15 DECEMBER 1832, Page 18

TtNNYSON . It IT does not appear to us, from a very

attentive- perusal of this volume, that Mr. TENNYSON has either consulted his fame by its publication, or at all approached the beauties of his first pro- duction. His general excellence lies in a sort of richness of words, joined with a minute taste for natural sounds and sights)— those, too, rather felt through the poetry of others, than his own senses ; but this volume seems but the echo of his finmer self, and that faint. We will quote the poem that seems most on au equality with the former ones.

ELEANOICE.

Thy dark eyes opened not—. Nor first revealed themselves to English air; For there is nothing here, Which, from the outward to the inward brought, Moulded thy baby thought. Far of from human neighbourhood,

Thou wert born, on a summer morn,

A mile beneath the cedarwood.

Thy bounteous forehead was not fanned

With breezes from our oaken glades,

But thou wert nursed in some delicious land Of lavish lights and floating shades And flattering thy childish thought, The oriental fairy brought, At the moment of thy birth, From old wellheads of haunted rills, And the hearts of purple hills,

And shadowed coves on a sunny shore,-

The choicest wealth of all the earth, Jewel or shell, or starry ore, To deck thy cradle, El;:anore.

Or the vellow-banded bees, Through half-open lattices Corning in the scented breeze, Fed thee, a child, lying alone,

With whitest honey in fairy gardens culled—

A glorious child,,dreamiter done,

To ,ilk-salt folds, upon yh.dding down,

With the hum of swarming bees, Into dreamful slumber lulled.

Who may minister to thee? Summer herself should minister To thee with fruitage goldee-rinded On golden salvers, or it may be, Youngest Autumn, in a bower Grape-thickened from the light, and blinded

With many a deep-hued bell-like flower

Of fragrant trailers, When the air Sleepeth over all the heaven, And the crag that fronts the Even, All along the shadowing shore, Crimsons over an inland sneer, Eleilnore !

How may full-sailed verse express, How may measured words adore The full-floWing harniony Of thy swanlike stateliness, Eleanore ?

The luxuriant symmetry Of thy floating gracefulness,

-Eleanore?

Every turn and glance of thine,

Every lineament divine, Eleanore, And the steady sunset glow,

That stave upon thee ? Fe in thee

Is nothing sudden, nothing single ; Like two streams of incense free From one censer, in one shrine, Thought and motion mingle, Mingle ever. Motions flow . To one another, even as tho' They were modulated so TO an unheard melody, Which lives about thee, and a sweep Of richest pauses, evermore

Drawn from each other mellow-deep,

Who may express thee, Eleanore ?

I stand before thee, Eleanore; . I see thy beauty gradually unfold, Daily and hourly, more and more. I muse, as in a trance, the while Slowly, as from a cloud of gold; Crimes out thy deep ambrosial smile. I muse, as in a trance, whene'er The lan,guors of thy love-deep eyes Float on to me. I would I were So trained, so rapt in ecstasies, To stand apart, and to adore, Gazing on thee for evermore, Serene, imperial Eleanore! Sometimesovith most intensity.

Gasingi kseerattr.see

—Vaught folded over thought; strain& asleep,

Slowly'atvakened, grow so full and deep' • In thy large eyes, that, overpowered quite, I cannot veil or droop my sight,

But am as nothing. in its light. As though a star, m inmost heaven set,

Ev'n while we gaze on it, Should slowly round his orb, and slowly grow To a full face, there like a sun remain Fixed—then as slowly fade again, And draw itself to what it was before; So full, so deep, so slow, Thought seems to come and go

In thy large eyes, imperial Eleiinore.

As thunderclouds that, hung on high, Did roof noonday with doubt and fear, Floating through an evening atmosphere, Grow golden all about the sky ; In thee all passion becomes passionless, Touched by thy spirit's mellowness, Losing his fire and active might, In a silent meditation,' Falling into a still delight, And luxury of contemplation: As waves that from the outer deep • Roll into a quiet cove,

There fall away, and lying still,

Having glorious dreams in sleep, Shadow forth the banks at will; Or sometimes they swell and move, Pressing up against the land, With motions of the outer sea: And the selfsame influence Controlleth all the soul and sense Of Passion gazing upon thee. His bowstring slackened, languid Love, Leaning his cheek upon his hand, Droops both his wings, regarding thee, And so would languish evermore, Serene, imperial Eleiinore.

But when I see.thee roam, with tresses unconfined, When the amorous, odorous wind, Breathes low between the sunset and the moon, Or, in a shadowy saloon, On silken cushions half reclined, I gaze on thee the cloudless noon Of mortal beauty : in its place • Div heart a charmed slumber keeps,

While I muse upon thy face,

And a languid tire creeps

'Ihreugh my veins to all my frame Dissolviegly and slowly : soon From thy rose-red lips etz name Floweth ; then I faint, I swoon, With dinning sound my ears are rife, iy tremulous tongue faitnetb, I lso my colour' I lose my breath, I drink tl:e cup of it costly death, Brimmed with delirious draughts of warmest life.

i die with illy delight, before 11:..ar what I would hear from thee ;

Vet t il my name again to me,

zecoid he dying evermore, So dying ever, Eleanore.

The author seems to have been studying some new model. He has grown far more shadowy and obscure; and in his attempt to seize upon beauty and power not of earth, be has, like Ixion, em- braced a cloud : if he thus proceeds, he will have Ixion's punish- ment—turning the wheel of rhyme in all barrenness and weari- ness of spirit.