From that great deep, before our world begins,
Whereon the Spirit of God moves as He will--
Out of the deep, my child, out of the deep,
From that true world within the world we see,
Whereof our world is but the bounding shore--
Out of the deep, Spirit, out of the deep,
With this ninth moon, that sends the hidden sun,
Down yon dark sea, thou comest, darling boy.
II
For in the world, which is not ours, they said,
"Let us make man," and that which should be man,
From that one light no man can look upon,
Drew to this shore, lit by the suns and moons
And all the shadows. O dear Spirit, half-lost
In thine own shadow and this fleshly sign
That thou art thou--who wailest being born
And banish'd into mystery, and the pain
Of this divisible-indivisible world
Among the numerable-innumerable
Sun, sun, and sun, thro' finite-infinite space,
In finite-infinite Time--our mortal veil
And shatter'd phantom of that infinite One,
Who made thee unconceivably Thyself
Out of His whole World-self, and all in all--
Live thou, and of the grain and husk, the grape
And ivyberry, choose; and still depart
From death to death thro' life and life, and find
Nearer and ever nearer Him, who wrought
Not matter, not the finite-infinite,
But this main-miracle, that thou art thou,
With power on thine own act and on the world.
Note that the second greeting considers the reality of the child's life
and its meaning, the first only its appearance. The great deep of the
spiritual world is "that true world within the world we see, Whereof our
world is but the bounding shore." And this indication that the second
greeting gives the deeper and truer view, is preserved in some of the side
touches of description. In the first greeting, for example, the moon is
spoken of as "touch'd with earth's light"; in the second the truer and
less obvious fact is suggested. It "sends the hidden sun down yon dark
sea." The material view again looks at bright and hopeful appearances in
life, and it notes the new-born babe "breaking with laughter from the
dark." The spiritual view foresees the woes which, if Byron is right in
calling melancholy the "telescope of truth," are truer than the joys. It
notes no longer the child's laughter, but rather its tears, "Thou wailest
being born and banished into mystery." Life, in the spiritual view, is in
part a veiling and obscuring of the true self as it is, in a world of
appearances. The soul is "half lost" in the body which is part of the
phenomenal world, "in thine own shadow and in this fleshly sign that thou
art thou." The suns and moons, too, are but shadows, as the body of the
child itself is but a shadow--shadows of the spirit-world and of God
Himself. The physical life is before the child; but not as a fatally
determined course. Choice of the good is to lead the spirit ever nearer
God. The wonders of the material Universe are still recognized: "Sun, sun,
and sun, thro' finite-infinite space, in finite-infinite Time"; but they
vanish into insignificance when compared to the two great facts of the
spirit-world which consciousness tells us unmistakably--the facts of
personality and of a responsible will. The great mystery is "Not Matter,
nor the finite-infinite," but "_this main-miracle, that thou art thou,
with power on thine own act and on the world_."
"Out of the deep"--in this conception of the true "deep" of the world
behind the veil we have the thought which recurs so often, as in the
"Passing of Arthur" and in "Crossing the Bar"[117]--of birth and death as
the coming from and returning to the spirit-world and God Himself.
Birth[118] is the coming to land from that deep; "of which our world is
but the bounding shore;" death the re-embarking on the same infinite sea,
for the home of truth and light.
He seemed so much better when he had finished his explanation that I asked
him to read the poem through again. This he did, more beautifully than I
ever heard him read. I felt as though his long illness and his expectation
of death gave more intensity and force to his rendering of this wonderful
poem on the mystery of life. He began quietly, and read the concluding
lines of the first "greeting," the brief description of a peaceful old age
and death, from the human standpoint, with a very tender pathos:
And last, in kindly curves, with gentlest fall
By quiet fields, a slowly-dying power,
To that last deep where we and thou are still.
Then he gathered force, and his voice deepened as the greeting to the
immortal soul of the man was read. He raised his eyes from the book at the
seventh line and looked for a moment at his hearer with an indescribable
expression of awe before he uttered the word "spirit"; "Out of the
deep--Spirit,--out of the deep." When he had finished the second greeting
he was trembling much. Then he read the prayer--a prayer he had told me of
self-prostration before the Infinite. I think he intended it as a contrast
to the analytical and reflective character of the rest. It is an
outpouring of the simplest and most intense self-abandonment to the
Creator, an acknowledgment, when all has been thought and said with such
insight and beauty, that our best thoughts and words are as nothing in the
Great Presence--in a sense parallel to the breaking off in the "Ode to the
Duke of Wellington":
Speak no more of his renown,
Lay your earthly fancies down.
He began to chaunt in a loud clear voice:
Hallowed be Thy Name--Halleluiah.
His voice was growing tremulous as he reached the second part:
We feel we are nothing--for all is Thou and in Thee;
We feel we are something--_that_ also has come from Thee.
And he broke down as he finished the prayer:
We know we are nothing--but Thou wilt help us to be.
Hallowed be Thy Name--Halleluiah!
APPENDIX B
It will be seen below that the lines to which reference is made--
That man's the true cosmopolite
Who loves his native country best,
have been altered to suit my mother's setting, arranged by Sir Charles
Stanford, to
He best will serve the race of men
Who loves his native country best.
HANDS ALL ROUND
A NATIONAL SONG
THE MELODY BY EMILY, LADY TENNYSON AND ARRANGED BY C. VILLIERS STANFORD
_With breadth and not too slow._
First pledge our Queen, my
friends, and then A health to Eng-land eve-ry guest; He
best will serve the race of men, Who loves his na-tive
coun-try best. May Free-dom's oak for ev-er last, With
lar-ger life, from day to day; He loves the pre-sent and the past, Who
lops the moulder'd branch a-way.
CHORUS (_ad lib._)
_Broadly._
Hands all round!
God the traitor's hope con-found! To the great cause of Free-dom
drink, my friends, And the great name of Eng-land
round and round.
To all the loyal hearts who long
To keep our English Empire whole!
To all our noble sons, the strong
New England of the Southern Pole!
To England under Indian skies,
To those dark millions of her realm!
To Canada whom we love and prize,
Whatever statesman hold the helm.
Hands all round! God the traitor's hope confound!
To the great cause of Freedom drink, my friends,
And the great name of England round and round.
To all our statesmen so they be
True leaders of the land's desire!
To both our Houses, may they see
Beyond the borough and the shire!
We sail'd wherever ship could sail,
We founded many a mighty state;
Pray God our greatness may not fail
Thro' craven fears of being great.
Hands all round! God the traitor's hope confound!
To the great cause of Freedom drink, my friends,
And the great name of England round and round.
APPENDIX C
MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS FROM UNKNOWN FRIENDS
[During the last twenty-five years of his life my father was probably,
throughout the whole English-speaking race, the Englishman who was most
widely known. Hence the letters addressed to him by strangers competed in
number with those which, it is well known, add a needless weariness to the
heavy task of governing a civilized state. This became a correspondence
mainly of request or of reverence, although the voice of disappointment or
of envy of what is ranked above oneself which lurks in common human nature
may have occasionally been audible. My father's experience here was that
of Dr. Johnson and, doubtless, of many more men of commanding eminence;
that of writers submitting their work for candid criticism, charging him
with conceit if he suggested publication as unadvisable; if it were
advised, and the book failed, with deception. Probably many of those who
wrote thus soon repented of their eloquence; at any rate nothing of this
nature will be here preserved. But of the ordinary type of strangers'
letters some specimens may be of interest. And although these few have
been chosen mainly from the letters addressed to my father during his last
fifteen years yet they will give a general impression of the vast quantity
received.
I place first letters upon poetry submitted (or proposed for submission)
to my father's judgment.]
(1884)
I hope you will forgive the liberty I am taking in writing to you. I
have heard a great deal about you, and I read a part of one of your
poems, "The May Queen." I have not had an opportunity to read the
whole of it, but I like what I have seen very much.... I have tried
to write some poems myself. I have enclosed one for you to see, which
came into my mind while I was digging a ditch in my garden. I am only
nine years old, and if I keep on trying some day I shall write a grand
poem.
(1882)
HONOURED SIR--It has been said: where a great apology is most needed,
it is best to begin with the business at once.
I never had the pleasure of seeing you, but it is enough for me to
have had the pleasure of reading your heart in your works, "though
they be but a part of your inward soul." I am a lad scarcely seventeen
summers old. In some of my leisure hours, particularly morning and
evening ones, I penned a few thousand lines of small poems in fair
metre,--so my simple-minded friend or two pronounce them in their
partiality.... [He deprecates the suspicion that he is applying for
money.] Will you allow me to forward to you through the post a few of
my poems? And when your benevolent soul has given up time to read some
of my verses ("the primrose fancies of a boy"), and should my
productions be considered by you deserving of your good word, half the
difficulty of finding a willing publisher will, I know, be removed.
There is something truly felt and pathetic in the two following letters.
The first is from a young poetess.
I hardly know how I have summoned up sufficient courage to address
you, although I have long wished to do so! Studying that most touching
of poems "Enoch Arden," I felt somehow convinced that the heart that
had inspired so much which is beautiful and touching, would also
prompt a kind answer to me. Ever since I was a child (not so very long
ago), writing was my only consolation and solace in moments of great
grief or joy; writing--I shall not say _poetry_ but rhyme.
(1881)
DEAR MR. TENNYSON--I have heard and believed that great men are always
the best hearted, and therefore hope you will kindly look at the
enclosed and tell me if there is any hope that I may ever write
anything worthy the name of poetry, and if those lines are anything
but doggerel, I hope you will not think me as presumptuous as I do;
something tells me you will be kind.
Now follow good average specimens.
(1890)
DEAR AND MUCH-ADMIRED LORD TENNYSON--The writer of this, an humble
admirer of your Poetry,--an uneducated girl from the bogs of Ireland,
has the audacity to send you her first effort in verse: whether it is
poetry or not I leave you to decide, as I am entirely incapable of
judging myself, as I am wholly ignorant of the art of versification,
and indeed would never dream of attempting to write verse, only I was
very anxious to succeed in prose writing....
(1882)
Will you kindly pardon my venturing to ask you to read some of my
verses, and to tell me whether you consider me capable of ever writing
poetry fit to be read? I have never had any desire to become a poet,
but lately ideas have come into my head, once I seemed to see a line
or two before my eyes, and in order to free myself from these fancies
I wrote.
(1884)
DEAR SIR--I remember your figure and attire at Shiplake Vicarage in
Mrs. Franklyn Rawnsley's house, 1852, thirty-two years ago. Does your
memory travel back to a fine December morning when, the house full of
guests for the christening of the latest blossom of the Rawnsley
house, there drove up through the flooded meadows surrounding the low
old vicarage, a cab with a young foreigner, a child of sixteen
summers, all tremulous how she should be received, not speaking a word
of English but her native German tongue, besides French, introduced by
Miss Amélie Bodte, the authoress in Dresden, to teach music to Mrs.
Rawnsley's children? What a woeful feeling for the well-known
counsellor's daughter to be treated in a cool way as the engaged
teacher of little children. However, there was an oasis in the desert.
On the following morning Mrs. Rawnsley proposed to the assembled
guests to take a walk in a neighbouring Squire's park while she looked
after some home duties, and a tall young gentleman with an enormous
Tyrolese hat offered to walk with a solitary stranger. He spoke a
little German and tried to divert the gloom of the young girl by
crossing the lawn and breaking a belated rose she admired coming from
snow-bound Saxony. They stopped at a turtle-dove house where he made
the prettiest little German pun she never forgot hereafter, "Ich bin
eine kleine Taube" (I am a little dove (deaf)?). And it began to rain,
and he--it was you--took off the Spanish cloak gathered with narrow
stitches on the throat, a black velvet collar falling over it, and
wrapped it round the girl's shoulders. The ladies of the company
frowned, returning home, all told as with one voice to Mrs. Rawnsley
what had happened during the walk, and she laughed and said to me in
French, "My dear, you had all the honours as a German because you did
not try for them, this is the Poet Laureate, and it displeases him
that the ladies torment him for attentions." And now do you remember,
of course you know this girl was I. And the next day you read the "Ode
to the Queen," of which I did not understand a word, and you went away
to the sea to meet your wife and baby son, and I never saw you again.
Now after thirty-two years undergoing purification in the crucible of
humble life, I come to ask you to accept kindly the dedication of one
of my compositions--a song. Your name is as illustrious here as in
England, and my poor song will find more eager listeners with your
name attached as a patron than otherwise.... "A turtle dove" could but
bring an olive branch to a lone woman and gladden the heart of your
Lordship's most respectful admirer,
MARIA * * *
(1890)
Now a Transatlantic poetess:
(After excuse asked for "presumption" she says:)
I have to thank you for some of the best thoughts and the purest
pleasure I have ever derived from anything.
I am an American girl nineteen years of age, and was named from the
hero of "Aylmer's Field."
I enclose some verses I have written. I would like exceedingly to hear
your opinion of them and to know if they contain anything of promise.
LEOLINE * * *
(1877)
From America also we have one who modestly describes himself as "a mere
Collegian, a youth to fortune and to fame unknown...."
I have during the past summer been engaged, to my great entertainment
and instruction, in the perusal of your poetical works, reading many
for the first time though of course familiar with a large number;
having finished them, I could not refrain from expressing my
admiration of your great genius in a few lines which I send herewith.
O Tennyson, how great a soul is thine!
Thy range of thought how varied
and how vast...
(1862)
Will you accept the enclosed lines as a slight testimonial of the high
admiration entertained for your exquisite genius, by a rhyming
daughter of Columbia; whose poetic wings just fledging from a first
unpublished vol. (commended by Wm. Cullen Bryant and Geo. Bancroft,
Esqrs.) permit only a feeble fluttering around the base of that
"Parnassus," whose summit you have so brilliantly, and justly
attained. * * *
(187-)
Then an "Agent for Stars" offers my father £20,000 if said Agent is
permitted to arrange a tour for him in the United States.
(1884)
The following is another--we will not say, a less acceptable offering:
I send you by my good friend ---- a dozen small parcels of smoking
tobacco....
We think it the best smoking tobacco in the world and I trust that you
may find reason to agree with us. If it shall give you one moment's
pleasure in return for the countless hours of delight that you have
given me, I shall count myself a happy mortal.
(1890)
A gift certainly not less acceptable comes from a little girl:
MY LORD--_Please_ let these flowers be in your room, and _do_ wear the
little bunch.--I remain, your true admirer, * * *
Now follows the _Grande Armée_ of natural, amiable, but remorseless
autograph hunters. A miscellaneous group comes first.
(1890)
HONOURED LORD--May I (an Australian maiden born 1870) hope to be
pardoned for taking the liberty of writing to you--so distinguished a
gentleman--to express my great admiration for your poems? It is my
admiration that has emboldened me to venture so far ... etc. etc.
Let me conclude with one request: namely to ask you to do me the very
great honour to acknowledge this letter; so that I may be able to
boast of, and dearly treasure, even a line from the Great Poet.
(1890)
An obvious fisher for good things follows:
SIR--I hope that you will kindly excuse the liberty I take in
requesting you to be so good as to inform me how the word "humble"
should be pronounced: _i.e._ whether or not it is proper to aspirate
the "h"?
A reply at your kind convenience will inexpressibly oblige....
(1890)
Another ingenuously finds it needful to ask whether the word be pronounced
_I_dylls or _E_dylls.
(1891)
DEAR SIR--A simple child (who writes from Holland), would feel
extremely happy, would be in the seventh heaven, when she would be
favoured with a mere line of the greatest poet of renown, Alfred
Tennyson. Allow her, to offer you before, her sincere thanks for your
autograph, with which she would feel the happiest child in the world.
With kind regards, most honourable lord, yours respectfully.
(1882)
A (German) collector of autographs, who has an autograph of Mr. Kinkel
and Victor Hugo, the greatest living poets of Germany and France, only
misses in his collection the autograph of the greatest living English
poet. Therefore he requests you to give him an autograph of yours. May
it only be your signature, it will find in my album a place of honour.
(1882)
_To the prince of poets._
MONSIEUR--Forgive me, I beseech you, the liberty I take in daring to
write to you; but I wish to beg the greatest of favours.
This favour, Monsieur, it is your signature.
I am only a young Belgian girl, and I have no reason to proffer why
you should thus distinguish me; but I feel you must love all girls, or
you could not have written "Isabel" or "Lilian"; and you must be kind
and good, or you would not have given them to the world.
So, Monsieur, I humbly beg you send me the name we all venerate,
traced by the hand that has guided the world with so much beauty, and
make one more heart supremely happy.--One who loves you, * * *
Three petitions, which touched my father, may here have place.
The first (1884) consists of some twenty letters, in very creditable
English and excellent hand-writing, each saying some handsome thing about
the "May Queen," which they had learned, and now criticized with amusing
_naïveté_, and asking for a line from Tennyson--signed with the children's
names, and dated from a German High School for girls: "who," says their
Mistress, "in the joy of their hearts tried to express their feeling of
admiration in their imperfect knowledge of the English language."
* * * * *
In the next a young girl from India, training in England with comrades
apparently for Zenana work, thanks "Our dear aziz Sahib" for a copy of the
Poems, and then proceeds, in neat round hand:
Oh how we wish we could see you even for one minute The Great and good
Poet Laureate, whom everybody loves so much and we love you too dear
sweet Sahib, we are going to learn that pretty Poetry "The May Queen"
and several others out of that lovely Book. Will you please, dear
Sahib, write out "The May Queen" and "The Dedication of the Idyols of
the King," with your own hand, we will keep it till the last day of
our lives.
They then explain why the "Dedication" is asked for; "because we know how
dearly Prince Albert loved you, and, also our beloved Queen Empress, and
how you love them": also how they long to go back "to our dear India," and
sing hymns, and nurse and dose "our own countrywomen in the Zenanas."
Now good-bye our aziz (beloved) Sahib I am sending you some wild
daisies and moss as you are so fond of flowers and everything
beautiful in God's world. May God give you a sweet smile every day,
prays your little loving, Indian Friend, * * *
This last explains itself:
DEAR MR. TENNYSON--I am one of a large struggling family of girls and
boys who have never yet been able to afford to give 9s. for that
much-coveted green volume Tennyson's "Poems," so at last, the boys
having failed to obtain it as a prize, and the girls as a birthday
present, I, the boldest of the party, venture to ask if you would
kindly bestow a copy on a nest full of young admirers. * * *
He wrote his little Indian maid a pretty letter, and sent his poems to the
"best girl." And in many an instance, (requests for aid included) the
correspondence bears witness to my father's open-hearted kindliness and
liberality. His _beggars_, at any rate, were often _choosers_.
The wish for an autograph, we may again reasonably suppose, was not absent
from the minds of the following (and other analogous) writers. The first
dates from Scotland:
(1878)
I take the great liberty in writing to you, in order to settle a
dispute that has arisen amongst several parties, regarding the song
written by Sir Walter Scott, _Jock O' Hazeldean_. The words are as
follows,
And ye shall be his bride Lady;
So comely to be seen.
Does comely apply to the bride, or the bridegroom? As your opinion
will be considered satisfactory to all, your reply will be considered
a lasting favour. * * *
(1883)
I am an enthusiastic reader and admirer of your works, and have read
those which I like especially, over and over again, in particular
"Maud," which I consider to be surpassingly fresh and beautiful--there
is a sort of fascination about the poem to me ... but I really cannot
understand the meaning of the end of it.
I should very much like to know whether it is intended to mean that
Maud's brother, "that curl'd Assyrian bull," is slain by her lover:
whether Maud is supposed to die of a broken heart, or does her lover
come back, long after, presumably from the Russian war and marry her?
The remaining examples, in which respect is curiously blended with
familiarity, are dated from the United States.
A lively boy of thirteen (1884) who loves "Nature and Poetry" shall here
have precedence:
In the first place I wish to ask your pardon for bothering you with
this letter, but I want to make a collection, or I mean get the
autographs of 5 or 6 distinguished poets; and so I thought I would
write and get yours if possible and then the minor ones may follow.
I have read most of your poems, and like them _very much_ indeed, etc.
etc.
(A biographical sketch follows, including a visit to England.) When we
drove back from Stoke Pogis to Windsor we saw the deer in the Queen's
hunting grounds, and the tall, mighty oaks on each side of the road
seemed to say, "This is an Earthly Paradise."...
If you would write a verse or two from some one of your poems and
write your name under it, I should be _very much_ obliged to you
indeed.
(1885)