Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Delphi Poets Series

by Lord Tennyson Alfred

  Any one who has read carefully the “Idylls of the King,” “Sir Galahad,” “St. Agnes,” among many of his poems, still more any one who has spoken with him intimately, cannot fail to realize the strong attraction which many Catholic doctrines and practices had for Tennyson, and the reverence with which he regarded the Catholic Church as standing alone among jarring sects and creeds, majestic, venerable, and invulnerable. His mind was also an essentially and intensely religious one, and I know that one of my father’s attractions for him lay in the religious tone of his mind. On these points, however, I will say no more. In jotting down these few remembrances of a friendship which is amongst my most precious possessions, I settled with myself to refrain entirely from any presentation of what I believed to be Tennyson’s views on theology, metaphysics, or politics, no less than from any discussion of his poetic greatness. I want nothing but to sketch the man as he always seemed to me, one of the noblest, truest, and most lovable of God’s creatures, and one who, even without the genius that has crowned his brow with never-fading laurel, must, by weight of character and beauty of soul alone, stand a giant amid his fellow-men!

  We spent the Christmas holidays of 1890-91 at Freshwater with our five children; not one of them will forget the delightful intercourse with Farringford during those weeks, and the Christmas Tree arranged by Mrs. Hallam Tennyson for her little Lionel in the large room known as the ball-room. Kind words and presents were showered on every one, and I think the beloved grandparents enjoyed it as much as their fourteen-months-old grandson, as they sat in the midst of their servants and cottagers (some of whom were amongst the oldest of their friends), and the guests, little and great, whom they had asked to share their Christmas festival. Our two eldest children have a more precious remembrance of that time and the following Easter, which we also spent at Freshwater, for Tennyson read aloud to them for the first and only time. To our girl he read “Old Roä” and the “Bugle Song,” and to our boy the “Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington.” He read this in April 1891; it was the last time I heard him read, and I look upon it as a special act of kindness; he said he did not like to read to children — they did not understand, were bored — and he only yielded to my strong entreaties. If, however, he saw, as I think he did, the flushed cheeks and big tearful eyes of our fourteen-year-old schoolboy, he must have felt that he had a listener who did understand and appreciate!

  Through the early part of the winter of 1890 Tennyson was remarkably well, walking in the morning with my husband and other friends, and taking long walks in the afternoon up and down the ball-room, when he liked to have one or two companions who would amuse him, and whom he would amuse with witty stories and bons mots. He had always a great pleasure in racy anecdotes, and the humorous side of life, and during the last years this increased, so that his friends treasured up every good story they heard to repeat to him at their next meeting.

  Towards the end of the Christmas holidays Tennyson caught cold, and fears of a return of gout and bronchitis confined him to his room. My husband had already returned to London, and I was remaining only a few days longer and thinking sadly enough that I should not be able to see Tennyson again before I left, when on one of the last evenings I was spending at Farringford, he sent for me to his room and then, to my delighted surprise, proposed to read to me. I demurred, fearing it might be bad for him, but he insisted, and for half an hour read me one unpublished poem after another, his voice nearly as strong as I had ever known it, and it seemed to me even more pathetic and beautiful.

  That Easter of 1891, among many pleasant recollections of Farringford and of the group of friends who paid their daily visit there, has one which I like to set against the stories of Tennyson’s unapproachableness and gruffness to those who went to see him, which are so often circulated, and which, in nine cases out of ten, meant that those who presented themselves to him had chosen an unfortunate time, or were in some respect deficient in tact or politeness. An American friend, professor of literature at Harvard, was staying with us. His admiration and veneration for the great master of verse were unbounded, and he would, I feel sure, have crossed the Atlantic merely to see and speak with him. The morning after his arrival, my husband took him to Farringford, where they found Tennyson somewhat annoyed by a communication from an unknown American admirer, enclosing a photograph of the Poet, upon which he requested him to sign his name; the coolness of the request being heightened by the fact that the sender had posted his letter unstamped. My husband said to his friend, “Now, M., here’s your opportunity; put down sixpence and pay the national debt, and Tennyson will sign you the receipt on this photograph.” He immediately took the joke, laughed, bade the professor take back his sixpence, and signed the photograph for him.

  On one of the last days we were at Freshwater that Easter, Tennyson met our youngest child of five in the road, and addressed her, to her great amusement: “Madam! you’ve a damask rose on either cheek, and another on your forehead; rosy lips, golden hair, and a straw bonnet.”

  I never again saw the household at Farringford after April 1891. Once more we were at Aldworth in October of that year, when Tennyson signed for us a photograph from Mr. Watts’s last picture. He was tired before we left and had gone to rest in his room, but I begged Hallam to let me go in to wish him good-bye. Had I known that it was good-bye, and that for the last time I looked on his face and kissed his dear hands, what could I have said? Never could I express the sorrowing love, the immense gratitude, which overflow my heart as I think of my father’s friend and mine!

  The following letter was written by Tennyson to Catherine Lady Simeon after the death of his friend:

  Aldworth, June 27th, 1870.

  My dear Lady Simeon — Of course nothing could be more grateful to me than some memorial of my much-loved and ever-honoured friend, the only man on earth, I verily believe, to whom I could, and have more than once opened my whole heart; and he also has given me in many a conversation at Farringford in my little attic his utter confidence. I knew none like him for tenderness and generosity, not to mention his other noble qualities, and he was the very Prince of Courtesy; but I need not tell you this; anything, little book, or whatever you will choose, send me or bring when you come; and do pray come on the 4th July, and we will be all alone; and Louie can come, when she will, and you can spare her. — Believe me, always affectionately yours,

  A. Tennyson.

  SIR JOHN SIMEON

  By Aubrey de Vere

  The world external knew thee but in part:

  It saw and honoured what was least in thee;

  The loyal trust, the inborn courtesy;

  The ways so winning, yet so pure from art;

  The cordial reverence, keen to all desert,

  All save thine own; the accost so frank and free;

  The public zeal that toiled, but not for fee,

  And shunned alike base praise, and hireling’s mart.

  These things men saw; but deeper far than these

  The under-current of thy soul worked on

  Unvexed by surface-ripple, beam, or breeze,

  And unbeheld its way to ocean won:

  Life of thy life was still that Christian Faith

  The sophist scorns. It failed thee not in death.

  TENNYSON

  By Arthur Sidgwick, Fellow of Corpus Christi, Oxford, and sometime Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.

  (Read in the Chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge, October 30, 1909.)

  We are met here to-day to do honour to the memory and the life’s work of one of the greatest of Trinity’s sons, who has also won for himself — few lovers of poetry here or anywhere can feel a doubt — a high and secure place in the glorious roll of English Poets, that roll which records the poetic achievements of over 500 years.

  In accepting (with whatever misgivings) the request of the College authorities to speak some preliminary words in appreciation of the Poet, I do not propose to deal in any detail with the history of his l
ife and work, on which the biography has thrown such interesting and welcome light. The most that can here be attempted is to select a few aspects and illustrations of Tennyson’s life-long devotion to his art, such as may serve to bring out something of those gifts and qualities which, wherever English poetry is read, are felt to give to his work its special charm and value.

  Though I must pass the early years almost in silence, I cannot refrain from quoting the delightful tale, first made known (I believe) by Miss Thackeray, how at the age of five the Poet was seen with outspread arms in a high wind, sailing gaily along and shouting his first line of poetry

  I hear a voice that’s speaking in the wind

  — he did indeed all his life hear that voice and all other Nature-voices; and also the other tale of ten years later, how on the news of Byron’s death (in 1824) the boy went out, desolate, and carved the sad tidings on the sandstone, and (to use his own words) “thought everything over and finished for every one, and that nothing else mattered.”

  Such despairing grief has seemed to some readers extravagant, to be excused on the plea of youth — he was only fifteen: but it must not be forgotten that Byron’s death was the final blow of a triple fatality such as finds no parallel in the history of literature. Three men of striking genius and rich poetic gifts — Byron, Shelley, and Keats — were all prematurely lost to the world within four years (1821-4). The fervid sorrow of the impulsive and gifted boy of fifteen, so far from being extravagant, must have been shared by countless readers of all ages who cared for poetry, not in England only.

  It is true that as the years went on the youthful sympathy of Tennyson with what has been called the Revolutionary poetry was materially modified — perhaps especially in the case of Shelley. Yet there is a striking letter of the date 1834 — when Shelley had been dead twelve years, and Tennyson was twenty-five — which should not be forgotten. Henry Taylor had attacked the Byron-Shelley school of poetry; and Tennyson, while not disputing much of his general judgment, adds this penetrating comment: “It may be that he (Taylor) does not sufficiently take into consideration the peculiar strength evolved by such writers as Byron and Shelley, who, however mistaken they may be, did yet give the world another heart and new pulses, and so we are kept going.”

  Matthew Arnold was a fine critic and a poet of high distinction, but I have always felt, if we compare his somewhat severe attitude towards the earlier school with that of Tennyson, that it was the latter who showed the truer insight, the wider sympathy, and the juster appreciation.

  Of his Cambridge life, 1828-30, two main points stand out: the grievous want he felt of any real stimulus or inspiration in the instruction provided by the authorities; and, secondly, the remarkable group of distinguished men of his own age with whom his college life was passed. As to the first, the scathing lines written at the time, and published with his express consent in the biography, are more eloquent than any description could be. After naming all the glories of the Colleges — their portals, gardens, libraries, chapels, “doctors, proctors and deans”—”all these,” he cries, “shall not avail you when the Daybeam sports, new-risen over Albion ...” and the poem ends with the reason:

  Because your manner sorts

  Not with this age wherefrom ye stand apart,

  Because the lips of little children preach

  Against you, — you that do profess to teach

  And teach us nothing, feeding not the heart.

  On the other hand, this lack (of official wisdom) was more than supplied by the friends with whom he lived — James Spedding, Monckton Milnes (afterwards Lord Houghton), Trench, Alford, Brookfield, Blakesley, Thompson (afterwards Master), Merivale, Stephen Spring-Rice, J. Kemble, Heath, C. Buller, Monteith, Tennant, and above all Arthur Hallam. Thirty-five years later Lord Houghton justly said of this group of friends that “for the wealth of their promise they were a body of men such as this University has seldom contained.” To this should be added the special influence of the “Apostles,” to which Society most of these friends belonged, who had organized from the first regular weekly meetings for essays and discussions, where no topic was barred, and speech was absolutely free. The immense stimulus of such discussion to thought, to study, to readiness and power of argument, to widening the range of intellectual interests and literary judgment and appreciation, must be obvious to all. And we must not forget that the years covered by young Tennyson’s residence at Cambridge were precisely the period of the keenest intellectual stir and the stormiest political warfare that preceded the great Reform Bill.

  To return to the poetry. Passing over the purely juvenile Poems by two Brothers printed in his eighteenth year, we have, in 1830, the first book of poems which have partially survived the mature and fastidious taste which suppressed so much of the early work. Even here, half the pieces have been withdrawn, and much of the rest re-written: what remains is rather slight — the Isabels and Claribels and Adelines and Lilians and Eleanores, poems which in some critics’ views border on the trivial. Really they should be regarded as experiments in lyric measures: and the careful student will note the signs of the poet’s fine ear and keen eye for nature: but the depths were not sounded.

  Two years later came the second volume (1832). Again much has been withdrawn, much re-written: but when in this collection we find “Œnone,” “The Palace of Art,” “A Dream of Fair Women,” and “The Lotos-eaters,” we see that we have the real poet at last.

  “The Palace of Art” is an attempt to trace the Nemesis of selfish culture, secluding itself from social human life and duty. After three years of these exclusive delights, the man’s outraged nature — or conscience if you will — reasserts itself in a kind of incipient madness: the soul of him sees visions. Then a weird passage:

  But in dark corners of her palace stood

  Uncertain shapes; and unawares

  On white-eyed phantasms weeping tears of blood,

  And horrible nightmares,

  And hollow shades enclosing hearts of flame,

  And, with dim fretted foreheads all,

  On corpses three-months-old at noon she came,

  That stood against the wall.

  The horrors, like Gorgons and Furies of ancient poets, are perhaps a trifle too material; but in the description of the Nemesis there are touches of real power, which at least are impressive and arresting.

  “Œnone” is perhaps the most absolutely beautiful of these early poems, and for the triumph of melodious sound, and finished picturesqueness of description, the opening lines are unsurpassed. We should also note that it took more than one edition to bring it to its present perfection of form. It is very well known, but no one will object to hear it again:

  There lies a vale in Ida, lovelier

  Than all the valleys of Ionian hills.

  The swimming vapour slopes athwart the glen,

  Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine,

  And loiters, slowly drawn. On either hand

  The lawns and meadow-ledges midway down

  Hang rich in flowers, and far below them roars

  The long brook falling thro’ the clov’n ravine

  In cataract after cataract to the sea.

  Behind the valley topmost Gargarus

  Stands up and takes the morning: but in front

  The gorges, opening wide apart, reveal

  Troas and Ilion’s column’d citadel,

  The crown of Troas.

  Before I pass on from “Œnone,” I may perhaps add a word or two on Tennyson’s classical poetry generally, and his debt to the great ancient masterpieces.

  He was, perhaps, not exactly a scholar in what I may call the narrow professional sense; but in the broadest and deepest and truest sense he was a great scholar. Direct imitations of classical form, even when they show such power and poetry as Swinburne’s “Atalanta” and “Erechtheus,” have always something artificial about them. But in all Tennyson’s classic pieces—”Œnone,” “Ulysses,” “Demeter,” “
Tithonus,” the legendary subjects — and in the two historic subjects, “Lucretius” and “Boädicea,” the classical tradition is there with full detail, but by the poet’s art it is transmuted. “Œnone” is epic in form, the rest are brief monodramas; the material is all ancient, and in many subtle ways the spirit; the handling is modern and original. In translations — too few — Tennyson can only be called consummate: his version of one passage of the Iliad (viii. 552) makes all other translations seem second-rate. Let me quote a few lines: