"What first attracted people were Tennyson's pictures of women," says Taine. "Each word of them is like a tint, curiously shaded and deepened by the neighboring tint, with all the boldness and results of the happiest refinement."

Says Tuckerman, in the language of the criticism of painting:

"There is a voluptuous glow in this coloring, warm and rich as that of Titian, yet often subdued by the distinct outline and chastened tone of the Roman school; while the effect of the whole is elevated by the pure expressiveness of Raphael."

And last of all, we find in Tennyson a yearning tenderness and mystic suggestiveness. Says Swinburne:

"Never since the beginning of all poetry were the twin passions of terror and pity more divinely done into deathless words or set to more perfect and profound magnificence of music."

It may be said that many of the greatest poets have been half insane, living in a realm beyond society or out of the world, a law unto themselves. Not such was Tennyson.

"His ideal man," says Professor Dowden, "is he whose life is led to sovereign power by self-knowledge resulting in self-control, and self-control growing perfect in self-reverence. . . . Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, the recognition of a divine order and of one's place in that order, faithful adhesion to the law of one's highest life - these are the elements from which is formed the human character."

It would be strange if a man under such restraint, who had learned his art so laboriously

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as Tennyson undoubtedly did, were a great original or creative thinker. Tennyson was not. Some one speaks of "In Memoriam with its echoing corridors that lead to nothing." We must be satisfied with Tennyson's music and his pictures, and not expect him to solve the problems of life.

BREAK, BREAK, BREAK

BREAK, break, break,

On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.

O well for the fisherman's boy,

That he shouts with his sister at play!
O well for the sailor lad,

That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on

To their haven under the hill;

But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break,

At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!

But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.

SONGS FROM "THE PRINCESS"
AS THRO' THE LAND

As thro' the land at eve we went,

And pluck'd the ripen'd ears,

We fell out, my wife and I,
O, we fell out I know not why,

And kiss'd again with tears.
And blessings on the falling out
That all the more endears,

When we fall out with those we love
And kiss again with tears!

For when we came where lies the child
We lost in other years,

There above the little grave,

O, there above the little grave,
We kiss'd again with tears.

SWEET AND LOW

SWEET and low, sweet and low,
Wind of the western sea,
Low, low, breathe and blow,
Wind of the western sea!

Over the rolling waters go,

Come from the dying moon, and blow,

Blow him again to me;

While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps.

Sleep and rest, sleep and rest,

Father will come to thee soon;

Rest, rest, on mother's breast,

Father will come to thee soon;

Father will come to his babe in the nest,

Silver sails all out of the west

Under the silver moon:

Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep

BUGLE SONG

THE splendour falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story:
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.

Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying

O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going!

O sweet and far from cliff and scar

The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying: Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying

O love, they die in yon rich sky,
They faint on hill or field or river :
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,

And grow for ever and for ever.

Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying

TEARS, IDLE TEARS

TEARS, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the under-world,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge ;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes

The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

Dear as remember'd kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more!

ASK ME NO MORE

Ask me no more: the moon may draw the sea;
The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape.
With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape;

But O too fond, when have I answer'd thee?

Ask me no more.

Ask me no more: what answer should I give?
I love not hollow cheek or faded eye:
Yet, O my friend, I will not have thee die !
Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live;
Ask me no more.

OME they brought her warrior dead:
She nor swoon'd nor utter'd cry.
her maidens, watching, said,
She must weep or she will die."

en they praised him, soft and low,
Call'd him worthy to be loved,
est friend and noblest foe;
́et she neither spoke nor moved.

le a maiden from her place,
ightly to the warrior stept,
k the face-cloth from the face;
et she neither moved nor wept.
e a nurse of ninety years,
et his child upon her knee -
summer tempest came her tears
Sweet my child, I live for thee."

N THE DEATH OF THE DUKE

OF WELLINGTON

Great Duke

I

empire's lamentation, y the Great Duke

noise of the mourning of a mighty nation,

when their leaders fall,

carry the warrior's pall,

w darkens hamlet and hall.

II