Teacher: The sort of things anybody would like, all the admirable qualities of a good love story. I wonder if any one noticed the language of this poem, anything that would show that Tennyson was trying to imitate the language of the old ballads?
Pupil: “I trow they did not part in scorn.”
Teacher: “I trow”—that sounds old-fashioned. Anything else?
Pupil: The way he brings in the nurse:—
“In there came old Alice the nurse,
Said, ‘Who was this that went from thee?’
‘It was my cousin,’ said Lady Clare;
‘To-morrow he weds with me.’”
And “thee” and “thou.”