expressor of other men's moral and intellectual conclusions. But imaginatively he was more original than that. He trans lated and finely transmuted the mediaeval or the classic, or whatever subject he attempted, into choice nineteenth-century English verse. What the total merit of that performance may be, they will know best who live far enough away from his own century to estimate the lasting wear and value of his work. For the present, we are not in a state to measure him finally. We are rather in the lee now of his immense. reputation, and our only chance of getting back our interest is to remember him not as a mid-Victorian but an early Victorian, and relate "The Lady of Shalott" to the days when he recited "Clerk Saunders" and "Oriana" to the Cambridge Apostles. In the arrangement of the present volume, this relation of the poet who was a crowned head, removed and practically exempt from criticism, to the uncrowned and comparatively unknown poet of 1830 and 1833, is kept continually in view. Thus, numbers i. to v. in the succeeding pages reproduce some of the more or less unfamiliar poems, which did not find their way into the collected works, as we have usually known them. Numbers vi. to lxii. again give us the volume of 1830-the "Poems, chiefly Lyrical," in the order in which they appeared; and with only those revisions which are poetically indispensable. The date at the foot of each poem is that of the edition from which the text is printed. In certain poems, the earlier form has been preserved intact, as in "The Sea Fairies," and in this case the reader who prefers the later form has his remedy in the appendix. In the appendix are still some fragments and excerpts; and among these some memorable passages from the first drafts of “Maud” and the “Lady of Shalott,” and also the curiously unrelated set of prelusive verses which originally stood at the head of the "Dream of Fair Women," where he likens the poet to the man "that sails in a balloon " "So lifted high, the Poet at his will, Lets the great world flit from him, seeing all, If it is good to watch the poet while he is still crescent, and before he has sailed so high, then this volume is not without its special use and biographical effect. The following table shows the order of Tennyson's works, nitting only occasional poems:- 66 66 ;1864 ܪ "Poems, by Two Brothers," 1827; "Timbuctoo:" Cambridge ize Poem, 1829; "Poems, chiefly Lyrical," 1830; Poems, 33 [1832]; "The Lover's Tale," first printed in 1833 and ven a small private circulation, appeared in sundry unauthorized tions in 1870 and 1875, and was finally published by the thor in 1879; “Poems," 1842; "The Princess: a Medley," 1847; ird edition, with songs added, 1850; "In Memoriam (A.H.H.)," 50; "Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington," 1852; cond edition, altered, 1853; "The Charge of the Light Brigade,' Examiner, 1854; altered, 1855; a variant, "In Honorem," 1856; Maud, and other Poems," 1855; enlarged, 1856; Kelmscott edition, 193; "Enid and Nimue (first draft of "Vivien "): the True and the alse," privately printed, 1857; "Idylls of the King"- Enid,' Vivien, "Elaine,' 'Guinevere," 1859; new edition, 1862; the four ylls issued separately, 1867-8; "Helen's Tower. Clandeboye," 1861; A Welcome [to Alexandra]," 1863; "Idylls of the Hearth, -issued as "Enoch Arden," etc., 1864; "A Selection from the Works Alfred Tennyson, Poet Laureate," with five new poems, 1865; "The indow, or the Loves of the Wrens," 1867; with music by A. Sullivan, 71; "The Victim," 1867; "The Holy Grail, and other Poems, ntaining "The Coming of Arthur," "The Holy Grail," "Pelleas and tarre,' ," "The Passing of Arthur," and other poems, some of which ere new, 1869; "Idylls of the King," 1869; "The Last Tournaent," 1891 (altered in ensuing edition); "Gareth and Lynette," third ries of "Idylls of the King," 1872; “Idylls of the King," complete lition, with "Epilogue to the Queen," 1872; Queen Mary: Drama," 1875; "Harold: a Drama," 1877 [1876]; "Ballads and her Poems," 1880; "The Promise of May," 1882; "The Falcon and e Cup," 1884; "Becket," 1884; arranged for the stage by H. Irving, 93; "Tiresias, and other Poems," 1885; "Locksley Hall Sixty ears After" [and other Poems], 1887; "Demeter, and other Poems, 89; "The Foresters: Robin Hood, and Maid Marian," 1892; The Death of Enone,' ," "Akbar's Dream, and other Poems," 1892; orks, complete in one volume, with last alterations, 1894. 66 CONTENTS |