"I first knew the place in the autumn, but perhaps it is even more
beautiful in spring-time, when all day the lark trills high
overhead, and then when the lark has flown out of our hearing the
thrushes begin, and the air is sweet with scents from the many
fragrant shrubs. The woods are full of anemones and primroses;
narcissus grows wild in the lower fields; a lovely creamy stream of
flowers flows along the lanes, and lies hidden in the levels;
hyacinth-pools of blue shine in the woods; and then with a later
burst of glory comes the gorse, lighting up the country round
about, and blazing round about the beacon hill. The beacon hill
stands behind Farringford. If you follow the little wood of
nightingales and thrushes, and follow the lane where the blackthorn
hedges shine in spring-time (lovely dials that illuminate to show
the hour), you come to the downs, and climbing their smooth steps
you reach 'Mr. Tennyson's Down,' where the beacon-staff stands firm
upon the mound. Then following the line of the coast you come at
last to the Needles, and may look down upon the ridge of rocks that
rises crisp, sharp, shining, out of the blue wash of fierce
delirious waters."
Since Tennyson's elevation to the peerage there has been an infinite
amount of squibbing at his expense, and some very good parodies upon his
poems have been circulated. The "Pall Mall Gazette" parodies "Lady Clara
Vere de Vere" thus:--
"Baron Alfred Vere de Vere,
Of me you win no new renown:
You thought to daze the country-folk
And cockneys when you came to town.
See Wordsworth, Shelley, Cowper, Burns,
Withdraw in scorn, and sit retired;
The last of some six hundred earls
Is not a place to be desired.
"Baron Alfred Vere de Vere,
We thought you proud to bear your name;
Your pride is yet no mate for ours,
Too proud to think a title fame.
We had the genius--not the lord;
We love the poet's truer charms,
A simple singer with his dreams
Is worth a hundred coats-of-arms."