Stockton Herald, South Durham and Cleveland Advertiser. — 1881-11-05 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

TENNYSON'S NEW POEM "DESPAIR :A DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE." The Poet Laureate contributes a fine'pocm to the current number of the Nineteenth Century which certainly suatains his great reputation. Mr Tenoyson briefly describes the task he has set himself in a few preliminary words of prose. "DiarAlß :A DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE," "A man and his wife having lost faith in a God and hope of a life to come, and being utterly miserable in this world, resolve to end themselves by drowning. The woman is drowned, but the man is rescued by a minister of the sect he had abandoned." Mr Tennyson has therefore imagined an extremely powerful situation, and he daul, with it with rare tragio strength. The poem opens thus : Is it you that presch'd in the chapel there looking over the baud? Follow'd us, too, that night and dogg'd us, and drew me to land? What did I feel that night? You are curious; how should I tell? Does it matter BO much what I felt? Yon retctied me—yet, was it well That you came now iidied for, uncall'd, between rue and the deep and my doom, Three days eilace, three more dark days of the godless gloom Of a life without Sun, without health, with. out hope, without any delight, In anything here upon the earth? But. eh, God I that night, that night. When the rolling eyes of the lighthouse there on the fatal neck Of land runnine out into rook—they hat saved many hundreds from wreck— Glared on our way towards death. Ireniern ter I thought as we past, Does it matter how many they saved ?—wa are ail of us wrecked at last. Do you fear? And there came through the roar of the breaker a whisper, a breath, Fear? Am I not with you? I'm frightentd • life, not death. The would-be suicide goes on to rail at be lief, and then launches into a striking de scription of his own and his wife's attempt t. 4 compel death, the general power of which is only surpassed by the pathos of the closint lines. Nay, hut I am not claiming your pity; know you of old— Small pity for those that have ranged from the narrow warmth of your fold, Where you bawl'il tberlark side of your faith and a God of eternal rage; Till you thing us back on ourselves and the human heart and the age. But pity—the pagan held it a vice—was in tier and in me. Helpless, taking the place of the pitying God that should be! Pity for all that aches in the grasp of at, idiot power; And pity for our own selves on earth that bare not a flower— Ptyforallthatauff,ronland or in air es the deep, And pity for oar own selves, till we long'd fot eternal sleep. Lightly step over the sands I The waters— you hear them call I Life, with its anguish and horrors and errors—away with it all 1 And she laid bet hand in my own—she was always loyal and sweet— Till the points of the foam in the dusk came playing about our feet. There was a strong sea current would sweep WI out to the main. Ah, God! though I felt as I spoke I was taking the name in vain— Ah, God! and we turned to each other, we kise'd, we embraced, she and I, Knowing the love we were used to believe everlasting would die. We had read their know-nothing Woks, and we leaned to the darker side— Ati, God I should we find Hon f —perhaps, perhaps if we died, if we died; We never had found Him on earth; this earth is a fatherless hell— Dear love, for ever and ever, for ever and ever farewell ; Never a cry so desolate, not since the world began Never a kiss so sad, no, not since the coming of ma::! Mere is the COMBO of the hapless parent's misery : Why should I live? One son had forged on his father and fled, And if I believed in a God, I would thank Him the other is dead. And there was • baby girl that had nevet ' look'd on the light, Happiest she of us all, for she pass'd from the night to night. But the crime, ifs crime, of her eldest born —her glory, her boast— Struck bard at the tender heart of the mother, and broke it almost. Though Bailie and fame, dying out for ever in endless time, Does it matter o much whether crown'd for a vir; ue or hang'd for a (rime? And ruin'd by him, by him I stood there, naked, amazed, In a world of arrogant opulence, fear'd myself turning crazed. And I would not he mock'd in ii, mad-house I and she, the &beam wife, With a grief that could only be cured if oared by the surgeon's knife. Why should we hear with an hoar of torture, a moment of pain? If every man die for every fall his griefs are in vain; And the homeless planet at length will be wheel'd through the silence of imam Motherless, evermore, of an ever-vanishing race, When the worm shall have writhed its last, stud its last brother worm shall have fled From the dead fossil skull that is left in the rocks of an earth that is dead? Have I crazed myself over their horrible infile! writings? Oh, yes. For these are the new dark ages, you see, of the popular press, When the bat comes out of his cave, and the owls are whooping at noos, And doubt is the L',rd of this dung-bill, and Grows to the sun and the moon, Till the son and tho moon of our science are both of them turned izto blood, And hope will have broken her heart run. ning after a shadow of good; For their knowing and know-nothing book. are scattered from band to hand— We have knelt in your know-all chapel, too, looking over the sand  " •TH /N 11114 PuT."—The Chinese bestow grzat labcur in/acing the Teas intended for use iu this country, and it this" beautifying was really harmless few would complain, but consumers &weld kuo s that this so ensile 1" fixing" consists of mineral powcse,Pruelan blue (ca poi-ten gyps rn pluinbaso, &c,; it 0. Shun the old worthless leaves so iii.ettised are pa med off and sold to the English as beat tea, it most peinieinue rtem, .erim,i.ly affecting both health and poaket. Nor 411 years florniman's Pure Tea has commanded a pre feretice because it is strong, delicious, and guaranteed fro., front all mineral facing. Supplied in Packets only, by duly appointed Agents. Chemists, dce , llornitusn's Agents.—Middlesbrough: Middleton, 13, Cleveland-terrace; Taylor, Linthorpe-road; Rail, Marton-road. Stockton: Clarke, chemist; 'Pkksrsgill, oonfectioner. South Stockton : Stone. house, chemist. Stokesley : Scotaon, bookseller. Itedcar: Cooke,chemist. Sattbarn: Taylor, chemist Skelton: Ellis, chemist. North Orinesby: Ora). stationer. 'Whitby: Brooks chemist 653 I KAY'S lIN sEED