Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-10-17
Found the shadows fair,
And shook to all the liberal air
The dust and dim and steam of town:


The dust and dim and steam of town:
here that he read the Tuscan poets; here
that he spent 'all golden afternoons. - and
marked 1.-The landscape winking through
! the heat. Many memories made the
place for the moment like Swallowed land,
and | seemed to move among world of
ghosts, and feel myself the shadow of a
dream"
| No one can have read TennysOn's poems
however slightly, without knowing how
| frequently references are made to the
| home Of his youth and the scenery by
which he was first surrounded. In in
Memoriam such illusions were, of course,
inevitable, and again, In TIE lode to
Memory, they could scarcely have been
omitted. In the Poems by Two Broth
ers, with which few people are familiar,
| the subjects are sometimes personal and
the scenes are often local.
There is a pretty poem called 1.-THE
Walk at Midnight usually ascribed, |
believe, to Alfred-which contains de-
| tailed description of the neighborhood. so
accurate and precise In fact, that think |
| found my way to each spot named and had
the views described. The opening of an
other poem, Midnight, is also sketch
of Lincolnshire country in the darkness.
| The brook-and a beautiful brook it is
cali be seen from the road slipping and
sliding between the ridges, and not far
away is philips Farm white, old
fashioned homestead, whereby the babbling
streamlet flows. The long white road, the
little road, the dry, dark void, the wild
and grassy plain-al the sights of Somers-
by are photographed in the poems.
With the description of the Moated
IL
like haunted place with its damp,
crumbling walls and dark, detected win n
dows, which Immediately associate them
No wonder that out of its black and
brooding shadows the poet wove drear
romance, that In its gloom and desolation
he found a suggestion of utter WEAKNESS
and sorrow, and that when the winds
stirred and the gray moon broke, the
phantom of forlOrn Mariana rose before
his eyes and her wailing voice was heard:
''He cometh not she said;
She said: II am aweary, aWeary,
would that were dead"
A heavy cloud doomed over the Grange
as | stood before it, and made its appear
ance more dark and forbidding Wither-
ed leaves were strewed about the grounds
IeUldlllS
OF the ancient fosse. The deathly stiffness
around added to the solemnity of the
| scene.
DR.. Tennyson's tombstone has a con-
spicuous place in the churchyard. but his
epitaph is scarcely decipherable. 1t simply
records that Rev. George Clayton Tennv-
| son, LII. D., eldest son of George Tenny-
son, Esq, of Bayons Manor, rector of
Somersby, Bay Enderby and Benniworth,
and Vicar of Great Grimsby, died March
Is. 1881, aged 50 years. 1t is believed by
some that an outline of his character is
given in The Village Wife, or, the En-
| tail, under the disguise of the Squire
| The cross which stands In front of the
church is rather remarkable, but of its his
| tory | could learn nothing. About a quar-
| ter of mile beyond the church lies Holy
well Glen, a name given by the monks to
| beautiful plantation, where, as Cowper
says meditation might think down hours
to moments. 1t is wonderful place As
| far as the eye can penetrate are trees; and
down below, issuing from a cavern
throat, is a thin, glistening stream.
its shallow bed half choked with dead and
rotten leaves. There is not moment
| silence. for the rocks have made Holywell
/ Glen their home; save from the 1utter of
wings, there Is no movement In the wood
but that of the ''runlet tinkling from the
rock. = The picture of Holywell Glen i'm
mediately suggests dream like Maud,
and it was such place that Julian and
| Camilla came holding converse sweet and
| low. The scene is so wild that it seems
as if the trees and rocks and land had, in
some far period of the world s history, been
whirled down by a hurricane and left thus
! IN ma ornl ficp11+ confusion While 7 was
standing in the very depths of the woods
the sky became overcast, and Immediately
all the elements of storm were in fercest
conflict The wind ragged, the trees shook
and groaned, scattered leaves whirled down,