dewy pastures, dewy trees,
Softer than sleep--all things in order stored,
A haunt of ancient peace."

His mother, one of the beauties of Lincolnshire, had twenty-five
offers of marriage. Of her Tennyson said in _The Princess:_--

"Happy he
With such a mother! faith in womankind
Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high
Comes easy to him, and tho' he trip and fall,
He shall not blind his soul with clay."

It is probable that Tennyson holds the record among English poets of
his class for the quantity of youthful verse produced. At the age of
eight, he was writing blank verse in praise of flowers; at twelve, he
began an epic which extended to six thousand lines.

In 1828 he entered Cambridge University; but in 1831 his father's
sickness and death made it impossible for him to return to take his
degree. Before leaving Cambridge, Tennyson had found a firm friend in
a young college mate of great promise, Arthur Henry Hallam, who became
engaged to the poet's sister, Emily Tennyson. Hallam's sudden death in
1832 was a profound shock to Tennyson and had far-reaching effects on
his poetic development. For a long time he lived in comparative
retirement, endeavoring to perfect himself in the poetic art.

His golden year was 1850, the year of the publication of _In
Memoriam_, of his selection as poet laureate, to succeed Wordsworth,
and of his marriage to Emily Sellwood. He had been in love with her
for fourteen years, but insufficient income had hitherto prevented
marriage.

[Illustration: FARRINGFORD.]

In 1855 Oxford honored him by bestowing on him the degree of D.C.L.
The students gave him an ovation and they properly honored his
greatest poem, _In Memoriam_ by mentioning it first in their loud
calls; but they also paid their respects to his _May Queen_, asking in
chorus: "Did they wake and call you early, call you early, Alfred
dear?"

The rest of his life was outwardly uneventful. He became the most
popular poet of his age. Schools and colleges had pupils translate his
poems into Latin and Greek verse. Of _Enoch Arden_ (1864), at that
time his most popular narrative poem, sixty thousand copies were sold
almost as as soon as it was printed. He made sufficient money to be
able to maintain two beautiful residences, a winter home at
Farringford on the Isle of Wight, and a summer residence at Aldworth
in Sussex. In 1884 he was raised to the peerage, with the title of
Baron of Aldw