30 The light retreated, The landskip darken'd, The melody deaden'd, The Master whisper'd "Follow The Gleam." IV 35 Then to the melody, Gliding, and glancing at 40 Griffin and Giant, And dancing of Fairies In desolate hollows, And wraiths of the mountain, And rolling of dragons 45 By warble of water, Of falling torrents, V Down from the mountain 50 And over the level, And streaming and shining on Silent river, Silvery willow, Pasture and plowland, 55 Horses and oxen, Innocent maidens, Garrulous children, Homestead and harvest, Reaper and gleaner, 60 And rough-ruddy faces Of lowly labour, Slided The Gleam. VI Then with a melody Stronger and statelier, 65 Led me at length To the city and palace VII Clouds and darkness I knew not whither, 80 The king who loved me, And cannot die; For out of the darkness Silent and slowly The Gleam, that had waned to a wintry glimmer 85 On icy fallow And faded forest, Drew to the valley Named of the shadow, And slowly brightening 90 Out of the glimmer, And slowly moving again to a melody Fell on the shadow, No longer a shadow, 95 But clothed with The Gleam. VIII And broader and brighter The Gleam flying onward, Wed to the melody, Sang thro' the world; 100 And slower and fainter, Old and weary, But eager to follow, In passing it glanced upon 105 Hamlet or city, That under the Crosses The dead man's garden, The mortal hillock, Would break into blossom; IIO And so to the land's Last limit I came And can no longer, For thro' the Magic 115 Of Him the Mighty, Who taught me in childhood, There on the border Of boundless Ocean, 120 Hovers The Gleam. IX Not of the sunlight, 130 Over the margin, After it, follow it, Follow The Gleam. Consult "Memoirs " I. Preface, 12-15, for a running commentary on autobiographical elements in this poem. When was this poem written? See "Memoirs" II. 366. (11) In “ Merlin and Vivien,” it was Bleys who taught magic to Merlin, who speedily outran his master in the art. (35-48) Here is the callow poetry of Tennyson colouring nature with the tinge of passing moods by which it ascends the first mountain peak of his art. (49-62) Fantastic imagery and mountain scenery make poetry, but Tennyson realises that his art has a plateau level, where may be pictured the pastoral that touches the lives of English peasants. (62-75) With maturity of expression which comes from a man in his prime, Tennyson writes with all the light of the gleam about Arthur in Camelot, "the city of shadowy palaces." Describe Camelot as it appears in "Gareth and Lynette"; the palace, in the "Holy Grail"; and Arthur as presented in "The Coming of Arthur," where a momentary likeness of himself flashed about his order. (76-78) Arthur H. Hallam and King Arthur are here united. (79-81) Cf. "Morte d'Arthur," 295298: ". . . and all the people cried, 'Arthur is come again: he cannot die.' Then those that stood upon the hills behind Come again, and thrice as fair."" (93-95) "In Memoriam," XXII: 66 ... somewhere in the waste The Shadow sits and waits for me." (96-109) Without premature methodisation in arrangement of knightly panoply, Tennyson tilted with his sharp lance of faith and hit the shadow that ceased to be a shadow when he finished writing his "In Memoriam." All of his subsequent poetry breathes with the spirit of his immortal elegy; death fascinates him to the last, and here the grave is lit, “Would break into blossom," by the gleam of a reachable ideal. (110-111) "And so to the land's Last limit I came." He has followed ideal poetry through wilderness, across valley, up mountain, down pastoral levels, to the city built to music and therefore never built at all, from the Arthurian palace without its King to hamlet and city, from their dead to the land's last limit, where lies “the farrolling westward-smiling seas," to where the Gleam beckons as it did to the blameless King. In October, 1892, Tennyson passed to where, beyond these voices (raven-croaks) in the city built forever, he secured Coleridge's Abyssinian maid's symphony and Poe's Israfelic fire, — the perfect adaption of poetic imagination to metre, "The Gleam," the ideal lyrical gift. This poem is cast in what metre? CROSSING THE BAR 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, 5 But such a tide as moving seems asleep, ΙΟ 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, 15 I hope to see my Pilot face to face When I have crost the bar. |