and The white mist, like a face-cloth to the face, "she to Almesbury Fled all night long by glimmering waste and weald, Moan as she fled, or thought she heard them moan The Passing of Arthur culminates the series with some of the most effective mood-painting in Tennyson. Every scene is saturated with gloom, with wet and cold and weariness. After the "last, dim, weird battle in the west," "the pale king glanced across the field Of battle," and saw that "only the wan wave Brake in among dead faces, to and fro Swaying the helpless hands, and up and down Tumbling the hollow hands of the fallen, And shiver'd brands that once had fought with Rome, And rolling far along the gloomy shores The voice of days of old and days to be." No detail is omitted which might deepen the emotional tone of the poem. The "dolorous day Grew drearier toward twilight falling," and over the scene, "the sea-wind sang Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam." Sir Bedivere concealed Excalibur in "the many-knotted water-flags, That whistled stiff and dry about the marge," and when the three queens with crowns of gold came to take Arthur on the barge, he heard rise from them "A cry that shiver'd to the tingling stars, Of lamentation, like a wind that shrills All night in a waste land, where no one comes He stood long, "Revolving many memories, till the hull Look'd one black dot against the verge of dawn, There is no quality more common to poetry than this constant use of picture-making words to create mood. Many times these pictures are painted in detail, but more often they are suggested in a few words. How many pictures of cold are sug Use of pictures to suggest mood gested, for instance, in each line of the opening stanza of The Eve of St. Agnes: "St. Agnes' Eve-Ah, bitter chill it was! The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold; The hare limp'd trembling through the frozen grass, And silent was the flock in woolly fold: Numb were the beadsman's fingers, while he told Like pious incense from a censer old, Seem'd taking flight for heaven, without a death, Past the sweet Virgin's picture, while his prayer he saith." It would be difficult to point out a better example of words to create a single vivid impression in one line. No description of cold has ever been more compelling than that one line, "The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold." Another instance of feeling created by pictures is found in one of Shakespeare's sonnets: "That time of year thou may'st in me behold Which by and by black night doth take away Consumed with that which it was nourished by. That thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong To love that well which thou must leave ere long." Consider the emotional effect of cold and desolation created here by just the two lines, "Upon those boughs which shake against the cold Bare, ruin'd choirs where late the sweet birds sang" and you will begin to realize the magic power that very simple words may have to suggest feeling through pictures. The first way, then, by which a poet creates feeling is through pictures, sometimes painted in detail and sometimes suggested in just a few words. The second common way by which the poet may create feeling is by the use of sound. We shall discuss the imporFeeling created tance of sound in poetry somewhat in detail through sound later; here we merely wish to suggest a few of the ways in which it helps to arouse a mood. Probably our |