Laid their dark arms about the field:
And sucked from out the distant gloom
A breeze began to tremble o’er
The large leaves of the sycamore,
And fluctuate all the still perfume.
In Memoriam
Such passages as these reveal Tennyson at his best; but once again the doubt arises as to whether they represent the highest poetry. They show care of observation and a studious loveliness of epithet; but they lack the intense insight, the ringing and romantic note, of the best efforts of Keats.
(c) Tennyson’s lyrical quality is somewhat uneven. The slightest of his pieces, like Blow, bugle, blow, are musical and attractive; but on the whole his nature was too self-conscious, and perhaps his life too regular and prosperous, to provide a background for the true lyrical intensity of emotion. Once or twice, as in the wonderful Break, break, break and Crossing the Bar, he touches real greatness:
Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!