The extraordinary effect of these songs is not due only to their marvellous poetic force and finish and variety, but perhaps even more to the illuminating and pointed contrast between the true and deep and permanent realities of human experience--life, death, love, joy, and sorrow--each of which is touched in turn in these exquisite little pictures, and on the other hand the fantastic unreality (in the Poet's view) of the Princess's ideals and experiment. If I must quote one passage, let it be abridged from the shepherd's song which the Princess reads: Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height: * * * * * For Love is of the valley, come thou down And find him; by the happy threshold, he, Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize, Or red with _spirted purple of the vats_,[89] Or _foxlike[90] in the vine_; nor cares to walk With Death and Morning on the silver horns... But follow; let the torrent dance thee down To find him in the valley; let the wild Lean-headed Eagles yelp alone, and leave The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke, That like a broken purpose waste in air: So waste not thou; but come; for all the vales Await thee; azure pillars of the hearth Arise to thee; the children call, and I Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound, Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet; Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro' the lawn, The moan of doves in immemorial elms, And murmuring of innumerable bees. This is the real idyll, with its central note of _love_, and wonderful beauty of sound, and vivid vision of every detail of Nature's sights and life. It suggests a world where all is fresh and sweet, and beautiful and interesting, and simple and wholesome and harmonious. The year 1850 was marked by three great events in the personal history of Tennyson: his marriage, the publication of his greatest work, "In Memoriam," and his acceptance of the laureate crown of poetry in succession to Wordsworth, who died in the spring. When I say that "In Memoriam" is Tennyson's greatest work, I am of course aware that it is only a personal opinion on a disputable point. But I incline to think that most lovers of poetry would agree that "In Memoriam" is _the one_ of all the Poet's works the loss of which would be the greatest and most irreparable to poetry.