TENNYSON POET, PHILOSOPHER, IDEALIST. CHAPTER I. EARLY DAYS: "POEMS BY TWO BROTHERS." "What vague world-whisper, mystic pain or joy, Far-far-away? "A whisper from his dawn of life? a breath From some fair dawn beyond the doors of death Far-far-away? "Far, far, how far? from o'er the gates of Birth, -Far-Far-Away. THE poet of yore was a "maker," a "doer"; not a seer of visions or a dreamer of dreams; not the idle singer of an empty day. He was a leader of men, standing out preeminent as prophet and sage-a beacon in times of darkness, casting a living light along the path of duty. Such a man is, in many cases, the sole or central figure in a dark or shadowy picture looming through the past. His influence does not die: it is transmitted from bard to bard, each of whom catches the last notes of melody only to begin anew and in deeper tones the long-continued theme. We can hear these hero-minstrels always above the rush and roar of battle, the tossing and tumult of years, the changes and chances of time. When man groaned under tyranny, the A |