Chapter 13
The sea helps the soul's lack by supplying words and music. Tennyson never was at his best in a National Ode, unless one speaks from the elocutionary standpoint, because such tasks lack the poetical essential of spontaneity, and because, too, the themes seem to carry him outside of his nature-mood. Art in our century has gone out of doors. Scenery has never had lovers as now; and participative in this mood is Tennyson. He lives under the sky. He loved to be alone; and nature is loneliness as well as loveliness. Nor is his love of nature a passing passion, but is passionate, intense, endearing. He never outgrew it. "Balin and Balan" is as beautiful with nature-similes as were "Enid" and "Oenone." In Tennyson we have the odors of the country and the sea and the dewy night. He is laureate of the stars. Nature is not introduced, but his poems seem set in nature as daisies in a meadow. He was no city poet. Of the poet Blake, James Thomson writes:
"He came to the desert of London town Gray miles long. He wandered up, he wandered down, Singing a quiet hymn."
Not so Tennyson. London and he were compatriots, but not friends; for he belonged to the quiet of the country woods, and the clamor of sea-gulls and sea-waves, whose very tumult drown the voice of care. Tennyson was to express the yearning of his era, and his poems are a cry; for, like a babe, he has
"No language but a cry."
Our yearning is our glory. The superb forces of our spirits are inarticulate, and can not be put to words, but may be put to the melody of a yearning cry. Souls struggle toward expression like a dying soldier who would send a message to his beloved, but can not frame words therefor before he dies. Our pathos is--and our yearning is--
"O would that my lips could utter The thoughts that arise in me!"
But we have no words; and Holmes, in his most delicately-beautiful poem, entitled "The Voiceless," has made mention of this grief:
"We count the broken lyres that rest Where the sweet wailing singers slumber; But o'er their silent sister's breast The wild-flowers, who will stoop to number? A few can touch the magic string, And noisy Fame is proud to win them: Alas for those that never sing, But die with all their music in them!
Nay, grieve not for the dead alone, Whose song has told their heart's sad story,-- Weep for the voiceless, who have known The cross without the crown of glory! Not where Leucadian breezes sweep O'er Sappho's memory-haunted billow, But where the glistening night-dews weep On nameless sorrow's churchyard pillow.
O hearts that break and give no sign Save whitening lip and fading tresses, Till Death pours out his cordial wine, Slow-dropped from Misery's crushing presses,-- If singing breath or echoing chord To every hidden pang were given, What endless melodies were poured, As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven!"
Souls cry, "Give us a voice;" and nature enters into our yearning moods. The autumn and the rain grieve with us, and June makes merry with us as at a festival, and the deep sky gives room for the soaring of our aspirations, and the solemn night says, "Dream!" And for our heartache and longing, Tennyson is our voice; for he seems near neighbor to us. He lay on a bank of violets, and looked into the sky, and heard poplars pattering as with rain upon the roof. Really, in all Tennyson's poems you will be surprised at the affluence of his reference to nature. His custom was to make the moods of nature to be explanatory of the moods of the soul. Man needs nature as birds need air, and flowers, and waving trees, and the dear sun. Tennyson will make appeal to
"The flower in the crannied wall"
by way of silencing the agnostic's prating against God. Hear him:
"Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies-- Hold you here, root and all, in my hand, Little flower,--but if I could understand What you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what God and man is."
Here follow a few, among many, very many, delicious references to the out-of-door world we name nature, as explanatory of the indoor world we call soul:
"Who make it seem more sweet to be The little life on bank and brier, The bird that pipes his lone desire And dies unheard within his tree."
"A thousand suns will stream on thee, A thousand moons will quiver; But not by thee my steps shall be, Forever and forever."
"Storm'd in orbs of song, a growing gale."
"I saw that every morning, far withdrawn, Beyond the darkness and the cataract, God made himself an awful rose of dawn, Unheeded."
"There let the wind sweep and the plover cry; But thou go by."
"As through the land at eve we went, And pluck'd the ripen'd ears, We fell out, my wife and I,-- O we fell out, I know not why, And kiss'd 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 kiss'd again with tears."
"Set in a cataract on an island-crag, When storm is on the heights of the long hills."
"Tall as a figure lengthen'd on the sand When the tide ebbs in sunshine."
"Ask me no more: the moon may draw the sea; The cloud may stoop from heaven, and take the shape, With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape; But O too fond, when have I answered thee? Ask me no more."
"And she, as one that climbs a peak to gaze O'er land and main, and sees a great black cloud Drag inward from the deeps, a wall of night."
"That like a broken purpose wastes in air."
"To rest beneath the clover sod, That takes the sunshine and the rains, Or where the kneeling hamlet drains The chalice of the grapes of God."
"So be it: there no shade can last In that deep dawn behind the tomb, But clear from marge to marge shall bloom The eternal landscape of the past."
"I sleep till dusk is dipt in gray."
"But Summer on the steaming floods, And Spring that swells the narrow brooks, And Autumn, with a noise of rooks, That gather in the waning woods."
"From belt to belt of crimson seas, On leagues of odor streaming far, To where in yonder Orient star A hundred spirits whisper 'Peace.'"
"There rolls the deep where grew the tree: O earth, what changes thou hast seen! There where the long street roars, hath been The stillness of the central sea.
The hills are shadows, and they flow From form to form, and nothing stands; They melt like mist, the solid lands, Like clouds they shape themselves and go."
"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."
"As slopes a wild brook o'er a little stone, Running too vehemently to break upon it."
"Whole, like a crag that tumbles from the cliff, And like a crag was gay with wilding flowers; And high above a piece of turret stair, Worn by the feet that now were silent, would Bare to the sun, and monstrous ivy-stems Claspt the gray walls with hairy-fibered arms, And suck'd the joining of the stones, and look'd A knot, beneath, of snakes; aloft, a grove."
"For as a leaf in mid-November is To what it was in mid-October, seem'd The dress that now she look'd on to the dress She look'd on ere the coming of Geraint."
"That had a sapling growing on it, slip From the long shore-cliff's windy walls to the beach, And there lie still, and yet the sapling grew: So lay the man transfixt."
"For one That listens near a torrent mountain-brook, All thro' the crash of the near cataract hears The drumming thunder of the huger fall At distance, were the soldiers wont to hear His voice in battle, and be kindled by it."
"And in the moment after, wild Limours, Borne on a black horse, like a thunder-cloud Whose skirts are loosen'd by the breaking storm, Half ridden off with by the thing he rode, And all in passion, uttering a dry shriek, Dash'd on Geraint"
"Where, like a shoaling sea, the lovely blue Play'd into green, and thicker down the front With jewels than the sward with drops of dew, When all night long a cloud clings to the hill, And with the dawn ascending lets the day Strike where it clung: so thickly shone the gems."
"As the southwest that blowing Bala Lake Fills all the sacred Dee. So past the days."
"In the midnight and flourish of his May."
"Only you would not pass beyond the cape That has the poplar on it."
"And at the inrunning of a little brook, Sat by the river in a cove and watch'd The high reed wave, and lifted up his eyes And saw the barge that brought her moving down, Far off, a blot upon the stream, and said, Low in himself, 'Ah, simple heart and sweet, You loved me, damsel, surely with a love Far tenderer than my Queen's!'"
"Rankled in him and ruffled all his heart, As the sharp wind that ruffles all day long A little bitter pool about a stone On the bare coast."
"A carefuler in peril did not breathe For leagues along that breaker-beaten coast Than Enoch. . . . And he thrice had pluck'd a life From the dread sweep of the down-streaming seas."
"All-kindled by a still and sacred fire, That burned as on an altar."
"With kisses balmier than half-opening buds Of April, and could hear the lips that kiss'd, Whispering I knew not what of wild and sweet, Like that strange song I heard Apollo sing, While Ilion, like a mist, rose into towers."
"Dearer and nearer, as the rapid of life Shoots to the fall."
"That sets at twilight in a land of reeds."
"And wearying in a land of sand and thorns."
"Pelleas and sweet smell of the fields Past, and the sunshine came along with him."
"By a mossed brookbank on a stone I smelt a wildweed flower alone; There was a ringing in my ears, And both my eyes gushed out with tears."
"Clash like the coming and retiring wave."
"Quiet as any water-sodden log Stay'd in the wandering warble of a brook."
"The wide-wing'd sunset of the misty marsh."
From these quotations, not exhaustive, but representative, one may see in how gracious a sense Tennyson was a pastoral poet, in that he and his thought haunted the brookside and the mountainside, the shadow and the sunshine, the dark night, or dewy eve, or the glad dawn, always. Therefore is Tennyson a rest to the spirit. He takes you from your care, and ends by taking your care from you. He quiets your spirit. I go to his poems as I would go to seashore or mountain; and a quiet deep, as the gently falling night, wraps my spirit. Bless him always for the rest he knows to give and cares to give!
Tennyson's genius is lyrical rather than either dramatic or epic. What music is like his? Say of his poems, in words of James Whitcomb Riley,
"O but the sound was rainy sweet!"
Not great Milton was more master of music than he; though Milton's was the melody of wide ocean in open sea, or crash of waves upon the rugged rocks, or wrathing up the yellow sands in tumult of majestic menace. Tennyson's music is rather the voice of gentle waters, or the cadence of summer's winds in the tree-tops, or like human voices heard in some woodland. In either poet is no marred music. Mrs. Browning fell out of time; Tennyson never. His verse is like some loved voice which makes perpetual music in our heart. Read all of his poetry, and how diversified soever his meter is, music never fails; yet his lyrics are not as those of Burns, whose words sing like the brook Tennyson has sung of. Burns's melody is laughter: it babbles, it sighs for a moment, but will sing. But Tennyson's is not laughter. He is no joyous poet. Burns has tears which wet his lashes, scarcely his cheeks. Tennyson's cheeks are wet. He is the music of winds in pine-trees in a lonely land, or as a sea breaking upon a shore of rock and wreck; but how passing sweet the music is, stealing your ruggedness away, so that to be harsh in thought or diction in his presence seems a crime!
Lyric differs from epic poetry in sustainedness. One form of poetry runs into another imperceptibly, as darkness into daylight or daylight into darkness, so that the dividing line can not be certified. Lyric poetry may be dramatic in spirit, as Browning's "The Ring and the Book;" or dramatic poetry may be lyric in spirit, as Milton's "Comus." Tennyson has written drama and epic too; for such, I think, clearly he proposed the "Idyls of the King" to be. This we must say: Despite the genial leniency of Robert Browning's criticism of the dramatic success of "Harold," and "Becket," and "The Cup," we may safely refuse concurrence in judgment. Trying made the failure of the play impossible when he was character in them. There is no necessity of denying that the so-called trilogy has apt delineation of character, and that Green, the historian, was justified in saying that "Becket" had given him such a conception of the character of that courtier and ecclesiastic as all his historical research had not given; nor need we deny that these dramas are rich in noble passages. These things go without the saying, considering the author was Alfred Tennyson. In attempting a criticism of the dramatic value, however, the real question is this: Would not "Harold" and "Queen Mary" have been greater poems if thrown out of the dramatic into the narrative form, like "Guinevere" or "Enoch Arden?" "Maud" is really the most dramatic of Tennyson's poems, and in consequence the least understood. Most men at some time espouse what they can not successfully achieve. Was not this Tennyson's case? Are not the portrayal of character and the rhythm and the melody of the drama qualities inherent in Tennyson, and are they in any distinct sense dramatic? If we declare Tennyson neither epic nor dramatic, but always lyric, adverse criticism melts away like snow in summer. As lyrist, all is congruous and enthralling. "The Idyls of the King," as a series of lyric romances, is beyond blame in technique. Tennyson tells a story. Dramatic poetry takes the story out of the poet's lips and tells itself. The epic requires a strong centrality of theme, movement, and dominancy, like a ubiquitous sovereign whose power is always felt in every part of his empire. Viewing "The Idyls of the King" as singing episodes, told us by some wandering minstrel, not only do they not challenge hostile criticism, but they take rank among the noblest contributions to the poetry of any language. "Columbus," "Ulyses," "Eleanore," "Enoch Arden," "Lucretius," "The Day-Dream," "Locksley Hall," "Dora," "Aylmer's Field," "The Gardener's Daughter," have all the subdued beauty of Wordsworth's narrative poems, and are as certainly lyric as those unapproachable lyrics in "The Princess." The ocean is epic in its vast expanse; tragic in its power to crush Armadas on the rocks and let them
"Rot in ribs of wreck;"
and lyric in its songs, whether of storm outsounding cataracts, or the singing scarce above the breath of waves that silver the shores of summer seas. Commend me to the ocean, and give all the ocean to me. Dispossess me of no might nor tragedy nor melody. Let the whole ocean be mine. So, though Tennyson be not epic as Milton, nor dramatic as Browning, he is yet a mine of wealth untold. He is more melodious than Spenser (and what a praise!) Tennyson can not write the prose, but always the poetry of life. So interpreted, how perfect his execution becomes! His words distill like dews. Take unnumbered extracts from his poems, and they seem bits of melody, picked out from nature's book of melodies, and in themselves and as related they satisfy the heart. Let these songs sing themselves to us:
"Ask me no more: the moon may draw the sea; The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape, With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape; But O too fond, when have I answer'd thee? Ask me no more.
Ask me no more: what answer should I give? I love not hollow cheek or faded eye; Yet, O my friend, I will not have thee die! Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live; Ask me no more.
Ask me no more: thy fate and mine are seal'd; I strove against the stream and all in vain; Let the great river take me to the main; No more, dear Love, for at a touch I yield; Ask me no more."
"Thy voice is heard through rolling drums, That beat to battle where he stands; Thy face across his fancy comes, And gives the battle to his hands: A moment, while the trumpets blow, He sees his brood about thy knee; The next, like fire he meets the foe, And strikes him dead for thine and thee."
"O love, they die in yon rich sky, They faint on hill or field or river; Our echoes roll from soul to soul, And grow forever and forever. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying."
"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 "Tears, Idle Tears," is beyond all praise. Passion was never wed to music more deliriously and satisfyingly. I am entranced by this poem always, as by God's poem of the starry night:
"Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean; Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes In looking on the happy autumn-fields, And thinking of the days that are no more.
Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, That brings our friends up from the under world; Sad as the last which reddens over one That sinks with all we love below the verge; So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.
Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds To dying ears, when unto dying eyes The casement slowly grows a glimmering square; So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.
Dear as remember'd kisses after death, And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd On lips that are for others; deep as love, Deep as first love, and wild with all regret; O Death in Life, the days that are no more."
All these lyrics are such delights as leave us silent, seeing we have no words to tell the glow of spirit we feel. The genius of lyric poetry is its power of condensation. The drama may expand, the lyric must condense, and Tennyson has the lyric power, summing up large areas of thought and feeling into a single sentence or a few verses, which presents the quintessence of the lyric method. Immense passion poured into the chalice of a solitary utterance--this is a song. Let the harpist sit and sing, nor stop to wipe his tears what time he sings,--only let him sing! Tennyson was as some rare voice which never grows husky, but always sounds sweet as music heard in the darkness, and when he speaks, it is as if
"Up the valley came a swell of music on the wind."
Tennyson is poet of love. Love is practically always the soil out of which his flowers grow. Our American bards say little of love, and we feel the lack keenly. Love is the native nobleman among soul-qualities, and we have become schooled to feel the poets must be our spokesmen here where we need them most. But Bryant, nor Whittier, nor Longfellow, nor yet Lowell, have been in a generous way erotic poets. They have lacked the pronounced passion element. Poe, however, was always lover when he wrote poetry, and Bayard Taylor has a recurring softening of the voice to a caress when his eyes look love. Tennyson, on the contrary, is scarcely less a love poet than Burns, though he tells his secret after a different fashion. Call the roll of his poems, and see how just this observation is. Love is nodal with him as with the heart. Bourdillon was right in saying:
"The night has a thousand eyes, The day has one; Yet the light of the bright world dies With the dying sun.
The mind has a thousand eyes, And the heart but one; Yet the life of a whole life dies When love is done."
In many poets, love is background, not picture, or, to change a figure as is meet, love is a minor chord in song. In Shelley, I would say that love was a sort of afterglow upon the landscape, and softens his rigid anarchy into something like beauty. With Tennyson is a very different offering to love. It is omnipresent, though not obtrusively so; for he never obtrudes his main meanings. They rather steal on you as springtime does. You catch his meaning because you are not blind nor deaf. He hints at things as lovers do, and is as one who would not thrust his company upon you, so modest and reticent is he; yet we do not mistake him. Love is always close at hand, and in some form is never absent. "Mariana," "Lady of Shalott," "Locksley Hall," "Maud," "The Sisters," "The Talking Oak," "Edward Gray," "The Miller's Daughter," "Harold," "Queen Mary," "Enoch Arden," and "The Idyls of the King,"--is not love everywhere? These are poems of love between men and women as lovers; but there is other love. In Tennyson: love of country, as in his "The Revenge," "The Charge of the Light Brigade," and others; love of nature, as "The Brook;" the love of Queen, as in the dedication in "The Idyls of the King;" love of a friend (and such love!) flooding "In Memoriam" like spring tide's; love to God, as "St. Agnes' Eve," "Sir Galahad," and in "King Arthur." By appeal to book do we see how his poems constitute a literature of love, for he is in essence saying continuously, "Life means love," and we shall not be those to say him nay. May we not safely say no poet has given a more beautiful and sympathetic explication of love in its entirety? Browning has expressed the sex-love more mightily in Pompilia and Caponsacchi. Tennyson has, however, given no partial landscape; he has presented the whole. Love of the lover, of the widowed heart, of the friend, of the parent, of the patriot, of the subject to sovereign, of the redeemed of God. Truly, this does impress us as a nearly-completed circle. If it is not, where lies the lack? Love is life, gladness, pathos, power. A humblest spirit, when touched with the unspeakable grace of love, becomes epic and beautiful, as is illustrated in "Enoch Arden." Herein see a sure element of immortality in Tennyson. The race will always with alacrity and sympathy read of love in tale or poem; and this poet is always translating love's thought into speech.