[4] 1853. To breathe, to wake. [5] 1872. Have. [6] The reference is to the _Acme_ and _Septimius_ of Catullus, xliv.— Hoc ut dixit, Amor, sinistram, ut ante, Dextram sternuit approbationem. [7] 1851. That like a copper beech. [8] 1851. garden-isles; and now we ran By ripply shallows. [9] 1851. The rainy isles. [10] Cf. Byron, _Don Juan_, i., xcvii.:— The seal a sunflower—_elle vous suit partout_. [11] _Cf_. Milton, _Par. Lost_, iv., 268-9:— Not that fair field Of Enna where Proserpine gathering flowers ... Was gather’d. [12] 1851. “Go Sir!” Again they shrieked the burthen “Him!” Again with hands of wild rejection “Go! Girl, get you in” to her—and in one month, etc. [13] 1851. I read and wish’d to crush the race of man, And fled by night; turn’d once upon the hills; Her taper glimmer’d in the lake; and then I left the place, etc. St Simon Stylites First published in 1842, reprinted in all the subsequent editions of the poems but with no alterations in the text, except that in eighth line from the end “my” was substituted for “mine” in 1846. Tennyson informed a friend that it was not from the _Acta Sanctorum_, but from Hone’s _Every-Day Book_, vol. i., pp. 35-36, that he got the material for this poem, and a comparison with the narrative in Hone and the poem seems to show that this was the case. It is not easy to identify the St. Simeon Stylites of Hone’s narrative and Tennyson’s poem, whether he is to be identified with St. Simeon the Elder, of whom there are three memoirs given in the _Acta Sanctorum_, tom. i., 5th January, 261-286, or with St. Simeon Stylites, Junior, of whom there is an elaborate biography in Greek by Nicephorus printed with a Latin translation and notes in the _Acta Sanctorum_, tom. v., 24th May, 298-401. It seems clear that whoever compiled the account popularised by Hone had read both and amalgamated them. The main lines in the story of both saints are exactly the same. Both stood on columns, both tortured themselves in the same ways, both wrought miracles, and both died at their posts of penance. St. Simeon the Elder was born at Sisan in Syria about A.D. 390, and was buried at Antioch in A.D. 459 or 460. The Simeon the Younger was born at Antioch A. D. 521 and died in A.D. 592. His life, which is of singular interest, is much more elaborately related. This poem is not simply a dramatic study. It bears very directly on Tennyson’s philosophy of life. In these early poems he has given us four studies in the morbid anatomy of character: _The Palace of Art_, which illustrates the abuse of æsthetic and intellectual enjoyment of self; _The Vision of Sin_, which illustrates the effects of similar indulgence in the grosser pleasures of the senses; _The Two Voices_, which illustrates the mischief of despondent self-absorption, while the present poem illustrates the equally pernicious indulgence in an opposite extreme, asceticism affected for the mere gratification of personal vanity.