he ages, in the foremost files of time."

Hallam's death had also developed in him the human note, resonant in
the lyric, _Break, break, break:_--

"But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still."

The Princess, In Memoriam, and Maud.--Tennyson had produced only
short poems in his 1842 volumes, but his next three efforts, _The
Princess_ (1847), _In Memoriam_ (1850), and _Maud_ (1855), are of
considerable length.

_The Princess: A Medley_, as Tennyson rightly called it, contains 3223
lines of blank verse. This poem, which is really a discussion of the
woman question, relates in a half humorous way the story of a princess
who broke off her engagement to a prince, founded a college for women,
and determined to elevate her life to making them equal to men. The
poem abounds in beautiful imagery and exquisite melody; but the
solution of the question by the marriage of the princess has not
completely satisfied modern thought. The finest parts of the poem are
its artistic songs.

_In Memoriam_, an elegy in memory of Arthur Henry Hallam, was begun at
Somersby in 1833, the year of Hallam's death, and added to at
intervals for nearly sixteen years. When Tennyson first began the
short lyrics to express his grief, he did not intend to publish them;
but in 1850 he gave them to the world as one long poem of 725
four-line stanzas.

_In Memoriam_ was directly responsible for Tennyson's appointment as
poet-laureate. Queen Victoria declared that she received more comfort
from it than from any other book except the _Bible_. The first stanza
of the poem (quoted on page 9) has proved as much of a moral stimulus
as any single utterance of Carlyle or of Browning.

This work is one of the three great elegies of a literature that
stands first in elegiac poetry. Milton's _Lycidas_ has more of a
massive commanding power, and Shelley's _Adonais_ rises at times to
poetic heights that Tennyson did not reach; but neither _Lycidas_ nor
_Adonais_ equals _In Memoriam_ in tracing every shadow of bereavement,
from the first feeling of despair until the mourner can realize that--

"...the song of woe
Is after all an earthly song,"

and can express his unassailable faith in--

"One God, one law, one element,
And one far-off divine event
To which the whole creation moves."

With this hopeful assurance closes Tennyson's most noble and beautiful
poem.

_Maud_, a lyrical melodrama, paints the chang