Part 83 (2/2)

In the Idylls of the King, Tennyson, as you have already heard in Chapter IX, used the old story of Arthur. He used the old story, but he wove into it something new, for we are meant to see in his twelve tales of the round table an allegory. We are meant to see the struggle between what is base and what is n.o.ble in human nature. But this inner meaning is not always easy to follow, and we may cast the allegory aside, and still have left to us beautiful dream-like tales which carry us away into a strange wonderland. Like The Faery Queen, the Idylls of the King is full of pictures. Here we find a fairy city, towered and turreted, dark woods, wild wastes and swamps, slow gliding rivers all in a misty dreamland. And this dreamland is peopled by knights and ladies who move through it clad in radiant robes and glittering armor. Jewels and rich coloring gleam and glow to the eye, songs fall upon the ear. And over all rules the blameless King.

”And Arthur and his knighthood for a s.p.a.ce Were all one will, and thro' that strength the King Drew in the petty princedoms under him, Fought, and in twelve great battles overcame The heathen hordes, and made a realm and reign'd.”

One story of the Idylls I have already told you. Some day you will read the others, and learn for yourselves--

”This old imperfect tale, New-old, and shadowing Sense at war with Soul Rather than that gray King, whose name, a ghost, Streams like a cloud, man-shaped, from mountain peak, And cleaves to cairn and cromlech still; or him Of Geoffrey's book, or him of Malleor's.”

Tennyson led a peaceful, simple life. He made his home for the most part in the Isle of Wight. Here he lived quietly, surrounded by his family, but sought after by all the great people of his day. He refused a baronetcy, but at length in 1883 accepted a peerage and became Lord Tennyson, the first baron of his name. He was the first peer to receive the t.i.tle purely because of his literary work. And so with gathering honors and gathering years the poet lived and worked, a splendid old man.

Then at the goodly age of eighty-four he died in the autumn of 1892.

He was buried in Westminster, not far from Chaucer, and as he was laid among the mighty dead the choir sang Crossing the Bar, one of his latest and most beautiful poems.

”Sunset and evening star, And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar, When I put out to sea,

”But such a tide as moving seems asleep, Too full for sound and foam, When that which drew from out the boundless deep Turns again home.

”Twilight and evening bell, And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell, When I embark;

”For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place The flood may bear me far, I hope to see my Pilot face to face When I have crost the bar.”

With Tennyson I end my book, because my design was not to give you a history of our literature as it is now, so much as to show you how it grew to be what it is. In the beginning of this book I took the Arthur story as a pattern or type of how a story grew, showing how it pa.s.sed through many stages, in each stage gaining something of beauty and of breadth. In the same way I have tried to show how from a rough foundation of minstrel tales and monkish legends the great palace of our literature has slowly risen to be a glorious house of song. It is only an outline that I have given you. There are some great names that demand our reverence, many that call for our love, for whom no room has been found in this book. For our literature is so great a thing that no one book can compa.s.s it, no young brain comprehend it. But if I have awakened in you a desire to know more of our literature, a desire to fill in and color for yourselves this outline picture, I shall be well repaid, and have succeeded in what I aimed at doing. If I have helped you to see that Literature need be no dreary lesson I shall be more than repaid.

”They use me as a lesson-book at schools,” said Tennyson, ”and they will call me 'that horrible Tennyson.'” I should like to think that the time is coming when schoolgirls and schoolboys will say, ”We have Tennyson for a school-book. How nice.” I should like to think that they will say this not only of Tennyson, but of many other of our great writers whose very names come as rest and refreshment to those of us who have learned to love them.

BOOK TO READ

Tennyson for the Young, Alfred Ainger.

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