"'Forward, the Light Brigade!'
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Someone had blunder'd:
Their's not to make reply,
Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.
"Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turned in air
Sabring the gunners there.
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder'd;
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel'd from the sabre stroke
Shatter'd and sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not,
Not the six hundred.
"Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death,
Back thro' the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.
"When can their glory fade?
O, the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder'd.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!"
The Charge of the Light Brigade.
A little while after breakfast, Tennyson would retire to his "den" on the top storey, for that "sacred half-hour" devoted to poetical composition, and assisted by his beloved pipe, during which nobody dared disturb him. This den, or study, formed a setting worthy of its inmate. Every inch of wall was covered with portrait, sketches, drawings. Almost every distinguished name of the nineteenth century was in some manner represented here: the poet literally worked surrounded by his friends. And in this congenial atmosphere he devoted himself to that life-long pursuit of his, as he has imaged it in the "Gleam," which "flying onward, wed to the melody, sang through the world."
Whatever respective values a future generation may set upon Tennyson's work, there can be little doubt that he himself considered the Idylls of the King, with its inner spiritual meanings, as his greatest work. "There is no single fact or incident in the Idylls," he said, "which cannot be explained without any mystery or allegory whatever." Hence their appeal to the least mystical reader, through sheer beauty of language and superb pictorial effect. But at the same time he let it be known that his whole story was inherently one of pure symbolism: starting from the suggestion that Arthur represented conscience. This idea is predominant, without undue insistence upon it, in Guinevere.
"Yet think not that I come to urge thy crimes,
I did not come to curse thee, Guinevere,
I, whose vast pity almost makes me die
To see thee laying there thy golden head,
My pride in happier summers, at my feet.
... Let no man dream, but that I love thee still."