ELEANORE.

Thy dark eyes opened not,

Nor first revealed to English air,

For there is nothing there

Which from the outward to the inward brought,
Moulded thy lady thought.

Far off from human neighborhood

Thou wert born on a summer morn,

A mile beneath the cedar wood.

Thy bounteous forehead was not fanned
With breezes from our oaken glades,

But thou wert nurst in some delicious land
Of lavish lights and fleating shades:
And flattering thy childish thought,
The oriental fairy brought,

At the moment of thy birth,

From old well heads of haunted rills,
And the hearts of purple hills,

And shadowed coves on a sunny shore,
The choicest wreath of all the earth,
Jewel or shell, or starry ore,

To deck thy cradle Eleanore ?"

In these specimens the poetical reader will find more to admire than to censure; but the critics sometimes are deaf, "charm ye never so wisely" their ears are shut to music, and their eyes to beauty.

Three years afterwards, Mr. Tennyson published another volume, and gave the fullest evidence of his poetical genius. He had been wise enough to profit by the criticism of his friends and enemies, and, consequently, the new volume was received with more favor: it showed a marvellous advance on the previous book, and stamped the author as one of the rising men of our time. In this volume were the exquisite poems of "The Miller's Daughter," and

"The Proud Lady Clara Vere de Vere." Shortly after he printed a poem called "The Lover's Tale:" this, however, he supprest, contenting himself with giving a few copies away. As he disavows this production, we shall quote nothing from it. It is decidedly unworthy his reputation.

Here lapse ten years of Alfred Tennyson's life; silent to the public, but slowly working. In 1843 appeared his two volumes, including many of his old productions previously published, with the addition of many new ones; alterations were also made in those he retained. In this volume he first made audible "The Two Voices," undoubtedly the greatest poem he has written; we observe that it was composed as far back as 1833; contrasting the union of force and thoughtful subtlety displayed in this poem, with the last of his productions, "The Princess," the conclusion is forced upon us that the mind of Alfred Tennyson is not progressive. We shall devote some space to its examination, and select instances of the peculiar force with which the poet places before the mind of his readers thoughts of the utmost subtlety. The poem is an argument, pro. and con. between the hopeful and despondent impulses of our nature, one prompting to suicide, the other urging cheerfulness and patience :

"A'still small voice' spake unto me,

Thou art so full of misery,

'Were it not better not To BE?'

Then to the still small voice I said:

'Let me not cast in endless shade
What is so wonderfully made.'

To which the voice did urge reply,
'To-day I saw the dragon-fly

Come from the wells where he did lie.'

An inner impulse rent the veil
Of his old husk-from head to tail
Came out clear plates of sapphire mail.

He dried his wings-like gauze they grew,
Through crofts and pastures wet with dew,
A living flash of light he flew.'

I said, 'when first the world began,
Young nature through five cycles ran,
And in the sixth she moulded man.

She gave him mind-the lordliest
Proportion, and above the rest,
Dominion in the head and breast.'

Thereto the silent voice replied-
'Self-blinded are you by your pride;
Look up through night; the world is wide.

This truth within thy mind rehearse,

That in a boundless universe,

Is boundless better-boundless worse.""

The despondent spirit then goes on to show that the existence of any particular item is immaterial in so vast an universe. The hope-blest voice demands that some peculiarity gives an individual value to every separate human being.

"To which he answered scoffingly—
'Good soul, suppose I grant it thee,
Who'll weep for thy deficiency?'

Or will one beam be less intense,
When thy peculiar difference

Is cancelled in the world of sense!"

A shower of tears is the poet's reply. Again the Mephistophilean voice urges the despondency of his heart, as a conclusive argument of the insufficiency of human life to attain felicity. The brighter voice consults patience in you,

"Shut the life from happier chance."

"Were it not well to bide mine hour,
Though watching from a ruined tower,
How grows the day of human power?

I said when I am gone away—
'He dared not tarry-' men will say,
Doing dishonor to my clay."

The darkness of his soul avers that it is viler to breathe and watch, than once from dread of pain to die; adding—

"Art thou so bound

To men, that how thy name may sound
Will vex thee lying underground?

Go, vexed spirit, sleep in trust;

The right ear, that is filled with dust,
Hears little of the false and just.

'Hard task to pluck resolve!' I cried,
From emptiness and the waste wide,
Of that abyss, or scornful pride."

He urges that the future may bring a happier time.

"To sing the joyful pæan clear,

And sitting, burnish without fear

The brand, the buckler and the spear."

Appealing at the same time to the old visions of future glory, which may yet come to pass. It may yet happen

"In some good cause-not in mine own
To perish, wept for, honored, known,
Like a great warrior overthrown!

Whose eyes are dim with glorious tears,
When soiled with noble dust, he hears
His country's war-song thrill his ear.

Then dying of a mortal stroke
What time the foeman's like is broke,
And all the war is rolled in smoke."

The desponding spirit declares all these are but the "stirrings of the blood," those impulsive delusions, without which life would expire beneath the steadfast weight of misery, and the daily, hourly invasion of wrong. He concludes this strain with a verse painfully revolting to the egotism of man.

"For every worm beneath the moon,

Draws different threads, and late and soon
Spins, toiling out his own cocoon.

O dull, one-sided voice, (said I,)
Wilt thou make every thing a lie,
To flatter me that I may die?

I know that age to age succeeds,
Blowing a noise of tongues and deeds,
A dust of systems and of creeds.

I said I toil beneath the curse,
But knowing not the universe,
I fear to slide from bad to worse.

And that in seeking to undo
One riddle, and to find the true,
I knit a hundred others new.

Consider well-the voice replied,

His face that two hours since hath died,

Wilt thou find passion, pain or pride?"

All the miseries of the human race pass over his head; he is insensible to all. Earthquakes rouse him not.

Finely, subtly, logically, the poet answers the doubter

"If all be dark-vague voice-I said,

These things are wrapt in doubt and dread,

Nor canst thou show the dead are dead."

Oh! the volume of thought, the world of suggestion, the chaos of doubt in that one line

"Thou canst not show the dead are dead."