"And while he waited in the castle court, And he suspends his converse with a friend, To think or say: "There is the nightingale;' So fared it with Geraint, who thought and said, 'Here, by God's grace, is the one voice for me. It chanced the song that Enid sang was one Turn thy wild wheel through sunshine, storm, and cloud; Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate. 'Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or frown; With that wild wheel we go not up or down; Our hoard is little but our hearts are great. 'Smile, and we smile, the lords of many lands; Frown, and we smile, the lords of our own hands; For man is man and master of his fate. 'Turn, turn, thy wheel above the staring crowd; Thy wheel and thou are shadows in the cloud; Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate."" The voice ceases on the ear, and Geraint makes acquaintance with the singer. It presently appears that the knight called Sparrow Hawk has wronged the old earl and his family; and the prince may now revenge at one stroke an injury to this fair maid, as well as an insult to his Queen. He soon humiliates the boastful upstart, and claims Enid for his bride. Consent is soon obtained; but the maiden is perplexed at the poor appearance she is like to make at King Arthur's court— "All staring at her in her faded silk.” Her ady-mother comes to her relief with a splendid garment long-lost, and now recovered from the wreck of their fortunes. "See here, my child, how fresh the colors look, How fast they hold, like colors of a shell That keeps the wear and polish of the wave. So clothe yourself in this that better fits Hath picked a ragged robin from the hedge, To whom we are beholden; but I know, Through all the provinces like those of old Enid gladly assumes this new attire, to the admiration of her lady mother. But Prince Geraint will not have it so-he entreats that she will ride forth with him in her faded silk. The passage in which he gives the motives of this request is as full of truth as it is of beauty; but we must positively resist the temptation to borrow more, at least from this first idyll. Such a resolution forbids us to proceed with the story, which can only be told one way, the briefest and the best of any for poetry is the most condensed as well as the brightest form of human lore, and to turn it into prose is to change gold into inferior coin-for added bulk you lose both beauty and compactness. We may add, however, a few general words. The proper subject of the idyll only begins from this point, all the foregoing being included in an episode by way of retrospect. The trial to which Enid is submitted arises from the rumors rife about the Queen, which might be supposed to affect unfavorably one so near and dear to her as Enid; but she proves a true wife and tender woman; and her lord owns it for once and all. The moment of their reconcilement is exquisitely described as the opening of a new and dearer life, by the access of profound sympathy and the dawnings of a perfect confidence: "And never yet, since high in Paradise hour Put hand to hand beneath her husband's heart, And felt him hers again: she did not weep, But o'er her meek eyes came a happy mist, Like that which kept the heart of Eden green Before the useful trouble of the rain.' The second Idyll recounts the wiles of "lissome Vivien," coiled serpent-like at the feet of Merlin, and bent on drawing from the sage enchanter the secret of his spell. It is the story of Dalilah with a difference. The contrast of youth and age, of vanity and wisdom, of sly attack and dexterous rebutter, is admirably sustained. The style, the invention, and the music are also wonderful, and the whole so linked together that extract seems impossible without fracture of the golden chain. Yet there is one lyric gem-one heart-shaped pendent-that may easily be detached. This is the song of Vivien : "In love, if love be love, if love be ours, Faith and unfaith can ne'er be equal powers: Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all. "It is the little rift within the lute, That by and by will make the music mute, And ever widening slowly silence all. "The little rift within the lover's lute, Or little pitted speck in garnered fruit, "It is not worth the keeping: let it go. We need hardly say that the wisdom and experience of the sage are not proof against the seductive wiles of Vivien. He parries her assaults for a time with equal skill and constancy; rebuts her slander of the knights, and rebukes her changing fits of vanity and spleen; but in all such cases to parley is to yield. Vivien is determined to have the wizard's secret. Taking advantage of a storm that breaks over their heads, and hurls its bolts at their feet, she affects terror and repentance, and clings to Merlin for safety and for pardon. "She blamed herself for telling hearsay tales: Had left the ravaged woodland yet once more To peace; and what should not have been had been, For Merlin, overtalked and overworn, Then, in one moment, she put forth the charm Then crying, 'I have made his glory mine,' And shrieking out, O fool!' the harlot leapt Adown the forest, and the thicket closed Behind her, and the forest echoed 'fool.'" When so rare a thing as a new poem comes before us, it may be well to analyze it rather carefully. Perhaps we may learn from its texture some secret of its principle and growth. A close examination of the Idylls reminds us that the elements of poetic language are the simplest possible. The author never strives to be intensely poetical in phrase or simile. No word in his poem lays claim to separate notice, any more than a single flake of snow that contributes to the beauty of a winter landscape. It is the succession of words and phrases that realizes the desired effect. Thus, in the commencement of a charming idyll, third of the present series— "Elaine the fair, Elaine the lovable, Elaine the lily maid of Astolat," each term is separately trite and simple; and taken together they suggest only a pleasing outline of youth and grace-but that is just the preparation most suited to the artist's further purpose. Then mark the filling up. Hereafter we have no minute description of personal features; but the outline is filled in with moral traits, and a quiet course of narrative completes the portrait and the picture together: "-High in her chamber up a tower to the east, Guarded the sacred shield of Lancelot; Which first she placed where morning's earliest ray Might strike it, and awake her with the gleam; Then, fearing rust or soilure, fashioned for it Leaving her household and good father, | finest sort: every inch of it contains some climbed That eastern tower, and entering barred her door, Stript off the case, and read the naked shield; That ten years back; this dealt him at That at Caerleon; this at Camelot : And ah, God's mercy, what a stroke was And here a thrust that might have killed, but Broke the strong lance and rolled the enemy down And saved him so she lived in fantasy." And so the story proceeds, leisurely, quietly, as the dawn creeps on and widens into the richer beauty of day. In this case it is the old new story of unrequited love. We must not be tempted to enter on its merits or extract its beauties; for our space would hardly serve for either, and something still better lies before us. portion of the legend, some web of homely stuff, some shreds of silver warp, and withal some lines of golden thread. It is honest, pure, and skillful workmanship throughout. Plain Saxon English is the artist's raw material. His words are the original names of the things for which they stand, and so appear to be thoroughly identified with them, needing no transCaer-lation in the reader's mind. Our author always calls a spade a spade-not in the sense of speaking coarse ideas, but in that of using plain and simple terms. There is also the utmost clearness and directness in the narrative- no strange inversions and other licenses of grammar so frequently employed as the privilege of poetry and the chief distinction of poetic language. Mr. Tennyson stands first upon the merit of his ideas, and then upon the simplicity and aptness of the terms by which they are conveyed. It is evident that he submits the merit of his poetry to the severest test by thus declining all extrinsic show. Accordingly, his style invites only the scholar, the moralist, the student of nature, and the man of pure and cultivated imagination; and to these he yields up, without artifice or reserve, the chaste forms of truth and beauty which it is his privilege to create. The poet who discards the aid of vulgar and conventional ornament relies thenceforth on the power of more genuine attractions; and it is nearly certain that greater ethical purity will be the reward of his abstemious art. Poetry of the highest stamp, though not expressly didactic, will always be distinguished by the dignity of its moral sentiments. The poem itself may not be shaped by some determined moral purpose-that would only be analogous to the act of a gardener who should trim his yew tree to the form of a funeral monument; but just thoughts and noble sentiments will abound in his work like blossoms on the tree, not hiding its symmetry, but manifesting at once its vitality and character. This is seen in some of the choicest poems of our language. What so picturesque, so musical, so bright with images of fancy, as the Masque of Comus? Yet its finest passages-those that linger longest on the ear, because they have a charm for the listening heart-are tributes to the beauty and excellence of virtue. The last accents of the Attendant Spirit only betray the secret mission of the Muse, Another feature may be traced in the verbal structure of this poem: it is the work of conscientious, laborious, and consummate art. We may learn from this and other instances that it is the poets most favored by nature who fortify their genius with the utmost resources at their command. It is necessary, but not enough, that a poet should be poet born. Nature has often done her part when the result has been imperfect, partial, and sometimes pitiful. The truth is, that moral qualities are quite as essential to the poet as intellectual ones; and especially that moral energy which is required to exert and to coordinate all the faculties before a product of the higher imagination is perfectly matured. It may seem strange to say so of a dainty poem, which reads like the inspiration of a quiet mood, and falls from the lips of beauty in her boudoir in an easy, natural strain, like the silk unwinding from her silver reel-but so it is: every line in this volume has been forged at a white heat, and every dented stroke has been given with steady, true, and deliberate aim. But this comparison serves only to illustrate the amount and not the kind of labor bestowed upon the work before us. We may rather compare the poem itself to ancient tapestry of the for all the images of loveliness in which it wiles of the "lissome Vivien," and premay please her to disport: "Mortals, that would follow me, Heaven itself would stoop to her." This volume of Mr. Tennyson is distinguished by a similar exalted purity of tone. The reader breathes an atmosphere of moral truth as well as of summer odors; and poetic aphorisms, glinting like dewdrops in the pure light of heaven, are scattered on all the flowers of fancy. Take a few gems: "O purblind race of miserable men! How many among us at this very hour "And that he sinned is not believable ; For, look upon his face! but if he sinned, The sin that practice burns into the blood, And not the one dark hour which brings re morse, Will brand us, after, of whose fold we be: Or else were he, the holy King, whose hymns Are chanted in the minster, worse than all." But now we come to speak of the highest feature of this work, and that which gives harmonious expression to the whole. Mr. Tennyson has mastered the chief dif ficulty of his subject in combining its loose and scattered elements he has succeeded in imparting an almost epic unity and grandeur. Though not without separate interest and significance, the idylls of this volume are associated poems, and will be read to most advantage as a connected series. Nothing can exceed the effect of their advancing power and beauty when thus studied as a whole, and followed to their magnificent close in the idyll of "Guinevere." Three principal characters are distinguished from the first; but it is only by degrees that their figures shine prominently out; then the group begins to absorb all interest and attention, and finally one prostrate but still queenly shape fixes the solemn moral on our minds for ever. All trial and disaster seem to spring; more or less directly, from the conduct of the Queen. It brings her favorite Enid under suspicion, prompts the artifices and vents the pure and tender passion of Elaine from meeting reciprocation in the breast of Lancelot; while to the Queen herself, her lord, and all his kingdom, it opens up all the sluices of ruin, misery, and rebellion. To many readers it may seem that this is a perilous theme for poetic treatment; but we are bound to say that the relations of Arthur, and his Queen, and Lancelot of the Lake, are in-dicated with the utmost purity and delicacy. There is no tampering for a moment with the principles of truth and honor; sin is nothing but blighting and degrading sin, and its ravages are all the more conspicuous from the exalted and shining qualities which it so fatally obscures. Sir Lancelot is the "flower of bravery," as Guinevere is "the pearl of beauty;" but a blot is on the escutcheon of the one, while passion, frailty, and remorse uncrown the other. Hear how the fallen knight, whose face is marred more with deep anguish than with wounds, soliloquizes in a moment of repentance: "Why did the King dwell on my name to me? Mine own name shames me, seeming a reproach, Lancelot whom the lady of the lake Stole from his mother-as the story runs- As a king's son,' and often in her arms For what am I? what profits me my name I pray him, send a sudden Angel down We learn no more of Lancelot except incidentally; but some hint is here afforded of the reality and fruit of his contrition; "So groaned Sir Lancelot in remorseful pain, Not knowing he should die a holy man." 35 The crime has been discovered before the dawning repentance of the lovers could take effect. beyond the sea; Sir Modred rebelled Sir Lancelot has fled against his uncle, the King; and Guinevere has hurried to a distant convent. The fugitive Queen comes unattended and unknown, and a young novice is set to wait upon her. The garrulity of this little maid, to whom all the rumors of King Arthur's trouble are known, cause infinite distress to the unhappy Queen. At length she begins to hum " taught her; Late, so late!" and the new an air the nuns had and sad inmate exclaims The character of Arthur is conceived in and sublime departure to a death no less the happiest manner. He is the blameless mysterious than his birth. King; the very type and model of restored humanity. If the poet had intended to set forth the person of Christ in relation to his faithless Church, he could hardly have chosen a better representative. But there is no hint of this occult allusion. We have to view King Arthur as a man, moving in a rude and sinful world; and in this point of view it is evident that his perfectness would have the stamp of unreality, but for one fatal drawback arising out of this very uniformity of excellence. His fault is too much meekness. In his public rule, and in his knightly character, the King is perfect; but a dash of strong humanity is wanting to make him lord of his own hearth. No infirmity of his nature awakens sympathy or calls for solace, and no warmth of passion flushes his statuesque repose. His figure throws no shadow; and so the tender partner of his throne finds no refuge from his glory in the congenial shelter of his side. The artistic value of this circumstance is very great. It provides the tragic elements of discord, error, and misfortune. It brings the impeccable and mighty King within the natural range of trouble. Above all, this feature of cold abstract perfection in the hero was necessary to protect the unhappy Queen from utter loathing and contempt. We can not withhold some human pity when she exclaims "I thought I could not breathe in that fine air. That pure severity of perfect light," adding, with emphasis, in her new state of mind, "Sing, and unbind my heart that I may weep." แ Then the little novice sings: "Late, late, so late! and dark the night and chill! Late, late, so late! but we can enter still. "No light had we; for that we do repent; No light: so late! and dark and chill the Oh! let us in that we may find the light! "Have we not heard the bridegroom is so Oh! let us in, though late, to kiss his feet! The little song ceases, and the little maiden resumes her prattle, hoping to soothe "the noble lady," but in her ignorance wounding only. From rumor she relates the discovery of the infant Arthur, "A naked child upon the sands Of wild Dundagil by the Cornish sea;" We must not conclude without showing the reader how this beautiful poem culminates to its conclusion. The idyll of Guinevere is "one entire and perfect chrysolite." and all the supernatural signs which were We do not know in the whole compass of seen to herald and attend it; how a poetry any effort of equally sustained and Knight of the Round Table, even the fabrilliant flight, with no pause of dullness, ther of the little novice herself, heard and not even a momentary stoop of wing: from Lyonnesse to Camelot, and turning, 66 strange music as he rode after sunset and perhaps no three passages in any literature are comparable to the description of the birth or finding of young Arthur, the relation by the King of all the glorious measures and triumphs which the crime of Guinevere had thwarted, and his solitary "There All down the lonely coast of Lyonnesse |