0001

IDYLLS OF THE KING.*

The Laureate has put forth all his strength to achieve what Milton thought of achieving, and he has produced a really fine work. We have more than once been compelled to speak unpleasant truths of Mr. Tennyson, and to protest against the, somewhat delirious delight with which blind admirers have greeted his later volumes. When a poet stumbles, there are people who imagine that he is not wrong, but only original; when he nods, that he is not drowsy, but only authoritative and godlike; and Mr. Tennyson's obscurities have been regarded as dazzling, rather than dark—his monstrosities as not unnatural, though rather bold—his metaphysics as not hard and painful, but inviting and most blessed, as the stones of which the patriarch made a pillow, and resting on which he had dreams of heaven and the angels. Having frankly opposed these fallacies when occasion offered it is with no common pleasure that we now turn to the more genial task of praising a poem remarkable for its simplicity, and displaying much of that perfect workmanship which will always make some of Mr. Tennyson's earlier pieces among the most cherished in the language. It is impossible, however, not to note in passing, that the simplicity which we so much enjoy in the present volume is the imitation of an old style, and that our poets seem to labour under a curious inability to use a modern style with the same plainness and utter freedom. There are bright exceptions, no doubt, but Mr. Tennyson's usual style is not a little removed from such simplicity as this, and although he is one of the greatest masters of the English language, he is apt in the use of modern phraseology to be flat when he would be plain and downright. We may have to give examples of this infirmity before we conclude; but here it is to be observed that the poet shows very clearly in the Lady of Shalott as well as in the fragment entitled Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevre how at one time he intended to treat the theme of the present volume—King Arthur and his Round Table—in a style which is peculiarly his own. In that manner he drew very gorgeous pictures, the poems we have named being indeed miracles of pictorial effect. But if the power of word-painting thus exhibited was marvellous, there was wanting the moral effect which belongs to genuine simplicity. Apparently dissatisfied with what he had accomplished, the poet determined to try his hand again, but in a different style. He wrote the idyll, or fragment of an epic, which he called Morte d'Arthur in blank verse, and holding as much as possible to the manner of the old romances. It was a complete success, and has always been regarded as one of his masterpieces. It is almost passionless, indeed, and with all its grandeur appeals rather to the imagination than to the heart; but it was at once perceived that a poet who could in all calmness produce an effect so sublime might, if his power of feeling were equal to his power of description, achieve the design which Milton abandoned, only because he found a mightier hero than King Arthur and sung of more terrible lists than those of the Round Table. Mr. Tennyson tries his hand yet again, and produces four idylls, which are strong in passion as well as in description, and which, if they do not constitute an epic, may, together with our old favourite Morte d'Arthur for a fifth, be taken as fragments of a great whole. Epics are apt to be wearisome; and we are under obligations to a poet who asks us, as here, to read only his more stirring episodes. Probably the same considerations which made Milton hesitate over his design of an epic on King Arthur convinced Mr. Tennyson of the uselessness of attempting a connected poem on the same subject; and whether it be so or not, we are indisposed, after reading a work in which the Laureate has produced some of the noblest passages in English verse, to inquire too minutely into the reason why here, as at all times, he contents himself with short flights, and does not venture on a continuous and long-drawn effort.

Mr. Tennyson had some right to fix on Milton's abandoned theme, for in kind (we do not say in height) of power there is a greater resemblance between these two poets than between any other two of whom we can boast. What Milton's was, before in his old age he wrote the Paradise Lost, that, and something more, is Mr. Tennyson's rank as a poet. Observe in both the same intense appreciation of all that can delight the eye and ear, combined with a spirituality which in most persons overrides all such merely sensuous tastes. Observe in both the same learned allusion—the same pleasure in occasional obscurities of diction—the same fondness for archaisms—the same revelling in the mere sound of words.

0002

Take such a line as this from the Morte d'Arthur, where the poet describes the King as having—

“All his greaves and cuisses dashed with drops “Of onset.”

Everybody will recognize the peculiar subtlety of thought in this phrase as quite Miltonic, and a hundred others might be quoted. In neither of the poets is there any real humour, the consequence of which is that, with all their refinement (and in that quality they are unequalled), they have not been kept from perpetrating monstrosities. Mr. Tennyson has been laughed out of his Kraakens, and, perhaps, if Milton lived in these irreverent days he would have been laughed out of his Sin and Death. Again, the In Memoriam of the one may go side by side with the Lycidas of the other, two poems that stand by themselves alone in English literature. If we go further, we find that not only is the religious sentiment exceedingly strong in each, but that combined with this exceeding strength of Christian feeling religious dogmatism is so weak in them that it would puzzle any one to discover what is their religious creed. Perhaps a century hence Mr. Tennyson will share the fate of Milton, and it will be proved that he was nothing more than a Deist. Not to multiply instances, let us add that both poets are continually theorizing on the relations of sex. Of course, love is the theme of all poets, but these two have pet theories on the subject to which they frequently recur, the elder poet chiefly in his prose writings. Lastly,—and this is the chief point to be noticed in connexion with the present volume—no poet since Milton can be named who has such a wonderful command of musical expression as Tennyson. These two we say confidently have a greater mastery of all the resources of metre than any other writers in the language. In all Mr. Tennyson's works this is quite evident; and nowhere is it more strikingly displayed than in the blank verse of these idylls.

Turning from the mechanism to the subject of the verse, we have still further evidence that we are in the hands of a great and original genius. In the blameless king—flos regum Arthurus—Mr. Tennyson has found a noble subject, and it is impossible not to admire the skill with which the character is portrayed. In none of these poems is Arthur the principal personage. Even in the Morte d'Arthur Sir Bedivere stands out in, perhaps, stronger relief than the king; yet by constant allusion to his designs, by reference to his authority, by passing incidents and little conversations in which he now and then appears, he is palpably the great hero of the work, and stands before us, calm, pure, and grand, the highest type of knighthood, and the finest form of man. His queen, Guinevere, has an idyll all to herself, and this, although the shortest, is the most powerful of the present series,—the most instinct with passion, the most sublime in thought. Hers is a character uniting in a complexity which Mr. Tennyson loves to dwell upon nobility with unfaithfulness, sin and grace, impurity and loveliness. She too, like Arthur, though in a less degree, pervades the volume, and in her we see in its most fascinating form the first indication of that depravity which makes havoc of our ideal schemes, and turned to nought all the fine dreams of perfect manliness that, according to the poet, gave rise to the institution of the Round Table. Sir Lancelot is among the men what Guinevere is among the women—the noblest knight of all, yet most untrue; reflecting the highest honour on his Sovereign, yet inflicting on him the most cruel wound; most mighty and most weak. His intrigue with the Queen is the thread which connects together the different tales here presented to us in a detached form. It is through fear of the Queen's example that Geraint removes his Enid from the Court. It is the Queen's influence that gives the lissome Vivien her importance among the courtiers. It is for the Queen that Lancelot neglects Elaine. It is on the discovery of the intrigue that in the last of the idylls Guinevere flies to Almesbury, where Arthur addresses her in that great speech which is a splendid revelation of his character, and in all its simplicity is the most telling passage in the volume.

The first of the idylls has the greatest variety of incident, of character, and of style, though we are, at the same time, compelled to say that the incidents are somewhat rambling, and their meaning not always intelligible. For the characters, Enid, the heroine, is beautifully drawn, and her brave husband, Geraint, with all his knightliness, uxoriousness, and suspicion, stands out very lifelike. How well, too, her kind old father is portrayed in a few lines,—

“And I myself sometimes despise myself; “For I have let men be and have their way; “Am much too gentle, have not used my power; “Nor know I whether I be very base, “Or very manful, whether very wise “Or very foolish.”

0003

Another character, the Sparrow-hawk, seems an apocryphal personage, and his repentance has a horrible resemblance to that of a ticket-of-leave, who with hair smoothed upon his forehead mouths holy texts to cheat the parson. Limours is more natural, but he is in the rough, and so is the Earl Doorm—a coarse, but vigorous sketch, Between such a heroine as Enid and such an animal as Doorm the poet has room enough for variety. In the hall of Doorm the men sat down to their meal—

“And ate with tumult, “Feeding like horses when you hear them feed.”

When Doorm speaks to Enid the men are astonished—

“The brawny spearman let his cheek “Bulge with the unswallowed piece, and turning stared.”

And there is something, to say the least of it, grotesque in the Earl's address to Enid when she refuses to eat because her husband is wounded—

“‘Drink then,’ he answered. ‘Here’ “(And filled a horn with wine and held it to her), “‘Lo! I myself, when flushed with fight, or hot, “‘God's curse, with anger—often I myself “‘Before I well have drunken, scarce can eat; “‘Drink, therefore, and the wine will change your will.’”

There is some little difference between this sort of writing and the lines in which Enid is first introduced, when Geraint hears, but does not see her.

“"And while he waited in the castle court, “The voice of Enid, Yniol's daughter, rang “Clear through the open casement of the hall, “Singing: and as the sweet voice of a bird, “Heard by the lander in a lonely isle, “Moves him to think what kind of bird it is “That sings so delicately clear, and make “Conjecture of the plumage and the form; “So the sweet voice of Enid moved Geraint; “And made him like a man abroad at morn “When first the liquid note beloved of men “Comes flying over many a windy wave “To Britain, and in April suddenly “Breaks from the coppice gemmed with green and red, “And he suspends his converse with a friend, “Or it may be the labour of his hands, “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.’”

In this idyll, indeed, will be found all the varieties of Mr. Tennyson's style. The finest thing in it, however, is the song to Fortune, which deserves to be ranked among the best of his lyrics:—

“Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel and lower the proud; “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.”

If the first of the idylls has most variety, the second displays most art and contains the most vivid descriptions. It relates the story of Vivien and Merlin. The boldness with which the poet describes how the lissome Vivien wiled the secret of his charm from the mighty magician is startling, and might be offensive were it not for perfect skill. This idyll, however, is very unequal. Nothing can be more bald and clumsy than the dialogue in which Vivien retails the Court scandal to Merlin. On the other hand, what can be better than that concluding burst which tells us how in the midst of raging tempest the lady succeeded in her purpose and Merlin yielded up his own great charm to hers? The passage, however, in which is described the first advances of the woman with her witcheries upon the wizard will, perhaps, by a majority of readers, be regarded as the most brilliant in the volume:—

“There lay she all her length and kissed his feet “As if in deepest reverence and love. “A twist of gold was round her hair; a robe “Of samite without price, that more exprest “Than hid her, clung about her lissome limbs, “In colour like the satin shining palm “Or sallows in the windy gleam of March; “And while she kissed them, crying, ‘Trample me; “‘Dear feet, that I have follow'd thro' the world, “‘And I will pay you worship; tread me down “‘And I will kiss you for it; he was mute, “So dark a forethought roll'd about his brain, “As on a dull day in an ocean cave “The blind wave feeling round his long sea hall “In silence: wherefore, when she lifted up “A face of sad appeal, and spoke and said “‘O Merlin, do you love me? and again “‘O Merlin do you love me? and once more “‘Great Master, do you love me?’ he was mute. “"And lissome Vivien, holding by his heel, “Writhed toward him, slided up his knee, and sat, “Behind his ankle twined her hollow feet “Together, curved an arm about his neck, “Clung like a snake; and letting her left hand “Droop from his mighty shoulder, as a leaf, “Made with her right a comb of pearl to part “The lists of such a beard as youth gone out “Had left in ashes; then he spoke and said, 0004 “Not looking at her, ‘We are wise in love “Love most, say least,’ and Vivien answered quick, “‘I saw the little elf-god eyeless once “In Arthur's arras hall at Camelot; “But neither eyes nor tongue’—‘O stupid child! “Yet you are wise who say it; let me think “Silence is wisdom; I am silent then, “And ask no kiss;’ then adding all at once “‘And, lo, I clothe myself with wisdom,’ drew “The vast and shaggy mantle of his beard “Across her neck and bosom to her knee, “And called herself a gilded summer fly “Caught in a great old tyrant spider's web, “Who meant to eat her up in that wild wood “Without one word. So Vivien called herse “But rather seemed a lovely baleful star “Veil'd in gray vapour.”

The third idyll, which the laureate devotes to the sorrows of Elaine, will be to the critics by far the most interesting, for a reason which we have already hinted at. Elaine is the Lady of Shalott—the same, yet different; and no critical study can be more instructive than a comparison of how Mr. Tennyson treated this story in 1832 with his treatment of it now, after a lapse of seven-and- twenty years. Let those who would understand the growth of a poet's mind, and see how many beauties of detail he must sacrifice in order to reach the highest beauty of all, mark it well. We will mention here but a single point of comparison, One of the most remarkable things about the Lady of Shalott is the blaze of colour which is upon all the descriptions; the eye is filled with the most dazzling tints, red and yellow and blue in all their varieties; everything is described in terms of colour, till we are almost surfeited with such an array of bright hues. In Elaine, on the other hand, it is quite evident that the poet has not lost his sense of colour, but he is much more sparing in the use of it, and produces an infinitely greater effect with much more simple means. The gauds of youth are thrown away, and at last the man comes to learn that the half is greater than the whole. Here is the description of the lily maid of Astolat laid upon her bier, ah she wished, and wending on her voyage to Sir Lancelot:—

“But when the next sun brake from underground, “Then, those two brethren slowly with bent brows “Accompanying the sad chariot bier “Past like a shadow through the field, that shone “Full summer, to that stream whereon the barge, “Pall'd all its length in blackest samite, lay. “There sat the lifelong creature of the house, “Loyal, the dumb old servitor, on deck, “Winking his eyes and twisted all her face. “So those two brethren from the chariot took “And on the black decks laid her in her bed, “Set in her hand a lily o'er her hung “The silken case with braided blazonings, “And kissed her quiet brows, and saying to her, “‘Sister, farewell for ever,’ and again, “‘Farewell, sweet sister,’ parted all in tears. “Then rose the dumb old servitor, and the dead, “Steered by the dumb, went upward with the flood— “In her right hand the lily, in her left “The letter—all her bright hair streaming down— “And all the coverlid was cloth of gold “Drawn to her waist, and she herself in white “All but her face, and that clear-featured face “Was lovely, for she did not seem as dead “But fast asleep, and lay as tho' she smiled.”

But the most powerful of all the idylls is the last, which relates how Guinevere's intrigue with Sir Lancelot was discovered, and what were the consequences. It is the grandest thing that Mr. Tennyson has yet done. Here the character of Arthur comes out in all its nobility, and his address to the Queen is the crown of the work:—

“He paused and in the pause she crept an inch “Nearer, and laid her hands about his feet. “Far off a solitary trumpet blew. “Then waiting by the doors the war horse neigh'd “As at a friend's voice, and he spake again. “‘Yet think not that I come to urge thy crimes, “I did not come to curse thee, Guinevere, “I, whose vast pity almost makes me die “To see thee, laying there thy golden head, “My pride in happier summers, at my feet. “The wrath which forced my thoughts on that fierce law, “The doom of treason and the flaming death, “(When first I learnt thee hidden here) is past. “The pang—which while I weigh'd thy heart with one “Too wholly true to dream untruth in thee, “Made my tears burn—is almost past, in part. “And all is past, the sin is sinn'd, and I, “Lo! I forgive thee, as Eternal God “Forgives: do thou for thine own soul the rest. “O golden hair with which I used to play. “Not knowing! O imperial-moulded form, “And beauty such as never woman wore, “Until it came a kingdom's curse with thee— “I cannot touch thy lips, they are not mine, “But Lancelot's; nay, they never were the King's. “I cannot take thy hand; that too is flesh, “And in the flesh thou hast sinned; and mine own flesh “Here looking down on thine polluted, cries “‘I loathe thee;’ yet not less, O Guinevere, “For I was ever virgin save for thee, “My love thro' flesh hath wrought into my life “So far, that my doom is, I love thee still. “"Let no man dream but that I love thee still. 0005 “Perchance, and so thou purify thy soul, “And so thou lean on our fair father Christ, “Hereafter in that world where all are pure “We two may meet before high God, and thou “Wilt spring to me, and claim me thine, and know “I am thine husband—not a smaller soul “Nor Lancelot, nor another. Leave me that, “I charge thee, my last hope. Now must I hence. “Thro' the thick night I hear the trumpet blow: “They summon me their King to lead mine hosts “Far down to that great battle in the west, “Where I must strike against my sister's son, “Leagued with the lords of the White Horse and knights, “Once mine, and strike him dead, and meet myself “Death, or I know not what mysterious doom. “And thou remaining here wilt learn the event; “But hither shall I never come again, “Never lie by thy side, see thee no more, “Farewell!‘“

With all the admiration of these idylls which we have expressed in no stinted terms, we must not bring these remarks to a close without adding that if the present volume contains some of the finest poetry, it also contains some of the tamest commonplace, and is not free from those mannerisms for which Mr. Tennyson has more than once already been called to account. We need not trouble our readers with many examples of bald phraseology and prosaic ideas. In one song, on which has been heaped the most extraordinary laudations, we have a specimen of Mr. Tennyson's most besetting sins. Each of the four idylls has a song written in the same measure and formed upon the same model. The best of the four we have quoted—the Song of Fortune. The other three are infinitely below this one; but the following—the Song of Vivien—has been praised as the finest in the book:—

“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 garner'd fruit, “That rotting inwards slowly moulders all.

“It is not worth the keeping: let it go: “But shall it? answer, darling, answer, no. “And trust me not at all, or all in all.”

Now, with regard to this we have to point out that the idea is quite a common one, and that in the expression of it there is no peculiar felicity. The last verse is dull, and the music of it jerks. The first is a good specimen of that iteration in which Mr. Tennyson delights. All through his poems we have a reduplication of words—“Nestling in the nest,” “maiden passion for a maid,” “crying shame on her own garrulity garrulously,” and so on, till the repetition becomes a mere trick. It may be said that all song is, like the warbling of birds, which the Laureate so well describes, the iteration of a few notes, “till the ear wearies to hear it.” But there is such a thing as a “damnable iteration,” and we have it here, where the words are iterated and reiterated till they become a perfect puzzle. Why must the “love be ours” in order that the conclusion with regard to faith may follow, unless for the sake of the rhyme? And, again, why, if not for the rhyme, does the poet deny in the second line the equality of power possessed by faith and unfaith, when, in the third line he goes on to say that unfaith has no existence whatever? To any one who remembers the simple terms in which the Scripture declares that perfect love casteth out fear, and that charity believeth all things, the irrelevancy and tautology of the poet will go for the veriest mannerism. The whole song is alike in its poverty, and in the third stanza there is a good illustration of another of Mr. Tennyson's habits. We have stated that whatever be his stature by the side of Milton, he is of the same type as a poet; and so he is, But in this he is the very opposite of Milton—that whereas the latter is always comparing small things with great, and so contrives to make them greater, the former, when he indulges in a simile, has a way of comparing great things with small, and so contrives to make them less. Let us recall the picture of Geraint in bed on a summer morn when—

“The new sun “Beat thro' the blindless casement of the room, “And heated the strong warrior in his dreams; “Who, moving, cast the coverlet aside, “And bared the knotted column of his throat, “The massive square of his heroic breast, “And arms on which the standing muscle sloped, “As slopes a wild brook o'er a little stone, “Running too vehemently to break upon it.”

Here is a giant of a man, and we are afterwards told twice that when he watched Enid he

“Looked as keenly at her “As careful robins eye the delver's toil.”

Nothing can be more apt than the simile if we regard the mere act of looking, but it is one out of dozens that might be quoted by which Mr. Tennyson gives littleness to things that are not little, and makes that merely pretty which Milton would have rendered grand. He paints in miniature, and, however great his ideas may really be, he shows to disadvantage by the side of a poet who spread a larger canvass and used a bigger brush.

0006

Passing from these deficiencies, it is more pleasant to shut the volume, feeling that if there are blemishes in it yet as a whole it is a noble work. We are brought into contact with manly characters, we are led to sympathize in a free and healthy life, we are taught wisdom that is not the Less good because it is old and simple. In Mr. Tennyson's earlier works we were told that

“All experience is an arch where thro' “Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades “For ever and for ever when I move.”

We were told, again, that

“Tho' the times when some new thought can bud “Are but as poets' seasons when they flower, “Yet seas, that daily gain upon the shore, “Have ebb and flow conditioning their march.”

All this may be very fine, though many, perhaps will scarcely know what it means. But it is very delightful after it to light upon the simple old-world wisdom of the Idylls of the King; to hear Arthur saying to Sir Bedivere,—

“Thou has betrayed thy nature and thy name. “This is a shameful thing for men to lie!”—

to hear Enid's mother (spite of her iteration) say,—

“For, tho' you won the prize of fairest fair, “And, tho' I heard him call you fairest fair, “Let never maiden think, however fair, “She is not fairer in new clothes than old;”—

to hear the son of Nudd say,—

“The world will not believe a man repents, “And this wise world of ours is mainly right;”

to hear the poet himself say,—

“How many among us at this very hour “Do forge a lifelong trouble for ourselves, “By taking true for false, or false for true;”—

to hear the Queen say,—

“He is all fault who hath no fault at all.”

Nobody wants metaphysics in poetry, and we are quite content with the information that lying is shameful, and that flesh is as grass, that it is difficult to repent, and that it is nice to have new clothes. It is a great relief to be able to forget our modern wisdoms, and to find ourselves in a primitive world, where the hard facts of life have not become contemptible through familiarity, where the more palpable lessons have not lost their freshness, and where use has not lessened the marvels of existence. In company of Arthur and his noble brotherhood of knights we breathe pure air and we go back to nature.