Mr. Tennyson:

Auckland Star, Volume XIII, Issue 3644, 15 April 1882, Page 1 (Supplement)

Mr. Tennyson:

Br J. 1). Davis.

REMARKS EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL O\

HIS SHORTER POEMS,

(Concluded.)

In "Locksley Hall " we have a young man expressing a young man's thoughts ; first, on a personal topic of groat moment; secondly, on the condi'ions of 'he present age ; and thirdly i>n the po-sibilities of the world's futile. The pers .nal topic, which is the rejection of the singer by ft girl for a suitor richer in purse, but inliniteiy poorer in intellect, introduces the clement of passion which runs through the p'Oin, mid gives the characteristic colouring to all its sentiments. Hence some of thorn are wide of the truth and fact, as, for instance, when the youth protests that " woman is the lesser man ; " and when he impulsively expresses his determination to lly to some island of the South, ilie c to take some savage woman who should rear his dusky race. Calmer, truer thoughts find a place when the recollection of his injury is less keen, and the violence of his • passion has subsided—

Forward, forward lot us ranco Let the great world ring for ever down the ringing grooves of change. Thro' the shadow of tho giobe we sweep Into the younger day: Better fifty years of Kuropo than n cycle of Cathay.

There is one characteristic of this poem which may be opportunely pointed to just now, viz., its manly vigorous tone. There is no namby-pamby, sick y bemoaning* in it. It contains tho thoughts of a man, though he is n« first carried away by impulse and a vivid scn->e of wrong; lie states his case plainly, and not without .some Oioism, but he avoids posing as a martyr, to. excite the false and artificial' sympathy of spectators more foolish than himse'if. His soliloquy .finds an audience among men and women, and drives beyond hearing those spineless parodies of humanity who wnn'il fain believe themselves to hare inaugurated a new era in the pursuit of art, poetry, and general culture. •'Locksley Hall" is full of passages whose beauty, truth, or force has made them " current coin " in the conversation and writing of the educated among English-speaking peoples. We need only instance the two following :— Yet I doubt not thro' the ages one increasing purpose runs. And the thoughts ot men aro widened with the process of tho suns. This is truth tho poet shiRS, That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things. Between "Locksley Hall" and "St. Simeon Stylites " there is nothing in common, except their subjectiveness. In all other lespects they are poles apart, a fact which further illustrates Mr Tennyson's ability to depict moods the most diverse. In the latter poem it is the cclf-torturing recluse and fanatic who speaks, pouring out the narrative of his meritorious sufferings, and not Mr Tennyson thinly hidden behind an insubstantial ditguise. As the delineation of a certain kind of frenzy not uncommon in the dark ages, and of outworn beliefs current in those days, it is complete and correct. The poet enters into them, and brings hia reader in with him, so that the latter soon reads with lessening surprise and distaste passages : like these.—

0 Jesus, if Thou wilt not savo my soul. Who may be saved! who is it may bo mved ( Show me the man hath suffered more than I.

Bear witness, if I could havo found a way (And needfully X sifted all my thought) More slowly-painful to subdue this home Of sin, my flesh, which I despise and hate; I had not stinted practice 0 my God.

Quite unlike the two last-named poems is "Dora." From its simplicity both ot subject and treatment it lias been called Wordsworthian. The poetry however is Tennysonian. There is no hint of Wordsworth in such verses as these :—

'.' And Dora took the child, and went hor way Across tho wheat, and sat upon a mound

That was unsown, where many poppies grew. Far off tho farmer came into the Held And spied her not; for none of all hia men Dare tell him Dora waited with the child: And Dora would have risen and gone to him : But her heart fail'd her: and the reaper's reap'd, And the sun fell, and all the land was dark."

"Dora" is but a small poem ;in fact it can hardly "be called a poem at all. it is a narrative in ver.<e, well told, the pathos of it being expressed as only a master-hand could express it. This is its chief merit. In after years came great access of this kind of power. " Enoch Arden" is a pathetic story far more poetically and pathetically told. At first sight it may seem rather incongruous to group together the three poems "Dora," "Aylmer's Field," and •' Enoch Arden" (the two last both published in 1864). They have however several characteristics in common. They are each idyllic or narrative in form ; they are each written in blank verse, true Tennysonian verse, hero and there mannered and laboured ; they each contain much that is sad and pathetic ; and the interest of all three is associated very much with the heroines of the stories. In the first there is Dora's self-denial, supplemented years after by her womanly tact and judgment which are successful in turning the heart of the case-hardened grandfather, and bringing about as satisfactory an ending as wbs possible. Edith Aylrner, happy and blooming when the tale opens, wasted and pale as time rolls on, remains constant to the man she loves contrary to the will and desire of her s'.ubborn unnatural parents. The fierce denunciations of Averill's sermon on the double death of Edith and his brother, the disappointed suitor, involve in deeper gloom tho conclusion of a story sombre in tone almost throughout. In this poem Leolin's fiery outburst—provoked by a similar cause—against the mammon worshipping tendencies of the age, against pride of birth and blood, against the wilful thwarting of true love and the consequent blasting of young lives with their untold possibilities, this outburst, we say, reminds one of certain passages of " Locksley Hall. The same sentiments find utterance in both, but in hotter and more glowing terms m the poem before us, becauso the provocation is so much the more recent. Mr Tennyson, though in numberless ways the product and reflex of the age he adorns, feels impelled to lift up his powerful voice against the social vices which disgrace it. The poet of a Court, read and understood chiefly by the classes with means and opportunities of culture, he has been fearless in denouncing the sins to which those classes show themselves peculiarly liable "Enoch Arden" is the best poem of tho three we have associated together. The interest is well sustained from beginning

to end ; it halts not, as is sometime* the case in "Aylmer's Field." The descriptions are liner than those of cither the Other two, perhaps beexuso the course of the story lead* mto situations where power and brilliancy of description arc naturally and spontaneously evoked. Tho tropical island and all its glories of Horn and fauna invite the poet to put forth his strength, and to charm his hoard's with a highly-coloured description befitting the occasion. "Aylmer's Field" suffers somewhat from an anti-climax, a fault escaped in tho intensely dramatic catastrophe of "Enoch Arden." The hero of tho latter is a character of the noblest type, uni tin; picture of him, drawn ns it i.s from the life, ought to have some iufluenco to convince the misanthrope and cynic of the error nt their opinions Enoch Arden is an actual fact, not the creation of a vivid poetic imagination, and as such he raises the standard of the whole of his sex.

It will be convenient to mention here another pathetic pooui of Mr Tennyson, tbo most pathetic and moving in fact of all lie has written. Wo allude to "Ilizpnh," one of the latest fruits of his genius. It ia nothing short of astonishing that a man advanced in years as Mr Tennyson is should have writ en with such power, such force and nervousness. So far from exhibiting any decline of strength, .it is indicative of facultiesuntired and unspent, as fresh and vigorous as ever they were. Tho story in itself, no matter how badly told, is enough to muse the tear to start; but Mr Tennyson has related it wih a fidelity to nature and a reserve of power that no now living poet could hope to equal. The incident* arc presumably fresh in the memories of most rcndc'S. An old woman on her death bed is teHing a lady visitor how her sou many years ngo out nf .sheer bravado robbed tho mat1, and was hanged for the crimp. The body swung in chains from tho gibbet, "that all the ships of the world could stare at him passing by ;" and as the decayed limb* dropped apart, the poor mother gathered the boms at night, one by one ami buried thorn by the churchyard wall in consecrated ground. "My Willy '11 rise up whole whonltlic trumpet Of judgment'll sound; But I charge you never to s»r that I laid him In holy ground." Presently the aged dame in her ravings cries :— "Heard have you? what I they have told you he never repented his sin. Uow do they know it f are they his mother? are they of hia kin 1 Heard 1 havo you heard, when the storm on the downs began. The wind that 'II wail like the child and the soa

I lull 11 moan like a man i" Election j Election and Reprobation, it'snll very llut I go to-night to my boy, and I shall not Unit him in hell. For I carod so much for my boy that the Lord baa looked ntoniycare. And He means mo. .I'm sun), to.be happy with Willy, I know not where.

In reading the tiny poem " St. Agnea' Eve," one cannot help contrasting with it Keats's longer and more important poem bearing the same title. Both have their origin iv the old popular superstition that if—

" Upon the honeyod middle of tho ni^ht, Ceremonies due they did aright." on the vigil of St. Agnes (January 21st) maidens might be vouchsafed a sight of their future husbands. Keats wrote a beautiful poem on this pleasing fancy, but left it it much where he found it, while Mr Tennyson spiritualises it ami exhibits to us a saintly nun, who is enabled bj,1 prayer and tilth to gaze 011 the Heavenly Bridegroom.

Tho Ratc3 Uoll back, and far within For me tho Heavenly Bridegroom WIIH3 To make 1110 pure of sin. The Sabbath of eternity. One Sabbath deep and wide— A light upon the shining sea— The Bridegroom with his bride!"

A coincidence between a thought in Mr Tennyson's poem, and one in that of Keats, is perhaps woitti mentioning. The former has in the first stanza;

My breath to heaven like a vapour goes. This would seem to have been suggestrd by what Keats had previously written ;—

His trusted breath Liko pious iucense from a censor old, Seomcd taking flight for heaven, without a death.

Mr Tennyson has been very successful in his employment of irregular metres, a difficulty which few poets have conquered. The great secret would seem to be to make the rhymes and the pauses fall just when and where the emotion demands that they should. In the "Lotos Eaters " this is the case, and the result is a " music sweet and low,'' in keeping with the languid enervating air floating over the land where the mild-cycil lotos caters dwelt. Another specimen of successful irregular metre is the "Ode on the death of the Duke of Wellington," a poem which came from the writer's heart, and which is worthy of the great man whose decease it so nobly deplores. It deserves to tane rank with the tew—not more than twenty—satisfactory odes in English. As a lyrist, Mr Tennyson has achieved remarkable success. Somo of his songs are as sweet and charming as any in the language. Among them is found considerable variety both in metre uud in subject matter, alternating from grave to gay, while certain of his amatory verses are quite unequalled. "Home they brought her warrior dead," "Come not when I .am dead," Thy voice is heard tbro' rolling drums" "Teats, idle tears, I, knuw not what they mean." In the last named the same cho'ds—chords vibrating long and low —are struck as in an earlier song :—

But O for the touch of a vanished hand And the sound of a voice that is still.

A dainty little poem is "The Brook," written in a measure singularly imitative of the subject. If Mr Tennyson borrowed the crude idea of it from Burns as has been suggested, he has shown his skill in the manner in which he has developed it. The refrain however is Ids own-

For men may come, and men may go, Butlgoonforcver.

The amatory lyrics exhibit in themselves much variety. The moods of love are many, and Mr Tennyson has recorded a goodly proportion. We can only quote what seems to us the most perfect of them all, " Vivien's Song " Where can be found anything to approach it in the language ?

" In lovo, if love be love, if lovo be ours, Faith and unfa th can no'er be equal powers Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all.

It is the little rift within tho lute That by and f>y will make the music muts. And ever widening slowly silence all.

It is not worth the keeping: let it go: But shall it? answer, darling, answer, no; And trust me not at all, or all in all.

We have now gone through most, not all, of Mr Tennyson's shorter poems. We

do not pretend to have said all about them that was<'bvious even, nor much that was far below the surface. Nor have we taken ui>, except incidentally, such subjects as Mr Tennyson's command of language, his services in the reuse of good words long disused, his ability to describe actions and incidents in the neatest tersest manner possible, his fidelity in depicting beauties of lycadow and field and river and garden. Our intention hus been mainly a popular one, to attempt a little something towards lessening the indifference in which Mr Tennyson's poems in particular and pootry in general, are held in New Zealand. To such indilFcrCUCß there is always a tendency, arising from what causes we do not now enquire, among the dwellers in a new country. But it is a feature which ought not, with the spread of education and cultur ■wo Hatter ourselves upon, to be allowed to remain to discredit us any longer.