Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson Part 19

191-192. AND ON A SUDDEN--MOON. "Do we not," writes Brimley, "seem to burst from the narrow steep path down the ravine, whose tall precipitous sides hide the sky and the broad landscape from sight, and come out in a moment upon--

"the level lake, And the long glories of the winter moon!"

193. HOVE=hove in sight.

The closing scene in this drama is impressively described by Malory. "So Sir Bedivere came again to the King, and told him what he saw. 'Alas,'

said the King, 'help me hence, for I dread me I have tarried over long.'

Then Sir Bedivere took the King upon his back, and so went with him to that water side. And when they were at the water side, even fast by the bank hoved a little barge, with many fair ladies in it, and among them all was a queen, and all they had black hoods, and all they wept and shrieked when they saw King Arthur. 'Now, put me into the barge,' said the King: and so they did softly. And there received him three queens with great mourning, and so they set him down, and in one of their laps King Arthur laid his head; and then that queen said; 'Ah, dear brother, why have ye tarried so long from me? Alas, this wound on your head hath caught overmuch cold.' And so then they rowed from the land; and Sir Bedivere beheld ail those ladies go from him. Then Sir Bedivere cried; 'Ah, my Lord Arthur, what shall become of me now ye so from me, and leave me here alone among mine enemies?' 'Comfort thyself,' said the King:, 'and do as well as thou mayest, for in me is no trust for to trust in.

For I will into the vale of Avilion, to heal me of my grievous wound.

And if thou hear never more of me, pray for my soul.' But ever the queens and the ladies wept and shrieked, that it was pity to hear. And, as soon as Sir Bedivere had lost the sight of the barge, he wept and wailed, and so took the forest, and so he went all that night. . . . . ."

It is interesting to note how the poet suggests here and there the phrasing of his original, but even more interesting to note his amplifications. It may be doubted whether Tennyson has here surpa.s.sed his original. For its touching simplicity he has subst.i.tuted a dignified grandeur, and has involved plain statements in gorgeous rhetoric, as in his pa.s.sage upon the efficacy of prayer. The unadorned original had said only "pray for my soul."

198. THREE QUEENS WITH CROWNS OF GOLD. "That one was King Arthur's sister, Morgan le Fay; the other was the Queen of Northgales (Wales); the third was the Lady of the lake." _Malory_.

215-216. DASH'D WITH DROPS--OF ONSET. Words are sometimes poetical from their precision, and sometimes, as here, they suggest without definite reference. The meaning is "dashed with drops of blood" from the onset or encounter.

2t6-220. Arthur is again described in _The Last Tournament_.

That victor of the Pagan throned in hall, His hair, a sun that rayed from off a brow Like hillsnow high in heaven, the steel-blue eyes, The golden beard that cloth'd his lips with light.

228. MY FOREHEAD AND MY EYES. Compare the note to line 132. Here the specific terms are used according to the epical manner instead of the general term "face."

232-233. Compare the Gospel of _Matthew_ ii. 11.

240-242. These often-quoted lines have been already referred to above.

Their very intellectuality is alien to the spirit of the original. In Tennyson's conception they afford the central meaning of the poem, and also of the completed _Idylls_. We must bow to the will of G.o.d who brings all things in their due season. Good customs too deeply rooted are like clear waters grown stagnant.

254-255. FOR SO--G.o.d. The idea that the earth is bound by a gold chain to heaven is comparatively common in literature from Homer downwards.

Archdeacon Hare has a pa.s.sage in his sermon on _Self-Sacrifice_ which doubtless was familiar to Tennyson: "This is the golden chain of love, whereby the whole creation is bound to the throne of the Creator."

257-258. IF INDEED I GO--DOUBT. There is no reason to suppose that these lines indicate Tennyson's personal misgivings on the subject of immortality.

259. THE ISLAND VALLEY OF AVILION. Mr. Rhys in his _Studies in the Arthurian Legend_ combats the old idea that Avalon (Avilion) meant the "Island of Apples" (Welsh aval, apple). The name implies the Island of King Avalon, a Celtic divinity, who presided among the dead.

The valley of Avalon was supposed to be near Glas...o...b..ry, in Somersetshire, where Joseph of Arimathea first landed with the Holy Grail.

67 ff. There is an evident symbolical meaning in this dream. Indeed Tennyson always appears to use dreams for purposes of symbol. The lines are an application of the expression; "The old order changeth," etc. The parson's lamentation expressed in line 18, "Upon the general decay of faith," is also directly answered by the a.s.sertion that the modern Arthur will arise in modern times. There is a certain grotesqueness in the likening of King Arthur to "a modern gentleman of stateliest port." But Tennyson never wanders far from conditions of his own time. As Mr.

Stopford Brooke writes; "Arthur, as the modern gentleman, as the modern ruler of men, such a ruler as one of our Indian heroes on the frontier, is the main thing in Tennyson's mind, and his conception of such a man contains his ethical lesson to his countrymen."

THE BROOK

Published in 1855 in the volume, _Maud and other Poems_. _The Brook_ is one of the most successful of Tennyson's idylls, and is in no degree, as the earlier poem _Dora_ was, a Wordsworthian imitation. The brook itself, which bickers in and out of the story as in its native valley, was not the Somersby brook, which does not now "to join the br.i.m.m.i.n.g river," but pours into the sea. The graylings and other details are imaginary. A literary source has been suggested (see Dr. Sykes' note) in Goethe's poem, _Das Bachlein_, which begins:

klar, and clear, sinn; and think; du hin? goest thou?

Du Bachlein, silberh.e.l.l und Thou little brook, silver bright Du eilst voruber immerdar, Thou hastenest ever onward, Am Ufer steh' ich, sinn' und I stand on the brink, think Wo kommst du her? Wo gehst Whence comest thou? Where

The Brook replies:

Schoss, dark rocks, Moss'. and moss.

Ich komm' aus dunkler Felsen I come from the bosom of the Mein Lauf geht uber Blum' und My course goes over flowers

The charm of the poem lies in its delicate characterization, in its tone of pensive memory suffused with cheerfulness, and especially in the song of the brook, about which the action revolves. Twenty years have wrought many changes in the human lives of the story, but the brook flows on forever, and Darnley bridge still spans the br.i.m.m.i.n.g river, and shows for only change a richer growth of ivy.

6. HOW MONEY BREEDS, i.e. by producing interest at loan.

8. THE THING THAT--IS. The poet's function is thus described by Shakespeare:

As imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name.

--_Midsummer Night's Dream_, V., 1.

17. HALF-ENGLISH NEILGHERRY AIR. The Neilgherry Hills are in Madras.

The climate resembles somewhat that of England.

37. MORE IVY, i.e. than twenty years ago.

46. WILLOW WEED AND MALLOW. These are marsh plants.

93-95. NOT ILLITERATE--DEED. Katie was not without reading; but she was not of those who dabble in sentimental novels (the source of imaginary tears), and saturate themselves with unctuous charities; and whose powers to act are sapped by their excess of feeling.

105. UNCLAIM'D. As having nothing to do with her. Katie resented the implication in the question of line 100. She therefore disdained to answer it. Messrs. Rowe and Webb hold that line 100 is a hint that the speaker, Lawrence Aylmer, was responsible for James's fit of jealousy.

l25f. Note the art with which the old man's garrulousness is expressed.

The cautious precision of lines 151-152 is particularly apt.

176. NETTED SUNBEAM. The sunlight reflected like a net-work on the bottom. The ripples on the surface would have this effect.

189. ARNO. A river in Italy which flows past Florence.

189-190. DOME OF BRUNELLESCHI. Brunelleschi (Broo-nei-les'-ke) was an Italian architect (1377-1444), who completed the cathedral of Santa Maria in Florence. Its dome is of great size and impressiveness.

194. BY--SEAS. Tennyson was fond of quoting this line as one of his roost successful individual lines. Its rhythm is indeed sonorous.

195-196. AND HOLD--APRIL AUTUMNS. Objection has been taken to the somewhat pedantic precision of these lines. See, however, the reference on pp. lxxii.-lxxvii. to Tennyson's employment of science in poetry.

The fact is familiar, of course, that in the Antipodes the seasons are the reverse of ours.

203. BRIONY RINGS. Formed by the tendrils of the plant.

IN MEMORIAM

The poem, _In Memoriam_, in memory of Arthur Henry Hallam, was published in 1850, at first anonymously, but the authorship was not long in doubt.

Arthur Henry Hallam, the son of Henry Hallam, the historian, was born in 1811. He entered Eton in 1822, and remained there until 1827, when he went to Cambridge. There he met Alfred Tennyson, and the two young men formed a friendship for one another, broken only by Hallam's early death.

In 1832, he graduated from Cambridge, became engaged to Emily Tennyson, the sister of Alfred, and entered on the study of law. In 1833, he had a severe illness and after his recovery was taken by his father for a tour on the Continent, in the hope of restoring his health. Sir Francis Hastings Doyle tells the story of his death: "A severe bout of influenza weakened him, and whilst he was travelling abroad for change of air, and to recover his strength, one of his usual attacks apparently returned upon him without warning, whilst he was still unfitted to resist it; so that when his poor father came back from a walk through the streets of Vienna, he was lying dead on the sofa where he had been left to take a short rest. Mr. Hallam sat down to write his letters, and it was only by slow and imperceptible degrees that a certain anxiety, in consequence of Arthur's stillness and silence, dawned upon his mind; he drew near to ascertain why he had not moved nor spoken, and found that all was over."