97 
 
 G 
 
ON THE LYRICAL POEMS 
 
 visionaries, and gibbeted in terrorem those 
 inaccuracies of diction, occasioned some¬ 
 times by the speed of their conceptions, 
 sometimes by the inadequacy of language to 
 their peculiar conditions of thought. But, it 
 may be asked, does not this line of argument 
 prove too much ? Does it not prove that 
 there is a barrier between these poets and all 
 other persons, so strong and immovable, 
 that, as has been said of the Supreme 
 Essence, we must be themselves before we can 
 understand them in the least? Not only are 
 they not liable to sudden and vulgar estima¬ 
 tion, but the lapse of ages, it seems, will not 
 consolidate their fame, nor the suffrages of 
 the wise few produce any impression, how¬ 
 ever remote or slowly matured, on the judg¬ 
 ments of the incapacitated many. We 
 answer, This is not the import of our 
 argument. Undoubtedly the true poet 
 addresses himself, in all his conceptions, to 
 the common nature of us all. Art is a lofty 
 tree, and may shoot up far beyond our grasp, 
 but its roots are in daily life and experience. 
 
 98 
 
 1 
 
OF ALFRED TENNYSON 
 
 Every bosom contains the elements of those 
 complex emotions which the artist feels, and 
 every head can, to a certain extent, go over 
 in itself the process of their combination, so 
 as to understand his expressions and sym¬ 
 pathise with his state. But this requires 
 exertion; more or less, indeed, according to 
 the difference of occasion, but always some 
 degree of exertion. For since the emotions 
 of the poet, during composition, follow a 
 regular law of association, it follows that 
 to accompany their progress up to the 
 harmonious prospect of the whole, and 
 to perceive the proper dependence of 
 every step on that which preceded, it is 
 absolutely necessary to start from the same 
 point, i.e. clearly to apprehend that leading 
 sentiment in the poet’s mind, by their con¬ 
 formity to which the host of suggestions is 
 arranged. Now this requisite exertion is not 
 willingly made by the large majority of 
 readers. It is so easy to judge capriciously, 
 and according to indolent impulse! For 
 very many, therefore, it has become morally 
 
 99 
 
ON THE LYRICAL POEMS 
 
 impossible to attain the author’s point of 
 vision, on account of their habits, or their 
 prejudices, or their circumstances ; but it is 
 never physically impossible, because Nature 
 has placed in every man the simple elements, 
 of which art is the sublimation. Since then 
 this demand on the reader for activity, when 
 he wants to peruse his author in a luxurious 
 passiveness, is the very thing that moves his 
 bile, it is obvious that those writers will 
 be always most popular, who require the 
 least degree of exertion. Hence, whatever 
 is mixed up with art, and appears under its 
 semblance, is always more favourably re¬ 
 garded than art free and unalloyed. Hence, 
 half the fashionable poems in the world are 
 mere rhetoric, and half the remainder are 
 perhaps not liked by the generality for their 
 substantial merits. Hence, likewise, of the 
 really pure compositions those are most 
 universally agreeable, which take for their 
 primary subject the usual passions of the 
 heart, and deal with them in a simple state, 
 without applying the transforming powers of 
 
 ioo 
 
OF ALFRED TENNYSON 
 
 high imagination. Love, friendship, ambition, 
 religion, etc., are matters of daily experience, 
 even amongst imaginative tempers. The 
 forces of association, therefore, are ready to 
 work in these directions, and little effort of 
 will is necessary to follow the artist. For 
 the same reason such subjects often excite a 
 partial power of composition, which is no 
 sign of a truly poetic organisation. We are 
 very far from wishing to depreciate this class 
 of poems, whose influence is so extensive, 
 and communicates so refined a pleasure. 
 We contend only that the facility with which 
 its impressions are communicated, is no 
 proof of its elevation as a form of art, but 
 rather the contrary. What then, some may 
 be ready to exclaim, is the pleasure derived 
 by most men from Shakespeare, or Dante, or 
 Homer, entirely false and factitious? If 
 these are really masters of their art, must 
 not the energy required of the ordinary 
 intelligences, that come in contact with their 
 mighty genius, be the greatest possible ? 
 How comes it then that they are popular ? 
 
 IOI 
 
ON THE LYRICAL POEMS 
 
 Shall we not say, after all, that the difference 
 is in the power of the author, not in the 
 tenor of his meditations? Those eminent 
 spirits find no difficulty in conveying to 
 common apprehension their lofty sense, and 
 profound observation of Nature. They keep 
 no aristocratic state, apart from the senti¬ 
 ments of society at large; they speak to the 
 hearts of all, and by the magnetic force of 
 their conceptions elevate inferior intellects 
 into a higher and purer atmosphere. The 
 truth contained in this objection is un¬ 
 doubtedly important; geniuses of the most 
 universal order, and assigned by destiny to 
 the most propitious eras of a nation’s literary 
 development, have a clearer and larger 
 access to the minds of their compatriots, 
 than can ever be open to those who are 
 circumscribed by less fortunate circum¬ 
 stances. In the youthful periods of any 
 literature there is an expansive and com¬ 
 municative tendency in mind, which pro¬ 
 duces unreservedness of communion, and 
 reciprocity of vigour between different orders 
 
 102 
 
OF ALFRED TENNYSON 
 
 of intelligence. Without abandoning the 
 ground which has always been defended by 
 the partisans of Mr. Wordsworth, who de¬ 
 clare with perfect truth that the number of 
 real admirers of what is really admirable in 
 Shakespeare and Milton are much fewer than 
 the number of apparent admirers might lead 
 one to imagine, we may safely assert that the 
 intense thoughts set in circulation by those 
 ‘ orbs of song,’ and their noble satellites, ‘ in 
 great Eliza’s golden time,’ did not fail to 
 awaken a proportionable intensity in the 
 natures of numberless auditors. Some might 
 feel feebly, some strongly; the effect would 
 vary according to the character of the re¬ 
 cipient ; but upon none was the stirring 
 influence entirely unimpressive. The know¬ 
 ledge and power thus imbibed, became a part 
 of national existence; it was ours as English¬ 
 men ; and amid the flux of generations and 
 customs we retain unimpaired this privilege 
 of intercourse with greatness. But the age 
 in which we live comes late in our national 
 progress. That first raciness, and juvenile 
 
 103 
 
ON THE LYRICAL POEMS 
 
 vigour of literature, when nature ‘ wantoned 
 as in her prime, and played at will her virgin 
 fancies,’ is gone, never to return. Since that 
 day we have undergone a period of degrada¬ 
 tion. ‘ Every handicraftsman has worn the 
 mark of Poesy.’ It would be tedious to 
 repeat the tale, so often related, of French 
 contagion, and the heresies of the Popian 
 school. With the close of the last century 
 came an era of reaction, an era of painful 
 struggle, to bring our over-civilised condition 
 of thought into union with the fresh produc¬ 
 tive spirit that brightened the morning of our 
 literature. But repentance is unlike inno¬ 
 cence : the laborious endeavour to restore 
 has more complicated methods of action 
 than the freedom of untainted nature. Those 
 different powers of poetic disposition, the 
 energies of Sensitive,* of Reflective, of 
 
 * We are aware that this is not the right word, being 
 appropriated by common use to a different signification. 
 Those who think the caution given by Caesar should 
 not stand in the way of urgent occasion, may substitute 
 ‘ sensuous,’• a word in use amongst our elder divines, 
 and revived by a few bold writers in our own time. 
 
 104 
 
OF ALFRED TENNYSON 
 
 Passionate Emotion, which in former times 
 were intermingled, and derived from mutual 
 support an extensive empire over the feelings 
 of men, were now restrained within separate 
 spheres of agency. The whole system no 
 longer worked harmoniously, and by intrinsic 
 harmony acquired external freedom; but 
 there arose a violent and unusual action in 
 the several component functions, each for 
 itself, all striving to reproduce the regular 
 power which the whole had once enjoyed. 
 Hence the melancholy, which so evidently 
 characterises the spirit of modern poetry; 
 hence that return of the mind upon itself, 
 and the habit of seeking relief in idiosyn¬ 
 crasies rather than community of interest. 
 In the old times the poetic impulse went 
 along with the general impulse of the nation ; 
 in these, it is a reaction against it, a check 
 acting for conservation against a propulsion 
 towards change. We have indeed seen it 
 urged in some of our fashionable publica¬ 
 tions, that the diffusion of poetry must 
 necessarily be in the direct ratio of the 
 
 io 5 
 
ON THE LYRICAL POEMS 
 
 diffusion of machinery, because a highly 
 civilised people must have new objects of 
 interest, and thus a new field will be opened 
 to description. But this notable argument 
 forgets that against this objective amelioration 
 may be set the decrease of subjective power, 
 arising from a prevalence of social activity, 
 and a continual absorption of the higher 
 feelings into the palpable interests of ordinary 
 life. The French Revolution may be a 
 finer theme than the war of Troy; but it 
 does not so evidently follow that Homer is 
 to find his superior. Our inference, there¬ 
 fore, from this change in the relative position 
 of artists to the rest of the community is, 
 that modern poetry, in proportion to its 
 depth and truth, is likely to have little 
 immediate authority over public opinion. 
 Admirers it will have; sects consequently it 
 will form; and these strong under-currents 
 will in time sensibly affect the principal 
 stream. Those writers, whose genius, 
 though great, is not strictly and essentially 
 poetic, become mediators between the 
 
 106 
 
OF ALFRED TENNYSON 
 
 votaries of art and the careless cravers for 
 excitement.* Art herself, less manifestly 
 glorious than in her periods of undisputed 
 supremacy, retains her essential prerogatives, 
 and forgets not to raise up chosen spirits, 
 who may minister to her state, and vindicate 
 her title. 
 
 One of this faithful Islam, a poet in the 
 truest and highest sense, we are anxious to 
 present to our readers. He has yet written 
 little, and published less; but in these 
 ‘preludes of a loftier strain/ we recognise 
 the inspiring god. Mr. T ennyson belongs 
 decidedly to the class we have already 
 described as Poets of Sensation. He sees 
 all the forms of nature with the eruditus 
 ocuius, and his ear has a fairy fineness. 
 There is a strange earnestness in his worship 
 of beauty, which throws a charm over his 
 
 * May we not compare them to the bright, but unsub¬ 
 stantial clouds which, in still evenings, girdle the sides 
 of lofty mountains, and seem to form a natural connec¬ 
 tion between the lowly valleys, spread out beneath, and 
 those isolated peaks above, that hold the ‘last parley 
 with the setting sun ’ ? 
 
 107 
 
ON THE LYRICAL POEMS 
 
 impassioned song, more easily felt than de¬ 
 scribed, and not to be escaped by those who 
 have once felt it. We think he has more 
 definiteness, and soundness of general con¬ 
 ception, than the late Mr. Keats, and is much 
 more free from blemishes of diction and 
 hasty capriccios of fancy. He has also this 
 advantage over that poet, and his friend 
 Shelley, that he comes before the public, 
 unconnected with any political party, or 
 peculiar system of opinions. Nevertheless, 
 true to the theory we have stated, we believe 
 his participation in their characteristic ex¬ 
 cellencies is sufficient to secure him a share 
 in their unpopularity. The volume of 
 Poems , chiefly Lyrical , does not contain 
 above 154 pages; but it shows us much 
 more of the character of its parent mind 
 than many books we have known of much 
 larger compass, and more boastful preten¬ 
 sions. The features of original genius are 
 clearly and strongly marked. The authon 
 imitates nobody; we recognise the spirit of* 
 his age, but not the individual form of this 
 
 108 
 
OF ALFRED TENNYSON 
 
 or that writer. His thoughts bear no more 
 resemblance to Byron or Scott, Shelley or 
 Coleridge, than to Homer or Calderon, 
 Ferdusi or Calidas. We have remarked five 
 distinctive excellencies of his own manner. 
 First, his luxuriance of imagination, and at ; 
 the same time his control over it. Secondly, 
 his power of embodying himself in ideal 
 characters, or rather moods of character, with 
 such extreme accuracy of adjustment, that 
 the circumstances of the narration seem to 
 have a natural correspondence with the pre¬ 
 dominant feeling, and, as it were, to be 
 evolved from it by assimilative force. Thirdly, / 
 his vivid, picturesque delineation of objects, 
 and the peculiar skill with which he holds all 
 of them fused , to borrow a metaphor from 
 science, in a medium of strong emotion. 
 Fourthly, the variety of his lyrical measures, 
 and exquisite modulation of harmonious 
 words and cadences to the swell and fall 
 of the feelings expressed. Fifthly, the 
 elevated habits of thought, implied in these 
 compositions, and imparting a mellow sober- 
 
 109 
 
ON THE LYRICAL POEMS 
 
 ness of tone, more impressive, to oar minds, 
 than if the author had drawn up a set of 
 opinions in verse, and sought to instruct the 
 understanding, rather than to communicate 
 the love of beauty to the heart. We shall 
 proceed to give our readers some specimens 
 in illustration of these remarks, and, if 
 possible, we will give them entire; for no 
 poet can fairly be judged of by fragments, 
 least of all a poet, like Mr. Tennyson, whose 
 mind conceives nothing isolated, nothing 
 abrupt, but every part with reference to 
 some other part, and in subservience to the 
 idea of the whole. 
 
 Recollections of the Arabian Nights !— 
 What a delightful, endearing title ! How 
 we pity those to whom it calls up no re¬ 
 miniscence of early enjoyment, no sentiment 
 of kindliness as towards one who sings a song 
 they have loved, or mentions with affection 
 a departed friend ! But let nobody expect a 
 multifarious enumeration of Viziers, Barme¬ 
 cides, Fire-worshippers, and Cadis; trees 
 that sing, horses that fly, and Goules that 
 
 i io 
 
OF ALFRED TENNYSON 
 
 eat rice-pudding ! Our author knows what 
 he is about: he has, with great judgment, 
 selected our old acquaintance, ‘ the good 
 Haroun Alraschid,’ as the most prominent 
 object of our childish interest, and with him 
 has called up one of those luxurious 
 
 v 
 
 scenes, the account of which, in plain prose, 
 used to make our mouths water for sherbet, 
 since luckily we were too young to think 
 much about Zobeide ! We think this poem 
 will be the favourite among Mr. Tennyson’s 
 admirers; perhaps upon the whole it is our 
 own; at least we find ourselves recurring to 
 it oftener than to any other, and every time 
 we read it, we feel the freshness of its beauty 
 increase, and are inclined to exclaim with 
 Madame de Sevigne, ‘ a force d'etre ajicien, il 
 irfest nouveau .’ But let us draw the curtain. 
 
 i 
 
 When the breeze of a joyful dawn blew free 
 In the silken sail of infancy, 
 
 The tide of time flowed back with me, 
 
 The forward-flowing tide of time ; 
 
 And many a sheeny summer-morn 
 Adown the Tigris I was borne, 
 
 111 
 
ON THE LYRICAL POEMS 
 
 By Bagdat’s shrines of fretted gold, 
 High-walled gardens green and old ; 
 
 True Mussulman was I and sworn, 
 
 For it was in the golden prime 
 Of good Haroun Alraschid. 
 
 II 
 
 Anight my shallop, rustling through 
 The low and bloomed foliage, drove 
 The fragrant, glistening deeps, and clove 
 The citron-shadows in the blue ; 
 
 By garden porches on the brim, 
 
 The costly doors flung open wide, 
 
 Gold glittering through lamplight dim, 
 And broidered sofas on each side : 
 
 In sooth it was a goodly time, 
 
 For it was in the golden prime 
 Of good Haroun Alraschid. 
 
 hi 
 
 Often, where clear-stemmed platans guard 
 The outlet, did I turn away 
 The boat-head down a broad canal 
 From the main river sluiced, where all 
 The sloping of the moonlit sward 
 Was damask work, and deep inlay 
 Of braided blossoms unmown, which crept 
 Adown to where the waters slept. 
 
 A goodly place, a goodly time, 
 
 For it was in the golden prime 
 Of good Haroun Alraschid. 
 
 I 12 
 
OF ALFRED TENNYSON 
 
 IV 
 
 A motion from the river won 
 Ridged the smooth level, bearing on 
 My shallop through the star-strown calm, 
 Until another night in night 
 I entered, from the clearer light, 
 
 Imbowered vaults of pillared palm, 
 Imprisoning sweets, which as they clomb 
 Heavenward, were stayed beneath the dome 
 Of hollow boughs. A goodly time, 
 
 For it was in the golden prime 
 Of good Haroun Alraschid ! 
 
 v 
 
 Still onward and the clear canal 
 Is rounded to as clear a lake. 
 
 From the green rivage many a fall 
 Of diamond rillets musical, 
 
 Through little crystal arches low, 
 
 Down from the central fountain’s flow 
 Fall’n silver-chiming, seemed to shake 
 The sparkling flints beneath the prow. 
 
 A goodly place, a goodly time, 
 
 For it was in the golden prime 
 Of good Haroun Alraschid ! 
 
 VI 
 
 Above through many a bowery turn 
 A walk with vary-coloured shells 
 Wandered engrained. On either side, 
 
 All round about the fragrant marge, 
 
 From fluted vase and brazen urn 
 
 n 3 
 
 H 
 
ON THE LYRICAL POEMS 
 
 In order, eastern flowers large, 
 
 Some dropping low their crimson bells 
 Half closed, and others studded wide 
 With dicks and diars, fed the time 
 With odour in the golden prime 
 Of good Iiaroun Alraschid ! 
 
 VII 
 
 Far off and where the lemon grove 
 In closest coverture upsprang, 
 
 The living airs of middle night 
 Died round the Bulbul as he sang: 
 
 Not he ; but something which possessed 
 The darkness of the world, delight, 
 
 Life, anguish, death, immortal love, 
 Ceasing not, mingled, unrepressed, 
 
 Apart from place, withholding time, 
 
 But flattering the golden prime 
 Of good Iiaroun Alraschid. 
 
 VIII 
 
 Black-green the garden bowers and grots 
 Slumbered: the solemn palms were ranged 
 Above, unwooed of summer wind. 
 
 A sudden splendour from behind 
 Flushed all the leaves with r ich gold-g reen. 
 And flowing rapidly between 
 Their interspaces, counterchanged 
 The level lake with diamond plots 
 Of saffron light. A lovely time. 
 
 For it was in the golden prime 
 Of good Haroun Alraschid ! 
 
 114 
 
OF ALFRED TENNYSON 
 
 IX 
 
 Dark-blue the deep sphere overhead, 
 Distinct with vivid stars unrayed, 
 
 Grew darker from that underflame ; 
 
 So leaping lightly from the boat, 
 
 With silver anchor left afloat, 
 
 In marvel whence that glory came 
 Upon me, as in sleep I sank 
 In cool, soft turf upon the bank, 
 Entranced with that place and time, 
 So worthy of the golden prime 
 Of good Haroun Alraschid. 
 
 x 
 
 Thence through the garden I was borne ; 
 A realm of pleasance ; many a mound 
 And many a shadow-chequered lawn 
 Full of the city’s stilly sound ; 
 
 And deep myrrh thickets blowing round 
 The stately cedar, tamarisks, 
 
 Thick rosaries of scented thorn, 
 
 Tall orient shrubs, and obelisks 
 Graven with emblems of the time, 
 
 In honour of the golden prime 
 Of good Haroun Alraschid. 
 
 XI 
 
 With dazed vision unawares 
 From the long alley’s latticed shade 
 Emerged, I came upon the great 
 Pavilion of the Caliphat. 
 
 115 
 
ON THE LYRICAL POEMS 
 
 Right to the carven cedam doors. 
 
 Flung inward over spangled floors, 
 Broad-based flights of marbled stairs 
 Ran up with golden balustrade, 
 
 After the fashion of the time, 
 
 And humour of the golden prime 
 Of good Haroun Alraschid. 
 
 XII 
 
 The fourscore windows all alight 
 As with the quintessence of flame, 
 
 A million tapers flaring bright 
 From wreathed silvers looked to shame 
 The hollow-vaulted dark, and streamed 
 Upon the mooned domes aloof 
 In inmost Bagdat, till there seemed 
 Hundreds of crescents on the roof 
 Of night new-risen, that marvellous time, 
 To celebrate the golden prime 
 Of good Haroun Alraschid. 
 
 XIII 
 
 Then stole I up, and trancedly 
 Gazed on the Persian girl alone, 
 
 Serene with argent-lid ded ey es 
 Amorous, and lashes like to rays 
 Of darkness, and a brow of pearl 
 Tressed wi th redolent ebo ny, 
 
 In many a dark, delicious curl 
 Flowing below her rose-hued zone : 
 
 The sweetest lady of the time, 
 
 Well worthy of the golden prime 
 Of good Haroun Alraschid. 
 
 116 
 
OF ALFRED TENNYSON 
 
 XIV 
 
 Six columns, three on either side, 
 
 Fure silver, underpropped a rich 
 Throne o’ the massive ore, from which 
 Down-drooped, in many a floating fold, 
 Engarlanded and diapered 
 With inwrought flowers, a cloth of gold. 
 Thereon, his deep eye laughter-stirred 
 With merriment of kingly pride, 
 
 Sole star of all that place and time, 
 
 I saw him—in his golden prime, 
 
 The good Haroun Alraschid ! 
 
 Criticism will sound but poorly after this ; 
 yet we cannot give silent votes. The first 
 stanza, we beg leave to observe, places us at 
 once in the position of feeling, which the 
 poem requires. The scene is before us, 
 around us; we cannot mistake its localities, 
 or blind ourselves to its colours. That 
 happy ductility of childhood returns for the 
 moment; ‘ true Mussulmans are we, and 
 sworn,’ and yet there is a latent knowledge, 
 which heightens the pleasure, that to our 
 change from really childish thought we owe 
 the capacities by which we enjoy the 
 recollection. As the poem proceeds, all is 
 
 117 
 
ON THE LYRICAL POEMS 
 
 in perfect keeping. There is a solemn 
 distinctness in every image, a majesty of 
 slow motion in every cadence, that aids the 
 illusion of thought, and steadies its contem¬ 
 plation of the complete picture. Originality 
 of observation seems to cost nothing to our 
 author’s liberal genius; he lavishes images of 
 exquisite accuracy and elaborate splendour, 
 as a common writer throws about metaphori¬ 
 cal truisms, and exhausted tropes. s Amidst 
 all the varied luxuriance of the sen sat ions 
 described, we are never permitted to lose 
 ^ sight of the idea which gives unity to this 
 variety, and by the recurrence of which, as a 
 sort of mysterious influence, at the close of 
 every stanza, the mind is wrought up, with 
 consummate art, to the final disclosure^ 
 This poem is a perfect gallery of pictures ; 
 and the concise boldness, with which in a 
 few words an object is clearly painted, is 
 sometimes (see the 6th stanza) majestic as 
 Milton, sometimes (see the 12th) sublime as 
 yEschylus. We have not, however, so far 
 forgot our vocation as critics, that we would 
 
 118 
 
 1/ 
 
OF ALFRED TENNYSON 
 
 leave without notice the slight faults which 
 adhere to this precious work. In the 8th 
 stanza, we doubt the propriety of using the 
 bold compound ‘ black-green,’ at least in 
 such close vicinity to ‘ gold-green ’: nor is it 
 perfectly clear by the term, although indi¬ 
 cated by the context, that ‘ diamond plots ’ 
 relates to shape rather than colour. We are 
 perhaps very stupid, but £ vivid stars unrayed’ 
 does not convey to us a very precise notion. 
 
 1 -Rosaries of scented thorn,’ in the ioth 
 stanza, is, we believe, an entirely un¬ 
 authorised use of the word. Would our 
 author translate £ biferique rosaria Faesti ’— 
 
 £ And rosaries of Paestum, twice in bloom ’ ? 
 To the beautiful 13th stanza, we are sorry to 
 find any objection ; but even the bewitching 
 loveliness of that £ Persian girl ’ shall not 
 prevent our performing the rigid duty we 
 have undertaken, and we must hint to Mr. 
 Tennyson that ‘redolent’ is no synonym 
 for ‘fragrant. 7 Bees may be redolent of 
 honey : spring may be ‘ redolent of youth 
 and love,’ but the absolute use of the word 
 
 119 
 
ON THE LYRICAL POEMS 
 
 has, we fear, neither in Latin nor English, 
 any better authority than the monastic 
 epitaph on Fair Rosamond: ‘ Hie jacet in 
 tomba Rosa Mundi, non Rosa Munda , non 
 redolet , sed olet , quae redolere solet 
 
 We are disposed to agree with Mr. Cole¬ 
 ridge, when he says ‘ no adequate compensa¬ 
 tion can be made for the mischief a writer 
 does by confounding the distinct senses of 
 words.’ At the same time our feelings in 
 this instance rebel strongly in behalf of 
 ‘redolent’; fopHdreTneRndy^if^the passage, 
 as it stands, V^beyondrtbe^^possibility of 
 improv emen t, and unless he should chance 
 to light upon a word very nearly resembling 
 this in consonants and vowels, we can hardly 
 quarrel with Mr. Tennyson if, in spite of 
 our judgment, he retains the offender in 
 his service. 
 
 Our next specimen is of a totally different 
 character, but not less complete, we think, 
 in its kind. Have we among our readers 
 any who delight in the heroic poems of Old 
 England, the inimitable ballads ? Any to 
 
 120 
 
OF ALFRED TENNYSON 
 
 whom Sir Patrick Sfcns, and Clym of the 
 Clough , and Glorious Robin , are consecrated 
 names ? Any who sigh with disgust at the 
 miserable abortions of simpleness mistaken 
 for simplicity, or florid weakness substituted 
 for plain energy, which they may often have 
 seen dignified with the title of Modern 
 Ballads ? Let us draw near, and read The 
 Ballad of Oriana. We know no more happy 
 seizure of the antique spirit in the whole 
 compass of our literature; yet there is no 
 foolish self-desertion, no attempt at obliterat¬ 
 ing the present, but everywhere a full dis¬ 
 crimination of how much ought to be yielded, 
 and how much retained. The author is 
 well aware that the art of one generation 
 cannot become that of another by any will or 
 skill: but the artist may transfer the spirit of 
 the past, making it a temporary form for his 
 own spirit, and so effect, by idealising power, 
 a new and legitimate combination. If we 
 were asked to name among the real antiques 
 that which bears greatest resemblance to this 
 gem, we should refer to the ballad of Fair 
 
 I 2 I 
 
ON THE LYRICAL POEMS 
 
 Helen of Kirkconnel Lea in the Minstrelsy 
 of the Scottish Border. It is a resemblance 
 of mood, not of execution. They are both 
 highly wrought lyrical expressions of pathos ; 
 and it is very remarkable with what intuitive 
 art, every expression and cadence in Fair 
 Helen is accorded to the main feeling. The 
 characters that distinguish the language of 
 our lyrical , from that of our epic ballads, 
 have never yet been examined with the 
 accuracy they deserve. But, beyond 
 
 question, the class of poems, which, in 
 point of harmonious combination, Oriana 
 most resembles, is the Italian. Just thus 
 the meditative tenderness of Dante and 
 Petrarch is embodied in the clear, searching 
 tones of Tuscan song. These mighty 
 
 masters produce two-thirds of their effect by 
 sound. Not that they sacrifice sense to 
 sound, but that spund conveys their meaning, 
 where words would not. There are innumer¬ 
 able shades of fine emotion in the human 
 hearty especially when the senses are keen 
 •and vigilant, which are too subtle and too 
 
 
 122 
 
OF ALFRED TENNYSON 
 
 rapid to admit of corresponding phrases. 
 The understanding takes no definite note of 
 them; how then can they leave signatures 
 in language? Yet they exist; in plenitude 
 of being and beauty they exist; and in 
 music they find a medium through which 
 they pass from heart to heart. The tone 
 becomes the sign of the feeling; and they 
 reciprocally suggest each other. Analogous 
 to this suggestive power, may be reckoned, 
 perhaps, in a sister art, the effects of Venetian 
 colouring. Titian explains by tints, as 
 Petrarch by tones. Words would not have 
 done the business of the one, nor any 
 groupings, or narration by form , that of the 
 other. But, shame upon us ! we are going 
 back to our metaphysics, when that ‘ sweet, 
 meek face’ is waiting to be admitted, v 
 ) 
 
 i 
 
 My heart is wasted with my woe, 
 Oriana. 
 
 There is no rest for me below, 
 Oriana. 
 
 123 
 
ON THE LYRICAL POEMS 
 
 When the long dun wolds are ribbed with snow, 
 
 And loud the Norland whirlwinds blow, 
 
 Oriana, 
 
 Alone I wander to and fro, 
 
 Oriana. 
 
 II 
 
 Ere the light on dark was growing, 
 
 Oriana, 
 
 At midnight the cock was crowing, 
 
 Oriana: 
 
 Winds were blowing, waters flowing, 
 
 We heard the steeds to battle going, 
 
 Oriana : 
 
 Aloud the hollow bugle blowing, 
 
 Oriana. 
 
 in 
 
 In the yew-wood, black as night, 
 
 Oriana, 
 
 Ere I rode into the fight, 
 
 Oriana, 
 
 While blissful tears blinded my sight, 
 
 By starshine and by moonlight, 
 
 Oriana, 
 
 I to thee my troth did plight, 
 
 Oriana. 
 
 IV 
 
 She stood upon the castle wall, 
 
 Oriana: 
 
 She watched my crest among thenfall, 
 
 Oriana : - 
 
 124 
 
OF ALFRED TENNYSON 
 
 She saw me fight, she heard me call, 
 
 When forth there stepped a foeman tall, 
 Oriana, 
 
 Atween me and the castle wall, 
 
 Oriana. 
 
 v 
 
 The bitter arrow went aside, 
 
 Oriana : 
 
 The false, false arrow went aside, 
 
 Oriana: 
 
 The damn’d arrow glanced aside, 
 
 And pierced thy heart, my love, my bride, 
 Oriana ! 
 
 Thy heart, my life, my love, my bride, 
 Oriana ! 
 
 VI 
 
 Oh narrow, narrow was the space, 
 
 Oriana. 
 
 Loud, loud rang out the bugle’s brays, 
 Oriana. 
 
 Oh, deathful stabs were dealt apace ; 
 
 The battle deepened in its place, 
 
 Oriana; 
 
 But I was down upon my face, 
 
 Oriana. 
 
 VII 
 
 They should have stabbed me where I lay, 
 Oriana ! 
 
 How could I rise and come away, 
 
 Oriana ! 
 
 I2 5 
 
ON THE LYRICAL POEMS 
 
 How could I look upon the day ? 
 
 They should have stabbed me where I lay, 
 Oriana ; 
 
 They should have trod me into clay, 
 
 Oriana ! 
 
 VIII 
 
 Oh breaking heart that will not break, 
 Oriana; 
 
 Oh pale, pale face so sweet and meek, 
 Oriana ; 
 
 Thou smilest, but thou dost not speak, 
 
 And then the tears run down thy cheek, 
 Oriana; 
 
 Whom wantest thou ? whom dost thou seek, 
 Oriana ? 
 
 IX 
 
 I cry aloud : none hears my cries, 
 Oriana. 
 
 Thou com’st atween me and the skies, 
 Oriana. 
 
 I feel the tears of blood arise 
 Up from my heart unto my eyes, 
 Oriana. 
 
 Within thy heart my arrow lies, 
 Oriana. 
 
 x 
 
 Oh cursed hand ! oh cursed blow ! 
 Oriana ! 
 
 Oh happy thou that best low, 
 Oriana ! 
 
 I 26 
 
OF ALFRED TENNYSON 
 
 All night tfie silence seems to flow 
 
 Beside me in my utter woe, 
 
 Oriana. 
 
 A weary, weary way I go, 
 
 Oriana. 
 
 XI 
 
 When Norland winds pipe down the lea, 
 Oriana, 
 
 I walk, I dare not think of thee, 
 
 Oriana. 
 
 Thou liest beneath the greenwood tree : 
 
 I dare not die, and come to thee, 
 
 Oriana— 
 
 I hear the roaring of the sea, 
 
 Oriana. 
 
 We have heard it objected to this poem 
 that the name occurs once too often in every 
 stanza. We have taken the plea into our 
 judicial consideration, and the result is, that 
 we overrule it, and pronounce that the pro¬ 
 portion of the melodious cadences to the 
 pathetic parts of the narration, could not 
 be diminished without materially affecting 
 the rich lyrical impression of the ballad. For 
 whatsis the author's intention? To gratify 
 
 127 
 
ON THE LYRICAL POEMS 
 
 our curiosity with a strange adventure? To 
 shake our nerves with a painful story? Very 
 far from it. Tears indeed may ‘ blind our 
 sight,’ as we read; but they are ‘blissful 
 tears ’: the strong musical delight prevails 
 over every painful feeling, and mingles them 
 all in its deep swell, until they attain a com¬ 
 posure of exalted sorrow, a mood in which 
 the latest repose of agitation becomes visible, 
 and the influence of beauty spreads like 
 light, over the surface of the mind. The 
 I last line, with its dro^y wildness, reveals 
 thejlesign of the whole. It is transferred, 
 if we mistake not, from an old ballad (a 
 freedom of immemorial usage with ballad- 
 mongers, as our readers doubtless know), 
 but the merit lies in the abrupt application 
 of it to the leading sentiment, so as to flash 
 upon us in a few little words a world of 
 meaning, and to consecrate the passion that 
 was beyond cure or hope, by resigning it to 
 the accordance of inanimate Nature, who, 
 like man, has her tempests, and occasions of 
 horror, but august in their largeness of 
 
 128 
 
OF ALFRED TENNYSON 
 
 operation, awful by their dependence on a 
 fixed and perpetual necessity. 
 
 We must give one more extract, and we 
 are almost tempted to choose by lot among 
 many that crowd on our recollection, and 
 solicit our preference with such witchery as 
 it is not easy to withstand. The poems 
 towards the middle of the volume seem to 
 have been written at an earlier period than 
 the rest. They display more unrestrained 
 fancy, and are less evidently proportioned 
 to their ruling ideas, than those which we 
 think of later date. Yet in the Ode to 
 Memory —the only one which we have the 
 poet’s authority for referring to early life— 
 there is a majesty of expression, united to a 
 truth of thought, which almost confounds 
 our preconceived distinctions. The 1 Co?i- 
 fessions of a Second-rate , Sensitive Mind ,’ 
 are full of deep insight into human nature, 
 and into those^ particular -trials, which are 
 sure to beset men who think and feel for 
 themselves at this epoch of social develop¬ 
 ment. The title is perhaps ill-chosen : not 
 1 129 
 
ON THE LYRICAL POEMS 
 
 only has it an appearance of quaintness, 
 which has no sufficient reason, but it seems 
 to us incorrect. The mood portrayed in 
 this poem, unless the admirable skill of 
 delineation has deceived us, is rather the 
 clouded season of a strong mind, than the 
 habitual condition of one feeble and £ second- 
 rate.’ Ordinary tempers build up fortresses 
 of opinion on one side or another ; they will 
 see only what they choose to see; the 
 distant glimpse of such an agony as is here 
 brought out to view, is sufficient to keep 
 them for ever in illusions, voluntarily raised 
 at first, but soon trusted in with full reliance 
 as inseparable parts of self. Perhaps, how¬ 
 ever, Mr. Tennyson’s mode of ‘rating’ is 
 different from ours. He may esteem none 
 worthy of the first order, who has not 
 attained a complete universality of thought, 
 and such trustful reliance on a principle of 
 repose, which lies beyond the war of con¬ 
 flicting opinions, that the grand ideas, £ qui 
 plane?it sans cesse au dessus de thumamt'e ,’ 
 cease to affect him with bewildering impulses 
 
 130 
 
 
OF ALFRED TENNYSON 
 
 of hope and fear. We have not space to 
 enter further into this topic; but we should 
 not despair of convincing Mr. Tennyson, 
 that such a position of intellect would not be 
 the most elevated, nor even the most con¬ 
 ducive to perfection of art. The Hoiv and 
 
 ■ 
 
 the Why appears to present the reverse of 
 the same picture. It is the same mind still; 
 the sensitive sceptic, whom we have looked 
 upon in his hour of distress, now scoffing at 
 his own state with an earnest mirth that 
 borders on sorrow. It is exquisitely beautiful 
 to see in this, as in the former portrait, how 
 the feeling of art is kept ascendant in our 
 minds over distressful realities, by constant 
 reference to images of tranquil beauty, 
 whether touched pathetically, as the Ox and/ 
 the Lamb in the first piece, or with fine^ 
 humour, as the ‘ great bird ’ and ‘ little bird^ 
 in the second. The Sea Fairies is another, 
 strange title; but those who turn to it with 
 the very natural curiosity of discovering who 
 these new births of mythology may be, will 
 be unpardonable if they do not linger over 
 
 I 3 I 
 
ON THE LYRICAL POEMS 
 
 it with higher feelings. A stretch of lyrical 
 power is here exhibited, which we did not 
 think the English language had possessed. 
 The proud swell of verse, as the harp tones 
 ‘run up the ridged sea/ and the soft and 
 melancholy lapse, as the sounds die along 
 'the widening space of waters, are instances of 
 that right imitation which is becoming to art, 
 but which in the hands of the unskilful, or 
 the affecters of easy popularity, is often con¬ 
 verted into a degrading mimicry, detrimental 
 to the best interests of the imagination. A 
 considerable portion of this book is taken 
 up with a very singular, and very beautiful 
 class of poems, on which the author has 
 evidently bestowed much thought and 
 elaboration. We allude to the female 
 characters, every trait of which presumes an 
 uncommon degree of observation and reflec¬ 
 tion. Mr. Tennyson’s way of proceeding 
 seems to be this. He collects the most 
 striking phenomena of individual minds, 
 until he arrives at some leading fact, which 
 allows him to lay down an axiom or law, and 
 
 132 
 
OF ALFRED TENNYSON 
 
 then, working on the law thus attained, he 
 clearly discerns the tendency of what new 
 particulars his invention suggests, and is 
 enabled to impress an individual freshness 
 and unity on ideal combinations. These 
 expressions of character are brief and co¬ 
 herent : nothing extraneous to the dominant 
 fact is admitted, nothing illustrative of it, 
 and, as it were, growing out of it, is rejected. 
 They are like summaries of mighty dramas. 
 We do not say this method admits of such 
 large luxuriance of power as that of our real 
 dramatists ; but we contend that it is a new 
 species of poetry, a graft of the lyric on the 
 dramatic, and Mr. Tennyson deserves the 
 laurel of an inventor, an enlarger of our 
 modes of knowledge and power. We must 
 hasten to make our election; so, passing by 
 the c airy, fairy Lilian/ who £ clasps her hands ’ 
 in vain to retain us; the £ stately flower ’ 
 of matronly fortitude, £ revered Isabel 7 ; 
 Madeline, with her voluptuous alternation 
 of smile and frown ; Mariana, last, but oh 
 not least—we swear by the memory of 
 
 *33 
 
ON THE LYRICAL POEMS 
 
 Shakespeare, to whom a monument of 
 observant love has here been raised by 
 simply expanding all the latent meanings 
 and beauties contained in one stray thought 
 of his genius—we shall fix on a lovely, 
 albeit somewhat mysterious lady, who has 
 fairly taken our ‘ heart from out our breast . 5 
 
 ADELINE. 
 
 Mystery of mysteries, 
 
 Faintly smiling Adeline, 
 
 Scarce of earth, nor all divine, 
 
 Nor unhappy, nor at rest; 
 
 But beyond expression fair, 
 
 With thy floating flaxen hair, 
 
 Thy rose lips and full blue eyes 
 Take the heart from out my breast: 
 Wherefore those dim looks of thine, 
 Shadowy, dreaming Adeline ? 
 
 Whence that aery bloom of thine, 
 
 Like a lily which the sun 
 Looks through in his sad decline, 
 
 And a rose-bush leans upon, 
 
 Thou that faintly smilest still 
 As a Naiad in a well, 
 
 Looking at the set of day, 
 
 Or a phantom, two hours old, 
 
 Of a maiden past away, 
 
 Ere the placid lips be cold ? 
 
 134 
 
OF ALFRED TENNYSON 
 
 Wherefore those faint smiles of thine, 
 Spiritual Adeline ? 
 
 What hope or fear or j oy is thine ? 
 Who talketh with thee, Adeline, 
 
 For sure thou art not all alone ? 
 
 Do beating hearts of salient springs 
 Keep measure with thine own ? 
 
 Hast thou heard the butterflies, 
 
 What they say betwixt their wings ? 
 Or in stillest evenings 
 With what voice the violet woos 
 To his heart the silver dews ? 
 
 Or when little airs arise, 
 
 Flow the merry bluebell rings 
 To the mosses underneath? 
 
 Hast thou looked upon the breath 
 Of the lilies at sunrise? 
 
 Wherefore that faint smile of thine, 
 Shadowy dreaming Adeline ? 
 
 Some honey-converse feeds thy mind 
 Some spirit of a crimson rose 
 In love with thee forgets to close 
 His curtains, wasting odorous sighs 
 All night long on darkness blind. 
 What aileth thee ? whom waitest thou 
 With thy softened, shadowed brow, 
 And those dewlit eyes of thine, 
 
 Thou faint smiler, Adeline ? 
 
 Lovest thou the doleful wind, 
 
 When thou gazest at the skies ? 
 
 Doth the low-tongued Orient 
 Wander from the side o’ the morn 
 
 135 
 
ON THE LYRICAL POEMS 
 
 Dripping with Sabaean spice 
 On thy pillow, lowly bent 
 With melodious airs lovelorn, 
 
 Breathing light against thy face, 
 
 While his locks a dropping twined 
 Round thy neck in subtle ring 
 Make a carcanet of rays, 
 
 And we talk together still 
 
 In the language, wherewith Spring 
 
 Letters cowslips on the hill ? 
 
 Hence that look and smile of thine, 
 Spiritual Adeline. 
 
 Is not this beautiful ? When this Poet 
 dies, will not the Graces and the Loves 
 mourn over him, ‘ fortunataque favillci nas- 
 centur viola ? How original is the imagery, 
 and how delicate ! How wonderful the new 
 world thus created for us, the region between 
 real and unreal ! The gardens of Armida 
 were but poorly musical compared with the 
 roses and lilies that bloom around thee, thou 
 faint smiler, Adeline, on whom the glory of 
 imagination reposes, endowing all thou 
 lookest on with sudden and mysterious life. 
 We could expatiate on the deep meaning of 
 this poem, but it is time to twitch our critical 
 
 136 
 
OF ALFRED TENNYSON 
 
 mantles; and, as our trade is not that of 
 mere enthusiasm, we shall take our leave 
 with an objection (perhaps a cavil) to the 
 language of cowslips, which we think too am¬ 
 biguously spoken of for a subject on which 
 nobody, except Mr. Tennyson, can have any 
 information. The c ringing bluebell ’ too, if 
 it be not a pun, suggests one, and might 
 probably be altered to advantage. 
 
 One word more, before we have done, 
 and it shall be a word of praise. The 
 language of this book, with one or two 
 rare exceptions, is thorough and sterling 
 English. A little more respect, perhaps, 
 was due to the 1 jus et norma loquendi ,’ but 
 we are inclined to consider as venial a fault 
 arising from generous enthusiasm for the 
 principles of sound analogy, and for that 
 Saxon element, which constitutes the intrinsic 
 freedom and nervousness of our native 
 tongue. We see no signs in what Mr. 
 Tennyson has written of the Quixotic spirit 
 which has led some persons to desire the 
 reduction of English to a single form, by 
 
 137 
 
ON THE LYRICAL POEMS 
 
 excluding nearly the whole of Latin and 
 Roman derivatives. Ours is necessarily a 
 compound language ; as such alone it can 
 flourish and increase; nor will the author of 
 the poems we have extracted be likely to 
 barter for a barren appearance of symmetrical 
 structure that fertility of expression, and 
 variety of harmony, which * the speech, that 
 Shakespeare spoke,’ derived from the sources 
 of southern phraseology. 
 
 In presenting this young poet to the 
 public, as one not studious of instant 
 popularity, nor likely to obtain it, we may 
 be thought to play the part of a fashionable 
 lady, who deludes her refractory mate into 
 doing what she chooses, by pretending to 
 wish the exact contrary, or of a cunning 
 pedagogue, who practises a similar manoeuvre 
 on some self-willed Flibbertigibbet of the 
 schoolroom. But the supposition would do 
 us wrong. We have spoken in good faith, 
 commending this volume to feeling hearts 
 and imaginative tempers, not to the stupid 
 readers, or the voracious readers, or the 
 
 138 
 
OF ALFRED TENNYSON 
 
 malignant readers, or the readers after 
 dinner! We confess, indeed, we never 
 knew an instance in which the theoretical 
 abjurers of popularity have shown themselves 
 very reluctant to admit its actual advances ; 
 so much virtue is not, perhaps, in human 
 nature; and if the world should take a 
 fancy to buy up these poems, in order to be 
 revenged on the Englishman's Magazine , 
 who knows whether even we might not 
 disappoint its malice by a cheerful adapta¬ 
 tion of our theory to ‘ existing circum¬ 
 stances ’ ? 
 
 J 39 
 
s 
 
 
 
 
London, Vigo Street, W. 
 1893. 
 
 ELKIN MATHEWS & JOHN LANE’S 
 
 List of New and Forthcoming Books 
 
 WATSON (WILLIAM) The Eloping Angels: a Caprice. 
 Title-page and Cover designed by Warrington Hogg. 
 Second Edition. Square i6mo, 3s. 6d. net, uniform with 
 the Author’s volume ‘ Epigrams. 
 
 WATSON (WILLIAM) Excursions in Criticism : being 
 some Prose Recreations of a Rhymer. Second Edition. 
 Crown 8vo, 5 s * ne b 
 
 WATSON (WILLIAM) The Prince’s Quest, and other 
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 *** Uniform with the Author’s ‘ Poems.’ (Macmillans.) 
 
 GALE (NORMAN) Orchard Songs, i2mo, 5s. net. 
 
2 
 
 ELKIN MATHEWS JOHN LANE’S LIST —Continued. 
 
 WEDMORE (FREDERICK) Renunciations. (A Chemist 
 in the Suburbs—A Confidence at the Savile—The North 
 Coast and Eleanor.) Post 8vo, 3s. 6d. net. [Allsold. 
 
 Also 50 copies L. P., 10s. 6d. net. [A few rewain. 
 
 WILDE (OSCAR) SalomB : Drame en un Acte. First 
 Edition limited to 600 copies (500 of which are for Sale) 
 for Paris and London. 8vo, 5s. net. 
 
 *** ‘ Salome ’ has been accepted by Madame Bernhardt, but, as is well 
 known, the Lord Chamberlain refused the licence. 
 
 NOBLE (J. ASHCROFT) The Sonnet in England, and 
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 Austin Young. Small 8vo, 5s. net. 
 
 Also 50 copies L. P., Dickinson hand-made, 12s. 6d. net. 
 
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 1 7 
 
ELKIN MATHEWS < 5 ^ JOHN LANE’S LIST— Continued. 3 
 
 NETTLESHIP (J. T.) Robert Browning: Essays and 
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 K 
 
4 
 
 ELKIN MATHEWS 6* JOHN LANE’S LIST— Continued. 
 
 IIALLAM (ARTHUR) Poems of. Reprinted from the scarce 
 
 I 
 
 ‘Remains in Verse and Prose,’ 1834. Also his critique 
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 of Alfred Tennyson.’ With an Introductory Note by 
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 GRAY (JOHN) Silverpoints (Poems). Printed in Italics. 
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 [All sold. 
 
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 £1, is. net. [All sold. 
 
 VAN DYKE (HENRY) The Poetry of Tennyson. Third 
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 The additions consist of a portrait, two extra chapters, and the Chrono¬ 
 logy expanded. The Laureate himself gave valuable aid in the 
 correction of various details. 
 
 IMAGE (SELWYN) Poems. With decorations by Herbert 
 Percy Horne. 121110, 5s. net. [In preparation. 
 
ELKIN MATHEWS JOHN LANE’S LIST— Continued. 
 
 5 
 
 DE TABLEY (LORD) Poems Dramatic and Lyrical. 
 By John Leicester Warren, Lord De Tabley, M.A., 
 F.S.A. With 5 Illustrations, and Cover (petals) designed 
 by C. S. Ricketts, and Book-plate by W. Bell Scott. 
 Second Edition. Crown 8vo, 7s. 6d. net. 
 
 JOHNSON (LIONEL) The Art of Thomas Hardy : Six 
 Essays. With Etched Portrait from Life by William 
 Strang, and a Bibliography by John Lane. Crown 8 vo, 
 5s. 6d. net. 
 
 Also a limited number on Large Paper, £1, is. net. 
 
 JOHNSON (LIONEL) Poems. Fcap. 8 vo, 5s. net. 
 
 [In preparation. 
 
 MEYNELL (MRS.) The Rhythm of Life, and other 
 Essays. Second Edition. Fcap. 8vo, 3s. 6d. net. 
 
 Also 50 copies L. P., on hand-made paper, 12s. 6d. net. 
 
 MEYNELL (MRS.) Poems. Second Edition. Fcap. 8 vo, 
 3s. 6d. net. 
 
 Also 50 copies L. P., on hand-made paper, 12s. 6d. net. 
 
 WICKSTEED (P. H.) Dante: Six Sermons. Third 
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 FIELD (MICHAEL) Stephania: a Trialogue, in Three 
 Acts. Frontispiece, Colophon, and Ornament for binding 
 designed by Sei.wyn Image. Pott 4to, 6 s. net. 
 
6 ELKIN MATHEWS JOHN LANE’S LIST— Continued. 
 
 FIELD (MICHAEL) Sight and Song. (Poems on Pictures.) 
 121110, 5s. net. (Very few remain.) 
 
 HAMILTON (COL. IAN, V.C.) The Ballad of Hadji, 
 and other Poems. Etched Frontispiece by William 
 Strang. 121110, 3s. net. 
 
 A FELLOWSHIP IN SONG. (Poems.) By Richard Le 
 Gallienne, Norman Gale, and Alfred Hayes. 
 Printed at the Rugby Press on hand-made paper, Small 
 8vo, 300 copies, 10s. 6d. net. [All sold. 
 
 Also 50 Large Paper, £i, ios. net. [Allsold. 
 
 BENSON (ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER) Poems. 5s. net. 
 
 GREENE (G. A.) Italian Lyrists of To-day, Trans¬ 
 lations in the original metres from the Italian of Carducci, 
 Stecchetti, D’Annunzio, Panzacchi, Fogazzaro, 
 Graf, and about twenty other living writers, with biblio¬ 
 graphical and biographical notes, and an introduction. 
 5s. net. 
 
ELKIN MATHEWS < 5 ^ JOHN LANE’S LIST— Continued. 
 
 7 
 
 The Hobby Horse 
 
 A new series of this illustrated magazine will be published 
 quarterly by subscription, commencing January 1893, under 
 the Editorship of Herbert P. Horne. Subscription £1 per 
 annum, post free, for the four numbers, beginning with the 
 January number of each year. Quarto, printed on hand-made 
 paper, and issued in a limited edition to subscribers only. 
 The Magazine will contain articles upon Literature, Music, 
 Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, and the Decorative Arts; 
 
 Poems ; Essays ; Fiction; original Designs; with reproduc¬ 
 tions of pictures and drawings by the old masters and 
 contemporary artists. There will be a new title- 
 page and ornaments designed by the Editor. 
 
 Among the contributors to the 
 Hobby Horse are : 
 
 The late Matthew Arnold. 
 Lawrence Binyon. 
 
 Wilfrid Blunt. 
 
 Ford Madox Brown. 
 
 The late Arthur Burgess. 
 
 E. Burne-Jones, A.R.A. 
 
 Austin Dobson. 
 
 Richard Garnett, LL.D. 
 
 A. J. Hipkins, F.S.A. 
 
 Selwyn Image. 
 
 Lionel Johnson. 
 
 Richard Le Gallienne. 
 
 Sir F. Leighton, Bart., P.R.A. 
 T. Hope McLachlan. 
 
 May Morris. 
 
 C. Hubert H. Parry, Mus. Doc. 
 A. W. Pollard. 
 
 F. York Powell. 
 
 Christina G. Rossetti. 
 
 W. M. Rossetti. 
 
 John Ruskin, D.C.L., LL.D. 
 Frederick Sandys. 
 
 W. Bell Scott. 
 
 Frederick J. Shields. 
 
 J. H. Shorthouse. 
 
 James Smetham. 
 
 Simeon Solomon. 
 
 A. Somervell. 
 
 The late J. Addington Symonds. 
 Katharine Tynan. 
 
 G. F. Watts, R.A. 
 
 Frederick Wedmore. 
 
 Oscar Wilde. 
 
 Etc. Etc. 
 
 Prospectuses on Application. 
 
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