_The Two Voices_ expresses the contest of doubts and griefs with the spirit of endurance and joy which speaks alone in _Ulysses_. The man who is unhappy, but does not want to put an end to himself, has certainly the better of the argument with the despairing Voice. The arguments of “that barren Voice” are, indeed, remarkably deficient in cogency and logic, if we can bring ourselves to strip the discussion of its poetry. The original title, _Thoughts of a Suicide_, was inappropriate. The suicidal suggestions are promptly faced and confuted, and the mood of the author is throughout that of one who thinks life worth living:— “Whatever crazy sorrow saith, No life that breathes with human breath Has ever truly long’d for death. ’Tis life whereof our nerves are scant, Oh life, not death, for which we pant; More life, and fuller, that I want.” This appears to be a satisfactory reply to the persons who eke out a livelihood by publishing pessimistic books, and hooting, as the great Alexandre Dumas says, at the great drama of Life. With _The Day-Dream_ (of The Sleeping Beauty) Tennyson again displays his matchless range of powers. Verse of Society rises into a charmed and musical fantasy, passing from the Berlin-wool work of the period (“Take the broidery frame, and add A crimson to the quaint Macaw”) into the enchanted land of the fable: princes immortal, princesses eternally young and fair. The _St Agnes_ and _Sir Galahad_, companion pieces, contain the romance, as _St Simeon Stylites_ shows the repulsive side of asceticism; for the saint and the knight are young, beautiful, and eager as St Theresa in her childhood. It has been said, I do not know on what authority, that the poet had no recollection of composing _Sir Galahad_, any more than Scott remembered composing _The Bride of Lammermoor_, or Thackeray parts of _Pendennis_. The haunting of Tennyson’s mind by the Arthurian legends prompted also the lovely fragment on the Queen’s last Maying, _Sir Launcelot and Queen Guinevere_, a thing of perfect charm and music. The ballads of _Lady Clare_ and _The Lord of Burleigh_ are not examples of the poet in his strength; for his power and fantasy we must turn to _The Vision of Sin_, where the early passages have the languid voluptuous music of _The Lotos-Eaters_, with the ethical element superadded, while the portion beginning— “Wrinkled ostler, grim and thin!” is in parts reminiscent of Burns’s _Jolly Beggars_. In _Break_, _Break_, _Break_, we hear a note prelusive to _In Memoriam_, much of which was already composed.