In the year 1855 Mr. Tennyson proceeded to publish his "Maud," the least popular, and probably the least worthy of popularity, among his more considerable works. A somewhat heavy dreaminess, and a great deal of obscurity, hang about this poem; and the effort required to dispel the darkness of the general scheme is not repaid when we discover what it hides. The main thread of "Maud" seems to be this:--A love once accepted, then disappointed, leads to blood-shedding, and onward to madness with lucid alternations. The insanity expresses itself in the ravings of the homicide lover, who even imagines himself among the dead, in a clamour and confusion closely resembling an ill-regulated Bedlam, but which, if the description be a faithful one, would for ever deprive the grave of its title to the epithet of silent. It may be good frenzy, but we doubt its being as good poetry. Of all this there may, we admit, be an esoteric view: but we speak of the work as it offers itself to the common eye. Both Maud and the lover are too nebulous by far; and they remind us of the boneless and pulpy personages by whom, as Dr. Whewell assures us, the planet Jupiter is inhabited, if inhabited at all. But the most doubtful part of the poem is its climax. A vision of the beloved image (p. 97) "spoke of a hope for the world in the coming wars," righteous wars, of course, and the madman begins to receive light and comfort; but, strangely enough, it seems to be the wars, and not the image, in which the source of consolation lies (p. 98). No more shall Commerce be all in all, and Peace Pipe on her pastoral hillock a languid note, And watch her harvest ripen, her herd increase. ... a peace that was full of wrongs and shames, Horrible, hateful, monstrous, not to be told ... For the long long canker of peace is over and done: And now by the side of the Black and the Baltic deep, And deathful grinning mouths of the fortress, names The blood-red blossom of war with a heart of fire! What interpretation are we meant to give to all this sound and fury? We would fain have put it down as intended to be the finishing-stroke in the picture of a mania which has reached its zenith. We might call in aid of this construction more happy and refreshing passages from other poems, as when Mr. Tennyson is Certain, if knowledge brings the sword, That knowledge takes the sword away.[1] [1] "Poems," p. 182, ed. 1853. See also "Locksley Hall," p. 278. And again in "The Golden Dream,"-- When shall all men's good Be each man's rule, and universal peace Lie like a shaft of light across the land? And yet once more in a noble piece of "In Memoriam,"-- Ring out old shapes of foul disease, Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace.