The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1886-02-04
LORD TENNYsoN's NEW POEMS.

Inc lovers VI
find in this, the laureate's last volume,
much to bring back the exquisite pleasure
they experienced in reading Lillian
Mariana" THE Miller's Daughter,
The Lotos Eaters" and The Recollec-
lions of the Arabian Nights which we're
to many of us. now on the shady side OF
fifty. an introduction into the world of
poetry-the world of dreams. There Is In
q" Tiresias and Other Poems the same
felicity of ex preston, the same exhibition
of consummate art in the choice of incl
dents. and the same subtitle aroma of in
tellectuality that won for the poet of 1912
the generous acclamatiOns of older men of
letters and there is the same idyllic re-
pose. the same sensuous delineation of
the obiect-world, and above all, the same
indefinable, indescribable Tennysonian
flavor that aroused forty years ago the
enthusiasm of every college student in
England and America.
1t is wonderful that, with the exception
of "The Dead Prophet" u Hands all
Round and one-half of Tiresias,"
these poems, twenty-six in number, were
imposed within the last three years by
one who will be seventy-seven the 9th of
August next. Wordsworth lived to be
eighty, but wrote nothing of consequence
during the last half of his long life. The
glorious dawn of his youth soon faded
into the light of common day." and his
sun went down unattended by the
visions splendid of his early manhood.
but the evening of Tennyson's life is ra-
diant with the glores of its dawn, and
his admirers can justly claim that the
present volume is a fitting epilogue to
the "Idylls of the King
"Tiresias." from which the book takes
its main title, is the first, though not the
longest or most important, poem in the
collection. 1t is written in that flowing
blank verse made SO familiar to us in the
"Idylls" and ".The Princess" and though
founded on single incident is so charged
with emotion and so full of suggestive &C
ton that its 200 lines may be looked up
on as the torso of an epic. Tiresias is an
old blind prophet, of Thebes, whose pre-
dictions, it has been decreed, no one will
believe. The poem is a monologue ad-
dressed by Tiresas to Menaceus, young
noble of Thebes. Will, the Seven of Argos
are laundering at her gates. Tiresias
says that Ares has appeared to him in a
dream,
Bloodred from battle, spear and helmet tipt,
With stormy light-as on mast at sea.
and warned him that the only way in
which the city can be saved is by the self
sacrifice of one of the men of Cadmus.
Tiresias urges Menaceus to make the
sacrifice:
The sun, the moon, the stars
Send no such light upon the ways of men,
AS one great decd.
The way in which the consent of
Manaceus is indicated, without break
ing the monologue, is one of
the most artistic touches
to be found out of Shakespeare
"'This restless hand
felt one warm tear upon it. Gone!
| He will achieve his greatness
AS an evidence of the sinewy strength
of the verse and its exquisite finish, we
quote the lines in which Tiresias describes
how he was made blind:
'All the lands that lie
Subjected to the HeConian ridge
| Have heard this fOOtstep fall, althO my wont
Was more to scale the highest of the heights
With some strange hope to see the nearer God.
| One naked peak-the sister of the sun
Would climb from out the dark and linger there
| To silver all the valleys with her shafts
| There once, b long ago, fvefold thy term
| Of years, lay; the winds were dead for heat:
| The MONDAY crag made the hand burn and sick
| For shadow-nOt one bush was near-I rose
Following torrent till its myriad falls
| Found silence in the hOl0ws underneath.
| There in secret olive glade saw
Pallas Athene climbing from the bath
In anger; yet one glitering foot disturbed
| The lucid well; one snowy knee was prest
Against the margin flowers; dreadful light
Came from her golden hair, her golden helm,
And all her golden armOr on the grass,
| And from her virgin breast, and virgin eyes
Remaining fixed on mine. till mine grew dark
| Forever, and heard a voice that said:
'lencefOrh be blind, for thou hast seen too much,
| And speak the truth that no man may believe
The two most inferior poems in the
volume are The Wreck and Despair"
"The Wreck is something on the style of
MAUD" but is more realistic and is spas
moGic and hysterical to painful degree.
1t reminds us more of Swinburne than of
the author of Dora" Despair" deals
with the same questions and doubts that
we find in THE Two Voices" "Confes-
sions of Sensitive Mind" and that are
set at rest in In Memoriam" In DE
spair," however, there is complete sur
render of faith in God and of hope in a
life beyond the grave. The past interests
it as study-as an artistic portrayal of a
certain phase of disbelieve-but we doubt
whether art can stand the strain of many
such studies.
In the present volume there is more
genuine humor than in all the previous
publications of the poet His disposition,
as reflected by his verse, seems to have
grown sweeter and more sweeter with the
flight of years. There are touches in "The
Spinster's Sweet Arts" that remind us of
| Cowper in his happiest mood; while in