It is not strange
that Queen Victoria should have placed this poem next to the Bible as
a means of comfort after the loss of her husband, whom she loved so
dearly that all the attractions of power and wealth never made her
forget him a single day.
_The Idylls of the King_ are also unappreciated in these days, yet
they contain a body of splendid poetry that cannot be duplicated. They
represent the author's dreams from early youth, when his imagination
was first fired by old Malory's chronicle of the good King Arthur.
They breathe a chivalry as lofty as Sidney's, and they teach many
ethical lessons that it would do the present-day world good to take to
heart. These noble poems, cast in the most musical blank verse in our
literature, were the work of thirty years, written only when the poet
felt genuine inspiration. They represent, as the poet told his son,
"the dream of a man coming into practical life and ruined by one sin.
It is not the history of one man or of one generation, but of a whole
cycle of generations." And the old poet added these fine words:
"Poetry is like shot silk with many glancing colors. Every reader must
find his own interpretation according to his ability and according to
his sympathy with the poet."
Other fine poems of Tennyson which one should read are the noble _Ode
on the Death of the Duke of Wellington_, _Break, Break, Break_, the
perfect songs in _The Princess_, and _Crossing the Bar_.
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