"I swear (and else may insects prick
Each leaf into a gall)
This girl for whom your heart is sick
Is three times worth them all;
"I swear by leaf, and wind, and rain,
(And hear me with thy ears,)
That though I circle in the grain
Five hundred rings of years—
"Yet since I first could cast a shade
Did never creature pass
So slightly, musically made,
So light upon the grass:
"For as to fairies, that will flit
To make the greensward fresh,
I hold them exquisitely knit,
But far too spare of flesh."
The lover proceeds to inquire when it was that Olivia last came to "sport beneath his boughs;" and the oak, who from his topmost branches could see over into Summer-place, and look, it seems, in at the windows, gives him full information. Yesterday her father had gone out— "But as for her, she staid at home,
And on the roof she went,
And down the way you use to come,
She look'd with discontent.
"She left the novel, half uncut,
Upon the rosewood shelf;
She left the new piano shut;
She could not please herself.
"Then ran she, gamesome as a colt,
And livelier than a lark;
She sent her voice through all the holt
Before her, and the park.
"A light wind chased her on the wing,
And in the chase grew wild;
As close as might be would he cling
About the darling child.
"But light as any wind that blows,
So fleetly did she stir,
The flower she touch'd on dipt and rose,
And turn'd to look at her.
"And here she came, and round me play'd,
And sang to me the whole
Of those three stanzas that you made
About my 'giant bole;'
"And, in a fit of frolic mirth,
She strove to span my waist;
Alas! I was so broad of girth
I could not be embraced.
"I wish'd myself the fair young beech,
That here beside me stands,
That round me, clasping each in each,
She might have lock'd her hands."
It is all equally charming, but we can proceed no further. Of the comic, we have hinted that Mr Tennyson is not without some specimens, though, as will be easily imagined, it is not a vein in which he frequently indulges. Will Waterproof's Lyrical Monologue is not a piece much to our taste, yet that "Head-waiter of the chophouse here,
To which I most resort,"
together with the scene in which he lives and moves, is very graphically brought before us in the following lines:— "But thou wilt never move from hence,
The sphere thy fate allots:
Thy latter days, increased with pence,
Go down among the pots.
Thou battenest by the greasy gleam
In haunts of hungry sinners,
Old boxes, larded with the steam
Of thirty thousand dinners.
"We fret, we fume, would shift our skins,
Would quarrel with our lot;
Thy care is under-polish'd tins
To serve the hot-and-hot.
To come and go, and come again,
Returning like the pewit,
And watch'd by silent gentlemen
That trifle with the cruet."
But this is not the extract we promised our readers, nor the one we should select as the best illustration of our author's powers in this style. In a piece called Walking to the Mail, there occurs the following description of a certain college trick played on some miserly caitiff, who, no doubt, had richly deserved this application of Lynch law. It is not unlike the happiest manner of our old dramatists,—
"I was at school—a college in the south:
There lived a flay-flint near; we stole his fruit,
His hens, his eggs; but there was law for us;
We paid in person. He had a sow, sir: she
With meditative grunts of much content,
Lay great with pig, wallowing in sun and mud.
By night we dragg'd her to the college tower
From her warm bed, and up the cork-screw stair,
With hand and rope we haled the groaning sow,
And on the leads we kept her till she pigg'd.
Large range of prospect had the mother sow,
And but for daily loss of one she lov'd,
As one by one we took them—but for this,
As never sow was higher in this world,
Might have been happy: but what lot is pure?
We took them all, till she was left alone
Upon her tower, the Niobe of swine,
And so returned unfarrow'd to her sty."
The Princess; a Medley, now claims our attention. This can no longer, perhaps, be regarded as a new publication, yet, being the latest of Mr Tennyson's, some account of it seems due from us. With what propriety he has entitled it "A Medley" is not fully seen till the whole of it has come before the reader; and it is at the close of the poem that the author, sympathising with that something of surprise which he is conscious of having excited, explains in part how he fell into that half-serious, half-bantering style, and that odd admixture of modern and mediæval times, of nineteenth century notions and chivalrous manners, which characterise it, and constitute it the medley that it is. Accident, it seems, must bear the blame, if blame there be. The poem grew, we are led to gather, from some chance sketch or momentary caprice. So we infer from the following lines,— "Here closed our compound story, which at first,
Perhaps, but meant to banter little maids
With mock heroics and with parody;
But slipt in some strange way, cross'd with burlesque
From mock to earnest, even into tones
Of tragic."——
However it grew, it is a charming medley; and that purposed anachronism which runs throughout, blending new and old, new theory and old romance, lends to it a perpetual piquancy. Speaking more immediately and critically of its poetic merit, what struck us on its perusal was this, that the pictures it presents are the most vivid imaginable; that here there is an originality and brilliancy of diction which quite illuminates the page; that everything which addresses itself to the eye stands out in the brightest light before us; but that, where the author falls into reflection and sentiment, he is not equal to himself; that here a slow creeping mist seems occasionally to steal over the page; so that, although the poem is not long, there are yet many passages which might be omitted with advantage. As to that peculiar abrupt style of narrative which the author adopts, it has, at all events, the merit of extreme brevity, and must find its full justification, we presume, in that half-burlesque character which is impressed upon the whole poem.
The subject is a pleasing one—a gentle banter of "the rights of woman," as sometimes proclaimed by certain fair revolutionists. The feminine republic is dissolved, as might be expected, by the entrance of Love. He is not exactly elected first president of the republic; he has a shorter way of his own of arriving at despotic power, and domineers and scatters at the same time. In vain the sex band themselves together in Amazonian clubs, sections, or communities; he no sooner appears than each one drops the hand of his neighbour, and every heart is solitary.
The poem opens, oddly enough, with the sketch of a baronet's park, which has been given up for the day to some mechanics' institute. They hold a scientific gala there. Rapidly, and with touches of sprightly fancy, is the whole scene brought before us—the holiday multitude, and the busy amateurs of experimental philosophy.
"Somewhat lower down,
A man with knobs and wires and vials fired
A cannon: Echo answered in her sleep
From hollow fields: and here were telescopes
For azure views; and there a group of girls
In circle waited, whom the electric shock
Dislinked with shrieks and laughter: round the lake
A little clock-work steamer paddling plied,
And shook the lilies: perched about the knolls,
A dozen angry models jetted steam;
A petty railway ran; a fire-balloon
Rose gem-like up before the dusky groves,
And dropt a parachute and pass'd:
And there, through twenty posts of telegraph,
They flash'd a saucy message to and fro
Between the mimic stations; so that sport
With science hand in hand went: otherwhere
Pure sport: a herd of boys with clamour bowl'd
And stump'd the wicket; babies roll'd about
Like tumbled fruit in grass; and men and maids
Arrang'd a country-dance, and flew through light
And shadow."——