THE MAY QUEEN.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1049, 11 February 1911, Page 9

THE MAY QUEEN.

Someone- writing to a weekly paper asks for tho author of tho following As tho trees began to whisper and the wiud began to roll, Heard in tho wild March morning tho augels call bis soul. The peculiar uso of tho word "wild" might have betrayed tho Tennysonian origin of tho couplet. It is one of tho poets pet words—"Wild bird, whoso .warblo liquid sweet," "Or those wild oyes that watch tho wave," "Liko somo wild poet when ho works," and so on; but the. odd thing is that not only is tho applicant for information ignorant, but the editor himself—tho editor of a journal which takes all curious and nunuto knowledgo for its provinco—cannot answer that it is an imperfect recollection of tho best-known stanza of that third part of tho "May Queen" which Tennyson, recapturing a note that had been silent for ten vc-ars, wrote in 1842. Tho "May Queen," accordingly, may bo held to have reached tho.nadir of its unpopularity, and it is interesting to trace certain of tho stages which it has passed in tho courso of its descent. To'begin with, it was received with a moro. general enthusiasm- than had greeted any other of Tennyson's poeui3. Its simplo pathos carried it into quarters where tho perfection of its workmanship would have proved no passport, whilo tho perfection of its workmanship commended it to peoplo who would havo been estranged by its peculiar vein of pathos.' Brimlcy traced its charm to tho skill with which it exhibited a lifo moved by. simple) affections through tho medium of a conversation, and 'lainsli wroto of it that "no familiarity could make it otherwise than dear—dear and -sad liko repentance." Presently, howover, tho sentiment 'became suspect, and in tho ucxt stago critics, though .still appreciative, are a littlo apologetic. Thus Stopford Brooko was ot opinion that it was tho "galloping verso that gavo it an air of sontimoiitalism, and said that "tho samo things would have made! a different impression, had tho verses been shorter in .lino and a littlo statelier in form." Mr. Lang, too, says that in tho "May Quccii". tho poet elevated a topic "well within tho rango of Eliza Cook," but does not know whether it is a moro fastidious or a moro perversa taste that condemns tho pathos as "obvious." Tho stago is represented by Mr. Elton, who thinks that .Tennyson must lose his hold as a poet 'of"tho'simple emotions,,.and adds that tjie pathos of the "M a y Queen" "is to bo trusted very little, and has a certain sickliness of sound and metre, ono of tho surest warning signals of easy sentiment." Thero is,, however, a deeper depth than adverso criticism, and that is oblivion, and tho "May Queen" seems, with somo men, to bo rapidly lapsing into that state—"Manchester Guardian."