Of the after-life, when all the sheeted dead
Are shaken from their stillness in the grave
By the last trumpet.

Am I worse or better?

I am outlaw'd. I am none the worse for that.
I held for Richard, and I hated John.

I am a thief, ay, and a king of thieves.
Ay! but we rob the robber, wrong the wronger,
And what we wring from them we give the poor.
I am none the worse for that, and all the better
For this free forest-life, for while I sat

Among my thralls in my baronial hall

The groining hid the heavens; but since I breathed,
A houseless head beneath the sun and stars,

The soul of the woods hath stricken thro' my blood,
The love of freedom, the desire of God,

The hope of larger life hereafter, more
Tenfold than under roof.

An excellent bit of philosophy follows

I believe there lives

No man who truly loves and truly rules

His following, but can keep his followers true.

I am one with mine. Traitors are rarely bred

Save under traitor kings.

In his loneliness Robin Hood passionately desires to see Marian again

Gone, and it may be gone for evermore!

O would that I could see her for a moment
Glide like a light across these woodland ways!
Tho' in one moment she should glance away,

I should be happier for it all the year.

O would she moved beside me like

my

shadow!

O would she stood before me as my queen,
To make this Sherwood Eden o'er again,
And these rough oaks the palms of Paradise!

The wish is fulfilled, and Maid Marian reigns-but not be-
fore she has come disguised and tested her lover's fidelity.
But this sovereignty of the glades perturbs the Queen of
Fairyland, and a delightful fairy interlude follows like a

passing dream-the whole stage lights up, and fairies are seen swinging on boughs and nestling in hollow trunks. Titania and her elfs sing in the moonlight

We must fly from Robin Hood

And this new queen of the wood.

The fairies have many plaints to make of the intruders. The lusty bracken has been beaten flat, the "honest daisy deadly bruised," the "modest maiden lily abused," and the "beetle's jewel armour crack'd." So the chorus swells

We be scared with song and shout.

Arrows whistle all about.

All our games be put to rout.

All our rings be trampled out.
Lead us thou to some deep glen,

Far from solid foot of men,

Never to return again,

Queen.

And Titania acquiesces in tripping and melodious lines with the refrain

Up with you, out of the forest and over the hills and away.

The Laureate has next depicted the forest life of Robin Hood, his merry men, and his "maiden-wife." The greedy friars, the merchants, and the beggars pass by in procession, and Friar Tuck, Little John, Much, and Scarlet live up to their reputations and disport themselves jovially. It is a gay and gallant life, yet the Outlaw Chief often yearns for King Richard to come and restore him to a better and nobler career. The valiant Crusader returns at last, and good men get their own. But, with remembrance of happy days surging in their breasts, it is half with regret that the merry men turn from the glades. Then says Robin Hood, Earl of Huntingdon once more,

Our forest games are ended, our free life,
And we must hence to the King's Court.
We shall return to the wood. Meanwhile, farewell
Old friends, old patriarch oaks. A thousand winters

I trust

Will strip you bare as death, a thousand summers

Robe you life-green again.
Immortal, and we mortal.

You seem, as it were,
How few Junes

Will heat our pulses quicker! How few frosts
Will chill the hearts that beat for Robin Hood

And Marian takes up the theme

And yet I think these oaks at dawn and even,
Or in the balmy breathings of the night,
Will whisper evermore of Robin Hood.
We leave but happy memories to the forest.

We dealt in the wild justice of the woods.

All those poor serfs whom we have served will bless us,
All those pale mouths which we have fed will praise us,
All widows we have holpen pray for us,

Our Lady's blessed shrines throughout the land
Be all the richer for us. You, good friar,
You Much, you Scarlet, you dear Little John,
Your names will cling like ivy to the wood.
And here perhaps, a hundred years away,
Some hunter in day-dreams or half asleep
Will hear our arrows whizzing overhead,
And catch the winding of a phantom horn.

To which Robin Hood tenderly adds

And surely these old oaks will murmur thee
Marian along with Robin. I am most happy-
Art thou not mine?—and happy that our King
Is here again, never I trust to roam

So far again, but dwell among his own.

The curtain falls while harmonious voices are singing joyously, "Now the King is home again."

Lord Tennyson did nothing in its way better than this. He produced a Pastoral or Masque, for which, for a comparison, we must go back to Milton's Comus. He has done for Sherwood what Shakespeare did for Arden, and has written a pure idyllic English play where we seem to breathe the free gladsome air and smell the rich rare perfume of our matchless glades. And while the admired heroes and the winsome heroines of romance tread the sunlit stage, we listen to the quaint old-time speech and

hear the haunting measures of songs which almost set themselves to music, Of these intercalary lyrics nothing but the highest praise can be said. The magic slumbrous lines, To sleep! to sleep! had seen the light before; and There is no land like England was one of the Laureate's early pieces re-vestured and re-introduced. But the

following stanzas were new :—

Love flew in at the window

As Wealth walk'd in at the door.

"You have come for you saw Wealth coming," said I.
But he flutter'd his wings with a sweet little cry,

I'll cleave to you rich or poor.

Wealth dropt out of the window,

Poverty crept thro' the door.

"Well now you would fain follow Wealth," said I.
But he flutter'd his wings as he gave me the lie,
I cling to you all the more.

Considering Lord Tennyson's age, The Foresters was a wonderful performance. In the winter of his life the laurels grew greener on his brow.

Uor M

CHAPTER XI.

THE LATER BALLADS AND POEMS.

"I have climb'd to the snows of Age, and I gaze at a field in the Past."

"Deed and song alike are swept

Away, and all in vain

As far as man can see, except

The man himself remain.

The man remains, and whatsoe'er
He wrought of good or brave
Will mould him thro' the cycle year

That dawns behind the grave."

-By an Evolutionist.

-Epilogue to the Charge of the Heavy Brigade.

TENNYSON'S literary activity continued to the end. His pen was never idle, and his voice rang out clearly and sweetly in song until the moment that death commanded silence. Sometimes, at the close of a long dull day, the sun as it is about to sink crimsons all the west and makes a glory in the sky so the Poet Laureate, at the end of his long day, and after a sombre interval, flashed out thoughts of beauty and passed from among us while we were contemplating the radiant glory of his work. Some of his last lines will be the best remembered. The world will not willingly let die such poems as Crossing the Bar and The Silent Voices, or forget the assuring message of hope in The Dawn, Faith, and God and the Universe. After a life of doubt, of questioning, the poet heard the answer and received the promise—

Spirit, nearing yon dark portal at the limit of thy human state,
Fear not thou the hidden purpose of that Power which alone is great,
Nor the myriad world, His shadow, nor the silent Opener of the Gate.
Tennyson had already formally recanted of some of the