"No angel, but a dearer being, all dipt
In Angel instincts, breathing Paradise,
Interpreter between the gods and men,
Who looked all native to her place, and yet
On tiptoe seem'd to touch upon a sphere
Too gross to tread, and all male minds perforce
Sway'd to her from their orbits as they moved,
And girdled her with music."
The Princess.
Later on in the evening, came, perhaps, the sweetest hour of the day, when, playing and romping with his little ones, the tall and stately man became a very child for a while. A peculiar tenderness towards children was a distinctive feature of Tennyson: and whether helping his own boys build stone castles on the cliff, or frolicking with any village school children whom he might meet, he was intent upon giving that joy and laughter to the new generation which had been denied to his own childhood. "Make the lives of children as beautiful and as happy as possible," was a favourite saying with him. The "Children's Hour," which Longfellow had sung, was a radiant hour for him: and most of all he was enchanted by the sight of little drowsy heads, asleep in cot or cradle. They inspired some of his loveliest lyrics, such as:
"Sweet and low, sweet and low,
Wind of the western sea,
Low, low, breathe and blow,
Wind of the western sea!
Over the rolling waters go,
Come from the dying moon, and blow,
Blow him again to me;
While my little one, while my pretty one sleeps.
"Sleep and rest, sleep and rest,
Father will come to thee soon;
Rest, rest on mother's breast,
Father will come to thee soon;
Father will come to his babe in the nest,
Silver sails all out of the west,
Under the silver moon:
Sleep my little one, sleep my pretty one, sleep!"
And the loss of his first-born infant had touched him with that infinite poignancy of pathos, which breathes in other lines:
"As thro' the land at eve we went
And pluck'd the ripened ears,
We fell out, my wife and I,
O! we fell out, I know not why,
And kiss'd again with tears.
And blessings on the falling out
That all the more endears,
When we fall out with those we love
And kiss again with tears!
For when we came where lies the child
We lost in other years,
There above the little grave,
O there above the little grave,
We kissed again with tears."
The dinner-table was enlivened by Tennyson's boundless store of anecdote, and keen sense of humour. It was a "feast of intellect," to quote Mrs. Cameron; hour after hour of the most brilliant conversation. The supernatural loomed largely. The poet had a penchant for well-authenticated ghost stories, a deep interest in psychical phenomena, and an open mind towards the unknowable. And very strange tales of dreams, clairvoyance, and occult happenings, were to be heard at Farringford. A master of the romantic pervaded by supernatural elements, he had long since drawn with deft touches the mysterious confines of "fäery-lands forlorn," steeped in the very atmosphere of dream.
"She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces thro' the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She look'd down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack'd from side to side,
'The curse is come upon me,' cried
The Lady of Shalott."
