Tennyson:  “I totally disagree with you.  By any other arrangement four people would have been unhappy instead of two.”

After this I went up to my room.  The hours kept at Aldworth were peculiar; we dined early and after dinner the poet went to bed.  At ten o’clock he came downstairs and, if asked, would read his poetry to the company till past midnight.

I dressed for dinner with great care that first night and, placing myself next to him when he came down, I asked him to read out loud to me.

Tennyson:  “What do you want me to read?”

Margot:  “Maud.”

Tennyson:  “That was the poem I was cursed for writing!  When it came out no word was bad enough for me!  I was a blackguard, a ruffian and an atheist!  You will live to have as great a contempt for literary critics and the public as I have, my child!”

While he was speaking, I found on the floor, among piles of books, a small copy of Maud, a shilling volume, bound in blue paper.  I put it into his hands and, pulling the lamp nearer him, he began to read.

There is only one man—­a poet also—­who reads as my host did; and that is my beloved friend, Professor Gilbert Murray.  When I first heard him at Oxford, I closed my eyes and felt as if the old poet were with me again.

Tennyson’s reading had the lilt, the tenderness and the rhythm that makes music in the soul.  It was neither singing, nor chanting, nor speaking, but a subtle mixture of the three; and the effect upon me was one of haunting harmonies that left me profoundly moved.

He began, “Birds in the high Hall-garden,” and, skipping the next four sections, went on to, “I have led her home, my love, my only friend,” and ended with: 

    There has fallen a splendid tear
      From the passion-flower at the gate. 
    She is coming, my dove, my dear,
      She is coming, my life, my fate;
    The red rose cries, “She is near, she is near;”
      And the white rose weeps, “She is late;”
    The larkspur listens, “I hear, I hear;”
      And the lily whispers, “I wait.”

    She is coming, my own, my sweet;
      Were it ever so airy a tread,
    My heart would hear her and beat,
      Were it earth in an earthly bed;
    My dust would hear her and beat,
      Had I lain for a century dead;
    Would start and tremble under her feet,
      And blossom in purple and red.

When he had finished, he pulled me on to his knee and said: 

“Many may have written as well as that, but nothing that ever sounded so well!”

I could not speak.

He then told us that he had had an unfortunate experience with a young lady to whom he was reading Maud.

“She was sitting on my knee,” he said, “as you are doing now, and after reading,

   Birds in the high Hall-garden
   When twilight was falling,
   Maud, Maud, Maud, Maud,
   They were crying and calling,