Studies in Tennyson Poems of Tennyson

1920. COPTBIGHT, 1889. 1891. 1892. 1897, 1898. BY CHARLES SCRIBNEB's SONS Published February, 1920 PR. 558% V4 THE 8CRBNER PRESS BY HENRY VAN DYKE The Valley of Vision Fighting for Peace The Unknown Quantity The Ruling Passion The Blue Flower Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land Days Off Little Rivers Fisherman's Luck Poems, Collection in one volume Golden Stars The Red Flower The Grand Canyon, and Other Poems The White Bees, and Other Poems The Builders, and Other Poems Music, and Other Poems The Toiling of Felix, and Other Poems The House of Rimmon Studies in Tennyson Poems of Tennyson CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS STUDIES IN TENNYSON <J / A YOUNG WOMAN OF AN OLD FASHION WHO LOVES ABT NOT ONLY FOE ITS OWN SAKE BUT BECAUSE IT ENNOBLES LIFE WHO READS POETRY NOT TO KILL TIME BUT TO FILL IT WITH BEAUTIFUL THOUGHTS AND WHO STILL BELIEVES IN GOD AND DUTY AND IMMORTAL LOVE I DEDICATE THIS BOOK PREFACE 1 HIS volume is intended to be a companion to my Select Poems of Tennyson. I have put it second in the pair because that is its right place. Criticisms, com^ ments, interpretations, are of comparatively little use until you have read the poetry of which they treat. Like photographs of places that one has not seen, they lack the reviving, realizing touch of remembrance. The book contains a series of essays, written at different times, printed separately in different places, and collected, substantially, in a book called The Poetry of Tennyson, which was fortunate enough to find many friends, and has now, I believe, gone out of print. This is a revision of it, with such corrections, additions, and omissions as will, perhaps, serve to make it a little better. It may be permissible, in this connection, to tell of the way in which these chapters came to be written. It is a personal story, but it has a certain bearing on the gen- eral subject of the love of poetry, the seed of which is more common than most people suppose, but which often needs help to grow. It all began with a birthday gift of a dollar which a boy received on his fourteenth birthday, from a very pleasant old lady. His whim led him into a bookshop to spend this money, which burned in his pocket; and his guardian angel, or possibly some prophetic instinct in the lame little bookseller, directed his unconscious choice to a book called Enoch Arden. It was a pirated edition, and therefore cheap, for this happened in the days when PREFACE the American publishers still practised literary brigand- were still to believe age, and the American people willing that it was more desirable to get books at a low price than to get them in a fair way. But the boy was not far enough out of the age of barbarism to feel any moral scruple on a point like this. So the book was bought for fifty cents, and it became the key which let that happy boy into the garden and palace of poetry, there to find a pleasure rivalling his joy in wild adventure-books of the Mayne Reid type. Not that this was his first book of poems. He had lived in a library, and was already the proprietor of a small bookcase of his own. But hitherto poetry had seemed to him like something foreign and remote, much less interesting than fiction or even some kinds of his- tory. He had read plenty of poems, of course, and had tried his hand at making verses. But the formal and arti- ficial side of poetry was still the most prominent to his mind. It was something to be translated and scanned and parsed. P. Ovidius Naso was an abomination to him, and Pope's Rape of the Lock a weariness to the flesh. They belonged to the tedious, profitable world of education and examination. But Enoch Arden evidently belonged to life. It was a story about real people. And then, it was so beautifully told. There was such a glow in it, such colour, such a swing and sweep of musical words, such a fine picture of a brave man, and at the end such a sad touch to bring the tears into your eyes, all by yourself, you understand, when no one could see you and laugh at you. this was as Why, good as a novel, yes, hi a way it was better, for there was a charm in the movement of the [ viii ] PREFACE verse, the rise and fall, the ebb and flow, the measured cadence, that seemed to stir the feelings and make them deeper and fuller. So the boy became a lover of poetry, perceiving that for it was a living thing, and began to look around him other poems which should give him the same kind of of ancient and pleasure. Of course, he found many them, modern. His capacity of enjoyment increased, as his taste broadened. He passed along the lines of new sym- the touch pathies from one poet to another, discovered of life in books which he had thought were dry and dead, and learned to appreciate beauties of which he had not suspected the existence. Even the poets of Greece and Rome began to say something to his heart. They were of no longer shadows of mighty names, but real makers real things in the enduring world of poesy. The boy came to understand, as he grew into man's mas- estate, that there were other, and some yet loftier, ters in the realm of song; but Tennyson still held the charm first place in his affections. There was a singular in the manner and accent of this poet, so melodious, so fluent, so clear, and yet so noble and powerful. Tenny- son seemed to be the one, among all the English poets, who was in closest touch with the modern world. He of not only led the boy for the first time into the regions all the poetry; he also kept company, through experi- ences of life, with the young man. When love began to speak in his heart, it found an echo in Maud, and Locksley Hall, and The Princess. When doubt began to trouble his mind, he turned to Two Voices and In Memoriam, to learn that it was no the new thing for faith to have to fight for life. When [k] PREFACE and to larger problems of human duty destiny began in the the press upon him, he saw them pictured Idylls of he read a fine King and The Palace of Art ; and answer to them in such poems as Will, and Wages, and the Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington. When he began to take that broader interest in humanity which only comes with years, he found in Ulysses and Lucretius and St. Simeon Stylites and The Northern Farmer and Rizpah, convincing portraits of living souls. And when at last, after many happy years, sorrow entered his house, he turned again to In Memoriam, and it brought him more comfort than any book in the world save One. It was not unnatural, then, that this man should be a Tennysonian, not as a matter of theory, but as an affair of experience. And the time came when he felt the wish to make some acknowledgment of the debt which he owed to this poet, to set down some more careful esti- mate of the influences which have flowed from his poetry into the life of the present age, and to give some reasons for thinking that Tennyson stood among the great poets, if not on a level with the greatest. So these essays were written. The grateful sense of benefits received which entered into their first writing has not waned, but increased. Certain judgments on particular poems have been modi- fied; certain comparisons have been made less absolute; a certain exclusiveness of admiration, natural to youth- ful partisanship, has passed away. I have learned that it is no reproach to recognize the limitations of your hero, and realized that Tennyson is not exempt from les de ses dtfauts qualites. But on the other hand my positive reasons for admiring him have grown clearer and strong- [x] PREFACE er, and I have perceived the beauty and value of certain poems which once I accepted merely because they were his. So these essays have gained, I venture to believe, in many respects, and have a better title to be called "studies." At all events, I send them out in then- new form and with their companion volume to find such readers as providence has designed for them, with the hope that they may serve as guides and interpreters in a region of delight which well repays many visits. The poet who can be read only once, is hardly worth reading at all. But he whose work yields new meaning and fresh pleasure as often as we come back to it, be- longs to the company of our unfailing friends in the spirit. The poetry of Tennyson, like good music, im- proves with every hearing. HENRY VAN DYKE. AVALON, October 9, 1919. [xi] CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE vii THE FIRST FLIGHT 1 THE PALACE OF ART 15 MILTON AND TENNYSON 87 THE PRINCESS AND MAUD 85 IN MEMORIAM 103 IDYLLS OF THE KING 119 THE DRAMATIC TRILOGY 167 THE BIBLE IN TENNYSON 187 FRUIT FROM AN OLD TREE 215 APPENDIX CHRONOLOGY AND BIBLIOGRAPHY 237 A LIST OF BIBLICAL REFERENCES 275 THE FIRST FLIGHT STUDIES IN TENNYSON THE FIRST FLIGHT 1 HE first appearance of a true poet usually bears at least one mark of celestial origin he "cometh not with observation." A small volume is printed on some obscure press.

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