"Very kind but very German," he
said in his dream. Next morning a letter arrived offering him
the Laureateship.
One of the first poems Tennyson wrote as laureate was his Ode on
the Death of Wellington. Few people liked it at the time, but
now it has taken its place among our fine poems, and many of its
lines are familiar household words.
Of Tennyson's many beautiful short poems there is no room here to
tell. He wrote several plays too, but they are among the least
read and the least remembered of his works. For Tennyson was a
lyrical rather than a dramatic poet. His long poems besides In
Memoriam are The Princess, Maud, and the Idylls of the King. The
Princess is perhaps the first of Tennyson's long poems that you
will like to read. It is full of gayety, young life, and color.
It is a mock heroic tale of a princess who does not wish to marry
and who founds a college for women, within the walls of which no
man may enter. But the Prince to whom the Princess has been
betrothed since childhood and who loves her from having seen her
portrait only, enters with his friends disguised as women
students.
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