ALFRED TENNYSON. Poet Laureate since 1850. BORN 1810. Critics somewhat divided as to his merits. Resembles Longfellow; and equally popular at home and abroad. The first of living English poets. PRINCIPAL PIECES. "The May Queen;""In Memoriam; ""Locksley Hall;' ""Maud;" "The Idylls of the King;" ""The Princess, a Medley;" "Morte d'Arthur;” “ Godiva;""Enoch Arden;""The Holy Grail." IN MEMORIAM.* I. I HELD it truth, with him who sings But who shall so forecast the years, Or reach a hand through time to catch Let Love clasp Grief, lest both be drowned; Than that the victor Hours should scorn II. OLD Yew, which graspest at the stones The seasons bring the flower again, Oh! not for thee the glow, the bloom, * A hundred and thirty short poems in memory of the poet's friend, Arthur H. Hallam, And gazing on thee, sullen tree, III. O SORROW, cruel fellowship! O Priestess in the vaults of Death! "The stars,” she whispers, "blindly run; "And all the phantom, Nature, stands, And shall I take a thing so blind? But, for the unquiet heart and brain, In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er, VI. ONE writes that "other friends remain," That loss is common would not make O father, wheresoe'er thou be, Who pledgest now thy gallant son! O mother, praying God will save Thy sailor! while thy head is bowed, Ye know no more than I who wrought And ever met him on his way With wishes, thinking, "Here to-day, Oh! somewhere, meek, unconscious dove, For now her father's chimney glows In expectation of a guest; And thinking, "This will please him best," She takes a ribbon or a rose : For he will see them on to-night; (And with the thought her color burns :) And, having left the glass, she turns Once more to set a ringlet right; But, since it pleased a vanished eye, That, if it can, it there may bloom; IX. FAIR ship, that from the Italian shore With my lost Arthur's loved remains, Spread thy full wings, and waft him o'er. So draw him home to those that mourn Ruffle thy mirrored mast, and lead All night no ruder air perplex Thy sliding keel, till Phosphor, bright As our pure love, through early light Shall glimmer on the dewy decks. Sphere all your lights around, above! My Arthur, whom I shall not see Till all my widowed race be run; Dear as the mother to the son, More than my brothers are to me. X. I HEAR the noise about thy keel; Thou bring'st the sailor to his wife, And traveled men from foreign lands, So bring him. We have idle dreams: 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, |