The
latter was the seed of the splendid _Idylls of the King_. Five years
later he published _The Princess_, with its beautiful songs, and three
years after _In Memoriam_ the greatest elegiac poem in the language,
in which he lamented the fate of Arthur Hallam and poured forth his
own grief over this irreparable loss. In the same year he married Miss
Emily Sellwood, who made his home a haven of rest and of whom he once
said that with her "the peace of God came into my life."
_Maud_, his most dramatic poem, was issued in 1855. As early as 1859
he published the first part of _The Idylls of the King_, but it was
not until 1872 that the complete sequence of the _Idylls_ was given
to the public. These Arthurian legends are cast by Tennyson in his
most musical blank verse, and he has given to them a tinge of
mysticism that seems to lift them above the everyday world into a
realm of pure romance and chivalry.
[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF TENNYSON'S ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT OF
"CROSSING THE BAR" COPYRIGHT BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY]
_Enoch Arden_, a domestic idyll, written in 1864, made a great hit. It
was followed by several plays--_Queen Mary_, _Harold_, _Becket_ and
others--all finely written, but none appealing to the great public. Up
to his last years Tennyson remained the real laureate of his people,
his words always tinged with the fire of inspiration. Only three years
before his death he wrote _Crossing the Bar_, a poem which met with
instant response from the English-speaking world because of its signs
of courage in the face of death and its proofs of steadfast faith in
the life beyond the grave.
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