Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1884-05-23
"A wild wind shook
hollow. follow. thou sM.l WIN.

more III detail.
"A wild wind shook
Follow, follow, thou Shat WIN
Suggestion I was walking in the New
Forest, A wind did arise and
"Shake the songs, the whispers, and tue shrck5
Of the Wild wood together
The wind, I believe, was a west wind ;
but because / wished the Prince to go
south / turned the wind to the south, AID
naturally the wind said "Follow" I be-
lieve the resemblance which you note is
Just chance one. Shelley's lines are not
familiar to me- though of course if they
occur in the Promethcus | must have
read them.
could multiply instances, but will
not bore you, ard far indeed am from
asserting that books, as well as nature,
are not, and ought not TO be, suggestive
to the poet. am sure that | myself and
many others find n peculiar charm in
those passages of such great masters as
Virgil or Milton, where they adopt the
creation Of a by-gono poet, and re- clothe
it, more or less, according to their own
fancy. But there is, ! fear n prosaic set
growing up among us, editors of book
lets, bookworms, index hunters, or men
of great memories and 10 imagination,
who impute themselves to the poet, and
50 believe that he too has no imagination,
but is forever poking his nose between
the pages of some aid volume in order to
see what he can appropriate. They will
not allow one to say Ring the bells
without finding that we have taken it
from Sir p. Sydney-or even to use such
a simple expression rs the ocean ''rOars
without finding ont the precise verse in
Homer or Horace from which we have
plagiarized it. Facty
have known an old tish-wife, who had
lost two sons at sea, clench her fist at the
advancing tide on stormy day, and cry
out: GAY, roar do. How ! hates to
see thee show thy white teeth !" Now, if
| had adopted her exclamation and pa
it into the mouth of some old woman in
one of my poems, dare say the critics
would have thought it original enough,
but would most likely have advised mo to
go to nature for my old woman, and NOT
to my imagination and indeed il is q
strong figure.
Here is another little anecdoto about
suggestions. When was about 20 or 81
| went on tour to the Pyrenees. Lying
among these mountains, before q water
| fall that comes down 1000 or 1900 feet, !
| slletched it according to my custom then
in these words "Slow- dropping wells OF
thinncst lawn" When I printed this
a critic informed me that 'lawn" was the
material used in theatres TO initiate 6
waterfall. and gracioualy added "Mr
T. should not go 10 the boards ola theatre
| but to Nature herself for his sugges
tons, Aud had gone to Nature her
self. I think tits Il moot point Whether
| if / had known how that effect was pro.
duccd on the stage, I should have ven
tured to publish the line.
l find that have written, quite con
trary to my custom, letter, when I hat
merely intended to thank YOU for your in
| tercsting commentary.
Thanking you again for it, | beg 70,
to believe me, Very faithfully yours,
\. TENNYsoN.
P, S.-Dy-the-by, you are wrong abou
"the tremulous isles of light" there ar
'lsles Of light" spots of sunshine com
ing through the caves, and seeming t,
slide from one to the other, Is the process
sion of girls "moves under the shade.
And surely the "beard-blown goat" in
wolves a sense of the wind blowing til
| beard on the height of fine rnined nil