lyrical poetry - OUDL Home

TENNYSON, BROWNING, & SOME OTHERSFrom closet long to quiet vowed,With mothed and dropping arras hung,Mouldering her lute and books among,As when a Queen, long dead, was young.What does it all mean, and what does it matter whatit means? If Tennyson's Mariana and Lilian and"A spirit haunts the year's last hours" suggestlollipops or crystallised fruits, Browning's songsavours of caviare; and Browning's lyrics, with alltheir dramatic interest, and, for some readers, inspiringthought, are full of such rich and subtle sensuouseffects:Yet there's the dye, in that rough mesh,The sea has only just o'er-whispered !Live whelks, each lip's beard dripping freshAs if they still the water's lisp heardThrough foam the rock-weeds thresh.Enough to furnish SolomonSuch hangings for his cedar house,That, when gold-robed he took the throneIn that abyss of blue, the SpouseMight swear his presence shoneMost like the centre-spike of goldWhich burns deep in the blue-bell's womb,What time, with ardours manifold,The bee goes singing to her groom,Drunken and overbold.But Browning's virtuosity has a wider range thanTennyson's dramatically and metrically if he is lesscuriously studious of perfection, and he has a moregenuine lyrical note. The author of the CavalierTunes could sing as Burns and Scott sang if with adifference, and nothing in Maud rises so soaringly as:71