nvest it with "the light of setting suns," or to cause it to
awaken "thoughts that do lie too deep for tears."

The conflict between science and religion, the doubts and the sense of
world-pain are mirrored in Tennyson's verse. _The Two Voices_
begins:--

"A still small voice spoke unto me,
Thou art so full of misery
Were it not better not to be?"

His poetry is, however, a great tonic to religious faith. The closing
lines of _In Memoriam_ and _Crossing the Bar_ show how triumphantly he
met all the doubts and the skepticism of the age.

Like Milton, Tennyson received much of his inspiration from books,
especially from the classical writers; but this characteristic was
more than counterbalanced by his acute observation and responsiveness
to the thought of the age. _Locksley Hall Sixty Years After_ shows
that he was keenly alive to the social movements of the time.

Tennyson said that the scenes in his poems were so vividly conceived
that he could have drawn them if he had been an artist. A twentieth
century critic[16] says that Tennyson is almost the inventor of such
pictorial lyrics as _A Dream of Fair Women_ and _The Palace of Art_.

The artistic finish of Tennyson's verse is one of its great charms. He
said to a friend: "It matters little what we say; it is how we say
it--though the fools don't knew it." His poetry has, however, often
been criticized for lack of depth. The variety in his subject matter,
mode of expression, and rhythm renders his verse far more enjoyable
than that of the formal age of Pope.

Tennyson's extraordinary popularity in his own time was largely due to
the fact that he voiced so clearly and attractively the thought of the
age. As another epoch ushers in different interests, they will
naturally be uppermost in the mind of the new generation. We no longer
feel the intense interest of the Victorians in the supposed conflict
between science and religion. Their theory of evolution has been
modified and has lost the force of novelty. Theories of government and
social ideals have also undergone a gradual change. For these reasons
much of Tennyson's verse has ceased to have its former wide appeal.

Tennyson has, however, left sufficient work of abiding value, both for
its exquisite form and for its thought, to entitle him to be ranked as
a great poet. We cannot imagine a time when _Crossing the Bar_, _The
Passing of Arthur_, and the central thought of _In Memoriam_--

"'Tis better t