Thou shalt hear the "Never! never!" whispered by the phantom

years,

And a song from out the distance, in the ringing of thine ears;

And an eye shall vex thee, looking ancient kindness on thy pain.

Of similar character and depth of tone is the poem of "Lady Clara Vere de Vere," who impelled to suicide one of the victims of her heartless beauty. The long-drawn music of her very name is suggestive of the proud pedigree to which she was ready to offer up any sacrifice. For continuity of affectionate tenderness and deep pathos in the closing scene, we should mention "The Lord of Burleigh," and the idyl of “Dora,”—the style of both being studiously artless, the latter, indeed, having a Scriptural simplicity which presents a curious contrast to the poet's early manner. In the poem of "Love and Duty" there is a general tone of suppressed emotion, and violent effort against nature which is deeply painful. The equal tenderness and bitterness of the anguish renders it the more difficult to receive with that feeling of resignation and sense of right which one would wish for, on such heart-breaking occasions. It is to be feared that some conventionalities have been erected into undue tyrannies over the noblest and most impassioned impulses, although the poet, not choosing to be more explicit in his story, or its suggestions, may not have intended to illustrate any such principle.

The clear course of feeling in the two preceding poems, which are equally pathetic and conclusive, will generally be preferable, even to the more intensely tragic emotion of this latter one.

It remains to offer a remark on two or three other poems which also form the most striking features of the present collection.

With respect to "Enone," it is an exquisitely successful attempt of the poet to infuse his own beating heart's blood into the pale blind statues of the antique times; and loses no jot of the majesty, while the vitality informs the grace. It is not surpassed by anything of the kind in Keats, or Shelley, or Landor. The "Morte D'Arthur" precisely reverses the design of the Greek revival; and, with equal success, draws back the Homeric blood and spirit to inspire a romantic legend.

Of the "Ulysses" we would say that the mild dignity and placid resolve the steady wisdom after the storms of life, and with the prospect of future storms—the melancholy fortitude, yet kingly resignation to his destiny which gives him a restless passion for wandering the unaffected and unostentatious modesty and self-conscious power,-the long softened shadows of memory cast from the remote vistas of practical knowledge and experience, with a suffusing tone of ideality breathing over the whole, and giving a saddened charm even to the suggestion of a watery

grave, all this, and much more, independent of the beautiful picturesqueness of the scenery, render the poem of "Ulysses" one of the most exquisite (as it has hitherto been one of the least noticed) poems in the language.

It would be impossible to give that full consideration to the extraordinary poem of "St. Simeon Stylites," which as a work of genius it merits, without entering into complexities of the passions, mind, and human character, under the excitement and involuntary as well as wilful hallucinations of fanaticism, for which we could afford no adequate space. We must content ourselves with saying that it is a great and original "study."

How

There are no qualities in Tennyson more characteristic than those of delicacy and refinement. very few are the poets who could equally well have dealt with the dangerous loveliness of the story of "Godiva."

"Then fled she to her inmost bower, and there
Unclasped the wedded eagles of her belt,
The grim Earl's gift; but ever at a breath
She lingered, looking like a summer moon
Half-dipt in cloud: anon she shook her head,
And showered the rippled ringlets to her knee;
Unclad herself in haste; adown the stair

Stole on; and like a creeping sunbeam, slid
From pillar unto pillar, until she reached
The gateway, &c."

The mind which can force up a vital flower of ideality through the heavy fermenting earth of human experiences, must have a deep intellectual root and active life. Among these experiences we must of course include those inner struggles of the soul with its own thoughts; dealings with the revelations that seem to come from other states of existence; difficult contests between the mortal promptings and resistances that breed so many doubts and hopes, and things inscrutable; and thoughts that often present themselves in appalling whispers, against the will and general tone and current of the mind. Tennyson's intellectual habit is of great strength; his thoughts can grow with large progressive purpose either up or down, and the peculiarity is that in him they commonly do so to "a haunting music." argument was ever conducted in verse with more admirable power and clearness than that of the "Two Voices." The very poetry of it magnifies itself into a share of the demonstration: take away the poetry and the music, and you essentially diminish the logic.

No

Though Tennyson often writes, or rather sings apparently from his own personality, you generally find that he does not refer to himself, but to some imaginary person. He permits the reader to behold the workings of his individuality, only by its reflex

action. He comes out of himself to sing a poem, and goes back again; or rather sends his song out from his shadow under the leaf, as other nightingales do; and refuses to be expansive to his public, opening his heart on the hinges of music, as other poets do. We know nothing of him except that he is a poet; and this, although it is something to be sure of, does not help us to pronounce distinctly upon what may be called the mental intention of his poetry.

:

Whatever he writes is a complete work he holds the unity of it as firmly in his hand as his Enone's Paris holds the apple and there is nothing broken or incomplete in his two full volumes. His few "fragments" are entire in themselves, and suggest the remainder. But for all this unity of every separate poem produced by him, there is, or appears to be, some vacillation of intention, in his poetry as a mass. To any question upon the character of his early works, the reply rises obviously, they are from dream-land; and of the majority of those which he has since produced, the same answer should be returned. The exceptive instances are like those of one who has not long awakened from his Dreams. But what dreams these have been-of what loveliness of music, form, and colour, and what thoughtfulness our foregoing remarks have very faintly expressed and declared. In the absence of any