TENNYSON'S NEW POEM.[1]
The popularity of TENNYSON, in this country as well as in England, is greater than that of any other contemporary who writes verses in our language. We by no means agree to the justness of the common apprehension in this case. We think Bryant is a greater poet, and we might refer to others, at home and abroad, whom it delights us more to read. But it is unquestionable that Tennyson is the favorite of the hour, and every new composition of his will therefore be looked for with the most lively interest. His last work, just reprinted by TICKNOR, REED & FIELDS, of Boston, is thus described in the London Spectator of June 8th:
"'IN MEMORIAM.'
"Although only these words appear on the title-page of this volume of poetry, it is well known to be from the pen of Alfred Tennyson. It is also known that the inscription
'IN MEMORIAM
A.H.H.
OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII.'
refers to Mr. Arthur Hallam, a son of the historian. It may be gleaned from the book, that the deceased was betrothed to a sister of Tennyson, while the friendship on the poet's part has 'passed the love of women.' Feeling, especially in one whose vocation it is to express sentiments, is not, indeed, always to be measured by composition; since the earnest artist turns everything to account, and when his theme is mournful it is his cue to make it as mournful as he can: but when a thought continually mingles with casual observation, or incident of daily life, or larger event that strikes attention, as though the memory of the past were ever coloring the present, and that over a period of seventeen years, it must be regarded as a singular instance of enduring friendship, as it has shown itself in a very singular literary form. There is nothing like it that we remember, except the sonnets of Petrarch; for books of sportive and ludicrous conceits are not to be received into the same category.
"The volume consists of one hundred and twenty-nine separate poems, numbered but not named, and which in the absence of a more specific designation may be called occasional; for though they generally bear a reference to the leading subject, In Memoriam, yet they are not connected with sufficient closeness to form a continuous piece. There is also an invocatory introduction, and a closing marriage poem, written on the wedding of one of the writer's sisters, which, strange as it may seem, serves again to introduce the memory of the departed. The intervening poems are as various as a miscellaneous collection; but the remembrance of the dead ever mingles with the thought of the living. His birth-day, his death-day, the festive rejoicings of Christmastide and the New Year, recall him; the scenes in which he was a companion, the house where he was a welcome guest, the season when the lawyer's vacation gave him leisure for a long visit, revive him to the mind. The Danube, on whose banks he died—the Severn, by whose banks he appears to have been buried—nay, the points of the compass—are associated with him. Sometimes the association is slighter still; and in a few pieces the allusion is so distant that it would not have been perceived without the clew. Such is the following (one of several poems) on the New Year.
CIV.
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light: