The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson Part 7

A _million emeralds_ break from the _ruby-budded lime_.

--'Maud'.

In gloss and hue the chestnut, _when the sh.e.l.l Divides threefold to show the fruit within_.

--'The Brook'.

Or of a chrysalis:--

And flash'd as those _Dull-coated_ things, _that making slide apart Their dusk wing cases, all beneath there burns A Jewell'd harness_, ere they pa.s.s and fly.

--'Gareth and Lynette'.

So again:--

Wan-sallow, as _the plant that feeds itself, Root-bitten by white lichen_.

--'Id'.

And again:--

All the _silvery gossamers_ That _twinkle into green and gold_.

--'In Memoriam'.

His epithets are in themselves a study: "the _dewy-ta.s.sell'd_ wood,"

"the _tender-pencill'd_ shadow," "_crimson-circl'd_ star," the "_h.o.a.ry_ clematis," "_creamy_ spray," "_dry-tongued_ laurels". But whatever he describes is described with the same felicitous vividness. How magical is this in the verses to Edward Lear:--

Naiads oar'd A _glimmering shoulder_ under _gloom_ Of _cavern pillars_.

Or this:--

She lock'd her lips: she left me where I stood: "Glory to G.o.d," she sang, and past afar, Thridding the sombre boskage of the wood, Toward the morning-star.

--'A Dream of Fair Women'.

But if in the world of Nature nothing escaped his sensitive and sympathetic observation,--and indeed it might be said of him as truly as of Sh.e.l.ley's 'Alastor'

Every sight And sound from the vast earth and ambient air Sent to his heart its choicest impulses,

--he had studied the world of books with not less sympathy and attention. In the sense of a profound and extensive acquaintance with all that is best in ancient and modern poetry, and in an extraordinarily wide knowledge of general literature, of philosophy and theology, of geography and travel, and of various branches of natural science, he is one of the most erudite of English poets. With the poetry of the Greek and Latin cla.s.sics he was, like Milton and Gray, thoroughly saturated.

Its influence penetrates his work, now in indirect reminiscence, now in direct imitation, now inspiring, now modifying, now moulding. He tells us in 'The Daisy' how when at Como "the rich Virgilian rustic measure of 'Lari Maxume'" haunted him all day, and in a later fragment how, as he rowed from Desenzano to Sirmio, Catullus was with him. And they and their brethren, from Homer to Theocritus, from Lucretius to Claudian, always were with him. I have ill.u.s.trated so fully in the notes and elsewhere [1] the influence of the Greek and Roman cla.s.sics on the poems of 1842 that it is not necessary to go into detail here. But a few examples of the various ways in which they affected Tennyson's work generally may be given. Sometimes he transfers a happy epithet or expression in literal translation, as in:--

On either _s.h.i.+ning_ shoulder laid a hand,

which is Homer's epithet for the shoulder--

[Greek: ana phaidimps omps]

--'Od'., xi., 128.

It was the red c.o.c.k _shouting_ to the light,

exactly the

[Greek: heos eboaesen alektor] (Until the c.o.c.k _shouted_).

--'Batrachomyomachia', 192.

And all in pa.s.sion utter'd a 'dry' shriek,

which is the 'sicca vox' of the Roman poets. So in 'The Lotos Eaters':--

His voice was _thin_ as voices from the grave,

which is Theocritus' voice of Hylas from his watery grave:--

[Greek: araia d' Iketo ph_ona]

(_Thin_ came the voice).