Then his thoughts, blown like arrow-seeds over the whole world with melodies and light, take root, and become flowers in the hearts of men, till high desires are born, and truth is multiplied on truth, And thro' the wreaths of floating dark upcurled, Rare sunrise flow'd. And in that sunrise, Freedom clothed in wisdom came upon Man, and shook his spirit, and ruined anarchies. and oppressions. This was Tennyson's youthful conception of his work, and we should never forget it when we read his poetry, though we are tempted sometimes to think that he forgot this last part of it himself. I quote the final verses, and from the book of 1830. Their note is new. Their power, in contrast with the light verse that was contemporary with them, is the revelation of a poetic resurrection : And Freedom rear'd in that august sunrise Her beautiful, bold brow, When rites and forms before his burning eyes There was no blood upon her maiden robes But round about the circles of the globes Of her keen eyes * And in the bordure of her robe was writ Hoar anarchies, as with a thunder-fit. • Recast in 1842. And in her raiment's hem was traced in flame All evil dreams of power-a sacred name. Her words did gather thunder as they ran, So was their meaning to her words. No sword Of wrath her right arm hurl'd, But one poor poet's scroll, and with his word She shook the world. THREE CHAPTER II THE POEMS OF 1833 HREE years after the volume of 1830, Tennyson published the little book of 1833, containing thirty new poems. In this second volume he wrought still further at the new veins he had struck, and turned their ore into finer shapes. But he not only developed work he had already begun; he found fresh and different veins of poetry, opened these also, and made out of their gold new creations full of the spirit of youth hastening to a greater excellence. Evolution then of the subjects. discovered in 1830-creation of new subjects in 1833these are the matter of this chapter. But first, it is well to mark how the artist, as artist, grows. He cannot cease inventing; new things, new forms spring up under his hand; ever uncontent because the unattainable of Beauty lures him on. "If thou givest me," cries Beauty in his heart, "a thousand shapes, there are yet a million more which thou mayest invent for me, and yet I shall not be exhausted." He who feels that allurement and hears that cry has the art ist's temper; he who can embody what he feels and hears, in ever varying forms, till old age touch him with inability, is the artist. He moves "from well to better, daily self-surpast," till he has no more power. We know when his power is lessening, for then he begins to repeat himself. We know that it still exists, however feebly, when, in the midst of repetitions, new things now and then appear. And it is one of the happy things in Tennyson's career, that even till he was past eighty years of age, this creativeness-that is, this power of being inflamed with the love of Beauty and animated by her into creation-did not altogether die. In the very last volume he published there appeared a poem called The Gleam, which, if it was written shortly before the book was issued, was a new and beautiful blossom on his ancient tree. Those who, walking in an English park, have come upon an oak, broken off short by age or storm and hollow within, but whose rugged gnarls send forth leaves as delicate as those of its childhood, must have often thought, "There is the image of the great artist in his old age, of the great musician, the great painter, the great poet"; and though Tennyson does not stand among the very mightiest, yet he had this singular and noble power of fresh creation in old age. We are sure to find this creativeness in his youth. It appeared, as we have seen, in 1830, and I have discussed some forms of it in the previous chapter. Two forms of it, however, I omitted-one, the drawing of "charac ters"; the other, the drawing of Nature. Both of these were more fully worked out in the volume of 1833. Both are new in manner, and interesting beyond themselves. The types of character were drawn, each apart, like solitary statues. As a young man, he chose women on whom to try his prentice hand, and we have a series of these pictures, with fanciful names written underneath them. They are lifeless as women, lay figures with elaborate dresses; word-painted, nothing but words. There are no surprises in these characters, nothing inexplicable, nothing unexpected, nothing veiled, no profound simplicity, nothing which recalls a woman. They are, above all, logically worked out; one verse opens into another in an intellectual order. We can predict what is coming-as if their subjects moved in accordance to law. It was like a young man to try this, but it was a pity he did not prefer to draw his college companions, for the one man's character that he does outline is a fairly-painted type. Here are two verses of it: Most delicately hour by hour With lips depress'd as he were meek, |