BOOKS.

MR. TENNYSON'S " HAROLD."*

* Harold: a Drama. By Alfred Tennyson. London : Henry B. King and Co.

" HAROLD " is a fine dramatic piece, and has more fire and rapid movement in it than Queen Mary, but we cannot agree with those who think that Harold is equal to, much less superior to, Mr. Tennyson's study of the morbid hopes and gloomy reveries of the great Tudor wreck. The central character in Queen Mary was one which the genius of Mr. Tennyson was eminently well fitted to fathom and portray. His genius is at once reflective and somewhat microscopic in its mode of action. You never feel his full power till the focus of his imagination is brought to bear full on some luminous point of deep and semi- speculative interest. Even in Harold, the finest touches are the touches which show Harold less as the great Saxon prince and patriot than as the forsworn man, whose conscience is troubled by the conditions of the moral problem to which his own hesita- tion at a moment of weakness and peril is described as having led him,—the man who had begun to doubt the validity of the formal sentences of the Church, and to rebel against the cut-and-dried morality of ecclesiastics who kept aloof from the world, and who cursed and blessed without knowing the true significance of either curse or blessing. The picture of Edward the Confessor, the visionary of the cloister, who unites all the keen anger of a king against rebellion with the ascetic struggles of a man whose chief care was the purity of his own heart, is to our minds a far more graphic and vivid one than that of Harold. Even William of Normandy, with his mingled craft and cruelty and his large ideas of empire, is a more distinctly painted, and, so far, a more interesting figure. And these three between them absorb all the interest of the play. The women are mere shadows,—both Edith, with her genuine love,—though we admit that the lyrics into which it bursts are amongst Mr. Tennyson's finest and most Shake- spearian lines,—and Aldwyth, with her unscrupulous passion for one better and simpler than herself, whom she does not hesitate to use any manner of deceit to obtain. Nor are the other masculine figures in the drama of any great force. Stigand, indeed, the dry old uncanonical ' Saxon Archbishop, with his hatred of the Norman and his rationalistic depreciation of Edward's visions, attracts a momentary interest ; and the fears of Wulfnoth, the helpless, melancholy boy who has been so cowed by his long imprisonment as a Norman hostage, lend a gleam of poetry here and there to the play. But with hardly an ex- ception, the character of the poem centres entirely in the three figures of Edward the Confessor, the Conqueror, and Harold ; while the portrait of Harold, whose large nature and free heart of course win the whole sympathy of the reader, is less powerfully impressed on us than that of either of the others.

Thus it is rather as a poem than as a play that Harold disappoints us. The fire of the action is, on the whole, remarkable. From the opening to the close you are alive to the moving shadow of the approaching Conquest. Edward's fears for Harold's Norman journey, the threatenings of rebellion in Northumbria, the rash violence of Tostig, and the plots of Aldwyth ; the flatteries, threats, and temptations of the Duke of Normandy to his prisoner-guest when Harold falls into his hands, and the pro- mise and oath by which Harold extricates himself from his imprison- ment, only to embarrass his own conscience, and put it in William's power to appeal to the authority of the Church ; the death of Edward the Confessor, and the gloomy prognostics of his half- priestly conscience asto the result of Harold's perjury ; the crushing of the Norsemen's invasion and Tostig's rebellion in the battle of Stamford, and the landing of William in the south ,—all are so marshalled as to bear the reader onwards with a keen interest and a growing power to understand and accept the tragic close. As far as fiction could make the Battle of Hastings (or rather the battle of Senlac Hill) more impressive than it otherwise is, as one of the solemn pageants of history in- volving at once a nation's conquest and a nation's new birth, Mr. Tennyson's drama effects that purpose. The story is rapid- The groups brought before us are vivid and massive, and the close is at once powerful, and not without a light behind the cloud, as the close of historic tragedy should be. But for all that, as a poem, and as a dramatic picture, Harold somewhat disappoints us. In his wish to give force and vigour to the movement of the drama, Mr. Tennyson has scarcely given full scope to his own genius, which needs line upon line, the most careful blending of colours, and very delicate shading to do it justice. He is not a

poet who can produce his best effects with a few strong, rapid strokes. He needs time, and care, and finish ; and the action of this drama is too rapid to give him room for time, and care, and finish. The finest picture of Harold is that in the scene where he gives his word, and finally swears, to help William to the Crown of England,—a scene wherein the tossings of a fine nature beneath the unaccustomed thraldom of fetters to which it had under strong temptation subjected itself, are finely though briefly indicated :— " WILLIAM.

And hath Bing Edward not pronounced his heir ?

HAROLD.

Not that I know.

WILLIAM.

When he was here in Normandy, He loved us and we him, because we found him A Norman of the Normans.

HAROLD.

So did we.

WILLIAM.

A gentle, gracious, pure and saintly man I And grateful to the hand that shielded him, He promised that if ever he were king

In England, he would give his kingly voice To me as his successor. Knowest thou this?

HAROLD.

I learn it now.

WILLIAM.

Thou knowest I am his cousin, And that my wife descends from Alfred?

HAROLD.

Ay.

WILLIAM.

Who hath a better claim then to the crown So that ye will not crown the Atheling ?

HAROLD.

None that I know . . . if that but hung upon King Edward's will.

Wilt thou uphold my claim?

MALET (aside to HARoLD).

Be careful of thine answer, my good friend.

Wrixsoilt (aside to HAitoLn). -Oh! Harold, for my sake and for thine own!

IlAnonn.

Ay . . . if the king have not revoked his promise.

Wrr ITAM

But bath he done it then?

HAROLD.

Not that I know.

WILLIAM.

(food, good, and thou wilt help me to the crown.

HAROLD.

Ay . . . if the Witan will oonsent to this.

WILLIAM_

Thou art the mightiest voice in England, man, Thy voice will lead the Witan—shall I have it ? WULF/TOTH (aside to HAROLD). Oh ! Harold, if thou love thine Edith, ay.

HAROLD.

AY, if- MAL= (aside to HAROLD).

Thine 'ifs ' will sear thine eyes out—ay.

WILmAst.

I ask thee, wilt thou help me to the crown?

And I will make thee my great Earl of Earls, Foremost in England and in Normandy;

Thou shalt be verily king all but the name—

For I shall most sojourn in Normandy ; And thou be my vice-king in England. Speak.

WI:MENOTTI (aside to HAROLD). Ay, brother—for the sake of England—ay.

HAROLD.

My lord-

MALET (aside to HAROLD). Take heed now.

HAROLD.

WIT I TAM, Ay.

I am content, For thou art truthful, and thy word thy bond. To-morrow will we ride with thee to Harfieur.

MALET. [Exit WILusat.

Harold, I am thy friend, one life with thee, And oven as I should bless thee saving mine, I thank thee now for having saved thyself.

[Exit MALET.

HAROLD.

For having lost myself to save myself, Said 'ay' when I meant no,' lied like a lad That dreads the pendent scourge, said ay' for 'no !'

Ay ! No !—he hath not bound me by an oath—

Is ay' an oath ? is ay' strong as an oath ?

Or is it the same sin to break my word As break mine oath ? He call'd my word my bond!

He is a liar who knows I am a liar,

And makes believe that he believes my word—

The crime be on his head—not bounden—no."

But neither that fine passage, nor the more sensational one which follows, when Harold is brought to swear to the same effect upon the relics of the Norman Saints, and then reviles himself for his falsehood, seems to us to paint such a living picture as Mr. Tennyson has accustomed us to expect in his more finished works. The passage is fine, but it is hardly adequate to fill the critical and central place in a historic tragedy

WILLIAM.

Ay, for thou bast sworn an oath Which, if not kept, would make the hard earth the To the very Devil's horns, the bright sky cleave To the very feet of God, and send her hosts Of injured saints to scatter sparks of plague Thro' all your cities, blast your infants, dash The torch of war among your standing corn,

Dabble your hoartho with your own blood.—Enough!

Thou wilt not break it ! I, the Count—the King—

Thy friend—am grateful for thine honest oath, Not coming fiercely like a conqueror, mow,

But 'softly as a bridegroom to his own.

For I shall rale according to your laws, And make your ever-jarring Earldom move To music and in order—Angle, Jute, Dane, Saxon, Norman, help to build a throne Out-towering hers of France . . . The wind is fair

For England now . . . To-night we will be merry.

To-morrow will I ride with thee to Harflour.

[Exeunt WILLIAM and all the Norman Barons, 4'c.

HAROLD.

To-night we will be merry—and to•morrow-

Juggler and bastard—bastard—he hates that most—

William the tanner's bastard! Would he heard me I O God, that I wore in some wide, waste field With nothing but my battle-axe and him To spatter his brains! Why let earth rive, gulf in These cursed Normans—yea and mine own self.

Cleave heaven, and send thy saints that I may say Ev'n to their faces, 'If ye side with William Ye are not noble.' How their jointed fingers Glared at me ! Am I Harold, Harold son Of our great Godwin ? Lo! I touch mine arms,

My limbs—they are not mine—they are a liar's— I mean to be a liar—I am not bound- Stigand shall give me absolution for it— Did the chest move ? did it move? I am otter craven !

O Wulfnoth, Walfnoth, brother, thou haat betrayed me 1"

The picture of Edward the Confessor on his death-bed seems to us to approach much nearer to the ideal historic painting,— much nearer to Mr. Tennyson's picture of Mary and Elizabeth Tudor in Queen Mary. What poetry and what precision is there not in the following picture of Edward by the uncanonical Saxon Archbishop !—

" HAROLD.

I would I were As holy and as passionless as he !

That I might rest as calmly! Look at him— The rosy face, and long down-silvering beard, The brows unwrinkled as a summer mere.—

STIGAND.

A summer mere with sudden wreekful gusts From a side-gorge. Passionless? How he flamed When Tostig's anger'd earldom flung him, nay, He fain had calcined all Northumbria To one black ash, but that thy patriot passion Siding with our great Council against Tostig, Out-passion'd his! Holy ? ay, ay, forsooth, A conscience for his own soul, not his realm ; A twilight conscience lighted thro' a chink ; Thine by the sun; nay, by some sun to be, When all the world hath learnt to speak the truth, And lying were self-murder by that state Which was the exception."

And what a dramatic skill there is in Edward's first speech !-

"Enter KING, QUEEN, and Tosrw. EDWARD.

In heaven signs!

Signs upon earth ! signs everywhere! your priests Gross, worldly, simoniacal, unlearned !

They scarce can read their Psalter; and your churches Uncouth, unhandsome, while in Normanland God speaks thro' abler voices, as Ho dwells

In statelier shrines. I say not this, as being

Half Norman-blooded, nor as some have held, Because I love the Norman better—no, But dreading God's revenge upon this realm For narrowness and coldness : and I say it For the last time perchance, before I go To find the sweet refreshment of the saints.

I have lived a life of utter purity : I have builded the great church of holy Peter :

I have wrought miracles—to God the glory—

And miracles will in my name be wrought

Hereafter.—I have fought the fight and go— I see the flashing of the gates of pearl—

And it is well with me, tho' some of you Have scorn'd me—ay—but after I am gone Woe, woe to England ! I have bad a vision ; The seven sleepers in the cave at Ephesas Have turn'd from right to left.

HAROLD.

My most dear Master, What matters? let them tarn from left to right And sleep again. Tonna.

Too hardy with thy king!

A life of prayer and fasting well may see Deeper into the mysteries of heaven Than thou, good brother.

ALDW 1711 aside).

Sees he into thine, That thou wouldst have his promise for the crown ?

EDWARD.

Tostig says true; my son, thou art too hard, Not stagger'd by this ominous earth and heaven: But heaven and earth are threads of the same loom, Play into ono another, and weave the web That may confound thee yet."

That reply of Harold's, " Let them tarn from right to left and sleep again," is, perhaps, tie finest dramatic touch in the play. Again, Edward's death-bed vision of the effect of the Norman Conquest upon England will rank, as poetry, among the finest of Mr. Tennyson's work :— " EDWARD.

The green tree !

Then a great Angel past along the highest Crying the doom of England,' and at once He stood beside me, in his grasp a sword Of lightnings, wherewithal he cleft the tree From off the bearing trunk, and harl'd it from him Three fields away, and then he dash'd and drench'd, He dyed, he soak'd the trunk with human blood,

And brought the sunder'd tree again, and set it

Straight on the trunk, that thus baptised in blood Grew ever high and higher, beyond my seeing, And shot out sidelong boughs across the deep That dropt themselves, and rooted in far isles

Beyond my seeing: and the great Angel rose

And past again along the highest, crying The doom of England I'—Tostig, raise my head!

[Falls back senseless."

These passages seemto us to concentrate the chief dramatic interest, —we mean the interest derived from the delineation of character, as distinguished from the interest drawn from the action and plot— of the play.

There are in the play, however, too many dramatic shadows, too many figures like Leofric, Gurth, Aldred, Edwin, Morcar, and even Aldwyth and Edith, who take part in the action, without leaving themselves at all vividly impressed on the imagination of the reader. This is, of course, to some extent true of every historic drama ; but then when the side-figures are so shadowy, the central figures should be painted in very vivid colours,—and this was true of Queen Mary, but hardly true of Harold. Though it is a piece which would probably act much better than Queen Mary, it does not fill anything like the same space in the imagination of the reader. There is no study in it that is at once massive enough, and sufficiently suited to Mr. Tennyson's genius, to take the place of the Tudor sisters in his imagination.

We must not leave the play, however, without notice of the two exquisite little love-lyrics which give it a breath of his finest songs. The following is fine enough :—

" EDITH (Singing).

" Love is come with a song and a smile, Welcome Love with a smile and a song : Love can stay but a little while. Why cannot he stay ? They call him away : Ye do him wrong, ye do him wrong; Love will stay for a -whole life long."

But compare with that the broken and fragmentary chords in which Edith's grief expresses itself when she despairs of becoming Harold's wife, and the contrast between the two songs is at least as beautiful as the expression of the first song itself :- " EDITH.

Crown'd, crown'd and lost, crown'd King— and lost to me !

(Singing) Two young lovers in winter weather, None to guide them, Walk'd at night on the misty heather ; Night, as black as a raven's feather ; Both were lost and found together, None beside them.

That is the burthen of it—lost and found Together in the cruel river Swale A hundred years ago; and there's another, Lost, lost, the light of day, To which the lover answers lovingly, ' I am beside thee.'

Lost, lost, we have lost the way.

' Love, I will guide thee.' Whither, 0 whither? into the river, Where we two may be lost together, And lost for ever ? ' Oh! never, oh ! never, Tho' we be lost and be found together.' Some think they loved within the pale forbidden By Holy Church : but who shall say ? the truth

Was lost in that fierce North, where they were lost,

Where all good things are lost, whore Tostig lost The good hearts of his people."

That is worthy of the highest efforts of Mr. Tennyson's genius, which Harold, as a whole, though it is full of spirit, and contains some fine scenes, will hardly, we think, be judged to be by those who feel the deepest admiration for the many great works of the Poet-Laureate.