I. THE POETS OF THE VICTORIAN AGE

ALFRED TENNYSON (1809-1892)

    O young Mariner,
    You from the haven
    Under the sea-cliff,
    You that are watching
    The gray Magician
    With eyes of wonder,
    I am Merlin,
    And I am dying,
    I am Merlin
    Who follow The Gleam.
      . . . . . . . 
    O young Mariner,
    Down to the haven
    Call your companions,
    Launch your vessel,
    And crowd your canvas,
    And, ere it vanishes
    Over the margin,
    After it, follow it,
    Follow The Gleam.

One who reads this haunting poem of “Merlin and The Gleam” finds in it a suggestion of the spirit of the poet’s whole life,—­his devotion to the ideal as expressed in poetry, his early romantic impressions, his struggles, doubts, triumphs, and his thrilling message to his race.  Throughout the entire Victorian period Tennyson stood at the summit of poetry in England.  Not in vain was he appointed laureate at the death of Wordsworth, in 1850; for, almost alone among those who have held the office, he felt the importance of his place, and filled and honored it.  For nearly half a century Tennyson was not only a man and a poet; he was a voice, the voice of a whole people, expressing in exquisite melody their doubts and their faith, their griefs and their triumphs.  In the wonderful variety of his verse he suggests all the qualities of England’s greatest poets.  The dreaminess of Spenser, the majesty of Milton, the natural simplicity of Wordsworth, the fantasy of Blake and Coleridge, the melody of Keats and Shelley, the narrative vigor of Scott and Byron,—­all these striking qualities are evident on successive pages of Tennyson’s poetry.  The only thing lacking is the dramatic power of the Elizabethans.  In reflecting the restless spirit of this progressive age Tennyson is as remarkable as Pope was in voicing the artificiality of the early eighteenth century.  As a poet, therefore, who expresses not so much a personal as a national spirit, he is probably the most representative literary man of the Victorian era.

LIFE.  Tennyson’s life is a remarkable one in this respect, that from beginning to end he seems to have been dominated by a single impulse, the impulse of poetry.  He had no large or remarkable experiences, no wild oats to sow, no great successes or reverses, no business cares or public offices.  For sixty-six years, from the appearance of the Poems by Two Brothers, in 1827, until his death in 1892, he studied and practiced his art continually and exclusively.  Only Browning, his fellow-worker, resembles him in this; but the differences in the two men are world-wide.  Tennyson was naturally shy, retiring, indifferent to men, hating noise and publicity, loving to be alone with nature, like Wordsworth.  Browning was sociable, delighting in applause, in society, in travel, in the noise and bustle of the big world.