The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson
Poetry that announced a genius. Written when Tennyson was barely more than a boy, these verses already display the opulent melancholy, the meticulous music, and the uncanny ability to capture grief and beauty in a single phrase. In "Claribel" and "Mariana," we find a young poet testing the limits of English verse, blending Romantic sensuality with Victorian precision. The collection traces his evolution from prodigy to Poet Laureate, the voice of an era's deepest anxieties about faith, progress, and loss. Critical notes illuminate his early obsessions with death, with unreachable women, with landscapes of memory, without diminishing the raw emotional power. For readers who believe poetry should feel like being struck by lightning, these early works are the first flashes.
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“Love may come, and love may go,And fly, like a bird, from tree to tree:But I will love no more, no more,Till Ellen Adair come back to me.Bitterly wept I over the stone:Bitterly weeping I turn'd away;There lies the body of Ellen Adair!And there the heart of Edward Gray!””
— Alfred Tennyson, Baron Tennyson
“Clear-headed friend, whose joyful scorn, Edged with sharp laughter, cuts atwain The knots that tangle human creeds, 37 The wounding cords that 38 bind and strain The heart until it bleeds,””
— Alfred Tennyson, Baron Tennyson
“Sleep sweetly, tender heart, in peace: Sleep, holy spirit, blessed soul, While the stars burn, the moons increase, And the great ages onward roll. Sleep till the end, true soul and sweet. Nothing comes to thee new or strange. Sleep full of rest from head to feet; Lie still, dry dust, secure of change.””
— Alfred Tennyson, Baron Tennyson
“The development of Tennyson's genius, methods, aims and capacity of achievement in poetry can be studied with singular precision and fulness in the history of the poems included in the present volume.””
— Alfred Tennyson, Baron Tennyson
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Alfred Tennyson, Baron Tennyson. The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson. Lex, lex-books.com/book/the-early-poems-of-alfred-lord-tennyson-3e63189c-f13b-47ec-bce1-921381387ce7.Alfred Tennyson, B. T. (n.d.). The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/the-early-poems-of-alfred-lord-tennyson-3e63189c-f13b-47ec-bce1-921381387ce7Alfred Tennyson, Baron Tennyson. The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/the-early-poems-of-alfred-lord-tennyson-3e63189c-f13b-47ec-bce1-921381387ce7.
