1830-1868

EDITED BY J.C. THOMSON

Contents

Note

To those unacquainted with Tennyson's conscientious methods, it may seem strange that a volume of 160 pages is necessary to contain those poems written and published by him during his active literary career, and ultimately rejected as unsatisfactory. Of this considerable body of verse, a great part was written, not in youth or old age, but while Tennyson's powers were at their greatest. Whatever reasons may once have existed for suppressing the poems that follow, the student of English literature is entitled to demand that the whole body of Tennyson's work should now be open, without restriction or impediment, to the critical study to which the works of his compeers are subjected.

The bibliographical notes prefixed to the various poems give, in every case, the date and medium of first publication.

J.C.T.

Timbuctoo

A POEM WHICH OBTAINED THE CHANCELLOR'S MEDAL AT THE Cambridge Commencement MDCCCXXIX BY A. TENNYSON Of Trinity College

[Printed in Cambridge Chronicle and Journal of Friday, July 10, 1829, and at the University Press by James Smith, among the Prolusiones Academicæ Præmiis annuis dignatæ et in Curia Cantabrigiensi Recitatæ Comitiis Maximis, MDCCCXXIX. Republished in Cambridge Prize Poems, 1813 to 1858, by Messrs. Macmillan in 1859, without alteration; and in 1893 in the appendix to a reprint of Poems by Two Brothers].

[The following review of 'Timbuctoo' was published in the Athenæum of 22nd July, 1829: 'We have accustomed ourselves to think, perhaps without any very good reason, that poetry was likely to perish among us for a considerable period after the great generation of poets which is now passing away. The age seems determined to contradict us, and that in the most decided manner; for it has put forth poetry by a young man, and that where we should least expect it—namely, in a prize poem. These productions have often been ingenious and elegant but we have never before seen one of them which indicated really first-rate poetical genius, and which would have done honour to any men that ever wrote. Such, we do not hesitate to affirm, is the little work before us; and the examiners seem to have felt it like ourselves, for they have assigned the prize to the author, though the measure in which he writes was never before, we believe, thus selected for honour. We extract a few lines to justify our admiration (50 lines, 62-112, quoted). How many men have lived for a century who could equal

this?' At the time when this highly eulogistic notice of the youthful unknown poet appeared, the Athenæum was edited by John Sterling and Frederick Denison Maurice, its then proprietors.]

Poems Chiefly Lyrical

[The poems numbered I-XXIV which follow, were published in 1830 in the volume Poems chiefly Lyrical. (London: Effingham Wilson, Royal Exchange, 1830.) They were never republished by Tennyson.]

X

Chorus

In an unpublished drama written very early.

XXI

[Sixty years after first publication this Song was incorporated in 'The Foresters' (published 1892) as the opening chorus of the second act. The two verses were unaltered, but the two choruses were re-written.]

XXIII

Argal.—This very opinion is only true relatively to the flowing philosophers. (Tennyson's note.)

XXV

A Fragment

[Published in The Gem: a Literary Annual. London: W. Marshall, Holborn Bars, mdcccxxxi.]

XXVI

Anacreontics

[Published in The Gem: a Literary Annual. London: W. Marshall, Holborn Bars, mdcccxxxi.]

XXVII

[Published in The Gem: a Literary Annual. London: W. Marshall, Holborn Bars, mdcccxxxi.]

XXVIII

Sonnet

[Published in the Englishman's Magazine, August, 1831. London: Edward Moxon, 64 New Bond Street. Reprinted in Friendship's Offering: a Literary Album for 1833. London; Smith and Elder.]