NEW POEM BY THE POET LAUREATE.

Kumara Times, Issue 1645, 6 January 1882, Page 2

NEW POEM BY THE POET LAUREATE.

The “ Nineteenth Century ” for November contains a new and dramatic monologue by Mr Tennyson, entitled “ Despair.” The stanzas are twetityone in nutnber, and the circumstances which they describe may be told in the Poet Laureate’s own words ;—“ A iiian and his wife having lost faith in God and hope in a life to come, and being miserable in this) resolve to end them* selves by drowning. The woman is drowned, but the man is rescued by a minister of the Sect be had abandoned.” The monologue is, where it is not descriptive, a forcible and poetical protest against the materialistic side of, Calvinism. It rails generally against the whole system, but is particularly denunciatory of the doctrine of endless torment. So fur as we can judge from a first perusal, it is a favorable specimen of Mr Tennyson’s work. It abounds in dogma and its imagery is striking, but its rhythm is by no means perfect in its smoothness. In the opening stanzas the rescued man is made to reproach his saviour for coming “Unwished for, uncalled, between me and the deep and ray doom.” The rescued man thus describes the scene, together with the thoughts which haunted him as he wended his way to carry out his fatal purpose. Then the monologue proceeds— Why should we bear with an hour of torture, a moment of pain ? If every man die for ever—if all his griefs are in vain— And the homeless planet at length will be wheel’d through the silence of space Motherless—evermore of an ever-vanish-ing race ; When the worm shall have writhed its last, and its last brother worm will have fled From the dead fossil skull that is left itt the rocks of an earth that is dead 1 XVII. W hat! I should call on that infinite love that has served us so well 1 Infinite wickedness rather that made everlasting hell ; Made us, foreknew us, foredoom’d us, and does what He will with his own. Better our dead brute mother who never has heard us groan. xvxxi, Hell ? If the souls of men were immortal as men have been told, The lecher would cleave to his lusts and miser would yearn for his gold ; And so there were hell for ever. But were there a God as you say, His love would have power over hell, till it utterly vanished away. • XIX. Ah ! yet—l have had some glimmer at times in my gloomiest woe Of a God behind all—after ail—the great God for aught that I know ; But the God of love and of all hell together—they cannot be thought—• If there be such a God, may the great God curse him and bring him to xxBlasphemy J whose is the’ fault? It i$ mine ? for why would you save A madman to vex you with wretched words, who is best in his grave % Blasphemy ! Ay, why not, being damn’d beyond hope of grace ? O would I were yonder with, her, and away from your faith and yout’face. Blasphemy ! True, I have seated you pale* with my scandalous talk, But the blasphemy to' my mind- lies' all in* the way that you walk. . XXI. Hence she is gone ; can I stay ? s Can I , breathe divorced from the past ? You needs must have good lynx-eyes if I do not escape you at last, Our orthodox coronet, doubtless, will find it a felo de se, And the stake and the cross-road, fool if yon will, does it matter to’me ?