250. fane. Temple.
252-3. Note the metaphor. The poet suggests that music appeals to our higher nature,—to what is spiritual and hence eternal in man.
259. Giant Ages. In Greek mythology the Giants were a race of fabulous monsters who made war on Zeus. They were subdued, and great mountains were piled on top of them, beneath which they still struggle. Tennyson here personifies the long ages of time as giants shaking the hills and breaking the shore.
274. Being here. While he was here.
275. Something. An adverb, as here used.
In The Day Dream Tennyson has elaborated in poetical form a series of scenes from the well-known fairy tale of The Sleeping Beauty or Briar Rose. In the fairy story, Briar Rose is a beautiful princess who was fated to fall asleep in her fifteenth year and remain sleeping for a hundred years. When the princess is overtaken by her long sleep, everything in the castle falls under the same spell. An impenetrable hedge of briars grows up about the castle grounds, and all who strive to force an entrance perish in the attempt. At length, when the hundred years have passed, comes a splendid prince, who hears from an old man the story of the mysterious castle and the sleeping princess. When he reaches the hedge he passes easily through, for the briars have turned to flowers. At the very moment when he finds the princess, the hundred years are completed, and as he kisses her she opens her eyes once more. When the princess wakes, the whole castle revives, and life goes on again as it did a hundred years before. The story ends with the marriage of Briar Rose and the prince.
The fairy tale in its original form was probably suggested by the changing seasons. In Winter the earth, the fairy princess, begins her long sleep. In the Springtime comes the sun, the fairy prince, and at the touch of his kiss the earth awakes to new life and beauty.
From the poem as here given, The Prologue, L’Envoi and The Epilogue are omitted. In The Prologue the poet tells his companion, Lady Flora, that the sight of her beauty as she lay asleep had called to his mind an image of The Sleeping Beauty, and that in his “day dream” he had recalled the old legend. And so as she works at her embroidery he bids her listen to the story. L’Envoi and The Epilogue, written also in a light and fanciful vein, contain the poet’s comments on the story.