In 1833 he published his second volume, containing additional poems, among which were Enone, The May Queen, The Lotos-Eaters, and A Dream of Fair Women. The May Queen became at once a favorite, because every one could understand it: it touched a chord in every heart; but his rarest power of dreamy fancy is displayed in such pieces as The Arabian Nights and the Lotos-Eaters. No greater triumph has been achieved in the realm of fancy than that in the court of good Haroun al Raschid, and amid the Lotos dreams of the Nepenthe coast. These productions were not received with the favor which they merited, and so he let the critics alone for nine years. In 1842 he again appeared in print, with, among other poems, the exquisite fragment of the Morte d'Arthur, Godiva, St. Agnes, Sir Galahad, Lady Clara Vere de Vere, The Talking Oak, and chief, perhaps, of all, Locksley Hall. In these poems he is not only a poet, but a philosopher. Each of these is an extended apothegm, presenting not only rules of life, but mottoes and maxims for daily use. They are soliloquies of the nineteenth century, and representations of its men and conditions.
The Princess.—In 1847 he published The Princess, a Medley—a pleasant and suggestive poem on woman's rights, in which exquisite songs are introduced, which break the monotony of the blank verse, and display his rare lyric power. The Bugle Song is among the finest examples of the adaptation of sound to sense in the language; and there is nothing more truthful and touching than the short verses beginning,
Home they brought her warrior dead.
Arthur Hallam, a gifted son of the distinguished historian, who was betrothed to Tennyson's sister, died young; and the poet has mourned and eulogized him in a long poem entitled In Memoriam. It contains one hundred and twenty-nine four-lined stanzas, and is certainly very musical and finished; but it is rather the language of calm philosophy elaborately studied, than that of a poignant grief. It is not, in our judgment, to be compared with his shorter poems, and is generally read and overpraised only by his more ardent admirers, who discover a crystal tear of genuine emotion in every stanza.
Idyls of the King.—The fragment on the death of Arthur, already mentioned, foreshadowed a purpose of the poet's mind to make the legends of that almost fabulous monarch a vehicle for modern philosophy in English verse. In 1859 appeared a volume containing the Idyls of the King. They are rather minor epics than idyls. The simple materials are taken from the Welsh and French chronicles, and are chiefly of importance in that they cater to that English taste which finds national greatness typified in Arthur. It had been a successful stratagem with Spenser in The Fairy Queen, and has served Tennyson equally well in the Idyls. It unites the ages of fable and of chivalry; it gives a noble lineage to heroic deeds. The best is the last—Guinevere—almost the perfection of pathos in poetry. The picturesqueness of his descriptions is evinced by the fact that Gustave Doré has chosen these Idyls as a subject for illustration, and has been eminently successful in his labor.
Maud, which appeared in 1855, notwithstanding some charming lyrical passages, may be considered Tennyson's failure. In 1869 he completed The Idyls by publishing The Coming of Arthur, The Holy Grail, and Pelleas and Etteare. He also finished the Morte d'Arthur, and put it in its proper place as The Passing of Arthur.
Tennyson was appointed poet-laureate upon the death of Wordsworth, in 1850, and receives besides a pension of £200. He lived for a long time in great retirement at Farringford, on the Isle of Wight; but has lately removed to Petersfield, in Hampshire. It may be reasonably doubted whether this hermit-life has not injured his poetical powers; whether, great as he really is, a little inhalation of the air of busy every-day life would not have infused more of nature and freshness into his verse. Among his few Odes are that on the death of the Duke of Wellington, the dedication of his poems to the Queen, and his welcome to Alexandra, Princess of Wales, all of which are of great excellence. His Charge of the Light Brigade, at Balaclava, while it gave undue currency to that stupid military blunder, must rank as one of the finest battle-lyrics in the language.
The poetry of Tennyson is eminently representative of the Victorian age. He has written little; but that little marks a distinct era in versification—great harmony untrammelled by artificial correctness; and in language, a search for novelty to supply the wants and correct the faults of the poetic vocabulary. He is national in the Idyls; philosophic in The Two Voices, and similar poems. The Princess is a gentle satire on the age; and though, in striving for the reputation of originality, he sometimes mistakes the original for the beautiful, he is really the laurelled poet of England in merit as well as in title.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning.—The literary usher is now called upon to cry with the herald of the days of chivalry—Place aux dames. A few ladies, as we have seen, have already asserted for themselves respectable positions in the literary ranks. Without a question as to the relative gifts of mind in man and woman, we have now reached a name which must rank among those of the first poets of the present century—one which represents the Victorian age as fully and forcibly as Tennyson, and with more of novelty than he. Nervous in style, elevated in diction, bold in expression, learned and original, Mrs. Browning divides the poetic renown of the period with Tennyson. If he is the laureate, she was the acknowledged queen of poetry until her untimely death.
Miss Elizabeth Barrett was born in London, in 1809. She was educated with great care, and began to write at a very early age. A volume, entitled Essays on Mind, with Other Poems, was published when she was only seventeen. In 1833 she produced Prometheus Bound, a translation of the drama of Æschylus from the original Greek, which exhibited rare classical attainments; but which she considered so faulty that she afterwards retranslated it. In 1838 appeared The Seraphim, and other Poems; and in 1839, The Romaunt of the Page. Not long after, the rupture of a blood-vessel brought her to the verge of the grave; and while she was still in a precarious state of health, her favorite brother was drowned. For several years she lived secluded, studying and composing when her health permitted; and especially drawing her inspiration from original sources in Greek and Hebrew. In 1844 she published her collected poems in two volumes. Among these was Lady Geraldine's Courtship: an exquisite story, the perusal of which is said to have induced Robert Browning to seek her acquaintance. Her health was now partially restored; and they were married in 1846. For some time they resided at Florence, in a congenial and happy union. The power of passionate love is displayed in her Sonnets from the Portuguese, which are among the finest in the language. Differing in many respects from those of Shakspeare, they are like his in being connected by one impassioned thought, and being, without doubt, the record of a heart experience.