ing soul" - - but my conscience was troubled by his." I've often had a strange feeling of being wound and wrapped in the Great Soul' (Tennyson, quoted by Knowles). 11. Eonian music. Compare xxxv. 3, above. XCVI. 2. One indeed I knew, etc. Genung remarks: 'It is generally supposed that this poem narrates the spiritual experience of Arthur Hallam himself. The passage where Tennyson recognizes in Arthur The faith, the vigor, bold to dwell On doubts that drive the coward back, and the one where he describes Arthur's as a character of Seraphic intellect and force To seize and throw the doubts of man, would seem to indicate much more calmness of assured strength than the poem before us; but at the same time this calmness may have been reached through severe struggle. Would not this passage, from Arthur Hallam's Remains," indicate such spiritual conflict? I do but mock me with these questionings. 66 Is the soul's eye: yet how it strives and battles That master light, the secret truth of things, One of Arthur's early friends also writes: "Perhaps I ought to mention that when I first knew him he was subject to occasional fits of mental depression, which gradually grew fewer and fainter, and had at length, I thought, disappeared, or merged in a peaceful Christian faith. I have witnessed the same in other ardent and adventurous minds, and have always looked upon them as the symptom, indeed, of an imperfect moral state, but one to which the finest spirits, during the process of their purification, are most subject." XCVII. 1. My love has talk'd with rocks and trees, etc. Gatty remarks that this is highly mystical,' and he appears not to have explained it correctly at first. A note of the poet's informs him that it is intended to describe the relation of one on earth to one in the other and higher world --not the author's relation to him here. He certainly looked up to the author, fully as much as the author to him.' XCVIII. 1. You leave us: you will see the Rhine, etc. Addressed to his brother Charles, who, in 1836, made a wedding tour to the Continent and expected to visit Vienna. See the 'Memoir,' vol. i. p. 148. 6. Any mother town. Any metropolis. The poet was fond of translating a classical term into the vernacular. Compare the tortoise [testudo creeping to the wall,' in the Dream of Fair Women; the northern morn' (aurora borealis) in Morte d'Arthur,' etc. In The Princess,' i. we have 'mother-city' for metropolis. XCIX. 1. Risest thou thus, dim morn, again, etc. Another return of the anniversary of Arthur's death. Compare lxxii. 1, above. C. 1. I climb the hill. The 1st edition reads: 'I wake, I rise.' CI. 1. Unwatch'd, the garden bough shall sway, etc. The poet's farewell to Somersby. The date has been often given as 1835, but Napier is right in putting it early in 1837. The three Christmases of the poem are not in three successive years. See on xxviii. 1, above. 3. The Lesser Wain. The constellation Ursa Minor, the polar star' being at the end of the tail. CII. 2. Two spirits of a diverse love. As the poet explained to Gatty, these do not represent persons: 'the first is the love of the native place; the second, the same love enhanced by the memory of the friend.' CIII. 1. I dream'd a vision of the dead. An intimate friend of the poet says that this was a real dream. Tennyson furnished Gatty with this note: I rather believe that the maidens are the Muses, Arts, etc. Everything that made life beautiful here, we may hope may pass on with us beyond the grave.' To Mr. Knowles he said that the maidens are 'all the human powers and talents that do not pass with life but go along with it.' The river' is 'life,' and the hidden summits' are the high-the divine-the origin of life.' The sea' in the 4th stanza is 'eternity.' The 7th stanza refers to the great progress of the age, as well as the opening of another world; ' and the 9th to all the great hopes of science and men.' 6 12. I did them wrong. He was wrong to drop his earthly hopes and powers- they will be still of use to him' (Tennyson, quoted by Knowles). CIV. 1. A single church below the hill. Waltham Abbey, as the poet himself explained. The family resided for a time at High Beech, Epping Forest. The mansion, known as Beech Hill House, has since been torn down and rebuilt. It stood on high ground, from which there is a fine view of Waltham Abbey, about two and a half miles distant. CV. 1. To-night_ungather'd let us leave, etc. The 1st edition reads: This holly by the cottage-eave, Genung remarks here: In the second Christmas-tide the lapse of time had made Christmas observances pleasant for their own sake; now the change of place, like growth of time," has wrought to cause the interest of the usual customs to die; as was indeed predicted at the first Christmas-tide. But in this dying of use and wont after they have been once revived there is no sign of retrogression in the thought; rather, the usual customs have lost their life because the spirit of Christmas hope has be come so settled and significant that the ancient form can no more express its meaning. The cheer of this season not only eclipses the grief, but rejects all formal demonstrations of joy as unnecessary and meaningless.' 6. What lightens in the lucid east, etc. The poet explained to Gatty that this 'refers to the scintillation of the stars rising.' CVII. 1. It is the day when he was born. The 1st of February. Genung remarks: In the first cycle Springtide brought the cheer of a new season: in the second, New Year heralded a new round of seasons, and now this characterizing occasion of the third cycle suggests a new life, a noble life, which, having been lived once, may furnish the model for noble lives to come. The present anniversary illustrates, as has already been intimated in the Christmastide, how in this cycle the spirit of hope has overcome. In the first cycle the suggestiveness of the blooming season must make its way from without into a reluctant mood; in the second cycle the calmer mood and the promising season answer spontaneously to each other; but here in the closing cycle the hopeful mood has so overcome the influences of season and weather that even the bitter wintry day can have no disturbing effect on the confirmed cheer within, mind's peace is sufficient to itself, and not dependent.' the 3. All the brakes and thorns. The 'brakes,' as Tennyson explained, are bushes.' CIX. 4. The blind hysterics of the Celt. Compare cxxvii. 2 below, and the Conclusion' of The Princess.' CX. 1. The men of rathe and riper years. 'Rathe,' of which rather' is the comparative, means early. The poet uses it again, adverbially, in Lancelot and Elaine': 'Till rathe she rose.' Compare Milton, Lycidas,' 142: Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies.' For an instance of the word in recent prose, see J. A. Symonds's Sketches and Studies in Southern Europe (Essay on Rimini'): Whether it be the rathe loveliness of an art still immature, or the beauty of an art in its wane, etc. 2. His double tongue. The 1st edition has treble tongue;' and in 4 below, dearest' for nearest.' To him who grasps, etc. The 1st edition reads: To who may grasp." CXI. 4. Best seem'd the thing he was. The 1st edition has: So wore his outward best." CXII. 2. The lesser lords of doom. Those that have free will but less intellect' (Tennyson's note to Gatty). CXIII. 1. 'Tis held that sorrow makes us wise, etc. Compare cviii. 4 above. 3. In civic action. The 1st edition has 'in,' but some later ones have 'of' - perhaps a misprint. 5. With thousand shocks that come and go. The 1st edition has many shocks.' CXIV. 7. But by year and hour. The 1st edition reads: but from hour to hour.' CXV.1. Now fades the last long streak of snow, etc. The last note of time in the Stand poem. ing immediately after those poems in which is defined, in terms of Arthur's character, the greatness which the world needs, it adds to them the suggestiveness of the budding year. The special object of this Springtide seems to be to indicate the permanent mood in which the foregoing thought has left the poet; and thus it corresponds to the groups of poems, lxvi.-lxxi., in the first cycle, and xcvi.-xcviii., in the second cycle. It also introduces the final application and conclusion of the whole thought; and so with Springtide the poem leaves us passing on into a new era of hope' (Genung). CXVI. 3. And that dear voice. The 1st edition has 'The dear, dear voice that I have known; and in the next line Will' for 'Still.' CXVII. 3. Every kiss of toothed wheels. In the mechanism of clocks and watches. CXVIII. In this poem we have a striking illustration of Tennyson's treatment of modern scientific theories and discoveries. The succession of the geological ages and the evolution of man from lower types are admirably 'moralized.' 1. Dying Nature's earth and lime. The inorganic elements of the human body. 5. Or, crown'd with attributes of woe. The 1st edition has And' for 'Or.' CXIX. 1. Doors, where my heart was used to beat, etc. Referring to another visit to the long unlovely' Wimpole Street. Compare vii. 1 above. No longer in confused despair, but in peaceful hope, the poet comes, thinking on the departed friend with blessings; and all surroundings of weather and scenery answer to the calm within' (Genung). CXX. 3. Let him, the wiser man, etc. Gatty remarks that this is spoken ironically, and is a strong protest against materialism;' but, as the poet adds, not against evolution.' CXXI. 1. Sad Hesper, o'er the buried sun, The evening-star, as Phosphor' is the morning-star, double-name for what is one' the same planet Venus. Compare lxxxix. 12 above. 5. Thou, like my present and my past, etc. Gatty took this to be a reference to Arthur; but Tennyson says, 'No-the writer is rather referring to himself.' CXXII. 1. O, wast thou with me, dearest, etc. Tennyson said to Mr. Knowles: If anybody thinks I ever called him "dearest" in his life they are much mistaken, for I never even called him "dear." The doom' in the next line is that of grief.' And yearn'd to burst the folded gloom. The 1st edition has 'strove' for yearn'd.' CXXIII. 1. There rolls the deep where grew the tree, etc. Referring to the changes in the limits of the ocean, and the upheaval of hills and mountains, in the past history of our planet. Compare Shakespeare's allusion to comparatively recent changes of the sea-line (as on the east coast of England) in Sonnet lxiv.: When I have seen the hungry ocean gain CXXVII. 2. The red fool-fury of the Seine, etc. This has been supposed to refer to the Revolution of 1848, but the poet informed Gatty that it was probably written long before '48." 3. But ill for him that wears a crown. The 1st edition reads: But woe to him;' and, in the next stanza, the vast Œon.' · 6 CXXVIII. 2. Oye mysteries of good. The 1st edition has ministers of good;' and, in the 5th stanza, baseness' for 'bareness.' CXXXI. 1. O living will, etc. Free will in man,' as the poet explained to Gatty. 2. Out of dust. The 1st edition has 'out the dust.' The Epilogue. O true and tried, etc. The poem that began with death, over which in its long course it has found love triumphant, now ends with marriage, that highest earthly illustration of crowned and completed love." (Genung). The epithalamium celebrates the marriage of the poet's younger sister, Cecilia, to Edmund Law Lushington, October 10th, 1842. 9. He too foretold the perfect rose. ferring to Arthur. Also re As 12. For I that danced her on my knee, etc. Cecilia was born October 10, 1817, she was eight years younger than the poet. 13. Her feet, my darling, on the dead. Referring to the graves beneath the chancel floor, as the next line does to the memorial tablets on the walls. 14. Her sweet 'I will' has made you one. The 1st edition has 'ye' for you.' As Genung remarks, this closing poem 'affords occasion to bring in review before us the leading features and influences of" In Memoriam,' namely: 1. Love, which survives regret and the grave, has recovered her peace in this world, has grown greater and holier, and yet by no means less loyal to the dead; and now, no more disturbed by the past, she devotes herself to the innocent joys of the present. 2. Remembrance of the dead is cherished, not sacrificed; the dead is thought of as living, and perhaps present on this occasion, shedding unseen blessings on this coronation of love. 3. The living present is suggested by the marriage-bells and festivities; a present in which love finds its purest expression. 4. The greater future is suggested in the thought of the new life that may rise from this union, a new-born soul, who will look on a race more advanced than this, and contribute to its greatness, and so be a link between us and the perfect future. 5. Finally, a view of the far future perfected. Its character: the view of knowledge eye to eye, the complete subjugation in our nature of all that is brutish, the flower and fruit of which the present contains the seed. Its type: the life of Arthur, who appeared in advance of his time. Its culmination: life in God.' When reading In Memoriam' to Mr. Knowles, the poet said: 'It is rather the cry of the whole human race than mine. In the poem altogether private grief swells out into thought of, and hope for, the whole world. It begins with a funeral and ends with a marriage - begins with death and ends in promise of a new life a sort of Divine Comedy, cheerful at the close. . . . It's too hopeful, this poem, more than I am myself. . The general way of its being written was so queer that if there were a blank space I would put in a poem. I think of adding another to it, a speculative one, bringing out the thoughts of the Higher Pantheism," and showing that all the arguments are about as good on one side as the other, and thus throw man back more on the primitive impulses and feelings.' The poet also explained to Mr. Knowles that there were nine natural groups or divisions' in In Memoriam,' as follows: from i. to viii.; from ix. to xx.; from xxi. to xxvii.; from xxviii. to xlix.; from 1. to lviii.; from lix. to lxxi.; from lxxii. to xcviii.; from xcix. to ciii.; and from civ. to cxxxi. For fuller notes on the poem, the reader may be referred to Rolfe's edition (Boston, 1895). Page 198. MAUD. 'The Tribute,' in which the poem appeared that eighteen years later became the germ of 'Maud,' was a collection of miscellaneous poems by various authors, edited by Lord Northampton. Swinburne, in 1876 (in The Academy for January 29), refers to it as the poem of deepest charm and fullest delight of pathos and melody ever written by Mr. Tennyson; since recast into new form and refreshed with new beauty to fit it for reappearance among the crowning passages of Maud." This poem is also interesting as having been the subject of the first notice that Tennyson received from the Edinburgh Review' (October, 1837). The writer says: We do not profess to understand the somewhat mysterious contribution of Mr. Alfred Tennyson, entitled 'Stanzas;' but amidst some quaintness, and some occasional absurdities of expression, it is not difficult to detect the hand of a true poet such as the author of Mariana and the lines on the Arabian Nights' undoubtedly is in those stanzas which describe the appearance of a visionary form, by which the writer is supposed to be haunted amidst the streets of a crowded city. Part I. The division into Parts was not made in the early editions. Line 2. Dabbled with blood-red heath. When I heard Tennyson read the poem he paused here and said, 'Blood-red heath! The critics might have known by that that the man was mad; there's no such thing.' 9. A vast speculation. The 1st edition has 'great' for vast.' 12. And the flying gold of the ruin'd woodlands drove thro' the air. Ruskin, in Modern Painters' (vol. iii. chap. 12), cites this as an quisite illustration of what he calls pathetic fallacy.' ex 21. Why do they prate of the blessings of Peace? This and the stanzas that follow, as well as those on war at the end of the poem, were particularly criticised by the early reviewers, who made the stupid mistake, to which I have already referred, of interpreting the morbid utterances of the hero as the poet's own. There were protests in verse also; as in a poor travesty entitled Anti-Maud,' of which this may serve as a specimen: Who is it clamours for War? Is it one who is ready to fight? Is it one who will grasp the sword, and rush on the foe with a shout? Far from it: 't is one of the musing mind who merely intends to write He sits at home by his own snug hearth, and hears the storm howl without. 44. To pestle a poison'd poison behind his crimson lights. Even the drugs of the apothecary are adulterated. 53. What! am I raging alone, etc. This and the two following stanzas were not in the 1st edition. 65. Workmen up at the Hall! The 1st edition has: There are workmen up at the Hall.' 76. I will bury myself in myself. The 1st edition has: I will bury myself in my books.' Peter Bayne (Lessons from My Masters,' 1879) says: No change could be more expressive. Of all the graves in which a man can bury himself, self is the worst- haunted with the ghostliest visions, tormented with the loathliest worms. Accordingly, the recluse now sinks into a mood of contented and cynical Epicureanism, more venomously bad than that in which he had invoked Mars to shame Belial and Mammon. He will let the world have its way. This is his point of deepest degradation; henceforward he ascends.' 87. From which I escaped, heartfree. Not quite, or he would not have said so. 102. A million emeralds break from the rubybudded lime. The green leaves bursting from their crimson sheath. 115. I met her to-day with her brother. The 1st edition has abroad' for 'to-day.' 178. Till I well could weep, etc. The meanness and the sordid spirit of the world now be gin to call forth tears instead of sarcasm and raillery; and he could weep, too, for his own inactivity and baseness, as well as for its meanness. The change of the measure beautifully expresses the character of the transformation the voice and its mistress are working in the hearer' (Mann). This quotation is from Tennyson's "Maud " Vindicated: an Explanatory Essay,' by Robert James Mann, M. D., published in 1856. The poet, acknowledging the receipt of the pamphlet, said: 'No one with this essay before him can in future pretend to misunderstand my dramatic poem Maud." Your commentary is as true as it is full.' In replying to another gentleman who had sent him a copy of a favorable review, he wrote thus: 'I am much obliged to you for sending me your critique on my poem; and happy to find that you approve of it, and, unlike most of the critics (so-called), have taken some pains to look into it and see what it means. There has been from many quarters a torrent of abuse against it; and I have even had insulting anonymous letters: indeed, I am quite at a loss to account for the bitterness of feeling which this poor little work of mine has excited.' 212. What if with her sunny hair, etc. 'The natural reaction of doubt following upon exalted hope' (Mann). 233. That oil'd and curl'd Assyrian bull. Bayne considers this one of the crudest lines Tennyson ever penned, grotesque, with out being expressive.' It is true that the last thing the winged bull from Nineveh suggests is a dandy; but that is just what it might suggest to a morbid imagination which, at the moment, recalls only the abundant curls of the majestic figure. It is the hero's metaphor, not Tennyson's. 264. Till a morbid hate and horror have grown, etc. The cynic now begins really to understand his own cynicism; he not only feels his languor and deficiency, but comprehends much concerning their cause. This is a beautiful indication of the better state of things that is already initiated for him, through the healthy operation of his affections' (Mann). 285-300. Did I hear it half in a doze, etc. These stanzas, which sorely puzzled the critics at first, are now made clear by the 19th poem of Part I. (pp. 209-210) which was not in the 1st edition. 328. Then returns the dark. The 1st edition reads: And back returns the dark.' 6 363, 364. A wounded thing, etc. These two lines were not in the 1st edition. 366-381. Last week came one to the county town, etc. This stanza was foolishly supposed by some to be the poet's own attack upon peace-advocates in general;' and one journalist considered it a personal allusion to a certain prominent member of the Society of Friends. 382-388. I wish I could hear again, etc. This stanza was not in the 1st edition; nor the two lines that end the poem below- And ah for a man to arise in me.' etc. The former, as Bayne remarks, greatly strengthens the poem at this point;' and the two lines, set by themselves, are like a jewelled clasp knitting the earlier to the later portions of the first Part.' 412-415. Birds in the high Hall-garden, etc. When reading the poem Tennyson would ask his listeners what birds these were that cried, 'Maud, Maud, Maud; and Mrs. Ritchie tells of a lady who replied, 'Nightingales, sir?' 'Pooh!' said the poet, what a cockney you are! Nightingales don't say Maud. Rooks do, or something like it- Caw, caw, caw, caw.' He asked the same question when he read the poem to my wife and myself. · 421. Ringing through the valleys. Lilies' is a very imperfect rhyme to valleys;' but Tennyson not unfrequently indulges in such license. For a list of the imperfect rhymes in In Memoriam,' see Mr. Joseph Jacobs's Tennyson and In Memoriam' (London, 1892). He, however, includes many rhymes that are unobjectionable; like prayer, air; moods, woods; hours, flowers, etc. 434, 435. For her feet have touch'd the meadows, etc. Because, as the poet said to Knowles (and to me also) when reading the passage, if you tread on daisies they turn up underfoot and get rosy.' 441. And little King Charley snarling! The 1st edition reads: And little King Charles is snarling.' 557. My yet young life. Bayne says: These words are more curiously expressive of a brooding inward-looking habit of mind than any I know of in literature.' He doubts whether the young man ought to have been represented as still so morbidly self-conscious' as this implies. To my thinking, it is not unnatural that even at this stage of his experience he should occasionally lapse into the old unhealthy introspectiveness. Later than this- after the happy Yes' has faltered from the maiden's lips-it would be impossible. 582. Over glowing ships. The 1st edition has 'O'er the blowing ships.' 599. I have led her home, my love, etc. 'The one feature that dwells, soul-like, within the delicious lines of these subtle stanzas — -the all-pervading inspiration of their richly varied movements is the sustained sense of absolute content and calm. There is joyous rapture within them everywhere, but the rapture is still and deep. The very first line is, in its smooth, long measure, the audible symbol of perfect rest (Mann). 616. Dark cedar. The same under which he heard Maud singing the 'passionate ballad gallant and gay' (page 202). These cedars of Lebanon are not uncommon in old English gardens. tance that they only make man feel his nothingness.' 656. That long, loving kiss. The 1st edition has long lover's kiss.' 663. In bridal white. Prophetic of the coming bridal; or, as Mann explains, fresh in the history of his joy.' 681. Some dark undercurrent woe. A presentiment of coming misfortune, which he nevertheless refuses to dwell upon. 684-786. Her brother is coming back to-night, etc. As already mentioned, this poem is not in the 1st edition. It clears up the obscurities of the story, 'varies the interest and deepens the pathos, and makes the love of Maud for the hero less improbable. We learn, among other things, that Maud had always nursed the idea that it was her duty, for her mother's sake, to be reconciled to the son of the suicide, and while he was gloomily cursing the family of his father's destroyer, Maud was kneeling in foreign churches praying that they might be friends' (Bayne). 757. That he left his wine, etc. No doubt he was better than this prejudiced witness had represented; and we have stronger reason for thinking so later. 845. My Maud has sent it by thee. At least, he flatters his fancy that she did. 850-923. Come into the garden, Maud. This lovely song abounds in illustrations of what Ruskin calls the pathetic fallacy' (see on line 12 above). The lover transfers all the passion of his heart to the flowers, and the flowers become part of his heart' (Stopford Brooke). Part II. Lines 49-77. See what a lovely shell, etc. 'This is unquestionably true to nature. The merest trifles commonly catch the eye of persons who are intensely occupied with grief, and then lead them out from themselves, until they are able to find some relief for the internal pressure through words' (Mann). As 131-140. Courage, poor heart of stone, etc. These lines were not in the 1st edition. Bayne remarks, they tell us that Maud dies, a fact that previously we could only guess at. 141-238. O, that 't were possible, etc. the history of this poem, see page 198 above. The changes from the version of 1837 are many. For 146. By the home that gave me birth. Originally, 'Of the land that gave me birth.' In the next stanza (153) 'God' has been changed to 'Christ.' 164, 165. Half in dreams. . . early skies. These two lines are not in the 1837 poem, which below (168) has to-morrow' for 'the morrow." 171-195. 'Tis a morning, pure and sweet, etc. This stanza and the next (vi. and vii.) take the place of the following: Do I hear the pleasant ditty In the 1837 |