Tennysoniana/Chapter 7
CHAPTER VII.
THE ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON, AND OTHER PATRIOTIC POEMS.
On the death of Wordsworth,[1] Tennyson was appointed Poet Laureate. On 6th March, 1851, at the Queen's Levee at Buckingham Palace, we read that "Mr. Alfred Tennyson was presented, on his appointment to be Poet Laureate."[2]
Tennyson has infused new life and meaning into an office which had fallen into sad disrepute through the feeble inanities of Cibber, Whitehead, and Pye, and the turncoat servility of Southey. To Wordsworth, who had worn the laurel as an octogenarian for the short term of seven years, it had merely been, save on one occasion only, an honourable sinecure, though his name had in some degree helped to rescue the office from contempt. But Tennyson has not made the post a sinecure in his case. While eschewing Birthday Odes, and the like, he has, as we shall see, on various national occasions, produced a series of noble patriotic poems, in his capacity of Laureate, which have given a new significance to the office; while the spectacle of a Court leading a beautiful and pure family life, and setting a bright example to all the families of the nation, has given him opportunity for exercising it without suspicion of adulation or insincerity.
In March, 1851, appeared the seventh edition of the "Poems," with an address "To the Queen," from which in subsequent editions, the stanza relating to the Crystal Palace was removed:
When Europe and the scatter'd ends
Of our fierce world did meet as friends
And brethren, in her halls of glass."
Shortly after the French coup d'état of December, 1851, Mr. Tennyson's voice, under the Arthurian pseudonym of "Merlin," was heard to give no uncertain sound in three stirring patriotic lyrics, printed in the pages of "The Examiner," viz.:
"Britons, guard your own." " Examiner," Jan. 31, 1852.
| "The Third of February, 1852," | "Examiner," Feb. 7, 1852. | |
| "Hands all Round," |
His views respecting the character and conduct of the late "Emperor of the French," were, like those which Mr. Carlyle, Mr. Emerson, and Mr. Swinburne have always entertained and expressed, decidedly adverse and even abhorrent. The ring of these "Examiner" poems greatly resembled that of the war lyrics and war passages in the "Maud" volume published three years later. But it is presumable that in view of the alliance between England and France in the Crimean War, Mr. Tennyson, in his capacity of Poet Laureate, considered it at that time inexpedient to claim the authorship of them. The recent course of events in France has gone far, doubtless, to remove this scruple, and also to justify the strong utterances Mr. Tennyson delivered himself of in 1852. At any rate, in the third volume of the Library Edition of his Collected Works (published in the spring of 1872) Mr. Tennyson saw fit to reprint at last the second of the three pieces we have enumerated—"The Third of February, 1852," which refers to the famous debate held in the House of Lords on that evening, when the Peers advocated what the poet considered a pusillanimous and time-serving policy in regard to the then ruler of France. This acknowledgment and inclusion into the body of his works of the second of these three remarkable poems, places the authorship of the other two beyond all doubt, could any doubt have existed before on the subject.
"Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington. By Alfred Tennyson, Poet Laureate. London: Edward Moxon, 1852."
This noble poem, the first draught of which was written probably in some haste, and was originally published on the day of the Duke's funeral, has since been subjected to more than the usual amount of alteration.
The first edition contained five lines omitted in all subsequent editions:
Perchance our greatness will increase;
Perchance a darkening future yields
Some reverse from worse to worse,
The blood of men in quiet fields,
And sprinkled on the sheaves of peace."
A second edition appeared in 1853, considerably altered, and the poem was still further retouched, when it appeared in the "Maud" volume in 1855-56. Take one example:
1852.
Let the sound of those he wrought for,
And the feet of those he fought for,
Echo round his bones for evermore."
1853.
He died on Walmer's lonely shore.[3]
But here, in streaming London's central roar,
Let the sound," &c.
"The Charge of the Light Brigade." Of this poem there are three distinct versions.
It first appeared in the "Examiner" of Saturday, December 9, 1854.[4]
It was next printed, with considerable alterations, in the "Maud" volume, in the summer of 1855.
A month or two later the third and final version[5] appeared on a quarto sheet of four pages, with the following note at the bottom:—
"Having heard that the brave soldiers before Sebastopol, whom I am proud to call my countrymen, have a liking for my Ballad on the Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava, I have ordered a thousand copies of it to be printed for them. No writing of mine can add to the glory they have acquired in the Crimea; but if what I have heard be true, they will not be displeased to receive these copies of the Ballad from me, and to know that those who sit at home love and honour them.
"Alfred Tennyson.
"8th August, 1855."
On the occasion of the marriage of the Princess Royal (January 25, 1858) Mr. Tennyson wrote two additional verses to the National Anthem, which appeared in all the newspapers on the following day.
In the "Times" of Monday, May 9, 1859, appeared the famous stanzas, there headed "The War," but better known under the title of "Riflemen form!" bearing the signature of T., which have always been attributed to Mr. Tennyson, though never acknowledged by him. The Poet's interest in the Volunteer Movement has more recently been evinced by his letter to the late Colonel Richards, who claimed to be considered as its chief originator:
"Farringford, Freshwater,
"Isle of Wight, April 19, 1867.
"I most heartily congratulate you on your having been able to do so much for your country; and I hope that you will not cease from your labours until it is the law of the land that every man child in it shall be trained to the use of arms.
"I have the honour to he yours faithfully,
"A. Tennyson."
The Dedication of the "Idylls of the King" to the Memory of the late Prince Consort, was added in the new edition of 1862.
"The Exhibition Ode" (May the First, 1862).[6] "Times," April 24,[7] and July 14th; printed both times incorrectly and with omissions. A correct copy was given in "Fraser's Magazine" for June, 1862, and it has lately been included by the Poet in the collected editions of his Works. On July 14, 1862, there appeared in the "Times" a Greek translation of this Ode, signed W. G. C. [the late William George Clark?], and on July 18, a translation into Latin verse, signed W.
The "Welcome to Alexandra" appeared separately on the 10th March, 1863, under the title of "A Welcome. By Alfred Tennyson, D.C.L., Poet Laureate," pp. 4.[8] It has since been considerably retouched and some new lines have been added.
"Epitaph on the late Duchess of Kent." The following lines were inscribed on Mr Theed's Statue of the late Duchess of Kent, at Frogmore, and are printed in the "Court Journal," March 19, 1864:
"Her children rise up and call her blessed."
Thy child will bless thee, guardian mother mild,
And far away thy memory will be blest
By children of the children of thy child."[9]
Mr. Tennyson's latest Laureate utterances are the magnificent peroration to the complete "Idylls of the King," addressed to the Queen, and containing among other things a touching and solemn allusion to the then recent recovery of the Prince of Wales from his dangerous and almost hopeless illness, and some lines of welcome to Marie Alexandrovna, the bride of the Duke of Edinburgh.
Though living in retirement, Tennyson watches the events of his time with a vivid interest. He has always been ready to lend his voice and his aid to any noble cause. Though as a rule he has abstained from using his great influence to direct the course of public affairs, he has not hesitated once and again to break silence, and announce his opinion with no uncertain sound when occasion seemed to demand it. He has been a hearty and consistent supporter of free-trade and of religious freedom. When Messrs. Parker and Son addressed their "Bookselling Question" in 1852 to all the principal authors of the day, Alfred Tennyson replied: "I am for free-trade in the bookselling question, as in other things."[10] He was a subscriber, together with Mr. Carlyle and Mr. Ruskin, to the Eyre Defence Fund, to the secretary of which he wrote as follows:
"I sent my small subscription as a tribute to the nobleness of the man, and as a protest against the spirit in which a servant of the State, who has saved to us one of the islands of the Empire, and many English lives, seems to be hunted down. . . . In the meantime, the outbreak of our Indian mutiny remains as a warning to all but madmen against want of vigour and swift decisiveness."[11]
No words could more fittingly close a chapter devoted to the consideration of Alfred Tennyson as a Patriotic Poet.
- ↑ April 23rd, 1850. This date renders it impossible that Tennyson can be the author of the Farewell Lines to Lord Denman, "recited by the Poet Laureate," on the 2nd April, 1850 ("Addresses to Lord Denman," pp. 69-71), which some have attributed to him; while it is equally difficult to suppose that Wordsworth, in his eightieth year, and only three weeks before his death, should have come up from Westmoreland to Kingston-on-Thames to recite them. Internal evidence is alone sufficient to disprove them to be the production of either.
- ↑ "Household Narrative," 1851, p. 65. Respecting the dress worn by the poet on this occasion, see Tom Taylor's Life of Haydon (London, 1853), vol. iii. p. 279.
- ↑ This line only occurs in the edition of 1853.
- ↑ With the following note:
"Written after reading the first report of the 'Times' correspondent, where only 607 sabres are mentioned as having taken part in the charge." - ↑ This is the version which appears at the end of the second edition of the "Maud" volume (1856); and in all subsequent editions.
- ↑ Quoting the latter line, the late Lord Lytton took occasion to make a very graceful amende honorable for his former attack, when he said publicly, "We must comfort ourselves with the thought, so exquisitely expressed by our Poet Laureate, that the Prince we lament is still"Thou noble Father of her kings to be."
Dedication to "Idylls of the King.""O silent father of our Kings to be."
Exhibition Ode.'The silent father of our kings to be.'"
Speech at Hertford, October 9, 1862. - ↑ A ludicrous misprint in the Ode as it appeared in this day's "Times," copied with amazing stolidity into all the other newspapers, called forth the following letter from the poet himself:—
"To the Editor of the Times.
"Sir, There are two errors in my Ode as it appears in your columns of the 24th.
"In the second line 'invention' should be read, not 'inventions;' and, further on, 'Art divine,' not 'Part divine.' Be kind enough to insert this letter."A. Tennyson.
"April 25."
- ↑ "As for the Laureate's verses, I would respectfully liken his Highness to a giant showing a beacon torch on a 'windy headland.' His flaring torch is a pine-tree, to be sure, which nobody can wield but himself. He waves it: and four times in the midnight he shouts mightily 'Alexandra!' and the Pontic pine is whirled into the ocean, and Enceladus goes home."—W. M. Thackeray (On Alexandrines, Cornhill Magazine," April, 1863).
- ↑ Compare the poem "To the Queen" (1851):"May children of her children say
She wrought her people lasting good." - ↑ "The Opinions of Certain Authors on the Bookselling Question" (London: John W. Parker and Son, 1852), p. 61.
- ↑ "Life of Edward John Eyre, late Governor of Jamaica," by Hamilton Hume (London, 1867), p. 291.