A BEAUTIFUL little volume of poems, thus curtly and obscurely titled, has lately made its appearance, creating no small sensation among the lovers of poetry. The strain has gained a ready entrance to the hearts of readers, and found an echo there. The poet's name is not given, but the master's hand is known. The melody, the pathos, the merit of the verses, tell that ALFRED TENNYSON is the maker. The brief inscription,

"IN MEMORIAM

A. H. H.

OBIT MDCCCXXXIII." "

unintelligible at first sight as it stands, yet clearer after a time, is the key to the poem, and briefly sums up the burden of the song. A. H. H. are known to be the initials of Arthur Hallam, a son of the distinguished historian. Arthur, for years, was loved by the poet with more than a brother's love.

"Dear as mother to the son,

More than my brothers are to me,"

are his words. He had been his companion in childhood, even

"Ere childhood's flaxen ringlets turned

To black and brown on kindred brows."

Winters passed, but the bonds wherewithal they were bound together were not broken; their minds were one in kind: but let the poet speak it:

"Thou and I are one in kind,
As moulded like in nature's mint;
And hill and wood and field did print
The same sweet forms in either mind.

For us the same cold streamlet curl'd

Through all his eddying coves; the same
All winds that roam the twilight came
In whispers of the beauteous world."

The friendship thus strong promised eventually
to become dearer and more intimate. The sister
of the poet was betrothed to his friend; friend-
ship was about to pass into relationship; but,
evil day! while Arthur was in a foreign land-
"In Vienna's fatal walls,

God touched him, and he slept."

A dark calamity thus blasted the joys and hopes of sister and poet:

"O, what to her shall be the end?
And what to me remains of good?

To her, perpetual maidenhood,

And unto me, no second friend."

"In Memoriam" consists of a series of short pieces, most of them resembling the sonnet in length, and resembling the sonnet in this, also: that each piece is complete in itself. The pieces are a hundred and twenty-nine in number, and are without distinctive titles. They are occasional poems, that have been composed, apparently, at different times during the sixteen years between 1833, when Mr. Hallam died, and 1849, when the whole was wound up and prepared for the press. The author has freely and fully expressed, in those occasional verses, the varied feelings of his mind: at one time he scarce can credit the evil news that bring to him such woes; at another he calmly looks forth to the hour when the tie that has been so rudely sundered, shall again be renewed; now on imagination's airy wing upborne, he hovers round the ship that brings the dear, lifeless corpse to the shore of his native land; now he bends over the grave where his friend is laid, and finds consolation there. The memory of the lost one is recalled by each return of the Christmas-tide; the merry bells that ring out the old year and in the new, bring no joy, as they awaken thoughts of other happier times; in the walk by the "grey old grange" or "windy wold," an old companion seems to return, and gaze, as in other days, on the scenery:

"From end to end,

Of all the landscape underneath, I find no place that does not breathe Some gracious memory of my friend.

Each has pleased a kindred eye, And each reflects a kindlier day; And, leaving these, to pass away, I think once more he seems to die."'

Though "In Memoriam" be thus made up of a series of detached parts, yet is the unity of the whole unbroken, because there is ever a recurrence to one and the same melancholy event. The author does not maintain the measured march of a stately poem; he briefly, and often abruptly, gives utterance to the fleeting emotions of his mind. The poem is not epic: in his own words, he

"Loosens from the lip

Short swallow-flights of song, that dip Their wings in tears, and skim away."

"In Memoriam" must have been composed at different times, as "lullabies of pain." Often the eyes seem dimmed because of the grief that has fallen so oppressively; but again there is serenity, and peace, and hope in the future

"Less yearning for the friendship fled,

Than some strong hope which is to be."

Deepest grief, like deep dead rivers, murmureth not, but is still. With the overcharged heart there is the silent tongue. Nevertheless, with the song of it own woes the anguish of the bosom may be softened. In these lines the poet gives a fine reason for his having broken the silence that betokens heartfelt grief:

"I sometimes hold it half a sin

To put in words the grief I feel;
For words, like nature, half reveal
And half conceal the soul within.

But, for the unquiet heart and brain,
A use in measured language lies;
The sad mechanic exercise,
Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.

In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er,
Like coarsest clothes against the cold:
But that large grief which these enfold
Is given in outline and no more."

As the poet has made many excursions through the far realms of fancy, he has fetched thence a multitude of fine thoughts, which will afterwards become familiar to the writers of our language; while felicitous expressions-word-pictures, are scattered with lavish hand, plentiful as autumn leaves on the fields. A few specimens of thoughts may be taken at random from the volume:

"Oh yet we trust that somehow good

Will be the final goal of ill,

To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;

That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroyed,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete ;

That not a worm is cloven in vain:
That not a moth with vain desire
Is shrivell'd in a fruitless fire,
Or but subserves another's gain.
Behold! we know not anything;
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last-far off-at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring.
So runs my dream: but what am I?
An infant crying in the night:
An infant crying for the light:
And with no language but a cry."

The poet's vocation is noble: he is as the voice of one preaching from age to age. To

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reckless youth, what better than this could be preached?

"How many a father have I seen,

A sober man, among his boys,

Whose youth was full of foolish noise,
Who wears his manhood hale and green!
And dare we to this doctrine give,

That had the wild oat not been sown,
The soil, left barren, had not grown
The grain by which a man may live?
Oh! if we held the doctrine sound

For life outliving heats of youth,
Yet who would preach it as a truth
To those who eddy round and round?
Hold thou the good: define it well;

For fear divine philosophy

Should push beyond her mark, and be
Procuress to the lords of hell."

How finely is that load of misery pictured, which is borne by the race of mortals

"Never morning wore

To evening, but some heart did break."

This truth, so strikingly well expressed, is thus followed up by the reflection, that over the joyous and hopeful, all unconscious of their misfortune, the cloud may have noiselessly burst overhead, dashing hopes and joys to the earth:

"O father, wheresoe'er thou be,

That pledgest now thy gallant son;
A shot, ere half thy draught be done.
Hath still'd the life that beat from thee.
O mother, praying God will save

Thy sailor,-while thy head is bow'd,
His heavy-shotted hammock-shroud
Drops in his vast and wandering grave."

Has any painting, so shadowy, vague, and dread, yet been made of death, like this:

"The shadow fear'd of man ;
Who broke our fair companionship,
And spread his mantle dark and cold;
And wrapp'd thee formless in the fold,
And dull'd the murmur on thy lip:
And bore thee where I could not see,
Nor follow, though I walk in haste;
And think that, somewhere in the waste,
The shadow sits and waits for me."

Thus is the solemn, black yew-tree-that sentinel which keepeth watch over the dead, and moaneth a deep requiem when the winds are in its boughs-thus is it described in an apostrophe:

"Old yew, which graspest at the stones
That name the under-lying dead,
Thy fibres net the dreamless head;
Thy roots are wrapt about the bones.

*

O! not for thee the glow, the bloom,
Who changest not in any gale!
Nor branding summer suns avail
To touch thy thousand years of gloom."

This round of green, this orb of flame,
Fantastic beauty; such as lurks
In some wild poet, when he works
Without a conscience or an aim.

What then were God to such as I?

'Twere hardly worth my while to choose
Of things all mortal, or to use
A little patience ere I die :

'Twere best at once to sink to peace,

Like birds the charming serpent draws,
To drop head-foremost in the jaws
Of vacant darkness, and to cease."

Equally fine is the view of the triumph of faith and feeling over those insinuating doubts that would banish from the mind the thought and belief that there is a God:

"I found Him not in world or sun,

Or eagle's wing, or insect's eye,

Nor through the questions men may try,
The petty cobwebs we have spun:
If e'er when faith had fall'n asleep,
I heard a voice believe no more,'
And heard an ever breaking shore
That tumbled in the Godless deep;

A warmth within the breast would melt
The freezing reason's colder part,
And, like a man in wrath, the heart
Stood up and answer'd, 'I have felt.'"

It must rejoice all to find such passages in the work of one who may yet do much to enrich the stores of our poetry. These passages are not the light and happy thoughts struck out in a giddy hour, but they flow as life's blood from a heart that has been deeply wounded. A graceful apology is given for the introduction of such themes into the song, when the poet says,

song.

"I am but an earthly muse,

And owning but a little art

To lull with songs an aching heart,
And render human love his dues:

But brooding on the dear one dead,
And all he said of things divine,
(And dear as sacramental wine

To dying lips, is all he said),

I murmur'd, as I came along,

Of comfort clasp'd in truth reveal'd;
And loiter'd in the master's field,
And darken'd sanctities with song."

To appreciate the beauty of "In Memoriam," it is necessary to abandon the mind entirely to the harmony, and melody, and pathos of the "Wild and wandering cries," "confusions of a wasted youth," the poet has styled the present effusion. For a time, as we read, we noted passages whose meaning was obscure, and whose connection with the leading idea was too remote to justify their admission to where they stood. "Confusions of a wasted youth!" Ha! verily this is "confusion," we sometimes said ironically;

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but as we passed along the pages, the pen fell from our hand, and we could read, and only read; spell-bound we read; not held as with the skinny hand and glittering eye of the ancient mariner of Coleridge, but held by the sweet singer with the faltering voice and the tear-dimmed eye. The . sympathy that is felt with the poet is complete; while the entire possession of his soul with the melancholy theme fairly captivates and wins the hearts of all.

The incessant recurrence to the one idea of this poem-the death of a friend-may be irksome to some readers. Every scene is darkened; even the gay fields of summer are sombre with shadow; and amid the revelry of a marriage-feast-amid the joyous guests, there is the shadowy and august presence of

A stiller guest,

Perchance, perchance, among the rest."

The work may appear to be throughout monotonous, but to many this very monotony will be its chief beauty. Listen to the voices of nature. Monotonous is the dirge of the hollow seas as they moan over some glory that is flown. Monotonous on the waste moorland is the lapwing's scream, as it tells in fancy's ear the sad tale of Tereus and Philomel. Monotonous, too, may be the poet's song as he tells of the loved ones he has lost, and the drear blank and barren world that is left behind.

The readers of "In Memoriam" will doubtless call to mind" Adonais," which was composed by Shelley on the death of Keats. "Adonais" and "In Memoriam" have some points of resemblance. Both are works of high genius, and both breathe the warmest love-a love that borders almost on adoration-to the dead whom they commemorate. They, however, widely differ. "Adonais" was written in fury; wild scorn now curls the poet's lip-now the face is distorted with agony-now the flood of tears flows free. Not so in "In Memoriam." No passion but love inflames the mind-no bitterness distills from the lip; the lays are yearnings after a treasure that has been rudely torn away; the poet is at peace with the world-his only controversy is with oblivion, and his struggle is that the name of the lost one may be rescued, and that he may not wholly perish in the consuming grave. "Adonais" is the monument of genius over a brother bard; "In Memoriam" is the monument of genius over the grave of friendship. "Adonais" and "In Memoriam" promise to be alike in this. Each will be a monument "more lasting than brass,"--each will endure longer than the "storied urn and animated bust," which the sculptor's hand has chiseled.