And whistled to the morning-star.”
And this is a striking and prominent characteristic of all Tennyson’s poetry. Everywhere the sound is made to be “an echo to the sense”; the style is in perfect keeping with the matter. In the “Lotos-Eaters,” we have the sense of complete indolence and deep repose in—
“A land of streams! Some, like a downward smoke,
Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go.”
In the “Boädicea,” we have the rush and the shock of battle, the closing of legions, the hurtle of arms and the clash of armed men—
“Phantom sound of blows descending, moan of an enemy massacred,
Phantom wail of women and children, multitudinous agonies.”
Many of Tennyson’s sweetest and most pathetic lines have gone right into the heart of the nation, such as—
“But oh for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!”