Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves
A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.
Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,
And slips into the bosom of the lake:
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip
Into my bosom and be lost in me:
A good deal has been said by critics about Tennyson’s mastery over vowel and consonantal movement, but, in the light of such instances as this, certainly not more than enough, and in these later days at least rather less, I think, than is due. It is easy for unsympathetic criticism to see nothing but manufactured verse in this poem, but it is always easy for unsympathetic criticism to be stupidly unjust. This is not merely fine writing, it is style, and not to allow this is to be wanton about Tennyson altogether. Whatever personal taste may say, considered judgment should not permit itself to be blinded thus by partialities. That the artistry in these lines is deliberate, proving itself at every word, indeed at every letter, is unquestionable, but it is equally clear that the fusion of a poetic mood into this limpidly composed expression is complete. The perfect packing or building of the words, as though they had something of the quality of solid material in them, was for Tennyson an actual means of expression, and one in which he has never been excelled, and, perhaps, never equalled. Under analysis two lines in the poem call for separate comment.
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font
is exquisitely done, but detraction might protest that it is just a shade too assertively picturesque, and there is, moreover, for once a definite reminiscence of Keats with his “beaded bubbles winking at the brim.” The line is, in some odd way, almost too good. Then we have that other one,
Now lies the Earth all Danaë to the stars,