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    The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson - Volume III: "Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."
    The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson - Volume III: "Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."
    The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson - Volume III: "Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."
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    The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson - Volume III: "Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."

    By Lord Alfred Tennyson

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    Alfred Tennyson was born on August 6th, 1809, in Somersby, Lincolnshire, the fourth of twelve children. Most of Tennyson's early education was under the direction of his father, although he did spend four unhappy years at a nearby grammar school. He left home in 1827 to join his elder brothers at Trinity College, Cambridge, more to escape his father than a desire for serious academic work. At Trinity he was living for the first time among young men of his own age who knew little of his problems. He was delighted to make new friends; he was handsome, intelligent, humorous, a gifted impersonator and soon at the center of those interested in poetry and conversation. That same year, he and his brother Charles published Poems by Two Brothers. Although the poems in the book were of teenage quality, they attracted the attention of the “Apostles," a select undergraduate literary club led by Arthur Hallam. The “Apostles” provided Tennyson with friendship and confidence. Hallam and Tennyson became the best of friends; they toured Europe together in 1830 and again in 1832. Hallam’s sudden death in 1833 greatly affected the young poet. The long elegy In Memoriam and many of Tennyson’s other poems are tributes to Hallam. In 1830, Tennyson published Poems, Chiefly Lyrical and in 1832 he published a second volume entitled simply Poems. Some reviewers condemned these books as “affected” and “obscure.” Tennyson, stung by the reviews, would not publish another book for nine years. In 1836, he became engaged to Emily Sellwood. When he lost his inheritance on a failed investment in 1840, the engagement was cancelled. In 1842, however, Tennyson’s Poems [in two volumes] was a tremendous critical and popular success. In 1850, with the publication of In Memoriam, Tennyson’s reputation was pre-eminent. He was also selected as Poet Laureate in succession to Wordsworth and, to complete a wonderful year, he married Emily Sellwood. At the age of 41, Tennyson had established himself as the most popular poet of the Victorian era. The money from his poetry [at times exceeding 10,000 pounds per year] allowed him to purchase a home in the country and to write in relative seclusion. His appearance—a large and bearded man, he regularly wore a cloak and a broad brimmed hat—enhanced his notoriety. In 1859, Tennyson published the first poems of Idylls of the Kings, which sold more than 10,000 copies in a fortnight. In 1884, he accepted a peerage, becoming Alfred Lord Tennyson. On October 6th, 1892, an hour or so after midnight, surrounded by his family, he died at Aldworth. It is said that the moonlight was streaming through the window and Tennyson himself was holding open a volume of Shakespeare. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPortable Poetry
    Release dateMar 1, 2017
    ISBN9781785438622
    The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson - Volume III: "Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."
    Author

    Lord Alfred Tennyson

    Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) was a British poet. Born into a middle-class family in Somersby, England, Tennyson began writing poems with his brothers as a teenager. In 1827, he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, joining a secret society known as the Cambridge Apostles and publishing his first book of poems, a collection of juvenile verse written by Tennyson and his brother Charles. He was awarded the Chancellor’s Gold Medal in 1829 for his poem “Timbuktu” and, in 1830, published Poems Chiefly Lyrical, his debut individual collection. Following the death of his father in 1831, Tennyson withdrew from Cambridge to care for his family. His second volume of poems, The Lady of Shalott (1833), was a critical and commercial failure that put his career on hold for the next decade. That same year, Tennyson’s friend Arthur Hallam died from a stroke while on holiday in Vienna, an event that shook the young poet and formed the inspiration for his masterpiece, In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850). The poem, a long sequence of elegiac lyrics exploring themes of loss and mourning, helped secure Tennyson the position of Poet Laureate, to which he was appointed in 1850 following the death of William Wordsworth. Tennyson would hold the position until the end of his life, making his the longest tenure in British history. With most of his best work behind him, Tennyson continued to write and publish poems, many of which adhered to the requirements of his position by focusing on political and historical themes relevant to the British royal family and peerage. An important bridge between Romanticism and the Pre-Raphaelites, Tennyson remains one of Britain’s most popular and influential poets.

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      The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson - Volume III - Lord Alfred Tennyson

      The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson

      Volume III of III

      Alfred Tennyson was born on August 6th, 1809, in Somersby, Lincolnshire, the fourth of twelve children.

      Most of Tennyson's early education was under the direction of his father, although he did spend four unhappy years at a nearby grammar school. He left home in 1827 to join his elder brothers at Trinity College, Cambridge, more to escape his father than a desire for serious academic work. At Trinity he was living for the first time among young men of his own age who knew little of his problems. He was delighted to make new friends; he was handsome, intelligent, humorous, a gifted impersonator and soon at the center of those interested in poetry and conversation.

      That same year, he and his brother Charles published Poems by Two Brothers. Although the poems in the book were of teenage quality, they attracted the attention of the Apostles, a select undergraduate literary club led by Arthur Hallam. The Apostles provided Tennyson with friendship and confidence. Hallam and Tennyson became the best of friends; they toured Europe together in 1830 and again in 1832. Hallam’s sudden death in 1833 greatly affected the young poet. The long elegy In Memoriam and many of Tennyson’s other poems are tributes to Hallam.

      In 1830, Tennyson published Poems, Chiefly Lyrical and in 1832 he published a second volume entitled simply Poems. Some reviewers condemned these books as affected and obscure. Tennyson, stung by the reviews, would not publish another book for nine years.

      In 1836, he became engaged to Emily Sellwood. When he lost his inheritance on a failed investment in 1840, the engagement was cancelled.

      In 1842, however, Tennyson’s Poems (in two volumes) was a tremendous critical and popular success. In 1850, with the publication of In Memoriam, Tennyson’s reputation was pre-eminent. He was also selected as Poet Laureate in succession to Wordsworth and, to complete a wonderful year, he married Emily Sellwood.

      At the age of 41, Tennyson had established himself as the most popular poet of the Victorian era. The money from his poetry (at times exceeding 10,000 pounds per year) allowed him to purchase a home in the country and to write in relative seclusion. His appearance—a large and bearded man, he regularly wore a cloak and a broad brimmed hat—enhanced his notoriety. 

      In 1859, Tennyson published the first poems of Idylls of the Kings, which sold more than 10,000 copies in a fortnight. In 1884, he accepted a peerage, becoming Alfred Lord Tennyson.

      On October 6th, 1892, an hour or so after midnight, surrounded by his family, he died at Aldworth.  It is said that the moonlight was streaming through the window and Tennyson himself was holding open a volume of Shakespeare.

      He was buried in Westminster Abbey.

      Index of Contents

      Locksley Hall

      Godiva

      The Two Voices

      The Day-Dream:―Prologue

      The Sleeping Palace

      The Sleeping Beauty

      The Arrival

      The Revival

      The Departure

      Moral

      L'Envoi

      Epilogue

      Amphion

      St. Agnes

      Sir Galahad

      Edward Gray

      Will Waterproofs Lyrical Monologue

      To―, after reading a Life and Letters

      To E.L., on his Travels in Greece

      Lady Clare

      The Lord of Burleigh

      Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere: A Fragment

      A Farewell

      The Beggar Maid

      The Vision of Sin

      Come not, when I am dead

      The Eagle

      Move eastward, happy earth, and leave

      Break, break, break

      The Poet's Song

      THE SUPPRESSED POEMS

      Elegiacs

      The How and the Why

      Supposed Confessions

      The Burial of Love

      To―(Sainted Juliet! dearest name !)

      Song (I' the glooming light)

      Song (The lintwhite and the throstlecock)

      Song (Every day hath its night)

      Nothing will Die

      All Things will Die

      Hero to Leander

      The Mystic

      The Grasshopper

      Love, Pride and Forgetfulness

      Chorus (The varied earth, the moving heaven)

      Lost Hope

      The Tears of Heaven

      Love and Sorrow

      To a Lady Sleeping

      Sonnet (Could I outwear my present state of woe)

      Sonnet (Though Night hath climbed her peak of highest noon)

      Sonnet (Shall the hag Evil die with child of Good)

      Sonnet (The pallid thunderstricken sigh for gain)

      Love

      The Kraken

      English War Song

      National Song

      Dualisms

      We are Free

      Mine be the strength of spirit, full and free

      To―("All good things have not kept aloof)

      Buonaparte

      Sonnet (Oh, Beauty, passing beauty! sweetest Sweet!)

      The Hesperides

      Song (The golden apple, the golden apple, the hallowed fruit)

      Rosalind

      Song (Who can say)

      Kate

      Sonnet (Blow ye the trumpet, gather from afar)

      Poland

      To―(As when with downcast eyes we muse and brood)

      O Darling Room

      To Christopher North

      The Skipping Rope

      Timbuctoo

      Alfred Lord Tennyson – A Short Biography

      Alfred Lord Tennyson – A Concise Bibliography

      LOCKSLEY HALL

      First published in 1842, and no alterations were made in it subsequently to the edition of 1850; except that in the Selections published in 1865 in the third stanza the reading was half in ruin for in the distance. This poem, as Tennyson explained, was not autobiographic but purely imaginary, representing young life, its good side, its deficiences and its yearnings. The poem, he added, was written in Trochaics because the elder Hallam told him that the English people liked that metre. The hero is a sort of preliminary sketch of the hero in 'Maud', the position and character of each being very similar: both are cynical and querulous, and break out into tirades against their kind and society; both have been disappointed in love, and both find the same remedy for their afflictions by mixing themselves with action and becoming one with their kind.

      Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet 'tis early morn:

      Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle horn.

      'Tis the place, and all around it, as of old, the curlews call,

      Dreary gleams about the moorland flying over Locksley Hall;

      Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts,

      And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts.

      Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest,

      Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West.

      Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow shade,

      Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid.

      Here about the beach I wander'd, nourishing a youth sublime

      With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of Time;

      When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed;

      When I clung to all the present for the promise that it closed:

      When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see;

      Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be.―

      In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast;

      In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest;

      In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove;

      In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.

      Then her cheek was pale and thinner than should be for one so young,

      And her eyes on all my motions with a mute observance hung.

      And I said, "My cousin Amy, speak, and speak the truth to me,

      Trust me, cousin, all the current of my being sets to thee."

      On her pallid cheek and forehead came a colour and a light,

      As I have seen the rosy red flushing in the northern night.

      And she turn'd―her bosom shaken with a sudden storm of sighs―

      All the spirit deeply dawning in the dark of hazel eyes―

      Saying, I have hid my feelings, fearing they should do me wrong;

      Saying, Dost thou love me, cousin? weeping, I have loved thee long.

      Love took up the glass of Time, and turn'd it in his glowing hands;

      Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands.

      Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might;

      Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of sight.

      Many a morning on the moorland did we hear the copses ring,

      And her whisper throng'd my pulses with the fulness of the Spring.

      Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately ships,

      And our spirits rush'd together at the touching of the lips.

      O my cousin, shallow-hearted! O my Amy, mine no more!

      O the dreary, dreary moorland! O the barren, barren shore!

      Falser than all fancy fathoms, falser than all songs have sung,

      Puppet to a father's threat, and servile to a shrewish tongue!

      Is it well to wish thee happy?―having known me―to decline

      On a range of lower feelings and a narrower heart than mine!

      Yet it shall be: thou shalt lower to his level day by day,

      What is fine within thee growing coarse to sympathise with clay.

      As the husband is, the wife is: thou art mated with a clown,

      And the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down.

      He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force,

      Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse.

      What is this? his

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