[4] The poplars have now disappeared but the seven elms are still to be seen in the garden behind the house. See Napier, _The Laureate’s County_, pp. 22, 40-41. [5] This is the Somersby brook which so often reappears in Tennyson’s poetry, cf. _Millers Daughter, A Farewell_, and _In Memoriam_, 1 xxix. and c. [6] 1830. Waked. For the epithet “dew-impearled” _cf._ Drayton, _Ideas_, sonnet liii., “amongst the dainty _dew-impearled flowers_,” where the epithet is more appropriate and intelligible. [7] 1830. The few. [8] 1830 and 1842. Thee. [9] 1830. Methinks were, so till 1850, when it was altered to the present reading. [10] The cottage at Maplethorpe where the Tennysons used to spend the summer holidays. (See _Life_, i., 46.) [11] 1830. Emblems or Glimpses of Eternity. [12] 1830. Pleached. The whole of this passage is an exact description of the Parsonage garden at Somersby. See _Life_, i., 27. Song First printed in 1830. The poem was written in the garden at the Old Rectory, Somersby; an autumn scene there which it faithfully describes. This poem seems to have haunted Poe, a fervent admirer of Tennyson’s early poems. 1 A Spirit haunts the year’s last hours Dwelling amid these yellowing bowers: To himself he talks; For at eventide, listening earnestly, At his work you may hear him sob and sigh In the walks; Earthward he boweth the heavy stalks Of the mouldering flowers: Heavily hangs the broad sunflower Over its grave i’ the earth so chilly; Heavily hangs the hollyhock, Heavily hangs the tiger-lily. 2 The air is damp, and hush’d, and close, As a sick man’s room when he taketh repose An hour before death; My very heart faints and my whole soul grieves At the moist rich smell of the rotting leaves, And the breath Of the fading edges of box beneath, And the year’s last rose. Heavily hangs the broad sunflower Over its grave i’ the earth so chilly; Heavily hangs the hollyhock, Heavily hangs the tiger-lily. Adeline First printed in 1830. 1 Mystery of mysteries, Faintly smiling Adeline, Scarce of earth nor all divine, Nor unhappy, nor at rest, But beyond expression fair With thy floating flaxen hair; Thy rose-lips and full blue eyes Take the heart from out my breast. Wherefore those dim looks of thine, Shadowy, dreaming Adeline? 2 Whence that aery bloom of thine, Like a lily which the sun Looks thro’ in his sad decline, And a rose-bush leans upon, Thou that faintly smilest still, As a Naïad in a well, Looking at the set of day, Or a phantom two hours old Of a maiden passed away, Ere the placid lips be cold? Wherefore those faint smiles of thine, Spiritual Adeline? 3