on the

with hair tangled as if matted by the wind; the face, as I a lad thought, of a dreamer and a poet; and my first impressions, I think, were right, since the years are confirmatory of this first conviction. The second portrait pictured the poet wrapped in his cloak, standing, lost in thought

re of Edward III's age, accurate as if a king's pageant passing flung shadow in a stream along whose bank it marched. Spenser was a recluse, looking on the world's movement as an Oriental woman watches the street from her latticed window. Shakespeare was bon vivant, a player, therefore a brief chronicler of that time and of all times. He floated in people as birds in air. Dramatists have need to study men and women as a sculptor does anatomy. Seclusions are not the qualifications for dramatic art. Dryden was court foll

f his poetry. William Cullen Bryant lost as poet by being journalist, his vocation drying up the fountains of his poetry. America's representative poet, James Russell Lowell, was editor, essayist, diplomat, poet,-in every department distinguished. His essay on Dante ranks him among the great expositors of that melancholy Florentine. Yet who of us has not wished he might have consecrated himself to poetry as priest to the altar? We gained in the publicist and essayist, but lost from the poet. And our ultimate loss out-top

h them. He did nothing but dream. You might as easily catch the whip-poor-will, whose habitation changes at an approaching step, as Tennyson. His was not in the widest sense a companionable nature. He cared to be alone and to be let dream, and resented intrusion and a disturbance of his solitude. Some have dreamless sleep, like the princess in "

break,

, gray ston

irit needed as

houghts that

s After;" "In a Hospital Ward;" "The Grandmother;" his patriotic effusions; "Maud;" and "In Memoriam," sum up the modern contributions; nor is all of this impregnated with a genuinely modern spirit. "Enoch Arden" might have belonged to a lustrum of centuries ago, and "The May Queen" to remote decades. He writes in the nineteenth century, rarely of it, though, as is inevitable, he colors his thoughts of long-ago yesterdays with the colors of to-day. He is not strictly a contemporaneous poet. "Dora," "The Gardener's Daughter," and others of the sort, have no time ear-marks. "The Princess" discusses a living problem, but from the artistic background of a knightly era. "Locksley Hall," earlier and later, "Maud" and "In Memoriam" are about the only genuinely contemporaneous poems. My suggestion is, Tennyson hugs the shadows of yesterdays; nor need we go far to find the philosophy of this seizure of the past. Romance gathe

ystic," "Merlin and the Gleam," belong to the romantic, half-hidden era of history and of thought. "Sir John Oldcastle" and "Columbus" belong to the visible historic era, while in his wonderful "Rizpah" the poet has knit the present to dim centuries of the remotest past; and the tragic "Lucretius" takes us once more into the classic period.

he Christ in civilization; and the knight warring to recover the tomb of God was the poem among soldiers, and in entire consonance with his nature, Tennyson's poetic genius flits back into the poetic days, as I have seen birds flit back into a forest. In Tennyson's poetry two things are clear. They are mediaeval in location; th

he return to nature.

" vo

d fallen, th

he town and ou

lew from the g

shadow went o

im down in a

a melody lou

wild-swan paus

k drop down

topt as he hu

slipt unde

tood with the d

with his foo

le thought, 'I ha

er a on

of what the

ears have

rved for the last of the feast; for Tennyson appears to me the greatest of the nature poets. And this return to nature, as the phrase goes, means taking this earth as a whole, which we are to do more and still more. Thomson's poetry was not pastoral poetry at its best; seeing inanimate nature

at my tongu

ts that ar

has gone out of doors. Scenery has never had lovers as now; and participative in this mood is Tennyson. He lives under the sky. He loved to be alone; and nature is loneliness as well as loveliness. Nor is his love of nature a passing passion, but is passionate, intense, endearing. He never outgrew it. "Balin and Bal

the desert o

miles

up, he wan

a quie

e country woods, and the clamor of sea-gulls and sea-waves, whose very tumult drown the voice of car

uage but

may be put to the melody of a yearning cry. Souls struggle toward expression like a dying soldier who would sen

at my lips

ts that ar

st delicately-beautiful poem, entitled "The

e broken lyr

et wailing si

ir silent si

rs, who will s

ouch the ma

me is proud

hose that

all their m

not for th

told their hear

voiceless,

thout the cr

eucadian br

s memory-hau

glistening n

orrow's churc

t break and

ng lip and f

ours out his

om Misery's cru

breath or e

idden pang

s melodies

rth, as swee

ream!" And for our heartache and longing, Tennyson is our voice; for he seems near neighbor to us. He lay on a bank of violets, and looked into the sky, and heard poplars pattering as with rain upon the roof. Really, in all Tennyson's poems you will be

in the cra

he agnostic's prating

n the cra

u out of t

, root and al

,-but if I co

root and all,

ow what God

s references to the out-of-door world we name natu

t seem more

life on ban

at pipes hi

heard withi

suns will st

d moons w

thee my ste

and fo

bs of song, a

very morning,

arkness and

elf an awful

eed

wind sweep and

hou g

the land at

'd the ri

ut, my wi

out, I kno

d again w

came where l

in oth

e the litt

ove the li

again wi

taract on an

the heights of

gure lengthen

ide ebbs i

e: the moon ma

op from heaven, a

old, of mounta

, when have I

e no

ne that climbs

in, and sees a g

m the deeps, a

roken purpose

eneath the

he sunshine

e kneeling

of the gra

there no sh

p dawn behi

m marge to ma

landscape

l dusk is di

on the ste

at swells the

with a noi

in the wan

to belt of

of odor str

n yonder O

pirits whis

he deep where

t changes th

e long street

ss of the c

e shadows, a

form, and n

ke mist, the

ey shape thems

n faith had

oice, 'Beli

an ever-br

d in the go

ild brook o'er

ehemently to

rag that tumbles

was gay with w

e a piece of

et that now we

un, and monst

walls with hai

oining of the st

h, of snakes;

eaf in mid-

as in mid-Oc

now she look'd

ere the comi

apling growin

re-cliff's windy

till, and yet t

he man t

or

ear a torrent

rash of the nea

thunder of

ere the soldie

attle, and be

oment after,

ck horse, like

loosen'd by the

f with by the

sion, uttering

on Ge

shoaling sea,

en, and thicker

n the sward wit

long a cloud cl

dawn ascendin

clung: so thickl

west that blo

sacred Dee. So

ht and flouris

ld not pass b

the popla

nrunning of a

iver in a co

wave, and lift

ge that brought

t upon the str

, 'Ah, simple

damsel, sure

er than my

m and ruffled

ind that ruffl

tter pool a

bare

in peril di

ong that break

. And he thrice

weep of the down

by a still an

ed as on

almier than ha

ould hear the l

ew not what of

nge song I hea

ike a mist, ro

earer, as the

to th

twilight in a

in a land of s

sweet smell

sunshine came

d brookbank

wildweed f

a ringing

yes gushed ou

e coming and r

any water-

wandering warb

'd sunset of t

shadow and the sunshine, the dark night, or dewy eve, or the glad dawn, always. Therefore is Tennyson a rest to the spirit. He takes you from your care, and ends by taking your care from you. He quiet

dramatic or epic. What music is like his? Say

sound was r

music. Mrs. Browning fell out of time; Tennyson never. His verse is like some loved voice which makes perpetual music in our heart. Read all of his poetry, and how diversified soever his meter is, music never fails; yet his lyrics are not as those of Burns, whose words sing like the brook Tennyson has sung of. Burns's melody is laughter: it babbles, it sighs for a moment, but will sing.

and ecclesiastic as all his historical research had not given; nor need we deny that these dramas are rich in noble passages. These things go without the saying, considering the author was Alfred Tennyson. In attempting a criticism of the dramatic value, however, the real question is this: Would not "Harold" and "Queen Mary" have been greater poems if thrown out of the dramatic into the narrative form, like "Guinevere" or "Enoch Arden?" "Maud" is really the most dramatic of Tennyson's poems, and in consequence the least understood. Most men at some time espouse what they can not successfully achieve. Was not this Tennyson's case? Are not the portrayal of character and the rhythm and the melody of the drama qualities inherent in Tennyson, and are they in any distinct sense dramatic? If we declare Tennyson neither epic nor dramatic, but always lyric, adverse criticism melts away like snow in summer. As lyrist, all is congruous and enthralli

ribs o

ole ocean be mine. So, though Tennyson be not epic as Milton, nor dramatic as Browning, he is yet a mine of wealth untold. He is more melodious than Spenser (and what a praise!) Tennyson can not write the prose, but always the poetry of life. So interpreted, how per

e: the moon ma

op from heaven an

old, of mounta

, when have I

e no

: what answer

ollow cheek

nd, I will not

, lest I shoul

e no

thy fate and m

st the stream

river take m

Love, for at a

e no

heard through

battle wher

cross his

he battle t

hile the tr

brood abou

ke fire he m

im dead for t

ey die in y

n hill or fi

roll from s

forever a

ow, set the wil

es, answer, dyin

low, swee

the west

breathe

the west

rolling w

he dying mo

m again

one, while my pr

rest, slee

l come to

, on mothe

l come to

ome to his ba

ls all out

he silv

one, sleep, my pr

er wed to music more deliriously and satisfyingly. I am entran

ars, I know not

depth of some

eart, and gat

n the happy

f the days tha

rst beam glitte

friends up from

ast which re

h all we love

sh, the days t

range as in da

pipe of half-

rs, when un

owly grows a gl

nge, the days t

mber'd kisse

hose by hopele

re for others;

ove, and wild w

e, the days th

he lyric power, summing up large areas of thought and feeling into a single sentence or a few verses, which presents the quintessence of the lyric method. Immense passion poured into the chalice of a solitary utterance-this is a song. Le

ame a swell of m

e we need them most. But Bryant, nor Whittier, nor Longfellow, nor yet Lowell, have been in a generous way erotic poets. They have lacked the pronounced passion element. Poe, however, was always lover when he wrote poetry, and Bayard Taylor has a recurring softening of the voice to a car

has a tho

ay ha

t of the bri

he dyi

has a tho

heart

e of a whol

ove is

Gray," "The Miller's Daughter," "Harold," "Queen Mary," "Enoch Arden," and "The Idyls of the King,"-is not love everywhere? These are poems of love between men and women as lovers; but there is other love. In Tennyson: love of country, as in his "The Revenge," "The Charge of the Light Brigade," and others; love of nature, as "The Brook;" the love of Queen, as in the dedication in "The Idyls of the King;" love of a friend (and such love!) flooding "In Memoriam" like spring tide's; love to God, as "St. Agnes' Eve," "Sir Galahad," and in "King Arthur." By appeal to book do we see how his poems constitute a literature of love, for he is in essence saying continuously, "Life means love," and we shall not be those to say him nay. May we not safely say no poet has given a more beautiful and sympa

ion," his verse contains scarcely a vestige of humor. Certainly his writings can not presume to be humorous. To Cervantes, chivalry was grotesque; to Tennyson, chivalry was poetry,-there lay the difference. Our laureate caught not the jest, but the real poetry of that episode in the adventure of manhood; and this I take to be the larger and worthier lesson. Cervantes and Tennyson were both right. But Tennyson c

glass of Time, a

ing

ly shaken, ran its

harp of life, and

with

self, that, trembli

of s

usive and exclusive-including essentials, excluding the irrelevant. He is consummate artist, giving pictures of things, and, what is vastly more difficult, pictures of moods. With him, one never feels and sees, but feels because h

nation al

with Tennyson, all things suggest pictures, as if soul were itself a landscape; wherefore, as has been shown, he riots in nature-scenes. A simile, when full, like a June day of heaven, contains a plethora, an ampleness, for which you shall seek in vain to find rules, much less to make them; which is to

ag

n like a wind

waste land, whe

ince the making

er loneliness and sadness, and therefore pictures an untenanted landscape, across whose lonely wastes a lonely wind pursues its lonely way; and thus having saturated his thought with sadness, he transfers the loneliness of the landscape to the winged winds. This seems to me the very climacteric of exquisite artistic skill, and I am always delighted to the point of laughter or of tears; for moods run together in presence of such poetry. No poet of my knowledge so haunts the illustrative

withered leaf b

vivid the scene, s

e pictures up a

weary wi

e reed-tops

at who

e, although I

ry daisy

knit brow

ying finger s

the covenant of

through all

one long stream

som bore the

dusk of soundi

allow leisure

always through

me alone. Thri

ach, those mome

ll, we met to

otsteps smite the

lif

ower of knowledg

sdom.

gure lengthen

ide ebbs i

Alpine harebell

orning glacier

all unconsci

ather'd color

e, but lay like

burial talk'd o

ak, nor move, n

nd dreads

e speak an

new the sa

sing beca

t as the li

true, what

when I so

to have lov

to have l

g on the de

said of thi

to me as s

ips is all

y look, and

t thou the w

g-wanton r

-pencil'd

fancied hope

sorrow de

ed motions

of my life

when my l

creeps, and t

and the he

wheels of

love thee

lects the th

e only word

pmost froth

point, with

in the bou

onclusions

hin him lig

he wind beg

t of sheet

er toward a

ke slept al

ith me ti

e on the my

ectric forc

pulses da

at times

out from pla

to the worl

night, that

like a clamo

re they settle

echo lasts, they

est, a rock in

n to whom a

land, and he

moke beneath hi

l was done that

and her de

she wept bes

ancient sword-

bronzed, she l

ith that love wh

eadows tremul

e a noise of fa

save it be so

o know well I

e, whereat she c

side she felt th

m and ruffled

ind that ruffl

tter pool a

bare

l would glide fr

evermore be v

robe or vac

tfall echoing

solitary tr

the doors, the

's voice, and

ck night I hear

ide, and like

to the hollow

lip, with

ifelong hunger

tle like a dr

d h

hat, which be

speaks with Him

an had died

een are mightier

adlier does the

gray skirts of

ears the hope o

fe despair'd o

on him, and th

nced; but when

his solitary

e narrow st

in upon his

were the burt

er, never to l

l that leaves

empe

e is, and at t

dering lines of

credible pinnacl

ign of all the

lips-a smile b

d meant it fo

echoes hidden

v'n backward by t

ll together

d wave in the

toward the summit

ts that smoke a

k, and overbe

helms it, so

ot and his

a vale in

valleys of

apor slopes at

m, and creeps fr

slowly drawn.

meadow-ledge

owers, and far

alling through t

after catara

valley topm

akes the mornin

opening wide

lion's colu

own of

dark and red-a

ne pacing

ever in a gli

a low l

iron coast a

o hear them

hwarted under b

the wi

ull-fed rive

pon an end

ms of thunder

ow-streak

eapers at thei

bound the sh

f upland, pro

ry to t

round black with

ne of height

ong white cloud t

st, snow

lish home-gray

astures,

ep-all things i

of ancie

e, bound, not in book n

ame from

wearied

d gazes on

oodlier guests

of some slow

night along th

d after the gr

lf a league, and

marbled with

and less t

ody with her

nd into the d

arth lit in a

n the window,

epens round it

n the woodla

capes, can words add w

nnyson as

nd poems are as limpid as the waters of pellucid Tahoe; and purest women may read from "Claribel" to "Crossing the Bar," and be only purer from the reading. Henry Van Dyke has written on "The Bible in Tennyson," an article, after his habit, discriminating and appreciative, in the course of which he shows how some of the delicious verse's of the laureate are literal extracts from the Book of God, so native is poetry to that sublime volume; though I incline to believe the larger loan of the Bible to Tennyson is the purity of thought evidenced in the poet's writings, and more particularly in the poet's life. Who has not been touched by the Bible who has lived in these later centuries? Modern life may no more get away from the Bible than our planet may flee from its own atmosphere. We can never estimate the moral potency of such a poet, living and writing for sixty years, though we may fair

's vices open, st

ions

nce, down with R

et them

rose of boyhood w

r s

o the fountain les

ue

ies wallowing in th

, aye and backwa

he a

harm the worst, t

of

The age has outgrown these hectic folk, who, in the name of nature, lead us back to Pompeii. Gehenna needs not to be assisted. Jean Valjean, bent on an errand of mercy, fled to the sewers of Paris, his appeal to these foul subways being justified, since he sought them under stress for the preservation of a life.

emselves. We are ashamed for Guinevere and Lancelot, and are proud of Enid and Elaine and Sir Galahad and King Arthur; and in them, and in others, have been helped to see the heroic beauty of simple virtue. This is an incalculable gain for soul. When we have learned

ly a preacher of righte

m say, as highest encom

tiful to our eyes and

made it easier f

ht have looked straight in God's

which I

in himself

sending our mu

ere moaning

set out

ll while life endures," borrowing Whitti

voices greet h

at holds him; l

him o'er the

astness of his

heard above the

le fame, in

ets; and its u

God's unfol

traveler, soften

gaze on unfa