MAUD IN THE GARDEN.
By Alfred Tennison, Esq.
She is coming, my own, my sweet;
She is coming, my life, my fate;
I hear the beat of her fairy feet,
As she trips to the garden gate;
As she comes to the garden gate,
In her glimmer of satin and pearl,
With her sunny head in a terrible state
And her ringlets out of curl.
In 1856 a little sixpenny pamphlet was published by J. Booth, of Regent Street, entitled Anti-Maud, by a Poet of the People. Tennyson had been accused of fanning the warlike spirit then rampant in the land, and his Maud contained—in exquisite poetry—many of the stock arguments in favour of war and glory. The "Poet of the People," in his Anti-Maud, adopted the other, and less popular view. Read in the light of subsequent events, this scarce little pamphlet seems more correct in its deductions, than the Laureate's war cry in Maud. The author asserts that Anti-Maud is not merely a jeu d'esprit, but something of a more earnest character, and he disclaims any intention of depreciating the Laureate's poetry. I can quote a few only of the best of the fifty odd stanzas it contains: