into actual prophecy, like Shelley's Adonais; not capable, by reason
even of its meditative metre, of the organ music of Lycidas. Yet it
is not to be reckoned inferior to these because its aim and plan are
other than theirs.

It is far from my purpose to "class" Tennyson, or to dispute about
his relative greatness when compared with Wordsworth or Byron,
Coleridge, Shelley, or Burns. He rated one song of Lovelace above
all his lyrics, and, in fact, could no more have written the
Cavalier's To Althea from Prison than Lovelace could have written the
Morte d'Arthur. "It is not reasonable, it is not fair," says Mr
Harrison, after comparing In Memoriam with Lycidas, "to compare
Tennyson with Milton," and it is not reasonable to compare Tennyson
with any poet whatever. Criticism is not the construction of a class
list. But we may reasonably say that In Memoriam is a noble poem, an
original poem, a poem which stands alone in literature. The
wonderful beauty, ever fresh, howsoever often read, of many stanzas,
is not denied by any critic. The marvel is that the same serene
certainty of art broods over even the stanzas which must have been
conceived while the sorrow was fresh. The second piece,


"Old yew, which graspest at the stones,"


must have been composed soon after the stroke fell. Yet it is as
perfect as the proem of 1849. As a rule, the poetical expression of
strong emotion appears usually to clothe the memory of passion when
it has been softened by time. But here already "the rhythm,
phrasing, and articulation are entirely faultless, exquisitely clear,