Duke of Wellington was published in November 1852, and a year later Tennyson bought the house and farm of Farringford, in the Isle of Wight, which he made his home. In 1854 he pub lished The Charge of the Light Brigade, and in July 1855 an important volume, Maud, containing, beside some pieces already mentioned, "The Brook," and "Will." There was now a sharp reaction against his popularity, and the reception of this admirable book was in part very severe; Tennyson, always unduly sensitive, was much wounded. He withdrew among his ilexes at Farringford, and for some years little was heard of him. In 1859 he reappeared with the first series of the Shiplake Rectory Idylls of the King, which achieved a popular success far exceeding anything experienced by Tennyson before, or by any other poet of his time. It was not generally guessed that these first four idylls ("Enid," "Vivien," "Elaine," and "Guinevere") were fragments of an epic on the Fall of the Table Round, which Tennyson was preparing all his life. He now turned his attention to another branch of the Farringford same mystical theme, the story of the Holy Grail. In 1862 he was presented to Queen Victoria, whose constant favour he thenceforward enjoyed; on the death of Prince Albert, he dedicated the next edition of the Idylls of the King to his memory, "since he held them dear." In 1864 Tennyson published a volume of domestic and modern pieces, under the general title of Enoch Arden, &c. In this appeared "Aylmer's Field," and "The Northern Farmer." The years slipped by with scarcely any incidents. except the poet's occasional summer journeys on the Continent. He became an object of extreme curiosity, and his privacy at Farringford was more and more recklessly intruded upon by unblushing tourists. Perhaps he exaggerated this nuisance, which however became in the process of time absolutely intolerable to him. He determined to go where he could not easily be found, and in 1867 he bought some land on Blackdown, near Haslemere, where he built a house called Aldworth. Several of his smaller works appeared about this time, The Window, in 1867, Lucretius, in 1868, and The Holy Grail, in 1869. These were followed by Gareth and Lynette and The Last Tournament in 1872, and he supposed the Idylls of the King to be complete. He now turned his attention to a branch of literature which had always attracted him, but which he had never before seriously attempted the drama. His idea was to illustrate the "Making of England" by a series of great historical tragedies. The critics and the public were opposed to Tennyson's dramatic experiments, but he pursued them with a pertinacity which was really extraordinary. Queen Mary, the earliest, in 1875, was followed by Harold in 1876. In 1879 he reprinted a very early suppressed poem, The Lover's Tale, and produced a third play, The Falcon. An important volume of Ballads, including the incomparable "Rizpah," appeared in 1880. This was followed by two more dramas, The Cup, in 1881, and The Promise of May, in 1882. In the autumn of 1883 Tennyson went with Gladstone to Copenhagen, and was entertained by the King of Denmark. In 1884 he accepted a peerage, and published the only play of his which has succeeded on the stage, Becket. Tiresias and other Poems, 1885 (in which "Balin and Balan" completed the Idylls of the King); Locksley Hall Sixty Years After, 1886; Demeter and other Poems, 1889; his seventh play, The Foresters, 1892; and the posthumous Death of Enone, 1892, were Tennyson's latest contributions to poetry. His health had recovered, and he entered with a marvellous elasticity of mind and body into old age. His bodily powers failed at last, in his eighty-fourth year, and he passed away, at Aldworth, on the night of the 6th of He October 1892. Six days later he received public burial in Westminster Abbey. Aldworth, Surrey laughter and piercing wail, and all that may lie between." FROM "THE LOTOS-EATERS." The Lotos blooms below the barren peak: The Lotos blows by every winding creek: All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone: Thro' every hollow cave and alley lone Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotus-dust is blown. We have had enough of action, and of motion we, Roll'd to starboard, roll'd to larboard, when the surge was seething free, Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind, In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind. For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl'd Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl'd Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world: Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands, Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands, ! Till they perish and they suffer-some, 'tis whisper'd-down in hell Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell, Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel. Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore Oh rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more. FROM "MORTE D'ARTHUR." And slowly answer'd Arthur from the barge: Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. I have lived my life, and that which I have done Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer Rise like a fountain for me night and day. If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer Both for themselves and those who call them friend? FROM "THE DAISY." Remember how we came at last To Como; shower and storm and blast From Como, when the light was gray, The rich Virgilian rustic measure Like ballad-burthen music, kept, To that fair port below the castle Or hardly slept, but watch'd awake The moonlight touching o'er a terrace Farringford, Isle of Wight. The throttle. "Summer is coming, Summer is coming. Sing the new year in under the blue. VOL. IV. That you should carol so madly? aquis?" "Love again song agrin, nest again, young never a prophet to wezy And hardly a dairy as yet, wire friend, "Here again here, here, here, happy year And all the winters are hidden MS. of the "Throstle," entirely in Tennyson's handwriting TO EDWARD LEAR, ON HIS TRAVELS IN GREECE. Illyrian woodlands, echoing falls Of water, sheets of summer glass, Tomohrit, Athos, all things fair, With such a pencil, such a pen, |