A Day with the Poet Tennyson Part 2

"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!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Painting by W. H. Margetson._ SWEET AND LOW.]

Tea was served in the drawing-room, "its oriel window full of green and golden lights, of the sounds of birds and of the distant sea." The air of extreme and unstudied simplicity, which dominated the whole Farringford household, was just as noticeable here. Tea was a happy gathering of the family and friends, enlivened with talk on current topics. The Laureate's sympathies were wide-reaching, and his conversation, forcible and often racy, was characterised by the strongest common-sense. He held firmly-defined views on all social subjects; and had declared himself on the question of "Woman's Rights"--then comparatively fresh--at considerable length in _The Princess_.

"The woman's cause is man's: they rise or sink Together, dwarf'd or G.o.d-like, bond or free.

... For woman is not undevelopt man, But diverse: could we make her as the man, Sweet Love were slain: his dearest bond is this, Not like to like, but like in difference.

Yet in the long years liker must they grow; The man be more of woman, she of man; He gain in sweetness and in moral height, Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world; She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care, Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind; Till at last she set herself to man, Like perfect music unto n.o.ble words; And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time, Sit side by side, full-summ'd in all their powers.

... Let this proud watchword rest Of equal; seeing either s.e.x alone Is half itself, and in the marriage ties Nor equal, nor unequal; each fulfils Defect in each, and always thought in thought, Purpose in purpose, will in will they grow, The single pure and perfect animal, The two-cell'd heart beating with one full stroke Life."

_The Princess._

The poet's ideal of woman was set very high: he held her to be far above man, morally and spiritually: and an ideal as perfect as may well be conceived was daily before his eyes, in the person of his beautiful wife, with her pure and saintly face: who was yet

"No angel, but a dearer being, all dipt In Angel instincts, breathing Paradise, Interpreter between the G.o.ds and men, Who looked all native to her place, and yet On tiptoe seem'd to touch upon a sphere Too gross to tread, and all male minds perforce Sway'd to her from their orbits as they moved, And girdled her with music."

_The Princess._

Later on in the evening, came, perhaps, the sweetest hour of the day, when, playing and romping with his little ones, the tall and stately man became a very child for a while. A peculiar tenderness towards children was a distinctive feature of Tennyson: and whether helping his own boys build stone castles on the cliff, or frolicking with any village school children whom he might meet, he was intent upon giving that joy and laughter to the new generation which had been denied to his own childhood. "Make the lives of children as beautiful and as happy as possible," was a favourite saying with him. The "Children's Hour," which Longfellow had sung, was a radiant hour for him: and most of all he was enchanted by the sight of little drowsy heads, asleep in cot or cradle. They inspired some of his loveliest lyrics, such as:

"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!"

And the loss of his first-born infant had touched him with that infinite poignancy of pathos, which breathes in other lines:

"As thro' the land at eve we went And pluck'd the ripened 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 kissed again with tears."

The dinner-table was enlivened by Tennyson's boundless store of anecdote, and keen sense of humour. It was a "feast of intellect," to quote Mrs. Cameron; hour after hour of the most brilliant conversation. The supernatural loomed largely. The poet had a _penchant_ for well-authenticated ghost stories, a deep interest in psychical phenomena, and an open mind towards the unknowable. And very strange tales of dreams, clairvoyance, and occult happenings, were to be heard at Farringford. A master of the romantic pervaded by supernatural elements, he had long since drawn with deft touches the mysterious confines of "faery-lands forlorn," steeped in the very atmosphere of dream.

"She left the web, she left the loom, She made three paces thro' the room, She saw the water-lily bloom, She saw the helmet and the plume, She look'd down to Camelot.

Out flew the web and floated wide; The mirror crack'd from side to side, 'The curse is come upon me,' cried The Lady of Shalott."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Painting by W. H. Margetson._ THE LADY OF SHALOTT.]

"Willows whiten, aspens quiver, Little breezes dusk and shiver Thro' the ways that runs for ever By the island in the river Flowing down to Camelot.

Four gray walls, and four gray towers, Overlook a s.p.a.ce of flowers.

And the silent isle embowers The Lady of Shalott....

"Only reapers, reaping early In among the bearded barley, Hear a song that echoes cheerly, From the river winding clearly, Down to tower'd Camelot: And by the moon the reaper weary, Piling sheaves in uplands airy, Listening, whispers, ''Tis the fairy Lady of Shalott.'

"There she weaves by night and day A magic web with colours gay.

She has heard a whisper say, A curse is on her if she stay To look down on Camelot.

She knows not what the curse may be, And so she weaveth steadily, And little other care hath she, The Lady of Shalott.

"And moving thro' a mirror clear That hangs before her all the year, Shadows of the world appear.

There she sees the highway near, Winding down to Camelot: There the river eddy whirls, And there the surly village-churls, And the red cloaks of market girls, Pa.s.s onward from Shalott.

"A bow-shot from her bower eaves, He rode between the barley-sheaves, The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves, And flamed upon the brazen greaves Of bold Sir Lancelot.

A red-cross knight for ever kneel'd To a lady in his shield, That sparkled on the yellow field, Beside remote Shalott.

"All in the blue unclouded weather Thick-jewelled shone the saddle-leather, The helmet and the helmet feather, As he rode down to Camelot.

As often thro' the purple night, Below the starry cl.u.s.ters bright, Some bearded meteor, trailing light, Moves over still Shalott.

"His broad clear brow in sunlight glow'd; On burnish'd hooves his warhorse trode; From underneath his helmet flow'd His coal-black curls as on he rode, As he rode down to Camelot.

From the bank and from the river He flashed into the crystal mirror, "Tirra lirra," by the river Sang Sir Lancelot.

"She left the web, she left the loom, She made three paces thro' the room, She saw the water-lily bloom, She saw the helmet and the plume, She look'd down to Camelot.

Out flew the web and floated wide; The mirror crack'd from side to side, 'The curse is come upon me,' cried The Lady of Shalott."

_The Lady of Shalott._

Sitting in his old oak armchair in the drawing-room after dinner, the Laureate "talked of all that was in his heart, or read some poem aloud, with the landscape lying before us like a beautiful picture framed by the dark-arched bow-window. His moods," says Mrs. Bradley, "were so variable, his conversation so earnest, his knowledge of all things so wide and minute!" Wide and minute above all, perhaps, was his acquaintance with Nature. The long quiet years in Lincolnshire had endowed him with an almost unrivalled power of detail: and, as the old Farringford shepherd said in dying, "Master was a wonderful man for nature and life." No one quotation could do justice to his powers: but the lesser music of the countryside tinkles and ripples audibly through _The Brook_ and all the exquisite details of its landscape.

"I come from haunts of coot and hern, I make a sudden sally, And sparkle out among the fern, To bicker down a valley.

"I chatter over stony ways, In little sharps and trebles, I bubble into eddying bays, I bubble on the pebbles.

"With many a curve my banks I fret, By many a field and fallow, And many a fairy foreland set With willow-weed and mallow.

"I wind about, and in and out, With many a blossom sailing, And here and there a l.u.s.ty trout, And here and there a grayling.

"And here and there a foamy flake Upon me as I travel, With many a silvery waterbreak Above the golden gravel.

"I steal by lawns and gra.s.sy plots, I slide by hazel covers; I move the sweet forget-me-nots That grow for happy lovers.

"I slide, I slide, I gloom, I glance, Among my skimming swallows; I make the netted sunbeam dance Against my sandy shallows.

"I murmur under moon and stars In brambly wildernesses; I linger by my shingly bars; I loiter round my cresses;

"And out again I curve and flow To join the br.i.m.m.i.n.g river, For men may come and men may go, But I go on for ever."