Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1892-10-13


with light Tennyson watched it through
the curtainless window with his hand rest
ing between the leaves of "Cymbeline.
At 1920 O'Clock he was sinking fast.
Hallam Tennyson gave him a few spoon
fuls of brandy and milk. He swallowed
with difficulty and was unable to take
further nourishment. At midnight he
whispered very feebly his last words to his
wife. His finger still marked the passages
of "Cymbeline" which he had last read,
and thus he died.
'In all my experience" said Sir Andrew
Clark, 81 never witnessed anything more
glorious. There were no artificial lights in
the chamber. All was darkness except for
the silver light of the full moon, which fell
upon the bed and played upon the features
of the dying poet like the halo in Rem
brandt picture"
Lord Tennyson's Career.
"There is a place called Somerby in Lin
colnshire, where an old white rectory stands
on the slope of hill, and the winding
lanes are shadowed by tall ash and elm
trees, and where two brooks meet at the
bottom of the glebe field. The
wind that goes blowing where it listeth
once in the early beginning of this century
came sweeping through the garden of this
old Lincolnshire rectory, and as the wind
blew, sturdy child of five years old, with
shining locks, stood opening his arms upon
the blast and letting himself be blown
along, and as he travelled on he made his
first line of poetry, and said, 4 hear a voice
that's speaking in the wind, and he tossed
his arms, and the gust whirled on, sweep
ing into the great abyss of winds"
In such poetic fashion does Anne T.
Richie, in an article written half a dozen
years ago in Harper's, refer to the child
hood of the poet laureate, Alfred Tennyson,
the germ of fancy flashing from within
him at this tender age. 1t was at this
Somerby, where his father officiated as
clergyman of the Church of England, that
Tennyson was born in 1909. Here in the
quiet of country place-and there was
then nothing but the numbering English
coach to connect it with the outer world
the child grew up.
His First Poem.
1t was quite natural that the dainty bits
of English scenery should have been in
delibly impressed upon Tennyson's mind,
and that throughout long life devoted to
the poetic art he should have painted them
in so many charming word pictures.
Tennyson's first written poem was, 1t is
said, on the flowers in the garden, and the
first money he ever received for a poem
was for an elegy on his grandmother. The
price for his production was ten shillings,
given him by his grandfather. Thomson
was then favorite poet and the boy mod
eled his first verses upon "The Seasons;"
but Byron was the great rising luminary,
and the youngster, who had not yet gone
so far as to write in a style of his own, left
off copying Thomson and began to copy
Byron. When Byron died Tennyson was
yet only fifteen years old, and it is not ap
parent that the younger bard ever ad
mired any other poet so much as to initiate
him; besides he was growing into his 'owr
individuality.
At twenty he gained n prize at Cambridg
for poem called "Timbuctoo." With som
trifing exceptions he published nothing
until he came of age, in 1880, when he go
out volume of "Poems, Chiefly Lyrical.
They did not cause his countrymen to re
gard him as great poet. Tennyson wa
thirty three years old and had written con