Then felt I like some watcher of the skies He stared at the Pacific and all his men 10 ON THE GRASSHOPPER AND CRICKET The poetry of earth is never dead: When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, In summer luxury, he has never done On a lone winter evening, when the frost 5 IO Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills The cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever, The Grasshopper's among some grassy hills. ALFRED TENNYSON 1809-1892 TENNYSON was born in Lincolnshire, in the eastern part of England. He was the son of a clergyman. After receiving his early training from his father he went to Cambridge University. While there he received the Chancellor's Prize for the best English poem. His first volume of poems, too, was published while he was still an undergraduate, and the poetic activity which began so early continued to the end of a long life. Tennyson's life presents, in many respects, a striking parallel to that of Wordsworth. Each took himself very seriously from the start; each devoted his whole soul to poetry and wrote voluminously; each was appointed Poet Laureate; each won his way to fame slowly but surely, and each lived to see himself regarded at the end of a long life as the foremost poet of his generation. Among the best known of Tennyson's poems are Enone, A Dream of Fair Women, The Lotus Eaters, Ulysses, Locksley Hall, The Revenge, The Princess, Maud, In Memoriam, Enoch Arden, The Idylls of the King, and many short songs. Tennyson was, by almost common consent, the chief poet of the Victorian era. He seemed to gather up in himself nearly all the poetic excellences which the other poets of his time, and of the preceding age, showed individually. He had Wordsworth's dignity and grace, while his imagination was more brilliant; he had Keats's love of beauty, as well as his gifts of language and of melody; and he also fell heir to Shelley's lyric note. In epic power he was beyond any of these, and he surpasses in moral force all except Wordsworth. In the drama, however, he was not successful. Even his best plays, Queen Mary, Harold, and Becket, do not add ts to his fame. But his age was not a dramatic age, and few pocts are great enough to rise above their surroundings. In tender sentiment, however, in lyric grace, in epic power, in charm of imagery, in the witchery of melody, and in the mastery of language, Tennyson is the fittest representative of the manysided Victorian age. MORTE D'ARTHUR So all day long the noise of battle roll'd Sir Bedivere, the last of all his knights, Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere: I think that we Shall never more, at any future time, Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds, 5 10 15 20 I am so deeply smitten thro' the helm That without help I cannot last till morn. Thou therefore take my brand Excalibur, Which was my pride: for thou rememberest how And fling him far into the middle mere: Watch what thou seëst: and lightly bring me word.' To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere: 'It is not meet, Sir King, to leave thee thus, So saying, from the ruin'd shrine he stept, And in the moon athwart the place of tombs, Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men, Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang 25 30 35 40 45 Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam. He, stepping down By zigzag paths, and juts of pointed rock, 50 Came on the shining levels of the lake. There drew he forth the brand Excalibur, And o'er him, drawing it, the winter moon, Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth 55 For all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks, That both his eyes were dazzled as he stood, Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere: 'Hast thou perform'd my mission which I gave? What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard?' And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere: 'I heard the ripple washing in the reeds, And the wild water lapping on the crag.' To whom replied King Arthur, faint and pale: Then went Sir Bedivere the second time Across the ridge, and paced beside the mere, Counting the dewy pebbles, fix'd in thought; But when he saw the wonder of the hilt, 60 65 70 75 80 85 |