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founded on stories connected with the renowned King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, whose adventures were originally written by Geoffrey of Monmouth. The various parts of Tennyson's Arthurian epic were not at first published in the order in which they ought to be read; but that defect has now been remedied. First we have the Coming of Arthur; then the stories of the Round Table-of Gareth, who served in the king's kitchen in order to have an opportunity of showing Arthur how fit he was to be one of the knights; of Geraint and the fair Enid; of the crafty Vivien and the old prophet Merlin; and of the luckless love of poor Elaine for Launcelot, the most renowned of all the knights. Next comes the story of the finding by Sir Galahad of the Grail, or communion cup used at our Saviour's Last Supper, and said to have been brought to this country by Joseph of Arimethea. It had disappeared on account of prevailing wickedness, and was seen once again at Caerleon, where the Knights of the Round Table were gathered together. It vanished, and every knight swore he would seek and seek till he found it. Sir Galahad, the pure hearted, found the cup, and was immediately afterwards carried to heaven. Many of the knights who started on this quest or search never returned again, and King Arthur had to make new knights to fill the gap. Among these was the brave Pelleas, the story of whose love for the haughty Ettarre forms the next of the idylls. Next we have the Last Tournament, the touching story of Queen Guinevere's repentance; and, finally, the Passing of Arthur, who falls in a battle caused by the attempt of his nephew Modred to usurp the crown.

Enoch Arden, another blank verse poem, is a very touching story; but the facts upon which it is founded are happily of rare occurrence.

Tennyson's poetry is pure, tender, ennobling. No blot, no stain, as in Byron, mars its beauty. His portraits

and ideas of women are the most delicate in the whole range of English poetry. His language, although consisting for the most part of strong and pithy Saxon

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words, is yet the very perfection of all that is elegant and musical in the art of versifying.

A LANDSCAPE.

"Some blue peaks in the distance rose,
And white against the cold-white sky
Shone out their crowning snows.

One willow over the river wept,

And shook the wave as the wind did sigh;
Above, in the wind, was the swallow,
Chasing itself at its own wild will;

And far through the marish green and still,
The tangled water-courses slept,

Shot over with purple, and green, and yellow."
The Dying Swan.

FROM "IN MEMORIAM."

"The path by which we twain did go,

Which led by tracts that pleased us well,
Through four sweet years arose and fell,
From flower to flower, from snow to snow:
"And we with singing cheered the way,

And crowned with all the season lent,
From April on to April went,
And glad at heart from May to May:
"But where the path we walked began
To slant the fifth autumnal slope,
As we descended following hope,
There sat the Shadow feared of man;
"Who broke our fair companionship,

And spread his mantle dark and cold;
And wrapt thee formless in the fold,
And dulled the murmur on thy lip;
"And bore thee where I could not see

Nor follow, though I walk in haste;
And think that, somewhere in the waste,
The Shadow sits and waits for me."

A RUIN.

"Then rode Geraint into the castle court,
His charger trampling many a prickly star
Of sprouted thistle on the broken stones.
He looked, and saw that all was ruinous.

Here stood a shattered archway, plumed with fern;
And here had fall'n a great part of a tower,

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Whole, like a crag that tumbles from the cliff,
And, like a crag, was gay with wilding flowers:
And high above, a piece of turret stair,
Worn by the feet that now were silent, wound
Bare to the sun; and monstrous ivy stems
Claspt the gray walls with hairy-fibred arms,
And sucked the joining of the stones, and looked
A knot, beneath, of snakes,-aloft a grove."-Idylls.

ELAINE AND THE SHIELD OF LAUNCELOT.

"Elaine the fair, Elaine the lovable,

Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat,

High in her chamber up a tower to the east,
Guarded the sacred shield of Launcelot.
Nor resting thus content, but day by day,
Leaving her household and good father, climbed
That eastern tower, and entering, barred the door,
Stript off the case, and read the naked shield;
Now guessed a hidden meaning in his arms,
Now made a pretty history to herself
Of every dint a sword had beaten in it,
And every scratch a lance had made upon it,
Conjecturing when and where: this cut is fresh;
That ten years back; this dealt him at Caerlyle;
That at Caerleon; this at Camelot:

And ah, God's mercy, what a stroke was there!
And here a thrust that might have killed, but God
Broke the strong lance and roll'd the enemy down,
And saved him: so she lived in fantasy."-Idylls.

ELIZABETH BARRETT (BROWNING) (b. about 1809, d. 1861) was England's greatest poetess. She was born in London, and received an education of the most extraordinary character. Greek, Latin, philosophy, and the sciences, were among the subjects of study, and she did her best to master them. Her first important work was a translation from the Prometheus of Eschylus. Other works followed, and, by degrees, her name became illustrious. In 1839, in consequence of the bursting of a blood-vessel, she was obliged to cease from her labours, and removed to Torquay for the sake of the climate. Here a very melancholy event took place. Her favourite brother and two of his companions went out to have a short sail, when the boat sank, and all of them

ELIZABETH BARRETT (BROWNING).

179

were drowned. This terrible calamity so shocked Miss Barrett that, for some years afterwards, she lived a life of retirement, employing her time in reading "almost every book worth reading in almost every language," and in the production of some of her poems. In 1846, she was married to Robert Browning, the poet, and with him retired to Italy, where she resided till her death, in 1861.

Her longest poems are the Drama of Exile, the Casa Guidi Windows, and Aurora Leigh. The Drama takes up the story of our first parents' expulsion from Paradise, just at the point where Milton leaves it. It relates the experiences of the fallen pair in the wilderness to which they have been driven; and more especially those of Eve, who feels with anguish that she has been the cause of the fall, and determines to make atonement by a life of selfsacrifice. The Casa Guidi Windows-a political poemwas written in Florence, and contains Mrs. Browning's impressions of what she saw from her windows in the Casa Guidi of the Tuscan struggle for liberty in 1849. Aurora Leigh, her greatest poem, has been styled "a novel in metre." A young poetess (Aurora Leigh), having lost both her parents, is placed as a child under the charge of an aunt, a stiff and sedate maiden lady, who has peculiar views of education for young ladies. At length Aurora publishes her poems, and becomes famous. A rich cousin of her own (Romney Leigh) proposes to marry her, but is rejected. On this he pays his addresses to a poor seamstress (Marian Erle), and is accepted; but on the very day of the intended marriage she is carried off, through the devices of a wicked lady (Lady Waldemar). Misfortune

now overtakes the unfortunate lover. His house is burned, and he loses his eyesight in consequence of an assault made upon him by Marian Erle's father. He afterwards meets Marian, and renews his offer of marriage, but she refuses, declaring she cannot love him. Finally, however, Aurora Leigh confesses her love for him, and with this the poem ends. Mrs. Browning's smaller works are more popular than those to which allusion has

now been made. The Rhyme of the Duchess May, a romantic ballad, Cowper's Grave, and The Cry of the Children, a poem which pleads for the poor little children who were sent to toil in mines and factories from their earliest years, are all great favourites.

Mrs. Browning's poetry is characterized by great depth of feeling, thoughtfulness, and imaginative power, and is remarkable for the noble and generous sentiment pervading it all. She has not always troubled herself about the correctness of her rhythm; and this irregularity is so characteristic of many of her writings that she has been considered as belonging to the spasmodic or jerky school of poetry.

FLUSH, MY DOG.

"Yet, my little sportive friend,
Little is't to such an end

That I should praise thy rareness!

Other dogs may be thy peers
Haply in these drooping ears,

And in this glossy fairness.

"But of thee it shall be said,
This dog watched beside a bed
Day and night unweary—
Watched within a curtained room,
Where no sunbeam brake the gloom
Round the sick and dreary.

"Roses, gathered for a vase
In that chamber, died apace,
Beam and breeze resigning-

This dog only waited on,

Knowing that when light is gone,

Love remains for shining.

"Other dogs in thymy dew

Tracked the hares and followed through

Sunny moor or meadow

This dog only crept and crept
Next a languid cheek that slept,
Sharing in the shadow.

"And if one or two quick tears
Dropt upon his glossy ears,
Or a sigh came double-

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