Come slipping o'er their shadows on the sand,
But if a man who stands upon the brink
But lift a shining hand against the sun,
There is not left the twinkle of a fin
Betwixt the cressy islets white in flower;'

686:

'a splendid silk of foreign loom,
Where like a shoaling sea the lovely blue
Play'd into green, and thicker down the front
With jewels than the sward with drops of dew,
When all night long a cloud clings to the hill,
And with the dawn ascending lets the day

Strike where it clung: so thickly hung the gems.’

These instances may suffice as illustrations of the poet's peculiar wealth of apt and picturesque comparison, and they are but a few of the many examples which might be found of picturesque simile or metaphor (for metaphor is but compressed simile) in the two idylls of Geraint. By a reviewer of the first four Idylls of the King, speaking of 'Mr. Tennyson's extraordinary felicity and force in the use of metaphor and simile,' it was well said:-'With regard to this particular and very critical gift, he may challenge comparison with almost any poet, either of ancient or modern times. Metaphor lies by metaphor as thick as shells upon their bed, yet each individually with its outline as well drawn, its separateness as clear, its form as true to nature, and with the most full and harmonious contribution to the general effect.' (Quarterly Review, Oct., 1859.)

The same critic writes: Mr. Tennyson practices largely, and with extraordinary skill and power, the art of designed and limited repetitions. . . . These

repetitions tend at once to give more definite impressions of character, and to make firmer and closer the whole tissue of the poem.' This is in fact one of the most marked features of Tennyson's style, and the poems before us are full of examples of it. It must be noted, however, that though the effect is often produced by the repetition of precisely the same form of words, it depends perhaps still more often upon a certain monotony of structure and of rhythm. Take for example the following lines of the May Queen :—

'O sweet is the new violet, that comes beneath the skies,
And sweeter is the young lamb's voice to me that cannot rise,
And sweet is all the land about, and all the flowers that blow,
And sweeter far is death than life to me that long to go.'

The wonderful power and beauty of this climax is almost entirely due to the repetition of the same structure;1 and throughout Tennyson's poetry, especially

1 It need hardly be said that this method of heightening the effect is familiar in all poetry, and, indeed, in one form or another, it is perhaps the most characteristic outward difference between poetry and prose. The Hebrew parallelism is only a particular development of it, and both rhyme and alliteration are due to the same craving for recurrence which finds satisfaction in repetition of the same words or of the same form of structure. Good examples of this last may be found in Milton, e.g. Paradise Lost, 4, 641 ff. :—

'Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet,
With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the sun,
When first on this delightful land he spreads
His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower,
Glistering with dew; fragrant the fertile earth
After soft showers; and sweet the coming on
Of grateful evening mild; then silent night

in the more lyrical parts of it, in The Lotos-eaters, Locksley Hall, Maud, we find this characteristic one of the most prominent features of his style. Examples of it are found rather more sparingly in the Idylls of the King, but here too we recognise it, and especially in those of the idylls which were published first. We may take as examples in The Marriage of Geraint the passage beginning,

'Forgetful of his promise to the King,' ll. 50-54,

and 719-722:—

'For though ye won the prize of fairest fair;
And tho' I heard him call you fairest fair' etc.

Also Geraint and Enid, 579-589:

'So for long hours sat Enid by her lord,
There in the naked hall, propping his head,
And chafing his pale hands, and calling to him.
Till at the last he waken'd from his swoon,
And found his own dear bride propping his head,
And chafing his faint hands, and calling to him ;
And felt the warm tears falling on his face;
And said to his own heart, "She weeps for me:
And yet lay still, and feign'd himself as dead,
That he might prove her to the uttermost,
And say to his own heart, "She weeps for me."'

With this her solemn bird, and this fair moon,
And these the gems of Heaven, her starry train :
But neither breath of morn when she ascends
With charm of earliest birds; nor rising sun
On this delightful land; nor herb, fruit, flower,
Glistering with dew; nor fragrance after showers;
Nor grateful evening mild; nor silent night
With this her solemn bird; nor walk by moon,
Or glittering starlight, without thee is sweet.'

680-683

'I love that beauty should go beautifully:
For see ye not my gentlewomen here,

How gay, how suited to the house of one
Who loves that beauty should go beautifully?'

'In this poor gown my dear lord found me first,
And loved me serving in my father's hall:
In this poor gown I rode with him to court,
And there the Queen array'd me like the sun :
In this poor gown he bad me clothe myself,
When now we rode upon this fatal quest
Of honour, where no honour can be gain'd:
And this poor gown I will not cast aside
Until himself arise a living man,

And bid me cast it.'

Other instances will be found in Marriage of Geraint, 234, 239, 289, 483, 549, 647 ff.; Geraint and Enid, 135, 420, 430 (compared with Marriage of Geraint, 773), 952 (compared with Marriage of Geraint, 42).

With regard to the use of blank verse, the practice of Tennyson is in agreement with that of Milton. No one has used rhyme with more skill and effect than Tennyson in his lyrical and ballad poetry, but as Milton discarded in Paradise Lost 'the troublesome and modern bondage of riming,' and chose blank verse as more suitable for a long epic or narrative poem, so Tennyson, in all his longer poems of a narrative kind, as Enoch Arden, The Princess, and The Idylls of the King, has adopted blank verse; and he has fairly proved himself to be the greatest master of English blank verse since Milton. Tennyson's blank verse is almost always

dignified, never slovenly, and endlessly various in its rhythmical modulation, and in its adaptability to the subjects upon which it is employed. His alliteration is most skilful and delicate, so that often we only feel its presence without perceiving where it is, or are conscious of a certain subtle harmony without realizing to what particular source it is due. That this is no mean merit we shall easily admit, if we bear in mind how dangerous a weapon alliteration is apt to be in any but a master hand, and how frequent has been the abuse of it, even by such a poet as Spenser, and much more by those of our own time. In these idylls alliteration is more sparingly employed than in others which have been published since, but as examples of the effect of it we may quote Marriage of Geraint, 326 ff.:—

'And while he waited in the castle court,
The voice of Enid, Yniol's daughter, rang
Clear thro' the open casement of the hall,
Singing; and as the sweet voice of a bird,
Heard by the lander in a lonely isle,
Moves him to think,' etc.

Geraint and Enid, 274 ff. :—

'And midmost of a rout of roisterers,
Femininely fair and dissolutely pale,
Her suitor in old years before Geraint,
Enter'd, the wild lord of the place, Limours.
He moving up with pliant courtliness,
Greeted Geraint full face, but stealthily,

In the mid-warmth of welcome and graspt hand,
Found Enid with the corner of his eye,
And knew her sitting sad and solitary.'